After weeks of hinting at a run for reelection, U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally announced his candidacy for 2024, in a three-minute video ad that drew a stark picture of what he believes is at stake: the very soul of America. 

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Biden says in the video, released on his website.

Biden said in the video he had righted the affairs of state in America and can advance the cause of democracy with another four-year term in the White House.

“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,” Biden said in the video. “I know what I want the answer to be. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection.”

Biden’s long-awaited announcement, released in the early hours of Tuesday, opens with an evocative image: that of a violent mob thronging the U.S. Capitol as it prepared to mount a failed insurrection attempt on Jan 6, 2021. While Biden shows three elected representatives he has described as “MAGA extremists” – a reference to former president Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again” – the ad makes no overt mention of Trump, whose claim to have won the 2020 poll led his followers to storm the Capitol that day. 

A recent Yahoo News-YouGov poll shows that 38 percent of Americans feel “exhaustion” at the idea of a second round between Biden and Trump.

And 29 percent said the idea of a rematch  provoked feelings of “fear.” More than half of respondents – 56 percent – said in the poll, conducted earlier this month, that they didn’t feel Biden should run again. 

Trump released a statement Tuesday in which he continued to maintain the 2020 election was rigged against him, despite multiple recounts and court rulings that found it was not. 

“With such a calamitous and failed presidency, it is almost inconceivable that Biden would even think of running for reelection,” Trump said. “… There has never been a greater contrast between two successive administrations in all of American history. Ours being greatness, and theirs being failure.”

The Biden ad also cites the debate over abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last year to allow each of the 50 states to set its own abortion policy. Vice President Kamala Harris is used to illustrate the administration’s stance in supporting abortion access. Video of her is also used to illustrate that she is the only woman to have risen to such a senior role in American leadership, and further, that her multiethnic identity made that rise even more difficult. 

The announcement by Biden, at 80, already the oldest U.S. president, marks another milestone for one of the most enduring political figures in U.S. history. He has been a public figure for a half-century, 36 years as a U.S. senator from the small eastern state of Delaware, eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama, and then elected as the country’s president and commander in chief in 2020.

While the ad released Tuesday doesn’t reference his age, Biden has repeatedly joked about the matter in recent days, as if to provoke those who say that, at 80, he is too old to hold the world’s most stressful job. 

Last week, he wished Colombia’s president a happy birthday and joked, “it’s very difficult turning 40 years of age.”

President Gustavo Petro, who in fact had turned 63, replied “being 63 is like being 40 in the old generation.”

“I fully subscribe to that,” Biden said. 

While at least two minor candidates have announced a run against Biden for the Democratic nomination, his incumbent status makes it unlikely, given U.S. political precedent, that the party would choose another standard bearer when it meets in summer 2024 in Chicago to officially pick its nominee. Polls show that many Democrats think that Biden would stand the best chance of defeating Trump or another Republican.

Trump is leading nomination polls of Republican voters, although several other figures have announced their candidacy opposing him, or are contemplating a run for the nomination, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, and others.

Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
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Donald Trump goes to trial on Tuesday, where the writer E. Jean Carroll is accusing the former U.S. president in a civil lawsuit of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

Jury selection is expected to begin in Manhattan federal court, where the former Elle magazine advice columnist is also accusing Trump of defamation.

Trump, 76, has denied raping Carroll, 79, He called her claim a “hoax” and “complete Scam” in a October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform. He has said she made up the encounter to promote her memoir and declared that she was “not my type!”

Trump is not required to attend the trial. His lawyers have said he may not appear, citing the likelihood of security concerns and traffic delays. Carroll’s lawyers have said they do not plan to call Trump as a witness.

If Trump testified, he would likely face an aggressive cross-examination. Trump has repeatedly attacked Carroll and in personal terms since she first publicly accused him of rape in 2019. He has claimed she is mentally ill.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversees the case, is keeping jurors anonymous from the public, including the lawyers, to shield them from potential harassment by Trump supporters.

The trial could last one to two weeks.

Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 presidential election, faces a slew of lawsuits and investigations.

These include Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal charges over hush money payments to a porn star.

Trump pleaded not guilty to those charges on April 4 at a New York state courthouse, a three-minute walk from Tuesday’s trial.

The former president also faces civil fraud charges by New York Attorney General Letitia James into his namesake company.

Trump also faces criminal probes into interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential race and into classified government documents recovered at his Mar-a-Lago residence, plus inquiries into his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In all of these cases, Trump has denied wrongdoing.

Other accusers may testify

Carroll said her encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store occurred in late 1995 or early 1996.

She said Trump recognized her, calling her “that advice lady,” and asked for help in buying a gift for another woman.

Carroll said Trump “maneuvered” her into a dressing room where he shut the door, forced her against a wall, pulled down her tights and penetrated her. She said she broke free after two to three minutes.

Trump’s lawyers may try to undermine Carroll’s credibility by noting that she did not call the police and remained publicly silent for more than two decades.

They may also challenge her inability to remember the date or even the month of the alleged attack.

Carroll has said the #MeToo movement inspired her to come forward.

Two women in whom she said she confided after the attack, author Lisa Birnbach and former news anchor Carol Martin, are expected to testify.

Carroll’s witness list also includes two other women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, which Trump denies.

Lawyers for Carroll could use their testimony to establish a pattern of Trump’s alleged mistreatment of women.

They are also expected to play for jurors a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape where Trump made graphic, vulgar comments about women.

Carroll is also suing Trump for defamation after he first denied her rape claim in June 2019, when he was still president.

That case remains pending before Kaplan.
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U.S. President Joe Biden officially launched his re-election campaign Tuesday, appealing to voters in a video to grant him more time to “finish the job” his administration began two years ago.

The official candidates from the country’s two main political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, will not be selected for more than a year, just months ahead of the November 2024 election.

But Biden’s incumbent status means it would be unlikely, given precedent, that Democrats would select someone else as their candidate.  He defeated Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 election to earn his first term in office.

Trump refused to accept the results of the election, making baseless claims of election fraud. A mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress met to certify the election in January 2021, and Biden’s campaign used scenes from the assault to begin Tuesday’s announcement.

“Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they have to defend democracy,” Biden said.  “Stand up for our personal freedoms.  Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights.”

He cast Republicans as working to restrict access to abortions, cut Social Security, limit voting rights and “telling people who they can love.”

Biden, who was the nation’s oldest president at the time of his inauguration, has downplayed concerns about his age ahead of another presidential campaign.  He would be 82 years old at the start of a new term.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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The U.S. Space Force said on Monday that Elon Musk’s SpaceX was granted approval to lease a second rocket launch complex at a military base in California, setting the space company up for its fifth launch site in the United States. 

Under the lease, SpaceX will launch its workhorse Falcon rockets from Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, a military launch site north of Los Angeles where the space company operates another launchpad. It has two others in Florida and its private Starbase site in south Texas. 

A Monday night Space Force statement said a letter of support for the decision was signed on Friday by Space Launch Delta 30 commander Col. Rob Long. The statement did not mention a duration for SpaceX’s lease. 

The new launch site, vacated last year by the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance, gives SpaceX more room to handle an increasingly busy launch schedule for commercial, government and internal satellite launches. 

Vandenberg Space Force Base allows for launches in a southern trajectory over the Pacific Ocean, which is often used for weather-monitoring, military or spy satellites that commonly rely on polar Earth orbits. 

SpaceX’s grant of Space Launch Complex-6 comes as rocket companies prepare to compete for the Pentagon’s Phase 3 National Security Space Launch program, a watershed military launch procurement effort expected to begin in the next year or so. 
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The United States on Monday sent its first deportation flight to Cuba since 2020, months after Cuba agreed for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic to accept flights carrying Cubans caught at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“On April 24, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resumed normal removals processing for Cuban nationals who have received final orders of removal,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said in an emailed statement. 

The Cuban government confirmed the flight’s arrival, saying on Twitter it included 40 Cubans intercepted in boats and 83 detained at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Reuters first reported late last year that Cuba agreed to give U.S. authorities a new but limited tool to deter record numbers of Cuban border crossers. 

After U.S. President Joe Biden adopted more restrictive border security measures in January, the number of Cubans and other migrants caught at the border plummeted. 

However, the Biden administration is preparing for a possible rise in illegal crossings with COVID restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border set to lift on May 11. The administration will say more about its preparations this week, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Thursday. 

U.S. and Cuban officials discussed migration issues earlier this month as the Biden administration braced for the end of COVID-era border restrictions that have blocked Cubans in recent months from crossing into the United States from Mexico. 

The U.S. embassy in Havana resumed full immigrant visa processing and consular services in January for the first time since 2017 in a bid to stem record numbers of Cubans trying to enter the United States from Mexico. 

“The United States continues to encourage Cubans to use lawful processes,” the DHS spokesperson said on Monday. 

The Biden administration in January began expelling Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans crossing the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico under restrictions known as Title 42, while also opening new legal pathways for those groups. 
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The United States on Monday announced sanctions on three people it said were involved in laundering virtual currency stolen by North Korean hackers to help finance Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

A U.S. Treasury statement said the three were a China-based virtual currency trader, another currency trader based in Hong Kong, and a representative of North Korea’s Korea Kwangson Banking Corp, who recently relocated to Dandong, China.

China-based trader Wu Huihui facilitated the conversion of virtual currency stolen by North Korea’s cybercriminal syndicate, the Lazarus Group, the statement said. The Hong Kong-based trader, Cheng Hung Man, worked with Wu to remit payments in exchange for virtual currency, it said.

Also targeted was Sim Hyon Sop for acting on behalf of the Kwangson Banking Corp., an entity previously designated for sanctions by the United States.

Wu processed multiple transactions that converted millions of dollars’ worth of virtual currency, the statement said.

The U.S. sanctions freeze any U.S. assets of the individuals and make those who do business with them also liable to sanctions.

U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said North Korea “continues to exploit virtual currency and extensive illicit facilitation networks to access the international financial system and generate revenue.”

Nelson said Washington was committed to holding accountable those who enable North Korea’s “destabilizing activities, especially in light of the three intercontinental ballistic missiles Pyongyang has launched this year alone.”

Years of U.S.-led sanctions have failed to halt North Korea’s nuclear bomb and missile programs. The latest Treasury Department action was announced before a visit to the United States this week by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

A February report by U.S.-based blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said North Korea-linked hackers such as those in the Lazarus Group stole an estimated $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency attacks last year.
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U.S. President Joe Biden will pull out all the stops Wednesday when he hosts South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol for a pomp-filled state visit to cap a day grounded by serious discussions, including, analysts say, quiet talks about countering an increasingly powerful China.

White House officials say the leaders will discuss the threats posed by an increasingly bold North Korea, how the two nations can cooperate economically and more.

Yoon will also speak before Congress while he is in Washington.

“Under the Biden-Harris administration, the U.S.-[Republic of Korea] alliance has grown far beyond the Korean peninsula, and is now a force for good in the Indo-Pacific and around the world,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday.

The leaders “will announce major deliverables on extended deterrence on cyber cooperation and climate mitigation assistance, investment and on strengthening our people-to-people ties,” Sullivan added.

Monday morning, the flags of South Korea and the U.S. fluttered side by side on White House grounds. This is just the second state visit of Biden’s presidency — the first was for French President Emmanuel Macron last year.

Yoon’s visit marks 70 years of U.S.-South Korea relations.

Korea expert Jean Lee, who will participate in Yoon’s arrival and attend a White House luncheon, said the visit shows how far the countries’ relationship has come.

“It started out as the United States vowing to help defend South Korea from North Korean aggression,” said Lee, a Wilson Center fellow and a veteran journalist who established the first foreign news bureau in Pyongyang. “But it has evolved into so much more. … South Korea several years ago was an impoverished, destroyed country. Seventy years later, it is the world’s 10th-largest economy, a powerhouse in so many different industries … and in many ways has become more of a partner to the United States than just this poor little country that the United States had to defend.”

The two leaders are likely to discuss China, said Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, but “I don’t think any of it will be very public.”

Sullivan, in previewing the visit on Monday, did not mention China.

But in recent days, Beijing has chastised Yoon for what state-run media described as “wrong remarks” after the Korean leader said in an interview that “the Taiwan issue is not simply an issue between China and Taiwan but, like the issue of North Korea, it is a global issue.”

China’s vice foreign minister fired back at those comments in a statement that called them “totally unacceptable.” China claims the island as part of its territory, and has this year increased its military activity over Taiwan’s defense space.

“Traditionally,” Cha said, “Koreans have been very shy to talk about Taiwan and very shy to get involved in any sort of contentions between the United States and China. Sort of classic entrapment fears, not wanting to get caught in between their main security patron and their main economic patron. But the situation is changing. Or, the situation has changed.”

But any words are likely to be carefully measured, said Nicholas Szechenyi, deputy director for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“I don’t think it’s so much about what South Korea or Japan says about China,” he said at a briefing previewing the state visit. “It’s about what they do to strengthen deterrence and prevent China from thinking that it could drive a wedge between the United States and its two treaty allies.

“I think there’s wide recognition in the U.S. that as countries on the front lines of the China challenge, Korea and Japan are going to use more nuanced language, and their strategy is going to be more subtle,” Szechenyi said.

Lee pointed to one way Yoon may be trying to counter China’s economic dominance.

“I think it’s interesting if we look at who President Yoon is bringing with him,” she said. “It’s a lot of major players from South Korea’s chaebols — these are the big conglomerates — because many of those companies dominate, particularly in the semiconductor industry. And I think that that’s very specific and it’s very, very deliberate.”

Lee, of the Wilson Center, said this is also a not-so-subtle way for the U.S. to show how other countries benefit from being partners.

“This is a moment for the two countries to show that off, to market, to honor it, and also show the rest of the world what can happen if countries ally with the United States,” she said.
…

Potter mistook her gun for a taser and shot Wright, a Black man
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The U.S. on Monday sanctioned four senior Iranian officials it said were responsible for the “brutal suppression” of protests that erupted last year against Tehran’s morality police for the arrest and death of a young woman detained for not properly wearing a hajib.

The U.S. also sanctioned a fifth official it said has blocked popular online news sites and spying on journalists and dissidents.

The Treasury Department action was the 11th time the U.S. has blacklisted Iranian officials linked to the death last September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The move was in coordination with Britain, which also imposed similar sanctions against senior Iranian officials.  

Several hundred Iranian protesters have been killed in the street demonstrations, along with a much smaller number of security agents and police.

“The Iranian people deserve freedom of expression without the threat of violent retaliation and censorship from those in power,” Treasury official Brian Nelson said in a statement. “Along with our key allies and partners, such as the United Kingdom, the United States will continue to take action against those responsible for the regime’s violent repression and censorship.”

The sanctions block the Iranian officials from use of any U.S. funds and property they may own and prohibits Americans from doing business with them.

The U.S. identified those blacklisted as Parviz Absalan, Amanollah Goshtasbi and Ahmed Seyedoshohada of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Salman Adinehvand, the commander of the Tehran Police Relief Unit, the primary security organization in charge of crowd control and protest suppression, and cyberspace chief Seyyed Aghamiri.

 
…

Fox News said Monday it has “agreed to part ways” with Tucker Carlson, its popular and controversial host, less than a week after settling a lawsuit over the network’s 2020 election reporting.

The American news network said in a press release that the last program of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired Friday.

“We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” the press release from the network said.

Carlson became Fox’s most popular personality after replacing Bill O’Reilly in Fox’s prime-time lineup in 2016. He’s also consistently drawn headlines for controversial coverage, including most recently airing tapes from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to minimize the impact of the deadly attack.

There was no immediate explanation from Fox about why Carlson was leaving.

His name came up during the recently settled case with Dominion Voting Systems, primarily because of email and text messages that were revealed as part of the lawsuit. In some of them, Carlson privately criticized former President Donald Trump, saying he hated him passionately.

A few weeks ago, Carlson devoted his entire show to an interview with Trump.

“Fox News Tonight” will air in Carlson’s 8 p.m. ET prime-time slot, hosted by a rotating array of network personalities, for the time being.
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The U.S. Supreme Court, exploring free speech rights in the social media era, on Monday agreed to consider whether the Constitution’s First Amendment bars government officials from blocking their critics on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

The justices took up an appeal by two members of a public school board from the city of Poway in Southern California of a lower court’s ruling in favor of school parents who sued after being blocked from Facebook pages and a Twitter account maintained by the officials. 

The justices also took up an appeal by a Michigan man of a lower court’s ruling against him after he sued a city official in Port Huron who blocked him on Facebook following critical posts made by the plaintiff about the local government’s COVID-19 response.

At issue is whether a public official’s social media activity can amount to governmental action bound by First Amendment limits on government regulation of speech.

The justices faced a similar First Amendment issue in 2021 involving a legal dispute over former President Donald Trump’s effort to block critics from his Twitter account. The justices brought an end to that court fight after Trump had left office by deciding the case was moot, throwing out a lower court’s decision that found that the former president had violated constitutional free speech rights.

The California case involves Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane, elected members of the Poway Unified School District. They blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, the parents of three students at district schools, on Facebook and Twitter after the couple made hundreds of critical posts on issues such as race and the handling of school finances.

The Garniers sued O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane in federal court, claiming their free speech rights under the First Amendment were violated.

Zane and O’Connor-Ratcliff each had public Facebook pages identifying them as government officials, according to the Garniers’ court filing. Zane’s page was entitled “T.J. Zane, Poway Unified School District Trustee” and included a picture of a school district signage.

O’Connor-Ratcliff also had a public Twitter profile. On that account and her Facebook page, she identified herself as “President of the PUSD Board of Education” and linked to her official email address, the court filing said.

A federal judge in California ruled in favor of the parents in 2021. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last July agreed, finding that the school board members had presented their social media accounts as “channels of communication with the public” about school board business.

The Michigan case involves Port Huron resident Kevin Lindke, who was blocked from City Manager James Freed’s public Facebook page after posting criticism relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lindke sued Freed in federal court, also claiming his First Amendment rights were violated.

Freed’s account was a public Facebook page that identified him as a “public figure,” included a picture of him wearing his city manager pin and frequently included information about city programs and policies, according to Lindke’s court filing.

A federal judge ruled in favor of Freed in 2021. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last July agreed, finding that Freed had not been acting in his official capacity when he blocked Lindke from Facebook.

The petitioners in both disputes told the Supreme Court that the divergent outcomes in their cases reflected a divide among lower courts that the justices should resolve. 
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A majority of U.S. government personnel who were evacuated from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, will arrive in Washington Monday afternoon, an official who has knowledge of the operation but wishes not to be named told VOA.

Meanwhile, a senior Pentagon official said the United States is looking for options to help other Americans who wish to leave the embattled central African country.

“One of those ways is to potentially make the overland routes out of Sudan potentially more viable,” said Chris Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, during a phone briefing late Saturday. “DOD is at present considering actions that may include: use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to be able to observe routes and detect threats,” he added. 

Washington does not plan to coordinate a large-scale evacuation of private U.S. citizens in Sudan due to volatile security situations and closure of Khartoum’s main airport.  There are believed to be about 16,000 Americans in Sudan, many of them dual nationals and aid workers.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has deployed a team of disaster response experts for Sudan. The team will operate out of Kenya amid deadly fighting in Sudan between rival factions — the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.

“We are in communication with U.S. citizens requesting assistance departing Sudan, and their families in the United States. This is an unfolding situation, and we cannot provide more details for security reasons,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.

The State Department declines to say how many private U.S. citizens may intend to leave Sudan.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the State Department will continue to assist Americans in Sudan in planning for their safety.

Over the weekend, U.S. special operations forces evacuated all American diplomats and their families from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, using helicopters that flew from a base in Djibouti and refueled in Ethiopia. They were not fired on during the evacuation.  

Several diplomats from other countries were also evacuated in the operations.

The White House said U.S. military forces will remain deployed in Djibouti to protect U.S. personnel and others until the security situation in Sudan no longer requires their presence. It said additional forces are prepared to deploy to the region if needed.

On Monday, Blinken holds meetings with Kenya’s top diplomat, Alfred Mutua, with Sudan seen as high on the agenda.

Washington is also in close contact with Sudan’s military and civilian leaders to see if an Eid-al-Fitr cease-fire, which reduced but did not stop the clashes, can be extended to facilitate humanitarian arrangements. Eid-al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

More than 420 people have been killed and more than 3,500 injured in Sudan.

Two-thirds of the hospitals have closed since fighting erupted more than a week ago.

The World Health Organization has urged the warring military factions to halt fighting to allow a humanitarian corridor for health workers, patients, and ambulances.

There needs to have “pathways” so civilians “can get to safer parts of the country,” Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University and a former lawyer for the International Criminal Court, told VOA. 

VOA’s Vero Balderas Iglesias contributed to this story.
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Len Goodman, the urbane, long-serving judge on “Dancing with the Stars” and “Strictly Come Dancing,” has died, his agent said Monday. He was 78. 

Agent Jackie Gill said Goodman “passed away peacefully,” without giving a cause. 

A former dancer and British champion, Goodman was a judge on “Strictly Come Dancing” for 12 years from its launch on the BBC in 2004. The ballroom dancing competition, which pairs celebrities with professional dance partners, has become one of the network’s most popular shows. 

Goodman was head judge on the U.S. version of the show, “Dancing With the Stars,” for 15 years until his retirement in November.  

BBC director-general Tim Davie said Goodman was “a wonderful, warm entertainer who was adored by millions. He appealed to all ages and felt like a member of everyone’s family. Len was at the very heart of ‘Strictly’s success. He will be hugely missed by the public and his many friends and family.” 

Goodman was also a recipient of the Carl Alan Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to dance and owned the Goodman Academy dance school in southern England.  
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A legal dispute in Montana could drastically curb the government’s use of aerial fire retardant to combat wildfires after environmentalists raised concerns about waterways that are being polluted with the potentially toxic red slurry that’s dropped from aircraft.

A coalition that includes Paradise, California — where a 2018 blaze killed 85 people and destroyed the town — said a court ruling against the U.S. Forest Service in the case could put lives, homes and forests at risk.

An advocacy group that’s suing the agency claims officials are flouting a federal clean water law by continuing to use retardant without taking adequate precautions to protect streams and rivers.

The group, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, requested an injunction blocking officials from using aerial retardant until they get a pollution permit.

The dispute comes as wildfires across North America have grown bigger and more destructive over the past two decades because climate change, people moving into fire-prone areas, and overgrown forests are creating more catastrophic megafires that are harder to fight.

Forest Service officials acknowledged in court filings that retardant has been dropped into waterways more than 200 times over the past decade. They said it happens usually by mistake and in less than 1% of the thousands of drops annually, and that environmental damage from fires can exceed the pollution from retardant.

“The only way to prevent accidental discharges of retardant to waters is to prohibit its use entirely,” government attorneys wrote. “Such a prohibition would be tantamount to a complete ban of aerial discharges of retardant.”

Government officials and firefighters say fire retardant can be crucial to slowing the advance of a blaze so firefighters can try to stop it.

“It buys you time,” said Scott Upton, a former region chief and air attack group supervisor for California’s state fire agency. “We live in a populous state — there are people everywhere. It’s a high priority for us to be able to use the retardant, catch fires when they’re small.”

Forest Service officials said they are trying to come into compliance with the law by getting a pollution permit but that could take years.

“The Forest Service says it should be allowed to pollute, business as usual,” said Andy Stahl, who leads the Eugene, Oregon-based group behind the lawsuit. “Our position is that business as usual is illegal.”

A ruling from U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen is expected sometime after the opposing sides present their arguments during a Monday hearing in federal court in Missoula.

Christensen denied a request to intervene in the case by the coalition that includes Paradise, other California communities and trade groups such as the California Forestry Association. The judge is allowing the coalition’s attorney to present brief arguments.

As the 2023 fire season gets underway, California Forestry Association President Matt Dias said the prospect of not having fire retardant available to a federal agency that plays a key role on many blazes was “terrifying.”

“The devastation that could occur as a result of the Forest Service losing that tool could be just horrific,” Dias said.

More than 100 million gallons (378 million liters) of fire retardant were used during the past decade, according to the Department of Agriculture. It’s made up of water and other ingredients including fertilizers or salts that can be harmful to fish, frogs, crustaceans and other aquatic animals.

A government study found misapplied retardant could adversely affect dozens of imperiled species, including crawfish, spotted owls and fish such as shiners and suckers.

Health risks to firefighters or other people who come into contact with fire retardant are considered low, according to a 2021 risk assessment commissioned by the Forest Service.

To keep streams from getting polluted, officials in recent years have avoided drops inside buffer zones within 300 feet (92 meters) of waterways.

Under a 2011 government decision, fire retardant may only be applied inside the zones, known as “avoidance areas,” when human life or public safety is threatened and retardant could help. Of 213 instances of fire retardant landing in water between 2012 and 2019, 190 were accidents, officials said.

The remaining 23 drops were necessary to save lives or property, they said.

Stahl’s organization suggested in court filings that the buffer zones be increased, to 600 feet (182 meters) around lakes and streams.

In January — three months after the lawsuit was filed — the Forest Service asked the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a permit allowing the service to drop retardant into water under certain conditions. The process is expected to take more than two years.

Forest Service spokesperson Wade Muehlhof declined to comment on the case.
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Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment.

The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by barge or airplane, making the cost of even basic goods exorbitant. Around 13% of the state’s roughly 735,000 residents received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — or SNAP — in July, before the troubles began.

“People are struggling and having to make choices of getting food or getting heating fuel,” said Daisy Lockwood Katcheak, city administrator in Stebbins, an Alaska Native village of 634 people, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage.

Faced with food shortages and rampant inflation, the city recently used $38,000 in funds raised for a children’s spring carnival to buy residents basic supplies. The community on Alaska’s western coast is also reeling from the remnants of a typhoon that destroyed a critical stockpile of fish and fishing boats at the same time problems with the food stamp program were emerging.

“My people are suffering first hand,” said Katcheak.

Alaska lawmakers have responded to the state’s sluggish response, as lawsuits have alleged failures in the state’s administration of the food stamps and a program that provides aid to low-income Alaskans who are blind, elderly or have disabilities.

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy authorized $1.7 million to provide relief to communities in a state that is almost 2 1/2 times the size of Texas. Lawmakers approved emergency funding to hire staff to handle the crush of cases as food banks have reported the highest level of demand they have seen.

“We know a lot of people that are not eating multiple meals a day; they’ve drawn down to maybe a single meal,” said Anthony Reinert, director of programs at the Food Bank of Alaska. There has always “been a baseline of hunger in Alaska. But it’s spread and expanded pretty significantly in the last six months.”

The hunger crisis in Alaska stems from a perfect storm of cascading events, compounded by staffing and technology issues within the state health department.

During the pandemic, the regular renewal process for SNAP benefits — a federal program administered by states — was suspended. Problems emerged after the state ended its public health emergency last July and recertification requirements for SNAP were reinstituted, resulting in a flood of applications.

A cyberattack that targeted the state health department in 2021 complicated Alaska’s ability to process the applications, said Heidi Hedberg, who was appointed health commissioner late last year. Employees who were supposed to upgrade key department computer systems were pulled away to address the attack, leaving the upgrade work undone. But 100 positions that were set to be eliminated due to anticipated efficiencies with the upgrade nonetheless were still cut, Hedberg said.

In January, the backlog of applicants seeking to renew food assistance benefits had reached a high of 9,104. Officials hope to clear the recertification backlog this month and turn their attention to thousands of new applications, according to the department.

“This is not how SNAP systems are supposed to work, period,” said Nick Feronti, an attorney representing Alaskans who are suing over delays and other concerns with the food stamp program.

Stephanie Duboc is still waiting for assistance after submitting her application in December. She volunteers at the Chugiak-Eagle River Food Pantry in suburban Anchorage and said the food she receives from the pantry is essential.

“It would be a huge impact on my family financially,” without that help, she said.

Among those suing is Rose Carney, 68, who receives $172 a month in assistance.

Carney said she received a letter in September saying her benefits had been renewed — but a month later, got another letter saying her application was due the next day. She filled it out but didn’t start receiving benefits until last month after contacting a lawyer, she said. Meanwhile, she added water to stretch bean soup and visited a church food pantry to get by.

“I was really upset because that was like income that I was depending on, even though it was just food stamps,” said Carney.

Feronti, her attorney, has 10 clients seeking class-action status, but the case has been on hold as the parties work toward a possible resolution that could compel long-term changes.

The National Center for Law and Economic Justice, also involved in the case, has filed a similar lawsuit in Missouri, but Alaska’s situation is “in the extreme,” said Saima Akhtar, an attorney with the center.

The $1.7 million allocated by Dunleavy in February was for the food banks to address urgent needs, including the bulk purchases of goods and distribution of cash cards so people in rural communities can buy groceries on their own and support local stores.

Reinert, with the food bank, said about $800,000 was used to buy staples like oatmeal, pasta, beans, canned fruit and shelf-stable cheese at cheaper prices in Washington state. The goods were then shipped to Alaska for distribution.

Those supplies are beginning to reach the most needy communities, where the cost of groceries in the store are astronomically high due to the logistics of getting them there.

In Bethel, a hub community in southwest Alaska, the Bethel Community Services Foundation provides food to about 350 households a month — nearly six times as many as before the pandemic. Milk at the store costs about $12.50 a gallon, while a 20-pound bag of rice is $62.49 and a 40-pound bag of a discount brand of dog food is $82.49, said Carey Atchak, the foundation’s food security coordinator.

That’s cheap compared to the Yup’ik village of Kwethluk, a 12-mile (19-kilometer) flight from Bethel, where an 18-pack of eggs can cost almost $17 and a double pack of peanut butter goes for $25.69.

“When the lower 48 experiences these problems, they have workarounds, they have neighbors, they have connections, they have the ability to grow their own food. That’s not even an option up here,” Reinert said, using a term common in Alaska for the contiguous U.S. states.

“And so, we’re very, very dependent and reliant on these systems working to keep the lights on and the traffic moving up here.”
…

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” continued to rack up coins at the box office, leading ticket sales for the third straight weekend, as the animation hit neared $1 billion after just 18 days in theaters.

The weekend’s top new release, the horror reboot “Evil Dead Rise” debuted solidly, launching with $23.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. But that was no match for Universal Pictures’ “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which grossed $58.2 million in its third weekend.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is setting a torrid pace for an animated movie. This week, it became the highest-grossing animated released of the pandemic era, with domestic ticket sales up to $434.3 million through Sunday and its global tally at $871.1 million. When “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” soon passes $1 billion worldwide, it will be just the fourth film of the pandemic era to reach that benchmark, following “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Top Gun Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”

“Evil Dead Rise,” From Warner Bros. and New Line, is the fifth installment (and first in a decade) in the thriller franchise that Sam Raimi began with this 1981 ultra-low-budget classic, “Evil Dead.” Though Raimi’s subsequent and much-adored films starring Bruce Campbell grew increasingly slapstick, marrying comedy and horror, the 2013 reboot and “Evil Dead Rise” (with Raimi as an executive producer) rely on chillier frights.

“Evil Dead Rise,” which had a reported budget of $17 million, also had originally been planned as an HBO Max release. When Warner Bros. decided direct-to-streaming films weren’t financially appealing, it pushed some films – including “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” and “House Party” – to theaters, and simply canned a few others including “Batgirl” and “Scoob! Holiday Haunt.”

Amazon Studios’ “Air,” likewise initially was intended to go straight to streaming, has also continued to perform well theatrically. The Ben Affleck-directed film, about Nike’s courting of Michael Jordan, dipped a modest 29% in its third weekend with $5.5 million to bring its cumulative total to $41.3 million.

But while horror remains one of the most dependable genres at the box office, and families — after a long dry spell of all-audience releases — have flocked to “Super Mario,” some adult-oriented releases have continued to have a harder time attracting audiences.

Guy Ritchie’s “The Covenant,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal as an injured army sergeant in Afghanistan, opened with $6.3 million in 2,611 theaters. But with mostly good reviews (81% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and an “A” CinemaScore from ticket buyers, the MGM release may hold well in coming weeks.

Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid,” the most expensive movie ever made by specialty studio A24, expanded until near-wide release, going from four theaters to 926. Aster’s three-hour opus, received with more mixed reviews than his previous two films (“Hereditary,” “Midsommar”), took in $2.7 million.

Searchlight’s “Chevalier,” starring Kelvin Harrison as the 18th century French composer and violinist Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, also failed to make a dent. It took in $1.5 million in 1,275 theaters.

But with overall business in movie theaters largely thriving thanks to spring hits like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “John Wick: Chapter 4” ($168.9 million domestically in five weeks of release), the theatrical industry will have much to celebrate when it convenes Monday in Las Vegas for the annual CinemaCon. Studios, beginning with Sony Pictures on Monday, will hype their summer blockbusters as Hollywood looks to return to pre-pandemic box-office levels.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Super Mario Bros,” $58.2 million.

2. “Evil Dead Rise,” $23.5 million.

3. “The Covenant,” $6.3 million.

4. “John Wick: Chapter 4,” $5.8 million.

5. “Air,” $5.5 million.

6. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” $5.4 million.

7. “The Pope’s Exorcist,” $3.3 million.

8. “Renfield,” $3.1 million.

9. “Beau Is Afraid,” $2.7 million.

10. “Suzume,” $1.6 million.
    …

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has deployed a team of disaster response experts for Sudan in the region to coordinate the humanitarian response as fighting rocks the country, USAID head Samantha Power said on Sunday.

In a statement, Power said the Disaster Assistance Response Team will operate out of Kenya for the initial phase, adding that the experts are working with the international community and partners to identify priority needs and safely deliver humanitarian assistance.

“The United States is mobilizing to ramp up assistance to the people of Sudan ensnared between the warring factions,” Power said.

The eruption of fighting eight days ago between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has triggered a humanitarian crisis, killed hundreds of people and trapped millions of Sudanese without access to basic services.

Sudan’s sudden collapse into warfare has dashed plans to restore civilian rule, brought an already impoverished country to the brink of humanitarian disaster, and threatened a wider conflict that could draw in outside powers.

“Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan has claimed hundreds of lives, injured thousands, and yet again dashed the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people. Civilians trapped in their homes cannot access desperately needed medicines, and face the prospect of protracted power, water, and food shortages,” Power said.

“All of this suffering compounds an already dire situation – one-third of Sudan’s population, nearly 16 million people, already needed humanitarian assistance to meet basic human needs before this outbreak of violence.”

Power reiterated calls on Sunday for the parties to abide by the cease-fire for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, end the fighting, and comply with international humanitarian law, including by enabling safe and unhindered access for humanitarian and medical workers.

The United States on Saturday evacuated U.S. government personnel from its embassy in Khartoum and temporarily suspended operations at the embassy due to security risks.
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An organ transplant surgeon from New York is planning a third trip to Ukraine, where he has been working with doctors to help patients caught up in Russia’s war on Ukraine. The surgeon, Dr. Robert Montgomery, is also working to raise money to buy medical equipment for a hospital in Lviv. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Pavlo Terekhov.
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U.S. lawmakers have been reacting after the Supreme Court on Friday preserved women’s access to a pill long used for medically induced abortions while a lawsuit on the matter continues. The move blocked a lower court ruling that would have imposed restrictions on the use of the drug mifepristone. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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The Biden administration announced more than $80 million in funding Thursday in a push to produce more solar panels in the U.S., make solar energy available to more people, and pursue superior alternatives to the ubiquitous sparkly panels made with silicon.

The initiative, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and known as Community solar, encompasses a variety of arrangements where renters and people who don’t control their rooftops can still get their electricity from solar power. Two weeks ago, Vice President Kamala Harris announced what the administration said was the largest community solar effort ever in the United States.

Now it is set to spend $52 million on 19 solar projects across a dozen states, including $10 million from the infrastructure law, as well as $30 million on technologies that will help integrate solar electricity into the grid.

The DOE also selected 25 teams to participate in a $10 million competition designed to fast-track the efforts of solar developers working on community solar projects.

The Inflation Reduction Act already offers incentives to build large solar generation projects, such as renewable energy tax credits. But Ali Zaidi, White House national climate adviser, said the new money focuses on meeting the nation’s climate goals in a way that benefits more communities.

“It’s lifting up our workers and our communities. And that’s, I think, what really excites us about this work,” Zaidi said. “It’s a chance not just to tackle the climate crisis, but to bring economic opportunity to every zip code of America.”

The investments will help people save on their electricity bills and make the electricity grid more reliable, secure, and resilient in the face of a changing climate, said Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the energy department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

Jones-Albertus said she’s particularly excited about the support for community solar projects, since half of Americans don’t live in a situation where they can buy their own solar and put in on the roof.

Michael Jung, executive director of the ICF Climate Center agreed. “Community solar can help address equity concerns, as most current rooftop solar panels benefit owners of single-family homes,” he said.

In typical community solar projects, households can invest in or subscribe to part of a larger solar array offsite. “What we’re doing here is trying to unlock the community solar market,” Jones-Albertus said.

The U.S. has 5.3 gigawatts of installed community solar capacity currently, according to the latest estimates. The goal is that by 2025, five million households will have access to it — about three times as many as today — saving $1 billion on their electricity bills, according to Jones-Albertus.

The new funding also highlights investment in a next generation of solar technologies, intended to wring more electricity out of the same amount of solar panels. Currently only about 20% of the sun’s energy is converted to electricity in crystalline silicon solar cells, which is what most solar panels are made of. There has long been hope for higher efficiency, and today’s announcement puts some money towards developing two alternatives: perovskite and cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells. Zaidi said this will allow the U.S. to be “the innovation engine that tackles the climate crisis.”

Joshua Rhodes, a scientist at the University of Texas at Austin said the investment in perovskites is good news. They can be produced more cheaply than silicon and are far more tolerant of defects, he said. They can also be built into textured and curved surfaces, which opens up more applications for their use than traditional rigid panels. Most silicon is produced in China and Russia, Rhodes pointed out.

Cadmium telluride solar can be made quickly and at a low cost, but further research is needed to improve how efficient the material is at converting sunlight to electrons.

Cadmium is also toxic and people shouldn’t be exposed to it. Jones-Albertus said that in cadmium telluride solar technology, the compound is encapsulated in glass and additional protective layers.

The new funds will also help recycle solar panels and reuse rare earth elements and materials. “One of the most important ways we can make sure CdTe remains in a safe compound form is ensuring that all solar panels made in the U.S. can be reused or recycled at the end of their life cycle,” Jones-Albertus explained.

Recycling solar panels also reduces the need for mining, which damages landscapes and uses a lot of energy, in part to operate the heavy machinery. Eight of the projects in Thursday’s announcement focus on improving solar panel recycling, for a total of about $10 million.

Clean energy is a fit for every state in the country, the administration said. One solar project in Shungnak, Alaska, was able to eliminate the need to keep making electricity by burning diesel fuel, a method sometimes used in remote communities that is not healthy for people and contributes to climate change.

“Alaska is not a place that folks often think of when they think about solar, but this energy can be an economic and affordable resource in all parts of the country,” said Jones-Albertus.
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It’s April 22, 2027, and 72 hours into a first-strike Chinese attack on Taiwan and the U.S. military response. Already, the toll on all sides is staggering.

It was a war game, but one with a serious purpose and high-profile players: members of the House select committee on China. The conflict unfolded on Risk board game-style tabletop maps and markers under a giant gold chandelier in the House Ways and Means Committee room.

The exercise explored American diplomatic, economic and military options if the United States and China were to reach the brink of war over Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own. The exercise played out one night last week and was observed by The Associated Press. It was part of the committee’s in-depth review of U.S. policies toward China as lawmakers, especially in the Republican-led House, focus on tensions with President Xi Jinping’s government.

In the war game, Beijing’s missiles and rockets cascade down on Taiwan and on U.S. forces as far away as Japan and Guam. Initial casualties include hundreds, possibly thousands, of U.S. troops. Taiwan’s and China’s losses are even higher.

Discouragingly for Washington, alarmed and alienated allies in the war game leave Americans to fight almost entirely alone in support of Taiwan.

And forget about a U.S. hotline call to Xi or one of his top generals to calm things down — not happening, at least not under this role-playing scenario.

The war game wasn’t about planning a war, lawmakers said. It was about figuring out how to strengthen U.S. deterrence, to keep a war involving the U.S., China and Taiwan from ever starting.

Ideally, the members of Congress would walk out of the war game with two convictions, the committee chairman, Wisconsin Republican Lawmaker Mike Gallagher, told colleagues at the outset: “One is a sense of urgency.”

The second: “A sense … that there are meaningful things we can do in this Congress through legislative action to improve the prospect of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Gallagher said.

In reality, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the committee’s top Democrat, told lawmakers, “we cannot have a situation where we are faced with what we are going to be facing tonight.”

The “only way to do that is to deter aggression and to prevent a conflict from arising,” said Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.

The U.S. doesn’t formally recognize the Taiwan government but is Taipei’s most vital provider of weapons and other security assistance. Xi has directed his military to be ready to reclaim Taiwan in 2027, by force if necessary.

Asked about lawmakers’ war game, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, said China wants peaceful reunification with Taiwan but reserves “the option of taking all necessary measures.”

“The U.S. side’s so-called ‘war game’ is meant to support and embolden ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and further fuel tensions in the Taiwan Strait, which we firmly oppose,” Liu said.

In the war game, lawmakers played the blue team, in the role of National Security Council advisers. Their directive from their (imaginary) president: Deter a Chinese takeover of Taiwan if possible, defeat it if not.

Experts for the Center for a New American Security think tank, whose research includes war-gaming possible conflicts using realistic scenarios and unclassified information, played the red team.

In the exercise, it all kicks off with opposition lawmakers in Taiwan talking about independence.

With the think tank’s defense program director Stacie Pettyjohn narrating, angry Chinese officials respond by heaping unacceptable demands on Taiwan. Meanwhile, China’s military moves invasion-capable forces into position. Steps such as bringing in blood supplies for treating troops suggest this is no ordinary military exercise.

Ultimately, China imposes a de facto blockade on Taiwan, intolerable for an island that produces more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors, as well as other high-tech gear.

While the U.S. military readies for a possible fight, U.S. presidential advisers — House committee members who are surrounding and studying the wooden tables with the map and troop markers spread out — assemble.

They lob questions at a retired general, Mike Holmes, playing the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, before deciding courses of action.

What are the economic consequences if the U.S. goes maximalist on financial punishments, one lawmaker asks.

“Catastrophic” is the response, for both the United States and China. China will hit back at the U.S. economy as well.

“Who’s going to tell the president that he has to say to the American people, ‘Say goodbye to your iPhones?”‘ Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, asks.

Do American leaders have any way to communicate with their Chinese counterparts, lawmakers ask. No, China’s leaders have a history of shunning U.S. hotline calls, and that’s a problem, the exercise leaders tell them.

In the war game, U.S. officials are left trying to pass messages to their Chinese counterparts through China-based American business leaders, whose Dell, Apple, HP and other product operations China all subsequently seizes as one of its first moves in the attack.

Are potential military targets in China “near major metropolitan areas that are going to include millions and millions of people?” asks Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J.

Has Taiwan done all it can to try to calm the situation? All it can and will, lawmakers are told.

“It’s not clear to me we’ve exhausted all our diplomatic options,” Gallagher notes.

Then, on paper, U.S. and Chinese satellites, space weapons, drones, submarines, ground forces, warships, fighter squadrons, cyber warriors, communications experts, bankers, Treasury officials and diplomats all go to war.

At the end, before the lessons-learned part, the war-game operators reveal the toll of the first wave of fighting. Lawmakers study the tabletop map, wincing as they hear of particularly hard setbacks among U.S. successes.

U.S. stockpiles of very long-range missiles? Gone.

Global financial markets? Shaking.U.S. allies? As it turns out, China’s diplomats did their advance work to keep American allies on the sidelines. And anyway, it seems the all-out U.S. economic measures against China’s economy have put allies off. They’re sitting this one out.

In the “hot-wash” debrief at the end, lawmakers point to a few key military weaknesses that the war game highlighted.

“Running out of long-missiles is bad,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.

But the most glaring shortfalls appeared in diplomacy and in nonmilitary planning.

Becca Wasser, a think tank senior fellow who role-played a convincingly menacing Chinese official, pointed to lawmakers’ recurring frustration in the war game at the lack of direct, immediate leader-to-leader crisis communication. It’s something Beijing and Washington in the real world have never managed to consistently make happen.

“In peacetime, we should have those lines of communication,” Wasser said.

The exercise also underscored the risks of neglecting to put together a package of well-thought-out economic penalties, and of failing to build consensus among allies, lawmakers said.

“As we get closer to 2027, they’re going to be trying to isolate us,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said of Xi’s government.

Holmes, in the role of Joint Chiefs chairman, reassured lawmakers, after the first three days of fighting.

“We survived,” he said.
…

The United States is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year.

Eighty-eight people have died in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms. Only 2009 was marked by as many such tragedies in the same period of time.

Children at a Tennessee grade school, gunned down on an ordinary Monday. Farmworkers in Northern California, sprayed with bullets over a workplace grudge. Dancers at a ballroom outside Los Angeles, California, massacred as they celebrated the Lunar New Year.

In just the last week, four partygoers were slain and 32 injured in Dadeville, Alabama, when bullets rained down on a Sweet 16 celebration. And a man just released from prison fatally shot four people, including his parents, in Bowdoin, Maine, before opening fire on motorists traveling a busy interstate highway.

“Nobody should be shocked,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was one of 17 people killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018. “I visit my daughter in a cemetery. Outrage doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”

The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

More than 2,842 killed 

The Parkland victims are among the 2,842 people who have died in mass killings in the U.S. since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. It counts killings involving four or more fatalities, not including the perpetrator, the same standard as the FBI, and tracks a number of variables for each.

The bloodshed represents a small fraction of the fatal violence that occurs in the U.S. annually. Yet mass killings are happening with staggering frequency this year: an average of once every 6.53 days, according to an analysis of The AP/USA Today data.

The 2023 numbers stand out even more when they are compared to the tally for full-year totals since data was collected. The U.S. recorded 30 or fewer mass killings in more than half of the years in the database, so to be at 17 less than a third of the way through is remarkable.

Motives range

From coast to coast, the violence is sparked by a range of motives. Murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas. All have taken the lives of four or more people at once since January 1.

Yet the violence continues and barriers to change remain. The likelihood of Congress reinstating a ban on semi-automatic rifles appears far off, and the U.S. Supreme Court last year set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws, calling into question firearms restrictions across the country.

The pace of mass shootings so far this year doesn’t necessarily foretell a new annual record. In 2009, the bloodshed slowed, and the year finished with a final count of 32 mass killings and 172 fatalities. Those figures just barely exceed the averages of 31.1 mass killings and 162 victims a year, according to an analysis of data dating back to 2006.

Gruesome records have been set within the last decade. The data shows a high of 45 mass killings in 2019 and 230 people slain in such tragedies in 2017. That year, 60 people died when a gunman opened fire over an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. The massacre still accounts for the most fatalities from a mass shooting in modern America.

“Here’s the reality: If somebody is determined to commit mass violence, they’re going to,” said Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. “And it’s our role as society to try and put up obstacles and barriers to make that more difficult.”

But there’s little indication at either the state or federal level — with a handful of exceptions — that many major policy changes are on the horizon.

Some states have tried to impose more gun control within their own borders. Last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new law mandating criminal background checks to purchase rifles and shotguns, whereas the state previously required them only for people buying pistols. And on Wednesday, a ban on dozens of types of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk.

Other states are experiencing a new round of pressure. In conservative Tennessee, protesters descended on the state Capitol to demand more gun regulation after six people were killed at the Nashville private elementary school last month.

At the federal level, President Joe Biden last year signed a milestone gun violence bill, toughening background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keeping firearms from more domestic violence offenders, and helping states use red flag laws that enable police to ask courts to take guns from people who show signs they could turn violent.

Despite the blaring headlines, mass killings are statistically rare, perpetrated by just a handful of people each year in a country of nearly 335 million. And there’s no way to predict whether this year’s events will continue at this rate.

Sometimes mass killings happen back-to-back — like in January, when deadly events in California occurred just two days apart — while other months pass without bloodshed.

“We shouldn’t necessarily expect that this — one mass killing every less than seven days — will continue,” said Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, who oversees the database. “Hopefully it won’t.”

Still, experts and advocates decry the proliferation of guns in the U.S. in recent years, including record sales during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The U.S. State Department told VOA it is “aware of reports that a number of U.S. citizens were able to depart Sudan” on Saturday, despite heavy clashes in Khartoum. Hours earlier, Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah Burhan said his troops would facilitate the evacuation of diplomats and citizens from Britain, China, France and the U.S. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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The mystery of one of the world’s worst international maritime disasters has been solved off the coast of the Philippines. The wreck of the Montevideo Maru – a Japanese transport ship sunk 80 years ago by an American submarine during World War II – has finally been found. 

The Montevideo Maru was carrying 850 prisoners of war and about 200 civilians who had been captured by the Japanese in Papua New Guinea in 1942. Unaware of who was onboard, the ship was torpedoed by the USS Sturgeon, an American submarine.

Its sinking was initially heralded as a success by Allied forces before the identity of most of those onboard was finally revealed.

The vessel’s location has until now been an enduring mystery.

The wreck was found earlier this week in the South China Sea off the Philippines. The mission was a combined effort of the Australian Defense Department, marine archaeologists from Australia’s Silentworld Foundation, and experts from the Dutch deep-sea survey company Fugro.

The search began earlier this month off the coast of the Philippines. Within two weeks, a positive sighting of the Montevideo Maru was made before the identity of the vessel was officially verified. It was the culmination of years of research and preparation by the search team.

Almost 1,000 Australians died in the disaster, the worst in the nation’s maritime history.

Cathy Parry McLennan’s grandfather Arthur Perry was on the Montevideo Maru when it sank.

She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Saturday that she now has closure.

“I burst into tears, and I have been a bit emotional all day, I’m sorry,” she said. “I think it is growing up as a child with my father who really never knew his dad and talked about him a lot and talked about being in New Guinea and what happened, and, so, it has all come to fruition and I think it is a lovely day because at least we know where grandfather is now and I feel closer to him.”

The wreck was discovered on a mission put together by the Silentworld Foundation, which is dedicated to maritime archaeology and history and Fugro with support from Australia’s Department of Defense.

The tragedy affected more than a dozen countries. There were victims from Denmark, New Zealand and the United States as well as Japan.

No items or human remains will be removed from the Montevideo Maru.
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