The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could significantly restrict access to the drug mifepristone, which is used in medication abortions. Deana Mitchell has our story.
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Winless Lottery Streak Ends: Someone Wins $1.12B Mega Millions
DES MOINES, Iowa — Someone in New Jersey overcame the odds Tuesday night and won the $1.12 billion Mega Millions jackpot, breaking a winless streak that dated to last December.
The numbers drawn were: 7, 11, 22, 29, 38 and 4. The winning ticket was sold in New Jersey, according the the Mega Millions website.
Until the latest drawing, no one had matched all six numbers and won the Mega Millions jackpot since Dec. 8. That amounted to 30 straight drawings without a big winner.
It’s tough to win the Mega Millions jackpot because the odds are so long, at 1 in 302.6 million.
The prize is the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history.
The $1.12 billion jackpot is for a winner who is paid through an annuity, with an initial payment and then 29 annual payments. Most winners choose a cash payout, which would be $537.5 million.
The next big U.S. lottery drawing will be Wednesday night for an estimated $865 million Powerball jackpot. No one has won that prize since New Year’s Day, making for 36 drawings without a winner.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Powerball also is played in those states as well as Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Top US Officials Warn Israel’s Gallant Against Invading Rafah
WASHINGTON — Top Biden administration officials urged Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to abandon plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians seek safety, as U.S.-Israel tensions brew over Israel’s conduct in its six-month-old war against Hamas.
In meetings Monday and Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself while reiterating opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned ground offensive to target Hamas in Gaza’s southernmost city on the border with Egypt.
“Our goal [is] to help Israel find an alternative to a full-scale and perhaps premature military operation that could endanger the over 1 million civilians that are sheltering in Rafah,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Tuesday, briefing on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon.
A major ground operation in Rafah would further jeopardize the welfare of Palestinian civilians, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday. He added that Blinken underscored to Gallant that “alternatives exist” that would both better ensure Israel’s security and protect Palestinian civilians.
Amid a looming famine in Gaza, Austin warned of the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Palestinian enclave, describing civilian casualties as “far too high” and aid deliveries as “far too low.” His remarks echoed Blinken’s calls for Israel “to immediately surge and sustain” more aid.
The Netanyahu government has denied accusations by international aid agencies and the United Nations that Israel is blocking aid and provoking famine in Gaza as part of its strategy to root out Hamas.
Similar admonitions were likely being conveyed by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In a sign of potentially complicated talks, Sullivan’s meeting with Gallant, originally scheduled for Monday, was extended an extra day.
“They believed it was important to continue the conversation,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Sullivan told reporters last week that President Joe Biden himself had warned Netanyahu an invasion in Rafah would be a mistake and urged him to have a “coherent and sustainable strategy” to defeat Hamas.
‘Don’t do it’
Netanyahu insists that the goal of “total victory” against Hamas cannot be achieved without going into Rafah, where Israel says there are four Hamas battalions composed of thousands of fighters.
Initially, the Biden administration said they would not support a Rafah offensive without sufficient protection of civilians.
Now, they’re telling Israel, “Don’t do it,” said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former U.S. negotiator in Middle East peace talks.
“It’s not now a question of making sure that the population is somehow safeguarded,” he told VOA. “They just don’t want the Israelis to do it.”
Despite the pressure piled on Gallant this week, the decision on Rafah would have to be taken by the Israeli War Cabinet, whose members in addition to Gallant include Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, former minister of defense and deputy prime minister, as well as two observers — opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot and Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s close adviser.
Gallant’s meetings have been the main high-level consultation mechanism between the U.S. and its ally, as Netanyahu abruptly canceled plans for a visit by a separate Israeli delegation.
That was done in protest of Washington’s abstention at the U.N. that allowed the adoption of a Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Netanyahu accused the U.S. of shifting from its prior position of conditioning the cease-fire call on the release of hostages, which the administration denies.
More weapons
Gallant, a security hawk who supports a ground operation in Rafah, had aimed to use his Washington visit to ramp up the transfer of American weapons. In remarks ahead of his meeting with Austin, he said he wants to “ensure Israel’s military edge and capabilities.”
Israel needs U.S. arms not only for the campaign in Gaza but also to prepare for further escalation in the north of the country with Hezbollah in Lebanon, said Brian Finucane, senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the two sides have exchanged fire through thousands of rocket and missile launches.
“The U.S. has real leverage here,” Finucane told VOA. “The best-case scenario would be if the U.S. actually did use its abundant leverage, both unilaterally and multilaterally, to try to bring about a cease-fire.”
While Biden has begun using his diplomatic leverage by abstaining at the U.N., he is unlikely to condition or restrict military aid to Israel as he aims to keep the conflict from spreading.
“The last thing he should want to do is to send an unmistakable signal to Hezbollah and Iran that we’re not prepared to back the Israelis, if, in fact, there is an escalation in the Israeli northern border,” said Miller.
The most fundamental goal for Biden right now, he said, is reaching a deal in the cease-fire negotiations in Qatar. Hamas says it will release hostages only as part of a deal that would end the war, while Israel says it will discuss only a temporary pause.
US arms for Israel
The U.S. has committed to provide Israel with nearly $4 billion a year in aid through 2028, most of it in the form of military assistance. Approximately $3.3 billion per year is given under the Foreign Military Financing program, funds that Israel must use to purchase U.S. military equipment and services.
Since the Gaza war began, the administration has quietly delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel. The arms transfers were processed without public debate because the administration broke up the sales packages in amounts below the threshold that requires them to notify Congress, according to a defense official who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.
Under pressure from Democratic lawmakers, last month the White House released a National Security Memorandum requiring the U.S. secretary of state to “obtain credible and reliable written assurances” from foreign governments that U.S. weapons are used in accordance with international and humanitarian law.
Gallant delivered Israel’s required written assurances ahead of the deadline on Sunday. Under the memorandum, the State Department has until early May to formally assess and report to Congress whether those assurances are “credible and reliable.” Without it, Biden has the option of suspending further U.S. arms transfers.
So far, Biden has not indicated any willingness to do so. In his call with Netanyahu last week, the president “didn’t make threats,” Sullivan said. “Each of them recognizes that we are at a critical moment in this conflict.”
Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Top US Officials Warn Israeli Defense Minister Against Invading Rafah
Top Biden administration officials urged Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to abandon plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians seek safety, as U.S.- Israel tensions brewed over Israel’s conduct in its 6-month-old war against Hamas. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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One Year Since Arrest, Journalist Gershkovich Remains in Russian Prison
As American journalist Evan Gershkovich marks one year in Russian prison, his family and colleagues fight for his release. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story. Camera: Mino Dargakis
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US Aims to Tap Domestic Lithium Supply Without Chinese Products
washington — Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a record conditional loan of $2.26 billion to tap the largest known lithium reserves in North America. The loan is an important step in an effort by the U.S. government to reduce reliance on China for the metal used to make batteries.
Analysts, however, say that it may be too late to move away from reliance on China completely when it comes to metal processing and the production of batteries.
The DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) says the funds, if approved after review, will help the Lithium Americas Corp. construct a lithium carbonate processing plant at the Thacker Pass mine project in Humboldt County, Nevada.
The LPO says the project would help “secure reliable, sustainable domestic supply chains for critical materials, which are key to reaching our ambitious clean energy and climate goals and reducing our reliance on economic competitors like China.”
Lithium Americas Corp. on its official website says battery materials could be “completely sourced and manufactured in the U.S., bringing down the overall carbon footprint, transport costs and supply chain risks.”
The LPO says lithium carbonate from Thacker Pass could eventually support the production of batteries “for up to 800,000 electric vehicles (EVs) per year, saving 317 million gallons of gasoline per year.”
Although the U.S. has made pioneering and groundbreaking contributions to the development of the lithium ion battery, industry experts say lithium processing and EV battery production is dominated today by China.
“Parts of our key supply chains, including for clean energy, are currently over concentrated in China,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in prepared remarks March 2 when she visited a U.S. lithium processing facility in Chile, which holds the world’s largest reserves of the metal.
“This makes America more vulnerable to shocks in China, or whatever country dominates production, from natural disasters to macroeconomic forces, to deliberate actions such as economic coercion.”
A report last year by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said China increased restrictions on its exports of critical minerals ninefold between 2009 and 2020.
Data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows the output and scale of lithium mines in Australia and Argentina far exceed China’s. In 2022, Australia’s lithium mine output was more than three times China’s.
Refining, processing still issues
But industry experts say while Western countries have poured a lot of investment into developing raw minerals, they have paid little attention to refining and processing, areas in which China dominates.
Ellen R. Wald, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, tells VOA, “Lithium is not useful just as it is. You have to refine it to make what’s used in the batteries. And that’s really where China controls the supply chain because almost all of the refining for lithium that creates it into the substance that can be used to make batteries is done in China.”
According to the Chatham House, Chinese companies accounted for about 72% of global lithium refining capacity in 2022.
China also dominates much of the global market for battery-related equipment, leaving limited options for U.S. companies that want to showcase their domestic production credentials.
American Battery Factory Inc., or ABF, is an emerging battery manufacturer that says it is “the first network of entirely U.S.-owned vertical manufacturing, supply chain and R&D for Lithium Iron Phosphate battery cells in the United States.”
But to secure custom automation equipment and machinery for use in its first large-scale rechargeable battery factory in Tucson, Arizona, it has formed a partnership with Lead Intelligent Equipment, a Chinese company.
Dependent on China
In an article in January, Wald said China is in a good position to restrict access to lithium-ion batteries to certain countries or companies as it wishes, and if the U.S. military suddenly finds itself in need of more specialized batteries, the Pentagon may not be able to obtain them.
In February 2022, China announced sanctions against Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jet, and Raytheon Technologies, the world’s largest missile manufacturer. Although China did not specify the details of the sanctions, it is generally considered to be a possible threat to cut off the Western countries’ supply of critical minerals.
Wald told VOA, “The U.S. defense industry is basically dependent on China for these specialized batteries that they need in all of their drones and their surveillance systems and all sorts of things.”
David Whittle, adjunct professor in resource engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University in Australia, told VOA even if “the world develops a robust, independent supply chain for lithium, up to the point of battery chemical production, at present, China would still be the largest customer for those chemicals, since it is the largest cell manufacturer, the largest battery pack manufacturer, the largest E.V. manufacturer and the largest market for E.V.s.”
The Thacker Pass lithium mine is located at the southern end of the McDermitt Caldera, and is considered to be one of the largest in the world.
The record loan to Lithium Americas Corp. is the largest such loan the U.S. has offered for the development of a lithium mine project since the country stepped up its efforts to build a domestic supply chain for critical minerals in recent years.
The Thacker Pass lithium project is not expected to start production until 2028, and even then, Wald said, that goal may be too ambitious. The mine plans to extract lithium from clay, but Wald says it has never been mined in this way on a commercial scale. In addition, the mine is in a remote and sparsely populated location, requiring the company to build housing for workers and their families and to reassess its environmental impact.
Despite the challenges, Wald said creating a secure supply chain is not impossible for the U.S.
“I don’t think it’s too late,” Wald said. “Will they be able to compete with China globally? Probably not. But can we create non-Chinese sustainable and secure supply chains? Yeah, we can do it.”
Whittle said Western countries being “resilient to challenges from China” can’t mean “isolated from China” anymore, but resilience is still possible.
The DOE’s LPO said while their announcement shows intent to give the loan, the company must first satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions before the funds will be released.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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«Більше, ніж у попередні періоди»: місія ООН зафіксувала страту військами РФ 32 українських полонених за зиму
Українські військові розповіли місії ООН з прав людини про катування та насильство в російському полоні
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Robots Writing Letters for Humans
LogOn: Robots Hand Write Letters for Humans
Not long ago, people wrote letters by hand. But like many things eclipsed by modern technology, handwritten letters are less common than they used to be. Now, that technology has started writing those letters. VOA’s Julie Taboh introduces us to handwriting robots in this week’s episode of LogOn.
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Генштаб: армія Росії 21 раз намагалася прорвати оборону ЗСУ біля Новомихайлівки
Протягом дня на фронті зафіксували 50 бойових зіткнень
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Ракетний удар по Одесі 25 березня: постраждало десять людей – ОВА
«Внаслідок ударів, постраждало близько 300 квартир. Декілька будівель зруйновано. Значні ушкодження також отримав Палац спорту» – Кіпер
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West Reliant on Russian Nuclear Fuel Amid Decarbonization Push
An analysis by Britain’s Royal United Services Institute has found that many Western nations still rely on Russian nuclear fuel to power their reactors, despite efforts to sever economic ties with the Kremlin following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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A List of Major US Bridge Collapses Caused by Ships and Barges
UK Court: Assange Can’t Be Extradited Until US Rules Out Death Penalty
LONDON — A British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site’s publication of classified American documents.
Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue — and Assange will remain inside London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last five years.
Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, “is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed.”
The judges said that if the U.S. files new assurances, “we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.” The judges said a hearing will be held May 20 if the U.S. makes those submissions.
Assange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan that was in the public interest. They have argued that his prosecution is politically motivated and that he can’t get a fair trial in the U.S.
Assange’s wife, Stella Assange, said the WikiLeaks founder “is being persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.”
“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case, which should never have been brought,” she said outside the High Court in London.
The ruling follows a two-day hearing in the High Court in February, where Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said American authorities were seeking to punish him for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings.
The U.S. government said Assange’s actions went beyond journalism by soliciting, stealing and indiscriminately publishing classified government documents that endangered innocent lives.
The judges rejected six of Assange’s nine grounds of appeal, including the allegation that his prosecution is political. They said that while Assange “acted out of political conviction … it does not follow however that the request for his extradition is made on account of his political views.”
They accepted three grounds of appeal: the threat to Assange’s freedom of speech, Assange’s claim that he faces disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen, and the risk he could receive the death penalty.
U.S. authorities have promised Assange would not receive capital punishment, but the judges said that “nothing in the existing assurance explicitly prevents the imposition of the death penalty.”
Assange, 52, an Australian computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on charges over Wikileaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified documents.
U.S. prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange faces 17 espionage counts and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say, he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, although American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.
Assange’s wife and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, including seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and the last five years in prison.
Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.
The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested and imprisoned him for breaching bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.
A U.K. district court judge rejected the U.S. extradition request in 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022.
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Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapses, Vehicles Fall into Water
BALTIMORE — A portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed after a large boat collided with it early Tuesday morning, and multiple vehicles fell into the water. Authorities were trying to rescue at least seven people.
A large vessel crashed into the bridge, catching on fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the Patapsco River, according to a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured,” the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.
Mayor Brandon M. Scott and Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. posted that emergency personnel were responding and rescue efforts were underway.
Emergency responders were searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water, Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told The Associated Press around 3 a.m.
He said agencies received 911 calls around 1:30 a.m. reporting a vessel traveling outbound from Baltimore that had struck a column on the bridge, causing it to collapse. Multiple vehicles were on the bridge at the time, including one the size of a tractor-trailer.
“Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people,” Cartwright said. He said it’s too early to know how many people were affected but called the collapse a “developing mass casualty event.”
Cartwright said it appears there are “some cargo or retainers hanging from the bridge,” creating unsafe and unstable conditions, and that emergency responders are operating cautiously as a result.
“This is a dire emergency,” he said.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge opened in 1977.
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