Month: February 2021

Bruce Springsteen was fined $500 Wednesday after the rock ‘n’ roll legend pleaded guilty to a charge of consuming alcohol at a federally run New Jersey beach in November, and prosecutors dropped drunk driving and reckless driving charges.
 
Springsteen, 71, who has made his home state of New Jersey and its shore scene a staple of his career of more than 50 years, entered his plea in an online arraignment before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Anthony R. Mautone in Newark.
 
Appearing on an online hearing, Springsteen admitted to downing two shots of tequila on November 14 at Sandy Hook beach, part of the National Park Service’s Gateway National Recreation Area, where alcohol consumption is prohibited.
 
Mautone also imposed $40 in court fees on the rock star, who said he would pay the $540 total immediately.
 
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Baker said the government was dropping the driving-while-intoxicated and reckless driving charges because it did not believe it could meet its burden of proving them in court.
 
Springsteen initially had pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
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President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Wednesday to formally order a 100-day government review of global supply chains and potential U.S. vulnerabilities in key industries including computer chips, electric vehicle batteries, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals used in electronics.
 
The order aims to avoid repeating the severe lack of personal protective gear such as face masks and gloves that the country experienced during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic last year. It comes as American automakers grapple with a shortage of semiconductors, critical elements in navigation and entertainment systems in modern vehicles.
 
“The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the need for resilient supply chains and robust domestic manufacturing, so all Americans have access to essential goods and services in times of crisis,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday.
 
On Wednesday, a senior White House official speaking on background told reporters that “President Biden committed last year to directing the U.S. to take a comprehensive approach to securing supply chains, and the executive order that the president will sign tomorrow afternoon kicks off that process.”
 
On top of the 100-day review of the four key industries, Biden’s order will also direct yearlong reviews for six sectors: defense, public health, information technology, transportation, energy and food production.FILE – An employee works on a production line manufacturing drugs at the Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, China, Sept. 3, 2019.According to the official, the reviews will be modeled after the Defense Department’s process to evaluate and strengthen the defense industrial base and may include the president’s invocation of the Defense Production Act or other financial incentives. The DPA is the primary source of presidential authorities to expedite and expand the supply of materials and services from the U.S. industrial base needed to promote national defense.
 
Supply chain experts welcome the administration’s move.
 
“We could talk about buying American all we want but if we have not ensured the supply chain is functioning, we’re going to continue to have shortages and stock outs,” said Nada Sanders, a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University.
 
While most of the work to ensure supply chains are resilient happens at the firm level, federal support to look at the problem holistically is seen as critical to help U.S. companies to invest strategically and become more agile at reacting to fluctuations of supply and demand in times of crisis.
 
“The key is particularly with dramatic change or rapid change, you’ve got to do a good job of forecasting and you got to think holistically, you got to look at the entire sort of lifecycle of the operation,” said Scott Miller, senior adviser on the global economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
 
The Trump administration also pushed for investment in shoring up supply chains, mostly through tax cuts incentivizing businesses to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. In April 2020, then President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to clear up supply-chain issues encountered in the manufacturing of ventilators and production of N95 face masks.FILE – Workers produce face masks for export, at a factory in Nantong, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, May 14, 2020.Officials said Biden’s strategy to protect the supply chain is different than Trump’s protectionist approach. “This work will not be about America going it alone,” said Sameera Fazili, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in a briefing to reporters “We are committed to working with partners and allies to reduce the vulnerabilities.”
 China focus
 
Biden’s executive order will not mention any particular country and look at U.S. reliance on foreign suppliers overall.
 
“One of the vulnerabilities we are looking at is where we might be excessively dependent on competitors in Asia, obviously including China,” the senior administration official said.
 
The U.S. is dependent on China in a range of critical industries from pharmaceuticals to defense, in part because American firms rely on cheap Chinese exports.
 
“The corporate quest over the past 25 years to cut supplier costs, with insufficient concern for resilience, has saddled the nation with gaping strategic vulnerabilities in the supply chains for certain critical materials, medications and technology inputs,” said authors of a 2020 study by the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University and the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute.
 
Being dependent on an adversary is not a good spot to be in said Northeastern University’s Sanders. “Having said that, this policy really looks at a really broad picture in terms of U.S. production, manufacturing, economy,” she added. “So, it’s not just China.”FILE – People look at semiconductors made by Tsinghua Unigroup on display at the China Beijing International High Tech Expo in Beijing, Sept. 19, 2020.Rare Earth
 
China is reportedly looking into curbing exports of rare earth minerals that are crucial to U.S. defense contractors that manufacture military weaponry.
 
“The government wants to know if the U.S. may have trouble making F-35 fighter jets if China imposes an export ban,” said a Chinese government adviser as reported by the Financial Times last week.
 
China is the world’s dominant producer of rare earths, a group of 17 minerals used in electric vehicles, consumer electronics and military equipment.
 
“While we call them rare earths as a share of the Earth’s crust, they’re not particularly rare,” said Miller pointing to a U.S. Geological Survey report of American states that have rare earth mineral deposits.
 
Pini Althaus, CEO of USA Rare Earth, a company developing a U.S.-based supply chain for the minerals, is lobbying the government to expand domestic mining and processing.
 
“There is already surging demand for lithium and EV battery materials, and U.S. manufacturers will need new sustainable supply to meet near term goals this decade,” Althaus said.
 
Rare earth minerals are processed using toxic chemicals and produce air emissions with harmful elements, such as fluorine and sulfur, and wastewater that contains excessive acid, and radioactive materials.
 
Despite the significant environmental concerns, Miller said the U.S. should look into expanding this sector, particularly if there is a national security need.
 
“There’s activity in this space,” Miller said. “The question is … what’s [the federal government’s] role in accelerating or stabilizing the market?” 
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In a speech to the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to press for universal protection and promotion of human rights.In his first appearance before the U.N.’s top human rights body, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it clear Washington plans to fully re-engage in the work of the council. In order to make its weight felt, he said the U.S. would seek election to the Human Rights Council for the 2022-24 term. Former President Donald Trump withdrew from the council in June 2018.  The Biden administration rejoined it on February 8 as an observer.Blinken praised the U.N. Human Rights Council for its role in protecting fundamental freedoms and in focusing attention on unfolding crises, such as the military coup in Myanmar or Burma.  However, he criticized the council for its approach to certain issues, including what he called its disproportionate focus on Israel.“We need to eliminate Agenda Item 7 and treat the human rights situation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories the same way as this body handles any other country.  In addition, we will focus on ensuring that the council membership reflects high standards for upholding human rights.  Those with the worst human rights records should not be members of this council,” he said.Blinken acknowledged the United States did not have a stellar human rights record and had room for improvement. He said the Biden administration was committed to fighting systemic racism both at home and abroad.He said the U.S. will fight for the rights of defenseless people, including women and girls, LGBTQI people, religious and minority groups.  He said Washington will continue to denounce abuses in places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran.“We reiterate our call for the Russian government to immediately and unconditionally release Alexei Navalny, as well as hundreds of other Russian citizens wrongfully detained for exercising their rights. We will speak out for universal values when atrocities are committed in Xinjiang or when fundamental freedoms are undermined in Hong Kong. And we are alarmed by the backsliding of democracy in Burma,” said U.S. secretary of state.Blinken called on the council to use this current session to support resolutions addressing issues of concern around the world.  He said notorious human rights violators such as Syria, North Korea, Sri Lanka and South Sudan must be held to account.
 
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Police on Wednesday sought to determine what caused Tiger Woods to swerve off a Southern California road in his sport utility vehicle, colliding with a tree and rolling down a hillside in a crash that left the golf great seriously injured.
 
Woods, 45, was pried from the wreckage by rescue crews and rushed by ambulance from the scene of the Tuesday morning crash outside Los Angeles to nearby Harbor-UCLA Medical Center suffering what his agent described as “multiple leg injuries.”
 
A statement posted on Woods’ official Twitter account on Tuesday night said he had undergone a “long surgical procedure” to his lower right leg and ankle and was “awake, responsive and recovering in his hospital room.”
 pic.twitter.com/vZitnFV0YA— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) February 24, 2021Compound fractures of his tibia and fibula – the two bones of his leg below the knee – were stabilized with a rod, and screws and pins were used to stabilize additional injuries to his foot and ankle, Dr. Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer of Harbor-UCLA, said in the tweet.
 
Mahajan also said that trauma to the muscle and other soft tissue of the leg “required surgical release of the covering of the muscles to relieve pressure due to swelling.”
 
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies responding to the wreck found no immediate indication that Woods had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs before losing control of his vehicle shortly after 7 a.m.
 
Sheriff Alex Villanueva, however, said the golf star, who was “lucid” following the accident, appeared to have been going faster than normal for a downhill, curving stretch of road known by locals to be hazardous. Weather was not considered a factor.
 
Video footage from the scene showed Woods’ dark gray 2021 Genesis sport utility vehicle badly crumpled and lying on its side near the bottom of the hillside, its windows smashed.
 The damaged car of Tiger Woods is towed away after he was involved in a car crash, near Los Angeles, California, Feb. 23, 2021.Woods’ injuries were not life-threatening, the sheriff said, but sports commentators were already speculating that the crash could end the career of the greatest golfer of his generation.
 
Woods is the only modern professional to win all four major golf titles in succession, taking the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship in 2000 and the Masters title in 2001, a feat that became known as the ‘Tiger Slam’.
 
But he has suffered years of injuries and undergone multiple surgeries on both his back and knees.
 Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 6 MB480p | 8 MB540p | 11 MB720p | 24 MB1080p | 44 MBOriginal | 123 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioWoods, one of the world’s most celebrated sports figures, was the sole occupant of the car when it crashed near the suburban communities of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes, the sheriff’s department said.
 
The vehicle veered across the center divider of the road into an opposite traffic lane, striking a roadside curb, and a tree as it careened over an embankment, and “there were several rollovers” before the SUV came to rest, Villanueva said.
 
Woods hosted the PGA tour’s Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club over the weekend but did not compete due to his back injuries. The wrecked sport utility vehicle bore the Genesis Invitational name on its doors.
 
He was seen at the Rolling Hills Country Club on Monday with actress Jada Pinkett Smith, retired basketball star Dwyane Wade and comedian David Spade.
 
Golf Digest reported Woods had been shooting a TV show segment in which he was giving on-course instruction to the three celebrities and was due to resume filming on Tuesday.
 
Woods held the top spot in golf’s world rankings for a record total of 683 weeks, winning 14 major championship titles from 1997 to 2008. His 15 major titles stand second only to the record 18 won by Jack Nicklaus.
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The United States is looking to scrutinize China’s commitments under an investment deal that was signed in late December between the European Union and China, a senior State Department official told VOA Tuesday.   It comes as U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is working closely with European allies to push back on what American officials describe as China’s undermining activities to shared values and the rules based international order.   “If China did make additional concessions in that agreement on things like market access, on forced labor, we certainly welcome that, although we really would look to the Chinese to prove that that’s not just cheap talk, and that they’re going to implement those commitments,” said Molly Montgomery, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary in charge of European and Eurasian Affairs.   The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is seen as a geopolitical win for China, and a blow to transatlantic relations despite concerns over the deal in the European Parliament.   US-brokered Serbia-Kosovo talks unlikely In a recent interview with VOA, Montgomery also said the United States is committed to working with the European Union, which facilitates the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo. Her comments come as Kosovo’s Vetevendosje party leader Albin Kurti is set to become prime minister after the February 14 elections.   Kurti has said that forming a negotiating team for dialogue with Serbia would not be a priority for his government.   When asked about the possibility of a U.S.-brokered dialogue, Montgomery told VOA: “We certainly continue to support the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, and to look toward a comprehensive agreement, a normalization agreement that would lead to mutual recognition, or on the basis of mutual recognition.”   The following are excerpts from the interview. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.   VOA: What is the top policy priority of Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs in coming years?   Montgomery: I think the president has made it very clear beginning with his inaugural address that our priority really is to rebuild our relationships with our allies and partners in Europe.  We believe that they are the cornerstone of everything that we are trying to do, whether that is fighting COVID-19, or climate change, or pushing back against malign activities from Russia and China. We want to be working with our European partners. But we also, I will say, continue to believe that our goal for Europe is really a Europe whole, free, prosperous and at peace. So we’ll be working toward that goal for the next four years.   VOA: As China is competing with the U.S. for vaccine distribution and post-pandemic recovery in Europe, what is your takeaway on the recent China-CEEC group, also known as “17 plus 1,” virtual summit between China and Central and Eastern Europe countries?   Montgomery: I think all countries, whether it’s the United States or Europe, have a multifaceted and very complex relationship with China. There are parts of that relationship that are adversarial. Some of it is competitive and there are also areas where we want to cooperate with China. And so, I think our focus really is working on a multilateral basis with our allies and partners to strengthen our cooperation, and to look at areas where we can cooperate with China, such as on climate change, but also to be aware that there are economic activities that we want to push back on. There are threats to our values and there are human rights violations, such as we’ve seen in Xinjiang and in Hong Kong. And particularly the genocide — [about which] the U.S. government has been very clear — has been committed against mostly Muslim Uighurs in China. And so we’re really focused on working with our allies and our partners to develop an affirmative agenda as we look at this complex relationship with China, and to defend our values and our shared interests as well.   VOA: We are hearing voices from European countries doubting the U.S. is wavering in its position on the policy determination that genocide has been committed against Uighurs in Xinjiang. Is the U.S. wavering in its position?   Montgomery: The United States has been very clear — Secretary Blinken has been very clear — that we believe that what has happened in Xinjiang is genocide, that we have seen crimes against humanity committed against the Uighurs. And we’ve been very clear that these are very serious crimes and that there needs to be accountability. We have condemned these activities, these crimes — and we have made it clear that we need to see a stop to these human rights violations, to forced sterilizations, to torture, to other crimes that have been perpetrated primarily against mostly Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, especially.   VOA: Moving on to vaccine distribution. Serbia and Hungary have become the first European countries to use China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, many European countries rely on vaccines produced by American company Pfizer. Is there a divide? Is the United States pressing European countries to choose between Washington and Beijing?   Montgomery: No. You know, we are not asking countries to make a choice between the United States and China. At the same time, we believe that we are strongest when we work together to promote and to protect our shared values and interests. And so that’s why you see that … this administration has engaged very actively in the first month in multilateral fora [to work] with allies and partners, as well as with countries like China, to promote global health security. We want to work together to see an end to this pandemic.   But at the same time, we also know that China uses the multilateral system to promote its own interests to undermine some of our shared values, and so we want to work very closely with our partners and our allies to protect those interests, and to push back where we see that China is trying to undermine the rules based international order.   VOA: How confident is the U.S. to work with its European allies on a unified approach towards China after the EU-China investment deal? Was the U.S. caught by surprise by this deal?   Montgomery: We really look forward to having early consultations with the EU on this investment agreement. I think you’ve heard from Secretary Blinken and from others — our allies have certainly heard that we’re eager to look for areas where we can cooperate on China, on the basis of our shared values, and to promote our mutual interests.   Listen, if China did make additional concessions in that agreement on things like market access, on forced labor, we certainly welcome that. Although we really would look to the Chinese to prove that that’s not just cheap talk, and that they’re going to implement those commitments. And so we really look forward to having conversations moving forward with the EU and with our European allies and partners about working together on these issues.    VOA: On recent Kosovo elections: what is your takeaway? Is the prospect for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue dimmer?   Montgomery: We certainly continue to support the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, and to look toward a comprehensive agreement, a normalization agreement that would lead to mutual recognition, or on the basis of mutual recognition. And so that will be our goal moving forward.   VOA: Do you envision a U.S.-brokered Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, independent of a parallel EU effort, under the Biden administration?   Montgomery: We’re really committed to working with the EU, which facilitates the dialogue, and with our partners in tandem. This is, I think, a very important principle for our engagement in the Western Balkans. We know that we have been most successful there when we have worked hand in glove, or shoulder to shoulder with our European allies and partners, and so that’s going to be our approach.   VOA: This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Visegrád Group (V4). How does the U.S. envision its cooperation with the V4 in coming years?   Montgomery: Well, you’ve seen that we have congratulated the V4, the countries of the the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, on 30 years of cooperation in the Visegrád Group format. We really look forward to partnering with them on shared challenges, everything from COVID-19 to climate to things like strengthening our democracies and independent media.   VOA: Thank you for talking to VOA.   Montgomery: Great to be with you. 
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A federal judge has ordered the wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to remain temporarily jailed after she was arrested and accused of helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar cartel and plotting his audacious escape from a Mexican prison in 2015. Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, appeared by video conference for an initial court appearance before a federal magistrate judge in Washington, D.C. The judge’s order came after Coronel’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he would consent to her temporary detention after her arrest at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather explained the charges to Coronel, who spoke to the judge through a Spanish interpreter. She said prosecutors had provided sufficient reason to keep Coronel behind bars for now and noted that her attorney had consented to the temporary detention. Prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi said the U.S. government believed that Coronel should remain jailed, arguing that she “worked closely with the command-and-control structure” of the Sinaloa cartel, particularly with her husband. Nardozzi said she conspired to distribute large quantities of drugs, knowing that they would be illegally smuggled into the U.S.  Nardozzi said Coronel had access to criminal associates, including other members of the cartel, and “financial means to generate a serious risk of flight.” If convicted, she could face more than 10 years in prison. Her arrest was the latest twist in the bloody, multinational saga involving Guzman, the longtime head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzman, whose two dramatic prison escapes in Mexico fed into a legend that he and his family were all but untouchable, was extradited to the United States in 2017 and is serving life in prison.This photo shows the shower area where authorities claim drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman slipped into a tunnel to escape from his prison cell at the Altiplano maximum security prison, in Almoloya, west of Mexico City, July 15, 2015.And now his wife, with whom he has two young daughters, has been charged with helping him run his criminal empire. In a single-count criminal complaint, Coronel was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the U.S. The Justice Department also accused her of helping her husband escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and participating in the planning of a second prison escape before Guzman was extradited to the U.S.  As Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, Guzman ran a cartel responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during his 25-year reign, prosecutors said in recent court papers. They also said his “army of sicarios,” or “hit men,” was under orders to kidnap, torture and kill anyone who got in his way. His prison breaks became the stuff of legend and raised serious questions about whether Mexico’s justice system was capable of holding him accountable. In one case, he escaped through an entry under the shower in his cell to a milelong (1.6-kilometer-long) lighted tunnel with a motorcycle on rails. The planning for the escape was extensive, prosecutors say, with his wife playing a key role.  Court papers charge that Coronel worked with Guzman’s sons and a witness, who is now cooperating with the U.S. government, to organize the construction of the underground tunnel that Guzman used to escape from the Altiplano prison to prevent his extradition to the U.S. The plot included purchasing a piece of land near the prison, firearms and an armored truck and smuggling him a GPS watch so they could “pinpoint his exact whereabouts so as to construct the tunnel with an entry point accessible to him,” the court papers say. Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in 2019.  Coronel, who was a beauty queen in her teens, regularly attended Guzman’s trial, even when testimony implicated her in his prison breaks. The two, separated in age by more than 30 years, have been together since at least 2007, and their twin daughters were born in 2011.  Her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was arrested in 2013 with one of his sons and several other men in a warehouse with hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the border from Douglas, Arizona. Months earlier, the U.S. Treasury had announced financial sanctions against her father for his alleged drug trafficking.  After Guzman was rearrested following his escape, Coronel lobbied the Mexican government to improve her husband’s prison conditions. And after he was convicted in 2019, she moved to launch a clothing line in his name. Mike Vigil, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s former chief of international operations, said Coronel “has been involved in the drug trade since she was a little girl. She knows the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel.” He said she could be willing to cooperate. “She has a huge motivation, and that is her twins,” Vigil said. 
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Tuesday it was ordering immediate inspections of Boeing 777-200 planes with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines before further flights after an engine failed on a United flight on Saturday. Operators must conduct a thermal acoustic image inspection of the large titanium fan blades located at the front of each engine, the FAA said. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Monday that a cracked fan blade from the United Flight 328 engine that caught fire was consistent with metal fatigue. “Based on the initial results as we receive them, as well as other data gained from the ongoing investigation, the FAA may revise this directive to set a new interval for this inspection or subsequent ones,” the FAA said.The damaged starboard engine of United Airlines flight 328 is seen following a Feb. 20 engine failure incident, Feb. 23, 2021.In March 2019, after a 2018 United engine failure attributed to fan blade fatigue, the FAA ordered inspections every 6,500 cycles. A cycle is one take-off and landing.   South Korea’s transport ministry said on Tuesday it had told its airlines to inspect the fan blades every 1,000 cycles following guidance from Pratt after the latest United incident. An airline would typically accumulate 1,000 cycles about every 10 months on a 777, according to an industry source familiar with the matter. The engine that failed on the 26-year-old Boeing 777 and shed parts over a Denver suburb on Saturday was a PW4000. The engines are used on 128 planes, or less than 10% of the global fleet of more than 1,600 delivered 777 widebody jets. Boeing had recommended that airlines suspend the use of the planes while the FAA identified an appropriate inspection protocol, and Japan imposed a temporary suspension on flights after that incident.   United, the only U.S. operator, had temporarily grounded its fleet before the FAA announcement. 
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When rioters tore through the U.S. Capitol last month, some of them gripping Confederate battle flags, they didn’t encounter a statue of the most famous rebel general, Robert E. Lee.  The Lee statue, which represented the state of Virginia as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol for 111 years, had been removed just weeks before — one of at least 160 public Confederate symbols taken down or moved from public spaces in 2020, according to a new count the Southern Poverty Law Center shared with The Associated Press ahead of releasing it. The Montgomery, Alabama-based law center, which keeps a raw count of nearly 2,100 statues, symbols, placards, buildings and public parks dedicated to the Confederacy, released the latest figures from its “Whose Heritage?” database on Tuesday. It has been tracking a movement to take down the monuments since 2015, when a white supremacist entered a South Carolina church and killed nine Black parishioners. FILE – Houston city workers remove a statue of confederate soldier Dick Dowling from Hermann Park on in Houston, Texas, June 17, 2020.”These racist symbols only serve to uphold revisionist history and the belief that white supremacy remains morally acceptable,” SPLC chief of staff Lecia Brooks said in a statement. “This is why we believe that all symbols of white supremacy should be removed from public spaces.” Sometime after visitors and tourists are welcomed back to the U.S. Capitol, there will be a statue saluting Virginia’s Barbara Johns, a 16-year-old Black girl who staged a strike in 1951 over unequal conditions at her segregated high school in Farmville. Her actions led to court-ordered integration of public schools across the U.S, via the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education. Each state legislature can choose up to two representatives to honor in the Capitol’s collection. In December, a state commission recommended replacing Lee’s statue with a statue of Johns. Supporters told the AP that Virginia’s legislature has nearly finalized her elevation alongside George Washington. Joan Johns Cobbs, Barbara Johns’ younger sister, is ecstatic about the coming honor. She’s also happy it hadn’t happened before January 6, when the Capitol was breached. “You can’t imagine how sad I was seeing what was happening in the Capitol building,” Cobbs said. “I was saying to myself, ‘Oh, my God. I’m kind of glad her statue wasn’t there already.’ I wondered what would have happened.” Long seen as offensive to Black Americans, Lee’s Capitol statue wasn’t the only one representing a figure from the Lost Cause, a term referring to a belief that fighting on the side of slaveholders in the Civil War was just and heroic. Jefferson Davis, who served as president of the Confederate States of America before becoming a U.S. senator from Mississippi, is one of two figures representing that state in the Capitol. FILE – A statue of Jefferson Davis of Mississippi is on display in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 11, 2020.The SPLC says there are 704 Confederate monuments still standing across the U.S. And taking some of them down may be difficult, particularly in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — states where lawmakers have enacted policies protecting these monuments. The movement to remove these symbols from public spaces became part of the national reckoning on racial injustice following the killing last May of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.FILE – An image of the late Georgia Congressman and civil rights pioneer U.S. Rep. John Lewis is projected on to the pedestal of the statue of confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Va., July 22, 2020.Although activists have called for lowering Confederate flags and taking down monuments for decades, a broader push was sparked after a white supremacist gunned down Black parishioners during a June 2015 Bible study meeting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. “Exposing children to anything that falsely promotes the idea of white superiority and Black inferiority is dehumanizing,” Brooks of the SPLC said in her statement. Johns’ legacyThat’s why the honor for Johns couldn’t come at a better time, said Cameron Patterson, executive director of the Robert Russa Moton Museum, a caretaker of Johns’ legacy. Johns moved from New York City to live with her grandmother in Virginia’s Prince Edward County during World War II. She attended Moton High School in Farmville where, according to her memoir, the segregated school had poor facilities, lacked science laboratories and had no gymnasium. On April 23, 1951, at age 16, Johns led her classmates in a strike against the substandard conditions at Moton High, drawing the attention of civil rights lawyers at the NAACP. Attorneys filed a federal case that became one of five the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in the Brown decision. In 1954, the high court declared segregation unconstitutional. FILE – The spot in the U.S. Capitol where a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee had been, sits empty, after the monument was removed to be replaced with a statue of Black civil rights pioneer Barbara Johns, on Capitol Hill, Dec. 21, 2020.This year will mark the 70th anniversary since Johns’ protest. She died in 1991, at age 56. “There’s real recognition that her inclusion in the Statuary Hall Collection really will be a great opportunity for folks to more fully come to understand the Moton story in full,” Patterson said. “So not only are they learning about Barbara and who she was, they’re learning about her classmates. They’re learning about those that continue to labor in this community, as it relates to the fight for educational equality.” Cobbs, Johns’ sister, agreed. “I hope that young people will see it as something that they could emulate,” she said. “Being that young, seeing an injustice, and deciding to do something about it is pretty remarkable.” 
 
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For the first time Tuesday, U.S. lawmakers heard details from top security officials about the failures on January 6 when pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, security officials told lawmakers there were numerous law enforcement missteps that day.Camera: Mike Burke   Produced by: Katherine Gypson
 
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For Native Americans, Deb Haaland is more than an elected official on track to become the first Indigenous secretary of the Interior Department. She is a sister, an auntie and a fierce pueblo woman whose political stances have been molded by her upbringing. News of her historic nomination electrified Indian Country. Tribal leaders and organizations for weeks have urged people to write and call U.S. senators who will decide if she will lead the agency that has broad oversight over Native American affairs and energy development. Haaland’s confirmation hearing this week is being closely watched in tribal communities, with some virtual parties drawing hundreds of people. The hearing started Tuesday and will continue Wednesday.FILE – A billboard displays support for New Mexico U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, who has been nominated to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior, in Billings, Montana, Feb. 21, 2021.To mark the event, supporters projected a picture of the New Mexico congresswoman on the side of the Interior building with text that read “Our Ancestors’ Dreams Come True.” A mobile billboard with Haaland’s image also made its way around Washington, D.C. Many Native Americans see Haaland as a reflection of themselves, someone who will elevate their voices and protect the environment and tribes’ rights. Here are stories of her impact.  Aleta “Tweety” Suazo, 66, Laguna and Acoma Pueblos in New Mexico  Suazo first met Haaland when they were campaigning for Barack Obama, walking door to door in New Mexico’s pueblos. When Haaland was chosen to represent New Mexico as one of the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress, she turned to Suazo and the state’s Native American Democratic Caucus to make treats for a reception. They prepared hundreds of pueblo pies, or pastelitos, and cookies, froze them and took them to Washington. Wearing traditional black dresses, they handed out the goodies with a thank-you note from Haaland. Suazo said she admires Haaland because she is eloquent and smart, “no beating around the bush,” and she is a Laguna Pueblo member who has returned there to dance as a form of prayer.  Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., is sworn in during a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing on her nomination to be Interior Secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 23, 2021.When she heard Haaland was nominated as Interior secretary shortly after winning a second term in Congress, Suazo was not overjoyed.  “Oh my gosh, she is going to go there, and who is going to represent us?” said Suazo, who lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. “There goes our one and only Indian representative.” She wanted to be assured that Haaland would be replaced by someone just as dynamic, who would work hard to protect the environment, address an epidemic of missing and slain Indigenous women and expand broadband, she said.  “I was happy, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose her,” Suazo said. But she sees the importance, she said, in having a Native American oversee an agency that touches nearly every aspect of Native American life.  Suazo sent a message to Haaland ahead of the hearing to say “be a strong woman,” or “gumeh.” She went back and forth watching it on television and in a virtual party. “It kind of reminds me of people having prayer groups, that kind of collective sending (of) good thoughts and prayers and support, and to have that many people doing it at one time was just so great,” Suazo said. Brandi Liberty, 42, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska  When Liberty saw a picture of Haaland in a traditional ribbon skirt and moccasins for President Joe Biden’s inauguration, she cried.  She thought about her grandmother Ethil Simmonds Liberty, who did not become a U.S. citizen until she was 9, despite being born on her tribe’s reservation that straddles Kansas and Nebraska.  Her grandmother was a powerful advocate for her people, petitioning to turn a pigpen into a playground, writing letters to U.S. presidents and leading efforts to get a road paved to the reservation, she said. Liberty thought about her own daughter, who she hopes will carry on her legacy in working with tribes and embracing their heritage. She thought about her time earning a master’s degree and seeing single mothers bringing their children to class, each understanding it was not a burden but a necessity. She later became a single mother like Haaland, who often speaks about her experience working through college and amassing debt. Liberty also thought about how Haaland could move other tribes in the right direction and connect them to Washington — essentially, Liberty’s grandmother on a larger scale. “This is no different than when Obama became the first Black president and what that signified,” said Liberty, who lives in New Orleans. “This is a historical mark for Indian Country as a whole.” Liberty caught most of Tuesday’s hearing while updating her parents and others through texts and social posts. She found herself in tears again as Haaland made her opening statement and touched on personal struggles. “I could relate to so much of it,” Liberty said. Zachariah Rides At The Door, 21, Blackfeet Tribe of Montana Rides At The Door is studying environmental sciences and sustainability, and fire science as a third-year student at the University of Montana in Missoula.  He brings a perspective to his studies that Haaland has touted as unique from Indian Country — that everything is alive and should be treated with respect and that people should be stewards of the land, rather than have dominion over it. In high school, he learned about the mining industry and how it has impacted sites that are part of the Blackfeet creation story. He learned about the American Indian Movement’s role in fighting for equality and recognition of tribal sovereignty. He also recently learned the United States had a Native American vice president from 1929 to 1933, Charles Curtis. Rides At The Door is not sure what he wants to do when he graduates. But he knows he wants to learn the Blackfeet language and maybe become a firefighter or work on projects that route buffalo to his reservation. He was working Tuesday but planned to catch up on the hearing through social media. Already, he was seeing memes and other posts that praised Haaland. Seeing her political rise is inspiring, he said. “It’s a great way for younger Natives to say, ‘All right, our foot is in the door. There’s a chance we could get higher positions,'” he said. Debbie Nez-Manuel, 49, Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah  During her recent campaign for an Arizona legislative seat, Nez-Manuel sought an endorsement from Haaland. She was looking for someone whose values aligned with hers: grounded in beliefs, connected to the land, a consistent and strong leader unchanged by politics. After layers of vetting, she got the endorsement and planned to announce it at a get-out-the-vote rally featuring Haaland at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. It also was a chance for the two women to take a picture together.  Then, the event was canceled because of the pandemic. Nez-Manuel was devastated. Days before she was supposed to meet Haaland, Nez-Manuel was sitting at home when her phone rang. She did not recognize the number. “Hey Debbie, this is Deb,” the voice on the phone said. “Who?” Nez-Manuel asked. The caller replied: “Deb Haaland. Good morning. I’m calling from New Mexico. I’m sitting in my kitchen.” Nez-Manuel’s heart raced, and she struggled to voice all the thoughts she had so carefully scripted for that meeting. Haaland, she said, was patient and shared stories about life on and off a reservation — something that resonated with Nez-Manuel.  “It’s like talking to an auntie,” she said. “She’s very matter of fact.” Nez-Manuel joked about flying to Washington for Haaland’s confirmation hearing to get that elusive picture.  Instead, she and her husband, Royce, connected to a virtual watch party from their home on the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Community northeast of Phoenix. Nez-Manuel said Haaland showed she was willing to learn from others, aptly answering questions and pledging to make decisions based on science. “She is about protecting what’s there, what’s good for humanity, not for pocketbooks,” Nez-Manuel said. “That’s something that stood out very clearly.” 
 
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The U.S. economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is a work in progress, the country’s central bank chief told lawmakers Tuesday.“The economic recovery remains uneven and far from complete, and the path ahead is highly uncertain,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking Committee. “Although there has been much progress in the labor market since the spring, millions of Americans remain out of work.”The U.S. Labor Department said the January unemployment rate was 6.3%, although Powell earlier this month said it was “close to 10%,” more than twice the figure for last February before the virus started infecting millions of Americans and forced thousands of businesses to close or limit their operations.US Treasury Chief: Would Take Years for US Economy to Recover Without Aid Deal Janet Yellen: ‘There’s tremendous suffering in the country’ Congress approved about $4 trillion in coronavirus relief spending last year, while the Fed slashed its benchmark lending rate to near-zero percent last March. It is buying about $120 billion in government-backed bonds each month to foster bank lending and consumer spending.Now, Congress is considering Democratic President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package to boost the economy, reopen schools and send $1,400 checks to millions of adult Americans, all but the biggest wage earners. With Democrats narrowly controlling Congress, the measure could be approved by mid-March. But Powell warned that for now, “The economy is a long way from our employment and inflation goals, and it is likely to take some time for substantial further progress to be achieved.” He said the central bank would continue to buy bonds at its current pace until that progress has been made.The number of U.S. workers filing for unemployment compensation has dropped sharply since the worst of the pandemic’s effect on the world’s largest economy late last March, when 6.9 million people filed for benefits. But for months now, 700,000 to more than 900,000 workers each week have filed new claims for benefits, figures that eclipsed the biggest totals seen before the pandemic in records that date to the 1960s.Powell said the pandemic “is causing great hardship for millions of Americans and is weighing on economic activity and job creation.”US Economy Projected to Return to Normal by MidyearCongressional Budget Office says employment will gain strength over next several yearsSen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, chairman of the Senate banking panel, said Powell had “talked to all of us about the risk of falling short of a complete recovery and the damage it will do to peoples’ lives.” Brown said Biden “understands this moment, and he’s risen to meet it” with his coronavirus relief package.But Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the banking panel, warned that excessive spending might spark inflation in the United States, echoing other Republicans as Congress considers Biden’s relief proposal.Powell said the Fed wanted to see more economic progress before cutting back its bond purchases.“There is still a long way to go to full recovery, and we intend to keep our policy supportive of that recovery,” he said.Powell said the economy rebounded last summer but slowed in the latter part of 2020, with the biggest impacts largely falling on low-wage workers, Black and Hispanic Americans and other minority groups.Powell, however, held out the possibility of a recovery in the months ahead, saying “ongoing vaccinations offer hope for a return to more normal conditions later this year.”
 
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The U.S. Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday, after objections from some Republicans delayed her appointment.Linda Thomas-Greenfield was confirmed on a vote of 78 in favor to 20 against. She received bipartisan support, including yes votes from more than 20 Republican senators, among them Lindsay Graham, Mitt Romney and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Republicans Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy of her home state, Louisiana, also supported her.Her confirmation comes less than one week before the United States takes over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council on March 1.She will also take a seat in President Biden’s Cabinet.DelaysThe Senate Foreign Relations Committee held Thomas-Greenfield’s confirmation hearing on Jan. 27. Senators from both parties grilled the 35-year State Department veteran about a speech she gave as a retired diplomat in 2019. The event was at the historically Black Savannah State University in Georgia, at the campus’ Confucius Institute, which is funded by the Chinese government. Her remarks focused on the U.S. and China’s investment in Africa, and several senators criticized her for being soft on Beijing.Biden Taps Veteran US Diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield as UN Ambassador  Thomas-Greenfield says she will lead at the United Nations with principles of kindness and compassion  During her confirmation hearing, the long-time U.S. diplomat pushed back against the accusations saying she has spoken out about Beijing’s behavior throughout her career, including what she called China’s “self-interested and parasitic development goals” in Africa.“And I see what they are doing at the U.N. as undermining our values, undermining what we believe in,” she told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time. “They are undermining our security, they are undermining our people, and we need to work against that.”Her nomination passed though the committee, but Republican Senator Ted Cruz, unsatisfied with her stance on China, used a committee rule to delay her final confirmation until after the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. On Tuesday, Cruz voted against her confirmation.Life and CareerBorn in 1952 in the southern state of Louisiana, Thomas-Greenfield, who is African-American, was one of eight siblings. She said her father left school in the third grade to help support his family.”He couldn’t read or write, but he was the smartest man I knew,” she said of him in a 2019 TED talk.She said her mother also had limited education, but a big heart. In addition to raising her own children, she took in eight siblings who lost their mother so they would not be separated.”I didn’t have successful, educated role models in my life, but what I did have – I had the hopes and dreams of my mother, who taught me at a very early age that I could face any challenge or adversity put in my path by being compassionate and being kind,” Thomas-Greenfield said.She grew up during the civil rights era, graduating from a segregated high school and going on to Louisiana State University, which had to be forced to accept Black students by a court order.During her State Department career, Thomas Greenfield has worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations. An Africa specialist, she served as U.S. ambassador to Liberia, and held posts in Kenya, The Gambia and Nigeria. Under then-President Barack Obama, she served as the assistant secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs (2013-2017), developing and managing Washington’s policy toward sub-Saharan Africa. She has also worked in Geneva at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.In 1994, she arrived in Kigali as Rwanda as Hutu extremists began their 100-day genocide against minority Tutsis. She nearly became a victim of the violence when she was confronted by a “glaze-eyed man” who was ready to kill her. She escaped the incident but has said the genocide “changed my life forever.”Challenges AheadThomas-Greenfield will face challenges at the United Nations. The Trump administration was largely indifferent to the organization and pulled back its support – both financial and diplomatic – on several fronts. President Biden has vowed to reengage with the world body and embrace multilateralism.Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, urged the ambassador to make the promotion and protection of human rights a top priority.“She should abandon the Trump administration’s selective approach to human rights – enthusiastically condemning its enemies’ abuses while ignoring rights violations of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, but there’s room for continuity on China and Syria,” Charbonneau said. “She should make expanding the coalition of nations willing to speak out against Beijing’s human rights abuses one of her chief goals at the U.N., and she should continue to push for expanded humanitarian access to all parts of Syria.”The United Nations has been at the forefront in trying to rally global cooperation on combatting climate change and fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.N. secretary-general has welcomed Washington’s reengagement on both issues.
 
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“Minari,” a film by Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, tells the story of a young Korean immigrant family chasing the American dream. Like the Korean herb minari, known for its adaptability to a variety of climates and conditions, the young Korean family is determined to put down roots in the American rural South. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was arrested in the United States and accused of helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar cartel and plot his audacious escape from a Mexican prison in 2015.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, a 31-year-old former beauty queen, was arrested Monday at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and is expected to appear in federal court in Washington, by video, Tuesday afternoon. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico.
Her arrest is the latest twist in the bloody, multinational saga involving Guzman, the longtime head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzman, whose two dramatic prison escapes in Mexico fed into a legend that he and his family were all but untouchable, was extradited to the United States in 2017 and is serving life in prison.  
And now his wife, with whom he has two young daughters, has been charged with helping him run his criminal empire. In a single-count criminal complaint, Coronel was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the U.S. The Justice Department also accused her of helping her husband escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and participating in the planning of a second prison escape before Guzman was extradited to the U.S.
 
Coronel was moved to the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia late Monday night and is expected to appear by video conference for her initial court appearance on Tuesday. Her attorney Jeffrey Lichtman declined to comment Monday night.
As Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, Guzman ran a cartel responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during his 25-year reign, prosecutors said in recent court papers. They also said his “army of sicarios,” or “hit men,” was under orders to kidnap, torture and kill anyone who got in his way.
His prison breaks became the stuff of legend and raised serious questions about whether Mexico’s justice system was capable of holding him accountable. In one case, he escaped through an entry under the shower in his cell to a milelong (1.6-kilometer-long) lighted tunnel with a motorcycle on rails. The planning for the escape was extensive, prosecutors say, with his wife playing a key role.
 
Court papers charge that Coronel worked with Guzman’s sons and a witness, who is now
cooperating with the U.S. government, to organize the construction of the underground tunnel that Guzman used to escape from the Altiplano prison to prevent his extradition to the U.S. The plot included purchasing a piece of land near the prison, firearms and an armored truck and smuggling him a GPS watch so they could “pinpoint his exact whereabouts so as to construct the tunnel with an entry point accessible to him,” the court papers say.
Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in 2019.  
Coronel, who was a beauty queen in her teens, regularly attended Guzman’s trial, even when testimony implicated her in his prison breaks. The two, separated in age by more than 30 years, have been together since at least 2007, and their twin daughters were born in 2011.  
Her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was arrested in 2013 with one of his sons and several other men in a warehouse with hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the border from Douglas, Arizona. Months earlier, the U.S. Treasury had announced financial sanctions against her father for his alleged drug trafficking.  
After Guzman was rearrested following his escape, Coronel lobbied the Mexican government to improve her husband’s prison conditions. And after he was convicted in 2019, she moved to launch a clothing line in his name.
Mike Vigil, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s former chief of international operations, said Coronel “has been involved in the drug trade since she was a little girl. She knows the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel.”
He said she could be willing to cooperate.
“She has a huge motivation, and that is her twins,” Vigil said.
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Two U.S. Senate committees are holding a hearing Tuesday examining the January 6 attack on the U.S. capitol with a focus on security and the response of law enforcement. Scheduled to testify before the Homeland Security Committee and Governmental Affairs Committee are the former Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger and former House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, as well as former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and Metropolitan Police Department acting Chief Robert Contee. For Stenger and Irving, their testimony will be their first public comments since they resigned just after the attack by a pro-Trump mob.In this image from video, Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger reads the proclamation during the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2020.Senator Amy Klobuchar told the Associated Press that lawmakers would be focused on how security agencies shared information ahead of the attack, the timing of the deployment of National Guard troops to assist overwhelmed Capitol Police officers and whether the command structure of the entities responsible for Capitol security contributed to security failures. Klobuchar also said the panels would hold at least one more hearing as part of their investigation that would examine the responses of the Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Capitol attack came as lawmakers inside were meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s electoral win over former President Donald Trump in the November election.  Rioters smashed windows and doors and clashed with officers, leaving dozens of police injured. Members of Congress fled their chambers and had to return hours later to finish the vote certification. The violence left five people dead, including one Capital Police officer. In the weeks after the attack, the House of Representatives impeached Trump on charges he incited insurrection. The Senate later acquitted Trump. 
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The wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the imprisoned former leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested Monday over her alleged involvement in international drug trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, a regular attendee at her husband’s trial two years ago, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia and is expected to appear in a federal court in Washington on Tuesday. A lawyer for Coronel could not immediately be identified. It was unclear why Coronel, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was in the Washington area. Her arrest came two years after a celebrated trial in Brooklyn, New York, where Guzman, now 63, was convicted of trafficking tons of drugs into the United States as Sinaloa’s leader, where prosecutors said he amassed power through killings and wars with rival cartels. FILE – In this photo provided U.S. law enforcement, authorities escort Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, center, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., Jan. 19, 2017.He was sentenced in July 2019 to life in prison plus 30 years, which the sentencing judge said reflected his “overwhelmingly evil” actions. He was sent to ADX Florence in Colorado, the nation’s most secure “Supermax” prison. Coronel was charged in a one-count complaint with conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines for unlawful importation into the United States. Prosecutors said Coronel also conspired to aid her husband in his July 2015 escape from the Altiplano prison in Mexico when he dug a mile-long tunnel from his cell and began plotting a second escape following his capture by Mexican authorities in January 2016. FILE – This photo shows the shower area where authorities claim drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman slipped into a tunnel to escape from his prison cell at the Altiplano maximum security prison, in Almoloya, west of Mexico City, July 15, 2015.U.S. and Mexican efforts to fight drug trafficking had become strained when the Justice Department brought drug charges in October against former Mexican Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos. The Justice Department unexpectedly dropped that case the following month and let Cienfuegos return to Mexico, in a bid to restore trust in the countries’ security ties. Cienfuegos was exonerated two months later when Mexico dropped its own case. Tomas Guevara, an investigator in security issues at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, said Coronel’s arrest might be part of a “pressure strategy” to prompt cooperation from Guzman. A Mexican official familiar with Coronel’s case who asked not to be identified said her arrest appeared to be solely a U.S. initiative and that Coronel was not wanted in Mexico. 
 
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