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Two South Korean electric vehicle battery manufacturers said Sunday they have settled an extended trade dispute that will allow one of them to make batteries in the southern U.S. state of Georgia.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has pushed for more electric vehicles in the United States as part of his clean-energy agenda, called the trade settlement “a win for American workers and the American auto industry.”
The agreement between LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation ended the need for Biden to intervene in the dispute by a Sunday night deadline.
In a joint statement, the companies said SK will provide LG Energy with a total of $1.8 billion and an undisclosed royalty. SK has contracted to make batteries for an electric Ford F-150 truck and an electric Volkswagen SUV.
“We have decided to settle and to compete in an amicable way, all for the future of the U.S. and South Korean electric vehicle battery industries,” the leaders of the two companies, Jun Kim of SK, and Jong Hyun Kim of LG Energy, said in the statement.
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who at Biden’s request had initiated negotiations between the two companies, said the settlement “has saved the battery plant in Commerce, Georgia, ensuring thousands of jobs, billions in future investment, and that Georgia will be a leader in electric vehicle battery production for years to come.”
The dispute had threatened a $2.6 billion factory SK Innovation is building in Georgia.
Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, called the settlement “fantastic news for northeast Georgia and our state’s growing electric vehicle industry.”
The U.S. has more than 279 million gas-powered vehicles, and the demand for switching to electric vehicles is expected to increase sharply in the next 15 years.
The Biden administration had until Sunday to decide whether to veto a ruling by the International Trade Commission in favor of LG in an intellectual property case. The ruling had threatened SK with a ban on supplying batteries in the U.S. 
 
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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has ordered an urgent investigation into the assassination of one of the country’s top crime reporters. Greek media have long been targeted by far-left organizations and anarchists in a show of violent defiance to what they call links between them and the nation’s political and financial establishment. However,  journalist killings are rare in Greece and if it is established that the reporter was gunned down for carrying out his duties, it will be the first such case in Europe in years.Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis left a marathon meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying he was determined to hunt down the killers of Giorgos Karaivaz.He called the assassination an abhorrent crime but said he is convinced authorities will soon find those responsible, and hand them over to justice to be dealt with.The race is on… and the stakes are high.Karaivaz was gunned down by a pair of masked men who pumped ten bullets into the crime reporter’s head, neck and left palm, leaving him dead in a pool of blood outside his home, in the balmy residential suburb of Alimos, south of Athens.Locals like Elias, a municipal gardener who refused to give his last name for fear of reprisals, said he saw the gunmen and was stunned by how calculating and calmly they conducted themselves.The actual gunshot(s) were not heard because they used a silencer, he said. The killers both came in on a motorbike, gunned down Karaivaz and left calmly, as if nothing had happened.Authorities say they are now putting together pieces of the mystery, trying to identify the assailants from surveillance cameras, burner phones and a string of forensic evidence that has so far been compiled.They believe Karaivaz had been tracked for days before gunmen committed the deadly shooting Friday, in broad daylight.Senior police officials told VOA they suspect the killing is linked to organized crime and a group called Mafia Greece, known for hiring foreign shooters to sort out differences in the underworld here.Eleftherios Economou, the deputy  citizens’ protection minister explains.There is no doubt, he said, that they are dealing with contract killers. This is a methodology, he said, authorities have seen in at least 19 similar style murders in the last three years here and this may make solving the case, so much more difficult.A woman reads newspapers headlines of the killing of a Greek journalist in Athens, April 10, 2021.Either way, experts say, the motive behind the Karaivaz killing remains unclear.If confirmed as related to the journalist’s work, then it will be the first assassination of a journalist in the European Union since the 2018 murder of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak in Slovakia.Karaivaz was a contributor to the Eleftheros Typos newspaper, and he founded the news website bloko.gr, which reported on crime.Leading officials across the European Union have issued sympathy statements, supporting free speech while urging the government and the authorities in Athens to hunt down the assailants.The U.S. Embassy in Athens said it would help any effort to defend the sacred right of free speech.Greek media offices and journalists are frequently targeted by far-left anarchists who routinely strike them in what they claim are attacks against the establishment.Nevertheless, journalist killings are rare here, raising concerns that freedom of speech in the country that gave birth to democracy may now be in serious peril. 
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The U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has arrived in Israel Sunday, his first stop on a two-day trip to the Middle Eastern country.“I’m looking forward to a series of robust discussions with our Israeli friends on regional security issues,” Secretary Austin posted on Twitter upon arrival. “I’m grateful to call Israel a major strategic partner.” I just arrived in Israel where I’m looking forward to a series of robust discussions with our Israeli friends on regional security issues. I’m grateful to call Israel a major strategic partner. pic.twitter.com/DgPBtGvb0M
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) April 11, 2021Austin is the first high-level member from U.S. President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to travel to Israel since Biden’s administration’s announcement to rekindling of talks in order to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.Secretary Austin is scheduled to meet with his Israeli counterpart Benny Gantz Sunday.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a staunch critic of the nuclear deal with Iran and welcomed former President Donald Trump’s withdrawing for pact.Last week, Netanyahu said that an agreement with Iran “would pave the way to nuclear weapons — weapons that threaten our extinction.”Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced the inauguration of a cascade of 164 IR-6 centrifuges for producing enriched uranium, as well as two test cascades — of 30 IR-5 and 30 IR-6S devices respectively — at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant, in a ceremony broadcast by state television.There was an accident Sunday to Natanz’s electrical grid, but no injuries were reported.
 
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French lawmakers voted late on Saturday to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by train in under two-and-a-half hours, as the government seeks to lower carbon emissions even as the air travel industry reels from the global pandemic. The measure is part of a broader climate bill that aims to cut French carbon emissions by 40% in 2030 from 1990 levels, though activists accuse President Emmanuel Macron of watering down earlier promises in the draft legislation. The vote came days after the state said it would contribute to a 4 billion Euro ($4.76 billion) recapitalization of Air France, more than doubling its stake in the flag carrier, to shore up its finances after over a year of COVID-19 travel curbs. Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher dismissed criticism from the aviation industry that a pandemic recovery was not the time to ban some domestic flights and said there was no contradiction between the bailout and the climate bill. “We know that aviation is a contributor of carbon dioxide and that because of climate change we must reduce emissions,” she told Europe 1 radio. “Equally, we must support our companies and not let them fall by the wayside.” Air traffic may not return to pre-crisis levels before 2024, McKinsey analysts forecast. Some environmental campaigners have said the bill does not go far enough. A citizens’ climate forum established by Macron to help shape climate policy had called for the scrapping of flights on routes where the train journey is less than 4 hours. Saturday night’s vote in the National Assembly was the first. The bill goes to the Senate before a third and final vote in the lower house, where Macron’s ruling party and allies dominate. 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for the “worrying” developments in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region to come to an end after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart in Istanbul, adding that Turkey was ready to provide any necessary support. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held more than three hours of talks with Erdogan in Istanbul as part of a previously scheduled visit, amid tensions between Kyiv and Moscow over the conflict in Donbass. Kyiv has raised the alarm over a buildup of Russian forces near the border between Ukraine and Russia, and over a rise in violence along the line of contact separating Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists in Donbass. The Russian military movements have fueled concerns that Moscow is preparing to send forces into Ukraine. The Kremlin denies its troops are a threat but says they will remain as long as it sees fit. The United States says Russia has amassed more troops on Ukraine’s eastern border than at any time since 2014, when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in Donbass. On Friday, Turkey said Washington will send two warships to the Black Sea next week. Speaking at a news conference alongside Zelenskiy, Erdogan said he hoped the conflict would be resolved peacefully, through dialogue based on diplomatic customs, in line with international laws and Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “We hope for the worrying escalation observed on the field recently to end as soon as possible, the cease-fire to continue and for the conflict to be resolved via dialogue on the basis of the Minsk agreements,” Erdogan said. “We are ready to provide any support necessary for this.” Major combat in Donbass ended with a truce agreed to in the Belarusian capital Minsk in 2015, whose implementation France and Germany have helped to oversee. Sporadic fighting continues despite repeated attempts to implement a cease-fire. Zelenskiy said the positions of Kyiv and Ankara coincided on threats in the Black Sea and the response to those threats, and added he briefed Erdogan on the developments in Donbass. “We discussed in detail the issues of security and joint counteraction to challenges in the Black Sea region and it is worth noting that the visions of Kyiv and Ankara coincide both regarding the threats themselves and the ways of responding to these threats,” he said. NATO member Turkey has forged close cooperation with Russia over conflicts in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as in the defense and energy areas. But it has criticized Crimea’s annexation and supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It also sold drones to Kyiv in 2019. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey and Ukraine launched a platform with their foreign and defense ministers to discuss defense industry cooperation but added this was “not in any way a move against third countries.” Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the increase in violence in the conflict, which Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a call with Erdogan on Friday, accused Ukraine of “dangerous provocative actions” in Donbass. Kyiv said on Saturday Ukraine could be provoked by Russian aggravation of the situation in Donbass.
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Britain’s Prince Charles paid a personal tribute Saturday to his “dear papa” Prince Philip, saying the royal family missed him enormously and that the 99-year-old would have been amazed at the touching reaction around the world to his death. Philip, the husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth who had been at her side throughout her record-breaking 69-year reign, died at Windsor Castle on Friday. “As you can imagine, my family and I miss my father enormously,” Charles, the couple’s eldest son and heir to the throne, said outside his Highgrove House home in west England. “My dear papa was a very special person who I think above all else would have been amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about him and from that point of view we are, my family, deeply grateful for all that. It will sustain us in this particular loss and at this particularly sad time.” Britain’s Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, leave Windsor Castle in their car following the death of Britain’s Prince Philip in Windsor, England, April 10, 2021.’Queen has been amazing’ Tributes have flooded in from across Britain and from world leaders for Philip, who was a pillar of strength for the queen. At 94, she is the world’s oldest and longest-reigning living monarch. Philip was a decorated sailor who fought in World War II and the armed forces marked his passing with artillery salutes with units in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Gibraltar, and some navy warships, firing their guns. The royal family asked the public to heed social distancing rules and avoid visits to its residences, but people still laid cards and bouquets outside Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. “It’s not something I’ve ever done before,” said Joanna Reesby, 60, who came to pay her respects at Buckingham Palace. “I brought yellow roses for friendship because I think that’s what he exhibited to everyone who came into his world.” The queen has lost her closest confidante. They had been married for 73 years and Philip would have turned 100 in June. Members of the family visited the grieving monarch at Windsor Castle. “The queen has been amazing,” said a tearful Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, as she left with her husband Prince Edward, the youngest son of Elizabeth and Philip. On its official Twitter feed, the royal family put up a tribute paid by the queen to her husband on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997. “He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know,” she said. Flags at Buckingham Palace and at government buildings across Britain have been lowered to half-mast and billboard operators replaced advertisements with photographs and tributes to the prince. Sporting events observed silences in his honor.
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Marine experts estimate about 40,000 humpback whales are now migrating through Australian waters annually, up from about 1,500 half a century ago.  
   
The humpbacks’ annual journey from Antarctica to subtropical waters along Australia’s east and west coasts is one of nature’s great migrations.  
 
It is a journey of up to 10,000 kilometers and is undertaken between April and November. Scientists have estimated 40,000 humpback whales have been in Australian waters to mate and breed.  It is a remarkable recovery from the height of commercial whaling in the early 1960s when it was estimated there were fewer than 1,500 humpbacks.  They were slaughtered mainly for their oil and baleen, or “whalebone.”
 
Australia’s environment department says no other whale species has recovered as strongly as the humpback since the end of commercial hunting, which ceased in Australia in 1978.
 
Australia is now considering removing humpback whales from the endangered species list because of their growing numbers.
 
The acrobatic humpbacks that can grow to 16 meters would still be protected in Australia. Conservationists, though, argue that they need more, not fewer, environmental safeguards to monitor the impact of climate change on krill – their main source of food. Krill are affected by the absorption of more carbon dioxide into the ocean.
 
Olaf Meynecke, a research fellow in Marine Science at Queensland’s Griffith University, says vigilance is needed to ensure the whales continue to thrive.  
 
“Generally speaking, yes, it is a great success story that humpback whales have come back.  But obviously we also need to ask questions as [to] how will this continue in the future, how are present threats already impacting the population and how we [are] going to detect changes in the future,” Meynecke said.  
 
Scientists say humpbacks face a combination of other threats including the overharvesting of krill, pollution, habitat degradation, and entanglement in fishing nets. Calves also face attack by killer whales or sharks.
 
The recovery of the humpback has helped the rapid growth of Australia’s whale-watching industry.
 
As their numbers have grown, much about the humpback, a species famous for its song, remains a mystery.  Scientists do not know exactly, for example, where on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef they mate and calve.  
 
Humpback whales live in all the world’s oceans. They take their common name from a distinctive hump on the whale’s back.   
 
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Cots, tents, and respirator masks poured into the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent as officials expected to start distributing them on Saturday, a day after a powerful explosion at La Soufriere volcano uprooted the lives of thousands of people who evacuated their homes under government orders.Nations ranging from Antigua to Guyana offered help by either shipping emergency supplies to their neighbor or agreeing to temporarily open their borders to the roughly 16,000 evacuees fleeing ash-covered communities with as many personal belongings as they could stuff into suitcases and backpacks.The volcano, which last erupted in 1979, kept rumbling as experts warned that explosive eruptions could continue for days or possibly weeks. A previous eruption in 1902 killed some 1,600 people.“The first bang is not necessarily the biggest bang this volcano will give,” Richard Robertson, a geologist with the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, said during a press conference.Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves asked people to remain calm, have patience and keep protecting themselves from the coronavirus as he celebrated that no deaths or injuries were reported after the eruption in the northern tip of St. Vincent, part of an island chain that includes the Grenadines and is home to more than 100,000 people.“Agriculture will be badly affected, and we may have some loss of animals, and we will have to do repairs to houses, but if we have life, and we have strength, we will build it back better, stronger, together,” he said in an interview with NBC Radio, a local station.Gonsalves has said that depending on the damage caused by the explosion, it could take up to four months for life to return to normal. As of Friday, 2,000 people were staying in 62 government shelters while four empty cruise ships floated nearby, waiting to take other evacuees to nearby islands. Those staying in shelters were tested for COVID-19, and anyone testing positive would be taken to an isolation center.The first explosion occurred Friday morning, a day after the government ordered mandatory evacuations based on warnings from scientists who noted a type of seismic activity before dawn on Thursday that meant magma was on the move close to the surface. The explosion shot an ash column more than 7 kilometers into the sky, with lightning crackling through the towering cloud of smoke late Friday.The volcanic activity forced the cancelation of several flights while falling ash limited evacuations in some areas due to poor visibility. Officials warned that Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada could see light ashfall as the 1,220-meter volcano continued to rumble. The majority of ash was expected to head northeast into the Atlantic Ocean.La Soufriere previously had an effusive eruption in December, prompting experts from around the region to fly in and analyze the formation of a new volcanic dome and changes to its crater lake, among other things.The eastern Caribbean has 19 live volcanoes, including two underwater near the island of Grenada. One of those, Kick ‘Em Jenny, has been active in recent years. But the most active volcano of all is Soufriere Hills in Montserrat. It has erupted continuously since 1995, razing the capital of Plymouth and killing at least 19 people in 1997.  
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White House border coordinator Roberta Jacobson is leaving her job at the end of April, the White House said on Friday, a surprise move that solidified Vice President Kamala Harris’ control over U.S. diplomatic efforts in Central America.While the White House insisted Jacobson’s departure was planned, the announcement still was unexpected as she had been engaged in media interviews in the hours leading up to her announcement and had shown no sign of planning to step down.”Consistent with her commitment at the outset to serve in the administration’s first 100 days, Ambassador Jacobson will retire from her role as coordinator at the end of this month,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.The statement made no mention of a replacement for the role, saying only that Harris had been asked by President Joe Biden to lead the administration’s work with Mexico and the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.Biden named Harris on March 24 to lead U.S. efforts with the region to try to stem the flow of migration to the United States. The White House has stressed that Harris’ top chore is the diplomatic angle, not border security itself, a job led by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.Diplomatic efforts remain a challenge as the Biden administration tries to focus on the root causes of migration. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed on Friday that El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele refused to meet visiting U.S. envoy Ricardo Zuniga this week but said he had constructive meetings with other officials in his trip to the region.Jacobson told The New York Times on Friday that she supported the decision for Harris to engage in diplomatic talks with the region.”Nobody could be more delighted to see the vice president take on that role. It didn’t have anything to do with my decision,” she said.The New York Times said that Jacobson, in a separate interview two weeks ago, had talked expansively about her plans to travel to Central America as part of her job.She told Reuters on Friday that the United States was considering a conditional cash transfer program for the Northern Triangle, to help address economic woes.The White House has struggled to contain the flow of migrants across the U.S. southern border with Mexico, creating an early challenge for Biden. It has sent a mixed message to the region, saying that the border is closed but unaccompanied children will be provided shelter.Sullivan said Jacobson, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, had launched renewed diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle nations and helped the Biden administration’s “commitment to reenergizing the U.S. immigration system.”
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Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech asked U.S. regulators Friday to allow the emergency use of their vaccine in adolescents ages 12 to 15. The vaccine is currently authorized for emergency use in the United States for people age 16 and older. The companies said Friday that they requested an expansion of the authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to include the younger age group. In March, the drugmakers said the vaccine was found to be safe and effective and had produced robust antibody responses in 12-to-15-year-olds in a clinical trial. FILE – A laboratory worker simulates the workflow in a cleanroom of the BioNTech Corona vaccine production facility in Marburg, Germany, during a media day, March 27, 2021.It is unclear how long the FDA will take to review the data from the trial, although U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told ABC news on Thursday that she expects the vaccine to be authorized for 12-to-15-year-olds by mid-May. Also unclear is whether the FDA will require that the independent advisory board that recommended the original authorization meet in order for the companies to receive the nod in the younger age group. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are also testing their vaccines in 12-to-18-year-olds, and data from Moderna’s trial could come soon. Pfizer and Moderna have launched trials in even younger children, ages 6 months to 11 years old. Both companies have said they hope to be able to vaccinate children younger than 11 as soon as early 2022. Inoculating children and young people is considered a critical step toward reaching herd immunity and taming the pandemic, many experts have said. Pfizer and BioNtech said they plan to ask other regulatory authorities globally to allow the use of their vaccine in 12-to-15-year-olds in the coming days.  
 
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CDC says cases of coronavirus clusters are increasing in the U.S. in youth sports and day care centers, while hospitals are reporting more younger adults are being admitted with severe cases of the disease.  As Mariama Diallo reports, coronavirus variants are to blame for the rise.   
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The number of U.S. suicides fell nearly 6% last year amid the coronavirus pandemic — the largest annual decline in at least four decades, according to preliminary government data.Death certificates are still coming in, and the count could rise. But officials expect a substantial decline will endure, despite worries that COVID-19 could lead to more suicides.It is hard to say exactly why suicide deaths dropped so much, but one factor may be a phenomenon seen in the early stages of wars and national disasters, some experts suggested.”There’s a heroism phase in every disaster period, where we’re banding together and expressing lots of messages of support that we’re in this together,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “You saw that, at least in the early months of the pandemic.”An increase in the availability of telehealth services and other efforts to turn around the nation’s suicide problem may have also contributed, she said.U.S. suicides steadily rose from the early 2000s until 2018, when the national suicide rate hit its highest level since 1941. The rate finally fell slightly in 2019. Experts credited increased mental health screenings and other suicide prevention efforts.The number fell further last year to below 45,000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a recent report. It was the lowest number of U.S. suicide deaths since 2015.Many worried that such progress might end when COVID-19 arrived.Mental health issues roseThe pandemic sparked a wave of business closures. Millions of people were forced to stay at home, many of them alone. In surveys, more Americans reported depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol use. Adding to that dangerous mix, firearm purchases rose 85% in March 2020.But the spring of last year actually saw the year’s most dramatic decline in suicide numbers, said the CDC’s Farida Ahmad, the lead author of a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which described the decline.Suicide had been the nation’s 10th leading cause of death but dropped to 11th in 2020. That was mainly due to the arrival of COVID-19, which killed at least 345,000 Americans and became the nation’s No. 3 killer. But the decline in suicide deaths also contributed to the drop in the ranking.The CDC has not yet reported national suicide rates for 2020, nor has it provided a breakdown of suicides by state, age or race, and ethnicity.Moutier is anxious to see more data. For example, while overall suicides decreased last year, it is possible that suicides by youths and young adults did not, she said.She is optimistic the recent declines will mark the beginning of a lasting trend. But she also worries there may be a delayed effect on the mental health of many people as they get past the pandemic’s initial threats but sink into grieving the people and things they lost.”There’s sort of an evolution of mental health distress,” she said. “It’s possible we will see the whole mental health ramifications of this pandemic” later.
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The latest deadly breach of the Capitol’s perimeter could delay the gradual reopening of the building’s grounds to the public just as lawmakers were eyeing a return to more normal security measures following the Jan. 6 insurrection.Capitol Police officer William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the force, was killed Friday when a man rammed his car into a barrier outside the Senate side of the building. The driver, identified as 25-year-old Noah Green, was shot and killed after he got out of his car and lunged at police with a knife.The deaths came less than two weeks after the Capitol Police removed an outer fence that had temporarily cut off a wide swath of the area to cars and pedestrians, blocking major traffic arteries that cross the city. The fencing had been erected to secure the Capitol after the violent mob of of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the building Jan. 6., interrupting the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. The violence lead to the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Police officer.Police, who took the brunt of the assaults that day, have left intact a second ring of fencing around the inner perimeter of the Capitol as they struggle to figure out how to best protect the building and those who work inside it. That tall, dark fencing — parts of it covered in razor wire until just recently — is still a stark symbol of the fear many in the Capitol felt after the mob laid siege two months ago.Lawmakers have almost universally loathed the fencing, saying the seat of American democracy was meant to be open to the people, even if there was always going to be a threat.But after Friday’s attack, some said they needed to proceed with caution.“It’s an eyesore, it sucks,” Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio said about the fencing in the hours after the two deaths. “Nobody wants that there. But the question is, is the environment safe enough to be able to take it down? In the meantime, maybe that fence can prevent some of these things from happening.”Ryan, chairman of a House spending committee that oversees security and the Capitol, stressed that no decisions had been made, and that lawmakers would be “reviewing everything” after the latest deadly incident. His committee and others are looking at not only the fence but at the staffing, structure, and intelligence capabilities of the Capitol Police.“The scab got ripped off again here today,” Ryan said. “So we’ve got to figure this out.”Despite the fencing, Friday’s breach happened inside the perimeter. The driver slipped through a gate that had opened to allow traffic in and out of the Capitol and rammed a barrier that had protected the building long before Jan. 6. And there was no evidence that Green’s actions were in any way related to the insurrection.Suspect Rams Car Into US Capitol Barricade, Killing 1 OfficerSecurity remains high after January 6 Capitol riot  Still, it was a reminder that there is always a target on one of the country’s most visible public buildings, especially as political tensions have risen since the insurrection and there has been broad public scrutiny of the security failures that day.“This may just cause everybody to pump the brakes a bit on taking the fence down entirely because of the sense of security that it provides us,” said Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia, another member of the spending panel that oversees the legislative branch.As a lawmaker who represents the suburbs of Washington, Wexton said she wants to see the Capitol open again to visitors. While the indoor parts of the building have been closed to the public for the last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the plazas, roads and sidewalks that surround the Capitol were only cut off after the riot, keeping the public completely away from the area.“I would like to see it come down at the earliest possible moment,” Wexton said of the fencing.While lawmakers were initially supportive of the fencing to secure the area, and the thousands of National Guard troops sent to the Capitol to back up the overwhelmed police force, they soon said they were ready for a drawdown.“I think we’ve overdone it,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky last month. “It looks terrible to have the beacon of our democracy surrounded by razor wire and National Guard troops.“Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said the fencing should come down because the next security problem is “highly unlikely to be a carbon copy of the last problem.” Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida told Fox News he believed Democrats were keeping the fence up for “political reasons.”But abhorrence of the fence is a rare issue on which the two parties can agree.“It’s just ghastly, it’s an embarrassment,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat. “If there’s a better way to protect us, I want to see it. I want to work to get it.”Security officials, though, say that the Capitol cannot return to what had been status quo.In February, acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman told lawmakers that “the Capitol’s security infrastructure must change.”A security review requested by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, in the aftermath of the riot and conducted by a task force recommended eventually replacing the barrier with mobile fencing and “an integrated, retractable fencing system” that could be used as needed. But it is unclear whether such an expensive proposal could win approval from Congress.Ryan said his committee was doing extensive research and even had a recent call with Israeli security officials to learn how they keep their government secure.“We’ve got to figure out what the sweet spot is with the security,” he said.
 
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A passenger train smashed into a vehicle on its tracks and partially derailed outside a rail tunnel in Taiwan on Friday, and police said at least 34 people were killed and dozens injured. Survivors were climbing out windows and onto roofs to reach safety in the island’s worst railway disaster in decades.The crash occurred near the Toroko Gorge scenic area around 9 a.m. on a public holiday, and officials in Hualien county said rescue efforts were continuing. Media reported 350 passengers were on board.Reports said a truck or some type of service vehicle fell from a cliff and landed on the tracks, where a train emerging from a tunnel smashed into it. With much of the train still trapped in the tunnel, escaping passengers were forced to scale doors, windows and roofs to reach safety.The vehicle apparently hit after the locomotive had emerged, causing the greatest damage to cars 1-5, according to the rescue department of Hualien county.Television footage and photos posted by people at the scene on the website of the official Central News Agency showed people climbing out the open door of a railcar just outside the entrance to the tunnel. The inside of one car was pushed all the way into the adjacent seat.The accident came on the first day of the four-day Tomb Sweeping Festival, an annual religious festival when people travel to their hometowns for family gatherings and to worship at the graves of their ancestors.Taiwan’s last major rail crash was in October 2018 when an express train derailed while rounding a tight corner on the northeast coast, killing at least 18 people and injuring nearly 200.In 1981, a collision in western Taiwan killed 30 people and injured 112 in what was previously its deadliest train accident.Taiwan is a mountainous island where most of its 24 million people are squeezed onto flatlands along the northern and western coasts. The lightly populated east is popular with tourists, many of whom arrive along the coastal railway lines to avoid treacherous mountain roads.Taiwan’s extensive rail system has undergone substantial upgrades in recent years, particularly with the addition of a high-speed line connecting the capital Taipei with west coast cities to the south.
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A California community that has been a bellwether of the coronavirus pandemic’s rampage across the United States warned on Thursday that the number of cases of more contagious COVID-19 variants is increasing to worrisome levels.”The region’s progress in curbing the pandemic remains precarious,” the health department in Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, said.”County residents are therefore urged to avoid travel, quarantine if travelling, and consistently use face coverings.”The situation in Santa Clara, which was home to an early surge of coronavirus in California last year and the nation’s first death from COVID-19, offers a window into the pandemic’s progress across the wider United States.Several states, including Florida and Michigan, are struggling to contain a resurgence of the virus linked to new highly contagious variants.The seven-day daily average of cases across the United States has been increasing continuously since March 19, a Reuters analysis shows. Over the past 13 days, the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases has increased by about 17%, from 55,591 on March 19 to 64,814 on March 31. Total cases stand at more than 30 million, including more than 552,000 deaths.”We’re already seeing surges in other parts of the country, likely driven by variants,” Santa Clara Health Officer Sara Cody said in a statement. “Combined with the data we are seeing locally, these are important warning signs that we must continue to minimize the spread.”The rise in cases comes despite unprecedented efforts to vaccinate people worldwide and across the United States, where nearly 30% of the population had received at least one vaccine dose by Thursday, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Many U.S. states are moving to ease pandemic public health restrictions, and people who have been vaccinated are starting to venture out after a year of staying mostly at home.But with most of the population still unvaccinated, experts warn that it could be a recipe for a deadly fourth wave of the disease.In California, the most populous U.S. state, with 40 million residents, about 5.6 million people, or 17.3% percent of the population, had received one vaccine dose, the CDC said.As cases have leveled off in recent weeks, state officials have reopened activities such as restaurant dining and are making plans to send children back to school.California Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, warned that with at least seven variants of the virus in circulation, the state is not close to achieving so-called herd immunity, which would require most residents to be inoculated.”Now is not the time to spike the ball,” said Newsom, who received his own vaccination on Thursday in Los Angeles. “Now is not the time to announce ‘Mission accomplished.’”In Canada, officials in the province of Ontario declared a limited lockdown beginning on Saturday, while French president Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday ordered his country into its third national lockdown.
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