A 23-year-old was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty on Monday to murder and other crimes in a 2022 shooting that killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs.

Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty to five first-degree murder counts and 46 attempted murder counts, part of an agreement reached with prosecutors that avoids what could have been a lengthy trial. Aldrich also pleaded no contest to two counts of bias-motivated crimes.

On Nov. 19, 2022, Aldrich, wearing body armor, opened fire at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub. Apart from those killed, nearly two dozen others were wounded by gunfire or otherwise injured before being stopped by “heroic” patrons. Aldrich, then 22, was charged with 323 criminal counts.

During the sentencing hearing immediately following the plea, family members of the victims and survivors of the shooting spoke tearfully about their loved ones and expressed fury at Aldrich for the attack.

“I will never get the chance to marry the love of my life,” said Kassandra Fierro, whose boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance, was among the dead. “I will never get to start a family with Raymond. I will never get to see, hear or feel Raymond ever again.”

Others, noting that Club Q had long been a “safe space” for LGBTQ residents, said the shooting had shattered their tight-knit community.

The shooting at Club Q was reminiscent of a massacre in 2016 when a gunman killed 49 people at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before he was shot dead by police.

Colorado no longer has a death-penalty statute. However, Aldrich could face a death sentence in federal court if prosecutors decide to bring charges under the U.S. code, which still has capital punishment on its books for certain crimes.

Aldrich was formally charged last Dec. 6 and did not enter a plea at the time.

Those killed in the shooting were identified as Daniel Aston, 28; Kelly Loving, 40; Derrick Rump, 38; Ashley Paugh, 34; and Vance, 22.

Aldrich was known to law enforcement, having been arrested in June 2021. Aldrich’s mother had reported that Aldrich had threatened to detonate a bomb and harm her with multiple weapons, according to a press release from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. Aldrich’s mother declined to testify for the prosecution, and the case was dismissed.
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UNESCO member states meet later this week on the Biden administration’s bid to rejoin the Paris-based U.N. scientific and cultural body, a move that will inject hundreds of millions of welcome dollars into its coffers and give the United States a say in shaping programs ranging from climate change to education and artificial intelligence.

Few expect any surprises on the outcome of the deliberations, which will be held at an extraordinary UNESCO session Thursday and Friday. There have been no reports of serious objections by the agency’s 193 members, although China and Russia have offered some critical and cautionary remarks.

Yet even as many welcome Washington’s move to rejoin over concern that competitors like China are filling the void, some observers wonder how long that welcome will last. Next year’s U.S. presidential elections are looming, potentially ushering in another administration hostile to UNESCO’s policies and membership.

Still others suggest Israel, which similarly defunded and ultimately left the body, should follow Washington’s footsteps in returning.

UNESCO itself has given an enthusiastic thumbs up to the U.S. request to rejoin earlier this month. Secretary-General Audrey Azoulay — who has taken pains to erase perceptions UNESCO was biased against Israel and woo Washington back — called it “a historic moment.”

“The reason why the U.S. is coming back is a strong signal that UNESCO’s mandate is more relevant than ever,” said UNESCO’s New York office head, Eliot Minchenberg, in an interview, laying out a raft of UNESCO programs reflecting U.S. priorities including fighting antisemitism and Holocaust education.

“In the absence of the U.S., of course others have stepped up and helped, but it is definitely not the same as the U.S. presence and engagement — both financially, diplomatically and politically,” he added.

Also welcome are U.S. dues that once accounted for 22% of UNESCO’s budget. The Biden administration has proposed slowly paying off the $619 million in arrears, starting with $150 million in 2024 dues and back payments.

French baguettes and the Everglades

Located not far from the Eiffel Tower, the small agency — known officially as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization —runs a raft of programs from promoting education and free press, to fighting against climate change and antisemitism.

Many know it best for helping to preserve and showcase the cultural and physical heritage of member states. French baguettes, Tunisian harissa, Finnish sauna culture and Colombian marimba music have all landed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

More than a thousand sites have also made UNESCO’s World Heritage List, including two dozen in the U.S., from the Statue of Liberty to the Everglades and Yellowstone national parks.

Even today, some U.S. universities and other private groups continue collaborating with UNESCO.

That includes the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, whose deputy director for climate and energy programs, Adam Markham, says without membership the U.S. cannot weigh in on key discussions around climate change and World Heritage sites.

China

“You’re seeing China taking a lot of leadership roles,” said Markham, who can still participate in scientific meetings as a member of a nongovernmental organization. “I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just changing the geopolitical relationships that the U.S. has with other UNESCO partners.”

The U.S. first quit UNESCO in 1984 under the Reagan administration, over corruption concerns and an allegedly pro-Soviet tilt. It rejoined under another Republican president, George W. Bush, then suspended dues under Democrat Barack Obama, when Palestine became a member.

In 2018, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out altogether over perceived anti-Israel bias and management issues, with Israel following suit.

Now, politics are again driving America’s return — this time, over concerns Beijing may otherwise have an outsized say in sensitive programs like artificial intelligence.

“Joe Biden’s administration has realized that the empty chair policy is incompatible with the defense of the country’s interests and that its absence from this forum ends up serving those of its great rival, China,” wrote France’s Le Monde newspaper in an editorial — even as it warned against Washington’s “fickleness.”

“The succession of departures and returns can only raise questions about the durability of the…decision, less than two years before a presidential election that could bring the party of ultra-nationalist retreat back to the White House” it added, referring to the Trump administration.

Israel next?

China’s ambassador to UNESCO has indicated Beijing was ready to work with a newly rejoined Washington. But the state-backed China Daily was blunter.

“Whether the U.S. will play a positive role in the agency remains a conjecture,” it wrote in an editorial. “If… its return is just for regaining its own influence against that of China in the organization, the U.S. will likely just be a troublemaker.”

Russia’s foreign ministry said it, too, was willing to welcome back the U.S., but warned Washington needed to follow UNESCO’s rules and “should pay back its astronomical debt unconditionally and in full.”

In Israel, Michael Freund, a former communications advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, cast the U.S. return as a “fiasco” and UNESCO “as an appalling club,” in an opinion in The Jerusalem Post.

But the newspaper’s own editorial suggested Israel might consider rejoining the agency — picking which programs to support while boycotting others — to counter Palestinian “disinformation.”

Mixed reactions over UNESCO have been sounding in the U.S. as well.

“Returning to UNESCO is a waste of time and money, and not an effective riposte to China,” John Bolton, a former national security advisor under President Trump, wrote in the New York Post. He called on Congress, with the House of Representatives now controlled by Republicans, to block UNESCO funding and said no current Republican presidential candidate appeared to support rejoining the agency.

But Markham, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says he saw a different reaction when he spoke recently to a group of historic preservationists in New Jersey.

“The one thing they burst out spontaneously in applause was when I said the US had announced it was going back to UNESCO,” he said. “And I’m certain there were Republicans as well as Democrats in that audience.”
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When millionaire Steve Fossett’s plane went missing over the Nevada range in 2007, the swashbuckling adventurer had already been the subject of two prior emergency rescue operations thousands of kilometers apart.

And that prompted a prickly question: After a sweeping search for the wealthy risktaker ended, who should foot the bill?

In recent days, the massive hunt for a submersible vehicle lost during a north Atlantic descent to explore the wreckage of the Titanic has refocused attention on that conundrum. And with rescuers and the public fixated first on saving and then on mourning those aboard, it has again made for uneasy conversation.

“Five people have just lost their lives and to start talking about insurance, all the rescue efforts and the cost can seem pretty heartless — but the thing is, at the end of the day, there are costs,” said Arun Upneja, dean of Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration and a researcher on tourism.

“There are many people who are going to say, ‘Why should the society spend money on the rescue effort if (these people) are wealthy enough to be able to … engage in these risky activities?’”

That question is gaining attention as very wealthy travelers in search of singular adventures spend big to scale peaks, sail across oceans and blast off for space.

The U.S. Coast Guard declined Friday to provide a cost estimate for its efforts to locate the Titan, the submersible investigators say imploded not far from the world’s most famous shipwreck. The five people lost included a billionaire British businessman and a father and son from one of Pakistan’s most prominent families. The operator charged passengers $250,000 each to participate in the voyage.

“We cannot attribute a monetary value to Search and Rescue cases, as the Coast Guard does not associate cost with saving a life,” the agency said.

While the Coast Guard’s cost for the mission is likely to run into the millions of dollars, it is generally prohibited by federal law from collecting reimbursement related to any search or rescue service, said Stephen Koerting, a U.S. attorney in Maine who specializes in maritime law.

But that does not resolve the larger issue of whether wealthy travelers or companies should bear responsibility to the public and governments for exposing themselves to such risk.

“This is one of the most difficult questions to attempt to find an answer for,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, noting scrutiny of government-funded rescues dating back to British billionaire Richard Branson’s hot air balloon exploits in the 1990s.

“This should never be solely about government spending, or perhaps not even primarily about government spending, but you can’t help thinking about how the limited resources of rescuers can be utilized,” Sepp said.

The demand for those resources was spotlighted in 1998 when Fossett’s attempt to circle the globe in a hot air balloon ended with a plunge into the ocean 805 kilometers off Australia. The Royal Australian Air Force dispatched a Hercules C-130 transport aircraft to find him. A French military plane dropped a 15-man life raft to Fossett before he was picked up by a passing yacht.

Critics suggested Fossett should pay the bill. He rejected the idea.

Late that same year, the U.S. Coast Guard spent more than $130,000 to rescue Fossett and Branson after their hot air balloon dropped into the ocean off Hawaii. Branson said he would pay if the Coast Guard requested it, but the agency didn’t ask.

Nine years later, after Fossett’s plane vanished over Nevada during what should have been a short flight, the state National Guard launched a months-long search that turned up the wreckage of several other decades-old crashes without finding the millionaire.

The state said the mission had cost taxpayers $685,998, with $200,000 covered by a private contribution. But when the administration of Gov. Jim Gibbons announced that it would seek reimbursement for the rest, Fossett’s widow balked, noting she had spent $1 million on her own private search.

“We believe the search conducted by the state of Nevada is an expense of government in performance of government action,” a lawyer wrote on behalf of the Fossett estate.

Risky adventurism is hardly unique to wealthy people.

The pandemic drove a surge in visits to places like national parks, adding to the popularity of climbing, hiking and other outdoor activities. Meanwhile, the spread of cellphones and service has left many people feeling that if things go wrong, help is a call away.

Some places have laws commonly referred to as “stupid motorist laws,” in which drivers are forced to foot the emergency response bill when they ignore barricades on submerged roads. Arizona has such a law, and Volusia County in Florida, home to Daytona, enacted similar legislation this week. The idea of a similar “stupid hiker law” is a regularly debated item in Arizona as well, with so many unprepared people needing to be rescued in stifling triple-digit heat.

Most officials and volunteers who run search efforts are opposed to charging for help, said Butch Farabee, a former ranger who participated in hundreds of rescue operations at the Grand Canyon and other national parks and has written several books on the subject.

Searchers are concerned that if they did charge to rescue people “they won’t call for help as soon as they should and by the time they do it’s too late,” Farabee said.

The tradeoff is that some might take that vital aid for granted. Farabee recounts a call in the 1980s from a lawyer who underestimated the effort needed to hike out of the Grand Canyon. The man asked for a helicopter rescue, mentioning that he had an important meeting the following day. The ranger rejected that request.

But that is not an option when the lives of adventurers, some of them quite wealthy, are at extreme risk.

At Mount Everest, it can cost tens of thousands of dollars in permit and expedition fees to climb. A handful of people die or go missing while hiking the mountain every year — prompting emergency response from local officials.

While the government of Nepal requires that climbers have rescue insurance, the scope of rescue efforts can vary widely, with Upneja estimating that some could cost “multiple dozens of thousands of dollars.”

Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a message seeking comment.

On the high seas, wealthy yachtsmen seeking speed and distance records have also repeatedly required rescue when their voyages run astray.

When the yacht of Tony Bullimore, a British millionaire on a round-the-world journey, capsized 2,253 kilometers off the Australian coast in 1997 it seemed he might be done for. Clinging to the inside of the hull, he ran out of fresh water and was almost out of air.

When a rescue ship arrived, he swam desperately toward the surface.

“I was starting to look back over my life and was thinking, ‘Well, I’ve had a good life, I’ve done most of the things I had wanted to,” Bullimore said afterward. “If I was picking words to describe it, it would be a miracle, an absolute miracle.”

Australian officials, whose forces rescued a French yachtsman the same week, were more measured in their assessment.

“We have an international legal obligation,” Ian McLachlan, the defense minister said. “We have a moral obligation obviously to go and rescue people, whether in bushfires, cyclones or at sea.”

Less was said, however, about the Australian government’s request to restrict the routes of yacht races — in hopes of keeping sailors to areas where they might require less rescuing.
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A US aircraft carrier arrived in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on Sunday, weeks after Hanoi protested against Chinese vessels sailing in its waters.

The USS Ronald Reagan’s port call in Danang comes as the United States and Vietnam celebrate the 10th anniversary of their “comprehensive partnership.”

The aircraft carrier — part of the US 7th Fleet “supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific region” — arrived with two escort ships, the guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Robert Smalls, the American Embassy in Hanoi said.

U.S. Navy officials disembarked and shook hands with their Vietnamese military counterparts in a brief ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

“More than 5,000 sailors aboard USS Ronald Reagan are eager to visit Danang and experience Vietnamese culture,” USS Ronald Reagan’s commanding officer Captain Daryle Cardone said in a statement.

Vietnam and the U.S. share increasingly close trade links, as well as concerns over China’s growing strength in the region.

A Chinese survey vessel, multiple coast guard ships and fishing boats operated for several weeks in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, prompting a demand that they leave from Vietnam’s foreign ministry.

The boats eventually departed in early June.

China claims most of the resource-rich waterway despite competing claims from other Southeast Asian nations including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

“The visit gives that message that Vietnam is continuing to balance against China by improving its security relationship with the U.S., and with other outside powers,” Nguyen The Phuong, a PhD candidate in maritime security at the University of New South Wales Canberra, told AFP.

Bilateral ties

The U.S. aircraft carrier’s visit follows the arrival of Indian naval ships in Danang last month, as well as a port call by Japan’s largest warship in Cam Ranh, a city on the southeastern coast, earlier this week.

Pham Thu Hang, spokesperson for Vietnam’s foreign ministry, said earlier in the week that port calls were an “ordinary friendship exchange for peace, stability, and cooperation and development in the region and the world.”

Strong bilateral ties between the U.S. and Vietnam are key for Washington if it wants to remain the dominant power in the region, Phuong said.

“The US hopes that by sending one of their most formidable naval assets, they will have a trusted and reliable partner in Vietnam,” he said.

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a quick visit to Hanoi in April and made it clear he wanted to upgrade diplomatic ties.

This is the third visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier to Vietnam after a historic port call by the USS Carl Vinson in 2018, the first time such a ship had arrived in the country since the end of the war.

The visit includes several cultural and community events, such as a U.S. Navy band concert, a visit to an orphanage and sports matches.

The USS Ronald Reagan has been based in Japan since 2015.
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An elevated train clangs along tracks above Dr. Kwane Stewart as the veterinarian makes his way through a chain link gate to ask a man standing near a parked RV whether he might know of any street pets in need.

Michael Evans immediately goes for his 11-month-old pit bull, Bear, his beloved companion living beneath the rumbling San Francisco Bay Area commuter trains.

“Focus. Sit. That’s my boy,” Evans instructs the high-energy pup as he eagerly accepts Stewart’s offer.

A quick check of the dog reveals a moderate ear infection that could have made Bear so sick in a matter of weeks he might have required sedation. Instead, right there, Dr. Stewart applies a triple treatment drop of antibiotic, anti-fungal and steroids that should start the healing process.

“This is my son right here, my son. He’s my right-hand man,” an emotional Evans says of Bear, who shares the small RV in Oakland. “It’s a blessing, really.”

“The Street Vet,” as Stewart is known, has been supporting California’s homeless population and their pets for almost a decade, ever since he spontaneously helped a man with a flea-infested dog outside of a convenience store. Since then, Stewart regularly walks the heart of Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row, giving him a glimpse into the state’s homelessness crisis — and how much they cherish and depend on their pets.

After treating Bear, Stewart hands Evans, a Louisiana transplant, a list of the medicine he provided along with contact information in case the dog needs further treatment. Stewart always promises to cover all expenses.

“It was a good catch,” Stewart said before heading out on his way to the next stop, in West Oakland.

California is home to nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, according to federal data. About two-thirds of California’s homeless population is unsheltered, meaning they live outside, often packed into encampments in major cities and along roadways. Nationally, up to 10% of homeless people have pets, according to an estimate from the advocacy group Pets of the Homeless. Stewart believes that number is greater.

Homeless shelters often don’t allow pets, forcing people to make heart-wrenching decisions. Stewart sees it as his mission to help as many of them as he can.

A 52-year-old former college hurdler at New Mexico now living in San Diego, Stewart is a lifelong animal lover who grew up in Texas and New Mexico trying to save strays — or at least feed and care for them. He founded Project Street Vet, a nonprofit charity dedicated to helping homeless pets. Stewart funded the group himself for years, saving a chunk of his paycheck before later gaining sponsors and donors.

There’s plenty of heartbreak in Stewart’s work, too. He once performed emergency surgery on a pregnant chihuahua, and the two puppies didn’t make it. But more often than not these pet owners are beyond grateful for Stewart’s kindness. He guesses that maybe 1 in 25 times someone turns down his help.

Stewart hollers “Hello?” outside tents, makeshift structures or campers. He can usually tell there’s a pet if he sees a dog bowl or animal toy. He purposely wears his navy scrub top with his name on it, so no one mistakes him for animal control or other authorities and feels threatened.

“People are reticent, they don’t always know why I’m coming up to them. If they’re going to you to beg or panhandle, it’s different but if you come up on them they don’t know if you’re law enforcement or you have an agenda,” he said, “so I do take it very slow and I’ll announce myself from afar.”

Approaching Misty Fancher to see if her pit bull, Addie – purchased at a nearby gas station for $200 — might need shots, Stewart offers, “Can she have treats so we can make friends?”

“Sometimes I pull over and just talk,” Stewart explained.

Addie is the first pet Fancher has had as an adult and provides the 42-year-old with some comfort that she is safe living in a relatively unstable neighborhood of Oakland.

“She’s a very good girl,” Fancher said. “She keeps a lot of trouble away. She protects me. She’ll bite someone if they act aggressive or anything toward me. She has before. But she just discourages them from even trying.”

Stewart notices a puncture on the dog’s paw to monitor and also gives her a rabies shot, writing out a certificate for Fancher to keep as proof her dog is vaccinated. He leaves her with tablets for de-worming, treatments for fleas and ticks and — as usual — his contact information.

A little while later, Stewart stops on the outskirts of a park nearby. He walks the perimeter and encounters an RV owned by Eric Clark, who has lived in the same downtown spot for seven years. He has a male bulldog, pregnant pit bull and another pregnant Doberman.

“It’s hard to get to the vet,” Clark said. “I appreciate you. They’re family.”

Stewart is happy he can make a small difference like this with a largely misunderstood community. He strives to treat every person on the streets with the same professionalism and care as he would a patient at his veterinary clinic. His mantra: no judgment, just help.

“They live in the shadows. They live amongst us but not with us,” he said. ” … It is really rewarding. It gets to you a little bit. When they tear up about the tough times they’ve had, you try to care for them, support them.”
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A Colorado school is creating a “zen den” for troubled students. A soccer coach in Pittsburgh goes out of her way to relieve pressure on players. A Chicago community group equips a van for mobile mental health help, and a Los Angeles school trains students to counsel peers. 

Each effort to tackle youth mental health issues has been featured on a local CBS newscast recently, examples of a movement toward “solutions journalism.” 

The idea is that reporters need to be more than the bearer of bad news. 

“We want to look past the who, what, where and why to asking ‘how can we help?'” said Wendy McMahon, co-president of CBS News and the CBS Television Stations. “How can we help make our communities better places to live? That’s the aspiration.” 

CBS has trained news leaders in solutions journalism at the 14 local stations it owns, in big markets like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and opened an “innovation lab” for them to work together on stories. 

The network works with the Solutions Journalism Network, an organization formed in 2013 by two former New York Times reporters, David Bornstein and Tina Rosenberg, and entrepreneur Courtney Martin. The Times reporters wrote a column called “Fixes” that was often popular despite dealing with tough, dry subjects like foster care, homelessness or childhood trauma. 

Coverage of calamity — shootings, fires, accidents — is such a staple that the phrase, “if it bleeds, it leads,” was popularized for local TV news. But that’s a downer at a time news outlets don’t need another excuse for consumers to leave. Research picks up on people who feel their community isn’t covered unless something bad happens, McMahon said. 

That’s why the CBS stations emphasize finding people and organizations trying to tackle problems. 

Among other stories that reflect that focus: training resource officers in Georgia to prevent the arrest of children in schools; efforts in New York, Denver and Sacramento to speed up the resolution of criminal cases; a California county’s solution to stop wage theft in restaurants; a new sea wall being constructed in New York to deal with climate change. 

Following the February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, CBS stations looked into why safety recommendations for the airline and trucking industries haven’t been followed. 

“It differentiates us from our competition and serves our communities,” said Chad Cross, who runs the CBS innovation lab. 

When they began promoting the idea to industry audiences, Bornstein of the Solutions Journalism Network recalled that they often saw impassive faces and folded arms in front of them. 

Many journalists see themselves as investigators responsible for pointing out the ills of society, a job that’s become tougher than ever with financial troubles that have emptied newsrooms. Solutions were the province of others. If news is bad, so be it. 

“Covering death day after day does get depressing,” Matthew Ingram wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review. “But what is the alternative — to not report on what is happening because it makes people sad?” 

That explains residual disdain for efforts to promote “good news,” which had a burst of popularity during the pandemic. Actor John Krasinski started an uplifting YouTube channel, “Some Good News,” and musician David Byrne started his “Reasons to be Cheerful” website. 

Bornstein said solutions journalism is not “good news. It’s rigorous reporting that is examining how people are responding to problems.” 

McMahon views people who don’t see the importance of promoting solutions as cynical. 

“There are problem-solvers,” she said. “There are solution-seekers, throughout this country and in each and every one of our cities. These are people and groups with so much ingenuity and so much passion. Their passion is inspiring to us.” 

Some critics see the risk of journalists being seen as advocates if some “solutions” are getting more attention than others. Bornstein said if done right, solutions journalism is no more susceptible to bias than other forms of reporting. 

Tom Rosenstiel, journalism professor at the University of Maryland, said the Solutions Journalism Network has done a good job anticipating some of the concerns it faced, particularly the sense that it is encouraging puff pieces about organizations or community leaders. Making sure the stories are strong is an important part of CBS’ training, Cross said. 

It’s important that journalists are leading the effort, as opposed to those who don’t support journalism, Rosenstiel said. 

In the decade since the Solutions Journalism Network started, thousands of journalists and more than 600 news organizations have undergone training in its tenets, Bornstein said. On its website, it has collected more than 15,000 stories that fit the network’s criteria. 

Among the posted articles are one from New York magazine about “bystander intervention training” to halt crime, a piece on efforts to encouraged plant-based diets from Byrne’s website and a story from Christianity Today magazine about Christians and Muslims working together to translate stories from the Bible into certain African languages. 

The network has also named four college journalism programs as hubs of solution journalism, meaning it will be incorporated into teaching and research there. Participating programs are at the University of Georgia, Northwestern, Arizona State and Stony Brook in New York. 

If solutions journalism continues to grow, Rosenstiel said it can be an important tool in preventing people from avoiding the news because they find it too depressing. 

“We can’t just be the watchdog that barks,” he said. 
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Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange — a Black Catholic nun who founded the United States’ first African American religious congregation in Baltimore in 1829 — has advanced another step toward sainthood. 

Under a decree signed by Pope Francis on Thursday, Lange was recognized for her heroic virtue, and advanced in the cause of her beatification from being considered a servant of God to a “venerable servant.” The Catholic Church must now approve a miracle that is attributed to her, so she can be beatified. 

Lange grew up in a wealthy family of African origin but she left Cuba in the early 1800s for the U.S. due to racial discrimination, according to the Vatican’s saint-making office. After encountering more discrimination in the southern U.S., she moved with her family to Baltimore. Recognizing a need to provide education for Black children in the city, she started a school in 1828, decades before the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. 

In 1829, she founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence — the country’s first African American religious congregation. They were trailblazers for generations of Black Catholic nuns who persevered despite being overlooked or suppressed by those who resented or disrespected them. 

The Oblate Sisters continue to operate Baltimore’s Saint Frances Academy, which Lange founded. The coed school is the country’s oldest continually operating Black Catholic educational facility, with a mission prioritizing help for “the poor and the neglected.” 

“She lived her virtuous existence in a hostile social and ecclesial context, in which the preeminent opinion was in favor of slavery, personally suffering the situation of marginalization and poverty in which the African American population found itself,” the Vatican’s saint-making office wrote. 

Lange is among three Black nuns from the U.S. designated by Catholic officials as worthy of consideration for sainthood. The others are Henriette Delille, who founded the New Orleans-based Sisters of the Holy Family in 1842 because white sisterhoods in Louisiana refused to accept African Americans, and Sister Thea Bowman, a beloved educator, evangelist and singer active for many decades before her death in 1990. 

Pope Francis’s advancement of Lange’s sainthood cause “is a monumental step forward in the long fight for Black Catholic saints in the United States and for recognition for the nation’s long embattled African American Catholic community, especially nuns,” said Shannen Dee Williams, a history professor at the University of Dayton and author of ” Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle.” 

Currently there are no recognized African American saints. Williams said Lange joins three other African American sainthood candidates who have been declared “venerable — Delille, Father Augustus Tolton and Pierre Toussaint. 

Williams said only one Black woman has been declared a saint in the modern era — St. Josephine Bakhita, a formerly enslaved Sudanese nun who made “the extraordinary journey from slavery under Islamic auspices to freedom in an Italian Catholic convent in the late 19th century.” 

“This is why Lange’s cause is so important and revolutionary,” Williams said via email. “There is absolutely no way to tell Lange’s story or the story of her order accurately or honestly without confronting the Catholic Church’s mostly unreconciled histories of colonialism, slavery, and segregation.” 

Williams said that unlike most of their counterparts in religious life, Lange and the Oblate Sisters of Providence were not segregationists, and never barred anyone from their ranks or institutions based on color or race. Instead, Williams said, Lange’s multiethnic and multilingual order preserved the vocations of hundreds of Black Catholic women and girls denied admission into white congregations in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. 

“Lange and her Oblate Sisters of Providence’s very existence embody the fundamental truth that Black history always has been Catholic history in the land area that became the United States.” Williams said, 

Their story “upends the enduring myth that slaveholding and segregationist Catholic priests and nuns were simply people ‘of their times.'” Williams said. “Mother Lange and the Oblate Sisters of Providence were also people of those times.” 
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The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has opened an investigation into the implosion of the Titan, the underwater sea vessel that imploded with five people onboard as it was traveling to the wreckage of the Titanic, the British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg.

The submersible vessel was the property of OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company. Its support ship, Polar Prince, however, is a Canadian-flagged ship.

“The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is launching an investigation into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the board said in a statement Friday, raising questions about the safety of the ill-fated excursion. The board said a team of investigators has been sent to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to gather information and conduct interviews.

U.S. officials said they too, were opening an investigation.

“The U.S. Coast Guard has declared the loss of the Titan submersible to be a major marine casualty and will lead the investigation. The NTSB has joined the investigation and will contribute to their efforts. The USCG is handling all media inquiries related to this investigation,” the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Friday in a tweet.

The Polar Prince lost contact with the Titan an hour and 45 minutes after the submersible began its descent Sunday.

Responders rushed equipment to where remains of the Titan were found. Five major fragments of the 6.7-meter Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel’s tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.

OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement the five people on the vessel were company CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Since the submersible went missing with an approximately four-day air supply, questions about it its safety have grown.

“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District. “Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now.”

According to an Associated Press report, David Lochridge, a former OceanGate director of marine operations, raised questions in 2018 about the methods the company used to insure the structural viability of the hull.

Filmmaker James Cameron, who directed the 1997 Academy Award-winning film Titanic and who has made several dives to the ocean liner’s wreckage aboard other deep-sea submersibles, said in an interview with the BBC that he was sure an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened when he heard the submersible had lost communication and navigation.

“For me, there was no doubt,” he said.

He told the BBC the news about the air supply and underwater noises were a “prolonged and nightmarish charade” to provide false hope to the families of the passengers. Cameron said that once a remotely operated vehicle reached the depth of the vessel, it was likely to be found “within hours … probably within minutes.”

Arthur Loibl, a passenger on the Titan two years ago, described his trip to the Titanic as a “kamikaze operation.” The retired German businessman said, “Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other.”

Scientist and journalist Michael Guillen, who survived an expedition in 2000 that ran into some challenges, said, “We need to stop, pause and ask this question, why do you want to go to the Titanic and how do you get there safely?”

Some information is from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Newly declassified intelligence on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic appears to cast doubt on theories that the outbreak that killed millions around the world began at a research laboratory in Wuhan, China.

A report issued late Friday by U.S. intelligence agencies and shared with members of Congress said that despite concerns about biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and despite its history of work with coronaviruses, there is no intelligence that indicates COVID-19 was present in the lab before the outbreak.

“We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic,” according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The report further states that the available evidence indicates the lab did not get possession of the COVID-19 virus until late December 2019, “when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes.”

The newly declassified intelligence also seems to reject concerns that one of a handful of researchers at the lab who fell ill in November 2019 might have been patient zero.

“This information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins,” the report said. “The researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.”

Yet despite the lack of evidence to support the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic originated at the lab in Wuhan, the U.S. intelligence report makes clear that neither of the leading theories – natural transmission from animals or a lab incident – can be ruled out.

“All [U.S. intelligence] agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the report said.

And it said almost all intelligence agencies assess the virus “was not genetically engineered,” while noting that while “most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination.”

As for how the pandemic did start, there is less agreement.

The National Intelligence Council and four of the intelligence agencies continue to assess patient zero contracted SARS-CoV-2 as the result of exposure to an infected animal.

The FBI announced this past February that its analysts assess with “moderate confidence” that the pandemic began at the research lab in Wuhan, China.

Intelligence analysts at the Department of Energy have concluded, although with “low confidence,” that the virus spread as a result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Two other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have not been able to determine a precise origin for the pandemic.

The new disclosure by the U.S. intelligence community comes three months after President Joe Biden signed legislation ordering the agencies to declassify as much information as possible about the pandemic’s origins.

But the newly declassified information, in some ways, reflects few changes from the initial intelligence assessments shared in 2020, when U.S. agencies said that their information supported “the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified,” but that more work was needed to determine how the initial transmission of the virus took place.

Since the World Health Organization first declared a global health emergency in January 2020, COVID-19 has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide, with some officials suggesting the true death toll could be as high as 20 million.

Chinese health officials have repeatedly defended their handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, criticizing any suggestions that they should have shared more information sooner as “offensive and disrespectful.”

As recently as March, leading U.S. intelligence officials noted collecting additional information on the COVID-19 virus has been difficult due, in part, to China’s refusal to cooperate.

In a statement late Friday, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic praised the newly declassified report, saying, “The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have some serious explaining to do.”

“Everyone deserves to know the truth, and the declassification of this report is a promising step toward full transparency,” said Republicans Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup.

“Based on the classified information that we received, we suspected right away that the coronavirus was not a natural phenomenon,” they added. “We’ve been pushing for years to make this information available for all to see.” 
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The U.S. Justice Department on Friday filed criminal charges against four Chinese chemical manufacturing companies and eight individuals over allegations they illegally trafficked the chemicals used to make fentanyl, a highly addictive painkiller that has fueled the opioid crisis in the United States.

The indictments mark the first time the United States has sought to prosecute any of the Chinese companies responsible for manufacturing the precursor chemicals used to make the painkiller.

Antony Blinken, who earlier this week made the first visit to China by a U.S. secretary of state in five years, said he made clear that the United States needed much greater cooperation from China on stemming the flow of fentanyl.

During the visit, China and the United States agreed to stabilize their intense rivalry so that it did not veer into conflict, but they failed to produce any breakthrough. The mood quickly soured again after U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday referred to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a dictator.

The companies at the heart of the three separate indictments are accused of selling precursor chemicals to the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, which in turn has flooded the United States with the drug.

The case comes two months after the Justice Department charged leaders of the cartel with running a fentanyl trafficking operation fueled by Chinese chemical companies. Those accused include three sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the onetime Sinaloa Cartel leader now imprisoned in the United States.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, the department’s No. 2 official, said on Friday the cases “break new ground by attacking the fentanyl supply chain at its origin.”

“Fentanyl poses a singular threat, not only because the smallest doses can be lethal, but because fentanyl does not occur in nature. It is entirely man-made,” she added.

The Chinese Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced the unsealing of an indictment charging the China-based chemical company Hubei Amarvel Biotech and its executives Qingzhou Wang, 35, Yiyi Chen, 31, and Fnu Lnu, also known as Er Yang, with fentanyl trafficking, precursor chemical importation and money laundering offenses.

Undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sources posing as fentanyl manufacturers met with Wang and Chen earlier this year and agreed to buy 210 kilograms of fentanyl precursors in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency, authorities said. The DEA retrieved the chemicals from a Los Angeles warehouse in May.

Wang and Chen were arrested by DEA agents on June 8 and ordered detained by a federal magistrate judge in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 9 until they can be transported to New York to appear before the judge handling the case.

Yang remains at large.

In the Eastern District of New York, meanwhile, prosecutors announced the unsealing of two more indictments against three other Chinese companies and individuals accused of conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl in the United States.

Prosecutors said the companies — including one called Hebei Sinaloa Trading Co — advertised precursor chemicals on social media platforms in Mexico and the United States and used false customs forms and mislabeled packages to ship the chemicals by boat and air.
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Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a woman’s federal right to an abortion. Since then, U.S. states have decided on the regulations governing the procedure, and the issue has become even more politically crucial in U.S. campaigns and elections. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports.
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A fragile thaw in U.S.-China relations is unlikely to significantly reduce tensions between Seoul and Beijing, experts said.

Stalled talks between the world’s two biggest economies were revived when Washington and Beijing agreed over the weekend to maintain high-level communication channels and to stabilize relations that had hit a low point after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew across the continental U.S.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday at a news briefing that his trip to Beijing on June 18-19 represented “progress.”

But Seoul’s close alignment with the U.S. on policies aimed at countering what both see as China’s challenges to a democratic values-based international system has made Beijing increasingly antagonistic toward its neighbor.

Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming on June 8 openly criticized Seoul, saying placing “wrong bets” in the U.S.-China rivalry would lead to “many difficulties” for South Korea.

South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin summoned Xing a day later and expressed strong dissatisfaction over his remarks.

“The South Korean government has made known several times that its position in seeking South Korea-China bilateral relations is based on mutual respect, and China should also put efforts toward that direction,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jung Hyung-kwon told VOA’s Korean Service in a phone interview on Tuesday.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday that any response to Seoul’s comments should be requested from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a news briefing on June 13 “there is no point in making an issue” out of Xing’s remarks. He said, “A sound and steady China-ROK relationship serves the common interests of both sides.” South Korea’s official name is the Republic of Korea.

‘Premature’ to expect improvements

Daniel Russel, who served as the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the Obama administration, said, “It’s premature to conclude that Blinken’s trip will produce a sustained improvement in the U.S.-China relations, let alone have an impact on the ROK-China relations.”

Russel said that “Washington’s partners seem to value” its efforts to reduce escalating tensions and “are confident about Washington’s resolve to push back against coercive and destabilizing behavior” of China.

Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, visited Seoul on Wednesday to explain, as a member of the delegation, Blinken’s two-day meetings in Beijing.

Kritenbrink told Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Youngsam that the U.S. sought to maintain high-level communication channels with China to prevent any miscalculation from leading to an unwanted conflict.

He said the U.S. planned to continue its close cooperation with its allies including South Korea to defend a free and open Indo-Pacific and the rules-based international order.

South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin, who also met with the assistant secretary of state, said Kritenbrink’s Seoul visit demonstrated close Washington-Seoul relations.

Dennis Wilder, senior director for East Asia affairs at the White House’s National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, said diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing were renewed a bit but still fragile. Military tensions remain high, with the Chinese military “aggressively monitoring U.S. air and naval activities in international waters near China’s coast,” he said.

In this context, he said, he does “not have a great deal of hope” that Beijing will become “less belligerent in its approaches to the Yoon administration” as “China is adamantly opposed to many of the policies of the Yoon government.”

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said in April that the Taiwan issue was not simply a matter between China and Taiwan and that he opposed changing the status quo in Taiwan by using force.

China considers self-governing Taiwan as part of its territory and has ramped up its disruption of international navigation in the Taiwan Strait. On June 8, more than 35 Chinese military aircraft made incursions into the Taiwanese air defense zone, prompting the island’s military to activate its defense system.

China also has repeatedly intruded into South Korea’s air defense zone without warning. On June 6, South Korean jets chased away four Chinese and Russian military aircraft from its air defense zones.

The incident followed what the U.S. military said was an “unsafe” maritime move by a Chinese warship that came close to colliding with a U.S. destroyer exercising a freedom of navigation transit in the Taiwan Strait on June 3.

In a news conference on Monday, Blinken said that “China has not agreed” to restore military-to-military channels of communications that would help to avoid miscalculations leading into clashes.

Concerned by China’s increasingly aggressive military actions, the U.S. has been urging its allies and partners, including South Korea, to restrict the sale of high-end semiconductors that China can use to advance its military.

“Washington does not expect them to stop taking advantage of business opportunities in China,” Wilder said.

“That said, in those areas of emerging technologies where Washington is trying to halt leakage of key components, such as high-end semiconductors, the United States will want its allies and partners to be alert to any attempts by companies within their border to violate the restrictions.”

Blinken said in an interview with CBS News on Monday that the U.S. was not “trying to hold China back economically,” as that would be “profoundly against our own interests.”

However, he said, “it’s not in our interest to provide” or “sell” to China “sensitive technology that China is using to advance its own very opaque nuclear weapons program, to build hypersonic missiles, to create technology that can be used for repressive purposes.”

Kim Hyungjin contributed to this report.
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