White House Correspondents Dinner Returns, With Biden Headlining

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U.S. President Joe Biden will resume a Washington tradition by speaking at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday night, the first president to speak at the annual event since 2016. After being canceled for two years due to COVID-19 pandemic and boycotted by Donald Trump during his presidency, the event returns with gusto this year, featuring remarks by comedian Trevor Noah. More than 20 WHCA-related parties are being staged around Washington before and after the major event on Saturday night and several senior administration officials will attend as well as a smattering of celebrities from the entertainment world.more

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US Seeks Authority to Give Seized Russian Assets to Ukraine

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The Biden administration is asking Congress for additional legal authority to make it easier for the U.S. government to seize Russian government and oligarch assets and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine. The White House released the package of legislative changes Thursday as President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine as it seeks to fend off a devastating Russian invasion, now in its third month. If enacted, the proposed measures would “establish new authorities for the forfeiture of property linked to Russian kleptocracy, allow the government to link the proceeds to support Ukraine, and furthermore

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 Biden to Visit South Korea, Japan in May

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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to travel to South Korea and Japan next month to meet with leaders and discuss economic and security ties.  The White House announced the trip Wednesday, saying Biden would go to the region May 20-24.  In South Korea, Biden will hold talks with President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was elected in March.  In Japan, Biden is due to meet with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and to hold talks with leaders from the Quad group of countries that includes Japan, Australia, India and the United States. …

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Bill to Help Taiwan Regain WHO Status Passes Congress

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The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Wednesday calling on the State Department to submit a plan to help Taiwan regain its observer status at the World Health Organization, seeking to boost the island as it faces pressure from China. The House passed the bill 425-0, sending it to the White House because it passed the Senate in August. Congressional aides said they expected President Joe Biden to sign the measure into law. Taiwan is excluded from most global organizations such as the WHO, the U.N. health agency, because of the objections of China, which considers the island onemore

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House 1/6 Panel Wants to Hear from McCarthy after New Audio 

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The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol is redoubling its efforts to have GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy appear for an interview amid new revelations concerning his private conversations about the deadly attack, the chairman said Tuesday. Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the panel expects to decide this week about issuing a second request to McCarthy, who has declined to voluntarily appear before the panel. The committee is also looking at summoning a widening group of House Republicans for interviews, Thompson said, as more information emerges about their conversations with the Trump White House in themore

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Harvard Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Role in Slavery

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Harvard University is vowing to spend $100 million to research and atone for its extensive ties with slavery, the school’s president announced Tuesday, with plans to identify and support direct descendants of dozens of enslaved people who labored at the Ivy League campus. President Lawrence Bacow announced the funding as Harvard released a new report detailing many ways the college benefited from slavery and perpetrated racial inequality. The report, commissioned by Bacow, found that Harvard’s faculty, staff and leaders enslaved more than 70 Black and Native American people from the school’s founding in 1636 to 1783. For decades after, itmore

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Biden to Deliver Eulogy for Madeleine Albright

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President Joe Biden will eulogize former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at her funeral Wednesday at the Washington National Cathedral.   The invitation-only service will be livestreamed beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern time.   “When I think of Madeleine, I will always remember her fervent faith that ‘America is the indispensable nation,’” Biden wrote in a statement after Albright’s death last month.  Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also will give speeches, along with Albright’s three daughters. Musicians Chris Botti, Judy Collins, and Herbie Hancock will perform.   Albright, who died last month at age 84, was appointedmore

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Struggling Marymount California University to Close

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Marymount California University, a half-century-old private Catholic institution, will close this summer, its board of trustees announced. The liberal arts school located on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles has been struggling in recent years due to declining enrollment, rising costs and the coronavirus pandemic, the university said in a statement Friday. “This decision was not made lightly. But we felt the most compassionate thing to do was to give everyone time to make plans. Our focus now will be to help our students, faculty and staff,” said Brian Marcotte, the university’s president. Marymount California has 500 full-timemore

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Biden Returns to In-Person Fundraising in Pacific Northwest

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U.S. President Joe Biden is returning to in-person political fundraising with the easing of coronavirus precautions that limited his exposure to large crowds. The president’s ability to draw political donations is especially important for Democrats as the face serious challenges to sustain their majorities in the House and Senate. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has the story from Seattle. …

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Long-Serving Utah Senator Orrin Hatch Dies at Age 88

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Orrin G. Hatch, who became the longest-serving Republican senator in history as he represented Utah for more than four decades, died Saturday at age 88. His death was announced in a statement from his foundation, which did not specify a cause. He launched the Hatch Foundation as he retired in 2019 and was replaced by Mitt Romney. A conservative on most economic and social issues, he nonetheless teamed with Democrats several times during his long career on issues ranging from stem cell research to rights for people with disabilities to expanding children’s health insurance. He also formed friendships across themore

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Mask Mandates Return to US College Campuses as Cases Rise

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The final weeks of the college school year have been disrupted yet again by COVID-19 as universities bring back mask mandates, switch to online classes and scale back large gatherings in response to upticks in coronavirus infections. Colleges in Washington, D.C., New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Texas have reimposed a range of virus measures, with Howard University moving to remote learning amid a surge in cases in the nation’s capital.  This is the third straight academic year that has been upended by COVID-19, meaning soon-to-be seniors have yet to experience a normal college year.  “I feel like last summermore

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Biden: Public Works Plan Can Boost US That’s ‘Fallen Behind’

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President Joe Biden opened a two-day visit to the Pacific Northwest by focusing on improvements planned for the runway and roof of the airport where he landed Thursday, rather than any of the region’s traditional, natural attractions. Portland International Airport lies on a tectonic plate fault line, but crews are working on a series of modernizations, including a new, earthquake-resistant runway capable of accommodating jets coming and going even after a major natural disaster. The design is modeled after the runway of the Sendai airport in Japan, which Biden said he’d visited and which survived the 2011 earthquake and tsunamimore

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Will Rescuing Middle America Save Democracy?

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Closing the economic divide in the hard-hit industrial Midwestern United States could dampen the fervor of anti-democratic populism, a new working paper suggests. Populism is ascribed to political movements that embrace an us-versus-them mentality. Battles are often fought along socioeconomic, ethnic or communal lines. “When communities are in decline, when residents are anxious about their own futures and the futures of their children, when the younger generation has left, there is a great feeling of frustration, of anxiety, of ill ease about losing status and a changing world,” says John Austin, principal author of the report. “And the populists, ofmore

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Azerbaijani Student Held in Russian Captivity in Mariupol, Ukraine Describes Torture

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A 20-year-old Azerbaijani university student is describing near-daily beatings during his time as a prisoner of Russian forces near Mariupol, Ukraine last month. Huseyn Abdullayev, who was studying at Mariupol State University when Russia invaded Ukraine, tells VOA Azerbaijani he was held from March 17 until April 12 after Russian military personnel kidnapped him at a military post west of Mariupol in Berdyansk. Abdullayev said that after he was taken, “They tied my hands and covered my head with my jacket so that I could not see anything. Then they threw me in a truck and took me to prison.more

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New Mexico Hails Expanded Free College, but Some Remain Wary

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Even after failing a test that set her back a semester, Maribel Rodriguez will be heading back to nursing school this fall with a generous new state scholarship that abandons eligibility criteria to help more working adults get a college degree. New Mexico is expanding its “Opportunity Scholarship,” which has already paid for Rodriguez’s tuition and allowed her to apply for federal grants toward living expenses like gas and groceries. She’s reapplying to the nursing program and hopes to finish her degree without racking up debt that could hurt her husband and three children. “I didn’t think a whole lotmore

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Biden Blames the ‘Putin Price Hike’ for Inflation

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For President Joe Biden, the pain Americans are feeling in their pocketbooks comes down to an increasingly repeated slogan: “Putin’s price hike.” For more than a month now, his administration has tried to blame rising prices on the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine. But the truth is a little more complicated, analysts say. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington. …

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Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill to Make Abortion Illegal

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Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.  The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Abortion rights advocates say the bill signed by the GOP governor is certain to face a legal challenge.  Its passage comes as the conservative U.S. Supreme Courtmore

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