MUMBAI, India — Krystyna Pyszková of the Czech Republic was crowned Miss World at a glittering contest held in India on Saturday night.

Yasmina Zaytoun of Lebanon was the first runner-up among 112 contestants in the competition held in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.

“Being crowned Miss World is a dream come true. I am deeply honored to represent my country and the values of ‘beauty with a purpose’ on a global platform,” Pyszkova said.

After the reigning Miss World, Karoline Bielawska of Poland, passed the crown to her, Pyszková waved to the large crowd at the Jio World Convention Center and hugged some of the other contestants.

The event showcased the rich tapestry of India’s culture, traditions, heritage, arts and crafts, and textiles to a massive global audience. The participants wore heavily embroidered skirts and blouses and danced to popular Bollywood songs.

The beauty competition returned to India for the first time in 28 years.

India’s Sini Shetty exited after making it to the final eight. Six Indian women have won the title, including Reita Faria (1966), Aishwarya Rai (1994), Diana Hayden (1997), Yukta Mookhey (1999), Priyanka Chopra (2000) and Manushi Chillar (2017).

The 71st Miss World beauty pageant was hosted by Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar and Miss World 2013 Megan Young from the Philippines.
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Wilmington, delaware — U.S. President Joe Biden said Saturday that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Biden expressed support for Israel’s right to pursue Hamas after the October 7 terror attack but said Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”

For months, Biden has warned that Israel risks losing international support over mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, and the latest remarks in an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart pointed to the increasingly strained relationship between the two leaders.

Biden said of the death toll in Gaza, “it’s contrary to what Israel stands for. And I think it’s a big mistake.”

Biden said a potential Israeli invasion of the Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering, is “a red line” for him, but said he would not cut off weapons such as the Iron Dome missile interceptors which protect the Israeli civilian populace from rocket attacks in the region.

“It is a red line,” he said, when asked about Rafah, “but I’m never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line I’m going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.”

Biden said he was willing to make his case directly to the Israeli Knesset, its parliament, including by making another trip to the country. He traveled to Israel weeks after the October 7 attack. He declined to elaborate on how or whether such a trip might materialize.

The U.S. leader had hoped to secure a temporary cease-fire before Ramadan begins this week, though that appears increasingly unlikely as Hamas has balked at a deal pushed by the U.S. and its allies that would have seen fighting pause for about six weeks, the release of additional hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza. Biden noted CIA Director Bill Burns is in the region currently trying to resurrect the deal.
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atlanta, georgia — U.S. President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regretted using the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Laken Riley. His all-but-certain 2024 GOP rival, Donald Trump, blasted the Democrat’s immigration policies and blamed them for her death at a rally attended by the Georgia nursing student’s family and friends. 

Biden expressed remorse for the use of the term to describe people who arrived or are living in the U.S. illegally. 

“I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” he said in an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart taped in Atlanta, Georgia, where the president was meeting with small business owners and holding a campaign rally. 

Trump, campaigning in Rome, Georgia, at the same time, blasted Biden for the comments. 

“Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken’s murderer an illegal,” he said to jeers and boos. “Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer.” 

Death becomes rallying cry

The back-and-forth underscored how Riley’s killing has become a flashpoint in the 2024 campaign and a rallying cry for Republicans who blame the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S-Mexico border for a record number of migrants entering the country. An immigrant from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally has been arrested and charged with Riley’s murder. 

Trump was joined at his rally by Riley’s parents, sister and friends and met with them before he took the stage.  

Trump, in a speech that lasted nearly two hours, hammered Biden on the border and for mispronouncing Riley’s name during his State of the Union address this past week. 

“What Joe Biden has done on our border is a crime against humanity and the people of this nation for which he will never be forgiven,” Trump charged, alleging that Riley “would be alive today if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States and set loose thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals into our country.” 

Biden earlier this year bucked activists within his party by agreeing to make changes to U.S. immigration law that would have limited some migration. The deal that emerged would have overhauled the asylum system to provide faster and tougher enforcement, as well as given presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if authorities become overwhelmed. It also would have added $20 billion in funding, a huge influx of cash. 

The changes became part of a short-lived bipartisan compromise in the Senate that was quickly killed by Republican lawmakers after Trump made his opposition known. 

Since then, Biden has insisted that Congress take up the measure again, arguing Republicans are more interested in being able to talk about the issue in an election year than taking action to fix it. 

Georgia considered pivotal again

Earlier Saturday, both Biden and Trump warned of dire consequences for the country if the other wins another term in the White House as the pair held dueling rallies in Georgia. 

The state was a pivotal 2020 battleground — so close four years ago that Trump has been indicted here for asking election officials to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn Biden’s victory. Both parties are preparing for another closely contested race in the state this year.  

Biden opened his speech at a rally in Atlanta by noting that Trump hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — who has rolled back democracy in his country — at his Florida club the day before.  

“When he says he wants to be a dictator, I believe him,” Biden said of Trump. “Our freedoms are literally on the ballot this November.”  

Biden hosted the rally at Pullman Yards, a 27-acre arts and entertainment venue in Atlanta, and received the endorsement of Collective PAC, Latino Victory Fund and AAPI Victory Fund, a trio of political groups representing, respectively, Black, Latino, and Asian Americans and Pacific Island voters. The groups were announcing a $30 million commitment to mobilize voters on Biden’s behalf.  

Crowd shows support for Jan. 6 insurrection

Trump’s rally opened by asking attendees to rise to support the hundreds of people serving jail time for their roles in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when thousands of pro-Trump supporters tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election by halting the counting of Electoral College votes.  

The intensity of the rhetoric presaged a grueling eight months of campaigning ahead in the state.  

“We’re a true battleground state now,” said U.S. Representative Nikema Williams, an Atlanta Democrat who doubles as state party chairwoman.  

Once a Republican stronghold, Georgia is now competitive with a path to victory for both Biden and Trump. 
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CAIRO — U.S., French and British forces downed dozens of drones in the Red Sea area overnight and Saturday after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis targeted bulk carrier Propel Fortune and U.S. destroyers in the region, the U.S. military said in a statement. 

The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.  

The group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech Saturday they had targeted the cargo vessel and “a number of U.S. war destroyers at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with 37 drones.”  

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the U.S. military and coalition forces had downed at least 28 uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the Red Sea in the early hours of Saturday. 

“No U.S. or Coalition Navy vessels were damaged in the attack and there were also no reports by commercial ships of damage,” CENTCOM said in a statement. 

Earlier on Saturday, CENTCOM said the military was responding to a large-scale attack on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden between 4 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. (0100-0330 GMT).  

The UAVs were intended to present “an imminent threat to merchant vessels, U.S. Navy, and coalition ships in the region,” it said in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.  

A French warship and fighter jets also shot down four combat drones that were advancing toward naval vessels belonging to the European Aspides mission in the region, a French army statement said. 

“This defensive action directly contributed to the protection of the cargo ship True Confidence, under the Barbados flag, which was struck on March 6 and is being towed, as well as other commercial vessels transiting in the area,” it said. 

France has a warship in the area as well as warplanes at its bases in Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates. 

Drone attack  

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said its warship HMS Richmond had joined international allies in repelling a Houthi drone attack overnight, saying no injuries or damage were sustained. 

“Last night, HMS Richmond used its Sea Ceptor missiles to shoot down two attack drones — successfully repelling yet another illegal attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis,” defense minister Grant Shapps said on X. 

“The U.K. and our allies will continue to take the action necessary to save lives and protect freedom of navigation.” 

On Wednesday, three seafarers were killed in a missile strike by the Houthis on the Greek-operated True Confidence, the first civilian casualties since the group started its attacks on the key shipping route.  

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) also confirmed there had been an attempted attack on the Singapore-flagged Propel Fortune. 

It said the shipping company reported two explosions in close vicinity of the bulk carrier, but all crew on board were safe and the vessel was proceeding to its next port of call.  

“Based on sources, Propel Fortune was likely targeted due to outdated U.S. ownership data,” UKMTO said in a statement. 

Sarea said the Houthis would continue their attacks “until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.” 
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Dallas, Texas — Once again, most Americans will set their clocks forward by one hour this weekend, losing perhaps a bit of sleep but gaining more glorious sunlight in the evenings as the days warm into summer.

Where did this all come from, though?

How we came to move the clock forward in the spring, and then push it back in the fall, is a tale that spans over more than a century — one that’s driven by two world wars, mass confusion at times and a human desire to bask in the sun for as long as possible.

There’s been plenty of debate over the practice, but about 70 countries — about 40% of those across the globe — currently use what Americans call daylight saving time.

World wars

Germany began using daylight saving time during World War I with the thought that it would save energy. Other countries, including the United States, soon followed. During World War II, the U.S. once again instituted what was dubbed “war time” nationwide, this time year-round.

After World War II, a patchwork of timekeeping emerged across the United States, with some areas keeping daylight saving time and others ditching it.

To stem the confusion, in 1966 the U.S. Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which says states can either implement daylight saving time or not, but it has to be statewide. The act also mandates the day that daylight saving time starts and ends across the country.

In the United States today, every state except Hawaii and Arizona observes daylight saving time. Around the world, Europe, much of Canada and part of Australia also implement it, while Russia and Asia don’t.

Switching and grumbling

Changing the clocks twice a year leads to a lot of grumbling, and pushes to either use standard time all year, or stick to daylight saving time all year often crop up.

During the 1970s energy crisis, the U.S. started doing daylight saving time all year long, and Americans didn’t like it.

With the sun not rising in the winter in some areas until around 9 a.m. or later, people were waking up in the dark, going to work in the dark and sending their children to school in the dark, said David Prerau, author of the book “Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time.”

“It became very unpopular very quickly,” he added.

He noted that using standard time all year would mean losing that extra hour of daylight for eight months in the evenings in the United States.
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WASHINGTON — Emerging from their near-clean sweeps of Super Tuesday contests, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump head to Georgia, where they’ll campaign for votes in Tuesday’s presidential primary in a state that will play a pivotal role in deciding their fates in November.

For Trump, the day will likely have additional significance, as voters in Georgia and three other states may award him enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination for president. Biden’s first possible date to clinch has also moved up to March 12.

Aside from that, Georgia’s presidential primary will be largely anti-climactic. Trump’s main rival for the GOP nomination, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, suspended her campaign this week after a rout on Super Tuesday, when she won the Vermont primary but lost 14 other contests. Biden also will face fewer challengers in the primary after U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota ended his campaign, although neither Phillips nor self-help author Marianne Williamson has had much of an impact on primary and caucus vote totals so far this campaign.

On Saturday, Biden will hold a campaign event in Atlanta, while about 70 miles (112 kilometers) away, Trump will hold a rally in Rome in northwest Georgia. It’s the second time in a little over a week the two will hold dueling events in a state about to hold a primary while eyeing the general election campaign to come. Biden and Trump were in Texas on Feb. 29 ahead of its presidential primary to hold immigration-themed events along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Georgia is likely again to play a key role in the general election as it did in 2020, when Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Georgia by less than a quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes. Trump’s efforts to overturn those results are at the heart of an ongoing criminal case in Fulton County, although the judge is considering a motion to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case.

Trump’s actions in Georgia and other swing states also play a role in a federal prosecution of his attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but that case is on hold as the Supreme Court prepares to consider the Trump defense team’s argument that the former president is immune from prosecution.

Georgia is the biggest delegate prize and the only swing state among the contests taking place Tuesday. Super Tuesday put both Biden and Trump on the brink of having enough delegates to clinch their parties’ presidential nominations. Tuesday is the earliest either could reach that milestone.

The Associated Press allocated delegates from Delaware and Florida to Biden on Friday, as both states have canceled their Democratic presidential primaries, with all their delegates going to the sitting president. With that allocation, Biden’s first possible date to clinch moves up to March 12, when he needs to win just 40% of the available delegates to do so.

Here’s a look at what to expect on election night:

Primary day

The Georgia presidential primary will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot

The Associated Press will provide coverage for the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. The candidates listed on the Democratic ballot are Biden, Phillips and Williamson. Besides Trump and Haley, the Republican ballot will list Florida businessman David Stuckenberg and former candidates Ryan Binkley, Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson, Perry Johnson, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott.

Who can vote

Any registered voter may participate in either primary. Voters in Georgia do not register by party.

Delegate allocation rules

There are 108 pledged Democratic delegates at stake in Georgia, and they’re awarded according to the national party’s standard rules. Twenty-three at-large delegates are allocated in proportion to the statewide vote, as are 14 PLEO delegates, or “party leaders and elected officials.” The state’s 14 congressional districts have a combined 71 delegates at stake, which are allocated in proportion to the vote results in each district. Candidates must receive at least 15% of the statewide vote to qualify for any statewide delegates, and 15% of the vote in a congressional district to qualify for delegates in that district.

Georgia has 59 Republican delegates at stake in the primary. The 14 at-large delegates are awarded in proportion to the statewide vote to candidates who receive at least 20%. A combined 42 delegates are at stake in the 14 congressional districts, with three delegates per district. The candidate who wins a majority of the vote in a district wins that district’s three delegates. If no candidate wins a vote majority in a district, the top vote-getter wins two delegates, and the second-place finisher wins one. The state’s three Republican National Committee members, the state chair and the Republican National Committeeman and Committeewoman, are bound to the statewide winner.

Decision notes

Unlike the general election, Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia are not likely to be competitive, as Biden and Trump face no major opposition in their campaigns for renomination. In both races, the first indications that Biden and Trump are winning statewide on a level consistent with the overwhelming margins seen in most other contests held so far this year may be sufficient to determine the statewide winners.

What do turnout and advance voting look like

Turnout in 2022 was about 11% of registered voters in the Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate and governor. It was 17% in the GOP U.S. Senate primary and 18% in the gubernatorial primary. There were nearly 8 million registered voters in Georgia as of Feb. 13.

As of Thursday, nearly 359,000 ballots had been cast before Election Day, about 66% in the Republican primary and about 34% in the Democratic primary. In 2022, pre-Election Day voting made up about 51% of the total vote in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary and about 41% in the GOP gubernatorial primary.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 125 days until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, 160 days until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and 238 until the November general election.
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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — Microsoft said Friday it’s still trying to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into the email accounts of senior company executives in November and who it said have been trying to breach customer networks with stolen access data.

The hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data obtained in the intrusion, which Microsoft disclosed in mid-January, to compromise some source-code repositories and internal systems, the software giant said in a blog and a regulatory filing.

A company spokesperson would not characterize what source code was accessed and what capability the hackers gained to further compromise customer and Microsoft systems. Microsoft said Friday that the hackers stole “secrets” from email communications between the company and unspecified customers — cryptographic secrets such as passwords, certificates and authentication keys — and that it was reaching out to them “to assist in taking mitigating measures.”

Cloud-computing company Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed on January 24 that it, too, was an SVR hacking victim and that it had been informed of the breach — by whom it would not say — two weeks earlier, coinciding with Microsoft’s discovery it had been hacked.

“The threat actor’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination and focus,” Microsoft said Friday, adding that it could be using obtained data “to accumulate a picture of areas to attack and enhance its ability to do so.”

Cybersecurity experts said Microsoft’s admission that the SVR hack had not been contained exposes the perils of the heavy reliance by government and business on the Redmond, Washington, company’s software monoculture — and the fact that so many of its customers are linked through its global cloud network.

“This has tremendous national security implications,” said Tom Kellermann of the cybersecurity firm Contrast Security. “The Russians can now leverage supply chain attacks against Microsoft’s customers.”

Amit Yoran, the CEO of Tenable, also issued a statement, expressing alarm and dismay. He is among security professionals who find Microsoft overly secretive about its vulnerabilities and how it handles hacks.

“We should all be furious that this keeps happening,” Yoran said. “These breaches aren’t isolated from each other, and Microsoft’s shady security practices and misleading statements purposely obfuscate the whole truth.”

Microsoft said it had not yet determined whether the incident is likely to materially affect its finances. It also said the intrusion’s stubbornness “reflects what has become more broadly an unprecedented global threat landscape, especially in terms of sophisticated nation-state attacks.”

The hackers, known as Cozy Bear, are the same hacking team behind the SolarWinds breach.

When it initially announced the hack, Microsoft said the SVR unit broke into its corporate email system and accessed accounts of some senior executives as well as employees on its cybersecurity and legal teams. It would not say how many accounts were compromised.

At the time, Microsoft said it was able to remove the hackers’ access from the compromised accounts on or about January 13. But by then, they clearly had a foothold.

It said they got in by compromising credentials on a “legacy” test account but never elaborated.

Microsoft’s latest disclosure comes three months after a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule took effect that compels publicly traded companies to disclose breaches that could negatively affect their business.
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The commander overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East is warning that deterrence of Iranian proxies is temporary and that Iran is not paying the price for its role in violence across the Middle East. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
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WASHINGTON — Some U.S. states restrict Native American access to voting

Congress granted Indigenous Americans citizenship 100 years ago, but some states are passing laws making it hard for them to register to vote or access polling places. Human Rights Watch on Monday urged U.S. states to take active steps to ensure that Native Americans and other voters of color can cast their ballots this election year.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 23 states have enacted 53 voting laws making it easier to vote. That said, at least 14 states in 2023 passed restrictive voter laws, and at least six states enacted election interference laws.

Read more:

Chippewa attorney seeks to overturn ICWA

Imprint News this week profiles a Native American attorney who spent years supporting the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, and is now working to see the law overturned.

Congress passed the ICWA in 1978 to stop states from placing Native American children in the welfare system with non-Native American families — a long-term practice Native Americans decried as an extension of historic assimilation policies.

Attorney Mark Fiddler, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, was an avid supporter of the law — until, that is, a case he argued back in 1994: After arguing a case against an Indigenous girl’s adoption into a white home, he was troubled to see she was later cycled through dozens of Indigenous foster homes.

“In my heart of hearts, I knew that was probably not the right thing for the child. And it always nagged me,” he said. “My personal opinion is that ICWA has outlived its usefulness and causes more problems than it solves.”

Now, he is arguing a case in the Minnesota appeals court involving a pair of toddler twins who were removed from a white foster family and placed with their mother’s cousin.

Read more:

Seminole Nation attorney named to missing and murdered cases team

The U.S. Justice Department has appointed Bree R. Black Horse, an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma, as an assistant United States attorney in the department’s new Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, or MMIP, regional program, assigned to prosecute such cases throughout the Northwest region — Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and California.

Black Horse, a 2013 graduate of the Seattle University School of law, most recently served as an associate on the Native American Affairs team of the multinational law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. Prior to that, she was a public defender for the Yakama Nation in Washington state.

“For far too long Indigenous men, women and children have suffered violence at rates higher than many other demographics,” Black Horse said in a statement. “As I step into this role, I look forward to working with our local, state and tribal partners to identify concrete ways of reducing violence and improving public safety in Indian country and elsewhere.”

In June 2023, the Justice Department announced it would dedicate five MMIP assistant U.S. attorneys and five MMIP coordinators to provide specialized support to U.S. attorneys’ offices addressing and fighting MMIP by investigating unsolved cases and related crimes, boosting communication, coordination and collaboration among federal, tribal, state and local law enforcement and nongovernmental partners.

Black Horse will be attached to the Yakima, Washington, field office.

Read more:

Arizona hoop dancer wins top prize

Josiah Enriquez, a 21-year-old hoop dancer from the Pueblo of Pojoaque in New Mexico, has won the Heard Museum’s 2024 Hoop Dance World Championship, held in Phoenix, Arizona, beating out more than 100 other contestants.

Although its exact origin is unclear, Indigenous peoples have practiced the dance for centuries.

Dancers incorporate circular hoops into their movements and are judged for their grace and style.

Enriquez began dancing at the age of 3, and as the video below shows, he has mastered the art.
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Nicosia, Cyprus — A U.S. charity said it was loading aid for Gaza onto a boat in Cyprus, the first shipment to the war-ravaged territory along a maritime corridor the EU Commission hopes will open this weekend.

The Spanish-flagged vessel Open Arms docked three weeks ago in the port of Larnaca in Cyprus, the closest European Union country to the Gaza Strip.

“World Central Kitchen teams are in Cyprus loading pallets of humanitarian aid onto a boat headed to northern Gaza,” the charity said Friday in a statement.

“We have been preparing for weeks alongside our trusted NGO partner Open Arms for the opening of a maritime aid corridor that would allow us to scale our efforts in the region,” it added.

The charity said it plans to tow a barge loaded with provisions for the people of Gaza, where dire humanitarian conditions more than five months into the Israel-Hamas war have led some countries to airdrop food and other assistance.

“The endeavor to establish a humanitarian maritime corridor in Gaza is making progress, and our tugboat stands prepared to embark at a moment’s notice, laden with tons of food, water, and vital supplies for Palestinian civilians,” Open Arms said on social media platform X.

In Larnaca, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen had earlier expressed hope that a maritime corridor could open this Sunday, although details remained unclear.

She said a “pilot operation” would be launched on Friday, aided by the United Arab Emirates which secured “the first of many shipments of goods to the people of Gaza.”

There are no functioning ports in Gaza and officials did not say where the initial shipments would go, whether they would be subject to inspection by Israel, or who would distribute aid.

The Pentagon said Friday that a U.S. plan to establish a “temporary offshore maritime pier” in Gaza would take up to 60 days and would likely involve more than 1,000 American personnel.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has responded with a relentless military offensive that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said has killed at least 30,878 people, most of them women and children.

Israel, which withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has maintained control over its airspace and territorial waters, said it “welcomes” the planned maritime corridor.
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Houston, Texas — The Republican National Committee voted Friday to install Donald Trump’s handpicked leadership team, completing his takeover of the national party as the former president closes in on a third straight presidential nomination.

Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump’s false theories of voter fraud, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote  in Houston, Texas. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, was voted in as co-chair.

Trump’s team is promising not to use the RNC to pay his mounting personal legal bills. But Trump and his lieutenants will have firm control of the party’s political and fundraising machinery with limited, if any, internal pushback.

“The RNC is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th president of the United States,” Whatley told RNC members in a speech after being elected.

Whatley will carry the top title, replacing longtime chair Ronna McDaniel after she fell out of favor with key figures in the former president’s “Make America Great Again” movement. But he will be surrounded by people closer to Trump.

Lara Trump is expected to focus largely on fundraising and media appearances.

The functional head of the RNC will be Chris LaCivita, who will assume the committee’s chief of staff role while maintaining his job as one of the Trump campaign’s top two advisers.

With Trump’s blessing, LaCivita is promising to enact sweeping changes and staffing moves at every level of the RNC to ensure it runs seamlessly as an extension of the Trump campaign.

In an interview Thursday, LaCivita sought to tamp down concerns from some RNC members that the cash-strapped committee would help pay Trump’s legal bills. Trump faces four criminal indictments and a total of 91 counts as well as a $455 million civil fraud judgment, which he is appealing. His affiliated Save America political action committee has spent $76 million over the last two years on lawyers.

People speculating about the RNC paying for legal bills, LaCivita said, do so “purely on the basis of trying to hurt donors.” Trump’s legal bills are instead being covered largely by Save America, a separate political entity.

“The fact of the matter is not a penny of the RNC’s money, or for that matter, the campaign’s money, has gone or will go to pay legal fees,” he said.

The RNC was paying some of Trump’s legal bills for New York cases that started while he was president, The Washington Post reported, but McDaniel said in November 2022 that the RNC would stop paying once Trump became a candidate again and joined the 2024 presidential race.

When Trump announced his plans to replace the party’s leadership, it raised fresh questions about whether the committee would pay his bills. Those questions intensified after Lara Trump said last month that she wasn’t familiar with the party’s rules about paying her father-in-law’s legal fees, but she thought the idea would get broad support among Republican voters.

Facing such mixed messages, some RNC members remain skeptical.

Republican committeeman Henry Barbour of Mississippi proposed a nonbinding resolution explicitly stating that RNC funds could not be used for Trump’s legal bills. Yet the resolution died when Barbour failed to earn the support of RNC members from at least 10 states.

“People I’ve talked to on the committee privately all agree that donor money needs to be devoted to winning elections, not legal fees,” said Republican committeeman John Hammond of Indiana.

The new leadership team is also expected to more fully embrace Trump’s focus on voter fraud and his debunked claims about the election he lost to President Joe Biden. Multiple court cases and Trump’s own Justice Department failed to reveal any evidence of significant voting irregularities.

Whatley, an attorney, has largely avoided using Trump’s characterization of Biden’s victory and said in one 2021 interview that Biden “absolutely” was legitimately elected and won the majority of the Electoral College votes. But he said in another interview in the weeks after the 2020 election that there was “massive fraud.” He has also made focusing on “election integrity” a top priority for his state party in the years since.

In a letter announcing her candidacy for co-chair, Lara Trump wrote to members of the committee telling them she intends to focus on battleground states, getting out the vote in close races and to comb through the RNC’s finances, including all of its contracts and agreements, and cut spending “that doesn’t directly go to winning elections.”

A key priority, she wrote, is working to ensure that the election is secure, something her father-in-law has made a chief focus.

“The goal on November 5 is to win, as my father-in-law says, ‘bigly,’ ” she said Friday.
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houston — A federal judge in Texas on Friday upheld a key piece of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy that allows a limited number of migrants from four countries to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, dismissing a challenge from Republican-led states that said the program created an economic burden on them.

U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton ruled in favor of the humanitarian parole program that allows a total of 30,000 asylum-seekers into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined.

Eliminating the program would undercut a broader policy that seeks to encourage migrants to use the Biden administration’s preferred pathways into the U.S. or face stiff consequences.

Texas and 20 other states that sued argued the program is forcing them to spend millions on health care, education and public safety for the migrants. An attorney working with the Texas attorney general’s office in the legal challenge said that the program “created a shadow immigration system.”

Advocates for the federal government countered that migrants admitted through the policy helped with a U.S. farm labor shortage.

An appeal appeared likely.

Esther Sung, an attorney for Justice Action Center, which represented seven people who were sponsoring migrants as part of the program, said she was looking forward to calling her clients to let them know of the court’s decision.

“It’s a popular program. People want to welcome other people to this country,” she said.

A message was left seeking comment from the Texas attorney general’s office.

During an August trial in Victoria, Texas, Tipton declined to issue any temporary order that would have halted the parole program nationwide. Tipton is an appointee of former President Donald Trump who ruled against the Biden administration in 2022 on an order that determined whom to prioritize for deportation.

Some states said the initiative has benefited them.

Tipton questioned how Texas could be claiming financial losses if data showed that the parole program actually reduced the number of migrants coming into the U.S.

Proponents of the policy also faced scrutiny from Tipton, who questioned whether living in poverty was enough for migrants to qualify. Elissa Fudim, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, responded: “I think probably not.”

Federal government attorneys and immigrant rights groups said that in many cases, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans are also fleeing oppressive regimes, escalating violence and worsening political conditions that have endangered their lives.

The lawsuit did not challenge the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.

The program’s supporters said each case is individually reviewed and some people who had made it to the final approval step after arriving in the U.S. have been rejected, though they did not provide the number of rejections that have occurred.

The lawsuit is among several legal challenges the Biden administration has faced over immigration policies.
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Sweden became the 32nd member of NATO Thursday, as alliance troops participated in the bloc’s Steadfast Defender exercise this week. This operation aims to foster compatibility and cooperation on the battlefield among member nations, enhancing the alliance’s capacity to counter provocative behavior from the Russian Federation. Eastern Europe chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from the training ground in Poland.
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WASHINGTON — The United States on Saturday marks its first U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day to commemorate Americans being held abroad.

First designated last year by bipartisan House and Senate legislation, the day marks the anniversary of the kidnapping of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who was considered to be the longest-held American hostage in history.

The legislation also created an official flag as a symbol to recognize those Americans.

Currently 56 Americans are held hostage or wrongfully detained, according to the Foley Foundation. The nonprofit was set up in memory of American journalist James Foley, who was kidnapped and later killed by extremists in Syria.

The Bring Our Families Home campaign, James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, Richardson Center for Global Engagement and members of the Levinson family advocated for Congress to pass the legislation to broaden attention toward the issue.

“The establishment of this annual day of observance is an important symbolic milestone that not only recognizes the importance of the issue but will also encourage greater public awareness and understanding of this enduring national crisis,” Benjamin Gray of the Foley Foundation told VOA.

Senator Christopher Coons, a Delaware Democrat, and Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, introduced the legislation days after the release of American basketball player Britany Griner from Russian custody in March 2023.

Among the Americans held overseas are two American journalists.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been imprisoned in Russia for nearly a year. Moscow accuses him of espionage, which the reporter and his newspaper deny.

The American-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva has been in custody since October. Kurmasheva, an editor for VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, denies the charges against her, including failing to register as a foreign agent.

The Foley Foundation said in a statement to VOA: “We continue to advocate for the release of both journalists from captivity in Russia. We believe that both have been unjustly targeted by the Russian government for leverage against the United States. In the case of Alsu, we urge the U.S. government to declare her as wrongfully detained.”

President Joe Biden mentioned Gershkovich’s case during his State of the Union speech Thursday, saying that the U.S. “will work around the clock” to bring him home.

The reporter’s parents attended the annual address as guests of House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson.

The Bring Our Families Home campaign has expressed frustration with the administration and organized a sit-in Friday at the White House aiming to highlight what they called a “lack of substantive support and action” from Biden.

In a statement Friday, campaign spokesperson Jonathan Franks said: “While the hostage and wrongful detainee flag championed by the campaign is flown over the White House on a day that is supposed to spur action on their loved ones’ plights, families express their frustration and exhaustion in front of the closed doors of the White House.”
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New York — Former President Donald Trump has secured a bond sufficient to support an $83.3 million jury award granted to writer E. Jean Carroll during a January defamation trial stemming from rape claims she made against Trump, his lawyer said Friday as she notified the federal judge who oversaw the trial that an appeal was underway.

Attorney Alina Habba filed papers with the New York judge to show that Trump had secured a $91.6 million bond from the Federal Insurance Co. She simultaneously filed a notice of appeal to show Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner, is appealing the verdict to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The filings came a day after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan refused to delay a Monday deadline for posting a bond to ensure that Carroll can collect the $83.3 million if it remains intact following appeals.

The posting of the bond was a necessary step to delay payment of the award until the 2nd Circuit can rule.

Trump is facing financial pressure to set aside money to cover both the judgment in the Carroll case and an even bigger one in a lawsuit in which he was found liable for lying about his wealth in financial statements given to banks.

A New York judge recently refused to halt collection of a $454 million civil fraud penalty while Trump appeals. He now has until March 25 to either pay up or buy a bond covering the full amount. In the meantime, interest on the judgment continues to mount, adding roughly $112,000 each day.

Trump’s lawyers have asked for that judgment to be stayed on appeal, warning he might need to sell some properties to cover the penalty.

On Thursday, Kaplan wrote that any financial harm to Trump results from his slow response to the late-January verdict in the defamation case over statements he made about Carroll while he was president in 2019 after she claimed in a memoir that he raped her in spring 1996 in a midtown Manhattan luxury department store dressing room.

Trump vehemently denied the claims, saying that he didn’t know her and that the encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower never took place.

A jury last May awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the 1996 encounter, though it rejected Carroll’s rape claims, as rape was defined by New York state law. A portion of the award also stemmed from the jury’s finding that Trump defamed Carroll with statements he made in October 2022.

The January trial pertained solely to statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president. Kaplan instructed the jury that it must accept the findings of the jury last May and was only deciding how much, if anything, Trump owed Carroll for his 2019 statements.

Trump did not attend the May trial, but he testified briefly and regularly sat with defense lawyers at the January trial, though his behavior, including disparaging comments that a lawyer for Carroll said were loud enough for jurors to hear, prompted Kaplan to threaten to banish him from the courtroom.
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A son of Korean immigrants last week became the interim chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is the first Asian American to hold this position. Genia Dulot has the story.
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