U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration will approve a major and controversial oil drilling project in Alaska on Monday, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

The decision to move ahead with the project by authorizing three drill sites in northwestern Alaska would come a day after Biden announced sweeping curbs on oil and gas leasing to protect up to 6.5 million hectares of water and land in the region. 

The Willow project, led by energy giant ConocoPhillips, would be located inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 9.3 million-hectare area on the state’s North Slope that is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States. 

Earlier on Sunday, the U.S. Interior Department unveiled actions to make nearly 1.2 million hectares of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean “indefinitely off limits” for oil and gas leasing, building on an Obama-era ban and effectively closing off U.S. Arctic waters to oil exploration. 

In addition to the drilling ban, the government will put forward new protections for more than 5.2 million hectares of “ecologically sensitive” Special Areas within Alaska’s petroleum reserve, the administration said in a statement on Sunday. 

The area includes the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay Special Areas. 

The developments unfolded as Biden tries to balance his goals of decarbonizing the U.S. economy with calls to increase domestic fuel supply to keep prices low. 

Willow has support from the oil and gas industry and state officials eager for jobs, but it is fiercely opposed by environmental groups who want to move rapidly away from fossil fuels to combat climate change. 

An environmental group said the new protections announced on Sunday did not go far enough, and the government should stop oil and gas developments to help fight climate change. 

“Protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn’t make sense, and it won’t help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. 
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Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is poised to testify Monday before a Manhattan grand jury investigating hush-money payments he arranged and made on the former president’s behalf. 

Cohen’s impending grand jury appearance was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about grand jury proceedings and did so on condition of anonymity. 

Cohen’s closed-door testimony is coming at a critical time as the Manhattan district attorney’s office closes in on a decision on whether to seek charges against Trump. 

A Trump loyalist turned adversary, Cohen is likely to provide critical details about whatever involvement the Republican presidential candidate may have had in the payments, made in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, to two women who alleged affairs with him. 

Cohen has given prosecutors evidence, including voice recordings of conversations he had with a lawyer for one of the women, as well as emails and text messages. He also has recordings of a conversation in which he and Trump spoke about an arrangement to pay the other woman through the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer. 

Prosecutors appear to be looking at whether Trump committed crimes in how the payments were made or how they were accounted for internally at Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. 

One possible charge would be falsifying business records, a misdemeanor unless prosecutors could prove it was done to conceal another crime. No former U.S. president has ever been charged with a crime. 

Trump has denied the affairs and has said he did nothing wrong. Prosecutors have invited him to testify before the grand jury, and he has the right to testify under New York law. However, legal experts say he is unlikely to do so because it wouldn’t benefit his defense and he’d have to give up a cloak of immunity that’s automatically granted to grand jury witnesses under state law. 

Cohen served prison time after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations, for arranging the payouts to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal to keep them from going public. He has also been disbarred. 

Trump’s lawyers could point to those factors in an attempt to undermine Cohen’s credibility, if the former president is charged and Cohen ends up testifying at trial. 

Cohen has been meeting regularly with Manhattan prosecutors in recent weeks, including a daylong session Friday to prepare for his grand jury appearance. 

The panel has been hearing evidence since January in what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has called the “next chapter” of his office’s yearslong Trump investigation. But the hush-money payments — perhaps the most salacious of the avenues of inquiry into Trump — are well-trodden ground. 

Federal prosecutors and Bragg’s predecessor in the D.A.’s office, Cyrus Vance Jr., each scrutinized the payments but didn’t charge Trump.  

Cohen declined to comment to reporters as he left the meeting, saying he’d be “taking a little bit of time now to stay silent and allow the D.A. build their case.” 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office also declined to comment. 

Trump continued to lash out at the probe on social media Friday, calling the case a “Scam, Injustice, Mockery, and Complete and Total Weaponization of Law Enforcement in order to affect a Presidential Election!” 

Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as “legal expenses.” 

McDougal’s $150,000 payment was made through the publisher of the National Enquirer, which squelched her story in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.” 

According to federal prosecutors who charged Cohen, the Trump Organization then “grossed up” Cohen’s reimbursement for the Daniels payment for “tax purposes,” giving him $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus, for a total of $420,000. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden is due to speak Monday about the banking system after the government acted to try to contain a potential crisis from the failure of two major banks. 

“The American people and American businesses can have confidence that their bank deposits will be there when they need them,” Biden said in a statement late Sunday. “I am firmly committed to holding those responsible for this mess fully accountable and to continuing our efforts to strengthen oversight and regulation of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.” 

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement Sunday that depositors at the California-based Silicon Valley Bank and the New York-based Signature Bank will have access to all of their money on Monday. 

The regulators also said no losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be borne by the taxpayer. 

The statement followed a meeting of officials from top financial regulators, and said the Federal Reserve was also giving other banks access to an emergency lending program to provide additional stability to the wider banking system. 

The actions were prompted by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, which regulators seized on Friday after concerns about the bank’s financial health led to a large number of depositors withdrawing their money at the same time. 

With about $200 billion in assets, Silicon Valley Bank’s failure was the second-largest in U.S. history.  The bank was heavily involved in financing for venture capital firms, especially in the tech sector. 

Signature Bank also had a large portion of clients in the tech sector, including cryptocurrency. Its failure, with more than $100 billion in assets, was the third-largest in the country’s history. 

Both banks were affected by a rise in interest rates, which negatively affected the market values of significant portions of their assets such as bonds and mortgage-backed securities. 

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

…

The U.S. government took extraordinary steps Sunday to stop a potential banking crisis after the historic failure of Silicon Valley Bank, assuring depositors at the failed financial institution that they would be able to access all of their money quickly.

The announcement came amid fears that the factors that caused the Santa Clara, California-based bank to fail could spread, and only hours before trading began in Asia. Regulators had worked all weekend to try and come up with a buyer for the bank, which was the second largest bank failure in history. Those efforts appeared to have failed as of Sunday.

In a sign of quickly the financial bleeding was occurring, regulators announced that New York-based Signature Bank had failed and was being seized on Sunday. At more than $110 billion in assets, Signature Bank is the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and FDIC said Sunday that all Silicon Valley Bank clients will be protected and have access to their funds and announced steps designed to protect the bank’s customers and prevent more bank runs.

“This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth,” the agencies said in a joint statement.

Regulators had to rush to close Silicon Valley Bank, a financial institution with more than $200 billion in assets, on Friday when it experienced a traditional run on the bank where depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. It is the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only the 2008 failure of Washington Mutual.

Some prominent Silicon Valley executives feared that if Washington didn’t rescue the failed bank, customers would make runs on other financial institutions in the coming days. Stock prices plunged over the last few days at other banks that cater to technology companies, including First Republic Bank and PacWest Bank.

Among the bank’s customers are a range of companies from California’s wine industry, where many wineries rely on Silicon Valley Bank for loans, and technology startups devoted to combating climate change.

Sunrun, which sells and leases solar energy systems, had less than $80 million of cash deposits with Silicon Valley Bank as of Friday and expects to have more information on expected recovery in the coming week, the company said in a statement.

Stitchfix, the popular clothing retail website, disclosed in a recent quarterly report that it had a credit line of up to $100 million with Silicon Valley Bank and other lenders.

Silicon Valley Bank began its slide into insolvency when its customers, largely technology companies that needed cash as they struggled to get financing, started withdrawing their deposits. The bank had to sell bonds at a loss to cover the withdrawals, leading to the largest failure of a U.S. financial institution since the height of the financial crisis.

Yellen described rising interest rates, which have been increased by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation, as the core problem for Silicon Valley Bank. Many of its assets, such as bonds or mortgage-backed securities, lost market value as rates climbed.

Sheila Bair, who was chairwoman of the FDIC chair during the 2008 financial crisis, recalled that with almost all the bank failures during that time, “we sold a failed bank to a healthy bank. And usually, the healthy acquirer would also cover the uninsured because they wanted the franchise value of those large depositors so optimally, that’s the best outcome.”

But with Silicon Valley Bank, she told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “this was a liquidity failure, it was a bank run, so they didn’t have time to prepare to market the bank. So they’re having to do that now and playing catch-up.”
…

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will invite U.S. President Joe Biden to Northern Ireland in April to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely brought an end to three decades of political violence.

Sunak said Sunday that he would issue a formal invite to the celebrations, which are due to take place in the middle of April.

“I’ll be keen to invite him to come,” he told reporters on his plane as he flew to the United States for meetings with Biden and Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia. “It’s not confirmed yet. But it will be something that obviously I’ll be talking to him about.

“We’ve got this very important milestone to commemorate and celebrate — the 25th anniversary.”

The Good Friday Agreement was a peace deal that largely ended the “Troubles,” three decades of violence that had convulsed Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was signed April 10, 1998, and partially brokered by the U.S. government of then President Bill Clinton.

The anniversary had been overshadowed in recent months after Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party boycotted the power-sharing assembly that made up part of the peace deal, in protest at post-Brexit trade rules that treated the province differently to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Sunak has recently struck a new deal with the European Union to ease the checks and paperwork needed to move goods from Britain to Northern Ireland, but the Democratic Unionist Party is yet to say whether they will support the plan.

“What I’m concentrating on now is talking to everyone in Northern Ireland so we can find a positive way to move forward and get power-sharing up and running — that’s my priority,” Sunak said.
…

Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, eyeing a 2024 run for the Republican presidential nomination, has delivered his strongest rebuke yet of the president he loyally served, Donald Trump. Pence said Trump was personally responsible for encouraging the January 6, 2021, riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, trying to keep Congress from certifying that Joe Biden had defeated the 45th president in the 2020 election.

“President Trump was wrong; I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence told a group of elite Washington journalists and government officials at the annual Gridiron dinner Saturday night. “And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pence last week asked a judge to block a subpoena for his testimony before a grand jury investigating the insurrection and Trump’s efforts to upend the election result. But at the dinner, he disparaged ongoing attempts, chiefly by conservative lawmakers and Fox News commentators, to downplay the rampage at the Capitol in which more than 1,000 Trump supporters have been arrested and about half, so far, convicted of an array of offenses.

“Tourists don’t injure 140 police officers by sightseeing,” Pence said. “Tourists don’t break down doors to get to the speaker of the House or voice threats against public officials.”

“Make no mistake about it. What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way,” Pence said at the dinner.

Pence also said people “have a right to know what took place” during the insurrection, praising journalists’ role in writing about the rampage, which for hours delayed lawmakers from certification of the Electoral College vote count showing Biden had won the election. In the United States, the president and vice president, running on the same ticket, are not elected by the national popular vote, but rather by state-by-state elections, with the biggest states holding the most Electoral College votes.

Trump had privately and publicly demanded that Pence block the outcome as the then-vice president presided over the vote count. Pence refused, saying his role was merely ceremonial.

Some rioters shouted, “Hang Mike Pence!” and protesters had erected a gallows on the National Mall within eyesight of the Capitol. As the rioters rampaged through the Capitol, security officials scrambled to keep Pence and his family safe, sheltering them at a loading dock inside the Capitol.

Meanwhile, officials in the White House that day say Trump watched the riot unfold on television and only after three hours issued a statement calling for his supporters to leave the Capitol. Officials have testified that Trump disparaged Pence for being weak in failing to block the election outcome and deserved to be hanged.

The annual white-tie Gridiron dinner features comedy routines by journalists poking fun at Washington officialdom and both Republican and Democratic officials making light of each other.

Even before turning serious about the riot at the Capitol more than two year ago, Pence, a devout Christian, jabbed at Trump.

“I once invited President Trump to Bible study,” Pence said early in his speech. “He really liked the passages about the smiting and perishing of thine enemies. As he put it, ‘You know, Mike, There’s some really good stuff in here.’”

Trump has announced his 2024 presidential candidacy and Pence has said he is weighing a run as well. Some Republicans have suggested or declared they won’t again support Trump, who is facing several criminal investigations, if he is the nominee.

Pence joked, “I will wholeheartedly, unreservedly support the Republican nominee for president in 2024. If it’s me.”
…

Iran’s top diplomat claimed Sunday that a prisoner swap was near with the U.S., though he offered no evidence to support his assertion. The U.S. immediately dismissed his comments as a “cruel lie.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has made similar comments in the past about possible deals with the U.S. on frozen assets abroad and other issues that never came to fruition. Some of those remarks have appeared aimed at shoring up domestic support amid the mass protests challenging Iran’s theocracy and supporting the country’s troubled rial currency.

However, in an interview Sunday with Iranian state television, Amirabdollahian claimed that Iran had “reached an agreement in recent days regarding the exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States.”

“If everything goes well on the American’s side, I think we will see the exchange of prisoners in the short term,” he added. He alleged a document between Iran and the U.S. laying out the exchange had been “indirectly signed and approved” since March 2022.

Reached by The Associated Press, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the comments “another especially cruel lie that only adds to the suffering of their families.” 

“We are working relentlessly to secure the release of the three wrongfully detained Americans in Iran,” Price said. “We will not stop until they are reunited with their loved ones.”

A separate statement from the White House’s National Security Council also called the remarks “false.”

“Unfortunately, Iranian officials will not hesitate to make things up, and the latest cruel claim will cause more heartache for the families of Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz,” the council said.

Iran long has taken prisoners with Western passports or ties to use in negotiations with foreign nations.

As of right now, there are at least three American citizens known to be held in Iranian prisons on widely disputed espionage charges.

The evidence against them has never been made public. The detainees all have dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship, something Tehran does not recognize.

In recent days, however, longtime Iranian American detainee Siamak Namazi was allowed to conduct an interview with CNN from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison — something that would not have happened without the acquiescence of security forces.

Meanwhile, Ali Bagheri Kani, a deputy Iranian foreign minister who has handled nuclear talks with world powers, made a trip Sunday to Oman, a longtime interlocutor between Tehran and Washington.

Amirabdollahian’s comments also come after Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Chinese mediation, announced Friday they would reestablish diplomatic ties and reopen embassies after a seven-year freeze in relations. 
…

Residents are complaining about burning eyes and breathing problems. Dead fish have washed up on beaches. A beachside festival has been canceled, even though it wasn’t scheduled for another month.

Florida’s southwest coast experienced a flare-up of the toxic red tide algae this week, setting off concerns that it could continue to stick around for a while. The current bloom started in October.

The annual BeachFest in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, sponsored by a homeowners’ association, was canceled after it determined, with help from the city and the Pinellas County Health Department, that red tide likely would continue through the middle of next month when the festival was scheduled.

“Red Tide is currently present on the beach and is forecasted to remain in the area in the weeks to come,” the Indian Rocks Beach Homeowners Association said in a letter to the public. “It is unfortunate that it had to be canceled but it is the best decision in the interest of public health.”

Nearly two tons of debris, mainly dead fish, were cleared from Pinellas County beaches and brought to the landfill, county spokesperson Tony Fabrizio told the Tampa Bay Times. About 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of fish have been cleared from beaches in St. Pete Beach since the start of the month, Mandy Edmunds, a parks supervisor with the city, told the newspaper.

Red tide, a toxic algae bloom that occurs naturally in the Gulf of Mexico, is worsened by the presence of nutrients such as nitrogen in the water. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission warns people to not swim in or around red tide waters over the possibility of skin irritation, rashes and burning and sore eyes. People with asthma or lung disease should avoid beaches affected by the toxic algae.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Friday reported that it had found red tide in 157 samples along Florida’s Gulf Coast, with the strongest concentrations along Pinellas and Sarasota counties.
…

Brent Sass, the defending Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race champion, withdrew from this year’s race on Saturday, citing concerns for his health.

Sass scratched at the Eagle Island checkpoint, a statement from the Iditarod said. Eagle Island is about 966 kilometers into the nearly 1,609-kilometer race.

“He didn’t feel he could care for his team due to current concerns with his periodontal health,” the statement said. The condition typically relates to gum disease.

A plane was being sent to Eagle Island to fly Sass off the trail, according to a video posted on the Iditarod Insider webpage.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sad, but it is what it is,” Sass’ father, Mark Sass, told Alaska Public Media. “I just want him to be OK.”

The Iditarod said all 11 dogs on Sass’ team were in good health.

Sass was in the lead when he arrived at the Eagle Island checkpoint late Friday night with an almost four-hour advantage over his nearest competitor, Jessie Holmes of Brushkana.

Holmes was the first musher to leave the Eagle Island checkpoint early Saturday morning. The 40-year-old Alabama native in 2004 moved to Alaska, where he is a carpenter and appears on the National Geographic reality TV show Life Below Zero, about people who live in rural Alaska.

The race started for 33 mushers on March 5 in Willow. It takes the sled dog teams over two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and the treacherous Bering Sea ice en route to the finish line in Nome. Mushers had to contend with another issue during the first week of competition: Altering their race strategy because of high heat in interior Alaska.

The winner is expected to mush down Nome’s Front Street, a block off the Bering Sea, to the finish line either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Before the competitive start to the race, mushers greeted fans March 4 during a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage and drove auction winners riding in their sleds for a 17.7-kilometer jaunt through the streets of the state’s largest city.

The 33 mushers represented the smallest field ever to start a race, one short of the first race run in 1973.

Since then, three mushers including Sass have withdrawn.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden is poised to decide whether to pull the plug on a massive oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope or allow it to go ahead.

With the decision imminent, environmentalists have ramped up pressure on the White House, urging Biden to live up to the climate change pledges he made during his campaign.

During the 2020 presidential race, the Democratic candidate vowed not to approve any new leases for oil and gas projects on federal lands.

But Biden has found himself stuck in the middle of a years-long battle over the so-called Willow Project, a plan by US energy giant ConocoPhillips to drill for oil in the federally-owned National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s pristine western Arctic.

The Trump administration approved the Willow Project at the tail end of the former president’s term but it was blocked by a judge for further review.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in an environmental impact analysis in February, approved three drilling sites while striking down one and deferring consideration of another.

ConocoPhillips welcomed the BLM’s assessment, saying it can “provide a viable path forward for development of our leasehold.”

The Interior Department, which oversees the BLM, said, however, it has “substantial concerns” about the project “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.”

Biden has described global warming as an existential threat and promoted the development of renewable energy sources.

Temperatures in Alaska have been rising faster than in other regions of the planet and environmental groups have warned that the oil extraction project would make things worse.

The Willow Project will add more than 250 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the next 30 years, the Sierra Club said, equivalent to the annual emissions of 66 coal plants.

Greenpeace described it as a “carbon bomb.”

A petition on Change.org seeking to halt the project has garnered more than three million signatures and a #StopWillow campaign on TikTok has drawn 150 million views.

180,000 barrels of oil per day

Backers of the Willow Project defend it as a source of several thousand jobs and a contributor to US energy independence with production of 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak or some 576 million barrels over 30 years.

Alaska’s two Republican senators and the state’s sole member of the House, Mary Peltola, a native Alaskan and a Democrat, met with Biden last week to urge him to approve the project.

“We hope the President will listen to the voices of indigenous Alaskans who live on the North Slope, the voices of labor leaders and union workers who are ready to help build Alaska’s economy (and) listen to the voices of national security officials underscoring the importance of Willow for American energy security,” they said.

Peltola, in an opinion piece published in The Hill, said Alaskans “aren’t blind to the impacts of climate change” but the Willow Project can serve as a bridge as the country transitions away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources.

“At the same time, we can reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of oil — which makes us all safer in a world that has grown more unpredictable after Russia invaded Ukraine,” Peltola said.

Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared with 2005 with the goal of achieving a net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.
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Remembered as an inspirational, humble leader with a passion for education and commitment to his people, former Navajo Nation President Peterson Zah was honored Saturday with a funeral procession that stretched for 160 kilometers from western New Mexico into eastern Arizona.

People lined roads on the reservation to say their final farewells to a monumental leader who made education, family, culture and Navajo language the hallmarks of his life. He fought tirelessly to correct wrongdoings against Native Americans.

“He led with compassion and a crystal-clear vision of what is right for the people first,” said Robert Joe, Zah’s nephew who served as the master of ceremonies at a public reception Saturday afternoon. “He always put the people before him to do what was right and for the interest of the people.”

Crsytalyne Curley, Zah’s granddaughter who is now the speaker of the Navajo Nation Council, said Zah “spread hope throughout the whole Navajo Nation.”

Zah died late Tuesday in Fort Defiance, Arizona, surrounded by his family and after a lengthy illness. He was 85.

Zah was buried in a private service at his family’s cemetery in Low Mountain, Arizona, where he was born.

The procession passed through several Navajo communities, with people holding their hands to their hearts and displaying signs that declared Zah would be missed. The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority hoisted flags from utility trucks along the route.

“All of Indian Country mourns with you today,” said Stephen Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community. “We mourn the loss of his brilliant mind, his personality, his wisdom. … We are truly mourning the passing of an era.”

Zah was the first president elected on the Navajo Nation — the largest tribal reservation in the U.S. — in 1990 after the government was restructured into three branches to prevent power from being concentrated in the chairman’s office. At the time, the tribe was reeling from a deadly riot incited by Zah’s political rival, former Chairman Peter MacDonald, a year earlier.

Zah, who also served a term as tribal chairman, vowed to rebuild the Navajo Nation. Under his leadership, the tribe established what’s now a multibillion-dollar permanent fund after winning a court battle that found the tribe had authority to tax companies that extracted minerals from the vast reservation.

“President Zah never lost sight of his purpose: to stand up for the dignity and respect of the Navajo people,” President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden wrote in a letter to Zah’s family Saturday.

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said in a statement that Zah “transformed the Navajo Nation, and with it, our state.”

Sometimes referred to as the Native American Robert Kennedy, Zah was known for his charisma, ideas and ability to get things done, including lobbying federal officials to ensure Native Americans could use peyote as a religious sacrament.

Zah also worked to ensure Native Americans were reflected in federal environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

He was well-known for his low-key but stern style of leadership, driving around in a battered, white 1950s International pickup that was on display outside at the public reception Saturday.

Several speakers said Zah was instrumental in their determination to attend and graduate from Arizona State University or other institutions of higher learning.

“To say Peterson Zah was a champion of education is like saying there are a lot of stars in the sky. It’s an understatement,” said Charles Monty Roessel, a former director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Education who is now president of Diné College in Arizona.

“He understood the transformational power of education because he saw it in his own life,” Roessel said.

Buu Van Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, said Zah had recently met with tribal leaders to emphasize the importance of continuing to prioritize educational opportunities for their children.

“He made sure education was at the forefront of everything he did,” Nygren said. “He touched many, many generations of young Navajo leaders like myself.”
…

Four space station astronauts returned to Earth late Saturday after a quick SpaceX flight home.

Their capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast near Tampa.

The U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew spent five months at the International Space Station, arriving last October. Besides dodging space junk, the astronauts had to deal with a pair of leaking Russian capsules docked to the orbiting outpost and the urgent delivery of a replacement craft for the station’s other crew members.

Led by NASA’s Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman to fly in space, the astronauts checked out of the station early Saturday morning. Less than 19 hours later, their Dragon capsule was bobbing in the sea as they awaited pickup.

Earlier in the week, high wind and waves in the splashdown zones kept them at the station a few extra days. Their replacements arrived more than a week ago.

“That was one heck of a ride,” Mann radioed moments after splashdown. “We’re happy to be home.”

Mann, a member of Northern California’s Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, said she couldn’t wait to feel the wind on her face, smell fresh grass, and enjoy delicious Earth food.

Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata craved sushi, while Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina yearned to drink hot tea from a “real cup” not a plastic bag.

NASA astronaut Josh Cassada’s to-do list included getting a rescue dog for his family. “Please don’t tell our two cats,” he joked before departing the space station.

Remaining behind at the space station are three Americans, three Russians and one from the United Arab Emirates.

Wakata, Japan’s spaceflight champion, now has logged more than 500 days in space over five missions dating back to NASA’s shuttle era.
…

Authorities ordered more than 1,500 people to evacuate early Saturday from a Northern California agricultural community famous for its strawberries after the Pajaro River’s levee was breached by flooding from a new atmospheric river pummeling the state.

Monterey County officials on Saturday said the break in the levee — upstream from the unincorporated community of Pajaro along California’s Central Coast — is about 30.48 meters wide. Crews had gone door to door Friday afternoon to urge residents to leave before the rains came but some stayed and had to be pulled from floodwaters early Saturday.

First responders and the California National Guard rescued more than 50 people overnight. One video showed a member of the Guard helping a driver out of a car trapped by water up to their waists.

“We were hoping to avoid and prevent this situation, but the worst-case scenario has arrived with the Pajaro River overtopping and levee breaching at about midnight,” wrote Luis Alejo, chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, on Twitter.

Alejo called the flooding “massive,” saying it has affected Pajaro’s 1,700 residents — many of them Latino farmworkers — and that the damage will take months to repair.

The Pajaro River separates the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey in the area that flooded Saturday.

Officials had been working along the levee in the hopes of shoring it up when it was breached early Saturday morning. Crews began working to fix the levee around daybreak Saturday as residents slept in evacuation centers.

The Pajaro Valley is a coastal agricultural area known for growing strawberries, apples, cauliflower, broccoli and artichokes. National brands like Driscoll’s Strawberries and Martinelli’s are headquartered in the region.

In 1995, the Pajaro River’s levees broke, submerging 2,500 acres (1,011 hectares) of farmland and the community of Pajaro. Two people died and the flooding caused nearly $100 million in damage. A state law that was passed last year advanced state funds for a levee project. It was scheduled to start construction in 2024.

This week’s storm marked the state’s 10th atmospheric river of the winter, storms that have brought enormous amounts of rain and snow to the state and helped lessen the drought conditions that had dragged on for three years. State reservoirs that had dipped to strikingly low levels are now well above the average for this time of year, prompting state officials to release water from dams to assist with flood control and make room for even more rain.

State transportation officials said Friday they removed so much snow from the roadways in February that it would be enough to fill the iconic Rose Bowl 100 times.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has declared emergencies in 34 counties in recent weeks, and the Biden administration approved a presidential disaster declaration for some on Friday morning, a move that will bring more federal assistance.

Emergency officials have warned people to stay off roads if they can and to carefully heed flash flood warnings.

The atmospheric river, known as a “Pineapple Express” because it brought warm subtropical moisture across the Pacific from near Hawaii, was melting lower parts of the huge snowpack built in California’s mountains. Snow levels in the Sierra Nevada, which provides about a third of the state’s water supply, are more than 180% of the April 1 average, when it is historically at its peak.

The snowpack at high elevations is so massive it was expected to be able to absorb the rain, but snow below 1,219 meters could start to melt, potentially contributing to flooding, forecasters said.

Lake Oroville — one of the most important reservoirs in the state and home to the nation’s tallest dam — has so much water that officials on Friday opened the dam’s spillways for the first time since April 2019. The reservoir’s water has risen 54.8 meters since December 1. Of the state’s 17 major reservoirs, seven are still below their historical averages this year.

State water managers also were grappling with the best way to use the storms to help emerge from a severe drought. On Friday, Newsom signed an executive order making it easier for farmers and water agencies to use floodwater to refill underground aquifers. Groundwater provides on average about 41% of the state’s supply each year. But many of these underground basins have been overdrawn in recent years.

Forecasters warned that mountain travel could be difficult to impossible during the latest storm. At high elevations, the storm was predicted to dump heavy snow, as much as 2.4 meters over several days.

Yet another atmospheric river is already in the forecast for early next week. State climatologist Michael Anderson said a third appeared to be taking shape over the Pacific and possibly a fourth.

California appeared to be “well on its way to a fourth year of drought” before the early winter series of storms, Anderson said. “We’re in a very different condition now,” he noted.
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From “Star Wars” to “Jaws” to “Schindler’s List,” John Williams has written many of the most instantly recognizable scores in cinema history.

The 91-year-old is already the oldest person to receive an Oscar nomination for a competitive award, which he earned thanks to his spare yet poignant compositions for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

With 53 total nods, Williams has more Academy Award nominations than any other living person, and is second only to Walt Disney, who had 59.

And if he gets another statuette on Sunday, which would be his sixth, he will become the oldest person ever to triumph in any competitive category. The record is currently held by screenwriter James Ivory, who was 89 when he won.

It “seems unreal that anybody could be that old and working that long,” Williams recently told NBC News, adding: “It’s very exciting, even after 53 years.”

“I’m very pleased, I think it’s a human thing — the gratification of any kind of appreciation of one’s work,” he said.

Out of the dozens of nominations over the course of his extraordinary career, the composer won Academy Awards for the original “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and three films by Spielberg, with whom he is closely associated — “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List.”

He’s even competed against himself multiple times for Oscars glory.

Williams is known for his grand neo-Romantic scores in the fashion of Wagner, a contrast to the more experimental fare prevalent among many modern composers outside Hollywood.

But his work is also steeped in mid-century influences including jazz and popular American standards.

Williams holds he’s not as Wagnerian as his music might indicate but admits the 19th century German giant’s influence on Hollywood’s early composers, and therefore his own, is palpable.

“Wagner lives with us here — you can’t escape it,” he told The New Yorker in 2020. “I have been in the big river swimming with all of them.”

‘Single greatest collaboration’

Williams was born on February 8, 1932, in New York’s Queens borough to a percussionist father, and was the eldest of four children.

The family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, where Williams later studied composition and took a semester of jazz band at Los Angeles City College.

While in the Air Force, he played both piano and brass while arranging music for the service’s band.

Afterwards, he moved to New York, where he enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard school to study piano.

Though he aspired to be a concert pianist, it became clear to Williams that composition was his forte.

He moved back to LA, where he worked on orchestrations at film — earning plaudits for his range — and as a session pianist, including for the film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

Williams notched his first Oscar nod for the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” and won his first in 1972 for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

His momentous partnership with Spielberg began in the early 1970s, when the soon to be household-name director approached him to score his debut, “The Sugarland Express.”

Spielberg approached him once more to work on his second film, “Jaws.”

The menacing two-note ostinato Williams composed for the film has practically become synonymous with fear itself: “John Williams actually is the teeth of Jaws,” Spielberg said last year at a concert for the composer’s 90th birthday.

The pair then worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a decades-long creative partnership unfurled.

At the Williams birthday celebration in Washington, Spielberg dubbed their relationship “the single greatest collaboration of my career and one of the deepest friendships of my life.”

“Through the medium of movies, John has popularized motion picture scores more than any other composer in history,” he said.

‘Soundtrack of our lives’

Spielberg also introduced Williams to one George Lucas — it would become another iconic collaboration that spawned perhaps the most recognizable film score ever.

Several of Williams’ “Star Wars” compositions are prime examples of leitmotif, with musical cues tying together the vast, character-rich story.

“He has written the soundtrack of our lives,” conductor Gustavo Dudamel told The New York Times last year. “When we listen to a melody of John’s, we go back to a time, to a taste, to a smell.”

“All our senses go back to a moment,” Dudamel said.

Other credits from Williams’ more than 100 film scores include the music for 1978’s “Superman,” the first three “Harry Potter” films and a number of “Indiana Jones” films.’

“Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones into an iconic action hero, but John made us believe in adventure again, through that pulse-pounding march,” said Spielberg.

Off-screen, Williams is responsible for the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” first composed for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and used ever since on U.S. broadcasts.

Williams recently indicated he might take a step back from film scoring, giving more energy to conducting and composing concert music; he was a longtime leader of the Boston Pops orchestra.

But speaking at a panel with Spielberg earlier this year, Williams seemed to walk back the notion of slowing down, vowing to work until he’s 100 or so.

“So I’ve got 10 more years to go. I’ll stick around for a while!” he told the crowd. “You can’t ‘retire’ from music. It’s like breathing.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday sought to minimize differences over a Washington plans to subsidize American companies — a concept that has frustrated many in Europe. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Russia’s repeated use of advanced hypersonic missiles as part of its bombardment of Ukraine may be getting the bulk of the West’s attention, but United States defense officials say it is China that has the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal.

“While both China and Russia have conducted numerous successful tests of hypersonic weapons and have likely fielded operational systems, China is leading Russia in both supporting infrastructure and numbers of systems,” the Defense Intelligence Agency’s chief scientist for science and technology told U.S. lawmakers Friday.

“Over the past two decades, China has dramatically advanced its development of conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missile technologies and capabilities through intense and focused investment, development, testing and deployment,” said the DIA’s Paul Freisthler, testifying in front of the House Armed Services Committee.

Unlike ballistic missiles, which fly at hypersonic speeds but travel along a set trajectory, hypersonic weapons are highly maneuverable despite flying at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.

According to U.S. defense officials, that high-speed maneuverability makes hypersonic weapons especially difficult to detect and, therefore, difficult to stop.

According to the DIA and information gathered by the Congressional Research Service, China operates two research sites for hypersonic weapons, with at least 21 wind tunnels. Some of the wind tunnels can test vehicles flying at speeds of up to Mach 12.

China’s hypersonic arsenal includes the DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle that has a range of 1,600 kilometers.

It also has the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, which also carries a hypersonic glide vehicle. During a test of the system in July 2021, the hypersonic weapon circumnavigated the globe, prompting a top U.S. defense official to compare the incident to the start of the original space race in the 1950s.

Beijing also has the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle, with a range of close to 2,000 kilometers, and the Starry Sky-2, a nuclear capable hypersonic prototype.

Russia’s missile attack against Ukraine on Friday included about six of Moscow’s hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. The Kinzhal travels at speeds of up to Mach 10 and has a range of about 2,000 kilometers.

Russia also has the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which it claims can travel at speeds of more than Mach 20 with a range of more than 10,000 kilometers, and the ship-launched Zircon hypersonic missile, with a top speed of Mach 8 and a range of 1,000 kilometers.

The DIA’s Freisthler said Friday that Moscow is also developing an air-launched hypersonic missile (the Kh-95) and has announced plans to place a hypersonic glide vehicle on its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.

The U.S. military has been developing a range of hypersonic weapons, all of which are still in testing or development. Officials have said that, unlike China and Russia, Washington has no plans to arm any of its hypersonic weapons with a nuclear warhead.
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A requirement that travelers to the U.S. from China present a negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flights expired Friday after more than two months as cases in China have fallen.

The restrictions were put in place December 28 and took effect January 5 amid a surge in infections in China after the nation sharply eased pandemic restrictions and as U.S. health officials expressed concerns that their Chinese counterparts were not being truthful to the world about the true number of infections and deaths. The requirement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expired for flights leaving after 3 p.m. Eastern time Friday.

When the restriction was imposed, U.S. officials also said it was necessary to protect U.S. citizens and communities because there was a lack of transparency from the Chinese government about the size of the surge or the variants that were circulating within China.

The rules imposed in January require travelers to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong and Macau to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone 2 years and older, including U.S. citizens.

China saw infections and deaths surge after it eased back from its “zero COVID” strategy in early December after rare public protests of the policy that confined millions of people to their homes and sparked demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.

But as China eased its strict rules, infections and deaths surged, and parts of the country for weeks saw their hospitals overwhelmed by infected patients looking for help. Still, the Chinese government has been slow to release data on the number of deaths and infections.

The U.S. decision to lift restrictions comes at a moment when U.S.-China relations are strained. U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a Chinese spy balloon shot down last month after it traversed the continental United States. The Biden administration has also publicized U.S. intelligence findings that raise concern Beijing is considering providing Russia weaponry for its ongoing war on Ukraine.
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The Republican chairman of a special House committee targeting China called Beijing’s government “bloodthirsty” and “power hungry” on Friday at a rally outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington. 

Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin attended a rally to commemorate the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against China’s rule. The gathering took place on what is known as Tibetan National Uprising Day and came as tensions between the U.S. and China continue to escalate. 

Speaking to members of the Tibetan community, Gallagher said he wanted to recognize their courage in fighting for their freedom and culture. He described Tibetans as victims of a “cultural genocide” by the Chinese Communist Party. 

“They’ve not changed one bit,” Gallagher said. “The CCP is still a threat, still duplicitous, still power hungry, still bloodthirsty.” 

Tibet is governed as an autonomous region in western China, with authorities maintaining tight control over Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and harassing and punishing Tibetans suspected of being followers of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who after the failed uprising would flee across the Himalayas to India. 

China has claimed Tibet as part of its territory for centuries and argues it has improved living conditions and reduced poverty in the region. It says the U.S. and its allies falsely accuse Beijing of violating Tibetans’ human rights. 

Tibetans say they were essentially independent before the People’s Liberation Army fought its way into Tibet in 1950. China has built a sprawling network of police stations and extrajudicial detention centers for rebellious monks and nuns — measures that Beijing mimicked in Xinjiang province against Uyghurs. 

Gallagher said that prioritizing human rights early on in the new committee’s work is a way of communicating to Americans that the Chinese Communist Party is not just a distant threat. 

“Increasingly, we see the CCP trying to undermine our own sovereignty, whether it’s through a Chinese spy balloon or a CCP-controlled algorithm that an American teenager uses, or fentanyl precursors from China ultimately killing 70,000 Americans a year,” Gallagher said. 

One of the questions arising from lawmakers’ increasingly harsh criticism of China is whether it will make relations between the two countries worse. Earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned in unusually stark terms about the consequences of U.S.-China friction. 

“If the United States does not hit the brake, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing and there surely will be conflict and confrontation,” Qin said in his first news conference since taking up his post last year. 

Gallagher stressed that no one wants a war with China over Taiwan or any other issue, but said there has been a shift in thinking in Washington that the policy of economic engagement with the country has failed. 

“I think recognizing CCP aggression for what it is and taking sensible steps to combat that aggression is the best path to deterring that aggression over the long term,” Gallagher told The Associated Press after the rally. “I think the best path towards preventing an escalation is a strategy of strength, of communicating we will not be bullied.” 

Taking steps to curb China is one of the few ideas that generates bipartisan support in Congress. The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party held its first hearing last month. China responded by demanding its members “discard their ideological bias and zero-sum Cold War mentality.” 

Gallagher met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this week to discuss the committee’s future work. 

“Congress is going to disagree about a lot over the next year, but they want this to be an area where we try and identify that bipartisan center of gravity,” Gallagher said.
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By launching an unmanned capsule into space, sending it around the moon and bringing it back to Earth in November, NASA demonstrated how it will once again transport astronauts to the lunar surface — a core goal of the Artemis program.

What remains to be seen is who will crew the first trips.

“Everybody in the astronaut office has the background, the basic training and the qualifications to go do that mission, so everyone is hoping that their name gets called,” astronaut Stan Love told VOA during an interview at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Artemis 1 launch.

Love is among those being considered for a spot. Artemis 2, a manned mission to orbit but not land on the moon, could launch as early as 2024. Love said the Artemis crews will look different than those of the Apollo program during the 1960s and 1970s.

“We are going to broaden our demographics, so it won’t just be white guys landing on the moon.”

“We make our boss’ jobs actually challenging, we make his job hard because he’s got to pick some of us,” says astronaut Victor Glover, who could make history as the first person of color to reach the moon.

The crew for Artemis 2 will be announced April 3, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who said the team will include three NASA astronauts and one member of the Canadian Space Agency.

“I think all of us are ready, trained and capable of making this mission a success,” Glover told VOA. “Just to be where we are now and be a part of this team is an honor.”

The initiative to ensure diversity in NASA’s Artemis program was outlined in the Biden administration’s $25 billion funding request to Congress for NASA for the fiscal year 2022, which includes the moon missions.

“Apollo had a sister, Artemis, and this is our generation, and I think this is a fantastic thing,” said Branelle Rodriguez, who works on the Orion capsule that will transport the astronauts in Artemis.

Ahead of the launch of Artemis 1, she expressed pride taking part in a historic project that will also bring the first woman to the moon.

“I think it’s important for all of us, whether it’s a man or a woman, I think it’s fantastic,” Rodriguez said. “I think as an agency, as a nation and as a world showing that we can explore as humans back to the surface of the moon is what we need to go off and show.”

Danielle Bell, a marketing and communications professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School who focuses on issues of diversity and inclusion, welcomes NASA’s initiative and said she hopes it is permanent.

“NASA has taken the step of naming the entire mission after the sister of Apollo, the Greek god, so that in and of itself is a wonderful symbol, [and a] signal when we think about diversity and inclusion,” Bell said.

“To do this once, would feel like performing,” she added. “When they are transformative and not performative, that happens when the organization lives their values from the inside out.”

Women make up one-third of the current group of 41 astronauts at NASA. Twelve are people of color. While 16 are experienced pilots, the rest are experts in fields such as geology, medicine and engineering, bringing professional diversity to the corps.

Bell said that makeup suggests that skin color or gender won’t likely drive the decision on who goes first.

“What I can appreciate about this mission, is that it’s not just about diversity, it’s not just about representation,” Bell told VOA. “It’s not diversity for diversity’s sake. It’s more meaningful, it’s more impactful. You’ve got an entire pool that is of diverse backgrounds.”

The importance of the Artemis diversity initiative is underscored for Glover whenever he participates in outreach and education efforts for NASA.

“People keep asking me, ‘Is it meaningful to you that little Black kids look up to you and say they want to be like you?’ You know what? Let’s be honest, I represent America. I’m a naval officer and I work for NASA.

“I represent America and little white kids, little Mexican kids, little Hispanic kids and little Iranian kids follow what we’re doing because this,” he said, pointing to the iconic NASA patch on his blue flight suit “is maybe one of the most recognizable symbols in the universe. I think that that’s really important and I take that very seriously.”

While Glover hopes to be picked for an upcoming Artemis mission to the moon, he said he will participate in the mammoth undertaking one way or another.

“If your name gets called or not, I’m going to be happy to still be a part of this team and help from the ground,” Glover told VOA.

“There won’t be any sense of disappointment,” said astronaut Love. “If I’m not on the rocket, I’m going to be in mission control talking to these crews. So, I will be supporting these missions no matter what my role.”
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America’s employers added a substantial 311,000 jobs in February, fewer than January’s huge gain but enough to keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively to fight inflation.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.6%, from a 53-year low of 3.4%, as more Americans began searching for work but not all of them found jobs.

Friday’s report from the government made clear that the nation’s job market remains fundamentally healthy, with many employers still eager to hire. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress this week that the Fed would likely ratchet up its rate hikes if signs continued to point to a robust economy and persistently high inflation. A strong job market typically leads businesses to raise pay and then pass their higher labor costs on to customers through higher prices.

February’s sizable job growth shows that so far, hiring is continuing to strengthen this year after having eased in late 2022. From October through December, the average monthly job gain was 284,000. That average has surged to 351,000 for the past three months.

Economists pointed to other data in Friday’s report that suggested that the job market, while still hot, may be better balancing employers’ need for workers and the supply of unemployed people. More people have been coming off the sidelines to seek work, a trend that makes it easier for businesses to fill the millions of jobs that remain open.

The proportion of Americans who either have a job or are looking for one has risen for three straight months to 62.5%, the highest level since COVID struck three years ago. Still, it remains below its pre-pandemic level of 63.3%.

With more potential hires to choose from, employers seem under less pressure now to dangle higher pay to attract or retain workers. Average wage growth slowed in February, rising just 0.2%, to $33.09, the smallest monthly increase in a year. Measured year over year, though, hourly pay is up 4.6%, well above the pre-pandemic trend. Even so, that’s down from average annual gains above 5% last year.

What the Fed may decide to do about interest rates when it meets later this month remains uncertain. The Fed’s decision will rest, in part, on its assessment of Friday’s jobs data and next week’s report on consumer inflation in February. Last month, the government’s report on January inflation had raised alarms by showing that consumer prices had reaccelerated on a month-to-month basis.

Ahead of the February jobs data, many economists had said they thought the Fed would announce a substantial half-point increase in its key short-term interest rate, rather than a quarter point hike as it did at its meeting in February. Friday’s more moderate hiring and wage figures, though, led some analysts to suggest that the central bank may not need to move so aggressively at this month’s meeting.

“There’s clear signs of cooling when you dig deeper into the numbers,” said Mike Skordeles, head of economics at Truist, a bank. “I think it makes the case for the Fed to say … we’ll still hike rates, but we’re not going to do” a half-point hike.

The Fed’s final determination, though, will rest heavily on Tuesday’s report on consumer prices.

“Everything now hinges on February’s CPI report,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.

When the Fed tightens credit, it typically leads to higher rates on mortgages, auto loans, credit card borrowing and many business loans. Its rate hikes can cool spending and inflation, but they also raise the risk of a recession.

Even for workers who have received substantial pay raises, ongoing high inflation remains a burden. Consumer prices rose 6.4% in January compared with a year ago, driven up by the costs of food, clothing and rents, among other items.

Frustrated by wages that aren’t keeping up with inflation, Rodney Colbert, a cook at the Las Vegas convention center, joined a strike Thursday by the Culinary Workers union to demand better pay and benefits. Colbert said that his hourly pay was $4-$5 less than what cooks were paid at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

“I’ll average approximately 28 hours a week, and that’s not enough,” Colbert said. “Just in the past two years, my rent has gone up $400, so that’s a lot.”

Nationally, nearly all of last month’s hiring occurred in mostly lower-paid services industries, with a category that includes restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment adding 105,000 jobs, its second straight month of strong gains. Warmer-than-usual weather likely contributed to the increase. With the weather likely allowing more building projects to continue, construction companies added 24,000 jobs.

Retailers added about 50,000 jobs last month, health care providers 63,000. Local and state governments — some of them flush with cash from stimulus programs — added 46,000 jobs.

Much of that job growth reflects continuing demand from Americans who have been increasingly venturing out to shop, eat out, travel and attend entertainment events — activities that were largely restricted during the height of COVID.

“We’ve created more jobs in two years than any administration has created in the first four years,” President Joe Biden said Friday about the employment report. “It means our economic plan is working.”

Economists note, however, that the very strength of the job market is itself contributing to the high inflation that continues to pressure millions of households.

In February, in contrast to the solid hiring in the services sector, manufacturers cut 4,000 jobs. And a sector that includes technology and communications workers shed 25,000 jobs, its third straight month of losses. It is a sign that some of the announced layoffs in the economy’s tech sector are being captured in the government’s data.

Last month, the government reported a surprising burst of hiring for January — 517,000 added jobs — though that gain was revised down slightly to 504,000 in Friday’s report. The vigorous job growth for January was the first in a series of reports to point to an accelerating economy at the start of the year. Sales at retail stores and restaurants also jumped, and inflation, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, rose from December to January at the fastest pace in seven months.

The stronger data reversed a cautiously optimistic narrative that the economy was cooling modestly — just enough, perhaps, to tame inflation without triggering a deep recession. Now, the economic outlook is hazier.
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A U.S. citizen imprisoned by Iran on spying charges the United States rejects as baseless gave a rare interview from Tehran’s Evin prison on Thursday beseeching U.S. President Joe Biden to secure his release and that of two other American nationals.

“I implore you, sir, to put the lives and liberty of innocent Americans above all the politics involved and to just do what is necessary to end this nightmare and bring us home,” Siamak Namazi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in a telephone interview.

Namazi, 51, was speaking on behalf of himself, Emad Shargi, 58, a businessman and U.S. citizen, and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who has both U.S. and British nationality.

Namazi made a similar plea in a letter to Biden on Jan. 16, seven years after Iran released five U.S. citizens in a prisoner exchange that coincided with the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under U.S. President Barrack Obama.

“I remain deeply worried that the White House just doesn’t appreciate how dire our situation has become,” he said, saying he, Tahbaz and Shargi were all now held in the same place. Early in his detention, Namazi said he spent months caged in a cell, sleeping on the floor.

Namazi also called it “hurtful and upsetting” that Biden had not met his family “just to give them some words of assurance.”

A White House spokesperson said on condition of anonymity that “Iran’s unjust imprisonment and exploitation of U.S. citizens for use as political leverage is outrageous, inhumane, and contrary to international norms.

“Senior officials from both the White House and the State Department meet and consult regularly with the Namazi family, and we will continue to do so until this unacceptable detention ends,” the spokesperson added.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Mushers and their dogs in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race face plenty of variables in the Alaska wilderness. An unexpected one this year has been heat that is taking a toll in a sport better suited for temperatures well below zero. 

Jason Mackey said a thermometer hanging from the back of his sled hit 26.67 degrees Celsius at one point this week as he camped alongside the trail while mushers neared the halfway mark of the race. Other racers threw their game plans for the 1,609-kilometer race across Alaska out the window to deal with the heat and messy trail conditions. 

Although it’s warm, it wasn’t 26.67 degrees in interior Alaska, which would probably be a record high in July, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the National Weather Service’s Alaska Region. Instead, when you leave a thermometer in the sun, it absorbs the solar energy, which is the reason official measurement thermometers are kept in the shade. 

But it’s still warm and sunny, and it’s having noticeable effects on people who are exposed to it, Brettschneider said. 

Last weekend, the same area was much cooler than normal, with what appeared to be ideal mushing conditions. The warmer conditions are being driven by an area of high pressure, he said.  

Many communities in the nation’s largest state hit record highs this week, from Kodiak off Alaska’s southern coast to Deadhorse, the supply town for oil companies operating on the state’s North Slope, about 2,012 kilometers away. 

Along the Iditarod race route, the community of McGrath didn’t set records but had a high Wednesday of 2.22 degree Celsius, -10 degree Celsius above normal. More telling was a low temperature of -2.78 degrees Celsius. 

“Normally it should be below zero (-17.78 degrees Celsius),” Brettschneider said. 

That warmth was evident all along the Iditarod trail Wednesday. “There’s almost no places that were below freezing along the route,” he said. 

That was not news to Mackey. “I wish the temperatures would cool down,” the musher told a television crew from the Iditarod Insider. 

It’s just not the heat that was bothersome. He said he looked down at his sled at one point and saw two mosquitoes. 

“Yeah, it’s spring,” Mackey said. 

The heat is taking its toll on Mackey’s dogs, which he called “big boys” at 36.29 kilograms. He said other teams were moving in the heat of the day, but he wasn’t willing to do that. “I mean, it zaps them,” he said of the dog team. 

Kelly Maixner, a pediatric dentist, said his dogs don’t like the heat, and he’d rather it be -28.89 degrees Celsius. 

During the race, mushers must take one 24-hour layover at a checkpoint to rest. Part of where to take that layover plays into the strategy of most every musher. 

Nic Petit took his mandatory rest early in the race, at the checkpoint in Nikolai, because the sun was out. “I like hot dogs, just not my dog as a hot dog,” said Petit, who was born in France and raised in New Mexico. 

The melting was causing issues and concerns for some mushers, especially as they made for the race’s halfway point, the ghost village of Iditarod. 

“It could be soft and punchy out there, and who knows how the hills are going into Iditarod,” Richie Diehl told the TV crew. “It could be big tussocks just like a couple of years ago, and it could be a brutal run, you know, with the rolling hills and possibly barren tundra.” Tussocks are clumps of grass. 

Rookie musher Bailey Vitello of New Hampshire was near last place Thursday, running his dogs in the rain during the day and having to deal with ice at night. 

He would rather not be behind and dealing with ripped-up trails. “The back-of-the-pack is the worst part of the trail,” he told the TV crew. 

Riley Dyche of Fairbanks took his 24-hour break before reaching Iditarod because he didn’t want to run his dogs in the heat of the day. That likely cost him either $3,000 in gold nuggets or a new smart phone, the prize given to the first musher at the halfway point. 

“I don’t think the little incentive prize — it would have been cool — but I don’t think it would have been a benefit to these guys for getting to the finish line,” he said, speaking of his dogs. 

Instead, that prize went to race leader Wade Marrs, who is originally from Alaska but now living in Wisconsin. He arrived in Iditarod about 1 a.m. Thursday. 

The good news for mushers is that as they continue west, temperatures will be more Alaska-like, highs around -12 degrees Celsius and lows below -17.78 degrees, Brettschneider said. 

The race started Sunday in Willow, just north of Anchorage. Mushers will take their dog teams over two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and the Bering Sea ice to the finish line in Nome. The winner is expected sometime early next week. 

 
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A global shortage of semiconductor chips in the automotive industry starting in 2020 has motivated many countries to increase their domestic manufacturing. The United States has allocated more than $50 billion to promote semiconductor production and research stateside as the global need for the chips is expected to double over the next decade. Keith Kocinski has more from New York.
Camera: Keith Kocinski and Rendy Wicaksana
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