A Chinese national who has been studying in Boston has been indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury for allegedly stalking and threatening another Chinese citizen for posting fliers that support democracy in China.

The U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday that 25-year-old Xiaolei Wu, a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, was indicted on one count of cyberstalking and one count of interstate transmissions of threatening communications. He was arrested in December on a single count of stalking.

The department says an individual posted a flier either on or near the Berklee campus in mid-October written with pro-democracy slogans “We Want Freedom” and “We Want Democracy.”

Wu allegedly harassed the individual through social media, even threatening to chop off the person’s hands if any more fliers were posted. He also allegedly told the target that he had informed security authorities in China about the fliers and that agents would visit the victim’s family. Prosecutors also say Wu discovered the victim’s email address and posted it online to trigger further harassment.

Wu faces up to five years in prison on each charge of cyberstalking and interstate transmissions of threatening communications, along with a fine of up to $250,000 for each charge. VOA’s Mandarin Service says the Berklee College of Music has temporarily canceled Wu’s student status.

According to VOA’s Mandarin Service, Wu’s alleged harassment efforts began shortly after an October incident in Beijing in which a man identified online as Peng Zaizhou hung a banner on the city’s Sitong Bridge opposing President Xi Jinping’s strict “zero-COVID” lockdown policy. His stance resonated with Chinese students overseas, who began putting up pro-democracy posters.

But the posters were often torn down by Chinese students loyal to Beijing and that some of the Chinese students were harassed to varying degrees. The Chinese Students’ and Scholars Association, which has close ties to Chinese embassies and consulates, has been blamed for the on-campus harassment.

A report by the Hoover Institution, a U.S.-based research center, accuses the CSSA of undermining the academic freedom of other Chinese students and scholars on U.S. campuses.

Some information for this report came from VOA’s Mandarin Service.
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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says normal air traffic operations are gradually resuming across the U.S. after an outage affected one of its computer systems.  

The FAA had earlier ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures Wednesday due to an issue with its Notice to Air Missions System but now says the “ground stop has been lifted.”  

“We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.” The FAA tweeted.

“I have been in touch with FAA this morning about an outage affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted. “FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates.”

President Joe Biden said he has spoken to Buttigieg and directed the Department of Transportation to report directly to him about the matter..

“Aircraft can still land safely, just not take off right now. They don’t know what the cause of it is. They expect in a couple of hours they’ll have a good sense of what caused it and will respond at that time,” Biden told reporters Wednesday morning.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden has been briefed by Buttigieg on the matter and has called for a full investigation by the. Department of Transportation..

“There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates,” Jean-Pierre tweeted.

The problem was first reported around 6 a.m (Eastern Standard Time)., and by 7 a.m. there were 1,200 delayed flights, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Most were concentrated on the U.S. East Coast.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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The U.S. Navy said Tuesday it intercepted a shipment of assault rifles last week bound for Yemen that it believes came from Iran. 

A statement from the U.S. 5th Fleet said 2,116 AK-47 assault rifles were found on a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Oman that was traversing “a route historically used to traffic illicit cargo” to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels. 

The statement said U.S. forces had intercepted two other fishing vessels in the same area during the past two months that were also carrying weapons from Iran to Yemen. 

“This shipment is part of a continued pattern of destabilizing activity from Iran,” said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces. “These threats have our attention. We remain vigilant in detecting any maritime activity that impedes freedom of navigation or compromises regional security.” 

Iran has repeatedly denied arming the Houthis, while independent and U.N. experts have traced components from seized shipments back to Iran. 

Yemen erupted into conflict in late 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital.  The fight escalated in early 2015 with the entry of a Saudi-led coalition fighting on the side of Yemen’s exiled government. 

A six-month cease-fire expired in October, and the years of fighting has left millions in Yemen in need of humanitarian aid. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
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The leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada say they are working together on some of the biggest challenges their continent faces, among them: irregular migration, drug trafficking, trade agreements in the face of Chinese competition and unity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the solutions — and the leaders’ views of them — are not so straightforward. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from the summit of North American leaders in Mexico City.
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Sinkholes swallowed cars and floodwaters swamped towns and swept away a small boy as wild weather wracked California and another powerful storm loomed on the horizon.

Millions of residents faced flood warnings, nearly 50,000 people were under evacuation orders, and more than 110,000 homes and businesses were without power because of heavy rains, lightning, hail and landslides.

At least 17 people have died from storms that began late last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a visit to the scenic town of Capitola on the Santa Cruz coast that was hard hit by high surf and flooding creek waters last week. The deaths included a pickup driver and motorcyclist killed Tuesday morning when a eucalyptus tree fell on them on Highway 99 in the San Joaquin Valley near Visalia, the California Highway Patrol said.

“We’ve had less people die in the last two years of major wildfires in California than have died since New Year’s Day related to this weather,” Newsom said. “These conditions are serious and they’re deadly.”

Rain, snow

The latest storm, which began Monday, dumped more than 45 centimeters of rain in Southern California mountains and buried Sierra Nevada ski resorts in more than 1.5 meters of snow.

Rockfalls and landslides shut down roads, and gushing runoff turned sections of freeways into waterways. Swollen rivers swamped homes, and residents of small communities inundated with water and mud were stranded.

“We’re all stuck out here,” said Brian Briggs, after the deluge unleashed mudslides in remote Matilija Canyon that buried one house completely and cut off the only road to nearby Ojai.

Briggs described a scary night during which the canyon creek began to flood people’s yards and the surrounding hills — stripped of vegetation in the 2017 Thomas Fire — began to tumble down in the dark.

Mudflows dragged sheds, gazebos and outhouses into the creek, he said. After helping neighbors get to higher ground, he returned home to find his fence destroyed by waist-deep mud.

A helicopter dropped off 10 sheriff’s deputies Tuesday to help the residents of dozens of homes in the canyon and Briggs said he was hoping to be airlifted out.

Raging waters crested the banks of Bear Creek and flooded parts of the city of Merced and neighboring Planada, a small agricultural community along a highway leading to Yosemite National Park.

Neighborhoods were under water with cars submerged up to their roofs. Residents ordered to evacuate carried whatever they could salvage on their backs as they left in the rain.

A break in the weather Tuesday on the central coast allowed searchers near San Miguel to look for Kyle Doan, the child who vanished after he and his mother were stranded in a truck in rising waters. His mother was rescued, but Kyle was swept away, and a seven-hour search Monday turned up only one of his Nikes.

“It’s still very dangerous out there,” said San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s spokesperson Tony Cipolla. “The creeks are very fast flowing.”

‘Weather whiplash’

The wet and blustery weather left California’s large homeless population in a precarious situation. At least two homeless people in Sacramento County died, and more than a dozen people were rescued from a homeless encampment on the Ventura River.

Theo Harris, who has been living on the streets of San Francisco since getting out of jail in 2016, fortified his shelter with tarps and zip ties and took in his girlfriend after her tent flooded.

“The wind has been treacherous, but you just got to bundle up and make sure you stay dry,” Harris said. “Rain is part of life. It’s going to be sunny. It’s going to rain. I just got to strap my boots up and not give up.”

The storms have created what Newsom called a “weather whiplash,” swinging from an epic drought to the other extreme and arriving with a fury and frequency likely to create problems well into next week.

While most of the state remains in extreme or severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the state said the water content in the snowpack is more than double the average.

“It’s fair to say that what we’re seeing right now in California will certainly help to relieve some of the localized aspects of drought, but will not resolve the long-term drought challenges,” said Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The latest atmospheric river — a long plume of moisture stretching out into the Pacific that can drop staggering amounts of rain and snow — began easing in some areas. But more rain was forecast to arrive Wednesday in Northern California, and then a longer storm system was predicted to last from Friday until January 17.

Flood watch

The weather service issued a flood watch through Tuesday for the entire San Francisco Bay Area, along with the Sacramento Valley and Monterey Bay. Areas hit by wildfires in recent years faced the possibility of mud and debris sliding down bare hillsides.

Gusts as high as 141 kilometers per hour were recorded in the mountains north of Los Angeles, and rainfall was expected to reach up to 1.27 centimeters per hour. Tornadoes that had been forecast never materialized.

The squalls and flooding have forced school cancellations in some communities and intermittently shut down sections of major roadways that have flooded or been blocked by trees, rocks and landslides.

A sinkhole swallowed two cars on a Los Angeles street, trapping two motorists who had to be rescued by a team of firefighters. Photos Tuesday showed a chasm nearly the width of a street and with huge chunks of pavement and the little car deep inside it.

Another sinkhole damaged 15 homes in the rural Santa Barbara County community of Orcutt.

In the wealthy seaside community of Montecito, 128 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles, evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday for about 10,000 people, including Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities. The community had been told to evacuate on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes.
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Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump ‘s business empire, was taken into custody Tuesday to begin serving a five-month jail term for dodging taxes on $1.7 million in job perks — a punishment the judge who sentenced him said was probably too lenient for a case “driven entirely by greed.”

Weisselberg, 75, was promised the short sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and to be a witness against the Trump Organization, where he worked since the mid-1980s. His testimony helped convict the former president’s company, where he had served as chief financial officer, of tax fraud.

But when he made the sentence official Tuesday, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said that after listening to Weisselberg’s trial testimony, he regretted that the penalty wasn’t tougher. He said he was especially appalled by testimony that Weisselberg gave his wife a $6,000 check for a no-show job so that she could qualify for Social Security benefits.

Had he not already promised to give Weisselberg five months, Merchan said, “I would be imposing a sentence much greater than that.”

“I’m not going to deviate from the promise, though I believe a stiffer sentence is warranted, having heard the evidence,” he added.

Weisselberg, who came to court dressed for jail rather than in his usual suit, was handcuffed and taken away by court officers moments after the sentence was announced. He was taken to New York City’s Rikers Island complex, where he was expected to be housed in an infirmary unit. He will be eligible for release after little more than three months if he behaves behind bars.

Weisselberg’s sentencing also marked the end of his career at the Trump Organization, where he had been on leave since the fall, continuing to make $1.14 million in salary and bonuses, even as he was testifying against the company. His lawyer, Nicholas Gravante, said that as of Tuesday, the executive and the company “have amicably parted ways.”

As part of the plea agreement, Weisselberg was required to pay nearly $2 million in back taxes, penalties and interest, which prosecutors said he has done. Prosecutors recommended a six-month jail sentence, but Merchan said he settled on five months, in part because of mitigating factors, such as Weisselberg’s military service and a stint as a public school teacher. In addition, Merchan ordered Weisselberg to complete five years of probation after he leaves jail.

Gravante had asked the judge for an even lighter sentence than the one in the plea bargain, citing Weisselberg’s age and “far from perfect health.”

“He has already been punished tremendously by the disgrace that he has brought not only on himself, but his wife, his sons and his grandchildren,” Gravante said.

Weisselberg faced the prospect of up to 15 years in prison — the maximum punishment for the top grand larceny charge — if he were to have reneged on his deal or if he didn’t testify truthfully at the Trump Organization’s trial. Weisselberg is the only person charged in the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.

Weisselberg testified for three days, offering a glimpse into the inner workings of Trump’s real estate empire. Weisselberg has worked for Trump’s family for nearly 50 years, starting as an accountant for his developer father, Fred Trump, in 1973. He joined Donald Trump in 1986 and helped expand the company into a global golf and hotel brand.

A Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization in December, finding that Weisselberg had been a “high managerial” agent entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities.

Weisselberg’s arrangement reduced his own personal income taxes but also saved the company money because it didn’t have to pay him more to cover the cost of the perks.

The Trump Organization is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday and faces a fine of up to $1.6 million.
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The latest in a string of Pacific storms blamed for at least 12 deaths soaked California on Monday, prompting evacuations of some 25,000 people, including the entire town of Montecito and nearby areas of the Santa Barbara coast, due to heightened flood and mudslide risks, Reuters reported.
…

The latest in a string of Pacific storms blamed for at least 12 deaths soaked California on Monday, prompting evacuations of some 25,000 people, including the entire town of Montecito and nearby areas of the Santa Barbara coast, due to heightened flood and mudslide risks.

The Montecito evacuation zone was among 17 California regions where authorities worry a series of torrential downpours since late December could unleash lethal cascades of mud, boulders and other debris in hillsides stripped bare of vegetation by past wildfires.

The mandatory evacuations came five years after mudslides from heavy rains struck newly fire-scarred slopes and canyons around Montecito, an affluent coastal enclave 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, causing widespread damage and killing more than 20 people in January 2018.

Sheriff’s deputies were out plying flooded roads in armored high-clearance BearCat SWAT vehicles to rescue residents trapped by high water, said Raquel Zick, a Santa Barbara County sheriff’s spokesperson told Reuters.

Among the nearly 9,000 residents of Montecito, many with opulent homes in the picturesque town, are such celebrities as media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan.

It was not immediately clear whether they were among those forced to flee the area. Winfrey was known to have been in Hawaii over the New Year’s holiday. 

Another famous Montecito resident, actress-comedian Ellen DeGeneres, posted a video selfie on Twitter of herself standing in the rain beside a flooded torrent flowing through what she described as a normally dry creek bed near her property.

‘Mother nature is not happy’

The performer, garbed in a hooded jacket, tweeted that she had been advised to “shelter in place” rather than evacuate since her home was on higher ground.

“We need to be nicer to Mother Nature, because Mother Nature is not happy with us,” she said in the video. “Let’s all do our part. Stay safe, everybody. Yikes,” DeGeneres said.

All 15 districts of Montecito were ordered to immediately evacuate along with portions of the city of Santa Barbara and adjacent areas of Carpinteria and Summerland where “burn scars” posed a threat of mudslides, the Montecito Fire Department said.

Social media video posted online by TMZ.com showed a man paddling his kayak in the middle of a flooded street in Santa Barbara. The Los Angeles Times reported numerous road closures from flooding and debris flows, including sections of U.S. highway route 101 in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Along the central California coast, some 14,000 people were ordered evacuated early on Monday from four Santa Cruz County communities inundated with flash floods, extreme tides and heavy runoff from local mountains, said Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for the state Office of Emergency Services.

Nearly 4,000 more people in the town of Wilton remained under evacuation orders due to flood threats from breached levees along the Cosumnes River south of Sacramento, the state capital. Another 42,000 residents of roughly a dozen counties were under evacuation warnings, Ferguson said.

The torrential rains, along with heavy snow in mountain areas, were the product of yet another “atmospheric river” of dense moisture funneled into California from the tropical Pacific, powered by sprawling low-pressure systems churning offshore.

At least a dozen fatalities have been attributed to several back-to-back storms that have lashed California since December 26, including a toddler killed when a redwood tree was blown over his family’s trailer home last week.

Experts say the growing frequency and intensity of such storms, interspersed with extreme dry spells, are symptoms of climate change, posing greater challenges to managing California’s precious water supplies while minimizing risks of floods, mudslides and wildfires.

The six storms since just after Christmas have been accompanied by pounding surf that has battered seaside communities, as well as fierce, gale-force winds that have uprooted thousands of trees weakened by prolonged drought.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has warned the latest onslaught would impact most of California’s 39 million residents, with up to 5 inches of additional rain expected to fall near the coast and more than a foot of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains over the next few days.

The high winds have wreaked havoc on the state’s power grid, knocking out electricity to tens of thousands of Californians. As many as 120,000 homes and businesses were without electricity on Monday morning, according to data from Poweroutage.us.

U.S. President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and mobilize emergency resources in California.
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House Republicans began their tenure in the majority Monday by passing a bill that would rescind nearly $71 billion that Congress had provided the IRS, fulfilling a campaign promise even though the legislation is unlikely to advance further.

Democrats had beefed up the IRS over the next decade to help offset the cost of top health and environmental priorities they passed last year and to replenish an agency struggling to provide basic services to taxpayers and ensure fairness in tax compliance.

The money is on top of what Congress provides the IRS annually through the appropriations process and immediately became a magnet for GOP campaign ads in the fall, claiming that the boost would lead to an army of IRS agents harassing hard-working Americans.

The bill to rescind the money passed the House on a party-line vote of 221-210. The Democratic-controlled Senate has vowed to ignore it.

Shortly before the vote, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that rescinding the extra IRS funding would increase deficits over the coming decade by more than $114 billion. That created an awkward moment for Republicans, who have been saying that addressing deficits would be one of their top concerns in the majority.

Still, the CBO’s projection didn’t appear to dampen Republican support. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., said the extra IRS funding Democrats provided last year was for one purpose.

“To go after small businesses, hard-working Americans to try to raise money for reckless spending, reckless spending that has caused $31 trillion in debt in this nation,” Duncan said.

Duncan and other GOP lawmakers routinely say the extra funding will be used to hire 87,000 new agents to target Americans, but that’s misleading. The number is based on a Treasury Department plan saying that many IRS employees would be hired over the next decade if it got the money. But those employees will not all be hired at the same time, they will not all be auditors and many will be replacing some 50,000 employees who are expected to quit or retire in coming years.

“This debate about IRS lends itself to be the most dishonest, demagogic rhetoric that I have seen in the Congress at any point in time,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Charles Rettig, the former commissioner of the IRS, said in a final message to the agency in November that the additional money would help in many areas, not just beefing up tax enforcement. He said the investments would make it “even less likely for honest taxpayers to hear from the IRS or receive an audit letter.”

Additional funding for the agency has been politically controversial since 2013, when the IRS under the Obama administration was found to have used inappropriate criteria to review tea party groups and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

In the ensuing years, the IRS was mostly on the losing end of congressional funding fights, even as a subsequent 2017 report found that both conservative and liberal groups were chosen for scrutiny.

In April, Rettig told lawmakers the agency’s budget has decreased by more than 15% over the past decade when accounting for inflation and said the number of full-time employees — 79,000 in the last fiscal year — was close to 1974 levels.

But Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., and other Republicans weren’t buying the argument that the funding would be focused on auditing the wealthy.

“This is meant to nickel-and-dime, audit and harass America’s small businesses and families, who they know cannot afford the legal fees to fight this army,” Malliotakis said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said a decade of Republican-led budget cuts gutted the IRS.

“The only way that House Republicans could make it any more obvious that they’re doing a favor for wealthy tax cheats is by coming out and saying it in exactly those words,” Wyden said. “This bill is going nowhere in the Senate.”

And the White House said President Joe Biden would veto the bill if it gets to his desk, saying that the wealthiest 1% of Americans hide about 20% of their income so they don’t have to pay taxes on it, shifting more of the tax burden to the middle class.

“With their first economic legislation of the new Congress, House Republicans are making clear that their top economic priority is to allow the rich and multibillion-dollar corporations to skip out on their taxes, while making life harder for ordinary, middle-class families that pay the taxes they owe,” the White House said.
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Children struggling with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, including with medications for kids as young as 12 and surgery for those as young as 13, according to new guidelines released Monday.

The long-standing practice of “watchful waiting,” or delaying treatment to see whether children and teens outgrow or overcome obesity on their own, only worsens the problem that affects more than 14.4 million young people in the U.S. Left untreated, obesity can lead to lifelong health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.

“Waiting doesn’t work,” said Dr. Ihuoma Eneli, co-author of the first guidance on childhood obesity in 15 years from the American Academy of Pediatrics. “What we see is a continuation of weight gain and the likelihood that they’ll have [obesity] in adulthood.”

For the first time, the group’s guidance sets ages at which kids and teens should be offered medical treatments such as drugs and surgery — in addition to intensive diet, exercise and other behavior and lifestyle interventions, said Eneli, director of the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

In general, doctors should offer adolescents 12 and older who have obesity access to appropriate drugs and teens 13 and older with severe obesity referrals for weight-loss surgery, though situations may vary.

The guidelines aim to reset the inaccurate view of obesity as “a personal problem, maybe a failure of the person’s diligence,” said Dr. Sandra Hassink, medical director for the AAP Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight, and a co-author of the guidelines.

“This is not different than you have asthma and now we have an inhaler for you,” Hassink said.

‘Not a lifestyle problem’

Young people who have a body mass index that meets or exceeds the 95th percentile for kids of the same age and gender are considered obese. Kids who reach or exceed that level by 120% are considered to have severe obesity. BMI is a measure of body size based on a calculation of height and weight.

Obesity affects nearly 20% of kids and teens in the U.S. and about 42% of adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The group’s guidance takes into consideration that obesity is a biological problem and that the condition is a complex, chronic disease, said Aaron Kelly, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota.

“Obesity is not a lifestyle problem. It is not a lifestyle disease,” he said. “It predominately emerges from biological factors.”

The guidelines come as new drug treatments for obesity in kids have emerged, including approval late last month of Wegovy, a weekly injection, for use in children ages 12 and older. Different doses of the drug, called semaglutide, are also used under different names to treat diabetes. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, helped teens reduce their BMI by about 16% on average, better than the results in adults.

How Wegovy works

The drug affects how the pathways between the brain and the gut regulate energy, said Dr. Justin Ryder, an obesity researcher at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

“It works on how your brain and stomach communicate with one another and helps you feel more full than you would be,” he said.

Still, specific doses of semaglutide and other anti-obesity drugs have been hard to get because of recent shortages caused by manufacturing problems and high demand, spurred in part by celebrities on TikTok and other social media platforms boasting about enhanced weight loss.

In addition, many insurers won’t pay for the medication, which costs about $1,300 a month.

One expert in pediatric obesity cautioned that while kids with obesity must be treated early and intensively, he worries that some doctors may turn too quickly to drugs or surgery.

“It’s not that I’m against the medications,” said Dr. Robert Lustig, a longtime specialist in pediatric endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. “I’m against the willy-nilly use of those medications without addressing the cause of the problem.”

Lustig said children must be evaluated individually to understand all factors that contribute to obesity. He has long blamed too much sugar for the rise in obesity. He urges a sharp focus on diet, particularly ultra-processed foods high in sugar and low in fiber.

Dr. Stephanie Byrne, a pediatrician at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said she’d like more research about the drug’s efficacy in a more diverse group of children and about potential long-term effects before she begins prescribing it regularly.

“I would want to see it be used on a little more consistent basis,” she said. “And I would have to have that patient come in pretty frequently to be monitored.”

At the same time, she welcomed the group’s new emphasis on prompt, intensive treatment for obesity in kids.

“I definitely think this is a realization that diet and exercise is not going to do it for a number of teens who are struggling with this — maybe the majority,” she said.
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Iran’s nuclear program and threats posed by Tehran will be discussed when U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan travels to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government. 

“I’ll be going to Israel and that will be a substantial topic of conversation when I go,” he said. 

Speaking to reporters traveling with President Joe Biden on a trip to Mexico City, Sullivan did not say when his trip would take place. A National Security Council spokesperson said dates were still being worked out. 

Sullivan said efforts to revive an Iran nuclear deal opposed by Israel had been set aside for now while Washington pressures Iran to stop sending drones to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine and seeks to stop a crackdown on Iranian demonstrators. 

Israel has opposed Biden’s attempts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, concerned that it will not stop Tehran’s development of a nuclear weapon. 

“We’ll have the opportunity to engage deeply with the new Israeli government on the threat posed by Iran. And I think we share the same fundamental objectives. And we will work through any differences we have on tactics, the same way that we have over the course of the past two years,” Sullivan said. 

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he would discuss Iran with the American team. 

“The time has come for Israel and the U.S. to be on the same page, together with states — I expect to discuss this with President Biden and his staff. There is now more unanimity on the subject than at any other time,” Netanyahu said. 

 
…

China has turned down a U.S. offer to hold military de-confliction talks after an unsafe air encounter involving Chinese and U.S. aircraft over the South China Sea last month.

According to U.S. diplomatic sources who spoke on background when discussing the sensitive issue, the proposed call on Friday between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe was canceled after Beijing declined to participate.

After the Pentagon was asked about Austin’s contacts with his Chinese counterpart, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Martin Meiners told VOA, “The last time Secretary Austin spoke to his People’s Republic of China (PRC) counterpart was in November.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to China in a few weeks. Without discussing the specifics of the trip, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told VOA on Thursday that Blinken’s talks with senior Chinese officials would include “areas that are predicated by competition, areas where relations between our two countries have the potential to be even adversarial and ways we can ensure responsible management of those areas, but also areas in which we can seek and even deepen collaboration.”

The top U.S. diplomat is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, China’s top diplomat and Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Wang Yi, as well as newly appointed Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Beijing’s envoy to Washington.

South China Sea ‘unsafe’ incident

The U.S. military said that on December 21, a Chinese Navy J-11 fighter pilot performed an unsafe maneuver during an intercept of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft over the South China Sea and forced it to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision in international airspace.

China later rebutted the U.S. military’s account. A Chinese spokesperson said the United States violated international law, while accusing the U.S. of misleading public opinion.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea as its sovereign territory, a claim that the U.S. said is “expansive and unlawful.” Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also contest parts of the South China Sea.

US-China military talks

U.S. officials have encouraged China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to utilize the communication channels under the so-called Military Maritime Consultative Agreement mechanism to improve operational safety in the air and sea.

“We are disappointed that the PLA canceled MMCA in 2022 but encourage our PLA counterparts to join us for an MMCA meeting in 2023,” said Pentagon spokesperson Meiners.

Austin last spoke with Wei on the margins of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus in Siem Reap, Cambodia in late November. ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Wei is retiring in March. Li Shangfu, a new member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission (CMC,) is widely seen as the PRC’s next minister of national defense. Li was former head of the CMC’s Equipment Development Department, a position that gave him direct influence over the Chinese military’s modernization.

In September 2018, Li was sanctioned by the United States for a military purchase from Russia.
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The special grand jury in Atlanta that has been investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia has finished its work. 

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who was overseeing the panel, issued an order Monday dissolving the special grand jury. The two-page order says the grand jurors completed a final report and that a majority of the county’s superior court judges voted to dissolve the special grand jury. 

The end of the special grand jury moves the investigation one step closer to possible criminal charges against Trump and others. The decision whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury will be up to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. 

Over the course of about six months, the special grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including numerous close Trump associates and assorted high-ranking Georgia state officials. The case is among several around the country that threaten legal peril for the former president as he seeks a second term in 2024. 

Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments but instead can issue a final report recommending actions to be taken. 

Georgia law says that grand juries are “authorized to recommend to the court the publication of the whole or any part of their general presentments” and that the judge must follow that recommendation. The special grand jury voted to recommend that its report be published, McBurney wrote in his order. 

“Unresolved is the question of whether the special purpose grand jury’s final report constitutes a presentment,” the judge wrote, adding that he will hold a hearing on Jan. 24 on that issue. He said the district attorney’s office and news outlets will be given a chance to make arguments at that hearing. 

Willis opened the investigation in early 2021, shortly after a recording surfaced of a phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. During that call, the president suggested the state’s top elections official could “find” the votes needed to overturn Trump’s loss in the state. 

Since then it has become clear that Willis is focusing on several different areas: phone calls made to Georgia officials by Trump and his allies; false statements made by Trump associates before Georgia legislative committees; a panel of 16 Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors; the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021; alleged attempts to pressure a Fulton County election worker; and breaches of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county. 

Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor and Trump attorney, confirmed before he was questioned by the special grand jury in August that they were told he faces possible criminal charges. The 16 Republican fake electors have also been told they are targets of the investigation, according to public court filings. It is possible that others have also been notified they are targets of the investigation. 

Trump and his allies have consistently denied any wrongdoing, with the former president repeatedly describing his call with Raffensperger as “perfect” and dismissing Willis’ investigation as a “strictly political Witch Hunt!” 
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The number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English at home tripled between 1980 and 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Almost 68 million people who live in the U.S. — about 1 in 5 — speak a second language at home. That number was 23 million in 1980.

“It says what the country is known for, it’s a melting pot,” says Dina Arid, a California mother of three who grew up also speaking Arabic at home. “So, it’s good that it’s not just primarily English. There’s a bunch of immigrants here.”

Arabic is one of the five most-spoken second languages in the U.S. Arid, who speaks mostly English to her children, is trying to teach them a little Arabic.

“Growing up honestly, I had cousins who didn’t get to learn Arabic as I did and they always kind of, not resented their parents, but who always wished that their parents spoke to them in Arabic more so that they have that language,” she says.

Spanish is by far the most popular second language in the United States, with more than 41 million people — 12 times more than the other most common second languages — speaking Spanish at home. Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States. More than half (55%) of Spanish speakers were born in the United States.

The other languages in the top five are Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

“My parents also spoke English at home but they really tried to keep it, like I would speak English at school during the day and at night I would only speak Vietnamese just so I could keep the language and keep my proficiency at it up and not lose it,” says Jenny Nguyen, a Virginia dental student, whose parents emigrated from Vietnam. “When I was younger, I didn’t understand the importance, but I think now I’m very glad that I’m able to speak and write at such a proficient level.”

She was able to put her language skills to use when she traveled to Vietnam to offer free dental care to poor and underserved communities. Many of her peers were also Vietnamese Americans.

“They couldn’t really communicate with the patients because they didn’t have that baseline level of being able to speak and understand,” Nguyen says. “I was one of the very few young volunteers that were able to speak with the patients and communicate with them what was going on.”

Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog and Arabic speakers were more likely to be naturalized U.S. citizens than to not have U.S. citizenship at all, according to the Census Bureau.

Raymond John “R.J.” Mosuela, a Virginia health care recruiter whose parents are from the Philippines, can’t speak their native language, but says he understands when spoken to.

“Tagalog, the main dialect of the Philippines, was spoken in the house but that was also mixing with English,” Mosuela says. “I am the youngest of three brothers. Two of my older brothers were born in the Philippines. Both my parents were born in the Philippines and when they came over here, they had me… my mom will speak to me in Tagalog and I’ll respond in English.”

Passing his parents’ native culture along to his children is important to Mosuela.

“When I eventually get married and have kids, maybe not teach the language but at least like preserving the food and our own cultural traditions,” he says.

Cathy Erway, a New York-based food writer, is using a language application to try and become more proficient in her mother’s native Mandarin Chinese.

“The funny thing is that my dad, who is white American, also speaks Chinese,” Erway says. “And so my parents would speak in Chinese to themselves when they didn’t want the kids, me and my brother, to hear what they’re saying. So, they treated it as this like secret language.”

While more people than ever are speaking a second language at home, the Census Bureau reports that the number of people who spoke only English at home also increased – by about 25% – from 187 million in 1980 to 241 million in 2019.
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The National Weather Service said Monday that it is advising residents in some areas of California to prepare for “two major episodes of heavy rain and heavy mountain snow” that are expected “to impact California in quick succession during the next couple of days.”  

The wet weather forecast is complicated further the service said by an “energetic and moisture-laden parade of cyclones that are aiming directly for California.”    

Heavy precipitation is expected in central California with rainfall totals Monday of 7 to 13 centimeters near the coast, the weather forecasters said.  

On Tuesday, slightly less precipitation will fall, impacting locations farther south into southern California.  

The heavy rainfalls, the meteorologists said, “will lead to additional instances of flooding,” including “rapid water rises, mudslides, and the potential for major river flooding.” 

The Sierra Nevada, meanwhile, will likely receive “heavy snow exceeding 6 feet [2 meters] across the higher elevations before the snow tapers off Wednesday morning.” 

The NWS warned that the heavy snow expected in the Sierra Nevada could make travel “very dangerous to impossible at times.”   

The heavy snowfall could also “increase the threat of avalanches and strain infrastructure,” the NWS warned.  
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador hosts U.S. President Joe Biden for talks Monday in Mexico City ahead of a regional summit that will include Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

Migration, climate change, trade and manufacturing are among the major topics on the agenda. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that with his visit, the first to Mexico since becoming president, Biden expects to “promote a common vision for North America.” 

Jean-Pierre said Biden would be making announcements about expanding cooperation to combat trafficking of arms, drugs and humans, as well as addressing environmental challenges and steps to “jointly address irregular migration in the region.” 

Ahead of the Tuesday summit, Biden, Trudeau and Lopez Obrador are participating in a dinner along with their spouses. 

Biden arrived late Sunday in Mexico after visiting the Texas city of El Paso for a firsthand look at the influx of thousands of undocumented migrants crossing the border with Mexico.     

During his roughly four-hour visit to the border city, Biden stopped at the Bridge of the Americas port of entry where he met with Customs and Border Protection officers and watched as they demonstrated how they search vehicles at the border for drugs, money and other contraband.     

Biden also walked a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border wall that separates the Texas city from Ciudad Juarez. Two Border Patrol agents walked with the president.    

He also visited the El Paso County Migrant Support Center where he met with local officials and community leaders.   

Upon his arrival in Texas, Biden was met by Governor Greg Abbott, who handed Biden a letter. Abbott cited “chaos” in his state, saying the situation is the result of Biden failing to enforce federal immigration laws. 

Biden tweeted after his visit that it is possible to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and make the immigration process “orderly, fair, safe, and humane.” 

“My Administration is using the tools available to limit illegal migration, expand legal pathways to immigration, and increase security,” Biden said. “The approach we’re taking is based on a model we know works. But to truly fix our broken immigration system, Congress needs to act.”    

Biden’s visit came days after announcing that 30,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans would be allowed into the U.S. per month and allowed to work legally for up to two years if they apply from their home countries, pass a background check and prove they have a financial supporter in the U.S.      

But Biden says they will be deported to Mexico if they enter the U.S. illegally, an expansion of a pandemic-era immigration policy that cited concerns over the spread of the coronavirus as the reason to keep out the waves of migrants trying to enter the United States.        

White House correspondent Anita Powell in El Paso, Texas contributed to this story. Some material for this report came from The Associated Press. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden visited the American border town of El Paso, in Texas, Sunday afternoon before traveling to Mexico City to meet with North American leaders. This is Biden’s first trip to the Southwestern border since taking office. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. Jorge Agobian contributed to this report.
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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida begins a weeklong trip Monday to strengthen military ties with Europe and Britain and bring into focus the Japan-U.S. alliance at a summit in Washington, as Japan breaks from its postwar restraint to take on more offensive roles with an eye toward China.

Kishida’s talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday will highlight his five-nation tour that also takes him to France, Italy, Britain and Canada — some of the Group of Seven nations Japan has stepped up defense ties with in recent years. His first stop is Paris on Monday evening.

Kishida said his summit with Biden will underscore the strength of the Japan-U.S. alliance and how the two countries can work more closely under Japan’s new security and defense strategies.

Japan in December adopted key security and defense reforms, including a counterstrike capability that makes a break from the country’s exclusively self-defense-only postwar principle. Japan says the current deployment of missile interceptors is insufficient to defend it from rapid weapons advancement in China and North Korea.

Kishida said he will explain to Biden the new strategy, under which Japan is also reinforcing defenses on its southwestern islands close to Taiwan, including Yonaguni and Ishigaki, where new bases are being constructed.

“Will will discuss further strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance, and how we work together to achieve a fee and open Indo-Pacific,” Kishida told a NHK national television talk show Sunday, referring to a vision of national and economic security cooperation the two countries promote to counter China’s growing military and economic influence.

Under the new strategies, Japan plans to start deploying in 2026 long-range cruise missiles that can reach potential targets in China, nearly double its defense budget within five years to a NATO standard of about 2% of GDP from the current 1%, and improve cyberspace and intelligence capabilities.

The idea is to do as much as possible in a short time as some experts see growing risks that Chinese President Xi Jinping may take action against self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory.

Japan’s new strategy has been well received by the Biden administration and some members of the Congress. Experts say it would also widen cooperation with their main regional partners Australia and possibly South Korea.

“This is an opportunity to rethink and update the structure and the mechanisms of the alliance to reflect a much more capable partner that’s coming,” said Christopher Johnstone, senior adviser and Japan chair for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said, however, that Japan’s focus on the strike capability and budget is a welcome but “a daunting agenda” that will require a lot of cooperation with the United States.

Paving the way for the summit, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will fly to Washington to meet their American counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, respectively, on Wednesday, followed by separate defense ministers’ talks on Thursday.

The Biden administration, which also adopted its security strategy in October, expects Japan to assist in the supply and storage of fuel and munitions in case of a Taiwan emergency, experts say. Japan and the United States are also reportedly considering establishing a joint command.

During the talks at the White House, the two leaders are also expected to discuss China, North Korea’s nuclear and missile development as well as Russia’s war on Ukraine, Japanese officials said.

Cooperation in the area of supply chain and economic security will be also on the table. Last week, Japanese Economy and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo discussed in Washington the importance to work together to promote and protect critical and emerging technologies, including semiconductors, and export controls to address competitiveness and security concerns.

During his trip, Kishida will seek to further strengthen bilateral military ties with four other countries, Japanese officials say.

Japan’s joint development and production of its F-X next-generation fighter jet with Britain and Italy for a planned deployment in 2035 will be a top agenda item during his visits in Rome and London on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Japan and Britain have also been discussing a Reciprocal Access Agreement that would remove obstacles to holding joint military exercises in either country. Besides the Japan-U.S. security treaty that allows U.S. troops to station in Japan, Tokyo has a similar agreement only with Australia, and Britain would be second.

During his talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, Kishida is expected to share concern over China’s growing activity in the South Pacific and confirm stepping up joint military exercise between the two sides.
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Now that U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has finally been sworn in, Republican legislators can begin working on their agenda. Veronica Balderas Iglesias takes a look at what they seek to accomplish, and their planned “checks and balances” on the Biden administration.
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Is the metaverse closer than we think?

It depends on whom you ask at CES, where companies are showing off innovations that could immerse us deeper into virtual reality, otherwise known as VR.

The metaverse — essentially a buzzword for three-dimensional virtual communities where people can meet, work and play — was a key theme during the four-day tech gathering in Las Vegas that ends Sunday.

Taiwanese tech giant HTC unveiled a high-end VR headset that aims to compete with market leader Meta, and a slew of other companies and startups touted augmented reality glasses and sensory technologies that can help users feel — and even smell — in a virtual environment.

Among them, Vermont-based OVR Technology showcased a headset containing a cartridge with eight primary aromas that can be combined to create different scents. It’s scheduled to be released later this year.

An earlier, business-focused version used primarily for marketing fragrances and beauty products is integrated into VR goggles and allows users to smell anything from a romantic bed of roses to a marshmallow roasting over a fire at a campsite.

The company says it aims to help consumers relax and is marketing the product, which comes with an app, as a sort of digital spa mixed with Instagram.

“We are entering an era in which extended reality will drive commerce, entertainment, education, social connection, and wellbeing,” the company’s CEO and co-founder Aaron Wisniewski said in a statement. “The quality of these experiences will be measured by how immersive and emotionally engaging they are. Scent imbues them with an unmatched power.”

But more robust and immersive uses of scent — and its close cousin, taste — are still further away on the innovation spectrum. Experts say even VR technologies that are more accessible are in the early days of their development and too expensive for many consumers to purchase.

The numbers show there’s waning interest. According to the research firm NPD Group, sales of VR headsets, which found popular use in gaming, declined by 2% last year, a sour note for companies betting big on more adoption.

Still, big companies like Microsoft and Meta are investing billions. And many others are joining the race to grab some market share in supporting technologies, including wearables that replicate touch.

Customers, though, aren’t always impressed by what they find. Ozan Ozaskinli, a tech consultant who traveled more than 29 hours from Istanbul to attend CES, suited up with yellow gloves and a black vest to test out a so-called haptics product, which relays sensations through buzzes and vibrations and stimulates our sense of touch.

Ozaskinli was attempting to punch in a code on a keypad that allowed him to pull a lever and unlock a box containing a shiny gemstone. But the experience was mostly a letdown.

“I think that’s far from reality right now,” Ozaskinli said. “But if I was considering it to replace Zoom meetings, why not? At least you can feel something.”

Proponents say widespread adoption of virtual reality will ultimately benefit different parts of society by essentially unlocking the ability to be with anyone, anywhere at any time. Though it’s too early to know what these technologies can do once they fully mature, companies looking to achieve the most immersive experiences for users are welcoming them with open arms.

Aurora Townsend, the chief marketing officer at Flare, a company slated to launch a VR dating app called Planet Theta next month, said her team is building its app to incorporate more sensations like touch once the technology becomes more widely available on the consumer market.

“Being able to feel the ground when you’re walking with your partner, or holding their hands while you’re doing that… subtle ways we engage people will change once haptic technology is fully immersive in VR,” Townsend said.

Still, it’s unlikely that many of these products will become widely used in the next few years, even in gaming, said Matthew Ball, a metaverse expert. Instead, he said the pioneers of adoption are likely to be fields that have higher budgets and more precise needs, such as bomb units using haptics and virtual reality to help with their work and others in the medical field.

In 2021, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeons said they used augmented reality to perform spinal fusion surgery and remove a cancerous tumor from a patient’s spine.

And optical technology from Lumus, an Israeli company that makes AR glasses, is already being used by underwater welders, fighter pilots and surgeons who want to monitor a patient’s vital signs or MRI scans during a procedure without having to look up at several screens, said David Goldman, vice president of marketing for the company.

Meanwhile, Xander, a Boston-based startup which makes smart glasses that display real-time captions of in-person conversations for people with hearing loss, will launch a pilot program with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs next month to test out some of its technology, said Alex Westner, the company’s co-founder and CEO. He said the agency will allow veterans who have appointments for hearing loss or other audio issues to try out the glasses in some of their clinics. And if it goes well, the agency would likely become a customer, Westner said.

Elsewhere, big companies from Walmart to Nike have been launching different initiatives in virtual reality. But it’s not clear how much they can benefit during the early stages of the technology. The consulting firm McKinsey says the metaverse could generate up to $5 trillion by 2030. But outside of gaming, much of today’s VR use remains somewhat of a marginal amusement, said Michael Kleeman, a tech strategist and visiting scholar at the University of California San Diego.

“When people are promoting this, what they have to answer is — where’s the value in this? Where’s the profit? Not what’s fun, what’s cute and what’s interesting.”

For more coverage of CES, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/technology
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The mayor of Newport News, Virginia says the city is working to ensure that the elementary school child who shot a teacher Friday receives the support and services he needs.

In the statement issued on the city’s website Saturday Mayor Phillip Jones said, “It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6-year-old 1st grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher; however, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today.”

The shooting happened at Richneck Elementary School.  Neither the child nor his teacher have been identified by the police.

However, Jonathan R. Alger, president of James Madison University, located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, posted a statement on Facebook identifying the teacher as a university alumna, Abby Zwerner.  The statement also said “JMU is prepared to support those impacted by this incident now and in the weeks to come.”

The boy was taken into custody.  Police said the shooting was not accidental.

It was not immediately clear how the child was able to obtain the gun.

No one else was hurt in the incident.

School Superintendent George Parker, III said in a statement Saturday that the teacher is in stable condition.  Initially the teacher’s injuries were said to be life-threatening.

“There are many concerns that we will need to unpack,” Parker said, “before we will be able to determine if any additional preventive measures would have impacted the probability of this incident occurring.” 
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Torrential downpours and damaging winds left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power in California late Sunday as the area braced for the next onslaught of severe weather.

More than 330,000 homes and businesses were reported to be still without power in California as of 3:08 a.m. ET (8:08 GMT) on Sunday night, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

At least six people have died in the severe weather since New Year’s weekend, including a toddler killed by a fallen redwood tree crushing a mobile home in northern California.

Forecasters have meanwhile warned yet another “atmospheric river” of dense, moist tropical air will clobber California on Monday with rain and mountain snow.

A National Weather Service alert Saturday warned that the cumulative effect of successive heavy rainstorms since late December could bring rivers to record high levels and cause flooding across much of Central California.
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It was a tragically high price to pay for catching a suspected car thief: two innocent teenagers dead and a police officer jailed, facing serious charges for a car crash that resulted from the pursuit.

Maggie Dunn, 17, and Caroline Gill, 16, who were cheerleaders for their high school in the southern Louisiana town of Brusly, died in the collision Saturday. They’re the latest fatalities among hundreds every year attributed to accidents involving police pursuits.

Many police departments have tightened their policies on such pursuits in recent years. However, National Highway Transportation Safety data show that 455 deaths were tied to police pursuits in 2020.

The Louisiana case is unusual in that the local prosecutor says the officer, 42-year-old David Cauthron, acted so recklessly that he should face charges and is preparing to ask a grand jury to consider bringing them.

Authorities say Cauthron, an officer in the town of Addis, joined a chase in rural West Baton Rouge Parish that started when police in Baton Rouge pursued a man suspected of stealing his father’s car.

Cauthron, authorities said, drove his police car through an intersection in Brusly, which is next to Addis, ignoring a red light and colliding with a car that held the two girls and Dunn’s 20-year-old brother, Liam, who was critically injured.

“In my experience, I have not seen a police officer charged criminally in a police pursuit case,” said Chicago civil rights attorney Andrew Stroth, who has handled numerous lawsuits in such cases but has no ties to the Louisiana collision.

Cauthron remained jailed Thursday, according to online records. Neither the jail nor the parish court clerk’s office listed an attorney for him.

Parish District Attorney Tony Clayton said in a news release this week that he intends to ask the grand jury to consider charging Cauthron. Possible charges include negligent homicide and negligent injury. Clayton stressed that the investigation will be thorough, but he made clear that he believes the hot pursuit of suspect Tyquel Zanders, 24, was a deadly mistake.

“Sirens and police vehicles do not give an officer the authority to cut through a red light,” Clayton wrote, adding that evidence so far indicates Cauthron was “grossly negligent.”

Clayton didn’t limit his criticism to Cauthron. He previously publicly questioned whether police in Baton Rouge should have pursued Sanders, who was arrested, uninjured, following a chase that involved multiple law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Mississippi River.

Baton Rouge news outlets, citing arrest records, say Zanders is accused of entering a relative’s home on Saturday and making off with his father’s car before leading police on a chase across the river and into Brusly, where the crash occurred. Authorities say Zanders drove back across the river and was arrested in Baton Rouge, where he is charged with car theft, home invasion and aggravated flight.

The Baton Rouge Police Department has a pursuit policy that is posted on the city’s website and lays out when officers can an can’t give chase. A department spokesman, Sgt. L’Jean McKneely, said the pursuit that led to the two teens’ deaths is under review.

Addis police officials did not respond to a request for information about the policy.

Police pursuit deaths often get less attention than controversies over the police use of force, but criminal justice reformers are very aware of them. Policies governing pursuits in New Orleans were adopted after the city agreed to myriad reforms under a 2012 court settlement that followed numerous high-profile incidents involving deadly force.

Michael Downing, a former deputy police chief in Los Angeles, said his department adopted stronger restrictions on pursuits because of deaths, injuries and lawsuits. Strong policies are needed to temper a police officer’s natural urge to pursue a criminal suspect, he said.

With no policy, Downing said, “their instincts are going to be engage, engage, engage.”

Policies differ from department to department, and the issues at play are complex, including whether a suspect poses an immediate threat, he said.

Despite the policies adopted across the country, pursuit-related deaths remain a problem, said Stroth.

“Officers driving willfully, wantonly at high rates of speed in densely populated communities where there’s no real threat,” Stroth said. “And the results have been tragic.”
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Standing up to nominate Rep. Byron Donalds for House speaker, Republican Rep. Chip Roy addressed the woman presiding over the chamber as “Madam speaker.”

The third-term congressman quickly corrected himself. “Madam clerk,” he acknowledged with a smile.

The flub, coming on the second day of voting, illustrated the rising stature of House clerk Cheryl Johnson, a central figure in the drama that became a dayslong effort to select a speaker. Round by round, she called for the start of each vote and announced at the end that, once again, no speaker had been elected.

That is, until early Saturday morning, when she named Rep. Kevin McCarthy the victor after the 15th vote.

Who is Cheryl Johnson?

According to her official bio, Johnson is the 36th person to serve as clerk and was first sworn in by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019. She is the first Black woman to preside over the House chamber.

A New Orleans native, Johnson has worked for the House for nearly two decades, serving as chief investigative counsel and spokesperson for the Committee on Education and the Workforce. She was also counsel for the committee with oversight over the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, where she worked for 10 years liaising with congressional committees with jurisdiction over its funding.

A journalism and mass communication graduate of the University of Iowa, Johnson earned her law degree from Howard University and graduated from the senior management program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

On Friday, in nominating Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries — whom Democrats unanimously supported throughout every round of voting — outgoing House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn addressed Johnson, thanking her for her service during a contentious week.

“Madam clerk, I want to begin by thanking you for your contribution to maintaining the dignity and honor of this august body,” said Clyburn, who as the No. 3 House Democrat had been the chamber’s highest-ranking Black member. “The eyes of the country are on us today. Let us consider what they will remember.”

What does the clerk do?

Until a speaker is chosen and members-elect are officially sworn in, the clerk oversees the chamber, tasked with calling each day’s session to order, calling the roll and deciding procedural questions that may arise.

It’s also up to the clerk to maintain order in the House chamber, which at times has involved using her gavel to tamp down a dull roar of chatter during the debate.

After there’s a speaker in place, the clerk’s role becomes more procedural, keeping records of floor activity, preparing, printing and distributing the daily journal, and certifying the passage of bills and resolutions.

The clerk also acts as a go-between for the House and the Senate, as well as the White House when the chamber isn’t in session, receiving and delivering messages. He or she also supervises the staff of any member who dies, resigns or is expelled, until a replacement is elected.

In addition to duties inside the chamber, there are several other offices whose jurisdiction falls under the clerk, including those tracking legislation, transcribing floor proceedings, and processing and retaining House records until they are transferred to the National Archives.

John Beckley of Virginia was chosen as the first clerk of the House in April 1789. The clerk also served as librarian of Congress until 1815, when that became a separate position.

How are clerks selected?

The clerk is a professional employee of Congress, one of the House officers elected every two years when the House organizes a new session.

Each caucus nominates candidates for those positions. Those elections happen after the session’s new speaker is selected.
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