President Joe Biden on Thursday doubled down on comments he made earlier this week likening Chinese President Xi Jinping to a dictator.

Asked about the comments during a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House, Biden said his blunt statements regarding China were “just not something I’m going to change very much.”

He made another indirect criticism of the Chinese system of government, saying that a fundamental reason he believes the U.S.-China relationship is not in the same place as the U.S.-India relationship “is that there’s an overwhelming respect for each other because we’re both democracies.”

He downplayed the impact of his words on already tense U.S.-China ties and said he still expected to meet with Xi soon.

On Wednesday, a senior administration official said in a statement sent to VOA, “It should come as no surprise that the president speaks candidly about China and the differences that we have. We are certainly not alone in that.”

At a California fundraiser for his 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday, Biden said Xi was taken by surprise when a suspected Chinese spy balloon drifted across the continental United States before the U.S. military shot it down in February.

“That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden said. “When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed. He denied it was even there.”

Biden’s “splashy designation of Xi as a dictator” just days prior to extending the honor of an official state visit to Modi was well-timed, said Michael Butler, associate professor of political science at Clark University.

While the Modi visit is “clearly indicative of the Biden administration’s grand strategy to court India as a counterweight to China,” the president’s remark can be seen “both as an attempt to highlight Indian democracy as well as, more cynically, to soft-pedal Modi’s prominent assaults on it,” Butler said.

China responds

China’s Foreign Ministry hit back at the dictator remark, saying Biden’s comment had “seriously violated China’s political dignity and amounted to public political provocation.”

“The relevant remarks by the U.S. side are extremely ridiculous and irresponsible. They seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocol and China’s political dignity,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at her Wednesday briefing. “China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this.”

The press is usually forbidden from recording a U.S. president’s fundraising events, but the White House provided a transcript of Biden’s remarks.

The comments were especially notable as they were made a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing to try to repair bilateral relations that have hit a historic low. Washington postponed Blinken’s visit, originally scheduled for February, after the balloon was destroyed.

While Blinken’s visit failed to produce any major breakthrough, he and Xi agreed to stabilize the U.S.-China rivalry so it does not veer into conflict.

The State Department rejected the notion that Biden’s comments were counterproductive to his top diplomat’s efforts.

“We will continue to responsibly manage this relationship, maintain open lines of communication with the PRC, but that, of course, does not mean we will not be blunt and forthright about our differences,” department spokesperson Vedant Patel said in his briefing Wednesday.

“We have been very clear about the areas in which we disagree, including the clear differences we see when it comes to democracies and autocracies,” he added.

Biden’s comments brought renewed focus on the balloon incident that administration officials have sought to put behind them since the president signaled a thaw in relations in May, following a meeting between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Communist Party diplomat Wang Yi.

Domestic pressure

Biden is facing domestic pressure from Republicans in Congress who have sought to portray his administration as weak on China and have characterized efforts to mend ties with Beijing as tantamount to appeasement.

“The Biden administration is holding back U.S. national security actions to chase fruitless talks with the CCP,” Representative Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Last week a group of Republican senators sent a letter to Biden urging a public accounting of his administration’s assessment of the suspected spy balloon and expressing frustration with its “failure to confront China’s brazen threats to America’s security and sovereignty.”

“Republicans won’t let it go because it provides them with extra ammunition,” said Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “You’ve got sniping going on in the party, people in Congress who think they know better about how to manage the relationship, when they don’t,” he told VOA.

Rising tensions

The bitter rhetoric shows how challenging it is to bring down tensions and jump-start communications between the two rivals.

“If the engagements we’re seeing are then followed by such direct criticisms from very senior officials, I think the Chinese side is going to ask what the point of the engagement is in the first place,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I do think there’s going to be probably some pretty difficult conversations between Beijing and Washington over the next few days and the next few weeks,” Cooper told VOA.

Moscow also condemned Biden’s comments. On Wednesday, the Kremlin said the comments reflected the U.S. administration’s “unpredictable” foreign policy.

“This is a very contradictory manifestation of U.S. foreign policy, which points to a significant element of unpredictability,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
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One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom and fairness.

Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling.

Decisions about the law are largely in the hands of state lawmakers and courts. Most Republican-led states have restricted abortion. Fourteen ban abortion in most cases at any point in pregnancy. Twenty Democratic-leaning states have protected access.

Here’s a look at what’s changed since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.

Laws enacted in 25 states to ban or restrict abortion access

Last summer, as women and medical providers began to navigate a landscape without legal protection for abortion, Nancy Davis’ doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy because the fetus she was carrying was expected to die soon after birth.

But doctors in Louisiana, where Davis lived, would not provide the abortion due to a new law banning it throughout pregnancy in most cases.

At the same time, abortion opponents who worked for decades to abolish a practice they see as murder cheered the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling. Anti-abortion groups said the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide was undemocratic because it prevented states from enacting bans.

“The Dobbs decision was a democratic victory for life that generations fought for,” said E.V. Osment, a spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a major anti-abortion group.

While some states scrambled to pass new restrictions, others already had enacted laws that were designed to take effect if the court overturned Roe.

More than 25 million women ages 15 to 44, or about 2 in 5 nationally, now live in states where there are more restrictions on abortion access than there were before Dobbs.

Davis received help from a fund that raises money for women to travel for abortions and went to New York for a procedure. The whole experience was heartbreaking, she said.

“A mother’s love starts as soon as she knows she’s pregnant. That attachment starts instantly,” she said. “It was days I couldn’t sleep. It was days I couldn’t eat.”

Abortion access has been protected in 20 states

As some states restricted abortion, others locked in access. In 25 states, abortion remains generally legal up to at least 24 weeks of pregnancy. Twenty of them have solidified abortion rights through constitutional amendments or laws.

CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health had for decades treated patients seeking abortions in Memphis, Tennessee. After Tennessee’s abortion ban kicked in last year, the clinic opened an outpost three hours away, in Carbondale, Illinois.

“They’re coming from Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and even Texas,” said CEO Jennifer Pepper. “But now they’re having to travel much farther.”

Number of abortions is not clear

With lags and gaps in official reporting, the impact of the Dobbs ruling on the number of abortions is not clear.

A survey conducted for the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit organization that promotes research and supports abortion access, has found that the number has fallen to nearly zero in states with bans and risen in neighboring states with fewer restrictions. On balance the number of abortions is declining. But the survey does not capture self-managed abortions outside the traditional medical system, usually done with through a two-pill regimen.

Before the Dobbs ruling, pills were already the most common method of abortion in the U.S. Now, there are more networks to provide access to pills in states with abortion bans.

Some abortion opponents are calling for the abortion drug mifepristone to lose its government approval. The Supreme Court has preserved access for now.

Lawsuits abound

More than 50 lawsuits have been filed over abortion policy since the Dobbs ruling. Many challenges rely on arguments about the rights to personal autonomy or religious freedom. A Texas lawsuit alleges women were denied abortions even when their lives were at risk.

Bans or restrictions are on hold in at least six states while judges sort out their long-term fate. The only states where the top court has permanently rejected restrictions since the Dobbs ruling are Iowa and South Carolina.

Criminal courts have not been busy with abortion cases

There’s little evidence that doctors, women, or those who help them get abortions are being prosecuted.

The Mississippi attorney general’s office says no charges have been brought under a new law that calls for up to 10 years in prison for anyone who provides or attempts to provide an abortion in cases where it wasn’t to save the woman’s life or to end a pregnancy caused by rape or incest.

Progressive prosecutors across the country, including in states with bans, have said that they would not pursue abortion-related cases, or that they would make them a low priority.

Abortion remains a dominant political issue

The political table has been reset, with Republicans entering a new election season weighing how to balance the interests of a base that wants the strictest bans possible against the desires of the broader electorate.

Polling has consistently found that most Americans think abortions should be available early in a pregnancy, but that most also favor restrictions later in a pregnancy.

Last year, voters sided with abortion-rights advocates in all six states with abortion-related ballot measures. The issue was also a major factor in why Democrats performed better than expected in 2022 elections.

It has emerged as a key issue in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
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In the past few years, political tensions have derailed U.S.-Mexico cooperation in fighting the illegal trafficking of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. U.S. legislators and experts are now calling for a reset of bilateral relations. Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports. (Camera: Mino Dargakis)
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U.S. President Joe Biden hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talks Thursday at the White House.

“The visit will strengthen our two countries’ shared commitment to a free, open, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific and shared resolve to elevate the technology partnership, including in defense, clean energy, and space,” the White House said ahead of the meeting.

In a rare move for the Indian leader, Modi and Biden are scheduled to appear at a joint news conference Thursday.

Modi is also due to give an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

Thursday’s events close with a state dinner at the White House.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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The White House is not backing down on comments made by President Joe Biden likening Chinese President Xi Jinping to a dictator.

“It should come as no surprise that the president speaks candidly about China and the differences that we have — we are certainly not alone in that,” a senior administration official said in a statement sent to VOA on Wednesday.

At a California fundraiser for his 2024 presidential campaign Tuesday, Biden said Xi was unaware and embarrassed over a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over American territory that the U.S. military shot down in February.

“That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden said. “When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed. He denied it was even there.”

China’s Foreign Ministry hit back, saying Biden’s remarks “seriously violated China’s political dignity and amounted to public political provocation.”

“The relevant remarks by the U.S. side are extremely ridiculous and irresponsible. They seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocol and China’s political dignity,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at her Wednesday briefing. “China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this.”

The press is usually forbidden from recording such fundraising events, but the White House provided a transcript of Biden’s remarks.

The comments were especially notable as they were made a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing to repair bilateral relations that have hit a historical low. Blinken’s visit, originally scheduled for February, was postponed by Washington after the spy balloon was destroyed.

While Blinken’s visit failed to produce any major breakthrough, he and Xi had agreed to stabilize the U.S.-China rivalry so it does not veer into conflict.

Washington rejects the notion that Biden’s comments are counterproductive to his top diplomat’s efforts.

“We will continue to responsibly manage this relationship, maintain open lines of communication with the PRC, but that, of course, does not mean we will not be blunt and forthright about our differences,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said in his briefing Wednesday.

“We have been very clear about the areas in which we disagree, including the clear differences we see when it comes to democracies and autocracies,” he added.

Biden’s comments brought renewed focus on the spy balloon incident that administration officials have sought to put behind them since the president signaled a thaw in relations in May, following a meeting between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Communist Party diplomat Wang Yi.

Domestic pressure

Biden is facing domestic pressure from Republicans in Congress who have sought to portray his administration as weak on China and characterized efforts to mend ties with Beijing as tantamount to appeasement.

“The Biden administration is holding back U.S. national security actions to chase fruitless talks with the CCP,” Representative Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Last week a group of Republican senators sent a letter to Biden urging a public accounting of his administration’s assessment of the spy balloon and expressing frustration with its “failure to confront China’s brazen threats to America’s security and sovereignty.”

“Republicans won’t let it go because it provides them with extra ammunition,” said Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “You got sniping going on in the party, people in Congress who think they know better about how to manage the relationship, when they don’t,” he told VOA.

Rising tensions

The bitter rhetoric shows just how challenging it is to bring down tensions and jump-start communication between the two rivals.

“If the engagements we’re seeing are then followed by such direct criticisms from very senior officials, I think the Chinese side is going to ask what the point of the engagement is in the first place,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I do think there’s going to be probably some pretty difficult conversations between Beijing and Washington over the next few days and the next few weeks,” Cooper told VOA.

Moscow also condemned Biden’s comments. On Wednesday, the Kremlin said the comments reflected the U.S. administration’s “unpredictable” foreign policy.

“This is a very contradictory manifestation of U.S. foreign policy, which points to a significant element of unpredictability,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
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Rescuers on Wednesday rushed more ships and vessels to the area where a submersible disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in an increasingly urgent mission.

The full scope of the search was twice the size of Connecticut in waters 2½ miles deep, said Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District, who noted that authorities are still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard the Titan.

“This is a search-and-rescue mission, 100%,” he said. ” … We’ll continue to put every available asset that we have in an effort to find the Titan and the crew members.”

But even those who expressed optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out, which some have estimated might happen as early as Thursday morning.

The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan went missing on Sunday is prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol. The lost submersible could be as deep as about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface near the watery tomb of the Titanic.

Meanwhile, newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.

Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered a chance to narrow the search, their exact location and source hasn’t yet been determined.

“We don’t know what they are, to be frank,” he said.

Retired Navy Captain Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context, and they have to eliminate potential man-made sources other than the Titan.”

The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.

The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it is sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels.”

The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,071 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,216 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.

Aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert.

Authorities reported the 22-foot carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.

The submersible had a four-day oxygen supply when it put to sea around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, which oversaw the mission.

Frank Owen, a submarine search-and-rescue expert, said the estimated 96-hour oxygen supply is a useful “target” for searchers, but is only based on a “nominal amount of consumption.” Owen said the diver on board the Titan would likely be advising passengers to “do anything to reduce your metabolic levels so that you can actually extend this.”

At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.

The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.

Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable, he said.

“I am sure it is horrible down there,” Karson said. “It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”

Documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”

The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.

The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported on those documents.

Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the disappearance of the submersible underscores the dangers associated with operating in deep water and the recreational exploration of the sea and space, “two environments where in recent past, we’ve seen people operate in hazardous, potentially lethal environments,” Murrett said.

“I think some people believe that because modern technology is so good, that you can do things like this and not have accidents. But that’s just not the case,” he said.
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In astronomical terms, summer begins Wednesday with the arrival of the summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year for everyone north of the equator. 

This year, the summer solstice falls at exactly 10:57 a.m. EDT, when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer. South of the equator, the same time marks the astronomical start of winter. 

On two moments each year, Earth’s axis tilts the most toward the sun. The hemisphere that tilts closer to the sun experiences its longest day, whereas the hemisphere that tilts away from the sun experiences its longest night. 

The summer solstice takes place between June 20 and 22 each year. By meteorological standards, summer for the Northern Hemisphere begins on June 1. 

This year, the winter solstice will take place on December 21, marking the shortest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. 

On the summer solstice, the amount of sunlight people experience depends on how far north they are. The northernmost latitudes experience a full 24 hours of sunlight. By comparison, most of the United States will experience between 14 and 16 hours of sunlight. 

The word solstice comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

Nowadays, the summer solstice comes and goes with little significance to many. 

But for millennia, people around the world celebrated the summer solstice in various ways. Some still take part in festivities. 

The most well-known celebration takes place at 5,000-year-old Stonehenge in England.

Crowds of about 10,000 people — including druids and pagans — often gather at Stonehenge to watch as the rising sun aligns perfectly with the complex’s Heel Stone, which stands outside the main circle. 

In Scandinavian countries, Midsummer festivals mark the summer solstice. In Sweden, people dance around a maypole and feast on herring and vodka. 

Some Alaskans celebrate with midnight baseball, and in Iceland, some celebrate with late-night hiking and golf.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, celebrations honor John the Baptist, known as Ivan Kupala. 

This year, astronomical summer concludes with the autumn equinox on September 23. 
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Britain and Ukraine are co-hosting a two-day conference to rally support for Ukraine’s rebuilding and recovery from the Russian invasion that began early last year. 

The conference Wednesday and Thursday in London is bringing together leaders from 60 nations as well as officials from the private sector.   

Britain said specific areas of focus included technology, logistics, green energy, agriculture, health and infrastructure.  

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office announced $3 billion in World Bank loan guarantees as part of a new financial support package for Ukraine that will help support public services such as hospitals and schools. 

“The question for us today is what can we do to support this – to fast-track recovery and help Ukraine unleash its potential. We must bring to bear a partnership of governments, international financial institutions, and business leaders, all of us here today, to make this happen,” Sunak said in remarks released ahead of the conference opening. 

Sunak’s office also said 400 companies from 38 nations have pledged to support recovery and reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. 

“Ukraine’s reconstruction needs are — and will be — immense,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Tuesday. “Through our new measures today, we’re strengthening the U.K.’s sanctions approach, affirming that the U.K. is prepared to use sanctions to ensure Russia pays to repair the country it has so recklessly attacked.”   

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would continue to support Ukraine, including announcing Wednesday a “new robust U.S. assistance package.” 

Blinken said the conference was a show of the “powerful and enduring support for Ukraine, not only militarily but also economically, and also in everything we’re trying to do to build the strongest possible democracy. So, we’re very pleased to be part of this and very pleased that Ukraine and our friends here are hosting this conference.” 

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator, adding that Xi was very embarrassed when a Chinese balloon was blown off course over the U.S. recently earlier this year. 

Biden made the remarks at a fundraiser in California a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Xi on a trip to China that was aimed at easing tensions between the two countries. 

“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said in the fundraiser. 

“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course,” Biden added. 

A suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace in February. That incident and exchanges of visits by U.S. and Taiwanese officials have recently magnified U.S.-China tensions. 

Blinken and Xi on Monday agreed in their meeting to stabilize the intense rivalry between Washington and Beijing so it does not veer into conflict but failed to produce any major breakthrough during a rare visit to China by the secretary of state. 

They did agree to continue diplomatic engagement with more visits by U.S. officials in the coming weeks and months. 

Biden himself said on Monday he thought relations between the two countries were on the right path, and he indicated that progress was made during Blinken’s trip. 

Biden said on Tuesday that Xi had been concerned by the so-called Quad strategic security group, which includes Japan, Australia, India and the United States. The U.S. president said he previously told Xi the U.S. was not trying to encircle China with the Quad. 

Later this week, Biden will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China is expected to be a topic of discussion between the two leaders. 
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An attorney for 16 young plaintiffs urged a judge Tuesday to strike down as unconstitutional a Montana law that prohibits state agencies from considering the environmental effects when it weighs permits allowing the release of greenhouse gases.

Attorney Nate Bellinger made the plea in his closing argument at the end of a seven-day trial. Plaintiffs say state officials violated their right to a clean and healthful environment, part of the Montana Constitution, by allowing companies to build power plants and expand coal mines, among other things.

“Like other monumental constitutional cases before, the state of Montana comes before this court because of a pervasive systemic infringement of rights,” Bellinger said.

During the trial, plaintiffs testified about how increased heat, smoke from wildfires and drought affect their activities and mental health. Native Americans said climate change affects their ceremonies and traditional food sources, and climate experts warned the window to address the environmental damage is rapidly closing.

Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell said Tuesday that the climate change issue is much larger than Montana can address on its own and that the legislature had the right to enact the law that limits greenhouse gas reviews.

He said that the calls by plaintiffs to take the lead in addressing climate change were a social statement, not a legal argument.

A ruling from state District Judge Kathy Seeley is expected sometime after the parties file their proposed findings in the case, which are due in early July.

If Seeley sides with the plaintiffs and declares the state law unconstitutional, it would be up to the Republican-led legislative and executive branches of the Montana government to respond. Representatives of Governor Greg Gianforte’s administration indicated during the trial that there is no basis under state law for rejecting permits for projects, even if their climate impacts are disclosed.

That means a ruling for plaintiffs could increase political pressure on state officials, but it would not have any immediate consequences, said James Huffman, a former professor and dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School who is now living in Montana.

“Republicans in Montana seem pretty fixed in their ways, and I don’t think a decision by this district court is going to change the way that they think about these issues,” Huffman said.

A decision against the state also could establish new legal precedent and add to the small number of rulings that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change. However, only a handful of states — including Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts — have similar environmental protections in their constitutions.

Emily Flower, a spokeswoman for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, described the trial as a “publicity stunt staged by an out-of-state organization that is exploiting well-intentioned children.”

The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys for Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon environmental group that has filed similar lawsuits in every state since 2011 and raised more than $20 million in contributions. None of the previous cases had reached trial.

“Anyone who has [a] question about the legitimacy of our plaintiffs’ claims wasn’t listening at trial last week,” Julia Olson, the group’s founder, said in response to Flower’s statement. She noted that the evidence presented by the young people and by scientists for the plaintiffs was largely uncontested by the state’s attorneys.

“The trial has shown the facts are irrefutable,” Olson said.
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A U.S. federal judge in Florida on Tuesday set August 14 for the start of the trial of former President Donald Trump on charges he mishandled classified national security documents when his presidency ended. Legal analysts say the complexity of the case could easily delay the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. leader.

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, in announcing the 37-count indictment against Trump two weeks ago, called for a “speedy trial,” but Trump has yet to hire a full legal defense team in the southern state of Florida where Judge Aileen Cannon presides, and the trial would occur.

In her order, Cannon, a 42-year-old jurist appointed to the federal bench by Trump shortly after his 2020 reelection loss, told Justice Department prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers to file all pre-trial motions by July 24.

Last week, she directed the lawyers involved in the case to start filling out a federal government document to secure security clearances so they can view the classified documents that Trump kept at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate.

Because of the complexity of the case, numerous legal analysts have predicted the trial won’t start for a year, and possibly not until after the November 2024 presidential election. Trump, according to national polling, is the leading Republican contender for the party’s presidential nomination. 

Trump was required by U.S. law to turn his presidential documents over to the National Archives when his four-year term ended in early 2021, but he did not, and aides say he often referred to them as “my papers.”

Last week, at his arraignment in Miami, he pleaded not guilty to the criminal allegations.

The indictment alleges that Trump illegally retained 31 documents that “…included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”

As his presidency ended on January 20 two years ago, the indictment said, “Trump was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents.” At various times, the indictment alleges that Trump stored boxes of the documents in a bathroom and shower stall at Mar-a-Lago, on a ballroom stage, and in a bedroom, an office and a storage room.

As a former president, Trump could have sought a waiver of the requirement that only people with a “need to know” could continue to retain and look at the documents, but the indictment said that the former president “did not obtain any such waiver after his presidency.”

The 37-count indictment against Trump also alleges that the country’s 45th president conspired with a personal aide, Walt Nauta, to hide the documents from Trump’s attorney, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the grand jury that was hearing evidence in the case. Nauta faces six charges.

Among the other charges, Trump is accused of making false statements to investigators and ordered that boxes be moved to various locations at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida so that his lawyer would not be able to locate all the documents that federal authorities had subpoenaed.

In two instances, the indictment alleged that Trump displayed a couple of the classified documents in front of people without security clearances.

But in an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump said that in one of the instances cited in the indictment, he was holding news articles, not classified material.

“There was no document,” Trump said. “That was a massive amount of papers talking about Iran and other things.”
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A U.S. judge in Florida on Monday ordered defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump not to release evidence in the classified documents case to the media or public, according to a court filing.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart also put strict conditions on Trump’s access to the materials.

“The Discovery materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court,” the order filed on Monday said.

It also specified that Trump “shall not retain copies” and that he may only review case materials “under the direct supervision of Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff.”

The order granted a motion filed last week by prosecutors who had asked the court to put conditions on how the defense stores and uses the documents.

Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was indicted on federal charges this month. He was accused of illegally retaining classified government documents after leaving the White House and then conspiring to obstruct a federal probe of the matter.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in court to all 37 counts.

He defended his handling of the boxes in an interview with Fox News on Monday, saying that he needed to go through the boxes to remove personal items including golf shirts, pants and shoes.

“Before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things,” Trump said. “I was very busy, as you’ve sort of seen.”

Trump repeated his claim that the boxes contained magazine articles, personal items and art. The Justice Department told a court that the boxes contained highly classified documents, including a plan to attack Iran.

The former president faces other legal hurdles, having been indicted by New York City prosecutors in connection with an alleged hush-money payment to a porn star.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is also probing Trump’s alleged role in actions surrounding his loss in the 2020 presidential election that culminated in Trump supporters’ deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump is also being investigated in connection with efforts to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in Georgia.
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