Author: PolitCens

LAS VEGAS — So much of the technology showcased at CES includes gadgets made to improve consumers’ lives — whether by leveraging AI to make devices that help people become more efficient, by creating companions to cure loneliness, or by providing tools that help people with mental and physical health. 

But not all innovation is good, according to a panel of self-described dystopia experts that has judged some products as “Worst in Show.” The award that no company wants to win calls out the “least repairable, least private, and least sustainable products on display.” 

“We’re seeing more and more of these things that have basically surveillance technology built into them, and it enables some cool things,” Liz Chamberlain, director of sustainability at the e-commerce site iFixit told The Associated Press. “But it also means that now we’ve got microphones and cameras in our washing machines, refrigerators and that really is an industry-wide problem.” 

The fourth annual contest announced its decisions Thursday. 

A new smart ring every few years? 

Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, awarded the Ultrahuman Rare Luxury Smart Ring the title of “least repairable.” 

The rings, which come in colors like dune and desert sand, cost $2,200. Wiens said the jewelry “looks sleek but hides a major flaw: its battery only lasts 500 charges.” Worse, he said, is the fact that replacing the battery is impossible without destroying the device entirely. 

“Luxury items may be fleeting, but two years of use for $2,200 is a new low,” he said. 

Ultrahuman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

An AI-powered smart crib? 

Bosch’s “Revol” crib uses sensors, cameras and AI that the company says can help monitor vital signs like how an infant is sleeping, heart and respiratory rates and more. The crib can also rock gently if the baby needs help falling asleep and signal to parents if a blanket or other object is interfering with breathing. 

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn said the crib preys on parents’ fears and “collects excessive data about babies via a camera, microphone, and even a radar sensor.” 

“Parents expect safety and comfort — not surveillance and privacy risks — in their children’s cribs,” she said in the report. 

A spokesperson for Bosch told The Associated Press that all data is encrypted end-to-end and stored on Bosch-administered servers, “while all data at rest is secured locally with individual data encryption keys.” 

“Caregivers have the final say on whether data is transmitted at all. The Revol has an offline mode, which keeps data local if preferred,” the spokesperson said, adding that the smart crib helps keep children safe. 

Too much waste? 

Although AI is everywhere at CES, Stacey Higginbotham, a policy Fellow at Consumer Reports, felt that SoundHound AI’s In-Car Commerce Ecosystem, powered by its Automotive AI, pushes it to unnecessary extremes. 

The feature “increases energy consumption, encourages wasteful takeout consumption and distracts drivers — all while adding little value,” Higginbotham said. That landed the in-car system as “least sustainable” on the list. 

Soundhound AI’s platform allows drivers and passengers to order takeout for pick-up directly from the car’s infotainment system. The company did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement Tuesday, Keyvan Mohajer, CEO of SoundHound AI, said the product’s launch marks a moment “decades in the making.” 

“What begins here with food and restaurants will ultimately open up a whole new commercial ecosystem for vehicle and device manufacturers everywhere,” he said. 

Vulnerable to hacking? 

TP-Link’s Archer BE900 router won for “least secure” of CES. The company is a top-selling router brand in the U.S. But its products are vulnerable to hacking, said Paul Roberts, founder of The Security Ledger. 

“By Chinese law, TP-Link must report security flaws to the government before alerting the public, creating a significant national security risk,” he said. “Yet TP-Link showcased its Archer BE900 router at CES without addressing these vulnerabilities.” 

In an email response, TP-Link Systems contested the report. 

“TP-Link Systems Inc. is a U.S.-headquartered company and does not provide any such security reporting to China as referenced by iFixit,” the company said. “TP-Link Systems has a secure, vertically-integrated, and U.S.-owned international supply chain. Nearly all products sold in the United States are manufactured in Vietnam.” 

TP-Link said it controls its own supply chains, and “is constantly assessing potential risks to its U.S. operations, customers, and supply chain,” adding that it acknowledges that vulnerabilities exist across the industry. 

“However, contrary to claims of widespread vulnerabilities, comparative data places TP-Link on par with, or in some cases ahead of, other major industry players in terms of security outcomes,” the company said. 

Who asked for this? 

The awards also feature a category called “who asked for this?” Top of that list was Samsung’s Bespoke AI Washing Machine, which Nathan Proctor, senior director of U.S. PIRG, a consumer advocacy group, said is filled “with features no one needs,” including the ability to make phone calls. 

“These add-ons only make the appliance more expensive, fragile, and harder to repair,” he said. 

Samsung did not respond to a request for comment. 

At a press conference at CES Tuesday, Jong-Hee Han, vice chairman of Samsung’s device experience division, said that he was “proud of how we have introduced new technologies and intelligence to the home, connected key devices and set the standard for the home of the future.” 

“We are reinforcing our commitment to delivering personalized experiences through our widespread implementation of AI and we will continue this journey of AI leadership in the home and beyond, not just for the next decade, but for the next century,” he said. 

Worst overall 

Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association, called the LG “AI Home Inside 2.0 Refrigerator with ThinkQ” the worst product overall. The fridge adds “flashy features,” Gordon-Byrne said, including a screen and internet connection. 

“But these come at a cost,” Gordon-Byrne said. “Shorter software support, higher energy consumption, and expensive repairs reduce the fridge’s practical lifespan, leaving consumers with an expensive, wasteful gadget.” 

LG did not respond to a request for comment.
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Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. President, is being honored with the pageantry of a state funeral in the nation’s capital, The Associated Press reported. He will later be honored a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown that launched a Depression-era farm boy to the world stage.
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ALBANY, NEW YORK — New York’s highest court on Thursday declined to block Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing in his hush money case, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the president-elect’s likely last option to prevent the hearing from taking place Friday. 

One judge of the New York Court of Appeals issued a brief order declining to grant a hearing to Trump’s legal team. 

Trump has asked the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing. His lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing. 

In a filing to the top New York court, Trump’s attorneys had said Merchan and the state’s mid-level appellate court both “erroneously failed” to stop the sentencing, arguing that the Constitution requires an automatic pause as they appeal the judge’s ruling upholding the verdict. 

While Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation, Trump’s lawyers argued a felony conviction would still have intolerable side effects, including distracting him as he prepares to take office. 

Trump’s attorneys have argued that the Manhattan trial violated last summer’s Supreme Court ruling giving Trump broad immunity from prosecution over acts he took as president. At the least, they have said, the sentencing should be delayed while their appeals play out on the immunity issue. 

Judges in New York have found that Trump’s convictions related to personal matters rather than official acts. 

Trump’s attorneys called the case politically motivated, and said that the sentencing threatens to disrupt the Republican’s presidential transition as he prepares to return to the presidency on Jan. 20. 

Sentencing Trump now would be a “grave injustice,” his attorney D. John Sauer wrote. Sauer is also Trump’s pick to be solicitor general, who represents the government before the high court. 

The emergency motion to the U.S. Supreme Court was submitted to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who hears emergency appeals from New York.
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PLAINS, Ga. — The world knew Jimmy Carter as a president and humanitarian, but he also was a woodworker, painter and poet, creating a body of artistic work that reflects deeply personal views of the global community — and himself. 

His portfolio illuminates his closest relationships, his spartan sensibilities and his place in the evolution of American race relations. And it continues to improve the finances of The Carter Center, his enduring legacy. 

Creating art provided “the rare opportunity for privacy” in his otherwise public life, Carter said. “These times of solitude are like being in another very pleasant world.” 

‘One of the best gifts of my life’ 

Mourners at Carter’s hometown funeral will see the altar cross he carved in maple and collection plates he turned on his lathe. Great-grandchildren in the front pews at Maranatha Baptist Church slept as infants in cradles he fashioned. 

The former president measured himself a “fairly proficient” craftsman. Chris Bagby, an Atlanta woodworker whose shop Carter frequented, elevated that assessment to “rather accomplished.” 

Carter gleaned the basics on his father’s farm, where the Great Depression meant being a jack-of-all-trades. He learned more in shop class and with Future Farmers of America. “I made a miniature of the White House,” he recalled, insisting it was not about his ambitions. 

During his Navy years, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter chose unfurnished military housing to stretch his $300 monthly wage, and he built their furniture himself in a shop on base. 

As president, Carter nurtured woodworking rather than his golf game, spending hours in a wood shop at Camp David to make small presents for family and friends. And when he left the White House, West Wing aides and Cabinet members pooled money for a shopping spree at Sears, Roebuck & Co. so he could finally assemble a full-scale home woodshop. 

“One of the best gifts of my life,” Carter said. 

Working in their converted garage, he previewed decades of Habitat for Humanity work by refurbishing their one-story house in Plains. He also improved his fine woodworking skills, joining wood without nails or screws. He also bought Japanese carving tools, and fashioned a chess set later owned by a Saudi prince. 

Not just any customer 

Carter frequented Atlanta’s Highland Woodworking, a shop replete with a library of how-to books and hard-to-find tools, and recruited the world’s preeminent handmade furniture maker, Tage Frid, as an instructor, Bagby said. 

Still hanging near the store entrance is a picture of Frid, who died in 2004, teaching students including a smiling former president at the front of the class. 

“He was like a regular customer,” Bagby said, other than the “Secret Service agents who came with him.” 

Carter built four ladder-back chairs out of hickory in 1983, and Sotheby’s auctioned them for $21,000 each at the time, the first of many sales of Carter paintings and furniture that raised millions to benefit The Carter Center. 

It was rarely about the money, though. Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend who would have the Carters over to her home in Plains, recalled seeing the former president carrying out one of her chairs. 

“I said, ‘What are you doing?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘It’s broken. I’m going to take it home and fix it.’” 

He was at her back door at 7:30 the next morning, holding her repaired chair. 

Carter compared woodworking to the results of his labor as a Navy engineer, or as a boy on the farm: “I like to see what I have done, what I have made.” 

‘No special talent,’ but his paintings drive auctions 

Carter employed a folk-art style as a late-in-life amateur painter and claimed “no special talent,” but a 2020 Carter Center auction drew $340,000 for his painting titled “Cardinals,” and his oil-on-canvas of an eagle sold for $225,000 in 2023, months after he entered hospice care. 

Carter’s work hangs throughout the center’s campus. A room where he met with dignitaries is encircled with birds he painted after he and Rosalynn took on bird watching as a hobby. 

Near the executive offices are a self-portrait and a painting of Rosalynn in their early post-presidential years, hanging across from a trio of Andy Warhol prints showing Carter in office. 

Carter’s earliest years predominate, with boyhood farm scenes and portraits of influential figures like his father James Earl Carter Sr., whose death in 1953 led him to abandon a Navy career and eventually enter politics in Georgia. 

Some of his subjects, including both of his parents, are looking away. Carter’s likeness of his mother shows “Miss Lillian” as a 70-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in India. Jason Carter said the piece was particularly meaningful to his grandfather, who lost reelection at a relatively youthful 56. 

“When he got out of the White House, she was standing there saying, ’Well, I turned 70 in the Peace Corps. What are you going to do?” Jason Carter said. 

One Carter subject who meets his gaze is a young Rosalynn — they married when she was 18 and he was 21. He described her as “remarkably beautiful, almost painfully shy, obviously intelligent, and yet unrestrained in our discussions.” 

Another who doesn’t look away is Rachel Clark, a Black sharecropper who had hosted the future president after they worked in the fields. “Except for my parents, Rachel Clark was the person closest to me,” Carter wrote of his childhood. 

‘Just a word of praise’ 

Carter wrote more than 30 books — even a novel — but was most introspective in poetry. 

On his first real recognition of Jim Crow segregation: “A silent line was drawn between friend and friend, race and race.” 

On his Cold War submarine’s delicate dance with enemies: “We wanted them to understand … to share our love of solitude … the peace we yearned to keep.” 

Rosalynn’s smile, he gushed, silenced the birds, “or may be I failed to hear their song.” 

Perhaps Carter’s most revealing poem, “I Wanted to Share My Father’s World,” concerns the man who never got to see his namesake son’s achievements. He wrote that he despised Earl’s discipline, and swallowed hunger for “just a word of praise.” 

Only when he brought his own sons to visit his dying father did he “put aside the past resentments of the boy” and see “the father who will never cease to be alive in me.”
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Dallas, Texas — Schools and buildings from Texas to Georgia were shut down Thursday or prepared to close ahead of freezing rain and snow forecast for much of the Southern U.S. as another burst of plunging temperatures and winter storms threatened to again snarl travel. 

Texas schools canceled classes for more than 1 million students in anticipation of icy and potentially dangerous conditions that could last into Friday. Closures also kept students home in Kansas City and Arkansas’ capital, Little Rock, while Virginia’s capital, Richmond, remained under a weather-related boil advisory. 

The cold snap coincided with rare January wildfires tearing through the Los Angeles area, forcing residents to flee from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke. 

Texas braces for snow 

In the Dallas area, crews treated roads ahead of the expected Thursday arrival of about 5 to 10 centimeters of snow. Up to 12.7 centimeters was expected farther north near Oklahoma, according to the National Weather Service. 

Gov. Greg Abbott said the state deployed emergency crews in advance and urged residents to avoid driving in bad weather if possible. 

Boston native Gina Eaton, who stocked up on groceries in Dallas ahead of the storm, said she has some trepidation sharing roads with drivers unaccustomed to ice and snow. 

“Even if there is ice, I’m very comfortable driving in it,” Eaton said. “It’s just other people that scare me.” 

Roads could be slick Friday as 75,000 fans were expected head to AT&T Stadium in Arlington for the college football championship semifinal between Texas and Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Arlington spokesperson Susan Shrock said crews will be ready to address any hazardous road conditions. 

Southern discomfort 

A mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain was expected along a stretch from New Mexico to Alabama. Forecasters said the heaviest amounts were likely in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. 

The system was expected to push northeastward by Friday with heavy snow and freezing rain all the way to the Virginia and North Carolina coasts. As much as about 20 centimeters of snow could fall in parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia through Saturday, the weather service said. 

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced the closure of some state offices on Friday. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said city offices would be closed, with employees working remotely. 

Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Director Patrick Sheehan said he expected schools across the state to close Friday, although decisions will be made at the local level. 

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes ventures south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Some experts say such events are happening more frequently, paradoxically, because of a warming world. 

The agricultural impact 

Some parts of Kansas have received nearly an entire year’s average of snow over the past few days, hitting farmers and ranchers “in ways that we haven’t seen in this area for a very, very long time, potentially a lifetime,” said Chip Redmond, a meteorologist at Kansas State University. 

Calves are especially at risk and can die when temperatures slip below zero. And so much snow in rural areas can keep farmers from reaching herds with food and water 

In northern Florida, growers were most concerned about ferns that are cultivated for floral arrangements, with Valentine’s Day only a month away. 
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WASHINGTON — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is set to be honored Thursday with a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before being buried in his home state of Georgia.

Carter’s living presidential successors – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden – are due to attend the Washington funeral, with Biden delivering a eulogy.

Mourners from the public were able to pay their final respects overnight at the U.S. Capitol, where Carter’s casket lay in state since Tuesday.

David Smith, a professor at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, said the former president obviously impacted his career. He told VOA that he came to the Capitol to honor the man but also to honor Carter’s causes.

“He had such an impact on so many people,” he said. “His work on advancing minorities, appointments of women to the judiciary, protecting our environment, advocating for human rights – all those things are very important things to me.” 

In the Capitol rotunda – where only about 50 Americans have been recognized with this distinct honor since 1852 – Senate Majority Leader Jon Thune, in a service late Tuesday, described Carter as: “Navy veteran, peanut farmer, governor of Georgia. And president of the United States. Sunday school teacher. Nobel Prize winner. Advocate for peace and human rights. And first and foremost, a faithful servant of his creator and his fellow man.” 

Vice President Kamala Harris – who on Monday in the Capitol certified the victory of the next president – extolled Carter’s policy. 

“He was the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy,” she said Tuesday. “He also passed over a dozen major pieces of legislation regarding environmental protection. And more than doubled the size of America’s national parks.” 

Carter, who served as the 39th president, died Dec. 29 at the age of 100 after nearly two years in hospice care in the state of Georgia. Since then, his final journey has taken his remains over the skinny roads of his humble hometown of Plains; down the boulevards of Atlanta, the state capital, and through the skies to snowy Washington, for his state funeral.

At the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers told VOA what the 39th president meant to them.

Congresswoman Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat, said Carter was “a real moral person.” 

“He taught Sunday school – I did, too!” she said, smiling. “But I think (it’s) the fact that he cared about all people. He was a people’s president.” 

South Carolina Republican Representative Ralph Norman told VOA that while he did not align with Carter politically, “President Carter was a good man. President Carter was a man who served his country. He loved America. I didn’t agree with all of his policies, but you couldn’t (dis)agree with his patriotism, you couldn’t disagree. He just loved his country.” 

In late December, after receiving news of Carter’s death, Biden said, “We may never see his like again. You know we can all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter.” 

Analysts say the two men have a few things in common.

“There’s an obvious similarity; that is, that Carter turned out to be a one-term president, and Biden turned out to be a one-term president,” Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA on Zoom. “And that’s never a reflection of the right combination of politics and policy. In both cases, I would say that the two presidents put the policy ahead of the politics. And they paid the price for that.”

When asked what Carter and Trump have in common, Galston paused. 

“I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question,” he said finally. “The two are polar opposites in every respect that I can think of, except one. And that is, they both attained the presidency as outsiders.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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This week, Meta’s CEO announced there would be a wider range of speech on Facebook and other Meta platforms. Michelle Quinn has the story.
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held bilateral meetings Thursday with his Ukrainian and British counterparts Wednesday before hosting the Ukraine Defense Contact Group one last time. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb is traveling with Austin as the U.S. is expected to announce its final military aid package for Kyiv under the Biden administration.
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WASHINGTON — A former FBI informant who admitted lying about U.S. President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden’s interactions with a Ukrainian energy company was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday, court records showed. 

Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty last month of causing the creation of a false record after falsely telling his FBI handler that he had knowledge of bribes paid by executives at Burisma Holdings to Joe and Hunter Biden, according to court documents. 

Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma, a role that has attracted years of scrutiny from Republican lawmakers. 

Smirnov also admitted tax evasion. 

Prosecutors working with special counsel David Weiss, who investigated matters related to Hunter Biden, had asked U.S. District Judge Otis Wright in Los Angeles to sentence Smirnov to six years in federal prison. 

“The defendant decided in 2020 to exploit the position of trust he enjoyed with the FBI in order to provide false information about one of the candidates for president of the United States in an attempt to influence the outcome of the election,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing, referring to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. 

Lawyers for Smirnov sought a four-year prison sentence, arguing Smirnov had accepted responsibility and suffered a “personal downfall” resulting from the case. 

Smirnov falsely claimed in conversations with the FBI that executives at Burisma told him in 2015 or 2016, while Joe Biden was vice president, that they’d hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”  

Smirnov also fabricated a claim that Joe and Hunter Biden were each paid $5 million in bribes from Burisma executives, according to court documents. 

Republican lawmakers learned of an FBI record documenting Smirnov’s claims, which briefly became a focus of a since-abandoned effort to impeach Joe Biden. 

Weiss, the special counsel, also brought two criminal cases against Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges. Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon for his son last month, ending both prosecutions. 
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Washington — Thousands of people braved freezing temperatures to come to the U.S. Capitol to pay their respects to former President Jimmy Carter, who lay in state Wednesday in the heart of American democracy ahead of his pomp-filled state funeral.

Mourners, who included numerous elected officials and Vice President Kamala Harris, highlighted the achievements and the humanity of the100-year-old, who died last month.

David Smith, a professor at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, said that the former president obviously impacted his career. He told VOA that he came to the Capitol to honor the man but also to honor Carter’s causes.

“He had such an impact on so many people,” he said. “His work on advancing minorities, appointments of women to the judiciary, protecting our environment, advocating for human rights – all those things are very important things to me.”

The former president’s flag-draped coffin arrived in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday, ahead of Thursday’s national funeral.

In that soaring space – where only about 50 Americans have been recognized with this distinct honor since 1852 – Senate Majority Leader Jon Thune, in a service late Tuesday, described Carter as: “Navy veteran, peanut farmer, governor of Georgia. And president of the United States. Sunday school teacher. Nobel Prize winner. Advocate for peace and human rights. And first and foremost, a faithful servant of his creator and his fellow man.”

And Vice President Harris – who a day earlier, in this building, certified the victory of the next president – extolled Carter’s policy.

“He was the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy,” she said Tuesday. “He also passed over a dozen major pieces of legislation regarding environmental protection. And more than doubled the size of America’s national parks.”

Carter, who served as the 39th president, died December 29 at the age of 100 after nearly two years in hospice care in the state of Georgia. Since then, his final journey has taken his remains over the skinny roads of his humble hometown of Plains; down the boulevards of Atlanta, the state capital, and through the skies to snowy Washington, for his state funeral.

At the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers told VOA what the 39th president meant to them.

Congresswoman Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat, said Carter was “a real moral person.”

“He taught Sunday school – I did, too!” she said, smiling. “But I think (it’s) the fact that he cared about all people. He was a people’s president.”

South Carolina Republican Representative Ralph Norman told VOA that while he did not align with Carter politically, “President Carter was a good man. President Carter was a man who served his country. He loved America. I didn’t agree with all of his policies, but you couldn’t (dis)agree with his patriotism, you couldn’t disagree. He just loved his country.”

President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat on Thursday.

“We may never see his like again, you know we can all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter,” Biden said in late December after receiving news of Carter’s death.

Analysts say the two men have a few things in common.

“There’s an obvious similarity; that is, that Carter turned out to be a one-term president, and Biden turned out to be a one-term president,” Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA on Zoom. “And that’s never a reflection of the right combination of politics and policy. In both cases, I would say that the two presidents put the policy ahead of the politics. And they paid the price for that.”

Thursday’s funeral will bring together President Biden and former presidents, including Biden’s predecessor and successor, Donald Trump. When asked what Carter and the next and previous president have in common, Galston paused.

“I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question,” he said finally. “The two are polar opposites in every respect that I can think of, except one. And that is, they both attained the presidency as outsiders.”

And now, here lies this outsider, decades after his presidency ended, inside his nation’s most venerated space.

Paris Huang, Mykhailo Komadovsky and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday approved a federal emergency declaration for California’s wildfires that will release money and resources to battle the blazes. The president warned that area’s recovery will take time. 

The Los Angeles County Fire Department faced four life-threatening wildfires that have killed at least two people, burned more than 1,000 buildings, and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate. 

“The L.A. County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given these sustained winds and low humidities,” L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone said Wednesday. 

He said more than 2,000 hectares have burned and the fire is continuing to spread.  

“We have no percentage of containment,” Marrone said. 

Officials have warned residents to pay attention to evacuation orders and leave when directed. 

Two thousand National Guard members have been deployed to help local firefighters. 

In the Pacific Palisades, the fire jumped from one house to the next, pushed by hurricane-force winds. In the same area, firefighters said hydrants had run dry. 

“We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades, Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said Wednesday. “We pushed the system to the extreme.”

The call for water was “four times the normal demand … for 15 hours straight,” she added. 

Later Wednesday, support aircraft that had been grounded by the strong winds were airborne again, dropping water and fire retardant on the fire. 

More than 400,000 homes and businesses are without power across Los Angeles, according to poweroutage.us. 

Washington is supporting California’s firefighting efforts with four U.S. Forest Service large air tankers and an additional tanker in on route. The federal government has also helped the firefighting efforts with 10 helicopters. Meanwhile, dozens of the Forest Service fire engines are ready to be deployed.   

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press. 
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ISLAMABAD — Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied President-elect Donald Trump’s assertions that they have received billions of dollars in U.S. financial aid since regaining control of the country. 

Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy Taliban spokesperson, responded to Trump’s claims by asserting that the Kabul administration neither anticipates nor seeks any assistance from the United States. 

“In reality, the United States has not provided a single penny to the Islamic Emirate,” Fitrat stated, referring to Afghanistan’s official name under Taliban rule. “Instead, it has confiscated and frozen billions of dollars that rightfully belong to the people of Afghanistan.”  

The Taliban’s sharp response followed Trump’s news conference in Florida on Tuesday, when he was asked to comment on the alleged monthly payments of millions of dollars by the Biden administration to the de facto Afghan rulers. 

“It’s not even believable. Billions of dollars, not millions — billions. We pay billions of dollars to essentially the Taliban Afghanistan,” Trump stated. “This can’t be allowed to happen.” 

Fitrat claimed that the U.S. funds in question were primarily utilized for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the relocation and resettlement of their Afghan allies. 

“A portion of this money may have also been used under the pretext of ‘humanitarian aid’ by international organizations. … [The] U.S. directed all this money to Afghanistan, primarily for its own interests, and now exploits it as propaganda against the Islamic Emirate,” the Taliban spokesperson alleged. 

The controversy surrounding provision of financial aid to the Taliban intensified following a Jan. 2 letter by Congressman Tim Burchett to President-elect Trump, which expressed concern over foreign aid being directed to the de facto Afghan authorities. 

“These cash shipments are auctioned off, and after that, they are nearly impossible to track. This is how the Taliban is being funded and plans to fund terrorism around the world,” warned Burchett. “The United States of America should not fund its enemies abroad.” 

He cited U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as having confirmed that non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan had paid nearly $10 million in foreign aid to the Taliban in taxes. 

The Taliban swept back to power in August 2021, prompting Washington and the West at large to suspend development aid to the country and effectively isolate the Afghan banking sector, freezing billions of dollars of central bank assets in the United States. 

The flow of humanitarian assistance, however, has primarily remained intact under the United Nations’ supervision. 

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) refutes allegations that some of the funds it receives for humanitarian operations are being diverted to the Taliban. 

UNAMA has maintained that it transports cash into the country for the use of U.N. agencies and “approved and vetted” humanitarian partners to assist millions of Afghans needing support. 

The mission has emphasized that all cash is deposited in designated U.N. accounts in a private bank before being distributed directly to the United Nations and other entities. It has also clarified that none of the cash brought into the country is deposited in the Central Bank of Afghanistan or provided to de facto Taliban authorities by the U.N.
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The European Union on Wednesday dismissed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s refusal to rule out a military attack to take control of Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland as “wild hypothetical stuff,” while confirming that EU states would be compelled to defend the island if Trump invaded it.

Trump, set to be inaugurated for a second, nonconsecutive term in the White House on Jan. 20, refused at a news conference Tuesday to rule out military action to take control of the mineral-rich Arctic island and earlier had vowed to slap high tariffs on Denmark if it refused to cede control.

The Brussels-based 27-nation bloc, long a U.S. ally, however, attempted to avoid being drawn into a verbal sparring match with Trump, saying it was “looking forward” to working with the incoming administration.

As for Trump’s refusal to rule out military action to take over Greenland, a European Commission spokesperson said, “We are talking about fairly wild hypothetical stuff about an administration that hasn’t come in yet.”

Another spokesperson added that the sovereignty of states had to be respected “as a matter of principle.”

Asked if Greenland was covered by a mutual defense clause binding EU members to assist each other in case of attack, commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said that was the case.

“But we are indeed speaking of something extremely theoretical on which we will not want to elaborate,” she said.

Greenland is a mineral-rich autonomous territory of EU member Denmark and an associated territory of the EU.

Trump has long publicly hypothesized about taking over Greenland, saying Tuesday, “We need Greenland for national security purposes,” arguing that Denmark should give it up to “protect the free world.”

Aside from minerals on the island, it is a strategic Arctic shipping portal, especially as ice floes melt at the top of the world as the planet warms.

Trump earlier in the day wrote on social media that the potential American takeover of Greenland “is a deal that must happen” and uploaded photos of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who was visiting Greenland.

“MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN,” Trump added.

Panama and Canada

At his news conference, Trump also refused to rule out military action to secure control of the Panama Canal and use economic force against neighboring Canada to gain the upper hand in trade deals or merge the two countries.

“Canada and the United States, that would really be something,” Trump said. “You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security.”

Trump posited the possibility that Canada should be the 51st U.S. state, a proposition that outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately rejected.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Trudeau said.

Germany and France

Aside from the EU’s rejection of Trump eyeing a Greenland takeover, EU members Germany and France individually also rebuffed the suggestion by the incoming U.S. leader.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed surprise at Trump’s comments, saying European partners agreed that the inviolability of borders was a fundamental principle of international law.

“This principle applies and is a foundation of our peaceful order,” Scholz told reporters.

“In my discussions with our European partners, a certain lack of understanding has emerged with regard to recent statements from the USA,” Scholz said in an unusually blunt statement called on short notice.

“The principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country, regardless of whether it is to the east or west of us,” said Scholz, adding that Russia had violated that principle with its nearly three-year invasion of Ukraine.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio, “There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be … attack its sovereign borders. We are a strong continent. We need to strengthen ourselves more.”

Barrot said he did not believe the U.S. would invade the vast Arctic island that has been part of Denmark for more than 600 years.

But he added, “We have entered an era that is seeing the return of the law of the strongest. Should we be intimidated? Should we be overcome with worry? Evidently, no,” he said.

“We need to wake up and reinforce ourselves militarily in competition in a world where the law of the strongest prevails.”

Barrot said he believes the United States is “inherently not imperialistic” and said he “did not believe” that it is changing.
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Sanaa — The U.S. military said Wednesday its forces hit weapons storage facilities used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack American warships and commercial vessels. 

The operation involved “multiple precision strikes,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement, adding “there were no injuries or damage to US personnel or equipment,” 

The statement did not specify the location of the storage facilities. 

“The strikes are part of CENTCOM’s effort to degrade Iranian-backed (Houthi) attempts to threaten regional partners and military and merchant vessels in the region,” it said. 

The Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV said there were five raids in the northwestern Amran province and two in Sanaa province, where the capital Sanaa is located. 

The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and control much of the war-torn country’s most populated areas. 

For more than a year they have been firing missiles and drones at Israel and at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. 

The Houthis’ attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have destabilized a vital shipping lane, prompting strikes by the United States and sometimes Britain that began in January 2024. 

Most Houthi missiles and drones launched towards Israel have been intercepted, but a missile wounded 16 people in Tel Aviv in December, according to Israel’s military and emergency services. 
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LOS ANGELES — A fast-moving wildfire broke out Tuesday in the inland foothills northeast of Los Angeles hours after another blaze tore through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood along the coast, destroying many homes and prompting evacuation orders for tens of thousands.

The Eaton fire in Altadena started near a nature preserve just before 6:30 p.m. local time. The flames spread so rapidly that staff at a senior care center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.

To the west, the Pacific Palisades fire that started Tuesday morning burned out of control into the night.

The Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help fight the flames that were being pushed by winds topping 97 kph in some places and creating chaotic scenes as residents fled.

It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, hampering the fight.

The Pacific Palisades fire swept through a Los Angeles hillside dotted with celebrity residences Tuesday, burning homes and prompting evacuation orders. In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways were clogged and scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”

Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.

And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began here late morning local time, shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade. The exact cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries had been reported, officials said.

Only about 40 kilometers northeast, in Altadena, the Eaton fire was burning.

The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 160 kph in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Newsom warned residents, noting high winds were expected to continue all night. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, 28,300 households were without power due to the strong winds, according to the mayor’s office. About 15,000 utility customers in Southern California had their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment sparking a blaze. A half a million customers total were at risk of losing power preemptively.

The Pacific Palisades fire quickly consumed about 11.6 square kilometers of land in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, some 10 kilometers away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.

Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to get out of danger and waited to be picked up.

Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked, for an hour.”

An Associated Press video journalist saw a roof and chimney of one home in flames and another residence where the walls were burning. The Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 32 kilometers west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

An AP photographer saw multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads. Roads were clogged in both directions as evacuees fled down toward the Pacific Coast Highway while others begged for rides back up to their homes to rescue pets. Two of the homes on fire were inside exclusive gated communities.

Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife’s car as she tried to evacuate.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.

“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”

The erratic weather caused Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Biden said in a statement that he and his team are communicating with state and local officials and he has offered “any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire.”

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late Tuesday, but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty President Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The fire also burned Palisades Charter High School classrooms.

Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.25 centimeters of rain since early May.
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President-elect Donald Trump did not rule out using military or economic coercion to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland during a wide-ranging news conference in Florida on Tuesday. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports his remarks came hours after his son made a surprise trip to Greenland.
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CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Two U.S. citizens have been arrested in Venezuela, part of a group of seven whom President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday branded as “mercenaries” in the latest roundup ahead of the embattled leader’s expected inauguration to a new term later this week.

Maduro said the detained U.S. citizens were “very high level” but did not provide further details or evidence of the arrests.

“Just today we’ve captured seven foreign mercenaries, including two important mercenaries from the United States,” said Maduro, who is set to take office for a third term on Friday following last July’s contested election that the opposition says it won in a landslide.

Maduro said the group of detainees includes two Colombians who he said were captured in unspecified parts of Venezuela, as well as three others who came from the war in Ukraine.

Neither the U.S. Department of State nor Colombia’s Foreign Ministry responded immediately to requests for comment.

Venezuelan rights groups have warned of a revolving door of prisoners, with fresh detentions coming in even as older prisoners are released, including arrests of foreign nationals.

In late 2023, Venezuela’s government released dozens of prisoners including 10 Americans after months of negotiations between Caracas and Washington, while the U.S. released a close ally of Maduro, Colombian businessman Alex Saab.

In remarks delivered from the Miraflores presidential palace, Maduro on Tuesday claimed that his government’s security forces have captured what he called 125 foreign mercenaries from 25 different countries who he said had entered the South American nation “to practice terrorism against the Venezuelan people.”

The remarks come as opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez is touring the region in a bid to grow his international support. Gonzalez has been declared president-elect by several governments, including the United States.

On Monday, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said Gonzalez was the “true winner” of the July 28 vote.

While the government-aligned electoral authority and Venezuela’s top court have decreed that Maduro won the election, the government has not released ballot-box level results to back up the claim.

The opposition, however, has published thousands of scanned copies of voting machine receipts its observers gathered days after the vote, accounting for over 80% of votes cast and showing a lopsided Gonzalez victory.
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