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BOSTON — Sisay Lemma scorched the first half of the Boston Marathon course on Monday, setting a record pace to build a lead of more than half of a mile. 

Then the weather heated up, and the 34-year-old Ethiopian slowed down. 

After running alone for most of the morning, Lemma held on down Boylston Street to finish in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 17 seconds — the 10th fastest time in the race’s 128-year history. Lemma dropped to the pavement and rolled onto his back, smiling, after crossing the finish line. 

“Until halfway through I was running very hard and very good. But after that it was getting harder and harder,” said Lemma, who failed to finish twice and came in 30th in three previous Boston attempts. “Several times I’ve dropped out of the race before. But today I won, so I’ve redeemed myself.” 

Hellen Obiri defended her title, outkicking Sharon Lokedi on Boylston Street to finish in 2:27:37 and win by eight seconds; two-time Boston champion Edna Kiplagat completed the Kenyan sweep, finishing another 36 seconds back. 

Obiri also won New York last fall and is among the favorites for the Paris Olympics. She is the sixth woman to win back-to-back in Boston and the first since Catherine “the Great” Ndereba won four in six years from 2000 to ’05. 

“Defending the title was not easy. Since Boston started, it’s only six women. So I said, ‘Can I be one of them? If you want to be one of them, you have to work extra hard,'” she said. “And I’m so happy because I’m now one of them. I’m now in the history books in Boston.” 

Lemma, the 2021 London champion, arrived in Boston with the fastest time in the field — just the fourth person ever to break 2:02:00 when he won in Valencia last year. And he showed it on the course Monday, separating himself from the pack in Ashland and opening a lead of more than half of a mile. 

Lemma ran the first half in 1:00:19 — 99 seconds faster than Geoffrey Mutai’s course record pace in 2011, when his 2:03:02 was the fastest marathon in history. Fellow Ethiopian Mohamed Esa closed the gap through the last few miles, finishing second by 41 seconds; two-time defending champion Evans Chebet was third. 

Each winner collected a gilded olive wreath and $150,000 from a total prize purse that topped $1 million for the first time. 

On a day when sunshine and temperatures rising into the mid-60s left the runners reaching for water — to drink, and to dump over their heads — Obiri ran with an unusually large lead pack of 15 through Brookline before breaking away in the final few miles. 

Emma Bates of Boulder, Colorado, finished 12th — her second straight year as the top American. Again, she found herself leading the race through the 30-kilometer mark, slapping hands as she ran past the Wellesley College students chanting her name before fading on the way out of Heartbreak Hill. 

“I thought last year was crazy loud, but this year surpassed that completely,” Bates said. “It was such a nice day for the spectators. Not so nice for the runners; it was pretty hot.” 

CJ Albertson of Fresno, California, was the top American man in seventh, his second top-10 finish. 

Switzerland’s Marcel Hug righted himself after crashing into a barrier when he took a turn too fast and still coasted to a course record in the men’s wheelchair race. It was his seventh Boston win and his 14th straight major marathon victory. 

Hug already had a four-minute lead about 18 miles in when he reached the landmark firehouse turn in Newton, where the course heads onto Commonwealth Avenue on its way to Heartbreak Hill. He spilled into the fence, flipping sideways onto his left wheel, but quickly restored himself. 

“It was my fault,” Hug said. “I had too much weight, too much pressure from above to my steering, so I couldn’t steer.” 

Hug finished in 1:15:33, winning by 5:04 and breaking his previous course record by 1:33. Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper, 22, won the women’s wheelchair race in 1:35:11 for her first major marathon victory; she is the third-youngest woman to win the Boston wheelchair race. 

The otherwise sleepy New England town of Hopkinton celebrated its 100th anniversary as the starting line for the world’s oldest and most prestigious marathon, sending off a field of 17 former champions and nearly 30,000 other runners on its way. Near the finish on Boylston Street 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) away, officials observed the anniversary of the 2013 bombing that killed three and wounded hundreds more. 

Sunny skies and minimal wind greeted the runners, with temperatures in the 40s as they gathered in Hopkinton rising to 69 as the stragglers crossed the finish line in the afternoon. As the field went through Natick, the fourth of eight cities and towns on the route, athletes splashed water on themselves to cool off. 

“We couldn’t ask for a better day,” former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, the grand marshal, said before climbing into an electric car that would carry him along the course. “The city of Boston always comes out to support, no matter the event. The weather is perfection, the energy is popping.” 

The festivities began around 6 a.m., when race director Dave McGillivray sent about 30 Massachusetts National Guard members off. Lt. Col. Paula Reichert Karsten, one of the marchers, said she wanted to be part of a “quintessential Massachusetts event.” 

The start line was painted to say “100 years in Hopkinton,” commemorating the 1924 move from Ashland to Hopkinton to conform to the official Olympic Marathon distance. The announcer welcomed the gathering crowds to the “sleepy little town of Hopkinton, 364 days of the year.” 

“In Hopkinton, it’s probably the coolest thing about the town,” said Maggie Agosto, a 16-year-old resident who went to the start line with a friend to watch the race. 

The annual race on Patriots’ Day, the state holiday that commemorates the start of the Revolutionary War, also fell on One Boston Day, when the city remembers the victims of the 2013 finish line bombings. Before the race, bagpipes accompanied Gov. Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and members of the victims’ families as they laid a pair of wreaths at the sites of the explosions.
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Moscow — A U.S. citizen arrested on drug charges in Moscow amid soaring Russia-U.S. tensions over Ukraine appeared in court on Monday.

Robert Woodland Romanov is facing charges of trafficking large amounts of illegal drugs as part of an organized group — a criminal offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He was remanded into custody in January, and the trial began in the Ostankino District Court in late March. A new court hearing is scheduled for next week.

In January, the U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of the recent detention of a U.S. citizen and noted that it “has no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” but refrained from further comment, citing privacy considerations. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a similar statement at the time.

Russian media noted that the name of the accused matches that of a U.S. citizen interviewed by the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2020.

In the interview, the man said that he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991 and was adopted by an American couple when he was two. He said that he traveled to Russia to find his Russian mother and eventually met her in a TV show in Moscow.

The man told Komsomolskaya Pravda that he liked living in Russia and decided to move there. The newspaper reported that he settled in the town of Dolgoprudny just outside Moscow and was working as an English teacher at a local school.

Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between Moscow and Washington sink to Cold War lows. Washington accuses Moscow of targeting its citizens and using them as political bargaining chips, but Russian officials insist they all broke the law.

Some have been exchanged for Russians held in the U.S., while for others, the prospects of being released in a swap are less clear.
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ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece — No one knows what music in ancient Greece sounded like or how dancers once moved.

Every two years, a new interpretation of the ancient performance gets a global audience. It takes place in southern Greece at a site many still consider sacred: the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

Forty-eight performers, chosen in part for their resemblance to youths in antiquity as seen in statues and other surviving artwork, will take part Tuesday in the flame-lighting ceremony for the Paris Olympics. 

Details of the 30-minute performance are fine-tuned — and kept secret — right up until a public rehearsal Monday.

The Associated Press got rare access to rehearsals that took place during weekends, mostly at an Olympic indoor cycling track in Athens. 

As riders whiz around them on the banked cycling oval, the all-volunteer Olympic performers snatch poses from ancient vases. Sequences are repeated and re-repeated under the direction of the hyper-focused head choreographer Artemis Ignatiou.

“In ancient times there was no Olympic flame ceremony,” Ignatiou said during a recent practice session.

“My inspiration comes from temple pediments, from images on vases, because there is nothing that has been preserved — no movement, no dance — from antiquity,” she said. “So basically, what we are doing is joining up those images. Everything in between comes from us.”

Ceremonies take place at Olympia every two years for the Winter and Summer Games, with the sun’s rays focused on the inside of a parabolic mirror to produce the Olympic flame and start the torch relay to the host city.

Women dressed as priestesses are at the heart of the ceremony, first held for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Leading the group is an actress who performs the role of high priestess and makes a dramatic appeal to Apollo, the ancient god of the sun, for assistance moments before the torch is lit.

Over the decades, new ingredients have been progressively added: music, choreography, new colors for the costumes, male performers known as “kouroi” and subtle style inclusions to give a nod to the culture of the Olympic host nation.

Adding complexity also has introduced controversy, inevitably amplified by social media. Criticism this year has centered on the dresses and tunics to be worn by the performers, styled to resemble ancient Greek columns. Faultfinders have called it a rude departure from the ceremony’s customary elegance.

Organizers hope the attire will create a more positive impression when witnessed at the ruins of ancient Olympia.

Counting out the sequences, Ignatiou controls the music with taps on her cell phone while keeping track of the male dancers at the velodrome working on a stop motion-like routine and women who glide past them like a slowly uncoiling spring.

Ignatiou has been involved with the ceremony for 36 years, as priestess, high priestess, assistant and then head choreographer since 2008. She takes in the criticism with composure.

She’s still moved to tears when describing the flame lighting, but defers to her dancers to describe their experience of the five-month participation at practices.

Most in their early twenties, the performers are selected from dance and drama academies with an eye on maintaining an athletic look and classic Greek aesthetic, the women with hair pulled back in neat double-braids.

Christiana Katsimpraki, a 23-year-old drama school student who is taking part at Olympia for the first time, said she wants to repay the kindness shown to her by older performers.

“Before I go to bed, when I close my eyes, I go through the whole choreography — a run through — to make sure I have all the steps memorized and that they’re in the right order,” she said. “It’s so that the next time I can come to the rehearsal, it all goes correctly and no one gets tired.”

The ceremony is performed to sparse music, and final routine modifications are made at Olympia, in part to cope with the pockmarked and uneven ground at the site.

Dancers describe the fun they have in messaging groups, the good-natured pranks played on newcomers and fun they have on the four-hour bus ride to the ancient site in southern Greece — but also the significance of the moment and the pull of the past.

“I’m in awe that we’re going there and that I’m going to be part of this whole team,” 23-year-old performer Kallia Vouidaski said. “I’m going to have this entire experience that I watched when I was little on TV. I would say, ’Oh! How cool would it be if I could do this at some point.’ And I did it.”

The flame-lighting ceremony will start at 0830 GMT Tuesday. A separate flame-handover ceremony to the Paris 2024 organizing committee will be held in Athens on April 26. 
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Tbilisi — Several hundred protesters gathered outside the Georgian parliament on Monday as ruling party legislators on the judicial committee looked set to advance a controversial bill on “foreign agents” criticized by Western countries.

The ruling Georgian Dream party said earlier this month it would reintroduce legislation requiring organizations that accept funds from abroad to register as foreign agents or face fines, 13 months after protests forced it to shelve the plan.

The bill has been criticized by European countries and the United States. The European Union, which gave Georgia candidate status in December, has said the move is incompatible with the bloc’s values. 

Georgian critics have labelled it “the Russian law,” comparing it to similar legislation used by the Kremlin to crack down on dissent in Russia.

Russia is widely unpopular in Georgia, due to Moscow’s support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia defeated Georgia in a short war in 2008.

Georgian Dream, which says it wants the country to join the EU and NATO even as it has deepened ties with Moscow, says the bill is necessary to combat what it calls “pseudo-liberal values” imposed by foreigners, and to promote transparency.

Opposition parties and civil society organization have called for a mass protest outside parliament on Monday evening.

Once approved by members of the legislature’s legal affairs committee, which is controlled by Georgian Dream and its allies, the bill can proceed to a first reading in parliament. 
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Washington — Tax Day reveals a major split in how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern: The presidential candidates have conflicting ideas about how much to reveal about their own finances and the best ways to boost the economy through tax policy.

Biden, the sitting Democratic president, plans to release his income tax returns on Monday, the IRS filing deadline. And on Tuesday, he is scheduled to deliver a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, about why the wealthy should pay more in taxes to reduce the federal deficit and help fund programs for the poor and middle class.

Biden is proud to say that he was largely without money for much of his decades-long career in public service, unlike Trump, who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his father and used his billionaire status to launch a TV show and later a presidential campaign.

“For 36 years, I was listed as the poorest man in Congress,” Biden told donors in California in February. “Not a joke.”

In 2015, Trump declared as part of his candidacy, “I’m really rich.”

The Republican former president has argued that voters have no need to see his tax data and that past financial disclosures are more than sufficient. He maintains that keeping taxes low for the wealthy will supercharge investment and lead to more jobs, while tax hikes would crush an economy still recovering from inflation that hit a four-decade peak in 2022.

“Biden wants to give the IRS even more cash by proposing the largest tax hike on the American people in history when they are already being robbed by his record-high inflation crisis,” said Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the Trump campaign.

The split goes beyond an ideological difference to a very real challenge for whoever triumphs in the November election. At the end of 2025, many of the tax cuts that Trump signed into law in 2017 will expire — setting up an avalanche of choices about how much people across the income spectrum should pay as the national debt is expected to climb to unprecedented levels.

Including interest costs, extending all the tax breaks could add another $3.8 trillion to the national debt through 2033, according to an analysis last year by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Biden would like to keep the majority of the tax breaks, based on his pledge that no one earning less than $400,000 will have to pay more. But he released a budget proposal this year with tax increases on the wealthy and corporations that would raise $4.9 trillion in revenues and trim forecasted deficits by $3.2 trillion over 10 years.

Still, he’s telling voters that he’s all for letting the Trump-era tax cuts lapse.

“Does anyone here think the tax code is fair? Raise your hand,” Biden said Tuesday at a speech in Washington’s Union Station to a crowd predisposed to dislike Trump’s broad tax cuts that helped many in the middle class but disproportionately favored wealthier households.

“It added more to the national debt than any presidential term in history,” Biden continued. “And it’s due to expire next year. And guess what? I hope to be president because it expires — it’s going to stay expired.”

Trump has called for higher tariffs on foreign-made goods, which are taxes that could hit consumers in the form of higher prices. But his campaign is committed to tax cuts while promising that a Trump presidency would reduce a national debt that has risen for decades, including during his Oval Office tenure.

“When President Trump is back in the White House, he will advocate for more tax cuts for all Americans and reinvigorate America’s energy industry to bring down inflation, lower the cost of living, and pay down our debt,” Leavitt said.

Most economists say Trump’s tax cuts could not generate enough growth to pay down the national debt. An analysis released Friday by Oxford Economics found that a “full-blown Trump” policy with tax cuts, higher tariffs and blocking immigration would slow growth and increase inflation.

Among Biden’s proposals is a “billionaire minimum income tax” that would apply a minimum rate of 25% on households with a net worth of at least $100 million.

The tax would directly target billionaires such as Trump, who refused to release his personal taxes as presidents have traditionally done. But six years of his tax returns were released in 2022 by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.

In 2018, Trump earned more than $24 million and paid about 4% of that in federal income taxes. The congressional panel also found that the IRS delayed legally mandated audits of Trump during his presidency, with the panel concluding the audit process was “dormant, at best.”

Biden has publicly released more than two decades of his tax returns. In 2022, he and his wife, Jill, made $579,514 and paid nearly 24% of that in federal income taxes, more than double the rate paid by Trump.

Trump has maintained that his tax records are complicated because of his use of various tax credits and past business losses, which in some cases have allowed him to avoid taxes. He also previously declined to release his tax returns under the claim that the IRS was auditing him for pre-presidential filings.

His finances recently received a boost from the stock market debut of Trump Media, which controls Trump’s preferred social media outlet, Truth Social. Share prices initially surged, adding billions of dollars to Trump’s net worth, but investors have since soured on the company and shares by Friday were down more than 50% from their peak.

The former president is also on the hook for $542 million due to legal judgments in a civil fraud case and penalties owed to the writer E. Jean Carroll because of statements made by Trump that damaged her reputation after she accused him of sexual assault.

In the civil fraud case, New York Judge Arthur Engoron looked at the financial records of the Trump Organization and concluded after looking at the inflated assets that “the frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.”
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The United States and Israel say they achieved a “spectacular defeat” over an Iranian aerial attack that sent 300 munitions – more than 100 of them ballistic missiles – to Israel on Saturday. But as Sunday dawned in both places, a bigger question rose on the horizon: What happens next in this six-month conflict that threatens to envelop the Middle East? VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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WASHINGTON — Top officials in Washington are attempting to avoid a widening war in the Middle East after Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel with explosive drones and missiles.

“There need to be some consequences here,” said a senior U.S. official briefing reporters Sunday afternoon on the condition of not being named.

But U.S. President Joe Biden, in his latest conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “made very clear to the prime minister last night that we do have to think carefully and strategically about risks of escalation,” especially in view of the attack causing only light damage and no significant casualties, the official said.

Israeli officials insist there will be a response, but the country’s war Cabinet appears divided on how and when.

If Israel retaliates, it would be doing it alone.

“We would not envision ourselves participating in such a thing,” replied the senior administration official when asked whether the United States would participate in any military response to the Iranian attack.

It was an “incredible military achievement” by Israel, the United States and other partners in repelling “more than 300 drones and missiles” launched by Iran, according to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby.

US Central Command says its forces, supported by US European Command destroyers, on Saturday and on Sunday morning “successfully engaged and destroyed more than 80 one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAV) and at least six ballistic missiles intended to strike Israel from Iran and Yemen. This includes a ballistic missile on its launcher vehicle and seven UAVs destroyed on the ground in Iranian-backed Houthi controlled areas of Yemen prior to their launch.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a statement late Saturday, said the explosive aircraft and missiles were launched from the territories of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

“We call on Iran to immediately halt any further attacks, including from its proxy forces, and to deescalate tensions,” Austin said. “We do not seek conflict with Iran, but we will not hesitate to act to protect our forces and support the defense of Israel.”

He spoke by phone Sunday for the third time during the weekend with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Biden convened a hastily arranged video conference Sunday of leaders of the Group of Seven nations to coordinate a united diplomatic response to the Iranian attack.

“With its actions, Iran has further stepped toward the destabilization of the region and risks provoking an uncontrollable regional escalation. This must be avoided,” the G7 leaders said in a group statement issued after their meeting. “We will continue to work to stabilize the situation and avoid further escalation. In this spirit, we demand that Iran and its proxies cease their attacks, and we stand ready to take further measures now and in response to further destabilizing initiatives.”

Biden spoke by phone with Netanyahu on Saturday evening to “reaffirm America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel.”

Biden told Netanyahu, according to media reports, that since the Iranian attack caused only minimal casualties and damage, Israel should not retaliate against Iran.

Both Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been calling leaders in the region to make it clear that while Washington does not seek a direct military confrontation with Tehran, the United States will not hesitate to continue to defend Israel.

Biden had rushed back to Washington from a visit to Delaware earlier Saturday and convened a meeting in the White House Situation Room with key officials of his Cabinet as Iran launched the unprecedented attack after vowing to retaliate over an April 1 suspected Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the strike.

The U.S. military began moving extra troops and equipment to sites in the Middle East, defense officials confirmed Friday. It has about 40,000 troops in the region.

The U.S. Navy moved two guided-missile destroyers capable of intercepting drones and incoming missiles closer to Israel in anticipation of the Iranian attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. Navy Red Sea forces have previously intercepted long-range missiles launched toward Israel from Yemen by the Iranian-allied Houthi forces.

The Biden administration’s response to the Iranian attack will be closely watched by his political opponents, coming less than seven months before a general election rematch between the Democratic Party incumbent and his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.

Trump, speaking Saturday at a rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, claimed the attack “would not have happened if we were in office.” He did not elaborate on how.

“God bless the people of Israel,” he said. “They are under attack right now. That’s because we show great weakness.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has failed to permit a floor vote on bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate providing security aid to Israel and Ukraine, is accusing Biden’s administration of undermining Israel and appeasing Iran and that “contributed to these terrible developments.”

A Republican congressman, Mike Turner of the state of Ohio, is calling for a more robust response from Biden.

“I think the administration needs to take seriously that this attack has happened. It’s unprecedented and certainly it needs to be viewed as an escalation. This is an escalating conflict,” Turner, who chairs the intelligence committee in the House, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program Sunday.

Democrat Chris Coons, of Biden’s home state of Delaware, is urging lawmakers to pass Biden’s request for military aid to Israel.

“The House should promptly pass this coming week the long-delayed national security supplemental to ensure that our Israeli allies have everything they need to defend themselves from attacks by Iran and its proxies,” he said.
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Augusta, Georgia — American Scottie Scheffler won his second Masters title with an ice-cool four stroke victory at Augusta National on Sunday.

Scheffler, the world number one and 2022 Masters winner, shot a final round four-under par 68 to end on 11-under for the tournament with Masters first-timer Ludvig Aberg of Sweden finishing as the runner-up.

It was a classic display of calmness and precision from Scheffler, who kept his focus after making bogies on the fourth and seventh holes to run away with the contest on the back nine.

Scheffler began the round with a one-shot lead over fellow American Collin Morikawa but the contest took a decisive turn on the ninth hole.

Morikawa double-bogeyed and Scheffler made birdie and the three-stroke swing left the 24-year-old Aberg his closest challenger after the turn.

But after Aberg double-bogeyed the 11th, the outcome was in Scheffler’s safe hands and the 27-year-old Texan made sure of victory with birdies on 13, 14 and 16.

The win is Scheffler’s third victory of the season coming after his wins at Bay Hill and the Players Championship last month.
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A private high school in California has provided scholarships to three refugee students — one from Ukraine and two from Afghanistan. VOA’s Genia Dulot has the story of an American educator who has even opened her home to the two Afghans teens as they complete their studies.
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The White House calls it an “incredible military achievement” that Israel, the United States and other partners succeeded in repelling “more than 300 drones and missiles” launched by Iran toward Israel. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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WARSAW — Thousands of Polish opponents of abortion marched Sunday in Warsaw to protest recent steps by the new government to liberalize the predominantly Catholic nation’s strict laws and allow termination of pregnancy until the 12th week.

Many participants in the downtown march were pushing prams with children, while others were carrying white-and-red national flags or posters representing a fetus in the womb.

Poland’s Catholic Church has called for Sunday to be a day of prayer “in defense of conceived life” and has supported the march, organized by an anti-abortion movement.

“In the face of promotion of abortion in recent months, the march will be a rare occasion to show our support for the protection of human life from conception to natural death,” a federation of anti-abortion movements said in a statement.

They were referring to an ongoing public debate surrounding the steps that the 4-month-old government of Prime Minster Donald Tusk is taking to relax the strict law brought in by its conservative predecessor.

Last week, Poland’s parliament, which is dominated by the liberal and pro-European Union ruling coalition voted to approve further detailed work on four proposals to lift the near ban on abortions.

The procedure, which could take weeks or even months, is expected to be eventually rejected by conservative President Andrzej Duda, whose term runs for another year.

Last month Duda vetoed a draft law that would have made the morning-after pill available over the counter from the age of 15.

A nation of some 38 million, Poland is seeking ways to boost the birth rate, which is currently at 1.2 per woman — among the lowest in the European Union. Poland’s society is aging and shrinking, facts that the previous right-wing government used among its arguments for toughening the abortion law.

Currently, abortions are only allowed in cases of rape or incest or if the woman’s life or health is at risk. According to the Health Ministry, 161 abortions were performed in Polish hospitals in 2022. However, abortion advocates estimate that some 120,000 women in Poland have abortions each year, mostly by secretly obtaining pills from abroad.

Women attempting to abort themselves are not penalized, but anyone assisting them can face up to three years in prison. Reproductive rights advocates say the result is that doctors turn women away even in permitted cases for fear of legal consequences for themselves.

One of the four proposals being processed in parliament would decriminalize assisting a woman to have an abortion. Another one, put forward by a party whose leaders are openly Catholic, would keep a ban in most cases but would allow abortions in cases of fetal defects — a right that was eliminated by a 2020 court ruling. The two others aim to permit abortion through the 12th week.
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GRANTS PASS, Oregon — A pickleball game in this leafy Oregon community was suddenly interrupted one rainy weekend morning by the arrival of an ambulance. Paramedics rushed through the park toward a tent, one of dozens illegally erected by the town’s hundreds of homeless people, then play resumed as though nothing had happened.

Mere feet away, volunteers helped dismantle tents to move an 80-year-old man and a woman blind in one eye, who risked being fined for staying too long. In the distance, a group of boys climbed on a jungle gym.

The scenes were emblematic of the crisis gripping the small, Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass, where a fierce fight over park space has become a battleground for a much larger, national debate on homelessness that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

The town’s case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it.

“I certainly wish this wasn’t what my town was known for,” Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press last month. “It’s not the reason why I became mayor. And yet it has dominated every single thing that I’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years.”

Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.

Like many Western communities, Grants Pass has struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. A decade ago, City Council members discussed how to make it “uncomfortable enough … in our city so they will want to move on down the road.” From 2013 to 2018, the city said it issued 500 citations for camping or sleeping in public, including in vehicles, with fines that could reach hundreds of dollars.

But a 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals changed the calculus. The court, whose jurisdiction includes nine Western states, held that while communities are allowed to prohibit tents in public spaces, it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to give people criminal citations for sleeping outside when they had no place else to go.

Four years later, in a case challenging restrictions in Grants Pass, the court expanded that ruling, holding that civil citations also can be unconstitutional.

Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing. Officials throughout the West have overstated the impact of the court decisions to distract from their own failings, they argued.

“For years, political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region’s severe housing shortage,” the attorneys wrote. “It is easier to blame the courts than to take responsibility for finding a solution.”

In Grants Pass, the town’s parks, many lining the picturesque Rogue River, are at the heart of the debate. Cherished for their open spaces, picnic tables, playgrounds and sports fields, they host everything from annual boat-racing festivals and vintage car shows to Easter egg hunts and summer concerts.

They’re also the sites of encampments blighted by illegal drug use and crime, including a shooting at a park last year that left one person dead. Tents cluster along riverbanks, next to tennis courts and jungle gyms, with tarps shielding belongings from the rain. When the sun comes out, clothes and blankets are strung across tree branches to dry. Used needles litter the ground.

Grants Pass has just one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won’t stay there.

Cassy Leach, a nurse, leads a volunteer group providing food, medical care and other basic goods to the town’s hundreds of homeless people. They help relocate their tents to comply with city rules.

At one park last month, she checked on a man who burned his leg after falling on a torch lighter during a fentanyl overdose and brought him naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal medication. In another, she distributed cans of beans, peas and Chef Boyardee mini ravioli from a pickup truck.

“Love, hope, community and a safety net is really as important as a shower and water,” Leach said.

Dre Buetow, 48, from northern California, has been living in his car for three years after a bone cancer diagnosis and $450,000 in medical bills. The illness and treatment kept him from returning to his old tree-trimming job, he said.

Laura Gutowski’s husband died from a pulmonary embolism and she suddenly found herself, in her 50s, with no income. They didn’t have life insurance or savings and, within a month, she was sleeping outside in the city she grew up in.

“I used to love camping,” she said through tears. “And now I can’t stand it anymore.”

Volunteers like Leach came to her rescue. “They’re angels,” she said.

But some residents want to limit aid because of the trash left behind after encampment moves or food handouts. The City Council proposed requiring outreach groups to register with the city. The mayor vetoed it, laying bare the discord gripping Grants Pass.

Before the council attempted, unsuccessfully, to override the veto last month, a self-proclaimed “park watch” group rallied outside City Hall with signs reading, “Parks are for kids.” Drivers in passing cars honked their support.

The group regularly posts images of trash, tents and homeless people on social media. On Sundays, they set up camp chairs in what they say is a bid to reclaim park space.

Brock Spurgeon says he used to take his grandkids to parks that were so full it was hard to find an available picnic table. Now, open drug use and discarded needles have scared families away, he said.

“That was taken away from us when the campers started using the parks,” he said.

Still, Spurgeon said his own brother died while homeless in a nearby city, and his son is living in the parks as he struggles with addiction. Once, he said, he realized with shock that the homeless person covered with blankets that he stepped past to enter a grocery store was his son.

“I miss my son every night, and I hold my breath that he won’t OD in the park,” Spurgeon said.

Mayor Bristol and advocates have sought to open a shelter with fewer rules, or a designated area for homeless people to camp. But charged debates emerged over where that would be and who would pay for it.

While support for a designated campground appears to be growing, the problem remains: Many homeless people in Grants Pass have nowhere else to live. And some advocates fear a return of strict anti-camping enforcement will push people to the forest outside town, farther from help.

Even if the Supreme Court overturns the 9th Circuit’s decisions, Bristol said, “we still have 200 people who have to go somewhere.”

“We have to accept that homelessness is a reality in America,” she said.
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WASHINGTON — Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he sees interest among fellow scholars wane even after China reopened.

Common concerns, he said, include restrictions on academic freedom and the risk of being stranded in China.

These days, only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of close to 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at U.S. schools.

Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see as diminishing economic opportunities and strained relations between Washington and Beijing.

Whatever the reason for the imbalance, U.S. officials and scholars bemoan the lost opportunities for young people to experience life in China and gain insight into a formidable American adversary.

And officials from both countries agree that more should be done to encourage the student exchanges, at a time when Beijing and Washington can hardly agree on anything else.

“I do not believe the environment is as hospitable for educational exchange as it was in the past, and I think both sides are going to need to take steps,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

The U.S. has advised its. citizens to “reconsider travel” to China over concerns of arbitrary detentions and widened use of exit bans to bar Americans from leaving the country. Campbell said this has hindered the rebuilding of the exchanges and easing the advisory is now under “active consideration.”

For its part, Beijing is rebuilding programs for international students that were shuttered during the pandemic, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has invited tens of thousands of U.S. high school students to visit.

The situation was far different after President Barack Obama started the 100,000 Strong initiative in 2009 to drastically increase the number of U.S. students studying in China.

By 2012, there were as many as 24,583 U.S. students in China, according to data by the Chinese education ministry. The Open Doors reports by the Institute of International Education, which only track students enrolled in U.S. schools and studying in China for credit, show the number peaked at 14,887 in the 2011-12 school year. But 10 years later, the number was down to only 211.

In late 2023, the number of American students stood at 700, according to Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, who said this was far too few in a country of such importance to the United States.

“We need young Americans to learn Mandarin. We need young Americans to have an experience of China,” Burns said.

Without these U.S. students, “in the next decade, we won’t be able to exercise savvy, knowledgeable diplomacy in China,” warned David Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with establishing a new master’s program for international students at Beijing Capital Normal University.

Moser recalled the years when American students found China fascinating and thought an education there could lead to an interesting career. But he said the days of bustling trade and money deals are gone, while American students and their parents are watching China and the United States move away from each other. “So people think investment in China as a career is a dumb idea,” Moser said.

After 2012, the number of American students in China dipped but held steady at more than 11,000 for several years, according to Open Doors, until the pandemic hit, when China closed its borders and kept most foreigners out. Programs for overseas students that took years to build were shuttered, and staff were let go, Moser said.

Amy Gadsden, executive director of China Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, also attributed some of the declining interest to foreign businesses closing their offices in China. Beijing’s draconian governing style, laid bare by its response to the pandemic, also has given American students a pause, she said.

Garrett, who is on track to graduate this summer from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said he is ambivalent about working in China, citing the lack of access to information, restrictions on discussions of politically sensitive issues and China’s sweeping anti-spying law. He had lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and interned in mainland China, and said he is still interested in traveling to China, but not anytime soon.

Some American students remain committed to studying in China, said Andrew Mertha, director of the China Global Research Center at SAIS. “There are people who are interested in China for China’s sake,” he said. “I don’t think those numbers are affected at all.”

About 40 U.S. students are now studying at the Hopkins-Nanjing center in the eastern Chinese city, and the number is expected to go up in the fall to approach the pre-pandemic level of 50-60 students, said Adam Webb, the center’s American co-director.

Among them is Chris Hankin, 28, who said he believed time in China was irreplaceable because he could interact with ordinary people and travel to places outside the radar of international media. “As the relationship becomes more intense, it’s important to have that color, to have that granularity,” said Hankin, a master’s student of international relations with a focus on energy and the environment.

Jonathan Zhang, a Chinese American studying at the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said it was more important than ever to be in China at a time of tense relations. “It’s really hard to talk about China without being in China,” he said. “I think it’s truly a shame that so many people have never stepped foot in China.”

Zhang was met with concerns when he deferred an offer at a consulting firm to go Beijing. “They’re like, ‘Oh, be safe,’ or like, ‘What do you mean, you’re going back to China?'” Zhang said. “I feel like the (Chinese) government is trying with an earnest effort, but I feel like a lot of this trust has been broken.”

Gadsden said U.S. universities need to do more to nudge students to consider China. “We need to be more intentional about creating the opportunities and about encouraging students to do this deeper work on China, because it’s going to be interesting for them, and it’s going to be valuable for the U.S.-China relationship and for the world,” she said.

In China, Jia Qingguo, a professor of international relations and a national political adviser, has suggested Beijing clarify its laws involving foreign nationals, introduce a separate system for political reviews of foreign students’ dissertations, and make it easier for foreign graduates to find internships and jobs in Chinese companies.

Meanwhile, China is hosting American high school students under a plan Xi unveiled in November to welcome 50,000 in the next five years.

In January, a group of 24 students from Iowa’s Muscatine High School became the first to travel to China. The all-expenses-paid, nine-day trip took them to the Beijing Zoo, Great Wall, Palace Museum, the Yu Garden and Shanghai Museum.

Sienna Stonking, one of the Muscatine students, now wants to return to China to study.

“If I had the opportunity, I would love to go to college in China,” she told China’s state broadcaster CGTN. “Honestly, I love it there.”
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BEIJING — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Sunday on a visit focused on the increasingly tense economic relationship between the sides and differences over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Scholz’s first destination was the industrial hub of Chongqing, where he and his delegation of ministers and business leaders were to visit a partially German-funded company and other sites in the vast city, which is a production base for China’s auto and other industries.

Scholz is also scheduled to visit the financial hub of Shanghai during his three-day visit, before traveling to the capital, Beijing, to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

German companies such as BMW and Volkswagen are highly reliant on the Chinese market, even as Beijing’s support for Russia creates frictions with the West.

Germany’s economy has benefited from China’s demand for investment and manufactured items from cars to chemicals, but those ties have frayed amid increasing competition from Chinese companies and tightened regulations. Political interference has also been blamed for a sharp drop in foreign investment.

German companies have argued they face unfair market barriers in China and the government has pushed for a policy of “de-risking” to reduce reliance on the Chinese market and suppliers.

Despite that, China remained Germany’s top trading partner for the eighth straight year in 2023, with 254.1 billion euros ($271 billion) in goods and services exchanged between the sides, slightly more than what Germany traded with the U.S.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed Scholz descending from his plane in Chonqing and leaving in a motorcade, but did not carry any comments made to the welcoming delegation.

Prior to his arrival, Scholz posted on social platform X that he had discussed the “massive” Russian air attacks on civilian energy infrastructure with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday and declared that Berlin will “stand unbreakably by Ukraine’s side.”

China has refused to criticize Russian aggression. It has maintained trade relations with President Vladimir Putin’s government and aligned its foreign policy with Moscow in opposition to the U.S.-led liberal political order, while touting its authoritarian one-party system as a superior alternative.
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