Some U.S. voters were waiting for a third political party to announce its presidential ticket before they decided on the Democratic or Republican nominee. VOA Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti tells us what they will do now that the No Labels group dropped plans to post a unity ticket. Camera:  Adam Greenbaum
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PENTAGON — Russian microchip company AO PKK Milandr continued to provide microchips to the Russian armed forces at least several months after Russia invaded Ukraine, despite public denials by company director Alexey Novoselov of any connection with Russia’s military.

A formal letter obtained by VOA dated February 10, 2023, shows a sale request for 4,080 military grade microchips for the Russian military. The sale request was addressed from a deputy commander of the 546 military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the commercial director of Russian manufacturer NPO Poisk to Milandr CEO S.V. Tarasenko for delivery by April 2023, more than a year into the war.

The letter instructs Milandr to provide three types of microchip components to NPO Poisk, a well-established Russian defense manufacturer that makes detonators for weapons used by the Russian Armed Forces.

“Each of these three circuits that you have in the table on the document, each one of them is classed as a military-grade component … and each of these is manufactured specifically by Milandr,” said Denys Karlovskyi, a research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. VOA shared the document with him to confirm its authenticity.

In addition to Milandr CEO Tarasenko, the letter is addressed to a commander of the Russian Defense Ministry’s 514 military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense named I.A. Shvid.

Karlovskyi says this inclusion shows that Milandr, like Poisk, appears to have a Russian commander from the Defense Ministry’s oversight unit assigned to it — a clear indicator that a company is part of Russia’s defense industry.

Milandr, headquartered near Moscow in an area known as “Soviet Silicon Valley,” was sanctioned by the United States in November 2022, for its illegal procurement of microelectronic components using front companies.

In the statement announcing the 2022 sanctions against Milandr and more than three dozen other entities and individuals, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, “The United States will continue to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s military supply chains and deny Russia the equipment and technology it needs to wage its illegal war against Ukraine.”

Karlovskyi said that in Russia’s database of public contracts, Milandr is listed in more than 500 contracts, supplying numerous state-owned and military-grade enterprises, including Ural Optical Mechanical Plant, Concern Avtomatika and Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant, or IEMZ Kupol, which also have been sanctioned by the United States.

“It clearly suggests that this entity is a crucial node in Russia’s military supply chain,” Karlovskyi told VOA.

Novoselov, Milandr’s current director, told Bloomberg News last August that he was not aware of any connections to the Russian military.

“I don’t know any military persons who would be interested in our product,” he told Bloomberg in a phone interview, adding that the company mostly produces electric power meters.

The U.S. allegations are “like a fantasy,” he said. “The United States’ State Department, they suppose that every electronics business in Russia is focused on the military. I think that is funny.”

But a U.S. defense official told VOA that helping Russia’s military kill tens of thousands of people in an illegal invasion “is no laughing matter.”

“The company is fueling microchips for missiles and heavily armored vehicles that are used to continue the war in Ukraine,” said the defense official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivities of discussing U.S. intelligence.

Milandr’s co-founder Mikhail Pavlyuk was also sanctioned during the summer of 2022 for his involvement in microchip smuggling operations and was caught stealing from Milandr. Pavlyuk fled Russia and has claimed he was not involved.

Officials estimate that 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed or injured in the war, with tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed in the fighting.

“There are consequences to their actions, and the U.S. will persist to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s supply chain,” the U.S. defense official said.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The United States and China have agreed to hold talks and create two economic groups focused on a wide range of issues — including addressing American complaints about China’s economic model, growth in domestic and global economies and efforts against money laundering — according to a statement released Saturday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The agreement comes on the second day of an official visit to China by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during which she has urged Chinese leaders to change their domestic manufacturing policies.

The two sides are set to hold “intensive exchanges” on cultivating more balanced economic growth and combating money laundering.

Yellen said the efforts would establish a structure for Beijing and Washington to exchange views and address Chinese industrial overcapacity, its ability to supply more product than is demanded.

“I think the Chinese realize how concerned we are about the implications of their industrial strategy for the United States, for the potential to flood our markets with exports that make it difficult for American firms to compete,” she told journalists after the announcement Saturday.

Yellen was en route to Beijing after beginning her five-day visit in the southern city of Guangzhou, which is a key manufacturing and export center for China.

While the issue of China’s industrial overcapacity will not be resolved instantly, Yellen said Chinese officials understand it’s an “important issue” for Americans, adding that her exchanges with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will facilitate a discussion around macroeconomic imbalances and their connection to overcapacity.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported Chinese officials “comprehensively responded” to the issue of industrial overcapacity raised by the Americans. “Both sides agreed to continue to maintain communication,” an official readout said.

The announcement came a day after Yellen urged Beijing to reform its trade practices and create “a healthy economic relationship” with the U.S. It also follows Chinese state media’s warning that Washington may consider rolling out more protectionist policies to shield U.S. companies.”

Some analysts say the announcement reflects Yellen’s effort to push forward on collaboration in areas the U.S. and China agreed on during U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s San Francisco summit last November.

“When Xi met Biden in November, they agreed to set up working groups, so Yellen is continuing to push that forward with the meeting,” Dexter Roberts, director of China affairs at the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center, told VOA by phone.

While he called the announcement a positive development, Roberts said he does not think Beijing and Washington will reach agreement on contentious trade issues during Yellen’s trip.

“There could be temporary things like China easing off on subsidizing electric vehicles a bit, but it’s unclear how either side is going to change what’s happening in a way that allows the tension over trade to lessen,” he said.

Beijing’s displeasure

While Washington highlighted threats posed by China’s industrial overcapacity, Beijing focused on its concerns about U.S. export controls on Chinese companies during the meeting between Yellen and He.

“The Chinese side expressed serious concerns over Washington’s restrictive economic and trade measures against China,” read the Chinese readout published by Xinhua.

Some experts say the United States and China could make progress on U.S. export restrictions on Chinese companies.

“Some U.S. businesses are calling for the government to remove some of the export restrictions, especially for chips [integrated circuits],” Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California in San Diego, told VOA by phone.

Since China is either already making, or is on the cusp of making, some of the computer chips on the sanctions list, Shih said he thinks restricting U.S. companies from selling some of the chips to China will only hurt American interests. “It’s really not hurting China that much,” he said.

In addition to U.S. controls on exports to Chinese entities, Shih said the other big topic Chinese officials are likely to raise in meetings with Yellen is potential tariffs Washington may impose on Chinese products.

“Since China is the largest exporter in the world, it’s not in its interest for there to be a lot of tariffs around the world, especially for major importers like the U.S.,” he said, adding that talking to Washington about lowering tariffs and not enacting new ones will be an important agenda item for Beijing.

While she has not explicitly promised to impose new sanctions on Chinese products, Yellen said she would not rule out the possibility of adopting more measures to safeguard the American supply chain for electric vehicles, batteries or solar panels from heavily subsidized Chinese green energy products.

During a phone call Tuesday with Biden, Xi warned that if the United States is “adamant on containing China’s high-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development, China is not going to sit back and watch.”

Bilateral communication

Despite persistent differences over contentious trade issues, Yellen and He underscored the importance for China and the U.S. to “properly respond to key concerns of the other side” to build a more cooperative economic relationship.

“It also remains crucial for the two largest economies to seek progress on global challenges like climate change and debt distress in emerging markets in developing countries, and to closely communicate on issues of concern such as overcapacity and national security-related economic actions,” Yellen said Friday.

Based on Yellen and He’s comments and signals from the Biden-Xi call Tuesday, some analysts say the U.S. and China will continue to put guard rails around the bilateral relationship to prevent it from further deteriorating.

“The two sides have come to the realization that they will have to live together, perhaps uncomfortably at times,” said Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University.

While the relationship will remain highly competitive, Zhu said he thinks Beijing and Washington will “stay engaged and seek cooperation in areas of common interest.”

“Maintaining stability is the priority for both Xi and Biden now,” he said.

Yellen is scheduled to have meetings with other senior officials Sunday and Monday in Beijing.
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PHILADELPHIA — He surveyed the Arizona crowd that had paid to catch a wrestling glimpse of the planet’s mightiest heavyweight, as measured in both box-office heft and ink-stained muscles. Then The Rock let the abuse fly. And as with so many public outbursts these days, attacking his opponents wasn’t enough. He had to insult the people, too.

“The Rock did a little bit of research, and here’s what he found out. This is the truth. This is a fact. The No. 1 city in America for cocaine and meth use is Phoenix, Arizona,” The Rock said to a roaring crowd that seemed to revel in the insults. Then and only then did he lay the smack down on his WrestleMania opponents.

Were The Rock’s assertions true? Or just an engine for vigorous trash talk? Most importantly: Does anyone really care, as long as the entertainment value is cranked to 11 and WWE churns out more fans to watch and fork over cash for its signature spectacle, WrestleMania, unfolding in Philadelphia this weekend?

Along the murky lines that intertwine sports, entertainment and, yes, politics, the ethos of being bad has never been so good. Say what you want. Do you want. The public eats it up. And for decades, somehow, the garish world of professional wrestling has sat smack in the middle of it all.

Outside the ring, the Superman spandex traded for Clark Kent glasses and a leather jacket, Dwayne Johnson crafts his good-guy image to plug his movies, his tequila label, his men’s care line, his football league — business interests where the bottom line doesn’t require calling the competition a bunch of “roody-poo candy-asses.” But under the house lights each week on live TV, Johnson knows storylines are sold on his Hollywood heel persona.

“I feel like everybody wants to be the good guy, the good girl. Everyone wants to be loved and cheered and considered the hero, which is great and it’s natural,” he says. “But, I have felt in my career, the rare air is when you have the opportunity to grab it by the throat, you don’t let it go. And that’s the opportunity to be a great bad guy.”

Wrestlemania and its cultural pull

The Rock is set to headline one of two nights of the annual WrestleMania event this weekend in Philadelphia, where more than 70,000 fans each night are expected to pack the NFL stadium that is home to the Eagles.

Banners of your favorite wrestlers, or the ones you love to hate, have smothered city street poles. Philly has been overrun by wrestling conventions, autograph signings, independent wrestling shows, podcast tapings, a 2K24 gaming tournament and all the other trappings that have turned the industry into a mainstream cultural phenomenon.

From the start, WrestleMania was born to be different.

Mr. T and Muhammad Ali helped pack Madison Square Garden in 1985, and “The Showcase of the Immortals” quickly turned a night of wrestling usually reserved for smoky arenas into the Super Bowl of entertainment. As WrestleMania approaches 40, it’s never been bigger — even with brainchild Vince McMahon a pariah and ousted from the company in the wake of a sex abuse lawsuit.

Yes, McMahon and Donald Trump even tangled at WrestleMania in 2007 in a “Battle of the Billionaires” match.

“Donald Trump, to a certain extent, represents a great deal of Americana,” McMahon said in 2007. “He’s larger than life, which really fits into what the WWE is.”

Maybe wrestling really does represent who we are as a nation. But even if you still scrunch your nose like you took a whiff of curdled milk over the very idea that anyone would like this flavor of wrestling, odds are you’ve still heard of The Rock and Hulk Hogan. Andre the Giant and John Cena. You’ve snapped into a Slim Jim because Randy Savage ordered you to, or let out a “Woooo!” at a hockey game like Ric Flair. Dave Bautista won a WrestleMania championship before he ever guarded the galaxy.

“Look at the way it was marketed in the 80s, when Vince McMahon really changed the whole industry forever,” said author Brad Balukjian, whose new book is on 1980s WrestleMania stars. “He’s got the action figures, he’s got the cartoon and the bedsheets and the lunch boxes. He turned these guys into the Batmans and the Marvel Cinematic Universe of the 80s, in a way.”

Revel in the universally accepted fakery

Fans have long been in on the con — and embraced it. It’s a mutual agreement forged for even paying customers to play their own roles in the four-sided ring performance. So they cheer. They boo. And despite all evidence to the contrary, they openly accept that each move is as legitimate a sporting action as anything found in a weeknight ballgame.

Wrestling pretended for so long to be on the up-and-up. Comedian Andy Kaufman drew gasps when he was slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler on Late Night with David Letterman. But the curtain was yanked open long ago. On Wednesday, Johnson and WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns appeared on the The Tonight Show without any manufactured theatrics on their final hype job ahead of WrestleMania.

Former WWE star Dave Schultz slapped a 20/20 reporter in the 1980s for calling wrestling fake. Now ESPN, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports have dedicated pages that report on both storylines and behind-the-scenes news, where the real drama is more likely found. Wrestling news is treated as seriously as any other sport’s.

But is it? A sport, that is.

Debate the definition all you want. Wrestling — a precursor to reality TV and all the Real Housewives — isn’t going anywhere. And its biggest fans are often the athletes who want to emulate the super-sized stars.

This week, Joel Embiid was about to divulge that he suffered from depression during an injury that cost him two months of his NBA career. But before the Philadelphia 76ers big man unburdened himself, he pulled on a WWE T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan of the wrestling company’s most boorish faction, Degeneration X: “Suck It.”

For pro wrestling, momentum is at hand. WWE’s weekly television show Raw will move to Netflix next year as part of a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion. That’s some serious cash that even the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase would envy.

So go ahead. Sneer at wrestling. Or let go, turn a blind eye to the subterfuge and embrace Hulkamania and the frenzy that followed as a staple of the global sports landscape. Because it’s not leaving the building anytime soon.

Consider John Kruk, retired Phillies star and team broadcaster. You’d think that the pinnacle moment of baseball each year would be a must-see for him. But if pro wrestling is coming to town, as he told wrestler Kofi Kingston on TV recently, other priorities prevail.

“If it was a World Series game, if the Phillies aren’t participating, and wrestling was on,” Kruk said, “I’m watching wrestling.”
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washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is on a five-day visit to China, where she expressed concern to Chinese officials Friday about state subsidies that fuel manufacturing overcapacity in industries such as electric vehicles, solar panels and semiconductors.

U.S. officials and economists have warned that China’s overcapacity — when its production ability significantly exceeds what is needed in markets — will further drive down prices and cost jobs, especially if China seeks to offload excess production through exports instead of domestic consumption.

U.S. President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping Tuesday, said China’s “unfair” trade policies and “non-market” practices harm the interests of American workers and families.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave reporters at a regular briefing Wednesday a rundown of the conversation the two leaders had on trade, according to Beijing. He said “the U.S. has adopted a string of measures to suppress China’s trade and technology development and is adding more and more Chinese entities to its sanctions lists. This is not ‘de-risking,’ but creating risks.”

So, when is an industry at overcapacity?

Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that for capital-intensive industries such as steel, oil refining and semiconductors, when capacity utilization is below 75% for an extended period of time, most observers would label that excess capacity.

Hufbauer told VOA that China’s massive government-stimulated and bank-financed investment has resulted in almost all the country’s capital-intensive manufacturing industries having overcapacity.

“If China does pursue a massive export ‘solution,’ that will hurt manufacturing firms in Japan, the E.U., Korea and other industrial countries. But low prices will be welcome in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia,” he said.

A report last week by the New York-based Rhodium Group, which researches the Chinese market, shows that the utilization rate of China’s silicon wafer capacity dropped from 78% in 2019 to 57% in 2022. In 2022, China’s lithium-ion battery production reached 1.9 times the domestic installation volume, showing that the problem of overcapacity in clean energy fields is emerging.

China’s exports of electric vehicles, solar cells and lithium batteries have increased even more significantly. Data shows that in 2023, China’s electric vehicle export volume was seven times that of 2019, while its solar cell export volume in 2023 was five times that of 2018, an increase of 40% from 2022.

The report notes that while temporary overcapacity may be harmless and a normal part of the market cycle, it becomes a problem when it is perpetuated by government intervention.

The Rhodium Group’s report says that China’s National People’s Congress in March focused on industrial policies that benefit high-tech industries, while there is little financial support for household consumption.

“This policy mix will compound the growing imbalance between domestic supply and demand,” says the report. “Systemic bias toward supporting producers rather than households or consumers allows Chinese firms to ramp up production despite low margins, without the fear of bankruptcy that constrains firms in market economies.”

Overcapacity a decade ago

China’s structural overcapacity problem is not a new phenomenon. Rhodium Group’s report says the last time China had large overcapacity issues was from 2014 to 2016, a few years after the government launched a massive stimulus package in response to the global financial crisis that began in 2008. The stimulus package centered on infrastructure and real estate construction, triggering major capacity build-up in a range of associated industries.

In 2014, as the demand for real estate and infrastructure construction weakened, there was obvious overcapacity in heavy industrial products such as steel and aluminum.

“Ultimately, China’s excess capacity is due to state interference in the market,” said Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Genuinely private participants can’t sustain excess capacity for long because it causes losses. But state support for production of some goods and services, called “strategic” or something like that, enables companies to survive despite these losses.”

Scissors said China’s overcapacity in the new energy sectors of electric vehicles, solar panels and batteries concerns the Biden administration as it wants to expand those sectors in the U.S.

“The U.S. has raised concerns about Chinese overproduction for years,” he told VOA. “What’s changed is there is now emerging American industrial policy clashing with long-standing and widespread Chinese industrial policy.”

The Rhodium Group’s report says China’s surge in exports of new energy products over the past few years could be devastating for market-constrained producers in advanced economies such as the U.S.

Beijing’s policy planning will exacerbate the growing imbalance between domestic supply and demand, it reads, putting China on the road to trade confrontation with the rest of the world.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on China Friday to address its industrial overcapacity, reform its trade practices and create a “healthy economic relationship” with the United States.

“The United States seeks a healthy economic relationship with China that benefits both sides,” Yellen said in remarks in the industrial southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. “But a healthy relationship must provide a level playing field for firms and workers in both countries.”

Yellen also met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and other high-level central bank officials Friday. During the meeting, Yellen told Chinese officials that their industrial overcapacity, particularly in green energy sectors, threaten American production of electric vehicles and solar panel parts.

China has supported its solar panel and EV makers through subsidies, building production capacity far beyond the domestic market’s demand and exporting its products globally. Although this production has massively cheapened prices for these green products — crucial in efforts to fight climate change — American and European governments worry that Chinese products will flood the market and put their own domestic production at risk.

During a meeting Friday with Guangdong province Governor Wang Weizhong, Yellen said the U.S. and China must communicate regarding areas of disagreement, including green industrial policy.

“This includes the issue of China’s industrial overcapacity, which the United States and other countries are concerned can cause global spillovers,” she said.

China has sought to downplay these concerns, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin noting earlier this week that China’s green production is a positive in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Wang said U.S. reluctance to export technology to China, a policy related to U.S. fears of industrial overcapacity, meddles with global supply and demand.

“As for who is doing nonmarket manipulation, the fact is for everyone to see,” he said. “The U.S. has not stopped taking measures to contain China’s trade and technology. This is not ‘de-risking,’ rather, it is creating risks.”

Beyond addressing overcapacity, Yellen also expressed concerns about Chinese trade practices.

Yellen said China has pursued “unfair economic practices, including imposing barriers to access for foreign firms and taking coercive actions against American companies.”

She urged Chinese officials to reform these policies.

“I strongly believe that this doesn’t only hurt these American firms,” Yellen said in a speech at an event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Guangzhou. “Ending these unfair practices would benefit China by improving the business climate here.”

Yellen’s visit to China, her second, marks the first visit by a senior U.S. official to China since November meetings between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Both He and Yellen said the U.S. and China need to, in He’s words, “properly respond to key concerns of the other side” to form a more cooperative economic relationship.

Yellen said, “It also remains crucial for the two largest economies to seek progress on global challenges like climate change and debt distress in emerging markets in developing countries and to closely communicate on issues of concern such as overcapacity and national security-related economic actions.”

She added that U.S. efforts to push Chinese policies are geared toward reducing global risk.

“This is not anti-China policy,” she said. “It’s an effort for us to mitigate the risks from the inevitable global economic dislocation that will result if China doesn’t adjust its policies.”
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pentagon — U.S. and Chinese defense officials met this week for the first time in nearly two years to talk about unsafe and aggressive incidents between the two militaries’ ships and aircraft in the Pacific region.

The talks, which ran from Wednesday through Thursday in Hawaii, mark the restart of a dialogue Beijing abruptly ended following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own.

Chinese officials have criticized U.S. support for Taiwan as interference.

U.S. officials said the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) working group reviewed safety-related events over the last few years and discussed ways to sustain operational safety and professionalism between China and the United States.

“We’ve observed a reduction in unsafe behavior between us and PLA [People’s Liberation Army] aircraft and vessels over the last several months, so we’re encouraged by that,” one U.S. official told reporters on the condition of anonymity because they lacked authorization to discuss the meetings before their conclusion.

“The United States will continue to operate safely and professionally in the Indo-Pacific wherever international law allows, and we take this responsibility seriously. Open, direct and clear communications with the PLA — and with all other military forces in the region — is of utmost importance to avoid accidents and miscommunication,” the head of the U.S. delegation, Army Colonel Ian Francis, said in a press release.

Last November U.S. President Joe Biden met with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. The first senior military-to-military contact since Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was made about a month later, when the top U.S. military officer, General CQ Brown, spoke with his Chinese counterpart in a video call.

Officials said this week’s meetings included about 18 senior officials from each side. 

Beijing has asserted its desire to control access to the South China Sea and bring Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary. Biden has said U.S. troops would defend the democratic island from attack.

Following Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022, China’s military has surged aggressive actions around the island — repeatedly crossing the median line in the Taiwan Strait with its warships and aircraft — and firing missiles both over Taiwan and into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific affairs, testified in October 2023 that there had been more than 180 reckless intercepts of U.S. military aircraft by Chinese aircraft in the past two years, more intercepts than U.S. officials had seen in the entire decade before that.

“And when you take into account cases of coercive and risky PLA intercepts against other states, the number increases to nearly 300 cases against U.S., allied and partner aircraft over the last two years,” Ratner said.

In one of the instances, a Chinese pilot flew within 3 meters (9.8 feet) of a U.S. Air Force B-52 in international airspace over the South China Sea.
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WASHINGTON — More than 68,000 illegally trafficked firearms in the United States over a five-year period came through unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks, according to new data released Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

That represents 54% of the illegally trafficked firearms in the U.S. between 2017 and 2021, Justice Department officials said. The guns were used in 368 shooting cases, which are harder to investigate because unlicensed dealers aren’t required to keep records of their sales that could allow federal agents to trace the weapon back to the original buyer, said ATF Director Steve Dettelbach. 

The report, ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is the first in-depth analysis of firearm trafficking investigations in more than 20 years. It examined more than 9,700 closed ATF firearm trafficking investigations that began between 2017 and 2021. Firearms trafficking is when guns are purposely moved into the illegal market for a criminal purpose or possession. 

The second-highest share of firearm-trafficking cases investigated by ATF was from straw purchases, when someone buys a gun for a person who can’t get it legally themselves. 

The report also shows that the recipients of trafficked firearms were people who had previously been convicted of a felony in almost 60% of the cases in which investigators were able to identify the background of the recipient. Furthermore, trafficked firearms were used to commit additional crimes in almost 25% of the cases, Dettelbach said. That includes more than 260 murders and more than 220 attempted murders, according to the report. 

“The data shows, therefore, that those who illegally traffic firearms, whether it’s out of a trunk, at a gun show or online, are responsible for real violence in this nation,” Dettelbach said. “In short, you can’t illegally help to arm violent people and not be responsible for the violence that follows.” 

The report found the average number of guns trafficked per case was 16. People who got them through unlicensed dealers bought 20 weapons on average, compared with 11 guns for straw buyers, according to the report. 

The Biden administration has separately proposed a rule that would require thousands more gun sellers to be licensed and run background checks. The Justice Department says it’s aimed at sellers who are in the business of firearm sales, but the proposal quickly drew protest from gun-rights groups who contend it could ensnare regular people who sometimes sell their own guns. 

The rule, which has not yet been finalized, is estimated to affect 24,500 to 328,000 sellers. During the five years documented in the report, 3,400 unlicensed dealers were investigated by the ATF. 
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WASHINGTON — America’s employers delivered another outpouring of jobs in March, adding a sizzling 303,000 workers to their payrolls and bolstering hopes that the economy can vanquish inflation without succumbing to a recession in the face of high interest rates. 

Last month’s job growth was up from a revised 270,000 in February and was far above the 200,000 economists had forecast. By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring, and it reflected the economy’s ability to withstand the pressure of high borrowing costs resulting from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. With the nation’s consumers continuing to spend, many employers have kept hiring to meet steady customer demand. 

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate dipped to 3.8% from 3.9% in February. That rate has now come in below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. 

Normally, a blockbuster bounty of new jobs would fan worries that the additional spending from those new workers could accelerate inflation. But the March jobs report showed that wage growth was mild last month, which might allay any such fears. Average hourly wages were up 4.1% from a year earlier, the smallest year-over-year increase since mid-2021. But hourly pay rose 0.3% from February to March after increasing 0.2% the month before. 

The economy is sure to weigh on Americans’ minds as the November presidential vote nears and they assess President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Many people still feel squeezed by the inflation surge that erupted in the spring of 2021. Eleven rate increases by the Fed have helped send inflation tumbling from its peak over the past year and a half. But average prices are still about 18% higher than they were in February 2021 — a fact for which Biden might pay a political price. 

The Fed’s policymakers are tracking the state of the economy, the job market and inflation to determine when to begin cutting interest rates from their multidecade highs — a move eagerly awaited by Wall Street traders, businesses, homebuyers and people in need of cars, household appliances and other major purchases that are typically financed. Rate cuts by the Fed would likely lead, over time, to lower borrowing rates across the economy. 

The central bank’s policymakers started raising rates two years ago to try to tame inflation, which by mid-2022 was running at a four-decade high. Those rate hikes — 11 of them from March 2022 through July 2023 — helped drastically slow inflation. Consumer prices were up 3.2% in February from a year earlier, far below a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022. 

Yet the sharply higher borrowing costs for individuals and companies that resulted from the Fed’s rate hikes were widely expected to trigger a recession, with waves of layoffs and a painful rise in unemployment. Yet to the surprise of just about everyone, the economy has kept growing steadily and employers have kept hiring at a healthy pace. Layoffs remain low. 

Some economists believe that a rise in productivity — the amount of output that workers produce per hour — made it easier for companies to hire, raise pay and post bigger profits without having to raise prices. In addition, an influx of immigrants into the job market is believed to have addressed labor shortages and slowed upward pressure on wage growth. This helped allow inflation to cool even as the economy kept growing. 

In the meantime, the Fed has signaled that it expects to cut rates three times this year. But it is awaiting more inflation data to gain further confidence that annual price increases are heading toward its 2% target. Some economists have begun to question whether the Fed will need to cut rates anytime soon considering the consistently durable U.S. economy.
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Washington — The publisher of a small Kansas newspaper that police raided in August is suing officials involved in the act, accusing them of violating the newspaper’s First Amendment rights.

When police in Marion, Kansas, raided the newsroom of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher, Eric Meyer, the move was met with widespread condemnation from press freedom groups.

Meyer said he wanted to file the lawsuit because the raid on his weekly newspaper has major implications for press freedom across the United States.

“We’re the plaintiffs in this, but really, the plaintiff is American democracy,” Meyer told VOA. “They’re trying to silence criticism — silence anything other than the voice they want to hear. And we just can’t let that stand. We wouldn’t be doing our duty as Americans.”

During the August 11 raid, security footage showed police seizing computers, cell phones, hard drives and other devices from the newsroom. And in the Meyer household, footage reveals Eric’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, co-owner of the newspaper, confronting police during the raid on their home.

The lawsuit, which Meyer filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Kansas, also alleges that the stress of the raid caused his mother’s death the day after.

After the raid, Joan “repeatedly told her son that her entire life was meaningless if this is what Marion had become,” the lawsuit said.

The nearly 130-page lawsuit, which Meyer said took some time to put together, is the fourth filed by current and former newspaper staffers over the incident.

Police defended the raid, saying they were responding to an identity theft complaint.

Meyer disagrees.

“This was an attempt by people to weaponize the criminal justice system for personal gains,” he said.

The newspaper was investigating the police chief who led the raid. Gideon Cody eventually resigned in October after body camera footage revealed him rifling through files about himself.

“It’s clear as anything that we didn’t do anything wrong,” said Meyer, who estimates the case won’t be resolved until 2026.  
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washington — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has suggested that the U.S.-U.K.-Australia trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS may soon be expanded to include other Indo-Pacific nations.

AUKUS was established in 2021 in the face of China’s increasingly assertive presence in the Indo-Pacific. Talks about other countries joining the group or participating in what is called Pillar 2 have been circulating for more than a year.

“It was always believed when AUKUS was launched that, at some point, we would welcome new countries to participate, particularly in Pillar 2,” Campbell said while speaking Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

The first pillar of AUKUS was to provide Australia with a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, and the second pillar is to collaborate on advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, advanced network capabilities, hypersonic capabilities, electronic warfare and underwater capabilities.

Campbell added that other countries have expressed interest in participating in AUKUS when the time was right.

“I think you’ll hear that we have something to say about that next week,” he said.

Trilateral summit next

Next week, U.S. President Joe Biden will host a trilateral summit with Japan and the Philippines. Biden will also have a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Campbell said the summit with Japan is expected to “historically” upgrade security cooperation relations, including the joint development of defense supplies.

According to Nikkei Asia, Campbell revealed on March 21 that the U.S.-Japan talks are expected to discuss technical cooperation between Japan and AUKUS.

According to the report, Campbell said Japan had made it “very clear” that it had no interest in participating in the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project. But, he said, “there are clearly areas that Japan could bring substantial capacity to bear in security and technological pursuits that advance common goals in the Indo-Pacific.”

Campbell told Nikkei Asia that those areas include advanced robotics, cyber initiatives and some work in anti-submarine warfare.

At Wednesday’s event, Campbell noted that several countries in the Indo-Pacific region are undertaking critical research and development in areas Pillar 2 focuses on, including hypersonic capabilities, long-range strikes, undersea capabilities and cyber.

AUKUS to JAUKUS?

As China’s provocative actions have escalated in recent years, AUKUS has begun to set its sights on more countries.

During a “2+2” meeting between Japan and Australia in December 2022, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said that AUKUS could involve Japan.

In August 2023, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons stated that AUKUS should invite Japan and South Korea to join.

Last November, former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso suggested during a visit to Australia that Japan join the group, which could be named JAUKUS. He said that would help send a unified signal on the Taiwan issue.

Australia and New Zealand also raised the possibility of New Zealand joining the second pillar of AUKUS after a ministerial meeting between the two countries in February.

Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, said the second pillar of AUKUS could draw on the strengths of Japan, New Zealand, Canada and even South Korea, but not necessarily as full members.

“Rather than bringing in these states as full AUKUS members, it’s better to bring them in on a project-by-project basis within pillar two areas of priority — for example, robotics and A.I., autonomous systems, advanced undersea warfare, electronic warfare, quantum technologies, and hypersonics,” Davis told VOA via email.

“It also opens up opportunities to add in some new priority areas — for example, space-related areas, where these states can make a great contribution.”

Bronte Munro, an analyst in the ASPI office in Washington, told VOA that Japan is an increasingly suitable candidate for joining AUKUS, noting major changes in its defense policy in response to the perceived Chinese threat. These include amendments to laws prohibiting the export of lethal weapons.

Munro said Japan’s manufacturing of advance semiconductors is critical for technology leadership, and the inclusion of Japan can help “secure semiconductor supply chains more explicitly for AUKUS partners.”

However, there are doubts in some circles about the wisdom of expanding AUKUS in view of the risks involved in sharing and transferring advanced technologies.

Andrew Hastie, the shadow defense minister of the Australian opposition party, told the U.S. media outlet Breaking Defense on March 28 that AUKUS’ focus should remain with the three countries already involved to ensure a seamless “transfer of the very sensitive secrets and intellectual property that’s involved with the heart of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2.”

When asked at the CNAS event whether Japan has established a security architecture to integrate into the second pillar of AUKUS, Campbell pointed out that the U.S. has been involved in “a series of engagements with Japan both on the intelligence side and in security spheres to encourage Japan to take on increasingly more strenuous activities that protect their intellectual property, that hold government officials accountable for the secrets they are trusted with.”

“It’s fair to say that Japan has taken some of those steps, but not all of them,” he said. “And we believe that ultimately, it is in our interest to share as much information and other technologies … with close partners like Japan to allow for a deeper, more fundamental alliance,” said Campbell.

He announced that “One of the things that I think you’ll see next week are steps, for the first time, that will allow the United States and Japan to work more collaboratively on joint development and potentially co-production of vital military and defense equipment.

“The U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of our engagement in the Indo-Pacific.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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washington — Planning is already underway for three-nation naval patrols in the South China Sea ahead of a high-profile summit next week among the leaders of the United States, Japan and the Philippines, senior officials have said.

Philippine ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez was quoted by the Financial Times on Wednesday saying that Washington, Tokyo and Manila are finalizing details of an agreement on the patrols, including when to begin and how often they will take place.

The U.S. and the Philippines have conducted joint patrols in the past, but this will be the first time Japan has participated. Both Japan and the Philippines are treaty allies of the United States.

Asked about the plan, Pentagon spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners told VOA’s Korean Service via email this week that the U.S. has been concerned about “dangerous and destabilizing” actions in the region and is “committed to maintaining deterrence, peace, and stability” with its allies and partners.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the April 11 summit will be an occasion for “an unprecedented trilateral engagement” among the three countries that will lead to closer cooperation in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

He made the remark Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

A senior U.S. official said the three leaders will discuss what was described as China’s “increasingly risky behavior” in the South China Sea.

“We are increasingly concerned that the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] behavior in this space could lead us closer to really, unintended consequences,” the official said at a background White House press briefing this week.

“U.S. alliances and partnerships are not about China. … But oftentimes, Chinese action motivates a lot — much of what we talk about,” continued the official.

The most recent flare-up came on March 26 when the Chinese Coast Guard used water cannon to prevent a Philippine vessel from conducting a resupply mission to an outpost on a reef in waters within Manila’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

 
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told his Philippine counterpart Eduardo Año on Monday that the U.S. supports the Philippines against China’s “dangerous actions on March 26 obstructing a lawful Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal.”

Manila claims the shoal in the Spratly Islands as its own territory and has been keeping the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era navy transport ship, grounded on the reef since late 1999.

Patrick Cronin, the Hudson Institute’s Asia-Pacific Security Chair, told VOA via email on Tuesday that the trilateral maritime patrols can provide “both a level of deterrence and a way of blocking Beijing’s efforts to create de facto control over disputed waters and some areas that clearly belong to the Philippines.”

He continued, “China will not desist from its ‘sovereignty enforcement’ efforts, use of white hulls and maritime militia to impose its domestic law on international waters, but it may have to shelve staking further claims in the face of concerted opposition from the three democracies.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA via email on Wednesday that “the military cooperation between the relevant countries must not interfere in South China Sea disputes,” and called for the three allies to avoid actions that would “harm China’s territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and interests and security interests.”

Liu continued, “The South China Sea issue is a matter between China and some ASEAN countries.”

Among ASEAN member states, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei are official claimants against China, whose claims to virtually all of the resource-rich waters have been rejected by an international tribunal.

 
Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the weekly ASEAN Wonk newsletter, told VOA on Tuesday, that “more patrols by more countries is one of many ways to reinforce presence and prevent the nightmare scenario of the South China Sea becoming a Chinese lake.”

He continued, “In addition to alliance networking, the United States and its partners will have to find ways to work with Southeast Asian states which are not formal allies but are nonetheless critical in addressing China’s assertiveness as well.”
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WASHINGTON — Migrant children who wait in makeshift camps along the U.S.-Mexico border for Customs and Border Protection officers to process them are in the agency’s custody and are subject to a long-standing court-supervised agreement that set standards for their treatment, a judge ruled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas launched the statehood application in 2011. It was not considered by the Security Council, but the General Assembly the following year granted observer status to the “State of Palestine.” 
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