SAN FRANCISCO — The man convicted of attempting to kidnap then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison. 

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley handed down the sentence for David DePape, 44, whom jurors found guilty last November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official. Prosecutors had asked for a 40-year prison term. 

DePape was given 20 years for one count and 30 years for another count. The sentences will run concurrently. He was also given credit for the 18 months that he’s been in custody. 

DePape stood silently as Corley handed in the sentence and looked down at times. His public defense attorneys had asked the judge to sentence him to 14 years, pointing out that he was going through a difficult time in his life and had no prior criminal history. 

Corley said she took into account when giving DePape’s sentence the fact that he broke into the home of a public official, an unprecedented act in the history of the country. 

“He actually went to the home. That is completely, completely unprecedented,” she said. 

Proud of ‘Pop’

Before sentencing, Christine Pelosi read victim statements on behalf of her father and mother, explaining how the violent attack changed their lives. 

“The Pelosi family couldn’t be prouder of their Pop and his tremendous courage in saving his own life on the night of the attack and in testifying in this case,” Aaron Bennett, a spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. “Speaker Pelosi and her family are immensely grateful to all who have sent love and prayers over the last eighteen months, as Mr. Pelosi continues his recovery.” 

DePape admitted during trial testimony that he broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home October 28, 2022, intending to hold the speaker hostage and “break her kneecaps” if she lied to him. He also admitted to bludgeoning Paul Pelosi with a hammer after police showed up, saying his plan to end what he viewed as government corruption was unraveling. 

The attack on Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was captured on police body camera video just days before the midterm elections. 

Defense attorneys argued DePape was motivated by his political beliefs, not because he wanted to interfere with Nancy Pelosi’s official duties as a member of Congress, making the charges against him invalid. 

One of his attorneys, Angela Chuang, said during closing arguments that DePape was caught up in conspiracy theories. 

At trial DePape, a Canadian who moved to the U.S. more than 20 years ago, testified that he believed news outlets repeatedly lied about former President Donald Trump. In rants posted on a blog and online forum that were taken down after his arrest, DePape echoed the baseless, right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles runs the U.S. government. 

DePape also told jurors he had planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and record his interrogation of the Democratic speaker, who was not at the home at the time of the attack, to upload it online. 

Prosecutors said he had rope and zip ties with him, and detectives found body cameras, a computer and a tablet. 

Paul Pelosi also testified at the trial, recalling how he was awakened by a large man bursting into the bedroom and asking, “Where’s Nancy?” He said that when he responded that his wife was in Washington, DePape said he would tie him up while they waited for her. 

“It was a tremendous sense of shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house, and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Pelosi told jurors. 

DePape is also charged in state court with assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. Jury selection in that trial is expected to start Wednesday. 

Paul Pelosi suffered two head wounds in the attack, including a skull fracture that was mended with plates and screws he will have for the rest of his life. His right arm and hand were also injured. 
…

White House — President Joe Biden continues his outreach effort among Black voters this week with a string of events to commemorate civil rights milestones and address the next generation of leaders.  

Ahead of the November presidential election, his campaign is aiming to address an apparent erosion of support among a group that historically backs Democratic Party candidates. 

On Friday, Biden delivered an address at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, where he targeted his likely opponent, presumptive Republican nominee former President Donald Trump. 

“My predecessor and his extreme MAGA friends are responsible for taking away our fundamental freedoms, from the freedom to vote to the freedom to choose,” Biden said, referring to Make America Great Again Trump supporters, and Republican efforts to restrict voting and abortion rights. 

The Trump campaign said their candidate is “surging with Black and Hispanic Americans” despite Biden’s “persistent gaslighting and the multimillion-dollar ad buys he is forced to make.” 

“Black and Hispanic voters, like all Americans, are worse-off now than they were under President Trump — by a lot — and every poll reflects that reality,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement sent to VOA.  

“They have less money and higher prices for everything while being forced to live under a weak president who puts illegal immigrants’ interests ahead of theirs,” she said. 

Trump has been courting Black voters, including by using his legal troubles to appeal to them on the theme of unfair persecution by the criminal justice system. 

“I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” Trump said during a February speech at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual gala, at which he received the “Champion of Black America” award. 

Targeting young Black voters 

Aiming to win over young Black voters, Biden met Friday with leaders of the Divine Nine, a group of historically Black sororities and fraternities, social organizations in colleges and universities.  

His engagements followed a private meeting Thursday with plaintiffs and family members from Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that found laws promoting segregation are unconstitutional. 

Biden is set to cap his outreach with a commencement address at Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater, the historically Black, all-male Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday. Biden will focus his remarks on the next generation of Black men, a group whose support for the president has been slipping. 

His speech comes in the wake of campus protests across the country, where young progressives voice their frustration with Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.  

Biden is set to end the weekend with an address at a dinner in Detroit for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a leading civil rights organization, and a visit to a Black-owned small business in the city. 

The Biden campaign said the engagement was a signal of how the administration is working to earn the support of Black voters and addressing their key priorities. 

“We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote,” Trey Baker, a senior adviser to the campaign, said in a statement. 

Polls slipping 

Black voters have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party and helped ensure Biden’s win in 2020. Ahead of the November election, a Washington Post/Ipsos poll shows Biden continues to enjoy the support of the majority of the Black community.  

However, lower stated interest in voting relative to 2020 and a slightly narrower gap in standing present some warning signs for the Biden campaign. Only 62% of Black voters said that they are absolutely certain to vote this year, compared to 74% this time in 2020.

Meanwhile, Black voter support in national and state polls for Trump has been “surprisingly robust,” according to research by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. 

“Older Black voters have far fewer concerns with Biden. They remember the first Trump term, and it’s a pretty simple choice for them — Biden, of course,” said Larry Sabato, the center’s director. “It’s younger Blacks who were expecting more from Biden.” 

Many young Black voters are frustrated by what they see as Biden’s inaction on their top priorities and angered by his handling of the economy and the Israel-Hamas war. 

Sabato predicted that no more than 13% of Black Americans will end up voting for Trump. He said that for Blacks it is a choice between Biden and not voting. 

“Black turnout,” he added, “is key.”
…

washington — The co-founder of a local reporting initiative in California is being recognized for her work mentoring young reporters and improving community news.

Tasneem Raja, who helped set up the Cityside Journalism Initiative in the San Francisco Bay Area, has a long career mentoring reporters and reaching groups typically under-covered by media outlets.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit Cityside Journalism Initiative launched at a time when the news media industry was shedding jobs. Its mission statement: to create a newsroom that “amplifies community voices, shares the power of real information, and investigates systems, not just symptoms.”

The organization is now running Berkeleyside, which was founded in 2009, and The Oaklandside, which launched in 2020.

“We also try to go a step further and say, you know, ‘We’re not just here in some cases, to report on what’s going on. We’re also here to help people,’” Raja told VOA.

As editor-in-chief of The Oaklandside, Raja sees her role as creating opportunities for people who reflect the demographics and concerns of her outlet’s community.

Those efforts led to her being given the 2024 Gwen Ifill Award. Presented by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) in memory of PBS journalist Ifill, the award honors the work each year of a female journalist of color.

“What particularly struck us about Tasneem’s work is her dedication to creating spaces [and] making news by and about the communities on which they’re reporting,” said IWMF Executive Director Elisa Lees Munoz. “Local news is vital to covering underreported issues and marginalized populations; Tasneem’s career has been spent advancing that much needed coverage.”

Another area that stood out in Raja’s career is her efforts to support new journalists.

Her mentoring, Munoz told VOA, “builds a new generation of women of color in media and news leadership.”

“Tasneem brings this mentality into her newsrooms as well, seeing the value of diverse perspectives and lived experiences to cultivate ‘green’ [inexperienced] employees into skilled journalists,” Munoz added.

Among those efforts is Raja’s work to create a policy that allocates an annual stipend for each employee to use for professional development.

“For me, it starts with creating a healthy newsroom that is going to empower people to do their best work, hiring great talents, creating a space where they feel supported and they have opportunities to learn and grow,” Raja said. “Gwen was somebody who was really ahead of the curve of that, really modeling what healthy, thoughtful, empowering inclusive mentorship was like.”

That supportive process is also reflected in the Cityside Journalism Initiative’s work.

During the pandemic, Cityside set up a hotline where reporters would answer questions and provide information. Actions like that, Raja said, underscore Cityside’s mission of not only reporting on the community but actively and tangibly helping it.

“We want to be part of the solution. We can’t do everything, we aren’t setting out to do everything, but we are setting out to just talk to community members in Oakland, Berkeley and now Richmond,” said Raja, referring to a third media outlet they are setting up.

Before moving to the Bay Area in 2019, Raja was co-founder of The Tyler Loop, a nonprofit news startup in eastern Texas. She has also worked for NPR’s “Code Switch,” focusing on stories on race, culture and identity in America and the nonprofit, politically progressive Mother Jones, where she led a data team that built a database of mass shootings in America.

Alongside her work for Cityside, Raja is on the board of directors of The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom focused on women and the LGBTQ community.

Similar to media outlets across the U.S., the Cityside Journalism Initiative is currently focused on elections. Oaklandside in particular is looking to engage with the community in its coverage.

Among those they are keen to connect with, said Raja, are “casual” voters and those who are new to voting.

“By starting with those conversations, we’re looking forward to building a solid foundation upon which we’re going to shape all our coverage,” said Raja. “Ultimately, we hope to be part of moving the needle in empowering more people to feel like they want to and can exercise that big civic right that we have.”
…

This week, President Joe Biden drastically increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum products, and semiconductors. The move follows his administration’s review of former President Donald Trump’s trade policies toward China. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at how the two presidential candidates differ in their approach.
…

Gigantic metal sculptures made by Kosovo-born artist Petrit Halilaj adorn the rooftop of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in an ode to a childhood affected by war. Garentina Kraja has the story. Camera: Vladimir Badikov 
…

HOUSTON — Fast-moving thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings, downing trees and knocking out power to more than 850,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area.

Officials urged residents to keep off roads, as many were impassable and traffic lights were expected to be out for much of the night.

“Stay at home tonight, do not go to work tomorrow, unless you’re an essential worker. Stay home, take care of your children,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said in an evening briefing. “Our first responders will be working around the clock.”

The mayor said four people died. At least two of the deaths were caused by falling trees, and another happened when a crane blew over in strong winds, officials said.

Streets were flooded, and trees and power lines were down across the region. Whitmire said wind speeds reached 160 kph, “with some twisters.”

Hundreds of windows were shattered at downtown hotels and office buildings, with glass littering the streets below, and the state was sending Department of Public Safety officers to secure the area.

“Downtown is a mess,” Whitmire said.

There was a backlog of 911 calls that first responders were working through, he added.

The storm system moved through swiftly, but flood watches and warnings remained for Houston and areas to the east. Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for large swaths of Louisiana.

Flights were briefly grounded at Houston’s two major airports. Sustained winds topping 96 kph were recorded at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

About 855,000 customers were without electricity in and around Harris County, which contains Houston, according to poweroutage.us. The county is home to more than 4.7 million people.

The problems extended to the city’s suburbs, with emergency officials in neighboring Montgomery County describing the damage to transmission lines as “catastrophic” and warning that power could be impacted for several days.

The Houston Independent School District canceled classes Friday for all its 274 campuses.

Heavy storms slammed the region during the first week of May, leading to numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes.
…

WASHINGTON — U.S. prosecutors on Thursday announced the arrests of an American woman and a Ukrainian man they say helped North Korea-linked IT workers posing as Americans to obtain remote-work jobs at hundreds of U.S. companies.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said the elaborate scheme, aimed at generating revenue for North Korea in contravention of international sanctions, involved the infiltration of more than 300 U.S. firms, including Fortune 500 companies and banks, and the theft of the identities of more than 60 Americans.

A DoJ statement said the overseas IT workers also attempted to gain employment and access to information at two U.S. government agencies, although these efforts were “generally unsuccessful.”

An earlier State Department statement said the scheme had generated at least $6.8 million for North Korea. It said the North Koreans involved were linked to North Korea’s Munitions Industry Department, which oversees development of the country’s ballistic missiles, weapons production, and research and development programs.

An indictment filed in federal court in Washington last week and unsealed on Thursday said charges had been filed against Christina Marie Chapman, 49, of Litchfield Park, Arizona; Ukrainian Oleksandr Didenko, 27, of Kyiv; and three other foreign nationals.

A Justice Department statement said Chapman was arrested on Wednesday, while Didenko was arrested on May 7 by Polish authorities at the request of the United States, which is seeking his extradition.

The State Department announced a reward of up to $5 million for information related to Chapman’s alleged co-conspirators, who used the aliases Jiho Han, Haoran Xu and Chunji Jin, and another unindicted individual using the aliases Zhonghua and Venechor S.

Court records did not list lawyers for those arrested and it was not immediately clear whether they had legal representation.

The head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Nicole Argentieri, said the alleged crimes “benefited the North Korean government, giving it a revenue stream and, in some instances, proprietary information stolen by the co-conspirators.”

The charges “should be a wakeup call for American companies and government agencies that employ remote IT workers,” she said in the statement.

It said the scheme “defrauded U.S. companies across myriad industries, including multiple well-known Fortune 500 companies, U.S. banks, and other financial service providers.”

The DoJ said Didenko was accused of creating fake accounts at U.S. IT job search platforms, selling them to overseas IT workers, some of whom he believed were North Korean. It said overseas IT workers using Didenko’s services were also working with Chapman.

Didenko’s online domain, upworksell.com, was seized Thursday by the Justice Department, the statement said.

The DOJ statement said the FBI executed search warrants for U.S.-based “laptop farms” – residences that hosted multiple laptops for overseas IT workers.

It said that through these farms, including one Chapman hosted from her home, U.S.-based facilitators logged onto U.S. company computer networks and allowed the overseas IT workers to remotely access the laptops, using U.S. IP addresses to make it appear they were in the United States.

The statement said search warrants for four U.S. residences associated with laptop farms controlled by Didenko were issued in the Southern District of California, the Eastern District of Tennessee, and Eastern District of Virginia, and executed between May 8 and May 10.

North Korea is under U.N. sanctions aimed at cutting funding for its missile and nuclear weapons programs and experts say it has sought to generate income illicitly, including through IT workers.

Confidential research by a now-disbanded U.N. sanctions monitoring panel seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed they had been investigating 97 suspected North Korean cyberattacks on cryptocurrency companies between 2017 and 2024, valued at some $3.6 billion.

The U.N. sanctions monitors were disbanded at the end of April after Russia vetoed renewal of their mandate.

A research report from a Washington think tank in April said North Korean animators may have helped create popular television cartoons for big Western firms despite international sanctions. 
…

Protesters disrupted Google’s annual conference this week over the tech giant’s deal providing artificial intelligence and other services to the Israeli government. Matt Dibble reports from Mountain View, California. Camera: Matt Dibble.
…

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is creating a new process aimed at cutting the time it takes to decide the fates of newly arrived migrants in immigration courts from years to roughly six months at a time when immigration is increasingly a concern among voters. 

Under the initiative announced Thursday, single adult migrants who have just entered the country and are going to five specific cities would have their cases overseen by a select group of judges with the aim of having them decided within 180 days. 

That would mark a vastly quicker turnaround time than most cases in the country’s overburdened immigration system, which can average four years from beginning to end. And by deciding the cases faster, authorities can more quickly remove people who don’t qualify to stay. 

But it’s unclear how many migrants would go through this new docket, raising questions about how effective it will be. The details were laid out by senior administration officials during a call with reporters Thursday. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with guidelines set by the administration. 

The new docket will be in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. The officials said those cities were chosen because judges there had some availability to hear the cases and because they were big destination cities for migrants. 

Right now, when migrants arrive, particularly families, they are almost always released legally into the country, where they wait out their asylum court dates in a process that takes years.  

Detractors say this essentially serves as an impetus for migrants to come because they know they’ll be able to stay in America and often work while they’re here. The longer they’re in the United States and have established families or community ties, the more opposition there is to eventually send them back to their home country. 

The goal of quickly processing migrants who have just arrived is that by swiftly sending new arrivals back who don’t qualify to stay, it sends a message to other people thinking of migrating north that they can’t count on living in America for years while their case plays out in court. 

A record 3 million cases right now are clogging the nation’s immigration court. There are roughly 600 judges. The plan announced Thursday would not include money for more judges. 

A bipartisan border agreement endorsed by President Joe Biden earlier this year offered funding for 100 new immigration judges and aides. But Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, urged fellow Republicans to kill the deal, and it quickly died. 

The administration has tried for years to move more new arrivals to the front of the line for asylum decisions, hoping to deport those whose claims are denied within months instead of years. The Obama and Trump administrations also tried to accelerate the process, going back to 2014. In 2022, the Biden administration introduced a plan to have asylum officers, not immigration judges, decide a limited number of family claims in nine cities. 
…

Washington — President Joe Biden has asserted executive privilege over audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur that’s at the center a Republican effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, the Justice Department told lawmakers on Thursday.

It comes as the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Judiciary Committee are each expected to hold a hearing to recommend that the full House refer Garland to the Justice Department for the contempt charges over the department’s refusal to hand over the audio.

Garland advised Biden in a letter on Thursday that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege. Garland told the Democratic president that the “committee’s needs are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.”

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte urged lawmakers not to proceed with the contempt effort to avoid “unnecessary and unwarranted conflict.”

“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be held in contempt of Congress,” Uriarte wrote.

White House Counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a separate, scathing letter to Congress on Thursday that lawmakers’ effort to obtain the recording was absent any legitimate purpose and lays bare their likely goal — “to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”

The White House memo is a tacit admission that there are moments from the interview it fears portray Biden in a negative light in an election year — and that could be exacerbated by the release, or selective release, of the audio.

The transcript of the Hur interview showed Biden struggling to recall some dates and occasionally confusing some details — something longtime aides says he’s done for years in both public and private — but otherwise showing deep recall in other areas. Biden and his aides are particularly sensitive to questions about his age. At 81, he’s the oldest ever president, and he’s seeking another four year term.

Hur found some evidence that Biden had willfully retained classified information and disclosed it to a ghostwriter but concluded that it was insufficient for criminal charges.
…

TAIPAI, TAIWAN — Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said Thursday there was no damage to its facilities after an incident at its Arizona factory construction site where

a waste disposal truck driver was transported to a hospital.

Firefighters responded to a reported explosion Wednesday afternoon at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plant in Phoenix, the Arizona Republic reported, citing the local fire department.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker whose clients include Apple and Nvidia, said in a statement none of its employees or onsite construction workers had reported any related injuries.

“This is an active investigation with no additional details that can be shared at this time,” it added.

TSMC’s Taipei-listed shares pared earlier gains after the news and were last up around 0.8% on Thursday morning. TSMC last month agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona plant by 2030.

The company will produce the world’s most advanced 2 nanometer technology at its second Arizona facility expected to begin production in 2028.
…

General public gets to visit White House grounds in spring and fall
…

…

As Russia ramps up its offensive in eastern Ukraine, officials with the U.S. command in Eastern Europe say it’s urgent for NATO to be ready for a possible confrontation. VOA’s Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze talked to the U.S. and Polish commanders during a U.S. Army transfer of authority ceremony in Boleslawiec, Poland. VOA footage and video editing by Daniil Batushchak.
…

NEW YORK — A jury was chosen on Wednesday to determine whether U.S. Senator Robert Menendez broke the law in what federal prosecutors have called a yearslong bribery scheme to benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar, as well as himself. 

Opening statements in the trial of New Jersey’s senior senator are expected to begin later in the day before U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in Manhattan. The trial could last into early July. 

Twelve jurors and six alternates were chosen, including an investment banker, a commercial litigator, a retired economist, a doctor and multiple therapists. Jury selection took about 2½, and more than 130 prospective jurors were excused. 

Menendez, 70, faces 16 criminal charges including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction. 

He is being tried alongside New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, 57, is scheduled to be tried on July 8, with the delay resulting from what her lawyers called a serious medical condition. 

All the defendants have pleaded not guilty. The bribery trial is the senator’s second. His first ended in 2017 in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked. 

Prosecutors are expected to detail what they consider a complex and sordid array of corruption that lasted from 2018 to 2023. 

The Menendezes are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Hana, Daibes and insurance broker Jose Uribe, in exchange for the senator’s providing political favors and aid to Egypt and Qatar.  

Prosecutors have said the senator promised to help Egypt obtain arms sales and other aid, helped Hana obtain a lucrative monopoly on certifying that meat exports to Egypt conformed to Islamic law, and tried to help Daibes secure millions of dollars from a Qatari investment fund. 

Menendez, a Democrat, also was accused of trying to interfere in a federal criminal case against Daibes in New Jersey and in state criminal cases involving two of Uribe’s associates. 

Prosecutors have said FBI agents found more than $480,000 of cash in the Menendezes’ home, much stashed in clothing, closets and a safe. 

Bribes also included more than $100,000 in gold bars and a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible, according to prosecutors. 

Uribe pleaded guilty in March to bribery and fraud, and he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. 

While Nadine Menendez is not yet on trial, her husband’s lawyers have suggested his defense might include an effort to blame her for withholding information and making him believe his activities were lawful. 

Robert Menendez became a senator in 2006. Before being indicted, he would have been favored in his Democratic-leaning state to win a fourth full Senate term in November. 

But any reelection bid now would be a long shot, reflecting recent polls of voters that show overwhelming disapproval of Menendez’s job performance. 

Menendez has suggested that he would try if acquitted to run as an independent. Only 9% of voters polled in March by Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill said they would prefer him to another Democrat or a Republican. 

The senator has resisted calls to resign made from across the political spectrum but gave up leadership of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after his indictment last September. 

Stein admonished jurors to ignore media coverage of the trial. “If something comes up,” the judge said, “switch off.” 
…

…

He captured the most famous faces in 1930s and early ’40s cinema — Garbo, Crawford, Bogart and Gable. Now the work of George Hurrell, one of Hollywood’s greatest portrait photographers, is on display at Washington’s National Portrait Gallery. For VOA News, Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story. Videographer: Hakim Shammo; Video editor: Cristina Caicedo Smit
…

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday.

It’s the first arms shipment to Israel to be announced by the administration since it put another arms transfer — consisting of 3,500 bombs — on hold this month. The administration has said it paused that earlier transfer to keep Israel from using the bombs in its growing offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The White House has come under criticism from both sides of the political spectrum in the U.S. over its military support for Israel’s now seven-month war against Hamas in Gaza. Some of President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats have pushed him to limit transfers of offensive weapons to Israel to pressure the U.S. ally to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. Many Republicans condemn any lessening of military backing to Israel.

The package being sent includes about $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, the congressional aides said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an arms transfer that has not yet been made public.

There was no immediate indication when the arms would be sent. It’s not clear if this shipment is part of the long-delayed foreign aid package that Congress passed and Biden signed last month, a tranche from existing arms sale or a new sale.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the plans to move the package.

House Republicans were planning this week to advance a bill to mandate the delivery of offensive weaponry for Israel. Following Biden’s move to put a pause on bomb shipments last week, Republicans have been swift in their condemnation, arguing it represents the abandonment of the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East.

The White House said Tuesday that Biden would veto the bill if it were to pass Congress. The bill also has practically no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But House Democrats are somewhat divided on the issue, and roughly two dozen have signed onto a letter to the Biden administration saying they were “deeply concerned about the message” sent by pausing the bomb shipment.

In addition to the written veto threat, the White House has been in touch with various lawmakers and congressional aides about the legislation, according to an administration official.

“We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the President’s ability to deploy U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week, adding that the administration plans to spend “every last cent” appropriated by Congress in the national security supplemental package that was signed into law by Biden last month.
…

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan won Republican Senate nominations on Tuesday as voters across neighboring states with antithetical politics decided contests with big implications for the Senate majority fight this fall.

At the same time, Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump tried to project strength in low-stakes presidential primaries. Further down the ballot, two congressional candidates on opposite sides of the 2021 Capitol attack serve as a stark reminder that the nation remains deeply divided over the deadly insurrection.

Three states hosted statewide primary elections on Tuesday — Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia — as Republicans and Democrats pick their nominees for a slate of fall elections. None were more consequential than Senate primaries in deep-blue Maryland and deep-red West Virginia, where Republicans are eying opportunities that could flip control of Congress’ upper chamber for at least two years.

Maryland

In Maryland, Hogan claimed the Republican Senate nomination, giving Republicans a legitimate chance at picking up a Senate seat in the deep-blue state for the first time in more than four decades.

Hogan overcame his years-long criticism of Trump, a position that put him at odds with many Republican primary voters but will undoubtedly help him in the general election this fall. Maryland voters gave Biden a 33-point victory over Trump four years ago.

On the Democratic side, Representative David Trone has been locked in a contentious — and expensive — battle with Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.

Trone, the co-founder of the Total Wine & More national liquor store chain, has put more than $61 million of his own money into the race. That’s just shy of the national record for self-funding a Senate campaign, with much of it going to a months-long TV ad blitz. The three-term congressman says he’s better positioned to beat Hogan in November as a progressive Democrat not beholden to special interests.

Alsobrooks has been endorsed by many of the state’s top officials, including Governor Wes Moore, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Representative Steny Hoyer and a long list of state lawmakers. She has campaigned on growing economic opportunity, investing in education and protecting abortion rights.

West Virginia

Justice won his primary against U.S. Representative Alex Mooney in the race to replace Senator Joe Manchin. With Manchin gone, the seat is almost guaranteed to turn red come November.

Justice, a former billionaire with a folksy personality, is wildly popular in the state. He also earned Trump’s endorsement. A former Democrat, Justice switched to the Republican Party in 2017, announcing the change at a Trump rally.

Mooney had tried to win over conservatives by labeling Justice as someone who would support Democratic policies. Justice did support Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, saying West Virginia couldn’t afford to turn away the money offered in the bill.

West Virginia is also deciding its candidates for governor. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the Republican nominee in the 2018 Senate race against Manchin, is running for the Republican nomination. He’s up against former state Representative Moore Capito, whose mother is Senator Shelley Moore Capito.

Presidential primary

Biden and Trump have already amassed enough delegates to claim the presidential nominations at their respective national conventions this summer. Yet voters on both sides hope to register a significant protest vote Tuesday that will demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the Biden-Trump rematch.

Both Biden and Trump won their primaries in West Virginia and Maryland.

Still, Maryland progressives especially unhappy with the Biden administration’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas had encouraged voters to select “uncommitted to any presidential candidate” instead of Biden. There was no uncommitted option in West Virginia or Nebraska.

Everett Bellamy, a Democrat who voted early in Annapolis, said he voted “uncommitted” instead of Biden as a protest against the killing of women and children and noncombatants in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Republican critics cannot choose “uncommitted,” but they can choose his former Republican rival Nikki Haley, who will appear on the ballot in Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia despite formally suspending her campaign more than two months ago.

Derek Faux, an independent voter from Charleston, West Virginia, said he supported Haley, and in other Republican races, he said he voted for the candidates he believed were least like Trump.

Other key races

In Nebraska, Republican Senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts both face nominal opposition in their primaries, one of the rare occasions when both senators in a state are on the ballot at the same time. And in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, Republican U.S. Representative Don Bacon faces a challenge from his right flank.

In North Carolina, voters finalized their pick of the Trump-endorsed Brad Knott in what had become a one-person Republican primary in the state’s 13th Congressional District.
…

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Hunter Biden’s federal gun case will go to trial next month, a judge said Tuesday, denying a bid by lawyers for the president’s son to delay the prosecution. 

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Biden’s request to push the trial until September, which the defense said was necessary to give the defense time to line up witnesses and go through evidence handed over by prosecutors. 

President Joe Biden’s son is accused of lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days. 

Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty, has acknowledged struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine during that period in 2018, but his lawyers have said he didn’t break the law. 

His attorneys have argued that prosecutors bowed to pressure by Republicans, who claimed the Democratic president’s son was initially given a sweetheart deal, and that he was indicted because of political pressure. 

But the judge overseeing the case last month rejected his claim that the prosecution is politically motivated along with other efforts to dismiss the case. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week said the case could move forward to trial. 

Hunter Biden was supposed to plead guilty last year to misdemeanor tax charges and would have avoided prosecution on the gun charges had he stayed out of trouble for two years. It was the culmination of a yearslong investigation by federal prosecutors into the business dealings of the president’s son, and the agreement would have dispensed with criminal proceedings and spared the Bidens weeks of headlines as the 2024 election loomed. 

But the deal broke down after the judge who was supposed to sign off on the agreement instead raised a series of questions about it. 

Hunter Biden was indicted on three gun firearms charges in Delaware and was charged separately in California, where he lives, with tax crimes. 

He’s charged in the Delaware case with two counts of making false statements, first for checking a box falsely saying he was not addicted to drugs and second for giving it to the shop for their federally required records. A third count alleges he possessed the gun for about 11 days despite knowing he was a drug user. 

In California, Hunter Biden is charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors over at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed between 2016 and 2019. Prosecutors have accused him of spending millions of dollars on an “extravagant lifestyle” instead of paying his taxes. The back taxes have since been paid.
…

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Protesters against the war between Israel and Hamas were voluntarily taking down their tents in Harvard Yard on Tuesday after university officials agreed to discuss their questions about the endowment, bringing a peaceful end to the kinds of demonstrations that were broken up by police on other campuses. 

The student protest group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine said in a statement that the encampment “outlasted its utility with respect to our demands.” Meanwhile, Harvard University interim President Alan Garber agreed to pursue a meeting between protesters and university officials regarding the students’ questions. 

Students at many college campuses this spring set up similar encampments, calling for their schools to cut ties with Israel and businesses that support it. 

The Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, and Israel’s military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. 

Harvard said its president and the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Hopi Hoekstra, will meet with the protesters to discuss the conflict in the Middle East. 

The protesters said they worked out an agreement to meet with university officials, including the Harvard Management Company, which oversees the world’s largest academic endowment, valued at about $50 billion. 

The protesters’ statement said the students will set an agenda that includes discussions on disclosure, divestment, reinvestment and the creation of a Center for Palestine Studies. The students also said that Harvard has offered to retract suspensions of more than 20 students and student workers and back down on disciplinary measures faced by 60 more. 

“Since its establishment three weeks ago, the encampment has both broadened and deepened Palestine solidarity organizing on campus,” a spokesperson for the protesters said. “It has moved the needle on disclosure and divestment at Harvard.” 
…

…

In the United States, each year there are fewer news organizations covering local communities, even near the nation’s capital. Some high school journalists are trying to help make up for the shortage. Robin Guess reports from Montgomery County, just outside Washington. Camera: Nazir Afzali.
…

…