washington — Donald Trump on Friday asked a Georgia appeals court to disqualify the district attorney prosecuting him for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state for a romantic relationship the prosecutor had with a former top deputy. 

The legal filing from the Republican presidential candidate and eight co-defendants asks the appeals court to reverse a judge’s ruling this month that allowed Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, to continue prosecuting the case.  

The appeal presents another opportunity for the former U.S. president to delay or derail one of the four criminal cases he faces. 

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee was sharply critical in his ruling of the relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer contracted to help lead the prosecution. But he rejected claims from the defense that the romance posed a conflict of interest that would require Willis’ office to be removed from the case. 

Wade stepped aside from the case after the judge said he would need to withdraw for Willis and her office to continue. 

Trump defense attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement on Friday that McAfee should instead have dismissed the indictment outright and, “at a minimum,” disqualified Willis and her office from prosecuting the case. 

In a brief submitted to the court, Christopher Anulewicz, a lawyer representing co-defendant Robert Cheeley, argued that the failure to disqualify Willis and her office should be reversed because, if allowed to stand, “it would render each and every trial in this case a nullity.” 

The appeals court has 45 days to decide whether to take up the issue. McAfee gave Trump and the other defendants permission to immediately appeal his ruling but said he would continue moving the case toward trial during the appeal. 

If the court accepts the case, Trump could seek to pause the proceedings while the appeal plays out. A trial date has not yet been set. 

McAfee’s ruling came after a tumultuous period for Willis, who was grilled by defense lawyers in dramatic testimony about whether she improperly benefited from the relationship through vacations booked by Wade while he was being paid by her office. 

Trump’s lawyers also accused Willis of “stoking racial animus” in her response to the allegations and misleading the court on when the romantic relationship began. 

Willis denied receiving any improper benefit from the relationship, arguing that expenses were divided roughly evenly between her and Wade, and said the romance had no impact on the criminal case. 

Willis has cast the disqualification bid as an effort to distract from racketeering and other charges against Trump and 14 co-defendants who are accused of scheming to overturn Trump’s narrow defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election. Four others who had been co-defendants in the case have pleaded guilty in deals with the prosecutors.
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ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Rebuilding Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge could take anywhere from 18 months to several years, experts say, while the cost could be at least $400 million — or more than twice that. 

It all depends on factors that are still mostly unknown. They range from the design of the new bridge to how swiftly government officials can navigate the bureaucracy of approving permits and awarding contracts. 

Realistically, the project could take five to seven years, according to Ben Schafer, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University. 

“The lead time on air conditioning equipment right now for a home renovation is like 16 months, right?” Schafer said. “So, it’s like you’re telling me they’re going to build a whole bridge in two years? I want it to be true, but I think empirically it doesn’t feel right to me.” 

Others are more optimistic about the potential timeline: Sameh Badie, an engineering professor at George Washington University, said the project could take as little as 18 months to two years. 

The Key Bridge collapsed Tuesday, killing six members of a crew that was working on the span, after the Dali cargo ship plowed into one its supports. Officials are scrambling to clean up and rebuild after the accident, which has shuttered the city’s busy port and a portion of the Baltimore beltway. 

The disaster is in some ways similar to the deadly collapse of Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was struck by a freighter in Tampa Bay in 1980. The new bridge took five years to build, was 19 months late and ran $20 million over budget when it opened in 1987. 

But experts say it’s better to look to more recent bridge disasters for a sense of how quickly reconstruction may happen. 

Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, cited the case of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota, which collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007. The new span was up in less than 14 months. 

“It’s the best comparison that we have for a project like this,” Tymon said. “They did outstanding work in being able to get the approvals necessary to be able to rebuild that as quickly as possible.” 

Tymon expects various government agencies to work together to push through permits, environmental and otherwise. 

“It doesn’t mean that all of the right boxes won’t get checked — they will,” Tymon said. “It’ll just be done more efficiently because everybody will know that this has to get done as quickly as possible.” 

One looming issue is the source of funding. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the federal government will pay for the new bridge, but that remains to be seen. 

“Hopefully, Congress will be able to come together to provide those resources as soon as possible so that that does not become a source of delay,” Tymon said. 

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota helped to obtain funding quickly to rebuild the I-35W bridge in her state. But she said replacing the Baltimore span could be more complicated. 

She noted that the I-35W bridge, a federal interstate highway, was a much busier road with about 140,000 vehicle crossings a day, compared with about 31,000 for the Maryland bridge. 

“But where there’s a will there’s a way, and you can get the emergency funding,” Klobuchar said. “It’s happened all over the country when disasters hit. And the fact that this is such a major port also makes it deserving of making sure that this all gets taken care of.” 

Badie, of George Washington University, said the cost could be between $500 million and $1 billion, with the largest variable being the design. 

For example, a suspension bridge like San Francisco’s Golden Gate would cost more, while a cable-stayed span, like Florida’s Skyway Sunshine Bridge, which handles weight using cables and towers, would be less expensive. 

Whatever is built, steel is expensive these days and there is a backlog for I-beams, Badie said. Plus, the limited number of construction companies that can tackle such a project are already busy with other jobs. 

“A project like this is going to be expedited, so everything is going to cost a lot more,” Badie said. 

Hota GangaRao, a West Virginia University engineering professor, said the project could cost as little as $400 million. But that’s only if the old bridge’s pier foundations are used; designers may want to locate the new supports farther away from the shipping channels to avoid another collision. 

“That’s going to be more steel, more complicated construction and more checks and balances,” GangaRao said. “It all adds up.” 

Norma Jean Mattei, an emeritus engineering professor at the University of New Orleans, said replacing the Key Bridge likely will take several years. Even if it’s a priority, the process of designing the span, getting permits and hiring contractors takes a lot of time. Then you must build it. 

“It’s quite a process to actually get a bridge of this type into operation,” she said. 
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LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87. 

Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed. 

Gossett’s cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor. 

“Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamour, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It’s about the humanity of the people that he stood for,” his cousin said. 

Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” 

He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury. 

“I was hooked — and so was my audience,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir “An Actor and a Gentleman.” 

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16. 

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.” 

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen. 

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera. 

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands. 

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964. 

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people. 

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal. 

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof before letting him go. 

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go. 

“Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in his memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.” 

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned. 

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it was not going to destroy me.” 

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left. 

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist. 

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.” 

In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate’s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson’s associates that night. 

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he wrote. 

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father. 

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos. 

Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role. 

“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his memoir. 

“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.” 

He said his statue was in storage. 

“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he said in the book. “I need to be free of it.” 

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House, “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.” 

But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones. 

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.” 

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu. 

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19. 

He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett. 

Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.
…

WASHINGTON — Americans are more worried about legal immigrants committing crimes in the U.S. than they were a few years ago, a change driven largely by increased concern among Republicans, while Democrats continue to see a broad range of benefits from immigration, a new poll shows.

The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that substantial shares of U.S. adults believe that immigrants contribute to the country’s economic growth and offer important contributions to American culture. But when it comes to legal immigrants, U.S. adults see fewer major benefits than they did in the past, and more major risks.

About 4 in 10 Americans say that when immigrants come to the U.S. legally, it’s a major benefit for American companies to get the expertise of skilled workers in fields like science and technology. A similar share (38%) also say that legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture and values.

Both those figures were down compared with 2017, when 59% of Americans said skilled immigrant workers who enter the country legally were a major benefit, and half said legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture.

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who say that there’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S. has increased, going from 19% in 2017 to 32% in the new poll.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say that immigration is an important issue for them personally, and 41% now say it’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S., up from 20% in 2017. Overall, Republicans are more likely to see major risks — and fewer benefits — from immigrants who enter the country legally and illegally, although they tend to be most concerned about people who come to the country illegally.

Bob Saunders is a 64-year-old independent from Voorhees, New Jersey. He disapproves of President Joe Biden’s performance when it comes to immigration and border security and is particularly worried about the number of immigrants coming to the southern border who are eventually released into the country. He stressed that there’s a difference between legal and illegal immigration. Saunders said it’s important to know the background of the immigrants coming to the U.S. and said legal immigration contributes to the economy. He also noted the immigrants in his own family.

“It’s not anti-immigration,” Saunders said. “It’s anti-illegal immigration.”

Many Republicans, 71%, say there’s a risk of people in the country illegally coming to the U.S. and committing crimes, although many studies have found immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens. Even more, 80%, think there’s a major risk that people in the country without permission will burden public service programs, while about 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned that there’s a major risk of them taking American jobs, that their population growth will weaken American identity or that they will vote illegally — although only a small number of noncitizen voters have been uncovered.

Amber Pierce, a 43-year-old Republican from Milam, Texas, says she understands that a lot of migrants are seeking a better life for their children, but she’s also concerned migrants will become a drain on government services.

“I believe that a lot of them come over here and get free health care and take away from the people who have worked here and are citizens,” Pierce said. “They get a free ride. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to see benefits from immigration, although the poll did find that only half of Democrats now think that legal immigrants are making important contributions to American companies, a decrease of more than 20 percentage points from 2017. But they’re more likely than Republicans to say that the ability of people to come from other places in the world to escape violence or find economic opportunities is extremely or very important to the U.S’s identity as a nation.

“People who are coming, are coming for good reason. It’s how many of us got here,” said Amy Wozniak, a Democrat from Greenwood, Indiana. Wozniak said previous waves of immigrants came from European countries. Now immigrants are coming from different countries but that doesn’t mean they’re not fleeing for justifiable reasons, she said: “They’re not all drugs and thugs.”

There’s also a divide among partisans about the value of diversity, with 83% of Democrats saying that the country’s diverse population makes it at least moderately stronger, compared with 43% of Republicans and Independents. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that a shared American culture and set of values is extremely or very important to the United States’ identity as a nation, although about half of Democrats also see this as important.

U.S. adults — and especially Republicans — are more likely to say that the country has been significantly changed by immigrants in the past five years than they are to say that immigrants have changed their own community or their state. About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say immigrants have had a major impact on their local community while about 6 in 10 say they’ve had a major impact on the country as a whole. The gap between perceptions of community impact and effects on the country as a whole is particularly wide among Republicans.

There is some bipartisan agreement about how immigration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico should be addressed. The most popular option asked about is hiring more Border Patrol agents, which is supported by about 8 in 10 Republicans and about half of Democrats. Hiring more immigration judges and court personnel is also favored among majorities of both parties.

About half of Americans support reducing the number of immigrants who are allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. when they arrive at the border, but there’s a much bigger partisan divide there, with more Republicans than Democrats favoring this strategy. Building a wall — former President Donald Trump’s signature policy goal — is the least popular and most polarizing option of the four asked about. About 4 in 10 favor building a wall, including 77% of Republicans but just 12% of Democrats.

Donna Lyon is a Democratic-leaning independent from Cortland, New York. She believes a border wall would do little to stop migrants. But she supports hiring more Border Patrol agents and more immigration court judges to deal with the growing backlog of immigration court cases: “That would stop all the backup that we have.”

Congress just recently approved money to hire about 2,000 more Border Patrol agents but so far this year, there’s been no significant boost for funding for more immigration judges. Many on both sides of the aisle have said it takes much too long to decide asylum cases, meaning migrants stay in the country for years waiting for a decision, but the parties have failed to find consensus on how to address the issue.

The poll of 1,282 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
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TOKYO — Oppenheimer finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers’ reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called “the father of the atomic bomb” for leading the Manhattan Project.

“What were the Japanese thinking, carrying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting a war they could never hope to win?” he said, sadness in his voice, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He is now chairperson of a group of bomb victims called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization and he saw Oppenheimer at a preview event. “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.

Oppenheimer does not directly depict what happened on the ground when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, turning some 100,000 people instantly into ashes, and killed thousands more in the days that followed, mostly civilians.

The film instead focuses on Oppenheimer as a person and his internal conflicts.

The film’s release in Japan, more than eight months after it opened in the U.S., had been watched with trepidation because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, who spoke at a preview event for the film in the southwestern city, was more critical of what was omitted.

“From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted,” he was quoted as saying by Japanese media. “The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”

Some moviegoers offered praise. One man emerging from a Tokyo theater Friday said the movie was great, stressing that the topic was of great interest to Japanese, although emotionally volatile as well. Another said he got choked up over the film’s scenes depicting Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil. Neither man would give his name to an Associated Press journalist.

In a sign of the historical controversy, a backlash flared last year over the “Barbenheimer” marketing phenomenon that merged pink-and-fun Barbie with seriously intense Oppenheimer. Warner Bros. Japan, which distributed Barbie in the country, apologized after some memes depicted the Mattel doll with atomic blast imagery.

Kazuhiro Maeshima, professor at Sophia University, who specializes in U.S. politics, called the film an expression of “an American conscience.”

Those who expect an anti-war movie may be disappointed. But the telling of Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when justification of nuclear weapons dominated American sentiments, Maeshima said.

“The work shows an America that has changed dramatically,” he said in a telephone interview.

Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story.

Takashi Yamazaki, director of Godzilla Minus One, which won the Oscar for visual effects and is a powerful statement on nuclear catastrophe in its own way, suggested he might be the man for that job.

“I feel there needs to an answer from Japan to Oppenheimer. Someday, I would like to make that movie,” he said in an online dialogue with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan.

Nolan heartily agreed.

Hiroyuki Shinju, a lawyer, noted Japan and Germany also carried out wartime atrocities, even as the nuclear threat grows around the world. Historians say Japan was also working on nuclear weapons during World War II and would have almost certainly used them against other nations, Shinju said.

“This movie can serve as the starting point for addressing the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as humanity’s, and Japan’s, reflections on nuclear weapons and war,” he wrote in his commentary on Oppenheimer published by the Tokyo Bar Association. 
…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to go to France and Belgium next week to try to build unity among allies in support of Ukraine in its war against Russia and of Israel in its war against Hamas. Analysts say he faces a tough task. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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MASSAPEQUA PARK, New York — Donald Trump attended Thursday’s wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty and called for “law and order” as part of his attempt to show a contrast with President Joe Biden and focus on crime as part of his third White House campaign.

The visitation for Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday, was held in suburban Massapequa on Long Island. Police said the 31-year-old Diller was shot below his bulletproof vest while approaching an illegally parked car in Queens.

Diller, who was married and had a 1-year-old son, was rushed to a hospital, where he died.

The visit by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came as Biden was also in New York for a previously scheduled fundraiser with former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump has accused Biden of lacking toughness, and his campaign sought to contrast his visit with Biden’s fundraiser.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in a post on X, noted Trump’s visit and said, “Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the president has spoken with New York City’s mayor, but she said she didn’t have any “private communications to share” when asked if Biden had spoken to the family of the officer who was killed. Jean-Pierre said the administration’s hearts go out to the officer’s family.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, she said Biden has supported law enforcement throughout his entire career and took a dig at Trump’s record.

“Violent crime surged under the previous administration,” Jean-Pierre said. “The Biden-[Vice President Kamala] Harris administration have done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime.”

After visiting in the funeral home with Diller’s family, Trump spoke outside to news reporters with about a dozen local police officers, half in patrol uniforms, half in tactical gear, forming as a backdrop behind him.

“We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently. This is not working. This is happening too often,” Trump said.

He did not elaborate.

Mixed views on law enforcement

Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, has called for shoplifters to be shot immediately, and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.

He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.

Massapequa and the surrounding South Shore towns have long been a popular destination for city police officers and firefighters looking to set down roots on Long Island. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York, this area is a heavily Republican part of Long Island that Trump won in the 2020 presidential election.

On Thursday, prosecutors in Queens charged Diller’s alleged shooter, Guy Rivera, with first degree murder and other charges. Rivera, who was shot in the back when Diller’s partner returned fire, was arraigned from his hospital bed. Rivera’s lawyers at Legal Aid declined to comment, according to spokesman Redmond Haskins.

Biden has pledged that the federal government will work more closely with police to combat gun violence and crack down on illegal guns.

New FBI statistics released earlier this month showed that overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. The FBI data found murders dropped 13% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, and violent crime overall was down 6%.

The FBI’s report was in line with the findings of the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, which found that homicides were down an average of 10% from the year before in a survey of 32 cities, though it found violent crime still remained higher than before the coronavirus pandemic in many cities.
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washington — House Republicans on Thursday invited President Joe Biden to testify before Congress as part of their impeachment inquiry into him and his family’s business affairs. 

Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Democratic president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to “explain, under oath,” what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses. 

“In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” the Kentucky Republican wrote. 

While it is highly unlikely that Biden would agree to appear before lawmakers in such a setting, Comer pointed to previous examples of presidents’ testifying before Congress. 

“As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the subcommittee on criminal justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974,” Comer wrote. 

The invitation comes as the monthslong inquiry into Biden is all but winding down as Republicans face the stark reality that it lacks the political appetite from within the conference to go forward with an actual impeachment. Nonetheless, leaders of the effort, including Comer, are facing growing political pressure to deliver something after months of work investigating the Biden family and its  international business transactions. 

The White House has repeatedly called the inquiry baseless, telling Republicans to “move on” and focus on “real issues” Americans want addressed. 

“This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment,” spokesman Ian Sams said in a social media post last week. “Call it a day, pal.” 

The committee has asserted that the Bidens traded on the family name, an alleged influence-peddling scheme in which Republicans are trying to link a handful of phone calls or dinner meetings between Joe Biden, when he was vice president or out of office, and his son Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business associates. 

But despite dedicating countless resources over the past year, interviewing dozens of witnesses, including Hunter and the president’s brother James, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence that shows Joe Biden was directly involved in or benefited from his family’s businesses while in public office. 

Democrats have remained unified against the inquiry, with Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on Oversight, calling for his GOP counterpart to end the investigation absent any credible evidence. 

“The GOP impeachment inquiry has been a circus,” Oversight Democrats wrote on the social media platform X. “Time to fold up the tent.” 

Seeking testimony from the president could ultimately be the inquiry’s final act.  

Late last year, Republicans leading the investigation had privately discussed holding a vote on articles of impeachment in the new year, but growing criticism from within their party forced a shift in strategy. Now, Comer is eyeing potential criminal referrals of the family to the Justice Department, a move that will be largely symbolic and unlikely to be taken up by the department. 
…

…

white house — Duty to warn. It is the obligation that the United States says it takes upon itself if the intelligence community is able to identify an impending threat to a particular country.

The U.S. acted on this duty just two weeks before the deadly attack near Moscow claimed by Islamic State. U.S. officials had warned Russia that extremists had imminent plans for such an attack, but the Kremlin brushed off the warning as mere blackmail and efforts to destabilize Russian society. John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, spoke to VOA about the terrorist attack.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: First of all, let’s jump into fresh accusations coming from Russia today. Russia’s FSB [intelligence] chief accused the U.K., the U.S. and Ukraine of being behind the Moscow attack on the concert hall. What’s your response to that?

Kirby: Nonsense.

VOA: The United States has exercised its duty to warn the Russian counterparts of an incoming threat. Why was it important for the American side to warn Russians given that they are waging the war against Ukraine and they turned into the world pariah?

Kirby: Because it was going to be innocent Russian people that were going to fall victim and in fact, did fall victim and we take our duty to warn very, very seriously. We have all kinds of problems with the way Mr. [Vladimir] Putin is leading and governing, if you want to call it that, and we certainly have significant concerns about the continued reckless and violent attacks on Ukrainian people and Ukrainian infrastructure.

But we don’t have a beef with the Russian people. And we had information that they were going to put Russian people, innocent Russians at risk from a terrorist threat. So you bet we informed Russian authorities as appropriate as we would do for any country.

VOA: I’m wondering what their response looked like. Was it a thank you note? Or did they say, “It’s nonsense, leave it to yourself?”

Kirby: I won’t characterize what the other side did with the information that we provided. We provided useful, we believe, valuable information about what we thought was an imminent terrorist attack. We also warned Americans about staying away from public places like concert halls. So we were very direct with our Russian counterparts appropriately to make sure that they had as much useful information as possible. What they did with it, or didn’t do with it, they’d have to speak to.

VOA: But can you confirm they received it?

Kirby: We know that they received the information and that they understood the information. Now what they did with it, again, is for them to speak to.

VOA: Who is responsible for this attack according to American intelligence? Is it ISIS? What was the motive behind the attack?

Kirby: ISIS is responsible for this attack.

VOA: ISIS-K?

Kirby: ISIS is responsible for this attack.

VOA: Do you know the motive here?

Kirby: ISIS claimed responsibility themselves. They all have the goals. Again, I’m not going to get into too much into intelligence matters. ISIS is responsible for this attack.

VOA: Moving on to Ukraine. What are the chances of Congress voting for the supplemental [budget to assist Ukraine] once legislators return from their break?

Kirby: Well, we hope that they will. I can’t predict what the House will do. It is going to be up to Speaker [Mike] Johnson and this is a moment for him to show some leadership. We know that if you were to put that on the floor it would get voted on resoundingly.

Ukraine and Ukrainian battlefield commanders would have the weapons and the capabilities that they need to better defend themselves, particularly in the East there in the Donbas where Russian forces continue to try to make progress pushing west out of Avdiivka. So it’s past time for us to be able to provide additional security assistance to Ukraine, it’s past time for that supplemental to get passed. And so we strongly urge Speaker Johnson to put it before a vote and let’s get moving.

VOA: Speaker Johnson, as reported by The Hill, may contemplate the possibility of providing Ukraine with a loan or another form of lend-lease arrangement to supply them with weapons, with the expectation of repayment. Would this administration be open to this option as an alternative to the supplemental?

Kirby: Our focus is on getting that supplemental passed. And as I’ve said before, and the speaker knows this, if he puts it on the floor, it’ll get approved. It has the votes. That’s the best way to support Ukraine.
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Panama City — Starting next month, the U.S. Coast Guard and Argentine Navy will begin conducting joint exercises aimed at combating illegal Chinese fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.

Argentina, Chile and Peru have criticized Chinese-operated craft for large-scale invasive fishing in their territorial waters without regulation, which the South American countries say is depleting fish stock and damaging the natural biodiversity of the southwest Atlantic. It is a key nesting area for seabirds and feeding area for marine mammals.

The Coast Guard will send its destroyer, the USS James, to work with Argentine vessels to curb these fishing practices.

According to data from the NGO Global Fishing Watch, nearly 3,000 deepwater fishing boats operate under the Chinese flag globally, including about 400 in the southwest Atlantic, often targeting Argentine squid and Patagonian toothfish. The NGO says Chinese vessel activity in the southwest Atlantic increased from 61,727 hours per 500 square kilometers in 2013 to 384,046 hours in 2023.

Since 1986, Argentine authorities have seized 80 foreign-flagged boats fishing in their waters, including sinking Chinese and Taiwanese ships.  

The upcoming joint U.S.-Argentina cruise to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated or IUU fishing, mainly by Chinese fishing vessels, is part of a global and ongoing effort to strengthen maritime security partnerships. In 2020, the United States launched a new strategy to combat IUU fishing, and the Coast Guard is spearheading that effort. In South America, it has already stepped-up cooperation with Ecuador, Peru, and Chile.

Analysts say the Coast Guard’s cooperation with Argentina — together with recent visits from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns — reflect a shift by Argentine President Javier Milei’s new government, elected in November, away from China and toward the United States.

“The producing provinces of Patagonia have warned about the serious situation of illegal fishing and President Milei has a very clear position in relation to China,” Gabriela Ippolito O’Donnell, a political science professor at the National University of San Martín in Argentina, told VOA Mandarin.

“President Milei is undoubtedly in tune with the USA, even more so if Donald Trump wins the elections. He has already shown signs of a 180-degree turn in foreign policy in all its aspects, including the military.”

O’Donnell said the decision to push back on Chinese illegal fishing practices was more than a symbolic move.

“There is an epochal change in Argentina’s foreign relations,” O’Donnell said. “Of course, the Argentine military and the political opposition will have a voice in this process of military rapprochement with the U.S. But the initiative today belongs to President Milei.” 

In January, Milei authorized the U.S. military to enter Argentine territory — a stark contrast from three years ago, when U.S. patrols in the South Atlantic led to conflict with Argentina’s then-President Alberto Fernandez.

According to Michael Paarlberg, an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, the decision is a deliberate way for Milei to break from his rivals, his direct predecessor Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who reached several military cooperation agreements with China.

“We are seeing a growing closer relationship between the U.S. and Argentina under the new Milei government, closer than it was under the more U.S.-skeptical Fernandez government,” Paarlberg told VOA Mandarin. “Military cooperation with the U.S. is a way for Milei to fulfill his promise to undo all of the policies of his predecessors.”

Analysts, however, say Milei’s actions do not represent a complete break between China and Argentina, but rather an interest in diversifying Argentina’s international relationships, with fishing in Argentina’s territorial waters providing the country with a bargaining chip. China remains Argentina’s largest trading partner.

“It is too soon to talk about a major overhaul of Argentina’s foreign policy under Javier Milei, particularly regarding its ties with the United States and China,” Fabricio Fonseca, an assistant professor of diplomacy at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, told VOA Mandarin. “There are other geoeconomic trends and events that we need to take into consideration before forecasting a permanent change in Buenos Aires’s relations with Beijing.”

Evie Steele contributed to this story.

 
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The United States is in dire need of construction workers, a builders’ industry group says. Nonprofits argue that the newly arrived migrants that have overwhelmed some U.S. cities in recent months could help. But not everyone agrees. Joti Rekhi reports from New York City.
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washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday that Chinese subsidies for clean energy industries create unfair competition that “hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world.”

Yellen said that during a visit she has scheduled to China, she intends to warn China its national underwriting for energy and other companies is creating oversupply and market distortion, among other problems.

“I intend to talk to the Chinese when I visit about overcapacity in some of these industries, and make sure that they understand the undesirable impact that this is having — flooding the market with cheap goods — on the United States, but also in many of our closest allies,” Yellen said in a speech in Norcross, Georgia.

Yellen said she believes those subsidies will enable China to flood the markets for solar panels, electric vehicle parts and lithium-ion batteries, thus distorting production in other economies and global prices.

“I will convey my belief that excess capacity poses risks not only to American workers and firms and to the global economy, but also productivity and growth in the Chinese economy, as China itself acknowledged in its National People’s Congress this month,” Yellen said. “And I will press my Chinese counterparts to take necessary steps to address this issue.”

Yellen is set for meetings in China in April, according to Politico. The Treasury has not yet confirmed her itinerary.

The secretary visited Georgia to see a newly reopened solar cell manufacturing plant, which according to the Treasury closed in 2017 because of competition from factories in China. It is reopening now, though, after tax credits in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act fueled increased anticipated demand for solar panels.

On Tuesday, China filed a complaint against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization, arguing the U.S.’s requirements for electric vehicle subsidies are discriminatory. Chinese officials did not comment on what prompted the decision.

Yellen said she hopes to have a “constructive” dialogue with Chinese officials about subsidies and oversupply issues. She said outreach to businesspeople and governments around the world had prompted her to issue this warning.

“These are concerns that I increasingly hear from government counterparts in industrialized countries and emerging markets, as well as from the business community globally,” Yellen said.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 
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washington — The Biden administration has been making a diplomatic push for talks with North Korea with more explicit public proposals for engagement than at any other time since taking office.

“We want dialogue, and there are lots of valuable discussions” that could be had with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, said Jung Pak, the U.S. senior official for North Korea.

Those items for discussion could include sanctions, humanitarian cooperation and confidence-building measures, Pak said at a March 18 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

She added that the U.S. wants North Korea to take risk-reduction steps to avoid miscalculation and inadvertent escalation. The U.S. also wants to see Pyongyang take interim steps toward denuclearization, Pak said at another event held by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on March 5.

Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 during the George W. Bush administration, told VOA via email on Friday that the Biden administration is making this approach now as opposed to earlier in its term because “tension on the Korean Peninsula has increased exponentially, and all efforts must be made to stop this escalation and defuse this tension.”

Since the beginning of the year, Pyongyang has repeatedly called Seoul its “primary foe” and denounced unification while rallying North Korea to prepare to occupy South Korea if a war breaks out.

North Korea has launched multiple rockets and cruise missiles and conducted several artillery firing drills this year.  In its latest test on March 18, North Korea conducted a drill involving “newly equipped super-large multiple rocket launchers” that could cause “disastrous consequences” if a war breaks out, its state-run KCNA news agency said. 

Since its term began in 2021, the Biden administration has said it is open to denuclearization talks with North Korea without preconditions. But it has been silent on what it would offer Pyongyang or how it thinks denuclearization should proceed, although it has hinted at incremental steps toward that goal.

After completing a monthslong policy review on North Korea in April 2021, then-White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the Biden administration sought a middle ground between “a grand bargain” and “strategic patience.”

Former President Donald Trump sought to strike “a grand bargain” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama, pursued a policy approach dubbed “strategic patience,” which involved waiting to engage Pyongyang until it reduced tensions.

In an interview with VOA on March 18, Pak said, “Our policy is the same since we rolled out our policy review back in the spring of 2021, which is that we are absolutely looking for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

She continued, “When we talk about ‘interim steps,’ we’re making explicit what has always been implicit, which is a complete denuclearization will not occur overnight.”

Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA in a telephone interview on Monday that “perhaps it was almost frustration” that prompted the Biden administration to make its approach to North Korea more explicit and public now.

U.S. officials “have tried many channels, including through third countries, trying to get messages to the North Koreans and indicating they’re willing to talk not only about denuclearization but about other nonnuclear issues, including risk reduction or confidence-building measures [and] humanitarian assistance,” Klingner said.

Mira Rapp-Hooper, special assistant to the president and senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council, said at a CSIS-hosted virtual event on March 3 that North Korea “has not answered” multiple U.S. calls for dialogue made through “many channels.”

She continued, “This is increasingly problematic, of course, because we now see the DPRK taking increasingly escalatory behavior.”

Robert Rapson, who served as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, said, “I was struck by the continued priority given ‘risk reduction’ as an initial discussion topic, which reflects, in my view, growing U.S. concerns about the escalatory situation on the Korean Peninsula.”

While North Korea increased missile launches and verbal hostilities toward South Korea, it has been making weapons shipments to Russia in defiance of international sanctions.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said at a press briefing on March 18 that Pyongyang has shipped about 7,000 containers of weapons to Russia since last year.

DeTrani said that is “all the more reason why we should be open and creative in getting North Korea back to negotiations.”

VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching contributed to this report.
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washington — First lady Jill Biden will publish a children’s book in June called Willow the White House Cat — about her cat, Willow.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, announced Wednesday that the book tells the story of Willow’s journey to the White House.

The short-haired tabby cat entered the Bidens’ life after she jumped on stage as the first lady was speaking at a Pennsylvania farm during President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Soon after, Jill Biden adopted the cat and named it after her hometown, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.

“As Willow bounds from room to room, exploring history in her new home, she learns quickly about all of the incredible people who make the ‘People’s House’ run,” the first lady said in the publisher’s announcement.

“They welcomed Willow with love and care, just as they did Joe and me, the First Families who came before us, and all of the people who step foot into this home.”

The Bidens began their White House tenancy with Willow and several German shepherd dogs. However, one dog, Champ, died in 2021, and two others, Major and Commander, were sent away for aggressive behavior after biting security personnel and White House staff.

This makes 4-year-old Willow the only presidential pet currently residing at the White House.

Presidential pets have long been a source of public fascination. Willow now meows among the ranks of fellow famous felines such as President Bill Clinton’s black and white cat named Socks, who became iconic for her photo ops on the White House lawn.

Socks had her own book, written by then-first lady Hillary Clinton, called Dear Socks, Dear Buddy, which included fan mail address to Socks and her canine companion Buddy the chocolate labrador retriever.

First lady Barbara Bush also wrote a book about the family pet. Millie’s Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush is a dog’s-eye view of the White House during the George H.W. Bush administration.

First lady Biden has previously written several children’s books, including Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops and Joey: The Story of Joe Biden. She published her memoir, “Where the Light Enters,” in 2019.

Proceeds from book sales will be given to charities that support military dogs.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press.
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Washington — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss support for Ukraine during talks in Paris next week with French President Emmanuel Macron, the State Department announced Wednesday.

France is among the major military suppliers to Ukraine, which is facing an onslaught of Russian attacks.

President Joe Biden’s request for billions of dollars in new U.S. military aid to Kyiv is held up in the House of Representatives, led by the rival Republican Party.

“Secretary Blinken will meet with French President Macron to discuss support for Ukraine, efforts to prevent escalation of the conflict in Gaza and a number of other important issues,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

France has advocated for a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, whereas the United States, Israel’s main ally, recently let pass a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for a cease-fire during the month of Ramadan.

It will be the first visit in nearly two years to France by Blinken, a fluent French speaker who grew up partly in Paris. Macron paid a state visit to Washington in December 2022.

After Paris, Blinken will head to Brussels for talks among NATO foreign ministers ahead of the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July.

Blinken will also hold a three-way meeting in Brussels with EU leaders and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has been seeking to branch out from his country’s historic alliance with Russia.

Blinken and the European Union will address “support for Armenia’s economic resilience as it works to diversify its trade partnerships and to address humanitarian needs,” Miller said.

Armenia was angered last year by Russia’s failure to prevent Azerbaijan from retaking the Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian rebels.
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WASHINGTON — In December 1900, John Wesley Powell received “the most unusual Christmas present of any person in the United States, if not in the world,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

The gift for this first director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of Ethnology was a sealskin sack containing the mummified remains of an Alaska Native.

The sender was a government employee hired to hunt Indian “relics,” who said the remains had been difficult to acquire because “to come into the possession of a dead Indian is a great crime among the Indians.”

The report concluded that it was the only “Indian relic” of this kind at the Smithsonian and it was “beyond money value.”

As it turned out, it was not the museum’s only Alaskan mummy. In 1865, even before the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia, Smithsonian naturalist William H. Dall was hired to accompany an expedition to study the potential for a telegraph route through Siberia to Europe. In his spare time, he looted graves in the Yukon and caves on several Aleutian Islands.

After the U.S. sealed the deal with Russia, the San Francisco-based Alaska Commercial Company won exclusive trading rights and established more than 90 trading posts in Alaska to meet the U.S. demand for ivory and furs.

It also instructed agents “to collect and preserve objects of interest in ethnology and natural history” and forward them to the Smithsonian. Ernest Henig looted 12 preserved bodies and a skull from a cave in the Aleutians in 1874. He donated two to California’s Academy of Science and sent the remainder to the Smithsonian.

More than 30 years after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act meant to return those remains, a ProPublica investigation last year estimated that more than 110,000 Native American, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native ancestors remain in public collections across the U.S.

It is not known how many Indigenous remains are closeted in private or overseas collections.

“Museums collected massive numbers, perhaps even millions,” said anthropologist John Stephen “Chip” Colwell, who previously served as curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. “Out of the 100 remains we [at the Denver museum] returned, I think only about five or seven individuals were actually even studied.”

So, what sparked this 19th-century frenzy for collecting human remains?

Reconciling science, religion

From the moment they first encountered Indigenous Americans, European thinkers struggled to understand who they were, where they came from, and whether they could be “civilized.”

The Christian bible taught them that all humans descended from Adam and that God created Adam in his own image. So why, Europeans wondered, did Native Americans, Africans and Asians look different?

Some Europeans theorized that all humans were created white, but dietary or environmental differences caused some of them to turn “brown, yellow, red or black.”

Other Europeans refused to accept that they shared a common ancestor with people of color and theorized that God created the races separately before he created Adam.

The birth of scientific racism

Presumptions that compulsory education and Christianization would force Native Americans to abandon their traditional cultures and become “civilized” into mainstream European-American culture proved untrue. So 19th-century scientists turned to advancements in medicine to “prove” the inferiority of Indigenous peoples.

“That’s when you see scientists like Samuel Morton, who invented a pseudoscience trying to place peoples within these social hierarchies based on their biology, and they needed bones to solidify those racial hierarchies,” said Colwell, who is editor-in-chief of the online magazine SAPIENS and author of “Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture.”

Morton was a Philadelphia physician who collected hundreds of human skulls of all races, mostly Native American, that were forwarded to him by physicians on the frontier. In his 1839 book “Crania Americana,” Morton classified human races based on skull measurements. Morton’s conclusions were used to support racist ideologies about the inferiority of non-white humans.

“They are not only averse to the restraints of education, but for the most part incapable of a continued process of reasoning on abstract subjects,” he wrote of Native Americans. “The structure of [the Native] mind appears to be different from that of the white man, nor can the two harmonise in their social relations except on the most limited scale.”

Despite Morton’s legacy as an early figure in scientific racism — ideologies that generate pseudo-scientific racist beliefs — his work earned him a reputation at the time as “a jewel of American science” and influenced the field of anthropology and public policy for decades.

In 1868, for example, the U.S. Surgeon General turned his attention away from the Civil War to the so-called “Indian wars” and instructed field surgeons to collect Native American skulls and weapons and send them to the Army Medical Museum in Washington “to aid in the progress of anthropological science.”

“For museums, especially the early years of collecting, it was a form of trophy keeping, a competition between museums,” Colwell told VOA. “And some of it was a competition between national governments to accumulate big collections to demonstrate their global and imperial aspirations.”

All the rest, he said, were fragments of morbid curiosity.
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NEW ORLEANS — A Texas law that allows the state to arrest and deport migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. will remain on hold for now, a federal appeals court ruled.

The 2-1 ruling late Tuesday from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals followed a March 20 hearing by a three-judge panel of the court. It’s just the latest move in a seesaw legal case over Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s strict new immigration law that is not yet ended.

The Justice Department has argued that Texas’ law is a clear violation of federal authority and would create chaos at the border. Texas has argued that President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t doing enough to control the border and that the state has a right to take action.

Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald Trump and a former aide to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, dissented with the majority decision.

Oldham wrote that the Biden administration faced a high bar to take sovereign power that Texas has to enforce a law its people and leaders want. The judge predicted the same 2-1 split when the merits of the case are considered while the legal challenge plays out.

“There is real peril in this approach. In our federal system, the State of Texas is supposed to retain at least some of its sovereignty,” Oldham wrote. “Its people are supposed to be able to use that sovereignty to elect representatives and send them to Austin to debate and enact laws that respond to the exigencies that Texans experience and that Texans want addressed.”

The law was in effect for several hours on March 19 after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way. But the high court didn’t rule on the merits of the case. It instead sent the case back to the 5th Circuit, which then suspended enforcement while it considered the latest appeal.

The latest ruling keeps the block in place.

Spokespersons for Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately return phone calls for comment Wednesday morning.

The law signed by Abbott allows any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally, but that brief window while the law was in effect revealed that many sheriffs were unprepared, unable or uninterested in enforcing SB4 in the first place.

Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland of Terrell County, which touches more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) of border, said during a gathering of about 100 sheriffs at the state Capitol last week said there’s no practical way for him to enforce the law.

Cleveland said he has no way to transport people, the county jail has space for just seven people and the closest port of entry is a drive of more than 2 1/2 hours away.

Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith, president of the Texas Sheriff’s Association, said the law will have little effect in his jurisdiction in East Texas, which is closer to Louisiana and Oklahoma than Mexico which is nearly 400 miles (644 kilometers) away.

Once in custody, migrants could either agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the U.S. or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. Migrants who don’t leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges.

Texas did not announce any arrests during the brief time the law was previously in effect. Authorities have offered various explanations for how they might enforce the law. Mexico has said it would refuse to take back anyone who is ordered by Texas to cross the border.

The law is considered by opponents to be the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago that was partially struck down by the Supreme Court. Critics have also said the Texas law could lead to civil rights violations and racial profiling.

Supporters have rejected those concerns, saying arresting officers must have probable cause, which could include witnessing the illegal entry or seeing it on video. They also say that they expect the law would be used mostly in border counties, though it would apply statewide.
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LAS VEGAS, NEVADA — A Nevada judge tentatively set an August 5 trial date for a former Las Vegas-area elected official accused of killing an investigative journalist.

But she acknowledged that more time might be needed to finish searching the slain reporter’s computers for possible evidence.

Robert Telles, a former Democratic county administrator of estates, has pleaded not guilty to stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German to death in September 2022.

Telles, 47, has remained jailed since his arrest days after German’s body was found. Telles and his lawyer, Robert Draskovich, say he wants his murder trial to start as soon as possible.

Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt decided two weeks ago that a March 18 date was unrealistic. She agreed with prosecutors on Tuesday that August might also be too soon, but she said it was important to have a date to work toward.

Progress in the case stalled while arguments went to the state Supreme Court about opening German’s cellphone and computers, possibly exposing confidential information that is protected from disclosure under state and federal law.

Review-Journal employees are now reviewing those files, and attorneys say it might take months to finish.

German, 69, was found stabbed outside his home months after he wrote articles in 2022 that were critical of Telles and his managerial conduct while he was in elected office.
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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could significantly restrict access to the drug mifepristone, which is used in medication abortions. Deana Mitchell has our story.
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DES MOINES, Iowa — Someone in New Jersey overcame the odds Tuesday night and won the $1.12 billion Mega Millions jackpot, breaking a winless streak that dated to last December.

The numbers drawn were: 7, 11, 22, 29, 38 and 4. The winning ticket was sold in New Jersey, according the the Mega Millions website.

Until the latest drawing, no one had matched all six numbers and won the Mega Millions jackpot since Dec. 8. That amounted to 30 straight drawings without a big winner.

It’s tough to win the Mega Millions jackpot because the odds are so long, at 1 in 302.6 million.

The prize is the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history.

The $1.12 billion jackpot is for a winner who is paid through an annuity, with an initial payment and then 29 annual payments. Most winners choose a cash payout, which would be $537.5 million.

The next big U.S. lottery drawing will be Wednesday night for an estimated $865 million Powerball jackpot. No one has won that prize since New Year’s Day, making for 36 drawings without a winner.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Powerball also is played in those states as well as Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

 
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Top Biden administration officials urged Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to abandon plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians seek safety, as U.S.- Israel tensions brewed over Israel’s conduct in its 6-month-old war against Hamas. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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