Author: PolitCens

Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States later this month. U.S. voters have differing expectations for their next president. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has the story.
…

New York — In a singular moment in U.S. history, President-elect Donald Trump faces sentencing Friday for his New York hush money conviction after the nation’s highest court refused to intervene.

Like so much else in the criminal case and the current American political landscape, the scenario set to unfold in an austere Manhattan courtroom was unimaginable only a few years ago. A state judge is to say what consequences, if any, the country’s former and soon-to-be leader will face for felonies that a jury found he committed.

With Trump 10 days from inauguration, Judge Juan M. Merchan has indicated he plans a no-penalty sentence called an unconditional discharge, and prosecutors aren’t opposing it. That would mean no jail time, no probation and no fines would be imposed, but nothing is final until Friday’s proceeding is done.

Regardless of the outcome, Trump, a Republican, will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.

Trump, who is expected to appear by video from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, will have the opportunity to speak. He has pilloried the case, the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

The judge has indicated that he plans the unconditional discharge — a rarity in felony convictions — partly to avoid complicated constitutional issues that would arise if he imposed a penalty that overlapped with Trump’s presidency.

The hush money case accused Trump of fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them, and he contends that his political adversaries spun up a bogus prosecution to try to damage him.

“I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge,” the Republican president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform last week. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.

Bragg’s office said in a court filing Monday that Trump committed “serious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New York’s financial marketplace.”

While the specific charges were about checks and ledgers, the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise. Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off — through Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.

Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were.

“There was nothing else it could have been called,” he wrote on Truth Social last week, adding, “I was hiding nothing.”

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial. Since his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, they have pulled virtually every legal lever within reach to try to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.

They have made various arguments to Merchan, New York appeals judges, and federal courts including the Supreme Court. The Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

On one hand, Trump’s defense argued that immunity should have kept jurors from hearing some evidence, such as testimony about some of his conversations with then-White House communications director Hope Hicks.

And after Trump won this past November’s election, his lawyers argued that the case had to be scrapped to avoid impinging on his upcoming presidency and his transition to the Oval Office.

Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s date, citing a need for “finality.” He wrote that he strove to balance Trump’s need to govern, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, the respect due a jury verdict and the public’s expectation that “no one is above the law.”

Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.

Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trial.

After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A state-level Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from it.
…

New York — In a singular moment in U.S. history, President-elect Donald Trump faces sentencing Friday for his New York hush money conviction after the nation’s highest court refused to intervene.

Like so much else in the criminal case and the current American political landscape, the scenario set to unfold in an austere Manhattan courtroom was unimaginable only a few years ago. A state judge is to say what consequences, if any, the country’s former and soon-to-be leader will face for felonies that a jury found he committed.

With Trump 10 days from inauguration, Judge Juan M. Merchan has indicated he plans a no-penalty sentence called an unconditional discharge, and prosecutors aren’t opposing it. That would mean no jail time, no probation and no fines would be imposed, but nothing is final until Friday’s proceeding is done.

Regardless of the outcome, Trump, a Republican, will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.

Trump, who is expected to appear by video from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, will have the opportunity to speak. He has pilloried the case, the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

The judge has indicated that he plans the unconditional discharge — a rarity in felony convictions — partly to avoid complicated constitutional issues that would arise if he imposed a penalty that overlapped with Trump’s presidency.

The hush money case accused Trump of fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them, and he contends that his political adversaries spun up a bogus prosecution to try to damage him.

“I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge,” the Republican president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform last week. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.

Bragg’s office said in a court filing Monday that Trump committed “serious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New York’s financial marketplace.”

While the specific charges were about checks and ledgers, the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise. Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off — through Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.

Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were.

“There was nothing else it could have been called,” he wrote on Truth Social last week, adding, “I was hiding nothing.”

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial. Since his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, they have pulled virtually every legal lever within reach to try to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.

They have made various arguments to Merchan, New York appeals judges, and federal courts including the Supreme Court. The Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

On one hand, Trump’s defense argued that immunity should have kept jurors from hearing some evidence, such as testimony about some of his conversations with then-White House communications director Hope Hicks.

And after Trump won this past November’s election, his lawyers argued that the case had to be scrapped to avoid impinging on his upcoming presidency and his transition to the Oval Office.

Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s date, citing a need for “finality.” He wrote that he strove to balance Trump’s need to govern, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, the respect due a jury verdict and the public’s expectation that “no one is above the law.”

Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.

Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trial.

After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A state-level Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from it.
…

New York — In a singular moment in U.S. history, President-elect Donald Trump faces sentencing Friday for his New York hush money conviction after the nation’s highest court refused to intervene.

Like so much else in the criminal case and the current American political landscape, the scenario set to unfold in an austere Manhattan courtroom was unimaginable only a few years ago. A state judge is to say what consequences, if any, the country’s former and soon-to-be leader will face for felonies that a jury found he committed.

With Trump 10 days from inauguration, Judge Juan M. Merchan has indicated he plans a no-penalty sentence called an unconditional discharge, and prosecutors aren’t opposing it. That would mean no jail time, no probation and no fines would be imposed, but nothing is final until Friday’s proceeding is done.

Regardless of the outcome, Trump, a Republican, will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.

Trump, who is expected to appear by video from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, will have the opportunity to speak. He has pilloried the case, the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

The judge has indicated that he plans the unconditional discharge — a rarity in felony convictions — partly to avoid complicated constitutional issues that would arise if he imposed a penalty that overlapped with Trump’s presidency.

The hush money case accused Trump of fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them, and he contends that his political adversaries spun up a bogus prosecution to try to damage him.

“I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge,” the Republican president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform last week. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.

Bragg’s office said in a court filing Monday that Trump committed “serious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New York’s financial marketplace.”

While the specific charges were about checks and ledgers, the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise. Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off — through Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.

Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were.

“There was nothing else it could have been called,” he wrote on Truth Social last week, adding, “I was hiding nothing.”

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial. Since his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, they have pulled virtually every legal lever within reach to try to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.

They have made various arguments to Merchan, New York appeals judges, and federal courts including the Supreme Court. The Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

On one hand, Trump’s defense argued that immunity should have kept jurors from hearing some evidence, such as testimony about some of his conversations with then-White House communications director Hope Hicks.

And after Trump won this past November’s election, his lawyers argued that the case had to be scrapped to avoid impinging on his upcoming presidency and his transition to the Oval Office.

Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s date, citing a need for “finality.” He wrote that he strove to balance Trump’s need to govern, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, the respect due a jury verdict and the public’s expectation that “no one is above the law.”

Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.

Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trial.

After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A state-level Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from it.
…

Six days of official funeral ceremonies honoring the life and legacy of US President Jimmy Carter concluded in his home state of Georgia, where VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more.
Camera: Kane Farabaugh
…

Authorities in the western U.S. state of California say at least 10 people have been killed in massive wildfires that have ravaged the city of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County medical examiner late Thursday announced the new death toll, which doubled from earlier reports. Officials warn that number could increase once the fires have been brought under control and workers can comb through the ruins.

Firefighting operations continued into the night, with water-dropping helicopters taking advantage of a temporary lull in winds.

President Joe Biden told a White House briefing Thursday afternoon that federal resources and additional funding have been made available to California to fight the wildfires that he described as the “worst fires to ever hit Los Angeles.”

The money will be used, the president said, to cover all of the costs for 180 days for temporary shelters, the removal of hazardous materials, first responder salaries and measures to protect life.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a former U.S. senator for California, also spoke at the briefing.

Harris described the situation in California as “apocalyptic” and “something that is going to have an impact for months and years to come.”

The vice president has a home in an evacuation zone, but it was not immediately clear whether her house sustained any damage.

While the death toll from the Los Angeles wildfires stands at five, Southern California officials say that number will likely increase once the fires have been brought under control and workers can comb through the ruins.

Authorities said the wildfires burning in and around the city of Los Angeles have prompted the evacuation of nearly 180,000 people, destroyed thousands of homes, and burned tens of thousands of hectares of land.

“This is absolutely an unprecedented, historic firestorm,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said.

At a news briefing Thursday, Los Angeles city and county officials provided an update on the fires and the efforts to bring them under control.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told reporters the fierce winds that had driven the fires calmed enough to allow firefighters to increase containment and air operations to resume.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said it is fighting five active wildfires in the Los Angeles area: the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Lidia and Sunset fires, with the Palisades and Eaton fires being the largest.

The sparking of a sixth fire — the Kenneth Fire, near Woodland Hills — was announced Thursday, and a mandatory evacuation order was in effect for that area, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in its last report that the fires had burned more than 11,750 hectares of land, an announcement made before the addition of the Kenneth Fire.

Some people are apparently preying on the devastated neighborhoods, and at least 20 people have been arrested in recent days for looting.

“I promise you, you will be held accountable,” Los Angeles Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at a press conference Thursday.

“Shame on those who are preying on our residents during this time of crisis,” Barger said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst and Lidia fires have prompted the evacuation of nearly 180,000 residents, and another 200,000 residents are under evacuation orders.

Fire Chief Crowley called the Palisades Fire alone “one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles.” Officials said Thursday that more than 5,000 homes and other structures have been lost in Palisades.

A leading national credit rating service echoed that view. In a statement Thursday, Morningstar-DBRS credit service said preliminary estimates show the fires could result in more than $8 billion in property losses.

Citing local fire officials, Morningstar-DBRS said the fires have already destroyed more than 1,100 homes and threaten more than 28,000 structures. The organization, which monitors and evaluates risk, said it expects the wildfires to have an adverse but manageable impact on California property insurers.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Technology companies, industry executives and entrepreneurs are in Las Vegas, Nevada, this week for CES, the consumer electronics show featuring the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, vehicle technology, robotics and more. Tina Trinh reports from Las Vegas.
…

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday declined to block the U.S. Justice Department from releasing a special counsel’s investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

The ruling from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit appeared to clear the way for the release of the report as early as next week.

The appeals court’s decision did not immediately lift an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this week pausing the release of the report. But Cannon set her order to expire three days after the appeals court ruled on the issue.

The appeals court invited the Justice Department to bring a separate appeal if it wished to reverse that ruling.

The report is likely to be the final act from special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two historic cases against Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 election results and for mishandling classified documents.

Smith dropped both cases after Trump’s election victory and neither reached a trial.

Thursday’s ruling came after Trump’s two former co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, asked the appeals court to block the release of the report, arguing it would interfere with their ongoing prosecution.

The report for now is set to detail only the 2020 election probe after Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Smith, decided not to publicly release the portion focused on the classified documents while legal proceedings against Trump’s two former co-defendants continue.

The Justice Department plans to allow only certain senior members of Congress to review that section of the report, the department said in a court filing.

Nauta and De Oliveira argued that even the limited release of the documents section of the report to Congress could harm their defense against obstruction charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

It is unclear how much new information the public portion of the report will contain. Smith and a House of Representatives panel have already released detailed accounts of Trump’s actions surrounding the 2020 election, including during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the cases against him were part of an effort to damage his political campaign.
…

WASHINGTON — As they filed into the front pews at the National Cathedral, wearing dark suits and mostly solemn faces, one current and four former presidents came together for Jimmy Carter’s funeral. For a service that stretched more than an hour, the feuding, grievances and enmity that had marked their rival campaigns and divergent politics gave way to a reverential moment for one of their own.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the first two of the group to take their seats Thursday, shook hands and chatted at length. Trump, the former president who will retake the Oval Office in 11 days, leaned in and listened intently to his predecessor. At times, the two flashed smiles.

Obama, who attended without his wife, Michelle, shared a second-row pew with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with their spouses. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived last and sat in the pew just in front of them.

Members of the exclusive presidents’ club were on their best behavior. Bonded by the presidency, they rarely criticize one another or the White House’s current occupant — although Trump has flouted those rules frequently. He has praised and criticized Carter in recent days, and he complained that flags will still be at half-staff to honor the deceased president during his inauguration.

Trump looked up when Vice President Kamala Harris — whom he defeated in November’s hard-fought election — entered the cathedral, but he didn’t move to greet her as she and husband Doug Emhoff took seats directly in front of him and Melania Trump. Nor did Harris acknowledge him.

After the service, Emhoff turned around to shake hands with Trump.

Obama, with Trump on his left, also turned to his right to chat with Bush. Clinton, with wife Hillary, was the last of the ex-presidents to take a seat and got in some chatter with Bush as well.

The White House said the former presidents also met privately before taking their seats.

Funerals are among the few events that bring members of the presidents’ club together. In a way, former President Gerald Ford was there, too: Ford’s son Steven read a eulogy for Carter that Ford had written before he died in 2006.

Busy with personal pursuits, charitable endeavors and sometimes lucrative speaking gigs, the former leaders don’t mingle often. They all know the protocol of state funerals well — each has been involved in planning his own.

During the 2018 funeral for George H.W. Bush, then-President Trump sat with his predecessors and their spouses, including the Carters, and the interactions were stiff and sometimes awkward.

This time, Trump also didn’t appear to interact with Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the 2016 election.

Trump was seated in the pew in front of his former vice president, Mike Pence — one of the few times they have coincided at events since Pence refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election after Trump lost to Biden. The two shook hands but didn’t speak much beyond that.

Trump, who largely avoided contact with the former presidents during his first term — and pointedly did not seek their advice — has been critical of Republican former presidents, particularly the Bush family, which made him an uneasy member of the former presidents’ club. Carter himself didn’t particularly relish being a member of the club, at times criticizing its staid traditions.

Many past presidents have built relationships with their predecessors, including Bill Clinton, who reached out to Richard Nixon for advice on Russian policy, and Harry Truman, who sought counsel from Herbert Hoover.

One of the first calls Obama made after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 was to George W. Bush to spread the word that the mission had been accomplished, said Kate Andersen Brower, author of Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump.

“It’s the loneliest job in the world, so usually they reach out and rely on each other,” said Andersen Brower. “But Trump didn’t have that the first term, so this will just be another four years where he doesn’t depend on anyone who came before him.”

She noted that Carter spent years as a proud Washington outsider and skipped the unveiling of his own portrait to avoid being in the same room with the man who beat him in 1980, President Ronald Reagan.

“Carter and Trump, even though they have the least in common about everything else, are similar,” Andersen Brower said, “in just how they approach telling what they actually think.”
…

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

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

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

The fourth annual contest announced its decisions Thursday. 

A new smart ring every few years? 

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

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

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

Ultrahuman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

An AI-powered smart crib? 

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

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

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

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

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

Too much waste? 

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

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

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

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

Vulnerable to hacking? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who asked for this? 

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

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

Samsung did not respond to a request for comment. 

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

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

Worst overall 

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

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

LG did not respond to a request for comment.
…

Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. President, is being honored with the pageantry of a state funeral in the nation’s capital, The Associated Press reported. He will later be honored a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown that launched a Depression-era farm boy to the world stage.
…

ALBANY, NEW YORK — New York’s highest court on Thursday declined to block Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing in his hush money case, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the president-elect’s likely last option to prevent the hearing from taking place Friday. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The emergency motion to the U.S. Supreme Court was submitted to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who hears emergency appeals from New York.
…

PLAINS, Ga. — The world knew Jimmy Carter as a president and humanitarian, but he also was a woodworker, painter and poet, creating a body of artistic work that reflects deeply personal views of the global community — and himself. 

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

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

‘One of the best gifts of my life’ 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not just any customer 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘No special talent,’ but his paintings drive auctions 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Just a word of praise’ 

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

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

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

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

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

Only when he brought his own sons to visit his dying father did he “put aside the past resentments of the boy” and see “the father who will never cease to be alive in me.”
…

Dallas, Texas — Schools and buildings from Texas to Georgia were shut down Thursday or prepared to close ahead of freezing rain and snow forecast for much of the Southern U.S. as another burst of plunging temperatures and winter storms threatened to again snarl travel. 

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

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

Texas braces for snow 

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

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

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

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

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

Southern discomfort 

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

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

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

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

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

The agricultural impact 

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

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

In northern Florida, growers were most concerned about ferns that are cultivated for floral arrangements, with Valentine’s Day only a month away. 
…

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is set to be honored Thursday with a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before being buried in his home state of Georgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
…

This week, Meta’s CEO announced there would be a wider range of speech on Facebook and other Meta platforms. Michelle Quinn has the story.
…

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held bilateral meetings Thursday with his Ukrainian and British counterparts Wednesday before hosting the Ukraine Defense Contact Group one last time. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb is traveling with Austin as the U.S. is expected to announce its final military aid package for Kyiv under the Biden administration.
…