U.S Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He pledged to keep the lines of communication open between the two economic superpowers Wednesday in Zurich, Switzerland. 

Speaking to reporters at the start of their summit, Yellen said while Washington and Beijing “have areas of disagreement,” the two countries “have a responsibility to manage our differences and prevent competition from becoming anything near conflict.” 

Liu said China was ready to work with the United States “to maintain dialogue and exchanges” and seek common ground. 

The meeting in the global financial center is expected to focus on the risk of a global economic recession this year and sovereign debt, especially China’s holdings of massive debt of several low-income nations who are facing potential default amid rising interest rates. Yellen is expected to urge Beijing to provide debt relief to those countries during her summit with Liu. 

Wednesday’s high-level meeting in Zurich is the result of an agreement between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached at the G-20 summit in Bali back in November to improve ties between the world’s top two economies.   

Relations between Washington and Beijing have grown increasingly strained in recent years over several issues, including trade, human rights and China’s increased pressure on the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing considers as part of its territory.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

The man who was once Mexico’s top security official and in charge of fighting the drug cartels went on trial Tuesday on charges he accepted millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for helping the powerful Sinaloa Cartel move drugs and its members avoid capture. 

Genaro García Luna was best known as the mumbling, tough-looking former security secretary under ex-President Felipe Calderón, who spearheaded the bloody war on cartels between 2006 and 2012. 

Prosecutors say García Luna was so brazen he accepted tens of millions of dollars, often stuffed in briefcases. The evidence against him includes pay stubs, though whether they are from official jobs, private sector consultancy, cartel payments or other bribes is unclear. 

They say he continued to live off his ill-gotten proceeds even after he moved to the United States, where he was arrested in 2019, though the defense says he was a legitimate businessman. Jury selection was scheduled to continue Wednesday in the trial scheduled to unfold over the next eight weeks. 

In the end, the case could reveal the inner workings of how Mexican cartels have been able to operate so openly for so long: by bribing Mexican police and military right up to the top ranks. 

“For decades, Mexico’s political elite, of all parties, has sought by any means to have security ministers, generals, police commanders, interior secretaries and high-ranking officials tried and imprisoned in Mexico. … All that to avoid them giving information on the ties between the drug cartels and politicians,” said Mexican security analyst David Saucedo. “García Luna’s trial in the United States breaks with that pattern.” 

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has welcomed the trial, which is expected to cast light on corruption in the administration of Calderón, whom the president accuses of robbing him of the presidency in 2006. 

But López Obrador himself fought tooth and nail to avoid a U.S. trial of former Defense Secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos on similar charges in 2020, at one point threatening to kick agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration out of Mexico unless the general was returned, which he was. 

The trial begins just days after U.S. President Joe Biden met with López Obrador in Mexico City. The two governments pledged continued cooperation against the drug cartels, especially against the scourge of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which contributed to more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2021. López Obrador scrapped the civilian federal police force that García Luna once led and put the military in charge of much of the country’s security. 

“It’s not the same to put a civilian PAN official on trial, as it is to put a defense secretary on trial, when your whole national security policy rests on the armed forces,” said Ana Vanessa Cárdenas, an international security analyst at the Anahuac University, referring to Calderón’s conservative National Action Party. 

García Luna has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges and a continuing criminal enterprise. He could face decades in prison if convicted. 

What he will face in a Brooklyn courtroom is a parade of government witnesses, including high-level cartel members of a kind not seen in Brooklyn since Sinaloa boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was convicted there in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison. Some accusations against García Luna surfaced at the Guzmán trial. 

“While holding public office, [García Luna] used his official positions to assist the Sinaloa Cartel … in exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace wrote in a court filing last week. “At trial, the government expects that numerous witnesses, including several former high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel, will testify about bribes paid to the defendant in exchange for protection.” 

In exchange for the bribes, García provided the Sinaloa Cartel with “safe passage for its drug shipments, sensitive law enforcement information about investigations into the cartel, and information about rival drug cartels,” Peace wrote. “These payments allowed the cartel at times to receive warnings in advance of law enforcement efforts to apprehend cartel members and to allow cartel members to be released if arrested.” 

Before convicting Guzmán in 2019, jurors in his New York trial heard former cartel member Jesús Zambada testify that he personally made at least $6 million in hidden payments to García Luna, on behalf of his older brother, cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. 

The cartel is now believed to be run by Zambada and at least three of Guzmán’s sons, one of whom was arrested earlier this month on an extradition request from the United States. 

García Luna isn’t the first top Mexican official arrested for involvement with drug traffickers. Gen. Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo was made Mexico’s drug czar by President Ernesto Zedillo in 1996. He was arrested the following year after it was discovered he was living in a luxury apartment owned by the leader of the Juarez cartel, Amado Carrillo Fuentes. 
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Turkey’s F-16 fighter jet request from the United States and the possibility of another operation by Turkish military in northern Syria are expected to top the agenda during talks in Washington when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu meets Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. Analysts say any F-16 deal would be tied to Turkey’s timely support for NATO’s expansion and no military action in northern Syria. 

Turkey made an official request to purchase 40 F-16 jets and nearly 80 modernization kits from the United States in 2021. Biden administration officials have expressed support for the proposed sale, subject to approval by Congress. 

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the administration is preparing to begin consultations with Congress to seek approval for the $20 billion sale. 

James Jeffrey, chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, argues that any prospective support from Congress would depend on cooperation from NATO member Turkey on two issues: No military incursion into northern Syria and not blocking the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO. 

“The opposition in the Senate will probably require senior levels of the administration weighing in with security arguments. I’m not so sure if they’re ready to go that far, but I cannot imagine them doing a whole lot to help Turkey get F-16s if we don’t see a movement on those two issues,” he told VOA. 

Former head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) General Joseph Votel, who oversaw the military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — also known as ISIS or Daesh — agrees. 

Answering VOA’s questions in writing, Votel said the United States must tie any F-16 deal to “Turkish support for NATO expansion and an agreement to not further de-stabilize northern Syria with military action.” 

Twenty-eight NATO members have already ratified Sweden and Finland’s admission to the alliance. Turkey and Hungary have not. Hungary says it will do so in early February, leaving Turkey as the sole holdout. 

Turkey expects Finland and particularly Sweden to do more to crack down on Kurdish militants and members of the Gulen movement, which Ankara accuses of being behind an attempted coup in 2016. 

F-35s for Turkey’s regional rival Greece 

According to the WSJ report, the Biden administration is separately planning to seek congressional approval to sell F-35 jets to Turkey’s regional rival and NATO ally Greece. 

Turkey was removed from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program, where it was once a production partner, due to its purchase of S-400 missile defense systems from Russia. 

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to comment on the potential sale Friday at the daily press briefing. 

Senate Foreign Relations Commitee Chairman Bob Menendez welcomed news of the proposed sale of F-35 aircraft to Greece, which he referred to as a “trusted NATO ally’’ in a written statement first reported by Reuters and shared with VOA. 

He underlined that the United States and Greece share principles “including collective defense, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” 

Menendez opposes the proposed sale of F-16s jets to Turkey. 

“Until [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan ceases his threats, improves his human rights record at home — including by releasing journalists and political opposition — and begins to act like a trusted ally should, I will not approve this sale,” he said. 

Syria agenda 

U.S. military leaders continue to be worried about possible military action by Turkey in northern Syria against the Kurdish YPG, part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. 

CENTCOM Commander General Michael Kurilla noted that more than two dozen ISIS detention centers are secured by the Syrian Democratic Forces. 

“Anything we can do to de-escalate the situation and prevent that incursion by the Turks would be important,’’ he said last month during a news briefing.

Former head of CENTCOM Votel says the chances of some sort of military activity by Turkey are likely, even though it may be limited in scope. 

He points to previous decisions by Erdogan, saying “this generally plays well with his loyalists.” 

Reconciliation efforts between Turkey and the Syrian government are also expected to come up during the talks in Washington. 

Turkey’s Cavusoglu recently said he could meet his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, in February. 

The United States has already made its position clear, saying it does not support countries “upgrading” their relationship with the Assad regime in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly said last week that “talks with Turkey should be based on the aims of ending the occupation of Syrian land” and halting support for what he called terrorism. 

The Wilson Center’s Jeffrey, who also served as the State Department Special Representative for Syria Engagement until 2020, argues that the Syrian president is unwilling to make any deals and that the talks are being pushed by Russia, “with no compromises on the security situation in Syria or on the return of the refugees,” which are two important concerns from Turkey’s perspective. 

“We shouldn’t read anything into this, particularly given the looming election in Turkey. I would rather wait until after the elections to see what the real Turkish policy is,” Jeffrey told VOA. 
…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is headed to Senegal, Zambia and South Africa this week to discuss trade expansion, investment and the U.S. commitment to African economies.

This comes after a promise from President Joe Biden at the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit last month that he and members of his Cabinet would visit Africa in 2023.

“I think this is the first in many steps to engage Africans on the continent,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa Program. But he told VOA, “There’s an overall message [U.S. officials] are trying to send as well, which is Washington is present, and that message is not only for the Africans but for the Chinese, Russians competing with the U.S. in these markets.”

Senior U.S. Treasury officials maintain that the purpose of the trip is to exchange ideas with African government officials, private sector leaders, entrepreneurs and youth, and to deepen economic ties between the U.S. and Africa, charting new opportunities for trade and investment.

Senegal

Yellen’s first stop is Senegal, where she will visit a business incubator providing credit and sector-specific technical assistance to young women entrepreneurs in the capital, Dakar.

She will also participate in a business forum with leaders from the American Chamber of Commerce in Senegal and the groundbreaking of a rural electrification project being led by U.S. engineering firm Weldy Lamont.

The project, Treasury officials say, is supported by a U.S. government initiative known as Prosper Africa and $100 million in financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

Secretary Yellen also plans to visit Gorée Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site that served as a slave trading post in West Africa.

The Treasury chief will meet with Senegalese President Macky Sall, the African Union chair whose country is also a leading member of the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS.

This could be an opportunity for Sall to discuss other issues including unfair international trade practices, said Chisanga Chekwe, president of the Canada-based Masomo Education Foundation charity.

Four African countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali – are among the most efficient cotton producers in the world, says Chekwe. “Three of the countries are in ECOWAS, and all four are in the AU,” Chekwe said. Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali are ECOWAS members. The AU refers to the African Union.

“Here is an interesting thing. Despite their efficiency, they only contribute 3% to world cotton production,” Chekwe said.

The reason, Chekwe said, is that cotton production is heavily subsidized in most countries, a reality that tends to distort markets.

Zambia

Chekwe is also the author of many books on African issues, especially on Zambia, where he said America sees an opportunity to counter Chinese influence with a new government that is considered pro-West.

“It’s seen as a government that’s weary of China. … One possible area of immediate cooperation is the restructuring of a $6 billion debt Zambia has to China, and let’s remember that makes up 24-25% of the country’s GDP [gross domestic product],” he said.

In 2020, Zambia became the first African country in the COVID pandemic era to default on its debt. But regardless of whether money is owed to China or financial institutions, Zambia is not the only African country with a debt burden, said Hudson.

“Ghana, another successful African country, is really experiencing a mounting crisis there, so Washington is seen as partly responsible,” he said. “Because like it or not, Washington is seen as controlling the international financial institutions of the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund], which have pushed for austerity measures on African states, kept interest rates on international lending very high to African states and at the same time has been critical of concessionary lending they’ve received from China, Russia and others outside of a multilateral system.”

The U.S. Treasury secretary met with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema at the summit last month and emphasized the need to work on a debt plan treatment for Zambia under the Common Framework, an initiative endorsed by the G-20 and others, as quickly as possible. The G-20 represents the 20 largest economies in the world.

While in Zambia, Yellen will meet with Hichilema again, along with his finance minister and that nation’s central bank governor. She’ll also tour two agriculture-related sites in an effort to promote climate-resilient agriculture and food production and mitigate the effects of the Russian war in Ukraine.

The war has had enormous economic effects on the global wheat, energy and fertilizer supplies, “all of which are affecting Africans much more acutely than anyone else in the world. This comes on top of a slow recovery from the COVID pandemic,” said Hudson.

During the summit last month, Biden announced his administration will spend $2 billion in humanitarian assistance to address acute food insecurity in Africa, to “help ensure that children and families don’t have to go to bed hungry.”

South Africa

In South Africa, Yellen will meet with the country’s finance minister and reserve bank governor.

She’ll also visit a Ford Motor Co. assembly plant outside Pretoria. The facility, which employs more than 4,000 people, is slated to become carbon neutral by next year.

Yellen’s Africa tour coincides with a visit by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to Zambia next week. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang just completed a five-nation Africa tour that took him to Ethiopia, Angola, Benin, Gabon and Egypt.

Prior to arriving in Senegal, Yellen will meet with her Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier Liu He, in Switzerland on Wednesday.
…

President Joe Biden hosted Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday at the White House, where he urged the Netherlands to support new U.S. restrictions on exporting chip-making technology to China, a key part of Washington’s strategy in its rivalry against Beijing.

During a brief appearance in front of reporters before their meeting, Biden said that he and Rutte have been working on “how to keep a free and open Indo-Pacific” to “meet the challenges of China.”

“Simply put, our companies, our countries have been so far just lockstep in what we’ve done in our investment to the future. So today, I look forward to discussing how we can further deepen our relationship and securing our supply chains to strengthen our transatlantic partnership,” he said.

ASML Holding NV, maker of the world’s most advanced semiconductor lithography systems, is headquartered in Veldhoven, making the Netherlands key to Washington’s chip push against Beijing. Ahead of Rutte’s visit, Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher said the Netherlands is consulting with European and Asian allies and will not automatically accept the new restrictions that the U.S. Commerce Department launched in October.

“You can’t say that they’ve been pressuring us for two years and now we have to sign on the dotted line. And we won’t,” she said.

Rutte did not mention the semiconductor issue ahead of his meeting with Biden, focusing instead on Russia’s invasion on Ukraine, where the NATO allies have been working together to support Kyiv.

“Let’s stay closely together this year,” Rutte said. “And hopefully, things will move forward in a way which is acceptable for Ukraine.”

China is one of ASML’s biggest clients. CEO Peter Wennink in October played down the impact of the U.S. export control regulations.

“Based on our initial assessment, the new restrictions do not amend the rules governing lithography equipment shipped by ASML out of the Netherlands and we expect the direct impact on ASML’s overall 2023 shipment plan to be limited,” he said.

Shoring up allies

Biden has been shoring up allies, including the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea — home to leading companies that play a critical role in the industry’s supply chain — to limit Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors. Last week he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who said he backs Biden’s attempt but did not agree to match the sweeping curbs targeting China’s semiconductor and supercomputing industries.

U.S. officials say export restrictions on chips are necessary because China can use semiconductors to advance their military systems, including weapons of mass destruction, and commit human rights abuses.

The October restrictions follow the U.S. Congress’ July passing of the CHIPS Act of 2022 to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing, design and research, and reinforce America’s chip supply chains. The legislation also restricts companies that receive U.S. subsidies from investing in and expanding cutting edge chipmaking facilities in China.

Some information for this story came from AP.
…

A failed Republican candidate who authorities said was angry over his defeat in November is facing numerous charges in connection with drive-by shootings targeting the homes of Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico’s largest city.

Solomon Pena, 39, was arrested Monday evening after SWAT officers took him into custody and served search warrants at his home, police said.

Pena, a felon whose criminal past had been a controversial issue during last year’s campaign, repeatedly made baseless claims that the election was “rigged” against him as he posed with “Trump 2024” flags and a “Make America Great Again” hoodie.

“I dissent. I am the MAGA king,” he posted the day after the election. And on Nov. 15, he added: “I never conceded my HD 14 race. Now researching my options.”

He was being held pending an initial court appearance Wednesday on charges including multiple counts of shooting at a home and shooting from a motor vehicle, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina described Pena as the “mastermind” of an apparently politically motivated conspiracy leading to shootings at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators between early December and early January.

No one was injured, but in one case bullets passed through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.

Pena ran unsuccessfully in November against incumbent state Rep. Miguel P. Garcia, the longtime Democrat representing House District 14 in the South Valley. Pena got just 26% of the vote, but refused to concede.

Pena then showed up uninvited at the elected officials’ homes with what he claimed were documents proving he had won his race, police said. There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, or any irregularity involving enough votes to change a result, in New Mexico in 2020 or 2022.

The shootings began just days after those conversations, according to a criminal complaint.

“This type of radicalism is a threat to our nation and has made its way to our doorstep right here in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” said Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat. “But I know we are going to push back, and we will not allow this to cross the threshold.”

The New Mexico Republican Party condemned Pena in a statement Monday night. “If Pena is found guilty, he must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Four men conspired with Pena, who is accused of paying them cash to carry out at least two of the drive-by shootings in stolen vehicles, while Pena “pulled the trigger” during one of the crimes, Deputy Police Commander Kyle Hartsock said.

Detectives identified Pena as their key suspect using a combination of cellphone and vehicle records, text messages that included the elected officials’ addresses, witness interviews and bullet casings collected near the lawmakers’ homes. His arrest came one week after Medina announced they had identified a suspect in the shootings.

A lawyer for Pena who could comment on the allegations wasn’t listed Tuesday in court records.

Authorities nationwide are concerned about rising threats to members of Congress, school board members, election officials and other government workers. In Albuquerque, law enforcement also has struggled to address back-to-back years of record homicides and persistent gun violence.

The shootings began Dec. 4, when eight rounds were fired at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa. Days later, state Rep. Javier Martinez’s home was targeted, followed by a Dec. 11 shooting at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley. More than a dozen rounds were fired at her home, police said.

The final related shooting, targeting state Sen. Linda Lopez’s home, unfolded in the midnight hour of Jan. 3. Police said more than a dozen shots were fired and Lopez said three of the bullets passed through her 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom.

Technology that can detect the sound of gunfire led an officer to Lopez’s neighborhood shortly after the shots were fired.

The officer found bullet casings matching a handgun found later that morning in a Nissan Maxima registered to Pena. Around 1:30 a.m., about an hour after the shooting at Lopez’s home, police stopped the Nissan about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the lawmaker’s neighborhood.

The driver, identified as Jose Trujillo, was arrested on an outstanding warrant, leading to the discovery of more than 800 fentanyl pills and two firearms in the car.

The criminal complaint details text messages shared between Pena, Trujillo, another man identified as Demetrio Trujillo and two unnamed brothers. One of the messages referenced officials certifying the election in November, saying “They sold us out to the highest bidder.”

Investigators said it appeared the men were using code words; some messages pointed to meetings around Albuquerque. One image shared via text showed Pena and Jose Trujillo in a vehicle together and another showed Jose Trujillo eating at a table with a number of handguns.

The police complaint is based in part on testimony from a confidential witness who said he had “personal and intimate knowledge of the crimes” and was present at most of the shootings.

That witness told authorities that Pena had paid $500 for the men to do a “job” using guns the witness provided. He said one of the men told the shooters to aim above the windows to avoid striking anyone inside, but that wasn’t enough for Pena, who wanted them to shoot lower, and that Pena was there at the Lopez shooting “to ensure better target acquisition.”

The witness said Pena and two of the men jumped into a stolen pickup for the drive-by shooting of the Lopez home, and that while Pena’s gun jammed and did not fire correctly, Jose Trujillo’s handgun did.

Pena’s insistence that the men be more aggressive made the other participants uneasy “since they knew that doing so would likely end in death or injury,” said the witness, who faces criminal charges and has asked for leniency. Authorities said no such promises have been made.

Police said additional arrests and charges are expected but declined to elaborate.

Pena spent nine years behind bars after his arrest in April 2007 for stealing electronics and other goods from several retail stores as part of what authorities described then as a burglary crew. He was released from prison in March 2016, and had his voting rights restored after completing five years probation in April 2021, corrections officials said.
…

In early January the United States put in place a new humanitarian parole process which allows some Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants to live and work temporarily in the U.S. and expands the number of Venezuelans eligible. Some Central American migrants argue they should also qualify for the same humanitarian relief. Victor Hugo Castillo reports from Reynosa, Mexico. Video editor -  Veronica Villafane.
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British Foreign Minister James Cleverly will seek to bolster support for Ukraine on a trip to the United States and Canada which begins on Tuesday, ahead of the first anniversary of the invasion by Russia.

Britain has been a steadfast supporter of Kyiv since Russia’s invasion last February, and at the weekend pledged to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks and other heavy weaponry to Ukraine.

Germany is under pressure to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, but its government says such tanks should be supplied to Ukraine only if there is agreement among Kyiv’s main allies, particularly the United States.

Cleverly will tell U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Canadian counterpart Melanie Joly that it is the right time to go “further and faster” to give Ukraine military support.

“Today we stand united against Putin’s illegal war, and we will continue to use our uniquely strong defense and security ties to ensure that, in the end, the Ukrainian people will win,” Cleverly said in a statement ahead of the trip.

The British foreign ministry also said Cleverly would raise the topic of Iran while on the trip after Britain temporarily recalled its ambassador following the execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari on Saturday.
…

The White House counsel’s office said Monday that no visitor logs are kept at President Joe Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware, thwarting one Republican effort to find out who might have visited the home while classified documents have been stored there.

On Sunday, Representative James Comer, the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, asked Ron Klain, Biden’s White House chief of staff, in a letter for information on the searches for the documents at Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington and at Biden’s home, including lists of who visited the residence since he became president nearly two years ago.

“Like every president across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the counsel’s office said in a statement. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”

The Secret Service also said that while a security detail is assigned to the home, it does not track who comes and goes.

“We don’t independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence,” a Secret Service spokesperson said.

Newly empowered House Republicans have been demanding more information about who might have had access to classified documents from Biden’s vice presidency that ended in 2017 that were discovered at his Washington think tank office where he worked occasionally and at his Delaware home.

Biden has said he was surprised that any classified documents — about 20 in all — were found at locations linked to him.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the top U.S. law enforcement official, has named two special counsels, one to investigate how Biden and his aides handled the classified documents as he left the vice presidency and one to investigate how former President Donald Trump took more than 300 classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago, his oceanside retreat in Florida, when his presidency ended two years ago.

Biden has turned over the documents recovered at locations linked to him to the National Archives and Records Administration, as required by law. In both instances, the Trump and Biden documents should have been turned over when their terms in office ended.

Meanwhile, Trump, at the request of the National Archives, returned some documents months after he left office, but when officials came to believe he still had more classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, they secured court approval for a search of the property in August and recovered dozens more documents.

Comer’s request Sunday for the visitor logs came a day after the White House said Biden’s aides had found five additional pages of classified material at his home, in addition to an earlier disclosure that other documents had been found in the garage at the residence and at the Washington office Biden occasionally used before running for president in 2020.

Republicans, who reclaimed narrow control of the House of Representatives in November’s nationwide congressional elections, have assailed Biden for not acknowledging the existence of the classified documents from his vice presidency until last week even though the cache at his office was discovered in early November, just days before the elections.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” show Sunday, Comer said he was not accusing Biden of wrongdoing, but added, “I will accuse the Biden administration of not being transparent” in not confirming that the classified documents had been discovered until after CBS News first reported it.

“The hypocrisy here is great,” Comer said about Biden attacking Trump for his document cache and then not confirming his own until weeks after the election, the disclosure of which could have influenced voting.

The White House, seeking to minimize the political fallout from the disclosure of the classified material found at Biden locations, has noted that it is fully cooperating with the investigation of his documents while Trump has decried the probe of the material found at Mar-a-Lago.
…

President Joe Biden declared Monday that “in America, hate will not prevail,” as he recalled the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the national holiday commemorating the slain civil rights leader and his quest for justice and equal rights for Blacks in the United States.

Biden, speaking in Washington to leaders of the National Action Network, a civil rights group, said Americans must “never grow weary in doing what is right.”

He cited actions he has taken to improve the lives of Black Americans during the first two years of his presidency, but added, “Folks, we have a lot of unfinished business. We cannot remain silent.”

The Democratic president promised to work with the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives on issues where they might be able to reach agreement. But he also said he will veto legislation that he feels would hurt working-class families.

He assailed Republicans for their passage last week of a measure attempting to rescind $80 billion in new funding for the country’s tax collection agency, the Internal Revenue Service, saying the lack of new auditors at the agency scrutinizing tax returns would “reduce taxes for the super wealthy.”

Republicans say the extra funding would have led to burdensome audits of small businesses and middle-income taxpayers. Biden said he would veto the measure in the unlikely event the Democratic-controlled Senate passes it. He also attacked a call by some Republicans for a national sales tax on almost every purchased item and doing away with taxation on income.

Biden said the U.S. recovery from the economic depths caused by the coronavirus pandemic has laid the foundation for a stronger, more equitable economy for decades to come.

“Black unemployment is near record lows,” he said. “Wages for Black workers are up. Two strongest years ever for small business creation including for Black small businesses.”

“We’re expanding efforts to build Black generational wealth like every other person who built their wealth,” Biden said. “How’d they build it? Homes.”
…

Authorities in California were set to assess damage on Monday after a wave of storms killed at least 19 people, swept away scores of homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

The state was expected to get a break from rain on Monday, but forecasters warned mud and rockslides are possible in canyons and steep hills as the ground is saturated after three weeks of rain and snow. Local and state emergency declarations remained in effect in Los Angeles County and dozens of other counties as the state begins to dig out.

Small rainstorms lingered early on Monday from San Francisco through central California and a few inches of snow fell on the foothills of the Sierras, the National Weather Service reported.

“It’s coming to an end as we speak,” said meteorologist William Churchill on Monday morning at the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

President Joe Biden on Saturday approved California’s request for a federal disaster declaration, making federal funding available to assist recovery efforts in the three counties most impacted by the storms: Merced, Sacramento and Santa Cruz.

Since Dec. 26, California has been pounded by a string of atmospheric rivers – storms akin to rivers in the sky that carry moisture from the Earth’s tropics to higher latitudes, dumping massive amounts of rain.

Churchill said that after dry days on Tuesday and most of Wednesday, a small, weak storm will do a “driveby, glancing blow” late Wednesday in North and Central California and then blow south.

Then most of the state will have sunny days and at least a 10-day spell of dry, cool weather.
…

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with her Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier Liu He, in Switzerland on Wednesday to discuss economic developments between the two nations.

The Zurich talks will be a follow-up to the November meeting between President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. The two world leaders agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication.

Strains between the world’s two leading economies have been growing despite their trade ties. The Biden administration has blocked the sale of advanced computer chips to China and is considering a ban on investment in some Chinese tech companies, possibly undermining a key economic goal that Xi set for his country. Statements by the Democratic president that the U.S. will defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion have increased tensions.

The meeting comes ahead of Yellen’s travel to Senegal, Zambia and South Africa this week in what will be the first in a string of visits by Biden administration officials to sub-Saharan Africa during the year.

Africa is crucial to the global economy due to its rapidly growing population and significant natural resources. China’s deepening economic entrenchment in African nations, surpassing the U.S. in trade with the continent to become one of the world’s largest creditors, is also a motivator for the U.S. to deepen ties with African nations.

Yellen has spoken at length publicly about China’s financing practices on the continent, calling them “economic practices that have disadvantaged all of us.”

She has also called on China explicitly to end its relationship with Russia as the Kremlin continues its invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. and its European and Asian allies have imposed sanctions and an oil price cap on Russia in retaliation for the war, putting China in a difficult spot as it had promised a “no limits” friendship with Russia before the invasion began.

It will be Yellen’s first in-person meeting with Liu since taking office and follows three virtual meetings between them.
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Los Angeles based conductor Charles Dickerson is convinced that every metropolitan area with a big African American population should have a classical youth orchestra to help take local kids off the streets. He created the largest majority Black youth orchestra in the U.S. Genia Dulot reports.
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The U.S. military’s new, expanded combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany on Sunday, with a goal of getting a battalion of about 500 troops back on the battlefield to fight the Russians in the next five to eight weeks, said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Milley, who plans to visit the Grafenwoehr training area on Monday to get a first-hand look at the program, said the troops being trained left Ukraine a few days ago. In Germany is a full set of weapons and equipment for them to use.

Until now the Pentagon had declined to say exactly when the training would start.

The so-called combined arms training is aimed at honing the skills of the Ukrainian forces so they will be better prepared to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks. They will learn how to better move and coordinate their company- and battalion-size units in battle, using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.

Speaking to two reporters traveling with him to Europe on Sunday, Milley said the complex training — combined with an array of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles heading to Ukraine — will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-old war.

“This support is really important for Ukraine to be able to defend itself,” Milley said. “And we’re hoping to be able to pull this together here in short order.”

The goal, he said, is for all the incoming weapons and equipment to be delivered to Ukraine so that the newly trained forces will be able to use it “sometime before the spring rains show up. That would be ideal.”

The new instruction comes as Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in the eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar. Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow’s troops take control of Soledar it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.

Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll in one apartment building rose to 30.

Milley said he wants to make sure the training is on track and whether anything else is needed, and also ensure that it will line up well with the equipment deliveries.

The program will include classroom instruction and field work that will begin with small squads and gradually grow to involve larger units. It would culminate with a more complex combat exercise bringing an entire battalion and a headquarters unit together.

Until now, the U.S. focus has been on providing Ukrainian forces with more immediate battlefield needs, particularly on how to use the wide array of Western weapons systems pouring into the country.

The U.S. has already trained more than 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to use and maintain certain weapons and other equipment, including howitzers, armored vehicles and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS. Other nations are also conducting training on the weapons they provide.

In announcing the new program last month, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the idea “is to be able to give them this advanced level of collective training that enables them to conduct effective combined arms operations and maneuver on the battlefield.”

Milley said the U.S. was doing this type of training prior to the Russian invasion last February. But once the war began, U.S. National Guard and special operations forces that were doing training inside Ukraine all left the country. This new effort, which is being done by U.S. Army Europe Africa’s 7th Army Training Command, will be a continuation of what they had been doing prior to the invasion. Other European allies are also providing training.
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Iranian American Siamak Namazi has launched a seven-day hunger strike to call attention to his continued detention in Iran, while calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to bring home all Americans jailed in Iran. 

Namazi was arrested in 2015 and convicted of what the United States and the United Nations said were false spying charges. 

His appeal Monday came in the form of a letter to Biden, released by Namazi’s lawyer Jared Genser, on the seventh anniversary of a deal in which Iran freed five Americans in exchange for the United States offering clemency to seven Iranians. That swap coincided with the implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement, at a time when Biden was the U.S. vice president. 

“When the Obama Administration unconscionably left me in peril and freed the other American citizens Iran held hostage on January 16, 2016, the U.S. Government promised my family to have me safely home within weeks,” Namazi wrote. “Yet seven years and two presidents later, I remain caged in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, holding that long overdue IOU along with the unenviable title of the longest held Iranian-American hostage in history.” 

Namazi cited what he called “well-intentioned statements” from senior U.S. officials saying the release of U.S. hostages from Iran is a top priority, but that he has learned not to get his hopes up. 

While saying he will deny himself food for seven days, Namazi urged Biden to spend one minute on each of those days “devoted to thinking about the tribulations of the U.S. hostages in Iran.” 

Namazi’s father, Baquer, was arrested in 2016 after traveling to Iran to visit his son and spent years in prison on the same charges before being released in October on medical grounds. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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The new Republican head of a key House committee assailed Democratic President Joe Biden and his aides Sunday for their handling of classified documents discovered at a Washington office Biden used after his vice presidency ended in 2017 and at his home in the eastern city of Wilmington, Delaware.

Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, asked Ron Klain, Biden’s White House chief of staff, in a letter for information on the searches for the documents at Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington and at Biden’s home, including lists of who visited the residence since he became president nearly two years ago.

Comer’s request came a day after the White House said Biden’s aides had found five additional pages of classified material at his home, in addition to an earlier disclosure that other documents had been found in the garage at his home and at the Washington office Biden occasionally used before running for president in 2020.

In all, about 20 classified documents have been found at the Biden office or home, including some that were first discovered in early November, just days before crucial nationwide congressional elections, but not acknowledged by the White House until last week. All have been turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration as required by U.S. law when presidents and vice presidents leave office.

Watch related video by Veronica Balderas Iglesias:

In the run-up to the elections, where Democrats won more contests than predicted— before the voting, Biden attacked former President Donald Trump as “totally irresponsible” for taking more than 300 classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago oceanside retreat in Florida when he left office. Eventually, Trump returned some of the documents as the Archives requested, while dozens of others were not recovered until FBI agents discovered them in a court-ordered search at Mar-a-Lago last August.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, Comer said he was not accusing Biden of wrongdoing, but added, “I will accuse the Biden administration of not being transparent” in not confirming that the classified documents had been discovered until after CBS News first reported it.

“The hypocrisy here is great,” Comer said about Biden attacking Trump for his document cache and then not confirming his own until weeks after the election, the disclosure of which could have influenced voting.

Comer made no request for visitor logs at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat where he lives in the winter months.

“No one’s been investigated more than President Trump,” Comer told CNN, “but no one’s investigated President Biden.”

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed two special counsels, one to investigate Trump’s classified documents and another to probe Biden’s collection of classified material.

The White House, seeking to minimize the political fallout from the disclosure of the classified material found at Biden locations, has noted that it is fully cooperating with the investigation of his documents while Trump has decried the probe of the material found at Mar-a-Lago.

In his letter to Klain, Comer said, “It is troubling that classified documents have been improperly stored at the home of President Biden for at least six years, raising questions about who may have reviewed or had access to classified information.”

Biden has said he was surprised to learn that any classified material was discovered at locations linked to him.

Comer, asked by CNN if he cared more about the mishandling of classified documents when it related to Democrats, replied, “Absolutely not. Look, we still don’t know what type of documents President Trump had.”

“My concern,” he said, “is how there’s such a discrepancy in how former President Trump was treated by raiding Mar-a-Lago, by getting the security cameras, by taking pictures of documents on the floor. … That’s not equal treatment, and we’re very concerned and there’s a lack of trust here at the Department of Justice by House Republicans. That’s the outrage.”
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As the United States this week remembers the champion of civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., President Joe Biden is facing scrutiny into whether he mishandled classified documents. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on why both Republicans and Democrats agree that the ongoing investigation into the matter is necessary.
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President Joe Biden told Americans to look towards Martin Luther King Jr.’s life for lessons on repairing their divisions, extremism and injustice, as he become the first sitting U.S. president to speak at a Sunday service in the civil rights leader’s church in Atlanta.

Marking Monday’s national holiday celebrating King, Biden delivered a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church at the invitation of its pastor, Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, centered on a common theme — the country and the world are battling against autocratic forces.

“The fact is that I stand here at a critical juncture for the United States and the world in my view,” Biden said, calling it a “time of choosing.”

“Are we a people who will choose democracy over autocracy,” Biden asked. “We have to choose a community over chaos. Are we the people going to choose love over hate? These are the questions of our time and the reason I am here.”

King worked for voting rights, Biden said, but “we do well to remember that his mission was even deeper. It was spiritual. It was moral.”

King often asked ‘Where do we go from here?’ Biden said. “My message to the nation on this day is we go forward. We go together.”

Sunday would have been King’s 94th birthday. He was assassinated at age 39 in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, by avowed segregationist James Earl Ray. King was pastor of Ebenezer church from 1960 until his death.

“The battle for the soul of this nation is perennial,” Biden said in his tribute to King. “It’s a constant struggle between hope and fear kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice.”

Many presidents, including Biden, have visited Ebenezer to honor King, usually during events around the time of his birthday. But Biden was the first to speak from the pulpit at a regular Sunday service.

King “reminds us that we are tied in a single garment of destiny, that this is not about Democrat and Republican, red, yellow, brown, black and white,” Warnock said earlier on Sunday.

On Monday Biden will meet with civil rights advocate Al Sharpton in Washington, and speak to his group, the National Action Network.

Biden is expected to announce his re-election bid in the weeks ahead.

Biden was elected in 2020 with strong support from Black voters after pledging to do more to expand voting rights and address other racial justice issues. But some activist groups boycotted his 2022 speech honoring King, disappointed by what they see as his lack of action.
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R’Bonney Gabriel, a fashion designer, model and sewing instructor from Texas who competition officials said is the first Filipino American to win Miss USA, was crowned Miss Universe on Saturday night.

Gabriel closed her eyes and clasped hands with runner-up Miss Venezuela, Amanda Dudamel, at the moment of the dramatic reveal of the winner, then beamed after her name was announced.

Thumping music rang out, and she was handed a bouquet of flowers, draped in the winner’s sash and crowned with a tiara onstage at the 71st Miss Universe Competition, held in New Orleans.

The second runner-up was Miss Dominican Republic, Andreina Martinez.

In the Q&A at the last stage of the competition for the three finalists, Gabriel was asked how she would work to demonstrate Miss Universe is “an empowering and progressive organization” if she were to win.

“I would use it to be a transformational leader,” she responded, citing her work using recycled materials in her fashion design and teaching sewing to survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence.

“It is so important to invest in others, invest in our community and use your unique talent to make a difference,” Gabriel continued. “We all have something special, and when we plant those seeds to other people in our life, we transform them, and we use that as a vehicle for change.”

According to Miss Universe, Gabriel is a former high school volleyball player and graduate of the University of North Texas. A short bio posted on the organization’s website said she is also CEO of her own sustainable clothing line.

Nearly 90 contestants from around the world took part in the competition, organizers said, involving “personal statements, in depth interviews and various categories including evening gown & swimwear.”

Miss Curacao, Gabriela Dos Santos, and Miss Puerto Rico, Ashley Carino, rounded out the top five finalists.

Last year’s winner was Harnaaz Sandhu of India.
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The U.S. has now collected 510 reports of unidentified flying objects, many of which are flying in sensitive military airspace. While there’s no evidence of extraterrestrials, they still pose a threat, the government said in a declassified report summary released Thursday.

Last year the Pentagon opened an office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, solely focused on receiving and analyzing all of those reports of unidentified phenomena, many of which have been reported by military pilots. It works with the intelligence agencies to further assess those incidents.

The events “continue to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety of flight or adversary collection activity,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in its 2022 report.

The classified version of the report addresses how many of those objects were found near locations where nuclear power plants operate or nuclear weapons are stored.

The 510 objects include 144 objects previously reported and 366 new reports. In both the old and new cases, after analysis, the majority have been determined to exhibit “unremarkable characteristics,” and could be characterized as unmanned aircraft systems, or balloon-like objects, the report said.

But the office is also tasked with reporting any movements or reports of objects that may indicate that a potential adversary has a new technology or capability.

The Pentagon’s anomaly office is also to include any unidentified objects moving underwater, in the air, or in space, or something that moves between those domains, which could pose a new threat.

ODNI said in its report that efforts to destigmatize reporting and emphasize that the objects may pose a threat likely contributed to the additional reports.
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A single winning ticket for a Mega Millions lottery jackpot of at least $1.35 billion, the second largest jackpot in U.S. history, was sold in Maine, lottery organizers said Saturday.

“Congratulations to the Maine State Lottery, which has just won its first-ever Mega Millions jackpot,” Ohio Lottery director Pat McDonald, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement. “It’s the fourth billion-dollar jackpot in Mega Millions history.”

The winning ticket, which cost $2 and matched all six numbers, was bought at Hometown Gas & Grill convenience store in Lebanon, Maine. The ticket holder, yet to be identified, has the choice of a lump-sum payment of $723.5 million or an annual payout over 30 years.

Most winners go for the lump sum, which comes with a hefty tax bill, according to the Mega Millions website.

The winning numbers for the jackpot were 30, 43, 45, 46 and 61, plus the power ball 14.

“This is a small rural town in southern Maine,” Fred Cotreau, the owner of Hometown Gas & Grill told Reuters. “We do not know yet who the winner is, but we are anxiously awaiting to see if it’s one of our friends.”

The jackpot had been rolling since it was last won Oct. 14, when a $502 million prize was shared by winning tickets in California and Florida. It is the second largest in the 20-year history of the game, topped only by the $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in October 2018.

In addition to the jackpot-winning ticket, 14 tickets matched all five numbers to win the game’s second-tier prize of $1 million. Four were sold in New York, two in California and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold, where the money supports lottery beneficiaries, such as education or public employee pensions, and retailer commissions.

Cotreau stands to receive a substantial bonus for the ticket.

“I don’t know yet, but I’m gonna call my lottery agent first thing Monday morning to find out.”
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New data from the United States government suggests holiday gatherings didn’t spark surges in respiratory diseases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday that visits to doctors’ offices for flu-like illnesses fell for the sixth straight week. Reports of RSV, a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be serious for infants and the elderly, are also down.

When flu and RSV surged in the fall, causing overloads at pediatric emergency rooms, some doctors feared that winter might bring a “tripledemic” of flu, RSV and COVID-19. And they worried holiday gatherings might be the spark.

But it didn’t happen, apparently.

“Right now, everything continues to decline,” said the CDC’s Lynnette Brammer, who leads the government agency’s tracking of flu in the United States.

RSV hospitalizations have been going down since November, and flu hospitalizations are down, too.

‘It has slowed down’

Of course, the situation is uneven across the country, and some places have more illnesses than others. But some doctors say patient traffic is easing.

“It has really eased up, considerably,” said Dr. Ethan Wiener, a pediatric Emergency Room doctor at the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in New York City.

Dr. Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri, said “it has slowed down, tremendously,”

Newland said he wasn’t surprised that flu and RSV continued to trend down in recent weeks, but added: “The question is what was COVID going to do?”

COVID-19 hospitalizations rose through December, including during the week after Christmas. One set of CDC data appears to show they started trending down after New Year’s, although an agency spokesperson noted that another count indicates an uptick as of last week. Because of reporting lags, it may be a few weeks until the CDC can be sure COVID-19 hospitalizations have really started dropping, she said.

Second wave could still come

Newland said there was an increase in COVID-19 traffic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in December. But he noted the situation was nothing like it was a year ago, when the then-new omicron variant was causing the largest national surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations since the pandemic began.

“That was the worst,” he said.

The fall RSV and flu surge was felt most acutely at health care centers for children. Wiener said the pediatric emergency department traffic at Hassenfeld was 50% above normal levels in October, November and December — “the highest volumes ever” for that time of year, he said.

The RSV and flu surges likely faded because so many members of the vulnerable population were infected “and it just kind of burnt itself out,” he said.

It makes sense that respiratory infections could rebound amid holiday travel and gatherings, and it’s not exactly clear why that didn’t happen, Brammer said.

That said, flu season isn’t over. Thirty-six states are still reporting high or very high levels of flu activity, and it’s always possible that a second wave of illnesses is still ahead, experts said.
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Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced new contingency plans Saturday for the three-member crew of a damaged capsule docked to the International Space Station, saying the U.S. member of the trio would return to Earth in a separate SpaceX vessel if they needed to evacuate in the next few weeks. 

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule, which serves as a lifeboat for the crew, sprang a coolant leak last month after it was struck by a micrometeoroid — a small particle of space rock — which made a tiny puncture and caused the temperature inside to rise.  

Roscosmos and NASA said this week that a new spacecraft, Soyuz MS-23, would be launched next month to bring back cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio. But it will not dock with the space station until February 22. 

Given there could be an earlier emergency, Rubio’s seat was being moved from the MS-22 to a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, also docked to the space station, Roscosmos said Saturday. 

If an emergency evacuation is necessary, Rubio will return to Earth on the Crew Dragon, and the Roscosmos cosmonauts will return on the Soyuz MS-22, it said. 

“The descent of two cosmonauts instead of three will be safer, as it will help reduce the temperature and humidity in the Soyuz MS-22.”  

The mission was due to end in March, but the plan now is to extend it by several months and bring the three men home on the MS-23. The latter had been due to take up three new crew in March, but instead will be launched empty next month to dock with the space station.

Four other crew members are currently on the orbital station — two more from NASA, a third Russian, and a Japanese astronaut. All arrived in October on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. 

Relations between Russia and the U.S. have been poisoned by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but the two countries continue to work closely together on the space station, an orbital laboratory about 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth that has been occupied continuously for two decades. 

Russia has said it plans to quit the project after 2024 and launch its own station. 
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Key dates related to the discovery of classified documents tied to U.S. President Joe Biden, based on statements from the White House, the president, and Attorney General Merrick Garland:

Jan. 20, 2017: Biden's two terms as vice president to President Barack Obama end.
Mid-2017-2019: Biden periodically uses an office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington.
Jan. 20, 2021: Biden is sworn in as president.
Nov. 2, 2022: Biden's personal attorneys come across Obama-Biden administration documents in a locked closet while packing files as they prepare to close out Biden's office in the Penn Biden Center. They notify the National Archives.
Nov. 3, 2022: The National Archives takes possession of the documents.
Nov. 4, 2022: The National Archives informs the Justice Department about the documents.
Nov. 8, 2022: Midterm elections.
November-December 2022: Biden's lawyers search the president's homes in Wilmington, Delaware, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to see if there are other documents from his vice presidency.
Nov. 9, 2022: The FBI begins an assessment of whether classified information has been mishandled.
Nov. 14, 2022: Garland assigns U.S. attorney John Lausch to look into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the matter.
Dec. 20, 2022: Biden's personal counsel informs Lausch that a second batch of classified documents has been discovered in the garage of Biden's Wilmington home. The FBI goes to Biden's home in Wilmington and secures the documents.
Jan. 5, 2023: Lausch advises Garland he believes that appointing a special counsel is warranted.
Jan. 9, 2023: CBS News, followed by other news organizations, reveals the discovery of the documents at the Penn Biden Center. The White House acknowledges that "a small number" of Obama-Biden administration records, including some with classified markings, were found at the center. It makes no mention of the documents found in Wilmington.
Jan. 10: 2023: For the first time, Biden addresses the document issue. During a press conference in Mexico City, he says he was "surprised to learn that there were any documents" in the Penn Biden Center and doesn't know what's in them. He does not mention the documents found in Wilmington.
Jan. 11, 2023: Biden's lawyers complete their search of Biden's residences, find one additional classified document in the president's personal library in Wilmington. NBC News and other news organizations reveal a second batch of documents has been found at a location other than the Penn Biden Center.
Jan. 12, 2023: Biden's lawyer informs Lausch that an additional classified document has been found. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, reveals publicly for the first time that documents were found in Biden's Wilmington garage and one document was found in an adjacent room. Garland announces that he has appointed Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, to serve as special counsel.
Jan. 14, 2023: The White House reveals that Biden's lawyers found more classified documents at his home than previously known. Sauber said in a statement that a total of six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden's private library. Sauber said Biden's personal lawyers, who did not have security clearances, stopped their search after finding the first page on Wednesday evening. Sauber found the remaining material Thursday as he was facilitating their retrieval by the Justice Department.

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