WASHINGTON — Migrant children who wait in makeshift camps along the U.S.-Mexico border for Customs and Border Protection officers to process them are in the agency’s custody and are subject to a long-standing court-supervised agreement that set standards for their treatment, a judge ruled.

The issue of when the children are officially in CPB custody is particularly important because of the 1997 court settlement on how migrant children in U.S. government custody must be treated. Those standards include a time limit on how long the children can be held and services such as toilets, sinks and temperature controls.

Wednesday’s ruling means the Department of Homeland Security must quickly process the children and place them in facilities that are “safe and sanitary.”

The border camps have become a flashpoint between immigrant advocates and the federal government. The U.S. has said smugglers send migrants to the camps and argued that the children are not yet in CPB custody because they haven’t been arrested. Advocates say the U.S. government has a responsibility for the children and that CBP often directs migrants to the camps, sometimes even driving them there.

Children traveling alone must be turned over within 72 hours to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. That agency generally releases them to family in the United States while an immigration judge considers asylum. Asylum-seeking families are typically released in the U.S. while their cases wind through courts.

“This is a tremendous victory for children at open air detention sites, but it remains a tragedy that a court had to direct the government to do what basic human decency and the law clearly require,” Neha Desai, senior director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law, said in a statement. “We expect CBP to comply with the court’s order swiftly, and we remain committed to holding CBP accountable for meeting the most rudimentary needs of children in their legal custody, including food, shelter, and basic medical care.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s decision could have far-reaching implications because of the changing face of who is coming to the United States. Decades ago, the typical person attempting to enter the U.S. was an adult male from Mexico seeking work. Now, families with children are increasingly making perilous journeys to the border seeking a new life. Caring for children puts different stresses on federal agencies more historically more geared toward adults.

The legal challenge focuses on two areas in California: one between two border fences in San Diego and another in a remote mountainous region east of San Diego. Migrants who cross the border illegally wait under open skies or sometimes in tents or structures made of tree branches while short on food and water. When the number of migrants was particularly high last year, they waited for several days for CBP agents to arrest and process them.

Gee ruled that the Customs and Border Protection’s juvenile coordinator must maintain records on minors held in the agency’s custody for more than 72 hours and that includes any time the minors spend in the camps. The agency must make sure that the treatment of minors at open-air sites complies with the 1997 agreement, Gee wrote.

Gee set a May 10 deadline for the juvenile coordinator to file an interim report about the number of minors held in open-air sites and how the agency was complying with the judge’s order.
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The 2024 New York International Auto Show kicked off in Manhattan in late March — and visitors have until April 7 to admire some of the coolest new car technology. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Michael Eckels.
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On Earth and in space, efforts are underway to curb emissions of the super-pollutant methane, a greenhouse gas. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the latest innovations and policies, as the International Energy Agency warns the clock is ticking to win the fight against climate change.
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Thirty-year-old American and ех-Marine from California Wolfgang Hagarty volunteered to join Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the summer of 2022. He participated in the liberation of the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions in 2022 and is currently fighting as a member of an air reconnaissance unit in Donbas. Anna Kosstutschenko met with him. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy
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Illegal immigration is the top issue for many voters in this year’s U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Scott Stearns looks at how candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden differ over what to do.
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new york — A New York judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews claim to presidential immunity in a separate criminal case.  

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 25 the former U.S. president’s arguments that he is immune from federal prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden.  

His defense lawyers in the New York case in March asked Justice Juan Merchan to delay the trial until that review was complete, arguing it was relevant because prosecutors were seeking to present evidence of statements Trump made while he was president from 2017 to 2021.  

In a court ruling on Wednesday, Merchan said Trump had waited too long to raise the issue.  

“Defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7, 2024,” Merchan wrote.  

Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, declined to comment. 

Trump, the Republican candidate to challenge Biden in the November 5 election, has pleaded not guilty in each of the four criminal indictments he faces.  

The New York case could be the only one to go to trial before the election.  

He is accused of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.  

Trump denies any such encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.  

Trump also is seeking a delay on the basis that a deluge of news coverage of the case has led potential jurors to believe he is already guilty. Merchan has not yet ruled on that request.  

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which charged Trump in 2023, opposed that request in a court filing made public on Wednesday. 

They argued that Trump himself had generated much of the news coverage, and that they would be able to weed out biased jurors through the jury selection process. 

The Supreme Court’s decision to take up Trump’s appeal in the federal election interference case was a major victory for him, delaying the trial’s start by months at least.  

He also faces a state case in Georgia over his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results, as well as a federal case in Florida over his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office in 2021. Those cases also lack firm trial dates. 

No U.S. president has ever faced a criminal trial. 
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Washington — The United States on Wednesday opposed a Palestinian push for full membership at the United Nations, with Washington saying it backed statehood but after negotiations with Israel. 

“We support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters. 

“That is something that should be done through direct negotiations through the parties, something we are pursuing at this time, and not at the United Nations,” he said, without explicitly saying that the United States would veto the bid if it reached the Security Council. 

Miller said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been actively engaged in establishing “security guarantees” for Israel as part of the groundwork for a Palestinian state. 

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has increasingly highlighted support for a Palestinian state, with a reformed Palestinian Authority in charge in the West Bank and Gaza, as it looks for a way to close the ongoing war in which its ally Israel is seeking to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for decades resisted a Palestinian state and leads a far-right government with members hostile to the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited autonomy in sections of the West Bank. 

Under longstanding legislation by the U.S. Congress, the United States is required to cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state. 

The law has been applied selectively. The United States cut off funding in 2011 and later withdrew from the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO, but Biden’s administration returned, saying it was better to be present. 

Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, said that recognition of a Palestinian state by the world body would mean “funding would be cut off to the U.N. system, so we’re bound by U.S. law.” 

“Our hope is that they don’t pursue that, but that’s up to them,” Wood said of the Palestinians’ bid. 

The Palestinian Authority has submitted a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for the Security Council to reconsider a longstanding application for statehood in April. 

Any request to become a U.N. member state must first be recommended by the Security Council, where Israel’s primary backer the United States as well as four other countries wield vetoes, and then endorsed by a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.  

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas launched the statehood application in 2011. It was not considered by the Security Council, but the General Assembly the following year granted observer status to the “State of Palestine.” 
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New Orleans — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this month about presidential immunity and whether former President Donald Trump can be tried on charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The high court’s decision will determine how some of the presumptive GOP nominee’s legal cases advance in an election year where he is facing 91 felony charges across four trials. They include the willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act.

“Donald Trump is trying to show that a U.S. president is immune from criminal prosecution while acting in an official capacity,” University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock told VOA.

“But I think, at the heart of this matter, is just how broadly Trump and his lawyers define ‘official capacity,’” Bullock explained.

“They are defining it very broadly at the moment. Trump says a president should be completely immune while president, but the three-judge circuit panel that ruled against him posed the question: ‘Well, what if the president hired a hitman to take out one of their rivals? Is that in an official capacity, and are they immune from prosecution then, as well?’ I think we’d all say, of course not!”

Many Republicans continue to back Trump

This month’s case before the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump appointees, involves federal charges that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election by spreading false information about voter fraud and by pressing Vice President Mike Pence to reject legitimate results when they were presented to Congress.

That congressional certification of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, was disrupted by Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. For that attack, Trump is facing a charge of obstructing an official proceeding.

The former president argues he was acting in an official capacity at the time, and therefore cannot be charged. In its filing to the Supreme Court, Trump’s team wrote, “The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office.”

“A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office,” the filing continues, “and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”

A Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll last month found that 70% of voters — including nearly half of Republicans — reject Trump’s argument that presidents should be immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.

Republican voter Jeff Williams from Valparaiso, Indiana, believes charges against Trump show he is being unfairly targeted by Democrats.

“It looks to me like these are all cases of Democrat-affiliated prosecutors in Democratic-leaning districts hoping for Democratic-slanted juries that will vote against Trump simply because they don’t like him,” Williams told VOA.

“Do I think a president should have total immunity from the law? No way,” Williams said. “But have I seen any evidence that suggests President Trump is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Absolutely not. This feels like a witch hunt.”

“Half of the country is going to have to justify voting for a criminal this year!”

“I can’t believe this is the situation we find ourselves in,” said Democratic voter Deborah Theobald of Woodstock, Georgia. “Half of the country is going to have to justify voting for a criminal this year!”

Fifty-five percent of Americans responding to a Reuters/Ipsos poll say they would not vote for Donald Trump if he was convicted of a felony by a jury, while 58% said they would not cast their ballot for the former president if he was currently serving time in prison.

“If a person has committed a crime while in office, and even a serious crime before office, then I think they should be prosecuted just as any other American would be,” said Rebecca Urrutia, a Connecticut mother who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

“Anyone who says that a president should have immunity from a prosecuted crime doesn’t stand for the Constitution or our country,” she said. “The president is a citizen and servant of our country, not a king or emperor, and if you break the law, I can’t vote for you.”

Impacting the coming election

It’s a turning point for the U.S. legal system and a pivotal political moment for Trump, says Robert Collins, a Dillard University professor of urban studies and public policy.

“Polling has shown that whether he is convicted or not has huge implications for the 2024 presidential election,” Collins told VOA. “But, outside of how these cases are ruled, the longer they go on, the more likely Trump avoids a guilty ruling in advance of Election Day.”

Independent voters are a pivotal group in swing states, with more than one-third telling a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll that they are less likely to support Trump if he is convicted.

“But if a conviction doesn’t come in time for the election — or too close to the election for voters to change their mind — then Republican voters might stick with him,” Collins said. “And, if he wins the election, and is convicted afterwards, then he’ll make the case that as the sitting president, he’s able to pardon himself. It’s a dangerous situation.”

Melbourne, Florida voter Jillian Dani backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 and says the results of his criminal cases will have a big impact on how she votes in November.

“On one hand, I wouldn’t vote for a felon,” Dani told VOA. “But on the other hand, I’m worried this is a witch hunt against someone the Democratic Party fears. I believe Clinton and Biden were criminals, too, but they weren’t convicted. If Trump isn’t convicted either, then why should he be treated differently?”
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An Indigenous graphic artist in the Southwest U.S. state of New Mexico is using a comic book to tell a story about same-sex love and identity on a Native American reservation. Gustavo Martínez Contreras has our story from Albuquerque.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Specious theories designed to implicate Ukraine and the United States in connection with the late March terror attack in Russia are spreading on China’s state media outlets and on its heavily censored social media platform Weibo.

False claims that paint Kyiv and Washington as masterminds of the attack have fueled debate in Russia even after Islamic State-Khorasan — also known as IS, IS-K, ISIS and Daesh — claimed responsibility for killing at least 143 people and injuring nearly 200 at the Crocus City Hall music venue in suburban Moscow.

In China, an editorial in the state-run Global Times insinuated that “many observers linked the incident to the ‘hybrid war’ form of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”

“Some Western thinkers have begun to speculate whether Washington had played a role in this terrorist attack,” it said without elaborating.

Without citing names or clear attribution, the Global Times repeated Russia’s false accusations that the U.S. failed to share “key intelligence” that could have helped Russian security services prevent the attack.

In fact, the U.S. warned the Russian authorities two weeks before the attack and shared appropriate intelligence, as it would do “for any other country,” John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told VOA.

“We provided useful, we believe, valuable information about what we thought was an imminent terrorist attack,” Kirby said. “We also warned Americans about staying away from public places like concert halls. So, we were very direct with our Russian counterparts appropriately to make sure that they had as much useful information as possible.”

Addressing a Russian intelligence agency board meeting three days before the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the U.S. warning as “outright blackmail” intended “to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

The Global Times also criticized Washington for being “slow to condemn the incident in a timely manner, which shocked the international community.”

In fact, the United States was among the first nations to condemn the Moscow attack, and on March 30, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy placed flowers at the site.

With the Chinese Communist Party’s tight censorship of online content, contrarian views are quickly taken down, and the lack of independent media leave disinformation spread by state-controlled news outlets unchallenged.

Some, however, have voiced skepticism.

“I personally think it’s unlikely that the United States was behind this terrorist attack,” Jin Canrong, a scholar of international relations with an established “anti-American” reputation, wrote on Weibo.

The comments by Jin, who is a professor at the Renmin University of China, provoked heated reaction, with some Weibo users accusing him of being a U.S. sympathizer.

Since the attack, conspiracy theories echoing Russian propaganda have dominated the narrative on Weibo, typically boosted by anonymous pro-Russian and pro-Chinese influencers with millions of followers.

Weibo influencer Drunk Rabbit posted to his nearly half a million followers: “It is no wonder that the Russian people do not believe that this was done by IS. They all firmly believe that Ukraine and its masters who are at war with Russia planned and carried out this atrocity.”

To prove the point, the user posted two side-by-side video clips showing former U.S. Presidents Barak Obama and Donald Trump.

Drunk Rabbit​’s caption read: “Obama: ‘We trained ISIS,’” and “Trump: ‘Obama was the founder of ISIS.’”

“Both former presidents have confirmed that the United States is the creator of ISIS,” Drunk Rabbit continued. “Regarding the terrorist attack on the Moscow Concert Hall in Russia, what other evidence is needed?”

The quotes by Obama and Trump, however, are taken out of context and, in the case of Obama’s remarks, twisted to mean the opposite of what he said.

Trump’s claim has been debunked by fact-checkers and terrorism experts who traced Islamic State’s roots to 2002, six years before Obama was elected president, and Trump himself walked the remark back, calling it “sarcasm.”

It is not out of character for the Chinese state and social media to echo Russian propaganda and disinformation, especially when it targets the United States.
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On a call Tuesday, President Joe Biden discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping a range of high-level issues and reiterated his request that China not use web-based disinformation tools to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. The two leaders also discussed Taiwan – the island China claims – as it prepares to inaugurate a new leader next month. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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washington — President Joe Biden is meeting with American Muslim community leaders on Tuesday amid outrage from Muslim and Arab Americans over his administration’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“Continuing his tradition of honoring the Muslim community during Ramadan, President Biden will host a meeting with Muslim community leaders to discuss issues of importance to the community,” a White House official said in a statement sent to VOA.

“He will be joined by Vice President [Kamala] Harris, senior Muslim Administration officials and senior members of his National Security team.”

Following the meeting, the official said they will “host a small breaking of the fast, prayer, and Iftar” with “a number” of senior Muslim administration officials.

Unlike in previous years, American Muslim leaders were not included in the White House iftar, or breaking of the fast meal. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the leaders had declined and asked for a “working group meeting” instead.

“They wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity to discuss the issues at hand,” she said during her briefing Tuesday in response to a VOA question. “We listened, we heard, and we adjusted the format to be responsive so that we can get feedback from them.”

Since taking office, Biden has hosted Muslim community leaders at the White House, a tradition that began with President Bill Clinton in 1996. Except for President Donald Trump in 2017, Republican and Democratic presidents have hosted an iftar dinner during Ramadan or an Eid al-Fitr reception to mark the end of the month of fasting.

Past Ramadan and Eid celebrations usually included diplomats from majority-Muslim countries. Embassies that VOA reached out to said they have not received an invitation this year.

Many decline invitation

Even with the meeting-only format, many community leaders declined to attend, and Biden will likely meet with only a handful of them.

In a social media post, Muslim advocacy group Emgage Action said they had asked Biden to “postpone this gathering and to convene a proper policy meeting with representatives of the community’s choosing rather than those selected by the White House.”

The administration “can and should leverage its enormous support for Israel and begin to take demonstrable actions” including to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire and unfettered access for humanitarian aid,” the group said.

“Without more Palestinian voices and policy experts in the room, we do not believe today’s meeting will provide for such an opportunity.”

Many who have attended White House Ramadan events in the past said they had no idea about the meeting until VOA reached out to them.

“It’s probably hand-picked people who have been vetted and who have been guaranteed not to speak up and be critical of the president’s policies,” said Jawaid Kotwal, board member of the Afghan American Foundation.

Several White House and Biden campaign events around the country have been marred with disruptions by pro-Palestinian protesters. His constituents — including many Muslim and Arab Americans — have signaled their outrage. Hundreds of thousands voted “uncommitted” in Democratic primary elections in various states.

A Pew survey released Tuesday shows that only 36% of American Muslims view Biden positively. The same survey shows that only 6% believe the U.S. is striking the right balance between the Israelis and Palestinians. Sixty percent say Biden favors the Israelis too much.

‘A time of mourning, not celebration’

“The American Muslim community has made it very clear they have no interest in breaking bread with President Biden while his administration is enabling the starvation and slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell told VOA. Mitchell is deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR.

As the death toll in Gaza approaches 33,000 people, it’s clear that many American Muslims are uncomfortable with the thought of celebrating at the White House.

“This is a time of mourning, not celebration, so we’re only accepting iftars that benefit the poor, refugees and the oppressed,” Salam Al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told VOA.

CAIR and other Muslim groups and anti-war organizations are hosting a “People’s White House Ceasefire Now Iftar” in front of the White House on Tuesday.

Biden also faces dissent from some administration staff members, particularly those with Arab or Muslim backgrounds, including Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American and former policy adviser at the Department of Education who resigned in protest in January.

The president is “attempting to break bread with Muslim staffers while finalizing the sale of billions of dollars in warplanes to Israel as its extremist government targets humanitarian workers and hospitals,” Habash told VOA.

Biden’s meeting with American Muslims came amid reports that seven aid workers, including at least one dual-nationality American from the NGO World Central Kitchen, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Monday.

The organization, led by celebrity chef Jose Andres, has been leading the efforts to get food to Gaza via a ship from Cyprus.

Iuliia Iarmolenko, Sayed Aziz Rahman, Yuni Salim and Iram Abbasi contributed to this report.
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Washington — Reported discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians reached a record high in the U.S. in 2023, driven by rising Islamophobia and bias as the Israel-Gaza war raged late in the year, data from an advocacy group showed on Tuesday.

Complaints totaled 8,061 in 2023, a 56% rise from the year before and the highest since the Council on American-Islamic Relations began records nearly 30 years ago. About 3,600 of those incidents occurred from October to December, CAIR said.

Human rights advocates have similarly reported a global rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the latest eruption of conflict in the Middle East.

U.S. incidents have included the fatal October stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois, the November shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont and the February stabbing of a Palestinian man in Texas.

CAIR’s report said 2023 saw a “resurgence of anti-Muslim hate” after the first ever recorded annual drop in complaints in 2022. In the first nine months of 2023, such incidents averaged around 500 a month before jumping to nearly 1,200 a month in the last quarter.

“The primary force behind this wave of heightened Islamophobia was the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine in October 2023,” the report said.

The most numerous complaints in 2023 were in the categories of immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, hate crimes and education discrimination, CAIR said.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has killed over 32,000 people, according to the local health ministry, displaced nearly all its 2.3 million population, put Gaza on the brink of starvation and led to genocide allegations that Israel denies.

CAIR said it compiled the numbers by reviewing public statements and videos as well as reports from public calls, emails and an online complaint system. It contacted people whose incidents were reported in the media.
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Baltimore — A tugboat pushing a fuel barge was the first vessel to use an alternate channel to bypass the wreckage of Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, which had blocked traffic along the vital port’s main shipping channel.

The barge supplying jet fuel to the Department of Defense left late Monday and was destined for Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base, though officials have said the temporary channel is open primarily to vessels that are helping with the cleanup effort. Some barges and tugs that have been stuck in the Port of Baltimore since the collapse are also scheduled to pass through the channel. 

Officials said they’re working on a second channel on the southwest side of the main channel that will allow for deeper draft vessels, but they didn’t say when that might open. 

Gov. Wes Moore is set Tuesday to visit one of two centers that the Small Business Administration opened in the area to help companies get loans to assist them with losses caused by the disruption of the bridge collapse. 

Crews are undertaking the complicated work of removing steel and concrete at the site of the bridge’s deadly collapse after a container ship lost power and crashed into a supporting column. On Sunday, dive teams surveyed parts of the bridge and checked the ship, and workers in lifts used torches to cut above-water parts of the twisted steel superstructure. 

Authorities believe six workers plunged to their deaths in the collapse, including two whose bodies were recovered last week. Two other workers survived. 

Moore, a Democrat, said at a Monday afternoon news conference that his top priority is recovering the four remaining bodies, followed by reopening shipping channels. He said that he understands the urgency but that the risks are significant. Crews have described the mangled steel girders of the fallen bridge as “chaotic wreckage,” he said. 

“What we’re finding is it is more complicated than we hoped for initially,” said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath. 

Meanwhile, the ship remains stationary, and its 21 crew members remain on board for now, officials said. 

President Joe Biden is expected to visit the collapse site Friday to meet with state and local officials and get at federal response efforts. 

The bridge fell as the cargo ship Dali lost power March 26 shortly after leaving Baltimore on its way to Sri Lanka. The ship issued a mayday alert, which allowed just enough time for police to stop traffic, but not enough to save a roadwork crew filling potholes on the bridge. 

The Dali is managed by Synergy Marine Group and owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd., both of Singapore. Danish shipping giant Maersk chartered the Dali. 

Synergy and Grace Ocean filed a court petition Monday seeking to limit their legal liability, a routine but important procedure for cases litigated under U.S. maritime law. A federal court in Maryland will ultimately decide who is responsible and how much they owe. 

The filing seeks to cap the companies’ liability at roughly $43.6 million. It estimates that the vessel itself is valued at up to $90 million and was owed over $1.1 million in income from freight. The estimate also deducts two major expenses: at least $28 million in repair costs and at least $19.5 million in salvage costs. 

Officials are trying to determine how to rebuild the major bridge, which was completed in 1977. It carried Interstate 695 around southeast Baltimore and became a symbol of the city’s working-class roots and maritime culture. 

Congress is expected to consider aid packages to help people who lose jobs or businesses because of the prolonged closure of the Port of Baltimore. The port handles more cars and farm equipment than any other U.S. facility.
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In Dearborn, Michigan, a new Ford F-150 rolls off the line every 53 seconds
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ATLANTA — A person in Texas has been diagnosed with bird flu, an infection tied to the recent discovery of the virus in dairy cows, health officials said Monday.

The patient was being treated with an antiviral drug and their only reported symptom was eye redness, Texas health officials said. Health officials say the person had been in contact with cows presumed to be infected, and the risk to the public remains low. 

It marks the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of bird flu from a mammal, federal health officials said.

However, there’s no evidence of person-to-person spread or that anyone has become infected from milk or meat from livestock, said Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Genetic tests don’t suggest that the virus suddenly is spreading more easily or that it is causing more severe illness, Shah said. And current antiviral medications still seem to work, he added.

Last week, dairy cows in Texas and Kansas were reported to be infected with bird flu — and federal agriculture officials later confirmed infections in a Michigan dairy herd that had recently received cows from Texas. None of the hundreds of affected cows have died, Shah said.

Since 2020, a bird flu virus has been spreading among more animal species – including dogs, cats, skunks, bears and even seals and porpoises – in scores of countries. 

However, the detection in U.S. livestock is an “unexpected and problematic twist,” said Dr. Ali Khan, a former CDC outbreak investigator who is now dean of the University of Nebraska’s public health college.

This bird flu was first identified as a threat to people during a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong. More than 460 people have died in the past two decades from bird flu infections, according to the World Health Organization. 

Most infected people got it directly from birds, but scientists have been on guard for any sign of spread among people. 

Texas officials didn’t identify the newly infected person, nor release any details about what brought them in contact with the cows.

The CDC does not recommend testing for people who have no symptoms. Roughly a dozen people in Texas who did have symptoms were tested in connection with the dairy cow infections, but only the one person came back positive, Shah said.

It’s only the second time a person in the United States has been diagnosed with what’s known as Type A H5N1 virus. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program picked it up while killing infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.
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The U.S. Congress left Washington for a break without deciding on a supplemental funding bill to arm Ukraine and other allies. Republicans who oppose the funding say Congress should spend its money on domestic concerns, but as VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports, the funding bill hits closer to home than many Americans may realize.
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WASHINGTON — The United States and Britain on Monday announced a new partnership on the science of artificial intelligence safety, amid growing concerns about upcoming next-generation versions.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and British Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington to jointly develop advanced AI model testing, following commitments announced at an AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park in November.

“We all know AI is the defining technology of our generation,” Raimondo said. “This partnership will accelerate both of our institutes work across the full spectrum to address the risks of our national security concerns and the concerns of our broader society.”

Britain and the United States are among countries establishing government-led AI safety institutes.

Britain said in October its institute would examine and test new types of AI, while the United States said in November it was launching its own safety institute to evaluate risks from so-called frontier AI models and is now working with 200 companies and entites.

Under the formal partnership, Britain and the United States plan to perform at least one joint testing exercise on a publicly accessible model and are considering exploring personnel exchanges between the institutes. Both are working to develop similar partnerships with other countries to promote AI safety.

“This is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world,” Donelan said. “AI is already an extraordinary force for good in our society and has vast potential to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges, but only if we are able to grip those risks.”

Generative AI, which can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts, has spurred excitement as well as fears it could make some jobs obsolete, upend elections and potentially overpower humans and catastrophic effects.

In a joint interview with Reuters Monday, Raimondo and Donelan urgent joint action was needed to address AI risks.

“Time is of the essence because the next set of models are about to be released, which will be much, much more capable,” Donelan said. “We have a focus one the areas that we are dividing and conquering and really specializing.”

Raimondo said she would raise AI issues at a meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council in Belgium Thursday.

The Biden administration plans to soon announce additions to its AI team, Raimondo said. “We are pulling in the full resources of the U.S. government.”

Both countries plan to share key information on capabilities and risks associated with AI models and systems and technical research on AI safety and security.

In October, Biden signed an executive order that aims to reduce the risks of AI. In January, the Commerce Department said it was proposing to require U.S. cloud companies to determine whether foreign entities are accessing U.S. data centers to train AI models.

Britain said in February it would spend more than 100 million pounds ($125.5 million) to launch nine new research hubs and AI train regulators about the technology.

Raimondo said she was especially concerned about the threat of AI applied to bioterrorism or a nuclear war simulation.

“Those are the things where the consequences could be catastrophic and so we really have to have zero tolerance for some of these models being used for that capability,” she said.
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