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President Joe Biden says House Republicans’ inability to unify behind a speaker candidate is “embarrassing” and “not a good look” for the country
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Tag: United States government
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US bishops’ rifts unlikely to ease after Benedict’s death
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NEW YORK — Many of the conservative prelates who dominate the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were appointed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. His recent death deprives them of a symbolic figurehead but is unlikely to weaken their collective power or end the culture wars that have divided the USCCB, according to Catholic academics and clergy.
David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, noted that conservative-leaning bishops were appointed over a 35-year period by Benedict and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, and routinely prevail in voting over the relatively more liberal group of bishops appointed since 2013 by Pope Francis.
“That conservative core is better organized and, as shown by the recent election of USCCB officers, more motivated as it reacts against the more open and unpredictable style of Francis,” Gibson said via email.
“The Francis-style bishops are not as numerous nor as well-organized,” Gibson added. “But they are also contending with well-organized conservative Catholic activists who can make their jobs exceedingly difficult if those bishops are perceived as being too focused on social justice or other teachings perceived as ‘progressive.’”
The USCCB doesn’t track the number of bishops appointed by individual popes, according to its spokesperson, Chieko Noguchi. A sociology professor who does do such tracking, Katie Hoegeman of Missouri State University, said says that of more than than 200 bishops now active in the USCCB, about half were initially appointed by Francis and half by his two predecessors.
Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University, says he doesn’t foresee any major shift in the USCCB’s decision-making in the aftermath of Benedict’s death.
“It is a fact that whenever there’s an election (within the USCCB), the more conservative side always wins,” he said in a telephone interview.
One reason for the conservatives’ sustained dominance, Faggioli said, is that Benedict and John Paul II appointed bishops at relatively young ages. For example, outspoken conservative Salvatore Cordileone was 46 when named a bishop by John Paul in 2002; he was promoted to be archbishop of San Francisco by Benedict 10 years later.
Cordileone has been among the USCCB members to differ openly with Pope Francis on high-profile issues, notably barring U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi – a Catholic from San Francisco – from receiving Communion in the archdiocese because of her support for abortion rights. Francis has made clear he opposes using denial of Communion for this type of repudiation.
“It’s difficult to say what a Francis bishop stands for – they don’t correspond to a single profile,” Faggioli said, “It’s easy to say what a Benedict bishop stands for … they brought in a very distinct cultural war mentality.”
The divisions within the USCCB are so pronounced that they were highlighted in a statement from Timothy Broglio, the Archbishop of the Military Services, USA, after his election in November as the conference’s new president.
“We do suffer from a damaged unity,” Broglio said.
“We have a responsibility to cultivate that unity, which does not mean that we are carbon copies of one another or always have the same approaches to a problem.” he said. “It does mean that, if we disagree, we first speak among ourselves. We are not obliged to imitate the society around us by contributing to diatribes about others.”
One of the minority of U.S. bishops who energetically align with Pope Francis is John Stowe, bishop of Lexington, Kentucky.
During the November USCCB meeting at which Broglio was elected, Stowe unsuccessfully urged his fellow bishops to overhaul a longstanding statement on “Faithful Citizenship” so it would reflect some of Francis’ priorities, such as climate change and economic justice.
Stowe was subsequently asked by the Jesuit magazine America what he saw ahead for the USCCB during Broglio’s three-year term.
“We’re definitely not going to be going in the direction of Pope Francis any more than we have, and that’s unfortunate,” Stowe replied. “I hope Archbishop Broglio can bring us together a little bit better than we have been, but I’d also like to see Francis’ agenda much higher on the bishops’ priorities.”
America then asked Stowe if lay Catholics were wearying of the confrontational approach of some USCCB bishops.
“I think the conference is becoming more and more irrelevant to average Catholics,” Stowe replied.
Indeed, the hardline stances of many conservative U.S. bishops are not shared by a majority of lay Catholics, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in June. Most respondents said abortion should be legal, favored greater inclusion of LGBT people, and opposed the denial of Communion for politicians who support abortion rights.
Stowe was appointed bishop by Pope Francis in 2015.
Francis, in addition to his appointment of bishops, has appointed five cardinals during his papacy, most recently San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy. He was picked over higher-ranking prelates such as Cordileone and Los Angles Archbishop José H. Gomez
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who has been the archbishop of New York since his appointment to that post by Benedict in 2009, expressed relief that the opposing ideological camps within the USCCB had responded to Benedict’s death with “inclusive praise.”
“I’m just very touched by it,” he told The Associated Press in Rome.
But he demurred when asked if the USCCB’s culture wars might subside.
“Unfortunately, you’re talking to a church historian, so I have to say, that is nothing new,” he said. “They’ve always been going on and they’ll continue.”
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AP Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfield contributed to this report.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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Poland signs deal to buy 2nd batch of U.S. Abrams tanks
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WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s defense minister on Wednesday signed a deal to buy a second batch of U.S Abrams main battle tanks as Warsaw beefs up its defensive capabilities and strengthens military cooperation with Washington in light of Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine.
Officials said Poland is the first U.S. ally in Europe to be receiving Abrams tanks.
Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak signed the $1.4 billion deal at a military base in Wesola, near Warsaw. The agreement foresees the delivery of 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks with related equipment and logistics starting this year.
Attending the signing ceremony were U.S. deputy chief of mission in Poland Daniel Lawton and U.S. Brig. Gen. John Lubas, deputy commander of the 101st Airborne Division, elements of which are stationed in southeastern Poland close to the border with Ukraine.
The deal follows last year’s agreement for the acquisition of 250 upgraded M1A2 Abrams tanks that will be delivered in 2025-26. Poland is also awaiting delivery of U.S. HIMARS artillery systems and has already received Patriot missile batteries.
Speaking in Wesola, Polish and U.S. officials said the deals strengthen Poland, the region and NATO’s eastern flank as the war in Ukraine continues.
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White House gun violence program with philanthropies ends
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NEW YORK — It was small, as Washington celebrations go — two senior Biden administration advisers gathered with program participants near the White House on a Thursday afternoon in December to mark the end of a little-known initiative with a budget of less than $8 million.
The impact of The Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC), though, may yet be larger, both in the fight to slow the growth of gun violence and in the way philanthropy and government work together. The Biden administration used CVIC to get public funding to fight gun violence to 50 grassroots organizations that would normally be too small to get federal funding directly, as well as training and other support for 18 months to prepare them to receive even more funding.
It’s an effort some participants applauded, while others argued the president could have backed it more forcefully.
There was a feeling of momentum at the CVIC celebration, said Nancy Fishman, director at the Schusterman Family Philanthropies, toward what she and other advocates hope is the beginning of a shift in governmental approaches public safety. And it went beyond the attendance of nonprofit leaders, whose workers often go without recognition or pay, in a “rarefied space with others being celebrated,” she said.
Daamin X Durden, executive director of the Newark Community Street Team, called it surreal “to be with one another, to hear the testimony and the journey experience and just to share that camaraderie and fidelity for one another.”
On top of that, each of the 50 community violence interruption organizations at the celebration in the office building across from the White House also received $20,000, as a final “mini-grant,” which Durden said was much appreciated because it came with few strings attached.
A nonprofit, Hyphen, coordinated the initiative, which included peer exchanges, training and mentorship, provided by five national nonprofits.
Aqeela Sherrills, the advisor for the initiative at Hyphen, thinks many more officials and communities now understand violence interruption is a compliment to policing, not a strategy that is anti-police.
“We’re not expecting our cops will be everything, to be teachers, lawyers, therapists and counselors,” he said.
President Joe Biden announced the initiative in June 2021 shortly after the one year anniversary of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. During the second summer of the pandemic, hundreds were being shot daily, as the jump in gun homicides that started in 2020 across the country continued.
As one piece of the administration’s response, Biden urged local governments to use coronavirus relief funds to strengthen public safety through investments in police as well as community-based programs.
CVIC was another part of this public safety plan aimed to prepare grassroots groups to be accept more public funding by strengthening their infrastructure and sharing best practices to design programs.
“The theory of change for this collaborative was to focus on community groups that were the hardest to reach, that were doing incredible work locally and had very little support,” said Fatimah Loren Dreier, who leads the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, one of the organizations providing training.
Decades of research has documented that small groups of people drive a disproportionate amount of gun violence and homicides in any given community. Violence interruption programs seek to identify those people, with some working out of hospitals, others offering a carrot-and-stick approach along with the police, while others provide cognitive behavior therapy and mentoring.
If people agree to participate, the programs often also provide economic aid like paying for food or rent and connecting them to job trainings or other skills development — interventions that reveal the close connection between poverty and violence.
Measured in terms of funds delivered to the grassroots organizations, the collaborative’s record is mixed. Six of the cities participating have so far not reported that they plan to spend coronavirus relief funds on violence interruption as of June, according to an academic analysis of Treasury Department data.
Community violence interruption programs could be funded by about $350 billion included in the American Rescue Plan available for states, cities and municipalities to use for a broad range of programs, as well as another $120 billion in aid for schools.
Alex Johnson, of the California Wellness Foundation, which funded early models of violence interruption in the 1990s, said many officials who control local budgets still do not understand the value of the approach.
Four cities, including Newark, along with several of the grassroots organizations, recently won grants from the Department of Justice.
Amanda Kass, of DePaul University, and Philip Rocco, of Marquette University, have been studying the use of coronavirus relief funds with support from The Joyce Foundation. They warn that numerous factors make it difficult to track spending, especially since municipalities have until 2026 to finalize their plans.
So far, Kass and Rocco found participating cities allocated $71.7 million toward violence interruption programs — less than 1% of the $7.8 billion in coronavirus relief funds available. Their study excluded participating counties, Washington, D.C., and Rapid City, South Dakota.
Some CVIC participants said they expected more money to come to them through the initiative. Dujuan Kennedy, who leads the violence interruption work for FORCE Detroit, felt Biden wasn’t sincere in his support.
“It may be a talking point for him. It may be a campaign, but for us, it’s our little brothers, our sons, our daughters, our babies,” he said. “People are really dying out here.”
In the summer, Pastor Mike McBride, the leader of the nonprofit Live Free USA, who has advocated for violence interruption for two decades, invited Kennedy and others to attend the signing ceremony at the White House for the gun safety legislation that helped states put in place “red flag” laws and included $250 million in funds for violence interruption. The U.S. Secret Service turned Kennedy away at the gates, along with several others, he thinks because of his manslaughter conviction. A U.S. Secret Service spokesperson said Kennedy and others, did not “meet federal security entrance requirements” and that the decision was not made by the White House.
“My issue with that is: How can you acknowledge us and say we’re responsible enough to curb violence, but you’re allowing our records to prevent us from standing on your front grass?” Kennedy said.
Kennedy doesn’t want an apology but instead, a pathway to redemption for people like him who are saving lives in their community and have made amends with the loved ones of the people they harmed or killed.
Archana Sahgal, president of Hyphen, said the White House gathering in December proved there is no space between the administration’s words and actions and said she expects funding for violence interruption to increase as a result of the initiative.
Julie Rodriguez, a senior advisor to Biden who has championed the collaborative, was not available to be interviewed and did not respond to a request for comment.
Nina Revoyr, who leads the Ballmer Group’s work in Los Angeles, believes the White House has conferred a new level of credibility and legitimacy on violence interruption work. That along with George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police and the suffering and anger caused by the pandemic, has created a moment where both foundations and governments are more open to investing in violence interruption.
“It’s not that the work hasn’t existed,” Revoyr said. “What has shifted is the moment in time.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
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Twitter says it will relax ban on political advertising
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Twitter says it will ease up on its 3-year-old ban on political advertising, the latest change by Elon Musk as he tries to pump up revenue after purchasing the social media platform last year.
The company tweeted late Tuesday that “we’re relaxing our ads policy for cause-based ads in the US.”
“We also plan to expand the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks,” the company said from its Twitter Safety account.
Twitter banned all political advertising in 2019, reacting to growing concern about misinformation spreading on social media.
At the time, then-CEO Jack Dorsey said that while internet ads are powerful and effective for commercial advertisers, “that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.”
The latest move appears to represent a break from that policy, which had banned ads by candidates, political parties, or elected or appointed government officials.
Political advertising made up a sliver of Twitter’s overall revenue, accounting for less than $3 million of total spending for the 2018 U.S. midterm election.
In reversing the ban, Twitter said that “cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics” and that the change will align the platform’s advertising policy with those of “TV and other media outlets,” without providing further details.
Facebook in March 2021 lifted its ban on political and social issue ads that was put in place after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Musk bills himself as a free-speech warrior and bought Twitter because he apparently believed it wasn’t living up to its potential as a free speech platform. But the billionaire Tesla CEO has been forced to make huge cost cuts and scramble to find more sources of revenue to justify the $44 billion purchase.
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Global stock markets gain ahead of Fed update
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BEIJING — Global stock markets and Wall Street futures rose Wednesday ahead of the release of notes from a Federal Reserve meeting that investors hope might show the U.S. central bank is moderating plans for more interest rate hikes to cool inflation.
London and Frankfurt opened higher. Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul rose. Oil prices declined.
Wall Street fell Tuesday in the year’s first trading day after recording its biggest annual decline in 14 years in 2022.
Traders worry the Fed and other central banks might be willing to push the world into recession to extinguish inflation that is at multi-decade highs. They hope minutes of the Fed’s December meeting might show policymakers are reducing or delaying planned rate hikes due to signs economic activity is slowing.
“While the Fed expects to keep rates higher for longer, markets continue to push back, betting on easier policy,” said Rubeela Farooqi and John Silvia of High-Frequency Economics in a report. However, they said, “we do not think a pivot to rate cuts is likely this year.”
In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London gained 0.1% to 7,563.34. The DAX in Frankfurt rose 0.8% to 14,181.67 and the CAC 40 in Paris advanced 0.4% to 6,623.89.
On Wall Street, the future for the benchmark S&P 500 index was up 0.2%. That for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.1% higher.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 lost 0.4% and the Dow slipped less than 0.1%. The Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8%.
Technology stocks were among the biggest weights on the market. Apple fell 3.7%, leaving its market value below $2 trillion for the first time since March 8, 2021. Shares in the iPhone maker fell nearly 27% in 2022, their first annual decline in four years.
In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index gained less than 0.1% to 3,118.94 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo tumbled 1.5% to 25,716.86 on its first trading day of the year.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 2.3% to 20,615.21. The Kosp in Seoul added 1.7% to 2,255.98.
Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 advanced 1.6% to 7,059.20. India’s Sensex gained 0.2% to 61.294.20. New Zealand advanced while Southeast Asian markets declined.
On top of inflation, investors worry about the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine and China’s COVID-19 outbreaks.
The Fed’s key lending rate stands at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, up from close to zero following seven increases last year to cool economic activity and upward pressure on prices.
The U.S. central bank forecasts that it will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023. It isn’t calling for a rate cut before 2024.
The U.S. government is due to release December employment figures Thursday. Those are expected to show a decline in hiring. Investors hope that will encourage the Fed to lower or delay possible rate hikes.
The central bank’s next decision on interest rates is set for Feb. 1.
Investors also are looking for corporate profit reports in mid-January. Analysts polled by FactSet expect earnings for companies in the S&P 500 to slip during the fourth quarter and remain flat for the first half of 2023.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude shed 41 cents to $76.52 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $3.33 to $76.93 on Tuesday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, retreated 39 cents to $81.71 per barrel in London. It lost $3.81 the previous session to $82.10.
The dollar edged down to 130.78 yen from Tuesday’s 131.03 yen. The euro advanced to $1.0572 from $1.0547.
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US reopening visa and consular services at embassy in Cuba
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HAVANA — The United States Embassy in Cuba is reopening visa and consular services Wednesday, the first time it has done so since a spate of unexplained health incidents among diplomatic staff in 2017 slashed the American presence in Havana.
The Embassy confirmed this week it will begin processing immigrant visas, with a priority placed on permits to reunite Cubans with family in the U.S., and others like the diversity visa lottery.
The resumption comes amid the greatest migratory flight from Cuba in decades, which has placed pressure on the Biden administration to open more legal pathways to Cubans and start a dialogue with the Cuban government, despite a historically tense relationship.
They are anticipated to give out at least 20,000 visas a year, though it’s just a drop in the bucket of the migratory tide, which is fueled by intensifying economic and political crises on the island.
In late December, U.S. authorities reported stopping Cubans 34,675 times along the Mexico border in November, up 21% from 28,848 times in October.
Month-to-month, that number has gradually risen. Cubans are now the second-largest nationality after Mexicans appearing on the border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows.
The growing migration is due to a complex array of factors, including economic, energy and political crises, as well deep discontent among Cubans.
While the vast majority of Cuban migrants head to the U.S. via flights to Nicaragua and cross by land at the U.S. border with Mexico, thousands more have also taken a dangerous voyage by sea. They travel 90 miles to the Florida coast, often arriving in rickety, precariously constructed boats packed with migrants.
The exodus from Cuba is also compounded by rising migration to the U.S. from other countries like Haiti and Venezuela, forcing the U.S. government to grapple with a growingly complex situation on its southern border.
The renewal of visa work at the embassy comes after a series of migration talks and visits by U.S. officials to Havana in recent months, and may also be the sign of a slow thawing between the two governments.
“Engaging in these talks underscores our commitment to pursuing constructive discussions with the government of Cuba where appropriate to advance U.S. interests,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement in November following an American delegation’s visit to Cuba.
The small steps are far cry from relations under President Barack Obama, who eased many American Cold War-era sanctions during his time in office and made a historic visit to the island in 2016.
Visa and consular services were closed on the island in 2017 after embassy staff were affflicted in a series of health incidents, alleged sonic attacks that remain largely unexplained.
As a result, many Cubans who wanted to legally migrate to the U.S. have had to fly to places like Guyana to do so before migrating or reuniting with family.
While relations have always been tense between Cuba and the U.S., they were heightened following the embassy closure and the Trump administration’s tightening of sanctions on Cuba.
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. has eased some restrictions on things like remittances and family travel from Miami to Cuba, but has fallen short of hopes by many in Cuba that a Biden presidency would return the island to its “Obama era.”
Restrictions on tourist travel to Cuba, and imports and exports of many goods, remain in place.
Also kindling tensions has been the Cuban government’s harsh treatment of participants in the island’s 2021 protests, including hefty prison sentences doled out to minors, a constant point of criticism by the Biden administration.
Cuban officials have repeatedly expressed optimism about talks with the U.S. and steps to reopen visa services. Cuban Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Carlos Cossio said in November that ensuring migration through safe and legal pathways is a “mutual objective” by both countries.
But Cossio also blamed the flight of tens of thousands from the island on U.S. sanctions, saying that “there’s no doubt that a policy meant to depress the living standards of a population is a direct driver of migration.”
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Biden to host Japan’s Kishida for talks on NKorea, economy
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House later this month for economic and security consultations, the U.S. administration announced Tuesday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Jan. 13 meeting will include discussions of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, amid concerns over the potential for another nuclear test by the reclusive nation. Also on the agenda: economic issues, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, climate change and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
“President Biden will reiterate his full support for Japan’s recently released National Security Strategy, its presidency of the G7, and its term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,” Jean-Pierre said. “The leaders will celebrate the unprecedented strength of the U.S.-Japan Alliance and will set the course for their partnership in the year ahead.”
The two leaders last met in Bali, Indonesia, during November’s Group of 20 summit.
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Where are the Gulf Arab tourists? Israel’s hopes fall short
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JERUSALEM (AP) — When Israel struck an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to open diplomatic ties in 2020, it brought an electrifying sense of achievement to a country long ostracized in the Middle East.
Officials insisted that Israel’s new ties with the UAE, and soon after with Bahrain, would go beyond governments and become society-wide pacts, stoking mass tourism and friendly exchanges between people long at odds.
But over two years since the breakthrough accords, the expected flood of Gulf Arab tourists to Israel has been little more than a trickle. Although more than half a million Israelis have flocked to oil-rich Abu Dhabi and skyscraper-studded Dubai, just 1,600 Emirati citizens have visited Israel since it lifted coronavirus travel restrictions last year, the Israeli Tourism Ministry told The Associated Press.
The ministry does not know how many Bahrainis have visited Israel because, it said, “the numbers are too small.”
“It’s still a very weird and sensitive situation,” said Morsi Hija, head of the forum for Arabic-speaking tour guides in Israel. “The Emiratis feel like they’ve done something wrong in coming here.”
The lack of Emirati and Bahraini tourists reflects Israel’s long-standing image problem in the Arab world and reveals the limits of the Abraham Accords, experts say.
Even as bilateral trade between Israel and the UAE has exploded from $11.2 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion last year, the popularity of the agreements in the UAE and Bahrain has plummeted since the deals were signed, according to a survey by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an American think tank.
In the UAE, support fell to 25% from 47% in the last two years. In Bahrain, just 20% of the population supports the deal, down from 45% in 2020. In that time, Israel and Gaza militants fought a devastating war and violence in the occupied West Bank surged to its highest levels in years.
Israeli officials say Gulf Arab tourism to Israel is a missing piece that would move the agreements beyond security and diplomatic ties. Tourist visits from Egypt and Jordan, the first two countries to reach peace with Israel, also are virtually nonexistent.
“We need to encourage (Emiratis) to come for the first time. It’s an important mission,” Amir Hayek, Israeli ambassador to the UAE, told the AP. “We need to promote tourism so people will know each other and understand each other.”
Israeli tourism officials flew to the UAE last month in a marketing push to spread the word that Israel is a safe and attractive destination. The ministry said it’s now pitching Tel Aviv — Israel’s commercial and entertainment hub — as a big draw for Emiratis.
Tour agents say that so far, betting on Jerusalem has backfired. The turmoil of the contested city has turned off Emiratis and Bahrainis, some of whom have faced backlash from Palestinians who see normalization as a betrayal of their cause. The Palestinian struggle for independence from Israel enjoys broad support across the Arab world.
“There’s still a lot of hesitation coming from the Arab world,” said Dan Feferman, director of Sharaka, a group that promotes people-to-people exchanges between Israel and the Arab world. “They expect (Israel) to be a conflict zone, they expect to be discriminated against.” After leading two trips of Bahrainis and Emiratis to Israel, Sharaka struggled to find more Gulf Arab citizens interested in visiting, he said.
When a group of Emirati and Bahraini social media influencers in 2020 visited the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam, they were spat on and pelted with shoes in Jerusalem’s Old City, said Hija, their tour guide.
When another group of Emirati officials visited the flashpoint site accompanied by Israeli police, they drew the ire of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who issued a religious edict against Emiratis visiting the mosque under Israeli supervision.
Most Emiratis and Bahrainis who have visited Israel say they forgo their national dress and headscarves in order not to attract attention.
The Islamic Waqf, which administers the mosque, declined to answer questions about the number of Emirati and Bahraini visitors and their treatment at the compound.
Palestinian rage against Emiratis is not confined to the sacred esplanade. Emirati citizens visiting and studying in Israel say they face frequent death threats and online attacks.
“Not everyone can handle the pressure,” said Sumaiiah Almehiri, a 31-year-old Emirati from Dubai studying to be a nurse at the University of Haifa. “I didn’t give into the threats, but fear is preventing a lot of Emiratis from going.”
The fear of anti-Arab racism in Israel can also drive Gulf Arabs away. Israeli police mistakenly arrested two Emirati tourists in Tel Aviv last summer while hunting for a criminal who carried out a drive-by shooting. Some Emiratis have complained on social media about drawing unwanted scrutiny from security officials at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport.
“If you bring them here and don’t treat them in a sensitive way, they’ll never come back and tell all their friends to stay away,” Hija said.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned for a sixth term as prime minister last week, has pledged to strengthen agreements with Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE and Sudan. Formal ties with Sudan remain elusive in the wake of a military coup and in the absence of a parliament to ratify its U.S.-brokered normalization deal with Israel.
As a chief architect of the accords, Netanyahu also hopes to expand the circle of countries and reach a similar deal with Saudi Arabia.
Yet experts fear his new government — the most ultranationalist and religiously conservative in Israel’s history — could further deter Gulf Arab tourists and even jeopardize the agreements. His government has vowed to expand West Bank settlements and pledged to annex the entire territory, a step that was put on hold as a condition of the initial agreement with the UAE.
“We have a reason to be worried about any deterioration in relations,” said Moran Zaga, an expert in Gulf Arab states at the University of Haifa in Israel.
So far, Gulf Arab governments have offered no reason for concern.
The Emirati ambassador was photographed warmly embracing Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the coalition’s most radical members, at a national day celebration last month. And over the weekend, the UAE’s leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, called Netanyahu to congratulate him and invite him to visit.
It’s a different story among those who are not in the officialdom.
“I hope that Netanyahu and those with him will not set foot on the land of the Emirates,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati political scientist, wrote on Twitter. “I think it is appropriate to freeze the Abraham Accords temporarily.”
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Huawei says it’s out of ‘crisis mode,’ though revenue flat
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HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese technology giant Huawei says it has emerged from “crisis mode” after years of U.S. restrictions that have stifled its overseas sales, even though its revenue for 2022 failed to grow from a year earlier.
“U.S. restrictions are now our new normal, and we’re back to business as usual,” Eric Xu, Huawei’s current chairman, said in a New Year’s message released Friday.
Huawei Technologies Ltd., China’s first global tech brand, has struggled since then-U.S. President Donald Trump blocked its access to U.S. processor chips and other technology in 2019 on grounds that Huawei could facilitate Chinese spying.
Huawei denies accusations that it could be a security risk.
Huawei’s unaudited revenue for 2022 is forecast to be 636.9 billion yuan ($91.6 billion) — nearly unchanged compared to a year earlier and in line with earlier estimates.
Xu said in the message that the firm’s telecommunications network business maintained “steady growth” and that a decline in its devices sector — mainly phones — had abated.
He also said that the firm achieved “rapid growth” in its cloud business.
Huawei did not release more detailed financial figures for its businesses or the firm’s overall profit.
For the coming year, Xu pledged to maintain Huawei’s heavy investment in research and development and said that its cloud business needs to become the “foundation” in driving growth.
He mentioned the pandemic only in passing, praising the company’s “frontline staff outside of China — those who have held the fort to serve our customers despite the adverse impacts of COVID-19 …”
Xu’s message did not mention the recent abrupt end to stringent virus controls or major outbreaks of coronavirus now sweeping China and other countries.
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Asian markets mixed ahead of Fed report, US jobs data
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BEIJING — Asian stock markets were mixed Tuesday ahead of updates on U.S. employment amid fears of a possible global recession.
Shanghai and Hong Kong gained. Seoul and Sydney declined. Oil prices fell.
Coming off a year of big declines for major stock markets, traders worry the Federal Reserve and other central banks that raised interest rates last year to cool inflation might be willing to push the world into recession.
Inflation might “remain far north of 3% by the end of 2023, simply too high for central bank comfort,” said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management in a report.
The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.2% to 3,094.12 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.6% to 19,906.65. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.
Seoul’s Kospi shed 0.8% to 2,208.36 after South Korea’s 2022 exports fell 9.5% from the previous year and the country recorded its biggest trade deficit ever.
Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 lost 1.6% to 6,927.20 after Australian house prices fell 1.1% and an index of manufacturing activity decline.
India’s Sensex opened up 0.5% at 61.167.79. Singapore declined while Bangkok and Jakarta advanced. New Zealand markets were closed for a holiday.
This week’s most closely watched data point is notes from the Fed’s latest meeting due to be released Thursday. That will give traders an update on the U.S. central bank’s thinking about the possible need for more rate hikes.
It will be followed Friday by U.S. employment data.
Forecasters expect monthly job gains to decline in December, which they hope might encourage the Fed to dial back plans for more rate hikes. But the Fed has a “clear focus on keeping inflation under check,” which “could still leave pricing data as the key driver of market moves,” Yeap Jun Rong of IG said in a report.
Traders also are looking ahead to corporate earnings reports in mid-January.
Global central banks are trying to extinguish inflation that is at multi-decade highs in many countries. It has been worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted commodity markets and caused oil and wheat prices to spike.
U.S. financial markets were closed Monday for a holiday after Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index ended 2022 down 19.4%, its biggest decline since the 2008 financial crisis. It lost $8.2 trillion in stock value, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Market benchmarks in Germany and France closed higher Monday.
The Fed’s key lending rate stands at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, up from close to zero after seven increases last year. The U.S. central bank forecasts it will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by late 2023, with no rate cut before 2024.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 36 cents to $79.90 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.86 on Monday to $80.26. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, shed 39 cents to $85.52 per barrel in London. It added $2.45 the previous session to $85.91.
The dollar declined to 130.17 yen from Monday’s 130.80 yen. The euro edged down to $1.0669 from $1.0700.
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Today in History TUE JAN 03
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Today in History
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 3, the third day of 2023. There are 362 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 3, 1990, ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican’s diplomatic mission.
On this date:
In 1777, Gen. George Washington’s army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey.
In 1861, more than two weeks before Georgia seceded from the Union, the state militia seized Fort Pulaski at the order of Gov. Joseph E. Brown. The Delaware House and Senate voted to oppose secession from the Union.
In 1868, the Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan’s emperor and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as shoguns.
In 1959, Alaska became the 49th state as President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation.
In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the United States was formally terminating diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
In 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died in a Dallas hospital.
In 1977, Apple Computer was incorporated in Cupertino, California, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike Markkula (MAHR’-kuh-luh) Jr.
In 2002, a judge in Alabama ruled that former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry was mentally competent to stand trial on murder charges in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls. (Cherry was later convicted, and served a life sentence until his death in November 2004.)
In 2007, Gerald R. Ford was laid to rest on the grounds of his presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during a ceremony watched by thousands of onlookers.
In 2008, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won Democratic caucuses in Iowa, while Mike Huckabee won the Republican caucuses.
In 2013, students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, reconvened at a different building in the town of Monroe about three weeks after the massacre that had claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators. The new 113th Congress opened for business, with House Speaker John Boehner (BAY’-nur) re-elected to his post despite a mini-revolt in Republican ranks.
In 2020, the United States killed Iran’s top general in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport; the Pentagon said Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds force, had been “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members” in Iraq and elsewhere. Iran warned of retaliation.
Ten years ago: Students from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, reconvened at a different building in the town of Monroe about three weeks after the massacre that had claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators. The new 113th Congress opened for business, with House Speaker John Boehner re-elected to his post despite a mini-revolt in Republican ranks. No. 5 Oregon beat No. 7 Kansas State, 35-17, in the Fiesta Bowl.
Five years ago: President Donald Trump signed an executive order disbanding the controversial voter fraud commission he had set up to investigate the 2016 presidential election after alleging without evidence that voting fraud cost him the popular vote; the White House blamed the decision to end the panel on more than a dozen states that refused to cooperate. A brutal winter storm delivered a rare blast of snow and ice to the coastal Southeast, giving parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina their heaviest snowfall in nearly three decades.
One year ago: A jury in San Jose, California, convicted Elizabeth Holmes of duping investors into believing that her startup company Theranos had developed a revolutionary medical device that could detect diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. The East Coast’s main north-south highway, Interstate 95, became impassable in Virginia after a truck jackknifed, triggering a chain reaction as other vehicles lost control during a winter storm; hundreds of drivers were stuck in place in frigid temperatures, some for over 24 hours. Expanding COVID-19 boosters amid an omicron surge, the Food and Drug Administration allowed extra Pfizer shots for children as young as 12.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Dabney Coleman is 91. Journalist-author Betty Rollin is 87. Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Hull is 84. Singer-songwriter-producer Van Dyke Parks is 80. Musician Stephen Stills is 78. Rock musician John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) is 77. Actor Victoria Principal is 73. Actor-director Mel Gibson is 67. Actor Shannon Sturges is 55. Actor John Ales is 54. Jazz musician James Carter is 54. Contemporary Christian singer Nichole Nordeman is 51. Musician Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk) is 48. Actor Jason Marsden is 48. Actor Danica McKellar is 48. Actor Nicholas Gonzalez is 47. Singer Kimberley Locke (TV: “American Idol”) is 45. Actor Kate Levering is 44. Former NFL quarterback Eli Manning is 42. Actor Nicole Beharie is 38. Pop musician Mark Pontius is 38. R&B singer Lloyd is 37. Pop-rock musician Nash Overstreet (Hot Chelle (shel) Rae) is 36. Actor Alex D. Linz is 34.
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Asian markets mixed ahead of Fed report, US jobs data
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BEIJING — Asian stock markets were mixed Tuesday ahead of updates on U.S. employment amid fears of a possible global recession.
Shanghai and Hong Kong gained. Seoul and Sydney declined. Oil prices fell.
Coming off a year of big declines for major stock markets, traders worry the Federal Reserve and other central banks that have raised interest rates repeatedly to cool inflation might be willing to push the world into recession.
Inflation might “remain far north of 3% by the end of 2023, simply too high for central bank comfort,” said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management in a report.
The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.2% to 3,094.12 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.6% to 19,906.65. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.
Seoul’s Kospi shed 0.8% to 2,208.36 after South Korea’s 2022 exports fell 9.5% from the previous year and the country recorded its biggest trade deficit ever.
Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 lost 1.6% to 6,927.20 after Australian house prices fell 1.1% and an index of manufacturing activity decline. Singapore declined while Jakarta advanced. New Zealand markets were closed for a holiday.
This week’s most closely watched data points are notes from the Fed’s latest meeting due to be released Thursday. That will give traders an update on the U.S. central bank’s thinking about the possible need for more rate hikes.
It will be followed Friday by U.S. employment data.
Forecasters expect monthly job gains to decline in December, which they hope might encourage the Fed to dial back plans for more rate hikes. But the Fed has a “clear focus on keeping inflation under check,” which “could still leave pricing data as the key driver of market moves,” Yeap Jun Rong of IG said in a report.
Traders also are looking ahead to corporate earnings reports in mid-January.
Global central banks are trying to extinguish inflation that is at multi-decade highs in many countries. It has been worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted commodity markets and caused oil and wheat prices to spike.
U.S. financial markets were closed Monday for a holiday after Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index ended 2022 down 19.4%, its biggest decline since the 2008 financial crisis. It lost $8.2 trillion in stock value, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Market benchmarks in Germany and France closed higher Monday.
The Fed’s key lending rate stands at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, up from close to zero after seven increases last year. The U.S. central bank forecasts it will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by late 2023, with no rate cut before 2024.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 20 cents to $80.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.86 on Monday to $80.26. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, shed 26 cents to $85.65 per barrel in London. It added $2.45 the previous session to $85.91.
The dollar declined to 130.17 yen from Monday’s 130.80 yen. The euro edged down to $1.0667 from $1.0700.
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Looted ancient sarcophagus returned to Egypt from US
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CAIRO — An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officials said Monday.
The repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from across the world.
Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of Pharaonic rulers from 664 B.C. until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 B.C.
The sarcophagus, almost 3 meters (9.5 feet) tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri said.
It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Egypt.
The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. It was smuggled through Germany into the United States in 2008, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg.
“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Bragg said at the time. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”
Bragg said the same network had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Met bought the piece from a Paris art dealer in 2017 for about $4 million. It was returned to Egypt in 2019.
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Trump rings in 2023 facing headwinds in his White House run
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump began 2022 on a high. Primary candidates were flocking to Florida to court the former president for a coveted endorsement. His rallies were drawing thousands. A bevy of investigations remained largely under the radar.
One year later, Trump is facing a very different reality.
He is mired in criminal investigations that could end with indictments. He has been blamed for Republicans’ disappointing performance in the November elections. And while he is now a declared presidential candidate, the six weeks since he announced have been marked by self-inflicted crises. Trump has not held a single campaign event and he barely leaves the confines of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Instead of staving off challengers, his potential 2024 rivals appear ever more emboldened. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, fresh off a resounding reelection victory, increasingly is seen as Trump’s most formidable competition.
Trump’s subdued campaign announcement has left even former stalwarts wondering whether he is serious about another run for the White House.
“There was a movie called ‘Failure to Launch.’ I think that’s what Donald Trump’s process of running has been so far. He had the announcement, and he hasn’t done anything to back it up since then,” said Michael Biundo, a GOP operative who advised Trump’s 2016 campaign but is steering clear this time.
“What campaign?” asked longtime GOP donor Dan Eberhart, who gave $100,000 to Trump’s 2020 reelection effort but is now gravitating to DeSantis. “Trump’s early launch seems more a reaction to DeSantis’ overperformance and a legal strategy against prosecution than a political campaign.”
Trump campaign officials insist they have been spending the weeks since his Nov. 15 announcement methodically building out a political operation. Trump, they note, announced just before the holiday season, when politicians typically lie low, and he did so unusually early, giving him plenty of time to ramp up.
“This is a marathon and our game plan is being implemented by design,” said Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.
“We’re also assembling top-level teams in early voting states and expanding our massive data operation to ensure we dominate on all fronts,” he said. “We are not going to play the media’s game that tries to dictate how we campaign.”
Trump also defended criticism of his campaign’s slow start. “The Rallies will be bigger and better than ever (because our Country is going to Hell), but it’s a little bit early, don’t you think?” he wrote on his social media site.
While he has eschewed campaign events, the former president has nonetheless courted controversy.
There was his dinner with a white nationalist and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who has been spouting antisemitic tropes and conspiracies; his suggestions that parts of the Constitution be terminated to return him to power; and the “major announcement” that turned out to be the launch of $99 digital trading cards that do not benefit his campaign.
Since his announcement, he has also faced a series of legal losses, including the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the presence of classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate as well as key aspects of a separate inquiry involving Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump’s namesake company was convicted of tax fraud last month for helping executives dodge taxes on extravagant perks. In Georgia, a special grand jury appears to be wrapping up its work investigating his efforts to remain in power.
Trump’s potential rivals have spent months laying the groundwork for their own campaigns, visiting early-voting states, speaking before conservative groups and building the kinds of relationships that could benefit them down the line.
Bob Vander Plaats, the president and CEO of The Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative group, pointed to Republicans such as former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who have made repeat visits to the state.
“They’ve done the early work that is needed to be out in front of Iowans and they’re very well received,” he said, noting the period since Trump announced his candidacy has been “unusually quiet. In a lot of ways, it kind of feels like it’s the announcement that didn’t even happen or doesn’t feel like it happened because there was no immediate buzz. … I don’t hear from people on he ground, ‘I can’t wait for Trump to run.’ ‘Did you hear Trump’s announcement?’”
He called the poor performance of some Trump-backed candidates in the 2022 midterms a “caution flag” and said that even Trump supporters are open to backing someone else in the 2024 contest.
“For the president, I think he’s definitely going to have to earn the nomination,” he said.
Despite his vulnerabilities, Trump remains the early GOP front-runner. While he is seen as potentially beatable in a one-on-one matchup, he is likely to benefit from a crowded field that splits the anti-Trump votes, just as he did when he ran and won in 2016.
But Biundo, the former Trump campaign adviser, said that after watching likely candidates such as Pence pay visits to early voting states, he too, believes the field is wide open.
“I don’t think Donald Trump has it locked up. I don’t think Ron DeSantis has it locked up. I don’t think anyone has it locked up,” he said. “At this point, it’s an open primary.”
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Biden’s new year pitch focuses on benefits of bipartisanship
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CHRISTIANSTED, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — President Joe Biden and top administration officials will open a new year of divided government by fanning out across the country to talk about how the economy is benefiting from his work with Democrats and Republicans.
As part of the pitch, Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will make a rare joint appearance in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky on Wednesday to highlight nearly $1 trillion in infrastructure spending that lawmakers approved on a bipartisan basis in 2021.
The Democratic president will also be joined by a bipartisan group of elected officials when he visits the Kentucky side of the Cincinnati area, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, the White House said.
Biden’s bipartisanship blitz was announced two days before Republicans retake control of the House from Democrats on Tuesday following GOP gains in the November elections. The shift ends unified political control of Congress by Democrats and complicates Biden’s future legislative agenda. Democrats will remain in charge in the Senate.
Before he departed Washington for vacation at the end of last year, Biden appealed for less partisanship, saying he hoped everyone will see each other “not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of ‘Team Red’ or ‘Team Blue,’ but as who we really are, fellow Americans.”
The president’s trip appeared tied to a recent announcement by Kentucky and Ohio that they will receive more than $1.63 billion in federal grants to help build a new Ohio River bridge near Cincinnati and improve the existing overloaded span there, a heavily used freight route linking the Midwest and the South.
Congestion at the Brent Spence Bridge on Interstates 75 and 71 has for years been a frustrating bottleneck on a key shipping corridor and a symbol of the nation’s growing infrastructure needs. Officials say the bridge was built in the 1960s to carry around 80,000 vehicles a day but has seen double that traffic load on its narrow lanes, leading the Federal Highway Administration to declare it functionally obsolete.
The planned project covers about 8 miles (12 kilometers) and includes improvements to the bridge and some connecting roads and construction of a companion span nearby. Both states coordinated to request funding under the nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal signed in 2021 by Biden, who had highlighted the project as the legislation moved through Congress.
McConnell said the companion bridge “will be one of the bill’s crowning accomplishments.”
DeWine said both states have been discussing the project for almost two decades “and now, we can finally move beyond the talk and get to work.”
Officials hope to break ground later this year and complete much of the work by 2029.
Biden’s visit could also provide a political boost to Beshear, who is seeking reelection this year in his overwhelmingly Republican state.
In a December 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Beshear gave a mixed review of Biden’s job performance. Biden had joined Beshear to tour tornado- and flood-stricken regions of Kentucky last year.
“There are things that I think have been done well, and there are things that I wish would have been done better,” Beshear said of Biden.
Other top administration officials will also help promote Biden’s economic policies this week.
In Chicago on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris will discuss “how the President’s economic plan is rebuilding our infrastructure, creating good-paying jobs – jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, and revitalizing communities left behind,” the White House said in its announcement.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was delivering the same message in New London, Connecticut, also on Wednesday.
Mitch Landrieu, the White House official tasked with promoting infrastructure spending, will join soon-to-be former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday in San Francisco, which she represents in Congress.
Biden was scheduled to return to the White House on Monday after spending nearly a week with family on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The president opened New Year’s Day on Sunday by watching the first sunrise of 2023 and attending Mass at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Christiansted, where he has attended religious services during his past visits to the island.
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Santos should consider resigning, veteran GOP lawmaker says
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Even as the House GOP leadership keeps silent, a veteran Republican lawmaker said Sunday that George Santos should consider resigning after the congressman-elect from New York admitted to lying about his heritage, education and professional career.
Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, a former House Ways and Means chairman who has served in Congress for 25 years, told “Fox News Sunday” that Santos would have “to take some huge steps” to regain trust and respect in his district. Santos is set to be sworn in Tuesday when the new Congress begins.
“This is troubling in so many ways. Certainly, he’s lied repeatedly,” said Brady, who is retiring from the House. “He certainly is going to have to consider resigning.” Brady said a decision about whether Santos steps down is one “to be made between he and the voters who elected him.”
In November, Santos, 34, was elected in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes some Long Island suburbs and a small part of the New York City borough of Queens. He became the first non-incumbent, openly gay Republican to win a seat to Congress. But weeks after helping Republicans secure their razor-thin House majority, Santos is now under investigation for fabricating large swaths of his biography. His campaign spending is also being scrutinized.
He has shown no signs of stepping aside. Last week, Santos was asked on Fox News about the “blatant lies” and responded that he had “made a mistake.”
The top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who is running to become House speaker now that the GOP will hold the majority, has not said what action, if any, he might take against Santos.
Brady said if he headed a committee that Santos was set to serve on, “right now, he would not be on the committee.”
The congressman also said that “we’re a country of second chances. And when people are willing to turn their life around and own up to this and do what it takes and earn respect and trust again, you know, we’re willing to do that.” Brady said he was hopeful that Santos “chooses the right path here.”
Questions were raised about Santos last month when The New York Times published an investigation into his resume and found a number of major discrepancies. Since then, Santos has admitted lying about having Jewish ancestry, lying about working for Wall Street banks and lying about obtaining a college degree.
Democrats are expected to pursue several avenues against Santos, including a potential complaint with the Federal Election Commission and introducing a resolution to expel him once he’s a sitting member of Congress.
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North Korea opens New Year with missile launch
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern waters Sunday, entering 2023 with another weapons test after an unprecedented number of missile firings last year.
South Korea’s military detected the launch from the North’s capital region around 2:50 a.m. Sunday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It said the missile traveled about 400 kilometers (250 miles) before falling into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launch “a grave provocation” that hurts peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and around the world. It said South Korea closely monitors North Korean moves in coordination with the United States and maintains a readiness to deal with any provocations.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the launch highlights “the destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s unlawful weapons programs. It said U.S. commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan “remain ironclad.”
North Korea test-fired more than 70 missiles last year. Some experts say the country eventually aims to boost its weapons arsenals and increase greater pressures on its rivals to win concessions such as sanctions relief.
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Afghan war orphan remains with Marine accused of abduction
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The Afghan woman ran down the street towards her friend’s apartment as soon as she heard the news: the White House had publicly weighed in on her family’s case.
Surely her child, who she says was abducted by a U.S. Marine more than a year ago, would now be returned, she thought. She was so excited that it was only after she’d arrived that she realized she wasn’t wearing any shoes.
“We thought within one week she’d be back to us,” the woman told The Associated Press.
Yet two months after an AP report on the high-stakes legal fight over the child raised alarms at the highest levels of government, from the White House to the Taliban, the baby remains with U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast and his family. The Masts claim in court documents that they legally adopted the child and that the Afghan couple’s accusations are “outrageous” and “unmerited.”
“We are all concerned with the well being of this child who is at the heart of this matter,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after the AP detailed the child’s plight in October.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to intervene in the legal wrangling over the fate of the child, arguing that Mast’s adoption should never have been granted. The government has said Mast’s attempts to take the child directly conflicted with a U.S. foreign policy decision to reunite the orphan with her Afghan family. They asked that the case be moved from a rural Virginia court to federal court, but were denied by Presiding Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore.
Additionally, federal authorities say multiple investigations are underway.
“We all just want resolution for this child, whatever it’s going to be, so her childhood doesn’t continue to be in limbo,” said Samantha Freed, a court-appointed attorney assigned to look after the best interests of the child. “We need to get this right now. There are no do-overs.”
The legal fight has taken more than a year, and Freed is worried it could take months — maybe even years — more. The child is now 3 ½ years old. The Afghan family spoke with the AP on condition of remaining anonymous out of fear for their safety and concerns for their relatives back in Afghanistan.
Mast became enchanted with the child while on temporary assignment in Afghanistan in late 2019. Just a few months old, the infant had survived a Special Operations raid that killed her parents and five siblings, according to court records.
As she recovered from injuries in a U.S. military hospital, the Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross identified her relatives, and through meetings with the State Department, arranged for their reunification. The child’s cousin and his wife — young newlyweds without children yet of their own — wept when they first saw her, they said: Taking her in and raising her was the greatest honor of their lives.
Nonetheless, Mast — in spite of orders from military officials to stop intervening — was determined to take her home to the United States. He used his status in the military, appealed to political connections in the Trump administration and convinced the small-town Virginia court to skip some of the usual safeguards that govern international adoptions.
Finally, when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan last summer, he helped the family get to the United States. After they arrived, they say, he took their baby from them at the Fort Pickett Virginia Army National Guard base. They haven’t seen her since and are suing to get her back.
The Afghan woman gave birth to a daughter just weeks after the girl they’d been raising was taken from them. Every time they buy an outfit or a present for their daughter, they buy a second matching one for the child they pray will come back to them soon.
The Masts did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Stepping out from a recent hearing, Joshua Mast told AP they’ve been advised not to speak publicly.
In court filings, Mast says he acted “admirably” to bring the child to the United States and care for her with his wife. They say they’ve given her “a loving home” and have “done nothing but ensure she receives the medical care she requires, at great personal expense and sacrifice.” Mast celebrated his adoption of the child, whose Afghan family is Muslim, as an act of Christian faith.
The toddler’s future is now set to be decided in a sealed, secret court case in rural Virginia — in the same courthouse that granted Mast custody. The federal government has described that custody order as “unlawful,” “improper” and “deeply flawed and incorrect” because it was based on a promise that Afghanistan would waive jurisdiction over the child, which never happened.
The day Mast and his wife Stephanie Mast were granted a final adoption, the child was 7,000 miles away with the Afghan couple who knew nothing about it.
In court, Mast, still an active duty Marine, cast doubt on whether the Afghan couple is related to her at all. They argue that the little girl is “ an orphan of war and a victim of terrorism, rescued under tragic circumstances from the battlefield.” They say she is a “stateless minor” because she was recovered from a compound Mast says was used by foreign fighters not from Afghanistan.
The case has been consumed by a procedural question: Does the Afghan family — who raised the child for a year and a half — have a right under Virginia law to even challenge the adoption?
Judge Moore ruled in November that the Afghan family does have legal standing; the Masts’ appeal is under review.
The child’s Afghan relatives, currently in Texas, believe the U.S. government should be doing more to help them, because numerous federal agencies were involved in the ordeal.
“The government is not doing their job as they should,” said the Afghan woman. “And in this process, we are suffering.”
A State Department official said one of the agency’s own social workers stood with Mast when he took the baby at Fort Pickett, but “had no awareness of the U.S. Embassy’s previous involvement in reuniting the child with her next of kin in Afghanistan.” The official described how the U.S. had worked hard in Afghanistan to unite the child with her relatives.
“We recognize the human dimension of this situation,” said the official.
The Department of Defense said in a statement that the decision to reunite the child with her family was in keeping with the U.S. government’s foreign obligations, as well as international law principles that mandate family reunification of children displaced in war. The Defense Department said it is aware that Mast “took custody” of the child but declined to comment further.
The Afghan couple pleaded for help from the tangle of agencies at Fort Pickett: the military, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the police. Some didn’t believe them, some said there was nothing they could do, some tried to intervene to no avail.
The couple eventually reached Martha Jenkins, an attorney volunteering at the base.
“When I first heard their story, I thought there must be something lost in translation — how could this be true?” said Jenkins. She contacted authorities.
Almost two months after they lost the child, Virginia State Police dispatch records obtained by the AP show “an advocate” called to report what had happened.
“The family is on Fort Pickett, they are requesting an investigation to the validity of the adoption and if it was done under false pretenses,” wrote the dispatcher. The record notes that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were involved.
Jenkins, who was in Virginia temporarily, called every Virginia adoption attorney she could find until she reached Elizabeth Vaughan.
“It was very surprising to me that no one helped them,” said Vaughan, who offered to represent the Afghan couple for free. “I don’t think they had a lot of the paperwork Americans like to see when someone’s proving that they have custody. But there are laws about people, trusted adults, who arrive with a child. So much more investigating should have been done.”
A Marine Corps spokesperson wrote in a statement that they are fully cooperating with federal law enforcement investigations, including at least one focused on the alleged unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. In emails Mast sent asking for help bringing the child from Afghanistan, now submitted as exhibitions in court, he referenced reading classified documents about the raid that killed the girl’s family.
Investigators and prosecutors declined to comment, citing the ongoing inquiries.
On the other side of the globe, the Taliban issued a statement saying it “will seriously pursue this issue with American authorities so that the said child is returned to her relatives.”
Now every night before bed, the Afghan couple scroll through an album of 117 photos of the year and half they spent raising her — a sassy child with big bright eyes, who loved to dress up in shiny colors and gold bangle bracelets. There’s a photo of the child wearing a black and green tunic and tiny gold sandals, nestled on the young Afghan man’s lap, smiling mischievously at the camera. In one video, she runs alongside the man, bouncing down the sidewalk to keep up with his stride.
They’ll soon be moving to a new two-bedroom apartment. There, they say, the little girl’s room will be ready for her, whenever she comes home.
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AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report
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Ukraine’s debts: US aims to get IMF to reexamine loan fees
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WASHINGTON — A provision in the recently signed defense spending bill mandates that the United States work to ease Ukraine’s debt burden at the International Monetary Fund, which could create tensions at the world’s lender-of-last-resort over one of its biggest borrowers.
The National Defense Authorization Act requires American representatives to each global development bank, including the IMF, where the U.S. is the largest stakeholder, to use “ the voice, vote, and influence ” of the U.S. in seeking to assemble a voting bloc of countries that would change each institution’s debt service relief policy regarding Ukraine.
Among other things, the U.S. is tasked with forcing the IMF to reexamine and potentially end its surcharge policy on Ukrainian loans. Surcharges are added fees on loans imposed on countries that are heavily indebted to the IMF.
The U.S. interest in changing the policy comes as it has distributed tens of billions for Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion began in February. Most recently, Ukraine will receive $44.9 billion in aid from the U.S. as part of a $1.7 trillion government-wide spending bill.
Inevitably, some U.S. grant money is spent servicing IMF loans.
“I can see why the Senate would want to relax the surcharge for Ukraine,” Peter Garber, an economist who most recently worked at the global markets research division of Deutsche Bank, wrote in an email. “As the principal bankroller of economic aid for Ukraine, the US would not want to deliver funds only to have them go right to the coffers of the IMF.”
Economists Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University and Kevin P. Gallagher at Boston University wrote in February about surcharges, saying that “forcing excessive repayments lowers the productive potential of the borrowing country, but also harms creditors” and requires borrowers “to pay more at exactly the moment when they are most squeezed from market access in any other form.”
Other economists say the fees provide an incentive for members with large outstanding balances to repay their loans promptly.
Even with the aid, the beleaguered Ukrainian economy is expected to shrink by 35 percent, according to the World Bank, and the country will owe roughly $360 million in surcharge fees alone to the IMF by 2023.
The effort to wrangle the IMF’s 24 directors, who are elected by member countries or by groups of countries, to end the surcharges may not be so easy.
Just before Christmas, the directors decided to maintain the surcharge policy. They said in a Dec. 20 statement that most directors “were open to exploring possible options for providing temporary surcharge relief,” but others “noted that the average cost of borrowing from the Fund remains significantly below market rates.”
Prominent economists studying the war’s impacts pointed out in a December report — “Rebuilding Ukraine: Principles and Policies,” by the Paris- and London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research — that “some significant voting members may have interests that are not aligned with having Ukraine succeed economically.”
Securing consistent financing to Ukraine could become harder as the war rages on. There are growing fears of a global recession and concerns that European allies are struggling to deliver on their financing promises. In addition, the GOP is set this coming week to take control of the House, with the top Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, saying his party will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, said the surcharge issue affects not just Ukraine, but also other countries facing debt crises. Among them: Pakistan, hit by flooding and humanitarian crises, as well as Argentina, Ecuador, and Egypt, who together are on the hook for billions in surcharges.
“There is no logic to the IMF imposing surcharges on countries already in crisis,” Weisbrot said, “which inevitably happens because the surcharges are structured to hit countries already facing financial problems.”
He said the issue will become more urgent as Ukraine’s debt grows and the war drags on.
Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said “these surcharges should certainly be eliminated,” adding: “The IMF undercuts its core lender-of-last-resort role.”
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