On Sunday, many Americans will honor their mothers on Mother’s Day.

While there have been celebrations of mothers and motherhood since antiquity, the American version has its roots in the 19th century.

Ann Reeves Jarvis, a West Virginia native with 11 children, is credited with starting Mother’s Day Work Groups in the 1850s. The groups’ goal was to help sick mothers and their children. During and after the Civil War, the groups provided medical care to wounded soldiers. Once the war was over, Jarvis organized Mother’s Friendship Day picnics.

Jarvis died in 1905, but her daughter Anna Marie took the baton and organized events honoring mothers. The early events, held at Ann’s church in West Virginia, were marked by carnations, Ann’s favorite flower. Carnations, thanks in part to the support of the floral industry, became a symbol of early Mother’s Day.

Soon, and with the backing of wealthy patrons like John Wanamaker and H.J. Heinz, the events were being held all over the country. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day would be held on the second Sunday in May.

Over time, Mother’s Day, much like Christmas, morphed into a highly commercialized affair including gifts, flowers, greetings cards and, of course, brunch.

Anna, perhaps seeing that the holiday would be overcommercialized, said she wanted it “to be a day of sentiment, not profit.” In the 1920s, she urged people to stop buying flowers and gifts, referring to those making a profit off the day as “charlatans, bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers and termites that would undermine with their greed one of the finest, noblest and truest movements and celebrations.”

Despite this, commercialization continued. In 1934, the U.S. Postal Service even went so far as to issue a stamp based on the famous painting known colloquially as Whistler’s Mother by James Whistler. The Postal Service added a vase of carnations to the stamp. Jarvis reportedly was very angry about the stamp, and repeated that the day should be marked by a visit home or a letter to one’s mother.

She also went after the greeting card industry, saying: “A maudlin, insincere printed card or ready-made telegram means nothing except that you’re too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone else in the world.”

She also said, “Any mother would rather have a line of the worst scribble from her son or daughter than any fancy greeting card.”

At great cost to her physical and mental health, she continued to try to de-commercialize Mother’s Day until her death in 1948.

In 2017, Americans spent an estimated $23.6 billion on Mother’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation.
…

Mexico will not be rushed into revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) just to get a deal, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Friday ahead of trilateral talks with his U.S. and Canadian counterparts.

Guajardo said he would meet at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) with Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and that the three are closer to agreeing new rules for autos that are vital for a deal.

However, Guajardo, who is eager to reach an agreement on all the principal aspects of a modernized NAFTA before sealing a new deal, said plenty of other issues were outstanding.

“I have to make very clear [that] the quality of the agreement and the balance of the agreement has to be maintained. So we are not going to sacrifice balance and quality for time,” he told reporters on the doorsteps of Lighthizer’s office.

“We believe there is a way to solve autos. I think we are trying to make a very good effort … We are looking at the whole set of items we have to solve. So it’s not autos, it’s everything else.”

Guajardo and Freeland have been meeting Lighthizer separately since the start of the week. Friday’s trilateral meeting will be the first held this week.

Drafting new rules of origin governing what percentage of a car needs to be built in the NAFTA region to avoid tariffs has been at the center of the talks to update the 1994 deal. It forms a key plank of the Trump administration’s aim to boost jobs and investment in the United States.

Officials and industry sources say the three sides have been gradually narrowing their differences on autos.

However, several other major issues are still unresolved, including U.S. demands for a five-year sunset clause that would allow NAFTA to expire, and elimination of settlement panels for trade disputes.

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan set a May 17 deadline to be notified of a new NAFTA to give the current Congress a chance of passing it. The United States will hold elections in November for a new Congress that will be seated early next year.

Mexico’s top trade official, however, said time was running short to meet such a deadline. Mexico will hold its presidential election on July 1.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said that embattled Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt still has his confidence.

Pruitt has been criticized for a series of potential ethics lapses, including flying first class, excessive spending on security, and the rental of a room in a Washington condominium owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist.

Asked during a meeting of automakers at the White House if he still has confidence in Pruitt, Trump responded: “Yes, I do.”
…

In an apparent tit-for-tat, Pakistan announced unspecified travel restrictions on American diplomats Friday and withdrew concessions it had granted to U.S. missions as part of the “war on terror,” dealing a major blow to what one ex-Pakistani diplomat described as “strayed” bilateral relations.

The decision comes after Washington said Pakistani diplomats would be required to seek permission five days in advance before traveling more than 40 kilometers from their posts in the United States.

A Foreign Ministry letter sent to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said without elaborating that “reciprocal travel permission” was being put into place in Pakistan. U.S. diplomats and embassy staff have recently complained of being subjected to searches and questioning by intelligence officials when leaving the embassy compound.

The letter also confirmed that Pakistan “has been informed that the new travel permission regime for Pakistani diplomats and officials in the U.S. would be implemented from 11 May 2018.”

The letter noted that diplomats posted to missions in Pakistan do not require prior permission for traveling inside the country, with one exception. It said permission is required if a visit is planned to “designated prohibited/restricted areas … in view of the security imperatives.”

Under the new restrictions, special treatment for U.S. Embassy and consulate staff at the airports ends. Their cargo will have to be scanned like that of other passengers at airports to prevent them from traveling with security- or intelligence-related gadgets and other prohibited items.

A former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, Jalil Abbas Jilani, said in a tweet the restrictions are “a sign of strayed” relations and called on both countries to repair them.

“Restricting movements of Diplomats was a norm in Moscow and Islamabad during cold war and a regular practice between Pakistan and India even today but unheard of in the context of Pakistan and the US,” tweeted Jilani.

He was referring to a time when Pakistan sided with the U.S. to arm and train Afghan mujahideen or freedom fighters to battle the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s letter outlined a list of concessions it has withdrawn from the U.S. diplomatic mission. American diplomats, according to the list, will now require permission before “installing radio communication at residences and safe houses.”

The U.S. mission also has been instructed not to use “tinted glass” on vehicles and rented transportation and to stop installing non-diplomatic license plates on official vehicles. Diplomatic staff will no longer be allowed to use “biometrically unverified/cell phone SIMs.”

It was the first disclosure of the concessions, which were granted the U.S. after Pakistan joined the “war on terrorism” 17 years ago. Pakistani analysts described them as “shocking and scandalous.”

“As Islamabad imposes tit-for-tat limits on U.S. embassy staff, the nation gets to know only some of the exemptions Americans were enjoying here,” noted TV talk show host and columnist Talat Hussain.

The reciprocal restrictions on diplomats has become an “accidental nationalistic rallying point against perceived U.S. manipulation of Pakistan,” Hussain added.

Pakistan’s relations with the U.S. have steadily deteriorated since President Donald Trump announced a new South Asia strategy that blamed Islamabad for covertly supporting terrorist groups and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials have rejected the charges and maintain that their country is being scapegoated for Washington’s security failures in Afghanistan.

Relations are also strained by a court order barring an American diplomat from leaving the country. Pakistan is seeking to hold the diplomat accountable for a fatal road accident despite the immunity he enjoys under international diplomatic conventions.
…

The United States has fined a Japanese shipping company $1 million for covering up the intentional oil pollution of the waters off North Carolina last year.

“This case demonstrates that those who pollute our oceans and deliberately mislead U.S. Coast Guard officials will be brought to justice,” acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Wood said Thursday in a statement.

Nitta Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the Atlantic Oasis, admitted its engineers failed to document the illegal discharge of oily waste into the Atlantic. The ship’s chief engineer, Jihnyun Youn, lied to Coast Guard inspectors about the existence of a log used to record engine room fluid levels.

Youn was placed on a year’s probation and fined $5,500.

The Justice Department said it hoped the penalties would deter anyone from using the environment as a dumping ground. 
…

The United States is imposing travel restrictions on Pakistani diplomats starting Friday, Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry told VOA Thursday.

“In my opinion, this is not the right decision,” Chaudhry told VOA’s Urdu service. “Both countries have to come close to each other, and measures like these do not help us to that end.”

The State Department says it has “nothing to announce on the matter at this time,” but has previously said it has the “authority to impose a range of travel controls” under the 1982 Foreign Missions Act.

Last month, Pakistani media reported that diplomats would be restricted from traveling more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the embassy in Washington or consulates in other cities without permission.

Pakistani diplomats previously have been allowed to travel throughout the United States without limits.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry has called it a matter of reciprocity because most foreign diplomats, including Americans, face travel restrictions in Pakistan because of security concerns.

But, according to Chaudhry, there may be other issues behind the U.S. decision.

“Probably they [the U.S.] have some other grievances, which is under discussion. We believe that matters can be solved. A mechanism has been worked out,” he said. “This step was not necessary. But now that they’ve taken this decision, they must have thought it through.”

Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been cold in recent months, since the U.S. suspended more than $1 billion in security aid to Pakistan.

A frustrated President Donald Trump issued a New Year’s Day tweet, saying the U.S. had given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid and gotten nothing but “lies and deceit” in return. He has accused the Pakistanis of giving safe haven to terrorists the U.S. is fighting in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan has denied it is looking to destabilize Afghanistan and said it wants to work to find common ground with the United States.

VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this report.
…

Mexico on Thursday indicated time was running out to see whether NAFTA nations could agree a new deal in the short term while Canada struck a upbeat tone, saying top-level talks this week had achieved a great deal.

Major differences remain between the three members of the North American Free Trade Agreement after more than eight months of largely slow-moving negotiations launched at the insistence of Washington, which wants major changes to the 1994 pact.

A source close to the talks said U.S. officials have told Canada and Mexico that May 17 or 18 is the deadline for a text that could be dealt with by the current U.S. Congress. A second source confirmed that those dates had been discussed.

Need solutions before elections

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said he expected to learn by the end of Friday whether a new deal was possible in the short term.

“I think we will be finding out through the day and tomorrow … if we really have what it takes to be able to land these things in the short run,” Guajardo told Reuters.

Top-level talks between the three members this week hit an obstacle as the United States and Mexico sought to settle differences over the key issue of automobiles.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wants a quick agreement to avoid running into complications caused by a Mexican presidential election on July 1 and U.S. midterm Congressional elections in November.

‘Getting closer’

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the three nations had “made a lot of progress since Monday … we are definitely getting closer to the final objective.”

Freeland, speaking to reporters after meetings with senior U.S. legislators on Capitol Hill, sidestepped questions as to when an agreement might be reached.

Guajardo told Reuters that “we have suitcases for two weeks if necessary.”

U.S. President Donald Trump regularly threatens to walk away from NAFTA, underscoring uncertainty over the pact. Business executives complain that the lack of clarity is hitting investment.

Mexico has launched a counterproposal to U.S. demands to toughen automotive industry content rules and boost wages. U.S. President Donald Trump blames cheaper wages in Mexico for manufacturing job losses in the United States.

Many major issues remain

Many other major issues crucial to a deal are still unresolved, including U.S. demands for a five-year sunset clause, and elimination of settlement panels for trade disputes.

After meeting with Lighthizer on Thursday, Guajardo told reporters that the talks were not just covering autos.

“You cannot think that in a process of negotiations we’re going to solve one item without reviewing the overall balance of the agreement,” he said. “We’re going over all the items. It’s very important to stress that.”
…