On Thursday, the United States rejected the International Criminal Court’s ruling to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, and Yoav Gallant, the country’s former defense minister, asserting that the court lacks the necessary jurisdiction.

See the full story here.
…

WASHINGTON — In his first message aimed at Washington since the U.S. presidential election, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed his unwavering determination to hold onto nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say.

At a conference with army officials last Friday, Kim vowed to bolster his country’s nuclear capabilities “without limit,” while condemning Washington for its nuclear deterrence strategies with Seoul.

“The U.S., Japan and South Korea will never get away from the responsibility as the culprits of destroying the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the region,” Kim said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. “The most important and critical task for our armed forces is preparations for a war.”

Nuclear rhetoric

Evans Revere, former acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, interpreted Kim’s remarks, which were made 10 days after the election, as a message directed to President-elect Donald Trump, whom he met with face-to-face three times from 2018 to 2019.

“Kim Jong Un is making clear to President-elect Trump that everything has changed since their previous meetings,” Revere told VOA Korean via email Tuesday. “Pyongyang has become a de facto nuclear weapons state and will not give up its treasured sword, as it once called its nuclear deterrent.”

Nuclear talks between then-President Trump and North Korea’s supreme leader collapsed during their Hanoi summit in February 2019, after Trump rejected the lifting of sanctions in exchange for Kim’s offer to dismantle one major nuclear facility. Since then, Pyongyang has not slowed the ramp-up of its nuclear capabilities.

In one of its latest moves, just five days before the U.S. election, the regime tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile called Hwasong-19 that could potentially reach most of the United States mainland.

“Having already developed a credible deterrent, complete with sophisticated medium- and long-range delivery systems, North Korea wants to be accepted, or at least acknowledged, as a nuclear power,” Revere said.

Kim is trying to remind the incoming U.S. president that “the door to denuclearization has now been firmly closed and he will be dealing with a DPRK that intends to keep its nuclear arsenal,” said Revere.

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.

Joseph DeTrani, former U.S. special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea, said Kim would still want to meet with Trump, but the terms this time would be drastically different.

“I think Kim Jong Un is open to a dialogue with President-elect Trump’s administration, once it is in place,” DeTrani told VOA Korean via email Tuesday.

DeTrani said Kim would come to another potential summit with Trump “from a position of strength,” given his alliance and defense treaty with Russia. Russia and North Korea have committed to coming to the aid of the other if attacked.

Other experts cautioned, however, against reading too deeply into what Kim said.

New alliance

Sydney Seiler, former national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council, said that Kim’s latest remarks provide little insight into how Kim may handle the incoming Trump administration.

“Kim Jong Un is exploring the benefits available in being an active member of the axis of upheaval: states such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran who seek to overturn the existing rules-based order and justify using force to achieve their objectives,” Seiler told VOA Korean via email Tuesday.

Seiler said that Kim has begun to enjoy benefits in his cooperation with Russia — cash, food and fuel aid, assistance with weapons of mass destruction, and conventional capabilities, and diplomatic recognition and acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status.

“Why would he reach out to Donald Trump when he has friends like Vladimir Putin?” he asked.

In June, Kim and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, which calls for Russia and North Korea to immediately assist each other militarily if either of them is attacked by a third country. Russia and North Korea respectively ratified the treaty into law earlier this month.

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, told VOA Korean via email Tuesday that Kim does not need Trump for assistance and sanctions relief as he used to because of his new alliance with Putin.

Samore said another Trump-Kim meeting won’t be very high on Trump’s agenda.

“Trump’s top foreign policy issues will be ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and imposing tariffs on China,” he said. “In contrast, the Korean situation is pretty stable and quiet, and nobody thinks another Trump-Kim summit will produce big results.”

VOA Korean Service asked the U.S. State Department about Kim’s latest message toward the U.S. but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.

In a response to an inquiry made by VOA Korean earlier this month, the State Department spokesperson reiterated the U.S. commitment to protect South Korea from any North Korean nuclear attack.

“President Biden reaffirmed the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities, and that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the ROK will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response,” the spokesperson said.
…

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general of the United States, former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, withdrew himself from consideration Thursday. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, Gaetz was facing a tough confirmation process due to various criminal allegations.
…

Former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is withdrawing his name from consideration as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote on social media platform X.

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee failed Wednesday to reach agreement on whether to release findings from its nearly finished investigative report on Gaetz.

The panel’s chair, Republican Representative Michael Guest, emerged from a lengthy committee meeting, saying, “There was no agreement by the committee to release the report.” He declined further comment.

Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by Trump to become the country’s top law enforcement official in the administration that takes office on January 20.

ABC News and The Washington Post reported that the committee had obtained documents that showed Gaetz paid two women who appeared before the committee as witnesses a total of more than $10,000 between July 2017 and late January 2019. The women, who were over the age of 18 at the time of the payments, told the panel that some of the money was for sex.

A Trump transition spokesperson defended Gaetz in a statement.

“The Justice Department received access to roughly every financial transaction Matt Gaetz ever undertook and came to the conclusion that he committed no crime. These leaks are meant to undermine the mandate from the people to reform the Justice Department,” with Gaetz at the head of the agency, the spokesperson said.

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, were demanding that the report be released so they could consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertook their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Hours after Trump named him as a nominee, Gaetz, 42, resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion.

Gaetz was in the Capitol on Wednesday to meet with some of the senators who would have voted on his nomination.

The Senate has not voted to reject a presidential nominee for a Cabinet position since 1989, with members of both political parties giving wide deference to new presidents to fill top-level jobs with appointees of their choosing.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he met with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a sitting senator, and told them there would be “no rubber stamps, no lynch mobs” in the confirmation process.

“These allegations will be dealt with in committee, but [Gaetz] deserves a chance to confront his accusers,” Graham told reporters.

The Justice Department investigated the allegations against him but last year declined to bring any charges.

Gaetz, like other Trump nominees for top government jobs, has been a vocal supporter of the president and his Make America Great Again agenda.

Gaetz, however, angered some fellow Republican lawmakers in the House in 2023 by spearheading the effort to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
…

VIENTIANE, LAOS — Southeast Asian defense chiefs met Thursday with their counterparts from China, the United States and other nations in Laos for security talks, which come as Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance in its claim to most of the South China Sea is leading to more confrontations.

The closed-door talks put U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun in the same room, a day after Dong refused a request to meet with Austin one-on-one on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit of defense ministers.

The U.S. and China have been working to improve frayed military-to-military communications, and Austin said he regretted Dong’s decision, calling it “a setback for the whole region.”

A Chinese statement indicated that Beijing was unhappy with U.S. actions related to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims. The U.S. recently approved $2 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, including an advanced surface-to-air missile defense system.

“The U.S. side cannot undermine China’s core interests on the Taiwan issue while conducting exchanges with the Chinese military as if nothing had happened,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said in a statement posted online Thursday.

The ASEAN meetings come as member nations are looking warily toward the change in American administrations at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China.

The U.S. has firmly pushed a “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy under outgoing President Joe Biden, and it is not yet clear how the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump will address the South China Sea situation.

Dong called for resolving issues through dialogue and not provoking disputes or introducing external forces, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

South China Sea

Beijing believes that U.S. backing has emboldened the Philippines to act more assertively in its South China Sea disputes with China.

Other nations attending the ASEAN meeting from outside Southeast Asia include Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. The meetings with the ASEAN dialogue partners were also expected to address tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the Russia-Ukraine war and wars in the Middle East.

Before heading to Laos, Austin concluded meetings in Australia with officials there and with Japan’s defense minister. They pledged to support ASEAN and expressed their “serious concern about destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas, including dangerous conduct by the People’s Republic of China against Philippines and other coastal state vessels.”

Along with the Philippines, ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims with China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely as its own territory.

Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are the other members of ASEAN, which stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

As China has grown more assertive in pushing its territorial claims in recent years, it and ASEAN have been negotiating a code of conduct to govern behavior in the sea. Progress has been slow.

Officials have agreed to try to complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by thorny issues, including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.

Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam in October charged that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in disputed areas in the South China Sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as their exclusive economic zones.

Myanmar crisis

Another thorny regional issue is the civil war and humanitarian crisis in ASEAN member Myanmar. The group’s credibility has been severely tested by the war in Myanmar, where the army ousted an elected government in 2021 and fighting has continued with pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic rebels.

More than a year into an offensive initiated by three militias and joined by other resistance groups, observers estimate the military controls less than half the country.

Myanmar military rulers have been barred from ASEAN meetings since late 2021, but this year the country has been represented by high-level bureaucrats, including at the summit in October.

At the defense meetings, the country is represented by Zaw Naing Win, director of the Defense Ministry’s International Affairs Department.
…

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says on his Truth Social account that his pick for border czar “will be in charge of all Deportations of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” VOA’s Veronica Villafañe reports on Trump’s pick,Tom Homan. (Camera: José Pernalete)
…

U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.

The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice calls for sweeping punishments that would include a sale of Google’s industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine.

A sale of Chrome “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” Justice Department lawyers argued in their filing.

Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.

The broad scope of the recommended penalties underscores how severely regulators operating under President Joe Biden’s administration believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that branded the company as a monopolist.

The Justice Department decision-makers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year might not be as strident. The Washington, D.C., court hearings on Google’s punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before Labor Day.

If Mehta embraces the government’s recommendations, Google would be forced to sell its 16-year-old Chrome browser within six months of the final ruling. But the company certainly would appeal any punishment, potentially prolonging a legal tussle that has dragged on for more than four years.

Besides seeking a Chrome spinoff and a corralling of the Android software, the Justice Department wants the judge to ban Google from forging multibillion-dollar deals to lock in its dominant search engine as the default option on Apple’s iPhone and other devices. It would also ban Google from favoring its own services, such as YouTube or its recently launched artificial intelligence platform, Gemini.

Regulators also want Google to license the search index data it collects from people’s queries to its rivals, giving them a better chance at competing with the tech giant. On the commercial side of its search engine, Google would be required to provide more transparency into how it sets the prices that advertisers pay to be listed near the top of some targeted search results.

Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, lashed out at the Justice Department for pursuing “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology.” In a blog post, Walker warned the “overly broad proposal” would threaten personal privacy while undermining Google’s early leadership in artificial intelligence, “perhaps the most important innovation of our time.”

Wary of Google’s increasing use of artificial intelligence in its search results, regulators also advised Mehta to ensure websites will be able to shield their content from Google’s AI training techniques.

The measures, if they are ordered, threaten to upend a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year.

“The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,” the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. “The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.”

It’s still possible that the Justice Department could ease off attempts to break up Google, especially if Trump takes the widely expected step of replacing Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who was appointed by Biden to oversee the agency’s antitrust division.

Although the case targeting Google was originally filed during the final months of Trump’s first term in office, Kanter oversaw the high-profile trial that culminated in Mehta’s ruling against Google. Working in tandem with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Kanter took a get-tough stance against Big Tech that triggered other attempted crackdowns on industry powerhouses such as Apple and discouraged many business deals from getting done during the past four years.

Trump recently expressed concerns that a breakup might destroy Google but didn’t elaborate on alternative penalties he might have in mind. “What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,” Trump said last month. Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman that Trump nominated to be the next U.S. Attorney General, has previously called for the breakup of Big Tech companies.

Gaetz faces a tough confirmation hearing.

This latest filing gave Kanter and his team a final chance to spell out measures that they believe are needed to restore competition in search. It comes six weeks after Justice first floated the idea of a breakup in a preliminary outline of potential penalties.

But Kanter’s proposal is already raising questions about whether regulators seek to impose controls that extend beyond the issues covered in last year’s trial, and — by extension — Mehta’s ruling.

Banning the default search deals that Google now pays more than $26 billion annually to maintain was one of the main practices that troubled Mehta in his ruling.

It’s less clear whether the judge will embrace the Justice Department’s contention that Chrome needs to be spun out of Google and or Android should be completely walled off from its search engine.

“It is probably going a little beyond,” Syracuse University law professor Shubha Ghosh said of the Chrome breakup. “The remedies should match the harm, it should match the transgression. This does seem a little beyond that pale.”

Google rival DuckDuckGo, whose executives testified during last year’s trial, asserted the Justice Department is simply doing what needs to be done to rein in a brazen monopolist.

“Undoing Google’s overlapping and widespread illegal conduct over more than a decade requires more than contract restrictions: it requires a range of remedies to create enduring competition,” Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo’s senior vice president of public affairs, said in a statement.

Trying to break up Google harks back to a similar punishment initially imposed on Microsoft a quarter century ago following another major antitrust trial that culminated in a federal judge deciding the software maker had illegally used his Windows operating system for PCs to stifle competition.

However, an appeals court overturned an order that would have broken up Microsoft, a precedent many experts believe will make Mehta reluctant to go down a similar road with the Google case. 
…

President Joe Biden’s top Mideast envoy said Wednesday he’s hopeful about negotiations with Hezbollah to bring the conflict along Israel’s northern border to an end, although fighting continues, and an end appears nowhere in sight in Gaza. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate blocked legislation Wednesday night that would have sent certain armaments to Israel – a move that opponents say will extend the war. Anita Powell reports from Washington.
…

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated longtime ally Republican Representative Matt Gaetz for the nation’s top law enforcement position, attorney general of the United States. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, Gaetz is expected to face a tough confirmation process.
…

Inflation-weary consumers should see the cost of their classic Thanksgiving dinner gobble less of their paychecks this year, largely because Americans are buying less of the meal’s centerpiece dish, turkey. 

The price tag of the traditional holiday meal, which also includes cranberries, sweet potatoes and stuffing, has dropped for a second consecutive year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual survey released on Wednesday. 

Cooks can thank the bird. Turkey prices dropped 6% on cooling demand as some consumers opted to add beef and pork to the menu, the Farm Bureau and market analysts said.  

Still, the meal’s price tag will cost families about 19% more than pre-pandemic times, the Farm Bureau said.  

Frustration over high prices was seen as a major factor in Donald Trump’s presidential election victory over Kamala Harris, but the Farm Bureau data suggests some of the worst inflation has abated. 

“We are seeing modest improvements in the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner for a second year, but America’s families, including farm families, are still being hurt by high inflation,” said Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall. 

Cheaper meal 

The average cost for a 10-person meal came to $58.08, down from $61.17 last year and a record $64.05 in 2022, Farm Bureau data showed. 

The price of a turkey, which represents the bulk of the bill, fell even as supplies dropped 6% in 2024 partly because of a bird-flu outbreak. Turkey demand of 13.9 pounds per person in 2024 is down nearly a pound from 2023, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. 

Like most grocery items, turkey prices rose alongside overall inflation in recent years, which may have spooked consumers in 2024, said Ashley Kohls, the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association’s executive director. 

“We’re working on bringing folks back to purchasing turkey after a number of years of having elevated prices at the grocery store,” Kohls said. 

Indiana turkey farmer Greg Gunthorp said his customers appear to have plenty of supply to meet consumer demand this year. There have been far fewer frantic calls from buyers scrambling to restock, he said. 

“We’ve had those outlier years when there just aren’t enough turkeys to go around and our phones are just ringing off the hook. This is definitely not one of those years,” Gunthorp said. 

“I think lots of people are adding items to the menu in addition to the turkey, things like brisket and ham.” 

The Farm Bureau survey found that the price of other ingredients in the Thanksgiving meal also fell, including the cost of fresh vegetables and whole milk, although the price of processed ingredients, such as dinner rolls and cubed stuffing, increased.
…

TAPACHULA, Mexico — About 1,500 migrants, mainly from Central and South America, formed a caravan Wednesday in southern Mexico, hoping to walk or catch rides to the U.S. border.

Some say they are hoping to reach the United States before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, thinking it might be more difficult after that. They began walking from Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, where thousands of migrants are stranded because they do not have permission to cross further into Mexico. 

What are migrant caravans? 

Migrant caravans began forming in 2018, and they became a final, desperate hope for poorer migrants who do not have the money to pay smugglers. If migrants try to cross Mexico alone or in small groups, they are often either detained by authorities and sent back to southern Mexico or, worse, deported to their home countries.

In that sense, there is safety in numbers: It is hard or impossible for immigration agents to detain groups of hundreds of migrants. So, police and immigration agents often try to pick off smaller groups and wait for the main body of the caravan to tire itself out.

Usually, the caravans stop or fall apart within 250 kilometers (150 miles).  

What are the obstacles? 

There is no safety in numbers against threats, extortion or abduction by drug cartels in Mexico, which have become heavily involved in migrant trafficking. The cartels charge migrants or their smugglers for permission to cross their territories along the border. In addition, the gangs often kidnap migrants, hold them in terrible conditions or torture them until they call relatives to send money for their release.

The biggest obstacle, though, is the searing heat, dehydration and distance — it is over 1,770 kilometers (1,100 miles) from Tapachula to the nearest border crossing at Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. And that is the shortest, but also one of the most dangerous routes. It would mean 16 days of walking, with no rest stops. And many of the migrants come with their children. 

Why do they set out? 

Since migrants usually cannot find work to support themselves in Tapachula, most of the foreigners trapped there are desperate to leave. Some feel a sense of urgency. 

“It is going to be more difficult” after Trump’s January 20 inauguration. “That’s why we are going — in hopes of getting an appointment quicker, so we are able to cross before he takes office,” said Yotzeli Peña, 23, a migrant from Venezuela. “That would be easier.” 

Weren’t there changes to keep caravans from forming? 

This year, in a bid to stop people from gathering at the border to claim asylum, the U.S. government expanded areas where migrants can apply online for appointments to enter the United States to a large swath of southern Mexico. 

The CBP One cellphone app was instituted to make asylum claims more orderly. About 1,450 appointments are made available daily, encouraging migrants to get an appointment before they show up at the border. But the service was available only in northern and central Mexico. 

By extending the app south to Tapachula, officials hoped it would stem the rush north. But some migrants still want to be close to the border so that if they do get one of the cherished appointments, they can get to it quickly and not risk missing it. Trump has promised to end the app, reduce legal pathways to the U.S. and organize mass deportations. 

Do caravans ever reach the border? 

The biggest caravans formed in 2018 and 2019, and back then Mexican officials helped some of the migrants by arranging buses to border cities. But that created a backlash in those communities. Groups from those original caravans eventually reached the border.

In caravans since then, most participants have sought out as many hitchhiking or paid rides as they can and often swarm empty trucks to hitch a ride on empty freight platforms. But that has become much harder as Mexican authorities discouraged buses, taxis and trucks from stopping to pick up migrants.

In recent years, authorities have eventually offered temporary transit permits to dissolve the caravans.
…

Making decorative gingerbread houses is a Christmas tradition in several countries. A New York City museum has gone a step further by using the humble holiday cookie to construct a stunning tribute to the Big Apple. Aron Ranen has the story.
…

Many Ukrainians welcome the U.S. decision to let Ukraine use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deep into Russian territory. But on the streets of Ukraine’s capital, many also say they feel the decision, coming 1,000 days into the war, is too little too late. For VOA, Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv. VOA footage by Vladyslav Smilianets.
…

NEW YORK — Distant, ancient galaxies are giving scientists more hints that a mysterious force called dark energy may not be what they thought.

Astronomers know that the universe is being pushed apart at an accelerating rate and they have puzzled for decades over what could possibly be speeding everything up. They theorize that a powerful, constant force is at play, one that fits nicely with the main mathematical model that describes how the universe behaves. But they can’t see it and they don’t know where it comes from, so they call it dark energy.

It is so vast it is thought to make up nearly 70% of the universe — while ordinary matter like all the stars and planets and people make up just 5%.

But findings published earlier this year by an international research collaboration of more than 900 scientists from around the globe yielded a major surprise. As the scientists analyzed how galaxies move they found that the force pushing or pulling them around did not seem to be constant. And the same group published a new, broader set of analyses Tuesday that yielded a similar answer.

“I did not think that such a result would happen in my lifetime,” said Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, a cosmologist at the University of Texas at Dallas who is part of the collaboration.

Called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, it uses a telescope based in Tucson, Arizona to create a three-dimensional map of the universe’s 11-billion-year history to see how galaxies have clustered throughout time and across space. That gives scientists information about how the universe evolved, and where it might be heading.

The map they are building would not make sense if dark energy were a constant force, as it is theorized. Instead, the energy appears to be changing or weakening over time. If that is indeed the case, it would upend astronomers’ standard cosmological model. It could mean that dark energy is very different than what scientists thought — or that there may be something else altogether going on.

“It’s a time of great excitement, and also some head-scratching and confusion,” said Bhuvnesh Jain, a cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is not involved with the research.

The collaboration’s latest finding points to a possible explanation from an older theory: that across billions of years of cosmic history, the universe expanded and galaxies clustered as Einstein’s general relativity predicted.

The new findings aren’t definitive. Astronomers say they need more data to overturn a theory that seemed to fit together so well. They hope observations from other telescopes and new analyses of the new data over the next few years will determine whether the current view of dark energy stands or falls.

“The significance of this result right now is tantalizing,” said Robert Caldwell, a physicist at Dartmouth College who is not involved with the research, “but it’s not like a gold-plated measurement.”

There’s a lot riding on the answer. Because dark energy is the biggest component of the universe, its behavior determines the universe’s fate, explained David Spergel, an astrophysicist and president of the Simons Foundation. If dark energy is constant, the universe will continue to expand, forever getting colder and emptier. If it’s growing in strength, the universe will expand so speedily that it’ll destroy itself in what astronomers call the Big Rip.

“Not to panic. If this is what’s going on, it won’t happen for billions of years,” he said. “But we’d like to know about it.”
…

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week visited the Philippines, where he met with its president and his defense counterpart to highlight the expansion and modernization of two countries’ alliance in just a few short years. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has more.
…

SEATTLE — What was expected to be one of the strongest storms in the northwest U.S. in decades arrived Tuesday evening, knocking out power and downing trees across the region.

The Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks beginning Tuesday and lasting through Friday as the strongest atmospheric river — a large plume of moisture — that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season bears down on the region. The storm system is considered a “bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly.

The areas that could see particularly severe rainfall will likely reach from the south of Portland, Oregon, to the north of the San Francisco area, said Richard Bann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center.

“Be aware of the risk of flash flooding at lower elevations and winter storms at higher elevations. This is going to be an impactful event,” he said.

Hurricane-force winds, which are gusts above 121 kph, could be felt along the Oregon coast, according to the National Weather Service in Medford, Oregon. And near Seattle, conditions for a “mountain wave” were shaping up, bringing large, low elevation wind gusts that could cause widespread power outages and downed trees, said Larry O’Neill, director of the Oregon Climate Service and Oregon State University associate professor.

“This will be pretty strong in terms of the last 10 or 20 years,” he said. “We’ve only seen a couple storms that have really been this strong.”

About 94,000 customers were without power in western Washington as strong winds ramped up and snow fell in the Cascade Mountain passes Tuesday evening. More than 12,000 customers had lost power in Oregon, according to poweroutage.us.

The National Weather Service in Seattle said a peak wind speed of 109 kph was recorded at Crystal Mountain near Mount Rainier. Winds were expected to increase in western Washington throughout the evening, the weather service said.

In northern California, flood and high wind watches were in effect, and a winter storm watch was issued for the northern Sierra Nevada above 1,066 meters, where 28 centimeters of snow was possible over two days.

“Numerous flash floods, hazardous travel, power outages and tree damage can be expected as the storm reaches max intensity” on Wednesday, the Weather Prediction Center warned.

In Northern California’s Yolo County, crews spent Monday clearing culverts, sewers and drainage ditches to avoid clogs that could lead to street flooding. Mesena Pimentel said she hoped the efforts would prevent a repeat of floods last February that inundated her property near Woodland.

“We had about 10 inches of water in our garage, had a couple gophers swimming around,” Pimentel told KCRA-TV. Woodland city officials set up two locations where residents could pick up free sandbags. Authorities urged people to stock up on food and charge phones and electronics in case power goes out and roads become unpassable.

In southwestern Oregon near the coast, 10 to 18 centimeters of rain was predicted — with as much as 25 centimeters possible in some areas — through late Thursday night and early Friday morning, Bann said. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for parts of southwestern Oregon through Friday evening.

Washington could also see strong rainfall, but likely not as bad as Oregon and California.

A blizzard warning was issued for the majority of the Cascades in Washington, including Mount Rainier National Park, starting Tuesday afternoon, with up to a foot of snow and wind gusts up to 97 kph, according to the weather service in Seattle. Travel across passes could be difficult if not impossible.

Officials also urged motorists to consider delaying travel around the state until Wednesday because of high winds and heavy snow expected in the mountains.

“It will only be a winter wonderland in the sense that you’ll be wondering where the heck you are on any given patch of land,” the Washington State Department of Transportation said on social media.
…

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed a “sanctuary city” ordinance to protect immigrants living in the city, a policy that would prohibit the use of city resources and personnel to carry out federal immigration enforcement.

The move by the Southern California city, the second most populated city in the U.S. after New York City, follows President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations of immigrants.

The ordinance codifies the protection of migrants in municipal law. Council member Paul Krekorian said the measure addresses “the need to ensure that our immigrant community here in Los Angeles understands that we understand their fear.”

Pro-immigrant protesters spoke on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall before the vote, holding up signs saying, “Los Angeles Sanctuary City Now!” They chanted in Spanish “What do we want? Sanctuary. When do we want it? Now.”

The city is home to 1.3 million migrants, council members said, without specifying how many entered the country legally.

“We are extremely concerned, given that this is a city where about a third of the population is immigrants,” Shiu-Ming Cheer said at the rally. She is deputy director of immigrant and racial justice at the California Immigration Policy Center.

People were “afraid that the National Guard or other people are going to be forced to execute Trump’s mass deportation plans,” she said. “But, you know, we’re also organized.”

Eleven states have, to varying degrees, taken steps toward reducing cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, according to the non-profit Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Trump, winner of the Nov. 5 election, takes office on Jan. 20.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
…

New Orleans, Louisiana — The teaching of America’s racial history is dividing voters as state governments and federal judges weigh in on what is known as critical race theory.

“What we are seeing is that America is having a very public argument about how to discuss race in our country,” explained Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks. “It is a conversation about how we talk about the racist incidents in our past but also about how the past continues to shape inequalities in the present.

“But what makes the topic especially charged,” he added, “is that this is a debate that has reached our children and their classrooms.”

Banks says part of the issue is disagreement over an approach to the subject known as critical race theory.

Liberals largely see it as a way of understanding how American racism has shaped public policy, while conservatives view it as a divisive discourse aimed at shaming white Americans for past atrocities while further dividing the country’s racial groups.

“I have no problem with the teaching of history,” explained Cody Clark, a Republican voter from Denton, Texas. “But I don’t like the idea of teachers telling our children that some of them are privileged and some of them are oppressed. I think that just passes our divisions to the next generation.”

Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry this year signed an executive order banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, making the Pelican State the 18th in the country to limit or ban the subject.

Public school teachers and civil rights attorneys are responding. Civil rights attorneys in Little Rock are arguing before a federal judge that an Arkansas law banning critical race theory in schools violates the U.S. Constitution.

Louisiana public school teacher Lauren Jewett calls the bans misguided.

“I think it’s laughable and insulting in the same breath,” she told VOA. “K-12 teachers don’t teach critical race theory. It’s not in the state standards or our curricula and, to be honest, we don’t even have enough time to eat our lunches or meet all our students’ needs, let alone create new material.”

What is critical race theory?

While Jewett says laws banning critical race theory in public schools are political stunts, she also calls accurate accounts of American history essential.

“Our country has many uncomfortable and violent truths such as slavery, colonization, segregation, and mass incarceration,” she said. “It is important for our students to understand why things in the current day are the way they are and how history informs that. But that is not critical race theory.”

To understand what critical race theory is, Stanford Law professor Banks says you need to go back to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

“The decision said that racial segregation of our public schools was unconstitutional,” he told VOA, “but more than a decade later, civil rights leaders noticed nothing had changed. Black students were still going to different schools of a lower quality than their white peers.”

Banks says critical race theory was developed to help understand why — even when Americans passed laws to create equality — inequality seemed to prevail.

Civil rights lawyers including Derrick Bell, whose thought was vital to the development of critical race theory, concluded that racial bias is inherent in Western society’s legal and social institutions, as the race with the most political power had material reasons to protect that power at the expense of other races.

Well-developed among legal scholars in the 1970s, the theory was largely unknown to the public.

“Critical race theory was so obscure it wasn’t even something taught at most law schools,” Banks says. “It wasn’t in practice in corporate law or even civil rights law, but more like a framework or approach some academics might use to understand race-based issues.

“But that all changed after George Floyd was killed.”

Bogeyman in the mainstream

Banks says critical race theory grew to prominence largely as the target of Republican reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement that rose from the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minnesota.

Critical race theory “was a good target because it embodies three things that tend to give many Americans a lot of anxiety,” Banks said. The idea that “being critical of this country isn’t considered part of ‘the American spirit;’ [that] we have strains of anti-intellectuals that make theories repulsive; and we don’t feel comfortable talking about our racist past as if it’s unresolved.”

A 2023 poll by the Black Education Research Center at Columbia University found that 85% of respondents agreed that public school students should learn about the history of racism and slavery in the United States and its impact on events today.

That consensus evaporates when it comes to the government’s role in righting past wrongs.

“Of course, I think students should be learning about how our government has been prejudiced in the past in dealing with minorities through policies like slavery or not allowing mixed marriages,” explained Rebecca Urrutia, a Republican voter in Tolland, Connecticut. “I also think we need to teach about revisiting our laws to change any that are still unfair today.

“But I don’t think it makes sense to be teaching things like critical race theory to our kids,” she added. “If teachers are trying to convince white students that they have an inherent tendency toward privilege and discrimination against Black people, then I think this perpetuates the very cycle they claim they are trying to escape. Instead, teach our true history and our progress so we can learn from our mistakes and successes.”

Some Democratic voters view attacks on critical race theory as part of an effort to discredit movements that would promote the interests of minorities in the United States.

“They’re trying to turn critical race theory into a political bogeyman, and the result is getting closer and closer to censorship,” says California Democrat Evante Daniels.

“These anti-CRT laws are so unclear that schools become unsure what they can and can’t teach. Are LGBTQ clubs and ethnic studies okay? How about culturally relevant teaching? What happens when teachers are afraid to effectively teach about our past because they don’t know if they’re breaking a purposely ambiguous law?”

Banks of Stanford Law has similar fears.

“I actually understand if a parent has a concern about their second grader learning about things like white privilege,” he said. “That’s a valid concern. But if a teacher doesn’t know what is and isn’t allowed, they operate from fear and leave important parts of lessons out. The result, unfortunately for our kids and our country, is an impoverished education.”
…

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy. 

Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court. 

The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access. 

One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion. 

The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022. 

“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement. 

The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place. 

Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again in 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York. 

The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states. 

Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant. 

Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case. 

In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions. 

As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled. 

The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
…

MANILA, Philippines — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday condemned China’s dangerous actions against the Philippines and renewed a warning that the United States would defend its treaty ally if Filipino forces come under an armed attack in the increasingly volatile waters.

During a visit to the Philippine province of Palawan next to the disputed South China Sea, Austin was asked if the strong U.S. military support to the Philippines would continue under incoming President Donald Trump, including $500 million in new military funding.

Austin expressed the belief that the strong alliance “will transcend” changes of administration.

“We stand with the Philippines, and we condemn dangerous actions by the PRC against lawful Philippine operations in the South China Sea,” he said, using the acronym of China’s official name.

He added: “The behavior of PRC has been concerning. They’ve used dangerous and escalatory measures to enforce their expansive South China Sea maritime claims.”

China has also had recent territorial spats with smaller coastal states, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, over the key global trade and security route. Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in long-unresolved disputes.

The outgoing Biden administration has taken steps to strengthen an arc of military alliances across the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan or in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed almost in its entirety.

That has dovetailed with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s thrust to strengthen his country’s external defenses, given an alarming escalation of territorial confrontations between Chinese and Filipinos forces in the South China Sea.

There has been intense speculation over how Trump would steer U.S. military engagements in Asia.

Marcos told reporters Tuesday that he congratulated Trump on his presidential election victory in a telephone call and renewed Philippine commitment to continue strengthening its alliance with the U.S.

“I expressed to him our continuing desire to strengthen that relationship between our two countries, which is a relationship that is as deep as can possibly be because it has been for a very long time,” Marcos said.

Austin was speaking during a joint news conference with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, in the military headquarters in Palawan.

They were given a demonstration of an unmanned vessel the U.S. has funded for use by the Philippine Navy for intelligence-gathering and defense surveillance.

Austin “reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. commitment to the Philippines” and reiterated that the allies’ Mutual Defense Treaty covers both countries’ armed forces, public vessels and aircraft…”anywhere in the South China Sea.”

He also reaffirmed his department’s “commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defense capabilities and capacity to resist coercion,” according to a joint statement.

Austin and Teodoro signed an agreement on Monday to secure from possible leakages the exchange of highly confidential military intelligence and technology in key weapons the U.S. would provide to Manila.

The Department of National Defense in Manila said the agreement aims to ensure the security of classified military information exchanges and would “allow the Philippines access to higher capabilities and big-ticket items from the United States.”

Neither side provided more details or released a copy of the agreement.

Two Philippine security officials, however, have told The Associated Press that such an agreement, similar to those Washington has signed with other allied countries, would allow the U.S. to provide the Philippines with higher-level intelligence and more sophisticated weapons, including missile systems.

It would also provide the Philippine military access to U.S. satellite and drone surveillance systems with an assurance that such intelligence and details about sophisticated weapons would be kept secure to prevent leaks, the two officials said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue publicly.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in Beijing on Monday that no military agreement “should target any third party … nor should it undermine regional peace or exacerbate regional tensions.”
…

RIO DE JANEIRO — With just two months remaining in President Joe Biden’s administration, the United States is ramping up financial, military and diplomatic support for Kyiv’s effort to defend itself against Russian aggression.

At the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Biden and leaders of 20 of the world’s largest economies are meeting, U.S. officials are pushing for the “strongest possible” language on Ukraine, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told VOA during a briefing Monday.

Western diplomats have renewed their push for stronger criticism on Moscow following Russia’s weekend airstrike, its largest on Ukrainian territory in months.

They’ve also warned that increased Russian war efforts could have a destabilizing effect beyond Europe. Earlier this month, the U.S. and Ukraine announced that North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to help Moscow reclaim territory seized by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region.

However, the final leaders’ statement did not include the language the U.S. pushed for. It highlights human suffering and the negative impacts of the war in Ukraine to the global economy without any condemnation to Russia. On Gaza, it called for cease-fire in Gaza and in Lebanon and commitment to the two-state solution, without mentioning Israel’s right to defend itself.

Finer acknowledges that finding a consensus on global conflicts is elusive given the diversity of the G20. In addition to mostly like-minded countries of the G7, the G20 also includes Russia, China and nations of the Global South.

Ever since the G20 summit in Bali in 2022 — held months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine — the global grouping has faced challenges hammering out a response to the conflict.

Long-range missiles authorized

The U.S. has been surging its military assistance to Kyiv. It is also authorizing Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, according to media reports quoting officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Finer declined to confirm but said it is “consistent” with the U.S. approach of tailoring its response to meet developments on the ground to “allow the Ukrainians to continue to defend their territory and their sovereignty.”

On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that if true, authorization for Kyiv to strike inside Russia with U.S. long-range missiles, “will mark a qualitatively new round of tensions and level of Washington’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.”

Last week in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to reassure European allies that Biden is “committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20,” the date of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has been critical of using American taxpayer’s money to help Kyiv. Without providing details, Trump often boasts he can swiftly end the war — a statement that many in Europe fear would mean forcing Ukraine to capitulate.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wants a “just end” to the war, and that a swift end “means losses.” On Saturday, he told Ukrainian public radio that under the Trump administration, “the war will end faster.”

“This is their approach, the promise to their country,” he said. “And for them, it is also very important.”

At the State Department, spokesperson Matthew Miller told VOA during Monday’s briefing that the U.S. seeks an end to the war in Ukraine that upholds the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, while ensuring it does not “reward a dictator” intent on seizing land by force.

The sentiment is shared by many European leaders, but they may ultimately be forced to accept a new political reality.

“No government in Europe is going to officially endorse a land-for-peace deal at this point. It’s diplomatically and legally impossible to do that,” said Edward Hunter Christie, a former NATO official and now senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Behind the scenes, however, some European leaders believe Ukraine’s chances are not strong enough, Christie told VOA, especially if the U.S. under Trump does not continue its assistance to Ukraine.

The U.S. is racing to disburse $20 billion as part of a Biden-driven G7 initiative agreed in June to provide Kyiv with $50 billion in loans. The funds are to be paid back using interest income from Russian assets frozen in Western financial institutions.

A senior administration official briefing reporters in Rio told VOA they are “working full speed” to get the loan disbursed before the end of the year.

Climate change, poverty alleviation

G20 host Brazil has worked to keep the focus of talks away from global conflicts and more on addressing divisions in the ongoing U.N. conference on climate change in Azerbaijan, as well as accelerating efforts to reduce global hunger and poverty — an initiative championed by summit host President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula’s approach to resist pressures from the G7 and the rest of the G20 on Ukraine and Gaza reflects Brazil’s strategy of “multi-alignment” in an increasingly fragmented global landscape, said Bruna Santos, director at the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute.

However, “neutrality risks alienating all sides in an increasingly polarized world,” Santos told VOA.

Negotiators in Rio have also been struggling to find consensus on shared language on climate financing, said diplomatic sources who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations.

Western nations have been pushing for China and wealthy Middle Eastern countries to join them in contributing to global funds for climate change mitigation — a proposal resisted by Brazil and other member countries of the Global South.

Another Lula proposal, a 2% tax on the super-rich that Brazil says can potentially generate up to $250 billion per year to help the world’s poor, has also met new resistance.

Argentinian right-wing President Javier Milei rejected the proposal after visiting Trump at his Florida residence, the first foreign leader to visit the president-elect.

Milei’s rejection is an example of how as president-elect, Trump has already affected dynamics among world leaders and upended Biden’s international priorities.

The senior administration told VOA that the U.S. was “really supportive” of Lula’s proposal, which was “very much in line” with the fiscal policy Biden has pushed in his term.

In the G20 joint statement released Tuesday, leaders agreed to work to “ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed.”

State Department bureau chief Nike Ching contributed to this report.
…

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee is set to meet Wednesday to decide whether to release its investigative report on former Representative Matt Gaetz, who was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be attorney general in his new administration.

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, are demanding that the report be released so they can consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertake their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Last Wednesday, Trump named Gaetz, 42, a Republican congressman from Florida for eight years, to become the country’s top law enforcement official. Hours later, Gaetz resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion.

But it remained uncertain whether the panel would divulge what conclusions it had reached.

The committee, with five Democrats and five Republicans, had been looking into allegations that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and used drugs illicitly. Gaetz has denied the allegations. The Justice Department, which Gaetz hopes to lead, investigated the case but declined last year to bring any charges.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads the narrow Republican majority in the chamber, has contended that no ethics report should be made public because Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress. However, there have been instances where that has occurred in the past.

Johnson told CNN on Sunday that senators reviewing the Gaetz nomination as the country’s top law enforcement official will “have a vigorous review and vetting process,” but that they did not need to see the House Ethics Committee’s report. Some senators have suggested they could move to subpoena it if it is not turned over to them voluntarily.

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin on Sunday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the panel should share its report with the Senate.

“The Senate should have access to that,” Mullin said. “Should it be released to the public or not? That I guess will be part of the negotiations.”

Gaetz is one of several Trump appointees to his Cabinet who do not have the credentials normally seen in candidates for high-level government jobs.

Over the weekend, a lawyer for another Trump choice, Pete Hegseth, a 44-year-old Fox News host named to be defense secretary, revealed that Hegseth several years ago paid an undisclosed amount to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 to avert the threat of what he viewed as a baseless lawsuit becoming public.

Trump has stood by his Cabinet nominees, refusing to withdraw their nominations. But the controversies surrounding Gaetz, Hegseth and others could threaten their confirmations by the Senate to be in Trump’s Cabinet.

The president-elect also has sought — with little success so far — to get the Senate, in Republican control come January when he takes office, to agree to recess at times so he could name and install his Cabinet members without the need for contentious and time-consuming confirmation hearings.
…

fergus falls, minnesota — Nearly three years after a couple from India and their two young children froze to death while trying to cross the border from Canada into the U.S., two men went on trial Monday on human smuggling charges, accused of being part of a criminal network that stretched around the world.

Prosecutors say Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, ran part of the scheme and recruited Steve Shand, 50, of Florida, to shuttle migrants across the border. Both men have pleaded not guilty in federal court in Minnesota. They’re standing trial before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, with proceedings expected to last about five days. They each face four counts related to human smuggling.

On January 19, 2022, Shand was allegedly waiting in a truck for 11 migrants, including the family of four from the village of Dingucha in Gujarat state. Prosecutors say 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; the couple’s 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, died after spending hours wandering fields in blizzard conditions as the wind chill reached minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius).

Prosecutors say when Jagdish Patel’s body was found, he was holding Dharmik, who was wrapped in a blanket.

Before jury selection began Monday morning, defense attorneys objected to prosecutors’ plan to show seven photos of the frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel and his family, including close-up images of the children.

Shand’s attorney, Aaron Morrison, said the heart-wrenching images could cause “extreme prejudice to the jury” and asked for the photos to be removed as evidence.

Prosecutors argued the photos were necessary to show the family was not adequately prepared by Shand and Harshkumar Patel for the frigid conditions.

Tunheim allowed the images to remain evidence.

Patel is a common Indian surname and the victims were not related to Harshkumar Patel. Federal prosecutors say Harshkumar Patel and Shand were part of an operation that scouted clients in India, got them Canadian student visas, arranged transportation and smuggled them into the U.S., mostly through Washington state or Minnesota.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending this Sept. 30. By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates more than 725,000 Indians were living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans.

Harshkumar Patel’s attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, told The Associated Press that his client came to America to escape poverty and build a better life for himself and now “stands unjustly accused of participating in this horrible crime. He has faith in the justice system of his adopted country and believes that the truth will come out at the trial.” Attorneys for Shand did not return messages.

Court documents filed by prosecutors show Patel was in the U.S. illegally after being refused a U.S. visa at least five times, and that he recruited Shand at a casino near their homes in Deltona, Florida, just north of Orlando.

Over a five-week period, court documents say, Patel and Shand often communicated about the bitter cold as they smuggled five groups of Indians over a quiet stretch of border. One night in December 2021, Shand messaged Patel that it was “cold as hell” while waiting to pick up one group, the documents say.

“They going to be alive when they get here?” he allegedly wrote.

During the last trip in January, Shand had messaged Patel, saying: “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions, please,” according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say Shand told investigators that Patel paid him about $25,000 for the five trips.

Jagdish Patel grew up in Dingucha. He and his family lived with his parents. The couple were schoolteachers, according to local news reports.

Satveer Chaudhary is a Minneapolis-based immigration attorney who has helped migrants exploited by motel owners, many of them Gujaratis. He said smugglers and shady business interests promised many migrants an American dream that doesn’t exist when they arrive.

“The promises of the almighty dollar lead many people to take unwarranted risks with their own dignity, and as we’re finding out here, their own lives,” Chaudhary said.
…

Washington — The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions on organizations and firms involved in illegal settlement development in the occupied West Bank, including a well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership. 

Treasury sanctioned Amana, the largest organization involved in illegal settlement development in the West Bank, and its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd. Already sanctioned by Britain and Canada, Amana is one of the major funders and supporters of unauthorized settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Peace Now, a settlement tracking group, says its assets are valued at around 600 million Israeli shekels, or about $160 million, and that it has a yearly budget stretching into tens of millions of shekels. 

Amana, which is based in the West Bank and has no known connection to the U.S. appliance maker, over the past few years has underwritten loans, signed contracts, bought equipment and funded infrastructure projects for new settlements, according to Peace Now. The settlements, small farming outposts, have become some of the primary drivers of violence and displacement of Palestinians living in the West Bank. 

Additionally, the State Department imposed diplomatic sanctions on Eyal Hari Yehuda Co., which provides construction logistics to sanctioned groups, as well as company owner Itamar Yehuda Levi. The co-founder of the already sanctioned nonprofit group Hashomer Yosh, Shabtai Koshlevsky, and Israeli citizen Zohar Sabah, who has perpetrated acts of violence on Palestinians, also were hit with sanctions. 

The penalties come as settlers in the territory celebrate the incoming Trump administration, believing it will likely take a more favorable approach to the settlements. During his first term, Trump took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. 

Treasury’s Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the U.S. “remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to facilitate these destabilizing activities, which threaten the stability of the West Bank, Israel, and the wider region.” 

Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them. 

In February, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that targets Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory. That order is used to justify the financial penalties against the companies and men. 

In response, Texans for Israel, a Christian nonprofit, Israeli nonprofit Regavim and others in August sued the Biden administration in Amarillo, Texas, over its sanctions against Israeli extremists in the West Bank. 

Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who has spent years campaigning for the sanctions on violent West Bank settlers, said the sanctions on Amana were “an earthquake for the settlement project and especially the shepherds farms.” He called on the U.S. to extend the sanctions now to firebrand Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also a far-right settler in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet. 

Amana’s leadership has appeared at pro-settlement events alongside Cabinet members. Peace Now says the group’s secretary-general, Zeev Hever, was greeted by Smotrich at a June conference where Smotrich laid out his plans for the West Bank. 

Violence against Palestinians and their displacement have only picked up since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Around 8,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank during that time and over 700 killed, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Palestinian health officials. 

The Associated Press previously reported that the sanctions measures have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers as attacks and land-grabs escalate, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP. Additionally, Smotrich has previously vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’ behalf. 

Israel captured the West Bank along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. 

Settlement growth and construction have been promoted by successive Israeli governments stretching back decades, but it has exploded under Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, which has settlers in key Cabinet posts. There are now well over 100 settlements and 500,000 Israeli settlers sprawling across the territory from north to south — a reality, rights groups say, dimming any hopes for an eventual two-state solution. 

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “we once again call on the Government of Israel to take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land. The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who further destabilize conditions in the West Bank and support extremist violence in the region.” 
…