Month: December 2017

New Zealand, Australia, and surrounding Pacific Islands were among the first places to ring in 2018 with fireworks displays, parties, and other festivities. Nearly 1.5 million people gathered to watch a rainbow fireworks display above Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and opera house.
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Five sheriff’s deputies and two civilians were shot as police responded to a domestic disturbance call Sunday in the Midwestern U.S. state of Colorado.

The Douglas County sheriff’s office said that one of the five deputies had been killed, and the suspect was shot and no longer a threat.

“Suspect shot & believed to be dead & no longer a threat,” the sheriff’s department wrote on Twitter.

Earlier in the morning, the sheriff’s office issued a “code red” in the surrounding area, advising residents nearby to stay indoors and avoid windows.
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Two years after a state of emergency was declared in Flint, Michigan because of lead-poisoned water, residents have been assured their water is now safe. But residents are wary even though these assurances come from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. VOA’s Anush Avetisyan visited Flint and spoke to residents who face a battle for clean water every day.
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The Associated Press reported early Saturday that in the first month of U.S. President Donald Trump’s term in office, he sent “an American scholar” to meet with North Korean officials and to relay a message.

The message was that the new administration was appreciative of a nearly four-month freeze of the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests – and thought it “might just offer a ray of hope,” the news agency said in its account.

However, the AP reported North Korean officials said the lack of testing wasn’t a sign of conciliation and insisted Kim Jong Un would order tests whenever he wanted.  Two days later, the North launched a new medium-range missile, ushering in a year of escalating tensions.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported late Friday that “Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea.”  Reuters attributed the information to two senior Western European security sources.

Russia is a member of the United Nations Security Council.  The sale of oil and oil products to North Korea would be a breach of U.N. sanctions

One security source told Reuters “Russian vessels have made ship-to-ship transfers of petrochemicals to North Korean vessels on several occasions this year in breach of sanctions.”

Another security source told the news agency, “There is no evidence that this is backed by the Russian state, but these Russian vessels are giving a lifeline to the North Koreans.”

Reuters said both sources “cited naval intelligence and satellite imagery of the vessels operating out of Russian Far Eastern ports on the Pacific.”

Denials from China

The new reports come as China has denied facilitating oil shipments to North Korea in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions, one day after Trump accused Beijing of doing so.

“China has been completely and strictly implementing Security Council resolutions and fulfilling our international obligations,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters Friday at a media briefing. “We will never allow Chinese citizens and enterprises to engage in activities that violate Security Council resolutions.”

Despite China’s insistence the sanctions are being enforced, doubts persist in the U.S., South Korea and Japan that loopholes continue to exist. And China’s repeated denials did not preclude Trump from tweeting Thursday he was “very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea.”

The U.N. Security Council last week imposed new sanctions designed to limit North Korea access to oil in response to the country’s recent long-range missile test. In November, it test-launched its latest intercontinental ballistic missile, which many U.S. experts have warned would be capable of striking anywhere on U.S. soil. The sanctions seek to bar 90-percent of refined oil exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and limit crude oil exports at 4 million barrels annually.

Ship seized

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said earlier Friday the country had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship that transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in international waters despite the sanctions.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported South Korean officials said the Lighthouse Winmore vessel transferred “600 tons of refined petroleum” to a North Korean ship on October 19 and that the ship was seized on November 24 after it sailed into South Korea’s Yeosu Port.

Yonhap reported the vessel was chartered by the Billions Bunker Group, a Taiwanese company. The ship’s “claimed destination” was reportedly Taiwan, but the ship instead “transferred oil to a North Korean ship, Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea.”

Yonhap said South Korea informed the U.S. about its “detection of the illegal transaction” involving the Lighthouse Winmore, which is reportedly on the list of ships the U.S. has proposed blacklisting for prohibited trade with North Korea.

Hua, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said authorities investigated a report that an unnamed Chinese ship transferred oil to a North Korean vessel at sea on October 19 and determined it was erroneous. Hua also said she did not have any information about the Hong Kong-flagged vessel.

Satellite images

In November, the U.S. Treasury Department disclosed satellite images that displayed what it said was a North Korean ship receiving oil from an unidentified vessel on October 19. It was not immediately clear if the Lighthouse Winmore was involved in the transaction.

The photos received broader public scrutiny this week when the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reprinted them along with the report that suspected Chinese ships transferred oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

In an interview with the New York Times Thursday, Trump linked his trade policy with China to its cooperation in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.

“If they’re helping North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that’s what I’ve been doing. But when oil is going in, I’m not happy about that.”

During a briefing Friday with reporters at the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was asked if the U.S. Navy could begin seizing ships suspected of providing oil to North Korea.

Mattis declined to speculate but said, “Obviously if a government finds that there is a ship in their port conducting trade that was forbidden under the U.N. Security Council resolution, then they have an obligation and so far we have seen nations take that obligation seriously.”

Mattis also predicted the global community will increase pressure on Pyongyang and said physical approaches are among the options under consideration.

“What form that pressure takes in terms of physical operations is something that will be determined by the cognizant governments,” he said.

China is North Korea’s primary trading partner, energy supplier and main diplomatic protector. But Beijing has expressed increasing frustration with North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests. And while China supports the latest sanctions against Pyongyang, it has argued against actions that may be harmful to North Korean citizens or destabilize its government.

 
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Every attorney general leaves his imprint on the U.S. Justice Department. Jeff Sessions is no exception.

Since being sworn in as the nation’s 84th attorney general in February, the former Republican senator and federal prosecutor has moved to radically overhaul the Justice Department and its approach to law enforcement.

From scrapping civil rights protections for transgender people to ending leniency in sentencing criminal defendants, Sessions has rolled back a host of policies his two immediate predecessors — Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder, both chosen by former President Barack Obama — enacted to promote civil rights and social justice.

The policy reversals have not been without their critics.

While Sessions and his supporters say the attorney general is restoring the rule of law and ending Obama-era policies that amounted to executive overreach, critics say he’s returning to criminal justice policies that led to mass incarceration and undermined civil rights.

​Blistering criticism

Sessions’ singular success in remolding the Justice Department is widely acknowledged. The irony is that it has come in the face of sometimes blistering personal criticism of the attorney general by his boss, President Donald Trump.

An early and ardent supporter of Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, Sessions was rewarded with one of the most coveted positions in the administration.

But his relationship with Trump soured after Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation in March, following revelations that Sessions had not disclosed meetings with Russia’s former ambassador to Washington during the presidential campaign.

Trump is said to have become so frustrated with his attorney general over the summer that he said he would not have picked Sessions for the job, had he known Sessions would have recused himself from the Russia probe.

But the attorney general largely shrugged off the criticism, saying at a news conference in July that he was “confident that we can continue to run this office in an effective way,” and later traveling around the country to sell Trump’s tough on crime and immigration policies.

Here is a look at seven major Obama-era policies Sessions has rolled back, or attempted to, since taking office:

​Keeping private prisons

In his first act as attorney general in February, Sessions scrapped an Obama administration plan to phase out the use of private prisons for federal inmates. The 2016 direction to the Bureau of Prisons was sent after a harshly critical report about private prisons by the Justice Department’s inspector general. But Sessions said the Obama policy “impaired the bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.”

Dropping transgender protections

Also in February, Sessions directed the Justice Department to withdraw a guidance issued in 2016, requiring public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity.

In October, Sessions rescinded another policy memo issued by the Obama administration that said the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s employment discrimination prohibitions applied to transgender people. Rights group Human Rights Campaign called the move “discriminatory” against the transgender community and a “dangerous change of course.”

​Targeting sanctuary cities

With the Trump administration vowing to crack down on illegal immigration, it has fallen to Sessions to enforce one of the administration’s most controversial policies: cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, cities and counties that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In April, Sessions sent letters to nine sanctuary jurisdictions requiring proof of compliance. In July, he announced that sanctuary cities would not be eligible for millions of dollars in funds for policing.

Chicago and Philadelphia later sued Sessions and the Justice Department over the sanctuary plan. In November, a federal judge permanently blocked Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities.

Reviewing consent decrees

In April, Sessions ordered a review of Obama-era reform agreements between the Justice Department and police agencies, saying, “It is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies.”

Known as “consent decrees,” a dozen such court-enforced agreements were struck between the Obama Justice Department and local police departments. Sessions has said the agreements have demoralized police departments, but civil rights advocates say they have helped produce necessary reforms.

Charging and sentencing policy

In a departure from the Obama administration’s policy of leniency in sentencing low-level, nonviolent offenders, Sessions directed federal prosecutors in May to “pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” with the lengthiest sentences in all criminal cases.

The guideline rescinded a 2013 memo by then-Attorney General Eric Holder directing prosecutors to avoid triggering mandatory-minimum sentences for certain nonviolent, low-level drug offenders.

Sessions said the new charging policy “affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency.” But critics, such as former Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, have slammed it as a failed “one-size-fits-all” policy that has swelled America’s prison population.

​Affirmative action

In October, the Department of Justice announced it had reopened an investigation into Harvard University’s use of race in its admissions policy, raising fears the administration will target affirmative action policies widely practiced by American universities and colleges.

The Justice Department probe was triggered by a 2015 complaint against Harvard filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American groups. The Justice Department said the investigation is limited to the complaint against Harvard, but civil rights activists fear the probe is part of a broader effort to undermine affirmative action policies that date back decades and that supporters say have leveled the playing field for otherwise disadvantaged students.

Return to debtors’ prison?

On Dec. 21, Sessions rescinded a 2016 Justice Department letter advising local courts against hitting indigent defendants with stiff fines and fees.

The 2016 letter said the changes were “needed to guarantee equal justice under law to everyone, regardless of their financial circumstances.”

Sessions said he was rescinding the letter and 25 other so-called “guidance documents” because they were “unnecessary, inconsistent with existing law or otherwise improper.” The move provoked a firestorm, leading critics to decry it as a “criminalization of poverty” and a “return to debtors’ prisons.”
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Readying for his first television interview, Alex Wang gazes at his reflection in the back window of his yellow cab. Wiping his windswept mane behind the ear, he adjusts his red Shanghai Tang jacket and takes a swig of steaming tea.

“Ahh,” he pauses emphatically, “warms your whole body.”

Wang opens the front door and reaches deep inside, revealing a glossy 2018 calendar. On the cover is a shirtless male model, sprawled on his belly atop a yellow taxicab trunk, licking a spiral rainbow-colored lollipop the size of his face.

“It’s me!” he laughs, self-deprecatingly, pointing to his photo. “So ugly, you are!”

The 68-year-old Wang, an 18-year taxicab veteran, self-proclaimed “karaoke king” and “bit of a comedian” from China, flips through the months, each featuring a New York taxi driver. Most are foreign-born, representing seven different countries, and many are middle-aged, reflecting the key demographics of the city’s yellow cab fleet: 96 percent immigrant, median age 46.

WATCH: Is It Hot in Here, or Is It New York’s 2018 Taxicab Models?

The NYC Taxi Drivers Calendar’s co-creators, Philip and Shannon Kirkman, came up with the idea five years ago as a tongue-in-cheek alternative to the famous chisel-chested firefighter pin-up — a steamy parody with the dual-function of celebrating the city’s diversity, while also giving back.

To date, the couple has donated more than $60,000 worth of proceeds to University Settlement, a nonprofit that serves immigrant and low-income families with education, housing, and health services.

​Turning taxi drivers into models

Shannon, the calendar’s photographer, describes the end product’s humor as uniting.

“Particularly when the news is tough, it’s something that you can kind of take a step back, and relax and celebrate with,” Shannon said. “We laugh a lot during the shoots.”

Philip, the calendar’s creative director, explains that the process of turning a taxi driver into a model, during a two-hour shoot, can prove challenging.

“I always think about how courageous it is for these drivers, because it is an open set,” Philip said. “We literally park the cab in front of a fire hydrant in most cases, and there’s people walking by and looking and taking pictures.”

Among the fearless models are pucker-lipped Dan — who sports a bow-tie, cuffs, and not much else before a vintage late 60s-era checker taxicab — and Hassan, who seductively watches you as he eats a messy slice of birthday cake decorated with his own smiling portrait.

Of the year’s 12 participants, only one is a woman, indicative of a male-dominated industry in which 99 percent of New York City yellow cab drivers are men.

Bangladeshi-native Nipa, featured in both the inside cover and October, is the third woman ever to be included in the calendar. Her depiction as a strongwoman was intentional.

“It’s been a tough year for women,” Shannon said. “We felt like we really wanted to put Nipa in a position of power, in a position of strength.”

​‘A little’ fame

Come winter, cover model Wang can be seen enthusiastically squirting a bottle of baby oil across the hood of his vehicle, in his official December photo.

Wang, who started his life in the U.S. as a restaurant deliveryman 37 years ago, says being a taxi driver has been the most rewarding job and career for him.

“Every [time a] passenger comes in … I practice my English,” Wang says. “I see lots of beautiful places, lots of landmarks of New York.”

Everywhere he drives, Wang proudly displays his roots, but there is no place he would rather call home. And now that he has found “a little” fame, he plans to make sure everyone knows about it.

“I will show all the passengers,” he says. “I was in a taxi calendar, and [I was] the cover man. Alex Wang!”
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The post-Christmas prolonged, dangerously cold weather across half the country has advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and local officials urging residents to assist their elderly neighbors.

Residents from the Midwest to the Northeast were dealing with sub-freezing temperatures and wind chills, while those in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies were bracing for storms that forecasters warn can cause heavy mountain snow and freezing rain.

The cold is expected to continue through the holiday weekend and likely longer, according to the National Weather Service, prolonging a stretch of brutal weather blamed for vehicle crashes, emergency room visits and at least one death.

Wind chill advisories remained in place for many areas. Animal owners were urged to bring their pets indoors if possible or at least make sure they have sufficient warmth.

Forecasters warned people to be wary of hypothermia and frostbite from the arctic blast that has gripped a large swath from the Midwest to the Northeast, where the temperature, without the wind chill factored in, dipped to minus 32 (minus 35 Celsius) Thursday morning in Watertown, New York. Temperatures rose to minus 7 (minus 22 Celsius) early Friday morning.

Heavy snow is expected Friday in the Pacific Northwest, across the Cascade mountains and into the northern Rockies before gradually tapering off Saturday. As much as 2 to 3 feet of snow is possible in the highest terrain, while coastal regions were expected to see heavy rainfall.

About 30 crashes were reported on icy roadways Friday morning in Michigan, where below-freezing temperatures continue to envelop parts of the state.

A woman trying to maneuver her wheelchair on a cold, snowy night in Nebraska got a firetruck escort. Snow and construction items on the sidewalk forced her into a busy Omaha thoroughfare Tuesday. Firefighters returning to their station noticed her. They flipped on their lights and followed the woman until she reached her destination. She gave them a thumbs-up as they departed.

In South Dakota, an 83-year-old woman died from exposure to the cold. Police believe she crashed her car on a gravel road near the tiny rural town of Revillo then left the vehicle to look for help. They found her body in a ditch on Sunday.

Warming centers have been set up in some locations, including recreation centers across Cincinnati. Boston’s Pine Street Inn sent a van with outreach workers around to persuade people to spend the night inside, but some said they prefer the streets.

Segundo Rivera and Sean Stuart told the Boston Herald they were not comfortable spending the night in a shelter.

“We’ve lived out here so long it’s like honestly, this is comfortable for us,” Rivera said.

A shelter spokeswoman said that if people don’t want to go to a shelter, they’re given blankets, warm clothing and a hot beverage, and informed of the dangers of extreme cold.

The Ohio Department of Aging said older people are at increased risk from such severe cold, from medication side effects to falling risks. The department encouraged people to check on family members, friends and neighbors to make sure they’re warm enough and have their needed medications and sufficient food and water.

On Thursday, cold weather records were set from Arkansas to Maine, and the freezing air will linger through the weekend, reaching as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle.

In New Hampshire, the cold set a record for the day of minus 34 (minus 37 Celsius) atop the Northeast’s highest peak, Mount Washington.

In the Midwest, temperatures in Minneapolis aren’t expected to top zero (minus 18 Celsius) this weekend, and it likely will be in the teens (minus 11 Celsius to minus 7 Celsius) when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve in New York City.

A winter storm warning was in effect for much of Montana, calling for significant snowfall followed by dangerously cold temperatures as 2017 comes to an end.

“People like to think of themselves as being prepared for the weather and things like that,” Billings forecaster Dan Borsum said, “but this one will get your attention.”
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New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the Thursday fire that killed 12 people at an apartment in the Bronx was started by a three and a half year old boy playing with a stove.

Nigro told reporters Friday the boy’s mother fled the apartment with her son and other child, leaving the door open.  The fire then spread quickly, with the five story building’s stairwell acting like a chimney.  Officials said housing records show the building had previous violations, including defective carbon monoxide and fire detectors.

Firefighters arrived on the scene in just over three minutes. Nigro called the loss of life from the fire, the worst in New York in 25 years, “unprecedented.”

Authorities say about 170 firefighters battled the blaze and rescued the building’s fleeing tenants.

Officials say at least four people were seriously injured in the fire, a block away for the world-renowned Bronx Zoo.
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California adults not content to ring in the New Year with the traditional fizz of champagne can look forward to celebrating with the buzz of marijuana, purchased for the first time from state-licensed retailers of recreational pot.

Dozens of newly authorized marijuana stores are due to open for business across California on January 1, launching yet another chapter in America’s drug culture and the largest regulated commercial market for cannabis in the United States — one valued at several billion dollars.

The rollout is expected to be gradual and bumpy. The state only began handing out licenses in mid-December, issued on a temporary basis because implementing regulations were still under review.

Newly permitted retailers will rely on a hodge-podge of marijuana producers in the state’s illicit “gray market” to stock their shelves for the next six months, until state-licensed growers can harvest their first crops.

And many jurisdictions, notably Los Angeles and San Francisco, will be closed to business in the recreational pot sector for days or weeks because of additional local approvals applicants must win.

Shops in San Diego, San Jose, the Bay area-towns of Berkeley and Oakland, and Eureka — the heart of Northern California’s cannabis country — are among those ready to go on Day One, said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Cannabis Control Board.

“The market is going to be kind of rough getting started,” said Jordan Lams, chief executive of Moxie, a company based in the Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood that specializes in making cannabis extracts, including oils used in electronic vaporization, or “vape,” devices.

He predicted supply shortages early on.

California led the way in legalizing marijuana for medical purposes in 1996, and more than 30 states have followed suit since then, though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.

On Monday, California will become the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, to legalize, regulate and tax sales of recreational marijuana — a market catering to consumers wishing to buy the drug for its mind- and mood-altering properties.

Medicinal vs. recreational

Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were first in launching recreational pot sales on a state-regulated basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to do so in 2018.

With California and its 39.5 million residents joining the fold, more than one in five of Americans will now live in states where recreational marijuana is commercially available to buy in state-licensed stores.

Many among the new recreational pot proprietors previously operated as medical cannabis dispensaries, under a patchwork of local regulations. Some will now be licensed by the state to sell both.

The recreational sector — what state regulators prefer to call the “adult use” market — is considered more lucrative.  “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for,” said Daniel Yi, spokesman for the 7-year-old Los Angeles-area dispensary chain MedMen, which is expanding from a medical business model to serving recreational users as well.

The stage for Monday’s grand opening was set when voters passed a ballot measure in November 2016, Proposition 64, immediately legalizing personal possession and use of recreational pot by adults 21 and over. They could also grow their own.

But it has taken California lawmakers and bureaucrats over a year to devise a licensing, regulatory and tax structure for all phases of the commercial distribution chain.

A key goal of the new regime is to eliminate California’s illicit marijuana production and farms, which account for roughly 60 percent of the nation’s pot supply and are blamed for degrading the environment.

Supporters also point to a hefty new tax revenue source that by most estimates will total $1 billion a year. Both medical and recreational cannabis will be subject to a 15 percent state excise tax, though medical pot will be exempt from regular state sales taxes.

Recreational customers are limited to buying no more than one ounce (28 grams) of raw cannabis or its equivalent at a time, though individuals may grow up to six plants per person.

Investors have expressed an eagerness for a piece of California’s burgeoning legit marijuana market, estimated to be worth $4 billion to $11 billion.

Opponents, however, have argued liberalized marijuana laws carry major public safety risks and make pot more accessible to youngsters.

Analysts expect much of the illicit trade in recreational pot will quickly gravitate to legit retailers as prices come down and reach parity with the illegal market.

 An eighth ounce of “fairly good-quality flower,” labeled with such names as “Blue Dream,” “Youth in Asia” and “Super Glue,” will go for about $35, said Yi of MedMen, which plans to wait until Jan. 2 to launch recreational sales in two of its sleek, artisanal shops in West Hollywood and Santa Ana.

Three other MedMen shops within the city of Los Angeles will probably have to wait for at least a few weeks, Yi said.
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