Sweden, NATO’s newest member, this week announced a three-year plan to provide additional support for Ukraine totaling more than $7 billion. The move comes amid concerns about Russia’s growing aggression. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports. Camera: Daniil Batushchak.
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Bangkok — Interviews have begun with Myanmar refugees living in Thailand who are eligible for a new resettlement program in the United States, the Thai government said.

Thailand said it hopes the first group may get to move by the end of the year.

Some 90,000 refugees live in nine camps on the Thai side of the border to escape fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic minority rebel armies vying for autonomy. Some of the refugees were born in the camps, which started to form in the mid-1980s, and many have lived in them for decades.

Persistent fighting in Myanmar, amplified by a military coup in February 2021, has kept most from returning home.

Aiming to give the refugees a safe way out of the camps, Thailand, the United States and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees announced the resettlement plan in May 2023.

One year on, Thailand’s Ministry of Interior says that the Thai government and UNHCR have finished checking the personal information of the refugees to verify their eligibility for the program. More than 80,000 refugees were deemed eligible, and nearly all of them told officials they wanted to resettle.

“After that, the U.S. team went to the first two camps for interviews, which have already been done,” Zcongklod Khawjang, an interior ministry official in charge of overseeing the resettlement program, told VOA this week.

The two camps — Ban Don Yang and Tham Hin — are among the smallest of nine and host about 8,750 refugees combined.

Zcongklod said the U.S. Embassy in Thailand has not told the Thai government when the authorized refugees would be resettled or when interviews in the other seven camps would begin. But he added that Thailand was expecting the “first batch” to move to the U.S. sometime this year.

Hayso Thako, a joint secretary with the Karen Refugee Committee, one of the charities working in the camps, said he received the same message from the UNHCR at a meeting in March.

“They said most probably the first group would be able to leave by the end, almost the end of this year,” he said.

The UNHCR declined to comment on when resettlement might begin and referred the question to the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok declined to provide a time frame.

“Resettlement operations are ongoing in cooperation with the UNHCR and the Royal Thai Government,” the U.S. Embassy told VOA by email, attributing the comment to “a U.S. official.”

The embassy also would not say how many of the 80,000-plus eligible refugees the U.S. was prepared to take in, either annually or in total. Zcongklod said the embassy has not provided the Thai government with those figures, either.

The Border Consortium, a network of charities that coordinate much of the international aid that reached the camps, said it has not been provided with official figures but said plans for the program appear to have been scaled down over time.

“Figures have changes. At the beginning, it was this number of people who could be resettled … and maybe now it could be a lower number of people who could be resettled,” Leon de Riedmatten, executive director of The Border Consortium, told VOA.

Even so, he said, “It’s important for the residents in the camps themselves that there is still the possibility of resettlement. I think this is the main message, even if it’s not going to be so many people who are going to be resettled to the United States.”

Thailand has denied the refugees a regular path to gaining permanent legal residence and keeps tight control over their movements in and out of the camps.

Myanmar’s 2021 coup brought the country’s brief experiment with democracy to a halt, plunging it into civil war and dashing hopes that the refugees could return safely anytime soon.

Hayso Thako and de Riedmatten said it would help if other countries committed to taking in some of the refugees.

Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told VOA it has encouraged more countries to join the resettlement program.

A previous program ended about five years ago after resettling thousands of refugees in the United States and a few other countries.

Without a clear idea of how many of the refugees the new program can handle, and no end in sight to the civil war raging in Myanmar, charities say the Thai government should also give the refugees the opportunity to settle permanently in Thailand.

“I think it’s key. It’s very, very important, because we cannot expect that all these refugees will be resettled. We cannot expect also that a large part of these refugees will return to Myanmar. So the ones, the majority, who will be left in the camps should have a better future,” de Riedmatten said.

Even after four decades, most of the camps still lack electricity and running water. Most homes are huts of bamboo and eucalyptus poles topped with thatched roofs.

The refugees are mostly barred from studying or working outside of the camps, have few job opportunities inside and receive an average of about $9 in food aid a month.

Some advocates say a growing sense of despair across the camps is causing a rise in domestic abuse, gang violence, drug use and suicide.

“Living in the camps is not easy,” Eh Nay Moo, 30, who fled Myanmar with his parents when he was three years old, told VOA.

“Here, we are just illegal people. … There is no freedom for us. Going here and there outside of the camp, we are not allowed,” he said from Mae La, the largest of the nine camps on the border.

Having spent almost his entire life in the camps, Eh Nay Moo said he cannot imagine returning to Myanmar but sees no real future for himself in the camps.

Eh Nay Moo said he has applied for the new resettlement program and is eagerly awaiting an interview.

“If I get a chance to move to the U.S. … I believe that I will get more opportunity or freedom to do and live my life as a human being,” he said.
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United Nations — The United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday to designate July 11 annually as an international day of reflection and commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serb forces. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs strongly opposed its adoption.

“Perpetrated amidst the Bosnian War, this act of genocide led to the tragic death of the victims and to unimaginable suffering for survivors and their families,” German Ambassador Antje Leendertse said, introducing the resolution. “Our initiative is about honoring the memory of the victims and supporting the survivors who continue to live with the scars of that fateful time.”

Germany and Rwanda co-led the negotiations on the resolution’s text over more than a month.

The resolution received 84 votes in favor, 19 against and 68 abstentions. Only a simple majority of those countries present and voting “yes” or “no” was needed for the motion to pass. It was co-sponsored by more than 40 countries, including the western Balkan nations of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia and Slovenia, along with the United States.

Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Denis Becirovic welcomed the resolution, saying it is an important step for the promotion of peace and reconciliation in the region and beyond.

“Truth and justice won today in the U.N. General Assembly,” he told VOA after the vote.

In addition to designating the annual international day of reflection and commemoration, which would start next year on the 30th anniversary of the massacres, the resolution also condemns genocide denial and the glorification of perpetrators.

The U.N.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia concluded in 2004 that genocide had been committed in the small mountain town in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995. In 2007, the International Court of Justice also ruled that the massacres constituted genocide.

Regional opposition

The president of Bosnia’s Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has threatened to secede from the country if the resolution is adopted.

Serbia’s government has also vigorously campaigned against the resolution, urging its co-sponsors to withdraw it, saying it unfairly targets Serbia and attributes moral responsibility for genocide collectively to its people and will hurt the fragile reconciliation process, a claim the authors deny.

Montenegro suggested language that was added to the final text, clarifying that “criminal accountability under international law for the crime of genocide is individualized and cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious, or other group or community as a whole.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic traveled to New York for the vote. He urged the General Assembly to vote against the resolution, saying it was highly politicized and would only sow deeper divisions in the region.

“This is not about reconciliation; this is not about memories,” he said. “This is something that will just open an old wound and that will create a complete political havoc — and not only in our region, but here in this hall.”

On July 11, 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces. Over the next several days, at least 8,372 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were separated from their families, put on buses and taken to several locations including warehouses, schools and fields, where they were executed.

Their bodies were dumped in several mass graves. Investigators said their remains were later exhumed and moved to secondary graves in an extensive cover up. Experts used DNA samples from relatives to identify thousands of the murdered men.

The Hague-based tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted 16 people for crimes committed in Srebrenica, including eight men for the crime of genocide.

The General Assembly resolution adopted Thursday is partly modeled on a 2003 resolution that established the international day of reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It has been observed at the United Nations every April 7 since 2004.

Some countries that abstained or voted against Thursday’s Srebrenica resolution noted that there is also a day of remembrance for all victims of genocide, which the United Nations marks every December 9.

Others noted that there was no consensus in the region on the resolution and that they did not want to contribute to tensions.

Both the U.N. high commissioner for human rights and the special adviser on the prevention of genocide welcomed the resolution.

“This resolution is further recognition of the victims and survivors and their pursuit of justice, truth and guarantees of non-recurrence,” human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement.

Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu said the resolution is important in light of the trend toward genocide denial in the region.

“Questioning the tragic reality of what happened in Srebrenica is not acceptable,” she said, adding it would only hurt peace and reconciliation efforts.
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Fine dining in space — if you can stomach the price tag. Plus, a new understanding of the sun’s magnetic field, and Europe’s newest astronauts get their mission assignments. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation Entertainment on Thursday, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in America — squelching competition and driving up prices for fans.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, was being brought with 30 state and district attorneys general and seeks to break up the monopoly they say is squeezing out smaller promoters and hurting artists.

“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”

The Justice Department accuses Live Nation of a slew of practices that allow it to maintain a stronghold over the live music scene, including using long-term contracts to keep venues from choosing rival ticketers, blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers and threatening venues that they could lose money and fans if they don’t choose Ticketmaster. The Justice Department says Live Nation also threatened to retaliate against one firm if it didn’t stop a subsidiary from competing for artist promotion contracts.

Live Nation has denied that it engages in practices that violate antitrust laws. When it was reported that the company was under federal investigation in 2022, the concert promoter said in a statement that Ticketmaster enjoys a such a large share of the market because of “the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system.”

But competitor ticket sellers have long complained that Live Nation makes it difficult for them to disrupt the market with practices such as withholding acts if those venues don’t agree to use Ticketmaster’s service.

The lawsuit is the latest example of the Biden administration’s aggressive antitrust enforcement approach targeting companies accused of engaging in illegal monopolies that box out competitors and drive up prices. In March, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging that the tech giant has monopoly power in the smartphone market. The Democratic administration has also taken on Google, Amazon and other tech giants.

“Today’s action is a step forward in making this era of live music more accessible for the fans, the artists, and the industry that supports them,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

Ticketmaster, which merged with Live Nation in 2010, is the world’s largest ticket seller, processing 500 million tickets each year in more than 30 countries. Around 70% of tickets for major concert venues in the U.S. are sold through Ticketmaster, according to data in a federal lawsuit filed by consumers in 2022. The company owns or controls more than 265 of North America’s concert venues and dozens of top amphitheaters, according to the Justice Department.

The ticket seller sparked outrage in November 2022 when its site crashed during a presale event for a Taylor Swift stadium tour. The company said its site was overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots, which were posing as consumers to scoop up tickets and sell them on secondary sites. The debacle prompted congressional hearings and bills in state legislatures aimed at better protecting consumers.

The Justice Department allowed Live Nation and Ticketmaster to merge as long as Live Nation agreed not to retaliate against concert venues for using other ticket companies for 10 years. In 2019, the department investigated and found that Live Nation had “repeatedly” violated that agreement and extended the prohibition on retaliating against concert venues to 2025.

 
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Pennsylvania is one of a handful of US states that could determine the outcome of November’s presidential election. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns looks at what Joe Biden and Donald Trump are doing to win there.
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COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Nikki Haley said Wednesday that she will be voting for Donald Trump in November’s general election, a notable show of support given their intense and often personal rivalry during the Republican primary campaign.

But Haley also made it clear that she feels Trump has work to do to win over voters who supported her during the course of the primary campaign and continue to cast votes for her in ongoing primary contests.

“I will be voting for Trump,” Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador, said during an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

“Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech,” Haley added. “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does that.”

The comments in her first public speech since leaving the race are another signal of the Republican Party’s virtually complete consolidation of support behind Trump, even from those who have labeled him a threat in the past.

Haley shuttered her own bid for the Republican nomination two months ago but did not immediately endorse Trump, having accused him of causing chaos and disregarding the importance of U.S. alliances abroad as well as questioning whether Trump, 77, was too old to be president again.

Trump, in turn, repeatedly mocked her with the nickname “Birdbrain,” though he curtailed those attacks after securing enough delegates in March to become the presumptive Republican nominee.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Haley’s announcement.

President Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, has been working to win over her supporters, whom they view as true swing voters. Biden’s team is quietly organizing a Republicans for Biden group, which will eventually include dedicated staff and focus on the hundreds of thousands of Haley voters in each battleground state, according to people familiar with the plans but not authorized to discuss them publicly.

But Haley made several criticisms of Biden’s foreign policy and handling of the U.S.-Mexico border in her speech Wednesday at the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank she recently joined as she reemerges in the political realm.
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OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA — The U.S. Department of Justice sued Oklahoma on Tuesday, seeking to block a law that aims to impose criminal penalties on those living in the state illegally.

The lawsuit in federal court in Oklahoma City challenges a law that makes it a state crime — punishable by up to two years in prison — to live in Oklahoma without legal immigration status. Similar laws passed in Texas and Iowa already are facing challenges from the Justice Department.

Oklahoma is among several Republican-led states jockeying to push deeper into immigration enforcement as Republicans and Democrats seize on the issue. Other bills targeting migrants have been passed this year in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.

The Justice Department says the Oklahoma statute violates the U.S. Constitution and is asking the court to declare it invalid and bar the state from enforcing it.

“Oklahoma cannot disregard the U.S. Constitution and settled Supreme Court precedent,” U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement. “We have brought this action to ensure that Oklahoma adheres to the Constitution and the framework adopted by Congress for regulation of immigration.”

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt called the bill necessary, saying the Biden administration is failing to secure the nation’s borders.

“Not only that, but they stand in the way of states trying to protect their citizens,” Stitt said in a statement.

The federal action was expected, as the Department of Justice warned Oklahoma officials last week the agency would sue unless the state agreed not to enforce the new law.

In response, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond called the DOJ’s preemption argument “dubious at best” and said that while the federal government has broad authority over immigration, it does not have “exclusive power” on the subject.

“Oklahoma is exercising its concurrent and complementary power as a sovereign state to address an ongoing public crisis within its borders through appropriate legislation,” Drummond wrote in a letter to the DOJ. “Put more bluntly, Oklahoma is cleaning up the Biden Administration’s mess through entirely legal means in its own backyard — and will resolutely continue to do so by supplementing federal prohibitions with robust state penalties.”

Texas was allowed to enforce a law similar to Oklahoma’s for only a few confusing hours in March before it was put on hold by a federal appeals court’s three-judge panel. The panel heard arguments from supporters and opponents in April and will next issue a decision on the law’s constitutionality.

The Justice Department filed another lawsuit earlier this month seeking to block an Iowa law that would allow criminal charges to be brought against people who have outstanding deportation orders or who previously have been removed from or denied admission to the United States.

The law in Oklahoma has prompted several large protests at the state Capitol that included immigrants and their families voicing concern that their loved ones will be racially profiled by police.

“We feel attacked,” said Sam Wargin Grimaldo, an immigration attorney who attended a rally last month wearing a shirt that read, “Young, Latino and Proud.”

“People are afraid to step out of their houses if legislation like this is proposed and then passed,” he said.

The Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police and the Metro Law Enforcement Agency Leaders issued a joint statement earlier this month saying they weren’t involved in drafting the bill and raised concerns that it would put crime victims at risk because they might fear reporting to law enforcement.

“This law has the potential to destroy the connections and relationships we have built within our local immigrant communities and set us back for many years to come,” they said.
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Three European nations announced Wednesday that they intend to officially recognize Palestinian statehood, prompting a furious response from Israel, which is at war with Hamas militants in Gaza. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Everett, Washington/Washington, DC — When a superyacht worth $230 million pulled into the port of Everett, Washington, for repairs last month, it made a big splash in the city of 110,000 residents. 

The 106-meter luxury behemoth known as the Amadea is currently in possession of the U.S. government, which alleges the yacht belongs to sanctioned Russian oligarch and politician Suleyman Kerimov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Looking out over the port, Everett resident Bob Templeton wondered who was paying for the superyacht’s upkeep. “They ought to sell it to somebody and get a lot of money,” he told VOA with a laugh. 

Easier said than done. Templeton’s offhand remark cuts to the core of a dilemma faced by the United States as it attempts to use sanctions to rein in Russian aggression against Ukraine. 

The U.S. government has moved to take ownership of the Amadea through a legal procedure called civil forfeiture. The end goal is to sell the vessel and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine. 

But another Russian businessman, who is not under sanctions, has challenged that move, claiming that he is the Amadea’s true owner. 

As the courts try to sort out the yacht’s ownership, U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill: over half-a-million dollars a month for maintenance. 

And the complex legal battle could drag on for a long time, increasing the costs for the U.S. and delaying any benefit to Ukraine from the yacht’s seizure, according to Stefan Cassella, a former U.S. federal prosecutor and expert in civil forfeiture. 

“Nobody who is a sanctioned oligarch owns anything in his own name,” he said. “You have an entire zoo of third parties who claim they own the property.” 

Kerimov did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment. 

Kleptocapture win 

In May 2022, just months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, law enforcement in Fiji seized the Amadea at the request of the U.S. government. 

That was a major victory for Task Force Kleptocapture, a unit of the U.S. Department of Justice created in the wake of the Russian invasion to enforce sanctions. 

But completing the job has proved more complicated. 

Since the 1980s, civil forfeiture has been the Department of Justice’s go-to tool for targeting drug dealers, the mafia and money laundering operations, according to David Smith, a former DOJ prosecutor who pioneered the practice. 

It allows law enforcement to seize assets without convicting their owner of a crime. All that prosecutors must prove is that the assets were used in a crime, profited from a crime or resulted from criminal activity. 

But when that crime is a sanctions violation, proving the asset is owned by a sanctioned person is critical. 

Lawyers representing the company that owns Amadea have claimed the yacht actually belongs to Eduard Khudainatov, a former CEO of the Russian state oil company Rosneft, who is not subject to sanctions. 

He and his legal team say the seizure is unlawful and based on a “misleading” FBI affidavit. 

“Eduard Khudainatov is, and always has been, the rightful owner of the Amadea. The Biden Administration’s unconstitutional seizure of the vessel was based on demonstrable falsehoods that we will establish in court,” his spokesperson said in a statement to VOA. “The government asserts factual and legal theories that are divorced from forfeiture sanctions and money laundering laws, and unsupported by the cases interpreting those laws. This boondoggle is nothing more than political theater that has cost American taxpayers more than $20 million to date.” 

The U.S. government disagrees, referring to Khudainatov as a “straw owner” of the Amadea. 

According to prosecutors, Khudainatov is “supposedly the beneficial owner of at least eight yachts or yacht projects” — a fleet valued at over $1 billion. They include a yacht that prosecutors state is actually owned by Igor Sechin, the sanctioned incumbent CEO of Rosneft and a Putin ally. 

Journalists have linked another one of the superyachts, the Scheherazade, to Putin himself. In May 2022, it was impounded in Italy. 

While Khudainatov’s lawyers were unable to prevent the Amadea’s transfer to the United States, they are currently fighting forfeiture in a New York court. 

The DOJ states that Kerimov purchased the yacht in 2021, three years after he was added to sanctions list. Prosecutors allege that the oligarch or his proxies routed dollar transactions through U.S. financial institutions to maintain the Amadea, which would constitute a sanctions violation. 

But proving Kerimov’s ownership — and disproving Khudainatov’s claim — is no simple task. 

Assets like superyachts are often owned through a series of proxy owners, offshore companies and trusts. These entities are often registered in jurisdictions chosen for their secrecy. 

Cassella, who has studied the case, says that Khudainatov’s legal team is dragging out proceedings, while the U.S. government is trying to compel him to answer questions and provide documentation that would prove he is not the Amadea’s owner. 

“This is civil forfeiture defense 101 for anybody who’s got an infinite amount of money to pay lawyers to oppose the forfeiture,” Cassella said. 

Expensive process 

While the legal battle goes forward, the U.S. government is paying to keep the Amadea running. 

According to court filings, upkeep of the yacht costs roughly $600,000 a month. Insurance costs another $144,000 monthly, and there are other periodic expenses. 

In a February filing, an official of the U.S. Marshals Service stated that the Amadea was also scheduled to undergo drydocking in March, which appears to have been delayed. 

That procedure, which involves removing a vessel from the water to conduct repair work, was estimated to cost $5.6 million — although the government negotiated not to pay the other monthly costs during that period, the official noted. 

In recent months, however, the U.S. government has taken steps to decrease the cost. 

In February, it petitioned the court to sell the Amadea, citing the excessive costs of maintaining the yacht. Such a sale would effectively convert the yacht into cash, but not settle the ownership question. 

In a filing opposing the sale, Khudainatov’s legal team stated that he had consistently offered to cover the cost of maintaining the Amadea. 

On May 17, the U.S. government also submitted a motion to reject Khudainatov’s ownership claim, stating that he lacks standing to contest forfeiture. 

If a judge agrees, that could allow the forfeiture to proceed. 

Controversial, challenging strategy 

While confiscating the assets of Russian oligarchs and top officials may not face fierce opposition from most Americans, civil forfeiture is controversial in the United States. 

Advocacy organizations, both liberal and conservative, have criticized the practice, arguing that it allows law enforcement to seize private property without convicting the owner of a crime. 

Smith, the former DOJ prosecutor, says the burden falls hardest on low-income Americans who struggle to pay for a lawyer. 

This was one of the reasons why eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2022 voted against a bill calling for the Biden administration to seize sanctioned Russians’ assets to fund Ukraine. 

Smith believes applying civil forfeiture to oligarchs is “arbitrary” and he is unsure whether the U.S. will be able to seize enough assets from oligarchs to make a meaningful difference for Ukraine. 

“I would rather spend the money [subsidizing forfeiture investigations and proceedings] on other things than trying to forfeit these yachts,” he said. “And who knows how many will ultimately be forfeited.” 

That concern is not unfounded. The Kleptocapture Task Force is working to forfeit or restrain around $700 million, but, so far, the United States has been able to transfer forfeited assets to Ukraine in only a handful of cases. 

In May 2023, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized sending $5.4 million to Ukraine that the U.S. had seized from sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev. It represented the first such transfer of forfeited funds to Ukraine. 

Later that year, the U.S. transferred over a million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine after seizing them en route from Iran to Yemen.

In February 2024, the U.S. government, after breaking up a scheme to illegally procure military-grade technology for Russia, transferred $500,000 in forfeited Russian funds to Estonia to provide aid to Ukraine. 

In April, the U.S. transferred another shipment of weapons seized from Iran to Ukraine.

Those transfers put funds and ammunition in the hands of the Ukrainian government, but they were also of a significantly lower value than the Amadea. 

Bigger cases involving oligarch assets may prove more difficult. 

“It wouldn’t surprise me if it took 10 years to resolve some of these cases,” said former prosecutor Cassella. 

Natasha Mozgovaya reported from Everett, Washington. Matthew Kupfer and Oleksii Kovalenko reported from Washington, D.C.
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is canceling student loans for 160,000 more borrowers through a combination of existing programs. 

The U.S. Education Department announced the latest round of cancellations on Wednesday, saying it will erase $7.7 billion in federal student loans. With the latest action, the administration said it has canceled $167 billion in student debt for nearly 5 million Americans through several programs. 

“From day one of my administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “I will never stop working to cancel student debt — no matter how many times Republican-elected officials try to stop us.” 

The latest relief will go to borrowers in three categories who hit certain milestones that make them eligible for cancellation. It will go to 54,000 borrowers who are enrolled in Biden’s new income-driven repayment plan, along with 39,000 enrolled in earlier income-driven plans, and about 67,000 who are eligible through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. 

Biden’s new payment plan, known as the SAVE Plan, offers a faster path to forgiveness than earlier versions. More people are now becoming eligible for loan cancellation as they hit 10 years of payments, a new finish line that’s a decade sooner than what borrowers faced in the past. 

The cancellation is moving forward even as Biden’s SAVE Plan faces legal challenges from Republican-led states. A group of 11 states led by Kansas sued to block the plan in March, followed by seven more led by Missouri in April. In two federal lawsuits, the states say Biden needed to go through Congress for his overhaul of federal repayment plans. 

A separate action by the Biden administration aimed to correct previous mistakes that delayed cancellation for some borrowers enrolled in other repayment plans and through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which forgives loans for people who make 10 years of payments while working in public service jobs. 

The Biden administration has been announcing new batches of forgiveness each month as more people qualify under those three categories. 

According to the Education Department, one in 10 federal student loan borrowers has now been approved for some form of loan relief. 

“One out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers approved for debt relief means one out of every 10 borrowers now has financial breathing room and a burden lifted,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. 

The Biden administration has continued canceling loans through existing avenues while it also pushes for a new, one-time cancellation that would provide relief to more than 30 million borrowers in five categories. 

Biden’s new plan aims to help borrowers with large sums of unpaid interest, those with older loans, those who attended low-value college programs, and those who face other hardships preventing them from repaying student loans. It would also cancel loans for people who are eligible through other programs but haven’t applied. 

The proposal is going through a lengthy rulemaking process, but the administration said it will accelerate certain provisions, with plans to start waiving unpaid interest for millions of borrowers starting this fall. 

Conservative opponents have threatened to challenge that plan, too, calling it an unfair bonus for wealthy college graduates at the expense of taxpayers who didn’t attend college or already repaid their loans. 

The Supreme Court rejected Biden’s earlier attempt at one-time cancellation, saying it overstepped the president’s authority. The new plan is being made with a different legal justification. 
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WASHINGTON — The headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington was briefly evacuated Wednesday morning after a suspicious package containing two vials of blood was delivered to the building, the police said. 

The RNC, the parent organization of the Republican Party, is playing a major role in the campaign of former President Donald Trump, who will face Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in the November 5 presidential election.  

The authorities initially closed off one downtown block and directed staff and other personnel to avoid the area. By midmorning, employees were reentering the building and police were leaving the scene, according to a Reuters witness.  

“The source of the package and its contents will be further investigated,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. 

The RNC did not respond to a request for comment. 
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Washington — A house-cured smoked salmon, red grapefruit, avocado and cucumber starter. Dry-aged rib eye beef in a sesame sabayon sauce. Salted caramel pistachio cake under a layer of matcha ganache.

While President Joe Biden and his guest of honor at a White House state dinner chew over foreign policy, the female chef duo of Cris Comerford and Susie Morrison take care of the culinary diplomacy. They pulled off the above menu for Japan’s leader in April, and they’ll have a new array of delicacies for Kenya’s president on Thursday night.

Comerford, the White House executive chef, and Morrison, the executive pastry chef, are the first women to hold those posts, forming a duo that has tantalized the taste buds of guests at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. with their culinary creations for nearly a decade. Comerford is also the first person of color to be executive chef.

“Both are just exceptional examples of success in their field,” said Bill Yosses, who was the executive pastry chef for seven years before his departure in 2014 cleared the way for Morrison to be promoted. “They excel at what they do.”

Comerford and Morrison get to do it again Thursday when Biden and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, host the administration’s sixth state dinner, for Kenyan President William Ruto and his wife, Rachel. It will be the first such honor for an African head of state since 2008 and the first for Kenya since 2003.

A lavish state dinner is a tool of U.S. diplomacy, a high honor reserved for America’s longstanding and closest allies. In the case of Kenya, Biden wants to elevate a relationship that he sees as critical to security in Africa and far beyond.

Jill Biden planned to preview the dinner setup for the news media on Wednesday afternoon.

State dinner planning is done by the first lady’s staff and the White House social office, and starts months in advance. Ideas are kicked around before the chefs propose a few different menus. The meals are prepared, plated as they would be served and tasted by the social secretary and the first lady, who makes the final call on what will be served.

The menus change, but the overarching goal has stayed the same.

“We’re trying to showcase American food, American regions, American farmers,” while incorporating small tributes to the guest of honor, Yosses said. “It would be rare that we would really try to imitate something from the guest’s country.”

Ingredients for April’s state dinner for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife, Yuko, came from California, Maryland, Oregon and Ohio. The wines were from Oregon and Washington state.

At the media preview for that glitzy event, Comerford explained that the diets of the Bidens and the visiting dignitaries are factored into the preparations, along with those of other guests.

“When we formulate and we create the state dinner menu, we take into consideration all the principals and most of our guests,” she said. “We also take into consideration the season because this is the perfect time for some beautiful bounties right now, with the spring coming up, with all the morels and the mushrooms, and Susie’s cherries and all the stuff she has on her plate.”

The chefs contact their regular purveyors to find out what’s in season, and go from there.

The salmon appetizer served in April was inspired by the California roll, which Comerford said was invented by a Japanese chef.

Morrison’s dessert highlighted Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the United States, many of which are planted in Washington, and its matcha tea. She decorated the pistachio cake with sugary mini cherry blossoms.

“We wanted to bring a little bit of the cherry blossoms that are here on the Tidal Basin right here to our dessert in order for everyone to enjoy the cherry blossoms that we enjoy every year,” she said.

Serving dinner to hundreds of guests at once comes down to timing. Thursday’s event will be held in an expansive pavilion put up on the South Grounds of the White House.

Sam Kass, who was an assistant chef during President Barack Obama’s administration, said tradition holds that the president is the first one served and that plates are cleared away when he is finished eating.

“You have to have a service that is so efficient and quick to get those plates out so that the last table has a chance to eat,” he said.

Comerford, 61, sharpened her culinary skills while working at hotels in Chicago and restaurants in Washington before the White House brought her on in 1995 as an assistant chef. A naturalized U.S. citizen and Filipino native, she was named executive chef in 2005. Her responsibilities include designing and executing menus for state dinners, social events, holiday functions, receptions and official luncheons.

Morrison, 57, started at the executive mansion as a contract pastry employee in 1995 while she was working at a hotel in northern Virginia. She was named an assistant pastry chef in 2002 and became the executive pastry chef in November 2014 — just in time to sweat over the details of that year’s gingerbread White House for the holiday season.

The pair has worked together at the White House for nearly 30 years.

Yosses recalled at least one instance where the honoree’s wishes dictated the menu selections.

In 2015, China’s Xi Jinping wanted a very American menu, “which I think was a polite way for him to say that he didn’t think we could do Chinese food very well,” Yosses said.

The Chinese leader was served butter-poached Maine lobster and grilled Colorado lamb.
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Washington — Russia has launched a likely space weapon and deployed it in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite, the Pentagon said.

“Russia launched a satellite into low Earth orbit that we assess is likely a counter-space weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Pat Ryder told a press briefing late Tuesday.

The Russian “counter-space weapon” launched on May 16 was deployed “into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite,” he said.

Ryder added that Washington would continue to monitor the situation and was ready to protect its interests.

“We have a responsibility to be ready to protect and defend the domain, the space domain, and ensure continuous and uninterrupted support to the Joint and Combined Force,” he said.

Earlier Tuesday, Moscow accused the United States of seeking to place weapons in space after Washington vetoed a Russian non-proliferation motion at the United Nations.

“They have once again demonstrated that their true priorities in the area of outer space are aimed not at keeping space free from weapons of any kind, but at placing weapons in space and turning it into an arena for military confrontation,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

The world powers have traded multiple accusations of seeking to weaponize space in recent months.

They have proposed rival non-proliferation motions at the United Nations as part of the spat.

Russia vetoed the U.S. initiative last month, while Moscow’s proposal was blocked by the United States, Britain and France in a vote on Monday.

U.S. envoy Robert Wood said Russia’s proposal, which called on all countries to “take urgent measures to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space,” was a distraction and accused Moscow of “diplomatic gaslighting.”

He said that Russia’s “likely” counter-space weapon was “presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit.”

“Russia deployed this new counter-space weapon into the same orbit as a US government satellite,” he said in remarks ahead of Monday’s vote.

“Russia’s May 16 launch follows prior Russian satellite launches likely of counter-space systems to low Earth orbit in 2019 and 2022.”

In February, the White House said Russia was developing an anti-satellite weapon, the existence of which was confirmed after lawmakers warned of an unspecified but serious threat to national security.
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