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washington — China has quietly resumed cooperation with the United States on the repatriation of Chinese migrants illegally stranded in the U.S., The Associated Press reported Thursday.

The U.S.-China repatriation cooperation resumes amid the influx of Chinese migrants across the southern border of the United States.

China halted the cooperation in August 2022 as part of retaliation over the visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Beijing considers the self-ruled island a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland — by force if necessary — and opposes any official contact between Taipei and foreign governments, especially Washington, which supplies weapons for Taiwan to defend itself.

Since the cooperation was halted, the U.S. has seen a spike in the number of Chinese migrants entering illegally from Mexico.

U.S. border officials in 2023 arrested more than 37,000 Chinese nationals at the southern border, nearly 10 times more than in 2022.

China’s Foreign Ministry this week told the AP Beijing was “willing to maintain dialogue and cooperation in the area of immigration enforcement with the U.S.” and would accept Chinese nationals who were deported.

The resumption came after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in April told NBC News the U.S. and China were holding high-level talks on the issue.

Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, said negotiations may increase the number of deportations of Chinese migrants in the short term. But he said the real effect on migrants’ decision-making process depends more on U.S. resources and capacity to conduct more removals.

“Prior negotiations with Venezuela, for example, did not lead to large increases in removals from the United States partially because it takes time to change structures and implement these measures,” he told VOA.

The New York Times reported that 100,000 Chinese nationals are living in the U.S. despite final orders for deportation.

The number of Chinese migrants illegally entering the U.S. on its southern border has shown a downward trend this year, after a record spike in December.

U.S. Customs and Borders Protection (CBP) said that while there were nearly 6,000 arrests of Chinese nationals in December, there were 3,700 in January, 3,500 in February, and just over 2,000 in March.

Soto attributed the drop to stronger visa and border enforcement, but also to China’s censoring online information about the route.

“Because technology has become so entrenched in how migrants learn and select travel routes today, unlike in prior years when these were more heavily based on personal knowledge and networks,” he told VOA, “it is likely that censoring content in mainstream channels can make it more difficult to travel along existing routes.”

Social media platform Douyin, the Chinese version of the short video sharing platform TikTok, has since last year been quietly cracking down on content about “Zouxian,” which means “walk the line” in Mandarin.

The term refers to Chinese migrants illegally crossing borders, including into the U.S. from Mexico and South America. It became a popular topic on the Chinese internet a few years ago and was used to search for information and tips on the route.

Reuters reported last year that many Chinese migrants found at the U.S. southern border said they found out how to travel there on Douyin.

Yang Yinhua, 31, told VOA he had no idea what the word “Zouxian” meant until last summer when he was introduced to the phrase while reading news about how dangerous the journey could be. He tried to look it up on China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, but couldn’t find much useful information. In August, someone he met on the internet invited him to join a group chat on Douyin.

Group members shared information and tips about how to Zouxian to other countries, including the U.S. Yang said the chat quickly reached the maximum number of participants, which was 500. It was one of the six Zouxian group chats created by a user called Yunfei. Yang said all six chats were filled within weeks.

“Nobody was living a decent life during the last five or six years,” he told VOA. “The ruling party wasn’t making the people feel happy like it used to.”

When Yang’s mother died alone during the pandemic, he blamed China’s draconian COVID-19 policy and decided it was time to leave his home country.

By October, he had a plan to travel to the U.S. by way of Turkey, Ecuador and the Mexico-U.S. border.

But Yang noticed Douyin started blocking Zouxian content. Yang and others in the group chat had to invent new words to continue discussing the route because the platform kept censoring certain key words.

By the end of October, Yunfei had deleted all videos he posted about getting to the U.S., Yang said. Then Douyin suspended Yunfei’s account and shut down all six of his chat groups.

As soon as he left China, Yang stopped using Douyin and moved to the messaging application Telegram, where he joined a group chat also set up by Yunfei.

But by the time Yang entered the chat, Yunfei had already left. In April, Yang said, the chat was taken over by what he called “little pink patriots,” a derogatory nickname for those expressing pro-Beijing views.

On TikTok, the international version of Douyin owned by the same parent company ByteDance, users noticed in January that content about Zouxian and the U.S.-Mexico border were being blocked.

“No results found,” the app says when you search for the term “Zouxian.” It adds that the phrase “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.”

According to TikTok’s community guidelines, content considered harmful cannot be displayed. That includes hate speech, sexual violence, harassment, human exploitation and more.

“We do not allow human exploitation, including trafficking and smuggling,” the guidelines read.

VOA tested Douyin in May and found that, aside from a few news clips about Chinese migrants traveling to the southern border of the U.S., “Zouxian” does not return any details about the route. Search results for locations including “Ecuador,” “Guatemala” and “Panama” likewise show no results for Zouxian.

For many Chinese migrants, Douyin was one of the few sources of online information on the route. China’s internet firewall blocks social media sites Facebook, YouTube and X in China.

VOA reached out to ByteDance for comment but received no response by the time of publication.

Wang Yaqiu, director of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at human rights organization Freedom House in Washington, said the phenomenon of Zouxian reflects many Chinese people’s dissatisfaction with Beijing, which she thinks can partly explain Douyin’s crackdown.

“I think the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is embarrassed that so many Chinese people want to flee the country even through such risky means. It exposes CCP propaganda about the Chinese economy and how good people’s life are to be a sham,” she wrote to VOA.

In March, the bodies of eight Chinese migrants were found washed up on a beach in southern Mexico after the boat they were on capsized.

Despite China’s censorship of the route, Yang evaded border patrols to cross into the U.S. in early December with his sister. He lives in California, works at a warehouse and has no desire to return to China.

Aline Barros contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be-released Biden administration review of Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in its war in Gaza does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for their use, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter. 

The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel, even though it doesn’t conclude that Israel violated terms of U.S.-Israel weapons agreements, according to one U.S. official. 

The administration’s findings on its close ally’s conduct of the war, a first-of-its-kind assessment that was compelled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress, comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. 

Biden has tried to walk an ever-finer line in his support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war against Hamas. He has faced growing rancor at home and abroad over the soaring Palestinian death toll and the onset of famine, caused in large part by Israeli restrictions on the movement of food and aid into Gaza. Tensions have been heightened further in recent weeks by Netanyahu’s pledge to expand the Israeli military’s offensive in the crowded southern city of Rafah, despite Biden’s adamant opposition. 

Biden faces demands from many Democrats that he cut the flow of offensive weapons to Israel and denunciation from Republicans who accuse him of wavering on support for Israel at its time of need. 

Two U.S. officials and a third person briefed on the findings of the national security memorandum to be submitted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Congress discussed the findings before the report’s release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public. 

A senior Biden administration official said the memorandum is expected to be released later Friday but declined to comment on its conclusions. 

Axios first reported on the memorandum’s findings. 

The Democratic administration took one of the first steps toward conditioning military aid to Israel in recent days when it paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs out of concern over Israel’s threatened offensive on Rafah, a southern city crowded with more than a million Palestinians, a senior administration official said. 

The presidential directive, agreed to in February, obligated the Defense and State departments to conduct “an assessment of any credible reports or allegations that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, have been used in a manner not consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.” 

The agreement also obligated them to tell Congress whether they deemed that Israel has acted “arbitrarily to deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there. 

Lawmakers and others who advocated for the review said Biden and previous American leaders have followed a double standard when enforcing U.S. laws governing how foreign militaries use U.S. support, an accusation the Biden administration denies. 

They had urged the administration to make a straightforward legal determination of whether there was credible evidence that specific Israeli airstrikes on schools, crowded neighborhoods, medical workers, aid convoys and other targets, and restrictions on aid shipments into Gaza, violated the laws of war and human rights. 

Their opponents argued that a U.S. finding against Israel would weaken it at a time it is battling Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. Any sharply critical findings on Israel are sure to add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military and further heighten tensions with Netanyahu’s hard-right government over its conduct of the war against Hamas. 

Any finding against Israel also could endanger Biden’s support in this year’s presidential elections from some voters who keenly support Israel. Former president Donald Trump is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee facing off against Biden.

At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to head off moves from Democratic lawmakers and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to start restricting shipments of weapons to Israel. 

Israel launched its offensive after an October 7 terror attack by Hamas into Israel killed about 1,200 people. Two-thirds of the Palestinians killed since then have been women and children, according to local health officials. U.S. and U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions on food shipments since October 7 have brought on full-fledged famine in northern Gaza. 

Human rights groups long have accused Israeli security forces of committing abuses against Palestinians and have accused Israeli leaders of failing to hold those responsible to account. In January, in a case brought by South Africa, the top U.N. court ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive. 

Israel says it is following all U.S. and international law, that it investigates allegations of abuse by its security forces and that its campaign in Gaza is proportional to the existential threat it says is posed by Hamas. 

Biden in December said “indiscriminate bombing” was costing Israel international backing. After Israeli forces targeted and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in April, the Biden administration for the first time signaled it might cut military aid to Israel if it didn’t change its handling of the war and humanitarian aid. 

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in the 1980s and early 1990s, were the last presidents to openly hold back weapons or military financing to try to push Israel to change its actions in the region or toward Palestinians. 

A report to the Biden administration by an unofficial, self-formed panel including military experts, academics and former State Department officials detailed Israeli strikes on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other sites. They argued that the civilian death toll in those strikes — such as an October 31 strike on an apartment building reported to have killed 106 civilians — was disproportionate to the blow against any military target.
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WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel on Friday upheld the criminal conviction of Donald Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Bannon’s challenges to his contempt of Congress conviction for which he was sentenced in 2022 to four months in prison. The judge overseeing the case has allowed him to remain free while he pursues his appeal. 

Bannon’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. His lawyers could ask the full appeals court to hear the matter. 

Bannon was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition and the other for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the riot. 

Bannon’s lawyers argued at trial that he wasn’t acting in bad faith but was trying to avoid running afoul of executive privilege objections Trump had raised. The onetime presidential adviser said he wanted to have a Trump lawyer in the room for his appearance, but the committee wouldn’t allow it. 

Bannon’s lawyers told the appeals court that the conviction should be overturned because, among other reasons, they said the committee’s subpoena was invalid. Bannon also argued that the judge that oversaw the trial wrongly quashed subpoenas seeking testimony and records from the committee’s own members, staffers and counsel his lawyers argued could have bolstered his defense. 

The appeals court said all of his challenges lacked merit. 

“We conclude that none of the information sought in the trial subpoenas was relevant to the elements of the contempt offense, nor to any affirmative defense Bannon was entitled to present at trial,” the judges wrote. 

A second Trump aide, trade adviser Peter Navarro, was also convicted of contempt of Congress and reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence. Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But courts have rejected that argument, finding Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.
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DETROIT — Federal investigators say they have “significant safety concerns” about a Ford SUV recall repair that doesn’t fix gasoline leaks that can cause engine fires.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding volumes of information from the automaker as it investigates the fix in a March 8 recall of nearly 43,000 Bronco Sport SUVs from the 2022 and 2023 model years, and Escape SUVs from 2022. All have 1.5-liter engines.

Ford says the SUVs have fuel injectors that will crack, allowing gas or vapor to leak near hot engine parts that can cause fires, fuel odors and an increased risk of injuries.

In an April 25 letter to Ford released Thursday, the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation wrote that based on its review of the recall repairs, it “believes that the remedy program does not address the root cause of the issue and does not proactively call for the replacement of defective fuel injectors prior to their failure.”

Ford’s remedy for the leaks is to add a drain tube to send the gas away from hot surfaces, and a software update to detect a pressure drop in the fuel injection system. If that happens, the software will disable the high-pressure fuel pump, reduce engine power and cut temperatures in the engine compartment. Owners also will get a “seek service” message.

But in the 11-page letter to the automaker, the agency asks Ford to detail any testing it did to verify the remedy resolved the problem and whether hardware repairs are needed. It also asks the company to explain any other remedies that were considered and any cost-benefit analysis the company did when it picked the fix.

Safety advocates have said Ford is trying to avoid the cost of replacing the fuel injectors and instead go with a cheaper fix that drains gasoline to the ground.

Ford said Thursday that it is working with the NHTSA during its investigation.

NHTSA also is asking ford to detail how the software will detect a fuel pressure drop, how much time elapses between cracking and detection, and what messages will be sent to the driver. It also asks what effect disabling the high-pressure fuel pump has on other fuel system parts, and how the SUVs will perform when the pump is disabled.

The agency also wants to know how much fuel will leak and whether the amount complies with federal environmental and safety standards. And it wants to hear Ford’s take on “its obligations (legal, ethical, environmental and other) to prevent and/or limit fuel leakage onto the roadway at any point during a vehicle’s lifespan.”

Ford has to provide information to the agency by June 21, the letter said. Depending on the results of its investigation, the agency can seek additional repairs that fix the fuel leaks.

The company has said in documents that it has reports of five under-hood fires and 14 warranty replacements of fuel injectors, but no reports of crashes or injuries.

In a previous email, Ford said it is not replacing fuel injectors because it is confident the recall repairs “will prevent the failure from occurring and protect the customer.” The new software triggers a dashboard warning light and allows customers to drive to a safe location, stop the vehicle and arrange for service, the company said. NHTSA documents filed by Ford say the problem happens only in about 1% of the SUVs.

The company also said it will extend warranty coverage for cracked fuel injectors, so owners who experience the problem will get replacements. Repairs are already available, and details of the extended warranty will be available in June, Ford said.

The recall is an extension of a 2022 recall for the same problem, according to Ford. The repair has already been tested on vehicles involved in the previous recall, and Ford said it’s not aware of any problems.

The company also said it isn’t recommending that the SUVs be parked only outdoors because there’s no evidence that fires happen when vehicles are parked, and the engines are off.

NHTSA said in documents that in the 2022 recall, which covered nearly 522,000 Bronco Sports and Escapes, Ford had the same remedy as the latest recall.

 
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NEWPORT BEACH, California — Scores of sick and starving pelicans have been found in coastal California communities in recent weeks and many others have died.

Lifeguards spotted a cluster of two dozen sick pelicans earlier this week on a pier in coastal Newport Beach and called in wildlife experts to assist.

Debbie McGuire, executive director of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, said the birds are the latest group that they’ve tried to save after taking in more than 100 other pelicans that were anemic, dehydrated and weighing only half of what they should.

“They are starving to death and if we don’t get them into care, they will die,” McGuire said. “It really is a crisis.”

It is not immediately clear what is sickening the birds. Some wildlife experts noted the pelicans are malnourished even though marine life abounds off the Pacific Coast.

Bird Rescue, which runs two wildlife centers in Northern and Southern California, reported 110 sick pelicans in the past three weeks, many entangled in fishing line or hooks. A similar event occurred in 2022, the group said.

Wildlife organizations are focused on caring for the birds until they can be released back into the wild.
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washington — The Senate has passed a $105 billion bill designed to improve air safety and customer service for air travelers, a day before the law governing the Federal Aviation Administration expires. 

The bipartisan bill, which comes after a series of close calls between planes at the nation’s airports, would boost the number of air traffic controllers, improve safety standards and make it easier for customers to get refunds after flights are delayed or canceled. 

The bill passed the Senate 88-4. The legislation now goes to the House, which is out of session until next week. The Senate is considering a one-week extension that would give the House time to pass the bill while ensuring the FAA isn’t forced to furlough around 3,600 FAA employees. 

The bill stalled for several days this week after senators from Virginia and Maryland objected to a provision that would allow an additional 10 flights a day to and from the heavily trafficked Reagan Washington National Airport. Other senators have tried to add unrelated provisions, as well, seeing it as a prime chance to enact their legislative priorities. 

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called a vote Thursday evening after it became clear that senators would not be able to agree on amendments to the bill before it expires. After the bill passed, leaders in both parties were still working out how to pass an extension and ensure the law does not expire on Friday. The House passed a one-week extension earlier this week. 

The FAA has been under scrutiny since it approved Boeing jets that were involved in two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019. The Senate legislation would govern FAA operations for the next five years and put several new safety standards in place. 

The bill would increase the number of air traffic controllers and require the FAA to use new technology designed to prevent collisions between planes on runways. It would require new airline planes to have cockpit voice recorders capable of saving 25 hours of audio, up from the current two hours, to help investigators. 

It would also try to improve customer service for travelers by requiring airlines to pay a refund to customers for flight delays — three hours for a domestic flight and six for an international one.  

In addition, the bill would prohibit airlines from charging extra for families to sit together and triple the maximum fines for airlines that violate consumer laws. And it would require the Transportation Department to create a “dashboard” so consumers can compare seat sizes on different airlines. 

The FAA says that if the law expires on Friday, the 3,600 employees would be furloughed without a guarantee of back pay starting at midnight. The agency would also be unable to collect daily airport fees that help pay for operations, and ongoing airport improvements would come to a halt. 

No one in “safety critical” positions — such as air traffic controllers — would be affected if the deadline is missed, the FAA says, and the safety of the flying public would not be at risk. 
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belgrade, serbia — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Serbia this week brought out a crowd waving Serbian and Chinese flags and praising the “ironclad” friendship of two countries. Elsewhere in the West, it raised many questions about Serbia’s future role in Europe. 

Analysts say that was exactly the idea. At a time of global rivalry between Beijing and Washington, the messages Xi delivered from Belgrade appeared aimed at a much wider audience. 

Xi and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signed a number of bilateral agreements on Wednesday, which followed the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO’s 1999 campaign to halt the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. The U.S. apologized for that action, calling it “a mistake.” 

David Shullman, an expert on China with the Washington-based Atlantic Council, told VOA that Xi’s arrival in Belgrade on the May 7 anniversary was aimed at sending a broader message in the context of the war in Ukraine: that China is not a “warmonger” like the U.S. and NATO. 

Chinese messaging, Shullman said, “parrots Russia’s messaging about the war in Ukraine, about not putting a blame on Russia, but putting a blame on the U.S., NATO for ‘fanning the flames’ of the war, continuing to support the Ukrainians, and that China is the one that’s the force for peace and stability. …  

“There is an awareness in the Chinese system [that] this is a key binding point between China and Serbia, and it fits into that message that China has been pushing about NATO and the U.S.” 

China’s president referred to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in an op-ed published Tuesday in Serbia’s pro-government newspaper Politika: “The people of China value peace, but they will never allow a historical tragedy to happen again.”  

Paul McCarthy, director for Europe at the International Republican Institute in Washington, agreed that the timing of Xi’s visit was no accident. 

“I think that Xi’s entire visit to Europe was organized around the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing,” he said. “It is too symbolic an opportunity for the Chinese to miss and underlines, so to speak, the position of Serbia and the strategic disagreement with the West that has been going on for 25 years.” 

Xi and Vucic signed a statement on the two countries’ “shared future,” which the Serbian president described as being a level above the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership the two countries agreed to in 2016. 

According to the Atlantic Council’s Shullman, Xi has often used the phrase “shared future” to indicate he wants a new balance of power in the world. 

“The story of a shared future is how China wants to establish a global order that is less U.S.-led, that is multipolar, that is a more ‘democratic’ international order — as the Chinese say,” he said. 

“In essence, it is an order that is no longer led by the U.S. and in which China plays a more significant role.” 

He added: “The fact that Serbia is spoken of as the first European country that will be part of the community and ‘common future’ shows that for Chinese leaders, especially Xi, Serbia is of great importance … as an economic partner and as a country that is a candidate for the EU.” 

In addition, Xi’s visit to Serbia signaled to Washington that China has reliable partners in Europe and that the U.S. “will not be able to completely win over Europe to its side.”  

China owns mines and factories across Serbia and has provided billions of dollars’ worth of funding for roads, bridges and various facilities, becoming Serbia’s key partner in much-needed infrastructure development.  

Still, some experts say the future of cooperation between Belgrade and Beijing is uncertain, given the complicated relations between the U.S. and China. 

Vuk Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, told VOA that broadening cooperation between Serbia and China from a strategic partnership to the level of “building a community of Serbia and China with a common future in the new era” is little more than a diplomatic game that suits both governments at the moment. 

He added that the future relationship depends much more on Beijing than on Belgrade.  

“The previous strategic partnership agreement was a joint statement from 2009 that had warm rhetoric but did not actually bring about any monumental transformation of those relations,” he said. 

“And that was until the moment when China showed greater interest in the Balkans due to the Belt and Road Initiative,” a massive, Chinese-led global infrastructure development strategy. “I think the key question for the U.S. will be whether that cooperation will include some major project in the field of defense and high technology.” 

The International Republican Institute’s McCarthy said it is unclear how the agreements between Serbia and China and the plans for a “common future” will affect Serbia’s relationship with the West. 

Still, he noted, a free-trade agreement between China and Serbia that comes into force in July “turns Serbia more towards the East,” raising the question of “how serious is Serbia on its European path.” 

He added: “I have to say that, from Washington’s perspective, they might feel like they’re losing the battle for Serbia’s heart, so to speak.” 

This article originated in VOA’s Serbian Service with contributions from Dino Jahic, Marko Protic and Stefan Miljus.
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washington — President Joe Biden welcomed the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces to the White House on Thursday, celebrating what he called a “banner year” for women’s basketball.

“It matters to girls and women, finally seeing themselves represented,” Biden said during the celebration held in the East Room of the White House. “It matters to all Americans. That’s why as a nation, we need to support women’s sports.”

Both he and Vice President Kamala Harris were given the customary jerseys from the winning team. As he held his up, Biden yelled, “Put me in Coach, I’m ready to play!”

In her own remarks, Harris praised the team for playing with “such joy” and being role models both on and off the basketball court.

“You simply inspire people across our nation and around the world,” Harris said.

The Las Vegas Aces defeated the New York Liberty in the WNBA championship last October to win their second consecutive WNBA title. As he began his remarks, Biden made a not-so-veiled reference to his own reelection prospects, noting, “I kind of like that back-to-back stuff.”
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While both the Biden and Trump campaigns share their messaging on abortion, VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how the issue of reproductive rights is faring in the minds of citizens and lawmakers ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visits Turkey on May 13 for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The leaders hope to ease tensions that have brought the two NATO members close to armed confrontation several times in recent years. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. Camera: Berke Bas.
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WASHINGTON — North Macedonia elected its first woman president Wednesday as the ruling Social Democratic Union of Macedonia suffered historic losses in presidential and parliamentary elections.

With nearly all the votes counted, university professor Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, the presidential candidate of the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE opposition party, won nearly 65% of the vote, with incumbent President Stevo Pendarovski winning 29%, according to the country’s State Election Commission.

In the parliamentary contest, the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition Your Macedonia won 43% of the votes, giving it 58 of the parliament’s 120 seats, just short of a majority.

Although it was uncertain on election day whether the 40% turnout threshold for the presidential election would be reached, due to calls for a boycott, the State Election Commission reported that turnout exceeded 46%.

In her first post-election public address, President-elect Siljanovska-Davkova promised to “act as the president of all citizens, of all ethnic groups, of party members, of those who are not in parties, because a president, especially not if she is a woman, cannot unite and search for unity if he sticks to party lines.”

VMRO-DPMNE party head Hristijan Mickoski called the election results a “historic victory for North Macedonia and the people of Macedonia,” adding that the ruling Social Democratic Union, or SDSM, lost because of “crime, corruption, incompetence, false values, the confiscated state, tenders, nepotism and a hundred other consequences that made the state suffer and the people disappointed.”

SDSM officials have repeatedly rejected these criticisms.

SDSM head Dimitar Kovacevski congratulated the victors Wednesday while telling reporters that his party’s loss was “disappointing” and “a heavy blow.”

EU and NATO considerations

The country agreed to change its name from the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of North Macedonia in 2019 following a decadeslong dispute with Greece over the designation.

In a 2018 referendum, voters in North Macedonia approved an agreement with Greece that included changing the country’s name in order to clear the way for its European Union and NATO accession. However, turnout for the referendum was less than the 50% threshold required to validate the results, leaving parliament to approve the change.

Mickoski has refused to acknowledge the country’s name change and the 2018 agreement with Greece. The opposition also supports standing firm in ongoing linguistic and historical disputes with neighboring Bulgaria, an EU member that has blocked North Macedonia’s EU accession negotiations.

EU membership negotiations with North Macedonia — and fellow-candidate Albania — began in 2022, and the process is expected to take years.

Commenting Wednesday on North Macedonia’s elections and their potential effect on the country’s EU accession bid, Deputy U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Gabriel Escobar said, “I am confident and hope that regardless of the elections in North Macedonia, the road to Europe will continue.”

On Tuesday, European Commission spokesperson Ana Pisonero told reporters in Brussels that “North Macedonia has committed itself to constitutional changes and, from our perspective, we believe that all political forces will focus on progress in the EU integration process.”

Pisonero added: “The European Council has clearly stated what the expectations are and we, for our part, fully support the perspective of North Macedonia’s membership in the EU, and we hope that we will be able to open the negotiation process as soon as possible.”

Corruption is an issue

The European Commission reported in November that corruption, another hot-button issue, “remains prevalent in many areas” of North Macedonia.

In December, U.S. Ambassador to North Macedonia Angela Aggeler said there was “an epidemic of corruption in this country that has affected every sector, every organization, and only by exposing the corrupt actors can we begin to help the country address these issues.”

The VMRO-DPMNE has accused the SDSM and its junior coalition partner, the Democratic Union for Integration, the third-largest political party and largest ethnic Albanian political party, of causing a “corruption pandemic.”

Wednesday was the third time that Macedonian citizens in the U.S. and elsewhere outside North Macedonia voted in the country’s presidential elections.

According to the State Election Commission, more than 2,300 domestic and international observers monitored the voting.
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In mid-April, the United States deployed a Tomahawk missile system to the Philippines, a move condemned by both Russia and China. The medium-range launcher can reach targets up to 1,600 kilometers away. Now, Russia says it plans to ramp up its production of similar missile systems.  Kateryna Besedina has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Miami, Florida — Former President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, has been chosen to serve as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention, the state party chairman said Wednesday.

Republican Party of Florida chairman Evan Power said the 18-year-old high school senior will serve as one of 41 at-large delegates from Florida to the national gathering, where the GOP is set to officially nominate his father as its presidential candidate for the November general election. NBC News first reported the choice of Barron Trump as a delegate.

Barron Trump has been largely kept out of the public eye, but he turned 18 on March and is graduating from high school next week. The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York said there would be no court on May 17 so that Trump could attend his son’s graduation. 

Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, are also part of the Florida delegation to the convention taking place in Milwaukee from July 15 to July 18.

“We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation to the 2024 Republican National Convention,” Power said in an emailed statement.
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Warsaw, Poland — Poland’s defense minister said Thursday his country is strengthening the metal barrier along its border with Belarus to deter illegal migration.

“We are mending the barrier on the Polish-Belarusian border, we are strengthening this barrier,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on private Radio Zet. “The spending on these purposes is the highest in [Poland’s] history.”

Kosiniak-Kamysz said the increased presence of Polish and allied military forces in regions close to the border is also helping to tighten the eastern frontier of NATO and the European Union. That presence has been increased since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2022.

He spoke in favor of Poland building a line of defensive bunkers, trenches and ditches along that border and the one with Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, steps that the Baltic states have already taken.

Poland says a massive wave of illegal migration from Belarus, especially in 2022, was orchestrated by that country and by Russia to destabilize Poland, a Ukrainian ally, and the European Union. The influx was largely curbed by the metal barrier that Poland completed last year, but some illegal crossings continue.

The minister’s comments also suggested that the barrier is seen as a wider defense measure during Russia’s war with Ukraine, which borders Poland.
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New York — TikTok will begin labeling content created using artificial intelligence when it’s uploaded from certain platforms.

TikTok says its efforts are an attempt to combat misinformation from being spread on its social media platform.

The announcement came on ABCs “Good Morning America” on Thursday.

“Our users and our creators are so excited about AI and what it can do for their creativity and their ability to connect with audiences.” Adam Presser, TikTok’s Head of Operations & Trust and Safety told ABC News. “And at the same time, we want to make sure that people have that ability to understand what fact is and what is fiction.”

TikTok’s policy in the past has been to encourage users to label content that has been generated or significantly edited by AI. It also requires users to label all AI-generated content where it contains realistic images, audio, and video.
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The European Union has agreed in principle to a deal that would use the proceeds from frozen Russian assets to supply weapons for Ukraine. As Henry Ridgwell reports, allies in Washington want the EU to go much further
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