Florida Teachers Can Discuss Sexual Orientation, Gender ID Under ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Settlement

orlando, fla. — Students and teachers will be able to speak freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms, provided it’s not part of instruction, under a settlement reached Monday between Florida education officials and civil rights attorneys who had challenged a state law which critics dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.”

The settlement clarifies what is allowed in Florida classrooms following passage two years ago of the law prohibiting instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. Opponents said the law had created confusion about whether teachers could identity themselves as LGBTQ+ or if they even could have rainbow stickers in classrooms.

Other states used the Florida law as a template to pass prohibitions on classroom instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina are among the states with versions of the law.

Under the terms of the settlement, the Florida Board of Education will send instructions to every school district saying the Florida law doesn’t prohibit discussing LGBTQ+ people, nor prevent anti-bullying rules on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or disallow Gay-Straight Alliance groups. The settlement also spells out that the law is neutral — meaning what applies to LGBTQ+ people also applies to heterosexual people — and that it doesn’t apply to library books not being used for instruction in the classroom.

The law also doesn’t apply to books with incidental references to LGBTQ+ characters or same-sex couples, “as they are not instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity any more than a math problem asking students to add bushels of apples is instruction on apple farming,” according to the settlement.

“What this settlement does, is, it re-establishes the fundamental principal, that I hope all Americans agree with, which is every kid in this country is entitled to an education at a public school where they feel safe, their dignity is respected and where their families and parents are welcomed,” Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an interview. “This shouldn’t be a controversial thing.”

In a statement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office described the deal as a “major win” with the law formally known as the Parental Rights in Education Act remaining intact.

“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” said Ryan Newman, an attorney for the state of Florida. “We are victorious, and Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”

The law has been championed by the Republican governor since before its passage in 2022 by the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature. It barred instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade, and it was expanded to all grades last year.

Republican lawmakers had argued that parents should broach these subjects with children and that the law protected children from being taught about inappropriate material.

But opponents of the law said it created a chilling effect in classrooms. Some teachers said they were unsure if they could mention or display a photo of their same-sex partner in the classroom. In some cases, books dealing with LGBTQ+ topics were removed from classrooms and lines mentioning sexual orientation were excised from school musicals. The Miami-Dade County School Board in 2022 decided not to adopt a resolution recognizing LGBTQ History Month, even though it had done so a year earlier.

The law also triggered the ongoing legal battles between DeSantis and Disney over control of the governing district for Walt Disney World in central Florida after DeSantis took control of the government in what the company described as retaliation for its opposition to the legislation. DeSantis touted the fight with Disney during his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, which he ended earlier this year.

The civil rights attorneys sued Florida education officials on behalf of teachers, students and parents, claiming the law was unconstitutional, but the case was dismissed last year by a federal judge in Tallahassee who said they lacked standing to sue. The case was appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kaplan said they believed the appellate court would have reversed the lower court’s decision, but continuing the lawsuit would have delayed any resolution for several more years.

“The last thing we wanted for the kids in Florida was more delay,” Kaplan said.

Ukrainians React to Biden’s Pledges of Continued Support

U.S. President Joe Biden opened his State of the Union address last week with a pledge to continue to support Ukraine, giving Ukrainians hope that a U.S. aid package will be approved. But a foreign aid bill that includes more assistance to Ukraine faces opposition in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. For VOA, Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv. VOA footage by Eugene Shynkar.

Despite Sanctions, Russia’s Economy Continues to Grow

In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and Europe imposed significant economic sanctions on Russia. But two years into the war, Moscow’s economy remains resilient. Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Andrey Degtyarev.

Trump: TikTok Poses National Security Threat, but Banning It Would Help Facebook

NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss.

Trump, in a call-in interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” was asked about his comments last week that seemed to voice opposition to a bill being advanced by Congress that would effectively ban TikTok and other ByteDance apps from the Apple and Google app stores as well as U.S. web hosting services.

“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump told the hosts. “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”

“When I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size,” he added. “I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”

 

Trump has repeatedly complained about Facebook’s role during the 2020 election, which he still refuses to concede he lost to President Joe Biden. That includes at least $400 million that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife donated to two nonprofit organizations that distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The donations — which were fully permitted under campaign finance law — went to pay for things like equipment to process mail ballots and drive-thru voting locations.

TikTok, a video-sharing app, has emerged as a major issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. The platform has about 170 million users in the U.S., most of whom skew younger — a demographic that both parties are desperately trying to court ahead of November’s general election. Younger voters have become especially hard for campaigns to reach as they gravitate away from traditional platforms like cable television.

Biden’s 2024 campaign officially joined TikTok last month, even though he has expressed his own national security concerns over the platform, banned it on federal devices and on Friday endorsed the legislation that could lead to its ban.

The bill passed unanimously by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee calls on China’s ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or effectively face a U.S. ban. Top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, support the bill. Johnson has indicated it will soon come up for a full vote in the House.

As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order that called “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China)” a threat to “the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.” The courts, however, blocked the action after TikTok sued, arguing such actions would violate free speech and due process rights.

Pressed on whether he still believed the app posed a national security risk, Trump said Monday: “I do believe it. And we have to very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people’s privacy and data rights.”

“But,” he went on to say, “you have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies, too.” Some American companies, he charged, are “not so American. They deal in China. And if China wants anything from them they will give it. So that’s a national security risk also.”

Biden in 2022 banned the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes.

He also recently signed an executive order that allows the Department of Justice and other federal agencies to take steps to prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans’ personal data to what the White House calls “countries of concern,” including China.

Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and wouldn’t do so if asked. The U.S. government also hasn’t provided evidence of that happening.

Trump had first voiced support for the app in a post on his Truth Social site last week. “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better,” he wrote. “They are a true Enemy of the People!”

Trump, in the interview, said he had not discussed the company with Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and a major GOP donor. Trump said the two had recently met “very briefly” but that Yass “never mentioned TikTok.”

Trump also confirmed he met last week with Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who has increasingly aligned himself with conservative politics. Trump said he didn’t know whether Musk would end up supporting his campaign, noting they “obviously have opposing views on a minor subject called electric cars,” which Trump has railed against.

Four European Countries Seal Free Trade Pact with India, Pledge $100 Billion Investment  

New Delhi — India has signed a free trade pact with a group of four European nations that aims at drawing in investment of $100 billion over the next 15 years.

The deal announced Sunday with the European Free Trade Association, whose members are Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, comes weeks ahead of India’s national elections in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made economic growth a key poll plank as he seeks a third term in office.

The trade deal is one of several New Delhi is pursuing as it steps up efforts to grow its exports and take advantage of geopolitical shifts that are seeing many Western countries trying to reduce trade dependence on China.

The pact was sealed after about 16 years of negotiations. “The pact is significant because it is India’s first with developed countries,” according to Biswajit Dhar, trade analyst and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. “So far India, which has many protectionist barriers, only had such agreements with developing countries.”

To ease access to its vast market of 1.4 billion people, India will reduce tariffs on goods ranging from industrial imports to processed foods, beverages and items such as Swiss watches. New Delhi hopes to boost its exports in areas such as information technology and business services.

India is the European Free Trade Association’s fifth-largest trading partner after the European Union, the United States, Britain and China with two-way trade adding up to $18.65 billion in 2022-23.

The investment pledge by the four European countries will create one million jobs, according to Indian Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal.

“It’s for the first time that we are inking a free trade agreement with a binding commitment to invest $100 billion in India,” Goyal said. “It is a modern trade agreement, fair, equitable and win-win for all five countries.”

European officials said pledging the investment made it a “balanced” deal for both sides. “If you look at the different market sizes, India offers 1.4bn population, plus it’s a door to the global world,” Helene Budliger Artieda, Swiss state secretary for economic affairs, told reporters.

However, trade analyst Dhar said that it remains to be seen how the investment promise translates on the ground. “These four countries had invested just $10 billion in the last 23 years. So taking this up to up to $100 billion in 15 years is a tall order, it does not seem realistic,” he said.

In recent years, India has stepped up efforts to pursue trade agreements to boost its fast-growing economy. In the last two years, it has concluded a free trade pact with the UAE and a preliminary agreement with Australia. Officials are also trying to finalize deals with Britain and Oman.

“This landmark pact underlines our commitment to boosting economic progress and create opportunities for our youth,” Modi said in a post on X after the deal with the European countries was concluded.

Modi is promising to make India, which is a lower middle-income country, a developed nation by 2047.

Bucking the trend of slowing growth in many countries, the Indian economy is growing briskly. It is expected to grow at more than 7% in the financial year that ends in March — the fastest growth among major economies.

Few Female Lawmakers in US Statehouses

CHARLESTON, W.Va — Democrat Kayla Young and Republican Patricia Rucker frequently clash on abortion rights and just about everything else in West Virginia’s Legislature, but they agree on one thing: Too few of their colleagues are women, and it’s hurting the state.

“There are exceptions to every single rule, but I think in general, men do kind of see this as their field,” said Rucker, part of the GOP’s Senate supermajority that passed one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans while Young — the lone Democratic woman elected to the House — opposed it.

Nearly 130 years since the first three women were elected to state legislative offices in the U.S., women remain massively underrepresented in state legislatures.

In 10 states, women make up less than 25% of their state legislatures, according to Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics. West Virginia is at the very bottom of that list, having just 16 women in its 134-member Legislature, or just under 12%. That’s compared with Nevada, where women occupy just over 60% of state legislative seats. Similarly low numbers can be found in the nearby southern states of Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Louisiana.

“It’s absolutely wild to know that more than 50 percent of the population of West Virginia are women, and sometimes I’m the only woman that’s on a committee, period,” said Young, currently the only woman on the House Artificial Intelligence Committee and was one of just two on the House Judiciary Committee when it greenlighted the state’s near total abortion ban.

The numbers of women filling legislative seats across the U.S. have remained low despite women registering and voting at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980 — and across virtually every demographic, including race, education level and socioeconomic status.

For the last three decades, voters have demonstrated a willingness to cast ballots for women. But they didn’t have the opportunity to do so because women weren’t running, said Jennifer Lawless, chair of the politics department at the University of Virginia.

“The gender gap in political ambition is just as large now as it was then,” said Lawless, adding that women are much less likely to get recruited to run for office or think they’re qualified to run in what they perceive as a hostile political environment.

And those running in southern, conservative states — still mostly Democratic women, data show — aren’t winning as those states continue to overwhelmingly elect Republicans.

In 2022, 39 women ran as their party’s nominee for state legislative seats in West Virginia, and 26 were Democrats. Only two of the Democratic candidates won, compared to 11 out of 13 of the Republicans.

Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics, said there’s more money, infrastructure and support for recruiting and running Democratic female candidates. The Republican Party often shies away from talking about what is labeled or dismissed as “identity politics,'” she said.

“It’s a belief in a kind of meritocracy and, ‘the best candidate will rise. And if it’s a woman, great.’ They don’t say, ‘We don’t want women, but if it’s a man, that’s fine, too,'” she said. “There’s no sort of value in and of itself seen in the diversity.”

Larissa Martinez, founder and president of Women’s Public Leadership Network, one of only a few right-leaning U.S. organizations solely supporting female candidates, said identity politics within the GOP is a big hurdle to her work. Part of her organization’s slogan is, “we are pro-women without being anti-man.”

In 2020, small-town public school teacher Amy Grady pulled off a huge political upset when she defeated then-Senate President Mitch Carmichael in West Virginia’s Republican primary, following back-to-back years of strikes in which school employees packed into the state Capitol.

Carmichael took in more than $127,000 in contributions compared to Grady’s self-funded war chest of just over $2,000. Still, Grady won by fewer than 1,000 votes.

“It’s just you’re told constantly, ‘You can’t, you can’t, you can’t do it,'” said Grady, who has now risen through the ranks to become chair of the Senate Education Committee. “And it’s just like, why give it a shot?”

Tennessee state Sen. Charlane Oliver says she didn’t have many resources when she first raised her hand to run for political office. She had to rely on grassroots activism and organizing to win her 2022 election.

Yet securing the seat was just part of the battle. Oliver, a 41-year-old Black Democratic woman, is frequently tasked with providing the only outside perspective inside for the Republican supermajority Legislature.

“They don’t have any incentive to listen to me, but I view my seat as disruption and give you a perspective that you may not have heard before,” she said.

Many male-dominant statehouses have enacted strict abortion bans in GOP-controlled states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. For many female lawmakers, this trend has meant sharing deeply personal stories surrounding abortion and childbirth.

In South Carolina, the abortion debate resulted in an unlikely coalition of women banding together to filibuster a near-total abortion ban. The five female senators — three Republicans, two Democrats and one independent — quickly became known as the “sister senators” as they took turns describing pregnancy complications, the dangers surrounding limited access to contraceptives and the reproductive system.

Their actions were met with praise from national leaders, but at home, the consequences have been swift. The Republican women received censures and promises of primary challenges in this year’s elections.

Women also have championed gun policy, education, health care, and housing proposals.

Recently, some states have allowed candidates to make childcare an allowable expense for campaign finance purposes. Young was the sponsor of her state’s law — one of her priorities during her first session in the Capitol in the minority party.

During Young’s first term in office, she relied on a family member who would care for her two young children while he was at the state Capitol. But she was left without a solution last year when that caregiver passed away unexpectedly days before the session. Her husband, who works in television production, had to stay home and didn’t work for two months, meaning the family lost out on his income.

Young’s bill won the vote of Rucker, the first Hispanic woman elected to the West Virginia Senate. She too has had to juggle the challenges of being a working mom. She left her job as a teacher to homeschool her five children, and the family relied on her husband’s salary as a pediatric nurse to make ends meet.

“I ran for office because I feel like having that voice is actually really important — someone who lives paycheck to paycheck,” said Rucker, a first-generation U.S. citizen who made the difficult decision to pull her kids. “I’m not here because of a title, I’m not here because of a position, I’m here to do my job, and I want to do the best I can.”

‘Oppenheimer’ wins best picture at Academy Awards, Emma Stone takes best actress

Los Angeles — “Oppenheimer,” a solemn three-hour biopic that became an unlikely billion-dollar box-office sensation, was crowned best picture at a 96th Academy Awards that doubled as a coronation for Christopher Nolan.

After passing over arguably Hollywood’s foremost big-screen auteur for years, the Oscars made up for lost time by heaping seven awards on Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, including best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and best director for Nolan.

In anointing “Oppenheimer,” the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences did something it hasn’t done for more than a decade: hand its top prize to a widely seen, big-budget studio film. In a film industry where a cape, dinosaur or Tom Cruise has often been a requirement for such box office, “Oppenheimer” brought droves of moviegoers to theaters with a complex, fission-filled drama about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb.

“For better or worse, we’re all living in Robert Oppenheimer’s world,” said Murphy in his acceptance speech. “I’d like to dedicate this to the peacemakers.”

As a film heavy with unease for human capacity for mass destruction, “Oppenheimer” also emerged – even over its partner in cultural phenomenon, “Barbie” – as a fittingly foreboding film for times rife with cataclysm, man-made or not. Sunday’s Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles unfolded against the backdrop of wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and with a potentially momentous U.S. election on the horizon.

The most closely watched contest of the Academy Awards went to Emma Stone, who won best best actress for her performance as Bella Baxter in “Poor Things.”

In what was seen as the night’s most nail-biting category, Stone won over Lily Gladstone of “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Gladstone would have become the first Native American to win an Academy Award.

Instead, Oscar voters couldn’t resist the full-bodied extremes of Stone’s “Poor Things” performance. The win for Stone, her second best actress Oscar following her 2019 win for “La La Land,” confirmed the 35-year-old as arguably the preeminent big-screen actress of her generation. The list of women to win best actress two or more times is illustrious, including Katherine Hepburn, Frances McDormand, Ingrid Bergman and Bette Davis.

“Oh, boy, this is really overwhelming,” said Stone.

Nolan has had many movies in the Oscar mix before, including “Inception,” “Dunkirk” and “The Dark Knight.” But his win Sunday for direction is the first Academy Award for the 53-year-old filmmaker.

In his acceptance speech, Nolan noted cinema is just over a hundred years old.

“We don’t know where this incredible journey is going from here,” said Nolan. “But to think that I’m a meaningful part of it means the world to me.”

Protest and politics intruded on an election-year Academy Awards on Sunday, where demonstrations for Gaza raged outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, and awards went to “Oppenheimer,” “The Zone of Interest” and “20 Days in Mariupol.”

Sunday’s broadcast, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, had plenty of razzle dazzle, including a sprawling song-and-dance rendition of the “Barbie” hit “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling, with an assist on guitar by Slash. A sea of Kens swarmed the stage.

The lead winner, as expected was “Oppenheimer,” the blockbuster biopic. Though not quite the clean sweep that some expected, “Oppenheimer” was overpowering all competition — including its release-date companion, “Barbie” — winning awards for its cinematography, editing, score and Robert Downey Jr.’s supporting performance.

Downey, nominated twice before (for “Chaplin” and “Tropic Thunder”), notched his first Oscar, crowning the illustrious second act of his up-and-down career.

“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order,” said Downey, the son of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr.

“Barbie,” last year’s biggest box-office hit with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, didn’t win an award until almost three hours into the ceremony. It won best song (sorry, Ken) for Billie Eilish and Finneas’ “What Was I Made For?” It’s their second Oscar, two years after winning for their James Bond theme, “No Time to Die.”

But after an awards season that stayed largely inside a Hollywood bubble, geopolitics played a prominent role. Protests over Israel’s war in Gaza snarled traffic around the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, slowing stars’ arrival on the red carpet and turning the Oscar spotlight toward the ongoing conflict. Some protesters shouted “Shame!” at those trying to reach the awards.

Jonathan Glazer, the British filmmaker whose chilling Auschwitz drama “The Zone of Interest” won best international film, drew connections between the dehumanization depicted in his film and today.

“Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

The war in Gaza was on the minds of many attendees, as was the war in Ukraine. A year after “Navalny” won the same award, Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol,” a harrowing chronicle of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, won best documentary. The win, a first for The Associated Press and PBS’ “Frontline,” came as the war in Ukraine passed the two-year mark with no signs of abating.

Mstyslav Chernov, the Ukrainian filmmaker and AP journalist whose hometown was bombed the day he learned of his Oscar nomination, spoke forcefully about Russia’s invasion.

“This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history,” said Chernov. “And I’m honored. Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I’d never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this (for) Russia never attacking Ukraine.”

In the early going, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein-riff “Poor Things” ran away with three prizes for its sumptuous craft, including awards for production design, makeup and hairstyling and costume design.

Kimmel, hosting the ABC telecast for the fourth time, opened the awards with a monologue that drew a few cold looks (from Downey, Sandra Hüller and Messi, the dog from best-picture nominee “Anatomy of a Fall”). But Kimmel, emphasizing Hollywood as “a union town” following 2023’s actor and writer strikes, drew a standing ovation for bringing out teamsters and behind-the-scenes workers — who are now entering their own labor negotiations.

The night’s first award was one of its most predictable: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for best supporting actress, for her performance in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” An emotional Randolph was accompanied to the stage by her “Holdovers” co-star Paul Giamatti.

“For so long I’ve always wanted to be different,” said Randolph. “And now I realize I just need to be myself.”

Though Randolph’s win was widely expected, an upset quickly followed. Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won for best animated feature, a surprise over the slightly favored “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Miyazaki, the 83-year-old Japanese anime master who came out of retirement to make “The Boy and the Heron,” didn’t attend the ceremony. He also didn’t attend the 2003 Oscars when his “Spirited Away” won the same award.

Best original screenplay went to “Anatomy of a Fall,” which, like “Barbie,” was penned by a couple: director Justine Triet and Arthur Harari. “This will help me through my midlife crisis, I think,” said Triet.

In adapted screenplay, where “Barbie” was nominated — and where some suspected Greta Gerwig would win after being overlooked for director — the Oscar went to Cord Jefferson, who wrote and directed his feature film debut “American Fiction.” He pleaded for executives to take risks on young filmmakers like himself.

“Instead of making a $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies,” said Jefferson, previously an award-winning TV writer.

The Oscars belonged largely to theatrical-first films. Though it came into the awards with 19 nominations, Netflix was a bit player. Its lone win came for live action short: Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” based on the story by Roald Dahl.

While “Barbie” bested (and helped lift) “Oppenheimer” at the box office, it took a back seat to Nolan’s film at the Oscars. Gerwig was notably overlooked for best director, sparking an outcry that some, even Hillary Clinton, said mimicked the patriarchy parodied in the film.

Why Did Ireland’s Referendums on Family, Women Fail?

Dublin, Ireland — Irish voters’ rejection of proposals to reword constitutional clauses on family roles and the duties of women has left politicians searching for answers.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had presented the vote, conducted on International Women’s Day on Friday and tallied Saturday, as a chance to remove “very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women” from the constitution.

But a proposal to expand the definition of family from a relationship founded on marriage to include other “durable relationships” was rejected by 67.7% of voters, with only 32.3 voting “yes.”

A second referendum on replacing language about a woman’s supposed duties in the home with a clause recognizing the role of family members in the provision of care was rejected by 73.9% of voters.

It was the largest ever referendum defeat in Ireland’s history.

The votes came despite the government, along with most opposition parties, endorsing the proposed changes, and polls forecasting a win for the “Yes-Yes” vote.

What went wrong?

A mix of unclear messaging, a hurried and lackluster “Yes-Yes” campaign and dissatisfaction among “no” voters resulted in an increase in undecided voters leading up to the vote.

Opposition parties gave the proposals only lukewarm support, complaining that the twin questions distorted the suggested wording produced by a Citizen’s Assembly — a nationwide focus group regularly held in Ireland on public issues.

The use of the undefined phrase “durable relationships” in the first referendum was widely criticized as too vague.

The second amendment would have replaced language on “women’s role in the home” with a pledge that the government would “strive” — not be obliged — to support carers in the home.

It failed to mention care outside of the home.

“The government went on a solo run,” said Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein, the largest opposition party which grudgingly backed a “Yes-Yes” vote.

“There is little point in having a Citizens Assembly if the government are then going to ignore the outcome,” she said.

Who voted no and why?

Turnout at less than 50% was lower than in previous referendums, like one on same-sex marriage equality in 2015 and an abortion ban repeal that captured the public attention in 2018.

Only one of 39 constituencies — an affluent area near Dublin — returned a “yes” vote in the family referendum and all 39 voted “no” in the home care referendum.

While “yes” voters failed to turn out in numbers, a disparate coalition of “no” voters angry for different reasons — both progressive and conservative — were energized.   

“When a government doesn’t have all its own side on board and has split its liberal vote, it’s in trouble,” David Quinn, head of the conservative Iona Institute, told AFP.

The care amendment proposal was fiercely criticized by disability rights activists and carers who expressed relief at the result.

“They wanted people and families just to care for people at home, but we need the support of the government too,” Susan Bowles, a 39-year-old care assistant, told AFP in Dublin after the vote. 

An anti-government right-wing protest vote was also a factor, according to analysts. 

“No” campaigners warned against “woke” liberals and “cancelling” the words “women” and “mother” from the constitution.

The result was “a significant victory for the people against the political establishment,” Peadar Toibin, leader of the conservative Aontu, the only parliamentary party to back a No-No vote, told AFP.

Setback for women’s rights?

The ballots had been framed by some on the “Yes-Yes” side as the latest effort to mirror the evolving identity of Ireland, a member of the European Union.

It would also signify the diminishing influence of the once-dominant Catholic Church after the successful 2015 and 2018 referendums.

But holding the referendums on International Women’s Day — reportedly Varadkar’s idea — was a “hammy gesture,” according to Pat Leahy, a journalist with the Irish Times.

“There was an unavoidable sense of people being taken for granted in this,” he said. 

Orla O’Connor, head of the National Women’s Council of Ireland which led the “Yes-Yes” campaign, cautioned against interpreting the result as Ireland voting to keep “life within the home” language for women in the constitution.

“It is more nuanced than that… We will go back and we will fight for those things and continue to fight for equality for families and equality for women,” she told local media.

What is the political fallout?

In the aftermath a visibly shaken Varadkar, who heads up a center-right-green coalition, admitted that the government had received “two wallops” from the public.

With a general election looming within the next 12 months, the defeat poses questions about Varadkar’s and other party leaders’ judgement.

The result “does not mean that general trend of society has lurched permanently to a conservative one,” wrote Leahy. 

“But it definitely means that future governments will not assume that similar constitutional changes are a foregone conclusion,” he said.

Political scientist Eoin O’Malley of Dublin City University called it “a poorly executed referendum that nobody needed or wanted.”

“It was politically designed to secure a liberal legacy for Leo Varadkar, but it makes that legacy look opportunistic,” he told AFP.

In Swiss Alps, Major Search Continues for 6 Missing Ski Hikers

Geneva — The “major rescue operation” aimed at finding six Swiss ski hikers wanted since Saturday in the Swiss Alps must continue overnight, but the danger of avalanches is complicating operations, police said Sunday. 

The six people are aged 21 to 58 and five of them are members of the same family.  

They are “actively sought on the Zermatt-Arolla hiking route,” which is in the canton of Valais (southwest), the police said in a news release. 

The group left Zermatt on Saturday with the aim of reaching Arolla the same day.  

Saturday around 4 p.m. (3 p.m. GMT), a member of the family who came to pick up the group in Arolla contacted the cantonal police and the cantonal Valais emergency organization (OCVS), worried about not seeing their loved ones arrive. 

A little over an hour later, the hikers were located in the Col de Tete Blanche area, at approximately 3,500 meters above sea level, because a member of the group managed to contact emergency services. 

As soon as the alert was received, all emergency resources were mobilized on both sides of the route and numerous technical resources were deployed to find the hikers, the police said. 

But the weather conditions, which were very bad over the weekend, made the emergency response very difficult. 

The storm which raged in the south of the Swiss Alps as well as the danger of avalanches prevented helicopters and rescue columns from being able to approach the area. 

An attempt to approach by land from Zermatt was undertaken during the night from Saturday to Sunday by “5 experienced rescuers” from the OCVS but they had to give up more than 3,000 meters of altitude due to the very bad weather conditions and the risks involved. 

All day Sunday, the various specialized units of the cantonal police, in particular the mountain group as well as the technical and telecommunications officers, were engaged alongside the OCVS rescuers and the army air forces. 

Operations will continue overnight. 

In a separate news release published in the evening, the Valais police announced that an avalanche had carried away a skier traveling off-piste in Val Ferret on Sunday: “Freed from the snow mass, he was taken to hospital of Zion where he died. 

Other avalanches and heavy snowfall in the region have also buried roads, blocking traffic. 

Great caution is required over the coming days, when “the situation will be critical on the avalanche front,” warns the cantonal police. 

China’s Shanghai Zhenhua Denies Posing Cybersecurity Risk to US Ports

Beijing, China — Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, or ZPMC, said on Sunday its cranes do not pose a cybersecurity threat, after U.S. congressional committees questioned the Chinese state-owned company’s work on cranes bound for the United States.

The House of Representatives’ security panels, scrutinizing ZPMC’s installation of Swiss engineering group ABB’s equipment onto U.S.-bound ship-to-shore cranes, in January invited ABB executives to public hearings to clarify its relationship with ZPMC, which they said raised “significant concerns.”

“ZPMC takes the U.S. concerns seriously and believes that these reports can easily mislead the public without sufficient factual review,” it said in a filing, referring to the probe by the Homeland Security and Strategic Competition committees.

“The cranes provided by ZPMC do not pose a cybersecurity risk to any ports,” it said.

ABB has said it sold its control and electrification equipment to many crane manufacturers, including Chinese companies, which in turn sold cranes directly to U.S. ports.

The U.S. and China, the world’s biggest economies, frequently accuse each other of cyberattacks and industrial espionage. Washington this year said it had disrupted a Chinese cyber-spying operation targeting U.S. infrastructure and was investigating Chinese vehicle imports for national security risks. It previously barred Chinese telecom companies.

ZPMC said the cranes it supplies are used in ports around the world, including the United States, and comply with international standards and applicable laws and regulations.

Listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, ZPMC is one of the largest port machinery manufacturers in the world, owning a fleet of more than 20 transportation vessels, according to its website.

ABB generates 16% of its sales from China, second only to the U.S. market at 24%.

Some Fans at Frigid Kansas City NFL Playoff Game Underwent Amputations

Kansas City, Missouri — Some of the people who attended the near-record cold Kansas City Chiefs playoff game in January had to undergo amputations after suffering frostbite, a Missouri hospital said Friday.

Research Medical Center didn’t provide exact numbers but said in a statement that it treated dozens of people who had experienced frostbite during an 11-day cold snap in January. Twelve of those people — including some who were at the Jan. 13 game — had to undergo amputations involving mostly fingers and toes. And the hospital said more surgeries are expected over the next two to four weeks as “injuries evolve.”

The University of Kansas hospital said it also treated frostbite victims after the game but didn’t report any amputations.

The temperature for the Dolphins-Chiefs wild-card playoff game was minus 20 Celsius, and wind gusts made for a windchill of minus 33 C. That shattered the record for the coldest game in Arrowhead Stadium history, which had been minus 17 C, set in a 1983 game against Denver and matched in 2016 against Tennessee.

The wild-card game was played the same day the Buffalo Bills were supposed to host the Pittsburgh Steelers, but that game was pushed back a day because a blizzard dumped more than half a meter of snow in New York and made traveling to the game too dangerous.

The game in Kansas City went on as scheduled because the frigid weather didn’t present similar problems getting to Arrowhead Stadium, even though the National Weather Service warned of “dangerously cold” windchills.

Frostbite can occur on exposed skin within 30 minutes, Dr. Megan Garcia, the medical director of the Grossman Burn Center at Research, said in a statement that answered one of the top questions she is asked. The timing can be even shorter if there is a windchill, she said.

Fans were allowed to bring heated blankets into the stadium and small pieces of cardboard to place under their feet on the cold concrete.

The coldest game in NFL history remains minus 25 C for the 1967 NFL championship, when the Packers beat the Cowboys at Lambeau Field in a game that came to be known as the Ice Bowl. The windchill that day was minus minus 44 C.

The Chiefs didn’t immediately respond to email messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Biden, Trump Use Immigration, Reproductive Rights to Rally Voters

As U.S. voters prepare for a new round of primaries Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden and his Republican political rival Donald Trump traveled to the swing state of Georgia over the weekend to hold parallel campaign events. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has a recap of the main arguments made by each candidate, who are closer than ever to becoming their respective parties’ 2024 presidential nominees.

Hollywood Heads to the Oscars With ‘Oppenheimer’ the Odds-on Favorite 

Los Angeles — Hollywood’s glitterati gather on Sunday to celebrate the best performances in film at the annual Academy Awards, a ceremony expected to turn into a toast to blockbuster atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer.”

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel returns for the fourth time to emcee the film industry’s highest honors from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

“Oppenheimer,” the three-hour drama directed by Christopher Nolan, leads the field with 13 nominations. The movie is the frontrunner to win the prestigious best picture prize, capping its sweep of other major awards this year.

“If the best picture isn’t ‘Oppenheimer,’ it will be one of the biggest upsets, if not the biggest upset, in the history of the Oscars,” said Scott Feinberg, executive editor for awards at The Hollywood Reporter.

After 2023 was marred by actors and writers strikes, the Oscars give Hollywood a chance to celebrate two global hits. “Oppenheimer” and feminist doll adventure “Barbie,” another best picture nominee, brought in a combined $2.4 billion in a summer box office battle dubbed “Barbenheimer.”

Oscar producers said they have planned unannounced cameos and other surprises to entertain audiences at home.

“My biggest hope is that they go through a range of emotions with us, that they feel happiness and joy, that we maybe make them shed a tear,” Executive Producer Raj Kapoor said. “And then they somehow feel connected and inspired to also live their dreams.”

Supporting actor nominee Ryan Gosling will sing the ’80s-style rock anthem “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie.” Members of the Osage Nation will perform the nominated “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Cillian Murphy, the Irish actor who played physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as he led the race to build the first atomic bomb, is considered the favorite for best actor. Murphy’s main competition, according to awards pundits, is “The Holdovers” star Paul Giamatti.

Best actress may go to Lily Gladstone of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the real-life story about a murder plot to take over lucrative Osage oil rights in 1920s Oklahoma. If she prevails, Gladstone would be the first Native American actress to win an acting Oscar.

Gladstone’s rivals include previous Oscar winner Emma Stone, nominated this year for playing a woman revived from the dead in the dark and wacky comedy “Poor Things.”

The supporting actor race features “Oppenheimer” star Robert Downey Jr., who played the scientist’s professional nemesis, and Sterling K. Brown from “American Fiction.”

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, praised for her role as a grieving mother in “The Holdovers,” vies for best supporting actress against Danielle Brooks from “The Color Purple” and others.

“Barbie,” last year’s No. 1 film with $1.4 billion in global ticket sales, may be shut out of the top awards. Billie Eilish’s “Barbie” ballad “What Was I Made For?” is likely to win the original song prize, Feinberg said, and could snag the awards for costumes and production design.

For Nolan, the night could bring his first directing Oscar, as well as the award for adapted screenplay. The director of “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Inception” and other acclaimed films has never had a movie win best picture.

The ceremony may end with “the industry-wide coronation for Christopher Nolan,” Feinberg said. With “Oppenheimer,” “he has he has made his best possible argument yet for why he is worthy of this recognition.”

US Military Airlifts Embassy Personnel From Haiti, Bolsters Security

Washington — The U.S. military said on Sunday it has carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the country and added U.S. forces bolster embassy security, as Caribbean nation reels under a state of emergency.

The operation was the latest sign of Haiti’s troubles as gang violence threatens to bring down the government and has led thousands to flee their homes.

“This airlift of personnel into and out of the embassy is consistent with our standard practice for embassy security augmentation worldwide, and no Haitians were on board the military aircraft,” the U.S. military’s Southern Command said in a statement.

Haiti entered a state of emergency last Sunday after fighting escalated while Prime Minister Ariel Henry was in Nairobi seeking a deal for the long-delayed U.N.-backed mission.

Kenya announced last year it would lead the force but months of domestic legal wrangling have effectively placed the mission on hold.

On Saturday, the U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto about the Haiti crisis and the two men underscored their commitment to a multinational security mission to restore order.

In Southern Command’s statement, it said Washington remained committed to those goals.

“Our embassy remains focused on advancing U.S. government efforts to support the Haitian people, including mobilizing support for the Haitian National Police, expediting the deployment of the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and accelerating a peaceful transition of power via free and fair elections,” it said.

Netherlands Opens Holocaust Museum; Israeli President’s Presence Causing Concern

AMSTERDAM — The Netherlands’s National Holocaust Museum is opening on Sunday in a ceremony presided over by the Dutch king as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose presence is prompting protest because of Israel’s deadly offensive against Palestinians in Gaza.

The museum in Amsterdam tells the stories of some of the 102,000 Jews who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered in Nazi camps, as well as the history of their structural persecution under German World War II occupation before the deportations began.

Three-quarters of Dutch Jews were among the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis, the largest proportion of any country in Europe.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Herzog will visit a synagogue and open the museum against a backdrop of Israel’s devastating attacks on Gaza that followed the deadly incursions by Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests are planned outside the events.

Herzog was among Israeli leaders cited in an order issued in January by the top United Nations court for Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. He accused the International Court of Justice of misrepresenting his comments in the ruling. Israel strongly rejected allegations leveled by South Africa in the court case that the military campaign in Gaza breaches the Genocide Convention.

“I was disgusted by the way they twisted my words, using very, very partial and fragmented quotes, with the intention of supporting an unfounded legal contention,” Herzog said, days after the ruling.

A pro-Palestinian Dutch organization, The Rights Forum, called Herzog’s presence “a slap in the face of the Palestinians who can only helplessly watch how Israel murders their loved ones and destroys their land.”

In a statement issued ahead of Sunday’s opening, the Jewish Cultural Quarter that runs the museum said it is “profoundly concerned by the war and the consequences this conflict has had, first and foremost for the citizens of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.”

It said that it is “all the more troubling that the National Holocaust Museum is opening while war continues to rage. It makes our mission all the more urgent.”

The museum is housed in a former teacher training college that was used as a covert escape route to help some 600 Jewish children to escape from the clutches of the Nazis.

Exhibits include a prominent photo of a boy walking past bodies in Bergen-Belsen after the liberation of the concentration camp, and mementos of lives lost: a doll, an orange dress made from parachute material and a collection of 10 buttons excavated from the grounds of the Sobibor camp.

The walls of one room are covered with the texts of hundreds of laws discriminating against Jews enacted by the German occupiers of the Netherlands, to show how the Nazi regime, assisted by Dutch civil servants, dehumanized Jews ahead of operations to round them up.

US Ship With Equipment for Building a Pier Is on Its Way to Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — A U.S. Army vessel carrying equipment for building a temporary pier in Gaza was on its way to the Mediterranean on Sunday, three days after U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to ramp up aid deliveries by sea to the besieged enclave where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been going hungry.

The opening of the sea corridor, along with airdrops by the U.S., Jordan and others, showed increasing alarm over Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and a new willingness to bypass Israeli control over land shipments.

Israel said it welcomed the sea deliveries and would inspect Gaza-bound cargo before it leaves a staging area in nearby Cyprus. The daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza by land over the past five months has been far below the 500 that entered before the war because of Israeli restrictions and security issues.

Meanwhile, Biden stepped up his public criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden said he believes Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its sixth month.

Speaking Saturday to MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, the president expressed support for Israel’s right to pursue Hamas after the militants’ October 7 attack on southern Israel but said that Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.” He added that “you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”

In Gaza, Palestinian casualties continued to rise.

The Civil Defense Department said at least nine Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City late Saturday.

Footage shared by the civil defense showed first responders pulling out the dead and injured trapped in the collapsed house. One rescuer was seen holding a dead infant, before placing the limp body on a sofa amid the wreckage.

Elsewhere, the bodies of 13 people, including women and children, were taken to the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah on Sunday, according to an Associated Press journalist. Relatives said the 13 were killed by Israeli artillery fire toward a large tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the coastal area east of the southern city of Khan Younis.

Israel rarely comments on specific incidents during the war. It has held that Hamas is responsible for civilian casualties because the militant group operates from within civilian areas.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday that at least 30,960 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. It doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and its figures from previous wars have largely matched those of the U.N. and independent experts.

Meanwhile, U.S. efforts got under way to set up the temporary pier in Gaza for the sea deliveries. U.S. Central Command said a first U.S. Army vessel, the General Frank S. Besson, left a base in Virginia on Saturday and was on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean with equipment for pier construction.

United States officials said it will likely be weeks before the pier is operational.

The sea corridor is backed by the EU together with the United States, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. The European Commission has said that U.N. agencies and the Red Cross will also play a role.

A ship belonging to Spain’s Open Arms aid group was expected to make a pilot voyage to test the corridor as early as this weekend. The ship has been waiting at Cyprus’s port of Larnaca.

Open Arms founder Oscar Camps has said the ship, which is pulling a barge with 200 tons of rice and flour, would take two to three days to arrive at an undisclosed location.

A member of the charity World Central Kitchen, which is also involved in the test run, said in a post on X that once the barge reaches Gaza, the aid would be off-loaded by a crane, be placed on trucks and driven to northern Gaza, which has been largely cut off from aid shipments.

Senior aid officials have warned that air and sea deliveries can’t make up for a shortage of supply routes on land.

The new push for getting more aid in came on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which follows a lunar calendar and could start as early as Sunday evening, depending on the sighting of a crescent moon.

Israel declared war on October 7 after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians and taking 250 hostages. Israel’s blistering air and ground offensive has devastated large parts of Gaza, displaced about 80% of the population of 2.3 million and set off a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The U.S. and regional mediators Egypt and Qatar had hoped to have a six-week cease-fire in place by the start of Ramadan, but talks appeared to be stalled, with Hamas holding out for assurances that a temporary truce will lead to an end of hostilities.

Mediators had hoped to alleviate some of the immediate crisis with the temporary cease-fire, which would have seen Hamas release some of the Israeli hostages it’s holding, Israel release some Palestinian prisoners and aid groups be given access for a major influx of assistance into Gaza.

Transit Crime Back as a Top Concern in Some US Cities

NEW YORK — Fear of crime on subways and buses is back as a top concern in some U.S. cities, and so are efforts to persuade the public officials take the issue seriously.

New York’s governor said Wednesday she would task 750 members of the National Guard with helping patrol the nation’s busiest subway system, saying she felt New York City police needed reinforcements after a shooting on a train platform and a conductor getting slashed in the neck.

In Pennsylvania, legislators created a special prosecutor to go after crimes committed in the transit system that serves the southeast of the state. Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker on Thursday promised to beef up police patrols and use “every legal and constitutional tool” after a spate of transit-related shootings left three dead and 12 wounded, many of them schoolchildren.

“Enough is enough,” she said on WURD radio.

It remains to be seen whether such moves will have any effect on reducing crime in these massive public transit systems.

At least in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged that calling in the National Guard was as much about soothing fears and making a political statement as it was about making mass transit safer. The city’s subways, the Democrat said, were quite safe already. And felony crime hasn’t risen significantly. But a show of force might help dispel anxieties more than any statistic, she reasoned.

“If you feel better walking past someone in a uniform to make sure that someone doesn’t bring a knife or a gun on the subway, then that’s exactly why I did it. I want to change the psychology around crime in New York City,” Hochul said Thursday on MSNBC. “It is safe. But I’m going to make sure people feel safe.”

“I’m also going to demonstrate that Democrats fight crime as well,” she added. “So this narrative that Republicans have said that we’re soft on crime, that we defund the police — no.”

Major crimes in the New York City transit system dropped nearly 3% from 2022 to 2023 — with five killings last year, down from 10 the year prior, according to police. Overall, violent crime in the subway system is rare, with train cars and stations being generally as safe as any other public place.

In Pennsylvania, overall crime has declined on the transit system in recent years, though the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, reported six killings in 2023, up from a total of seven during the previous three years.

Still, the issue of safety on buses and trains is one that keeps resonating with voters — particularly as some systems recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, when passengers stayed away.

“Recently yeah, it’s been a little unsafe. So I think they should kind of, like, control it before it gets out of hand,” said New York City resident Alan Uloa, 43. “Just people, the way people react to stuff. People just fighting over seats. The other day they slashed the conductor, and that’s not cool.”

In New York, Republicans hammered Democrats on crime during the 2022 midterms, a message that helped the GOP capture suburban congressional seats.

Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and the former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, said the heightened law enforcement presence can be a double-edged sword.

“For some people, they’d like to see the added security. They feel safer simply because there’s an officer there,” he said. “And for other people, they’ll say we’re overreacting.”

Vincent Del Castillo, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former chief of New York City’s transit police, said the political tough talk glosses over the reality that transit crime accounts for just a tiny percentage of all crime.

“You can have 10 to 12 murders in the system when there are literally hundreds across the city, but because it’s so rare, it gets a lot of attention,” he said.

The four shootings on or linked to public transit facilities in Philadelphia began Sunday, when a man was fatally shot by another passenger shortly after they got off a bus. The next day, a teenager was killed and four people injured in gunfire at a bus stop. On Tuesday, police said, someone who had gotten off a bus fired back inside, killing a man.

And on Wednesday, eight teenagers waiting to take a city bus home after school were shot in an attack that also riddled a bus with bullet holes.

SEPTA police Chief Charles Lawson has promised transit officers will take an aggressive approach, using “every criminal code on the book” in order to crackdown on illegal gun possession on the transit system.

“We’re going to target individuals concealing their identity. We’re going to target fare evasion. We’re going to target open drug use,” he said this week.

The National Guard troops in New York City won’t be that active. They have been tasked with helping police conduct random searches of people’s bags as they enter the subway system, a practice in place for nearly two decades.

Passengers have the right to refuse the search, though if they do they are asked to leave the subway system.

The National Guard troops can’t make arrests, but if they witness a crime, they can detain someone until police arrive, just as any civilian can do.

Even though the Guard troops were deployed Thursday, New York City transit passengers might not have noticed. The troops weren’t widely visible at stations or in trains, though some were seen patrolling major hubs including Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station, where they have been a regular presence since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Riders have long been split over the police bag checks, which are infrequent, but can hold someone up as they race for the train. They have also long been a subject of concerns about racial profiling, though the NYPD says it takes steps to avoid it.

“Sometimes when I’m in a hurry and I have a bag, I don’t like to be stopped,” said Jerome Brooks Jr., 44, an actor and musician. “So then I try to see, do they stop me if they’re going to stop somebody else that doesn’t look like me? But in general, I hope they do what’s right.”

Cheryl Ann Harper, 46, said she welcomed the precaution.

“Yes, it is random and we need it,” she said, noting that similar checks are common at theaters. “I do it all the time. OK? Not a big deal. You know, if you don’t have anything to hide, why you can’t open up your bag?”