Month: June 2021

At his first rally since leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump on Saturday lambasted the Biden administration’s immigration policies and urged his supporters to help Republicans take back majorities in Congress.While Trump has made speeches at Republican events since his election defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden, the rally in a state he carried in the 2020 election marks a return to the kind of freewheeling mass gatherings that have been critical to retaining the support of his base.Trump left office in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, shortly after a speech in which he repeated his false claims that his election defeat was the result of fraud. He survived a second impeachment and has kept a broad influence over the Republican Party, in part by leaving open the question of whether he will run for office again in 2024.On Saturday, to a crowd of thousands of cheering supporters, Trump highlighted some of his regular list of grievances, with criticism of U.S. elections and a particular focus on the rising number of immigrants crossing into the United States along its southern border.”We will take back the House, we will take back the Senate, and we will take back America, and we will do it soon,” he said.Democrats’ thin majorities in both chambers of Congress will be on the line in the 2022 midterm elections and history favors Republicans’ chances of gaining seats in those contests.Trump’s return to a big rally marks the start of public events lashing out at elected Republicans who he views as having crossed him.In Ohio he campaigned for former White House aide Max Miller, who has launched a primary challenge against Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that left five dead including a Capitol Police officer.Trump has vowed to campaign against all 10. He has also endorsed a challenger to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only one of the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him in his January impeachment trial who is up for reelection in 2022.The Ohio event in Wellington, about 64 kilometers southwest of Cleveland, was the first of three public appearances. Next is a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on June 30 and a rally in Sarasota, Florida, on July 3.Supporters said they hoped Trump would use such events to help unify the party behind like-minded candidates for Congress.”Continuing these rallies is extremely important,” said Jessica Dicken, a 30-year-old stay-at-home mom from southeast Ohio, adding Trump could be “a voice for the more conservative movement here in Ohio and across the nation.”‘We’ll lose our country’Trump has continued to feud with other senior Republicans. He has lashed out at former Vice President Mike Pence, who he falsely claims could have stopped Congress from certifying Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, as well as at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for calling Trump “practically and morally responsible” for that day’s violence.Pence defended his actions in a Thursday speech at the Ronald Reagan library.”There’s more at stake than our party and our political fortunes in this moment,” Pence said. “If we lose faith in the Constitution, we won’t just lose elections — we’ll lose our country.”Trump’s repeated false claims of election fraud have taken hold of Republican voters. Some 53% of Republicans believe Trump won the 2020 election and blame his loss on illegal voting, and one quarter of the overall public agreed that Trump won, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.Republican strategist Matt Dole said both Trump and those vying to stay close to him benefited from such public displays of bonhomie. Some of the candidates now seeking his endorsement have made disparaging comments about Trump in the past.”These are marriages of convenience,” said Dole, who is based in Ohio. “Donald Trump is using these opportunities to keep his name out there, to keep the base motivated.”  
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A hot air balloon crashed Saturday in an Albuquerque, New Mexico, neighborhood, killing five people after it was apparently blown into power lines by the wind and caught fire, police said.The pilot and three passengers were pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The fourth passenger was taken to an Albuquerque hospital where he died of his injuries.The basket crashed on a street corner in the city’s West Side neighborhood near a pharmacy, about 10 kilometers west of the Albuquerque International Sunport Airport, according to a report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).The balloon separated from the basket and landed elsewhere, police said.The victims were between 40 and 60 years old, police said, but no names were released. No one on the ground was injured.Witnesses told police the balloon hit a power line shortly after 7 a.m. local time. “We know from experience here in Albuquerque that sometimes winds kick up or things happen that make it difficult for balloons to navigate,” Albuquerque Police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told reporters in a news conference. He added that it is still unclear what happened. The FAA along with police are investigating the accident. The Albuquerque Journal reported a power outage in the area affecting 13,000 homes and businesses. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s multination trip to Europe takes him to Italy Sunday for several days of meetings with top Italian leaders, Pope Francis, Group of 20 leaders and ministerial-level officials.After being warmly welcomed in France and Germany, Blinken arrives in Rome from Paris on Sunday, when he meets with the Italian foreign minister, United Nations food security agencies and U.S. embassy officials.Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio will co-chair a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Rome on Monday, when he also meets with Prime Minister Mario Draghi and President Sergio Mattarella to discuss the Syrian civil war and the humanitarian needs in that country.The State Department says Syria remains a big concern, with tens of thousands of women and children in humanitarian camps subject to security issues as members of the Islamic State terrorist group work to exploit the camps to recruit the next generation of fighters. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves as French President Emmanuel Macron, center, gestures toward French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian, left, at the Elysee palace, June 25, 2021.The top U.S. diplomat arrived in France from Germany, where on Thursday he and German leaders said the U.S. and Germany were partnering to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism, an effort the secretary of state said will “ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it.”  Speaking at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Blinken said Holocaust denial and antisemitism go hand in hand with homophobia, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination, and have become “a rallying cry for those who seek to tear down our democracies.” The top U.S. diplomat also met Thursday with Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba on the heels of an international conference focused on supporting Libya’s transition to a permanent, stable government.  Wednesday’s conference, hosted by Germany and the United Nations, included officials from 17 countries and reinforced support for national elections in Libya scheduled for late December.  Libya has experienced political instability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi from power. Rival governments operated in separate parts of the country for years before a cease-fire deal in October that included a demand for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave Libya within 90 days.  VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed to this report. This report also includes information from Reuters and AFP.
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Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay about $230 million to resolve claims it helped fuel an opioid crisis in New York, the state’s attorney general said Saturday.The agreement addresses claims brought by Attorney General Letitia James, and it will remove Johnson & Johnson as a defendant in a broader trial over opioids scheduled to begin next week.
 
J&J did not admit liability or wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. It said the agreement was consistent with its prior agreement to pay $5 billion to settle opioid claims by states, cities, counties and tribal governments nationwide. 
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The New York Times reported early Saturday that a three-year-old engineer’s report on the 13-story condominium building in the southern U.S. state of Florida that partially collapsed Thursday said the building had “major structural damage” on the concrete slab below the pool deck.  In addition, the engineer observed “abundant” cracking and crumbling in the walls, beams and columns of the parking garage located under the building, according to the newspaper. The report, The Times said, was the basis for “a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set to get underway soon.”The newspaper said municipal officials released the engineer’s report late Friday. Miami Officials Say 4 Confirmed Dead, 159 Still Missing in Building CollapseSearch and rescue efforts focused on collapsed portion of apartment complexThe 2018 report did not give any evidence that the building was about to collapse but it did say “most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion.”The Washington Post, citing a study conducted last year, reported the building was constructed on reclaimed wetlands on the barrier island that makes up the Miami Beach area and has been gradually sinking since the 1990s. It is unclear if those factors contributed to the incident. Rescue workers used heavy equipment Friday to search for survivors in the rubble of the collapsed building after officials said four people were confirmed dead and 159 people remain missing.The rescuers in the Miami suburb of the Town of Surfside used cranes as well as their own hands to dig through debris.Officials from the city of Miami and surrounding Dade County held a news briefing earlier Friday at the scene, just north of Miami. The collapse happened about 1:30 a.m. local time Thursday. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters rescue officials were still searching for survivors, along with additional victims in the collapsed portion of the building. She said 129 people have been confirmed safe, adding that the numbers are very fluid. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Raide Jadallah said the entire building has been cleared and checked so rescue operations can focus on the rubble. He said 130 firefighters are working at the site. Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said his office is working with the local medical examiner’s office to identify victims. U.S. President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration for the site, which will allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate relief efforts and supply additional funds. The president spoke with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Friday and said the federal government stands ready to provide additional resources if needed. Information from The Associated Press and the Reuters news service contributed to this report.
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The U.S. Pacific Northwest is experiencing a heat wave.  It’s a potentially dangerous situation for a region of the country where many proudly boast about living without air conditioning.Temperatures this weekend are expected to rise as much as 30 degrees higher than normal levels.  The trend is expected to continue into next week.  In the states of Washington and Oregon, officials have lifted COVID-19 capacity restrictions on cooling centers, pools, movie theaters and shopping malls.  US Facing Triple Weather ThreatsUS experiencing varying, but intense weather conditionsMeanwhile, many stores have sold all their air conditioners and fans.  
 
Seattle is forecast be above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) this weekend. In Portland, Oregon, it’s likely to be 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 Celsius) Sunday, which would break a record of 107 F (42 Celsius) in 1981.Seattle has reached 100 Fahrenheit just three times in recorded history, according to the National Weather Service. There’s a possibility it could surge Monday above the record of 103 Fahrenheit (39 Celsius).“We know from evidence around the world that climate change is increasing the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves,” University of Washington Professor Kristie Ebi, who studies global warming, told the Associated Press. “We’re going to have to get used to this going forward.”The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Derek Chauvin will face 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, the case that triggered international protests and calls for greater racial reckoning. The former Minneapolis police officer was convicted on two charges of murder and one charge of manslaughter in April. VOA’s Robert Raffaele has more about Friday’s sentencing. 
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to El Paso, Texas, on her first official visit to the U.S. southern border on Friday. Her focus – following up on her Guatemala and Mexico trips and seeing  firsthand the detention centers that hold migrants and how U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is managing the situation. VOA News’ Celia Mendoza has the story from El Paso, Texas. Camera: Celia Mendoza 
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A police officer who was injured in the January 6 Capitol insurrection confronted House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy in a meeting on Friday, asking him to publicly denounce statements by GOP members who have voted against honoring police and have downplayed the violence of the attack.Officer Michael Fanone has said for weeks that he wanted to meet with McCarthy, who has opposed the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack and has remained loyal to former President Donald Trump. It was a violent mob of Trump’s supporters that laid siege to the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory after Trump told them to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Fanone said after the meeting that he had asked McCarthy to denounce 21 House Republicans who recently voted against giving police officers a congressional medal of honor for defending the Capitol, and also Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde, who compared video of the rioters to a “tourist visit.”He said McCarthy told him he would “address it in a personal level with some of those members,” a response he said wasn’t satisfactory. McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting.As the House Republican leader, Fanone said, “it’s important to hear those denouncements publicly.” And as a police officer who served that day, he said, “that’s not what I want to hear.”Harry Dunn, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who faced rioters on Jan. 6, talks to reporters as he leaves a meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at the Capitol in Washington, June 25, 2021.McCarthy and Fanone were joined by Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who was also among the officers who responded to the rioting. Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, was also expected to be in the meeting but did not speak to reporters afterward. Brian Sicknick collapsed and died after engaging with the mob, and a medical examiner later ruled that he died of natural causes.The meeting came as many Republicans have made clear that they want to move on from the January 6 attack — frustrating law enforcement officers who were brutally beaten by the rioters as they pushed past them and broke into the building. Senate Republicans have blocked an independent, bipartisan investigation of the attack, and some House members are increasingly downplaying the insurrection. Fanone said he found Clyde’s comments “disgusting.”Dunn said afterward that it was an “emotional meeting.” He declined to go into detail and thanked McCarthy for his time.Accountability, justice”He was receptive, and I think ultimately, we have the same goal. It’s just going to take a little time getting there, I guess,” Dunn said.The goal, Dunn said, is “accountability, justice for everybody that was involved.”As the officers and family members push for answers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she was creating a special committee to investigate the attack. She said a partisan-led probe was the only option left after Senate Republicans blocked the commission.Fanone, Dunn and Gladys Sicknick have all aggressively lobbied for the independent panel — which would be modeled after a similar panel that investigated the September 11 terrorist attacks — and they visited the offices of several Republican senators before the vote last month. Seven Republican senators voted with Democrats to consider the legislation that would form the bipartisan panel, but it still fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward.FILE – Rioters storm the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.Fanone was one of many Metropolitan Police officers who were called in to help deal with the increasingly chaotic scene as delays kept the National Guard away. He has described being dragged down the Capitol steps by rioters who shocked him with a stun gun and beat him.Dunn, a Capitol Police officer, has similarly described fighting the rioters in hand-to-hand combat and being the target of racial slurs as he tried to hold them back.Both officers said they discussed the select committee with McCarthy, who said earlier Friday that he couldn’t comment on it because he hadn’t talked to Pelosi.Fanone said he asked for a commitment not to put “the wrong people” on the panel and that McCarthy said he would take it seriously.Dunn confirmed that account, saying McCarthy “committed to us to taking it serious.”Defense of riotersIn addition to Clyde, other Republicans have increasingly made statements defending the rioters and have spread conspiracy theories about what happened that day. Arizona Representative Paul Gosar has repeatedly insisted that a Trump supporter who was shot and killed that day while trying to break into the House chamber was “executed.” Others have suggested that the Justice Department should not be charging the insurrectionists with crimes.And last week, the 21 Republicans voted against giving medals of honor to the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police to thank them for their service on January 6. Dozens of those officers suffered major injuries, including chemical burns, brain injuries and broken bones. McCarthy voted for the measure.Seven people died during and after the rioting, including Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot and killed, and three other Trump supporters who died of medical emergencies. In addition to Sicknick, two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed.Fanone made clear that the last several months had taken a toll. He said he was “mentally and physically exhausted” and that he felt isolated.”This experience is not something that I enjoy doing,” he said. “I don’t want to be up here on Capitol Hill. I want to be with my daughters. But I see this as an extension of my service on January 6th.”
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California will extend its ban on evictions and cover back rent and utility payments for people who fell behind during the pandemic under a $7.2 billion plan announced Friday that Gov. Gavin Newsom called the “largest and most comprehensive renter protection deal in the United States.”California placed a moratorium on evictions after Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide shutdown in March 2020 and ordered most businesses to close and people to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus.That protection is scheduled to expire Wednesday. The new agreement between Newsom and legislative leaders will extend the eviction moratorium by three months and pledges to pay off all unpaid rent and utility bills for qualifying renters from April 2020 through Sept. 30 of this year.No one knows exactly how many people will qualify and how much it will cost. But the state has $5.2 billion to spend on back rents, enough to provide $10,400 each to a half-million tenants, all of it coming from the federal government.”I think that everyone is breathing a sigh of relief,” said Madeline Howard, senior attorney for the Western Center on Law and Poverty.Newsom’s administration believes the pot of money is more than enough to pay off rental debts for everyone eligible. Another $2 billion in state money will cover people’s unpaid utility bills.The proposal, which will be voted on in the Legislature next week, also gives tenants more time to apply for assistance after a landlord tries to evict them while also masking their credit and rental history so those debts won’t show up and prevent them from getting future housing.Crisis before COVIDCalifornia has some of the most expensive rents in the country, driven by a statewide affordable housing shortage. In Los Angeles, the median rent in May was about $2,600, and in San Francisco it was $2,700.About 25% of California’s renters pay at least half of their income on housing costs, a figure that includes rent and utilities, according to the California Department of Finance.”Our housing situation in California was a crisis before COVID, and the pandemic has only made it worse — this extension is key to making sure that more people don’t lose the safety net helping them keep their home,” said state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego.To qualify, people may only earn 80% or less of their area’s median income and must have been affected by the pandemic — a nondescript requirement everyone can meet.The federal government is giving every state money to cover back rent during the pandemic. Some states, like Washington, have also extended their eviction bans through the end of September. Others, like New Hampshire, are also offering rental assistance of up to 15 months.Californians who aren’t eligible to have their unpaid rent covered can still qualify for the eviction ban, but only if they pay at least 25% of what they owe through Sept. 30. If they do that, landlords can still sue them to try to recoup that money, but they can’t evict them for it.This will be the third time California has extended its eviction ban. While some landlords say they are happy to have the state cover all of some tenants’ rental debt, they are angry the state has continued to halt evictions.The ban has caused “irreparable harm” to landlords who “have been under severe financial distress for the past 16+ months,” said Christine LaMarca, president of the California Rental Housing Association.”We are very concerned as to when this moratorium will actually end,” she said.California began offering rental assistance earlier this year, using a previous allocation of federal money. As of Thursday, 54,520 tenants have requested $616.4 million in assistance, said Russ Heimerich, spokesperson for the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency.But the state has paid only $61.6 million of those requests so far.Those figures don’t include applications made to some of the state’s larger cities — including Los Angeles — that operate their own programs. Still, the state’s slow response has frustrated landlord groups.”Both the federal and state eviction moratoriums would not be necessary if state and local governments were disbursing rental assistance funds to tenants and housing providers in an expedited manner,” said Tom Bannon, CEO of the California Apartment Association.Newsom acknowledged the state’s slow response, adding the federal government has also been sluggish in getting the money to state governments. Newsom said the application process is laborious, but he said state officials are trying to make it easier.”We expect with this announcement … we’re going to see more people applying and more money requested,” he said. “Our job is to efficiently — and make sure appropriately, because we don’t want fraud in this space — to get those dollars out as quickly as possible.”
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Iran’s apparent use of 20 U.S.-based hotel properties as polling sites for its recent presidential election has raised questions about the hotel owners’ compliance with U.S. sanctions and the appropriateness of their involvement in a vote that Washington criticized as neither free nor fair.The U.S. was one of dozens of countries in which Iran said it had arranged for members of the Iranian diaspora to cast absentee ballots in the June 18 vote, won in a landslide by ultraconservative Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, an ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Iran’s Islamist leaders have long said they draw legitimacy for their 42-year authoritarian rule from strong participation in national elections, and a high turnout by overseas voters could have bolstered that impression. However, official final figures showed a record low turnout of 48% for an election in which Khamenei’s allies blocked any formidable competition to Raisi’s candidacy.Ahead of the vote, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Screenshot of an Iranian government document showing addresses of polling stations in 29 U.S. cities for Iran’s June 18, 2021, presidential election. Most of the addresses first appeared in the document on June 17; the rest appeared on the morning of June 18.Six US companiesThe 20 hotel properties whose addresses were listed by Iran belong to six U.S. companies — Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels, Best Western International, Choice Hotels International and North Central Group Hotels — and British-based InterContinental Hotels Group.VOA Persian contacted the Marriott Spring Hill Suites hotel in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and the Hilton Garden Inn in Irvine, California, on June 18 and confirmed in phone conversations with staff that the voting events for the Iranian presidential election were under way at the properties. The FILE – A member of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, center, walks into the Comfort Inn Sandy Springs – Perimeter hotel, where Iran set up a station for its citizens to vote in its presidential election, June 18, 2021, in Atlanta.Brian O’Toole, a former senior adviser in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control who managed OFAC’s sanctions program during former U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, told VOA Persian that what the U.S. hotels did by hosting the voting events was “clearly” an export of a service to the Iranian government, something he said is generally prohibited by OFAC’s Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations.“The voting event organizers are taking in results and sending them to Iran and the hotels are performing a service where essentially the benefit is received in Iran,” said O’Toole, now a senior analyst for the Atlantic Council. “So, the hotels would almost certainly need to have a U.S. government license [to be exempt from sanctions]. I can’t think of a context in which they wouldn’t need one for this kind of activity.”VOA Persian contacted the corporate headquarters of Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Best Western, Choice Hotels, North Central Group Hotels and InterContinental Hotels Group by phone and email to ask whether they had requested and received U.S. government licenses for their U.S. properties to be used in the Iranian presidential election but received no responses.The Biden administration’s State and Treasury departments also did not respond to multiple VOA Persian requests to comment on whether Iran’s absentee voter events in the U.S. were licensed. A woman who answered the phone at the Iranian Interests Section office in Washington hung up when told that a VOA reporter wanted to ask a question.Ethics questionsFor the Iranian American nonprofit group National Union for Democracy in Iran, Tehran’s use of U.S. hotels for its presidential election raises not just legal issues but also ethical ones.“American hotels allowed a regime that recently slaughtered hundreds of protesters and executes gay people to hold an election on their premises during LGBTQ Pride Month,” NUFDI policy director Cameron Khansarinia said in a VOA Persian interview. “It is really shameful.”Iran’s Islamist rulers killed hundreds of people in a violent crackdown on nationwide anti-government protests in November 2019. They also have executed a number of men in recent years and decades for alleged homosexual acts, a crime punishable in Iran by death.Iranian authorities’ disqualification of hundreds of candidates for the recent presidential contest, including all prominent rivals to eventual winner Raisi, also caused outrage among opposition activists who led a campaign inside and outside Iran to encourage a boycott of what they called a sham election.U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price criticized the vote in a Monday press briefing as “pretty manufactured.”Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior adviser Richard Goldberg told VOA Persian that Iran’s use of U.S. hotels for election activities and the lack of transparency regarding U.S. government licensing should prompt Congress to seek answers from both the Biden administration and the hotels.He said U.S. lawmakers need to determine whether the Biden administration was using the absentee voting as a “carrot” to entice Iran into reviving a 2015 nuclear deal in which Tehran promised to curb nuclear activities that could be weaponized in return for sanctions relief from the U.S. and other world powers.Indirect talksIn 2018, then-President Donald Trump withdrew from that deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and started tightening U.S. sanctions to get tougher on Iran, which retaliated the next year by exceeding its nuclear limits. The Biden administration has been holding indirect talks with Iran in Vienna in recent months to try to secure what it calls a mutual return to JCPOA compliance.Goldberg said Iran’s inability to set up polling stations in Canada indicated that Ottawa deemed them to be inappropriate.“If the U.S. is more accommodating to Iran than our ally and neighbor Canada, that is another reason to ask some serious questions [about the U.S. policy],” he said.The office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not respond to an emailed VOA Persian question about why Ottawa did not grant Iran’s request to set up polling stations in Canada for the June 18 vote.U.S. hotels have hosted polling stations for previous Iranian presidential elections, including in 2017. O’Toole, the former Treasury adviser, said licenses for Iranian election activity at U.S. hotels typically would be granted long in advance, when it was not yet clear which presidential candidates Iran would permit to run.In view of the mass disqualification for last week’s vote, O’Toole said Iran’s use of the U.S. hotels “doesn’t look great because of the way the elections went.” But he said that not licensing Iran’s U.S. polling stations would “disenfranchise” Iranian American voters.“We let people vote. That’s what we do,” O’Toole said. “We should not make it harder to vote, especially when a lot of people can’t travel back to Iran for fear of being arrested.”Khansarinia rejected that argument. “There is no equivalency, moral or otherwise, between elections we have in America and these elections in the Islamic Republic,” he said.The activist said NUFDI has been calling the U.S. hotels to express its displeasure about the Iranian absentee voting events. “We intend to continue the pressure,” he said.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. State Department correspondents Nike Ching and Cindy Saine contributed.
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Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted in the murder of African American George Floyd, has been sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. Judge Peter Cahill told the court in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday that the sentence, which exceeded guidelines for first-time offenders, was based on Chauvin abusing his position of trust and the cruelty he showed toward Floyd. Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year prison sentence, while Chauvin’s defense asked for a sentence of probation and time served.   In this image taken from video, former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin listens as Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentences him to 22 1/2 years in prison, June 25, 2021.With good behavior, Chauvin could be paroled after serving two-thirds of his sentence, about 15 years. Chauvin was convicted April 20 of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The former police officer, who has been in jail since his conviction, is facing separate federal civil rights charges in connection with Floyd’s death.  Floyd was killed in May 2020 when Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes.    Several family members of Floyd addressed the sentencing hearing Friday, including his daughter and two of his brothers. Floyd’s 7-year-old daughter, Gianna, appeared in a video recording, saying she asks about her father all the time. When asked what she would say to her dad if she could see him again, she said, “It would be, ‘I miss you and I love you.'” A woman kneels to weep at the spot where George Floyd was killed, as people gather during the sentencing hearing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s murder, in Minneapolis, June 25, 2021.Floyd’s brother Terrence Floyd got emotional when he told the court that he wanted to know why Chauvin took the actions he did. “Why? What were you thinking? What was going through your head when you had your knee on my brother’s neck?” he said.  Both brothers, Terrence Floyd and Philonise Floyd, requested the maximum sentence for Chauvin.  “My family and I have been given a life sentence. We will never be able to get George back,” Philonise Floyd said. Chauvin said he was not able to give a full formal statement because of “additional legal matters” but said, “I do want to give my condolences to the Floyd family.” Chauvin’s mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, also addressed the court, saying that her son is a “good man.” “The public will never know the loving and caring man he is, that his family knows,” she said. The most serious count against Chauvin, second-degree murder, carried a maximum sentence of 40 years.   In this image taken from video, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides over the sentencing of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, June 25, 2021.Legal experts, however, said a 40-year sentence risked being overturned on appeal, the Associated Press reported Thursday.   Previously, Judge Cahill said there were ”aggravating circumstances” in Floyd’s murder, giving him discretion to sentence Chauvin to a term longer than prescribed under state guidelines. In the state of Minnesota, 12 1/2 years is the average sentence for a first-offense case like Chauvin’s.  Prosecutor Matthew Frank said Friday the judge should give Chauvin 30 years in prison, arguing that “tortured is the right word” for what the officer did to Floyd. He said Chauvin engaged in “9 1/2 minutes of cruelty to a man who was helpless and just begging for his life.”  Defense attorney Eric Nelson argued that the court must take into account mitigating factors when sentencing Chauvin, arguing that he spent 19 years as a Minneapolis police officer, a profession that he loved, and had never previously violated the law. The defense had requested a new trial for Chauvin. Judge Cahill denied that request early Friday before the sentencing.  Floyd’s death, captured on cellphone video by a bystander, inspired global protests against institutional racism and police practices, particularly in the United States.   Information from the Associated Press and the Reuters news service contributed to this report.
 
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border, Friday as part of the Biden administration’s effort to curb the surge in migrants attempting to enter the United States, while examining the root causes of migration from Central America. It is her first visit to the border as vice president.Harris made an unannounced visit to the Paso del Norte Port of Entry, where she toured a processing area for migrants, including an area for unaccompanied children. She spoke with a border patrol agent who told her conditions have improved at the facility in the last two years.The vice president was accompanied by Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, who she commended for “doing a great job.”Prior to visiting the border, Harris made a stop at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) facility and met with Representative Veronica Escobar in El Paso, Texas.“I’m glad to be here. It was always the plan to come here, and I think we’re going to have a good productive day,” she said after arriving in El Paso.While at the CBP facility, the vice president reportedly met with five young migrant girls.Vice President Kamala Harris looks at pictures drawn by children as she visits the Paso del Norte (PDN) Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas, June 25, 2021.Guatemala, Mexico visitsHarris visited Guatemala and Mexico earlier this month, pointedly telling migrants, “Do not come”to the U.S.
But thousands of migrants from those two countries, along with those from Honduras and El Salvador, have been making the long trek to the border, many on foot, escaping poverty and crime in their homelands, they say. 
 
U.S. border agents are facing the biggest number of undocumented migrants in two decades. They caught more than 180,000 at the border in May, mostly single adults. The figure was up slightly from the 170,000-plus numbers in both March and April. 
 
Most of the migrants are coming from Latin America, but many also are from Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and some African nations.Vice President Kamala Harris talks to Gloria Chavez, Chief Patrol Agent of the El Paso Sector, as she tours the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Central Processing Center, June 25, 2021, in El Paso, Texas.Policy shift
The surge has grown since President Joe Biden and Harris took office in January, with Biden saying he was adopting what he called a more humane stance on migration than the Trump administration. Biden picked Harris to oversee efforts to curb the migration by addressing the root causes in Latin America for people to leave their homelands.  
 
Biden has ended construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall, and unlike his predecessor, who expelled the migrants to their home countries, he is allowing unaccompanied children to enter the U.S. But like Trump, Biden is refusing to allow families and single adults to enter.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the average daily number of children in its custody has now dropped to 640. Another 16,200 migrant children are being held by U.S. health authorities though, while the government attempts to place them with relatives already living in the U.S. or with vetted caregivers willing to take them into their homes. 
 
Republicans have blamed Biden for the border surge. Before meeting with Harris in early June, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei also told CBS News that when Biden took office, “the very next day, the coyotes were here organizing groups of children to take them to the United States.” 
 As Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to tour the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Central Processing Center, June 25, 2021, in El Paso, Texas, people rally outside the facility.Republican criticism
Harris faced frequent questions on her foreign trip, her first as the U.S. second-in-command, about why she had not visited the border. Frustrated at the questions, she told NBC News she also had not visited Europe since taking office. 
 
Opposition Republicans have criticized her lack of a visit to crowded migrant holding facilities at the border, at one point posting a mock-up of a milk carton with her picture that was captioned “Missing at the border.” 
 
After the Harris trip was announced, Trump, who is weighing another run for the presidency in 2024, said in a statement, “After months of ignoring the crisis at the Southern Border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created—a direct result of Biden ending my very tough but fair border policies.” 
 
Trump said that if he and Texas Governor Greg Abbott were not planning to visit the border themselves next week, “she would have never gone!” 
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Promises to build a wall. Descriptions of American homes “invaded” by immigrants and a trail of “carnage.” Plans to arrest border crossers and haul them to jail.  
It’s not Donald Trump in 2016. It’s Texas Gov. Greg Abbott 2021.  
The ambitious Republican is first among a group of GOP governors who have picked up where the former president left off when it comes to hard-line immigration measures.  
In recent weeks, Abbott has rolled out get-tough plans and rhetoric not seen before even in Texas, where Republicans have spent a decade making border security the centerpiece of their agenda. Abbott, who is viewed as a potential presidential contender in 2024, even promised to continue building Trump’s border wall  and has adopted a questionable method of helping paying for it: crowdsourcing and solicitations.  
Abbott’s new push has been called political theater, which he has rejected as the number of border crossers remains high. But it has gained Trump’s attention. The former president is due to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since leaving the White House in January. He will appear with Abbott on Wednesday and is expected to be joined in Texas by other GOP lawmakers.  
The moves from Abbott and other Republican governors, including some with possible 2024 aspirations, are one sign of how Trump’s anti-immigration policies are outliving his presidency.  
Republican leaders who want a future in the party continue to see support for aggressive border measures as a political winner, buoyed by 2020 results that suggest that Trump’s tact did not drive away drive away Latino voters as some Democrats predicted.
There are signs the Republican pressure is working. After weeks of criticism for not visiting the border, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to go to El Paso on Friday.
“From a Republican audience perspective, it’s a rock-solid issue for the governor,” said Matt Langston, a Republican strategist in Texas. “It is an issue that is going to pay dividends for Gov. Abbott.”
Abbott is not alone in that pursuit.  
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another potential presidential candidate, last week became the first governor to announce that he would deploy law enforcement from his own state to the nation’s 2,000-mile border with Mexico, although he gave scant details that left the extent of that commitment unclear.  
Since Democratic Joe Biden took office as president, Abbott has tried position America’s biggest Republican-led state as the foremost antagonist to the federal government’s border policies. He suggested without evidence in the spring that migrants with COVID-19 were putting Texans at risk as a result of Biden easing Trump-era immigration measures. Abbot began June by moving to shutter more than 50 shelters that house thousands of migrant children.  
His intentions to resume one of Trump’s best-known and incomplete promises — building more of the wall — is a step Texas has not previously taken amid a decade of escalating spending and deployments to the border with Mexico. Abbott said Texas will start by shifting $250 million in state dollars toward new barrier and finance more through crowdsourcing, setting up a webpage and post office box so supporters of the project can donate their own money. The project has so far raised more than $459,000, according to his office, although it did not provide the number of donors.  
The last high-profile attempt to build a wall with crowdsourcing was led by Trump supporters and Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, who was later charged with duping thousands of donors to the project. Trump pardoned Bannon on his last day in office.  
The promises of the new barrier come on top of plans for Texas state troopers to begin arresting border crossers and jailing them for state crimes, such as trespassing. Abbott said “homes are being invaded” along the border. Landowners are losing livestock and crops, Abbott said, because of “the carnage that is being caused by the people who are coming across the border.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 180,000 encounters on the Mexican border in May, the most since March 2000. But the numbers were boosted by a pandemic-related ban on seeking asylum that encouraged repeat attempts to cross because getting caught carried no legal consequences.
Nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children were picked up along the border in March, by far the highest month on record. April was second-highest and May was third-highest.
Abbott has rejected criticism that his measures are just for show.  
“Anyone who thinks this is politics doesn’t have a clue what’s going on at the border,” Abbott said last week in the Texas Capitol. “Anyone who thinks this is politics doesn’t care about American citizens or Texas residents.”
Immigration has been a weak spot for Biden.  
A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in May  showed that 43% of Americans approved of his handling of the issue, while 54% disapprove. Republicans across the U.S. have seized on that dissatisfaction, with even GOP governors in Idaho and Nebraska saying they, too, will send a small number of state law enforcement officers to the border.  
Trump made dramatic inroads with Latino voters last year along the Texas border, which has long been a stronghold for Democrats but is also more socially conservative than the state’s liberal big cities. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley was a major backdrop of Trump’s anti-immigration policies, but wall construction and Border Patrol staffing also created jobs.  
Some Democrats and immigrant rights groups have questioned the legality of Abbott’s plans, though no court challenges have yet been filed. U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, a border Democrat, said solutions are needed, but not the kind Abbott wants, to slow migration numbers. He said walls have never worked and that Abbott should invest in technology such as cameras and sensors.  
“I think he’s got it horrifically wrong,” he said. “He may be talking to the national audience. But clearly, that doesn’t represent the majority of Texans.” 
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