The release of Paul Rusesabagina from a Rwandan prison late Friday was the result of months of negotiations between Washington and Kigali, with both eager to draw a line under what they described as an “irritant” to their relationship.

Two U.S. officials — one from President Joe Biden’s administration and a Congressional aide — said no concrete concessions were made to secure the release of Rusesabagina, a U.S. permanent resident made famous by the 2004 film ‘Hotel Rwanda,’ about his role saving Tutsis during the 1994 genocide.

He was detained in 2019 and subsequently convicted on eight terrorism charges stemming from his leadership role in the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), whose armed wing, the National Liberation Front (FLN), has attacked Rwanda.

His detention strained relations between the two countries. The U.S. has said Rusesabagina was unlawfully detained, while Rwanda has bristled at the criticism, saying it would not be intimidated.

The U.S. allocated more than $147 million in foreign assistance to Rwanda in 2021, making it Rwanda’s largest bilateral donor.

“The U.S. government made clear to the… Rwandans that this would remain a bilateral irritant until we could reach a mutually satisfactory resolution,” the Biden administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Yolande Makolo, a spokesperson for the Rwandan government, said the case was “an irritant in both directions.”

“After a few false starts, progress started to be made precisely when the U.S. abandoned the ‘pressure’ and threats approach — and decided to engage with Rwanda on the substance of the matter and its context — political violence by armed groups and the security of Rwandans,” she told Reuters.

When asked how the U.S. had engaged on these issues, Makolo pointed to a statement issued by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken after Rusesabagina’s release, emphasizing that political change in Rwanda should only come through peaceful means.

The U.S. Congressional aide, who also asked not to be named, said the negotiations were advanced by moves from Washington and Rusesabagina himself to acknowledge Rwanda’s point of view.

Particularly helpful, the aide said, was a letter Rusesabagina wrote to Rwandan President Paul Kagame in October, in which he expressed regret at not ensuring that MRCD members refrained from violence. The Rwandan government released it Friday.

Mobilizing the executive

Before the talks gained momentum, a major challenge for the Rusesabagina family and members of Congress advocating for his release was mobilizing the full capacity of the executive branch, the aide said.

As a Belgian citizen of Rwandan origin with U.S. residency, Rusesabagina’s case did not “fit neatly in a box,” the aide said.

Momentum picked up over the past year as the Biden administration decided in May 2022 that Rusesabagina had been wrongfully detained.

Blinken met Kagame during a visit to Rwanda in August, where U.S. officials said the case was discussed extensively. Another opportunity for discussions came during the U.S.-Africa Summit in Washington in December.

Yet Kigali continued to take a hard line, with Kagame suggesting on the sidelines of the December summit that only an invasion of Rwanda could force Rusesabagina’s release.

The first major public sign of softening came in an interview with the online news outlet, Semafor, less than two weeks ago, when Kagame said there were discussions about “resolving” the case.

Then came the announcement Friday that Rusesabagina’s sentence had been commuted. He was moved hours later from Nyarugenge Prison to the embassy of Qatar.

He will remain in Rwanda for a couple of days before traveling to Doha and then to the United States, U.S. officials said.
…

The bodies of two people were found Friday on a freight train in Texas after someone telephoned officials to let them know that there were people on board who were in distress.

It was not immediately clear who made the phone call.

Officials discovered the bodies and 13 people inside a shipping container when they stopped the train in Uvalde County, Texas, near the town of Knippa. At least five of the people were in critical condition.

All the people, many of them dehydrated, were thought to be migrants.

An investigation is underway.

 
…

Years ago, skateboarding was branded as a hobby for rebels or stoners in city streets, schoolyards and back alleys. Those days are long gone.

Skateboarding, which has Native Hawaiian roots connected to surfing, no longer is on the fringes. It became an Olympic sport in 2020. There are numerous amateur and professional skateboarding competitions in the U.S. And on Friday, the U.S. Postal Service issued stamps that laud the sport — and what Indigenous groups have brought to the skating culture.

Di’Orr Greenwood, 27, an artist born and raised on the Navajo Nation in Arizona whose work is featured on the new stamps, says it’s a long way from when she was a kid and people always kicked her out of certain spots just for skating.

“Now it’s like being accepted on a global scale,” Greenwood said. “There’s so many skateboarders I know that are extremely proud of it.”

The postal agency debuted the “Art of the Skateboard” stamps at a Phoenix skate park. The stamps feature skateboard artists from around the country, including Greenwood and Crystal Worl, who is Tlingit Athabascan. William James Taylor Jr., an artist from Virginia, and Federico “MasPaz” Frum, a Colombian-born muralist in Washington, D.C., round out the quartet of featured artists.

The stamps underscore the prevalence of skateboarding, especially in Indian Country where the demand for skate parks is growing.

The artists see the stamp as a small canvas, a functional art piece that will be seen across the U.S. and beyond.

“Maybe I’ll get a letter in the mail that someone sent me with my stamp on it,” said Worl, 35, who lives in Juneau, Alaska. “I think that’s when it will really hit home with the excitement of that.”

Antonio Alcalá, USPS art director, led the search for artists to paint skate decks for the project. After settling on a final design, each artist received a skateboard from Alcalá to work on. He then photographed the maple skate decks and incorporated them into an illustration of a young person holding up a skateboard for display. The person is seen in muted colors to draw attention to the skate deck.

Alcalá used social media to seek out artists who, besides being talented, were knowledgeable about skateboarding culture. Worl was already on his radar because her brother, Rico, designed the Raven Story stamp in 2021, which honored a central figure in Indigenous stories along the coast in the Pacific Northwest.

The Worl siblings run an online shop called Trickster Company with fashions, home goods and other merchandise with Indigenous and modern twists. For her skate deck, Crystal Worl paid homage to her clan and her love of the water with a Sockeye salmon against a blue and indigo background.

She was careful about choosing what to highlight.

“There are certain designs, patterns and stories that belong to certain clans and you have to have permission even as an Indigenous person to share certain stories or designs,” Worl said.

The only times Navajo culture has been featured in stamps is with rugs or necklaces. Greenwood, who tried out for the U.S. Women’s Olympic skateboarding team, knew immediately she wanted to incorporate her heritage in a modern way. Her nods to the Navajo culture include a turquoise inlay and a depiction of eagle feathers, which are used to give blessings.

“I was born and raised with my great-grandmother, who looked at a stamp kind of like how a young kid would look at an iPhone 13,” Greenwood said. “She entrusted every important news and every important document and everything to a stamp to send it and trust that it got there.”

Skateboarding has become a staple across Indian Country. A skate park opened in August on the Hopi reservation. Skateboarders on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona recently got funding for one from pro skateboarder Tony Hawk’s nonprofit, The Skatepark Project. Youth-organized competitions take place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Dustinn Craig, a White Mountain Apache filmmaker and “lifer” skateboarder in Arizona, has made documentaries and short films on the sport. The 47-year-old remembers how skateboarding was seen as dorky and anti-establishment when he was a kid hiding “a useless wooden toy” in his locker. At the same time, Craig credits skateboarding culture as “my arts and humanities education.”

So he is wary of the mainstream’s embrace, as well as the sometimes clique-ish nature, of today’s skateboarding world.

“For those of us who have been in it for a very long time, it’s kind of insulting because I think a lot of the popularity has been due to the proliferation of access to the visuals of the youth culture skateboarding through the internet and social media,” Craig said. “So, I feel like it really sort of trivializes and sort of robs Native youth of authenticity of the older skateboard culture that I was raised on.”

He acknowledges that he may come off as the “grumpy old man” to younger Indigenous skateboarders who are open to collaborating with outsiders.

The four skateboards designed by the artists will eventually be transferred to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, said Jonathan Castillo, USPS spokesperson.

The stamps, which will have a printing of 18 million, are available at post offices and on the USPS website. For the artists, being part of a project that feels low-tech in this age of social media is exciting.

“It’s like the physical thing is special because you go out of your way to go to the post office, buy the stamps and write something,” Worl said.
…

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.

Biden, Trudeau Work to Stop Unofficial Border Crossings, Officials Say 

The United States and Canada reached a deal aimed at stopping asylum-seekers from crossing the shared land border via unofficial crossings, though details still need to be ironed out when the two sides meet, a Canadian government source and a U.S. official told Reuters Thursday. 

Media Groups Warn Immigration Case Could Affect US Press Freedoms

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear a case Monday that some First Amendment experts warn could affect how journalists cover immigration. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros reports.

US Flies Migrants Caught at Canada Border to Texas in Deterrence Effort

U.S. authorities have been flying migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Canada border to Texas as part of a deterrence effort to tackle a rise in crossings, according to authorities, flight records, and a Reuters witness.

VOA Day in Photo 

Migrants, transferred from Plattsburgh, New York, to El Paso, Texas, disembark from a plane at the airport, in El Paso, Texas, March 21, 2023.

Immigration around the world

Rohingya Skeptical of Myanmar Refugee Return Offer 

Rohingya refugees said Wednesday they doubted Myanmar was offering a genuine return to their homeland, as a spokesperson for the country’s military junta said it would begin welcoming back members of the persecuted minority as soon as next month. Story by Agence France-Presse.

Ukrainian Refugees in Israel Stuck in Legal Limbo

While Europe and the U.S. have welcomed large numbers of Ukrainian refugees, many in Israel are living in legal limbo without official refugee status. Linda Gradstein reports from the Israeli port city of Haifa, where a group is offering the refugees help. VOA footage by Ricki Rosen.

UK to Send Migrants to Rwanda Soon if Courts Agree

Britain’s government said Sunday that it could start deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda in the next few months — but only if UK courts rule that the controversial policy is legal. Story by the Associated Press.

News brief

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that certain flexibilities it first announced in March 2020, to address the COVID-19 pandemic will end March 23, 2023. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States would respond “forcefully” to protect Americans after the U.S. military said it carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria in response to a suspected Iranian-backed attack.

Speaking during a state visit to Canada on Friday, Biden said the United States “does not seek conflict with Iran but is prepared to act forcefully to protect our people.”

“That’s exactly what happened last night,” he added.

The U.S. military said it carried out multiple “precision” airstrikes overnight Thursday against targets in eastern Syria in response to a drone attack that killed a U.S. contractor.

Defense Department spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that the operation was intended “to send a very clear message that we will take the protection of our personnel seriously, and that we will respond quickly and decisively if they are threatened.”

He described the strikes as “proportionate and deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation to minimize casualties.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the war in Syria, said 14 people were killed by the U.S. strikes in Syria.

On Friday, U.S. officials said multiple drones were launched at the Green Village in northeast Syria, where U.S. troops are also based. Officials said there were no injuries in those attacks.

In a statement, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described the strikes as mounted against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

“The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC,” Austin said.

“No group will strike our troops with impunity,” he added.

The drone struck a maintenance facility on a base in Hasaka, Syria, at 1:38 p.m. local time, according to the Pentagon.

Six other Americans were wounded in the attack, including five U.S. service members. Two of the wounded service members were treated onsite, while three others and the U.S. contractor were medically evacuated to coalition medical facilities in Iraq, according to the U.S. military statement.

The United States has about 900 troops in eastern Syria to help Syrian Kurdish forces prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State terror group.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, the top U.S. military officer, and the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, warned lawmakers in separate hearings Thursday that Iran continues to destabilize the Middle East through its support to terrorist groups and proxy forces.

Iranian proxies have attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria 78 times using drones and rockets since January 2021, according to CENTCOM commander Gen. Erik Kurilla.

“This was another in a series of attacks on our troops and partner forces,” Kurilla said late Thursday.

“We will always take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” he added.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
…

The Los Angeles Unified School District and union leaders said Friday that they had reached a deal on pay raises for bus drivers, custodians and other support staff after a three-day strike that shut down the nation’s second-largest school system.

The deal includes a series of retroactive raises going back to 2021 that will collectively hike worker pay by about 30%, said Max Arias, executive director of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union.

The deal also provides workers with a one-time $1,000 raise, sets the district’s minimum wage at $22.52 and creates a $3 million educational and professional development fund for union members, district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. Free health care will be provided for any employee working at least four hours a day, he said.

“I have no doubt that this contract will be seen as a precedent-setting, historic contract that elevates the dignity, the humanity of our workforce, respects the needs of our students, but also guarantees the fiscal viability of our district for years to come,” Carvalho said.

He announced the deal alongside Max Arias, executive director of Local 99, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Both sides credited Bass, who took office in December, with helping reach the agreement.

The deal must still be voted on by the full union, which represents about 30,000 workers who also include cafeteria workers, special education assistants and other support staff. Those workers walked off the job Tuesday through Thursday amid stalled talks, and classes resumed Friday.

Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing 35,000 educators, counselors and other staff, joined the picket lines in solidarity.

The union said district support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 per year and many live in poverty because of low pay or limited work hours while struggling with inflation and the area’s high cost of housing.

The deal came just days after the union accused the district of engaging in unfair labor practices. Arias noted that another contract must be negotiated next year.

“Thanks to the parents of Los Angeles and the students of Los Angeles and everyone who stood shoulder to shoulder with our members,” he said.

SEIU members have been working without a contract since June 2020, while the contract for teachers expired in June 2022. The unions decided last week to stop accepting extensions.

Teachers waged a six-day strike in 2019 over pay and contract issues, but schools remained open.
…

Chinese American citizen Kai Li, jailed in China on spying charges that he denies, received a rare in-person visit last week from the U.S. ambassador to Beijing and urged the U.S. government to continue to work for his release, Li’s son said Friday. 

Over the past month, U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns met for the first time in more than five years with at least three U.S. citizens who Washington says have been wrongfully detained, a senior U.S. official and family members said. 

Burns met Li on March 16 in a Shanghai prison, Li’s son Harrison said. Li, a businessman, has been held in China since 2016 and was handed a 10-year jail sentence in 2018 for espionage. 

“The biggest message that my dad wanted to convey is to remind everyone in the U.S. government and the public that … he’s 100 percent innocent,” Harrison Li said. “Of course, the U.S. government knows this, but he said it just bears repeating.” 

Burns wanted to shake Li’s hand, but Chinese authorities did not allow that, Harrison Li said. The two could see and hear each other in an hourlong meeting through a floor-to-ceiling glass partition, he said. 

Harrison Li said that when the ambassador asked his father what he hoped to do once he was released, he replied that he wanted to work on “improving relations between the United States and China.” 

China did not allow in-person visits during its prolonged COVID-19 lockdown. 

Burns also met with Mark Swidan, a Texas-based businessman who was convicted by a Chinese court in 2019, and David Lin, an American pastor detained in China since 2006, the senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. 

He did not provide the dates but said Burns visited the men “within the last few weeks” and that “this is the first time he’s actually had a chance to get face to face.” 

Burns accompanied consular officers on the prison visits, a State Department spokesperson said. 

China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Burns visited the three men at a time when relations between Washington and Beijing are the worst in decades following a series of disputes, including Washington’s accusation that China flew a spy balloon over the continental United States in February. A U.S. fighter jet shot it down. China has said the balloon was a civilian research craft, but the dramatic episode forced U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a trip to Beijing. 

Since then, there has been little positive diplomacy between the two countries aside from a brief, tense meeting between Blinken and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on February 18 in Munich. 

And last week Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow where he and Russian President Vladimir Putin jointly denounced the United States. 

The detainee issue often takes a back seat to more urgent issues in the U.S.-China relationship. Families of detained Americans say the freedom of their relatives should not be bundled up with challenging policy issues and are better addressed in a separate track focused on humanitarian matters.
…

A powdery substance was found Friday with a threatening letter in a mailroom at the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the latest security scare as the prosecutor weighs a potential historic indictment of former President Donald Trump, authorities said.

New York City police and environmental protection officials isolated and removed the suspicious letter, and testing “determined there was no dangerous substance,” Bragg spokesperson Danielle Filson said. The substance was sent to a lab for further testing, police said.

“Alvin, I am going to kill you,” the letter said, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation and did so on the condition of anonymity.

The discovery, in the same building where a grand jury is expected to resume work Monday, came amid increasingly hostile rhetoric from Trump, who is holding the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign Saturday in Waco, Texas.

Hours earlier, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that any criminal charge against him could lead to “potential death & destruction.”

Trump also posted a photo of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg, a Democrat. On Thursday, Trump referred to Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district attorney, as an “animal.”

The building where the letter was found wasn’t evacuated and business mostly went on as usual, with prosecutors coming and going — and bicycle delivery workers dropping off lunch orders. The building houses various government offices, including the city’s marriage bureau.

Security has been heavy around the court buildings and district attorney’s office in recent days as the grand jury investigates hush money paid on Trump’s behalf during his 2016 campaign.

Additional police officers are on patrol, metal barricades have been installed along the sidewalks, and bomb sniffing dogs have been making regular sweeps of the buildings, which have also faced unfounded bomb threats in recent days.

After Trump called on people to protest his possible arrest, Bragg sent a memo telling his staff: “We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.”

The grand jury, convened by Bragg in January, has been investigating Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump years earlier. Trump has denied the claim.
…

In his long career, Scott Cohen of Maryland has worked as a playwright and an artist. But his latest project involves the art of cooking for refugees and migrants. Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Video: Artyom Kokhan
…

Florida’s warm weather attracts millions of visitors, including animals that outstay their welcome. Wildlife brought in from somewhere else has seriously damaged the ecosystem in Florida, home to the most severe invasive animal crisis in the continental United States. VOA’s Dora Mekouar has more from Orlando. Camera: Adam Greenbaum Produced by: Dora Mekouar, Adam Greenbaum
…

Chinese officials have closed down the Beijing offices of U.S. due diligence firm Mintz Group and detained five of its employees.

The employees are all Chinese nationals.

In a statement sent to Reuters, Mintz said it “has not received any official legal notice regarding a case against the company and has requested that the authorities release its employees.”

Mintz Group is a multinational company with 18 offices, including in Washington, that conducts investigations and background checks.

The closing of its Chinese office comes at a tense time in U.S.- Chinese relations. Last month, the United States shot down what it says was a Chinese spy balloon over U.S. territory. China insists the balloon was a weather monitoring device.
…

The U.S. military says it has carried out multiple “precision” airstrikes against targets in eastern Syria in response to a drone attack Thursday that killed a U.S. contractor.

The Pentagon said the contractor was killed Thursday at a coalition base in northeast Syria in a strike by a one-way attack drone that the intelligence community assessed was “of Iranian origin.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement the U.S. retaliated with “proportionate and deliberate” precision strikes Thursday in Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

“The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC,” Austin said.

“No group will strike our troops with impunity,” he added.

The drone struck a maintenance facility on a base in Hasaka, Syria, at 1:38 p.m. local time, according to the Pentagon.

Six other Americans were wounded in the attack, including five U.S. service members. Two of the wounded service members were treated onsite, while three others and the U.S. contractor were medically evacuated to coalition medical facilities in Iraq, according to the U.S. military statement.

The United States has about 900 troops in eastern Syria to help Syrian Kurdish forces prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State terror group.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, the top U.S. military officer, and the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, warned lawmakers in separate hearings Thursday that Iran continues to destabilize the Middle East through its support to terrorist groups and proxy forces.

Iranian proxies have attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria 78 times using drones and rockets since January 2021, according to CENTCOM commander Gen. Erik Kurilla.

“This was another in a series of attacks on our troops and partner forces,” Kurilla said late Thursday.

“We will always take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” he added.
…

Shou Zi Chew, chief executive officer of TikTok, pushed back Thursday against calls from US lawmakers to ban the social media app, contending that the company is not connected to the Chinese Communist Party. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more
…

Iran could make enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in “less than two weeks” and could produce a nuclear weapon in “several more months,” according to the top U.S. military officer.

Speaking to members of Congress on Thursday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told lawmakers the United States “remains committed” to preventing Iran from fielding a nuclear weapon.

“We, the United States military, have developed multiple options for national leadership to consider if or when Iran ever decides to develop an actual nuclear weapon,” Milley added.

Milley’s comments echo those that U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl made last month. Kahl told lawmakers it would take Iran “about 12 days” to make enough fuel for a nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.

The estimate is a drastic change from 2018 when the Trump administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. At that time, it was estimated that Iran would need about a year to produce the weapons-grade fuel needed for one nuclear bomb.

The news comes as both Milley and the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, warned lawmakers in separate hearings Thursday that Iran continues to destabilize the Middle East through its support of terrorist groups and proxy forces.

Since January 2021, Iranian proxies have attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria 78 times using drones and rockets, according to CENTCOM Commander General Erik Kurilla.

China competition driving defense budget

Meanwhile, the looming threat of China in the Pacific is the focus of this year’s proposed defense budget, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told lawmakers Thursday.

“This is a strategy-driven budget and one driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China,” Austin said, adding that the proposed budget includes a record $9.1 billion to build a stronger force presence in the Pacific, improve defenses of Guam and Hawaii, and allow more cooperation with Pacific allies and partners.

The so-called Pacific Deterrence Initiative includes procuring two Virginia-class fast-attack submarines and one of the new Columbia-class submarines set to replace the soon-to-be-decommissioned Ohio-class submarines.

Milley said Thursday that the U.S. submarine force “is incredibly capable, and very deadly and extremely lethal” and would make a “huge difference” in deterring any kind of aggression by China.

But while China is adding about 20 ships a year to its military fleet, the U.S. budget proposes decommissioning 11 ships while building nine.

The U.S. military has honed its focus on China as the Chinese military has continued its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and its aggressive rhetoric toward the democratic island of Taiwan, vowing to take control of it by force if necessary.

In response, the U.S. has increased the number of military trainers in Taiwan, deploying more than 100 troops to the island, up from roughly 30 one year ago, according to officials. The force deployed is meant to provide Taipei with defensive capabilities without provoking Beijing.

When asked whether a National Guard State Partnership Program for Taiwan would be advisable, practical and possible, Austin replied, “I think it is.”

More than 100 ally and partner nations across the globe have benefited from the State Partnership Program, a Defense Department initiative that will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year. For example, the international training of Ukrainian forces following Russia’s illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014 essentially stemmed from Ukraine’s partnership with the California National Guard.

While National Guard elements are in Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy is not connected with a U.S. state in a State Partnership Program.
…

The New York City prosecutor on Thursday rejected a demand by congressional Republican lawmakers that he hand over documents linked to his investigation of former President Donald Trump’s $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election to buy her silence about an affair she claims to have had with Trump.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg assailed the request earlier this week by three committee chairmen in the House of Representatives as “an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty.” The three lawmakers — Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil — had called Bragg’s investigation of Trump an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”

Bragg’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, told the lawmakers that their letter “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested [Tuesday] and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”

“If a grand jury brings charges against Donald Trump, the DA’s Office will have an obligation, as in every case, to provide a significant amount of discovery from its files to the defendant so that he may prepare a defense,” Dubeck wrote.

The Republican committee chairmen had told Bragg, “You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former president of the United States. This indictment comes after years of your office searching for a basis — any basis — on which to bring charges.”

Lawmakers refer to case as ‘zombie’

On Thursday, Jordan, an Ohio congressman, demanded testimony and documents from Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, two former New York prosecutors who had been leading the Trump case before quitting last year when Bragg appeared to have abandoned the Trump investigation.

“Last year, you resigned from the office over Bragg’s initial reluctance to move forward with charges, shaming Bragg in your resignation letter — which was subsequently leaked — into bringing charges,” Jordan wrote in the letter to Pomerantz. “It now appears that your efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly resurrecting a so-called ‘zombie’ case against President Trump using a tenuous and untested legal theory.”

Trump has not been charged in the case, although the grand jury investigation is continuing.

Bragg has been bringing witnesses before the 23-member grand jury to testify about the payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, hush money to silence her for what she alleges was a one-night affair with Trump in 2006 at a hotel where Trump was attending a golf tournament. Trump has long denied the affair.

Probe focuses on payment 

The investigation centers in part on details of the payment made to Daniels and whether the transaction amounts to a criminal offense. If charged, Trump would be the first-ever U.S. president indicted in a criminal case.

Trump’s one-time lawyer and political fixer Michael Cohen wrote her a check out of his personal funds and then was reimbursed by Trump, who recorded it as a business expense for legal fees to Cohen on the ledgers of the Trump Organization, his real estate business, rather than recorded as a campaign expense related to his successful 2016 run for the presidency.

Cohen served more than a year in prison for his role in the payment and other offenses. He since has turned into a sharp Trump critic and grand jury witness against him.

Trump announced his intention to seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination months ago and says he would keep campaigning even if he is charged with a criminal offense. Numerous national polls show him as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, although several other Republicans have either announced their own candidacies or said they are seriously considering a race against Trump.

Trump had regularly lambasted the New York investigation as a political witch-hunt and called Bragg, who is Black, a “racist.”

Trump was impeached twice during his presidency, once in 2019 over his conduct demanding Ukraine investigate then candidate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and again in 2021 over the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

The U.S. National Weather Service reports a rare tornado touched down Wednesday in a suburb of the city of Los Angeles, California, injuring one person and damaging commercial buildings. 

In a report late Wednesday, the NWS said it was the strongest tornado to hit the area since 1983 and just the 46th tornado reported in Los Angeles County since 1950. 

The weather service says the tornado touched down late in the morning, Los Angeles time, Wednesday in an industrial park and warehouse district in the suburban city of Montebello. The report says the tornado damaged 17 structures, mostly their roofs. 

The NWS said the roof of one building almost totally collapsed and the air conditioning unit was torn off. Other buildings saw their skylights broken.

A Montebello city spokesman told The Associated Press one person was taken to a local hospital with unspecified injuries.

Long before the weather service confirmed the tornado, residents posted videos on social media of a funnel cloud forming and stretching toward the ground and debris swirling beneath it.

The NWS said the storm was rated an EF1 tornado on the 0-to-5 Enhanced Fujita Scale for tornado intensity, its second-weakest rating. It said it had winds of about 177 kilometers per hour.

As rare as Wednesday’s tornado was, the weather service says it was the second tornado to hit the area this week. The agency says a weak tornado with winds of about 120 kph was confirmed north of Los Angeles in the city of Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County.

The NWS said that tornado likely originated as a waterspout over the ocean and moved on shore.

The U.S. state of California has seen a succession of strong storms in recent months, driven by what are known as atmospheric rivers: long, concentrated regions in the atmosphere that transport moist air from the tropics to higher latitudes. California has seen 12 atmospheric rivers since late December.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters. 
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The decision to launch a series of cyberattacks that crippled Albanian government websites and temporarily shut down government services may be backfiring on the alleged perpetrator.

Albania blamed the attacks in July and September of last year on Iran, claiming the evidence pointing to Tehran was “irrefutable,” and ordered all Iranian officials out of the country.

Now, a U.S. cyber team sent to Albania to help the country recover and “hunt” for more dangers says the efforts have turned up “new data and information about the tools, techniques, and procedures of malicious cyber actors, attempting to disrupt government networks and systems.”

“The hunt forward operation resulted in incredibly valuable insights for both our allied partner and U.S. cyber defenses,” the Cyber National Mission Force’s Major Katrina Cheesman told VOA, adding information was shared not only with the Albanian government but also some private companies with critical roles in the digital infrastructure of both countries.

Officials declined to share additional details, citing operational security, other than to say the networks they examined were of “significance” to Washington.

“These hunts bring us closer to adversary activity to better understand and then defend ourselves,” the commander of U.S. Cyber National Mission Force, Major General William Hartman, said in a statement Thursday, following a visit to Albania.

“When we are invited to hunt on a partner nation’s networks, we are able to find an adversary’s insidious activity,” Hartman said. “We can then impose costs on our adversaries by exposing their tools, tactics and procedures, and improve the cybersecurity posture of our partners and allies.”

Iran has consistently denied responsibility for the cyberattacks against Albania, calling the allegation “baseless.”

Albania’s claims were backed by the United States, which described the Iranian actions in cyberspace as “counter to international norms.”

This past September, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, and the FBI attributed the initial cyberattacks against Albania to Iranian state cyber actors calling themselves “HomeLand Justice.”

The joint advisory warned the group first gained access to Albania’s in May 2021 and maintained access to the Albanian networks for more than a year, stealing information, before launching the initial cyberattack in July 2022.

CISA and the FBI also concluded that Iran likely launched the second cyberattack in September 2022, using similar types of malware, in retaliation for Albania’s decision to attribute the first round of attacks to Tehran.

U.S. officials confirmed they had sent a team of experts to Albania shortly after the attacks, but information released Thursday sheds more light on the scope of the operation.

According to the U.S. officials, the so-called “hunt forward” team was deployed to Albania last September and worked alongside Albanian officials before returning home in late December.

Prior to the mission in Albania, other U.S. “hunt forward” teams had been deployed 43 times to 21 countries, including to Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Montenegro and Croatia.

Albanian officials have indicated they hope to continue working with U.S. cyber teams to further strengthen Albania’s cyber defenses.

“The cooperation with U.S. Cyber Command was very effective,” said Mirlinda Karcanaj, the general director of Albania’s National Agency for Information Society, in a statement released by the U.S. 

“We hope that this cooperation will continue,” she added.
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Reported incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment targeting Jews in the United States rose to new “historic levels” last year, the Anti-Defamation League said on Thursday.

In its annual “Audit of Antisemitic Incidents,” the Jewish civil rights organization said it documented 3,697 such incidents in 2022, up 36% from 2021, and the highest level since the group started keeping records in 1979.

This was the third time in the past five years during which antisemitic incidents have set a record high, the ADL said.

The dramatic increase, the ADL said, was part of a five-year climb that has seen a doubling of antisemitic incidents since 2018, when a white supremacist killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest attack on the American Jewish community in U.S. history.

ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt said while no single element accounted for last year’s surge in antisemitism, a number of contributing factors were at play.

Among them: an increase in white supremacist propaganda activity, attacks on Orthodox Jews, a spike in bomb threats made to Jewish institutions and significant increases of anti-Jewish incidents in schools and on college campuses.

“This data confirms what Jewish communities across the country have felt and seen firsthand — and corresponds with the rise in antisemitic attitudes,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “From white nationalists to religious fanatics to radical anti-Zionists, Jewish people see a range of very real threats. It’s time to stop the surge of hate once and for all.”

The ADL audit documents three types of anti-Jewish incidents — assault, harassment, and vandalism — and the group said cases in all three categories rose last year.

There were 111 physical assaults directed at Jews, an increase of 26%. The violence targeted 139 victims, most of them visibly Orthodox Jews, and left one person dead. In October, a University of Arizona professor was shot and killed by a former student who believed the professor was Jewish.

Cases of harassment involving victims of antisemitic slurs, stereotypes or conspiracy theories jumped 29% to 2,298 incidents.

Acts of vandalism such as the destruction of property soared 51% to 1,288 incidents, with swastikas present in most cases.

In tracking anti-Jewish actions and statements, the ADL uses a definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a Sweden-based non-profit organization.

According to the IHRA definition, antisemitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

While the definition has been used by the U.S. Department of State, it is contested, with progressive Jewish groups saying that by equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, it stifles free speech. 

The ADL says it doesn’t conflate criticism of the Jewish state or anti-Israeli activism with antisemitism.  

Its audit, however, includes cases where individuals have been harassed for their actual or perceived support of Israel or Zionism. 

The spike in antisemitic incidents came against the backdrop of rising religiously motivated hate crimes, according to Brian Levin, director of the California-based Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

“There has been an increase in recent years, not only in overall hate crime, but religion hate crime as well, and anti-Jewish hate on top of that,” Levin said in an interview.

“What the (ADL) report shows is that the crime data that we compile is really only the tip of the iceberg in how antisemitism is becoming more mainstream.”

According to the FBI’s most recent figures, hate crimes motivated by religious bias rose from 1,297 in 2016 to 1,590 in 2021, an increase of 22%.

In a forthcoming report, the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism says that “religion hate crime” in major U.S. cities rose 27% last year, with anti-Jewish incidents accounting for 78% of the total, followed by ant-Muslim cases with an 8% of the share.

Not every incident documented by the ADL rises to the level of a hate crime, which the FBI defines as a criminal offense motivated by animus against the victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.”

“Certainly vandalism, for the most part, would be criminal along with the assaults,” Levin said. “The big question is how much of the harassments are actually criminal.”

Whatever the case, the incidents show the growing mainstreaming of antisemitism, Levin said.

The recent rise in anti-Jewish hate has not been limited to the United States, researchers say.

A study by Tel Aviv University found that several countries with large Jewish populations – the U.S, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia – saw a “sharp rise” in antisemitic attacks in 2021.

The surge was fueled by “the radical populist right and the anti-Zionist radical left,” the report said.
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President Joe Biden has a number of critical issues to discuss with his Canadian counterpart when he makes his first presidential visit to Ottawa, the White House says. These include national security concerns, climate change, trade, migration, the conflict in Ukraine and unrest in Haiti.

Biden was set to leave Thursday for a one-night visit to Canada’s capital, where he will meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and address parliament on Friday. While there, Biden will discuss “taking concrete steps to increase defense spending, driving a global race to the top on clean energy, and building prosperous and inclusive economies,” said John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council.

Analysts say the gravity of those issues underscores the importance of the close relationship between Washington and Ottawa — the two nations share the world’s longest undefended land border — but also how unbalanced the relationship is.

“It’s a relationship that often does not get the attention and respect that it’s due,” said Earl Anthony Wayne, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Argentina and Mexico.

Biden is only now visiting Ottawa as president, more than halfway through his term.

In Canada, “this is front-page news and has been for several weeks now — the expectation that President Biden would be coming to Canada,” said Louise Blais, Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations.

“Whereas you compare that with the amount of coverage that the visit has received in the United States, it gives you a little bit of an idea of the asymmetrical aspect of the relationship. But that being said, it’s a warm and positive relationship,” she said.

Gordon Giffin, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada, remarked on the packed agenda for the short visit.

“I think President Biden’s visit must be three weeks, not two days, based on the menu of items that have been listed so far that, quote, ‘need to be addressed.’” 

Security

The White House said the key issue would be security — over North America’s skies through the joint North American Air Defense Command; in the Western Hemisphere amid instability in Haiti; and across the ocean in Europe and Asia.

On calls for a U.N. peacekeeping force in unstable Haiti, “I think that they will continue to talk about ways we can continue to support from a humanitarian assistance perspective, for the people of Haiti and Haitian national security forces,” Kirby said. “And as for a multinational force or anything like that, I, again, I don’t want to get ahead of the conversation here.”

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat and former head of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said he expected Biden to emphasize security contributions.

“My guess is the president is going to push us hard on defense and security,” he said. “We’ve committed under NATO to spend 2% of GDP [gross domestic product] on defense. Canada’s only at 1.27%. And, yes, we’ve made some recent investments towards NATO modernization, but we’re going to be expected to do a lot more.

“Our armed forces strength is 50% across the services — navy, army, air force — below capacity. The United States would like us to take a lead in Haiti. We just simply haven’t got the capacity to do that. We are doing what we can in NATO, but NATO now is going to, I think, take a greater interest in the north because of pressures mostly from the Russians but also from the Chinese.”

Trade

The two nations are major trade partners, but Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, said Ottawa should seek closer ties, such as membership in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.

“It doesn’t make any sense for our top trade partner, our northern neighbor, not to be a party to this negotiation,” he said.

But, he added, movement in trade ties may take time.

“These issues aren’t new,” he said. “They’re not related to one U.S. administration or the other.”

The White House said the two leaders would also discuss clean energy, economic cooperation and more. Wayne said these deep and broad intersections are a key characteristic of this particular bilateral relationship.

“I often like to call it ‘intermestic,’ in that it’s international and domestic at the same time,” he said. “The issues are so important for both countries that they’re debated domestically, but yet, by definition, they’re international because it’s between two countries.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden said Wednesday the United States “reaffirms our support to Muslim communities suffering hardships and devastation” as they issued a message offering best wishes to Muslims in the U.S. and around the world at the start of the holy month of Ramadan. 

“We will continue to stand with the people of Turkiye and Syria — who have lost many loved ones during the recent devastating earthquakes — and with the people of Pakistan, who are rebuilding their lives following last summer’s floods,” the Bidens said in a written statement using the Turkish government’s preferred version of the country’s name. 

Their statement also said the United States and its partners stand in solidarity with Muslims who face continued oppression, including Uyghurs in China and Rohingya in Myanmar. 

“During this holy month, we also honor Muslim communities across our nation that have been part of the American story since our founding,” the Bidens said. “From science and technology, to arts and academia, to law and medicine, to business and government, and beyond — Muslim Americans continue to strengthen our nation’s diverse tapestry generation after generation.” 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in his own statement marking the start of Ramadan that many U.S. embassies and consulates will host fast-breaking iftar meals “to share in the month’s beautiful traditions and demonstrate our commitment to promoting social cohesion, inclusion, and diversity within our communities.” 

“We express deep appreciation for our longstanding partnerships with diverse communities across the Muslim world and remain committed to promoting religious freedom for all, both at home and abroad,” Blinken said. 
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A federal appeals court in a sealed order Wednesday directed a lawyer for Donald Trump to turn over to prosecutors documents in the investigation into the former president’s retention of classified records at his Florida estate.

The ruling is a significant win for the U.S. Justice Department, which has focused for months not only on the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago but also on why Trump and his representatives resisted demands to return them to the government. It suggests the court has sided with prosecutors who have argued behind closed doors that Trump was using his legal representation to further a crime.

The order was reflected in a brief online notice by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case is sealed, and none of the parties in the dispute is mentioned by name.

But the details appear to correspond with a secret fight before a lower court judge over whether Trump lawyer M. Evan Corcoran could be forced to provide documents or give grand jury testimony in the Justice Department special counsel probe into whether Trump mishandled top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago.

Corcoran is regarded as relevant to the investigation in part because last year he drafted a statement to the Justice Department asserting that a “diligent search” for classified documents had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago in response to a subpoena. Weeks later, FBI agents searched the home with a warrant and found roughly 100 additional documents with classified markings.

Another Trump lawyer, Christina Bobb, told investigators last fall that Corcoran had drafted the letter and had asked her to sign it in her role as a designated custodian of Trump’s records.

A Justice Department investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors is examining whether Trump or anyone in his orbit obstructed its efforts to recover all the classified documents — which included top-secret material — from his home. No charges have been filed.

Other legal threats

The inquiry is one of multiple legal threats Trump faces, including probes in Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington over his efforts to undo the election result and a grand jury investigation in New York over hush money payments. The New York case appears to be nearing completion and building toward an indictment.

Last week, Beryl Howell, the outgoing chief judge of the U.S. District Court, directed Corcoran to answer additional questions before the grand jury. He had appeared weeks earlier before the federal grand jury investigating the Mar-a-Lago matter but had invoked attorney-client privilege in declining to answer certain questions.

Though attorney-client privilege shields lawyers from being forced to share details of their conversations with clients before prosecutors, the Justice Department can get around that if it can convince a judge that a lawyer’s services were used in furtherance of a crime — a principle known in the law as the crime-fraud exception.

Howell ruled in the Justice Department’s favor shortly before stepping aside as chief judge Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to discuss a sealed proceeding and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. That ruling was subsequently appealed, and the court records show the dispute before the federal appeals panel concerned an order that was issued last Friday by Howell.

The three-judge panel that issued the decision included Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, both appointees of President Joe Biden. The order came just hours after the court imposed tight deadlines on both sides to file written briefs making their case.

A lawyer for Corcoran did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday, and a lawyer for Trump declined to comment on the sealed order.
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A federal judge is expected to rule soon on the fate of a pill that leads to a medication abortion. The drug in question, mifepristone, has been on the market for 20 years, but opponents of abortion rights say it is unsafe. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti explains.
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A federal judge in New York ordered Iran’s central bank and a European intermediary on Wednesday to pay out $1.68 billion to family members of troops killed in the 1983 car bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said a 2019 federal law stripped Bank Markazi, the Iran central bank, of sovereign immunity from the lawsuit, which sought to enforce a judgment against Iran for providing material support to the attackers.

The lawsuit also names Luxembourg-based Clearstream Banking SA, which is holding the assets in a client account. Clearstream parent company Deutsche Boerse AG said on Wednesday that it is considering appealing against the decision.

Clearstream will “weigh all relevant interests and responsibilities” and comply with its legal and regulatory obligations in handling the funds, Deutsche Boerse said.

The exchange said that it does not view the ruling as increasing the risk from the lawsuit in a way that would require the companies to make financial provisions.

Attorneys for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The October 23, 1983, bombing at the Marine Corps barracks killed 241 U.S. service members.

Victims and their families won a $2.65 billion judgment against Iran in federal court in 2007 over the attack.

Six years later, they sought to seize bond proceeds allegedly owned by Bank Markazi and processed by Clearstream to partially satisfy the court judgment.

Bank Markazi has argued that the lawsuit was not allowed under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which generally shields foreign governments from liability in U.S. courts.

In January 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling in the families’ favor and ordered the case to be reconsidered in light of the new law, adopted a month earlier as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Preska said the 2019 law authorizes U.S. courts to allow the seizure of assets held outside the country to satisfy judgments against Iran in terrorism cases, “notwithstanding” other laws such as FSIA that would grant immunity.

A Luxembourg court in 2021 ordered Clearstream not to move the funds until a court in that country recognizes the U.S. ruling. Clearstream has appealed that decision.

The case is Peterson et al v. Islamic Republic of Iran et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-09195.
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Worries about recent bank failures and bailouts are rippling through the world economy, from New York to Beijing, and central bankers are working to calm depositors and financial markets. Mike O’Sullivan reports from California, where a major player in the tech industry, Silicon Valley Bank, collapsed earlier this month. Rob Garver contributed.
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