Electric vehicle manufacturers are hoping for continued growth under President-elect Donald Trump, especially as Tesla CEO Elon Musk now appears to be one of his top advisers. Genia Dulot has our story from the Los Angeles Auto Show.
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Author: SeeUS
Big Ten fines Michigan and Ohio State $100,000 each for postgame melee
ROSEMONT, Ill. — The Big Ten Conference announced it fined Michigan and Ohio State $100,000 each for violating the conference’s sportsmanship policy for the on-field melee at the end of the Wolverines’ win in Columbus on Saturday.
“Not only did the actions of both teams violate fundamental elements of sportsmanship such as respect and civility, the nature of the incident also jeopardized the safety of participants and bystanders,” the Big Ten said in a statement Sunday.
A fight broke out at midfield after the Wolverines’ 13-10 victory when Michigan players attempted to plant their flag on the OSU logo and were confronted by the Buckeyes.
Police used pepper spray to break up the players, who threw punches and shoves. One officer suffered a head injury when he was “knocked down and trampled while trying to separate players fighting,” a police union official said. The officer was taken to a hospital and has since been released.
After the Ohio State players confronted their rivals at midfield, defensive end Jack Sawyer grabbed the top of the Wolverines’ flag and ripped it off the pole as the brawl moved toward the Michigan bench.
“We respect the Big Ten Conference’s decision in this matter,” Ohio State said in a statement. “What happened post-game yesterday was unfortunate. Good sportsmanship is always important in everything we do at Ohio State. Moving forward, we will continue to examine and address our post-game protocols to ensure our student-athletes, coaches, visiting teams and staff safely exit the field.”
Ohio State police said in a statement that “multiple officers representing Ohio and Michigan deployed pepper spray.” Michigan players could be seen rubbing their eyes after exposure to the chemical irritant.
Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said after the game both teams could have handled the situation differently.
“So much emotions on both sides,” he said. “Rivalry games get heated, especially this one. It’s the biggest one in the country, so we got to handle that better.”
A Michigan athletic department spokesman said Sunday night the football program would have no comment beyond the team’s remarks Saturday.
The scuffle was one of many that broke out Saturday in rivalry games across the country.
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Biden pardons his son Hunter despite previous pledges not to
Washington — President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Sunday night, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family members.
The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after his convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House.
It caps a long-running legal saga for the president’s son, who publicly disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 — a month after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
As recently as Nov. 8, days after Trump’s victory, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said, “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” alleging that the prosecution of his son was politically motivated and a “miscarriage of justice.”
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.”
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden added, claiming he made the decision this weekend. The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with Hunter and his family.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
He was set to stand trial in September in the California case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges in a surprise move hours after jury selection was set to begin.
Hunter Biden said he was pleading guilty in that case to spare his family more pain and embarrassment after the gun trial aired salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction.
The tax charges carry up to 17 years behind bars and the gun charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines were expected to call for far less time and it was possible he would avoid prison time entirely.
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he will never take for granted the relief granted to him and vowed to devote the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” the younger Biden said.
A spokesperson for special counsel David Weiss, who brought the cases, did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday night.
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Art collection on 1930s Soviet-engineered famine gifted to Ukraine
The late American businessman Morgan Williams was deeply involved in promoting Ukrainian business as president of the US-Ukraine Business Council. During his time in Ukraine, Williams began collecting artwork related to the Holodomor, a famine engineered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the early 1930’s that killed millions. Now, all that artwork has a home. Hanna Tverdokhlib has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Kostiantyn Golubchyk.
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Heavy snow and numbing temperatures keep parts of the US in deep freeze
LOWVILLE, N.Y. — Heavy snowfall and numbing temperatures kept parts of the U.S. in a deep freeze Sunday as the Thanksgiving holiday weekend draws to a close. Despite the Arctic-type weather, however, snowmobilers and skiers are reveling in their respective wintry terrains, and weather forecasters gave possible good news ahead of the NFL game in Buffalo.
In the remote Tug Hill region of upstate New York, where lake-effect snow off Lake Ontario can dump several centimeters of snow at a time, there was up to 117 centimeters in the Barnes Corners area.
“We just keep digging out,” Kevin Tyo, a local businessman, said Sunday. “We were out all day yesterday, plowing.”
Like many locals, he has a plow attached to the front of his truck for much of the winter, “and I have a tractor with a bucket, and a snowblower.”
His advice? “If you’re not used to it, stay home. If you’re out, slow down.”
Buffalo Bills kickoff set for Sunday night
In Buffalo, officials with the NFL’s Bills had sought stadium snow shovelers for the season, including ahead of Sunday night’s game against the San Francisco 49ers. The team said it would pay $20 per hour and provide food and hot drinks.
A lake-effect storm began hitting the area Saturday near the Bills’ stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Snow was continuing to fall near the stadium just hours ahead of the game, according to the State Weather Risk Communication Center in New York.
“Snowfall totals will be highly dependent on whether the current lake effect snow shifts just south of the stadium, or remains in place over the stadium longer,” the center said in a post on the social media site X.
Some motorists stuck for hours along New York-Pennsylvania border
Christine Schintzius, her 4- and 8-year-old sons and 12- and 15-year-old nieces had set out on clear roads Friday from Wales, New York, southeast of Buffalo. The family planned to attend a travel hockey tournament in Cleveland but instead found themselves snowbound for 19 hours, stuck inside Schintzius’ Honda Pilot.
The family ran into seemingly endless lines of stopped traffic, first on Interstate 90 near the New York-Pennsylvania border for 9 hours, and again on Route 5 in Pennsylvania for 10 hours, until being plowed out by some residents.
“There were lines and lines of cars. It was packed, there was tons of people, tons,” Schintzius said by phone Sunday.
While stuck on Route 5, Schintzius never turned off her car, afraid it wouldn’t start again in the frigid cold. Two truckers stopped to check on them during the night. In the morning the police checked in, along with a local resident who walked the line of cars with a basket of muffins, handing them out and making sure the stranded drivers had water.
“Thankfully, all of my kids, my nieces, all travel well,” said Schintzius, who had packed a cooler with lunch meats, snacks, yogurt and fruit. “And luckily I had still basically a full tank of gas.”
When they were finally free of the backup Saturday, Schintzius turned around and took a roundabout route home, avoiding the worst of the snow that was still falling.
“We went completely around the storm because I was worried, like I’m not getting stuck in that ever again,” she said.
Arctic air late last week brings bitter temperatures
A blast of Arctic air late last week brought bitter temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 degrees Celsius to minus 7 degrees Celsius) below average to the Northern Plains, the National Weather Service said, prompting cold advisories for parts of North Dakota. Frigid air was expected to move over the eastern third of the U.S. by Monday, with temperatures about 10 degrees (minus 12 degrees Celsius) below average.
Officials in Erie, Pennsylvania, said Sunday that the heavy lake-effect snow has produced “treacherous” conditions that are causing even snowplows to get stuck as they work around the clock to try to clear city roads.
The city estimated Sunday morning that there were “about 100 cars throughout the city that are blocking roads and need to be towed out of the way so plows can get through.”
Commercial vehicles remained banned in both directions of I-90 in western New York along a nearly 216-kilometer stretch to the Pennsylvania line. The National Weather Service said lake-effect snow was expected to continue east of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario on Sunday, with additional snowfall of 30 to 60 centimeters possible.
New York, Pennsylvania declare emergencies
In a phone interview Saturday with WWNY-TV, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state prepared for the storm for days by deploying snowplows and thousands of workers and consulting with utility providers. She also dispatched personnel from other parts of the state to assist.
“I know it’s something they’re all accustomed to and they can handle, but I want to let them know we are there with reinforcements and to make sure everyone can travel safely, especially over this really busy holiday weekend,” she said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a disaster emergency proclamation Saturday and said parts of Erie County in the northwest received nearly 61 centimeters of snow with more expected through Monday night.
Pennsylvania State Police responded to nearly 200 incidents during the 24-hour period from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, officials said. Authorities closed part of I-90 in Pennsylvania and westbound lanes of the New York Thruway heading toward Pennsylvania.
Michigan battered by lake-effect snow
Parts of Michigan were battered by lake-effect snow, which happens when warm, moist air rising from a body of water mixes with cold dry air overhead. Bands of snow rolling off Lake Superior buried parts of the Upper Peninsula under 61 centimeters or more, said Lily Chapman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Marquette, Michigan.
Motorists were warned of potentially dangerous road conditions for holiday travel on Sunday.
“Expect rapid changes in traveling conditions in and out of snow bands, including snow covered, slick roads, and reduced visibility,” the National Weather Service said Sunday.
There were 69 centimeters of snow just northeast of Ironwood, in the Upper Peninsula’s western reaches, and another 61 centimeters in Munising, in the eastern area.
Lake-effect snow could add more than 30.5 centimeters over the eastern Upper Peninsula through Monday morning, with 15 to 25 centimeters or higher to the west, Chapman said Saturday.
Gaylord, Michigan, received 63 centimeters of snow Friday, setting a new single-day record for the city in a region dotted by ski resorts, said Keith Berger of the weather service’s Gaylord office. The previous record of 43 centimeters was set March 9, 1942.
Joseph Delizio, a weather service meteorologist based in Gaylord, said heavy snow, especially lake-effect snow, isn’t unusual this time year, “but that magnitude certainly is not.”
“We’ve got more snow in the forecast, believe it or not,” he added.
The snowfall was good news for Treetops Resort, which features 32 hectares of ski hill terrain among its 809 hectares. It boosted the base that snowmaking machines will increase before the resort’s season opening next weekend, Recreation Director Doug Hoeh said.
“Obviously when you get that much snowfall, it’s great for the snow hills, but it’s bad for the parking lots, so we’re kind of digging out,” Hoeh said.
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LA’s sanctuary city ordinance gives hope to city’s undocumented immigrants
Los Angeles has approved a so-called sanctuary city ordinance. It’s a response to President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations when he assumes the presidency in January. The ordinance won’t stop federal officials from deporting undocumented immigrants, but it reinforces the city’s vow to protect its immigrant population. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian
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Biden to spotlight Angola’s Lobito Corridor, his legacy to counter China in Africa
WASHINGTON — When U.S. President Joe Biden visits Angola in early December, he will put into focus his legacy infrastructure project aimed at securing crucial supply chains on the African continent. Called the Lobito Corridor, the project is the centerpiece of his administration’s strategy to counter China’s clout in global development.
The Lobito Corridor is a $5 billion investment across multiple sectors that is intended to revitalize and extend the 1,300-kilometer Benguela railway line. It will connect the 120-year-old Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in its second phase, to Zambia.
Announced in September 2023, much of the corridor’s financing comes from the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a Biden-led 2022 initiative from the Group of Seven wealthiest economies that evolved from his Build Back Better World plan launched in 2021 as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Once operational, it will boost access to critical minerals for the United States and its partners, including cobalt and copper, that are essential in electric vehicle manufacturing. According to a U.S. congressional report, 80% of the DRC’s copper mines are Chinese owned. China is responsible for mining 85% of the DRC’s rare earth minerals, including 76% of its cobalt.
The Lobito Corridor is expected to cut transportation costs, open access to arable agricultural land and drive climate-resilient economic growth, Helaina Matza, acting special coordinator for the PGI at the U.S. Department of State, said Tuesday in a briefing to reporters.
The PGI’s investments will “amplify the impact of that infrastructure” with projects such as developing solar energy, local electricity networks and desalination efforts, she said.
The project is championed by Angolan President Joao Lourenco. Angola owes about $17 billion to China, more than a third of its total debt. The debt is mostly in the form of infrastructure development loans, backed by oil, that funded the country’s economic recovery following three decades of civil war that ended in 2002.
PGI to counter BRI
Since launching the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2013, China has become the main backer of global development financing. In Africa, Beijing has signed loan commitments with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions.
From 2013 to 2021, China provided $679 billion for infrastructure projects around the world, according to a U.S. government analysis, while the U.S. provided $76 billion.
The U.S., alongside G7 partners, announced in 2022 that the PGI aims to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 as an alternative to infrastructure financing models that are “often opaque, fail to uphold environmental and social standards, exploit workers and leave the recipient countries worse off.”
That’s a lot of financing to catch up to in a few years, and Lobito is “the first and the most developed” project in that effort, said Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“That’s the A+ project, but I don’t see a whole lot of other projects,” Schneidman told VOA.
The PGI’s other project, the Luzon Corridor, was launched in April to support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines.
In Lobito, the U.S. works mostly with European partners. In Luzon, the U.S. is teaming up with Japan to secure critical industries such as semiconductors.
The White House pushed back against the notion that Biden has scaled back his global infrastructure ambitions to the two corridors.
“We’ve mobilized more than $60 billion, just the U.S., and that’s a part of the larger G7,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA in a briefing earlier this month.
“And that’s not just been for two corridors,” he said. “That’s been for investments across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.”
US-Africa strategy
In August 2022, the Biden administration launched an Africa strategy that “reframes the region’s importance to U.S. national security interests,” the strategy says.
Later that year, Biden hosted the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, where he pledged the U.S. to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years.
“We are overdelivering on that thus far,” Frances Brown, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, said in a briefing Tuesday. “We’ve invested more than 80% of that commitment.”
But much of that $55 billion was allocated under existing programs and does not bring the kind of megaproject that is “visible to the average African that says the United States financed that in the way that the Chinese do,” said Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Which is why the Lobito Corridor stands out, Dizolele told VOA. It is the “one palpable project that people can look at and say, ‘If this is implemented, then maybe it would move things forward.’”
On a continent where the presence of Chinese financing, businesses and migrants are so prevalent that many African countries teach Mandarin in schools and incorporate Chinese characters in public signage, that’s a start.
Moving forward, activists hope the U.S. will not set aside social and environmental concerns that have besieged projects under Chinese financing.
“We have to ensure that we can hear all stakeholders engaging in the process,” said Sergio Calundungo, founder of the Social Observatory of Angola.
So far, civil society groups have not been invited to the table, but they are ready to ensure that local communities can “share as much as possible the prosperity through this important infrastructure,” he told VOA.
Will it continue?
President-elect Donald Trump will enter office in January. While some are concerned that the U.S. commitment to Africa might falter under his America First doctrine, analysts point to initiatives taken under his first administration.
In 2018, the Trump administration launched Prosper Africa, an initiative that brings together U.S. government services to help investors do business on the continent. In 2019, it launched the Blue Dot Network, an international certification mechanism to ensure infrastructure projects meet environmental and social standards.
They were aware that infrastructure investments needed “to foster economic growth, to foster stability, but also for U.S. interests globally when competing with China,” said Joseph Lemoine, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. “I’m hopeful that they will continue those efforts,” he told VOA.
Trump also launched the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation in 2020. The DFC is an agency that functions as America’s development bank, with $60 billion in lending capacity.
DFC’s first CEO, Adam Boehler, a college roommate of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke openly of linking development aid to foreign policy goals. In a 2020 interview, he admitted promising $2 billion for Indonesia should the country agree to join the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords and recognize Israel.
“If you listen to all the Trump people, they want a foreign policy that’s transactional,” Schneidman at Brookings said.
Trump has promised to take a confrontational approach to China. Analysts say aligning infrastructure financing needs with Trump’s foreign policy goals may be an element in the U.S.-China rivalry that developing nations can leverage.
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Eggs are available but pricier as the holiday baking season begins
U.S. egg prices are rising once more as a lingering outbreak of bird flu coincides with the high demand of the holiday baking season.
But prices are still far from the recent peak they reached almost two years ago. And the American Egg Board, a trade group, says egg shortages at grocery stores have been isolated and temporary so far.
“Those are being rapidly corrected, sometimes within a day,” said Emily Metz, the Egg Board’s president and chief executive officer.
The average price for a dozen eggs in U.S. cities was $3.37 in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was down slightly from September, and down significantly from January 2023, when the average price soared to $4.82. But it was up 63% from October 2023, when a dozen eggs cost an average of $2.07.
Sometimes, supermarkets may be to blame for price spikes. During testimony in August in the Federal Trade Commission’s case seeking to block Kroger’s merger with Albertsons, Kroger’s senior director for pricing acknowledged that the company has raised the cost of milk and eggs beyond the levels of inflation.
But there are other factors behind the price increases. Metz said the egg industry sees its highest demand in November and December, for example.
“You can’t have your holiday baking, your pumpkin pie, your stuffing, without eggs,” she said.
Avian influenza is another big reason for the higher prices. The current bird flu outbreak that began in February 2022 has led to the slaughter of more than 111 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens. Anytime the virus is found, every bird on a farm is killed to limit the spread of the disease.
More than 6 million birds have been slaughtered just this month because of bird flu. They were a relatively small part of the total U.S. egg-laying flock of 377 million chickens. Still, the flock is down about 3% over the past year, contributing to a 4% drop in egg production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The latest wave of bird flu is scrambling supplies of cage-free eggs because California has been among the hardest hit states. California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon all require eggs sold in their states to be cage-free.
“We’re having to move eggs from other areas of the country that are producing cage-free to cover that low supply in those states, because those states only allow for cage-free eggs to be sold,” Metz said.
Cage-free requirements are set to go into effect in Arizona, Colorado and Michigan next year and in Rhode Island and Utah in 2030.
Demand for such specialty eggs may also be contributing to avian flu, which is spread through the droppings of wild birds as they migrate past farms. Allowing chickens to roam more freely puts them at greater risk, said Chad Hart, a professor and agricultural economist at Iowa State University.
“It’s really hard to control that interaction between domesticated birds and wild birds,” Hart said. “Some of those vectors have been opened up because we’re asking the egg industry to produce in ways that we didn’t ask them to before.”
Metz said climate change and extreme weather are also blowing some wild birds off course.
“We have birds that have been displaced by hurricanes, by wildfires, and those birds are now circulating in areas that they otherwise might not circulate or at times of the year that they otherwise may not be circulating,” she said. “And those are all new variables that our farmers are having to deal with.”
Hart said the egg industry is trying to rebuild the flock, but that also can limit supplies, since farmers have to hold back some eggs to hatch into new chickens.
Still, there is some good news on U.S. poultry farms. The price of chicken feed — which represents 70% of a farmer’s costs — has fallen significantly after doubling between 2020 and 2022, Hart said.
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President-elect Trump has sought Orban’s take on Ukraine war, sources say
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has held multiple phone conversations with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban since winning the November 5 presidential election, according to sources who spoke to RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service.
Hungarian government sources said Trump has sought Orban’s opinion on ending the Ukraine war, which has continued to drag on since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
On the campaign trail, Trump criticized the billions of dollars that the United States has poured into Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.
He has also said he could end the war within 24 hours of retaking the White House, a statement that some have interpreted as meaning that Ukraine would have to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.
Orban, who has maintained friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump, has been critical of EU aid for Ukraine and has obstructed the bloc’s sanctions regime against Moscow.
Preparations reportedly are under way for Orban to take a second crack at a peace mission in December to bookend Hungary’s rotating EU presidency after his first attempt in July when Budapest’s tenure started.
In a move criticized by several EU leaders, Orban traveled to Moscow to meet Putin in July after a trip to Kyiv with a mystery ceasefire proposal for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He then traveled to China and finally the United States to meet Trump, who was then on the presidential campaign trail.
Details of a potential peace mission in December are not clear, but sources suggested to RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service that it may involve delivering Trump’s messages to Zelenskyy, Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Trump set to nominate former prosecutor to head FBI
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he wanted former National Security official and loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI, signaling an intent to replace the bureau’s current director, Christopher Wray.
Patel, who during Trump’s first term advised both the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense, has previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of any employee who refuses to support Trump’s agenda.
“The biggest problem the FBI has had, has come out of its intel shops. I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state,” Patel said in a September interview on the conservative “Shawn Ryan Show.”
“And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops. Go be cops.”
With the nomination of Patel, Trump, a Republican, seems to be preparing to oust Wray, a Republican first appointed by Trump. Wray’s 10-year term at the FBI does not expire until 2027.
Asked about Patel’s nomination, which will need Senate confirmation, an FBI spokesperson said on Saturday: “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.”
FBI directors by law are appointed to 10-year terms as a means of insulating the bureau from politics.
Wray, whom Trump tapped after firing James Comey in 2017 for investigating his 2016 campaign, has been a frequent target of Trump supporters’ ire.
During Wray’s tenure, the FBI carried out a court-approved search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to look for classified documents. He also has faced criticism for his oversight role of a directive by Attorney General Merrick Garland aimed at working to protect local school boards from violent threats and harassment.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the two federal prosecutions against Trump for his role in subverting the 2020 election and retaining classified documents, asked on November 25 the judges overseeing those cases to dismiss them before Trump takes office on January 20, citing a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Wray had previously signaled no intention of stepping down early and was busy planning events well into his 2025 calendar, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Patel, 44, previously worked as a federal public defender and a federal prosecutor.
He was instrumental in working to lead House Republicans’ probe into the FBI’s 2016 investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia during his time as an aide to former House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes.
Later, during Trump’s first impeachment trial, ex-National Security Council official Fiona Hill told House investigators she was concerned Patel was secretly serving as a back channel between Trump and Ukraine without authorization.
Patel denied those allegations.
After Trump left office in January 2021, Patel was one of several people Trump designated as a representative for access to his presidential records. He was one of the few former Trump administration officials who claimed, without evidence, that Trump had declassified all of the records in question.
He was later subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in connection with the probe.
Also Saturday, Trump named Chad Chronister, the sheriff of Hillsborough County, Florida, as his choice for administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency. In that role, Chronister would work closely with Trump’s choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Bondi is from the Tampa area that Chronister serves.
“As DEA Administrator, Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the Border, stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs, across the Southern Border, and SAVE LIVES,” Trump wrote on his social-media platform Truth Social.
Trump also named real estate mogul Charles Kushner to serve as U.S. ambassador to France. Kushner is the father of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“He (Charles Kushner) is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social announcing the pick.
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Intimate documentary captures the Beatles goofing around as they take America by storm in 1964
NEW YORK — Likely most people have seen iconic footage of the Beatles performing on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” But how many have seen Paul McCartney during that same U.S. trip feeding seagulls off his hotel balcony?
That moment — as well as George Harrison and John Lennon goofing around by exchanging their jackets — are part of the Disney+ documentary “Beatles ’64,” an intimate look at the English band’s first trip to America that uses rare and newly restored footage. It streams Friday.
“It’s so fun to be the fly on the wall in those really intimate moments,” says Margaret Bodde, who produced alongside Martin Scorsese. “It’s just this incredible gift of time and technology to be able to see it now with the decades of time stripped away so that you really feel like you’re there.”
“Beatles ’64” leans into footage of the 14-day trip filmed by documentarians Albert and David Maysles, who left behind 11 hours of the Fab Four goofing around in New York’s Plaza hotel or traveling. It was restored by Park Road Post in New Zealand.
“It’s beautiful, although it’s black and white and it’s not widescreen,” says director David Tedeschi. “It’s like it was shot yesterday and it captures the youth of the four Beatles and the fans.”
The footage is augmented by interviews with the two surviving members of the band and people whose lives were impacted, including some of the women who as teens stood outside their hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of the Beatles.
“It was like a crazy love,” fan Vickie Brenna-Costa recalls in the documentary. “I can’t really understand it now. But then, it was natural.”
The film shows the four heartthrobs flirting and dancing at the Peppermint Lounge disco, Harrison noodling with a Woody Guthrie riff on his guitar and tells the story of Ronnie Spector sneaking the band out a hotel back exit and up to Harlem to eat barbeque.
The documentary coincides with the release of a box set of vinyl albums collecting the band’s seven U.S. albums released in ’64 and early ’65 — “Meet The Beatles!,” “The Beatles’ Second Album,” “A Hard Day’s Night” (the movie soundtrack), “Something New,” “The Beatles’ Story,” “Beatles ’65” and “The Early Beatles.” They had been out of print on vinyl since 1995.
The Beatles’ U.S. visit in 1964 also included concerts at Carnegie Hall, a gig at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C., and a visit to Miami, where the band met Muhammad Ali. The documentary shows members of the band reading newspaper coverage of themselves.
Viewers may learn that the Beatles — now revered — were often met with ridicule or rudeness from the older generation. At the British Embassy in New York, the four were treated as lower class, while renowned broadcaster Eric Sevareid, doing a piece for CBS, compared the reaction to the Beatles to the German measles.
“You’re nothing but four Elvis Presleys,” one reporter told them during a press conference, to which the boys good-naturedly started gyrating as Ringo Starr screamed “It’s not true!”
“Why the establishment was against them is sort of a mystery to me,” says Tedeschi. “I think older people believed that music would go back to the big bands.”
Musicians like Sananda Maitreya, Ron Isley and Smokey Robinson also discuss the Fab Four and what they took from Black music. There also are interviews with residents of Harlem, critic Joe Queennan and filmmaker David Lynch, who saw the Beatles play the Washington Coliseum.
“Beatles ’64” tries to explain why young people were so besotted by John, Paul, George and Ringo. Their visit came just months after the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy and Tedeschi argues Beatlemania was a salve for a nation in mourning.
“Part of it is I think that the light was just off. They were depressed. Everything was dark. And ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ lit them up,” says Tedeschi.
As McCartney says in the documentary: “Maybe America needed something like the Beatles to lift it out of mourning and just sort of say ‘Life goes on.'”
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Will Trump’s return lead to a new wave of bestselling books?
NEW YORK — As she anticipates her estranged uncle’s return to the White House, Mary Trump isn’t expecting any future book to catch on like such first-term tell-alls as Michael Wolff’s million-selling Fire and Fury or her own blockbuster, Too Much and Never Enough.
“What else is there to learn?” she says. “And for people who don’t know, the books have been written. It’s all really out in the open now.”
For publishers, Donald Trump’s presidential years were a time of extraordinary sales in political books, helped in part by Trump’s legal threats and angered tweets. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the hardcover and paperback market, the genre’s sales nearly doubled from 2015 to 2020, from around 5 million copies to around 10 million.
Besides books by Wolff and Trump, other bestsellers included former FBI Director James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty, former national security adviser John Bolton’s The Room Where it Happened and Bob Woodward’s Fear. Meanwhile, sales for dystopian fiction also jumped, led by Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which was adapted into an award-winning Hulu series.
But interest has dropped back to 2015 levels since Trump left office, according to Circana, and publishers doubt it will again peak so highly. Readers not only showed little interest in books by or about President Joe Biden and his family — they even seemed less excited about Trump-related releases. Mary Trump’s Who Could Ever Love You and Woodward’s War were both popular this fall, but neither has matched the sales of their books written during the first Trump administration.
“We’ve been there many times, with all those books,” HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham says of the various Trump tell-alls. He added that he still sees a market for at least some Trump books — perhaps analyzing the recent election — because “there’s a general, serious smart audience, not politically aligned in a hard way,” one that would welcome “an intelligent voice.”
“It’s like the reboot of any hit TV show,” says Eric Nelson, publisher and vice president of Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins that’s released books by Jared Kushner, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump Cabinet nominees Pete Hegseth and Sen. Marco Rubio. “You’re not hoping for ratings like last time, just better ratings than the boring show it’s replacing.”
In the days following Trump’s victory, The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell’s 1984 returned to bestseller lists, along with more contemporary works such as Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, a 2017 bestseller that expanded upon a Facebook post Snyder wrote soon after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Books appealing to pro-Trump readers also surged, including those written by Cabinet picks — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s The Real Anthony Fauci and Hegseth’s The War on Warriors — and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, his 2016 memoir that’s sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Trump selected him as his running mate.
First lady Melania Trump’s memoir, Melania, came out in October and has been high on Amazon.com bestseller lists for weeks, even as critics found it contained little newsworthy information. According to Circana, it has sold more than 200,000 copies, a figure that does not include books sold directly through her website.
“The Melania book has done extraordinarily well, better than we thought,” says Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. “After Election Day, we sold everything we had of it.”
Conservative books have sold steadily over the years, and several publishers — most recently Hachette Book Group — have imprints dedicated to those readers. Publishers expect at least some critical books to reach bestseller lists — if only because of the tradition of the publishing market favoring the party out of power. But the nature of what those books would look like is uncertain. Perhaps a onetime insider will have a falling out with Trump and write a memoir, like Bolton or former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, or maybe some of his planned initiatives, whether mass deportation or the prosecution of his political foes, will lead to investigative works.
A new Fire and Fury is doubtful, with the originally only possible because Wolff enjoyed extraordinary access, spending months around Trump and his White House staff. Members of the president-elect’s current team have already issued a statement saying they have refused to speak with Wolff, calling the author a “known peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations, and conclusions that never happened.”
A publicist for Wolff declined to comment.
Woodward, who interviewed Trump at length for the 2020 bestseller Rage, told The Associated Press that he had written so much about Trump and other presidents that he wasn’t sure what he’d take on next. He doesn’t rule out another Trump book, but that will depend in part on the president-elect, how “out of control he gets,” Woodward said, and how far he is able to go.
“He wants to be the imperial president, where he gets to decide everything and no one’s going to get in his way,” Woodward said. “He’s run into some brick walls in the past and there may be more brick walls. I don’t know what will happen. I’ll be watching and doing some reporting, but I’m still undecided.”
5 bestselling Trump-related books, per Circana
Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump: 1,248,212 copies
Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff: 936,116 copies
Fear, by Bob Woodward: 872,014 copies
The Room Where It Happened, by John Bolton: 676,010 copies
Rage, by Bob Woodward: 549,685 copies
These figures represent total sales provided by Circana, which tracks about 85% of the print market and does not include e-book or audiobook sales.
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As US faces Iran threats, Trump’s security picks favor ‘maximum pressure’
Iran is likely high on the foreign policy agenda of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. The Islamic Republic has engaged in a major escalation of conflict with U.S. ally Israel while advancing its nuclear program to the point it could rapidly produce enough fissile material for a bomb. VOA’s Michael Lipin looks at what Trump and his prospective team members have said should be done about these threats.
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Who were the prisoners in US-China swap?
washington — This week’s rare prisoner swap between the United States and China saw each side claim victory and accuse the other of wrongfully detaining its citizens, while Beijing has kept quiet about the identities of the returned Chinese.
China confirmed the repatriation of at least three Chinese nationals convicted of espionage and other crimes in the U.S. Among them was an individual whom Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, speaking at a regular briefing Thursday, described as “a fugitive who fled to the U.S. many years ago.”
Some media reports indicated four individuals were returned to China. Mao did not name those who were returned and did not confirm a prisoner swap, or the release of any Americans detained in China.
But media reports, including one from the Financial Times, cited unnamed U.S. government officials as saying three Americans were exchanged for three Chinese.
Released Chinese
Xu Yanjun
Though U.S. officials have not confirmed their identities, NBC News cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying the prisoner swap included Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence officer sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to steal aviation trade secrets from GE Aviation. Records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons show that Xu’s status is now listed as “not in federal custody.”
Ji Chaoqun
NBC reported that those returned to China also included Ji Chaoqun, a naturalized U.S. citizen convicted in 2022 of providing classified defense information to Chinese intelligence.
Jin Shanlin
The Financial Times on Thursday reported the third Chinese released was Jin Shanlin, a former doctoral student at Southern Methodist University in northern Texas, who was sentenced in 2021 for possessing and distributing child pornography, with his sentence set to end in 2027. Records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons also show Jin’s status as “not in federal custody.”
Jin’s case has sparked controversy because of his crime and his family’s alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The FBI testified that his family had “important political connections,” The Dallas Morning News reported in 2022, raising questions about why he was chosen for the exchange over other Chinese nationals in U.S. custody.
Released Americans
The White House National Security Council said Wednesday in a statement that it had secured the release of three Americans it said were “wrongfully detained” in China, though it did not confirm a prisoner swap. Their detentions had drawn international condemnation.
Mark Swidan
Swidan, a Texas businessman, was arrested in 2012 in Dongguan. Despite a lack of direct evidence — no drugs or incriminating records were ever found — he was sentenced to death for drug trafficking but granted a reprieve in 2019. His mother, Katherine Swidan, led a tireless campaign for his release. “I feared I would never see my son again,” she told VOA, recounting his years in a Guangdong prison marked by overcrowding, intense heat and deteriorating health.
Kai Li
Li, a Chinese American businessman, was arrested in 2016 in Shanghai on charges of stealing state secrets. His family has consistently denied the allegations, calling his 10-year sentence politically motivated. “We thank President [Joe] Biden for prioritizing my father’s case,” said his son, Harrison Li. “But we also urge the administration to stand firm against such detentions in the future.”
John Leung
Leung, 79, a Hong Kong-based American citizen, was arrested in 2021 on espionage charges. His case saw minimal public advocacy, and his family remained largely silent throughout his detention.
John Kamm, founder of the San Francisco-based rights group Dui Hua, meaning “dialogue” in Chinese, said his organization played a role in the prisoner swap in negotiations that took years to complete.
“We submitted 54 lists with Mark Swidan’s name to the Chinese government and received 10 responses,” Kamm told VOA Mandarin. “The process was arduous but ultimately effective.”
A spokesperson for the National Security Council hailed the release of the three Americans as a significant diplomatic achievement for Biden, emphasizing that all Americans classified as “wrongfully detained Americans” in China have now been brought home.
While the move brought relief to the families of the freed Americans, it has sparked concerns about its implications for U.S.-China relations and the growing trend of “hostage diplomacy.”
Kamm cautioned against declaring the issue resolved. “There are at least 200 American citizens under coercive measures in China. Many face exit bans or detentions with little transparency,” he said.
Critics like Peter Humphrey, a former detainee in China and a nonresident associate at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, argue that no Americans held in China should be considered normal prisoners. He noted to VOA Mandarin that China’s legal processes are fundamentally flawed, as prisoners do not have fair and transparent trials.
“They have never had a trial where they were able to defend themselves properly and freely. They were under tremendous pressure in detention cells, and that pressure amounts to torture,” Humphrey said.
Humphrey called this week’s prisoner swap “capitulation to hostage diplomacy” and warned it could incentivize Beijing to detain more Americans.
Diplomatic balancing act
The prisoner exchange occurred amid strained U.S.-China relations, with both nations navigating a complex mix of strategic competition and occasional cooperation, and just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is to return to the White House promising to impose hefty tariffs on Beijing.
The U.S. on Wednesday lowered its travel advisory for China from Level 3 (“Reconsider Travel”) to Level 2 (“Exercise Increased Caution”), raising questions about the advisory’s role in the negotiations.
Kamm told VOA, “The lowering of the travel warning was part of the deal, as I understand it.”
Humphrey expressed concerns about the change in travel advisory. “China did not suddenly become safer for Americans, or any other foreigners actually, to travel to China,” he told VOA. “It has not become safer.”
Bo Gu contributed to this report.
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SunFed recalls cucumbers in US, Canada due to potential salmonella
Cucumbers shipped to 13 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces have been recalled because of potential salmonella contamination, the Food and Drug Administration said this week.
SunFed Produce, based in Arizona, recalled the cucumbers sold between October 12 and November 26, the FDA said Thursday.
No illnesses were immediately reported. People who bought cucumbers during the window should check with the store where they purchased them to see if the produce is part of the recall. Wash items and surfaces that may have been in contact with the produce using hot, soapy water or a dishwasher.
Salmonella can cause symptoms that begin six hours to six days after ingesting the bacteria and include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Most people recover without treatment within a week, but young children, people older than 65 and those with weakened immune systems can become seriously ill.
Earlier this summer, a separate salmonella outbreak in cucumbers sickened 450 people in the United States.
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California works to turn one of its biggest landfills into public park
In Southern California, what was once America’s second-largest landfill is on its way to becoming a recreational park. From Los Angeles, VOA’s Genia Dulot reports on its development in an urban environment with scare green spaces.
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Iran to enrich uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges, UN says
Iran will begin enriching uranium with thousands of advanced centrifuges at its two main nuclear facilities at Fordo and Natanz, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Friday, further raising tensions over Tehran’s program as it enriches at near weapons-grade levels.
The notice from the International Atomic Energy Agency mentioned Iran enriching uranium with new centrifuges to only 5% purity, far lower than the 60% it currently does — likely signaling that it still wants to negotiate with the West and the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
However, it remains unclear how Trump will approach Iran once he enters office, particularly as Iran continues to threaten to attack Israel amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and just after a ceasefire started with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the IAEA’s report. Tehran had threatened to rapidly advance its program after the Board of Governors at the IAEA condemned Iran at a meeting in November for failing to cooperate fully with the agency.
In a statement, the IAEA outlined the plans Iran informed it of, which include feeding uranium into multiple cascades of its advanced IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges.
Cascades are a group of centrifuges that spin uranium gas together to more quickly enrich the uranium. Each of these advanced classes of centrifuges enrich uranium faster than Iran’s baseline IR-1 centrifuges, which have been the workhorse of the country’s atomic program.
The IAEA did not elaborate on how many machines would be in each cascade, but Iran has put around 160 centrifuges into a single cascade in the past.
It’s unclear if Iran has begun feeding the uranium yet into the centrifuges. Tehran so far has been vague about its plans. But starting the enrichment at 5% gives Tehran leverage at negotiations with the West and another way to dial up the pressure if they don’t like what they hear. Weapons-grade levels of enrichment are around 90%.
Since the collapse of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018, it has pursued nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade levels. U.S. intelligence agencies and others assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program.
Iran, as a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, has pledged to allow the IAEA to visit its atomic sites to ensure its program is peaceful. Tehran also had agreed to additional oversight from the IAEA as part of the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw sanctions lifted in exchange for drastically limiting its program.
However, for years Iran has curtailed inspectors’ access to sites while also not fully answering questions about other sites where nuclear material has been found in the past after the deal’s collapse.
Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, had signaled in recent months a willingness to negotiate with the West. But Iran also has launched two large-scale missile attacks on Israel amid the war.
Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian diplomat, said in a post on a social media platform that he met with EU diplomat Enrique Mora and criticized Europe as being “self-centered” while having “irresponsible behavior.”
“With regard to the nuclear issue of Iran, Europe has failed to be a serious player due to lack of self-confidence and responsibility,” Gharibabadi wrote.
For his part, Mora described having a “frank discussion” with Gharibabadi and another Iranian diplomat. Those talks included “Iran’s military support to Russia that has to stop, the nuclear issue that needs a diplomatic solution, regional tensions (important to avoid further escalation from all sides) and human rights,” he wrote on X.
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What Black Friday’s history tells us about holiday shopping in 2024
NEW YORK — The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush this week.
The annual sales event no longer creates the midnight mall crowds or doorbuster mayhem of recent decades, in large part due to the ease of online shopping and habits forged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hoping to entice equivocating consumers, retailers already have spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year.
Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.
At the same time, earlier and earlier Black Friday-like promotions, as well as the growing strength of other shopping events (hello, Cyber Monday), continue to change the holiday spending landscape.
Here’s what you need to know about Black Friday’s history and where things stand in 2024.
When is Black Friday in 2024?
Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving each year, which is November 29 this year.
How old is Black Friday? Where does its name come from?
The term “Black Friday” is several generations old, but it wasn’t always associated with the holiday retail frenzy that we know today. The gold market crash of September 1869, for example, was notably dubbed Black Friday.
The phrase’s use in relation to shopping the day after Thanksgiving, however, is most often traced to Philadelphia in the mid-20th century — when police and other city workers had to deal with large crowds that congregated before the annual Army-Navy football game and to take advantage of seasonal sales.
“That’s why the bus drivers and cab drivers call today ‘Black Friday.’ They think in terms of headaches it gives them,” a Gimbels department store sales manager told The Associated Press in 1975 while watching a police officer try to control jaywalkers the day after Thanksgiving.
Earlier references date back to the 1950s and 1960s.
Jie Zhang, a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, points to a 1951 mention of “Black Friday” in a New York-based trade publication — which noted that many workers simply called in sick the day after Thanksgiving in hopes of having a long holiday weekend.
Starting in the 1980s, national retailers began claiming that Black Friday represented when they went from operating in the red to in the black thanks to holiday demand. But since many retail companies now operate in the black at various times of the year, this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt, experts say.
How has Black Friday evolved?
In recent decades, Black Friday became infamous for floods of people in jam-packed stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight in hopes of scoring deep discounts.
But online shopping has made it possible to make most, if not all, holiday purchases without ever stepping foot inside a store. And while foot traffic at malls and other shopping areas has bounced back since the start of the pandemic, e-commerce isn’t going away.
November sales at brick-and-mortar stores peaked more than 20 years ago. In 2003, for example, e-commerce accounted for 1.7% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data.
Unsurprisingly, online sales make up a much bigger slice of the pie today. For last year’s holiday season, e-commerce accounted for about 17.1% of all nonadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, Commerce Department data show. That’s up from 12.7% seen at the end of 2019.
Beyond the rise of online shopping, some big-ticket items that used to get shoppers in the door on the Black Friday — like a new TV — are significantly cheaper than they were decades ago, notes Jay Zagorsky, a clinical associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
“There is less need to stand in line at midnight when the items typically associated with doorbuster sales are now much cheaper,” Zagorsky told The Associated Press via email. He pointed to Bureau of Labor Statistics data that show the average price for a TV has fallen 75% since 2014.
While plenty of people will do most of their Black Friday shopping online, projections from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights indicated that most Black Friday shoppers (65%) still planned to shop in stores this year.
Black Friday ‘month’ and the rise of Cyber Monday
It’s no secret that Black Friday sales don’t last just 24 hours anymore. Emails promising holiday deals now start arriving before Halloween.
“Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It has become the crescendo of the holiday shopping season” during what now feels like “Black Friday month,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing to refer to “Black Friday week.”
Retailers trying to get a head start on the competition and to manage shipping logistics helps explain the rush, Zhang said. Offering early holiday deals spreads out purchases, giving shippers more breathing room to complete orders. Zhang therefore doesn’t expect the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to cause significant strain because retailers would have taken them into account.
Linking pre-Thanksgiving sales with Black Friday is also a marketing technique since it’s a name consumers recognize and associate with big, limited-time bargains, Zhang said.
Multiple post-Thanksgiving sales events keep shoppers enticed after Black Friday, including Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, which the National Retail Federation’s online arm designated in 2005.
U.S. consumers spent a record $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday in 2023, and $15.7 million per minute during the day’s peak sales hour, according to Adobe Analytics. On Black Friday, they spent $9.8 billion online, Adobe Analytics said.
Enough people still enjoy shopping in person after Thanksgiving that the activity is unlikely to become extinct, Boston University’s Zagorsky said.
While Black Friday’s significance “is being slightly diminished” over time, the shopping event is still “a way to connect with others,” he said. “This social aspect is important and will not disappear, ensuring that Black Friday is still an important day for retailers.”
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Democratic lawmakers from Connecticut report Thanksgiving bomb threats
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — At least five Democratic members of Congress from Connecticut were targeted by bomb threats on their homes Thursday, the lawmakers or their offices said.
Senator Chris Murphy and Representatives Jim Himes, Joe Courtney, John Larson and Jahana Hayes all reported being the subject of such threats. Police who responded said they found no evidence of explosives on the lawmakers’ properties.
There was no immediate word whether Representative Rosa DeLauro, the fifth Democratic House member from the state, and Connecticut’s other Democratic senator received threats.
The bomb threats against Democrats came a day after a number of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks and appointees reported that they had received such threats, as well as “swatting attacks,” in which perpetrators initiate an emergency law enforcement response against a victim under false pretenses.
Murphy’s office said his Hartford home was the target of a bomb threat, “which appears to be part of a coordinated effort involving multiple members of Congress and public figures.” Hartford Police and U.S. Capitol Police determined there was no threat.
Hayes said the Wolcott Police Department informed her Thursday morning that it had received “a threatening email stating a pipe bomb had been placed in the mailbox at my home.” State police, U.S. Capitol Police, and the House sergeant at arms were notified, Wolcott and state police responded, “and no bomb or explosive materials were discovered.”
Courtney’s Vernon home received a bomb threat while his wife and children were there, his office said.
Himes said he was told of the threat against his home during a Thanksgiving celebration with his family. The U.S. Capitol Police, and Greenwich and Stamford police departments responded.
Hines extended his family’s “utmost gratitude to our local law enforcement officers for their immediate action to ensure our safety.” Echoing other lawmakers who were threatened, he added: “There is no place for political violence in this country, and I hope that we may all continue through the holiday season with peace and civility.”
Larson said Thursday that East Hartford Police responded to a bomb threat against his home.
The threats follow an election season marked by violence. In July, a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear and killing one of his supporters. The Secret Service later thwarted a subsequent assassination attempt at Trump’s West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course when an agent spotted the barrel of a gun poking through a perimeter fence while Trump was golfing.
Among those who received threats Wednesday were New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to serve as the next ambassador to the United Nations; Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial pick to serve as attorney general; Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whom Trump chose to lead the Department of Labor, and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Drone sightings over U.S. bases prompt British troop deployments
British and American authorities are investigating why several drones were flying over four U.S. air bases in England in recent days. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Britain has deployed dozens of troops around the bases amid concerns such drones could be used to disrupt operations or carry out acts of deception and sabotage.
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Drone sightings over US bases prompt British troop deployments
LONDON — British and American authorities are investigating after several drones were spotted in recent days flying over four U.S. military bases in England. Britain has deployed dozens of troops around the bases amid concerns the overflights could be acts of deception or sabotage by an adversary such as Russia.
In a statement issued Wednesday, U.S. Air Forces in Europe said that “small unmanned aerial systems continue to be spotted in the vicinity of and over Royal Air Force Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Feltwell and RAF Fairford since Nov. 20.” It said the number of drones sighted has fluctuated and has ranged in size and configurations.
“To date, installation leaders have determined that none of the incursions impacted base residents, facilities or assets. The air force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard the aforementioned installations and their residents,” the statement said.
RAF Lakenheath in the east of England is home to the U.S. Air Force 48th Fighter Wing, a cornerstone of its combat capability in Europe and home to several F-35 stealth fighter jets, among other aircraft. Four American B-52 strategic bombers are currently based at RAF Fairford in the west of the country.
The Pentagon said this week it is actively monitoring the situation. “The bottom line is it’s something that we’re going to take seriously. We’re continuing to look into it. But as of right now, [it] has not had any significant mission impact,” Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder told reporters Tuesday, adding that small drones have become “relatively common now across the landscape.”
Britain has deployed about 60 soldiers around the U.S. bases. British Defense Minister Maria Eagle said they are using “multilayered force protection measures.”
“We will be making sure that anybody that we manage to catch for engaging in this behavior is shown the full force of the law,” Eagle told lawmakers Wednesday.
The nature of the sightings suggests the drones are not being operated by hobbyists, said David Dunn, a professor of international politics at Britain’s University of Birmingham, who has written extensively on the dangers posed by drones.
“It’s particularly alarming in this context that actually talked about there [being] several different sizes of drones. It does seem to be a coordinated and planned activity. The most obvious thing is that these are disruptive practices and that they actually force the airfield to operate in a different way, to suspend air operations,” Dunn told VOA.
The drones can also be used for other purposes.
“They can gather intelligence on how many planes are operating, where they’re based, what the movements are. And, actually, they can also do that for individuals,” Dunn said.
Drones have been sighted above the U.S. base at RAF Feltwell, which primarily serves as living quarters for U.S. military personnel — a “particularly sinister” development, according to Dunn.
“Because in an age where you have highly sophisticated fifth-generation aircraft that operate stealthily and invisibly in the electronic spectrum when they’re flying — and are highly protected on the airbase in hardened aircraft shelters — the most vulnerable part of the overall system is actually the aircrew,” Dunn told VOA.
“And so, if you can identify where they live by following them home onto their married quarters, you can identify where you can actually break the weakest part of that chain,” he said.
The Times of London newspaper reported that authorities have not ruled out Russia as the culprit. Dunn said there’s evidence of Moscow seeking to step up hybrid attacks, meaning a nonmilitary form of warfare that can still be destructive.
“Whether that be the disruption of undersea cables or of incendiary parcels being sent to the city I live in, Birmingham — there was an incendiary parcel found in Birmingham airport. There’s another [example] of a warehouse being burned down, which stored material going to Ukraine. These things are typically, it seems, done at third party, whereby the Russian state, it seems, has employed criminals in the U,K.,” Dunn said.
The Russian Embassy in London had not responded to VOA requests for comment by the time of publication. Moscow has previously denied any involvement in hybrid attacks on the West.
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Three Americans arrive in Texas following prisoner swap with China
Three American citizens jailed for years in China arrived in the United States late Wednesday as part of a prisoner swap between Washington and Beijing.
The swap, which the White House announced earlier Wednesday, marked a rare diplomatic agreement between the United States and China as U.S. President Joe Biden’s tenure comes to a close.
Beijing announced Thursday that the United States has returned four people to China, including at least three Chinese citizens whom Beijing said were held for “political purposes.” The fourth was an individual sought by Beijing for crimes who had been living in the United States.
The Chinese government did not identify the four people.
The three Americans released in the swap — Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung — landed Wednesday night at a military base in San Antonio, Texas.
Biden told reporters Thursday morning that he has spoken to all of them.
“I’m really happy they are home,” he said.
All three Americans had been designated as wrongfully detained. Swidan was facing a death sentence on drug charges, and Li and Leung were jailed on espionage charges.
In a separate but connected move, the State Department Wednesday lowered its travel warning to China to “level two” from “level three,” now advising American citizens to “exercise increased caution” when traveling to China.
Previously, the State Department advised Americans to “reconsider travel” to China, partially due to the risk of wrongful detention of Americans.
The prisoner swap comes two months after China released David Lin, a Christian pastor from California who had spent nearly 20 years jailed in China after being convicted of contract fraud.
And in August, the United States engaged in a separate historic prisoner swap.
That one, between the United States and Russia, included the release of American journalists Alsu Kurmasheva and Evan Gershkovich, as well as ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and U.S. permanent resident and Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
your ad hereCryptocurrency investors anticipate boom under Trump
Cryptocurrency investors have big hopes for the approaching presidency of Donald Trump, who campaigned this year as a champion of digital currencies. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade kicks off a century after its first trip through Manhattan
New York — A century after the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the annual holiday tradition kicks off Thursday in New York City with new Spider-Man and Minnie Mouse balloons, zoo and pasta-themed floats, performances from Jennifer Hudson and Idina Menzel, and more.
This year’s star-studded lineup is a far cry from the parade’s initial incarnation, which featured floats showing scenes from Mother Goose, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Miss Muffet and the Spider, and other fairy tales.
Some things remain the same, though. As in 1924, there will be plenty of marching bands and lots of clowns, followed by the grand finale of Santa Claus riding through Manhattan and ushering in the holiday season.
This year’s parade features 17 giant, helium-filled character balloons, 22 floats, 15 novelty and heritage inflatables, 11 marching bands, 700 clowns, 10 performance groups, award-winning singers and actors, and the WNBA champion New York Liberty.
One new float will spotlight the Rao’s food brand, featuring a knight and a dragon in battle made with actual pasta elements. Another will celebrate the Bronx Zoo’s 125th anniversary with representations of a tiger, a giraffe, a zebra and a gorilla.
“The work that we do, the opportunity to impact millions of people and bring a bit of joy for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving morning, is what motivates us every day,” said Will Coss, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade executive producer.
The parade begins at 8:30 a.m. on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and ends 4 kilometers away around noon at Macy’s Herald Square flagship store on 34th Street, which serves as a stage and backdrop for performances.
It’ll happen rain or shine — the parade has only been canceled three times, from 1942 to 1944 during World War II — but organizers will be monitoring wind speeds throughout the festivities to make sure it’s safe for the big balloons to fly.
So far, the forecast calls for rain with temperatures in the upper-40s and winds around 16 kph, well within the acceptable range for letting Snoopy, Bluey and their friends soar. New York City law prohibits Macy’s from flying the full-size balloons if sustained winds exceed 37 kph or wind gusts are over 56 kph.
The parade airs on NBC with hosts Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker and streams on the network’s Peacock service. Carlos Adyan and Andrea Meza will host a Spanish simulcast on Telemundo.
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