More than a dozen U.S. states were under air-quality alerts on Wednesday as smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning in eastern Canada wafted south, casting a dull gray pallor over the skyline of New York and other big cities.

Health authorities in 15 states from Vermont to South Carolina as well as Ohio and Kansas in the Midwest warned that fine matter in the atmosphere could exceed unhealthy levels and make breathing difficult for millions of residents.

Washington, D.C., was also under an air-quality warning, according to the National Weather Service.

People were instructed to limit time outdoors, while those with respiratory issues were advised to consider wearing a mask.

The smoke is crossing the U.S. northern border from Canada, where wildfire season got off to an unusually early and intense start due to persistent warm and dry conditions. Canada is on track for its worst-ever wildfire season.

The skies above New York and many other North American cities were a uniform gray, and the air smelled like burning wood. In many places, the early morning sun appeared as a small glowing orange disc.

New York City’s skyscrapers, which can be seen for miles away on a clear day, were rendered nearly invisible.

The city’s schools were open for class on Wednesday, although outdoor events and activities, including a middle school graduation, were canceled, postponed or moved indoors.

Canadian authorities on Wednesday issued a starker air-quality warning for the residents of the country’s financial capital Toronto due to several raging wildfires that have burned through a record area this year.

While Canadian wildfires are common in the country’s western provinces, the eastern province of Nova Scotia is experiencing its worst-ever season. The federal government has sent the military to the region.

There are blazes in nearly all of Canada’s 10 provinces and territories, with Quebec the worst affected. Multiple fires were touched off by lightning strikes.

The air quality in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, which stands on Ontario’s border with Quebec, remained in category 10+, which Canada’s Air Quality Health Index said was “very high risk.”

About 3.3 million hectares have already burned — some 13 times the 10-year average — and more than 120,000 people have been at least temporarily forced out of their homes.
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After a history-making victory, Nigerian immigrant Yemi Mobolade was sworn in on June 6 as mayor of Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in the western U.S. state of Colorado.

Colorado Governor Jered Polis said he is inspired by Mobolade’s story.

“Somebody who has dedicated his life to making Colorado Springs and America a better place, whose story we can all identify with, who came here, who started businesses,” Polis said at the inauguration ceremony.

Mobolade moved to the U.S. 27 years ago as a student and became a U.S. citizen in 2017. He started a family, opened two restaurants and a church, and then won election in this traditionally conservative city as its first elected Black leader.

“I wake up every morning and I think it’s a dream, and then I realize, no, this really happened,” Mobolade said.

 

But what earned him the trust of many residents, some said, is his stint as the small business development manager for Colorado Springs from 2019 to 2022.

Some residents told VOA that Mobolade’s electoral victory sends a message that their state is welcoming to people from all walks of life.

“Colorado Springs is lavishly hospitable,” Michael Lipede told VOA. “If the natives of Colorado have not received us with an open heart, there is no way we will accomplish all we have accomplished,” said Lipede, a lead pastor at Redeemed Christian Church of God Living Faith Sanctuary in Colorado Springs.

In a city of nearly 500,000 people that is more than 75% White, residents found hope in the fact that so many voters were willing to support someone from a different background.

“Coloradans … don’t believe in ethnicity, they believe in competence and capacity and capability, and they found out that Mr. Yemi has it all.” Olawale Akinremi, a Colorado Springs resident told VOA.

“I feel hopeful about today. I love our new mayor, Yemi Mobolade. He is a man of strength, faith, character, and courage. And we are so fortunate to have him leading our city,” Cindy Aubrey, Colorado Springs resident said.

Another resident, Nkechi Onyejekwe said “I think it is something that is very amazing to celebrate and I think it is something very timely as well,” she told VOA, adding that “Colorado Springs has a very diverse population and I think that their legislative bodies should also reflect that.”

Ami Bajah-Onyejekwe, a Pueblo Colorado resident said it is important for people to see someone they can look up to in positions of leadership. “Just by seeing someone who looks like you, who has similar background to yours and see where that person has reached, and the goals they have achieved,” she said, “gives hope and says, ‘I can do it as well.’”

Mobolade has pledged to be a leader for all of Colorado City’s increasingly diverse population.

“I think today matters for a lot of young black kids because it tells them that the sky’s the limit, that they too can step into the arena and lead,” he said.

This story originated in VOA’s Hausa Service.
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Anti-government extremist organizations in the U.S. surged last year, even as some militias disbanded and hate groups declined, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC counted 702 anti-government groups in 2022, a 44% increase from 488 in 2021. This was the highest number since 2015.

The surge was primarily driven by the designation of the conservative parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty and 11 other “anti-student inclusion groups,” according to Travis McAdam, senior research analyst with SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

“Their number of chapters grew quickly as they targeted local schools with campaigns of malice and misinformation that degrade the LGBTQ+ community and try to erase the teaching of accurate history,” McAdam said via email.

On its website, Moms for Liberty says it is “dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” 

Asked about the SPLC designation, Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said in a statement emailed to VOA, “Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school — parents or government employees? We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door, and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that.”

The surge in the number of anti-government groups came even as militias — the “paramilitary wing of the anti-government movement” as the SPLC refers to them — shrank in number in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The SPLC identified 61 active militia groups in 2022, down from 92 in 2021.

One of the most prominent anti-government militias, the Oath Keepers, lost many of its local chapters after its leaders were arrested in connection with the January 6 assault.

Last month, Stewart Rhodes, the group’s founder, and a former top lieutenant received 18- and 12-year prison terms respectively for their roles in the attack. Several other Oath Keepers have also been given lengthy prison terms.

The SPLC said the number of Oath Keepers chapters dropped to five in 2022, down from 70 in 2020.

Rachel Rivas, deputy director of research, reporting and analysis at SPLC’s Intelligence Project, attributed the surge in anti-government groups in part to backlash in the anti-government movement against the Biden administration’s policies.

“This is a trend we’ve seen over time during the Obama years,” Rivas said.

Driven by distrust

Before last year, anti-government groups had been declining since reaching a record 1,360 in 2012 during President Barack Obama’s first term in office.

But experts say the groups are driven by a deep distrust of government and seize on issues such as election denial and so-called woke indoctrination in workplaces and schools to draw fuel for their agenda.

Brian Levin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said the SPLC report’s most “disturbing finding” was the “continued vibrancy of antigovernment groups.”

“In a highly charged and politically divided atmosphere, anti-government vitriol and conspiracies are an easier initial ‘gateway’ sell than the more blatant xenophobic and racist propaganda of adjacent extremists,” Levin said.

Hate groups go mainstream

The number of hate groups dropped to 523 last year from 733 in 2021. The number has fallen significantly since peaking at more than 1,000 in 2018.

But SPLC officials said this does not mean there was a decrease in hate and extremism.

The line between hard-right extremism and mainstream politics has become increasingly blurred, they said, as hate groups have gone mainstream in a post-January 6 shift in strategy.

“Main Street America is now seeing organizing locally to pursue a hateful agenda in public view, including the targeting of community safe havens like schools and houses of worship,” Margaret Huang, president and CEO of SPLC, said during a press call.

The SPLC defines a hate group as an organization or collection of individuals that “attack or malign” a whole category of people usually for things they cannot change such as their race or gender.

The SPLC has been publishing its annual hate report since 1990.

In recent years, some conservative groups have criticized the SPLC, saying it unfairly labeled them as extremist groups.

Huang defended SPLC’s “rigorous” research methodology, saying the group “carefully labels an organization or a group of individuals, as either a hate group or an anti-government extremist group, based on specific criteria and clear evidence of action during the calendar year of 2022.”
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Washington reacted swiftly Tuesday to Tehran’s unveiling of a new hypersonic missile by placing a fresh round of sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program, with White House officials calling Iran’s moves “destabilizing.”

“The Biden administration has been very clear, very concise, and very firm on pushing back on Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region, to include the development of an improving ballistic missile program,” said John Kirby, director of strategic communications for the National Security Council. “I’m not going to talk about the specific reports of this alleged hypersonic missile, but we have laid down very clear sanctions and other activities to push back on what Iran is doing in the region, again, to include their ballistic missile program.”

State television in Iran says the missile — named Fattah, or “Conqueror” — has a range of up to 1,400 kilometers. That’s just short of the aerial distance between Tehran and Jerusalem. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi described the new weapon as “an anchor of lasting security and peace” in the Mideast region.

The U.S. Treasury said Tuesday that new sanctions target seven individuals and six entities in Iran, China and Hong Kong that supply Tehran’s missile program with “sensitive and critical parts and technology,” including items such as centrifuges, often used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

The sanctions show ”our commitment to respond to activities which undermine regional stability and threaten the security of our key partners and allies,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “The United States will continue to target illicit transnational procurement networks that covertly support Iran’s ballistic missile production and other military programs.”

Raisi boasted that the missile is entirely Iranian-designed and manufactured.

“This missile is a deterrent,” he said. “Its power is an anchor of lasting security and peace for the regional countries.”

But analysts say this is likely to only increase tensions.

“Regardless of whether the Iranian hypersonic missile works as intended, it nevertheless highlights the growing threat that Iran poses to the U.S. and its strategic interests in the Middle East,” said Nicholas Carl, an Iran-focused analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Tehran has become increasingly aggressive in pursuing its regional objectives in recent years. Those objectives include attaining regional hegemony, destroying the Israeli state and expelling American forces from the region. And Iranian leaders have continually demonstrated their readiness to involve their growing missile capabilities in this more confrontational approach.”

That said, Carl questioned whether the new weapon lives up to the hype. At the unveiling ceremony, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace branch, said the missile can destroy others’ anti-missile systems.

“There is still a big question mark over whether Tehran actually can field the missile that it has described,” he said. “Regime officials tend to often overstate their military capabilities.”

Without a direct line between Washington and Tehran, other nations will need to play a role in reducing tensions. This week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Saudi Arabia, a nation that very recently renewed its diplomatic ties with Tehran.

When asked by VOA about the implications of that, Kirby said: “If the Iranians opening up an embassy in Riyadh can help increase transparency of what they’re doing and why — if it can de-escalate tensions, if it can lead to a reduction in their destabilizing behavior, including intercepting maritime shipping as they attempted to do over the last several days in the Strait of Hormuz — then all that’s to the positive.”

The United Nations is also watching. When asked by VOA on Tuesday whether the missile launch violates United Nations resolutions aimed at stopping Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said: “I don’t have the data and information to opine on that. We do believe that Iran needs to live up to its commitments regarding Security Council resolutions.”
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As thousands walked the beaches of Normandy, France, to honor those who fought to liberate Europe in World War II, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin drew parallels between D-Day and the fight to free Ukraine from its Russian invaders.

Austin called on nations to defend the principles for which the Allied forces fought “with undimmed vigor,” in a world “where sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected.”

“If the troops of the world’s democracies could risk their lives for freedom, then surely the citizens of the world’s democracies can risk our comfort for freedom now,” he said Tuesday.

Speaking directly to some of the veterans who stormed Omaha beach, Utah beach and three other French beaches on June 6, 1944, Austin praised them for their courage that “won out over terror” and tyranny.

“We salute you. You saved the world,” he said.

The 79th anniversary was marked as Ukraine was preparing to launch a counteroffensive to push back Russian ground forces trying to maintain control of parts of Ukraine they have occupied.

Many of the same allied nations that fought against the Nazi forces in Europe during World War II have now provided billions of dollars in weapons and training to Ukrainian soldiers defending their territory and citizens.

“Peace and freedom are never guaranteed. They must be guarded and cherished and sometimes fought for and paid in blood,” said U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who also attended Tuesday’s ceremony.

D-Day refers to the amphibious Allied invasion of occupied France in 1944. Officially called “Operation Overlord,” it was the largest amphibious invasion in military history, which successfully won a foothold from which the Allies eventually took control of Europe from Nazi Germany. 

The operation involved more than 150,000 troops and more than 5,000 ships and landing craft. At least 12 countries joined forces during the Normandy invasion, including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
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