amsterdam — Dutch politician Geert Wilders said on Wednesday he was ready to forgo the job of prime minister in an effort to facilitate the formation of a new right-wing government, nearly four months after an election in which his party won the most votes. 

Wilders has been in talks with potential allies since the November 22 election – more than 100 days – but they have borne no fruit. A negotiator appointed to assist in the process is scheduled to report his findings to parliament on Thursday. 

“I can only become the prime minister if ALL the parties in the coalition supported it. That was not the case,” Wilders said on social media platform X. 

“I really want a right-[wing] cabinet. Less asylum and immigration. … Love for my country and the voters is big and more important than my own position.” 

Dutch national broadcaster NOS had earlier reported that Wilders was prepared to give up his hope of becoming prime minister as he struggled to form a viable government. 

Citing political sources in The Hague, NOS said Wilders’ Freedom Party and three other conservative parties attempting to form a right-wing coalition were weighing a scenario in which the party leaders would remain in parliament and not join the new government. 

In that scenario, known as an extraparliamentary cabinet, politicians and experts not considered closely allied to any of the parties would be appointed to top government posts and work closely with parliament. 

Wilders said February 14 that he was willing to consider “all options” to form a government, a minority government or an extraparliamentary government, rather than call new elections. 
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vilnius, lithuania — Lithuania blamed Moscow on Wednesday for an overnight attack by a hammer-wielding assailant on an exiled top aide to late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny outside the aide’s home in Vilnius. 

President Gitanas Nauseda said the attack on Leonid Volkov was clearly planned and tied to other provocations against Lithuania, which is a member of NATO and the European Union. 

“I can only say one thing to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin: nobody is afraid of you here,” Nauseda said. 

Lithuania’s State Security Department counter-intelligence agency said the attack was probably carried out to stop the Russian opposition from influencing Russia’s presidential election.  

Russia’s embassy in Vilnius declined to comment on the accusations.  

Putin, in power for nearly a quarter of a century, is expected to extend his rule by a further six years in the March 15-17 election. 

The Kremlin views Navalny’s team as “the most dangerous opposition force capable of exerting real influence on Russia’s internal processes,” the Lithuanian security agency said. 

Volkov himself pointed the finger directly at Putin. In a post on Telegram, he said he had returned home on Wednesday morning after a night in a hospital, having suffered a broken arm and injuries from about 15 hammer blows to the leg. 

“This is an obvious, typical criminal ‘hello’ from Putin, from criminal Petersburg,” Volkov wrote. 

“We will keep on working and we will not surrender,” he added. “It hard but we’ll handle it. … It’s good to know I’m still alive.” 

Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic, died last month in an Arctic prison. Russian authorities say he died of natural causes. His followers believe he was killed by the authorities, which the Kremlin denies. 

In an interview with Reuters hours before Tuesday night’s assault, Volkov said leaders of Navalny’s movement in exile feared for their lives. 

“They know that Putin not only kills people inside Russia, he also kills people outside of Russia,” Volkov said in the interview. “We live in very dark times.” 

Former Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh posted images of Volkov with a bruise on his forehead, blood coming from a leg wound, and a vehicle with damage to the driver’s door and window. 

A lone police car could be seen on patrol on Wednesday afternoon outside Volkov’s house, in a pine forest on the outskirts of the Lithuanian capital. 

Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the perpetrators must “answer for their crime.” 

Lithuania’s police commissioner Renatas Pozela said police were investigating the assault. 

He said the attack did not mean that Lithuania was no longer safe. The Baltic nation of 2.8 million people, which borders Russia and Belarus, has become a base for Russian and Belarusian opposition figures. 

“This is a one-time event which we will successfully solve. … Our people should not be afraid because of this,” Pozela said. 

The U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, Kara McDonald, condemned the attack on Volkov. 

“His resilience and courage in the face of recent attempts to silence and intimidate him are inspiring. The Navalny team remains an outspoken voice against Kremlin repression and brutality,” she said on X. 
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SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco Bay Area parking lot that sits on top of a sacred tribal shell mound dating back 5,700 years has been returned to the Ohlone people by the Berkeley City Council after a settlement with developers who own the land.

Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance giving the title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led, San Francisco Bay Area collective that works to return land to Indigenous people and that raised the funds needed to reach the agreement. 

“This was a long, long effort but it was honestly worth it because what we’re doing today is righting past wrongs and returning stolen land to the people who once lived on it,” said Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin. 

The nearly 1-hectare parking lot is the only undeveloped portion of the West Berkeley shell mound, a three-block area Berkeley designated as a landmark in 2000. 

Before Spanish colonizers arrived in the region, that area held a village and a massive shell mound with a height of 6 meters and the length and width of a football field that was a ceremonial and burial site. Built over years with mussel, clam and oyster shells, human remains, and artifacts, the mound also served as a lookout. 

The Spanish removed the Ohlone from their villages and forced them into labor at local missions. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Anglo settlers took over the land and razed the shell mound to line roadbeds in Berkeley with shells.

“It’s a very sad and shameful history,” said Berkeley City Councilmember Sophie Hahn, who spearheaded the effort to return the land to the Ohlone. 

“This was the site of a thriving village going back at least 5,700 years and there are still Ohlone people among us and their connection to this site is very, very deep and very real, and this is what we are honoring,” she added. 

The agreement with Berkeley-based Ruegg & Ellsworth LLC, which owns the parking lot, comes after a six-year legal fight that started in 2018 when the developer sued the city after officials denied its application to build a 260-unit apartment building with 50% affordable housing and along with retail and parking space. 

The settlement was reached after Ruegg & Ellsworth agreed to accept $27 million to settle all outstanding claims and to turn the property over to Berkeley. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust contributed $25.5 million and Berkeley paid $1.5 million, officials said.

The trust plans to build a commemorative park with a new shell mound and a cultural center to house some of the pottery, jewelry, baskets and other artifacts found over the years and that are in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Corrina Gould, co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, addressed council members before they voted, saying their vote was the culmination of the work of thousands of people over many years. 

The mound that once stood there was “a place where we first said goodbye to someone,” she said. “To have this place saved forever, I am beyond words.”

Gould, who is also tribal chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone, attended the meeting via video conference and wiped away tears after Berkeley’s City Council voted to return the land.

 
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Before a presidential election can be held, political parties must choose their nominees. That is done either through primaries or caucuses.
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WASHINGTON — Members of Congress on Tuesday turned a hearing about President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a charged referendum on a question central to the upcoming presidential election: the 81-year-old’s mental fitness. 

The Biden administration and their main challengers, the backers of presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, emerged from the House Judiciary Committee’s five-hour grilling of Special Counsel Robert Hur with radically different answers to that question.

They also starkly disagreed over Hur’s decision not to file criminal charges, despite concluding in his February report that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials as a private citizen.”

Criminal charges were not warranted, Hur argued in announcing his decision in early February, because, he said, Biden would likely present himself to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” — words that Republican legislators repeated, repeatedly, during the hearing. 

Afterward, Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, gave his take:

“The main thing I took away from the hearing today was that we had three hours of the Republicans showing just how hypocritical they’re willing to be in order to politically attack the president at the same time that they and the Democrats and the special counsel himself laid bare exactly why there is no case here,” he said.

“The case is closed, the evidence did not support bringing charges, and it’s over,” Sams said. “It’s time to move on.”

Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, offered his own conclusion.

“Joe Biden put America’s national security at risk with his illegal retention and disclosure of classified material,” he said. “Biden lied about his wrongdoing in a national press conference, which begs the question — what else is Joe Biden lying about?” 

Further muddying the picture on the matter is Hur’s own grammatically complex statement: 

“The word exoneration does not appear anywhere in my report and that is not my conclusion,” Hur said. 

A newly released transcript of Hur’s five-hour interview held last year with Biden, includes instances of Biden saying he couldn’t recall details or citing dates incorrectly, appearing to say in one instance that his eldest son died in 2017 and that Trump, who was elected in 2016, was “elected in November of 2017.”

“The transcript is now available for every American to see, for all media to see,” Sams said. He noted it shows that, despite the confusion over the year of Beau Biden’s death, it shows that Biden correctly cited the date: May 30. 

“I think that you saw the anger and emotional reaction of a father who still experiences the pain of that loss every single day,” Sams said. 

Many Republicans used their five-minute question periods to compare Biden’s situation to that of his challenger. Trump, too, faces criminal charges over his handling of classified documents after he left office. He was initially slapped with 37 felony counts, including charges that he obstructed justice by failing to return the documents even in response to a subpoena. It’s not clear when that case will go to trial. 

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, in one sentence, took aim at the justice system and Biden’s mental acuity: “This guy’s not getting treated the same way as Trump, because the elevator is not going to the top floor, so we can’t prove intent.”

Democrats resisted that characterization. 

“Joe Biden is a competent, good president who knows American values,” Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen said.

Hur, in his opening statement, said he would “refrain from speculating or commenting on areas outside the scope of the investigation.”

But he also responded to criticism that he overstepped, saying he could not have reached the conclusion he did “without assessing the president’s state of mind.”

Other elected representatives chose not to ask Hur any questions, such as Missouri Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat, who described Hur’s report as a “partisan hit job” — though she said it was appropriate for both Trump and Biden to be investigated. 

“Our country deserves better than this,” she said of the hearing. 

Texas Representative Nathaniel Moran praised Hur’s efforts, asking him only yes-or-no questions and suggesting Biden could be ruled incompetent by a District of Columbia court and placed under guardianship. And he repeated the critical line from Hur’s report — words sure to echo over November’s presidential contest — although he prefaced it with an adjective, calling Biden a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
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Vilnius, Lithuania — Leonid Volkov, a close ally of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was admitted to a hospital on Tuesday after being attacked outside his home in Lithuania, local police told AFP.

Volkov, 43, is one of Russia’s most prominent opposition figures and was a close confidant of Navalny, working as the late leader’s ex-chief of staff and as chairman of his Anti-Corruption Foundation until 2023.

“Leonid Volkov has just been attacked outside his house. Someone broke a car window and sprayed tear gas in his eyes, after which the attacker started hitting Leonid with a hammer,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly Twitter.

Volkov’s wife, Anna Biryukova, shared photos of her husband’s injuries on social media, including a black eye, a red mark on his forehead and bleeding on his leg that had soaked through his jeans.

Navalny’s team later shared a photo of Volkov being carried into an ambulance on a stretcher.

Lithuanian police spokesperson Ramunas Matonis confirmed to AFP that a Russian citizen was assaulted near his home in the capital Vilnius around 10 p.m. local time.

“A lot of police are working at the scene,” Matonis said.

A suspect has not been identified and more details about the assault are expected on Wednesday morning, he added.

Police confirmed that Volkov had been admitted into a hospital.

The attack comes almost a month after Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison, which Volkov blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin, and days before elections set to extend the Kremlin chief’s stay in power.

The day before he was attacked, Volkov wrote on social media: “Putin killed Navalny. And many others before that.”

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis condemned Volkov’s attack in a social media post.

“News about Leonid’s assault are shocking. Relevant authorities are at work. Perpetrators will have to answer for their crime,” he said on X.

NATO member Lithuania is home to many Russian exiles and has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine throughout Russia’s invasion.

Russian dissidents who have spoken out against the Kremlin often complain of being targeted with threats and attacks.

Volkov told the independent Russian news outlet Meduza hours before he was beaten on Tuesday that he was worried for his safety after Navalny’s death.

“The key risk now is that we will all be killed. Why, it’s a pretty obvious thing,” the outlet quoted him as saying.

Volkov went into exile in 2019 along with several of Navalny allies after authorities launched a criminal probe into the leader’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Volkov was declared wanted by Russian authorities in 2021 over his role in drumming up mass protests against the Kremlin together with Navalny.
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Russia has relaunched its spy operations against the West since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, according to analysts. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.
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washington — A re-elected U.S. President Donald Trump could well awaken the following day to a phone call inviting him to Pyongyang for a summit with Kim Jong Un, says a veteran of the two previous Trump-Kim summits in 2018 and 2019.

“If I were Kim Jong Un talking to my advisers in Pyongyang, I’d be thinking of whether I [should] call President-elect Trump the day after the election to congratulate him” and say, “Why don’t you come to Pyongyang? Let’s meet here,” says former Trump adviser John Bolton.

“And Trump might do it,” continued Bolton in an interview with VOA’s Korean Service on Friday.

Bolton served as national security adviser during the period in which Trump and Kim exchanged frequent letters and conducted summits in Singapore in June 2018 and Hanoi in February 2019, as well as an impromptu meeting at the inter-Korean border in June 2019.

The Hanoi summit broke down when Trump walked away from Kim’s offer to dismantle North Korea’s main nuclear plant at Yongbyon in exchange for sanctions relief, and Kim has refused to engage with the United States or South Korea since U.S.-North Korean talks broke down in Stockholm eight months later.

But Bolton said that does not rule out the possibility that Kim might try again, or that Trump might accept.

“The danger with another Trump administration is he prizes making deals more than the substance of the deals, which he often doesn’t understand in the international context,” said Bolton, who has frequently criticized the former president’s approach to foreign affairs since leaving his administration.

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA via phone on Friday, “Kim Jong Un may very well believe that if there’s another summit, he can persuade Trump to lift international economic sanctions” and “weaken the U.S.-ROK [South Korea] alliance as Trump did in the Singapore meeting.”

At a news conference following his 2018 summit with Kim in Singapore, Trump announced the U.S. would suspend military drills with South Korea, describing them as “very provocative” and “tremendously expensive.”

Joint exercises resumed, however, under Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden. The U.S. and South Korea are currently holding the annual Freedom Shield exercise. It began on March 4 and will continue through Thursday.

Harry Kazianis, a senior editor at the website 19FortyFive and president of the Rogue States Project, thinks another Trump-Kim summit would be unlikely.

“Right now, North Korea is likely getting billions of dollars a year from Russia to help Putin arm his military in the Ukraine war and likely little sanctions enforcement from China. If those conditions were to hold, Kim has very little to gain from dealing with Trump,” he said.

But, he told VOA via email on Friday, Kim might need to engage with the American leader again if Trump were to bring the war in Ukraine to an end and successfully pressure China to enforce sanctions.

Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said via email on Friday that Pyongyang has made clear it is not interested in talks.

For diplomacy to resume, he said “both sides would have to find a way of putting the Hanoi experience behind them and establishing a new modus vivendi and mutually beneficial rationales for pursuing a new relationship.”

Sangjin Cho contributed to this report.
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Critical funds to counter China in the Pacific are finally approved for three U.S. allies: Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law $7 billion over 20 years in funding for the Compacts of Free Association as part of a partial government funding bill. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. Camera: Jessica Stone, Greg Harong
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pentagon — The United States is providing a new round of military aid for Ukraine valued at up to $300 million, the first such announcement since late December, in what defense officials have called an “ad hoc” package made possible through U.S. Army procurement savings.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced the 55th presidential drawdown authority (PDA) package at the White House on Tuesday and said it would include artillery rounds and munitions for HIMARS, weapons desperately needed on the Ukrainian front lines where shortages abound.

The funding for this package came from savings garnered in “multiple contract actions over multiple months” where the Army was able to “buy things at a better price” than initially budgeted, according to senior defense officials who spoke to reporters on conditional of anonymity ahead of the White House announcement.

“This is a bit of an ad hoc or one-time shot. We don’t know if or when future savings will come in, and we certainly can’t count on this as a way of doing business,” one of the senior defense officials said.

In one example provided by the officials, the Army had initially estimated the cost of 25 mm rounds at $130 but was able to negotiate the price down to $93.

The savings were then placed back into the U.S. funding pot for Ukraine aid, a process that has happened several times but wasn’t considered as newsworthy during those times because the fund wasn’t “broke” before, according to defense officials.

$10 billion shortfall

The aid package comes despite a Pentagon funding shortfall of about $10 billion for U.S. military weapons needed to replace those already sent to Ukraine, a shortfall that requires additional money from Congress to fix, according to top defense officials.

“We don’t foresee a likely alternative outside of the supplemental funding [bill] or having that money added into an appropriations bill in order to achieve the replenishment that we need,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks told reporters on Monday.

Pentagon officials expected to get the funding to replenish those stocks in a supplemental request from the Biden administration, which included billions of additional dollars in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. However, Congress has yet to pass a supplemental aid bill because of arguments on spending and U.S. border security.

Because it has been 15 months since Congress last approved money to help Ukraine, defense officials say Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has expressed concerns about any future drawdowns.

The department still has about $4 billion in authority to send weapons to Ukraine, but there is no congressionally approved money left to replenish the Pentagon’s weapons stockpiles.

“We have the ability to move funds out of our stocks, but without the ability to replenish them, we are putting our own readiness at some risks,” according to one senior defense official.

The $10 billion shortfall is tied to the way the Pentagon has accounted for the aid sent to Ukraine. Last June, the Pentagon said it overestimated the value of weapons sent to Ukraine by about $6.2 billion over the past two years.

When calculating its aid package estimates, the Department of Defense was counting the cost incurred to replace the weapons given to Ukraine, while it said it should have been totaling the cost of the systems actually sent, officials told VOA at the time.

The error provided the Pentagon the legal cover needed to send more aid to Ukraine, but the problem remained that more funds would be needed to replenish U.S. military stockpiles with newer, costlier weapons.

Asked by VOA why the Pentagon was willing to use its savings to send more aid for Ukraine but was not willing to dip into this the $4 billion of remaining presidential drawdown authority, one of the senior defense officials told reporters that “the lack of clarity” from Congress on whether they will approve additional aid makes the Pentagon “very reluctant to dig the hole deeper.”

“In this case, we are not digging the hole deeper. We’re staying even, while recognizing that Ukraine is in a very tough spot this moment,” the defense official added.
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Turkey’s new naval agreement with Somalia places the Turkish navy in a strategically vital region, underlining Ankara’s growing naval ambitions. However, analysts warn that the agreement threatens to escalate current tensions with Somalia’s neighbor Ethiopia. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The trial began Tuesday in Norway for a man accused of aggravated terrorism for the deadly shooting at an LGBTQ+ festival in Oslo’s nightlife district. 

Two people were killed and nine seriously wounded in the shooting at three locations, chiefly outside the London Pub, a popular gay bar, on June 25, 2022. 

Prosecutor Sturla Henriksbo said Zaniar Matapour, 44, allegedly fired 10 rounds with a machine gun and eight shots with a handgun into a crowd. Matapour, a Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group, Henriksbo said. 

Matapour was detained by bystanders. Following the attack, a Pride parade was canceled, with police saying they couldn’t guarantee security. 

Matapour has refused to speak to investigators. If found guilty, he faces 30 years in prison. 

In Oslo District Court, Matapour asked the judge why the trial was held during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Judge Eirik Aass replied, “I have not perceived that there is a conflict in carrying out the case even though it is Ramadan.” 

Henriksbo said that Matapour was born in Iran of parents of Kurdish background. The family fled to Norway when he was 12. 

The shooting shocked Norway, which has a relatively low crime rate but has experienced so-called lone wolf attacks in recent decades, including one of the worst mass shootings in Europe. In 2011, a right-wing extremist killed 69 people on the island of Utoya after setting off a bomb in Oslo that left eight dead. 
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Cape Canaveral, Florida — Four astronauts from four countries caught a lift back to Earth with SpaceX on Tuesday to end a half-year mission at the International Space Station.

Their capsule streaked across the U.S. in the predawn darkness and splashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle.

NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, a Marine helicopter pilot, led the returning crew of Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.

They moved into the space station last August. Their replacements arrived last week in their own SpaceX capsule.

“We left you some peanut butter and tortillas,” Moghbeli radioed after departing the orbiting complex on Monday. Replied NASA’s Loral O’Hara: “I miss you guys already and thanks for that very generous gift.”

O’Hara has another few weeks at the space station before leaving aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.

Before leaving the space station, Mogensen said via X, formerly known as Twitter, that he couldn’t wait to hear “birds singing in the trees” and also craved crunchy food.

NASA prefers multiple travel options in case of rocket trouble. Boeing should start providing astronaut taxi service with a two-pilot test flight in early May.
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WASHINGTON — Consumer prices in the United States picked up last month, a sign that inflation remains a persistent challenge for the Federal Reserve and for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, both of which are counting on a steady easing of price pressures this year. 

Prices rose 0.4% from January to February, higher than the previous month’s figure of 0.3%, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Compared with a year earlier, consumer prices rose 3.2% last month, faster than January’s 3.1% annual pace. 

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called “core” prices also climbed 0.4% from January to February, matching the previous month’s increase and a faster pace than is consistent with the Fed’s 2% target. Core inflation is watched especially closely because it typically provides a better read of where inflation is likely headed. 

Pricier gas pushed up overall inflation, with pump prices rising 3.8% just from January to February. Grocery prices, though, were unchanged last month and are up just 1% from a year earlier. The cost of clothing, used cars and rent also increased in February, raising the inflation figure. 

Despite February’s elevated figures, most economists expect inflation to continue slowly declining this year. At the same time, the uptick last month may underscore the Fed’s cautious approach toward interest rate cuts. 

Overall inflation has plummeted from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022, although it’s now easing more slowly than it did last spring and summer. The prices of some goods — from appliances to furniture to used cars — are falling after clogged supply chains during the pandemic sent prices soaring higher. There are more new cars on dealer lots and electronics on store shelves. 

By contrast, prices for dental care, car repairs and other services are still rising faster than they did before the pandemic. Car insurance has shot higher, reflecting rising costs for repairs and replacement. And after having sharply raised pay for nurses and other in-demand staff, hospitals are passing their higher wage costs on to patients in the form of higher prices. 

Voter perceptions of inflation are sure to occupy a central place in this year’s presidential election. Despite a healthy job market and a record-high stock market, polls show that many Americans blame Biden for the surge in consumer prices that began in 2021. Although inflationary pressures have significantly eased, average prices remain far above where they stood three years ago. 

In his State of the Union speech last week, Biden highlighted steps he has taken to reduce costs, like capping the price of insulin for Medicare patients. The president also criticized many large companies for engaging in “price gouging” and so-called “shrinkflation,” in which a company shrinks the amount of product inside a package rather than raising the price. 

“Too many corporations raise prices to pad their profits, charging more and more for less and less,” Biden said. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled in congressional testimony last week that the central bank is getting closer to cutting rates. After meeting in January, Fed officials said in a statement that they needed “greater confidence” that inflation was steadily falling to their 2% target level. Since then, several of the Fed’s policymakers have said they believe prices will keep declining. One reason, they suggested, is that consumers are increasingly pushing back against higher prices by seeking out cheaper alternatives. 

Most economists expect the Fed’s first rate cut to occur in June, although May is also possible. When the Fed cuts its benchmark rate, over time it reduces borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and business loans. 

One factor that could keep inflation elevated is the still-healthy economy. Although most economists had expected a recession to occur last year, hiring and growth were strong and remain healthy. The economy expanded 2.5% last year and could grow at about the same pace in the first three months of this year, according to the Federal Reserve’s Atlanta branch. 

Last week, the Labor Department said employers added a robust 275,000 jobs in February, the latest in a streak of solid hiring gains, and the unemployment rate stayed below 4% for the 25th straight month. That is the longest such streak since the 1960s. 

Still, the unemployment rate rose from 3.7% to 3.9%, and wage growth slowed. Both trends could make the Fed feel more confident that the economy is cooling, which could help keep inflation falling and lead the central bank to begin cutting rates. 
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Bucharest, Romania — Internet personality Andrew Tate was arrested for 24 hours in Romania on a British warrant, his PR representative said on Tuesday, and the Bucharest Court of Appeals was set to decide on whether to extradite him.

Tate and his brother Tristan were detained on allegations of sexual aggression dating back to 2012-15, which they “categorically” deny, his PR team said. The warrant was issued by Westminster Magistrates Court.

“Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate were forcibly detained for 24 hours and handed a European arrest warrant by UK authorities. The charges, dating back to 2012-2015, include allegations of sexual aggression,” Andrew Tate’s PR representative said in a statement. “The Bucharest Court of Appeal is slated to make a pivotal decision today on whether to execute the mandate.”

The court had yet to decide when it will convene to address the warrant. It was not immediately available for comment. 

Tate, who gained millions of fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle, was indicted in June in Romania along with his brother and two Romanian women for human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. They have denied the charges.

The case has since been with the Bucharest court’s preliminary chamber, which needs to decide whether the trial can start. A decision has yet to be made, with Romanian courts backlogged.

The Bucharest Court was also set to rule on Friday whether to maintain a seizure of Tate’s assets enforced by Romanian prosecutors at the start of 2023.

The Tate brothers were held in police custody pending the criminal investigation from late December 2022 until April, to prevent them from fleeing the country or tampering with evidence. They were placed under house arrest until August.

They have since been under judicial control, a lighter preventative measure meaning they have regular check-ins with the police but can move around freely except for leaving the country.
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In its annual global threats assessment report Monday, the U.S. intelligence community told lawmakers that the war in Ukraine is at a turning point whose outcome will depend on American assistance. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from the Senate, where lawmakers called on the House to take up the $95 billion foreign aid bill.
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WASHINGTON — The frozen military conflict between Ukraine and Russia is starting to thaw and will likely tilt in Moscow’s favor if the United States fails to quickly come through with additional military aid, according to top U.S. intelligence officials, in a grim assessment delivered to U.S. lawmakers.

Monday’s warning comes nearly a month after the U.S. Senate voted in favor of a stand-alone foreign aid bill that would send $60 billion in aid to Ukraine as it tries to hold on to territorial gains more than two years after Russian forces invaded.

But the lawmakers in the House of Representatives have refused to bring the bill up for a vote, leaving other Western nations scrambling to provide Ukraine with enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a renewed Russian offensive.

The $60 billion “is absolutely critical to Ukraine’s defense right now,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Ukraine’s retreat from Avdiivka and their struggle to stave off further territorial losses in the past few weeks have exposed the erosion of Ukraine’s military capabilities with the declining availability of external military aid,” she said. “Without that assistance, it is hard to imagine how Ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard-fought advances it has made against the Russians.”

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency told lawmakers the war is at a crossroads, and that what happens next likely hinges on the provision of U.S. aid.

“The Ukrainians are not running out of courage and tenacity. They’re running out of ammunition,” said the CIA’s William Burns. “And we’re running out of time to help them.”

Both Haines and Burns reiterated previous assessments: that up until now, Ukraine’s military has inflicted serious damage on Russia’s forces.

U.S. officials believe at least 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, and that two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed. The Russian military, which had been undergoing a modernization program, has been set back years.

Russia’s invasion has also served to galvanize the West, with Sweden and Finland joining the NATO military alliance.

But Haines and Burns told lawmakers that none of those strategic defeats have managed to change the calculus of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Putin continues to judge that time is on his side,” Haines said, cautioning that the Russian leader is as entrenched as ever.

“He continues to see NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine as reinforcing his long-held belief that the United States and Europe seek to restrict Russian power and undermine him,” she said, telling lawmakers that Putin’s response has been to push ahead with efforts to grow the Russian military, pouring more money into ammunition production and into the purchase of military supplies from Iran and North Korea.

U.S. intelligence officials also see signs Putin is continuing to move forward with plans to modernize and fortify Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal, already thought to be the largest and most diverse in the world.

And there are signs that Russia is willing to take chances to gain an advantage.

“We remain concerned that Moscow will put at risk long-standing global norms against the use of asymmetric or strategically destabilizing weapons, including in space and in the cyber domain,” Haines said.

Some lawmakers echoed the concerns, urging colleagues to pass the legislation to get Ukraine the military supplies it needs.

“My fear is the decision thus far by the House of Representatives not to even take up legislation that would support Ukraine in the fight against Putin aggression has been one of the most short-sighted decisions on a national security issue that I can possibly imagine,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat.

“The impact and long-term consequences of us abandoning Ukraine … it’s a 50-year mistake that would haunt this country,” added independent Senator Angus King.

And U.S. intelligence officials warned of a cascading global impact if the additional aid for Ukraine fails to materialize.

“The consequence of that will not just be for Ukraine or for European security but across the Indo-Pacific,” said the CIA’s Burns. “If we’re seen to be walking away from Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea.”

The intelligence officials said while China remains wary, for now, it has been emboldened by Russia.

In particular, the intelligence officials said Russia was forced to grant China some long-sought concessions in exchange for support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

Iran and North Korea have likewise benefited, they said, warning the impact remains to be seen.

The changing dynamics have “the potential to undermine, among other things, long-held nonproliferation norms,” Haines said.

But she added that while Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are growing closer, the prospects for a true alliance are, for now, remote.

“Parochial interests, a desire to avoid entanglements, and weariness of harm and instability from each other’s actions will likely limit their cooperation … absent direct conflict between one of these countries and the United States,” Haines said.

Israel – Gaza

The U.S. intelligence officials also addressed concerns about the ongoing conflict in Gaza, where Israeli forces continue to pursue fighters of the Hamas terror group despite warnings from the United Nations and aid groups about the devastating impact on civilians.

“We’re going to continue to work hard at this — I don’t think anybody can guarantee success,” the CIA’s Burns told lawmakers when asked about ongoing efforts to get a temporary cease-fire.

Burn recently traveled to the Middle East to meet with officials from Israel, Egypt and Qatar.

He said the deal currently under consideration would provide for the return of about 40 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, most of them wounded or ill women or older men, in exchange for a six-week-long cease-fire that would allow the U.S. and its allies to surge in desperately needed aid.

“I understand Israel’s need, and the president [Joe Biden] has emphasized this, to respond to the brutish attack that Israelis suffered on the 7th of October [by Hamas],” Burns told Republican Senator Tom Cotton.

“But I think we all also have to be mindful of the, you know, enormous toll that this has taken on innocent civilians in Gaza,” he added.

Gaza fallout

Haines further warned lawmakers that the crisis in Gaza has “galvanized violence by a range of actors,” and that it “is likely that the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism.”

But Haines said for now, Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, appear reluctant to try to push too hard to manipulate the fighting for their benefit.

“We continue to assess that Hezbollah and Iran do not want to cause an escalation of the conflict that pulls us or them into a full-out war,” she said.

Still, Haines acknowledged other Iranian-linked groups, like the Houthis in Yemen, have become “aggressive actors,” launching dozens of attacks on international shipping.

Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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