Franco Harris, who caught the “Immaculate Reception,” widely considered to be the most famous catch in the history of American football, has died at the age of 72.

Harris was a National Football League Hall of Famer, a four-time Super Bowl champion, the 1972 NFL Rookie of the Year, and at one time was the league’s number-two all-time rusher, racking up more than 12,000 yards over a 13-year career, all but one season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But he will be best remembered for the catch he made in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium on the afternoon of December 23, 1972.

The Steelers were losing 7-6 to their arch-rivals, the Oakland Raiders, with just 22 seconds to play in a first-round playoff game.

Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw, seeking to evade a furious Oakland pass rush, threw a desperation pass to midfield, aiming for running back Frenchy Fuqua. As he reached for the ball, Fuqua was hit hard by Raiders linebacker Jack Tatum.

The ball struck Tatum, flew backward and looked ready to hit the ground, ending the Steelers’ season. But Harris, then a rookie, came running up to make a shoestring catch and romped 40 yards into the end zone, scoring a touchdown and giving the Steelers their first-ever postseason victory.

The play was controversial as some observers thought the ball had hit Fuqua or had grazed the ground before Harris caught it, both of which would have nullified the catch. The referees conferred and after several minutes of discussion, ruled the catch was legal.

That night, local television broadcaster Myron Cope named the catch “The Immaculate Reception,” picking up on a suggestion from a woman who had called the station. The name is a play on the title of a Catholic holiday.

Harris went to an illustrious career, highlighted by the Steelers’ first Super Bowl win after the 1974 season. Harris rushed for a record-breaking 158 yards in the game and was named the game’s most valuable player. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Harris, who was of Black and Italian heritage, inspired a fan club known as Franco’s Italian Army and remained an immensely popular figure in Pittsburgh, where he was simply known as “Franco.”

Harris and the Steelers celebrated the anniversary of the catch on several occasions, and Harris was set to host a party in Pittsburgh later this week.

Harris was born in Fort Dix, New Jersey on March 7, 1950 and attended college at Penn State University.

Hie death was confirmed Wednesday by his family. No cause of death was given.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to visit the United States on Wednesday, with a visit to the White House and an address to a joint session of Congress on the agenda as he makes his first known visit outside of Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country in February.  

Zelenskyy tweeted early Wednesday that he was on his way to the United States “to strengthen resilience and defense capabilities of Ukraine.”  

A senior administration official told reporters that U.S. President Joe Biden invited Zelenskyy to meet with him, his national security team and his Cabinet. The official said the talks would include “an in-depth strategic discussion on the way ahead on the battlefield,” what equipment and training the U.S. and other allies could provide, as well as economic, energy and humanitarian aid.    

“President Biden will have the opportunity to reinforce that this support is not just about what we have done before, but what we will do today and what we will continue to do for as long as it takes,” the official said.   

While Zelenskyy is not known to have left Ukraine, he has made visits outside of the capital, Kyiv, including going Tuesday to the eastern city of Bakhmut where his forces have been engaged in heavy fighting.    

Zelenskyy has repeatedly urged the U.S. and others to provide air defense systems that could help Ukraine deal with missile and drone attacks by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces that have hit cities across the country and battered its infrastructure.    

The senior administration official said the U.S. would be announcing that a new package of military aid for Ukraine will include Patriot missile batteries, a more advanced air defense system than what Ukraine has been able to access before. The official said Ukrainian forces will be trained on how to use the system in a third country, adding that process “will take some time.”

Outside of the logistical part of the talks, the administration official said Zelenskyy’s visit carries a symbolic importance in the United States, Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, giving the opportunity to “underscore the United States’ enduring commitment to Ukraine.”    

“This is about sending a message to Putin and sending a message to the world that America will be there for Ukraine for as long as it takes,” the official said. “President Putin badly miscalculated the beginning of this conflict when he presumed that the Ukrainian people would yield and that NATO would be disunited. He was wrong on both those counts. He remains wrong about our staying power. And that’s what this visit will demonstrate.”    

The official said Zelenskyy’s address to Congress will particularly show the bipartisan nature of U.S. support.  

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shared a letter sent on behalf of bipartisan leadership in Congress to Zelenskyy inviting him to speak before a joint session Wednesday. 

“The fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy itself,” Pelosi wrote. “We look forward to hearing your inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination. Thank you for your leadership and consideration of this request.”  

What will not be part of Zelenskyy’s visit, according to the Biden administration, is any kind of push for Ukraine to try to come to a negotiated end to the war Russia started.    

The senior administration official said Russia could end the war at any time by leaving Ukraine, and that Russia has shown no intention of doing that or engaging in serious negotiations.    

The official said Biden “is not going to pressure or push Zelenskyy to the negotiating table, but rather, he is going to work with Congress and with our allies to put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield, so that when the time is right they are in the best possible position at the negotiating table.”  
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A U.S. House of Representatives committee voted on Tuesday to release partially redacted tax filings from former President Donald Trump, which could lead to more unwelcome scrutiny for the former president as he mounts another White House bid.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted to release a summary of Trump’s tax returns between 2015 and 2021, the years when he was running for president and serving in the White House, panel members said.

Committee chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat, said the documents would be released within days, after sensitive material had been redacted. Democrats have little time to act, as Republicans are set to take control of the House in January.

It was not clear whether the material would shed light on potential conflicts between Trump’s real-estate holdings and his actions as president, or how much tax he paid while president. Lawmakers said the returns were scant on details.

“I think you’ll be surprised by how little there is,” Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett told CNN.

Kevin Brady, the panel’s top Republican, told reporters that some of those returns were still being audited by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, so it was not clear how much tax Trump owed. Like other committee Republicans, he voted against their release on the grounds that it could set a bad precedent.

Trump, unlike previous presidential candidates, refused to make his tax returns public as he sought to keep secret the details of his wealth and the activities of his real estate company, the Trump Organization, and he fought Democrats’ efforts to get access to them.

Candidates are not required by law to release their tax returns, but previous presidential hopefuls of both parties have voluntarily done so for several decades.

Democrats on the committee said they need to see those records to assess whether the Internal Revenue Service is properly auditing presidential tax returns and to gauge whether new legislation is needed.

Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, reported heavy losses from his business enterprises over several years to offset hundreds of millions of dollars in income, according to news media reporting and trial testimony about his finances. That allowed him to pay very little in taxes.

The Trump Organization was found guilty on December 6 in New York of carrying out a 15-year criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities. The company faces up to $1.6 million in fines, though Trump himself is not personally liable. He has said the case was politically motivated and the company plans to appeal.

He also faces a separate fraud suit in New York that accuses him of artificially inflating the value of his assets.

During his presidency, he faced persistent questions about conflicts of interest, as foreign dignitaries and Republican Party officials spent money in his luxury hotels.
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Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou-Nguesso says significant developments came out of this year’s U.S. Africa Leaders Summit in Washington. Also the chairperson of the African Union High-Level Committee on Libya, Sassou-Nguesso has called the world’s attention toward resolving the political crisis in Libya. He sat down with VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo in this exclusive interview. Videographer: Hakim Shammo
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U.S. congressional leaders early Tuesday unveiled a more than $1.6 trillion spending and policy plan to fund the government through the end of next September, including billions of dollars in new aid for Ukraine to fight its war against Russia, a 10% boost in defense spending and revised controls on certifying the election of U.S. presidents.

The measure, which also includes about $40 billion to help U.S. communities recover from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters, is likely to be the last major piece of legislation that lawmakers will consider in the current session of Congress.

But the 4,155-page bill must be approved by midnight Friday, when current, temporary funding expires, or lawmakers will face the prospect of a partial government shutdown heading into the Christmas holiday this coming weekend.

If the measure is not passed, lawmakers could approve another temporary funding bill extending into next month. Some Republican lawmakers favor that outcome because they will narrowly control the House of Representatives when the new session of Congress opens on January 3, which could give them leverage in negotiating spending policies with the Democratic-controlled Senate and Democratic President Joe Biden.

The proposal includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding.

Included in the package is about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s 10-month invasion, the biggest single allocation yet for the Kyiv government, although piecemeal measures for Ukraine have already totaled about $68 billion. The congressional proposal for Ukraine would top Biden’s $37 billion request.

The overall end-of-year proposal wraps in other measures that have languished as stand-alone bills. Various provisions would improve the country’s readiness for future disease pandemics and ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok on government-owned devices.

It also tightens the rules under which lawmakers can object to the final vote counts submitted by each of the 50 states when Congress meets every four years to certify the outcome of presidential elections. Dozens of Republican lawmakers supporting former President Donald Trump objected to declaring Biden the winner when Congress met on January 6 last year to certify the outcome of the 2020 election, on a day when about 2,000 Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to keep Congress from acting.

As it stands now, only one senator and one member of the House of Representatives is needed to contest the outcome of the presidential vote in any state. But the new proposal would require at least 20 of the 100 senators and 87 of the 435 House members to object before their protest could be considered.

The legislative proposal also clarifies an 1887 law to explicitly say that the vice president’s role in counting the Electoral College votes from throughout the country is ceremonial and does not give the vice president the right to overturn the outcome of the election. Trump claimed erroneously last year that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the right to upend Biden’s victory and keep Trump in power for another four years.

In the United States, presidents are not elected by national popular balloting, although Biden won 7 million more votes than Trump. Instead, presidents are elected in the Electoral College, depending on the state-by-state outcome in each of the 50 states, with the most populous states having the most electors and thus the most sway on the national outcome.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in the early hours of Tuesday, “Nobody wants a shutdown, nobody benefits from a shutdown, so I hope nobody will stand in the way of funding the government ASAP. Finalizing the omnibus [spending bill] is critical, absolutely critical for supporting our friends in Ukraine.”

Shalanda Young, director of the government’s Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that neither Republicans nor Democrats got everything they wanted in the deal. But she praised the measure as “good for our economy, our competitiveness, and our country, and I urge Congress to send it to the president’s desk without delay.”

But some Republicans threatened to hold up the measure to push the funding debate into January to give them new leverage, even as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said his party had curtailed Biden spending plans in the proposal announced Tuesday.

But House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who is attempting to become the new House speaker in two weeks, assailed his Republican counterparts in the Senate for even negotiating with Democrats.

Another Republican, Congressman Chip Roy, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, complained on “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend, “Republicans are about to literally give the Biden administration a blank check. Republican leadership in the Senate — and frankly, too many in the House — are walking away from using that important tool to check the executive branch.”
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Suspense mounted at the U.S. border with Mexico on Tuesday about the future of restrictions on asylum-seekers as the Supreme Court issued a temporary order to keep pandemic-era limits on migrants in place.

Conservative-leaning states won a reprieve — though it could be brief — as they push to maintain a measure that allows officials to expel many but not all asylum-seekers. In a last-ditch written appeal to the Supreme Court, they argued that an increased numbers of migrants would take a toll on public services such as law enforcement and health care and warned of an “unprecedented calamity” at the southern border.

Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay pending further order, asking the administration of President Joe Biden to respond by 5 p.m. Tuesday. That’s just hours before restrictions are slated to expire on Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for enforcing border security, acknowledged Roberts’ order — and also said the agency would continue “preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts.”

Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under a public-health rule called Title 42.

The decision on what comes next is going down to the wire, as pressure builds in communities along both sides of the southwestern U.S. border.

In El Paso, Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser warned Monday that shelters across the border in Ciudad Juárez are packed to capacity with an estimated 20,000 migrants who are prepared to cross into the U.S.

Despite the court stay Monday, the City of El Paso rushed to expand its ability to accommodate more migrants by converting large buildings into shelters, as the Red Cross brings in 10,000 cots.

Local officials also say they hope to relieve pressure on local shelters by chartering buses to other large cities in Texas or nearby states, bringing migrants a step closer to relatives and sponsors in coordination with nonprofit groups.

“We will continue to be prepared for whatever is coming through,” Leeser said.

At a church-affiliated shelter a few blocks from the border, migrants including women and children lined up in the early afternoon Monday in hopes of securing a bed for the night, accepting donations of food from a succession of cars bearing gifts. Police and municipal garbage workers arrived to removed abandoned blankets and discarded possessions.

Jose Natera, a 48-year-old handyman from the Venezuelan town of Guaicaipuro, said he traveled for three months to reach El Paso, sometimes on foot, with no money or sponsors to take him further.

“I have to stop here until I can get a ticket” out, he said.

El Paso residents Roberto Lujan and Daniela Centeno handed out fruit, Hostess cakes, soda and chips to throngs at a street corner.

“I have to do it,” said Lujan, a 39-year-old construction worker. “I have kids and I know the struggle.”

Conservative-leaning states have argued that lifting Title 42 will lead to a surge of migrants into their states and take a toll on government services like health care or law enforcement. They also charge that the federal government has no plan to deal with an increase in migrants — while in Washington, Republicans are set to take control of the House and make immigration a key issue.

Biden administration officials said they have marshaled more resources to the southern border in preparation for the end of Title 42. That includes more border patrol processing coordinators, more surveillance and increased security at ports of entry.

About 23,000 agents are currently deployed to the southern border, according to the White House.

Immigration advocates have said that the Title 42 restrictions, imposed under provisions of a 1944 health law, go against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution — and that the pretext is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve. They sued to end the use of Title 42; a federal judge in November sided with them and set the December 21 deadline.

Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, expressed concern Monday that the stay would keep migrants who have no choice but to flee their home from even making the case for protection in the U.S., after years of pent-up need.

“What happens now with all those on their way?” he said.

Title 42 restrictions have applied to all nationalities but have fallen disproportionately on those from countries that Mexico has agreed to take back: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, more recently Venezuela, in addition to Mexico.
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