Category: United States

United States news. The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives, a lower house based on population; and the Senate, an upper house based on equal representation for each state

Musk Cannot Keep Tesla Pay Package Worth More Than $55 Billion, Judge Rules

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DOVER, Del. — Elon Musk is not entitled to a landmark compensation package awarded by Tesla’s board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion, a Delaware judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling by Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick comes more than five years after a shareholder lawsuit targeted Tesla CEO Musk and directors of the company. They were accused of breaching their duties to the maker of electric vehicles and solar panels, resulting in a waste of corporate assets and unjust enrichment for Musk.

The shareholder’s lawyers argued that the compensation package should be voided because it was dictated by Musk and was the product of sham negotiations with directors who were not independent of him. They also said it was approved by shareholders who were given misleading and incomplete disclosures in a proxy statement.

Defense attorneys countered that the pay plan was fairly negotiated by a compensation committee whose members were independent, contained performance milestones so lofty that they were ridiculed by some Wall Street investors, and blessed by a shareholder vote that was not even required under Delaware law. They also argued that Musk was not a controlling shareholder because he owned less than one-third of the company at the time.

An attorney for Musk and other Tesla defendants did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

But Musk reacted to the ruling on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that he owns, by offering business advice. “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware,” he said. He later added, “I recommend incorporating in Nevada or Texas if you prefer shareholders to decide matters.”

Musk, who as of Tuesday topped Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, had earlier this month challenged Tesla’s board to come up with a new compensation plan for him that would give him a 25% stake in the company. On an earnings call last week, Musk, who holds 13%, explained that with a 25% stake, he can’t control the company, yet he would have strong influence.

In trial testimony in November 2022, Musk denied that he dictated terms of the compensation package or attended any meetings at which the plan was discussed by the board, its compensation committee, or a working group that helped develop it.

McCormick determined, however, that because Musk was a controlling shareholder with a potential conflict of interest, the pay package must be subject to a more rigorous standard.

“The process leading to the approval of Musk’s compensation plan was deeply flawed,” McCormick wrote in the colorfully written 200-page decision. “Musk had extensive ties with the persons tasked with negotiating on Tesla’s behalf.”

McCormick concluded that the only suitable remedy was for Musk’s compensation package to be rescinded.

Greg Varallo, a lead attorney for the shareholder plaintiff, praised McCormick’s decision to reverse the “absurdly outsized” Musk pay package.

“The fact that they lost this in Delaware court, it’s a jaw dropper,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. “It’s unprecedented, a ruling like this. I think going in investors thought it was just typical legal noise and nothing was going to come out about it. The fact that they went head-to-head with Tesla and Musk and the board and voided this, it’s a huge legal decision.”

During his trial testimony, Musk downplayed the notion that his friendships with certain Tesla board members, including sometimes vacationing together, meant that they were likely to do his bidding.

The plan called for Musk to reap billions if Tesla, which is based in Austin, Texas, hit certain market capitalization and operational milestones. For each incidence of simultaneously meeting a market cap milestone and an operational milestone, Musk, who owned about 22% of Tesla when the plan was approved, would get stock equal to 1% of outstanding shares at the time of the grant. His interest in the company would grow to about 28% if the company’s market capitalization grew by $600 billion.

Tesla has achieved all 12 market capitalization milestones and 11 operational milestones, providing Musk nearly $28 billion in stock option gains, according to a January post-trial brief filed by the plaintiff’s attorneys. The stock option grants are subject to a five-year holding period, however.

Defense attorney Evan Chesler argued at trial that the compensation package was a “high-risk, high-reward” deal that benefited not just Musk, but Tesla shareholders. After the plan was implemented, the value of the company, based in Austin, Texas, climbed from $53 billion to more than $800 billion, having briefly hit $1 trillion.
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Kimchi Consumption Grows, Thanks to K-Content, Health Claims

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washington — South Korean kimchi exports hit a record high amid a global surge in the popularity of Korean culture, hitting 44,041 tons in 2023, a 7.1% increase from 42,544 tons exported in 2021. 

Kimchi, a traditional Korean dish made by fermenting cabbage or other vegetables, was exported to 92 countries from South Korea last year, with the United States and Japan being the top customers, according to BusinessKorea, a monthly magazine.  

The United States imported more than 10,000 tons of kimchi in 2023, and Japan imported more than 20,000 tons. Kimchi exports to the United States have grown significantly in the past few years, increasing from $14.8 million in 2019 to $29 million in 2022, according to The Korea Daily. 

Some experts see a connection between this rise in exports and the rising popularity of Korean entertainment content, such as K-pop and K-dramas. According to Forbes, U.S. viewership of Korean dramas rose 200% from 2019 to 2021, with TV shows like “Squid Game” topping the Netflix viewership charts in the United States.  

Others attribute the rising popularity of kimchi to its health benefits, as fermented foods expand the diversity of digestive tract microbes.  

Patrice Cunningham, founder and CEO of Tae-Gu Kimchi in Washington, spoke about the increase in popularity of kimchi in the United States. 

“Kimchi is a huge part of the Korean diet,” she said. “They eat it as a side dish with almost every meal. … In the states now, we’re kind of implementing that same style of eating.”  

Cunningham makes and distributes kimchi with her mother, selling both vegan and non-vegan varieties made from napa cabbage.  

“I always knew that my mom had a really great kimchi recipe, and I remember saying to myself for a while that I wanted to bottle it one day and sell it,” Cunningham said.  

She attends 15 to 16 farmers markets a week in the main season and has won multiple grants for her business, contributing to its growth. 

She said many of their customers focus on their “gut health … and so they buy our kimchi for that.”   

K-culture boosts popularity

Another Washington business that sells kimchi is Rice Market. Partner Sak Pollert said kimchi sales have increased significantly over the past two years.  

He said more customers come in “with recipes on their phone, looking for Korean and other Asian ingredients, too.”   

As to kimchi’s rise in popularity, particularly in the United States, Pollert said that many in Washington are world travelers already familiar with kimchi but don’t like the smell.  

“But now, they learned it’s probiotic foods that taste good and help with digestion,” he said. “It helps make other foods taste better, so they get over the smell quickly.”  

Pollert said he thinks that K-content has played an important role in bolstering kimchi’s global popularity. K-dramas “did a phenomenal job promoting kimchi and Korean food and drinks, especially soju,” a Korean grain-based alcohol.  

He noted that restaurant and dinner scenes in many K-dramas feature ajummas — Korean for married or middle-aged women — gathering around a table to gossip and make kimchi before winter.  

South Korea promotes its cuisine 

This rise in popularity of kimchi, though influenced by multiple factors, is a part of a broader plan by the South Korean government to push Korean cuisine worldwide.  

“South Korea’s government and corporations are thinking of ways to promote Korean food and profit from it,” National Public Radio’s Anthony Kuhn said in an interview with Yang Joo-Pil, an official at the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.  

Yang said that each year, about 10 food items are chosen for product placement in popular dramas, and Korean foods are sold at K-pop concerts. 

In Washington, efforts to promote Korean food and spread Korean culture are evident in the work of the Korean Cultural Center. Last November, the center partnered with Tae-Gu Kimchi for “DC’s First Kimjang: Making and Sharing Kimchi.”  

Kimjang in Korea is an event that occurs once or twice a year “as a way for communities to collectively stock up on and share essential foods,” according to the Korean Cultural Center’s event page.  

At the kimjang event, participants had the opportunity to try kimchi over rice and make their own kimchi in a hands-on workshop. 
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US Syphilis Cases Rise in 2022; Most in 70 Years

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new york — The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn’t abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults.

But there’s some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade.

It’s not clear why syphilis rose 9% while gonorrhea dropped 9%, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that it’s too soon to know whether a new downward trend is emerging for the latter.

They are most focused on syphilis, which is less common than gonorrhea or chlamydia but considered more dangerous. Total cases surpassed 207,000 in 2022, the highest count in the United States since 1950, according to data released Tuesday.

And while it continues to have a disproportionate impact on gay and bisexual men, it is expanding in heterosexual men and women, and increasingly affecting newborns, too, CDC officials said.

Syphilis is a bacterial disease that can surface as painless genital sores but can ultimately lead to paralysis, hearing loss, dementia and even death if left untreated.

New syphilis infections plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when antibiotics became widely available and fell to their lowest number by 1998.

About 59,000 of the 2022 cases involved the most infectious forms of syphilis. Of those, about a quarter were women and nearly a quarter were heterosexual men.

“I think it’s unknowingly being spread in the cisgender heterosexual population because we really aren’t testing for it. We really aren’t looking for it” in that population, said Dr. Philip Chan, who teaches at Brown University and is chief medical officer of Open Door Health, a health center for gay, lesbian and transgender patients in Providence, Rhode Island.

The report also shows rates of the most infectious types of syphilis rose not just across the country but also across different racial and ethnic groups, with American Indian and Alaska Native people having the highest rate. South Dakota outpaced any other state for the highest rate of infectious syphilis at 84 cases per 100,000 people — more than twice as high as the state with the second-highest rate, New Mexico.

South Dakota’s increase was driven by an outbreak in the Native American community, said Dr. Meghan O’Connell, chief public health officer at the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board based in Rapid City, South Dakota. Most Nearly all of the cases were in heterosexual people. O’Connell said STD testing and treatment was limited in isolated tribal communities and only got worse during the pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year convened a syphilis task force focused on stopping the spread of the STD, with an emphasis on places with the highest syphilis rates — South Dakota, 12 other states and the District of Columbia.

The report also looked at the more common STDs of chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Chlamydia cases were relatively flat from 2021 to 2022, staying at a rate of about 495 per 100,000, though there were declines noted in men and especially women in their early 20s. For gonorrhea, the most pronounced decline was seen in women in their early 20s as well.

Experts say they’re not sure why gonorrhea rates declined. It happened in about 40 states, so whatever explains the decrease appears to have occurred across most of the country. STD testing was disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and officials believe that’s the reason the chlamydia rate fell in 2020.

It’s possible that testing and diagnoses were still shaking out in 2022, said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.

“We are encouraged by the magnitude of the decline,” Mermin said, though the gonorrhea rate is still higher now than it was pre-pandemic. “We need to examine what happened, and whether it’s going to continue to happen.”
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US, China Launch Fentanyl Talks in Sign of Cooperation Amid Differences

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BEIJING — American and Chinese officials met Tuesday to discuss joint efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., a sign of cooperation as the two global powers try to manage their contentious ties.

The two-day meeting was the first for a new counternarcotics working group. One focus of the talks was fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is ravaging America, and in particular ingredients for the drug that are made in China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to restart cooperation in a handful of areas, including drug trafficking, when he and U.S. President Joe Biden met outside San Francisco in November. The agreements were a small step forward in a relationship strained by major differences on issues ranging from trade and technology to Taiwan and human rights.

The U.S. wants China to do more to curb the export of chemicals that it says are processed into fentanyl, largely in Mexico, before the final product is smuggled into the United States.

Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong said the two sides had in-depth and pragmatic talks.

“We reached common understanding on the work plan for the working group,” he said at a ceremony marking the inauguration of the group.

The head of the U.S. team, Jen Daskal, a deputy homeland security advisor in the White House, said that Biden had sent a high-level delegation “to underscore the importance of this issue to the American people.”

China used to be a major supplier of fentanyl, and the U.S. has credited Beijing for a 2019 crackdown that led to “a drastic reduction in seizures of fentanyl shipments … from China.” Now it wants Beijing to stop the export of the ingredients known as “precursors.”

Synthetic opioids are the biggest killers in the deadliest drug crisis the U.S. has ever seen. More than 100,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two-thirds involved fentanyl or similar synthetic drugs.

China had previously rebuffed U.S. appeals for help as relations between the two global powers deteriorated, often responding that the U.S. should look inward to solve its domestic problems and not blame them on China.

Talks were formally put on ice in 2022, when China suspended cooperation in several areas including narcotics to protest a visit to Taiwan by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The ice began to thaw in the lead-up to the Biden-Xi meeting in November 2023. A U.S. Senate delegation pressed the fentanyl issue on a visit to Beijing in October and said that Chinese officials expressed sympathy for the victims of America’s opioid crisis.

But China refused to discuss cooperation unless the U.S. lifted sanctions on the Public Security Ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science. The Commerce Department had imposed the sanctions in 2020, accusing the institute complicity in human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in China’s Xinjiang region.

The U.S. quietly agreed to lift the sanctions to get cooperation on fentanyl. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi acknowledged “the removal of the obstacle of unilateral sanctions” in a speech on China-U.S. relations earlier this month.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called it “an appropriate step to take” given what China was willing to do on the trafficking of fentanyl precursors.
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Garland to Undergo Surgery, US Justice Department Says 

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WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland will undergo back surgery this weekend and delegate his duties to the deputy attorney general during the procedure, the Justice Department said Monday. 

The news comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin returns to work at the Pentagon following a hospitalization related to prostate cancer that was criticized for being kept secret for days. 

Garland, 71, will be under general anesthesia during the back procedure on Saturday, which will last about 90 minutes and is “minimally invasive,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, director of public affairs at the Justice Department. He is expected to return home the same day, she said. Garland will delegate his duties to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco shortly before, during and for a short time after the procedure as he recovers from the anesthesia, the statement said. He is expected to return to work the week of February 5. 

Austin returned to the Pentagon on Monday after nearly a monthlong absence. He underwent a surgical procedure for the cancer on December 22 and was released but was then admitted to intensive care days later after experiencing extreme pain. He stayed there for two weeks but didn’t inform the White House or his deputy until days later that he had cancer, had surgery or returned to the hospital.  

Austin’s lack of disclosure prompted two ongoing reviews, as well as changes in federal guidelines to ensure the White House will be informed any time  Cabinet chiefs can’t carry out their jobs. The Justice Department notified the White House of the plans to delegate his duties under the new guidelines, White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton confirmed. 

When Garland went in for a routine medical procedure in 2022, his office also informed the public a week in advance and outlined how long he was expected to be out and when he would return to work.
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Gambling Busts at Iowa State Were Result of Improper Searches, Athletes’ Attorneys Contend

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US Arms Exports Hit Record High in Fiscal 2023

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Washington — Sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments in 2023 rose 16% to a record $238 billion, the U.S. State Department said on Monday, as countries sought to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine and prepare for major conflicts.  

The figures underpin expectations of stronger sales for the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, whose shares are forecast to rise amid growing global instability. 

Arms sales and transfers are viewed as “important U.S. foreign policy tools with potential long-term implications for regional and global security,” the State Department said in a statement. 

Sales approved in the year included $10 billion worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Poland, $2.9 billion worth of AIM-120C-8 Advanced Medium-Range Air-To-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to Germany, and National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine. 

Lockheed makes the HIMARS, and RTX, formerly Raytheon, makes AMRAAM. RTX and Norway’s Kongsberg produce NASAMS. 

Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics expect existing orders for hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, hundreds of Patriot missile interceptors, and a surge in orders for armored vehicles will underpin their results in coming quarters. 

There are two major ways foreign governments purchase arms from U.S. companies: direct commercial sales negotiated with a company, or foreign military sales in which a government typically contacts a Defense Department official at the U.S. embassy in its capital. Both require U.S. government approval. 

The direct military sales by U.S. companies rose to $157.5 billion in fiscal 2023 from $153.6 billion in fiscal 2022, while sales arranged through the U.S. government rose to $80.9 billion in 2023 from $51.9 billion the prior year.
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Ex-IRS Contractor Sentenced to 5 Years for Leaking Trump Tax Records

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Washington — A former contractor for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service was sentenced by a judge on Monday to five years in prison on Monday for leaking the tax records of former President Donald Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans to media organizations.

Charles Littlejohn, 38, in October had pleaded guilty to a charge of disclosing income tax return information without authorization.  

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes decided on his sentence.  

Federal prosecutors had sought a five-year sentence, the maximum allowed under U.S. law, arguing that Littlejohn was motivated by a political agenda and compromised the security of sensitive personal information. Littlejohn, according to prosecutors, sought a position at a consulting firm that works with the IRS in 2017 in hopes of accessing and disclosing records on Trump, who was president at the time.

Littlejohn’s lawyers said he was motivated by a “deep, moral belief” that the public had a right to know the information he shared, but now regrets his actions. Littlejohn’s legal team did not request a specific sentence, but sought a punishment comparable to prior government leakers.  

Littlejohn secretly downloaded years of Trump’s tax records in 2018, later sharing them with reporters from the New York Times, according to court documents. The newspaper published a series of articles in 2020 revealing that Trump paid no income tax in 10 of the 15 years before he was elected president.

Trump became the first major U.S. presidential candidate in decades not to release his tax returns when he ran for the White House in 2016. A U.S. House of Representatives panel released six years of his tax records in 2022 after a court battle.

Littlejohn later leaked tax information on “ultra-high net worth taxpayers” to the investigative news outlet ProPublica. He was motivated by concerns about economic inequality and wanted to spur reforms to the U.S. tax system, his defense team wrote in court documents.  

ProPublica published nearly 50 articles based on the information, revealing how the wealthy evade income taxes in the United States.

The nearly 6,000 pages of records released by the House panel in 2022 included more than 2,700 pages of personal returns from Trump and his wife Melania Trump, plus more than 3,000 pages of returns from his businesses. They showed that Trump’s income and tax liability fluctuated dramatically from 2015 through 2020 and that he and his wife claimed large deductions and losses, and paid little or no income tax in several of those years.
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Illinois Election Officials to Consider Striking Trump’s Name off Primary Ballot

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CHICAGO — Former President Donald Trump should be removed from Illinois’ primary ballot, but the decision should be left to the courts, a retired judge recommended Sunday to the state’s election board, arguing that it was clear Trump engaged in insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Illinois State Board of Elections is expected to consider the recommendation Tuesday. Attorneys for Trump and citizens seeking to keep the Republican former president off the ballot presented their arguments Friday before the hearing officer, Clark Erickson. The retired longtime Kankakee County judge is a Republican.

The Illinois effort to keep Trump off the March ballot is similar to those filed in several other states. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in a historic Colorado Supreme Court ruling to remove Trump from that state’s ballot. The case presents the high court with its first look at a provision of the 14th Amendment barring some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office.

Erickson’s 21-page recommendation concluded that a “preponderance of the evidence” presented proves that Trump engaged in insurrection.

But he said the election board can’t engage in the “significant and sophisticated constitutional analysis” required to remove Trump’s name before the March 19 primary.

“All in all, attempting to resolve a constitutional issue within the expedited schedule of an election board hearing is somewhat akin to scheduling a two-minute round between heavyweight boxers in a telephone booth,” he wrote.

Still, Erickson noted that even if the board disagrees with his reasoning, Trump’s name should be removed from the Illinois primary ballot.

The election board is split evenly between four Democrats and four Republicans.

Free Speech for People, which is leading the Illinois ballot effort, praised the recommendation from the Republican retired judge as “significant” but argued that Illinois law allows the board to make the ballot decision.

“We expect that the board and ultimately Illinois courts will uphold Judge Erickson’s thoughtful analysis of why Trump is disqualified from office, but — with the greatest respect — correct him on why Illinois law authorizes that ruling,” Ron Fein, legal director for the group, wrote in a Sunday statement.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately return a message left Sunday. 
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Science Sleuths Are Using Technology to Find Fakery, Plagiarism in Published Research

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New Orleans Thief Steals 7 King Cakes From Bakery in Very Mardi Gras Way

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New Orleans, Louisiana — With their purple, gold and green colors and toy babies hidden inside, king cakes are staples of Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, but apparently they’re also valuable enough to steal — at least this time of year during the Carnival season.

A thief stole seven king cakes — about as many as he could carry — during a break-in last week at a New Orleans bakery. The thief also took cash and a case of vodka from Bittersweet Confections last Wednesday, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

“Our king cakes are just that good,” the bakery wrote on social media. “But please come and purchase one during our regular store hours.”

While it’s a secular celebration, Carnival in New Orleans — and around the world — is strongly linked to Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. The season begins on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, and continues until Mardi Gras, known as Fat Tuesday, which is the final day of feasting, drinking and revelry before Ash Wednesday and the fasting associated with Lent.

King cakes are among the foods most associated with Carnival in New Orleans. The rings of pastry are adorned with purple, green and gold sugar or icing, and they often have a tiny plastic baby hidden inside as a prize.

One wisecracker responded to the bakery’s social media post with a tongue-in-cheek false admission that he was the thief.

“It was me. …I’m holding all seven babies hostage until I get a lifetime supply of King Cakes from you every year,” the man posted.
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Oregon Newspaper to Relaunch Print Edition After Theft Forced It to Lay Off Its Staff

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Portland, Oregon — An Oregon weekly newspaper that had to lay off its entire staff after its funds were embezzled by a former employee will relaunch its print edition next month, its editor said, a move made possible in large part by fundraising campaigns and community contributions.

The Eugene Weekly will return to newsstands on Feb. 8 with roughly 25,000 copies, about six weeks after the embezzlement forced the decades-old publication to halt its print edition, editor Camilla Mortensen said Saturday.

“It has been both terrifying and wonderful,” Mortensen told The Associated Press, describing the emotional rollercoaster of the last few weeks. “I thought it was hard to run a paper. It’s much harder to resurrect a paper.”

The alternative weekly, founded in 1982 and distributed for free in Eugene, one of the largest cities in Oregon, had to lay off its entire 10-person staff right before Christmas. It was around that time that the paper became aware of at least $100,000 in unpaid bills and discovered that a now-former employee who had been involved with the paper’s finances had used its bank account to pay themselves around $90,000, Mortensen said.

Additionally, multiple employees, including Mortensen, realized that money from their paychecks that was supposed to be going into retirement accounts was never deposited.

The accused employee was fired after the embezzlement came to light.

The news was a devastating blow to a publication that serves as an important source of information in a community that, like many others nationwide, is struggling with growing gaps in local news coverage.

The Eugene police department’s investigation is still ongoing, and forensic accountants hired by the paper are continuing to piece together what happened.

Local Eugene news outlets KEZI and KLCC were among the first to report the weekly’s return to print.

Since the layoffs, some former staff members have continued to volunteer their time to help keep the paper’s website up and running. Much of the online content published in recent weeks has been work from journalism students at the University of Oregon, located in Eugene, and from freelancers who offered to submit stories for free — “the journalistic equivalent of pro bono,” Mortensen said.

Some former employees had to find other jobs in order to make ends meet. But Mortensen hopes to eventually rehire her staff once the paper pays its outstanding bills and becomes more financially sustainable.

The paper has raised roughly $150,000 since December, Mortensen said. The majority of the money came from an online GoFundMe campaign, but financial support also came from local businesses, artists and readers. The paper even received checks from people living as far away as Iowa and New York after news outlets across the country picked up the story.

“People were so invested in helping us that it just really gives me hope for journalism at a time where I think a lot of people don’t have hope,” she told the AP. “When we saw how many people contributed and how many people continue to offer to help, you can’t not try to print the paper. You’ve got to give it a shot.”

The paper aims to continue weekly printing beyond Feb. 8.
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US Sees Signs of Progress on Deal to Release Israeli Hostages, Pause War

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WASHINGTON — U.S. negotiators are making progress on a potential agreement under which Israel would pause military operations against Hamas in Gaza for two months in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages who were captured in the October 7 attack on Israel, according to two senior administration officials.

The officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said Saturday that emerging terms of the yet-to-be sealed deal would play out over two phases.

In the first phase, fighting would stop to allow for the remaining women, elderly and wounded hostages to be released by Hamas.

Israel and Hamas would then aim to work out details during the first 30 days of the pause for a second phase in which Israeli soldiers and civilian men would be released. The emerging deal also calls for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

While the proposed deal would not end the war, U.S. officials are hopeful that such an agreement could lay the groundwork for a durable resolution to the conflict.

The New York Times first reported on Saturday that progress has been made towards an agreement for a pause in fighting in exchange for the remaining hostages.

CIA director Bill Burns is expected to discuss the contours of the emerging agreement when he meets on Sunday in France with David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel for talks centered on the hostage negotiations, according to three people familiar with the scheduled meeting who were not authorized to comment publicly.

President Joe Biden on Friday spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani. Calls with both leaders focused on the hostage situation.

“Both leaders affirmed that a hostage deal is central to establishing a prolonged humanitarian pause in the fighting and ensure additional life-saving humanitarian assistance reaches civilians in need throughout Gaza,” the White House said in a statement about Biden’s call with the Qatari leader. “They underscored the urgency of the situation, and welcomed the close cooperation among their teams to advance recent discussions.”

Burns heads to France for the high-level talks after White House senior adviser Brett McGurk traveled to the Mideast this week for talks on the hostage situation.

If Burns sees progress in his talks in France, Biden may dispatch McGurk back to the Mideast quickly to try to complete an agreement. McGurk during his talks this week was also laying the groundwork for another trip to the region by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who next week could make his fifth trip to the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.

The White House and CIA have yet to publicly confirm Burns’ meeting in France and administration officials have been guarded that a deal can quickly be brokered.

“We should not expect any imminent developments,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday.

Biden and his aides are keenly aware that the mounting Palestinian death toll, and widespread suffering in Gaza, is frustrating some in his Democratic base, who want to see him put more pressure on Israel to end the war. Democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict could cost him enough support within the state’s sizable Arab American community to sway the outcome of the 2024 election in a state that could be key to whether he wins a second term.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to continue the offensive until complete victory over Hamas is achieved.

Netanyahu has faced increasing pressure from the families of many hostages who are demanding a deal to win their loved ones’ release.

The October 7 attack killed some 1,200 people in Israel, and Hamas and other militants abducted around 250 people.

Around 100 hostages were freed under a weeklong cease-fire deal in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Around 130 remain captive, but a number have since been confirmed dead.

Hamas has previously said it will free more captives only in exchange for an end to the war and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
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Artist Who Performed Nude Sues Museum Over Sexual Assault Claims

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albany, new york — A performer who appeared naked in a show by world-renowned performance artist Marina Abramovic at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art is suing the museum, saying it failed to take action after he was sexually assaulted multiple times by attendees during the performances nearly 14 years ago. 

The suit was filed in Manhattan on Monday under the New York Adult Survivors Act, a special state law that created a yearslong suspension of the usual time limit for accusers to sue. Although the law expired last year, the suit says the parties agreed to extend the window closing. 

John Bonafede alleges in the suit he was sexually assaulted by five public onlookers who attended a show he was hired by the museum to perform in as part of Abramovic’s retrospective “The Artist Is Present.” 

Email messages sent to the museum this week were not returned. Abramovic is not named as a defendant and did not immediately return a request for comment. 

The work, titled “Imponderabilia,” saw Bonafede and another performer standing face-to-face with each other in a doorway about 18 inches (45.7 centimeters) apart, fully nude, silent, and still. The exhibition, which ran from March 14, 2010, through May 31, 2010, was curated by the museum in a way that encouraged visitors to pass in between the performers as they went from one gallery to the next, the suit alleges. 

Mostly older men involved, says suit

The people who assaulted Bonafede were mostly older men, the suit says. One of the perpetrators was a corporate member of the museum, who was ultimately kicked out and revoked of his membership, according to the suit. 

During the final weeks of the exhibition, another attendee non-consensually groped Bonafede’s private areas three times before they were finally stopped by security, the suit said. 

Bonafede reported four of the individuals to the museum staff and security immediately, according to the suit, while the fifth was witnessed personally by the museum security staff. 

Female performer also assaulted, suit says

At one point, Bonafede also witnessed a public attendee sexually assault his female co-performer by kissing her on the mouth without her consent, the suit said. 

Prior to the exhibition, the performers had voiced their concerns about nude performers being subject to harassment in a letter to the museum during contract negotiations, the suit said. 

Once it began, several news outlets including The New York Times reported on the inappropriate behavior by visitors, and the sexual assaults on “Imponderabilia” were discussed within New York City’s art and performance communities, the suit says. 

Despite the museum having knowledge of the issue, it failed to take action to protect the performers and prevent further sexual assaults, such as telling visitors ahead of time that touching was not allowed, the lawsuit said. 

About a month into the exhibition, the museum created a handbook outlining protocols for the performers to alert museum staff if they felt unsafe or were inappropriately touched. 

Bonafede agreed to continue the performance after he was assaulted because of the “tough it out” culture of the exhibition, the suit says, but suffered for years from emotional distress, and his mental health, body image and career were damaged as a result. 

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly. Bonafede gave consent through his lawyer, Jordan Fletcher. 

Fletcher declined to comment further on the suit, but said they will be seeking a jury trial and compensatory damages. 
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Biden Returns to South Carolina, Determined to Win Back Black Voters

Posted on by SeeUS

COLUMBIA, South carolina — U.S. President Joe Biden doesn’t need to worry about his prospects in South Carolina’s Democratic primary next week. He’s got that locked up. 

He also knows he’s not likely to win the solidly red state come November. South Carolina hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1976. 

Nonetheless, Biden spent the weekend in the state, intent on driving home two messages: He’s loyal to the state that saved his campaign in 2020 and he’s determined to win back Black voters here and elsewhere who were central to his election last time but are less enthused this go-round. 

“You’re the reason I am president,” Biden told attendees at the state party’s fundraising dinner ahead of its first ever “first-in-the-nation” Democratic primary on February 3. “You’re the reason Kamala Harris is a historic vice president. And you’re the reason Donald Trump is a defeated former president. You’re the reason Donald Trump is a loser. And you’re the reason we’re going to win and beat him again.” 

Biden received raved applause and chants of “four more years” from attendees at the dinner, as he criticized his predecessor’s policies and highlighted his efforts to support Black Americans. He was set to spend Sunday in the state where politics and faith are intertwined at a political event at St. John Baptist Church. 

Deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said of the primary that Biden’s team was working to “blow this out of the water” by running up the score against long shot challengers. The Biden campaign also wants to learn lessons about activating Black voters — the backbone of the party — ahead of an expected 2024 rematch with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. 

Challenger invites Biden to pass torch

It was the first time Biden shared a stage with Representative Dean Phillips, a long-shot challenger for the Democratic nomination, who called on the president, 81, to step aside for a younger generation of leaders to take on Trump. 

“The numbers do not say things are looking good,” Phillips said of Biden’s poll numbers. “My invitation to President Biden is to pass the torch.”

Struggling to hold the attention of the crowd — many of whom were holding Biden campaign signs ahead of the president’s appearance — Phillips repeatedly asked the audience to quiet down and listen to him.

Phillips told The Associated Press he did not interact with Biden at the event, saying of Biden’s staff, “No. I don’t think they want him to see me.” 

Supporters talk up accomplishments

Ahead of the dinner, Biden stopped into Regal Lounge Men’s Barber & Spa in Columbia, greeting, owners, employees and customers mid-haircut at the barbershop. 

The president has been getting mixed reviews from some Black voters in the state that came through for him in 2020, including discontent over his failure to deliver on voting rights legislation and other issues. 

Last year, at the outset of Biden’s reelection bid, conflicting views among the same South Carolina Democratic voters whose support had been so crucial to his nomination provided an early warning sign of the challenges he faces as he tries to revive his diverse winning coalition from 2020. 

Overall, just half of Black adults said they approved of Biden in a December poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That is compared with 86% in July 2021, a shift that is generating concern about the president’s reelection prospects. 

APVoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate, also found that support for Republican candidates ticked up slightly among Black voters during the 2022 midterm elections, although Black voters overwhelmingly supported Democrats. 

The Biden campaign is running TV ads in South Carolina highlighting Biden initiatives that it hopes will boost enthusiasm among Black voters. 

“On his first day in office with a country in crisis, President Biden got to work — for us,” the ad states. “Cutting Black child poverty in half, more money for Black entrepreneurs, millions of new good-paying jobs and he lowered the cost of prescription drugs.” 

The campaign is spending more than $270,000 on the ads through the primary, according to tracking data. The Democratic National Committee also launched a six-figure ad campaign across South Carolina and Nevada, which is next on the Democratic primary calendar, to boost enthusiasm for Biden among Black and Latino voters. And first lady Jill Biden was in the state on Friday evening to rally voters. 

Biden’s campaign has also hired staff in South Carolina to organize ahead of the primary and through the general election, although for nearly 50 years the state has picked a Republican for president. 

‘We know Joe…Joe knows us’

Meanwhile, a pro-Biden super PAC, Unite the Country, is airing an ad featuring Democratic Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina ticking through what he says are major Biden accomplishments such as reducing student loan debt and cutting insulin costs for older people. 

It was Clyburn’s 2020 endorsement of his longtime friend Biden that helped the then-candidate score a thundering win in South Carolina’s presidential primary. 

In the new advertisement, Clyburn references his late wife, Emily, who influenced his 2020 endorsement of Biden. She said that “if we wanted to win the presidency, we better nominate Joe Biden,” Clyburn says in the ad. “She was right then, and she’s still right today.” 

Clyburn greeted Biden at the airport and accompanied him throughout his visit. 

While Trump has seen slightly improving levels of support among Black and Latino voters, Biden’s team is more concerned that a lack of enthusiasm for Biden will depress turnout among voters who are pivotal to the Democratic coalition. 

Biden’s team is using South Carolina as a proving ground, tracking which messages and platforms break through with voters. 

South Carolina, where Black voters make up a majority of the Democratic electorate, is now the first meaningful contest in the Democratic presidential race after the party reworked the party’s nominating calendar at Biden’s call. Leading off with Iowa and New Hampshire had long drawn criticism because the states are less diverse than the rest of the country. 

A co-chairman of Biden’s reelection campaign, Clyburn has remained one of the president’s most stalwart advocates in Congress, as well as in his home state. 

Frequently, he reminds people of the same message he delivered in his 2020 endorsement: “We know Joe, and Joe knows us.” 

Biden’s decision to campaign in the state “helps solidify South Carolina’s place as the first in the nation primary moving forward,” said Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler. 

It also provides Biden an opportunity to re-engage with Black voters who have connections that extend beyond South Carolina. 

“Obviously the diaspora is strong, familial ties are strong with other key swing states in the area like Georgia and North Carolina,” Tyler said. 

This is Biden’s second trip to South Carolina this month. He spoke earlier in the month at the pulpit of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where nine Black parishioners were shot to death in 2015 by a white stranger they had invited to join their Bible study. 
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US Appeals for Contributions to Haiti Security Mission

Posted on by SeeUS

Washington — The United States on Saturday appealed for urgent support for a U.N.-backed law-and-order mission to Haiti, which has been thrown into doubt after a Kenyan court ruled against Nairobi’s plan to send its police to the gang-plagued nation.

“The United States’ commitment to the Haitian people remains unwavering,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

“We reaffirm our support of ongoing international efforts to deploy a Multinational Security Support mission for Haiti… and renew our calls for the international community to urgently provide support for this mission.”

Kenya had been meant to lead the mission but a High Court judge on Friday ruled that sending police to Haiti “contravenes the constitution and the law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal and invalid.”

The Kenyan government has vowed to challenge the decision, a move noted by Miller in his statement.

Nairobi had previously said it was ready to provide up to 1,000 personnel — an offer welcomed by the United States and other nations that had ruled out putting their own forces on the ground.

“It is urgent that the international community respond to the unprecedented levels of gang violence and destabilizing forces preying upon the Haitian people,” Miller said.

“At the same time, we call for the restoration of democratic order through an inclusive political process in Haiti,” he said, adding that the “only legitimate path to long-term peace and stability is through free and fair elections.”

Haiti, the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation, has been in turmoil for years, with armed gangs taking over parts of the country and unleashing brutal violence, leaving the economy and public health system in tatters.

The 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise plunged the country further into chaos. No elections have taken place since 2016 and the presidency remains vacant.

Haiti’s foreign minister pleaded Thursday for the deployment plans to be accelerated, telling the U.N. Security Council that gang violence in the country was as barbaric as the horrors experienced in war zones. 
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