WILMINGTON, Del. — The criminal trial of President Joe Biden’s son heads into its final stretch Monday as the defense tries to chip away at prosecutors’ case laying bare some of the darkest moments of Hunter Biden’s drug-fueled past.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers could call at least one more witness in the case — the first of two trials he’s facing in the midst of his father’s reelection campaign. It’s unclear whether prosecutors will call any rebuttal witnesses before the case goes to closing arguments, and then to the jury.

Hunter Biden hugged his uncle James Biden before entering the Wilmington, Delaware, courthouse Monday. First Lady Jill Biden arrived shortly after and was seated in the front row of the courtroom with other family members, including James, Hunter’s sister Ashley and the president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens.

As court began, the two sides argued over instructions that will be given to the jury before deliberations. The lawyers also discussed how jurors can request to see certain physical exhibits, including the gun, in the jury room.

Hunter Biden is charged with three felonies stemming from the October 2018 purchase of a gun he had for about 11 days. Prosecutors say he lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and has accused the Justice Department of bending to political pressure from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans to bring the gun case and separate tax charges after a deal with prosecutors fell apart last year. Hunter Biden has said he has been sober since 2019, but his attorneys have said he did not consider himself an “addict” when he filled out the form.

The case has put a spotlight on a turbulent time in Hunter Biden’s life after the death of his brother, Beau, in 2015.

Hunter Biden’s struggles with addiction before getting sober more than five years ago are well documented. But defense lawyers argue there’s no evidence he was actually using drugs in the 11 days that he possessed the gun. He had completed a rehab program weeks earlier.

Jurors have heard emotional testimony from Hunter Biden’s former romantic partners and read personal text messages. They’ve seen photos of Hunter Biden holding a crack pipe and partly clothed, and video from his phone of crack cocaine weighed on a scale.

His ex-wife and two former girlfriends testified for prosecutors about his habitual crack use and their failed efforts to help him get clean. One woman, who met Hunter Biden in 2017 at a strip club where she worked, described him smoking crack every 20 minutes or so while she stayed with him at a hotel.

Hunter Biden has not taken the witness stand, and it’s unclear if he will. But jurors have heard him describe at length his descent into addiction through audio excerpts played in court of his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things.” The book, written after he got sober, covers the period he had the gun but doesn’t mention it specifically.

A key witness for prosecutors is Beau’s widow, Hallie, who had a brief troubled relationship with Hunter after his brother died of brain cancer. She found the unloaded gun in Hunter’s truck on Oct. 23, 2018, panicked and tossed it into a garbage can at a grocery store in Wilmington, where a man inadvertently fished it out of the trash.

“I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves,” Hallie Biden told jurors.

From the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a 2018 trip to California until she threw his gun away, she did not see him using drugs, Hallie told jurors. That time period included the day he bought the weapon. But jurors also saw text messages Hunter sent to Hallie in October 2018 saying he was waiting for a dealer and smoking crack. The first message was sent the day after he bought the gun. The second was sent the following day.

The defense has suggested Hunter Biden had been trying to turn his life around at the time of the gun purchase, having completed a detoxification and rehabilitation program at the end of August 2018.

“There is no evidence of contemporaneous drug use and a gun possession,” defense lawyer Abbe Lowell wrote in court papers filed Friday. “It was only after the gun was thrown away and the ensuing stress … that the government was able to then find the same type of evidence of his use [e.g., photos, use of drug lingo] that he relapsed with drugs.”

Hunter Biden’s daughter Naomi took the stand for the defense Friday, telling jurors about visiting her father while he was at a California rehab center weeks before he bought the gun. She told jurors that he seemed “hopeful” and to be improving, and she told him she was proud of him. As she was dismissed from the stand, she paused to hug her dad before leaving the courtroom.

The defense on Friday did not rule out calling one more witness, but it was unclear who that could be. Hunter’s lawyers previously said they planned to call as a witness Joe Biden’s brother, James and he was at the courthouse on Friday. Testimony from other family members could open the door for more deeply personal messages to be introduced to the jury.

President Joe Biden said last week that he would accept the jury’s verdict and has ruled out a pardon for his son. After flying back from France, President Biden was at his home in Wilmington for the day and was expected in Washington in the evening for a Juneteenth concert. He was scheduled to travel to Italy later this week for the Group of Seven leaders conference.

Last summer, it looked as if Hunter Biden would avoid prosecution in the gun case altogether, but a deal with prosecutors imploded after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by Republican former President Donald Trump, raised concerns about it. Hunter Biden was subsequently indicted on three felony gun charges. He also faces a trial scheduled for September on felony charges alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years.

If convicted in the gun case, he faces up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders do not get anywhere near the maximum, and it’s unclear whether the judge would give him time behind bars.
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Tokyo — The United States needs Japan’s help to cope with strategic challenges in Europe and Asia that are straining its defense industries, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said on Monday as the countries kicked off talks on military industrial cooperation.

“Our national security strategy calls for us to be able to handle one and a half theaters, that’s a major war and another one to a stand-off, and with both the Middle East, Ukraine, and keeping our deterrence credible in this region (East Asia) you can already see that we are in two plus,” Rahm Emanuel told reporters. 

On Sunday, Japan and the U.S. kicked off their first talks in Tokyo on forging deeper defense industry collaboration under the U.S.-Japan Forum on Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment (DICAS) established in April by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden.  

Discussions on Tuesday between U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A. LaPlante and Masaki Fukasawa, the head of Japan’s Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Agency, will focus on naval repairs in Japan that could help free up U.S. yards to build more warships.

“China has a major capacity we already know that will surpass us on new shipbuilding,” Emanuel said.  

Other potential cooperation between Japan and the U.S. includes aircraft repairs, missile production and military supply chain resilience, he added.

Japan and the U.S. already build a missile defense interceptor together and Tokyo has also agreed to supply Patriot PAC3 air-defense missiles to the U.S. 
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LOS ANGELES — Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Hollywood on Sunday for the L.A. Pride Parade, one of the biggest events during a month of celebrations honoring the LGBTQ+ community in and around Los Angeles. 

Rainbow flags ruled the day as revelers cheered the lively procession that featured “Star Trek” star and activist George Takei as the Icon Grand Marshal. 

“As someone who has witnessed the struggles and triumphs of our community over the years, I am filled with gratitude for the progress we have made and inspired to continue the fight for full acceptance and equality for all,” Takei said in a statement. 

The parade’s Community Grand Marshal was L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley. The department’s first openly gay chief said she was “overjoyed” by the honor. 

Following the parade, the L.A. Pride Block Party offered DJs, live performances, food trucks and a beer garden. 

On Saturday night, Latin pop superstar Ricky Martin headlined a concert dubbed Pride in the Park at Los Angeles State Historic Park. 

Other events scheduled for Pride Month include celebrations at Dodger Stadium and Universal Studios Hollywood. 
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The number of adults in the United States identifying as something other than heterosexual is holding steady at about 7.2%, and the two presidential candidates are taking note. VOA senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Presutti tells us how they are trying to attract that population.
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New York — “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the fourth installment in the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence action-comedy series, opened with an estimated $56 million in theaters over the weekend, handing Hollywood a much-needed summer hit and Smith his biggest success since he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.

Expectations were all over the map for “Ride or Die” given the dismal moviegoing market thus far this summer and Smith’s less certain box-office clout. In the end, though, the Sony Pictures release came in very close to, or slightly above, its tracking forecast.

“Ride or Die,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, is Smith’s first theatrical test since his 2022 slap of Rock earned him a 10-year Oscar ban. The “Bad Boys” film was in development at the time and was momentarily put on hold, but ultimately went forward with about a $100 million production budget.

Smith starred in the Apple release “Emancipation,” but that film — released in late 2022 — was shot before the slap and received only a modest theatrical release before streaming.

This time around, Smith largely avoided soul-searching interviews looking back on the Oscars and instead went on a whistle-stop publicity tour of red carpets from Mexico to Saudi Arabia, where he attended what was billed as the country’s first Hollywood premiere. The 55-year-old Smith, who for years was one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, appeared on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” the YouTube series “Hot Ones” and Friday, made a surprise appearance at a Los Angeles movie theater.

Given that “Bad Boys” trailed May disappointments like “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “The Fall Guy” – both of which struggled to pop with ticket buyers despite very good reviews – the “Ride or Die” opening counts as a critical weekend win for the movie business.

“The fact that a movie overperformed is the best possible news,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “It seems like all we’ve been doing over the past few weeks and almost since the beginning of the year, with a couple of exceptions, is try to figure out why seemingly well-marketed, well-reviewed movies have underperformed. This ignites the spark that the industry has been waiting for.”

“Ride or Die” still didn’t quite manage to match the opening of the previous “Bad Boys” film: 2020’s “Bad Boys for Life.” That movie, released in January 2020, debuted with $62.5 million. After the pandemic shut down theaters, it was the highest grossing North American release of that year, with $204 million domestically.

“Ride or Die” added $48.6 million internationally. Though reviews were mixed (64% on Rotten Tomatoes), audiences gave the film a high grade with an “A-” CinemaScore.

Black moviegoers accounted for 44% of ticket buyers, the largest demographic.

In the film, which comes 29 years after the original, Smith and Lawrence reprise their roles as Miami detectives. The plot revolves around uncovering a scheme to frame their late police captain (Joe Pantoliano). In one of the movie’s most notable scenes, Lawrence slaps Smith and calls him a “bad boy.”

Movie theaters will need a lot more than “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” though, to right the ship. Ticket sales are down 26% from last year and more than 40% below pre-pandemic totals, according to Comscore. A big test comes next weekend with the release of Pixar’s “Inside Out 2.” After sending several Pixar releases straight to Disney+, the studio has vowed a lengthy, traditional theatrical rollout this time.

Last weekend’s top film “The Garfield Movie,” slid to second place. Also from Sony, the family animated comedy collected $10 million in ticket sales over its third weekend, bringing its domestic gross to $68.6 million.

The weekend’s other new wide release, “The Watchers,” failed to click with moviegoers. The horror film, directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night Shyamalan, is about a stranded 28-year-old artist in Ireland. Following poor reviews, the Warner Bros. release grossed $7 million in 3,351 theaters.

That allowed “If,” the Ryan Reynolds imaginary friend fantasy, to grab third place in its fourth weekend of release, bringing the Paramount Pictures cumulative domestic total to $93.5 million. Rounding out the top five was “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which added $5.4 million in its fifth weekend of release. It has grossed $150 million domestically and $360 million worldwide.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” $56 million.

2. ”The Garfield Movie,” $10 million.

3. “If,” $8 million.

4. “The Watchers,” $7 million.

5. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” $5.4 million.

6. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” $4.2 million.

7. “The Fall Guy,” $2.7 million.

8. “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” $2.4 million.

9. “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” $1.9 million.

10. “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” $1.8 million.
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Washington — President Joe Biden’s administration is prepared to defend in court the sweeping asylum policy put into place at the U.S.-Mexico border last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday that generally bars migrants who illegally cross the southern border from claiming asylum and allows authorities to quickly deport or send migrants back to Mexico if the daily number of crossings exceeds 2,500. The asylum ban has exceptions for unaccompanied minors, people who face serious medical or safety threats, and victims of trafficking.

Mayorkas on Sunday said the administration was ready to defend the policy against an expected American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit.

“I respectfully disagree with the ACLU,” Mayorkas said. “We stand by the legality of what we have done. We stand by the value proposition. It’s not only a matter of securing the border, we have a humanitarian obligation to keep vulnerable people out of the hands of exploitative smugglers.”

The ACLU confirmed on Sunday it plans to sue.

“It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now,” ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt said in a statement.

Biden took office in 2021 vowing to reverse some of Republican Donald Trump’s restrictive policies but has grappled with record levels of migrants caught crossing the border illegally ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Mayorkas said initial indications showed the new policy was deterring some illegal immigration.

“It’s early. The signs are positive,” he said.

A U.S. border official told Reuters that authorities arrested around 3,100 people crossing illegally on Friday, down roughly 20% from the days before. The official requested anonymity to discuss preliminary figures.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who installed razor wire fencing along the Rio Grande and has seen a state law to enforce illegal crossings into his state blocked by a judge, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” he thinks the policy is backfiring.

“All that this new Biden policy is going to do is to actually attract and invite even more people to cross the border illegally,” Abbott said.
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Spokane, Washington — The inmates of Washington state’s prison system tramp through the forest, their yellow uniforms and helmets bright against the brown branches and green leaves.  

They are Arcadia 20, or ARC 20, an elite group of firefighters based in Spokane who have been recruited from existing firefighting prison camps.  

The aim? Teach the inmates the skills needed to help prevent forest fires – and in the process, give them an opportunity to start on a path to a new career.  

Recruited by the state’s Department of Natural Resources and Department of Corrections, the program seeks to provide the dozen or so inmates with enough training to prepare them for jobs as civilian firefighters once they have completed their sentences.  

“I do believe one thing for sure, that people deserve a second chance,” said Kenyatta Bridges, 34, who joined the ARC 20 team for training in the middle of last year while serving a 10-year sentence for manslaughter in a 2014 gang-affiliated shooting in Pasco, Washington.  

Bridges started a job in a civilian fire crew on June 3, following his release.  

Reuters was granted exclusive access to ARC 20 over three months, including a visit last August to the Tonasket Rodeo Grounds, a rural community in northeast Washington near the Canadian border. Bridges and the ARC 20 crew were setting up their tents after a day of helping contain a fire.

Crew members learn how to conduct prescribed burns, how to handle dangerous equipment, and how to ensure fires that have been contained stay that way. And when necessary, they are on the front lines of a fire, digging lines to help reduce the chance a fire will continue to spread.

“Team work, communications skills, an accountability for one’s actions and others as it relates to duties and providing for safety” are an integral part of their mindset, according to ARC 20 management.  

“The fellas that I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with, they’re amazing,” Bridges said. “We all made bad decisions in our life. Some of us got caught, some of us didn’t. But we learn from our mistakes.”

Earning ability

While states across the American West have inmate firefighting crews, Washington’s ARC 20 program is the only one of its kind in the U.S., recruiting incarcerated individuals from full confinement into a reentry center where they continue to build skills in firefighting and prepare for life after release.  

They also earn more. Inmates in Washington state’s regular prison firefighting camps, who number around 230, are paid up to $1.50 per hour, based on experience, for their daily duties. When dispatched to an active fire zone, they are paid the state’s minimum wage of $16.28 per hour plus overtime.  

Elite crew members who have joined the ARC 20 team are paid a base salary of up to $3,796 per month with potential overtime pay on fire assignments. This year-round crew has a maximum of 20 team members.  

It had 13 people on the team during its first full year in 2023 and expects to have 12 as Washington state’s fire season ramps up at the end of June.

The Pacific Northwest is struggling with the effects of climate change, with higher-than-normal chances of wildfires and a longer season this year, according to meteorologists at the Department of Natural Resources, the state agency charged with wildfire prevention and management.  

According to DNR officials who manage both fully incarcerated camp crews and the ARC 20 team, a high-earning member of the camp crew received approximately $11,000 in 2023, whereas an ARC 20 crew member earned up to $60,000.  

The ARC 20 team is trained to join “hand crews” — teams of 18 to 25 firefighters who work and camp near the front lines of active wildfires, often hiking long distances and carrying their own gear to reach remote areas. They also conduct prescribed burns and chainsaw trees to the ground as part of the state’s fire mitigation and forest management efforts.

ARC 20’s crew superintendent Ben Hood is on the team that selects participants.

“We call it getting bit with the fire bug… Once you get bit with it, you’re hooked in,” said Hood. “It becomes part of, kind of who you are, becomes more than just a job. It kind of becomes a lifestyle.”  

When the team isn’t traveling the state fighting fires, they are housed at Brownstone Reentry Center, a minimum security facility in downtown Spokane. Residents participate in work or training programs and are granted additional freedoms like wearing normal clothes or owning a cellphone.  

ARC 20 crew members are paid higher wages than some staff in the state’s correctional system, including the facility where they live, according to Brownstone’s manager.

Running a kitchen

Reuters visited another crew of fully incarcerated individuals in September at a Department of Natural Resources facility at Cedar Creek Corrections Center, southwest of the state’s capital city, Olympia.  

They had just returned from a weeks-long assignment running a mobile kitchen for almost 1,000 wildland firefighters per day, who were fighting two of the 2023 season’s biggest fires in the state.  

Timothy Bullock, 32, an electrician jailed for second-degree assault stemming from a domestic dispute, said he has changed his life goals and wants to become a wildland firefighter.

“I used to drink quite a bit… it was a terrible mistake on my part that affected other people, people I cared about. So it’s hard dealing with that,” said Bullock, acknowledging a prison sentence may have been needed for him to change his path. “I just know that I’m never going to make those types of mistakes ever again.”  

Bullock has been a standout member of the Cedar Creek Corrections Center camp crew, according to his bosses at DNR. He has submitted his application for ARC 20 and is being considered for a spot in late 2024.

“I’m getting real close to getting out. It’s kind of working out for the better, you know, to get back on my feet and then have an opportunity when I get out,” said Bullock.

Washington’s model could be a ‘stepping stone’ for state agencies across the U.S., according to transition crew liaison Roy Hardin, who helped form the crew with Hood.  

“If a person is employed, has a really good job right when they get out of prison, they’re not homeless, they’re probably not going to come back,” said Hardin. He said four crew members from ARC 20 have gone on to take jobs as members of the state firefighting agency – one engine leader and three engine crew members.  

Kenyatta Bridges is one of those crew members.  

On June 3, he started fighting fires with DNR’s Arcadia Engine 7405 near Spokane, in one of the most wildfire prone areas of Washington state.  

“He’s hard working. He’s motivated,” said superintendent Hood, who recruited Bridges. “He’s becoming one of those leaders. He’s good with the chainsaw. He doesn’t know how to quit working; he’s physically capable of the job. He’s what you want in a firefighter.”

Bridges is elated for this new chapter of his life. Since his release from Brownstone he has been living in transitional housing with other formerly incarcerated individuals in Spokane, and on May 20 his partner gave birth to their son.  

“I feel like I couldn’t ask for nothing better,” Bridges said, discussing his life post-release. “To have everything so quickly, it feels like every gear is rotating and spinning just on point.”
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, who says he regularly prays “Lord, give me a sense of humor,” will welcome comedians from around the world to a cultural event in Italy to “celebrate the beauty of human diversity,” the Vatican said Saturday. 

Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock will be among more than 100 entertainers at the Vatican on June 14. 

The pope “recognizes the significant impact that the art of comedy has on the world of contemporary culture,” a Vatican statement said. 

British comedian Stephen Merchant — the co-writer of the TV comedy series “The Office” — and Italian comedian Lino Banfi will also be at the event. 

The meeting will take place Friday morning, before the pope travels to Puglia to attend the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ summit. 

“The meeting between Pope Francis and the world’s comedians aims to celebrate the beauty of human diversity and to promote a message of peace, love and solidarity,” the Vatican said. 

The audience has been organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and Dicastery for Communication. 

Goldberg last month said in an interview that she had offered the pope a cameo in “Sister Act 3,” in which she will reprise her comedy role of a singer who takes refuge in a convent and organizes a choir. 

“He said he would see what his time was like,” Goldberg said joking, when asked if the pope had accepted her offer. 
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The United States cricket team beat Pakistan — a former world champion — on Thursday, achieving one of the biggest upsets in T20 Cricket World Cup history. This year’s tournament is being hosted by the United States and the West Indies. Saqib Ul Islam has more from the games in Dallas, Texas.
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PHOENIX — The season’s first heat wave is already baking the Southwest with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix — America’s hottest big city — employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year.  

Starting this season, the Phoenix Fire Department is immersing heatstroke victims in ice on the way to area hospitals. The medical technique, known as cold water immersion, is familiar to marathon runners and military service members and has also recently been adopted by Phoenix hospitals as a go-to protocol, said Fire Capt. John Prato.  

Prato demonstrated the method earlier this week outside the emergency department of Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, packing ice cubes inside an impermeable blue bag around a medical dummy representing a patient. He said the technique could dramatically lower body temperature in minutes.  

“Just last week we had a critical patient that we were able to bring back before we walked through the emergency room doors,” Prato said. “That’s our goal — to improve patient survivability.”  

The heatstroke treatment has made ice and human-sized immersion bags standard equipment on all Phoenix fire department emergency vehicles. It is among measures the city adopted this year as temperatures and their human toll soar ever higher. Phoenix for the first time is also keeping two cooling stations open overnight this season.  

Emergency responders in much of an area stretching from southeast California to central Arizona are preparing for what the National Weather Service said would be “easily their hottest” weather since last September.  

Excessive heat warnings were issued for Wednesday morning through Friday evening for parts of southern Nevada and Arizona, with highs expected to top 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) in Las Vegas and Phoenix. The unseasonably hot weather was expected to spread northward and make its way into parts of the Pacific Northwest by the weekend.  

Officials in Maricopa County were stunned earlier this year when final numbers showed 645 heat-related deaths in Arizona’s largest county, a majority of them in Phoenix. The most brutal period was a heat wave with 31 subsequent days of temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.4 Celsius) or higher, which claimed more than 400 lives.  

“We’ve been seeing a severe uptick in the past three years in cases of severe heat illness,” said Dr. Paul Pugsley, medical director of emergency medicine with Valleywise Health. Of those, about 40% do not survive. 

Cooling down patients long before they get to the emergency department could change the equation, he said.  

The technique “is not very widely spread in non-military hospitals in the U.S., nor in the prehospital setting among fire departments or first responders,” Pugsley said. He said part of that may be a longstanding perception that the technique’s use for all cases of heatstroke by first responders or even hospitals was impractical or impossible. 

Pugsley said he was aware of limited use of the technique in some places in California, including Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto and Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, and by the San Antonio Fire Department in Texas. 

Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix embraced the protocol last summer, said Dr. Aneesh Narang, assistant medical director of emergency medicine there.  

“This cold water immersion therapy is really the standard of care to treat heatstroke patients,” he said. 
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NEW YORK — The mysterious death of a man in Mexico who had one kind of bird flu is unrelated to outbreaks of a different type at U.S. dairy farms, experts say.

Here’s a look at the case and the different types of bird flu.

What happened in the Mexico bird flu case? A 59-year-old man in Mexico who had been bedridden because of chronic health problems developed a fever, shortness of breath and diarrhea in April. He died a week later, and the World Health Organization this week reported it.

The WHO said it was the first time that version of bird flu — H5N2 — had been seen in a person.

What’s been happening in the U.S. with bird flu? A different version of bird flu — H5N1 — has been infecting poultry flocks over the last several years, leading to millions of birds being culled. It also has been spreading among all different kinds of animals around the world.

This year, that flu was detected in U.S. dairy farms. Dozens of herds have seen infections, most recently in Iowa and Minnesota.

The cow outbreak has been tied to three reported illnesses in farmworkers, one in Texas and two in Michigan. Each had only mild symptoms.

What do the letters and numbers mean in bird flu names? So-called influenza A viruses are the only viruses tied to human flu pandemics, so their appearance in animals and people is a concern. These viruses are divided into subtypes based on what kinds of proteins they have on their surface — hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N).

Scientists say there are 18 different “H” subtypes and 11 different “N” subtypes, and they appear in scores of combinations. H1N1 and H3N2 are common causes of seasonal flu among humans. There are many versions seen in animals as well.

H5N1, the version that has worried some U.S. scientists lately, historically has been seen mainly in birds, but has in recent years has spread to a wide variety of mammals.

What is H5N2? H5N2 has long been seen in Mexican poultry, and farms vaccinate against it.

It’s also no stranger to the United States. An H5N2 outbreak hit a flock of 7,000 chickens in south-central Texas in 2004, the first time in two decades a dangerous-to-poultry avian flu appeared in the U.S.

H5N2 also was mainly responsible for a wave outbreaks at U.S. commercial poultry farms in 2014 and 2015.

How dangerous is H5N2? Over the years, H5N2 has teetered between being considered a mild threat to birds and a severe threat, but it hasn’t been considered much of a human threat at all.

A decade ago, researchers used mice and ferrets to study the strain afflicting U.S. poultry at the time, and concluded it was less likely to spread and less lethal than H5N1. Officials also said there was no evidence it was spreading among people.

Rare cases of animal infections are reported each year, so it’s not unexpected that a person was diagnosed with H5N2.

“If you’re a glass half full kind of person, you’d say, ‘This is the system doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: detecting and documenting these rare human infections, where years ago we were stumbling in the dark,'” said Matthew Ferrari, director of Penn State’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics.

Indeed, Mexico Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said kidney and respiratory failure — not the virus — actually caused the man’s death.

Some experts said it is noteworthy that it’s not known how he caught the man caught H5N2.

“The fact there was no reported contact (with an infected bird) does raise the possibility that he was infected by someone else who visited him, but it’s premature to jump to those conclusions,” said Richard Webby, a flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

What about other types of bird flu? At this point, H5N2 is still considered a minor threat compared to some of the other kinds of bird flu out there. Most human illnesses have been attributed to H7N9, H5N6 and H5N1 bird flu viruses.

From early 2013 through October 2017, five outbreaks of H7N9 were blamed for killing more than 600 people in China. And at least 18 people in China died during an outbreak of H5N6 in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

H5N1 was first identified in 1959, but didn’t really began to worry health officials until a Hong Kong outbreak in 1997 that involved severe human illnesses and deaths.

H5N1 cases have continued since then, the vast majority of them involving direct contact between people and infected animals. Globally, more than 460 human deaths have been identified since 2003, according to WHO statistics that suggest it can kill as many as half of the people reported to be infected.

Like other viruses, H5N1 as evolved over time, spawning newer versions of itself. In the last few years, the predominant version of the virus has spread quickly among a wide range of animals, but counts of human fatalities have slowed.
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seattle, washington — Retired Major General William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90. His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.

“The family is devastated,” Greg Anders said. “He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly.”

Anders said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, given the ecological and philosophical impact it had, along with making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked.

A report came in around 11:40 a.m. local time that an older-model plane had crashed into the water and had sunk near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said.

Only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 airplane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.

William Anders said in a 1997 NASA oral history interview that he didn’t think the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free but there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons for going ahead.

He estimated there was about a one-in-three chance that the crew wouldn’t make it back and the same chance the mission would be a success and the same chance that the mission wouldn’t start to begin with. He said he suspected Christopher Columbus sailed with worse odds.

He recounted how the Earth looked fragile and seemingly physically insignificant yet was home.

“We’d been going backwards and upside down, didn’t really see the Earth or the sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earthrise,” he said. “That certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing. To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape really contrasted.”

The National Transportation Safety Board and FAA are investigating the crash.
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White House — U.S. President Joe Biden is aiming to persuade leaders of the world’s seven richest economies on a plan that could potentially provide up to $50 billion in loans for Ukraine’s war effort by using interest from frozen Russian assets held in Western financial institutions.

The U.S. leader wants his G7 counterparts to endorse the plan at their upcoming summit in Apulia, Italy, set to kick off June 13. But before G7 partners can get on board, much of the scheme’s details must first be ironed out, a source familiar with Biden’s plan told VOA. If agreed upon, the loan could be disbursed as early as during the next few months.

Most of the approximately $280 billion Russian assets frozen by Western financial institutions following Moscow’s 2022 invasion are in Europe, the bulk of which are in Belgium, France and Germany.

In April, Biden signed legislation allowing Washington to seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian assets that had been immobilized in U.S. financial institutions.

Resisting pressure from the U.S. and Ukraine to seize the assets directly, EU officials in May agreed on a more restrained plan of using only the interest generated by these assets, an estimated $3 billion a year or more.

But the Biden administration is pushing for a more aggressive scheme. In simple terms, a loan of up to $50 billion will be issued up front to Ukraine by Western allies, which will be paid back using the assets’ interest income in the years to come.

If not the G7, the U.S. — possibly with other allies including Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and the EU — would issue the loan jointly and be entitled to a share of interest generated by the assets, the source said.

Details of the plan are unclear as intensive diplomacy continues to work out the legal and technical requirements. But G7 finance ministers broadly agreed to support the principles of the plan during their meeting in May.

The group’s discussions have focused on what can be done to unlock the value of Russians’ frozen assets for the benefit of the Ukrainian people, said U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo.

“They talked through a number of options that will allow us to make sure that Ukraine has access to the money you need to not only invest in the economy but to invest in defense,” Adeyemo told VOA. “And my expectation is that as we get to the leaders meeting, those leaders are going to endorse some of those options.”

The push is driven in part by the situation in the battlefield, where Moscow’s forces have made strategic advances north and north-east of Kharkiv, the second biggest city in Ukraine. Russia has also intensified attacks along the eastern front.

American taxpayers’ reluctance to fund the war is another driving factor. Although the U.S. Congress in April agreed on a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, Republican opposition had stalled its passage.

In his Friday meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on the sidelines of D-Day celebrations in France, Biden apologized to the Ukrainian president for “those weeks of not knowing what was going to pan — in terms of funding,” blaming “very conservative members who were holding it up.” He pledged to continue to support Zelenskyy’s war efforts.

But as other G7 countries face the same war funding fatigue among their constituents, Biden began working with allies and partners to make Russia pay instead of burdening taxpayers, in a way that maintains unity without crossing any country’s red lines, the source said.

While there is an overall agreement to give Ukraine as much as possible, as early as possible, there are challenging legal and regulatory implications of lending based upon the anticipated returns on frozen assets, said Kristine Berzina, managing director of Geostrategy North at the German Marshall Fund think tank.

“How do you lend against the anticipated profits of the assets, how does that fit into the existing sanctions regime, and how long will those assets truly be frozen?” she pointed out to VOA as the key issues at stake. “How can you guarantee that the sanctions which freeze these assets do not get changed by the Europeans before that 50 billion is provided?”

Moscow has threatened retaliation. In May, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that Russia will identify U.S. property, including securities, that could be used as compensation for losses sustained as a result of any seizure of frozen Russian assets in the U.S.

While some Western countries may be concerned by the threat, others are worried about the precedent of using frozen assets under international law.

Biden will seek to allay those fears when he meets with G7 leaders next week. He faces many challenges, including the European Parliament this weekend, where hundreds of millions of voters from 27 nations could help decide on the continent’s struggle between unity and nationalism, as well as determine the fate of European support for Ukraine.

VOA’s Oksana Bedratenko contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Middle East next week, the U.S. State Department said on Friday, as Washington tries to put pressure on Israel and Hamas to accept a cease-fire proposal that President Joe Biden laid out last week. 

In his eighth visit to the region since Hamas militants staged a terror attack in Israel on October 7, triggering the latest flare-up in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the top U.S. diplomat will visit Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Qatar and meet with their senior leaders. 

Blinken’s visit comes after Biden laid out a fresh cease-fire plan to end the 8-month-long war and at a time when tensions between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have escalated in recent days, with both sides signaling a readiness for a bigger confrontation. 

“The Secretary will discuss how the ceasefire proposal would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians,” the State Department said in a statement. “He will underscore that it would alleviate suffering in Gaza, enable a massive surge in humanitarian assistance and allow Palestinians to return to their neighborhoods.” 

Talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and others to arrange a cease-fire between Israel and the militant Hamas movement in the Gaza war have repeatedly stalled, with each side blaming the other for the lack of progress. 

The cease-fire, the State Department said, would also unlock the possibility of achieving calm along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and set conditions for further integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors. 

“The Secretary will also continue to reiterate the need to prevent the conflict from escalating further,” it added. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel was prepared for strong action in the north. He warned in December that Beirut would be turned “into Gaza” if Hezbollah started an all-out war. 

The Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas-led Palestinian fighters attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people, and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. 

Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has left the territory in ruins, led to widespread starvation, and killed more than 36,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. 

While in Jordan, Blinken will attend a conference on humanitarian response to Gaza, the department said. 
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Immigrants make up almost 14% of US population
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