BOSTON — Families staying in overflow shelter sites in Massachusetts will soon have to document each month their efforts to find a path out of the overflow system, including looking for housing or a job, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced Monday. 

Beginning May 1, families will have to be recertified monthly to remain eligible to stay in the state-run overflow sites. 

They will need to show what steps they’ve taken to work toward independence, including applying for work authorization permits, participating in a workforce training program, submitting job applications, taking English classes or searching for housing, according to the administration. 

Healey said the requirement is critical as a means of accountability. 

“It’s important as we look to manage this responsibly,” she told reporters Monday. 

Healey acknowledged there could be good reasons why certain individuals are not able to fulfill the requirements, but warned those who aren’t putting in the effort could lose their place in line for the state’s shelter system. 

“If they don’t have a good reason for not fulfilling requirements then they will lose their spot,” she said. “The whole idea of this is to divert people from our emergency shelter system, to get them on a different path.” 

The policy does not apply to sites operated by the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, a charitable organization. 

Immigrant advocates say they’re worried the new regulations will complicate the lives of homeless migrants who are already focused on leaving the shelter system. 

“We are deeply concerned that forcing families to reapply for emergency shelter each month will create unnecessary red tape, sow confusion, and ultimately, place more families on the street,” said Elizabeth Sweet of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. 

State and federal officials should instead focus on providing community service organizations the resources they need to support arrivals in pursuing work authorization, long-term housing and case management services, she said. 

Massachusetts has been grappling with the growing influx of homeless migrant families seeking shelter. 

The state’s Emergency Assistance family shelter system serves homeless families with children or pregnant women. Less than half of families in EA are new arrivals to Massachusetts, officials said. 

Last fall, the administration announced that the system could no longer safely or responsibly expand and set up a waiting list. Families who qualify for emergency shelter and are on the waiting list are eligible to stay at the state’s overflow or safety-net sites, currently providing shelter for about 200 families. 

The administration also announced Monday that it will be opening a new overflow shelter site next month in Chelsea at the former Chelsea Soldiers’ Home. The site is vacant and is eventually slated to be demolished. 

At full capacity, the Chelsea site will be able to accommodate approximately 100 families. 

The announcement comes after the Massachusetts Senate last week approved limits on how long homeless families can stay in emergency state shelters as part of an $850 million plan to fund the system at the center of the migrant crisis. 

Under the bill approved late Thursday by a vote of 32-8, the state would limit maximum stays to nine months with the possibility of 90 more days for veterans, pregnant women and people who are employed or enrolled in a job training program. 

Currently, there are no limits on the time a family can spend in emergency housing. 

A bill already passed by the House would provide funding covering the rest of the 2024 fiscal year that ends June 30 and part of 2025. The two bills are expected to go to a conference committee to hammer out a single compromise bill before it’s shipped to Democratic Governor Maura Healey’s desk for her signature.
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Washington — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to meet on Monday with President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala as the U.S. grapples with an influx of migrants to its southern border, thousands from that Central American nation. 

The two leaders are expected to discuss the Biden administration’s use of so-called “safe mobility offices,” which were set up in Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador in the fall, among other immigration matters. The safe mobility offices are designed to streamline the U.S. refugee process so migrants apply where they are and avoid paying smugglers to make the journey north. 

As the 2024 election heats up, immigration has become a rising bipartisan concern. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress say the system is broken, but efforts by lawmakers to address the problems have failed. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with working to address the reasons people choose to leave their homelands to migrate to the U.S. 

Harris and Arévalo will also discuss Arévalo’s anti-corruption agenda and how the U.S. can support the effort, according to a White House official, previewing the talks on the condition of anonymity. 

Arévalo won the presidency in August, beating the establishment candidate by a comfortable margin. He is the son of a former president credited with implementing some of Guatemala’s key labor protections, but his strong showing in a crowded field was still a shock. 

The politician with a background in academia and conflict resolution caught fire with a message of challenging the country’s entrenched power structure and resuming the fight against corruption. 

The Democratic vice president is also expected to announce $5.2 billion in investments in Central America. 

While still among the lowest monthly tallies in Biden’s presidency, the number of arrests for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border nudged upward in February over the previous month to 189,922. Of those, 23,780 were Guatemalan. 
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WASHINGTON — Kevin Hart, who rose from the open mics and comedy clubs of his native Philadelphia to become one of the country’s most recognizable performers, will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a gala performance Sunday at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Hart, 44, has honed a signature style that combines his diminutive height, expressive face and motor-mouth delivery into a successful stand-up act.

In Hollywood, Hart made his movie debut in the 2002 film “Paper Soldiers” and came to mainstream fame through a string of scene-stealing cameos in hits such as 2005’s “The 40-Year-Old-Virgin.”

Hart’s films have grossed more than $4.23 billion globally.

Now in its 25th year, the Mark Twain Prize annually honors performers who have made a lasting impact on humor and culture. Honorees receive a bronze bust of Twain, the iconic American writer and satirist whose real name was Samuel Clemens.

Mark Twain recipients are honored with a night of testimonials and video tributes, often featuring previous award winners. Other comedians receiving the lifetime achievement award include George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett and Dave Chapelle. Bill Cosby, the 2009 recipient, had his Mark Twain Prize rescinded in 2019 amid allegations of sexual assault.
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LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani plans to speak to the media Monday for the first time since the illegal gambling and theft allegations involving the Los Angeles Dodgers star and his interpreter emerged during the team’s trip to South Korea.

The interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired by the Dodgers last week when the team opened the season with two games against the San Diego Padres in Seoul.

Manager Dave Roberts endorsed Ohtani addressing the matter publicly. He said it was the two-way superstar’s decision to do so.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Roberts said. “I’m happy he’s going to speak and speak to what he knows and give his thoughts on the whole situation. I think it will give us all a little bit more clarity.”

Mizuhara was let go from the team following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and claims from Ohtani’s attorneys that the Japanese star had been the victim of a “massive theft.”

Major League Baseball has opened an investigation of the matter. The Internal Revenue Service has confirmed that Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker in Orange County, California, are under criminal investigation.

Ohtani made only a brief appearance in the Dodgers clubhouse before Sunday’s Freeway Series opener against his former team, the Los Angeles Angels. The teams are playing three exhibition games before the Dodgers host St. Louis in their home opener on Thursday.

Ohtani was set to bat second as the designated hitter at Dodger Stadium. He’s also expected to play Monday and Tuesday in Anaheim, where he was a two-time AL MVP before leaving the Angels as a free agent to sign a record $700 million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers in December.

Roberts said Ohtani has not addressed his teammates as a group.

“I think that he’s had one-off conversations with players,” Roberts said.

The manager said he checked in with Ohtani to see how he’s doing.

“He’s kind of business as usual,” Roberts said.

Ohtani has a double locker in the Dodgers clubhouse located between the shower room and fellow Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is slated to make his second start of the season on Saturday against St. Louis.

Extra security was posted in the jammed clubhouse on Sunday. Besides the players and a horde of media, eight temporary lockers were set up at one end for minor leaguers brought over from Arizona for the Freeway Series.

Overhead televisions were tuned to men’s NCAA Tournament games, baseball and horse racing, with former Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Paul Lo Duca offering TV handicapping tips on the day’s races.

The MLB gambling policy is posted in every clubhouse. Betting on baseball — legally or not — is punishable with a one-year ban from the sport. The penalty for betting on other sports illegally is at the commissioner’s discretion. Sports gambling is illegal in California, even as 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.

“The mood in the room is get ready for baseball because I don’t hear a lot of conversations and speculation,” Roberts said. “That’s why I think tomorrow is going to be good for everyone.”
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Parkland, Florida — PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris toured on Saturday the bloodstained classroom building where the 2018 Parkland high school massacre happened, then announced a program to assist states that have laws allowing police to temporarily seize guns from people judges have found to be dangerous.

Harris saw bullet-pocked walls and floors still covered in dried blood and broken glass left behind from the Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 14 students and three staff members and wounded 17.

The halls and classrooms inside the three-story structure remain strewn with shoes left behind by fleeing students and wilted Valentine’s Day flowers and balloons. Textbooks, laptop computers, snacks and papers remain on desks. She was told about each victim who died.

“Frozen in time,” Harris said repeatedly about what she saw. She was accompanied on the tour by victims’ family members, some of them pushing for more spending on school safety and others for stronger gun laws.

Harris, who leads the new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said there are lessons to be learned from Parkland, both for stopping school shootings before they happen and mitigating them with measures such as making sure classroom doors don’t lock from the outside as they did at Stoneman Douglas. She pointed out that shootings are a leading cause of death for children and teenagers.

“We must be willing to have the courage to say that on every level, whether you talk about changing laws or changing practices and protocols, that we must do better,” Harris said.

At Stoneman Douglas, former student Nikolas Cruz, then 19, fired about 140 shots from his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle during his six-minute attack, moving methodically from the first floor, through the second and onto the third.

He pleaded guilty in 2021. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2022 after his jury couldn’t unanimously agree he deserved a death sentence, angering the victims’ families.

The building was preserved so his jury could tour it. It has loomed over the 3,600-student school from behind a temporary fence since the school reopened two weeks after the shooting. It is scheduled to be demolished this summer. No replacement plan has been announced.

Following Harris’ tour, she announced a $750 million grant program to provide technical assistance and training to Florida and the other 20 states that have similar “red flag laws.”

Florida’s law allows police officers, with a judge’s permission, to temporarily seize guns belonging to anyone shown to be a danger to others or themselves. The statute has been used more than 12,000 times since it was enacted six years ago in response to the Parkland shooting.

Harris also called on both Congress and states without red flag laws to adopt them. The Biden administration has called for a national red flag law.

Cruz had a long history of troubling and bizarre behavior before the shooting, including animal torture. In the weeks before the shooting, he had been reported to local law enforcement and the FBI by people fearing he was planning a mass shooting, but no action was taken. He legally purchased 10 guns in the 17 months between his 18th birthday and the massacre.

“Red flag laws are simply designed to give communities a vehicle through which they can share … information about the concern of potential danger or the crying out for help,” Harris said.

Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican who signed Florida’s red flag law as governor, issued a statement Saturday calling the Biden administration’s proposed national red flag law “radical,” saying it would be modeled on California’s statute and strip gun owners of their rights. California’s law is broader than Florida’s as it allows family members, employers and others to initiate the process, but the removal also has to be approved by a judge.

California’s law “abandons due process to more quickly and easily take constitutional rights away from law-abiding Americans. That is unacceptable,” Scott said.

Harris’ tour was the latest by elected officials and law enforcement and education leaders in recent months. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona toured it in January, and several members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have gone through since law enforcement returned custody of the building to the school district last summer. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle visited the building in recent days.

“It is important to bring these people through the building so they can see not only the horror that still exists there, but so that we can point to the exact things that failed,” said Tony Montalto, president of Stand With Parkland, the group that represents most of the victims’ families. His 14-year-old daughter Gina died in the shooting.

Some Stoneman Douglas families who participate in the tours, along with Harris and President Joe Biden, want the sale of AR-15s and similar guns banned, as they were from 1994 to 2004, but there isn’t sufficient support in Congress. Opponents, which include other victims’ families, argue that such a ban would violate the Second Amendment and do little to stem gun violence.

Linda Beigel Schulman said the tour showed Harris the carnage a mass shooting creates — it no longer will be an abstract concept for her. Beigel Schulman’s 35-year-old son, geography teacher Scott Beigel, was killed as he ushered students to safety in his classroom. The papers he was grading when the shooting began remain on his desk.

“She understands how important gun violence prevention is for us,” Beigel Schulman said of the vice president. “But when you go into the actual building and see what actually happened, it doesn’t matter that it is six years later. It really does something to you.”

Max Schachter, whose son Alex died in the shooting, uses the tours to persuade officials to enact school safety measures such as making doors and windows bullet-resistant. Alex, 14, died from shots fired through the window of his classroom’s door.

Schachter said while there is disagreement over gun laws, school safety brings the sides together. He pointed particularly to a fall visit by Utah officials, leading to that state enacting a $100 million plan to harden its schools.

“I couldn’t save Alex. But every time I have officials come through that building, lives are saved,” Schachter said.
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New York — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission recommended Thursday that policymakers look further into profits at grocery stores that remain elevated since the pandemic and promotions that consumer products makers offer retailers.

The FTC also is suing to block Kroger’s acquisition of smaller grocery store rival Albertsons, citing concerns the deal would hike prices for millions of Americans.

The FTC launched the study in 2021 when it ordered Walmart, Kroger, Procter & Gamble, grocery wholesalers and others to turn over detailed information relating to the supply chain crisis during the pandemic, which contributed to double-digit price increases on household necessities.

Big box and chain stores secured limited resources, leaving small independent grocers at a disadvantage, FTC Chairperson Lina Khan said on a public call to discuss the report. This harmed communities reliant on these smaller retailers and could have also strengthened market dominance of larger corporations, she added.

“If we end up finding that these types of practices violated any of the antitrust laws including the [Robinson-] Patman act, I’ll be very interested in making sure we take swift action,” she said without providing details.

The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 is a U.S. antitrust law preventing large franchises and chains from engaging in price discrimination against small businesses.

Several representatives of smaller grocery operators spoke on the call saying that during the pandemic, they faced shortages of toilet paper, cleaning products and pet supplies as manufacturers prioritized their biggest clients.

“It was a true test of survival for a lot of our customers,” said Brian Patterson, head buyer at Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distributing Co.

Walmart and Kroger are among chains that have touted gaining U.S. grocery market share. Kroger’s most recent quarterly statements said it improved volume share consistently for the past five quarters. Walmart said it gained market share in “virtually every category,” citing its lower prices.

Walmart and Kroger did grow share from 2018 to 2022, but only modestly, according to Coresight Research data.

The FTC said it will pass the report onto lawmakers, “where there has been broad interest” from members of both parties.

U.S. President Joe Biden has taken aim at grocery chains this year.

“Today’s FTC report shows grocery retailers increased profits during the pandemic and have maintained or increased those margins even as their own costs have come down,” the White House said in an email to Reuters on Thursday.

In Thursday’s report, the FTC found that a measure of annual profits for food and beverage retailers “rose substantially and remains quite elevated.” The commission said revenues for grocery retailers were 6% over total costs in 2021, and 7% in the first nine months of 2023, higher than a peak of 5.6% in 2015.

“This casts doubt on assertions that rising prices at the grocery store are simply moving in lockstep with retailers’ own rising costs,” the FTC said, adding that elevated profit levels “warrant further inquiry” by both policymakers and the commission, which is tasked with protecting the public from unfair business practices.

The FTC also said trade promotions, payments by consumer goods companies to retailers for favorable product placement in stores and on e-commerce websites, “may warrant further study.”

The reduction in spending harmed traditional grocers that use a “high-low” pricing strategy with more frequent promotions, the FTC found.

Retailers that offer “everyday low pricing” with fewer promotions, like Walmart, benefited, according to the study.

Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FTC added that the report does not make claims of illegality.

“We’re shedding light on what we’re seeing in the market, which has broader relevance to policymakers beyond law enforcement.”
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Paris — Representatives of 30 nations meeting in Brussels vowed to beef up nuclear energy Thursday as one solution to meet climate-fighting targets and guarantee reliable energy supplies. But the issue of nuclear power is divisive, and critics say it shouldn’t be part of the world’s approach to energy challenges.

The summit was the first of its kind, drawing leaders and delegates from the United States, Brazil, China and France, among others. The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, co-hosted the meeting and is promoting nuclear energy as a key way to reduce skyrocketing climate emissions.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said, “The heads of government, presidents, they believe that in the current context energywise, securitywise, nuclear has a very important contribution to make.”

Over 400 nuclear plants operate in about 30 countries, with another 500 planned or under construction. But overall, nuclear represents 10% of global electricity generation. In a statement, countries attending the meeting committed to increasing nuclear power’s potential, including by building new plants.

White House climate advisor John Podesta said, “I think what this summit will do, will put a marker down … that expansion of nuclear power is critical for tackling the climate crisis that is really beginning to disturb everyone across the globe.”

European Union countries such as France, which gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear power, believe it can help meet ambitious European climate goals.

But the EU itself is divided. Some member states, including Germany, Austria and Spain, have safety and environmental concerns about nuclear energy, including the waste it generates.

So do groups such as Greenpeace, whose activists protested the Brussels summit.

Lorelei Limousin, the climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace EU in Brussels, said, “Nuclear power is too slow to tackle the climate emergency. Nuclear energy is also very expensive, and much more expensive than renewables today. Finally nuclear power remains dangerous today — with risks to health, environment, safety.”

Supporters say those risks can be managed — and they say that for now, increasing nuclear’s share of the power mix is essential if the world is to turn around a dangerous climate trajectory.
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Following the Hollywood success of Christopher Nolan’s biopic of Robert Oppenheimer, a more obscure but no less interesting memory from the atomic age can be found in Manhattan, not too far from one of Oppenheimer’s boyhood homes. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Max Avloshenko
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jackson, mississippi — A fourth former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years in federal prison for his part in the racist torture of two Black men by a group of white officers who called themselves the “Goon Squad.”

Christian Dedmon, 29, did not look at the victims as he apologized and said he’d never forgive himself for the pain he caused. 

All six former officers charged in the case pleaded guilty last year, admitting that they subjected Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to numerous acts of racist torture in January 2023 after a neighbor complained the men were staying in a home with a white woman. Prosecutors said Dedmon slapped the men with a sex toy and threatened to brutalize them with it.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee said Wednesday that Dedmon carried out the most “shocking, brutal and cruel attacks imaginable” against Jenkins and Parker and against a white man during a traffic stop weeks earlier.

Jenkins, who still has trouble speaking because of his injuries, said in a statement read by his lawyer that Dedmon’s actions were the most depraved of any of those who attacked him.

“Deputy Dedmon is the worst example of a police officer in the United States,” Jenkins said. “Deputy Dedmon was the most aggressive, sickest and the most wicked.”

Hours before Dedmon’s sentencing, former Officer Daniel Opdyke, 28, cried profusely as he spoke before the judge announced his sentence of 17.5 years. Turning to look at the two victims, Opdyke said isolation behind bars has given him time to reflect on “how I transformed into the monster I became that night.”

“The weight of my actions and the harm I’ve caused will haunt me every day,” Opdyke told them. “I wish I could take away your suffering.”

Parker rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes, then stood and left the courtroom before Opdyke finished speaking. Jenkins said he was “broken” and left “ashamed” by the cruel acts inflicted upon him.

The judge said Opdyke might not have been fully aware of what being a member of the Goon Squad entailed when Lieutenant Jeffrey Middleton asked him to join, but he did know it involved using excessive force.

“You were not a passive observer,” Lee said. “You actively participated in that brutal attack.”

All six former officers pleaded guilty last year of breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing the Black men with a stun gun, a sex toy and other objects.

On Tuesday, Lee gave a nearly 20-year prison sentence to Hunter Elward, 31, and a 17.5-year sentence to Middleton, 46, calling their actions “egregious and despicable.” They, like Opdyke and Dedmon, worked as Rankin County sheriff’s deputies during the attack.

Another former deputy, Brett McAlpin, 53, and a former Richland police officer, Joshua Hartfield, 32, are set for sentencing Thursday.

Last March, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries. 

The former officers stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in a “mock execution” that went awry.

After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, the officers devised a cover-up that included planting drugs and a gun. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Hong Kong’s adoption of a second national security law Tuesday is being criticized by foreign governments, while some business figures say the law will hasten foreign businesses’ departure from the city.

The United Nations, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union expressed concern about the ambiguous language in the law and its speedy adoption, which was completed in less than two weeks.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that the vague provisions in the bill, also known as Article 23, could lead to the criminalization of freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to receive and impart information, which are all rights protected under international human rights law.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said passage of Article 23 could accelerate the closing of a once-open society, adding that the U.S. is analyzing the potential impact of the law.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the law has failed to “provide certainty for international organizations, including diplomatic missions” operating in Hong Kong, and it will foster “the culture of self-censorship” that is now dominating the social and political landscape in the city.

Apart from reiterating concerns about the law’s potential impact on Hong Kong people’s basic rights and freedom, the EU said the bill’s increased penalties, extraterritorial reach and partial retroactive applicability are “also deeply worrying.”

Despite the international criticism, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee hailed the passage of Article 23 as “a historic moment for Hong Kong,” while the Chinese government expressed “full support” of the development.

Rights activists call for sanctions

While they welcome the concerns expressed by foreign governments, some human rights activists urged democratic countries to respond with more forceful measures.

“With the enactment of the Article 23 legislation, now is the time to impose sanctions on officials like Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee,” said Benedict Rogers, the CEO of U.K.-based nongovernmental organization Hong Kong Watch.

Since Hong Kong implemented the controversial national security law and detained dozens of pro-democracy activists and politicians in 2020, the U.S. is the only country that has imposed sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials, 24 of them in all.

Rogers said since the U.K. doesn’t want to damage trade relations with China, the British government remains reluctant to impose sanctions on Chinese officials over the deteriorating conditions in Hong Kong.

“[While] they imposed sanctions on some Chinese officials over the human rights violations in Xinjiang, they haven’t done anything similar on Hong Kong,” he told VOA by phone.

While the U.S. has introduced some tools to counter China’s tightening control over Hong Kong — including sanctions, new legislation to ban the export of certain items to Hong Kong and the elimination of Hong Kong’s special status — some observers urged Washington to roll out more forceful measures following the passage of the Article 23.

“There’s a lot that Congress and the administration can do, including issuing additional sanctions against people responsible for the implementation of the two national security laws and advancing other existing legislations related to Hong Kong,” Samuel Bickett, a Washington-based human rights activist, told VOA by phone.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Thursday, leaders of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party urged him to consider imposing new sanctions against officials responsible for undermining freedom and rule of law in Hong Kong.

They also vowed to advance the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office Certification Act and the Transnational Repression Policy Act through Congress. Once passed, the two bills would require Hong Kong to shut down its trade offices in the U.S. and allow the U.S. government to impose sanctions against Chinese or Hong Kong officials responsible for launching transnational repression against dissidents in the U.S. 

Laws’ effect on immigration, business

Apart from adopting more forceful measures against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, Bickett and Rogers think democratic countries should introduce new immigration measures to accommodate the growing number of Hong Kong citizens leaving the city. According to statistics from Bloomberg, around 500,000 people have left Hong Kong since 2021.

While the U.K. has introduced an immigration program for holders of British Overseas Passports from Hong Kong, which was recently extended to more young people, Rogers hopes other countries, including the U.S. and those in Europe, can create similar programs tailored for Hong Kongers.

“I would like to see the EU and the U.S. offer some options so Hong Kongers who don’t qualify for the U.K.’s immigration scheme can have alternative options,” he said.

Since the Article 23 legislation uses vague language to define espionage and theft of state secrets, some analysts say foreign businesses may face serious challenges when conducting due diligence investigations or seeking information.

“This could be a big blow to banks and financial institutions, and it will further discourage investors from coming to Hong Kong since access to information is now further restricted,” Eric Lai, an expert on Hong Kong’s legal system at Georgetown Center for Asian Law, told VOA by phone.

Some analysts say the growing uncertainty in the business environment would lead more foreign businesses to consider leaving Hong Kong.

“Article 23 will hasten the departure of international businesses unless the Hong Kong government quickly establishes guard rails constricting the operational boundaries of the new law,” Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, told VOA in a written response.
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Five U.S. states held presidential primaries Tuesday. The presumptive nominees, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, have achieved enough votes to secure their party nominations. Former President Trump voted in his home state of Florida. That’s where VOA senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Presutti is and tells us where that state stands on a big issue, immigration.
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