…

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Six-time National Football League champion Bill Belichick agreed to part ways as the coach of the New England Patriots, ending his 24-year tenure as the architect of the most decorated dynasty of the league’s Super Bowl era.

Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft announced the move to the media Thursday at Gillette Stadium. They didn’t take questions, though Kraft scheduled an availability for later in the day.

Belichick, 71, is just the third coach in NFL history to reach 300 career regular-season victories earlier this season, joining Hall of Famers Don Shula and George Halas. With 333 wins including the playoffs, Belichick trails only Shula (347) for the record for victories by a coach.

But the Patriots ended this season 4-13, Belichick’s worst record in 29 seasons as an NFL head coach. It supplanted the 5-11 mark he managed in his last year in Cleveland in 1995 and again in his first year in New England in 2000. Including the playoffs, he ends his Patriots tenure with a 333-178 overall record.

With his cutoff hoodies and ever-present scowl, Belichick teamed with quarterback Tom Brady to lead the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories, nine AFC titles and 17 division championships in 19 years. During a less successful — but also tumultuous — stint with the original Cleveland Browns, Belichick earned 37 of his career victories.

It’s not immediately clear who Kraft will tap to replace the future Hall of Famer.

Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo won a Super Bowl ring playing under Belichick and has interviewed for multiple head coaching vacancies since becoming a New England assistant in 2019. Mayo turned down a few interviews last offseason before signing a contract extension to remain with the Patriots.

Mike Vrabel, who was fired earlier this week by the Tennessee Titans and won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, is also expected to be a candidate for the head coaching job.

Belichick had been grooming offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to replace him before McDaniels left following the 2021 season to become the coach of the Raiders. He has since been fired by Las Vegas. Belichick’s two sons, Steve and Brian, are also on the coaching staff.

Belichick’s exit from the Patriots comes just a day after another legendary coach and his longtime friend Nick Saban announced he’d retire after winning seven college national championships. Saban worked for Belichick’s father, Steve, in the 1980s as a coach at Navy, and Bill Belichick hired Saban as his defensive coordinator when he became Cleveland’s head coach in 1991.

The six Super Bowl wins tie Belichick with pre-merger mentors Halas and Curly Lambeau for the most NFL championships. Belichick also won two rings as Bill Parcells’ defensive coordinator with the New York Giants.

But the Patriots have stumbled to a 29-38 record since Brady departed following the 2019 season and missed the playoffs in three of those four seasons. Beginning in 2001 when Brady became the starting quarterback, the Patriots missed the playoffs only once (2008) when Brady was injured. This marked New England’s fifth consecutive season without a playoff victory.

Belichick’s subsequent solutions at quarterback haven’t panned out.

Brady’s initial replacement, Cam Newton, didn’t resemble the player who won the 2015 MVP award and was cut after a 7-9 finish in 2020. Meanwhile Brady won his seventh Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that same season.

Potential long-term replacement Mac Jones, a 2021 first-round draft choice, was a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie and led New England to the playoffs. But he regressed in Year 2 when Belichick put longtime defensive assistant Matt Patricia in charge of the offense. Jones didn’t fare much better this season when Bill O’Brien returned as offensive coordinator. He was benched four times before being replaced as starter by backup Bailey Zappe for the final six games.

That left the Patriots looking at a lengthy rebuild, with no candidate on the roster to bring stability to the sport’s most important position.

Belichick, who also served as the de facto general manager with final say on personnel decisions, was celebrated for his ingenuity managing the salary cap during the run of Super Bowl success. It included getting stars like Brady and others to accept cap-friendly contracts or adjust their deals to accommodate the signing of other players.

But that acclaim has waned in the years since Brady left, as a run of draft picks and high-priced free agents didn’t live up to expectations. In addition, Belichick has seen several members of his personnel and scouting departments leave for other jobs. The list includes his former player personnel director, Nick Caserio, who was hired as Houston’s general manager in 2021.

Now it won’t be Belichick making the decisions for the Patriots on or off the field.

The only child of a World War II veteran who spent three decades as a Navy assistant coach, Belichick is a football historian with an encyclopedic knowledge of strategy from the sport’s early days to current NFL trends. His players said his attention to detail never left them unprepared.

Belichick has been a master of the NFL rule book, unearthing loopholes in clock operations and offensive line formations that — though entirely legal — cemented his reputation as a mad genius.

But his legacy in New England also includes two major cheating investigations — and other, minor ones — that cost him and the team draft picks and more than $1 million in fines. Opponents accused the Patriots of everything from hacking their headsets to cutting corners on injury reports.

His friendship with former President Donald Trump, which Belichick insisted was not political, landed the coach on the list to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom in the waning days of the administration. After the outcry against the U.S. Capitol siege, Belichick announced “the decision has been made not to move forward.”
…

…

Washington — House Republicans held their first impeachment hearing Wednesday against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of what they called the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a 20-minute opening statement, Mark Green, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, shared what he said was evidence that supports impeaching a Cabinet secretary.

“Secretary Mayorkas has brazenly refused to enforce the laws passed by Congress that knowingly made our country less safe,” he said.

Republicans blame Mayorkas for the high numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and said the Republican Party has undertaken a yearlong investigation into the secretary’s work.

During the hearing, Green said Mayorkas’ failure to adhere to the law provides ample justification for initiating impeachment proceedings. The lawmaker said the framers of the constitution did not envision impeachment solely for criminal acts but also for individuals displaying significant incompetence, jeopardizing fellow Americans, breaching public trust, or neglecting their duties.

“What we are seeing here is a willful violation of his oath of office by Secretary Mayorkas,” Green said.

Democrats dismissed the impeachment efforts.

Representative Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans want to “throw political red meat to their base,” adding that Republicans have “absolutely no basis” to impeach Mayorkas.

“You cannot impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like a president’s policies — that’s not what impeachment is for,” he said.

US-Mexico border

Meanwhile, Mayorkas has carried on with his duties. On Monday, he visited the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, to see Southwest border enforcement efforts.

His visit came after federal border officials reported a record 11,000 apprehensions a day at the southern border in December alone. These encounters dropped sharply with the beginning of the new year.

“It coincided with the time when Mexican enforcement was no longer implemented. The immigration enforcement agency in Mexico was not funded, which prompted President [Joe] Biden to reconnect with [Mexican] President [Andres Manual Lopez] Obrador …” Mayorkas told reporters.

The high numbers of migrants encountered at the southern border is one of the Republicans’ arguments to impeach the DHS secretary.

In year 2023, about 2.5 million migrants were encountered by border patrol officers. Out of those, 564,380 were expelled under Title 42, a public health code that expired on May 11, 2023. It was used during the pandemic and allowed U.S. immigration officials to quickly expel migrants to their country of origin or Mexican border towns and denied them a chance at asylum.

But it did not ban them from trying again, and migrants were counted multiple times under Title 42.

According to DHS, the department repatriated about 469,000 migrants in fiscal 2023, while about 909,450 more were processed by border patrol officials and received a document to present themselves at an Immigration Customs Enforcement office. Some of those were paroled into the U.S. and allowed to stay temporarily or paroled into the alternative to detention program. And 311,343 more migrants were transferred to an ICE detention facility.

Since the end of Title 42, everyone is again processed under Title 8, the federal code of laws dealing with immigration. Those arriving at the border without documents or trying to enter between ports of entry can be removed without their case being decided by an immigration court through a process known as expedited removal, and they are banned from entering the U.S. for at least five years.

While in Texas, Mayorkas said that migrants encountered at the border who do not have a legal basis to stay in the U.S. will be removed.

Next steps

Impeaching the Homeland Security secretary would be a rare occurrence. In U.S. history, only one Cabinet official, Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, has been impeached.

The committee is expected to host more hearings as part of the impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas. Once concluded, the panel is expected to conduct a markup on articles of impeachment that will culminate in a committee vote, setting the stage for the articles to be subsequently forwarded to the full House for consideration.

Mayorkas, however, is not expected to be removed by the Senate.
…

NEW YORK — Senator Bob Menendez on Wednesday sought dismissal of charges, including bribery, as his lawyers told a judge that New York federal prosecutors are making claims that are “outrageously false” and “distort reality.”

The New Jersey Democrat and his wife pleaded not guilty after they were charged last fall with accepting bribes of gold bars, cash and a luxury car in return for help from the senator that would benefit three New Jersey businessmen, who were also arrested and pleaded not guilty.

The indictment has since been updated with charges alleging that Menendez used his political influence to secretly advance Egypt’s interests and that he acted favorably to Qatar’s government to aid a businessman.

“The Senator stands behind all of his official actions and decisions, and will be proud to defend them at trial,” the lawyers wrote.

A trial is scheduled for May 5. Menendez is free on $100,000 bail.

Menendez’s lawyers said in court papers that their client’s conduct was “constitutionally immune,” and none of it could serve as the basis for criminal charges.

“The government’s accusations in this case — that he sold his office and even sold out his nation — are outrageously false, and indeed distort reality,” the lawyers wrote.

They said the government is free to prosecute members of Congress for agreeing to exchange legislative action for personal benefits, as long as it doesn’t attack the integrity of the legislative acts themselves.

“But here, the Indictment does not try to walk that line; it flouts it entirely,” the lawyers said.

They said prosecutors were wrong to charge Menendez in connection with his decision to contact local state prosecutors to advocate on behalf of New Jersey constituents or to use his decision to invite constituents to meetings with foreign dignitaries as evidence against him.

“And the government goes so far as to impugn the Senator for introducing constituents to investors abroad. None of this is illegal, or even improper,” the lawyers wrote.

The indictment claims Menendez directly interfered in criminal investigations, including by pushing to install a federal prosecutor in New Jersey he believed could be influenced in a criminal case against a businessman and associate of the senator. Prosecutors also alleged that Menendez tried to use his position of power to meddle in a separate criminal investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office.

Menendez’s lawyers said the novel charge that Menendez conspired with his wife and a businessman to act as an agent of the Egyptian government “fundamentally disrupts the separation of powers.”

Menendez, 70, was forced to step down from his powerful post leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after he was charged in September. Prosecutors said the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes over the past five years from the New Jersey businessmen in exchange for a variety of corrupt acts.

In October, he was charged with conspiring to act as an agent of the Egyptian government. As a member of Congress, Menendez is prohibited from acting as an agent for a foreign government.

His lawyers said in their Manhattan federal court filing Wednesday that the charge empowers the executive and judicial branches of government to second-guess the way the senator chooses to engage with foreign representatives as he carries out his duties.

As an example, the lawyers said that a future president might decide to prosecute legislative enemies as agents of Ukraine for supporting aid during its war with Russia or as agents of China for resisting a proposed ban of TikTok, or as agents of Israel for supporting military aid to fight Hamas.

“The Court should not permit this novel and dangerous encroachment on legislative independence,” the lawyers said.

They said there was “overwhelming, indisputable evidence” that Menendez was independent from any foreign official.

“As the government knows from its own investigation, far from doing Egypt’s bidding during the life of the alleged conspiracy, the Senator repeatedly held up military aid and took Egypt to task, challenging its government’s record for imprisoning political dissidents, running roughshod over the press, and other human rights abuses,” they said.

The lawyers said that their arguments Wednesday were just the start of legal challenges to be filed in the next week, including claims that the indictment was filed in the wrong courthouse and unjustly groups separate schemes into single conspiracy counts.

A spokesperson for prosecutors declined to comment.
…

Washington — Hunter Biden made a surprise visit to a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday as Republicans were taking the first step toward holding President Joe Biden’s son in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena in a bitterly contested standoff.

The arrival of president’s son at the Oversight Committee, sitting in the audience with his legal team, including attorney Abbe Lowell, sent the panel that is working to impeach President Biden into a political frenzy.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace insisted that Hunter Biden be quickly arrested. GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called him a coward as he left during her remarks. Democratic lawmakers argued that Biden, who has refused to testify to the panel behind closed doors, should be allowed to speak publicly.

Hunter Biden has defended his lack of compliance with the GOP-issued subpoena, which ordered him to appear for closed-door testimony in mid-December. Biden and his attorneys said information from private interviews can be selectively leaked and manipulated by House Republicans and insisted that he would only testify in public.

On Wednesday, Committee Chairman James Comer struggled to regain control. “Mr. Biden doesn’t make the rules, we make the rules,” he said.

The House Oversight and Judiciary committees will each vote on contempt resolutions that seem likely to result in the U.S. House recommending criminal charges as Republicans move into the final stages of their impeachment inquiry into the president himself.

It’s the latest step for the inquiry, which began in September, but has so far failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in wrongdoing involving his son’s business dealings.

If the committees approve the contempt resolutions as expected, they will go to the full House for consideration. And if the House votes to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, it will be up to the Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute.

The contempt referral would be yet another headache for federal prosecutors already under heavy scrutiny for their handling of charges against Hunter Biden related to his taxes and gun use.

Shelving the contempt of Congress charges would likely further stoke conservative criticism that the Justice Department is politicized — especially given that two one-time advisers to former President Donald Trump were prosecuted for contempt of Congress by the Biden administration. But prosecuting contempt cases can be difficult.

“It’s clear the Republican chairmen aren’t interested in getting the facts or they would allow Hunter to testify publicly,” Hunter Biden’s attorney, Lowell, said in a statement Friday. “Instead, House Republicans continue to play politics by seeking an unprecedented contempt motion against someone who has from the first request offered to answer all their proper questions.”

He added, “What are they afraid of?”

Further angering Republicans, Hunter Biden did come to the Capitol on the day specified by the subpoena — but not to testify. Instead, he stood behind microphones outside the U.S. Capitol complex — a couple hundred feet away from the awaiting GOP investigators — and delivered a rare public statement defending his business affairs and castigating the yearslong investigations into him and his family.

“There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business because it did not happen,” the president’s son said in those remarks.

He added, “There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing — they have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life — so much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people.

After delivering the statement to the media, Hunter Biden left the Capitol grounds.

The contempt resolution, released by Republicans on Monday, reads, “Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions.”

While Republicans say their inquiry is ultimately focused on the president, they have taken particular interest in Hunter Biden and his overseas business dealings, questioning whether the president profited from that work.

Republicans have also focused a large part of their investigation on whistleblower allegations that there has been political interference in the long-running Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden.

The committees’ votes Wednesday on contempt of Congress come a day before Hunter Biden is scheduled to make his first court appearance on tax charges filed by a special counsel in Los Angeles. He is facing three felony and six misdemeanor counts, including filing a false return, tax evasion, failure to file and failure to pay.

His lawyer has accused David Weiss, the special counsel overseeing the yearslong case, of “bowing to Republican pressure” by bringing the charges.
…

 State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed administrative reforms with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting Wednesday in the West Bank, along with efforts to boost humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that Blinken “reaffirmed that the United States supports tangible steps towards the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with both living in peace and security.”

Blinken also called for Israel to transfer all Palestinian tax revenue it collects to the Palestinian authority in accordance with existing agreements.

The Palestinian Authority governs part of the West Bank, while the Hamas militant group has controlled the Gaza Strip where Israel is fighting to eradicate the group.

The United States has envisioned a postwar roadmap that puts Gaza under a Palestinian-led governance with no role for Hamas.

But some analysts are skeptical and play down the prospect.

“I don’t see how the Palestinian Authority will go back into Gaza and assume any kind of meaningful control over what is left of Gaza. They’re having a very hard time maintaining control, even in the West Bank,” Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told VOA Tuesday.

Blinken has stressed the potential for Israel to win acceptance from Arab neighbors by seeking a path toward establishing a Palestinian state as a means to resolve the longstanding conflict.

Netanyahu has firmly rejected the two-state solution.

Blinken said Tuesday that displaced Palestinians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow, and Israel has agreed to allow a United Nations mission to evaluate the situation in war-ravaged northern Gaza.

“As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the U.N. to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north,” Blinken told reporters during a Tuesday news conference in Tel Aviv.

The top diplomat also urged Israeli leaders to prevent further harm to Palestinian civilians.

“The daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high,” he said.

International Court of Justice hearings

Later this week, the International Court of Justice will conduct hearings on a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and seeking an emergency suspension of its military campaign.

The United States believes the case is meritless and that it distracts from Israel’s efforts to fight threats from Hamas militants and other Iran proxies, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, according to Blinken.

“We want this war to end as soon as possible,” he said. “But it’s vital that Israel achieves its very legitimate objectives of ensuring that October 7 can never happened again.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has rejected the genocide charge filed at the International Court of Justice, calling the accusation “atrocious and preposterous.”

Hostages held in Gaza

On Tuesday, Blinken held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Herzog, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and other senior officials from Israel’s war Cabinet in Tel Aviv.

“The Secretary and Prime Minister discussed ongoing efforts to secure the release of all remaining hostages and the importance of increasing the level of humanitarian assistance reaching civilians in Gaza,” according to a statement from the State Department.

“In this regard, the Secretary welcomed the appointment of Sigrid Kaag as the UN’s Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, pledging close cooperation with her in this new capacity,” the statement added.

Blinken also met on Tuesday with the families of some of the hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza. And he relayed to Israeli leaders some of what he heard from other leaders in the region during stops in Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Gaza health officials say more than 23,000 Palestinians, a large percentage of them women and children, have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Escalation in no one’s interest

After an Israeli airstrike killed a key Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Monday — the latest sign of a possibly widening conflict in the Middle East — Blinken told reporters it is clearly not in the interest of Israel, Lebanon or Hezbollah to see an escalation outside Gaza.

Hezbollah has identified the commander as Wissam al-Tawil. Last week, senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut. Hamas and Hezbollah are both U.S. designated terrorist organizations, and both are backed by Iran, whose militant allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.

The United States has urged Israel to shift to smaller-scale military operations in Gaza but has continued to support Israel in refusing Arab demands for a cease-fire in the three-month war. Israel has vowed to continue the war until it believes the threat of future Hamas attacks has been eradicated and the militant group no longer controls Gaza, a narrow strip of territory along the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel began its military campaign to wipe out Hamas after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7. Israel said about 1,200 people were killed and about 240 captives taken in the terror attack.

Cindy Saine contributed to this report. Some materialcame from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
…

WASHINGTON — The United States and China wrapped up two days of military talks in Washington Tuesday, the Pentagon said, the latest engagement since the two countries agreed to resume military-to-military ties.

Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over everything from the future of democratically ruled Taiwan to territorial claims in the South China Sea. Ties are still recovering after the U.S. downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon in February.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed late last year to resume military ties, severed by Beijing after a visit in August 2022 by then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

The 17th round of the talks saw Michael Chase, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, meet China’s Major General Song Yanchao, deputy director of the central military commission office for international military co-operation, the Pentagon said.

“The two sides discussed U.S.-PRC defense relations, and Chase highlighted the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication in order to prevent competition from veering into conflict,” the statement added, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

Pentagon officials say communication between the two militaries is key to preventing a miscalculation from spiraling into conflict.

The top U.S. military officer, General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff held a virtual meeting last month with his Chinese counterpart, General Liu Zhenli.

China is willing to develop healthy and stable military-to-military relations with the U.S. “on the basis of equality and respect,” its defense ministry said in a statement Wednesday, citing the meeting.

It urged the U.S. to cut military deployment and “provocative actions” in the South China Sea, as well halt support for such actions by “certain countries,” but did not identify them.

It asked the U.S. to abide by the one-China principle and stop arming Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, despite Taiwan’s strong objections, and vowed never to compromise on the issue.

“The United States should fully understand the root causes of the maritime and air security issues, strictly restrain its front-line forces, and stop hyping up (the issues),” it added.

Taiwan is holding presidential and parliamentary polls this weekend amid a ramped-up war of words between Taiwan and China.

U.S. officials have cautioned that even with some restoration of military communications, forging truly functional dialog between the two sides could take time.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington, Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
…

The White House continues to reject mounting calls for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, sending mixed signals amid President Joe Biden’s efforts to appease some Americans’ calls for a cease-fire. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

On January 15, the 2024 U.S. presidential election season will officially kick off with the Iowa caucuses. Republican candidates including Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and Vivek Ramaswamy will seek to unseat the current front-runner, former President Donald Trump, as the party’s eventual nominee to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden in November’s general election. (Produced by: Alex Gendler)
…

LONDON — 2024 will pose a major test of democratic rule as an estimated 4 billion people in more than 50 nations — almost half the world’s population — are set to vote in national elections, with the outcomes likely to shape global politics for years or decades to come.

Bangladesh began 2024 with the first major election of the year as Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive term as prime minister Sunday. Opposition parties boycotted the vote over complaints that it was neither free nor fair.

A crucial presidential election is due to take place on the self-governing island of Taiwan on January 13. China’s threat to retake the island by force looms over the vote, with political parties divided on how to approach Beijing.

“We are not only choosing Taiwan’s future leaders to decide on the country’s future but also deciding on the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific region,” William Lai, the presidential candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, told supporters at a campaign rally earlier this month. Lai is ahead in the polls.

In February, Indonesia is set to choose a new president to rule the nation of 277 million people, making it one of the world’s biggest votes held on a single day.

Pakistan will hold parliamentary elections in February; opposition leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan remains jailed on charges of leaking state secrets, which he denies.

Russians will vote in presidential elections in March — although observers predict incumbent Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win as he is able to control the electoral process and state media.

“Putin is not going to have any genuine opponents,” said Ian Bond of the Center for European Reform. “He has control of all the administrative machinery required to make sure that a crushing vote in favor of him is delivered and we get another six years of Putin up to at least 2030.”

Largest democracy

India — the world’s biggest democracy — will hold parliamentary elections in April and May, with the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ahead in the polls.

Veteran Indian political journalist Pushp Saraf believes the opposition will struggle to make headway.

“It all depends how united they are,” Saraf said. “Otherwise, if they stay disunited, as they appear to be many times, they have little chance of succeeding against BJP, which is organizationally very strong, and with Narendra Modi, who is riding high on the popularity wave, at least in the Hindi heartland.”

“These are very significant elections because there are clearly two opinions in the country at the moment. One is that BJP is polarizing society along the communal lines. And on the other hand, there is the opinion that BJP is focusing more on national security,” Saraf told The Associated Press.

On June 2, Mexico is due to hold its presidential election, which could herald a new milestone for the country, “because of the possibility that, for the first time, a woman will govern Mexico,” according to Mexican pollster Patricio Morelos. Mexico’s ruling party has selected Claudia Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, as its candidate.

The European Union, representing more than half-a-billion people, is set to hold parliamentary elections in June. Polls suggest a resurgence in support for right-wing populist parties in many countries, including France, Germany and Italy.

“There is a real possibility, I think, that the far right will do well in European elections. Not to the point of running the European Parliament, but conceivably to the point where anyone who wants to run the European Parliament has to take account of what they’re saying and doing,” Anand Menon, professor of international politics at Kings College London, told VOA.

Britain is scheduled to hold elections before the end of the year, with polls suggesting opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is on course to end a tumultuous 14 years of Conservative rule, with five different prime ministers.

“We had the Brexit wars that dominated everything, then we had COVID-19, now we’ve got the cost-of-living crisis. We’ve had government instability… the instability itself has become a political issue,” Menon said.

On November 5, the United States is due to hold a highly anticipated presidential election as Americans decide whether to give Democrat Joe Biden a second term as U.S. president or choose a Republican alternative, with Donald Trump seemingly his most likely opponent — although the challenger faces numerous legal hurdles in the run up to the vote.

Worldwide effects

The impact of many of these elections in 2024 will likely be felt around the world, said analyst Menon.

“Yes, all politics is local — but there are global trends. Immigration is going to figure a lot in many elections around the world. It will figure in the U.S. election, it will figure in the European elections, it will figure in the U.K. election,” Memon said.

“Insecurity will be a major factor. One of the things we’re living with in the West now is an increased sense of insecurity, both economic — but also in security terms, given the war that’s going on in Ukraine and given the doubts about what the Taiwanese election later this month might mean for Taiwan-Chinese relations.

“So, there are common factors, but those are refracted through the prism of the local and domestic in each country, so they play out in different ways,” Menon said.
…

HARVEY, Ill. — Rudolph Williams says he was home in a Chicago suburb when he realized the doors and windows to his courtyard-style apartment had been boarded up with plywood, locking him inside.

“I didn’t know exactly what was going on,” the 73-year-old said Monday in describing how he tried to open his blocked door. “What the hell?”

His story — chronicled by his nephew on now-viral videos — has generated a firestorm of criticism about rental conditions at the dilapidated low-income apartment complex in Harvey, Illinois. People are also debating who’s to blame; and Mayor Christopher Clark has promised an investigation.

City officials, residents, property owners and the property management company have conflicting accounts about what happened Friday at the 30-unit complex roughly 48.28 kilometers 30 miles) south of Chicago.

It started that afternoon when crews without any logos on their clothing or vehicles started boarding up units. Residents say they weren’t warned and that the workers ignored residents telling them people were still inside. City officials say police were on site earlier in the day and performed well-being checks, but not when units were set to be boarded up. The property owners say the tenants claims about residents being boarded inside are false, and the property managers say the units were empty before they started boarding up units at the city’s direction.

No injuries were reported.

Genevieve Tyler, who said she was recently laid off from her meat factory job, was home when she heard noises outside and ran for a second door in her apartment looking to escape because she thought it was a break-in. That’s when she said she came upon crews boarding up her windows.

“I feel sick,” she said, adding that she was too scared to return home for two days. “I’m still sad.”

The complex, which is in clear disrepair, has been on the city’s radar for months.

One of the two buildings has no heat, with residents using stoves and space heaters to keep warm. A set of stairs has collapsed and is blocked to pedestrians. There is garbage everywhere: broken furniture, a large dumbbell and liquor bottles.

There have also been numerous safety issues involving drugs and crime. Police were called to the property more than 300 times last year, according to Harvey Police Chief Cameron Biddings.

City officials say the property owners, identified by the city as Jay Patel and Henry Cho, were warned about the unsafe conditions and urged to make changes. The owners were then notified that people had to evacuate by Oct. 28 and had to let residents know.

However, only some residents say they got the message. Others who were notified say they were skeptical of the documents’ legitimacy. Some got letters on official city letterhead saying they had to leave due to the safety risk, while others received papers from the property managers that said the building would be shut down.

James Williams, Rudolph’s nephew, who lives with him at the property, said a bunch of notices were strewn around the courtyard.

He and other people on site helped free his uncle from the apartment Friday evening, partly by using a drill, he said.

In a joint statement emailed late Monday, the property owners dismissed the residents’ “viral allegations.” The owners said they tried to negotiate more time with the city for renters to stay and aimed to have required repairs finished by March for the building to reopen.

The owners hired property management company, Chicago Style Management, in November.

Tim Harstead with Chicago Style Management disputed Williams’ account, saying crews found one unauthorized person who left before they started boarding up units.

“A lot of people in that area are squatters and trying to stay there,” he said.

On Monday, Mayor Clark and other city officials toured the complex, which lies off a busy street in the community of 20,000.

In a series of interviews, Clark reluctantly acknowledged that people were still inside their units when the apartments started being shuttered, but he said he wanted to hear directly from residents rather than via social media videos.

The city played no role in boarding up the apartments, he said, pledging that city police would investigate and might turn the matter over to the state’s attorney or Illinois attorney general. Criticism of the city on social media was misdirected, he said.

“It’s horrible,” Clark said. “What’s even more horrible is the fact that they would attribute that to people who are trying to actually help the situation versus the people who actually put them in this situation.”

At least one city official, Alderman Tyrone Rogers, told media outlets over the weekend that residents’ claims were a “total exaggeration.” He did not return messages Monday from The Associated Press.

Some residents, including 34-year-old Loren Johnson, left last month. He said the shutdown notice scared him off as did the broken heating and criminal activity.

“They don’t do anything, but they take full rent,” he said of the landlords.

Roughly half a dozen residents remained on Monday, saying they look out for each other.

Mary Brooks, 66, lives in one of the few apartments that wasn’t boarded up.

She described herself as a cancer survivor with mental health issues who has nowhere else to go. She also said she has tried to reach city officials multiple times about the complex over her nearly four years of living there, a complaint she shared with the mayor when he visited her at home Monday.

“Nobody pays attention to the poor,” she said. “Nobody cares until something happens.”
…