Author: PolitCens

A majority of Americans approve of U.S. President Joe Biden’s overall performance as he nears the end of his first 100 days in office, two major national polls show, with positive marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and negative reviews for controlling the surge of migrants at the border with Mexico. A Washington Post-ABC News survey shows 52% of adults give Biden a favorable review compared to 42% who disapprove. An NBC News poll gives Biden a 53%-39% favorable rating. Both polls show the country’s deep political divide has not changed from the contentious 2020 election in which Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump by narrowly winning several key political battleground states en route to a four-year term in the White House.  The Post-ABC poll showed 90% of Democrats approved of Biden’s performance compared with 13% of Republicans, while the NBC survey said 90% of Democrats, 61% of independents and only 9% of Republicans approve of his performance. According to the polls, Biden wins some of his highest approval marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 226 million vaccinations having been administered and more than 93 million people fully vaccinated. The Post-ABC poll said 64% of adults — including a third of Republicans — approved of Biden’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. NBC said 69% approved. But Biden’s performance standing on other issues is weaker, according to the surveys. The Post-ABC poll said the country’s 46th president is winning a 52% approval rating for his handling of the economy, while 53% disapprove of the way he had dealt with the thousands of migrants from Central America and Mexico who have tried to cross into the United States. Biden, reversing a Trump policy, has allowed unaccompanied minors to stay in the U.S. rather than expelling them. The NBC poll showed Biden with his highest marks, aside from the pandemic, at 52% on both the economy and uniting the country and 49% on improving race relations. His lowest scores came on dealing with China (35%), restricting guns (34%) and dealing with border security and immigration (33%). Biden’s first major legislative initiative was a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, approved solely with the votes of Democratic lawmakers against unified Republican opposition. But the Post-ABC poll showed strong public support, with 65% of those surveyed saying they back the plan compared with 31% opposed. In the politically divided U.S., however, some Republican lawmakers are beginning to publicly take on Biden.  One Trump supporter, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told the “Fox News Sunday” show, “I’m in the 43% [who disapprove of him] — he’s been a disaster on foreign policy. The border is in chaos, the Iranians are off the mat, he’s opening up negotiations with the Iranian regime and they haven’t done a damn thing to change. Afghanistan is going to fall apart. Russia and China are already pushing him around.”  “So, I’m very worried,” Graham said. “I think he’s been a very destabilizing president. And economically, he’s throwing a wet blanket over the recovery, wanting to raise taxes in a large amount and regulate America basically out of business. So I’m not very impressed with the first 100 days. This is not what I thought I would get.” Biden’s overall favorability rating was essentially the reverse of Trump’s at the same point in their presidencies, with Trump having a 53%-42% disapproval rating three months into his presidency in 2017. But Biden’s approval standing was lower than that for President Barack Obama at the outset of his eight-year presidency in 2009. Biden is reviewing his first three months in office in a Wednesday night address to a joint session of Congress, although with the necessity of social distancing because of the pandemic, many lawmakers are not expected to attend, and few other officials will be there. In all, about 200 people are expected, compared to the normal 1,600 who have witnessed past presidential speeches in the House of Representatives’ chamber.   In his next effort on a major legislative effort, Biden is attempting to win approval for a more than $2 trillion infrastructure deal. But many Republican lawmakers are balking at the inclusion of such items as funding for home health care that go beyond the normal infrastructure spending for road and bridge repairs and opposing paying for the program with higher taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals. Biden, a Democrat, has expressed a willingness for compromise with Republican lawmakers but the two sides remain far apart. 
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A very strange thing happened on the internet the day President Joe Biden was sworn in. A shadowy company residing at a shared workspace above a Florida bank announced to the world’s computer networks that it was now managing a colossal, previously idle chunk of the internet owned by the U.S. Department of Defense.That real estate has since more than quadrupled to 175 million addresses — about 1/25th the size of the current internet.”It is massive. That is the biggest thing in the history of the internet,” said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, a network operating company. It’s also more than twice the size of the internet space actually used by the Pentagon.After weeks of wonder by the networking community, the Pentagon has now provided a very terse explanation for what it’s doing. But it has not answered many basic questions, beginning with why it chose to entrust management of the address space to a company that seems not to have existed until September.The military hopes to “assess, evaluate and prevent unauthorized use of DoD IP address space,” said a statement issued Friday by Brett Goldstein, chief of the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service, which is running the project. It also hopes to “identify potential vulnerabilities” as part of efforts to defend against cyber-intrusions by global adversaries, who are consistently infiltrating U.S. networks, sometimes operating from unused internet address blocks. The statement did not specify whether the “pilot project” would involve outside contractors.
The Pentagon periodically contends with unauthorized squatting on its space, in part because there has been a shortage of first-generation internet addresses since 2011; they now sell at auction for upwards of $25 each. Madory said advertising the address space will make it easier to chase off squatters and allow the U.S. military to “collect a massive amount of background internet traffic for threat intelligence.” Some cybersecurity experts have speculated that the Pentagon may be using the newly advertised space to create “honeypots,” machines set up with vulnerabilities to draw hackers. Or it could be looking to set up dedicated infrastructure — software and servers — to scour traffic for suspect activity.”This greatly increases the space they could monitor,” said Madory, who published a blog post on the matter Saturday.What a Pentagon spokesman could not explain Saturday is why the Defense Department chose Global Resource Systems LLC, a company with no record of government contracts, to manage the address space. “As to why the DoD would have done that I’m a little mystified, same as you,” said Paul Vixie, an internet pioneer credited with designing its naming system and the CEO of Farsight Security. The company did not return phone calls or emails from The Associated Press. It has no web presence, though it has the domain grscorp.com. Its name doesn’t appear on the directory of its Plantation, Florida, domicile, and a receptionist drew a blank when an AP reporter asked for a company representative at the office earlier this month. She found its name on a tenant list and suggested trying email. Records show the company has not obtained a business license in Plantation.Incorporated in Delaware and registered by a Beverly Hills lawyer, Global Resource Systems LLC now manages more internet space than China Telecom, AT&T or Comcast. The only name associated with it on the Florida business registry coincides with that of a man listed as recently as 2018 in Nevada corporate records as a managing member of a cybersecurity/internet surveillance equipment company called Packet Forensics. The company had nearly $40 million in publicly disclosed federal contracts over the past decade, with the FBI and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency among its customers. That man, Raymond Saulino, is also listed as a principal in a company called Tidewater Laskin Associates, which was incorporated in 2018 and obtained an FCC license in April 2020. It shares the same Virginia Beach, Virginia, address — a UPS store — in corporate records as Packet Forensics. The two have different mailbox numbers. Calls to the number listed on the Tidewater Laskin FCC filing are answered by an automated service that offers four different options but doesn’t connect callers with a single one, recycling all calls to the initial voice recording.Saulino did not return phone calls seeking comment, and a longtime colleague at Packet Forensics, Rodney Joffe, said he believed Saulino was retired. Joffe, a cybersecurity luminary, declined further comment. Joffe is chief technical officer at Neustar Inc., which provides internet intelligence and services for major industries, including telecommunications and defense.In 2011, Packet Forensics and Saulino, its spokesman, were featured in a Wired  story because the company was selling an appliance to government agencies and law enforcement that let them spy on people’s web browsing using forged security certificates.The company continues to sell “lawful intercept” equipment, according to its website. One of its current contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is for “harnessing autonomy for countering cyber-adversary systems.” A contract description says it is investigating “technologies for conducting safe, nondisruptive, and effective active defense operations in cyberspace.” Contract language from 2019 says the program would “investigate the feasibility of creating safe and reliable autonomous software agencies that can effectively counter malicious botnet implants and similar large-scale malware.”Deepening the mystery is Global Resource Systems’ name. It is identical to that of a firm that independent internet fraud researcher Ron Guilmette says was sending out email spam using the very same internet routing identifier. It shut down more than a decade ago. All that differs is the type of company. This one’s a limited liability corporation. The other was a corporation. Both used the same street address in Plantation, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. “It’s deeply suspicious,” said Guilmette, who unsuccessfully sued the previous incarnation of Global Resources Systems in 2006 for unfair business practices. Guilmette considers such masquerading, known as slip-streaming, a ham-handed tactic in this situation. “If they wanted to be more serious about hiding this they could have not used Ray Saulino and this suspicious name.”Guilmette and Madory were alerted to the mystery when network operators began inquiring about it on an email list in mid-March. But almost everyone involved didn’t want to talk about it. Mike Leber, who owns Hurricane Electric, the internet backbone company handing the address blocks’ traffic, didn’t return emails or phone messages. Despite an internet address crunch, the Pentagon — which created the internet — has shown no interest in selling any of its address space, and a Defense Department spokesman, Russell Goemaere, told the AP on Saturday that none of the newly announced space has been sold.
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A joint statement by U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga from their recent meeting at the White House has left officials and analysts in Taiwan wondering how far Japan might be willing to go to help defend the island against an attack from China.The White House said April 16 on its website that Suga and Biden “underscore the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”Some analysts say the joint statement signals Tokyo’s willingness to help defend Taiwan against China if needed, but only in support of a U.S.-led campaign.Taiwan quickly welcomed the joint statement.“Our government is happy to see that the United States and Japan are concerned about the current situation of regional security,” the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Taipei said in a statement April 17.“We will build on existing solid foundations and work closely with the United States, Japan and other countries with similar ideas to defend the democratic system, shared values and a rule-based international order and work together to maintain peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” the ministry’s statement said.China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan, a leftover issue from the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, and it has threatened to take the island by force if needed.Regular Chinese military flights in a corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone over the past eight months have sparked worries about a possible attack by China, which maintains the world’s third strongest armed forces, after the United States and Russia. A 1979 congressional act allows the United States to help defend Taiwan militarily.Backup for U.S. forcesAs Suga faced questions at home after the Biden visit about his designs for Taiwan, officials in Tokyo reportedly clarified on Wednesday that Japan would not send troops but could offer logistical support to the United States in the event of a conflict.In response to a question Tuesday from a member of the Japanese Diet about Japan’s commitment to Taiwan, Suga said the joint statement with Biden “does not presuppose military involvement at all,” the Jiji Press news service reported.Japan and the United States still honor a 70-year-old treaty that commits both countries to act against common dangers. Both see Taiwan as a friendly Asia Pacific buffer against Chinese naval expansion.“Taiwanese leaders would be thankful for Japan Prime Minister Suga’s goodwill and friendliness,” said Chen Yi-fan, assistant diplomacy and international relations professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. “However, based on [the] U.S. Japan security treaty, Japan will only offer logistical support to the U.S. military forces.”Japan spars with China over sovereignty in parts of the sea between them and bicker about leftover World War II issues. However, Japanese officials hope to avoid irritating China now as they pursue post-pandemic economic recovery, Chen said. China is Japan’s largest trading partner.Japan might wait for the United States to request military aid, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center in Washington.“As for whether Japan will aid Taiwan in the event of a contingency, the United States has not provided such strategic clarity yet and it will be far off to speculate if Japan will,” Sun said. “To a large extent, Japan’s involvement in a Taiwan contingency depends on what the U.S. will do and also ask Japan to do.”Jeffrey Kingston, a history instructor at the Japan campus of Temple University, called the U.S.-Japan statement on Taiwan “much ado about nothing.”After Suga agreed to the Taiwan Strait statement in Washington last week, Kingston said, “I think Japan was like just laughing up its sleeve thinking, ‘Wow, the Americans, they’re satisfied with that?’”U.S. allies marshaling near ChinaThe Biden-Suga consensus is unlikely to stop at just the United States and Japan, or at Taiwan, some scholars say. They note that four U.S.-allied Western European countries have sent vessels or planned voyages this year to date to the South China Sea, a disputed waterway near Taiwan where China has alarmed much of Asia by building up tiny islets for military use.A U.S. aircraft carrier group joined an amphibious-ready group for drills in the sea earlier this month. Japan’s Maritime Self-defense Force held anti-submarine drills in the sea last year.Taiwan contests sovereignty over the sea, as do four Southeast Asian governments.“We’re going to see more of that occurring in the South China Sea,” said Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor from the University of New South Wales in Australia. “It’s the beginning of a full-court press.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval rating among college voters is 63%, according to a new Harvard Youth Poll, the highest for that demographic in the poll’s 21-year history.The poll said other high approval ratings by college voters came in 2003 for then-President George W. Bush, who received 61% approval, and in 2016 for then-President Barack Obama, with 57% approval.Overall, the Harvard Youth Poll, released Friday, found that 59% of young adults ages 18 to 29 approved of Biden’s job performance.His highest marks came from his handling of the coronavirus (65% approval), climate change (58% approval), education (58% approval) and race relations (57% approval).Biden’s popularity among young voters is a sharp contrast from this time last year, when only 34% of young adults viewed Biden favorably, according to the Spring 2020 Harvard Youth Poll.Friday’s poll also found that young Americans were more hopeful about the future of the country than they had been in the fall of 2017, during President Donald Trump’s first year in office. At that time, only 31% of young Americans were hopeful about country’s future, while now 56% have hope.The jump was most pronounced in young Blacks and Hispanics. Only 18% of young Blacks and 29% of young Hispanics had called themselves hopeful in 2017, while in the latest poll, 72% of Black youths and 69% of Hispanic youths said they were hopeful about America.The poll also found that politics could be personally divisive for youth, with nearly one-third (31%) of young Americans saying that politics had gotten in the way of a friendship. 
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Cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half is doable but hard, experts say, and some of the biggest barriers are political, not technical.President Joe Biden on Thursday FILE – A wind turbine is pictured, Jan. 13, 2021, near Spearville, Kan.U.S. emissions are declining, but far too slowly to reach Biden’s target. They would have to fall on a scale that has happened only three times since 2005, Rossetti noted, and not for good reasons — during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2008-09 financial crisis and during an exceptionally mild winter in 2012.The Biden administration has proposed broad areas where it sees opportunities for cuts, without giving much detail. It says there are multiple pathways to get there.But each path faces opposition, experts note. Legislation may struggle to pass in a closely divided Congress. And a conservative Supreme Court may take a dim view of expanding regulations.Several research groups have mapped out ways that the United States could cut emissions in half.”We have the policies to do it, and we have the technologies to do it,” said Robbie Orvis, director of energy policy design at Energy Innovation, a policy research group.For starters, the amount of solar and wind power installed each year needs to be three to four times as much as last year’s record-setting pace.”It is a big leap to do that, but the technology exists,” Orvis said.And the technology is cheaper than ever, and getting cheaper.The FILE – New Lexus automobiles are shown for sale after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state would ban the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks starting in 2035.The next biggest cut would come from transportation, where the largest proportion of U.S. carbon emissions come from. A combination of incentives and regulations would take old, inefficient vehicles off the road and help increase sales of zero-emissions vehicles.Smaller shares would come from cutting industrial emissions by switching to electrification, where possible, or emerging sources such as hydrogen or ammonia, though these technologies are still in development.The best path to any of these policies would be through legislation passed by Congress, experts note. Many of them are included in Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal.But Republicans are firmly opposed to it.FILE – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., turns to an aide in Washington, March 7, 2021.”Their so-called ‘infrastructure’ plan would aim at completely ‘de-carbonizing’ our electric grid, which means hurting our coal and natural gas industries and putting good-paying American jobs into the shredder,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement.Some policies could be implemented through regulations, which do not require Congress. But it is a riskier approach.”I’m honestly pretty pessimistic on that because the scope of regulatory authority Biden has is limited,” R Street’s Rossetti said. “The courts are going to challenge any sort of proposal that goes outside of those bounds.”Plus, regulations can change with administrations, and climate regulations have whiplashed through the past several presidencies. The Trump administration reversed President Barack Obama’s climate regulations, and Biden is reversing Trump’s reversals.Many of the policies that would get the United States to a 50% cut have strong backing from the private sector.FILE – An Apple logo hangs above the entrance to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City,  July 21, 2015.More than 400 companies signed a letter to Biden ahead of this week’s climate summit asking for a 50% cut. The list includes tech giants Apple and Microsoft, mega-retailers Walmart and Target, automakers Ford and General Motors, and other household names.The electric utility industry’s main lobby group supports a clean energy standard.”A well-designed CES makes some sense for us,” Emily Fisher, senior vice president of clean energy at the Edison Electric Institute, told Reuters.But she cautioned that the industry still needs breakthroughs, in long-term storage and carbon capture, for example, to meet the target.”We need those technologies, and they don’t exist,” Fisher said.Getting to 50% “is certainly going to be challenging,” Orvis said, “but I’m cautiously optimistic.”
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Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will deliver the Republicans’ rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress next week.Scott, who is the only Black Republican in the Senate, will serve as the face of the party after Biden addresses the nation Wednesday. Considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, Scott is a leading Republican voice on race and criminal justice reform and is popular with the pro-Donald Trump and moderate wings of the party.The selection underscores the party’s efforts to unite and expand its appeal after a bruising 2020 cycle that saw them lose the White House and both chambers of Congress.”Senator Tim Scott is not just one of the strongest leaders in our Senate Republican Conference, he is one of the most inspiring and unifying leaders in our nation,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement announcing the selection. “As Senator Scott likes to say, he is living his mother’s American dream, and he has dedicated his career to creating more opportunity for our fellow citizens who need it most.”Biden is set to address lawmakers just before he marks his 100th day in office. The speech — much like a State of the Union address, which presidents don’t deliver until their second year in office — will give Biden the opportunity to update the American public on his progress and make the case for the $2.3 trillion infrastructure package he unveiled earlier this month.In a statement, Scott said he was honored by the selection and looked forward to having “an honest conversation with the American people.””We face serious challenges on multiple fronts, but I am as confident as I have ever been in the promise and potential of America,” he said.Scott, a senator since 2013 and a former congressman whose grandfather picked cotton as a child, was initially reluctant to focus on race in his political career. But he has increasingly talked about his experiences living as a Black man in America amid a national reckoning over racial injustice and police tactics.In an interview with The Associated Press last year, he talked in emotional terms about how often he had been pulled over by law enforcement, including for failing to signal early enough for a lane change — or, as he called it, stopped for “driving while Black.””I’m thinking to myself how blessed and lucky I am to have 18 different encounters and to have walked away from each encounter,” he said.
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The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make Washington, D.C., the 51st state, sending it to the U.S. Senate for consideration.The measure, sponsored by D.C. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and aptly titled House Bill 51, passed on a straight 216-208 vote.A statehood bill passed the House in 2020 but died in the then-Republican controlled Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer has promised to see the measure at least gets consideration in a committee.Republicans in Congress staunchly oppose the bill, calling it a “power grab” by Democrats, as a vast majority of the city’s population supports them, which could result in more congressional seats for the Democratic Party.The District of Columbia was created on an undeveloped tract of land between the U.S. states of Maryland and Virginia in 1790 and became known as the Federal City for a brief period afterward. Residents initially were allowed to vote in either Maryland or Virginia.But in 1800, the U.S. Congress moved into the new Capitol, and later passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, which stripped D.C. residents of voting rights in all federal elections, including for U.S. president, and gave Congress oversight of the city. In 1961, residents were given the right to vote for president.Washington currently has a population greater than the states of Wyoming and Vermont, but its more than 700,000 residents still do not have a vote in Congress.  Norton, D.C.’s delegate, can vote in committee but not for the final passage of a bill.Under her plan, the area that includes the Capitol, White House and federal office buildings would become the “federal district,” with the remaining portions of the city becoming the “State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” named partially for former slave, abolitionist and voting rights advocate Frederick Douglass.In a news release after the statehood measure passed, Norton called the bill historic, noting polls showing it is supported by 54% of Americans.House Republicans opposed the measure on constitutional grounds, with conservative witnesses arguing that statehood could not be achieved through simple legislation and that a constitutional amendment would be required.In the Senate, where Democrats have only a one-seat majority, the Senate filibuster rule requires the support of at least eight Republicans.Not all Senate Democrats have indicated they would support the measure. 
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The U.S. Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed new legislation aimed at bolstering efforts to combat rising anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic.The bill would establish a new Justice Department position to expedite the review of COVID-19-related hate crimes and provide support for local law enforcement agencies to respond to anti-Asian hate violence. It also includes an amendment that improves hate crime reporting and establishes hate crime telephone hotlines. The amendment was initially introduced as the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act, named after two high-profile victims of hate crimes in recent years.The vote was 94 to 1. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was the only senator to vote against the bill. Two Democratic senators and three Republicans did not vote.The bill now heads to the House of Representatives, where it’s expected to pass with wide bipartisan support. President Joe Biden has expressed support for the bill and is expected to sign it into law when it reaches his desk.Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks at a news conference after the Senate passes a COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act on Capitol Hill, April 22, 2021, in Washington.Senator Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, praised its passage.The bill, known as the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, sends a “powerful message of solidarity to the [Asian American and Pacific Islander] community that the Senate will not be a bystander as anti-Asian violence surges in our country,” Hirono said on the Senate floor before the bill’s passage.The legislation comes as hate-motivated violence aimed at Asian Americans has spiked amid the coronavirus pandemic, fueled by what civil rights advocates describe as the baseless scapegoating of Asians for the virus that originated in China.Anti-Asian hate crimes surged by 150% in major American cities last year, according to police data compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University. Meanwhile, Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy coalition, has received more than 3,800 reports of anti-Asian hate and discrimination since the start of the pandemic.“These statistics paint a disturbing picture of what’s happening in our country, but they only quantify part of the problem,” Hirono said.That is because hate crimes are notoriously undercounted, she said.In January, Biden issued an executive order condemning anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.Last week, the White House announced the appointment of Erika L. Moritsugu as liaison to the Asian American community.
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A new law in the southern U.S. state of Georgia that restricts mail-in voting and strengthens voter identification requirements has sparked a nationwide debate over voting rights for minorities. Democratic Party lawmakers are weighing their options even though voting rights legislation has little chance of passage in the U.S. Senate. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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The Biden administration has endorsed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would establish the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., as America’s 51st state.  
 
“For far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C., have been deprived of full representation in the U.S Congress,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement Tuesday. “This taxation without representation and denial of self-governance is an affront to the democratic values on which our nation was founded.”
 
The bill, H.R. 51, calls for Washington to continue to serve as the country’s federal seat of government while residents gain full representation in Congress for the first time.  
 
The measure is expected to face stiff resistance from congressional Republicans, who do not want two more likely Democrats from the Democratic-majority city in an evenly divided Senate.
 
The Republicans have argued that the bill goes against the U.S. Constitution, which created the District of Columbia as a federal district, and have proposed alternative schemes whereby District residents could vote for representatives in neighboring states.
 
The House is set to vote on the bill this week after it was passed last week by a party-line vote in the House Oversight and Reform Committee.  The administration said it plans to collaborate with Congress during the legislative process to ensure that it “comports with Congress’ constitutional responsibilities and its constitutional authority to admit new states to the Union.”
 
The administration also urged lawmakers to “provide for a swift and orderly transition” to statehood for the residents of the nation’s capital. 
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Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all charges Tuesday in the death of George Floyd nearly a year ago.Chauvin had been charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.After hearing closing arguments Monday, the 12-member jury – comprising six white people and six people who are Black or multiracial — spent about 10 hours over two days discussing information from the three-week trial before coming to a decision.WATCH LIVE: President Joe Biden reacts to George Floyd trial guilty verdict In their final arguments, a prosecutor accused Chauvin, who is white, of killing Floyd, an African American, by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. A defense attorney, Eric Nelson, contended that Floyd died partly from drug use and that Chauvin was following his police training in the way he arrested Floyd last May on the curb of a street in Minneapolis.Prosecutor Steve Schleicher summed up the case against Chauvin, who held down the handcuffed Floyd as Floyd lay prone on a city street and gasped — 27 times, according to videos of his arrest — that he could not breathe. “He was trapped…a knee to his neck,” Schleicher said, with Chauvin’s weight on him for nine minutes and 29 seconds. “George Floyd was not a threat to anyone,” Schleicher said. “All that was required was some compassion, and he got none.”    “No crime was committed if it was an authorized use of force,” Nelson argued. “The state has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the legal standard for a conviction, the defense attorney concluded as he asked the jurors to acquit Chauvin of murder and manslaughter charges. President Biden, during a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the Oval Office, said that he is ‘praying the verdict is the right verdict’ in the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Dereck Chauvin. “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict,” Biden said during an Oval Office meeting with Latino lawmakers. “I think it’s overwhelming in my view. I wouldn’t say that unless the jury was sequestered now.”As the case nears its end, authorities in Minneapolis are bracing for possible street protests after the verdict. Many stores are boarded up to prevent a recurrence of the damage and looting that took place after Floyd’s death almost a year ago. “We cannot allow civil unrest to descend into chaos. We must protect life and property,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Monday. “But we also must understand very clearly, if we don’t listen to those communities in pain and those people on the streets, many of whom were arrested for speaking a fundamental truth that we must change, or we will be right back here again.”Protests, some of them violent, broke out in many cities in the United States and throughout the world after Floyd’s death. The Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the demonstrations, but thousands of people who had no previous connection to the Black-led protests joined in to condemn Chauvin’s actions, and more broadly, police treatment of minorities.The same issues raised by Floyd’s death came to the forefront in the community again when a now-resigned police officer in a Minneapolis suburb fatally shot a 20-year-old African American man during a traffic stop on April 11.Meanwhile, Republicans in the U.S. Congress said they planned to hold a censure vote Wednesday over comments made by Representative Maxine Waters of California. On Saturday, Waters was in the Minneapolis suburb where another Black man had been killed by a police officer earlier this month.  Waters told protesters who had gathered in Brooklyn Center over the death of Daunte Wright that she wanted to see a murder conviction against Chauvin. She added, “We gotta stay on the street, we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational, we’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.” On Monday, Judge Cahill called Waters’ comments “abhorrent” and that and they could lead to a verdict being appealed and overturned. 
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The State Department’s internal watchdog has concluded that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife violated federal ethics rules by asking staffers to run personal errands and perform non-official work such as making restaurant reservations, shopping and caring for their dog.In a report released on Friday, the department’s inspector general concluded that those requests were “inconsistent” with the regulations. But, because Pompeo is no longer a federal employee and not subject to federal disciplinary or other measures, it did not call for any action against the former secretary who left office on Jan. 20 at the end of the Trump administration.Instead, it recommended that the State Department clarify its policies to better define tasks that are inappropriate for staffers under the ethics rules and make it easier to report alleged violations. The department accepted all of the recommendations in its response to the report.Pompeo and his attorney strongly denied the allegations contained in the inspector general’s report, which said the former secretary and his wife, Susan, “made over 100 requests to employees in the office of the secretary to conduct work that appeared to be personal in nature.” Pompeo’s lawyer noted that the report identifies only a handful of questionable requests and that those did not amount to violations of the rules.The report identified inappropriate tasks as including “picking up personal items, planning events unrelated to the department’s mission, and conducting such personal business as pet care and mailing personal Christmas cards.” Many of those requests were directed to a longtime assistant of the Pompeos who was hired by the State Department as a senior adviser to the secretary.It said it had found evidence that Susan Pompeo had “on several occasions” instructed the adviser to plan events for groups with which the Pompeos had nongovernmental relationships. It said it had identified at least 30 instances in which either the secretary or his wife told staffers to make restaurant reservations for personal lunches and dinners.The inspector general “found that such requests were inconsistent with department ethics rules and the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch,” the report said.In an interview with investigators in late December, Pompeo said he had not paid that staffer or others separately for work that he either considered to be related to government business or to be minimal favors that longtime acquaintances would routinely do for each other, according to the report.The inspector general, however, noted that there was no exception in the ethics rules for minimal personal favors. “Rather, the standards prohibit any use of a subordinate’s time to perform personal activities unless compensation is paid,” it said.In a response appended to the report, the lawyer, William Burck, alleged that the report was biased and unfit for publication. Pompeo had shaken up the inspector general’s office by firing its former chief in a move that critics alleged was aimed at halting potentially embarrassing investigations into his tenure at the department.”The poor quality of the report bespeaks not merely unprofessionalism in its drafting but also bias, which we are concerned may be politically motivated,” Burck said. He said the report was “not fit for publication” and demanded evidence to support the investigators’ claims that the Pompeos had made more than 100 inappropriate requests of staffers.In its response to the report, the State Department made no judgement on the findings but did accept the recommendations.”The department appreciates the work of the Office of Inspector General, and, as the report notes, concurs with all the recommendations and will proceed to implement them,” it said. 
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Strategic competition with China was one of the main issues discussed in U.S. President Joe Biden’s Friday meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Biden took office. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
Producer: Kim Weeks
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For the man who represented the United States in Tokyo from 2017 to 2019, Friday’s visit to the U.S. capital by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is an affirmation of two years of hard work.It is not often that U.S. Republicans and Democrats agree about much these days, but former Ambassador William Hagerty, who came home to launch a successful bid for a Senate seat from his home state of Tennessee, is quick to praise President Joe Biden for arranging the White House meeting.”I’m delighted to see Prime Minister Suga come to the very first face-to-face summit that our new President Biden is holding,” the newly minted Republican senator told VOA in an interview this week.The fact that Biden, like former President Donald Trump before him, chose to meet the prime minister of Japan at the outset of his presidency shows continuity in U.S. strategic priorities, Hagerty said.”It underscores the importance of the strategic alliance that we hold with Japan,” he said. “It also underscores the importance of that region of the world not only to America, but to global security.”Postwar helpHagerty stressed the lasting importance of U.S. efforts after World War II to help lift Japan from ruins to the top ranks of democratic governance and prosperity.”After World War II, an unprecedented effort took place. General [Douglas] MacArthur and a team moved to Japan; they oversaw a reconstruction of the Japanese economy. I even found notes from General MacArthur because I lived in the same house that he did while he was there,” Hagerty said.He said those notes revealed extensive efforts, including tireless outreach by the United States to persuade American industries to buy Japanese products in order to lift the Japanese economy.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 5 MB480p | 8 MB540p | 8 MB720p | 14 MB1080p | 36 MBOriginal | 59 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioSen. William Hagerty spent two years as the US ambassador to Japan”We created very favorable trade terms with Japan at that time to encourage the rebuilding of that economy,” he said, singling out the 1964 Summer Olympics as a critical opportunity for Japan to reintroduce itself to the world.”From that point on, the manufacturing capacity and the technological capacity of Japan continued to accelerate greatly; their relationship with America was absolutely vital to that acceleration.”Turning to the present day, Hagerty said the United States and Japan “need to continue to strengthen our strategic alliance” on all fronts: military, economic and diplomatic.In his new role as a senator, Hagerty is bringing his unique perspective on Japan to bear in his work on the Senate Banking, Foreign Relations, Appropriations and Rules committees. And he issued a warning.Supply chainsWhile emphasizing that the two countries need to work together as closely as possible, Hagerty said, “One thing is clear: We need to look at our supply chains very carefully.”The United States has placed certain Chinese companies on the entities list here to not sell semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China. I want to make certain that Japan understands and underscores the significance of this,” he said, “because certain Japanese manufacturers have stepped up their export of semiconductor manufacturing equipment since the United States has blocked the export here.”We need to be working together,” he continued. “Japanese manufacturers should not be undercutting our posture, because we are aligned strategically in terms of dealing with the threat that’s coming from China.””Hagerty is correct,” said June Teufel Dreyer, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami in Florida. Teufel Dreyer cited the case of Rakuten Group Inc., an influential player in Japan’s wireless network business, whose dealings with a Chinese entity have raised eyebrows in Washington.”In anticipation that this will come up in the Suga-Biden meeting, Japanese officials have privately briefed U.S. [National Security Council] officials that they’re monitoring the situation,” Teufel Dreyer told VOA.The professor said the American concern about technology transfers extends beyond its relationship with Japan. “When the U.S. shares its cutting-edge technology with allies, it runs the risk that some of what is shared ends up in the hands of adversaries,” she said.For his part, Hagerty says that compared with four years ago, when he first took up the post as U.S. ambassador to Japan, the strategic challenge facing America “continues to get more serious, particularly with respect to China.”And that, he said, makes it imperative that the United States and its allies work more closely together.
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Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are among the most well-known celebrities who used their superstar status to jump into politics. Now some politicians are using Hollywood talent agents to build their political brand.  Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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U.S. President Joe Biden has nominated U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison for the position of assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.Sison, a career ambassador, the highest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service, has served in Haiti since 2018. She is a respected diplomat in Port-au-Prince, where she has been outspoken about democratic governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights.”We are very concerned about any action that risks undermining democratic institutions in Haiti,” Sison told VOA during an exclusive interview in February.Before arriving in Port-au-Prince, she served as U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations with the rank of ambassador from 2014 to 2018.She is experienced in global coalition building, transnational threats, peacekeeping, international development and humanitarian relief.Among Sison’s prior posts are U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates; assistant chief of mission in Iraq; and deputy chief of mission in Pakistan.At the State Department, she held the position of principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs.Sison has been recognized with multiple awards, notably the Distinguished Service Award and the Presidential Meritorious Rank Award.The U.S. Senate must confirm her nomination before it becomes effective. 
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Former Vice President Mike Pence has undergone surgery to have a pacemaker implanted. His office says that Wednesday’s procedure went well and that Pence “is expected to fully recover and return to normal activity in the coming days.” The 61-year-old Pence, who recently launched a new advocacy group and signed a book deal, had previously been diagnosed with a heart condition called asymptomatic left bundle branch block. His office says that over the past two weeks, he experienced symptoms associated with a slow heart rate and underwent the procedure in Virginia in response. Pence is considered a likely 2024 presidential candidate if former President Donald Trump declines to run again. He is expected to deliver his first public speech since leaving office later this month in South Carolina. 
 
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