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Month: January 2024
Nigeria Sexual Violence Survivors Urge Tougher Laws Against Offenders
Nigeria is a signatory to several international treaties aiming to end sexual and gender-based violence against women. However, the problem persists. Now some want new laws to hold offenders accountable. Timothy Obiezu has this story from Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Editor’s note: The rape survivors interviewed for this report have given consent to have their full names used.
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Canada, Partners Take Iran to UN Council Over Ukrainian Jet Downed in 2020
OTTAWA — Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine on Monday formally complained to the U.N. aviation council in their bid to hold Iran accountable for the downing of a Ukrainian passenger airliner in January 2020 that killed 176 people, they said on Monday.
Most of the dead were citizens from the four nations, which created a coordination group that seeks to hold Iran to account.
“Today we have jointly initiated dispute-settlement proceedings before the International Civil Aviation Organization against the Islamic Republic of Iran for using weapons against a civil aircraft in flight,” they said in a statement.
Last June the four nations said they would take their case to the International Court of Justice.
Iran says its Revolutionary Guards accidentally shot down the Boeing 737 jet and blamed a misaligned radar and an error by the air defense operator at a time when tensions were high between Tehran and Washington.
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Franz Beckenbauer, World Cup Champion as Player and Coach for Germany, Dies at 78
Munich — Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup both as player and coach and became one of Germany’s most beloved personalities with his easygoing charm, has died, news agency dpa reported Monday. He was 78.
“It is with deep sadness that we announce that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday, Sunday, surrounded by his family,” the family said in a statement to dpa, the German news agency. “We ask that we be allowed to grieve in peace and be spared any questions.”
The statement did not provide a cause of death. The former Bayern Munich great had struggled with health problems in recent years.
Beckenbauer was one of German soccer’s central figures. As a player, he reimagined the defender’s role in soccer and captained West Germany to the World Cup title in 1974 after it had lost to England in the 1966 final. He was the coach when West Germany won the tournament again in 1990, a symbolic moment for a country in the midst of reunification, months after the Berlin Wall fell.
Beckenbauer was also instrumental in bringing the highly successful 2006 World Cup to Germany, though his legacy was later tainted by charges that he only succeeded in winning the hosting rights with the help of bribery. He denied the allegations.
Beckenbauer and three other members of the committee were formally made criminal suspects that year by Swiss prosecutors who suspected fraud in the true purpose of multi-million euro (dollar) payments that connected the 2006 World Cup with FIFA. But he was eventually not indicted in 2019 for health reasons and the case ended without a judgment when the statute of limitations expired in 2020 amid delays to the court system caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The allegations damaged Beckenbauer’s standing in public perception for the first time. Until then, Beckenbauer had seemingly been unable to say or do anything wrong. Germans simply loved him.
The son of a post official from the working-class Munich district of Giesing, Beckenbauer became one of the greatest players to grace the game in a career that also included stints in the United States with the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Born on Sept. 11, 1945, months after Germany’s surrender in World War II, Beckenbauer studied to become an insurance salesman but he signed his first professional contract with Bayern when he was 18.
“You are not born to become a world star in Giesing. Football for me was a deliverance. Looking back, I can say: Everything went according to how I’d imagined my life. I had a perfect life,” Beckenbauer told the Sueddeutsche newspaper magazine in 2010.
Beckenbauer personalized the position of “libero,” the free-roaming nominal defender who often moved forward to threaten the opponent’s goal, a role now virtually disappeared from modern football and rarely seen before his days.
An elegant, cool player with vision, Beckenbauer defined as captain the Bayern Munich side that won three successive European Cup titles from 1974 to 1976.
In his first World Cup as player in 1966, West Germany lost the final to host England. Four years later, with his arm strapped to his body because of a shoulder injury, Germany lost a memorable semifinal to Italy.
Finally, in 1974 at home, Beckenbauer captained West Germany to the title.
Beckenbauer left Bayern for New York in 1977 to play for the Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. He missed the 1978 World Cup because the Germans decided not to invite players playing abroad. He returned to Germany in 1980, spent two seasons with Hamburger SV — and won another Bundesliga championship, his fifth — before returning for a final season with the Cosmos.
Although he had never coached before, Beckenbauer was hired to revive West Germany in 1984 after a flop at the European Championship.
West Germany made it to the final of the 1986 World Cup, losing to Diego Maradona’s Argentina in Mexico City. Although West Germany failed to win the 1988 Euros title at home, it went to the final of the 1990 World Cup and defeated Argentina in the final in Rome, another highlight in the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Later, at the news conference, he said he was “sorry for the rest of the world” because a united Germany would be unbeatable for years to come. But Germany had to wait 24 years before winning another World Cup title.
Beckenbauer retired from the West Germany job after coaching the team to the 1990 World Cup triumph. The final was the last tournament game played by a West Germany-only team.
He didn’t have much success at coaching Marseille but won the Bundesliga title with Bayern in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996, both after taking over as coach late in the season. He later became Bayern’s president, until leaving most functions when he turned 65 in 2010.
Beckenbauer’s legal issues around the 2006 World Cup continued into his retirement, but he remained a much-loved figure in German soccer and society.
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Slovenian Rescuers Save 5 People Trapped in Cave Since Saturday
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Slovenia’s rescuers successfully extracted five people Monday who have been trapped in a cave for more than two days because of high water levels, local media reported.
The rescue operation was possible Monday after water levels inside the cave receded, Walter Zakrajsek, the head of the Cave Rescue Service, told the STA news agency.
The operation was completed around midafternoon following an hours-long rescue operation by a six-member team of divers.
A family of three adults and their two guides got stuck in the Krizna Jama cave in southwestern Slovenia on Saturday because of heavy rainfall.
The eight-kilometer (five-mile) cave system with a string of emerald-colored underground lakes is accessible only in boats and rafts and with a guide.
The group entered it Saturday morning but got stranded as subterranean waters rose swiftly. The water levels dropped by Monday, raising hopes that they could be brought out.
A team of six divers headed earlier on Monday toward the trapped people, located in a dry area about two kilometers (more than a mile) inside the cave. The divers then brought the people out in a small boat.
The water temperature inside the cave was 6 C (42 F) with very low visibility.
Rescuers earlier said that all five people were doing well despite spending two nights inside the cave. A group of divers had brought in a heated tent, as well as food and clothes over the weekend.
Slovenia is known for its more than 14,000 caves. Krizna Jama is the fourth-biggest known underground ecosystem in the world.
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China Says it Has Detained a Person Accused of Collecting Secrets for Britain
BEIJING — China says it has detained an individual accused of collecting state secrets on behalf of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6.
The Ministry of State Security posted on social media Monday that Britain had been cooperating since 2015 with the person, who it said was a citizen of a third nation and had the surname Huang.
The ministry said Huang had received training in intelligence gathering, was provided with equipment and had collected numerous state secrets on repeated visits to China. No further information on the intelligence gathered was given, nor did the ministry say when he or she had been detained or where they were being held.
The definition of state secrets is not clearly defined under China’s opaque political and legal system, and many consulting and advisory firms have been investigated for obtaining data that would ordinarily be in the public record, particularly if they were shared with foreign entities.
The British government declined to comment, in keeping with its longstanding policy on intelligence matters.
China’s allegations follow a deterioration of relations between the sides sparked in part by British opposition to Chinese investments in the country, especially in the power and communications industries where the ruling Communist Party exercises strong influence.
In September, British police said two men were arrested earlier last year on suspicion of spying for Beijing. Police did not name the men, but British media reported that the younger man was a parliamentary researcher who worked with senior Conservative Party lawmakers focused on China. The U.K. condemned the interference in British parliamentary democracy, but China denied the spying allegations.
London has also been highly critical of China’s curtailment of political rights in Hong Kong, a former British colony where violent anti-government protests in 2019 were met with Beijing’s imposition of a sweeping national security law and electoral changes. Those have largely eliminated any political opposition to Beijing’s decrees and silenced freedom of speech in what had been one of Asia’s most dynamic societies and a major financial center.
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Former Gambian Interior Minister on Trial in Switzerland Over Alleged Crimes Against Humanity
BELLINZONA, Switzerland — A former interior minister of Gambia was going on trial Monday in Switzerland on charges including crimes against humanity for his alleged role in years of repression by the west African country’s security forces against opponents of its longtime dictator.
Advocacy groups hailed the trial of Ousman Sonko, Gambia’s interior minister from 2006 to 2016 under then-President Yahya Jammeh, as an opportunity to reach a conviction under “universal jurisdiction,” which allows the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad.
Sonko was taken Monday in a police van to Switzerland’s federal criminal court in southern Bellinzona.
He applied for asylum in Switzerland in November 2016 and was arrested two months later. The Swiss attorney general’s office said the indictment against Sonko, filed in April, covers alleged crimes during 16 years under Jammeh, whose rule was marked by arbitrary detention, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings.
“The trial of Ousman Sonko is another major step in the search for justice for victims of brutal crimes and their families committed under Jammeh’s rule,” said Sirra Ndow, coordinator of the Jammeh2Justice campaign.
Swiss prosecutors say Sonko is accused of having supported, participated in and failed to stop attacks against regime opponents in the country, which juts through neighboring Senegal. The alleged crimes include killings, acts of torture, acts of rape and numerous unlawful detentions, Swiss authorities say.
Philip Grant, executive director at TRIAL International, which filed a case in Switzerland against Sonko before his arrest, said he was “the highest-level former official to be tried under the principle of universal jurisdiction in Europe.”
The trial is set to run through Jan. 30.
In November, a German court convicted a Gambian man, Bai Lowe, of murder and crimes against humanity for involvement in the killing of government critics in Gambia.
The man was a driver for a military unit deployed against opponents of Jammeh.
Sonko, who joined the Gambian military in 1988, was appointed commander of the State Guard in 2003, a position in which he was responsible for Jammeh’s security, Swiss prosecutors said. He was made inspector general of the Gambian police in 2005.
Sonko was removed as interior minister in September 2016, a few months before the end of Jammeh’s government, and left Gambia for Europe to seek asylum.
Jammeh seized control in a 1994 coup. He lost Gambia’s 2016 presidential election but refused to concede defeat to Adama Barrow, and ultimately fled amid threats of a regional military intervention to force him from power.
your ad hereUS Investigators Recover Key Part From Alaska Airlines 737 MAX Jet
WASHINGTON — The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said late on Sunday the “key missing component” from the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet involved in an Alaska Airlines emergency landing had been recovered from the backyard of a suburban home.
The plug door tore off the left side of an Alaska Airlines jet on Friday following takeoff from Portland, Oregon, en route to Ontario, California, depressurizing the plane and forcing pilots to turn back and land safely with all 171 passengers and six crew on board.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing MAX 9 jets installed with the same panel, which weighs about 27 kg and covers an optional exit door mainly used by low-cost airlines.
The missing plug door was recovered on Sunday by a Portland school teacher identified only as “Bob” in the Cedar Hills neighborhood who found it in his backyard, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said, saying she was “very relieved” it had been found.
She had earlier told reporters the aircraft part was a “key missing component” to determine why the accident occurred.
“Our structures team will want to look at everything on the door – all of the components on the door to see to look at witness marks, to look at any paint transfer, what shape the door was in when found. That can tell them a lot about what occurred,” she said.
The force from the loss of the plug door was strong enough to blow open the cockpit door during flight, said Homendy, who said it must have been a “terrifying event” to experience.
“They heard a bang,” Homendy said of the pilots, who were interviewed by investigators.
A quick reference laminated checklist flew out the door, while the first officer lost her headset, she said. “Communication was a serious issue… It was described as chaos.”
Homendy said the cockpit voice recorder did not capture any data because it had been overwritten and again called on regulators to mandate retrofitting existing planes with recorders that capture 25 hours of data, up from the two hours required at present.
Earlier pressurization issues
Homendy said the auto pressurization fail light illuminated on the same Alaska Airlines aircraft on Dec. 7, Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, but it was unclear if there was any connection between those incidents and the accident.
Alaska Airlines made a decision after the warnings to restrict the aircraft from making long flights over water to Hawaii so that it could return quickly to an airport if needed, Homendy said.
The Seattle-based carrier said earlier in response to questions about the warning lights that aircraft pressurization system write-ups were typical in commercial aviation operations with large planes.
The airline said, “in every case, the write up was fully evaluated and resolved per approved maintenance procedures and in full compliance with all applicable FAA regulations.”
Alaska Airlines added it has an internal policy to restrict aircraft with multiple maintenance write-ups on some systems from long flights over water that was not required by the FAA.
Planes grounded
The FAA said on Sunday the affected fleet of Boeing MAX 9 planes, including those operated by other carriers such as United Airlines, would remain grounded until the regulator was satisfied they were safe.
The FAA initially said on Saturday the required inspections would take four to eight hours, leading many in the industry to assume the planes could very quickly return to service.
But criteria for the checks have yet to be agreed between the FAA and Boeing, meaning airlines have yet to receive detailed instructions, people familiar with the matter said.
The FAA must approve Boeing’s inspection criteria before the checks can be completed and planes can resume flights. Alaska Airlines said late on Sunday it had still not received instructions from Boeing.
Alaska Airlines canceled 170 flights on Sunday and a further 60 on Monday and said travel disruptions from the grounding were expected to last through at least midweek. United, which has grounded its 79 MAX 9s, canceled 230 flights on Sunday, or 8% of scheduled departures.
The accident has put Boeing back under scrutiny as it awaits certification of its smaller MAX 7 as well as the larger MAX 10, which is needed to compete with a key Airbus model.
In 2019, global authorities subjected all MAX planes to a wider grounding that lasted 20 months after crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia linked to poorly designed cockpit software killed a total of 346 people.
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‘Oppenheimer’ Dominates Golden Globes, ‘Poor Things’ Upsets ‘Barbie’ in Comedy
BEVERLY HILLS, California — “Oppenheimer has dominated the Golden Globe Awards, taking home the night’s top honor. Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” has won best comedy or musical at the 81st Golden Globes, an upset victory over the category favorite, “Barbie.”
Emma Stone also won for her performance in “Poor Things.”
On the television side, “Succession” and “The Bear” are took multiple honors. Christopher Nolan’s epic American drama “Oppenheimer” picked up five big awards including best drama film, best director for Nolan, best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.
Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph both won for their performances in “The Holdovers.”
Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic “Oppenheimer” dominated the 81st Golden Globes, winning five awards including best drama, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff “Poor Things” pulled off an upset victor over “Barbie” to triumph in the best comedy or musical category.
If awards season has been building toward a second match-up of Barbenheimer, this round went to “Oppenheimer.”
The film also won best director for Nolan, best drama actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.
“I don’t think it was a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination to make a three-hour talky movie — R-rated by the way — about one of the darkest developments in our history,” said producer Emma Thomas accepting the night’s final award and thanking Universal chief Donna Langley.
Along with best comedy or musical, “Poor Things” also won for Emma Stone’s performance as Bella, a Victorian-era woman experiencing a surreal sexual awakening.
“I see this as a rom-com,” said Stone. “But in the sense that Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person.
She accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently.”
Lily Gladstone won best actress in a dramatic film for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Gladstone, who began her speech speaking the language of her native tribe, Blackfeet Nation, is the first Indigenous winner in the category.
“This is a historic win,” said Gladstone. “It doesn’t just belong to me.”
The Globes were in their ninth decade but facing a new and uncertain chapter. After a tumultuous few years of scandal, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was dissolved, leaving a new Globes, on a new network (CBS), to try to regain its perch as the third biggest award show of the year, after the Oscars and Grammys. Even the menu (sushi from Nobu) was remade.
“Golden Globes journalists, thank you for changing your game, therefore changing your name,” said Downey in his acceptance speech.
It got off to a rocky start. Host Jo Koy took the stage at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom in Beverly Hills, California.
The Filipino American stand-up hit on some expected topics: Ozempic, Meryl Streep’s knack for winning awards and the long-running “Oppenheimer.” (“I needed another hour.”)
After one joke flubbed, Koy, who was named host after some bigger names reportedly passed, also noted how fast he was thrust into the job.
“Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue?” said Koy. “I wrote some of these and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”
Hi, Barbie
Downey’s win, his third Globe, denied one to “Kenergy.” Ryan Gosling had been seen as his stiffest competition, just one of the many head-to-head contests between “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”
The filmmakers faced each other in the best director category, where Nolan triumphed.
It was two hours before “Barbie,” the year’s biggest hit with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, won an award Sunday. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” took best song, and swiftly after, “Barbie” took the Globes’ new honor for “cinematic and box office achievement.”
Some thought that award might go to Taylor Swift, whose “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” also set box-office records. Swift, though, remains winless in five Globe nods.
Margot Robbie, star and producer of “Barbie,” accepted the award in a pink gown modeled after 1977’s Superstar Barbie.
“We’d like to dedicate this to every single person on the planet who dressed up and went to the greatest place on Earth: the movie theaters,” said Robbie.
“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two blockbusters brought together by a common release date, also faced off in the best screenplay category.
But in an upset, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari won for the script to the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” Later, Triet’s film picked up best international film, too.
Though the Globes have no direct correlation with the Academy Awards, they can boost campaigns at a crucial juncture. Oscar nomination voting starts Thursday, and the twin sensations of Barbenheimer remain frontrunners.
Other contenders loom, though, like “Poor Things” and “The Holdovers.”
Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph both won for Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” Giamatti, reuniting with Payne two decades after “Sideways,” won best actor and Randolph won for her supporting performance as a grieving woman in the 1970s-set boarding school drama.
“Oh, Mary you have changed my life,” Randolph said of her character. “You have made me feel seen in so many ways that I have never imagined.”
Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won best animated film, an upset over “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”
‘Succession,’ ‘The Bear’ Lead TV Winners
The final season of “Succession” cleaned up on the television side. It won best drama series for the third time, a mark that ties a record set by “Mad Men” and “The X-Files.” Three stars from the HBO series also won: Matt Macfadyen, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin.
“It is bittersweet, but things like this make it rather sweeter,” said “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.
Hulu’s “The Bear” also came away with a trio of awards, including best comedy series. Jeremy Allen White won for the second time, but this time he had company.
Ayo Edebiri won her first Globe for her leading performance in the Hulu show’s second season. She thanked the assistants of her agents and managers.
“To the people who answer my emails, you’re the real ones,” said Edebiri.
“Beef” won three awards: best limited series as well as acting awards for Ali Wong and Steven Yeun.
The Globes also added a new stand-up special award. That went, surprisingly, to Ricky Gervais, who didn’t attend the show he so often hosted. Some expected Chris Rock to win for “Selective Outrage,” his stand-up response to the Will Smith slap.
The Globes Comeback
A few years ago, the Golden Globes were on the cusp of collapse. After The Los Angeles Times reported that the HFPA had no Black members, Hollywood boycotted the organization.
The 2022 Globes were all but canceled and taken off TV. After reforms, the Globes returned to NBC last year in a one-year deal, but the show was booted to Tuesday evening.
With Jerrod Carmichael hosting, the telecast attracted 6.3 million viewers, a new low on NBC and a far cry from the 20 million that once tuned in.
The Golden Globes were acquired by Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, which Penske Media owns, and turned into a for-profit venture.
The HFPA (which typically numbered around 90 voters) was dissolved and a group of some 300 entertainment journalists from around the world now vote for the awards.
Questions still remain about the Globes’ long-term future, but their value to Hollywood studios remains providing a marketing boost to awards contenders. (The Oscars won’t be held until March 10.)
This year, because of the actors and writers strikes, the Globes are airing ahead of the Emmys, which were postponed to Jan. 15.
With movie ticket sales still 20% off the pre-pandemic pace and the industry facing a potentially perilous 2024 at the box office, Hollywood needed the Golden Globes as much as it ever has.
The most comical evaluation on the Globes came from presenters Will Ferrell and Kristin Wiig, who blamed the awards body for the constant interruption of a song they found irresistible while otherwise solemnly presenting best actor in a drama.
A furious, dancing Ferrell shouted: “The Golden Globes have not changed!”
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Private Industry Leads America’s First Moon Landing Since Apollo
Cape Canaveral, Florida — The first American spacecraft to attempt to land on the Moon in more than half a century is poised to blast off early Monday — but this time, private industry is leading the charge.
A brand-new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, should lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:18 a.m. (7:18 GMT) for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander. The weather so far appears favorable.
If all goes to plan, Peregrine will touch down on a mid-latitude region of the Moon called Sinus Viscositatis, or Bay of Stickiness, on February 23.
“Leading America back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo is a momentous honor,” Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s CEO John Thornton said ahead of the launch.
Until now, a soft landing on Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor has only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon.
China has successfully landed three times over the past decade, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat on its second attempt, last year.
Now, the United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and ship its own hardware at a fraction of the cost, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
A challenging task
The space agency has paid Astrobotic more than $100 million for the task, while another contracted company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is looking to launch in February and land near the south pole.
“We think that it’s going to allow… more cost effective and more rapidly accomplished trips to the lunar surface to prepare for Artemis,” said NASA’s Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration.
Artemis is the NASA-led program to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, in preparation for future missions to Mars.
Controlled touchdown on the Moon is a challenging undertaking, with roughly half of all attempts ending in failure. Absent an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate through treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow descent.
Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency have all ended in failure — though the Japanese Space Agency is targeting mid-January for the touchdown of its SLIM lander launched last September.
Making matters more fraught is the fact it is the first launch for ULA’s Vulcan, although the company boasts it has a 100 percent success rate in its more than 150 prior launches.
ULA’s new rocket is planned to have reusable first stage booster engines, which the company, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, expects will help it achieve cost savings.
Science instruments, human remains
On board Peregrine are a suite of scientific instruments that will probe radiation and surface composition, helping to pave the way for the return of astronauts.
But it also contains more colorful cargo, including a shoebox-sized rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, a physical Bitcoin, and, somewhat controversially, cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke, and a dog.
The Navajo Nation, America’s largest Indigenous tribe, has said sending these to the Moon desecrates a body that is sacred to their culture and have pleaded for the cargo’s removal. Though they were granted a last-ditch meeting with the White House, NASA and other officials, their objections have been ignored.
The Vulcan rocket’s upper stage, which will circle the Sun after it deploys the lander, is meanwhile carrying more late cast members of Star Trek, as well as hair samples of presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
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US Congressional Leaders Announce Top-Line Spending Deal
Washington — Top U.S. congressional leaders on Sunday agreed on $1.6 trillion in top-line federal spending for fiscal year 2024 in a deal aimed at averting a partial government shutdown later this month, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said.
The top-line figure includes $886 billion for defense and $704 billion for non-defense spending, Johnson, a Republican, said in a letter to lawmakers on Sunday. The defense portion had already been signed into law by President Joe Biden last month through the defense spending bill.
The non-defense discretionary funding will “protect key domestic priorities like veterans benefits, healthcare and nutrition assistance” from cuts sought by some Republicans, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a joint statement.
Their statement put non-defense spending at $772.7 billion, nearly $69 billion more than stated by Johnson. A Democratic aide said the additional money was “adjustments.”
Congress was scheduled to return to Washington this week to tackle Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 deadlines for settling government spending through September, amid Republican demands to reduce fiscal 2024 discretionary spending below caps agreed to in June.
Last spring, Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached agreement — as part of a debt-limit increase deal — on $1.59 trillion in defense and non-defense discretionary spending.
Biden said on Sunday the deal moved the country one step closer to “preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities.”
“It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties,” Biden said in a statement after the deal was announced.
The Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate will still have to agree on how to allocate these funds.
In his letter, Johnson said the “final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like.”
White House budget director Shalanda Young said on Friday she was not optimistic about reaching a deal to avoid a partial government shutdown later this month.
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US Federal Judge to Decide if Georgia’s Election System Is Constitutional
Atlanta, Georgia — Election integrity activists want a federal judge to order Georgia to stop using its current election system, saying it’s vulnerable to attack and has operational issues that could cost voters their right to cast a vote and have it accurately counted.
During a trial set to start Tuesday, activists plan to argue that the Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines are so flawed they are unconstitutional. Election officials insist the system is secure and reliable and say it is up to the state to decide how it conducts elections.
Georgia has become a pivotal electoral battleground in recent years with national attention focused on its elections. The election system used statewide by nearly all in-person voters includes touchscreen voting machines that print ballots with a human-readable summary of voters’ selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes.
The activists say the state should switch to hand-marked paper ballots tallied by scanners and needs much more robust post-election audits than are currently in place. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, who’s overseeing the long-running case, said in an October order that she cannot order the state to use hand-marked paper ballots. But activists say prohibiting the use of the touchscreen machines would effectively force the use of hand-marked paper ballots because that’s the emergency backup provided for in state law.
Wild conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines proliferated in the wake of the 2020 election, spread by allies of former President Donald Trump who said they were used to steal the election from him. The election equipment company has fought back aggressively with litigation, notably reaching a $787 million settlement with Fox News in April.
The trial set to begin Tuesday stems from a lawsuit that long predates those claims. It was originally filed in 2017 by several individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election integrity, and targeted the outdated, paperless voting system used at the time.
Totenberg in August 2019 prohibited the state from using the antiquated machines beyond that year. The state had agreed to purchase new voting machines from Dominion a few weeks earlier and scrambled to deploy them ahead of the 2020 election cycle. Before the machines were distributed statewide, the activists amended their lawsuit to take aim at the new system.
They argue the system has serious security vulnerabilities that could be exploited without detection and that the state has done little to address those problems.
Additionally, voters cannot be sure their votes are accurately recorded because they cannot read the QR code, they say. And the voting machines’ large, upright screens make it easy to see a voter’s selections, violating the right to ballot secrecy, they say.
Lawyers for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a recent court filing that he “vigorously disputes” the activists’ claims and “strongly believes” their case is “legally and factually meritless.”
Experts engaged by the activists have said they’ve seen no evidence that any vulnerabilities have been exploited to change the outcome of an election, but they say the concerns need to be addressed immediately to protect future elections.
One of them, University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, examined a machine from Georgia and wrote a lengthy report detailing vulnerabilities that he said bad actors could use to attack the system. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, in June 2022 released an advisory based on Halderman’s findings that urged jurisdictions that use the machines to quickly mitigate the vulnerabilities.
During a hearing in May, a lawyer for the state told the judge physical security elements recommended by CISA were “largely in place.” But the secretary of state’s office has said a software update from Dominion is too cumbersome to install before the 2024 elections.
The fact that the voting system software and data was uploaded to a server and shared with an unknown number of people after unauthorized people accessed election equipment in January 2021 makes it even easier to plan an attack on the system, Halderman has said. That breach at the elections office in rural Coffee County was uncovered and exposed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
A sprawling Fulton County racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others included charges against four people related to Coffee County. Two of them, including Trump-allied lawyer Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.
In several rulings during the litigation, Totenberg has made clear that she has concerns about the voting system. But she wrote in October that the activists “carry a heavy burden to establish a constitutional violation” connected to the voting system or its implementation.
David Cross, a lawyer for some of the individual voters, said the judge has only seen a sliver of their evidence so far. He said he believes she’ll find in their favor, but he doesn’t expect to see any changes before Georgia’s presidential primary in March. He said changes might be possible before the general election in November if Totenberg rules quickly.
“We’re hopeful but we recognize it’s an uphill fight for 2024, just on the timing,” he said, acknowledging the likelihood that the state would appeal any ruling in the activists’ favor.
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, was similarly optimistic ahead of trial: “We have the facts and the science and the law on our side, and really the state has no defense.”
A representative for Raffensperger didn’t respond to multiple requests to interview someone in his office ahead of the trial.
The activists had planned to call the secretary of state to testify. They wanted to ask why he chose a voting system that uses QR codes that aren’t readable by voters. They also believe his office has failed to investigate or to implement proper safeguards after the Coffee County breach and wanted to ask him about it under oath.
The judge ordered him to appear over the objections of his lawyers. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled he doesn’t have to testify, citing his status as a top official and saying the plaintiffs didn’t show his testimony was necessary.
“This trial bears heavily on the public interest, and voters deserve to hear from Secretary Raffensperger in the trial. It’s a travesty that they won’t,” Cross said. “And it’s unfair to our clients who need answers to questions at trial that only he can provide.”
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Japan FM Says Tokyo ‘Determined’ to Support Ukraine
Kyiv, Ukraine — Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa paid a surprise visit Sunday to Kyiv where she said Tokyo was “determined” to keep supporting Ukraine, as the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion nears.
Kamikawa, the first high-level foreign official to visit Kyiv this year, announced new deliveries of defense equipment and discussed Tokyo’s plans to host a February conference to promote Ukraine’s economic reconstruction.
“Japan is determined to support Ukraine so that peace can return to Ukraine,” Kamikawa told a press conference with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, held in a bomb shelter as an air raid siren rang out.
“I can feel how tense the situation in Ukraine is now.”
Her visit came during escalating attacks by both sides in the conflict.
“I once again strongly condemn Russia’s missile and drone attacks, particularly on New Year’s Day,” said Kamikawa.
She said Tokyo would “allocate” $37 million to provide Ukraine with a drone detection system. It will also supply five generators to help Ukraine “survive” another winter.
Kamikawa visited the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where Russian forces are blamed for a 2022 massacre of civilians, saying she was “shocked” by what she saw. She also went to Irpin, a past scene of heavy fighting.
‘Comprehensive support’
Her unannounced visit is part of a two-week tour starting Friday that was planned to take in Poland, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany and Turkey.
Kuleba said Kyiv was thankful for Japan’s decision last year to provide Ukraine with F-16s jets, but said the country also needed air defense systems.
“Every day, Ukrainian cities are destroyed by Russian missiles and drones. They cannot capture us, so they are trying to destroy us,” he said.
Kuleba said the two also discussed “threats from North Korea,” and he expressed “solidarity” after the recent earthquake in Japan.
Kamikawa later met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who thanked Tokyo for its security, economic and humanitarian “assistance” to Kyiv.
“Japan is our very important and strong partner,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal also hailed a “meaningful meeting” with Kamikawa, thanking Japan for its “comprehensive support,” including humanitarian and financial assistance.
In a Telegram message, he applauded Japan for its “decision to allocate $1 billion for humanitarian projects and reconstruction, with a readiness to increase this amount to $4.5 billion through the mechanisms of international institutions.”
He said the meeting also covered the Ukrainian president’s conditions for peace, the implementation of reforms, and joint cooperation on infrastructure projects.
Shmyhal said Kyiv and Tokyo are also strengthening trade relations.
“We have already held meetings with two business delegations from Japan and are interested in locating production facilities of leading Japanese companies in Ukraine,” he added.
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Portugal’s Socialists Pledge to Raise Minimum Wage, Boost Competitiveness
LISBON — The new leader of Portugal’s ruling Socialist Party (PS) Pedro Nuno Santos pledged Sunday to increase the minimum wage and boost economic competitiveness through more incentives to select sectors, if he wins an election in March.
Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa, in office since 2015, resigned on Nov. 7 over an investigation into alleged illegalities in his government’s handling of lithium, hydrogen and data center projects.
President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has called a snap election for March 10.
Most opinion polls put the PS neck and neck with the center-right Social Democratic Party, but many analysts fear a post-election quagmire and a potential strengthening of the role of the far-right, anti-establishment party Chega.
At a center-left party congress, Santos said that “only a more sophisticated, diversified economy will be able to produce with greater added value, pay better wages and generate revenue to finance an advanced social state.”
In June, Portugal was placed 39 out of 64 countries in the IMD-Institute for Management Development’s competitiveness world ranking, which put Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland as the three most competitive economies.
“We don’t want a country in the average of the European Union, but at the top. We will only be able to transform the economy with more selective incentives… with more money for fewer sectors… during a decade,” Santos said.
The key sectors will be identified by companies and universities, he said.
The Bank of Portugal last month lowered its 2024 economic growth forecast to 1.2% from 1.5% it had set in October, in a slowdown from last year’s 2.1% expansion.
Santos also promised to increase the minimum wage to at least 1,000 euros ($1,094.10) a month in 2028, compared to the current 820 euros ($897.57).
The 46-year-old former infrastructure minister replaced Costa as secretary-general of the PS after winning a party election in mid-December.
He praised Costa for balancing the public accounts over the past eight years, but acknowledged there was a shortage of doctors and teachers and a problem with access to housing.
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Hollywood Festivities Return as ‘Barbie’ Vies for Golden Globes
BEVERLY HILLS, California — Margot Robbie, Oprah Winfrey and Leonardo DiCaprio will mingle with other top stars on Sunday at the Golden Globe awards, Hollywood’s first big celebration since twin strikes shut down most of show business last year.
The red carpet, champagne-fueled awards ceremony will honor the best of film and television selected by a new group of 300 entertainment journalists from around the world, part of reforms made after a diversity and ethics scandal among voters.
“Barbie,” the summer blockbuster starring Robbie as the iconic doll, leads all nominees with nine nominations. Historical drama “Oppenheimer,” about the making of the atomic bomb, follows with eight nods.
The Globes kick off Hollywood’s annual awards season, which culminates with the Oscars on March 10, and will bring top stars together after six months of strikes by actors and writers in 2023. The ceremony will give celebrities the chance to shine a spotlight on their films and TV shows after months when promotion was prohibited.
“I’m a little biased, but this is the best awards show and we’re going to have fun,” said comedian Jo Koy, who will host his first major awards show starting at 8 p.m. ET (0100 GMT on Monday).
The ceremony will be broadcast live on U.S. TV network CBS and streamed simultaneously for subscribers to Paramount+ with Showtime.
Acting nominees include Robbie and “Barbie” co-star Ryan Gosling, plus “Oppenheimer” stars Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, who starred in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” also are up for trophies.
Winfrey is among the night’s presenters. Pop superstar Taylor Swift also may join the A-list crowd as a nominee for “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” her concert film that is in the running in a new category for cinematic and box office achievement.
In the television field, “Succession” is expected to win accolades for its final season about the high-stakes battle for control of a global media empire. It leads all nominees with nine nods, followed by restaurant dramedy “The Bear” with five.
There are 27 first-time nominees for this year’s Globes.
Known as a boozy celebration more relaxed than the Oscars, the Globes nearly became extinct. A 2021 Los Angeles Times report revealed ethical lapses and a lack of diversity among the roughly 80 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that previously voted on the Globes. The 2022 ceremony was scrapped while the organization made reforms.
Last year, the Globes were sold to new owners and the association was disbanded. Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions now operate the awards, with a voting body of 300 journalist members from 75 countries with 60% racial and ethnic diversity.
The changes appear to have persuaded Hollywood’s top talent to embrace the show and its new members.
“They’re trying to announce that they’re new and improved,” said Joyce Eng, senior editor at awards website Gold Derby. “I feel like people are more receptive to them.”
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Erdogan Names Ex-Minister as His Party’s Istanbul Mayor Candidate
ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday named former environment minister Murat Kurum as the ruling AK Party’s candidate in Istanbul’s mayoral election in March, bidding to win back control of Turkey’s largest city.
Kurum will stand against incumbent Ekrem Imamoglu from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), whose election as mayor in 2019 ended 25 years of rule in Istanbul by the AKP and its Islamist predecessors.
Last May, Erdogan won re-election as president while his AKP and its nationalist allies took a majority in parliamentary elections, illustrating the challenge faced by the opposition in the nationwide municipal elections on March 31.
“Working shoulder to shoulder, we will definitely bring Istanbul out of the interregnum of the last five years,” Erdogan said at a ceremony to announce the candidacy of Kurum and other AKP candidates in the elections.
Kurum, 47, was environment and urbanization minister from July 2018 until last June, leaving the post after the elections. He was then elected as a member of parliament for Istanbul, Turkey’s commercial hub and a city of 16 million, or some 20% of the population.
Kurum was one of the most prominent figures in the government’s response to the devastating earthquakes that shook southern Turkey last February, killing more than 50,000 people.
He studied engineering at university and worked in Turkey’s mass housing administration before his time as a minister.
Erdogan announced his party’s candidates for more than two dozen of the country’s municipalities on Sunday and was expected to announce its candidates for the others, including the capital Ankara, later this month.
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Italian Foreign Minister Calls For Formation of EU Army
Rome — The European Union should form its own combined army that could play a role in peacekeeping and preventing conflict, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
In an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa, Tajani said that closer European cooperation on defense was a priority for the Forza Italia party that he leads.
“If we want to be peacekeepers in the world, we need a European military. And this is a fundamental precondition to be able to have an effective European foreign policy,” he said in an interview published on Sunday.
“In a world with powerful players like the United States, China, India, Russia – with crises from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific – Italian, German, French or Slovenian citizens can only be protected by something that already exists, namely the European Union,” he added.
European defense cooperation has risen up the political agenda since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.
However, efforts have been more focused on NATO expansion, with EU nation Finland joining the alliance last year and Sweden also on track to become a member.
Tajani also said the 27-nation EU should streamline its leadership and have a single presidency, rather than the current structure of a European Council president and a European Commission president.
The foreign minister became leader of Forza Italia following the death of Silvio Berlusconi last year.
European Parliament elections in June will be the first gauge of the party’s popularity after the loss of its charismatic former leader.
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UN Sounds Alarm at Rising Hate Speech in DRC
Geneva — The United Nations’ top human rights official voiced alarm on Sunday about rising ethnic tension and calls to violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo following disputed elections.
Massive delays and bureaucratic chaos marred the December 20 ballots to choose the president, lawmakers for national and provincial assemblies, and local councilors.
So far the election commission has only announced the result of the presidential vote -– a landslide victory for incumbent Felix Tshisekedi that the opposition has rejected as a sham.
“I am very concerned about the rise in ethnic-based hate speech and incitement to violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” (DRC) said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
He said the post-election calls for violence were particularly concerning in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu -– which have been plagued for decades by armed groups and ethnic killings -– as well as the regions of Kasai and Katanga.
Tshisekedi hails from Kasai and Moise Katumba, one of his main rivals, from Katanga.
“Hateful, dehumanizing and inciteful rhetoric is abhorrent and can only deepen tension and violence in the DRC itself, as well as putting regional security at risk,” Turk said.
He urged the authorities “to thoroughly and transparently investigate all reports of hate speech and incitement to violence and to hold those responsible to account.”
Election-related tensions are common in the DRC, which has a history of authoritarian rule and violent government overthrow.
Some 250 different ethnic groups live in the vast country. It sits on considerable mineral wealth but little trickles down the population of around 100 million.
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China Sanctions 5 US Defense Companies
BEIJING — China announced sanctions Sunday on five American defense-related companies in response to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and U.S sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals.
The sanctions will freeze any property the companies have in China and prohibit organizations and individuals in China from doing business with them, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted online.
It was unclear what impact, if any, the sanctions would have on the companies, BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Alliant Techsystems Operations, AeroVironment, ViaSat and Data Link Solutions. Such sanctions are often mostly symbolic as American defense contractors generally don’t sell to China.
The Foreign Ministry said the U.S. moves harmed China’s sovereignty and security interests, undermined peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and violated the rights and interests of Chinese companies and individuals.
“The Chinese government remains unwavering in our resolve to safeguard national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and protect the lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies and citizens,” the ministry statement said.
The announcement was made less than a week ahead of a presidential election in Taiwan that is being contested in large part over how the government should manage its relationship with China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory and says it must come under its rule.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not specify which arms deal or which U.S. sanctions China was responding to, though spokesperson Wang Wenbin had warned three weeks ago that China would take countermeasures following the U.S. government’s approval of a $300 million military package for Taiwan in December.
The deal includes equipment, training and equipment repair to maintain Taiwan’s command, control and military communications capabilities.
The U.S. said the sale would support the modernization of Taiwan’s armed forces and the maintenance of a credible defense. “The proposed sale will improve the recipient’s capability to meet current and future threats by enhancing operational readiness,” a news release from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
Taiwan is a major flashpoint in U.S.-China relations that analysts worry could explode into military conflict between the two powers. China says that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are interference in its domestic affairs.
The Chinese military regularly sends fighter planes and ships into and over the waters around Taiwan, in part to deter the island’s government from declaring formal independence. An invasion doesn’t appear imminent, but the constant military activity serves as a reminder that the threat is ever-present.
The U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but it is bound by its own laws to ensure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself. America and its allies sail warships through the Taiwan Strait, a 160-kilometer-wide waterway that separates the island from China.
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California Legalizes Most Lowrider Cruising
Customized cars that ride low and slow have been part of Mexican American culture since the 1940s. But in California, cruising in these modified vehicles was mostly illegal — until the new year. Genia Dulot has our story from Los Angeles.
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Police Investigate UK Post Office after IT Problem Leads to Wrongful Theft Accusations
LONDON — U.K. police have opened a fraud investigation into Britain’s Post Office over a miscarriage of justice that saw hundreds of postmasters wrongfully accused of stealing money when a faulty computer system was to blame.
The Metropolitan Police force said late Friday that it is investigating “potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions,” relating to money the Post Office received “as a result of prosecutions or civil actions” against accused postal workers.
Police also are investigating potential offenses of perjury and perverting the course of justice over investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 post office branch managers were accused of theft or fraud because computers wrongly showed that money was missing. Many were financially ruined after being forced to pay large sums to the company, and some were convicted and sent to prison. Several killed themselves.
The real culprit was a defective computer accounting system called Horizon, supplied by the Japanese technology firm Fujitsu, that was installed in local Post Office branches in 1999.
The Post Office maintained for years that data from Horizon was reliable and accused branch managers of dishonesty when the system showed money was missing.
After years of campaigning by victims and their lawyers, the Court of Appeal quashed 39 of the convictions in 2021. A judge said the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability” of Horizon and had committed “egregious” failures of investigation and disclosure.
A total of 93 of the postal workers have now had their convictions overturned, according to the Post Office. But many others have yet to be exonerated, and only 30 have agreed to “full and final” compensation payments. A public inquiry into the scandal has been underway since 2022.
So far, no one from the publicly owned Post Office or other companies involved has been arrested or faced criminal charges.
Lee Castleton, a former branch manager who went bankrupt after being pursued by the Post Office for missing funds, said his family was ostracized in their hometown of Bridlington in northern England. He said his daughter was bullied because people thought “her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people.”
He said victims wanted those responsible to be named.
“It’s about accountability,” Castleton told Times Radio on Saturday. “Let’s see who made those decisions and made this happen.”
The long-simmering scandal stirred new outrage with the broadcast this week of a TV docudrama, Mr. Bates vs the Post Office. It charted a two-decade battle by branch manager Alan Bates, played by Toby Jones, to expose the truth and clear the wronged postal workers.
Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read, appointed after the scandal, welcomed the TV series and said he hoped it would “raise further awareness and encourage anyone affected who has not yet come forward to seek the redress and compensation they deserve.”
A lawyer for some of the postal workers said 50 new potential victims had approached lawyers since the show aired on the ITV network.
“The drama has elevated public awareness to a whole new level,” attorney Neil Hudgell said. “The British public and their overwhelming sympathy for the plight of these poor people has given some the strength to finally come forward. Those numbers increase by the day, but there are so many more out there.”
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