Month: November 2023

Facing prejudice is, for most Asian Americans, an all-too-familiar part of life, a new report from the Pew Research Center shows.

The study, which is based on a survey of more than 7,000 respondents, found that the majority of Asian Americans think too little national attention is being paid to their experiences with discrimination.

About one-third of Asian Americans have been told to go back to their home country, the report found. Forty-four percent of Asian Americans ages 18 to 29 said they know an Asian person who has been personally threatened or attacked since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

There are about 23.5 million Asian Americans, making up 7.1% of the nation’s population. The year 2021 saw anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. jump to an all-time high, and 2022 was the second-worst year on record.

“Discrimination is nothing new against Asian Americans,” said Neil Ruiz, head of New Research Initiatives at Pew and the study’s co-author. Asian Americans have endured relentless stereotyping, reaching as far back as the 1800s, and Ruiz’s study highlights a paradox at the crux of that.

Asian American communities have for decades been typecast as model minorities: “loyal and hardworking,” as one respondent put it. On the other hand, Asian Americans have found themselves ostracized, treated as what scholars and activists have dubbed “forever foreigners.”

‘Forever Foreigner’ Trope

“We found that 78% of Asian Americans have been treated as a foreigner in some way, even if they were born in the United States,” Ruiz, an Asian American himself, told VOA. Criteria include being told to go back to one’s home country, being ridiculed for speaking a language other than English in public or having one’s name pronounced incorrectly.

Ruiz acknowledged that mispronouncing someone’s name can be an honest mistake. But for many of the study’s participants, these incidents have often bordered on disrespect or become outright offensive, he said.

Ruiz recounted how, in one focus group, an Indian American woman said she had a list of more than 200 ways her name had been mispronounced, leaving her feeling perpetually demeaned. Some reported that they had felt pressured to adopt Anglicized names.

Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, said that fighting anti-Asian prejudice means creating spaces where people “feel free to share how they are hurt or how others might be hurt” by offhand remarks.

The harder question, activists say, is how to respond when it’s not just a coworker making derisive comments but former President Donald Trump or others in positions of authority, such as airport security personnel who, according to the study, screen South Asian Americans at markedly higher rates.

After Trump used offensive language during the pandemic, including calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” the non-profit group Stop AAPI Hate found that use of anti-Asian slurs had risen online.

Having a tolerant national role model is “a matter of life or death,” Jeung said.

Days after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush delivered a speech at a mosque calling for respect for Islam. Hate crimes against Arab and South Asian Americans immediately fell, according to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism.

“American leaders have a very deficient understanding of the experiences and needs of a group as diverse as Asian America,” said Charles Jung, a Californian civil rights lawyer and community organizer.

National leaders, Jung said, have a responsibility to encourage tolerance and to bring communities together by highlighting shared values rather than perceived differences. “At a minimum, that means not saying racist things and inflaming hatred,” Jung said. “But that’s the bare minimum.”

Model Minority Stereotype

The notion that Asian Americans serve as a model for other minority groups has been perpetuated in popular media for generations. In 1966, The New York Times Magazine ran an article hailing Japanese Americans as a “success story.” In 1987, Time magazine ran a cover story describing Asian American children as “whiz kids.”

But Jung said the “model minority” stereotype is “certainly flattening and simplistic — a cartoonish view of an entire people who are incredibly diverse.”

The Pew survey found that most Asian Americans, particularly Indian Americans, had not heard of the term “model minority,” though most respondents said they had been presumed by peers to be good at math or uncreative — two stereotypes associated with Asians.

Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside, and founder of AAPI Data, said that, compared with East Asian Americans, “the model minority myth is not as much of a barrier or a concern that South Asians have to deal with.”

“South Asians and East Asians experience racism and racial discrimination differently,” Ramakrishnan added, citing disproportionate security screenings and surveillance of South Asian Americans in the post-9/11 era.

Of the Asian Americans who were familiar with the term, 42% said the model minority stereotype is harmful.

There isn’t a consensus among Asian Americans: 17% thought the model minority stereotype is positive, a stance Republican Asian Americans are comparatively more likely to take.

Jeung counts himself among the 42% who believe the stereotype is damaging. He said it “drives a wedge between Asians and other racial groups. It also masks issues that Asians face: If we’re seen as a model, we’re seen as not having any particular problems. But clearly, we face racism.”

Jeung said the model minority stereotype belies a wide range of social issues that many Asian Americans confront in their day-to-day lives, from workplace discrimination (according to the Pew survey, about 1 in 5 Asian Americans said they had experienced anti-Asian workplace discrimination) to expectations of perfection in the classroom and beyond.

Despite the widespread problem of anti-Asian hate, the majority of Asian American adults said the challenges of racism were rarely, if ever, discussed in their households growing up.

“Sometimes, the adaptation that immigrant Asian parents adopt is swallowing the bitterness and pain,” Jung said.
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World leaders reacted to the death of Henry Kissinger, a former U.S. secretary of state who influenced geopolitics under two presidents.

Kissinger died Wednesday at 100.

“Deeply shocked and saddened to learn of Dr. Kissinger’s passing at 100,” Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States said in a post on X, formerly known as twitter. “My deepest condolences go to Nancy (Kissinger’s wife) and her family. It is a tremendous loss for both our countries and the world. The history will remember what the centenarian had contributed to China-U.S. relations, and he will always remain alive in the hearts of the Chinese people as a most valued old friend.”

Kissinger made two trips to China before accompanying U.S. President Richard Nixon on his groundbreaking visit to Beijing in 1972 to meet with China’s Communist Party chairman, Mao Zedong. During the visit, the United States and China formalized diplomatic relations after a break of 23 years.

In Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke of Kissinger’s role in Asia, saying he was responsible for “significant contributions” to peace and stability, in a post on X.

Kishida mentioned Kissinger’s work in China and added, “I’d like to express my most sincere respect to the great achievements he made. I also would like to offer my condolences.”

European Council President Charles Michel called Kissinger a “strategist with attention to the smallest detail,” in another post on X. He declared him “A kind human and a brilliant mind who, over 100 years, shaped the [destinies] of some of the most important events of the century.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Kissinger “a wise and farsighted statesman,” in a telegram to Kissinger’s widow, Nancy, according to Reuters.

“America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices” on foreign affairs, said former President George W. Bush, striking a tone shared by many high-level officials past and present.

“I have long admired the man who fled the Nazis as a young boy from a Jewish family, then fought them in the United States Army,” Bush said in a statement. “When he later became secretary of state, his appointment as a former refugee said as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness.”

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was “in awe” of Kissinger.

“Of course, like anyone who has confronted the most difficult problems of international politics, he was criticized at times, even denounced,” Blair said. “But I believe he was always motivated not from a coarse ‘realpolitik,’ but from a genuine love of the free world and the need to protect it. He was a problem solver, whether in respect of the Cold War, the Middle East or China and its rise.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said as he met U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv that Kissinger “laid the cornerstone of the peace agreement, which (was) later signed with Egypt, and so many other processes around the world I admire.”

Blinken said Kissinger “really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job” and that he was “very privileged to get his counsel many times, including as recently as about a month ago.”

“Few people were better students of history,” he said. “Even fewer people did more to shape history than Henry Kissinger.”

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that “Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. His century of ideas and of diplomacy had a lasting influence on his time and on our world.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reflected on Kissinger’s impact on the relationship between the U.S. and Germany, his native county. Kissinger was a Jew who fled Nazi rule with his family in his teens.

“His commitment to the transatlantic friendship between the USA and Germany was significant, and he always remained close to his German homeland,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X.

Some information in this report came from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
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Henry Kissinger, the former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State whose global influence long outlasted his time in office under former President Richard Nixon, has died at age 100, at his home in Connecticut. His death was announced by his consulting firm and no cause was given. Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports on the life and legacy of a controversial and celebrated American statesman.
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Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the U.S. delegation to the world’s premier climate summit, the White House said Wednesday.

The White House stressed that President Joe Biden considers the climate crisis among his top four priorities, but the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas has consumed much of his time and attention.

“Throughout her engagements, the vice president will underscore the Biden-Harris administration’s success in delivering on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and abroad,” said Kirsten Allen, the vice president’s press secretary.

Harris will lead dozens of top U.S. officials, including special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry and others from more than 20 agencies and departments, the White House said.

This year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties — known as COP28 because it is the 28th gathering of its kind — will be hosted by United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed. The royal, who took office after the 2022 death of his brother, is also chairman of the Supreme Petroleum Council, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi’s top governing body for oil, gas and related industries.

Nearly 200 countries represented

More than 70,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries are beginning to converge on the city of Dubai, which has seen a meteoric rise from its fishing village roots, thanks to its massive oil wealth.

There, in a city known for its artificial archipelago and hyperluxury shopping offerings inside a mall that covers more than 50 soccer fields and contains an indoor ski slope and a colony of penguins, they will assess the progress toward the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

In a statement, Biden said Harris would “showcase U.S. global leadership on climate at home and abroad” and would “help galvanize increased global ambition at this critical event.”

She will attend meetings Friday and Saturday in Dubai.

Earlier this week, when asked why Biden was not attending the summit, John Kirby, director of strategic communications at the National Security Council, said Biden was “more than capable” of handling his many responsibilities, but that the Mideast conflict had “obviously” been a recent focus.

‘Race to the top’

VOA on Wednesday asked White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi whether the United States would push for a deal to commit countries to phase out fossil fuels by a certain date. In September, leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies failed to agree on this issue.

Washington, Zaidi replied, seeks to “phase down the emissions that come from the unabated burning of fossil fuels.”

That word — unabated — may be a sticking point in this year’s declaration, as it would permit the opening of new fossil fuel plants if they have thus far unproven technology meant to capture and store carbon emissions.

Already, an intergovernmental group of 117 countries has questioned that language and has indicated opposition to its inclusion.

“The emission abatement technologies which currently only exist at limited scale have a minor role to play to reduce emissions mainly from hard to abate sectors,” the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People said in a statement signed by ministers from 16 countries, including Austria, Ethiopia and France. “However, they should not be used to delay climate action in sectors such as electricity generation where feasible, effective and cost-efficient mitigation alternatives are available, particularly in this critical decade when emissions need to be reduced urgently and dramatically.”

Zaidi also pointed out Biden’s role in passing a significant climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which commits at least $370 billion to clean energy over the next 10 years — something Harris will also emphasize at the gathering, administration officials told reporters in a briefing on the matter on Wednesday.

“This is a race to the top, hopefully, for clean energy,” Zaidi told VOA. “We want to lead that race, and the good news is the more countries that join that race, the better off we’ll be in tackling these emissions. We need countries like China and other major economies to be the ones that reduce emissions in a major way. We’re doing that here at home.”
…

Families of hostages still held by Hamas urged U.S. lawmakers Wednesday not to let up on negotiations for their release.

The Israeli government said 12 hostages were released from captivity in Gaza on Wednesday, the sixth release of hostages during a negotiated cease-fire that international negotiators were working to extend.

“The release of these hostages has been a cause for hope,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin said in a statement Wednesday. “And we are equally encouraged by the lifesaving aid that has reached innocent Palestinians who are also victims of Hamas’ cruelty. But we must not allow complacency to deter us in our shared mission to bring home the other hostages held by Hamas, including American citizens.”

An estimated 240 hostages were seized when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, beginning the conflict. Of those, almost 100 have been released over the past six days.

“Keep the pressure on Qatar. Keep the pressure on Egypt. Rally the international community to use any resources they have. Get this done,” said Orna Neutra, mother of hostage Omer Neutra.

Omer Neutra, a dual Israeli American citizen serving in the Israel Defense Forces, is believed to have been held in captivity for more than 50 days.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said he viewed footage of the October 7 attack last week in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I’ve never seen the prime minister — who is a very stoic, strong man — driven to tears, watching his own people being killed in such a horrific manner: the rapes and the beheadings and the slaughter of innocent Jewish people. He will not rest until [Hamas is] eradicated, not just for the Jewish people but for the Palestinians,” McCaul said at a roundtable meeting with families of the hostages on Capitol Hill.

Congress passed a resolution Tuesday calling on Hamas to release all hostages and condemning the October 7 attack by a vote of 414-0. A second resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist passed 412-1-1. Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib, who has faced criticism for her comments about Israel, voted present. Republican Representative Thomas Massie voted no.

“We will not relent. We will not stop. We will not forget. We will continue to work. We will put politics aside until your hope becomes a reality of the return of your love,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

As of Wednesday, only one American hostage had been freed.

Ruby Chen, father of hostage Itay Chen, who is also an Israeli soldier, told lawmakers, “This is not a U.S. issue. It’s an international community humanitarian issue that all of the international community needs to get behind in order to solve this problem.”

Liz Hirsh Naftali, great-aunt of recently released 3-year-old Abigail Edan, told lawmakers, “Abigail is home. Not in her home, but she is home in Israel because her home is destroyed. They can’t return to where they lived. She has no parents to go home to.”

Edan’s parents were killed by Hamas during the October 7 attack.

U.S. lawmakers have struggled to agree on the White House’s request for $13.6 billion in aid to Israel. Earlier this month, the Democratic-majority Senate did not take up legislation passed in the Republican-majority House of Representatives that paid for aid to Israel with budget cuts to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Senate is working on a deal for Republicans’ request for billions of dollars in border security funding in return for the votes needed to pass aid to both Ukraine and Israel.
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With her frail husband as a silent witness, Rosalynn Carter was celebrated by her family and closest friends Wednesday at her funeral in the same tiny town where she and Jimmy Carter were born, forever their home base as they climbed to the White House and traveled the world for humanitarian causes. 

The former first lady, who died November 19 at the age of 96, had her intimate funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, where she and her husband spent decades welcoming guests and where a wooden cross Jimmy Carter fashioned in his woodshop is displayed. Earlier tributes were held in nearby Americus and in Atlanta. 

The former president was in attendance in his wheelchair, with her one last time in his life. 

Maranatha Pastor Tony Lowden opened the service with a tribute to “the life and legacy of the greatest first lady.” 

Rosalynn Carter wasn’t “just the first lady of the White House,” he told the gathering. “She served every nation around the world.” 

The pastor, describing her competitive streak, spoke to the mourners in what he imagined to be the voice of Rosalynn Carter: “She would say to you today, ‘don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free. … Jimmy tried to beat me here. I got here first. I won the prize. Tell him I beat him and I’m waiting on him.'” 

“But,” Lowden continued, “she would say ‘don’t stop. There’s too many homeless people in the world. There’s still too many people who don’t have equal rights.’ … She would tell you don’t stop. Become that virtuous woman. And men, if you’re listening, make room for the virtuous woman.” 

She will be buried in a plot she will one day share with her husband of 77 years. The former president, now 99, left home hospice care to attend Tuesday’s memorial, where two other presidents and all the living first ladies joined the extended Carter family, as well as Wednesday’s more intimate hometown funeral.

Vernita Sampson, a school bus driver and Plains native, drove a group of area high school students, all wearing Future Farmer of America jackets, to downtown Plains to pay tribute to the former first lady and soak up the history of the day.

“They were people you could relate to, not this high standard where they were up here and, you know, we’re all down there,” said Sampson, 58. “We never get used to death, no matter who we are or how long you have lived,” but she said she and the students came “to celebrate that she did live a long life, a very happy and productive life, that gives you joy.”

At the service, the mourning came with affectionate stories of life with Rosalynn Carter and some laughs.

“It occurs to me that dad got used to mom disagreeing with him because she was really good at it,” son Jack Carter said. “And she became a partner in the true sense of the word, where they had equal footing.”

Jimmy Carter met his future wife only a few days after her mother delivered her.

“She was born just a few years after women got the right to vote in this small town in the South where people were still plowing their fields behind mules,” grandson Jason Carter said during the memorial service Tuesday at Atlanta’s Glenn Memorial Church. 

Coming from that town of about 600 — then and now — Rosalynn Carter changed lives across America and the developing world, her grandson said. Jimmy Carter’s closest political adviser and a political force in her own right, she advocated for better mental health care and underappreciated caregivers in millions of U.S. households. Traveling overseas, she fought disease, famine, and the abuse of women and girls.

The Atlanta events reflected the grandest chapters of Rosalynn Carter’s life. Mourners viewed her casket steps from The Carter Center she and her husband co-founded after leaving the White House, then she was honored at a service filled with the music of a symphony chorus, a majestic pipe organ and fellow Habitat for Humanity ambassadors Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and the first ladies joined Jimmy Carter and their four children in the front row, in front of more than 1,000 congregants in suits, ties and dresses.

Church members, who were included in the invitation-only ceremony, rarely talk of “President Carter” or “Mrs. Carter.” They are supporting “Mr. Jimmy” as he grieves for “Ms. Rosalynn.”

Lowden, the Carters’ longtime friend and personal minister, also officiated Tuesday, emphasizing that Rosalynn Carter’s work, from the Georgia statehouse when Jimmy Carter was governor to the 120-plus countries that she visited, was an extension of her faith.

After the funeral, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren walked alongside an SUV carrying Jimmy Carter as Rosalynn Carter was carried from Marantha for the last time through the town where she lived for more than 80 of her 96 years.

The motorcade passed holiday lights and decorations including a photo collage in front of the downtown tree featuring the “First Lady of Plains.” 

The route also included the old high school where she was valedictorian during World War II, Plains Baptist Church where she and the former president were once outliers arguing for racial integration, the commercial district where she became Jimmy’s indispensable partner in their peanut business, the old train depot where she helped run the winning 1976 presidential campaign, and Plains Methodist Church, where as an 18-year-old in 1946, she married young Navy Lt. Jimmy Carter.

The route ends in what locals call “the Carter compound,” property that includes their one-story ranch house, the pond where she fished, and security outposts for the Secret Service agents who protected her for 47 years.

She will be buried in view of the front porch of the home where the 39th American president still lives. 
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Media law experts say a $700,000 settlement reached this month in the case of a Los Angeles, California, journalist arrested by sheriff’s deputies is a record agreement because it requires law enforcement to brief deputies on journalists’ rights. VOA’s Robin Guess reports. Camera: Roy Kim.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday will tout his “Bidenomics” agenda, contrasting his economic vision with that of so-called “MAGA” Republicans, in remarks at CS Wind, the world’s largest wind tower manufacturer, in Pueblo, Colorado.

CS Wind is expanding with a new $190 million facility that it directly attributes to the passage of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate and energy bill. The company said the expansion is set to be completed in 2028 and will create 850 jobs.

Pueblo is a district represented by Republican Representative Lauren Boebert, a supporter of former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda and a harsh critic of Biden’s economic policies. Boebert voted against passing the IRA, calling it “dangerous for America.”

“I am very proud of the work that CS Winds is doing there in Pueblo and the jobs that they’re creating,” Boebert said during an interview Tuesday with local network KKTV. “But as I stated, this will cost the taxpayers overall from the Inflation Reduction Act hundreds of billions of dollars. This bill was a complete scam.”

In a statement, the White House said that Biden is “delivering on his promise to create opportunities and jobs in communities too often left behind, while self-described MAGA Republicans like Representative Lauren Boebert continue to undermine their constituents by trying to block the President’s agenda.”

His remarks highlighting Bidenomics come as Americans rate the president poorly on his handling of the economy. Only 32% of those polled approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. His approval rating remains at 37%.

With many voters saying the economy is a top concern in the 2024 election, the White House has been ramping up messaging that Biden’s economic policies have steered the country away from recession, highlighting positive economic growth, a declining rate of inflation and continued low unemployment.

U.S. inflation continues to fall and is lower than in comparable economies in Europe. However, after a two-year period of the highest inflation in decades, Americans are feeling the pain from prices of goods that are still higher than they were four years ago. They’re also finding it difficult to find affordable credit, as the Federal Reserve imposes higher interest rates to fight inflation.
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The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on a virtual currency mixer the Treasury Department said has processed millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from major heists carried out by North Korea-linked hackers.

The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said virtual currency mixer Sinbad, hit with sanctions on Wednesday, processed millions of dollars worth of virtual currency from heists carried out by the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group, including the Axie Infinity and Horizon Bride heists of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Lazarus, which has been sanctioned by the U.S., has been accused of carrying out some of the largest virtual currency heists to date. In March 2022, for example, they allegedly stole about $620 million in virtual currency from a blockchain project linked to the online game Axie Infinity.

“Mixing services that enable criminal actors, such as the Lazarus Group, to launder stolen assets will face serious consequences,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in the statement on Wednesday.

“The Treasury Department and its U.S. government partners stand ready to deploy all tools at their disposal to prevent virtual currency mixers, like Sinbad, from facilitating illicit activities.”

A virtual currency mixer is a software tool that pools and scrambles cryptocurrencies from thousands of addresses.

Sinbad is believed by some experts in the industry to be a successor to the Blender mixer, which the U.S. hit with sanctions last year over accusations it was being used by North Korea.

The Treasury said Sinbad is also used by cybercriminals to obscure transactions linked to activities such as sanctions evasion, drug trafficking and the purchase of child sexual abuse materials, among other malign activities. 

Wednesday’s action freezes any U.S. assets of Sinbad and generally bars Americans from dealing with it. Those that engage in certain transactions with the mixer also risk being hit with sanctions. 
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U.S. life expectancy rose last year — by more than a year — but still isn’t close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2022 rise was mainly due to the waning pandemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said Wednesday. But even with the large increase, U.S. life expectancy is only back to 77 years, 6 months — about what it was two decades ago.

Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming the death rates at that time hold constant. The snapshot statistic is considered one of the most important measures of the health of the U.S. population. The 2022 calculations released Wednesday are provisional, and could change a little as the math is finalized.

For decades, U.S. life expectancy rose a little nearly every year. But about a decade ago, the trend flattened and even declined some years — a stall blamed largely on overdose deaths and suicides.

Then came the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. since early 2020. The measure of American longevity plunged, dropping from 78 years, 10 months in 2019 to 77 years in 2020, and then to 76 years, 5 months in 2021.

“We basically have lost 20 years of gains,” said the CDC’s Elizabeth Arias.

A decline in COVID-19 deaths drove 2022’s improvement.

In 2021, COVID was the nation’s third leading cause of death (after heart disease and cancer). Last year, it fell to the fourth leading cause. With more than a month left in the current year, preliminary data suggests COVID-19 could end up being the ninth or 10th leading cause of death in 2023.

But the U.S. is battling other issues, including drug overdose deaths and suicides.

The number of U.S. suicides reached an all-time high last year, and the national suicide rate was the highest seen since 1941, according to a second CDC report released Wednesday.

Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. went up slightly last year after two big leaps at the beginning of the pandemic. And through the first six months of this year, the estimated overdose death toll continued to inch up.

U.S. life expectancy also continues to be lower than that of dozens of other countries. It also didn’t rebound as quickly as it did in other places, including France, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

Steven Woolf, a mortality researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, said he expects the U.S. to eventually get back to the pre-pandemic life expectancy.

But “what I’m trying to say is: That is not a great place to be,” he added.

Some other highlights from the new report:

Life expectancy increased for both men and women, and for every racial and ethnic group.
The decline in COVID-19 deaths drove 84% of the increase in life expectancy. The next largest contributor was a decline in heart disease deaths, credited with about 4% of the increase. But experts note that heart disease deaths increased during COVID-19, and both factored into many pandemic-era deaths.
Changes in life expectancy varied by race and ethnicity. Hispanic Americans and American Indians and Alaska Natives saw life expectancy rise more than two years in 2022. Black life expectancy rose more than 1 1/2 years. Asian American life expectancy rose one year and white life expectancy rose about 10 months. But the changes are relative, because Hispanic Americans and Native Americans were hit harder at the beginning of COVID-19. Hispanic life expectancy dropped more than four years between 2019 and 2021, and Native American life expectancy fell more than six years.



“A lot of the large increases in life expectancy are coming from the groups that suffered the most from COVID,” said Mark Hayward, a University of Texas sociology professor who researches how different factors affect adult deaths. “They had more to rebound from.”

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Japan’s coast guard has found a person and debris in the ocean where a U.S. military Osprey aircraft carrying eight people crashed Wednesday off southern Japan, officials said.

The cause of the crash and the status of the person and the others on the aircraft were not immediately known, coast guard spokesperson Kazuo Ogawa said.

The coast guard received an emergency call from a fishing boat near the crash site off Yakushima, an island south of Kagoshima on the southern main island of Kyushu, he said.

Coast guard aircraft and patrol boats found one person, whose condition was not immediately known, and gray-colored debris believed to be from the aircraft, Ogawa said. They were found at sea about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) off the eastern coast of Yakushima.

“The government will confirm information about the damage and place the highest priority on saving lives,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters.

The Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter, but during flight can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster like an airplane. Versions of the aircraft are flown by the U.S. Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force.

Ogawa said the aircraft had departed from the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi prefecture and crashed on its way to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. The Osprey apparently attempted to make an emergency landing at the Yakushima airport before crashing, he said.

Kyodo News agency, quoting Kagoshima prefectural officials, said witnesses reported seeing fire coming from the Osprey’s left engine.

U.S. and Japanese officials said the aircraft belonged to Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. U.S. Air Force officials at Yokota said they were still confirming information and had no immediate comment.

A U.S. Marine Corps Osprey aircraft with 23 Marines aboard crashed on a north Australian island in August, killing at least three and critically injuring at least five during a multinational training exercise.

There have been at least five fatal crashes of Marine Ospreys since 2012, causing a total of at least 19 deaths.
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The United States on Tuesday sent the first of three military planes to Egypt with humanitarian aid for Gaza, promising to assist Palestinians during a truce between Hamas and U.S. ally Israel. 

The relief flights carrying food, medical supplies and winter gear are the first by the U.S. military since the conflict began with the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. 

The flights started a day after President Joe Biden said he would use an extension of the truce to get more aid into Gaza, and as international efforts continue to further prolong the pause. 

“The humanitarian needs in Gaza demand that the international community do much more. The United States is committed to this effort,” Jake Sullivan, U.S. national security adviser, said in a statement.  

Sullivan said Biden would work to “rally the international community to urgently increase support” in a U.N. appeal for Gaza. 

‘Supplies will save lives’

The first Air Force C-17 aircraft landed Tuesday in Egypt with 24.5 metric tons (54,000 pounds) of medical supplies and ready-to-eat food, the U.S. Agency for International Development said. 

The United Nations will take the aid from Egypt’s North Sinai region, which borders the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, into the stricken Palestinian territory itself, U.S. officials said. 

“These U.N. supplies will save lives and alleviate the suffering of thousands in Gaza,” Sullivan said. 

Two further planeloads will arrive in the coming days, officials said. 

Mediator Qatar on Monday announced a 48-hour extension of an initial four-day truce, opening the way for further releases of hostages seized by Hamas during its attack on Israel. 

‘Significant surge’ 

Eight hundred aid trucks reached southern Gaza from Egypt in the first four days of the truce, with some aid also reaching badly hit northern Gaza, the U.S. officials said. 

“The movement over the last four or five days of assistance has been so significant in volume that a backfill … is now needed and these planes are part of that backfill,” a senior U.S. official told reporters on Monday. 

While Washington has deployed two aircraft carriers in the region to deter Iran and its allies, and ferried military assistance to key ally Israel, it has not previously used military assets during this conflict to deliver humanitarian aid. 

Biden, who has firmly backed Israel while calling on it to reduce civilian casualties, said on Monday that the truce had allowed a “significant surge” in aid. 

The White House said on Monday, however, that Israel had made it clear it would continue its war on Hamas whenever the truce ended.  

U.S. officials said Biden had warned Israel that it must not cause the same kind of mass displacements in southern Gaza that its offensive in the north triggered earlier this month. 

“From the president down we have reinforced this in a very clear way for the government of Israel,” another U.S. official said. 

Hamas staged the deadliest attack in Israel’s history when it broke through Gaza’s militarized border on October 7. Israel says the attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and that around 240 others were taken hostage.    

In response, Israel launched a relentless bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which the Hamas government says has killed 15,000 people, thousands of them children. 
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The decision by Israel and Hamas to extend their temporary truce in Gaza from four days to six has raised expectations that both sides will agree to further extensions to allow for more hostage swaps and humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian enclave.

Washington is stepping up efforts to extend the pause that allowed the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention. CIA Director Bill Burns was in Doha on Tuesday meeting his Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari counterparts.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be back in the region later this week with stops including Dubai, the West Bank and Israel.

The latest Israel-Hamas deal brought the number of Israelis freed to 60. An additional 21 hostages have been released in separate negotiations.

“We want to get them all back,” John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters on Tuesday.

One hundred fifty Palestinians have been released from Israeli prisons, but thousands remain.

While the administration considers the brief truce a diplomatic win, it has also placed more pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to make the stop in fighting permanent.

The White House has so far resisted demands from human rights activists and the progressive wing of Biden’s Democratic Party to end U.S. support for Israel’s strikes and push for a permanent cease-fire. Administration officials repeatedly say that at this point, humanitarian relief can be achieved only through hostage deals that allow temporary stops on Israeli attacks and more aid to flow in.

“Short-term pauses are entirely insufficient to meet the needs on the ground and to address human rights conditions on the ground,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

On Wednesday, his group and others will be presenting nearly 1 million signatures calling on Biden to use his influence to bring about a sustained cease-fire in Gaza.

“More and more Americans want this cease-fire,” he told VOA. Fifty-three percent of American voters support calls for a cease-fire, according to a recent Morning Consult poll.

Changing US calculus

The United States has staunchly supported Israel’s right to defend itself since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks killed 1,200 people in Israel. However, as the number of Palestinian deaths grows — topping 14,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — the administration has been increasingly vocal that Israel must minimize civilian harm. Last week, Biden said he is considering making aid to Israel conditional based on its conduct in the war.

Mounting Arab and international pressure, along with domestic anger, is changing the administration’s calculus, said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Middle East political analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Biden is now “attempting to strike a moderate tone that addresses competing priorities,” Alkhatib told VOA.

Domestic pressure comes not only from Arab Americans, American Muslims and some Democrats but also from a Jewish group advocating for American leadership to end the conflict diplomatically.

In a statement released Tuesday, the group J Street urged the Biden administration to insist that Israel significantly change its military operation, make clear that the U.S. “will not provide unbounded support for a war with no limits and no exit strategy” and reject “any future Israeli occupation, annexation or blockade in Gaza.”

It’s a delicate balance for Biden to navigate.

Pushing too hard on Netanyahu, who is already under immense domestic pressure from the families of the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas, may backfire. Already anxious that a long pause will give Hamas time to regroup and reposition its forces, the Israeli war Cabinet is worried that prisoner swaps are boosting Hamas’ popularity in the occupied West Bank.

And as administration officials often underscore, the U.S. is not the one drawing up Israel’s war plans and battlefield decisions.

“We’re providing advice. We’re providing our perspectives,” Kirby said.

Cease-fire challenges

Analysts say a permanent cease-fire would require one of two developments: the dismantling of Hamas’ ability to rule Gaza and the stripping of its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, of munitions and infrastructure. Or, that Israel and Hamas forge a long-term agreement that entails fundamental changes.

The prospects of the latter appear dim as Israel and Hamas have fundamentally incompatible goals — each other’s destruction.

“It’s much more likely that Israel will destroy Hamas than vice versa,” said Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution. “But these are not two groups that could work out a reasonable compromise on strategic long term and states,” he told VOA.

While the Qassam Brigades can be weakened and Hamas’ governance structures can be toppled, rooting out the group that has been in control of Gaza since it won the 2006 election there is a different matter.

“Whatever remains of Hamas politically after the Gaza war is over may be incentivized to join the Palestinian Authority in pursuit of this solution, something that Hamas’ Politburo has endorsed as a favorable option,” Alkhatib said.

Biden and his aides have said that for a permanent cease-fire to succeed, there must be a road map toward a two-state solution. Without it, conditions will be ripe for a similar group to emerge, even if Hamas had been dismantled.

Paradoxically, there will be more pressure on Israel to allow the Palestinian Authority to govern in Gaza if Hamas is sufficiently degraded, said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University.

Ideally for Israel and the U.S., it’s a reformed Palestinian Authority that is “less corrupt, more free, better economically,” he told VOA. It’s unclear whether those reforms can be achieved, and whether Israel can provide the support for them under the current right-wing coalition, he added.

Anita Powell contributed to this report.
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