In Israel on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed his country’s “unshakable” support for the Jewish state. He also stressed the importance of protecting Palestinian civilians and reaching a two-state solution after the war ends. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
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Capitol Hill — The U.S. Congress is running out of time to pass a new aid package for Ukraine, as Senate lawmakers worked through the weekend to negotiate a deal for border security funding in return for Republican votes.   

The United States has already dedicated more than $100 billion to arming and supporting Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and President Joe Biden has asked Congress to approve another $60 billion. However, Republicans in Congress have become increasingly skeptical about the need to continue underwriting Ukraine’s defense. 

In recent weeks, Republicans in the Senate have conditioned approval of any additional money for Ukraine on the simultaneous strengthening of immigration rules aimed at reducing the number of people entering the U.S. at its southern border and expelling some who are already in the country. 

A small group of lawmakers from the two parties, along with representatives from the Biden administration, are trying to hammer out an agreement that can gain enough support from both sides to protect it from that body’s various legislative pitfalls. 

The U.S. Senate had been scheduled to hold its last day in session for this year last Thursday but adjusted the schedule to allow for time for further negotiations. The House of Representatives went out of session for the rest of the year but could be called back to vote if a deal is reached.  

As of Monday morning, lawmakers still had not agreed on legislation and a vote appeared increasingly unlikely.  

House wants more 

Even if an agreement passes in the Senate, it likely would not survive in the House, where Republicans hold a very narrow majority. A significant group of Republican House members opposes additional aid to Ukraine, and the party recently voted out a speaker who partnered with Democrats to pass legislation. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who took over after predecessor Kevin McCarthy was ousted, has said that more funding for the border is essential to any Ukrainian aid package; however, he also wants more conditions placed on the aid. 

“What the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed,” he said this week. 

EU aid blocked; Putin celebrates 

Worries about continued U.S. funding for Ukraine sharpened Friday after another key source of support was shut down. With the European Union considering a package of aid worth more than $50 billion, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban used his veto to scuttle the plan. 

Orban’s vote came just a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly celebrated the fact that Ukraine appears to be losing support in the West. 

“Ukraine today produces nearly nothing; they are trying to preserve something, but they don’t produce practically anything themselves and bring everything in for free,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “But the freebies may end at some point and apparently it’s coming to an end little by little.” 

While opponents of aid to Ukraine often denigrate aid packages as being a “blank check” handed over to the Ukrainian government, most of the aid is in the form of military hardware. The dollar figures in the aid packages mostly represent money spent in the U.S. to pay arms manufacturers for the equipment the U.S. ships to Ukraine. 

There is little doubt that a significant delay in additional funding from the U.S. would adversely impact Ukraine on the battlefield, but experts differed on the question of how long it would take before the effects become apparent. 

“My current understanding is that there’s sufficient money remaining in the presidential drawdown authority for the Biden administration to continue sending arms to Ukraine for several more weeks, so into January,” said Nicholas Lokker, a research associate in the Center for a New American Security’s Transatlantic Security Program. “Once you start getting into January, the money is going to start running out.” 

Lokker said that Ukraine is already experiencing shortages of artillery shells and air defense munitions, and that a cutoff or significant delay in aid from the U.S. would exacerbate those shortages. 

Giving Russia time 

Gian Gentile, a retired U.S. Army colonel and now a senior historian with the RAND Corporation, said that he thinks a delay in U.S. funding might take a little longer, perhaps months, to become apparent on the battlefield. 

Gentile, however, said a significant delay, or reduction in U.S. support, could have a major impact on the dynamics of the war. 

“If it’s such an extended delay that Ukraine has to really pull back on the amount of artillery it’s using and goes completely on the defensive, that gives Russia time and space,” he told VOA. “If they’re taking fewer casualties, that allows the Russians to spend more time on training, rebuilding and getting ready for another offensive.” 
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WILMINGTON, Del. — A car plowed into a parked SUV that was guarding President Joe Biden ‘s motorcade Sunday night while the president was leaving a visit to his campaign headquarters. The president and first lady Jill Biden were unharmed.

While Biden was walking from the campaign office to his waiting armored SUV, a sedan hit a U.S. Secret Service vehicle that was being used to close off intersections near the headquarters for the president’s departure. The sedan then tried to continue into a closed-off intersection, before Secret Service personnel surrounded the vehicle with weapons drawn and instructed the driver to put his hands up.

Biden was ushered into his waiting vehicle, where his wife was already seated, before being driven swiftly back to their home. His schedule was otherwise unaffected by the incident.

The Secret Service did not immediately comment on the incident.
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MEXICO CITY — Once nearly impenetrable for migrants heading north from Latin America, the jungle between Colombia and Panama this year became a speedy but still treacherous highway for hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.   

Driven by economic crises, government repression and violence, migrants from China to Haiti decided to risk three days of deep mud, rushing rivers and bandits. Enterprising locals offered guides and porters, set up campsites and sold supplies to migrants, using color-coded wristbands to track who had paid for what.   

Enabled by social media and Colombian organized crime, more than 506,000 migrants — nearly two-thirds Venezuelans — had crossed the Darien jungle by mid-December, double the 248,000 who set a record the previous year. Before last year, the record was barely 30,000 in 2016.   

Dana Graber Ladek, the Mexico chief for the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration, said migration flows through the region this year were “historic numbers that we have never seen.”   

It wasn’t only in Latin America.   

The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean or the Atlantic on small boats to reach Europe this year has surged. More than 250,000 irregular arrivals were registered in 2023, according to the European Commission.   

 

A significant increase from recent years, the number remains well below levels seen in the 2015 refugee crisis, when more than 1 million people landed in Europe, most fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Still, the rise has fed anti-migrant sentiment and laid the groundwork for tougher legislation.   

Earlier this month, the British government announced tough new immigration rules aimed at reducing the number of people able to move to the U.K. each year by hundreds of thousands. Authorized immigration to the U.K. set a record in 2022 with nearly 750,000.   

A week later, French opposition lawmakers rejected an immigration bill from President Emmanuel Macron without even debating it. It had been intended to make it easier for France to expel foreigners considered undesirable. Far-right politicians alleged the bill would have increased the number of migrants coming to the country, while migrant advocates said it threatened the rights of asylum-seekers.   

In Washington, the debate has shifted from efforts early in the year to open new legal pathways largely toward measures to keep migrants out as Republicans try to take advantage of the Biden administration’s push for more aid to Ukraine to tighten the U.S. southern border.   

The U.S. started the year opening limited spaces to Venezuelans — as well as Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians — in January to enter legally for two years with a sponsor, while expelling those who didn’t qualify to Mexico. Their numbers dropped somewhat for a time before climbing again with renewed vigor.   

Venezuelan Alexander Mercado had only been back in his country for a month after losing his job in Peru before he and his partner decided to set off for the United States with their infant son.   

Venezuela’s minimum wage was the equivalent of about $4 a month then, while 2.2 pounds (a kilogram) of beef was about $5, said Angelis Flores, his 28-year-old wife.   

“Imagine how someone with a salary of $4 a month survives,” she said.   

Mercado, 27, and Flores were already on their way when in September the U.S. announced it was granting temporary legal status to more than 470,000 Venezuelans already in the country. Weeks later, the Biden administration said it was resuming deportation flights to the South American nation.   

Mercado and Flores hiked the well-trod trail through the jungle, managing to push through in three days. Flores and their son, in particular, got very sick. She believes they were infected by the contaminated water they drank along the way.   

“There was a body in the middle of river and the ‘zamuros’, those black birds, were eating it and picking it apart … all of that was running in the river,” she said.   

For Mercado and Flores, the journey accelerated once they left the jungle. In October, Panama and Costa Rica announced a deal to speed migrants across their countries. Panama bused migrants to a center in Costa Rica where they were held until they could buy a bus ticket to Nicaragua.   

Nicaragua also seemed to opt for speeding migrants through its territory. Mercado said they crossed on buses in a day.  

 

After discovering that Nicaragua had lax visa requirements, Cubans and Haitians poured into Nicaragua on charter flights, purchasing roundtrip tickets they never intended. Citizens of African nations made circuitous series of connecting flights through Africa, Europe and Latin America to arrive in Managua to start travelling overland toward the United States, avoiding the Darien.   

In Honduras, Mercado and Flores were given a pass from authorities allowing them five days to transit the country.   

Adam Isacson, an analyst tracking migration at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras grant migrants legal status while they’re transiting the countries, which have limited resources, and by letting migrants pass legally the countries make them less vulnerable to extortion from authorities and smugglers.  

Then there are Guatemala and Mexico, which Isacson called the “we’re-going-to-make-a-show-of-blocking-you countries” attempting to score points with the U.S. government.   

For many that has meant spending money to hire smugglers to cross Guatemala and Mexico, or exposing themselves to repeated extortion attempts.   

Mercado didn’t hire a smuggler and paid the price. It was “very difficult to get through Guatemala,” he said. “The police kept taking money.”   

But that was just a taste of what was to come.   

Standing outside a Mexico City shelter with their son on a recent afternoon, Flores recounted all of the countries they had traversed.   

“But they don’t rob you as much, extort you as much, send you back like when you arrive here to Mexico,” she said. “Here the real nightmare starts, because as soon as you enter they start taking a lot of your money.”   

Mexico’s immigration system was thrown into chaos on March 27, when migrants held in a detention center in the border city Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, set mattresses on fire inside their cell in apparent protest. The highly flammable foam mattresses filled the cell with thick smoke in an instant. Guards did not open the cell and 40 migrants died.   

The immigration agency’s director was among several officials charged with crimes ranging from negligence to homicide. The agency closed 33 of its smaller detention centers while it conducted a review.   

Unable to detain many migrants, Mexico instead circulated them around the country, using brief, repeat detentions, each an opportunity for extortion, said Gretchen Kuhner, director of IMUMI, a nongovernmental legal services organization. Advocates called it the “politica de desgaste” or wearing down policy.   

Mercado and Flores made it all the way to Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, where they were detained, held for a night in an immigration facility in the border city of Reynosa and then flown the next morning 650 miles (1046 kilometers) south to Villahermosa.   

There they were released, but without their cell phones, shoelaces and money. Mercado had to wait for his brother to send $100 so they could start trying to make their way back to Mexico City through an indirect route that required them to travel by truck, motorbike and even horse.   

In late November, they had just made it back to Mexico City again. This time Mercado was unequivocal: They would not leave Mexico City until the U.S. government gave them an appointment to request asylum at a border port of entry.   

“It is really hard to make it back here again,” he said. “If they manage to send me back again I don’t know what I would do.” 
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WASHINGTON — The White House has been increasingly pressuring Congress to pass stalled legislation to support Ukraine’s war against Russia, saying that funding has run out.

On Tuesday, however, President Joe Biden touted a new military aid package worth $200 million for Ukraine.

Money is dwindling. But the announcement of more weapons being sent to Kyiv just underscores the complexity of the funding. So has the money run out? Or are there still a few billion dollars floating around?

It’s complicated.

Store credit …

In a Nov. 4 letter to Congress, White House budget director Shalanda Young said flatly: “We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight. This isn’t a next year problem. The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now.”

Since then, the U.S. has announced three more aid packages totaling $475 million. That may seem contradictory, but it’s due to the complex programs used to send aid to Ukraine.

There are two pots of money for weapons and security assistance set up specifically for the war. One is the Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA, under which the U.S. provides weapons already in its stockpile. The other is the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which funds long-term weapons contracts.

Money for USAI has all been spent. That pot is empty.

And money for the PDA also appeared to be gone. But then the Pentagon determined that it had overstated the value of the weapons it had already sent Ukraine, overcharging the Ukraine weapons account by $6.2 billion. That effectively left Ukraine with a store credit that is slowly being whittled down. It now stands at around $4.4 billion.

PDA packages continued to be announced every few weeks. But in recognition of the dwindling money, the latest packages have been smaller — about $200 million or less, compared with previous ones that often totaled $400 million to $500 million.

… but empty shelves

In theory, the Pentagon would have enough equipment to offer these smaller packages for months. But there’s a caveat: While the credit exists, there may not be enough stock on the Pentagon shelves. So some weapons may be unavailable.

Congressional funding to buy weapons to replace the ones the U.S. sends to Ukraine is now down to about $1 billion. That dwindling money means the military services are worried they won’t be able to buy all the weapons they need to ensure the U.S. military is ready to defend the American homeland.

For example, the 155 mm rounds commonly used by Howitzers are one of the most requested artillery munitions by Kyiv. The demand has been so high that the Army has pressed the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, where the shell casings for the rounds are made, to increase production in order to meet war demands and have enough on hand for American military needs.

On Thursday, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters the U.S. could provide the full $4.4 billion in weapons, but with only a quarter of that amount available for replenishment, it’s a tough choice. “We have to start to make decisions about our own readiness,” he said.

Political wrangling

The U.S. has already sent Ukraine $111 billion in weapons, equipment, humanitarian assistance and other aid since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion more than 21 months ago. But the latest package is stalled.

Support for Ukraine funding has been waning as some lawmakers see the war taking funding from domestic needs. But the broader problem is a political battle over the southern U.S. border.

President Joe Biden is urging Congress to pass a $110 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs. It includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine, with about half to replenish Pentagon stocks. It also includes about $14 billion for Israel as it fights Hamas and $14 billion for U.S. border security. Other funds would go for security needs in the Asia-Pacific.

Prospects for compromise remain in doubt, even as Zelenskyy warned in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington on Monday that, “If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just Putin and his sick clique.”

The jobs argument

Harkening back to the “all politics is local” idea, the Pentagon and the White House have rolled out maps and statistics to show members of Congress how their own districts and states are reaping benefits from the Ukraine funding.

Charts detail $10 billion in industry contracts for weapons ranging from air defense systems and missiles to a wide array of drones, ammunition and other equipment. And they break out an additional nearly $16.8 billion in contracts to replenish Pentagon stocks.

The maps show contracts benefitting industries and companies in more than 35 different states. And U.S. officials are hoping the local jobs argument will help build support for the funding.

How big is the need?

Winter has set in, so the fighting in Ukraine has leveled off a bit. And along stretches of the battlefront, fighting is somewhat stalemated.

But Ukrainian forces have been taking ground back in some key locations, and Zelenskyy and other leaders have said they want to keep pushing forward. Ukraine does not want to give the Russians weeks or months this winter to reset and further solidify their fighting positions — as they did last winter.

During his visit to Washington this week, Zelenskyy said his forces are making progress, and the White House pointed to newly declassified intelligence that shows Ukraine has inflicted heavy losses on Russia in recent fighting around the eastern city of Avdiivka — including 13,000 casualties and over 220 combat vehicles lost. The Ukrainian holdout in the country’s partly occupied east has been the center of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks.

Putin on Thursday, however, said his troops are making gains.

“Almost all along the line of contact our armed forces, let’s put it modestly, are improving their positions, almost all are in an active stage of action and there is an improvement in the position of our troops all along,” he said.
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washington — An American destroyer shot down more than a dozen drones Saturday in the Red Sea launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said. 

“The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS CARNEY… operating in the Red Sea, successfully engaged 14 unmanned aerial systems launched as a drone wave from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen,” CENTCOM said on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

The aerial vehicles were “assessed to be one-way attack drones and were shot down with no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries,” according to the statement. 

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched a series of drone and missile strikes targeting Israel since Hamas militants poured over the border into Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures. Around 240 people were kidnapped in the attacks.  

Vowing to destroy Hamas and bring back the hostages, Israel launched a massive military offensive that the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry says has killed more than 18,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from the Hamas government in Gaza. 

The Houthi rebels have threatened to attack any vessels heading to Israeli ports unless food and medicine are allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip. 

The latest attacks mark a significant escalation in the threat to shipping in the area. 
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PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Once the initial shock wore off on the price tag of Shohei Ohtani’s record-shattering $700 million, 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, details about the contract emerged that were nearly as stunning.

A total of $680 million — 97% of the money — was deferred until 2034-43 with no interest.

Had the Dodgers invented some kind of contract voodoo new to Major League Baseball?

Not really. But it appears to be a team-friendly deal that also has benefits for Ohtani as the Japanese superstar departs the Angels, heads 30 miles up Interstate 5 and establishes a new home with the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine.

“Thanks to his endorsements and other off-the-field revenue streams, he has the luxury to defer compensation,” said Michael Rueda, head of the U.S. division of sports and entertainment at Withers law firm. “But there’s always some risk.”

Part of Rueda’s job is giving financial advice to high-profile sports stars and celebrities. He said the Ohtani-Dodgers deal looks like a solid arrangement, even if there are tradeoffs for both sides.

Make no mistake, the 29-year-old Ohtani is a rich man and will be rich long into the foreseeable future, but money promised later is never the same as money in hand.

One example of Ohtani’s risk: Former Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Mario Lemieux was out about $26 million in the 1990s when the franchise was in financial trouble and couldn’t pay the money it owed the hockey legend in a deferred deal.

Things eventually worked out. Lemieux converted his deferred salary into equity with the team, then partnered with Ron Burkle to pull the club out of bankruptcy. They eventually made a windfall after selling part of their stake in 2021 — but it’s a reminder that financial circumstances can change when 20 years pass. The Dodgers were certainly a fan-drawing juggernaut in 2023, but 2043 doesn’t come for a long time. L.A., after all, is only 12 years removed from filing for bankruptcy protection under former owner Frank McCourt.

There’s also at least some risk for the franchise: The New York Mets famously deferred $5.9 million that slugger Bobby Bonilla was owed in 2000 and — thanks to an 8% interest rate — will end up paying nearly $30 million total in annual installments until 2035.

In contrast, Ohtani’s deferred pay comes with no interest. That’s a potentially monstrous savings — maybe billions — on a deal that could have been much more costly. Ohtani’s deal with 8% interest would come out to nearly $3 billion by 2043.

“It’s interesting to me that the deferred money comes with no interest, from what I’ve read” Rueda said. “That’s giving up a lot of money.”

Ohtani’s other potential advantage from the contract is he receives $680 million of the $700 million after he’s done playing, which means he might not be living in California, where taxes are relatively high. Depending on where he lives from 2034-43, that could lead to sizable savings.

Rueda said there are many variables, particularly if he goes back to Japan.

“Tax is always a big part,” Rueda said. “The concept of moving to a different jurisdiction and avoiding the California state tax — yeah, that could be accurate.”
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WASHINGTON — The U.S.-China relationship will be defined by strategic competition in the coming decades but must involve engagement when the interests of the two countries align, the U.S. ambassador to China said Friday, one month after President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to stabilize the fraught relations.

Nicholas Burns said the U.S. and China are “vying for global power as well as regional power” as they compete militarily, politically and economically.

“I think we are systematic rivals, if you think about our national security and economic and political interests around the world,” Burns said at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

In the Indo-Pacific region, China “wishes to be the strongest power,” Burns said. 

“China has a very different view of global governance and the future of the liberal order,” he said. “And of course, we are attached to a liberal order because it speaks to our values and our interests, and we think this is the best order of the world.”

Yet, the two countries need to work together on issues such as climate change, narcotics, global health and food security, he said.

“No person in their right mind should want this relationship to end up in conflict or in war,” he said. “So we’re going to develop a relationship where we can compete, but, as the president says, to compete responsibly, drive down the probability of a conflict and bring our people together in a balanced relationship is one way to do that.”

Washington is recalibrating its relationship with Beijing after several years of tumult that began with the imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods under the Trump administration. Ties further deteriorated over the COVID-19 pandemic and military tensions in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait.

Last month, Biden met with Xi in Woodside, California, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The two leaders vowed to stabilize relations and agreed to combat illegal fentanyl and reestablish military communications.

Burns said China had begun shutting down some of the black market for fentanyl precursors, but the test would be whether the effort would continue. The ambassador said the resumption of military communications was important because the two militaries were operating “in very close proximity to each other” in the South China and East China seas, and communications could help prevent any crisis from getting out of control.

But differences on economic competition and global security remain. 

On Thursday night, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the U.S.-China Business Council the Biden administration seeks to strengthen relationships with like-minded nations but also has established economic working groups with China to exchange information.

The Biden administration has kept the tariffs slapped on some Chinese goods by the previous administration and has tightened export controls and investments in high-tech areas such as advanced chips.

Xi also sent a letter to the business council, urging the group and its members to “build more bridges for friendly exchange” and expand cooperation. He vowed to build a better business environment in China.

“The Chinese-style modernization will create more opportunities for global businesses including U.S. companies,” Xi’s letter said.

China’s economy slowed in the third quarter, as global demand for its exports faltered and the ailing property sector sank deeper into crisis.
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washington — The United States experienced a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said Friday.

About 653,000 people were homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. The total in the January count represents an increase of about 70,650 compared with a year earlier.

The latest estimate indicates that people becoming homeless for the first time were behind much of the increase, and the increase ended a downward trend in family homelessness that began in 2012.

“This data underscores the urgent need for support for proven solutions and strategies that help people quickly exit homelessness and that prevent homelessness in the first place,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge said in a prepared statement.

Going back to the first survey, the U.S. then made steady progress for about a decade in reducing the homeless population as the government focused particularly on increasing investments to get veterans into housing. The number of homeless people dropped from about 637,000 in 2010 to about 554,000 in 2017.

The numbers ticked up to about 580,000 in the 2020 count and held relatively steady over the next two years as Congress responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with emergency rental assistance, stimulus payments, aid to states and local governments and a temporary eviction moratorium.

Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a federal agency, said the extra assistance “held off the rise in homelessness that we are now seeing. While numerous factors drive homelessness, the most significant causes are the shortage of affordable homes and the high cost of housing that have left many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness,” Olivet said.

Within the overall rise, homelessness among individuals rose by nearly 11%, among veterans by 7.4% and among families with children by 15.5%.

People who identify as Black make up about 13% of the U.S. population but comprised 37% of all people experiencing homelessness. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino make up about 19% of the population but comprised about 33% of those experiencing homelessness. Also, more than 25% of adults experiencing homelessness were over age 54.

HUD said that rental housing conditions were “extraordinarily challenging” in 2022, with rents increasing at more than twice the rate of recent years. It noted that trend has subsided since the January count. That could show benefits when volunteers and housing officials around the country begin the next homeless count in just a few weeks.

Officials also noted that President Joe Biden’s budget for this fiscal year has recommended guaranteed vouchers for low-income veterans and youths aging out of foster care, among other investments designed to reduce homelessness.

More than half the people experiencing homelessness in the country were in four states: California, New York, Florida and Washington. While about 28% of the nation’s homeless are estimated to be in California, its portion went up about half the national rate. New York’s homelessness went up more than three times the national rate, according to HUD’s report.

New Hampshire, New Mexico and Colorado along with New York saw the largest percentage increases in homelessness. In all, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased in 41 states and the District of Columbia, and decreased in just nine states.

HUD also sought to highlight improvements and noted that some communities bucked the national trend. Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, for example, saw a 49% drop from the 2022 count to this year’s. Chattanooga increased efforts to more rapidly connect people to permanent housing and boosted efforts to prevent people from becoming homeless.

Other communities highlighted for a drop were Dallas, which experienced a 3.8% decrease, and Newark and Essex County, New Jersey, which saw a 16.7% drop. Houston has closed numerous homeless encampments across the city and saw a 17% reduction in unsheltered homelessness. San Jose, California, and Tucson, Arizona, were also cited for improvements.
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Faith and education leaders are denouncing plans for an After School Satan Club at a Tennessee elementary school but said they would follow the law and allow the organization hosting the club to meet.

Around 40 members of the faith community in Memphis stood united with leaders at Memphis-Shelby County Schools on Wednesday to criticize the planned club and to question The Satanic Temple’s intentions in offering it, according to the Commercial Appeal newspaper. The faith community and educators also wanted to make it clear that students would need signed permission slips to attend and to express support for religious organizations that have partnered with the district, the newspaper reported.

“You see the faith-based community standing here,” said board chair and local pastor Althea Greene, who wore a clerical collar. “We’re going to stand up and we’re going to be vocal. Satan has no room in this district.”

The Satanic Temple plans to host the club at Chimneyrock Elementary School in Cordova. It will begin meeting January 10 in the school’s library and run through the spring semester, according to an announcement Tuesday posted on social media.

A flyer about the club says the Satanic Temple is a nontheistic religion that views Satan “as a literary figure who represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny and championing the human mind and spirit.”

It says it does not attempt to convert children to any religious ideology but offers activities that “emphasize a scientific, rationalistic, non-superstitious worldview.”

Memphis-Shelby County Schools said in a statement that the district would rent out the space to the nonprofit organization per its policy.

Since the announcement, interim Superintendent Toni Williams said some have demanded that the district ban all faith-based organizations from schools, but that won’t happen.

“As a superintendent, I am duty bound to uphold our board policy, state laws, and the Constitution,” she said during the event. “But let’s not be fooled. Let’s not be fooled by what we’ve seen in the past 24 hours, which is an agenda, initiated to make sure that we cancel all faith-based organizations that partner with our district.”
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