Author: PolitCens

HANOI, VIETNAM — U.S. weapons manufacturers could work with Vietnamese counterparts to help build Vietnam’s armed forces, the U.S. ambassador to the southeast Asian country said on Thursday.

“Our goal is to ensure that Vietnam has what it needs to defend its interests at sea, in the air, on the ground and in cyberspace,” U.S. Ambassador Marc Knapper said at an international arms expo in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

The expo, held at the Gia Lam airport, brought together 250 exhibitors, including geopolitical rivals such as the United States, China, Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Iran.

U.S. exhibitors included Boeing and Textron Aviation. China was present with Norinco and Gaodu International Trade. Iran’s defense ministry pavilion wasn’t far from booths set up by Israeli companies Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. Several Russian firms also attended, along with Ukraine’s Motor Sich.

Vietnam has been trying to increase its domestic arms manufacturing while reducing its reliance on Russia for weapon imports.

In 2022, Russia made up around 60% of all of Vietnam’s military purchases, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. But Vietnam’s longstanding efforts to diversify its imports have been accelerated by the war in Ukraine. It has also been trying to boost its own capacity to make arms and displayed military equipment it made at the expo.

A key driver for Vietnam is the escalating tensions in the South China Sea, a key trade and security route. It is a flashpoint in Asia and a fault line in the U.S.-China regional rivalry. Vietnam has been critical of China’s increasingly hostile actions in the disputed waters. Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries have overlapping claims in the busy sea passage.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hailed the event as a “message of peace, cooperation and development.” He was later given a tour of a military plane made by U.S. firm Lockheed Martin.
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Islamabad — Pakistan sharply criticized the United States Thursday for imposing new sanctions against the nuclear-armed country’s long-range ballistic missile program, labeling the move as “double standards and discriminatory practices.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller announced the measures on Wednesday, saying they were imposed under an executive order that “targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.”

Miller said the sanctions cover Pakistan’s state-owned National Defense Complex and three entities collaborating with it in the development of long-range ballistic missiles, including the Shaheen services of missiles.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry rejected the move as “unfortunate and biased.” The ministry statement said Islamabad’s defense capabilities are aimed at safeguarding Pakistan’s sovereignty and preserving peace in South Asia. 

“The latest installment of sanctions defies the objective of peace and security by aiming to accentuate military asymmetries,” the ministry said, apparently referring to Pakistan’s rivalry with nuclear-armed neighbor India.

“Such policies have dangerous implications for the strategic stability of our region and beyond,” the ministry warned, without elaborating.

The designation of National Defense Complex and other firms freezes all U.S. property they own and bars U.S. citizens from engaging in business transactions with them.

“Pakistan’s strategic program is a sacred trust bestowed by 240 million people upon its leadership. The sanctity of this trust, held in the highest esteem across the entire political spectrum, cannot be compromised,” the foreign ministry stated Thursday in response to the U.S. announcement.

The accompanying U.S. State Department fact sheet said the Islamabad-based National Defense Complex has worked to acquire items “intended to be used as launch support equipment for ballistic missiles and missile testing equipment” to advance the country’s missile development program.

The other companies hit with U.S. sanctions are Affiliates International, Akhtar and Sons Private Ltd., and Rockside Enterprise, all located in Karachi, according to the fact sheet.

“The United States will continue to act against proliferation and associated procurement activities of concern,” Miller said.

Pakistan’s Shaheen surface-to-surface rocket is capable of carrying nuclear warheads to a range of approximately 2,750 kilometers, with experts saying the range enables the solid-fueled, multistage missile to reach targets anywhere in India and parts of the Middle East.

New Delhi and Islamabad conducted their first nuclear weapons tests in May 1998, raising fears another war between the arch-rivals could escalate into a nuclear exchange in South Asia. Both nations have fought three wars, resulting in strained relations and persistent military tensions.

India and Pakistan oppose and refuse to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international agreement aimed at curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“These country-specific U.S. sanctions against a close and longstanding strategic partner like Pakistan are unfortunate, divorced from historical realities, and indicate weaker U.S. commitment towards regional peace, security and strategic stability,” Syed Muhammad Ali, a security expert based in Islamabad, told VOA.
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WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department’s efforts to curb China’s and Russia’s access to American-made advanced computer chips have been “inadequate” and will need more funding to stymie their ability to manufacture advanced weapons, according to a report published Wednesday by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The Biden administration imposed export controls to limit the ability of China and Russia to access U.S.-made chips after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.

The agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security, according to the report, does not have the resources to enforce export controls and has been too reliant on U.S. chip makers voluntarily complying with the rules.

But the push for bolstering Commerce’s export control enforcement comes as the incoming Trump administration says it is looking to dramatically reduce the size and scope of federal government. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” to dismantle parts of the federal government.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

BIS’s budget, about $191 million, has remained essentially flat since 2010 when adjusted for inflation.

“While BIS’ budget has been stagnant for a decade, the bureau works diligently around the clock to meet its mission and safeguard U.S. national security,” Commerce Department spokesperson Charlie Andrews said in a statement in response to the report.

Andrews added that with “necessary resources from Congress” the agency would be “better equipped to address the challenges that come with our evolving national security environment.”

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, chair of the subcommittee, pointed to news reports of the Russian military continuing to acquire components from Texas Instruments through front companies in Hong Kong to illustrate how the export controls are failing as an effective tool.

Blumenthal in a statement called on “Commerce to take immediate action and crack down on the companies allowing U.S.-made semiconductors to power Russian weapons and Chinese ambition.”

Texas Instruments said it opposes the use of its chips in Russian military equipment and the illicit diversion of its products to Russia.

“It is our policy to comply with export control laws, and any shipments of TI chips into Russia are illicit and unauthorized,” the company said in a statement. “If we find evidence indicating product diversion, we investigate and take action.”

It’s not just Texas Instruments that’s the issue. The subcommittee in September published a report that found aggregated exports from four major U.S. advanced chip manufacturers nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022 to Armenia and Georgia.

Both of those countries are home to front companies known to assist Russia in acquiring advanced chips made in the U.S. despite export controls.

China, meanwhile, has created “vast, barely disguised smuggling networks which enable it to continue to harness U.S. technology,” the subcommittee report asserts.

Washington has been gradually expanding the number of companies affected by such export controls in China, as President Joe Biden’s administration has encouraged an expansion of investments in and manufacturing of chips in the U.S.

But Chinese companies have found ways to evade export controls in part because of a lack of China subject matter experts and Chinese speakers assigned to Commerce’s export control enforcement.

The agency’s current budget limits the number of international end-use checks, or physical verification overseas of distributors or companies receiving American-made chips that are the supposed end users of products. Currently, Commerce has only 11 export control officers spread around the globe to conduct such checks, the report said.

The committee made several recommendations in its report, including Congress allocating more money for hiring additional personnel to enforce export controls, imposing larger fines on companies that violate controls and requiring periodic reviews of advanced chip companies’ export control plans by outside entities.
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NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy jumped last year, and preliminary data suggests there may be another — much smaller — improvement this year.

Death rates fell last year for almost all leading causes, notably COVID-19, heart disease and drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday. That translated to adding nearly a year the estimated lifespan of Americans.

Experts note it’s part of a bounce-back from the COVID-19 pandemic. But life expectancy has not yet climbed back to prepandemic levels, and the rebound appears to be losing steam.

“What you’re seeing is continued improvement, but slowing improvement,” said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a University Minnesota researcher who studies death trends. “We are sort of converging back to some kind of normal that is worse than it was before the pandemic.”

Last year, nearly 3.1 million U.S. residents died, about 189,000 fewer than the year before. Death rates declined across all racial and ethnic groups, and in both men and women.

Provisional data for the first 10 months of 2024 suggests the country is on track to see even fewer deaths this year, perhaps about 13,000 fewer. But that difference is likely to narrow as more death certificates come in, said the CDC’s Robert Anderson.

That means that life expectancy for 2024 likely will rise — “but probably not by a lot,” said Anderson, who oversees death tracking at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time. It’s a fundamental measure of a population’s health.

For decades, U.S. life expectancy rose at least a little bit almost every year, thanks to medical advances and public health measures. It peaked in 2014, at nearly 79 years, and then was relatively flat for several years. Then it plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping to just under 76 1/2 years in 2021.

It rebounded to 77 1/2 years in 2022 and, according to the new report, to nearly 78 1/2 last year.

Life expectancy for U.S. women continues to be well above that of men — a little over 81 for women, compared with a little under 76 for men.

In the last five years, more than 1.2 million U.S. deaths have been attributed to COVID-19. But most of them occurred in 2020 and 2021, before vaccination- and infection-induced immunity became widespread.

The coronavirus was once the nation’s third leading cause of death. Last year it was the underlying cause in nearly 50,000 deaths, making it the nation’s No. 10 killer.

Data for 2024 is still coming in, but about 30,000 coronavirus deaths have been reported so far. At that rate, suicide may surpass COVID-19 this year, Anderson said.

Heart disease remains the nation’s leading cause of death. Some underappreciated good news is the heart disease death rate dropped by about 3% in 2023. That’s a much smaller drop than the 73% decline in the COVID-19 death rate, but heart disease affects more people so even small changes can be more impactful, Anderson said.

There’s also good news about overdose deaths, which fell to 105,000 in 2023 among U.S. residents, according to a second report released by CDC on Thursday.

The causes of the overdose decline are still being studied but there is reason to be hopeful such deaths will drop more in the future, experts say. Some pointed to survey results this week that showed teens drug use isn’t rising.

“The earlier you start taking a drug, the greater the risk that you could continue using it and the greater the risk that you will become addicted to it — and have untoward consequences,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the survey study. “If you can reduce the pipeline (of new drug users) … you can prevent overdoses.”
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Last week, the PRESS Act, which aims to protect journalists from unnecessary government surveillance and being forced to reveal sources, failed to pass the U.S. Senate last week after being unanimously passed in the House. VOA Mandarin takes a look into the act, why it is being blocked and a case that highlights its importance.

Click here to see the full story in Mandarin.  
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Thousands of Amazon.com workers will walk off the job on Thursday at 6 a.m. EST, in the crucial final days before Christmas, after union officials said the retailer failed to come to the bargaining table.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said unionized workers at facilities in New York City; Skokie, Illinois; Atlanta, San Francisco and southern California will join the picket line to seek contracts guaranteeing better wages and work conditions.

The Teamsters union has said it represents about 10,000 workers at 10 of the company’s U.S. facilities, representing about 1% of Amazon’s hourly workforce.

The strike could disrupt Amazon’s operations as it races to fulfill orders during its busiest season of the year. In the New York City area, however, the company has multiple warehouses, as well as smaller delivery depots for fast same-day delivery.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The union had given Amazon a deadline of Sunday to begin negotiations, and workers voted recently to authorize a possible strike.

Teamsters local unions are also putting up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide, the union said in a statement on Wednesday.  
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NEW YORK — A Manhattan resident has pleaded guilty to helping establish a secret police station in New York City on behalf of the Chinese government.

Chen Jinping, 60, entered the guilty plea on a single count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday.

Matthew Olsen, an assistant attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department, said Chen admitted in court to his role in “audaciously establishing an undeclared police station” in Manhattan and attempting to conceal the effort when approached by the FBI.

“This illegal police station was not opened in the interest of public safety, but to further the nefarious and repressive aims of the PRC in direct violation of American sovereignty,” he said in statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Prosecutors say Chen and his co-defendant, Lu Jianwang, opened and operated a local branch of China’s Ministry of Public Security in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood starting in early 2022.

The office, which occupied an entire floor of the building, performed basic services, such as helping Chinese citizens renew their Chinese driver’s licenses, but also identified pro-democracy activists living in the U.S., according to federal authorities.

The clandestine Chinese police operation was shuttered in fall 2022 amid an FBI investigation. But in an apparent effort to obstruct the federal probe, Chen and Lu deleted from their phones the communications with a Chinese government official they reported to, prosecutors said.

China is believed to be operating such secretive police outposts in North America, Europe and other places where there are Chinese communities. The country, however, has denied that they are police stations, saying that they exist mainly to provide citizen services such as renewing driver’s licenses.

The arrest of Chen and Lu in April 2023 was part of a series of Justice Department prosecutions aimed at cracking down on “transnational repression,” in which foreign governments such as China work to identify, intimidate and silence dissidents in the U.S.

Lawyers for Chen and Lu didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday. Chen faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing on May 30.

Lu, who is due back in court in February, had a longstanding relationship with Chinese law enforcement officials, according to prosecutors.

Over the years, they say, the Bronx resident, who was also known as Harry Lu, helped harass and threaten a Chinese fugitive living in the U.S. and also worked to locate a pro-democracy activist in California on behalf of China’s government.
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STATE DEPARTMENT — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a “substantive” face-to-face meeting Wednesday morning with Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has been selected by President-elect Donald Trump as his nominee for the next U.S. secretary of state. The meeting comes as Trump’s team prepares for the transition process.  

“It was a good, constructive and substantive conversation,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters during a briefing. 

“We continue to stand ready to help support a seamless transition on January 20,” he added.  

In August 2020, China sanctioned Rubio, a longtime critic of the government in Beijing, along with others, citing what it described as “egregious behavior” related to “Hong Kong-related issues.” Rubio told VOA earlier in December that he is confident in his ability “to find some solution” to engage with Beijing if confirmed.  

When asked if he would maintain his previous stance on foreign policy issues, Rubio said, “The president sets foreign policy, and our job at the State [Department] will be to execute it.” 

Here is a look at Rubio’s past legislative actions and public statements on key China-related issues: 

Securing US technologies 

Rubio has warned that “Communist China is the most powerful adversary the United States has faced in living memory,” in a September report titled “The World China Made.” 

The report asserts that the Chinese Communist Party controls the world’s largest industrial base through “market-distorting subsidies” and “rampant theft.” Rubio urged a “whole-of-society effort” by U.S. lawmakers, CEOs, and investors to “rebuild our country, overcome the China challenge, and keep the torch of freedom lit for generations to come.” 

Rubio has been a vocal critic of U.S.-China research collaborations, warning that taxpayer funds have unknowingly supported Chinese military-linked experiments in areas like stealth technology, semiconductors, and cybersecurity — potentially giving Beijing a strategic edge.  

In July, he introduced a bill to fortify U.S. research, with key provisions including the creation of a “TRUST” database to track high-risk Chinese research entities, stricter grant application transparency, and penalties for undisclosed foreign funding. The bill also enhances visa screening for individuals linked to adversarial foreign research and mandates stronger oversight of U.S.-China research partnerships. 

Rubio has advocated for the bipartisan 2021 Secure Equipment Act, a law that prohibits the U.S. government from issuing new equipment licenses to Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE that the United States and other Western countries have deemed a national security risk. 

Revoking China’s ‘most favored nation’ status 

Rubio is among the Republican lawmakers who proposed a bill to revoke China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations, or PNTR, with the United States. 

Commonly known as “most favored nation” status, PNTR means that Chinese goods being imported into the United States are granted the most advantageous terms that the country offers when it applies tariffs and other restrictions. 

Introduced in September 2024, the Neither Permanent Nor Normal Trade Relations Act marks a shift toward a more protectionist U.S. trade strategy. The bill aims to impose higher tariffs on Chinese imports, strengthen supply chain resilience, and reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese goods. 

One of the key provisions includes the establishment of a trust fund using tariff revenue to compensate U.S. industries harmed by China’s retaliatory trade actions, with priority support for agriculture, semiconductor, and aerospace sectors. 

Rubio outlined his position as early as a 2022 speech at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, calling the belief that free trade and globalization would change China “the single biggest geopolitical blunder of the last quarter century.”   

“For over two decades, China methodically undermined our economic strength by stealing our critical technology, our manufacturing capacity, and our jobs,” he argued. 

Monitoring China’s human rights record   

Rubio also chaired the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, CECC, from 2017 to 2019 and continues to serve as a commissioner.  

The CECC was established in 2000 in response to concerns that granting PNTR to China would eliminate Congress’s ability to annually review and debate China’s human rights record. The commission monitors China’s compliance with international human rights standards and maintains a list of victims of human rights abuses. 

Rubio has criticized China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, introduced bills to ban imports linked to forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and expanded sanctions on Uyghur human rights abusers.  

The Florida senator has also supported U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and efforts to enhance its global standing. 

He has met with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists and has been a staunch advocate for their movement. He introduced the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which was signed into law in 2019.

Rubio also headed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, signed into law in 2020, which imposed sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang. With the law’s sanctions set to expire in 2025, Rubio introduced the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Reauthorization Act of 2024 in June, sponsored by CECC co-chair Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, to extend key provisions for another five years, ensuring continued U.S. support for the human rights of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in China. 

On April 10, 2024, Rubio and Merkley introduced a resolution reaffirming the U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s vibrant democracy and recognizing the 45th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act – a landmark U.S. public law that has guided U.S.-Taiwan relations since 1979. The TRA, as it is called, outlines U.S. policy to provide Taiwan with defensive arms and commits Washington to provide Taipei with the capacity to resist coercion or force that could threaten its security or economic system.  

Rubio has been a vocal critic of China’s increasing economic, military, and political coercion against Taiwan. He has introduced bills aimed at bolstering deterrence in the Taiwan Strait and led legislation to facilitate visits between U.S. and Taiwanese officials, such as the Taiwan Travel Act, which President Trump signed into law in 2018.  

The law is considered a substantial upgrade to U.S.-Taiwan relations, as it removed previous restrictions on travel for officials. 

The Communist Party-led People’s Republic of China has never governed Taiwan but claims sovereignty over the self-ruled democracy. China has not ruled out the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
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WASHINGTON — Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell on Wednesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by January 19 or face a ban on national security grounds.

The court has scheduled arguments on the case for January 10.

McConnell in a brief filed with the court called the companies’ arguments “meritless and unsound. … This is a standard litigation play at the end of one administration, with a petitioner hoping that the next administration will provide a stay of execution. This court should no more countenance it coming from foreign adversaries than it does from hardened criminals.”

McConnell noted Congress set the January 19 date that “very clearly removes any possible political uncertainty in the execution of the law by cabining it to an administration that was deeply supportive of the bill’s goals.”

TikTok did not immediately comment. The company noted in legal filings that President-elect Donald Trump has said he does not want TikTok banned.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in a joint filing urged the court to block a ban of TikTok “that millions use every day to communicate, learn about the world, and express themselves.”

The groups called the ban unprecedented, adding it “will cause an extraordinary disruption in Americans’ ability to engage.”

New downloads of TikTok on Apple or Google app stores would be banned but existing users could continue to access TikTok but services would degrade over time and eventually stop working as companies will be barred from providing support.

TikTok said in a court filing this week it estimates one-third of the 170 million Americans using TikTok would stop accessing the app if the ban lasts a month.
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WASHINGTON — The United States has transferred two Malaysian detainees at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison to their home country after they pleaded guilty to charges related to deadly 2002 bombings in Bali and agreed to testify against the alleged ringleader of that and other attacks, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep worked for years with Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, an Indonesian leader of al-Qaida affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah. That includes helping Nurjaman escape after bombings on Oct. 12, 2002, killed 202 people at two nightspots in Bali, U.S. officials said.

The two men entered guilty pleas to conspiracy and other charges in January. Their transfer comes after they provided testimony that prosecutors plan to use against Nurjaman, the alleged mastermind, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Nurjaman is in custody in Guantanamo awaiting resumption of pretrial hearings in January involving the Bali bombings and other attacks.

The two Malaysian men’s transfers leave 27 detainees in custody at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay. Then-President George W. Bush set up a military tribunal and prison after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the United States.

At its peak, Guantanamo detained hundreds of men, most of them Muslim, in the U.S.-led global war on terrorism after the attacks.

Just two of the men at Guantanamo are serving sentences. U.S. prosecution of seven others currently facing charges has been slowed by legal obstacles — including those presented by the torture of the men in their first years under CIA custody — and logistical difficulties.

Kenyan held 17 years

On Tuesday, U.S. authorities repatriated a Kenyan man, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, after 17 years at Guantanamo without charge.

His release leaves 15 other never-charged men awaiting release. The U.S. is searching for suitable and stable countries willing to take them. Many are from Yemen, a country split by war and dominated by an Iranian-allied militant group.

Amnesty International urged President Joe Biden to end the detention of those never-charged men before he leaves office. If not, the rights group said in a statement, “he will continue to bear responsibility for the abhorrent practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial by the U.S. government.”
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A bipartisan effort to protect children from the harms of social media is running out of time in this session of the U.S. Congress. If passed, the Kids Online Safety Act would institute safeguards for minors’ personal data online. But free speech advocates and some Republicans are concerned the bill could lead to censorship. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. Kim Lewis contributed to this story.
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MADISON, Wis. — Community members in Wisconsin continued to wrestle with grief and called for change in the aftermath of a school shooting that killed a teacher and a student and wounded six others. 

Several hundred people gathered outside the Wisconsin State Capitol for a vigil Tuesday night to honor those slain at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison the day before, with some passing candles to each other and standing close against the winter chill. 

Among those in attendance was Naomi Allen, 16, who was in a nearby classroom Monday when a 15-year-old girl attacked people in a study hall before fatally shooting herself. 

“It’s doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, something like this could happen. There’s nothing that is going to exempt someone,” Allen said at the vigil. 

Allen’s father, Jay Allen, reflected on the dangers students face these days. 

“When I was in school these things never happened,” he said. “This country at some point needs to take mental health seriously and we need to pour resources into it. We really need some changes in the way we handle that issue.” 

The motive for the shooting appears to be a “combination of factors,” Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said Tuesday as he appealed to the public to call in to a tip line and share what they might know about the shooter. 

He offered no details about what that motive might be, though he said bullying at Abundant Life Christian School would be investigated. He also said police are investigating writings that may have been penned by the shooter, Natalie Rupnow, and could shed light on her actions. 

“Identifying a motive is our top priority, but at this time it appears that the motive is a combination of factors,” Barnes told reporters. 

Two students among the six people wounded Monday remain in critical condition. Officials have declined to disclose the names of the victims. 

“Leave them alone,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. 

The school shooting was the latest among dozens across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. 

The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms. But school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws. 

School shootings by teenage females have been extremely rare in U.S. history, with males in their teens and 20s carrying out the majority of them, said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database. 

Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school — prekindergarten through high school — with approximately 420 students. Barbara Wiers, the school’s director of elementary and school relations, said the school does not have metal detectors but uses cameras and other security measures. 

Barnes said police were talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who were cooperating, and searching the shooter’s home. 

The shooter’s parents, who are divorced, jointly shared custody of their child, but the shooter primarily lived with her 42-year-old father, according to court documents. 

Investigators believe the shooter used a 9mm pistol, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. 

Madison resident Cristian Cuahutepitzi said he attended Tuesday’s vigil to let the families of the victims know “we’re thinking of them.” He said his uncle’s two daughters go to the school. 

“They’re still a little bit shook,” he said. 

Joe Gothard, the superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District, said at the vigil that the tragedy happened less than two blocks away from his childhood home. He said it wasn’t enough to say the district would work on safety. 

“We need to connect like we are tonight, each and every day and make a commitment that we know we’re there for one another, hopefully to avoid preventable tragedies like yesterday,” he said. 

A prayer service was also held Tuesday night at City Church Madison, which is affiliated with the school. 

Several teachers from the school prayed aloud one by one during the service, speaking into a microphone and standing in a line. One middle school teacher asked for courage, while another sought help quieting her own soul. 

“God, this isn’t a Abundant Life Christian School tragedy,” said Derrick Wright, the youth pastor at the church. “This is a community tragedy. This is a nation tragedy.”
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CAPE CANAVERAL, florida — NASA’s two stuck astronauts just got their space mission extended again. That means they won’t be back on Earth until spring, 10 months after rocketing into orbit on Boeing’s Starliner capsule. 

NASA on Tuesday announced the latest delay in the homecoming for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. 

The two test pilots planned on being away just a week or so when they blasted off June 5 on Boeing’s first astronaut flight to the International Space Station. Their mission grew from eight days to eight months after NASA decided to send the company’s problem-plagued Starliner capsule back empty in September. 

Now the pair won’t return until the end of March or even April because of a delay in launching their replacements, according to NASA. 

A fresh crew needs to launch before Wilmore and Williams can return, and the next mission has been bumped more than a month, according to the space agency. 

NASA’s next crew of four was supposed to launch in February, followed by Wilmore’s and Williams’ return home by the end of that month alongside two other astronauts. But SpaceX needs more time to prepare the new capsule for liftoff. That launch is now scheduled for no earlier than late March. 

NASA said it considered using a different SpaceX capsule to fly up the replacement crew in order to keep the flights on schedule. But it decided the best option was to wait for the new capsule to transport the next crew. 

NASA prefers to have overlapping crews at the space station for a smoother transition, according to officials. 

Most space station missions last six months, with a few reaching a full year.
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Police in Madison, Wisconsin, said Tuesday that they were working to establish a motive for the shooting at a small, private Christian school that killed a teacher and a student and wounded six other people.

“Identifying a motive is our top priority,” Police Chief Shon Barnes said of the shooting Monday that he called a “hurting and haunting situation.”

Police were trying to verify a document posted online by the 15-year-old shooter, who apparently died of a self-inflicted wound. 

Authorities said the shooter, Natalie Rupnow, was a student at the Abundant Life Christian School, which has an enrollment of just over 400 students from kindergarten to high school. She opened fire in a study hall late Monday morning.  

“We don’t know nearly enough yet,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway told reporters Tuesday about the shooting.  

Rhodes-Conway also said it was too early to determine whether the shooter’s parents, who were cooperating with the police investigation, would face criminal charges. 

“We have to allow law enforcement the time and space for a careful and methodical examination,” she said. 

Barnes said Tuesday that several schools across the Madison metropolitan area “were targeted by false threats, often known as swatting.” He said police and the school district were working together to determine who initiated the scheme. 

The mayor lashed out at reporters’ requests Tuesday for more information about the victims. 

“I’m going to say this and then we’re done,” she said. “It is absolutely none of y’all’s business who was harmed in this incident. Please have some human decency and respect for the people who have lost loved ones or were injured themselves or whose children were injured. Just have some human decency, folks.” 

Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking in Maryland, said, “Our nation mourns for those who were killed, and we pray for the recovery of those who were injured.” 

The vice president said stronger gun controls were needed.  

“Solutions are in hand,” she said, “but we need elected leaders to have the courage to step up and do the right thing.” 

President Joe Biden said in a statement Monday that the shooting was “shocking and unconscionable.” 

“Every child deserves to feel safe in their classroom,” he said. “Students across our country should be learning how to read and write, not having to learn how to duck and cover.” 

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers ordered flags to be flown at half-staff to honor the shooting victims.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday proposed three bills aimed at cracking down on China’s role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis, with measures that would set up a U.S. task force to disrupt narcotics trafficking and pave the way for sanctions on Chinese entities.

China is the dominant source of chemical precursors used by Mexican cartels to produce fentanyl, while Chinese money launderers have become key players in the international drug trade, U.S. authorities say.

The proposed legislation would help hold China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) accountable for “directly fueling the fentanyl crisis through its state subsidies of precursors,” said the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on China, on which all of the sponsors of the bills sit.

One bill, The CCP Fentanyl Sanctions Act, introduced by Democratic Representative Jake Auchincloss, would codify authorities for the U.S. to cut off Chinese companies from the U.S. banking system, including vessels, ports and online marketplaces that “knowingly or recklessly” facilitate shipment of illicit synthetic narcotics.

“This is state-sponsored poisoning of the American people,” Auchincloss said at an event introducing the legislation. “The genesis of this is squarely on the mainland of the People’s Republic of China.”

Two other bills would create a task force of U.S. agencies to conduct joint operations to disrupt trafficking networks and allow for the imposition of civil penalties on Chinese entities that fail to properly manifest or follow formal entry channels when shipping precursors to the U.S., the committee said.

There is growing consensus in Republican circles close to President-elect Donald Trump that Beijing has exploited, even engineered, the synthetic opioid epidemic to harm Americans, something Beijing denies.

China says it has some of the strictest drug laws in the world, and that the U.S. needs to curb narcotics demand at home.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bills.

With little time remaining in the current congressional term, the bills would likely need to be reintroduced next year after the new Congress is sworn in on January 3.

Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee, wrote in an article this month that it was “time to get tough” on Beijing over fentanyl.
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President-elect Donald Trump sued the Des Moines Register and its pollster for “brazen election interference” in publishing a survey the weekend before the election that showed Democrat Kamala Harris with a surprising lead of 3 percentage points in the state.

The Register’s parent Gannett Co. on Tuesday dismissed the lawsuit as meritless and said it would vigorously defend its First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit continues the president-elect’s campaign against media outlets he feels have wronged him. ABC this past weekend agreed to pay $15 million toward a Trump presidential library in order to settle a defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos for inaccurately saying Trump had been found civilly liable for rape.

The Des Moines survey, done by since-retired pollster J. Ann Selzer, was considered shocking for indicating that an earlier Trump lead in the Republican-leaning Midwestern state had been erased. In the actual election, Trump won Iowa by more than 13 percentage points.

“There was a perfectly good reason nobody saw this coming: because a three-point lead for Harris in deep-red Iowa was not reality,” the lawsuit said. “It was election-interfering fiction.”

The poll increased enthusiasm among Democrats, compelled Republicans to divert campaign time and money to areas in which they were ahead, and deceived the public into thinking Democrats were doing better than they actually were, Trump charged.

The lawsuit was filed late Monday in Polk County district court in Iowa. It cites Iowa consumer fraud law, and doesn’t ask for specific monetary damages, but rather wants a trial jury to award triple the amount of what it determines actual damages to be.

Whatever happens legally, the case could have a chilling effect beyond Iowa. Trump said in legal papers that he wanted it to deter “radicals from continuing to act with corrupt intent in releasing polls manufactured for the purpose of skewing election results in favor of Democrats.”

Lark-Marie Anton, Des Moines Register spokeswoman, said the newspaper acknowledged the pre-election poll did not reflect actual results and released technical information to explain the data and what went wrong.

“We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe a lawsuit would be without merit,” she said.

Selzer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. But she told PBS in Iowa last week that “it’s not my ethic” to set up a poll to deliver a specific response. She said she was mystified about what motivation people would think she had.

“To suggest without a single shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, I was being paid by somebody, it’s all just kind of, it’s hard to pay too much attention to it except that they are accusing me of a crime,” she said.
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A San Francisco jury on Tuesday found a tech consultant guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee, which carries a sentence of 16 years to life.

Jurors took seven days to deliver their verdict against Nima Momeni in the April 4, 2023, death of Lee, a beloved tech mogul who was found staggering on a deserted downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. Lee, 43, later died at a hospital.

“We think justice was done here today,” the victim’s brother, Tim Oliver Lee, told reporters. “What matters today is that we had a guilty verdict and Nima Momeni is going away for a very long time.”

Prosecutors said Momeni planned the attack on Lee, driving him to an isolated spot under the Bay Bridge and stabbing him three times with a knife he took from his sister’s kitchen. They say Momeni was angry with Lee for introducing his younger sister to a drug dealer she says gave her GHB and other drugs and then sexually assaulted her.

But Momeni testified on the stand that Lee was the one who attacked him with a knife, angry after the tech consultant chided him about spending more time with his family instead of searching for a strip club that night. Momeni, who studies martial arts, claimed self-defense and said he didn’t realize he had fatally wounded Lee or that Lee was even hurt.

The case has drawn national attention, partly given Lee’s status in the tech world.

Momeni, 40, has been in custody since his arrest in April 2023, when he was charged with murder in the first degree. Jurors received the case, which started Oct. 14, on Dec. 4.

Lee had created mobile payment service Cash App and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin when he died. He had moved to Miami from the San Francisco Bay Area, where his ex-wife Krista Lee lives with their two children.
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