Month: December 2022

The U.S. Justice Department is suing one of the largest U.S. drug distributors for failing to report suspicious orders of prescription opioids, saying the company’s “years of repeated violations” contributed to the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic. 

In a civil lawsuit filed Thursday, the department alleges that AmerisourceBergen and two subsidiaries violated the Controlled Substances Act by failing to report “at least hundreds of thousands” of suspicious orders for prescription painkillers to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The department is seeking potentially billions of dollars in penalties.

“For years, AmerisourceBergen prioritized profits over its legal obligations and over Americans’ well-being,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said during a press call.

Under the Controlled Substances Act, distributors of controlled drugs are required to monitor and report suspicious orders to the drug agency.

The lawsuit alleges that AmerisourceBergen failed to report “numerous orders from pharmacies that AmerisourceBergen knew were likely facilitating diversion of prescription opioids.”

The complaint cites five such pharmacies.

A Florida pharmacy and a West Virginia pharmacy received opioids from AmerisourceBergen that the company allegedly knew “were likely being sold in parking lots for cash,” according to the complaint.

In Colorado, AmerisourceBergen distributed prescription painkillers to a pharmacy it allegedly knew was its largest purchaser of oxycodone 30mg tablets in the state.

AmerisourceBergen identified 11 patients at the pharmacy as potential “drug addicts.” Two of those patients later died of overdoses, according to the lawsuit.

In New Jersey, an online pharmacy that received opioids from AmerisourceBergen has pleaded guilty to illegally selling controlled substances, while the chief pharmacist at another pharmacy has been indicted for drug diversion.

“These incidents were part of the systematic failure by AmerisourceBergen, including dramatically understaffing and underfunding its compliance programs,” Philip Sellinger, U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said during the press call. “In one year, AmerisourceBergen spent more on taxicabs and office supplies than on the Controlled Substances Act compliance budget.”

In a statement, AmerisourceBergen said the lawsuit represented an attempt to “shift the onus of interpreting and enforcing the law from the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to an industry they are tasked with regulating and policing.”

The five pharmacies were “cherrypicked” by the DOJ out of thousands the company serves, the statement said.

AmerisourceBergen is one of three major U.S. pharmaceutical distributors. The other two are McKesson and Cardinal Health.

In February the companies, along with pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, agreed to pay $26 billion to settle thousands of civil lawsuits brought by state and local governments. Most of the money will go toward treatment and prevention.

The U.S. drug epidemic has killed more than 1 million people since 1999, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Opioids are the main driver of U.S. drug overdose deaths. Of an estimated 108,000 drug overdose deaths reported in the country last year, 81,000 involved opioids such as fentanyl, according to the CDC.  

 
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Sarah Ashton-Cirillo used to be journalist based in Los Angeles. A transgender woman, she is now a military medic in Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Tatiana Vorozhko met with her in Washington in early December, when she came to brief U.S. lawmakers and experts on developments on the front lines. VOA footage by Dmytro Melnyk. Video editing by Dmytro Melnyk and Anna Rice.
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The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of an anti-tank mine-laying system to Taiwan amid the rising military threat from China.

The department on Wednesday said the Volcano system and all related equipment would cost an estimated $180 million.

It’s capable of scattering anti-tank and anti-personnel mines from either a ground vehicle or helicopter, the type of weapon some experts believe Taiwan needs more of to dissuade or repel a potential Chinese invasion.

To advertise that threat, China’s military sent 71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force directed at the self-ruled island it claims is its own territory, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Monday.

China’s military harassment of Taiwan has intensified in recent years, along with rhetoric from top leaders that the island has no choice but to accept eventual Chinese rule.

That has seen the ruling Communist Party’s increasingly powerful military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, send planes or ships toward the island on a near-daily basis.

Between 6 a.m. Sunday and 6 a.m. Monday, 47 of the Chinese planes crossed the median of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary once tacitly accepted by both sides, according to the Defense Ministry.

That came after China expressed anger at Taiwan-related provisions in a U.S. annual defense spending bill in what has come to be a standard Chinese practice.

China conducted large-scale live-fire military exercises in August in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Beijing views visits from foreign governments to the island as de facto recognition of Taiwan as independent and a challenge to China’s claim of sovereignty.

While Washington has only unofficial ties with Taiwan in deference to Beijing, those include robust defense exchanges and military sales.

In its announcement, the State Department said the Volcano sale “serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability.”

It said Taiwan would have “no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces,” and that the sale would “not alter the basic military balance in the region.”

Analysts differ over what Taiwan’s defense priorities should be, with some calling for big-ticket items such as advanced fighter jets.

Others argue for a more flexible force, heavily armed with land-based missile systems to target enemy ships, planes and landing craft. China’s overwhelming numerical advantage in personnel and equipment give Taiwan little choice but to opt for that more “asymmetric” approach, they say.
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U.S. Representative-elect George Santos of New York was under investigation by Long Island prosecutors on Wednesday after revelations surfaced that the now-embattled Republican lied about his heritage, education and professional pedigree as he campaigned for office.

Despite intensifying doubt about his fitness to hold federal office, Santos has shown no signs of stepping aside — even as he publicly admitted to a long list of lies.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly, a Republican, said the fabrications and inconsistencies were “nothing short of stunning.”

“The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress,” she said. “If a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.”

Santos’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

He is scheduled to be sworn in next Tuesday, when the U.S. House reconvenes. If he assumes office, he could face investigations by the House Committee on Ethics and the Justice Department.

The Republican has admitted to lying about having Jewish ancestry, a Wall Street pedigree and a college degree, but he has yet to address other lingering questions — including the source of what appears to be a quickly amassed fortune despite recent financial problems, including evictions and owing thousands in back rent.

Fellow Long Island Republican Representative-elect Nick Lalota said he was troubled by the revelations.

“I believe a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement, is required,” Lalota said Tuesday.

The New York attorney general’s office has already said it’s looking into issues that have come to light.

Brendan Brosh, a spokesperson for the Nassau County DA’s office, said Wednesday, “We are looking into the matter.” The scope of the investigation was not immediately clear.

Other Republicans castigated Santos but stopped short of asking him to step aside.

“Congressman-elect George Santos has broken the public trust by making serious misstatements regarding his background, experience and education, among other issues,” said Joseph G. Cairo, chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee, which is within the 3rd Congressional District.

Questions intensified after The New York Times examined the narrative Santos, 34, presented to voters during his successful campaign for a congressional district that straddles the north shore suburbs of Long Island and a sliver of Queens.

The Times uncovered records in Brazil that show Santos was the subject of a criminal investigation there in 2008 over allegations that he used stolen checks to buy items at a clothing shop in the city of Niteroi. At the time, Santos would have been 19. The Times quoted local prosecutors as saying the case was dormant because Santos had never appeared in court.

Santos continued to deny he was being sought by authorities in South America.

Democrats pounced, calling Santos a serial fabulist and demanded he voluntarily not take office.

In an interview with the New York Post earlier this week, Santos apologized for his fabrications but downplayed them as “sins” over embellishing his resume, adding that “we do stupid things in life.”

He admitted to lying about working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as well as having earned a degree in finance and economics from Baruch College in New York.

Beyond his resume, Santos invented a life story that has also come under question, including claims that his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium and again fled persecution during World War II.”

During his campaign, he referred to himself as “a proud American Jew.”

He backtracked on that claim, saying he never intended to claim Jewish heritage, which would have likely raised his appeal among his district’s significant ranks of Jewish voters.

“I am Catholic,” he told the Post. “Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.'”

In a statement Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition repudiated Santos.

“He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. In public comments and to us personally, he previously claimed to be Jewish,” the coalition said. “He will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”

On Fox News Tuesday night, Santos came under withering questioning by former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who was sitting in for Tucker Carlson.

“You don’t really seem to be taking this seriously,” she told him.

“You’ve apologized. You’ve said you’ve made mistakes. But you’ve outright lied. A lie is not an embellishment on a resume,” she said.

“Look, I agree with what you’re saying,” Santos replied. “We can debate my resume and how I worked with firms such as —”

“Is it debatable?” Gabbard interjected. “Or is it just false?”

“No, it’s not false at all,” he said. “It’s debatable.”

Santos lost his first race for Congress in 2020 but successfully ran again this year.

In its opposition research on Santos, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised several red flags about the Republican’s record — but also accepted some of his assertions, including his educational record, as fact. The 87-page dossier sought to tie him to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his support for baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The report also sought to depict him as a far-right candidate. But buried within its report, the DCCC had raised issues about his shaky financial standing and multiple evictions that left him thousands of dollars in debt.

Federal campaign records show that he loaned his campaign more than $700,000, but the source of that money has yet to be explained.

While his Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, also tried to raise Santos’ misrepresentations during his losing campaign, it did not gain much traction.

Zimmerman has said that Santos is unfit for office and has called for him to step aside so a special election can be held.
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As Republicans prepare to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, they are looking to put their stamp on a range of issues, including China.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who is campaigning to become the next speaker of the House of Representatives, has named Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin to lead a new House Select Committee on China.

Gallagher spoke with VOA Mandarin on December 15 on Capitol Hill about his plans for the new panel, which aims to focus on economic and security competition with China.

A large part of what the new committee will do, Gallagher said, is “explain to our colleagues and by extension the American people why this [China issue] matters. We want to connect … the sort of the geopolitical concerns about China to the day-to-day reality for Americans and explain why this is … the biggest challenge of our time.”

VOA: You are going to lead the new House Committee on China next year. Can you share with us some of your priorities when you start the chairmanship?

Rep. Mike Gallagher: Our first priority right now is just getting the best team together, both in terms of members and not just Republicans, but Republicans and Democrats. I want it to be a group of serious, sober members. I want it to be bipartisan and also just recruiting a good staff.

We want to make sure that we’re enhancing and elevating the discussion on China while also being sensitive to committee jurisdiction for [the] other committees that are already in a lot of space. I mean, Mike McCaul has led the China Task Force and he did a phenomenal job with it. HFAC (House Foreign Affairs Committee) obviously has been on foreign assistance; Taiwan, we don’t want to step in that territory. We just want to … enhance the conversation and maybe pick a few issues where people aren’t paying sufficient attention or aren’t naturally part of the committee’s jurisdiction.

So that’s, one, getting the team together. Two is kind of really mapping out the strategy for public hearings. I think a large part of what we need to do is explain to the American people, explain to our colleagues and by extension the American people, why this matters. I mean, sometimes you think about China’s sort of distant territorial threat or obscure territorial claims in the South and East China Sea, or some obscure discussion about microelectronics or things like that. We want to connect the concerns, the sort of the geopolitical concerns about China to the day-to-day reality for Americans and explain why this is kind of the biggest challenge of our time. So that’s kind of the hearing schedule, and the public conversation we have on China is going to be a big part of that.

I am starting to think through, “What are the deliverables for the committee?” You know, potentially, like an annual report that we put out there. One other function we can play is just sort of collecting and curating all the China-related legislation that gets introduced every single day. I mean, every member of Congress is doing something related to China. What’s the clearinghouse for evaluating that? And then potentially identifying the 10 to 20 priority pieces of legislation that the speaker wants to actually push forward in the next Congress. So those are a few of the early ideas.

VOA: Is there any Democratic member reaching out to you or talking about their interest in joining the committee?

GALLAGHER: There is a lot. I’m not going to name names, but a lot of [members] reached out to me. I hope, I’m very optimistic that it will be bipartisan. You know, last time Democratic leadership wouldn’t let their members participate in the China Task Force. I think we’re past that now. And I’m trying to communicate [that] this is going to be like a bombing practice. It’s going to be serious and we want it to be bipartisan.

VOA: We know there are a lot of issues between the U.S. and China that are very complicated. But what’s the most important issue?

GALLAGHER: I think the most important thing is near-term deterrence with respect to Taiwan. We’ve entered the window of maximum danger. And we want to make sure that we are doing everything possible to find hard power, west of the International Dateline and around Taiwan to prevent the [People’s Liberation Army] from doing something stupid.

The second issue is what I call “economic statecraft” — how do we smartly and selectively decouple when it comes to technology, when it comes to data and when it comes to U.S. dollars? We don’t want American taxpayer dollars or retirement financial security subsidizing China’s military modernization or subsidizing genocide. And part of that is enforcing laws we’ve recently passed, whether it’s the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act or the Export Control Reform Act.

And then the third thing is what I would call ideological competition and human rights. How can we shine a light on some of the malicious practices of the regime and the [Chinese Communist Party’s] abysmal human rights record? And that’s important, so that the American people understand who we’re dealing with.
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The Biden administration is marking the four-year anniversary of the detention in Russia of American businessman Paul Whelan, whose continued imprisonment is one of several major irritants in tattered relations between Washington and Moscow.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday that securing Whelan’s release remains a top administration priority.

U.S. officials had hoped to include Whelan in a prisoner swap earlier this month in which they traded detained WNBA star Brittney Griner for a convicted Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout. The administration considers Whelan, like Griner, to have been wrongfully detained.

See related video by VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara:

Blinken said Whelan and his family are “suffering through an unfathomable ordeal,” and he again condemned the American’s conviction, which was based on secret evidence, and 16-year prison sentence.

“His detention remains unacceptable, and we continue to press for his immediate release at every opportunity,” Blinken said. “Our efforts to secure Paul’s release will not cease until he is back home with his family where he belongs.”

Charges of espionage

Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, is jailed in Russia on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have said are baseless. U.S. officials said Russia refused to consider including Whelan in the Griner deal, calling it a “one or none” decision.

“Paul and the Whelan family recently showed the entire country the meaning of generosity of spirit in celebrating a fellow American’s return while Russia continues its deplorable treatment of Paul as a bargaining chip,” said President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.

The Whelan family supported the exchange that freed Griner but expressed fears that Whelan would not be released for years.

His brother, David Whelan, said when the swap was announced, “I think we all realize that the math is not going to work out for Paul to come home anytime soon, unless the U.S. government is able to find concessions.”

1,461 days

Paul Whelan, 52, was sentenced in 2020.

In a statement Wednesday, David Whelan said, “Today is the 1,461st day that Paul has been held hostage by the Russian Federation. Russian authorities entrapped him four years ago today. How do you mark such an awful milestone when there is no resolution in sight?”

The anniversary, he said, “is both awful and mundane, just another day that Paul has to suffer in a Russian labor colony for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
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Families hoping to catch a Southwest Airlines flight after days of cancellations, missing luggage and missed family connections suffered through another wave of scrubbed flights, with another 2,500 pulled from arrival and departure boards Wednesday.

Exhausted travelers sought passage by other means using different airlines, rental cars, or trains — or they’ve simply given up.

According to the FlightAware tracking service, more than 91% of all canceled flights in the U.S. early Wednesday were from Southwest, which has been unable to recover from ferocious winter storms that raked large swaths of the country over the weekend.

The operational systems of Southwest have been uniquely effected, so much so that the federal government is now investigating what happened at the Dallas carrier, which has frustrated its own flight and ground crews as well.

This week, with cancellations from other major airlines ranging from none to 2%, Southwest has canceled nearly 10,000 flights as of Wednesday and warned of thousands more Thursday and Friday, according to FlightAware.

In a video that Southwest posted late Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped to be “back on track before next week.”

Jordan blamed the winter storm for snarling the airline’s “highly complex” network. He said Southwest’s tools for recovering from disruptions work “99% of the time, but clearly we need to double down” on upgrading systems to avoid a repeat of this week.

“We have some real work to do in making this right,” said Jordan, a 34-year Southwest veteran who became CEO in February. “For now, I want you to know that we are committed to that.”

The airline is now drawing unwanted attention from Washington.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions, said his agency would examine the causes of Southwest’s widespread cancellations and whether the airline was meeting its legal obligations to stranded customers.

“Because what we’re seeing right now, from the system and the flights themselves to the inability to reach anybody on a customer service phone line, it is just completely unacceptable,” Buttigieg told CBS early Wednesday.
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Buffalo was set to emerge from a deep freeze Wednesday, bringing some relief but also the tragic possibility of finding more victims amid melting snow from the area’s deadliest storm in decades.

Officials said more than 30 people so far have been reported to have died because of the blizzard that raged Friday and Saturday in western New York, an area prone to powerful winter storms. The historic Blizzard of 1977 killed as many as 29.

Antwaine Parker told The Buffalo News that his mother, Carolyn Eubanks, perished at the home of strangers who took her in after her family tried to get help for the ailing woman.

Eubanks, 63, relied on an oxygen machine. With the power out in her home and emergency responders unable to answer calls amid the blizzard, Parker said, he and his stepbrother drove through the snow Saturday to rescue her themselves. She collapsed as they led her to a car, he said.

“She’s like, ‘I can’t go no further.’ I’m begging her, ‘Mom, just stand up.’ She fell in my arms and never spoke another word,” Parker told the newspaper.

The stepbrothers knocked on nearby doors, seeking someone who would help. They found David Purdy, who opened his door to two desperate strangers and helped them carry Eubanks inside and try in vain to revive her.

After they realized she was gone, Purdy and his fiancee sheltered her body until first responders showed up with plows the next day.

“I done it as respectful as I could,” Purdy told The Buffalo News. His own mother is roughly the same age as Eubanks was and also uses an oxygen machine, he said, and “if she needed help, I’d hope there would be people out there to help her, as well.”

Temperatures were expected to rise into the mid-40s (around 7 degrees Celsuis) on Wednesday and the low 50s (around 10 Celsius) by Friday, the National Weather Service said.

With enough snow still on the ground that driving was still banned in New York’s second-most-populous city, officials worked to clear storm drains and watched a forecast that calls for some rain later in the week. Officials in Erie County, which encompasses Buffalo, said Tuesday they were concerned about the possibility of flooding.

The weather service said Wednesday that “any flooding is expected to be of the minor or nuisance variety.”

While suburban roads and most major highways in the area reopened Tuesday, there was still a driving ban in Buffalo, and state and military police were assigned to enforce it. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, a Democrat, said “too many people are ignoring the ban.”

A Facebook group originally created in 2014, when Buffalo was buried under deep snow, has become a lifeline, seeking to help thousands seeking food, medicine, shelter and rescue in the latest storm. Currently managed by five women, the group swelled to at least 68,000 people as of Tuesday.

“We are seeing a lot of desperation,” said Erin Aquilinia, founder of the original group, in an online interview.

 
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Marie Rodriguez of Bountiful, Utah, began using social media when she enlisted in the U.S. Navy. At first, she saw it as a positive thing.

“It helped me to really keep in touch with people at home while I was deployed and living overseas,” she told VOA.

However, in the two months since Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquired Twitter, Rodriguez and many of its hundreds of millions of users have been forced to reevaluate their feelings about the platform and about social media in general.

“I don’t think he’s been positive at all,” Rodriguez said. “He’s allowing all of these previously banned accounts back on the platform, and I’m seeing more offensive Tweets — more anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ hate speech.”

“Some social media platforms over-patrol,” she added, “but Twitter isn’t patrolling enough. The result is more trolling, more bots and more hate. I’ve definitely been using the platform less because of it.”

Musk is a polarizing figure among Americans. In his own self-created poll on the platform, 57.5% of respondents said he should resign as Twitter chief, compared to 42.5% who said he should stay. (Musk has said he will abide by the poll’s results and resign his post as soon as a replacement is hired.)

Independent surveys, however, have shown Musk’s actions to be less unpopular than his Twitter poll indicated. A Quinnipiac University survey from earlier this month, for example, found that Americans’ opinions are more evenly split, with 37% saying they approved of the way he’s operating Twitter, 37% disapproving and 25% offering no opinion.

“I’m generally critical of billionaires,” said Avi Gupta, a neurobiologist in the nation’s capital, “but I’m so far supportive of what Musk has done for Twitter. As far as free speech is concerned, definitely, but also the platform’s just a lot more exciting to follow.”

A new Twitter

Gupta said he became disenchanted with rival social media platform Instagram when he posted a photo of Ukrainian soldiers who appeared to be wearing patches containing Nazi symbols. The post was promptly removed by administrators.

“To me, in that example, what Instagram is saying is that reporting on Nazism is no different than glorifying it,” Gupta explained. “It’s a form of censorship, but it was happening in pre-Musk Twitter, too. They were too quick to suspend accounts when they challenged mainstream thinking — whether it be about the Ukraine war, U.S. military interventions or COVID.”

“Since Musk,” he added, “I don’t have to censor myself as much, and you’re seeing previously banned accounts from politicians and scientists welcomed back. You have to balance that with stopping dangerous hate speech, of course — which I think they’re doing OK with — but overall, I think it’s been a good thing.”

According to University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication Professor Damian Radcliffe, Musk arrived at Twitter with an entrepreneurial reputation and a desire to grow the platform that appealed to many users.

Others, however, expressed concerns about what Musk’s commitment to freedom of speech and a scaling back of platform moderation might mean, as well as the implications of users now being able to purchase a verified “blue check” account.

“Those worries seem to have been justified,” Radcliffe told VOA. “I personally have seen a lot of people I follow leave the platform. They’re pointing to a less civil discourse, as well as a greater prevalence of misinformation, hate speech and conspiracy theories in their feed as the main reasons they’re departing.”

In the two months since he took over, Musk has reinstated several previously banned Twitter accounts — most notably that of former U.S. President Donald Trump, though Trump eschewed the platform after his reinstatement. Musk has also banned (and sometimes reinstated) the accounts of several journalists.

“It’s been wild to watch as he came in talking about free speech,” said Ron Gubitz, executive director of a New Orleans nonprofit organization. “But then, all of a sudden, he’s suspending journalists’ accounts, banning an account tracking his jet, and — albeit temporarily — saying we couldn’t post links to other social media.”

Gubitz is a self-described “Twitter head,” having been on the platform for more than 14 years. He said he’s been disappointed in how it has operated since Musk’s purchase.

“Initially it was annoying because the discourse was all about Musk,” he said to VOA. “What is Musk saying? What is he going to do? It felt middle-school gossipy.”

“But the user interface has also actually gotten worse since he took over,” Gubitz added. “The platform isn’t updating well for me, it’s not adding enough new tweets, there are ads at the top of the screen every time I refresh and the whole thing just feels less secure. I’m cool with change, but this is going in the wrong direction.”

America’s relationship with social media

“I use Twitter less and less every day and I’ve actually removed the app from my phone,” said Kimm Rogers, a musician from San Diego, California. “I used to see tweets from the people I follow, but now my feed shows me [acquitted Wisconsin shooter] Kyle Rittenhouse, Elon Musk and [Texas Republican Senator] Ted Cruz. There’s a lot more hate especially towards black people, LGBTQ and Jewish people. There’s also more porn showing up in my feed as well as lots of disinformation over vaccines and the war in Ukraine.”

“It’s just hard on my psyche to see the lack of common decency and the cruelty often inflicted on others on this site,” Rogers added, “It diminishes my view of humanity.”

Polls show opinions on the direction of Twitter are often connected to political leanings. Quinnipiac’s December poll showed that 63% of Republican respondents said they viewed Musk favorably, while only 9% of Democrats said the same.

Many left-leaning users have threatened to leave the platform entirely. According to information from the Twitter analytics firm Bot Sentinel, approximately 877,000 accounts were deactivated in the week after Musk purchased Twitter. Nearly 500,000 were temporarily suspended. In total, that’s more than double the usual number and has included prominent celebrities who cited a rise in hate speech and the banning of journalists as their reason for leaving.

More recently, some users have organized “Twitter Walk-out Days” in which they log off for a period of time in protest. Others have threatened to move to other social media platforms that better align with their values.

If those users do move on, Nicole Dahmen, professor at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, says it won’t be the first time users shifted away from a form of technology.

“Leaving Twitter is the latest iteration of unfriending Facebook a decade ago or killing your television in the 1980s,” Dahmen told VOA. “There are valid reasons to consume and participate with these mediums and there are even more valid reasons to leave them. They’ve ultimately trivialized American discourse, and our political, social and emotional health has suffered.”

But it’s not just Twitter that appears to be experiencing a plateauing of popularity around the world. From 2018 to 2022, average daily social media use increased by only five minutes — from 142 minutes to 147 minutes — according to Statista.com. During the previous four years, average social media use increased by a whopping 38 minutes per day.

Sense of community

“Social media can be a great thing in how it creates a sense of community and allows us to find commonalities,” said Ivory Burnett of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Burnett said she prefers Twitter over other platforms because it encourages what she sees as more authentic, “less cosmetic” interactions.

“When used for good, it’s the megaphone for an entire generation,” she told VOA. “But it also results in bullying, misunderstanding and crowd-thinking that makes it easier to spread hate and harm.”

But, like so many who, despite their frustrations with the platform, say they don’t want to start over elsewhere after dedicating so many years to building a following on Twitter, Burnett said she has no intention of leaving.

“Leave? I’ve never considered leaving,” she said and laughed. “I’ll be here until my login stops working.”
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A $1.7 trillion spending bill the U.S. Congress passed last week includes a measure seeking accountability for people working for or on behalf of the government of Iran to harass and surveil Iranian citizens.

The Masih Alinejad Harassment and Unlawful Targeting Act is named after a VOA Persian television host and critic of the Iranian government who was the target of a plot to kidnap her and take her back to Iran.

“Congress finds that the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran surveils, harasses, terrorizes, tortures, abducts, and murders individuals who peacefully defend human rights and freedoms in Iran, and innocent entities and individuals considered by the Government of Iran to be enemies of that regime, including United States citizens on United States soil, and takes foreign nationals hostage,” the legislation says.

The measure directs the U.S. secretary of state to file a report detailing the state of human rights in Iran, what actions the Iranian government has taken during the past year to target dissidents inside and outside of Iran and how it finances the silencing of its critics.

The report, which is to be updated yearly, is also required to identify people who work for the Iranian government who are involved in harassment, surveillance, kidnapping, torture or killing of Iranian and U.S. citizens who seek to expose illegal or corrupt activities carried out by Iranian officials.

Those individuals are subject to sanctions that include being ineligible to enter the United States, canceling of existing visas and blocks on owning property in the United States.

Foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct a significant transaction with any of those individuals are also subject to sanctions.
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Storm-weary road crews and residents of western New York state in the United States struggled on Tuesday to dig out from a deadly weekend blizzard, with snow still falling and forecasts for rapid warming and rains that could cause flooding and turn the frozen landscape to slush.

The region in and around Buffalo, New York — downwind of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario — emerged as ground zero for an Arctic deep freeze and massive winter storm that extended over most of the U.S. last week and through the Christmas holiday as far south as the Mexican border.

Confirmed storm-related deaths in New York’s Erie and Niagara counties rose to 32 on Tuesday, officials said, as snowfall began to taper off. Emergency crews continued locating and removing vehicles left buried under mounds of snow and drifts several feet high.

Some of the dead were found frozen in cars, others in snowbanks outdoors, while some died in medical emergencies such as cardiac arrest while shoveling snow, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told reporters.

“We’re recovering from the worst storm I’ve ever seen, certainly in terms of death from mother nature’s wrath,” he said.

Nationwide, at least 60 people died in weather-related incidents in recent days, NBC News reported.

52 inches in four days

In and around Buffalo, up to 52 inches of snow fell over four days, and a bit more was expected by Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The situation was expected to change dramatically. The NWS forecast a rapid thaw later this week, with spring-like temperatures well above freezing and well above normal, accompanied by rain that could unleash flooding.

“This is one of the reasons certain streets are targeted for extra clearance to allow for proper drainage of melt water,” Poloncarz said on Twitter.

Progress was slow due to the sheer volume and depth of the snow, which Poloncarz said “is not plowable.”

‘Lot of work to do’

Front-loader tractors were brought in to shovel snow into dump trucks to be carted off and discarded elsewhere. Poloncarz said it would take two days to open up one lane on every city street.

Giant snow-blowing machines were deployed to help clear several major highways clogged with towering drifts. A ban on personal road travel was still in effect for Buffalo.

Hundreds of electric company linemen were out restoring power, and Poloncarz tweeted that some 4,500 customers remained without electricity on Tuesday, as crews cleared downed trees with chain saws.

For residents essentially trapped in their homes for two days, the easing of the storm brought a realization of how much snow fell during white-out conditions that had limited their view.

“We would look out the window and it was blowing so much that we couldn’t really tell if we were getting any accumulation, but when it finally settled, we had a lot of work to do,” said Jim Nowak, who was out shoveling on Tuesday.

Accounts also emerged of residents who welcomed in strangers caught outdoors at the height of the blizzard and spent much of the holiday weekend with them. One was a barbershop owner who told the Buffalo News he sheltered 40 people the first night of the storm and about 30 the next.

NWS meteorologist Bob Oravec of the NWS Weather Prediction Center in Maryland predicted two more inches of snow would fall in western New York Tuesday, but said that was “probably the last.”

“It’ll be warming up soon. By Thursday the high will be [8 Celsius]. By Saturday it’ll be [12C],” Oravec said. Tuesday remained cold, with a high of -2 and a low of -6, he said.

‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ disaster

Buffalo, New York state’s second-largest city, was hardest hit by the blizzard, which took shape over the Great Lakes on Friday and extended its grip into the Ohio and Upper Mississippi valleys and mountains of Appalachia.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called it an “epic, once-in-a-lifetime” weather disaster, the worst blizzard to hit the Buffalo area in 45 years.

The county has called in 100 military police from the state National Guard as well as officers from New York City to help manage traffic and enforce road restrictions.

Buffalo residents with plows attached to their Jeeps and pickup trucks helped clear side streets. People walked a mile or more in lanes cut by snowplows to reach convenience stores and supermarkets that were beginning to reopen.

Poloncarz, speaking at a press briefing Tuesday, urged residents to stay home and the curious to stay away.

“Please stay out of the city of Buffalo,” he said.
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The Supreme Court of the United States is keeping pandemic-era limits on immigration in place indefinitely, dashing hopes of immigration advocates who had been anticipating their end this week. 

In a ruling Tuesday, the court extended a temporary stay that Chief Justice John Roberts issued last week. Under the court’s order, the case will be argued in February and the stay will be maintained until the justices decide the case. 

The limits, often referred to as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, were put in place under former President Donald Trump at the beginning of the pandemic. Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the U.S. 2.5 million times and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. 

Immigration advocates sued to end the policy, saying it goes against American and international obligations to people fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution. They’ve also argued that the policy is outdated as coronavirus treatments improve. 

The Supreme Court’s decision comes as thousands of migrants have gathered on the Mexican side of the border, filling shelters and worrying advocates who are scrambling to figure out how to care for them. 

“We are deeply disappointed for all the desperate asylum-seekers who will continue to suffer because of Title 42, but we will continue fighting to eventually end the policy,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which had been arguing to end Title 42’s use. 

The ruling Tuesday said specifically that the Supreme Court will review the issue of whether the states have the right to intervene in the legal fight over Title 42. Both the federal government and the immigration advocates have argued that the states waited too long to intervene and even if they hadn’t waited so long, that they don’t have sufficient standing to intervene. 

Dissent

In a dissent, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson said that even if the court were to find the states have the right to intervene and Title 42 was lawfully adopted “…. the emergency on which those orders were premised has long since lapsed.” 

The judges said the “current border crisis is not a COVID crisis.” 

“And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort,” the justices wrote. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the Biden administration “will, of course, comply with the order and prepare for the court’s review.” 

“At the same time, we are advancing our preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration,” Jean-Pierre added. “Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely.” 

Some states warned of ‘unprecedented calamity’

In November, a federal judge sided with advocates and set a December 21 deadline to end the policy. Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, warning that an increase in migration would take a toll on public services and cause an “unprecedented calamity” that they said the federal government had no plan to deal with. 

Roberts, who handles emergency matters that come from federal courts in the nation’s capital, issued a stay to give the court time to more fully consider both sides’ arguments. 

The federal government asked the Supreme Court to reject the states’ effort while also acknowledging that ending the restrictions abruptly would likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings.” 

The precise issue before the court is a complicated, largely procedural question of whether the states should be allowed to intervene in the lawsuit. A similar group of states won a lower court order in a different court district preventing the end of the restrictions after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April that it was ending use of the policy. 

Until the judge’s November order in the advocates’ lawsuit, the states had not sought to take part in that case. But they say that the administration has essentially abandoned its defense of the Title 42 policy and they should be able to step in. The administration has appealed the ruling, though it has not tried to keep Title 42 in place while the legal case plays out. 
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