Author: PolitCens

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — A CIA analyst charged with leaking top-secret details ahead of a planned Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year will remain jailed pending trial, a judge ordered Wednesday. 

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles overruled a magistrate who said last week that Asif Rahman, 34, of Vienna, Virginia, could be free on restrictions while he awaited trial on charges of disclosing national defense information. 

The fight over Rahman’s detention revealed additional details about the government’s investigation of the leak and the analyst who allegedly disclosed the classified documents in October on the Telegram messaging app. 

At Wednesday’s detention hearing, prosecutor Troy Edwards said Rahman was motivated by ideology, though he did not discuss what that ideology might be. 

In fact, he said the conclusion that Rahman’s motive was ideological was essentially the result of the process of elimination, noting that Rahman comes from a wealthy family and has access to a multimillion-dollar family trust, and therefore wouldn’t have a financial incentive. 

Edwards also highlighted eight pages of notes found on Rahman when he was arrested last month in Cambodia, where he worked at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. Those notes included two separate “to-do” lists, one of which was largely blocks of apparently encrypted text along with an unencrypted sentence pertaining to U.S. missile capabilities. Edwards said investigators have not yet been able to decipher the encryption. 

A separate, unencrypted to-do list included categories labeled “contingencies” and “run,” Edwards said. 

Official court documents are vague about what was leaked, but details discussed in open court made clear that the material references an October disclosure of documents from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, noting that Israel was moving military assets into place to conduct a military strike on Iran after Iran launched its own missile attack on Israel on October 1. 

Israel ended up carrying out an attack on Iran’s air defense systems and missile manufacturing facilities in late October. 

In court papers, the government said the leak caused Israel to delay its attack plans. Edwards said the volatile nature of the Middle East made the leak exceptionally dangerous. 

“It is hard to overstate what other circumstances present graver risks of danger to human life than unilaterally deciding” to transmit information related to plans for “kinetic military action between two countries,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. 

Rahman’s attorney, Amy Jeffress, cited anonymous sources in news articles who have downplayed the leak’s significance. 

Jeffress said the to-do list included the word “run” because Rahman is an avid jogger. She also said it’s rare for defendants facing similar charges to be detained pending trial. 

Rahman was born in California and moved with his family when he was a child to Cincinnati, where he was a high school valedictorian, according to court papers submitted by his lawyer. He went to Yale University and graduated in three years. He and his wife now live in the D.C. metro area, along with his parents. 

His father, Muhit Rahman, who was prepared to serve as his son’s custodian pretrial if he had been released, attended Wednesday’s hearing along with numerous family members and friends in support. 

Rahman made his initial court appearance last month in Guam. 

Jeffress said after Wednesday’s hearing that she intended to appeal the detention order.
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PHOENIX, Arizona — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Wednesday she’s suing a Saudi Arabian agribusiness for allegedly violating a public nuisance law, contending that its groundwater pumping threatens the public health, safety and infrastructure of local communities in a rural western county.

The complaint filed in Maricopa County Superior Court alleges that the pumping at a Fondomonte Arizona, LLC. alfalfa farm has had widespread effects in the Ranegras Plain Basin of La Paz County, harming everyone who depends on basin water by drawing down supplies, drying up wells and causing the ground to crack and sink in some areas.

The lawsuit is the latest action by Arizona against foreign companies that use huge amounts of groundwater to grow thirsty forage crops for export because of climate challenges in other countries. Rural Arizona is especially attractive to international businesses because it has no groundwater pumping regulations.

The lawsuit alleges that since 2014, Fondomonte has extracted huge amounts that accelerated depletion of the basin’s aquifer.

The Associated Press called and emailed Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Saudi Dairy giant Almarai Co., seeking a response to the lawsuit Wednesday. Its lawyers have previously said that the company legally leased and purchased land in the U.S. and spent millions on infrastructure improvements.

Years of drought have increased pressure on water users across the West, particularly in states like Arizona, which relies heavily on the dwindling Colorado River. The drought has also made groundwater — long used by farmers and rural residents without restriction — even more important for users across the state.

Mayes’ lawsuit alleges that Fondomonte’s actions are a public nuisance under a state statute that prohibits activity that injures health, obstructs property use or interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property by a community.

Mayes called the company’s groundwater pumping “unsustainable” and said it caused “devastating consequences” for people in the area.

“Arizona law is clear: No company has the right to endanger an entire community’s health and safety for its own gain,” she said.

The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the company from further groundwater pumping it says is “excessive” and require that an abatement fund be established.

Arizona officials have been targeting Fondomonte for more than a year over its use of groundwater to grow forage crops, by not renewing or canceling the company’s leases in Butler Valley in western Arizona. Some residents there had complained that the company’s pumping was threatening their wells.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Jordan and Turkey Wednesday to rally regional countries around an aligned vision for Syria’s future following the ousting of longtime authoritarian ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Blinken will travel to Aqaba, Jordan, and Ankara, Turkey, and meet leaders to discuss developments in Syria, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and across the region, said the U.S. State Department.

A spokesperson said Blinken aims to secure consensus among regional leaders on key principles for Syria’s post-Assad transition. He said these include full respect for minority rights, the facilitation of humanitarian aid, the prevention of Syria becoming a haven for terrorism or a threat to its neighbors, and the securing and safe destruction of chemical or biological weapons stockpiles.

Blinken has said that the United States will recognize a Syrian government that upholds those principles.

The spokesperson said that in Aqaba, Blinken will meet with senior Jordanian officials to discuss bilateral issues, highlight the U.S.-Jordan strategic partnership, and reaffirm U.S. support for regional stability.

In Ankara, Blinken will engage with senior Turkish officials to strengthen bilateral cooperation on shared priorities, including counterterrorism and regional stability, with NATO ally Turkey.

On Tuesday, Blinken held talks with counterparts from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Egypt, where he reiterated the need for a Syrian-led transition.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, will hold an emergency session to address the situation in Syria. The OPCW — the implementing body for the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention — said it is monitoring Syria with “special attention” to chemical weapons sites and has reminded the country of its duty to declare and destroy all banned weapons.

The U.S. State Department said it will await the session’s outcome to determine the next steps.

Also, U.S. President Joe Biden will join leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations in a virtual summit on Friday to discuss Syria and other pressing issues in the Middle East.

Last Sunday, Syrian rebel groups toppled the Assad regime after a swift offensive of under two weeks, ending a decadeslong reign of brutal oppression.

While many Syrians celebrate Assad’s departure, uncertainty looms over the nation’s future. The Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant faction among opposition forces, is rapidly consolidating power. At the same time, foreign actors are vying for influence with the nascent government or seeking to limit its potential as a security threat.

Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war claimed 500,000 lives and displaced half of its 23 million prewar population. Millions of Syrians fled to neighboring countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon, with many continuing their journey to Europe in search of safety.
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washington — Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to face questions for the last time about some of the darkest moments of Joe Biden’s presidency: the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The hearing comes at the twilight of Blinken’s diplomatic career, with only weeks left before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, and at the end of the chairmanship of Representative Michael McCaul, who will no longer lead the committee in the next Congress. It’s the capstone to nearly four years of animosity between the two men over the end of America’s longest war.

“This catastrophic event was the beginning of a failed foreign policy that lit the world on fire,” McCaul, a Texas Republican, said in his opening statement. “I welcome your testimony today and hope you use this opportunity to take accountability for the disastrous withdrawal.”

Blinken was expected to defend the decision to withdraw U.S. troops in August 2021. He said previously that the Biden administration was “severely constrained” by Trump’s decisions and those of previous presidents.

His long-awaited testimony comes months after House Republicans issued a scathing report on their investigation into the withdrawal, blaming the disastrous end on Biden’s administration. They downplayed Trump’s role in the failures even though he had signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

The Republican-led review laid out the final months of military and civilian failures, following Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal, that allowed America’s fundamentalist Taliban enemy to sweep through and conquer all of the country even before the last U.S. officials flew out on Aug. 30, 2021. The chaotic exit left behind many American citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, women activists and others at risk from the Taliban.

Previous investigations and analyses have pointed to a systemic failure spanning the last four presidential administrations and concluded that Biden and Trump share the heaviest blame.
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Washington — President Joe Biden has approved a new national security memorandum ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House that could serve as a road map for the incoming administration as it looks to counter growing cooperation among China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, the White House said Wednesday. 

Biden administration officials began developing the guidance this summer. It was shaped to be a document that could help the next administration build its approach from Day 1 on how it deals with the tightening relationships involving America’s most prominent adversaries and competitors, according to two senior administration officials. 

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said the classified memorandum would not be made public because of the sensitivity of some of its findings. 

The document includes four broad recommendations: improving U.S. government interagency cooperation, speeding up the sharing of information with allies about the four adversaries, calibrating the U.S. government’s use of sanctions and other economic tools for maximum effectiveness, and bolstering preparation to manage simultaneous crises involving the adversaries. 

The U.S. for many years has been concerned about cooperation among the four countries. Coordination has accelerated between the countries in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

The officials noted that as Russia has become more isolated by much of the world, Moscow has turned to Iran for drones and missiles. From North Korea, the Russians have received artillery, missiles and even thousands of troops that have traveled to help the Russians try to repel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region. China, meanwhile, has supported Russia with dual use components that help keep its military industrial base afloat. 

In return, Russia has sent fighter jets to Iran and assisted Tehran as it looks to bolster its missile defense and space technology. 

North Korea has received from Russia much-needed fuel and funding to help build out its manufacturing and military capabilities. The officials added that Russia has “de facto accepted North Korea as a nuclear weapon state.” 

China, meanwhile, is benefiting from Russian know-how, with the two countries working together to deepen their military technical cooperation. The two nations are also conducting joint patrols in the Arctic region. 

Biden and Trump have sharply different worldviews, but officials in both the incoming and outgoing administrations said they have sought to coordinate on national security issues during the transition. 

One of the officials said that the Biden White House memo “isn’t trying to box (the Trump administration) in or tilt them toward one policy option or another.” 

The official said the document is intended to help the next administration build “capacity” as it shapes its policies on some the most difficult foreign policies it will face.
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PORTLAND, Maine — The U.S. East Coast was beginning a whiplash-inducing stretch of weather on Wednesday that was rainy, windy and potentially dangerous, due in part to an atmospheric river and developing bomb cyclone.

Places like western Maine could see freezing rain, downpours, unseasonably high temperatures and damaging winds — all in the span of a day, said Derek Schroeter, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

The heavy rain and fierce winds will last until Wednesday night in many areas, and flooding is possible in some locales, forecasters said. Utilities were also gearing up for potential power outages from damage caused by winds that could exceed 97 kph in some areas.

One of the key factors driving the weather is an atmospheric river, which is a long band of water vapor that can transport moisture from the tropics to more northern areas, said Schroeter, who’s based in Gray, Maine.

The storm has the ability to hit New England hard because it could tap moisture from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the U.S. Southeast, and transport it to places like Maine. The state was preparing for a “multifaceted storm” that could bring two to three inches of rainfall in some areas, Schroeter said.

Similar conditions had been possible elsewhere from Tuesday night to Wednesday night.

“We’re looking at the risk of slick travel (Tuesday night) with the freezing rain,” Schroeter said, “and we are going to be watching for the potential for flash flooding and sharp rises on streams as temperatures rise into the 50s (10-15 Celsius).”

Forecasters also said the storm had the potential to include a process that meteorologists call bombogenesis, or a “bomb cyclone.” That is the rapid intensification of a cyclone in a short period of time, and it has the ability to bring severe rainfall.

Parts of the Northeast were already preparing for bad weather. In Maine, some schools operated on a delay on Tuesday, which began with a few inches of snow. A flood watch for Vermont runs from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning.

The city of Montpelier, Vermont, was advising residents to prepare for mild flooding in the area and to elevate items in basements and low areas that are prone to flooding. The city said Tuesday that it has been in contact with the National Weather Service and Vermont Dam Safety and “will be actively monitoring the river levels as this storm passes through.”

Ski resorts around the Northeast were preparing visitors for a potentially messy day on Wednesday. Stratton Mountain Resort, in southern Vermont, posted on its website that patrons “make sure to pack your Gore-Tex gear because it’s going to be a wet one.”
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UNITED NATIONS — Sudan – for the second year in a row – topped a 2025 watchlist of global humanitarian crises released Wednesday by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid organization, followed by Gaza and the West Bank, Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan.

The New York-based IRC began the watchlist more than 15 years ago as an internal planning tool to prepare for the year ahead, but chief executive David Miliband said it now also served as a call to action globally.

The report said 305.1 million people around the world are in humanitarian need – up from 77.9 million in 2015 – and that the 20 countries on the IRC watchlist account for 82% of them. Miliband described the numbers as “crushing.”

“There are more resources to do more good for more people than at any time in history. This makes it all the more bewildering that the gap between humanitarian need and humanitarian funding is also greater than ever,” he wrote in the watchlist report.

The report said the humanitarian crisis in Sudan was the largest since records began and that the country accounts for 10% of all people in humanitarian need, despite being home to just 1% of the global population.

War erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, and triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis.

The remaining 15 countries on the IRC watchlist are: Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria, Ukraine and Yemen.
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration says it is in touch with all rebel groups in Syria following the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and wants the process of forming a new government to be led by Syrians.

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby spoke with VOA Turkish’s White House correspondent Begum Donmez Ersoz and said whatever governance comes out of the process, Washington wants to make sure it meets the aspirations of the Syrian people.

Kirby says it’s too soon to tell whether Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Sunni Islamic al-Qaida offshoot that the United States has designated a terror group, and its leader, Mohammed al-Golani, have undergone an ideological transformation.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Did Israel give the United States prior notification of their strikes on the Golan Heights and their deeper push into Syria?

John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser: I’m going to let the Israelis speak to their operations, and I’m not going to speculate about what they’re doing. I would just tell you that they certainly have the right to self-defense. We recognize that they see threats across that border as things unfold in Syria, and they’ve taken some actions. … We, too, share a concern that the Israelis have over chemical weapons and the possibility of stockpiles in Syria and the potential use … so we’re in constant communication with the Israelis about what they’re doing, and that will continue.

VOA: Does the U.S. believe that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has undergone an ideological transformation?

Kirby: I think it’s too soon to tell. Mr. al-Golani is saying the right things about inclusiveness, about not being interested in persecuting either minorities or other groups. But I think, you know, we have to wait and see what they actually do in terms of trying to establish good governance. … They are still a designated terrorist group. … Whatever kind of governance comes out of this, we want to make sure it meets the aspirations of the Syrian people, that they have a vote and a voice in their future. So, we want it to be a Syrian-led process, and the United States will continue to support that kind of process.

VOA: There is a concern in Turkey about the potential of an independent Kurdish state in northern Syria. How will the United States mitigate Turkey’s concerns?

Kirby: They have legitimate concerns in terms of the safety and security of people inside Turkey. I know right now, Syria is kind of coming to the fore because of the news over the weekend, but it’s not as if we haven’t continually, over the last four years, had conversations with the Turks about their concerns along that border. And quite frankly, sharing with them our concerns about what we’re trying to do against ISIS, partnering with the Syrian Democratic Forces. So, where those two levels of concerns overlap, or maybe conflict, we have the ability and have executed the ability to have conversations with the Turks to try to sort all this out.

VOA: The United States is talking to Turkey for information on the whereabouts of journalist Austin Tice. Can you share more on those talks?

Kirby: I won’t get into the details of the discussions. … We’re still trying to get more context and information about Austin — where he is, what condition he might be in. We obviously talked to the Turks about this … but we also talked to other counterparts in the region. Those conversations are ongoing. As the president said on Sunday, we want to see him back home with his family where he belongs, and we’ll continue to have the level of engagement in the region to see if we can bring about that outcome.

VOA: President-elect Donald Trump has signaled a hands-off approach in Syria. What would be the danger of that for U.S. interests in the region?

Kirby: Well, we’ll let Mr. Trump speak to his plans when he comes into office. We believe there are two things keenly in America’s national security interest. Number 1 is the transition, peaceful transition, to legitimate governance in Syria that is a Syrian-led process. … The second thing that’s very much in our national security interest is making sure that ISIS cannot regenerate the capabilities like it had in 2014 and cannot exploit the current uncertainty in Syria to their own advantage.

VOA: Syria was an important playground for Iran and the Shia Crescent. That has been broken now. Do you think Iran’s ambitions over the Middle East are over?

Kirby: I think only [the] supreme leader can answer that particular question. … As Iran wakes up and looks at the region, it is different, and their axis of resistance has been broken in many, many places. … And they, too, have been weakened as a military and as a capability, just in terms of, for instance, air defense. … That said, I can’t tell you that, as we look at the world today, that we see Iran giving up on their hegemonic ambitions in the region. They certainly are not as capable of executing those visions and that ambition, but I haven’t seen anything that would indicate that that they’re turning a blind eye to trying to pursue those kinds of ambitions.

VOA: Would the United States accept a hard-line government under HTS in Syria that would contain Iran, as Golani alluded to in his speech?

Kirby: What we want to see in terms of governance in Syria is governance that is seen as credible and legitimate, that is sustainable, that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people, and that is the result, the product, of a Syrian-led process to get them to that point. I think it’s too soon to know exactly how it’s all going to unfold, and we’re watching this real, real close.
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WASHINGTON — A shield law known as the PRESS Act that would give journalists greater federal protections failed to pass the Senate on Tuesday evening after it was blocked by Senator Tom Cotton.  

Shield laws protect journalists from being forced by the government to disclose information such as the identities of sources. The PRESS Act would also limit the seizure of journalists’ data without their knowledge.  

Nearly every U.S. state and the District of Columbia has either a shield law or court recognition of qualified privilege for sources, but no federal law is in place.  

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives unanimously passed the PRESS Act in January.  

But an attempt to pass the bill in the Senate via unanimous consent failed Tuesday evening after being blocked by Cotton. Any single senator has the power to halt a bill put forward by a unanimous consent request. 

In a speech, Cotton, a Republican, said he was blocking the bill over national security concerns.  

“Passage of this bill would turn the United States Senate into the active accomplice of deep-state leakers, traitors and criminals, along with the America-hating and fame-hungry journalists who help them out,” Cotton said. 

“Contrary to what members of the press may think, a press badge doesn’t make you better than the rest of America,” Cotton later added.  

The PRESS Act makes exceptions for terrorism and other emergencies. 

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden made a rebuttal after Cotton’s speech.  

“I understand that we don’t have unanimous consent today. I think it’s unfortunate. I think America would be stronger and freer if we were passing this legislation today. But we’ll be back,” Wyden said.  

“This is about as important as it gets. Free speech is fundamental to what makes our country so special,” Wyden said later. 

Press freedom groups expressed disappointment over the bill’s failure to pass. 

“This is a commonsense bill with broad bipartisan support,” Gabe Rottman, policy director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told VOA. “It’s time to get it across the finish line.”  

After President-elect Donald Trump won election to the White House in November, several press freedom groups said they were making a final push to get the bill through Congress and signed into law before President Joe Biden left office.  

Trump has previously threatened to jail journalists if they don’t reveal sources in stories he believes have national security implications.  

And last month, he called on Republicans to “kill this bill” in a post on Truth Social. 

Now, the only way that the PRESS Act could pass the Senate is either by attaching it to a year-end spending bill or bringing it up for a stand-alone vote, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, or FPF.  

“We need more than speeches about the PRESS Act’s importance. We need action. Senate Democrats had all year to move this bipartisan bill, and now time is running out,” FPF’s advocacy director Seth Stern said in a statement.  

“Hopefully, today was a preview of more meaningful action to come,” Stern said.

The PRESS Act’s failure comes on the same day that a Justice Department report revealed that federal prosecutors ignored Justice Department rules when they seized journalists’ phone records as part of a media leak investigation during the Trump administration.  
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has created a new national monument on the grounds of a former Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania, which served as the blueprint for hundreds of similar institutions across the United States.

“I want everyone to know,” Biden said. “I don’t want people forgetting, 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now.”

Indian children from 140 tribes were taken from their families, tribes and homelands and forced to spend years at the school in the borough of Carlisle, he noted.

“It was wrong, and by making the Carlisle Indian School a national monument, we make clear that [that’s] what great nations do. We don’t erase history. We acknowledge it. We learn from and we remember, so we never repeat it again.”

Biden told the 2024 Tribal Nations Summit in Washington Monday that the monument will encompass 10 hectares (24.5 acres) inside what is today the Carlisle Army Barracks, including historic buildings and structures that once made up the school’s campus. These will include the brick and marble gateposts at the school’s entrance, which Carlisle students built by hand in 1910.

The U.S. Army will maintain operational control over the site, which is now home to the U.S. Army War College. The Army will collaborate with the National Park Service to oversee the planning and management of the new national monument, consulting with federally recognized tribes to ensure that the monument accurately reflects historic and contemporary impacts of the boarding school system on tribal members and communities.

“This addition to the national park system that recognizes the troubled history of U.S. and Tribal relations is among the giant steps taken in recent years to honor Tribal sovereignty and recognize the ongoing needs of Native communities, repair past damage and make progress toward healing,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon.

The announcement comes just six weeks after Biden’s visit to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. There, he gave a long-awaited apology to Native Americans for the boarding school era, calling it “one the most consequential things I’ve ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career as president of the United States.”

Earlier Monday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland opened the summit with a speech focusing on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative she launched in May 2021.

The initiative resulted in a two-volume report that documented the history of the school system, accounting for 417 known schools and confirming more than 900 child deaths.

The initiative also included The Road to Healing, in which Haaland and Assistant Interior Secretary Bryan Newland traveled to 12 Native communities, giving survivors and their descendants an opportunity to share their boarding school experiences.

“So many of you spoke bravely and forthright[ly] … about the horrors you endured or the trauma that was passed down over generations. Those stories must continue to be told,” Haaland told the summit leaders.

As part of the initiative, the Interior Department engaged the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition to conduct video interviews with boarding school survivors to create a permanent oral history collection.

Haaland announced that the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will partner to preserve their accounts for the public.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday said it transferred the $20 billion U.S. portion of a $50 billion G7 loan for Ukraine to a World Bank intermediary fund for economic and financial aid.

The Treasury Department said the disbursement makes good on its October commitment to match the European Union’s commitment to provide $20 billion in aid backed by frozen Russian sovereign assets alongside smaller loans from Britain, Canada and Japan to help the Eastern European nation fight Russia’s invasion.

The disbursement prior to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in January is aimed at protecting the funds from being clawed back by his administration. Trump has complained that the United States is providing too much aid to Ukraine and said he will end the war quickly, without specifying how.

The $50 billion in credit for 30 years will be serviced with the interest proceeds from some $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets that have been immobilized since Russia invaded in February 2022. The Group of Seven democracies have been discussing the plan for months and agreed on terms in October, prior to Trump’s election.

President Joe Biden’s administration initially sought to split the $20 billion loan in half, with $10 billion to be used for military aid and $10 billion for economic aid, but the military portion would have required approval by Congress, a task made more difficult by Republicans’ sweeping election victory. With Tuesday’s transfer, the full amount will be devoted to nonmilitary purposes.

The Treasury said the funds were transferred to a new World Bank fund called the Facilitation of Resources to Invest in Strengthening Ukraine Financial Intermediary Fund. The global lender’s board approved the creation of the fund in October with only one country, Russia, objecting.

The bank, whose charter prevents it from handling any military aid, has run a similar humanitarian and economic intermediary fund for Afghanistan.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen personally oversaw staff executing the wire transfer of the $20 billion to the World Bank fund, a department official said.

“These funds — paid for by the windfall proceeds earned from Russia’s own immobilized assets — will provide Ukraine a critical infusion of support as it defends its country against an unprovoked war of aggression,” Yellen said in a statement.

“The $50 billion collectively being provided by the G7 through this initiative will help ensure Ukraine has the resources it needs to sustain emergency services, hospitals and other foundations of its brave resistance,” she said.
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MALIBU, CALIFORNIA — Thousands of Southern California residents were under evacuation orders and warnings Tuesday as firefighters battled a wind-driven wildfire in Malibu that burned near seaside mansions and Pepperdine University, where students sheltering at the school’s library watched as the blaze intensified and the sky turned deep red.

A “minimal number” of homes burned, but the exact number wasn’t immediately known, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Anthony Marrone said. More than 8,100 homes and other structures were under threat, including more than 2,000 where residents have been ordered to evacuate. Some 6,000 more people were warned to be prepared to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

Ryan Song, a resident assistant at Pepperdine University, said he first noticed the power went out at his dorm late Monday and then looked out the window and saw a huge pink glow.

“I thought, ‘This is too bright,’ and it got bigger and bigger,” the 20-year-old junior said. “I immediately went outside and saw that it was a real fire.”

Song and the other resident assistants went door to door, evacuating students. Most were calm and followed instructions, he said; a few who were scared rushed to their cars to get off campus.

Song spent the next few hours racing back and forth in the dark between his dorm and the main campus to ensure no one was left behind as fire raged down a mountain, he said.

“It felt really close,” he said, adding he was probably less than a mile away. “Seeing the fire rampaging down the hill is obviously scary for students, but I felt like our staff was prepared.”

The university later said the worst of the fire had pushed past campus.

It was not immediately known how the blaze, named the Franklin Fire, started. County officials estimated that more than 9 square kilometers of trees and dry brush had burned. There was no containment.

The fire burned amid dangerous conditions because of notorious Santa Ana winds expected to last into Wednesday.

Marrone said at least a thousand firefighters would be scrambling to get a handle on the blaze before 2 p.m., when winds were expected to regain strength. “Time is of the essence for us to grab ahold of the fire and start getting some containment,” the chief said at a morning news conference.

The fire erupted shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday and swiftly moved south, jumping over the famous Pacific Coast Highway and extending all the way to the ocean, where large homes line the beach and inland canyons are notoriously fire prone. At one point, it threatened the historic Malibu Pier, but the structure was protected and is intact, officials said.

Pepperdine canceled classes and finals for the day and there was a shelter-in-place order on campus. Helicopters dropped water collected from lakes in the school’s Alumni Park onto the flames.

Firefighters with flashlights and hoses protected nearby homes overnight, ABC 7 reported. As the sun came up Tuesday, smoke billowed over the campus and the adjacent mountains that plunge toward the coast.

North to northeast winds were forecast to increase to 48 to 64 kph with gusts up to 105 kph expected, the National Weather Service’s office for Los Angeles posted on social media platform X.

Power to about 40,000 customers had been shut off by Monday night, including 11,000 in Los Angeles County, as Southern California Edison worked to mitigate the impacts of the Santa Ana winds, whose strong gusts can damage electrical equipment and spark wildfires. Email and phone messages were left with Edison inquiring whether electricity had been turned off in Malibu before the fire started.

The Woolsey Fire that roared through Malibu in 2018, killing three people and destroying 1,600 homes, was sparked by Edison equipment.

Santa Anas are dry, warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from the interior of Southern California toward the coast and offshore. They typically occur during the fall months and continue through winter and into early spring.
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WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors sidestepped some Justice Department rules when they seized the phone records of reporters as part of media leak investigations during the Trump administration, according to a new watchdog report being released as the aggressive practice of hunting for journalists’ sources could again be resurrected. 

The report Tuesday from the Justice Department inspector general’s office also found that some congressional staffers had their records obtained by prosecutors by sheer virtue of the fact that they had accessed classified information despite that being part of their job responsibilities. 

Though the report chronicles Justice Department actions from several years ago, the issue has new resonance as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, has spoken of his desire to “come after” members of the media “who lied about American citizens” and his belief that the federal government should be rid of “conspirators” against Trump. 

Those comments raise the possibility that the Justice Department under new leadership — Trump has picked former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi to serve as his attorney general — could undo a three-year-old policy that, with limited exceptions, prohibits prosecutors from secretly seizing reporters’ phone records during investigations into leaks of sensitive information. 

The action from Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021 followed an uproar over revelations that the Justice Department during the Trump administration had obtained records belonging to journalists at The Washington Post, CNN and The New York Times as part of investigations into who had disclosed government secrets related to the investigation into Russian election interference and other national security matters. 

The inspector general found that the Justice Department didn’t follow certain department rules that had been implemented years earlier when seeking reporters’ records in 2020, including having a News Media Review Committee review the request, according to the report. The committee is meant to ensure that officials other than prosecutors, including the head of the department’s office of public affairs, are able to weigh in on such efforts. 

Then-Attorney General William Barr, who authorized obtaining the records from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, did not expressly sign off on the use of non-disclosure agreements that were sought — as was required under department policy, according to the report. 

The Justice Department also seized data from the accounts of some Democratic members of Congress over leaks related to the Russia investigation, and sought records through Apple from then-White House counsel Don McGahn. 

The department went after records of two members of Congress and 43 congressional staffers, according to the report. The inspector general found no evidence of “retaliatory or political motivation by the career prosecutors” who initiated the requests. The staffers were considered suspects in most cases merely because of the close proximity between the time they accessed classified material as part of their job responsibilities and the publication of news articles containing secret information, according to the report. 

Garland’s new policy laid out several scenarios under which the Justice Department still could obtain reporters’ records, including if the reporters are suspected of working for agents of a foreign power or terrorist organizations, if they are under investigation for unrelated activities or if they obtained their information through criminal methods like breaking and entering. 

The Justice Department during both Democratic and Republican leadership has struggled with how to balance its determination to protect press freedom and its determination to safeguard national security secrets. 

President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder, announced revised guidelines for leak investigations after an outcry over actions seen as aggressively intrusive into press freedom, including the secret seizure of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors. 

And Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general, announced in 2017 a leak crackdown following a series of disclosures during the investigation into Russian election interference.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to enforce mass deportations has raised alarm bells for immigrants in Florida. VOA Spanish’s José Pernalete says activists and field workers warn that crops could be affected if personnel shortages arise. 

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U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday presided over his final White House Tribal Nations Summit by reaching into the nation’s dark past and establishing a national monument to honor the suffering of thousands of Native children and their families in federal boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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The fall of Damascus has raised concerns about what’s next for U.S. troops based in the war-torn country, who have been working with allies to keep Islamic State from resurging. VOA’s Carla Babb has more from the Pentagon.
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WASHINGTON — The brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was likely carried out with a ghost gun, one of the nearly untraceable weapons that can be made a home, police said Monday.

A ghost gun is a firearm without a serial number, and police believe the one used in last week’s shooting of Brian Thompson may have been made with a 3D printer. It was capable of firing 9 mm rounds. The man arrested in the crime, Luigi Mangione, also had a sound suppressor, or silencer, police said.

Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes around the U.S. in recent years.

Here’s a look at the weapons and efforts to regulate them:

What are ghost guns?

The firearms are privately made and have no serial numbers.

Generally, firearms manufactured by licensed companies must have serial numbers — usually displayed on the frame of the gun — that allow officials to trace the gun back to the manufacturer, the firearms dealer and original purchaser.

Ghost guns, however, are made of parts that the owner can assemble together. The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver. Some are sold in do-it-yourself kits, and the receivers are typically made from metal or polymer. They include semiautomatic handguns and rifles.

Are they legal?

It is legal in the U.S. to build a firearm for personal use. Until about two years ago, ghost gun kits were available online that allowed people to assemble the weapons at home without background checks or age verification.

As police found more ghost guns at crime scenes, the Biden administration moved to add age requirements and background checks in 2022.

Buying one now is more like purchasing a regular gun at a gun shop.

The number of ghost guns has since flattened out or declined in several major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Baltimore, according to court documents.

But gun groups have challenged the regulation in court. The Supreme Court heard a case in October and seemed likely to uphold the regulation. It hasn’t yet handed down a ruling.

Where else have ghost guns been used?

The number of ghost guns recovered by law enforcement increased from 4,000 in 2018 to nearly 20,000 in 2021, according to Justice Department data. However, traditional guns are still used far more often in crimes.

Ghost guns really popped into the public consciousness in 2013 when John Zawahri opened fire on the campus of Santa Monica College in California, killing six people, including his father and brother. Zawahri, who was later shot and killed by police, had assembled an AR-15-style weapon after failing a background check at a gun dealer.

A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 built his own weapon to skirt a court order prohibiting him from owning firearms. In 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.

A mass shooting carried out with an AR-15-style ghost gun left five people dead in Philadelphia in 2023. A ghost gun was also used in a shooting that critically wounded two kindergartners at a tiny religious school in Northern California last week, police said.
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