Hollywood’s major studios reached a tentative labor agreement with the union representing film and television directors, likely averting a work stoppage that would have piled pressure on media companies to settle with striking writers. 

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) will ask its 19,000 members to approve the three-year contract, which was announced late Saturday after three weeks of talks. 

The agreement includes gains in wages and residuals plus guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence, according to the DGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents Netflix, Walt Disney Co. and other major studios. 

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since May 2, shutting down several TV and film productions, and has no new talks scheduled with the studios. 

During the last WGA strike in 2007 and 2008, a studio deal with the DGA prompted writers to head back to the bargaining table. On Friday, WGA negotiator Chris Keyser argued that strategy would not work this time. 

“Any deal that puts this town back to work runs straight through the WGA, and there is no way around that,” Keyser said in a video posted on YouTube. 

The DGA’s board will consider whether to approve the deal Tuesday before it goes to members for ratification. No date has been set for the ratification vote. 

If approved, the deal could offer a blueprint for the striking writers and upcoming talks between studios and SAG-AFTRA, the union representing Hollywood actors. 

WGA representatives did not respond to requests for comment Sunday, but some writers voiced reactions on social media. 

“Spartacus” creator Steven DeKnight called the DGA deal “disappointing, but not surprising.” 

Writer Bill Wolkoff said he had mixed emotions. “Happy for gains DGA members made, frustrated we were stonewalled on all our asks. My resolve is only stronger,” he wrote. 

In the DGA’s agreement, directors secured wage increases starting at 5% the first year, an increase in residuals from streaming, and a guarantee that “generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members.” 

AI has emerged as a major concern of writers and actors, who see their jobs as especially vulnerable to the new technology. 

Both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are seeking protections from AI in their negotiations as well as increases in compensation that they say has lagged as companies have benefited from the rise of streaming television. 

SAG-AFTRA has asked members to give its negotiators the power to call a strike if needed, and the results of that vote are expected to be announced Monday. Contract talks between the actors and studios begin Wednesday. The current labor agreement expires June 30. 

The WGA work stoppage has disrupted production of late-night shows and shut down high-profile projects such as Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and a “Game of Thrones” spinoff. 
…

Gov. Joe Lombardo wants to help build Major League Baseball’s smallest ballpark — arguing that the worst team in baseball can boost Las Vegas, a city striving to call itself a sports mecca.

Nationwide debate about public funding for private sports clubs has been revived with the Oakland Athletics ballpark proposal. The issue pits Nevada’s powerful tourism industry, including trade unions, against a growing chorus of mostly progressive groups that, throughout the country, are raising concerns about use of tax dollars to finance sports stadiums but could otherwise fund government services or schools.

The debate over relocating the team from California to Nevada echoes others around the country, where politicians have approved large sums of taxpayer money going to sports clubs in Buffalo, New York; Atlanta, Georgia; and Nashville, Tennessee. In Tempe, Arizona, though, voters rejected a $2.3 billion proposal that would have included a new arena for the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes.

The Oakland A’s organization has hired more than a dozen lobbyists to persuade lawmakers in Nevada’s normally sleepy, 60,000-resident state capital to approve the proposal to build a $1.5 billion stadium, arguing the project will create jobs, boost economic activity and add a new draw to the tourism-based economy in Las Vegas — all without raising taxes. Central to the pitch is the city’s newfound sports success with NFL, NHL and WNBA teams that were nonexistent or based elsewhere seven years ago.

“Las Vegas is clearly a sports town, and Major League Baseball should be a part of it,” Lombardo, a Republican, said in a statement.

But those against giving professional sports teams incentive packages have said tax credits and other means of public financing aren’t beneficial. They cite growing evidence that dollars generated from the new stadium would not be spent at nearby resorts and restaurants. Half of the tax credits may not be paid back to the state. Much of the A’s investment in the community, including homelessness prevention and outreach, hinges on whether the ball club has money left over after stadium costs.

“I just cannot justify giving millions of public dollars to a multibillion-dollar corporation while we cannot pay for the basic services that our folks need,” Democratic Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch said.

Last month, Lombardo’s office introduced the stadium financing bill with less than two weeks left in the legislative session.

The bill would provide up to $380 million in public assistance, partly through $180 million in transferable tax credits and $120 million in county bonds — taxpayer-backed loans, to help finance projects and a special tax district around the stadium. Backers have pledged the district will generate enough money to pay off those bonds and interest.

The A’s would not owe property taxes for the publicly owned stadium and Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, also would contribute $25 million in credit toward infrastructure costs.

In places like Buffalo and Oakland, proponents of new stadiums have argued tax incentives prevent the departure of decades-old businesses. But the debate in Nevada differs. The state already heavily relies on entertainment and tourism to power its economy, and lawmakers or appointed boards for years have talked about diversifying the economy to justify incentives to businesses including Tesla. Another deal that legislators are weighing would expand a film tax credit system to $190 million annually over at least 20 years to bring major film studios to Las Vegas.

The Legislature has until Monday, when the session adjourns until 2025, to push through the stadium and film proposals, though the possibility of a special legislative session looms.

Both proposals are far from a done deal as lawmakers prepare to vote.

In recent decades there has been an increase in new stadium deals that are mostly — but not always — publicly funded. Two vastly different examples already are visible on the Strip.

A last-minute bill in Nevada’s 2016 special session paved the way for $750 million in public funding from hotel room taxes for the $2 billion Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders and host of the upcoming Super Bowl.

T-Mobile Arena, home to the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights, opened in 2016 after MGM Resorts and a California developer covered the full $375 million price tag. On Saturday, the arena hosted the first game of the Stanley Cup.

The A’s recently received the backing of the powerful Culinary Union, a 60,000-member group of workers on the Las Vegas Strip, after agreeing to let stadium employees unionize. It’s a key endorsement from the state’s most prominent labor group, often seen as a vital mobilizing force for Democratic campaigns in the western swing state.

“We will support large-scale projects — whether they’re pro-teams, event centers or large companies — if they’re going to bring good union jobs with healthcare and pensions,” said Ted Pappageorge, the Culinary Union’s secretary-treasurer.

While the debate surrounding public financing for private sports stadiums has animated governing bodies nationwide, that same debate among economists strikes a different tone.

Roger Noll, a Stanford University economics emeritus professor, said the question among economists is whether bringing new stadiums to cities has a net impact that is slightly negative or positive — without any public assistance.

To be effective, a stadium in Las Vegas would have to draw in a substantial number of visitors who would not normally come to the city, Noll said. If stadiums are another asset to an already-existing structure, then most of the money spent there would likely be spent in neighboring attractions, like the Sunset Strip’s resorts and restaurants. Much of the ball club’s financing also goes toward player salaries, who often don’t live in their team’s city year-round.

“It’s not that they don’t exist, but they’re tiny,” Noll said of the economic benefits. “They can’t possibly be big enough to justify hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditure.”
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US special climate envoy John Kerry has met senior Emirati officials in Abu Dhabi, including the head of the United Nations’ upcoming climate change conference, official media reported Sunday.

The choice of Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to head December’s COP28 summit in Dubai has angered climate activists and some Western legislators who fear it will hold back progress on reducing emissions.

Kerry met with al-Jaber and the UAE foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed, on Saturday, discussing “the existing partnership across various fronts with a special emphasis on climate-related issues”, the official WAM news agency said.

In January, Kerry welcomed al-Jaber’s appointment as COP28 head, but last month more than 100 lawmakers from the U.S. Congress and European Parliament called for the oil company boss’s removal from the position.

They urged a “limit [to] the influence of polluting industries” at gatherings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Al-Jaber regularly calls for more investment in hydrocarbons to meet global energy demand, emphasizing the need to boost development of technologies for capturing carbon dioxide emissions.

Oil producers have for years touted carbon capture as a potential global warming solution, against criticism from climate experts who say it risks distracting from the urgent goal of slashing fossil fuel pollution.

With little investment and few projects in operation around the world so far, carbon capture technology is currently nowhere near the scale needed to make a significant difference to global emissions.
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Apple appears poised to unveil a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter’s ability to popularize new-fangled devices after others failed to capture the public’s imagination.

After years of speculation, the stage is set for the widely anticipated announcement to be made Monday at Apple’s annual developers conference in a Cupertino, California, theater named after the company’s late co-founder Steve Jobs. Apple is also likely to use the event to show off its latest Mac computer, preview the next operating system for the iPhone and discuss its strategy for artificial intelligence.

But the star of the show is expected to be a pair of goggles — perhaps called “Reality Pro,” according to media leaks — that could become another milestone in Apple’s lore of releasing game-changing technology, even though the company hasn’t always been the first to try its hand at making a particular device.

Apple’s lineage of breakthroughs date back to a bow-tied Jobs peddling the first Mac in 1984 — a tradition that continued with the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2014 and its AirPods in 2016.

But with a hefty price tag that could be in the $3,000 range, Apple’s new headset may also be greeted with a lukewarm reception from all but affluent technophiles.

If the new device turns out to be a niche product, it would leave Apple in the same bind as other major tech companies and startups that have tried selling headsets or glasses equipped with technology that either thrusts people into artificial worlds or projects digital images with scenery and things that are actually in front of them — a format known as “augmented reality.”

Apple’s goggles are expected be sleekly designed and capable of toggling between totally virtual or augmented options, a blend sometimes known as “mixed reality.” That flexibility also is sometimes called external reality, or XR for shorthand.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been describing these alternate three-dimensional realities as the “metaverse.” It’s a geeky concept that he tried to push into the mainstream by changing the name of his social networking company to Meta Platforms in 2021 and then pouring billions of dollars into improving the virtual technology.

But the metaverse largely remains a digital ghost town, although Meta’s virtual reality headset, the Quest, remains the top-selling device in a category that so far has mostly appealed to video game players looking for even more immersive experiences.

Apple executives seem likely to avoid referring to the metaverse, given the skepticism that has quickly developed around that term, when they discuss the potential of the company’s new headset.

In recent years, Apple CEO Tim Cook has periodically touted augmented reality as technology’s next quantum leap, while not setting a specific timeline for when it will gain mass appeal.

“If you look back in a point in time, you know, zoom out to the future and look back, you’ll wonder how you led your life without augmented reality,” Cook, who is 62, said last September while speaking to an audience of students in Italy. “Just like today you wonder how did people like me grow up without the internet. You know, so I think it could be that profound. And it’s not going to be profound overnight.”

The response to virtual, augmented and mixed reality has been decidedly ho-hum so far. Some of the gadgets deploying the technology have even been derisively mocked, with the most notable example being Google’s internet-connected glasses released more than a decade ago.

After Google co-founder Sergey Brin initially drummed up excitement about the device by demonstrating an early model’s potential “wow factor” with a skydiving stunt staged during a San Francisco tech conference, consumers quickly became turned off to a product that allowed its users to surreptitiously take pictures and video. The backlash became so intense that people who wore the gear became known as “Glassholes,” leading Google to withdraw the product a few years after its debut.

Microsoft also has had limited success with HoloLens, a mixed-reality headset released in 2016, although the software maker earlier this year insisted it remains committed to the technology.

Magic Leap, a startup that stirred excitement with previews of a mixed-reality technology that could conjure the spectacle of a whale breaching through a gymnasium floor, had so much trouble marketing its first headset to consumers in 2018 that it has since shifted its focus to industrial, healthcare and emergency uses.

Daniel Diez, Magic Leap’s chief transformation officer, said there are four major questions Apple’s goggles will have to answer: “What can people do with it? What does this thing look and feel like? Is it comfortable to wear? And how much is it going to cost?”

The anticipation that Apple’s goggles are going to sell for several thousand dollars already has dampened expectations for the product. Although he expects Apple’s goggles to boast “jaw dropping” technology, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said he expects the company to sell just 150,000 units during the device’s first year on the market — a mere speck in the company’s portfolio. By comparison, Apple sells more than 200 million iPhones, its marquee product a year. But the iPhone wasn’t an immediate sensation, with sales of fewer than 12 million units in its first full year on the market.

In a move apparently aimed at magnifying the expected price of Apple’s goggles, Zuckerberg made a point of saying last week that the next Quest headset will sell for $500, an announcement made four months before Meta Platform plans to showcase the latest device at its tech conference.

Since 2016, the average annual shipments of virtual- and augmented-reality devices have averaged 8.6 million units, according to the research firm CCS Insight. The firm expects sales to remain sluggish this year, with a sales projection of about 11 million of the devices before gradually climbing to 67 million in 2026.

But those forecasts were obviously made before it’s known whether Apple might be releasing a product that alters the landscape.

“I would never count out Apple, especially with the consumer market and especially when it comes to finding those killer applications and solutions,” Magic Leap’s Diez said. “If someone is going to crack the consumer market early, I wouldn’t be surprised it would be Apple.”
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As a high school senior, Nick was blessed with a deadly accurate jump shot from the three-point range — something he was quick to monetize.

He and his gym classmates not far from the Jersey Shore would compete to see who could make the most baskets, at $5 or $10 a pop.

“It gave a different dynamic to the day, a certain level of excitement,” Nick said. “Little did I know how far it would continue to go.”

Before long, he was gambling staggering sums of money on sports, costing him over $700,000 in the past decade. He hit rock bottom last year when he stole $35,000 from his workplace and gambled it away on international tennis and soccer matches – sports he admittedly knew nothing about.

Wagering is now easier than ever for adults – and children – and there’s a growing movement in the U.S. to offer problem gambling education courses in public schools to teach teenagers how easily and quickly things can go wrong with betting.

It’s a trend that Nick wishes had existed when his gambling habit took root in high school and led him on a path to financial ruin. He asked not to be identified by his full name because he has pending criminal charges stemming from his gambling addiction. The 27-year-old plans to look for work after his charges are resolved, and he fears the job hunt will be even harder if he’s identified publicly as a compulsive gambler.

The rapid expansion of legalized sports betting in 33 states, with three more states coming soon, has brought steps designed to keep children from gambling, including age confirmation and identity checks. But teens can bypass betting restrictions and place wagers on their phones by using a parent or other relative’s account, or via unregulated offshore betting sites that can be less vigilant about age checks. And some teens have weekend poker games where hundreds of dollars are won or lost, often fueled by money from parents.

According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, 60% to 80% of high school students report having gambled for money during the past year; 4% to 6% of these students are considered at risk of developing a gambling problem.

Now, a few states are moving toward gambling education in public schools. The effort is in its infancy, and the details of what would be taught are still to be determined.

Virginia enacted a law last year requiring schools to have classes on gambling and its addictive potential. The state Board of Education is still formulating the curriculum and must report back to state government before lessons can begin.

Other states are trying as well, including New Jersey and Michigan, which have bills pending in their legislatures to create such classes. Similar legislation failed in Maryland and West Virginia in recent years, but they’re expected to try again.

The legal gambling age in many states is 21, but is as low as 18 in others.

Keith Whyte, executive director of the problem gambling council, recently spoke to a group of 40 high school juniors in Virginia.

“Every single one of them said either they bet, or said their friends bet,” he said. “Almost every single one of them had sports betting apps on their phones; some were legal; more were not.”

Whyte said widespread gambling risk education could be “comparable to the dramatic reduction in drunk driving deaths from when drinking and driving education became widespread.”

Teresa Svincek is a teacher at a suburban Maryland school outside Washington, where many of her students are “heavily into sports betting” and weekly poker games.

“They laugh at losing hundreds of dollars over a weekend,” she said. “When I was their age, I was busy working to earn money, and losing what they lose over a weekend was what I made in a month. I think these kids are the future tip of the iceberg.”

Teen gambling can take other forms, too. So-called “loot boxes” in online games offer prizes to players, but they have to spend real money to get the rewards. Buying tokens or other game equipment has been a fixture of online games for years, Whyte said, and it can get children to normalize the idea of spending money to “win” something.

Dan Trolaro, vice president of prevention at EPIC Risk Management and a recovered compulsive gambler, said gambling is the logical next issue to address in the classroom.

“We educate very well on alcohol, on substances, on stranger danger, on cannabis,” he said. “But we don’t do anything around gambling.”

Maryland state Sen. Bryan Simonaire has tried twice in recent years to pass a gambling education bill, unsuccessfully.

“We have been expanding gambling in Maryland, and the schools got extra money for education,” said Simonaire. “I went to them and said, ‘Yes, you got the money from gambling, but you also have the responsibility to help those who will become addicted to gambling.'”

Simonaire’s father died penniless after gambling binges near his home in Arizona.

The American Gaming Association, the national trade group for the commercial casino industry, recently adopted an advertising code of conduct. It aims to make sure gambling ads don’t appear in places that will likely be primarily seen or read by children. But restrictions only go so far, as kids may simply use their parents’ accounts to bet.

The money Nick made shooting three-pointers in his New Jersey gym class soon turned into a $300 to $500 a week gambling habit. His first big bet was on the 2013 NBA finals, when he lost $200 backing the San Antonio Spurs in a bet with a friend.

“Even at that early point, there was this chase involved: If only I could win that $200 back, or how great would it be if I could win $300 on the next bet?” he said. “You want back what you lost.”

Fresh out of high school, Nick was betting large sums with bookies.

Last July, while working at a business selling high-value sports trading cards, Nick took a $35,000 payment from a customer and lost it in a weekend of gambling, mostly on overseas tennis and soccer matches, “things I knew nothing about.” He confessed to his boss, who called police, and Nick was charged with theft. He hopes to have the charge expunged from his criminal record through a pre-trial intervention program for nonviolent offenders.

Nick thinks having some sort of gambling education in high school would have made a “huge” difference in his life.

“I couldn’t see that I was in a cycle that started at an early age,” he said. “I might have been more conscious of how much money I was going through on a daily basis and what I was doing to myself.”
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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

Texas County’s Heat, Brushy Terrain Deadly for Border-Crossing Migrants

The U.S. Border Patrol has recorded more than 8,000 migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border since 1998. VOA immigration reporter Aline Barros visited a South Texas county with a high number of migrant deaths.

Federal Judge Hears DACA Case; Ruling Months Away

The future of a federal policy that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children is in federal court. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen heard arguments Thursday in Texas v. United States, a case brought by nine Republican-led states aimed at halting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He is to decide on the legality of the DACA rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security in 2022 that tried to fortify the program and correct Hanen’s earlier objection to DACA. VOA immigration reporter Aline Barros reports.

US Expands Slots for Asylum App at Land Crossings as Demand Overwhelms Supply

U.S. authorities on Thursday expanded slots to seek asylum at land crossings with Mexico through a mobile app for the second time in less than a month, seeking to dispel doubts it isn’t a viable option. There are now 1,250 appointments daily at eight land crossings, up from 1,000 previously and 740 in early May. The Associated Press reports.

Seeking Asylum and Work, Migrants Bused Out of NYC Find Hostility

Before he left Mauritania, the West African nation of his birth, Mohamed thought of New York as a place of “open arms,” a refuge for immigrants fleeing dire circumstances. Mohamed is one of about 400 international migrants the city has been putting up in a small number of hotels in other parts of the state this month to relieve pressure on its overtaxed homeless shelter system. Some of the relocated asylum-seekers say they now regret leaving the city, pointing to a lack of job opportunities and resources to pursue their asylum cases, as well as a hostile reception. The Associated Press reports.

52 Documentary: During the past decades, many Iranian LGBTQ+ refugees made Turkey their new home and found a community. Leo, a gender-fluid belly dancer, is one of these asylum-seekers. She performs and teaches dancing by night and regularly attends protests in Istanbul in front of the Iranian Consulate. Despite the Islamic Republic’s ban on women dancing publicly, Leo’s made a thriving career out of her passion, in Turkey.

Immigration around the world

Anti-Refugee Rhetoric, Forced Deportations of Syrians Increase in Lebanon

As many as 1.5 million Syrian refugees have fled death and destruction engulfing their homeland by crossing into Lebanon. Their presence has drawn more hostility from Lebanese since the country’s economic crisis came to a head in 2019. Dale Gavlak reports from Jordan.

‘Nothing Left’: Refugees Describe City Demolished by Fighting in West Darfur

Intercommunal violence and fighting between Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in West Darfur state have intensified in recent days, according to reports. Witnesses who escaped the city of Geneina say their hometown is being ripped apart. Henry Wilkins reports from Adre, Chad.

Cholera Catastrophe Looming at Kenya Refugee Camp, Aid Group Warns

Health care providers in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp say an ongoing cholera outbreak is becoming a looming catastrophe. Doctors Without Borders has described the six-month-long cholera outbreak as the worst yet, amid an influx of new refugees from Somalia. Produced by Victoria Amunga

Call for Better Mental Health Support for Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh, After Cyclone Mocha

On a cold evening, after completing her maghreb (post-sunset) prayer, a woman holds her children close to keep them warm with her threadbare scarf. They sit huddled together outside a now-dilapidated shelter made of bamboo sticks and plastic sheets — their home. Shielded from her children’s gaze, the mother of two lets tears slip down her face. Produced by Sarah Aziz.

Relocated Refugees in Malawi Decry Dehumanizing Conditions

In Malawi, hundreds of people who were forcibly relocated to the country’s only refugee camp are complaining of poor conditions with no food, clean water or shelter. The U.N.’s refugee agency and the World Food Program say they cannot cater to the needs of those at the highly congested camp because of funding shortfalls. Produced by Lameck Masina.

News Brief

— After 32 years of service to the United States Border Patrol, Chief Raul L. Ortiz announced his retirement. “Chief Ortiz tackled some of the biggest challenges the Border Patrol has had to face. He managed the critical transition out of the COVID-19 pandemic and into the enforcement of our traditional immigration authorities under Title 8 of the United States Code,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas wrote in a statement.
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U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law on Saturday legislation that suspends the U.S. government’s debt limit through January 2025 and avoids a potentially disastrous default just days before the government runs out of cash to pay its bills.   

His signature came with two days to spare: the Treasury Department had said the government wouldn’t have enough money to pay all of its bills by Monday. 

The White House said the signing was done in private and announced it in an emailed statement. In the statement, Biden thanked congressional leaders. 

The Fiscal Responsibility Act is the result of weeks of tough negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. 

“No one got everything they wanted but the American people got what they needed,” Biden said of the debt ceiling legislation. “We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse.” 

The bill allows the government to continue to borrow more money over the next 19 months to meet its obligations, exceeding the current $31.4 trillion debt limit.    

The Senate voted Thursday night 63-36 in support of the measure.  The bill passed the House of Representatives on a 314-117 vote Wednesday night. 
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Here are some of the Native American-related news stories that made headlines this week:

Tribes fear pending Supreme Court ruling could upend sovereignty

Native Americans are watching the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision in the case Brackeen v. Haaland, which will decide the fate of the 40-year-old Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

Congress passed ICWA in 1978 to stop the large-scale removal of Indian children from their families and their placement in non-Native homes, as this was widely viewed as an attack on tribal sovereignty and a continuation of federal assimilation policies.

Ahead of ICWA’s passage, Calvin Isaac, former chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw who died in 2020, argued before the House Subcommittee on Indian Affairs that “many of the individuals who decide the fate of our children are, at best, ignorant of our cultural values and at worst, have contempt for the Indian way and convinced that removal, usually to a non-Indian household or institution, can only benefit an Indian child.”

In 2016, three sets of non-Native foster and prospective adoptive parents, along with the states of Texas, Indiana and Louisiana, took the federal government to court, arguing that the law discriminates based on race and that child welfare should be a matter for states and not the federal government to decide.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last November and is expected to rule in the coming weeks.

Read more:

Remembering fallen Native American service members

May 29 was Memorial Day, a day to remember those Americans who have died serving their country.

Levi Rickert, a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas and founder/editor of Native News Online, marked the occasion by reflecting on Native Americans’ long and proud tradition of military service.

Among those who have paid the ultimate price is U.S. Army Specialist Lori Ann Piestewa, a citizen of the Hopi Nation, who died when her convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah, Iraq, on March 23, 2003. She is remembered as the first female soldier to die in Iraq and the first Native American woman to die serving her country.

Native Americans and/or Alaska Natives have served in every U.S. war and conflict since the American Revolution, and as Rickert notes, have the highest record of military service per capita of any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S.

Read more:

U.S. Postal Service commemorates legendary Ponca leader

The U.S. Postal Service has released a postage stamp honoring Ponca Tribe Chief Standing Bear, one of the nation’s most important civil rights figures.

He saw his tribe through their forced removal in 1877 from homelands in Nebraska to Indian Country [present-day Oklahoma]. His daughter Prairie Flower died along the way, and within a year, a third of the tribe died of disease and starvation, including his son Bear Shield, whose dying wish was to be buried back home.

Standing Bear honored that wish but was arrested for leaving Oklahoma. He sued the federal government for his freedom, arguing before the court, “I am a man. The same God made us both.”

In a landmark ruling on May 12, 1879, Judge Elmer S. Dundy declared for the first time that an Indian was a person within the meaning of U.S. law and therefore deserved all legal protections.

Learn more in the video below:

Indian? Native American? What to call America’s first peoples?

Oklahoma TV station KSWO this week posed that question to two tribal leaders.

“There’s a lot of terms that have been bounced around, and you’ll never find any universal acceptance from that from anybody because it’s just too complex,” Kiowa Tribe Chairman Lawrence SpottedBird said.

Comanche Nation Vice Chairman Dr. Cornel Pewewardy said he prefers Nʉmʉnʉʉ “the People,” which is what the Comanche people have always called themselves.

But how to refer to America’s original populations generally?

“Indian” was the name that explorer Christopher Columbus gave the people he encountered, assuming he had landed in India. Many Native Americans continue to use the term, as it was the legal term used in treaties with the federal government.

“Indigenous” is a word with different definitions. For some, it refers to an ethnic culture that has never migrated away from its homeland and is neither a settler nor a colonizer.

The United Nations defines “Indigenous” as the descendants of those who inhabited a country or region at the time of conquest or colonization by another group.

And some tribes find the term offensive, believing it carries negative implications.

Several years ago, VOA asked Chase Iron Eyes, a Hunkpapa Lakota activist from the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.

“Call me whatever you want, as long as you do it with respect,” he answered.

See more:

 
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In California, members of an under-the-radar, minority religious community are stepping into the public eye to advocate for making the state the first in the nation to outlaw caste bias.

They are the Ravidassia — followers of Ravidass, a 14th century Indian guru who preached caste and class equality. There are about 20,000 members of the community in California, most of them in the Central Valley.

Guru Ravidass belonged to the lowest-rung of the caste system formerly considered untouchable and also known as Dalit, which means “broken” in Hindi. Today, many Ravidassia members share that caste identity, but they are hesitant to make that widely known, fearing repercussions for being exposed to the larger community as “lower-caste.”

Members of the Fresno Ravidassia community say publicly championing the anti-caste bias legislation is worth the risk, noting that fighting for equality is part of their history and their spiritual DNA.

The faith itself emerged in response to the societal exclusion of the lowest caste members, including persistent roadblocks to landownership, said Ronki Ram, professor of political science at Panjab University in Chandigarh, India. Caste-based discrimination was outlawed in India in 1947.

WHO WAS GURU RAVIDASS?

Ravidass was an Indian guru, mystic and poet who was one of the most renowned figures in the North Indian bhakti movement, which placed love and devotion to god above all and preached against the caste system. Ravidass was born in the 14th century in a village near Varnasi, India, to a family of cobblers and tanners who belonged to the then-untouchable or leather-working caste known as “chamars.” The Guru Granth Sahib, which is the sacred text of Sikhism, bears 40 verses or shabads of Ravidass.

RAVIDASSIA TEMPLES

A Ravidassia place of worship is called a sabha, dera, gurdwara or gurughar, which could all be translated as temple. Adherents cover their heads and remove their shoes before entering the prayer hall or place of worship. In California Ravidassia temples, the Guru Granth Sahib is the focal point of the prayer hall. The temples serve a post-worship meal as Sikh gurdwaras also do, which is known as langar. Ravidassia temples often display idols and/or pictures of Guru Ravidass in the prayer halls.

THE RAVIDASSIA IDENTITY

Professor Ronki Ram says the Ravidassia identity is challenging to pin down because it “cannot be compartmentalized.”

“More recently, they have been trying to carve out a separate identity for themselves,” he said. “But, they also follow Sikh traditions.”

Many male Ravidassia members wear long hair in a turban and carry Sikh articles of faith such as the kada or bracelet, kangha or wooden comb and kirpan, the sheathed, single-edged knife. Many men and women in the community also have Sikh last names — Singh and Kaur.

Ram points out that idols and images of Ravidass, however, can only be seen in a Ravidass temple. In addition, the community celebrates the birthday of their guru, which typically falls in February. Many Ravidass temples also observe the birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar, the Indian Dalit rights icon whose given name was Bhimrao.

The faith also has followers who are Hindu and those who are from different parts of India. Ravidassia community members in California are largely of Punjabi descent.

THE COMMUNITY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH SIKHISM

The Ravidassia community’s relationship with Sikhism is “flexible and nuanced,” said Sasha Sabherwal, assistant professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies, Northeastern University.

“It’s not an either-or relationship,” she said. “It’s a much more complex idea of what their faith means for them. Some (Ravidassia temples) may be autonomous spaces. But, in many cases, it’s blended or overlapping rather than something entirely independent. There is still a commitment to this larger Sikh project.”

Sabherwal said the path to unity may lie in making “meaningful structural changes.”

“The issue is that often, caste is not even acknowledged as a problem,” she said.
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The labor market in the United States continued to defy expectations in May, adding 339,000 new jobs. The figure was far above what economists had expected and signals that ongoing efforts to cool the economy and lower inflation are having, at best, only mixed success.

The increase in jobs came along with steadily rising wages. The figures released Friday show a 4.3% year-over-year increase in workers’ pay. The new jobs were also spread over various sectors of the economy, with professional services, government, health care, construction and transportation all showing significant increases.

The data also showed an upward revision of previous estimates of job growth for March and April, indicating another 93,000 jobs were added over those months.

“For all the talk of recession coming, you’d never know it by looking at the job market,” Greg McBride, senior vice president and chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com told VOA. “Another month of strong payroll growth, upward revisions to both March and April, and payroll growth that tended to be concentrated in higher paying jobs. You don’t see that very often … and that speaks to the robustness of the labor market.”

Unemployment ticks up

Counterintuitively, the Labor Department also reported an uptick in the unemployment rate from 3.4% to 3.7%. The number remains near historic lows, and it is not uncommon for the unemployment rate to increase even as the number of jobs increases. This is because the “establishment” survey, which the government uses to count jobs, and the “household” survey, which it uses to measure unemployment, are different.

The disparity was largely because many people previously listed as self-employed are now seeking work in the regular workforce, temporarily skewing the unemployment figures.

The numbers point to an American economy that has remained resilient through a period of sharp interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, which has raised rates from near zero to between 5% and 5.25% in the 14 months since March 2022.

The aim of the Fed’s rate hikes has been to lower inflation, which spiked in 2022, hitting an annual rate of 9.1% in June of last year.

The rate of inflation has slowed markedly since then, to 4.9% in May, the latest data available. That figure is still outpacing wage growth, which leaves many workers feeling as though they are losing ground even with higher take-home pay.

Unalloyed good news

Joseph E. Gagnon, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told VOA that while there were many nuances to the report, one piece of what he called “unalloyed good news” is that the U.S. labor force is continuing to grow.

Friday’s data showed a seasonally adjusted U.S. labor force of 168.8 million, well above pre-pandemic levels, which Gagnon said is good for the economy as a whole and for those concerned about inflation.

“It means people are getting more income and more employment opportunities,” Gagnon said. “But it also means that there’s less inflation pressure, because if there’s more workers out there, they can produce more, and that can actually hold prices down.”

Biden celebrates

In Washington, Democrats and Republicans elected to view the jobs report through their preferred lenses.

In a statement released after the report, President Joe Biden celebrated the news, while noting that he had recently negotiated a deal with Republicans in the House of Representatives to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and avoid the potential for a catastrophic default on the nation’s debts.

“We have now created over 13 million jobs since I took office,” he said. “That is more jobs in 28 months than any President has created in an entire 4-year term.”

He added, “In short, the Biden economic plan is working. And due to the historic action taken by Congress this week, my economic plan will continue to deliver good jobs for the American people in communities throughout the country.”

GOP counters

Republicans were quick to point out that the rosy jobs report belies the fact that many Americans continue to feel that they are struggling economically.

“Real wages are down as 60 percent of workers report living paycheck-to-paycheck and 83% say the economic situation of the nation is negative,” the Republican National Committee tweeted. “Biden’s inflation is killing the financial well-being of American families.”

The Republicans’ claim that the strong economy is not benefiting all Americans appears to have some resonance with the public. On Tuesday, The Conference Board, which tracks consumer sentiment, reported that its consumer confidence index had dropped from 103.7 to 102.3 in May. (The Conference Board uses a scale that sets consumer confidence measured in 1985 as 100.)

“Consumer confidence declined in May as consumers’ view of current conditions became somewhat less upbeat while their expectations remained gloomy,” Ataman Ozyildirim, senior director of economics at The Conference Board, said in a statement.

Ozyildirim reported that consumers’ experience of the economy seems to be at odds with official numbers. Survey respondents estimated job availability to be lower than the government reports it to be and said that they expect higher inflation over the next six months, even as the official rate falls.

Impact on Fed

It is unclear, at this point, how the larger than expected jobs numbers for last month will affect the thinking of policymakers at the Federal Reserve, who had been signaling that they might be prepared to pause interest rate increases while they assess the impact current rates are having on inflation.

The Fed has been attempting to engineer what economists call a “soft landing.” That is, policymakers are attempting to slow the economy enough to push inflation down to a more manageable level, but not so much that the country is tipped into a recession. One expected effect of a cooling economy was supposed to have been slower, or even negative, job growth.

Gagnon said that it’s possible the central bank might consider another small rate increase this month but said much of the urgency that marked large rate increases a year ago no longer applies.

“I think the Fed is not in an ideal place, but it’s not horrible,” he said. “It can be patient, or slow. It’s a close call as to whether they might want to raise rates a bit more, but I don’t see the urgent need that we had a year ago of raising 75 basis points every meeting. We’re not there now.”
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U.S Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday that dialogue between the United States and China is essential to avoiding miscalculations that could lead to conflict, adding he was deeply concerned by Beijing’s unwillingness to engage in crisis management between the two militaries.

“We do not seek conflict or confrontation,” Austin said in his address at the Shangri La Dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, in Singapore.

“But we will not flinch in the face of bullying or coercion,” he added.

Austin’s remarks were likely aimed at China.  China Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu had refused Austin’s requests to meet this week at the summit. However, the two did shake hands on the summit’s sidelines Friday.  The Pentagon said the two defense officials did not have a “substantive exchange.”

“I am deeply concerned that the PRC has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries,” Austin said in his speech, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.

There are several issues that the U.S. and China do not agree on, including territorial disputes regarding the South China Sea and an alleged spy balloon that was shot down by a U.S. fighter plane after the balloon floated across the United States.

Perhaps the most vexing is the issue of Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own and that it wants to bring under its rule.  China has become increasingly aggressive with its moves against Taiwan, setting up a situation that could resemble Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

That similarity was not lost on Austin, who said Saturday, “how dangerous our world would become if big countries could just invade their peaceful neighbors with impunity.”  He said the United States is “determined to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and so are a number of countries around the world.”

China’s defense minister delivers his address to the summit Sunday. 
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President Joe Biden delivered remarks Friday evening on the Fiscal Responsibility Act, bipartisan legislation achieved following weeks of tough negotiations that suspends the government’s debt limit and avoids a potentially disastrous default. For the first time Biden spoke from the Oval Office, signifying the occasion’s importance. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Two Florida men who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers group were sentenced to prison Friday for seditious conspiracy and other charges, the latest in a historic string of sentences in the January 6, 2021, attack. 

David Moerschel, 45, a neurophysiologist from Punta Gorda, and Joseph Hackett, 52, a chiropractor from Sarasota, were convicted in January alongside other members of the anti-government group for their roles in what prosecutors described as a violent plot to stop the transfer power from former President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election. 

Both men were among the lower-level members charged with seditious conspiracy. Moerschel was sentenced to three years in prison and Hackett got three and one-half years. 

All told, nine people associated with the Oath Keepers have been tried for seditious conspiracy and six were convicted of the rarely used Civil War-era charge in two separate trials, including the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes. He was sentenced last week to 18 years in prison — a record for a January 6 defendant. Three defendants were cleared of the sedition charge but found guilty of other January 6 crimes. 

Helped gather guns

Moerschel and Hackett helped amass guns and ammunition to stash in a Virginia hotel for a so-called “quick reaction force” that could be quickly shuttled to Washington, prosecutors said. The weapons were never deployed. Moerschel provided an AR-15 and a Glock semiautomatic handgun and Hackett helped transport weapons, prosecutors said. 

On January 6, both men, dressed in paramilitary gear, marched into the Capitol with fellow Oath Keepers in a military-style formation, charging documents stated. 

“The security of our country and the safety of democracy should not hinge on the impulses of madmen,” Justice Department prosecutor Troy Edwards said. 

Moerschel told the judge he was deeply ashamed of forcing his way into the Capitol and joining the riot that seriously injured police officers and sent staffers running in fear. 

“When I was on the stairs, your honor, I felt like God said to me, ‘Get out here.’ And I didn’t,” he said in court, his voice cracking with emotion. “I disobeyed God, and I broke laws.” 

Moerschel, who monitored surgical patients under anesthesia before his arrest, was later fired and now works in construction and landscaping. A former missionary, he is married with three children. 

Hackett similarly said he remembered feeling horrified as he stepped foot in the Capitol that day: “I truly am sorry for my part in causing so much misery,” he said. 

He originally joined the group after seeing vandalism at a commercial area near his house during the summer of 2020, when protests of police brutality were common, his attorney Angela Halim said. “He did not join this organization because he shared any beliefs of Stewart Rhodes,” she said. 

Still, he later attended an “unconventional warfare” training session, and in the lead-up to January 6 he repeatedly warned other Oath Keepers about “leaks” and the need to secure their communications, and later changed his online screen names, authorities have said. 

“Taken together, his messages show he perceived the election as an existential threat,” said prosecutor Alexandra Hughes. 

How the chiropractor and father ended up storming the Capitol, though, is “hard to wrap one’s head around,” said U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. The group’s increasingly heated online conversations and false claims of a stolen election “can suck you in like a vortex and make it very difficult to get out.” 

No ‘vengeful’ sentencing

Neither man was a top leader in the group, and both left shortly after January 6. Both sentences were far lower than the 12 years prosecutors sought for Hackett and 10 for Moerschel. 

Moerschel was in the Capitol for about 12 minutes and didn’t do anything violent or scream at police officers, Mehta noted. He also handed his guns over to the police. 

“Sentencing shouldn’t be vengeful; it shouldn’t be such that it is unduly harsh simply for the sake of being harsh,” said the judge, who also imposed a three-year term of supervised release for both men. 

Moerschel’s attorneys had asked for home confinement, arguing that he joined the Oath Keepers chats shortly before the riot and was not a leader. 

“He was just in the back following the crowd,” attorney Scott Weinberg told the judge. 

Defense attorneys have long said there was never a plan to attack the Capitol and the prosecutors’ case was largely built on online messages cherry-picked out of context. 

The charges against leaders of the Oath Keepers and another far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, are among the most serious brought in the Justice Department’s sprawling riot investigation. Prosecutors have also won seditious conspiracy convictions in the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other group leaders in what prosecutors said was a separate plot to keep Trump in the White House. 
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America’s top military officer says training for Ukrainian forces on advanced U.S. Abrams tanks has started, but those weapons crucial over the long term in trying to expel Russia from occupied territory will not be ready in time for Kyiv’s imminent counteroffensive. 

The tank training got underway as the United States and its allies began to work out agreements to train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets, another long-sought advanced system. Those aircraft would be part of a security plan to deter future attacks, U.S. Army General Mark Milley said late Thursday as he arrived in France. 

“Everyone recognizes Ukraine needs a modernized air force,” said Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It’s going to take a considerable amount of time.” 

The intent is to provide capabilities for Ukraine in the mid- to long term, said Nicolas Vaujour, a vice admiral who is chief of operations of France’s Joint Staff and spoke to reporters traveling with Milley. 

Milley said detailed planning on the size of F-16 training classes, the types of flying tactics and locations for training was being worked out among the U.S. and allies such as the Netherlands and Britain that have pledged to provide the American-made F-16s. The United States has not said whether it will directly provide jets, but President Joe Biden has said the U.S. will support F-16 training as part of the coalition. 

As those logistics are figured out, the Abrams tank training is moving ahead. 

About 200 Ukrainian soldiers began an approximately 12-week course in Germany over the past weekend where they are learning how to maneuver, fire and conduct combined arms operations with the advanced armored system. An additional 200 troops are receiving training on tank fueling and fuel truck maintenance. 

The U.S. training schedule is timed to get the troops up to speed on the systems before 31 of the 70-ton Abrams tanks the Biden administration has promised to Ukraine are scheduled to arrive this fall. Those tanks will make up part of a force of about 300 tanks in total pledged by Western allies, including Challenger tanks from the United Kingdom, Leopard 2 tanks from Spain and Germany, and light tanks from France. 

The U.S. and its allies balked for months at providing such tanks, citing the significant maintenance and fueling challenges the systems require. Abrams tanks can burn through fuel at a rate of at least 2 gallons per mile (4.7 liters per kilometer), whether the tank is moving or idling. That means a constant supply convoy of fuel trucks must stay within reach so the tanks can keep moving forward. 

As with the recent decision on F-16 training, the U.S. approval to send its own Abrams systems was a necessary part of the allies’ negotiations on tanks for Ukraine so that no Western nation would be providing the systems alone, possibly incurring direct retaliation from Russia. In January, the Biden administration reversed course and agreed that Ukraine would get the tanks. 

Milley is in France to mark the 79th anniversary of D-Day, which launched the allies’ World War II massive ground counteroffensive to push back Nazi forces in Europe. The war involved some of the largest armored battles in modern history, including a major Soviet counteroffensive against the Nazis in 1943 along the Dnieper River, the same edge along which tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian forces are now entrenched. 

“You can look back to World War II and some of the biggest armored battles that were ever fought in history were fought, basically, in parts of Ukraine,” Milley told reporters traveling with him. “So, tanks are very important, both to the defense and the offense, and upgraded modern tanks, the training that goes with it, the ability to use them, will be fundamental to Ukrainian success.”
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The United States says it does not plan on building more nuclear weapons to counter threats from Russia, China and a growing number of adversaries who have or who could soon have nuclear capabilities.

Instead, Washington plans to modernize its existing nuclear arsenal and continue to invest in cutting-edge technologies to keep adversaries in check, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. He said the administration also would keep open the possibility of talks to prevent a new nuclear arms race.

“The United States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors in order to successfully deter them,” Sullivan told an audience in Washington on Friday.

“Effective deterrence means that we have a better approach, not a more approach,” he said during a speech to the Arms Control Association. “We believe in the current context we have the number and type of capabilities today that we need.”

Sullivan’s comments came as both Russia and China have either rejected or ignored calls for arms control and nuclear talks despite growing tensions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in February that he was suspending Moscow’s participation in the New START treaty, calling the deal absurd given U.S. and Western military aid to Ukraine. None of that aid has involved nuclear weapons.

The deal, signed in 2010, limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each while providing for each country to inspect the other’s nuclear sites.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, estimates China has more than 400 nuclear warheads and is poised to have 1,500 warheads by 2035.

U.S. officials have also raised concerns about Beijing’s refusal to agree to arms control talks.

Sullivan, however, said the U.S. holds out some hope that such talks are possible, and that Washington was ready to talk separately to both Moscow and Beijing “without preconditions.”

He also noted that while Russia suspended its participation in the New START treaty, it has also said it is willing to abide by some of the treaty’s key tenets, “indicating a potential willingness to continue limiting strategic nuclear forces through 2026.”

And Sullivan said there is precedent for such talks despite tensions and conflicts elsewhere, such as in Ukraine.

“I can’t predict exactly what Vladimir Putin will do,” he said. “But there is a track record of our two countries being capable of engaging in these kinds of discussions in a way that serves our respective national interest and the broader common interests.”

As for China, Sullivan urged leaders in Beijing to engage with the U.S. on arms control.

“The very first thing that is necessary is for us to get this conversation going in a real way,” he said. “The PRC could make the bold decision to engage directly with the United States in discussions of strategic stability and nuclear risk, and that it would be the responsible thing to do for the benefit of our two countries and, as I said before, for the benefit of the wider world.”

But whether Chinese leaders will see the need for such discussions remains to be seen.

“They’ve not been willing to talk,” John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said in a press call Friday in response to a question from VOA.

“They’ve not been willing to engage in a meaningful way with arms control,” he added. “That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to continue to make the case that it’s important.”

China’s military, in particular, has repeatedly ignored or denied requests for calls by U.S. defense officials, though other high-level meetings have taken place.

Sullivan met with a senior Chinese official in Vienna in early May, with the U.S. describing the discussion as “candid, substantive and constructive.”

There were also high-level talks last month between U.S. and Chinese intelligence officials, with CIA Director William Burns traveling to Beijing.

Burns “emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels,” a U.S. official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the spy chief’s travel.

Burns’ trip was first reported by the Financial Times. 

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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The Department of Justice has informed former Vice President Mike Pence ‘s legal team that it will not pursue criminal charges related to the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home.

The department sent a letter to Pence’s attorney Thursday informing his team that, after an investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information, no criminal charges will be sought. A Justice Department official confirmed the authenticity of the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The news comes days before Pence is set to launch his campaign for the Republican nomination for president in Iowa Wednesday — a race that will put him in direct competition with his old boss, former President Donald Trump.

No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that Pence intentionally hid documents from the government or even knew they were in his home, so there was never an expectation that he would face charges.

But that decision and timing were nonetheless welcome news for the former vice president and his political team as he prepares to enter the crowded GOP primary field and contrast himself with Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland had named a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the discovery of hundreds of documents with classified markings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home just three days after the former president formally launched his 2024 campaign — an acknowledgment of the high political stakes. A special counsel was also put in place to investigate classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and at an unsecured office in Washington dating from his time as vice president.

About a dozen documents with classified markings were discovered at Pence’s home in January after he asked his lawyers to perform a search of his vice-presidential belongings “out of an abundance of caution” after the Biden discovery. The items had been “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s home at the end of the last administration, Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, wrote in a letter to the National Archives.

The FBI then discovered an additional document with classified markings at the Indiana house during its own search the following month.

Pence has said repeatedly that he was unaware of the documents’ existence, but that “mistakes were made ” in his handling of classified material.

Beyond Pence, the two Justice Department special counsels are continuing to investigate the handling of classified documents by both Trump and Biden.

The status of the Biden documents investigation is unclear, but the Trump investigation has shown signs of winding down. Prosecutors appear close to a decision on whether to bring criminal charges against the ex-president or anyone else.

The team led by special counsel Jack Smith has brought a broad cross-section of witnesses before a federal grand jury investigating Trump, including former and close aides to Trump. The investigation has centered on not only whether Trump illegally possessed roughly 300 documents marked as classified but also on whether he obstructed government efforts to secure their return.

The Biden and Pence matters have always stood apart, factually and legally, from the Trump investigation because in both of those cases, aides proactively disclosed the discovery of classified documents to the Justice Department and facilitated their return.

Trump resisted months of demands to return classified documents taken with him from the White House to his Florida residence after the end of his term. After coming to suspect that more classified documents remained at the property, despite a subpoena and a visit by investigators, the FBI returned last August with a search warrant and recovered about 100 additional documents marked as classified, including at the top-secret level.

Trump insists he did nothing wrong.
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In March, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the creation of a marine sanctuary across a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean. If finalized, it would help the U.S. meet its goal of protecting 30% of its oceans by 2030. The public comment period is underway, revealing the competing interests of conservation and economic development across the region. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports.
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The nation’s employers stepped up their hiring in May, adding a robust 339,000 jobs, well above expectations and evidence of strength in an economy that the Federal Reserve is desperately trying to cool. 

Friday’s report from the government showed that the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, from a five-decade low of 3.4% in April. 

The stronger hiring demonstrates the job market’s resilience after more than a year of rapid interest rate increases by the Fed. Many industries, from construction to restaurants to health care, are still adding jobs to keep up with consumer demand and restore their workforces to pre-pandemic levels. 

Having imposed 10 straight rate hikes since March 2022, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to skip a rate increase when it meets later this month, though it may resume its hikes after that. Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have made clear that they regard strong hiring as likely to keep inflation persistently high because employers tend to sharply raise pay in a tight job market. Many of these companies then pass on their higher wage costs to customers in the form of higher prices. 

The May jobs report adds to other recent evidence that the economy is still managing to chug ahead despite long-standing predictions that a recession was near. Consumers ramped up their spending in April, even after adjusting for inflation, and sales of new homes rose despite higher mortgage rates. 

Some cracks in the economy’s foundations, though, have begun to emerge. Home sales have tumbled. A measure of factory activity indicated that it has contracted for seven straight months. 

And consumers are showing signs of straining to keep up with higher prices. The proportion of Americans who are struggling to stay current on their credit card and auto loan debt rose in the first three months of this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

Fed officials are expected to forgo a rate increase at their June 13-14 meeting to allow time to assess how their previous rate hikes have affected the inflation pressures underlying the economy. Higher rates typically take time to affect growth and hiring. The Fed wants to avoid raising its key rate to the point where it would slow borrowing and spending so much as to cause a deep recession. 

The U.S. economy as a whole has been gradually weakening. It grew at a lackluster 1.3% annual rate from January through March, after 2.6% annual growth from October through December and 3.2% from July through September. 

The Federal Reserve’s so-called Beige Book, a collection of anecdotal reports mostly from businesses across the country, reported this week that the pace of hiring gains in April and May had “cooled some” compared with previous reports. Many companies reported that they were fully staffed. 

At the same time, despite some high-profile job cuts by financial and high-technology companies, the pace of layoffs remains unusually low. The number of people seeking first-time unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs, barely rose from a low level last week.

Many employers are still engaged in so-called “catch-up hiring,” particularly in such sectors as restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues. Even as customer demand in these industries has spiked, the number of employed workers remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Consumers, who drive roughly two-thirds of economic activity, are still mostly spending at a solid pace, despite higher prices and borrowing rates. Their spending jumped 0.8% in April, the fastest monthly pace since January, as Americans flocked to airports, restaurants and concert halls, among other places. 
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The White House is ready to have talks with Russia without preconditions about a future nuclear arms control framework even as it is enacting countermeasures in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend the last nuclear arms control treaty between the two countries.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will make clear the Biden administration’s desire for talks on building a new framework during an address to the Arms Control Association on Friday, according to two senior administration officials who previewed the address on the condition of anonymity.

Putin announced in February he was suspending Russia’s cooperation with the New START Treaty’s provisions for nuclear warhead and missile inspections amid deep tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Russia, however, said it would respect the treaty’s caps on nuclear weapons.

The officials said that Sullivan would underscore that the U.S. remains committed to adhering to the treaty if Russia does but will also “signal that we are open to dialogue” about building a new framework for managing nuclear risks once the treaty expires in February 2026.

The officials said that the Biden administration is willing to stick to the warhead caps until the treaty expires. Figuring out details about a post-2026 framework will be complicated by U.S.-Russia tension and the growing nuclear strength of China.

China now has about 410 nuclear warheads, according to an annual survey from the Federation of American Scientists. The Pentagon in November estimated China’s warhead count could grow to 1,000 by the end of the decade and to 1,500 by around 2035.

The size of China’s arsenal and whether Beijing is willing to engage in substantive dialogue will impact the United States’ future force posture and Washington’s ability to come to any agreement with the Russians, the officials said.

U.S.-Chinese relations have been strained by the U.S. shooting down a Chinese spy balloon earlier this year after it crossed the continental U.S.; tensions about the status of the self-ruled island Taiwan, which China claims as its own; U.S. export controls aimed at limiting China’s advanced semiconductor equipment; and other friction.

The White House push on Moscow on nuclear arms control comes the day after the administration announced new countermeasures over Russia suspending participation in the treaty.

The State Department announced Thursday it would no longer notify Russia of any updates on the status or location of “treaty-accountable items” like missiles and launchers, would revoke U.S. visas issued to Russian treaty inspectors and aircrew members and would cease providing telemetric information on test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The United States and Russia earlier this year stopped sharing biannual nuclear weapons data required by the treaty.

The treaty, which then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed in 2010, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers and provides for on-site inspections to verify compliance.

The inspections have been dormant since 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions on resuming them were supposed to have taken place in November 2022, but Russia abruptly called them off, citing U.S. support for Ukraine. 
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The United States signed a trade agreement Thursday with Taiwan over opposition from China, which claims the self-ruled island democracy as part of its territory.

The two governments say the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade will strengthen commercial relations by improving customs, investment and other regulation.

The measure was signed by employees of the unofficial entities that maintain relations between the United States and Taiwan, a center for high-tech industry. They have no formal diplomatic ties but maintain unofficial relations and have billions of dollars in annual trade.

The agreement is intended to “strengthen and deepen the economic and trade relationship,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement. The deputy USTR, Sarah Bianchi, attended the signing.

The Chinese government accused Washington of violating agreements on Taiwan’s status and demanded the U.S. government stop official contact with the island’s elected government.

Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war. The island never has been part of the People’s Republic of China, but the mainland’s ruling Communist Party says it is obligated to unite with China, by force if necessary.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government has stepped up efforts to intimidate Taiwan by flying fighter jets and bombers near the island. American and European politicians have visited Taiwan in a show of support for its elected government.

“The United States should stop any form of official exchanges with Taiwan” and “refrain from sending wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces,” said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning.
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The U.S. Senate voted Thursday night 63-36 in support of a measure that will allow the United States to continue to pay its bills. The U.S. had been on track to run out of cash in four days. The bipartisan legislation now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.

“Tonight, senators from both parties voted to protect the hard-earned economic progress we have made and prevent a first –ever default by the United States,” Biden said in a statement.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted Wednesday night, with wide support from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike, to allow the government to continue to borrow more money over the next year-and-a-half to meet its financial obligations, exceeding the current $31.4 trillion debt limit.

The legislation does not set a new monetary cap, but the borrowing authority would extend to Jan. 2, 2025, two months past next year’s presidential election.

In addition, the legislation calls for maintaining most federal spending at the current level in the fiscal year starting in October, with a 1% increase in the following 12 months.

“The responsible thing for America is to pass it,” one Senate leader, Democrat Dick Durbin, had told reporters.

Both Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, supported suspension of the debt limit and called for swift passage of the legislation.

Schumer told the Senate, “Time is a luxury the Senate does not have if we want to prevent default. There is no good reason — none — to bring this process down to the wire. … I hope we see nothing even approaching brinksmanship. The country cannot afford that now.”

The House approved the legislation on a 314-117 vote despite objections by far-right Republican lawmakers who said it did not go far enough to cut spending and from Democratic progressives who said it trimmed too much.

Seventy-one lawmakers from the majority Republican party in the House voted against the bill, as did 46 Democrats.

In a statement following Wednesday’s vote, Biden celebrated the agreement as a “bipartisan compromise.”

“It protects key priorities and accomplishments from the past two years, including historic investments that are creating good jobs across the country,” Biden said. “And, it honors my commitment to safeguard Americans’ health care and protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid [pensions and health care insurance for older Americans and welfare payments for impoverished people]. It protects critical programs that millions of hardworking families, students, and veterans count on.”

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who negotiated the deal with Biden, told reporters that getting the bill passed “wasn’t an easy fight.” He emphasized the budget savings and criticized Democrats who wanted to separate the debate about future government spending from the need to suspend the debt limit so current financial obligations could be met.

“We put the citizens of America first and we didn’t do it by taking the easy way,” McCarthy said. “We didn’t do it by the ways that people did in the past by just lifting [the debt ceiling]. We decided you had to spend less and we achieved that goal.”

McCarthy said he intends to follow Wednesday’s action with more efforts to cut federal spending.

The measure does not raise taxes, nor will it stop the national debt total from continuing to increase, perhaps by another $3 trillion or more over the next year-and-a-half until the next expiration of the debt limit.

Other pieces of the legislation include a reduction in the number of new agents hired by the country’s tax collection agency, a requirement that states return $30 billion in unspent coronavirus pandemic assistance to the federal government and extending from 50 to 54 the upper age bracket for those required to work in order to receive food aid.
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President Joe Biden spoke to graduates of the Air Force Academy at an uncertain time for global peace. VOA spoke to an alumnus of the institution who graduated at another uncertain time — the Vietnam era — about what it was like to be in that seat more than 50 years ago. Anita Powell reports.
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Justice Department prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of former President Donald Trump from a meeting held after he left office in which he talks about holding on to a classified Pentagon document related to a potential attack on Iran, according to media reports.

CNN, which first reported on the tape, said Trump suggested on the recording that he wanted to share information from the document with others but that he knew there were limitations about his ability to declassify records after he left office.

The comments on the recording, made in July 2021 at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, would seem to undercut the former president’s repeated claims that he declassified the documents he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, after leaving office. The recording could also be key for prosecutors looking to prove Trump knew his ability to possess classified documents was limited.

A Trump spokesman said in a statement that the investigation was “meritless” and amounted to “continued interference in the presidential election.”

The recording has been provided to special counsel Jack Smith, whose team of prosecutors has spent months investigating the potential mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and whether Trump or anyone else sought to criminally obstruct the probe. The investigation shows signs of being in its final stages, with prosecutors having interviewed a broad cross-section of witnesses before the grand jury.

A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment. No one has been criminally charged.

The criminal investigation began last year after the National Archives and Records Administration alerted the FBI to the presence of classified documents in 15 boxes of records sent back, belatedly, from Mar-a-Lago by Trump and his representatives.

Investigators initially issued a subpoena for the remaining classified records, but after they received only about three dozen during a June 2022 visit to Mar-a-Lago, returned with a search warrant two months later and recovered about 100 more documents marked as classified.

Smith, the special counsel, is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election — the subject of a similar, ongoing inquiry by prosecutors in Atlanta. New York prosecutors charged Trump earlier this year with falsifying business records.

According to the CNN report, the recording was made during a gathering at Bedminster with aides to Trump and two people who were working on the autobiography of Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

It said Meadows’ autobiography includes a description of what appears to be the same meeting. A lawyer for Meadows declined to comment Wednesday when reached by The Associated Press.

CNN said witnesses including General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been questioned about the episode. A spokesman for Milley declined to comment on reports that he had been interviewed.
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Meta on Wednesday threatened to block all news articles on Facebook and Instagram in California if state lawmakers move forward with a bill that would tax the tech company for news content.

The California Journalism Preservation Act would tax the advertising profits that platforms like Meta and Google make from distributing news articles. About 70% of the money collected would then go to support newsrooms around the state.

Meta has warned it will pull news links from Facebook and Instagram entirely if the bill is passed.

“If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram, rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement on Wednesday.

Katie Harbath, chief executive at the tech policy firm Anchor Change and a former director of public policy at Facebook, said this latest threat from Meta is “following a pattern.”

Meta previously pulled news from Facebook in 2021 in response to an Australian law that forced the platform to pay for news content. Meta reversed the ban a few days later once the government agreed to change elements of the law.

Tech giants are also threatening to pull news content in Canada if a similar measure is enacted there.

“This all feels like it’s sort of the dance that the platforms and regulators and the news organizations go through when these types of bills pop up,” Harbath added.

Media freedom groups see these sorts of threats as a danger to press freedom.

“Meta’s blackmail threats when confronted with the possibility of having to compensate news organizations for using their content have become all too common,” said Vincent Berthier, the head of the tech desk at Reporters Without Borders.

“Being one of the leading platforms means having the responsibility to defend everyone’s right to access information, not having the power to cut off people’s access to journalism if legislators don’t bend to its will,” he told VOA in a statement Thursday.

“Meta should stop trying to blackmail elected leaders and instead focus on showing that the company is compatible with democratic principles,” Berthier added.

Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, previously condemned Meta’s threat to block news content in Canada, saying in a March statement that the ultimatum “directly threatens the survival of Canadian media and, at the same time, access to news and information, one of the pillars of democracy.” 

“It is unacceptable to threaten journalism with banishment,” Berthier said in the statement. “Meta should seek to show that it is able to play a positive role in the fight against disinformation and for access to pluralistic information, rather than trying to influence public policies that might jeopardize its economic interests.”

In a statement Wednesday, the California Broadcasters Association, California News Publishers Association and News/Media Alliance criticized Meta’s latest ultimatum.

“Meta’s threat to take down news is undemocratic and unbecoming,” the statement said. “We have seen this in their playbook before and they have been publicly admonished in other countries for this behavior.”

The California bill is an attempt to support a news industry that has been floundering for years. Between 2008 and 2020, about 30,000 journalism jobs disappeared, according to the Pew Research Center, marking a 26% drop in newsroom employment.

“As news consumption has moved online, community news outlets have been downsized and closing at an alarming rate,” the California bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, said at a hearing on the bill in May.

“Every day, journalism plays an essential role in California and in local communities, and the ability of local news organizations to continue to provide the public with critical information about their communities and enabling publishers to receive fair market value for their content that is used by others will preserve and ensure the sustainability of local and diverse news outlets,” the bill says.

The Australian law generated nearly $150 million for news organizations, Columbia University’s Bill Grueskin found.

But Harbath said she’s skeptical that the California bill will be enough to help the news industry.

“I don’t know that these bills are going to necessarily achieve what people think they’re going to achieve,” she said. “I just don’t know if they’re really going to get as much money as they actually need by doing this.”

It’s important “to think creatively going forward about what these business models should look like,” Harbath added.
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