Author: PolitCens

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Blue Origin’s giant New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida early Thursday morning on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth’s orbit for Jeff Bezos’ space company as it aims to rival SpaceX in the satellite launch business.

Thirty stories tall with a reusable first stage, New Glenn launched around 2 a.m. ET (0700 GMT) from Blue Origin’s launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, its seven engines thundering for miles under cloudy skies on its second liftoff attempt this week.

Hundreds of employees at the company’s Kent, Washington headquarters and its Cape Canaveral, Florida rocket factory roared in applause as Blue Origin VP Ariane Cornell announced the rocket’s second stage made it to orbit, achieving a long-awaited milestone.

“We hit our key, critical, number-one objective, we got to orbit safely,” Cornell said on a company live stream. “And y’all we did it on our first go.”

The rocket’s reusable first stage booster was due to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from its second stage, but failed to make that landing, Cornell confirmed. Telemetry from the booster blacked out minutes after liftoff.

“We did in fact lose the booster,” Cornell said.

The culmination of a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar development journey, the mission marks Blue Origin’s first trek to Earth’s orbit in the 25 years since Bezos founded the company.

Bezos told Reuters on Sunday, before Blue Origin’s first launch attempt, that he was most nervous about landing the booster.

But he added that sticking the landing would be the “icing on the cake” if they could achieve the milestone of getting the payload to its intended orbit.

Secured inside New Glenn’s payload bay for the mission is the first prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring vehicle, a maneuverable spacecraft the company plans to sell to the Pentagon and commercial customers for national security and satellite servicing missions.

The rocket’s first attempt to launch on Monday was scrubbed around 3 a.m. ET because ice had accumulated on a propellant line. On Thursday, the company cited no issues ahead of launch.

Bezos monitored the launch from a few miles away in Blue Origin’s mission control room, wearing a large headset and flanked by dozens of launch staff. The company’s CEO, Dave Limp, was next to him.

New Glenn is expected to press ahead with a backlog of dozens of missions worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including up to 27 launches for Amazon’s Kuiper satellite internet network that will rival SpaceX’s Starlink service.

New Glenn is the latest U.S. rocket to debut in recent years as governments and private companies beef up their space programs and race to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its workhorse Falcon 9.

NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket had a successful debut in 2022, as did the Vulcan rocket last year from United Launch Alliance, Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s joint launch venture.

New Glenn is roughly twice as powerful as Falcon 9, the world’s most active rocket, with a payload bay diameter two times larger to fit bigger batches of satellites. Blue Origin has not disclosed the rocket’s launch pricing. Falcon 9 starts at around $62 million.

The development of New Glenn has spanned three Blue Origin CEOs and faced numerous delays as SpaceX grew into an industry juggernaut.

SpaceX’s giant, next-generation Starship rocket in development, which New Glenn will also compete with, is expected to further rattle the industry with cheap rides to space and full reusability.

Bezos in late 2023 moved to speed things up at Blue Origin, prioritizing the development of New Glenn and its BE-4 engines. He named Limp, an Amazon veteran, as CEO, who employees say introduced a sense of urgency to compete with SpaceX.
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Southern California firefighters made some progress in containing two major wildfires, while forecasters said weather conditions in the coming days could bring welcome relief from the days of dry air and high winds that have plagued the region.

The relief will give firefighters a key window to battle the Palisades Fire on the west edge of Los Angeles and the Eaton Fire in the foothills east of the city before another potential turn to dangerous conditions next week.

“Good news: We are expecting a much-needed break from the fire weather concerns to close this week,” the National Weather Service said Wednesday. “Bad News: Next week is a concern. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected.”

The Palisades Fire was 21% contained late Wednesday after burning 96 square kilometers, according to the California Department of Foresty and Fire Protection. The agency said the Eaton Fire was 45% contained and had burned 57 square kilometers.

More than 82,000 people were under evacuation orders, while 8,500 firefighters from the United States, Canada and Mexico were battling the two fires and several smaller ones in the region.

The fires have killed at least 25 people and burned 12,000 homes and other structures, according to authorities.

The wildfires ignited Jan. 7, fueled by strong Santa Ana winds in a region that has been largely without rain for eight months. Weather forecasts show little to no chance of rain in the next week.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, will be among several billionaires attending Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration. Tesla CEO Musk was instrumental in Trump’s reelection with his contribution of over a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s campaign coffers, according to Forbes. Musk is set to head Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur.

Reports say that Musk is slated to be seated at the inauguration with fellow billionaires Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

While it is not customary to invite foreign leaders, Trump has invited several. Argentinian President Javier Milei is expected to attend, according to Bloomberg. Milei was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump after he won November’s election. Trump has also invited Chinese President Xi Jinping who is sending an envoy. Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has also received an invitation, but she has said she is not sure her schedule will allow her to attend.

It is customary for all the living presidents to attend the inauguration. Outgoing President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will attend Monday’s ceremony. When Biden was sworn in four years ago, following Trump’s losing reelection bid, Trump did not attend because he held on to the belief that he had won the election.

Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will also attend Trump’s inauguration. Bush and Clinton are set to be there with their wives, Laura Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“Former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration,” the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama said in a statement. It will be the second time in recent weeks, following her absence at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, that she has not attended a public ceremony with other former presidents and their wives.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, are also expected to be at the ceremony Monday. Harris was the Democratic candidate in last year’s presidential election.
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HAVANA — Cuba started releasing some prisoners Wednesday as part of talks with the Vatican, a day after President Joe Biden’s administration announced his intent to lift the U.S. designation of the island nation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

More than a dozen people who were convicted of different crimes — and some of them were arrested after taking part in historic 2021 protests — were released during the day, according to Cuban civil groups following the cases of detainees in the island.

Among those freed was tattooist Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista, 24, who was detained in the 2021 protests and convicted to four years in prison for attacks and public disorder. She was released from a prison in the province of Camagüey and told The Associated Press that eight men were freed along with her.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it notified Congress of its intent to lift the designation of Cuba as part of a deal facilitated by the Vatican. Cuban authorities would release some of them before Biden’s administration ends on Jan. 20, officials said.

Hours later, the Cuban foreign ministry said the government informed Pope Francis it would gradually release 553 convicts as authorities explore legal and humanitarian ways to make it happen.

Havana did not link the prisoners’ release to the U.S. decision on lifting the designation but said it was “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025 declared by His Holiness,” referring to the Vatican’s once-every-25-year tradition of a Jubilee, in which the Catholic faithful make pilgrimages to Rome.

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, one of the civil groups, said that by 4 p.m. EST, 18 people had been released, including Barreto Batista.

“At three in the morning they knocked,” Barreto Batista told the AP over the phone. “I was sleeping (in the cell) and they told me to gather all my things, that I was free.”

She said that she and the eight men were warned it was not a pardon or a forgiveness and that they had to be on good behavior or they could be sent back to prison.

“I am at home with my mother,” she said. “The whole family is celebrating.”

In July 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest widespread power outages and shortages amid a severe economic crisis. The government’s crackdown on the demonstrators, which included arrests and detentions, sparked international criticism, while Cuban officials blamed U.S. sanctions and a media campaign for the unrest.

In November, another Cuban nongovernmental organization, Justice 11J, said that 554 people remained in custody in connection with the protests.

Biden’s intention to lift the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism is likely to be reversed as early as next week after President-elect Donald Trump takes office and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio assumes the position of America’s top diplomat.

Rubio, whose family left Cuba in the 1950s before the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, has long been a proponent of sanctions on the communist island. 
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President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to serve as secretary of state faced questioning from lawmakers Wednesday. Republican Marco Rubio told senators that if confirmed he would make U.S. national interest a priority. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reportss from Capitol Hill.
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On Wednesday the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it would implement new export controls on certain biotechnology equipment, citing national security concerns relating to artificial intelligence and data science.

The Commerce Department warned that China could use the biotech equipment’s technology to bolster its military capabilities and help design new weapons using artificial intelligence.

The department said the technology has many applications, including its ability to be used for “human performance enhancement, brain-machine interfaces, biologically inspired synthetic materials and possibly biological weapons.”

The sanctions effectively restrict shipments of the technology to countries without a U.S. license, such as China.

The controls apply to parameter flow cytometers and certain mass spectrometry equipment, which according to the Commerce Department, can “generate high-quality, high-content biological data, including that which is suitable for use to facilitate the development of AI and biological design tools.”

Last week, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Beijing “firmly opposes any country’s development, possession or use of biological weapons.”

This latest move by the United States follows recent policy decisions that reflect Washington’s broad aim to limit Beijing’s access to U.S. technology and data.

Washington announced on Monday that it would tighten Beijing’s access to AI chip and technology exports by implementing new regulations that cap the number of chips that can be exported to certain countries, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

This month, the ban on popular Chinese-owned social media TikTok is planned to go into effect due to U.S. concerns over its potential to share sensitive data with China’s government.
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Russia’s nearly three-year invasion of Ukraine has become a “war of attrition” and a “stalemate” that must be ended, Senator Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of state, told senators at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. 

Rubio broke from the passive stance of the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden, which has said it was up to Kyiv to decide under what terms it would be open to peace talks with Moscow. In the meantime, the U.S., along with its European allies, has continued to send billions of dollars of armaments to Ukraine to continue the fight. 

Rubio instead said the first step in ending the war should be a ceasefire that halts ground fighting, which has for more than a year mostly occurred in eastern Ukraine. However, ongoing fighting is also raging in Russia’s Kursk region, which Ukraine captured in August, even as Moscow has attempted to retake it with the help of North Korean troops. 

Both countries also target each other daily with aerial strikes, drones and missiles, with thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed in the Russian attacks, along with vast numbers of both countries’ troops. 

“This war has to end,” he said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Rubio called the destruction in Ukraine “extraordinary,” saying it will “take a generation to rebuild.” 

But even as he argued for a negotiated settlement to end the fighting that started with Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Rubio said it was unlikely that there would be much change in the current battle lines. Russia currently holds about a fifth of the internationally recognized Ukrainian land mass. 

“The truth of the matter is that in this conflict, there is no way Russia takes all of Ukraine,” Rubio said. “It’s also unrealistic to believe that somehow, a nation the size of Ukraine, no matter how incompetent and no matter how much damage the Russian Federation has suffered as a result of this invasion, there’s no way Ukraine is also going to push these people all the way back to where they were on the eve of the invasion.” 

Democrats, and some Republicans on the committee, continued to voice their support for more military aid to Ukraine, saying it was important to give Kyiv leverage in any eventual peace talks with Moscow. 

But Rubio said that one of Ukraine’s key problems was not a shortage of ammunition or money but its inability to train and recruit enough troops. 

“The problem that Ukraine is facing is not that they’re running out of money, [it] is that they’re running out of Ukrainians,” he said. 

Trump has voiced skepticism of continued U.S. military support for Kyiv and repeatedly vowed that he would end the war before he assumed the presidency on Jan. 20. 

In recent days, his aides have said the new timeline is ending the war in the first 100 days of his administration, which would be by the end of April. 

On the battlefront, officials in western Ukraine said Wednesday that a Russian missile attack hit critical infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region, part of a series of attacks that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said included more than 40 missiles and 70 drones. 

Zelenskyy said Russia’s targets included “gas and energy facilities that sustain normal life for our people,” but that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 30 of the missiles.  

“Thanks to our air defense forces and all involved units, we’ve managed to maintain the functionality of our energy system,” Zelenskyy said. “However, we must continue strengthening the capabilities of Ukraine’s air shield. Promises made by partners at the NATO summit in Washington and within the Ramstein format still remain partially unfulfilled.”  

Ukraine’s military issued air alerts for regions across the country Wednesday, while the national power grid operator instituted power cuts in six regions.   

Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said on Telegram that Russian forces attacked overnight with drones and missiles, with fragments from destroyed drones damaging two houses.   

In Dnipropetrovsk, Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram that Russian attacks included artillery, drones and missiles that damaged an industrial site.   

Kirovohrad Governor Andriy Raikovich reported on Telegram what he described as a massive Russian drone attack that damaged several residential buildings.     

Officials in the Rivne region also said Russian missiles targeted the area overnight.   

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod area and another drone over the Tambov region.   

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that Ukrainian attacks injured one person, while Tambov Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov reported damage to a house.   

Some information for this story came from Reuters.
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Hundreds of thousands in Southern California faced new threats of fire-spreading high winds on Wednesday as firefighters continued to fight wildfires that have killed at least 25 people and left nearly 30 missing.

A day after firefighters got a reprieve with lighter winds than expected, gusts were hitting up to 56 kilometers per hour on the Pacific coast and 88 kilometers per hour in the mountains before dawn, National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Hall said.

“This is really just the last push of these winds here today,” Hall said. “Hopefully, if we get through today, we’re going to have some better conditions for late week, especially into Friday and Saturday.”

The National Weather Service issued a high-level “particularly dangerous situation” warning through 3 p.m. local time Wednesday and extended a red-flag warning through Thursday for some areas north of the city.

“Please stay on guard for a fast-moving fire,” forecasters said.

On Tuesday, weaker-than-expected winds had allowed firefighters to make some progress in containing the two largest blazes, the Palisades and Eaton fires, but they were far from fully controlled. Authorities said that the Palisades blaze was 19% contained and the Eaton fire 45%.

But no more homes or major structures were reported burning in the two blazes, although officials said embers could still be lingering unseen and that it could take weeks to fully extinguish them.

The wildfires, which ignited on January 7, have displaced more than 100,000 people and left thousands more on edge, wondering whether they could be forced to evacuate their homes and flee for safety on a moment’s notice. More than 82,000 people in Los Angeles County are under evacuation orders, with another 90,400 under evacuation warnings, county Sheriff Robert Luna told reporters.

Diminishing winds will likely make it easier for firefighters to gain control of the blazes, though meteorologists have warned the dangerous Santa Ana windstorms may return early next week. Weather forecasts show little to no chance of rain.

Utility companies have shut off power to more than 77,000 households to prevent their power lines from sparking new blazes.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told reporters she took an aerial tour of the affected areas on Monday.

“The massive, massive destruction is unimaginable until you actually see it,” Bass said.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden gives his farewell address from the Oval Office Wednesday evening, five days before he ends his term and President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated. 

In a letter released Wednesday morning, Biden reflected on how his administration began in the shadows of COVID-19 and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters intent on overturning the result of the 2020 election that Biden won. 

“Four years ago, we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities,” he said in the letter. “But we came together as Americans, and we braved through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous, and more secure.” 

The president’s farewell address comes a day after Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted Trump on charges of illegally trying to cling to power after the 2020 election, released his final report. Smith’s report said that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict the president-elect in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.   

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and attacked the special counsel’s work as politically motivated. 

Biden’s speech follows remarks he made Monday at the U.S. State Department defending his foreign policy record and will be his fifth and final formal address from the Oval Office. In his previous Oval Office address six months ago, Biden explained his decision to step aside and endorse his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run against Trump in the 2024 election. 

Biden reflected on the “battle for the soul of America” framework that he campaigned on in 2020 when he won against Trump.   

“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake,” Biden wrote, arguing that is still the case and that America is an idea based on the belief that “we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  

“We’ve never fully lived up to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either,” he said. “And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.” 

Biden’s legacy 

Biden is leaving office with a 39% approval rating, according to Gallup. He has been using the final weeks of his administration to cement his legacy.  

Thomas Schwartz, presidential historian from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said that Biden’s legacy will be affected by how Trump governs in the next four years. 

“If Trump ends up being a disaster … either ushering economic chaos, or if there’s more world chaos from conflicts, Biden will be remembered more favorably,” he told VOA. “If Trump really proves to be as dangerous to democratic norms as Biden and the Democrats suggested, then I think he may be seen as very prophetic.” 

Conversely, by inheriting a strong economy and a winding down of U.S. foreign entanglements, Trump has the potential to become a president in the caliber of Ronald Reagan, Schwartz said. In which case Biden will be noted by historians for his legislative achievements but “won’t be remembered as fondly.” 

The White House also released an extensive fact sheet detailing the Biden-Harris administration’s achievements domestically and abroad.  

The sheet highlighted “historic” economic progress that added 16.6 million jobs, grew the GDP by 12.6% and raised median household wealth by 37%. It underscored investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and semiconductors through Biden’s signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act.  

The White House argued that through targeted relief and fair taxation, the Biden administration rebuilt a “stronger, fairer economy,” creating opportunity from the bottom up. 

On the foreign policy front, the administration insists it is leaving the incoming Trump administration with a “very strong hand to play.” 

“We’re leaving an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure,” the president said in his foreign policy address Monday, “an America that once again is leading, uniting countries, setting the agenda, bringing others together behind our plans and visions.” 

The president again defended his decision to withdraw the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021. Republicans and some Democrats have criticized the manner with which Biden ended America’s longest war as chaotic, costing the lives of 13 service members and dozens of Afghan civilians in a terrorist attack in Kabul. 

Biden said in the letter it has been “the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years.” 

“Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States,” he added. “I have given my heart and my soul to our nation. And I have been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people.” 

Asked about his post-presidency role, Biden last week said, “I’m not going to be out of sight or out of mind.”
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Michael Carpenter, director for Europe at the National Security Council, spoke with VOA, defending the Biden administration’s policies on Ukraine, stating they were undeterred by Russia’s nuclear threats, and attributing Ukraine’s lack of success in regaining lost territories to manpower shortages. The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. (Camera: Anne-Marie Fendrick)
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Washington — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is promising to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s “America First” vision as secretary of state, vowing in his confirmation hearing Wednesday that the incoming administration will forge a new path by placing American interests “above all else.” 

“Placing our core national interests above all else is not isolationism,” Rubio will tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to an opening statement obtained by The Associated Press. “It is the commonsense realization that a foreign policy centered on our national interest is not some outdated relic.” 

“The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us,” Rubio says. 

It’s a remarkable opening salvo from Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, and who, if confirmed, would become the first Latino ever to serve as the nation’s top diplomat. 

The confirmation hearing begins a new chapter in the political career of the 53-year-old Florida Republican, whose relationship with Trump has evolved over the last decade. Once rivals trading schoolyard insults as they campaigned for president in 2016, the two men became close allies as Trump campaigned for another White House term last year. 

Rubio first came to Washington as part of the “tea party” wave in 2010 and once advocated for allowing a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. But like other Republicans, Rubio’s views on immigration have shifted toward the hardline stance of Trump, who has pledged to aggressively pursue deportations once he takes office on Monday. 

Unlike many of Trump’s Cabinet selections, Rubio is expected to easily win confirmation, notching support not only from Republicans but also Democrats who endorse him as a “responsible” pick to represent the U.S. abroad. Many expect he will be among the first of Trump’s Cabinet picks approved. 

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, who served alongside Rubio on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he has high hopes that the Florida Republican will reject the isolationist approach of other Trump allies. 

“I think Marco is a hawk, but he’s also an internationalist, and I think the challenge for him will be to maintain the long bipartisan tradition of America being indispensable in world affairs,” the Hawaii lawmaker told AP. “And there are people in the Trump world who want us to run away from being the leaders of the free world. And I’m hoping that Marco’s instincts towards American strength will win the day.” 

Rubio’s approach to foreign affairs is grounded in his years of service on the Foreign Relations committee and the Senate Intelligence panel. In his speeches and writings, he’s delivered increasingly stern warnings about growing military and economic threats to the United States, particularly from China, which he says has benefited from a “global world order” that he characterizes as obsolete. 

China, Rubio will tell the committee, has “lied, cheated, hacked, and stolen their way to global superpower status, at our expense.” 

If confirmed, Rubio will become the leader of U.S. foreign policy — though his role will surely remain secondary to Trump, who relishes the global stage and frequently uses the bully pulpit against America’s allies. 

Even before taking office, Trump has stirred angst in foreign capitals by threatening to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland and suggesting he will pressure Canada to become the nation’s 51st state. 

By winning another term, Trump has won an “unmistakable mandate from the voters,” Rubio will say. 

“They want a strong America. Engaged in the world. But guided by a clear objective, to promote peace abroad, and security and prosperity here at home.” 

A Biden administration decision to rescind Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism with just days left in office is likely to irk Rubio, who has long supported tough sanctions on the communist-run island. 

Rubio’s office did not respond to multiple queries Tuesday about the senator’s reaction to the move, which many believe will almost certainly be reversed by the Trump administration. 

Secretaries of state have played a key role in formulating the foreign policy of the country since its founding, starting with the first one, Thomas Jefferson, who served in the top Cabinet position under President George Washington. 

Since then, Jefferson, as well as his 19th century successors James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan, have all gone on to be elected president. 

More recent secretaries of state have been less successful in their political ambitions, including John Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election to President George W. Bush before becoming the top diplomat, and Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump. 

The most successful secretaries of state have been known for their closeness to the presidents whom they serve, notably James Baker under George H.W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice under George W. Bush and, to some extent, Clinton under Barack Obama. 

Like Clinton, Rubio was once a political rival to the president-elect who nominated them. However, the Clinton-Obama relationship during the 2008 Democratic primaries was not nearly as hostile as that between Trump and Rubio in the 2016 GOP primaries, which was marked by name-calling and personal insults. 

Trump had an acrimonious relationship with his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Trump fired him from the position via a social media post less than two years into his term. 
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President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, faced resistance from Democrats in the Senate Armed Service Committee on Tuesday. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
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Two moon landers built by private U.S. and Japanese companies are on their way to the moon after lifting off early Wednesday on a shared ride aboard a SpaceX rocket.

The launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the latest in a public-private program that put a spacecraft from Intuitive Machines on the moon last year.

Wednesday’s launch included a lander from Japanese space exploration company ispace that is carrying a rover with the capability of collecting lunar dirt and testing potential food and water sources on the moon.

The spacecraft is also carrying a small red “Moonhouse” built by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg.

The ispace mission is expected to reach its destination on the moon’s far north in four to five months.

The company is making its second attempt at a lunar landing, after a 2023 mission failed in the final stages. 

Also aboard the rocket heading toward the moon is a lander from U.S. company Firefly Aerospace that is set to carry out 10 experiments for NASA.

The planned experiments include gathering dirt and measuring subsurface temperatures.

The spacecraft is expected to arrive in about 45 days.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden signed on Tuesday an executive order to boost development of artificial intelligence infrastructure in America. A day earlier, his administration announced sweeping measures to block access to the most advanced semiconductors by China and other adversaries.

But the U.S. left India, its strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific, off a list of 18 countries that are allowed unrestricted access to advanced AI chips. Analysts say while a growing technological relationship between the two countries would likely make India eligible in the future to access advanced U.S. AI chips, New Delhi’s existing ties with Moscow and the perception of a less robust technology regulatory framework led to its exclusion from the top list.

Exclusion not a surprise

The Commerce Department’s policy framework divides the world into three categories. The first tier includes the U.S. and 18 countries with unrestricted access, followed by a list of more than 100 countries that will be subjected to new caps on advanced semiconductors with individual exemptions. The third tier includes adversaries such as China and Russia that face maximum restrictions.

India falls in the second category, along with U.S. allies like Israel and close friends such as Singapore.

Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said that India’s relationship with Russia “puts it outside a super safe category.”

India has had close ties with Russia since the Soviet Union supported its desire for independence from Britain. It maintained those ties during the Cold War, when the U.S. sided with India’s rival Pakistan.

Scott Jones, a non-resident fellow at Washington’s Stimson Center think tank, highlighted recent reports that accused a few Indian companies of aiding Russia’s war on Ukraine, but stressed that while being excluded is a disappointment, it’s “not a setback for India.”

He also pointed to the perception that “India’s ability to control and manage technology is perhaps not as robust as evidenced in some of the 18 countries.”

While India may be off the unrestricted list for now, analysts say its growing technological cooperation with the U.S. may shield it from some curbs.

Richard Rossow, senior adviser and chair on India and Emerging Asia Economies at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the presence of caveats in the new framework would ensure India’s later participation.

“The fact that they have announced that there will be a pathway for some countries to get exemptions that are above what they’re going to consider the standard cap, India, I imagine, would be on the short list of countries,” he told VOA.

In early January, national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to India and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior officials. During the trip, both sides reiterated their commitment to forge a “strategic technology partnership” and strengthen cooperation under the U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), a bilateral mechanism focused on technology partnership.

On semiconductors, the U.S. is facilitating investments in India’s semiconductor manufacturing and intensifying R&D collaboration.

During his trip, Sullivan highlighted the investment of $2.7 billion in India by U.S. chipmaker Micron to create semiconductor packaging facilities, which he hoped would contribute to establishing “India as a new hub in the global chip ecosystem.”

The Indian government too is investing billions of dollars through its dedicated program called the India Semiconductor Mission and Production Linked Incentive scheme.

Rossow argued that the Indian government would not have been “terribly surprised” that “they were not included” in the list.

Jones of the Stimson Center agreed.

“Jake Sullivan was in New Delhi last week, and I would be very surprised if he did not inform his Indian counterparts of what was going to happen,” he said.

Ensuring America’s leadership in AI

The Biden administration has focused on the centrality of artificial intelligence to America’s security and economic strength. According to a White House factsheet, the latest steps are part of its effort to prevent offshoring this critical technology and ensure that “the world’s AI runs on American rails.”

Since October 2022, the U.S. government has enacted a series of export controls, blocking access of advanced semiconductors to China to prevent its use for military applications. While initially the measures adversely affected the Chinese semiconductor industry, Beijing has continued to advance its capabilities and is attempting to narrow the technology gap.

According to Chakravorti of the Fletcher School, there are numerous implementation challenges of this expansive global strategy.

“From lobbying from the U.S. chipmakers that will start as soon as Trump takes office to potential leaks in the carefully calibrated list of countries. Will there be a secondary market? How does this affect where future data centers are built?” he asked.

Jones of the Stimson Center argued that the policy is more a “symbolic gesture than a practical consideration” but has a stern message for the rest of the world.

“The U.S. is clearly saying, if you want to participate in the U.S.-sponsored AI ecosystem, you have to pick now. You pick China or you pick us. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t play one off against the other. You have to choose,” he concluded.
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Elon Musk was sued on Tuesday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused the world’s richest person of waiting too long to disclose in 2022 he had amassed a large stake in Twitter, the social media company he later bought.

In a complaint filed in Washington, the SEC said Musk violated federal securities law by waiting 11 days too long to disclose his initial purchase of 5% of Twitter’s common shares.

An SEC rule requires investors to disclose within 10 calendar days, or by March 24, 2022, in Musk’s case, when they cross a 5% ownership threshold.

The SEC said that at the expense of unsuspecting investors, Musk bought more than $500 million of Twitter shares at artificially low prices before finally revealing his purchases on April 4, 2022, by which time he owned a 9.2% stake.

Twitter’s share price rose more than 27% following that disclosure, the SEC said.

Tuesday’s lawsuit seeks to force Musk to pay a civil fine and disgorge profits he didn’t deserve.

Musk eventually purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, and renamed it X.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, in an email called the SEC lawsuit the culmination of the regulator’s “multi-year campaign of harassment” against his client.

“Today’s action is an admission by the SEC that they cannot bring an actual case,” he said. “Mr. Musk has done nothing wrong and everyone sees this sham for what it is.”

Spiro added that the lawsuit addresses a mere “alleged administrative failure to file a single form — an offense that, even if proven, carries a nominal penalty.”

Musk, an adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is worth $417 billion according to Forbes magazine, through businesses such as the electric car maker Tesla and rocket company.

He is worth nearly twice as much as Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest person at $232 billion, Forbes said.

The SEC sued Musk six days before Trump’s January 20 presidential inauguration.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler is stepping down that day, and Paul Atkins, who Trump nominated to succeed him, is expected to review many of Gensler’s rules and enforcement actions.

Musk has also been sued in Manhattan federal court by former Twitter shareholders over the late disclosure.

In that case, Musk has said it was implausible to believe he wanted to defraud other shareholders, and that “all indications” were that his delay was a mistake.

Musk has long feuded with the SEC, including after it sued him in 2018 over his Twitter posts about possibly taking Tesla private and having secured funding to do so.

He settled that lawsuit by paying a $20 million civil fine, agreeing to have Tesla lawyers review some Twitter posts in advance, and giving up his role as Tesla’s chairman.

The SEC also sought sanctions from Musk after he missed court-ordered testimony last September for the Twitter probe so he could attend the launch of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission at Florida’s Cape Canaveral.

A federal judge in San Francisco rejected that request, because Musk later testified and agreed to pay the SEC’s travel costs.
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BATON ROUGE — Before plowing a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans, killing 14 people, the man who carried out the Islamic State group-inspired attack had researched how to access a balcony on the city’s famed Bourbon Street and looked up information about a similar recent attack at a Christmas market in Germany, the FBI said. 

Nearly two weeks after Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s rampage, the FBI continues to uncover new information detailing the extensive planning by the 42-year-old Army veteran who scouted out the area multiple times in the months leading up to the attack. Authorities also have been piecing together a timeline of his radicalization. 

In the early hours of New Year’s Day, Jabbar could be seen on video surveillance placing two containers with explosive devices, which would remain undetonated, in the French Quarter. Shortly after, about 3:15 a.m., Jabbar sped a white pickup truck around a police car blockading the entrance of Bourbon Street, where partygoers continued to wander around the street lined with bars. He drove through revelers before crashing and being killed by police in a shootout. Fifty-seven people were injured, authorities said. 

Just hours before the deadly onslaught, Jabbar had searched online for information about an attack at a busy outdoor Christmas Market in east Germany that occurred just 10 days earlier and where a car was also used as a mass weapon, the FBI said on Tuesday. The attack in Europe left five people dead and more than 200 injured after a car slammed into a crowd. Police arrested a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who has renounced Islam and supports the far-right AfD party. 

In other online searches, Jabbar had looked up how to access a balcony on Bourbon Street, information about Mardi Gras, and several recent shootings in the city, the FBI said. 

But Jabbar’s research ahead of the attack was not limited to online: He also made a one-day visit to New Orleans from Houston on Nov. 10, during which he looked for an apartment, the FBI said. While Jabbar applied to rent the apartment, he later told the landlord that he changed his mind. 

That was not his only visit to New Orleans, though. The FBI had previously reported that Jabbar had traveled to the city for a planning trip on Oct. 31, when he used glasses from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to record video as he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle. 

In a series of online videos, posted hours before he struck, Jabbar proclaimed support for the Islamic State militant group. The Bourbon Street attack was the deadliest Islamic State-inspired assault on U.S. soil in years. On Tuesday, the FBI continued to draft out a timeline of Jabbar’s radicalization, saying that he began isolating himself from society and became a more devout Muslim in 2022. By the spring of 2024, he began following extremist views. 

While investigations into the attack are ongoing and additional information continues to trickle out about Jabbar’s planning of the deadly rampage, city officials face questions about safety concerns. 

State and local authorities have launched probes into possible security deficiencies that left New Orleans vulnerable. The work is especially urgent since Carnival season, a monthslong celebration that attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the French Quarter, began last week. The city is also set to host the Super Bowl on Feb. 9.
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The White House says it has finalized rules that crack down on Chinese and Russian automobile technology effectively banning all personal smart cars from the two countries from entering the U.S. market.

In a White House fact sheet detailing the decision, the Biden administration Tuesday said that while connected vehicles offer advantages, the involvement of foreign adversaries such as China and Russia in their supply chains presents serious risks granting “malign actors unfettered access to these connected systems and the data they collect.”

“The Department of Commerce has issued a final rule that will prohibit the sale and import of connected vehicle hardware and software systems, as well as completed connected vehicles, from the PRC and Russia,” the fact sheet said.

PRC is the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

Connected vehicles are smart cars that are designed to be convenient for consumers and provide safety for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians through the use of many connected parts such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, and satellite connectivity.

“Cars today aren’t just steel on wheels; they’re computers,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo when speaking on the rule.

“This is a targeted approach to ensure we keep PRC- and Russian-manufactured technologies off American roads,” said Raimondo.

The new rule is the “culmination of a year-long examination” of potential risks posed by connected vehicles and will “help the United States defend against the PRC’s cyber espionage and intrusion operations, which continue to pose a significant threat to U.S. critical infrastructure and public safety.”

The crackdown on cars follows Washington’s announcement earlier this month that the U.S. consider new rules aimed at addressing risks posed by drones that utilize technology from China and Russia.

The U.S. has repeatedly emphasized the need to balance technological progress with the protection of national security interests.
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