Category: USA

AUBURN, Wash. — After a series of lower-paying jobs, Nicole Slemp finally landed one she loved. She was a secretary for Washington’s child services department, a job that came with her own cubicle, and she had a knack for working with families in difficult situations.

Slemp expected to return to work after having her son in August. But then she and her husband started looking for child care – and doing the math. The best option would cost about $2,000 a month, with a long wait list, and even the least expensive option would cost around $1,600, still eating up most of Slemp’s salary. Her husband earns about $35 an hour at a hose distribution company. Between them, they earned too much to qualify for government help.

“I really didn’t want to quit my job,” says Slemp, 33, who lives in a Seattle suburb. But, she says, she felt like she had no choice.

The dilemma is common in the United States, where high-quality child care programs are prohibitively expensive, government assistance is limited, and daycare openings are sometimes hard to find at all. In 2022, more than 1 in 10 young children had a parent who had to quit, turn down or drastically change a job in the previous year because of child care problems. And that burden falls most on mothers, who shoulder more child-rearing responsibilities and are far more likely to leave a job to care for kids.

Even so, women’s participation in the workforce has recovered from the pandemic, reaching historic highs in December 2023. But that masks a lingering crisis among women like Slemp who lack a college degree: The gap in employment rates between mothers who have a four-year degree and those who don’t has only grown.

For mothers without college degrees, a day without work is often a day without pay. They are less likely to have paid leave. And when they face an interruption in child care arrangements, an adult in the family is far more likely to take unpaid time off or to be forced to leave a job altogether, according to an analysis of Census survey data by The Associated Press in partnership with the Education Reporting Collaborative.

In interviews, mothers across the country shared how the seemingly endless search for child care, and its expense, left them feeling defeated. It pushed them off career tracks, robbed them of a sense of purpose, and put them in financial distress.

Women like Slemp challenge the image of the stay-at-home mom as an affluent woman with a high-earning partner, said Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The stay-at-home moms in this country are disproportionately mothers who’ve been pushed out of the workforce because they don’t make enough to make it work financially to pay for child care,” Calarco said.

Her own research indicates three-quarters of stay-at-home moms live in households with incomes less than $50,000, and half have household incomes of less than $25,000.

Still, the high cost of child care has upended the careers of even those with college degrees.

When Jane Roberts gave birth in November, she and her husband, both teachers, quickly realized sending baby Dennis to day care was out of the question. It was too costly, and they worried about finding a quality provider in their hometown of Pocatello, Idaho.

The school district has no paid medical or parental leave, so Roberts exhausted her sick leave and personal days to stay home with Dennis. In March, she returned to work and husband Mike took leave. By the end of the school year, they’ll have missed out on a combined nine weeks of pay. To make ends meet, they’ve borrowed money against Jane’s life insurance policy.

In the fall, Roberts won’t return to teaching. The decision was wrenching. “I’ve devoted my entire adult life to this profession,” she said.

For low- and middle-income women who do find child care, the expense can become overwhelming. The Department of Health and Human Services has defined “affordable” child care as an arrangement that costs no more than 7% of a household budget. But a Labor Department study found fewer than 50 American counties where a family earning the median household income could obtain child care at an “affordable” price.

There’s also a connection between the cost of child care and the number of mothers working: a 10% increase in the median price of child care was associated with a 1% drop in the maternal workforce, the Labor Department found.

In Birmingham, Alabama, single mother Adriane Burnett takes home about $2,800 a month as a customer service representative for a manufacturing company. She spends more than a third of that on care for her 3-year-old.

In October, that child aged out of a program that qualified the family of three for child care subsidies. So she took on more work, delivering food for DoorDash and Uber Eats. To make the deliveries possible, her 14-year-old has to babysit.

Even so, Burnett had to file for bankruptcy and forfeit her car because she was behind on payments. She is borrowing her father’s car to continue her delivery gigs. The financial stress and guilt over missing time with her kids have affected her health, Burnett said. She has had panic attacks and has fainted at work.

“My kids need me,” Burnett said, “but I also have to work.”

Even for parents who can afford child care, searching for it — and paying for it — consumes reams of time and energy.

When Daizha Rioland was five months pregnant with her first child, she posted in a Facebook group for Dallas moms that she was looking for child care. Several warned she was already behind if she wasn’t on any wait lists. Rioland, who has a bachelor’s degree and works in communications for a nonprofit, wanted a racially diverse program with a strong curriculum.

While her daughter remained on wait lists, Rioland’s parents stepped in to care for her. Finally, her daughter reached the top of a waiting list — at 18 months old. The tuition was so high she could only attend part-time. Rioland got her second daughter on waiting lists long before she was born, and she now attends a center Rioland trusts.

“I’ve grown up in Dallas. I see what happens when you’re not afforded the luxury of high-quality education,” said Rioland, who is Black. “For my daughters, that’s not going to be the case.”

Slemp still sometimes wonders how she ended up staying at home with her son – time she cherishes but also finds disorienting. She thought she was doing well. After stints at a water park and a call center, her state job seemed like a step toward financial stability. How could it be so hard to maintain her career, when everything seemed to be going right?

“Our country is doing nothing to try to help fill that gap,” Slemp said. As a parent, “we’re supposed to keep the population going, and they’re not giving us a chance to provide for our kids to be able to do that.”
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BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA — Wild horses will stay in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park amid fears from advocates that park officials would remove the beloved animals from the rugged badlands landscape, a key lawmaker said Thursday. 

Republican U.S. Senator John Hoeven said he had secured a commitment from the National Park Service to maintain wild horses in the park, though the number remains to be determined. Roughly 200 horses now roam the park. 

Hoeven said the Park Service would abandon its proposed removal of the horses under an environmental review process begun in 2022 and would continue to operate under an existing 1978 environmental assessment that calls for a reduction in their numbers. 

“They’ve committed to me that we will have a thoughtful and inclusive discussion on how many horses they keep in the park,” Hoeven told The Associated Press. There is no timeline on that, he said. 

In a statement, the park said its decision to terminate the review “was made after careful consideration of the information and public comment received during the [environmental assessment] process.”

Park visitors, much to their delight, often encounter the horses while driving or hiking in the rolling, colorful badlands where a young future president, Theodore Roosevelt, hunted and engaged in cattle ranching in the 1880s in what was then Dakota Territory. 

“People love horses,” Hoeven said. “And where do you go to see wild horses? I mean, it’s not, like, an easy thing to do, and most people don’t have horses, and they love the idea of wild horses. They see it as part of our heritage in America.” 

Earlier Thursday, Hoeven’s office said in a statement the decision “will allow for a healthy herd of wild horses to be maintained at the park, managed in a way to support genetic diversity among the herd and preserve the park’s natural resources.” 

The horses roam the park’s South Unit near the Western tourist town of Medora. In 2022, park officials began the process of crafting a “livestock plan” for the horses as well as about nine longhorn cattle in the park’s North Unit near Watford City. Park officials have said that process aligned with policies to remove non-native species when they pose a potential risk to resources. 

“The horse herd in the South Unit, particularly at higher herd sizes, has the potential to damage fences used for wildlife management, trample or overgraze vegetation used by native wildlife species, contribute to erosion and soil-related impacts … and compete for food and water resources,” according to a Park Service environmental assessment from September 2023. 

Proposals included removing the horses quickly or gradually or taking no action. Park Superintendent Angie Richman has said the horses, even if they ultimately stay, will still have to be reduced to 35 to 60 animals under the 1978 environmental assessment. The park will continue to manage the longhorns as done previously, according to Hoeven’s office. 

Thousands of people made public comments during the Park Service review, the vast majority of them in support of keeping the horses. North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature made its support official in a resolution last year. Governor Doug Burgum offered state help to maintain the horses. 

The Park Service reached out to the five tribal nations in North Dakota to find out if the tribes wanted to be involved in managing the horses, Hoeven said. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe indicated interest, he said. 

The senator’s announcement came after Congress passed and President Joe Biden recently signed an appropriations bill with a provision from Hoeven strongly recommending the Park Service maintain the horses. The legislation signaled that funding to remove the horses might be denied. 

Chris Kman, president of Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates, said she was in tears when she read Hoeven’s announcement. She said she planned to pursue federal protection for the horses and explore potential state legislation. 

“If they don’t have federal protection, then they’re at the mercy of the next administration that comes in or whatever policy they want to pull out and cite next time and try to get rid of the horses again,” Kman said by phone from the park. 

The horses descend from those of Native American tribes and area ranches and from domestic stallions introduced to the park in the late 20th century, according to Castle McLaughlin, who researched the horses as a graduate student while working for the Park Service in North Dakota in the 1980s.
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LOS ANGELES — On a recent afternoon, Grant Oh zigzagged across the University of Southern California campus as if he was conquering an obstacle course, coming up against police blockade after police blockade on his way to his apartment while officers arrested demonstrators protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

In many ways, the chaotic moment was the culmination of a college life that started amid the coronavirus pandemic and has been marked by continual upheaval in what has become a constant battle for normalcy. Oh already missed his prom and his high school graduation as COVID-19 surged in 2020. He started college with online classes. Now the 20-year-old will add another missed milestone to his life: USC has canceled its main commencement ceremony that was expected to be attended by 65,000 people.

His only graduation ceremony was in middle school and there were no caps and gowns.

“It’s crazy because I remember starting freshman year with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which came after senior year of high school when the Black Lives Matter protests were happening and COVID, and xenophobia,” he said “It feels definitely surreal. It still shocks me that we live in a world that is so fired up and so willing to tear itself apart.”

Oh, who is getting a degree in health promotion and disease prevention, added that his loss of a memorable moment pales in comparison to what is happening: “At the end of the day, people are dying.”

College campuses have always been a hotbed for protests from the civil rights era to the Vietnam war to demonstrations over apartheid in South Africa. But students today also carry additional stresses from having lived through the isolation and fear from the pandemic, and the daily influence of social media that amplifies the world’s wrongs like never before, experts say.

It’s not just about missed milestones. Study after study shows Generation Z suffers from much higher rates of anxiety and depression than Millennials, said Jean Twenge, a psychologist and professor at San Diego State University, who wrote a book called “Generations.” She attributes much of that to the fact that negativity spreads faster and wider on social media than positive posts.

“Gen Z, they tend to be much more pessimistic than Millennials,” she said. “The question going forward is do they take this pessimism and turn it into concrete action and change, or do they turn it into annihilation and chaos?”

Protesters have pitched tents on campuses from Harvard and MIT to Stanford and the University of Texas, Austin, raising tensions as many schools prepare for spring commencements. Hundreds of students have been arrested across the country. Inspired by demonstrations at Columbia University, students at more than a dozen U.S. colleges have formed pro-Palestinian encampments and pledged to stay put until their demands are met.

The campus will be closed for the semester at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, which has been negotiating with students who have been barricaded inside a campus building since Monday, rebuffing an attempt by the police to clear them out.

USC announced Thursday that it would be calling off its main graduation ceremony after protests erupted over not only the Israel-Hamas war but the school’s decision earlier this month to call off the commencement speech by its valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who expressed support for Palestinians. Officials cited security concerns.

“By trying to silence Asna, it made everything way worse,” Oh said, adding that he hopes there will be no violence on graduation day May 10 when smaller ceremonies will be held by different departments.

Maurielle McGarvey graduated from high school in 2019 so was able to have a ceremony but then she took a gap year when many universities held classes only online. McGarvey, who is getting a degree in screenwriting with a minor in gender and social justice studies at USC, called the cancellations “heartbreaking,” and said the situation has been grossly mishandled by the university. She said police with batons came at her yelling as she held a banner while she and fellow demonstrators said a Jewish prayer.

“It’s definitely been like an overall diminished experience and to take away like the last sort of like typical thing that this class was allowed after having so many weird restrictions, so many customs and traditions changed,” she said. “It’s such a bummer.”

She said the email by the university announcing the cancellation particularly stung with its link to photos of past graduates in gowns tossing up their caps and cheering. “That’s just insult to injury,” she said.

Students at other universities were equally glum.

“Our grade is cursed,” said Abbie Barkan of Atlanta, 21, who is graduating from the University of Texas in two weeks with a journalism degree and who was among a group of Jewish students waving flags and chanting at a counter-protest Thursday near a pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus.

University of Minnesota senior Sarah Dawley, who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, is grateful graduation plans have not changed at her school. But she said the past weeks have left her with a mix of emotions. She’s been dismayed to watch colleges call in police.

But she said she also feels hope after having gone through the pandemic and become part of a community that stands up for what they believe in.

“I think a lot of people are going to go on to do cool things because after all this, we care a lot,” she said.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump says he is ready to renew a right-wing alliance with Hungary’s Viktor Orban if he wins the election in November. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee made the comments in an address to the CPAC conservative conference in Budapest. As Henry Ridgwell reports, analysts say Orban seeks a global conservative movement that is hoping for success at the ballot box in a crucial election year.
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Washington — Security was tight Saturday at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner where President Joe Biden will make what is a traditionally lighthearted address amid protests and boycott calls over the conflict in Gaza.

A long list of VIP guests, including journalists and celebrities from Chris Pine to Molly Ringwald, arrived in black-tie attire as demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and shouting slogans such as “You have blood on your hands” rallied near the entrance to the Washington Hilton hotel.

At the banquet, in keeping with longstanding tradition, interrupted during the Donald Trump years, Biden will sit on the dais keeping a steady smile on his face as a guest comedian rips into him.

The event comes as Biden’s has been shadowed for months by protesters angry over U.S. support for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. He has been met by shouts of “Genocide Joe” and noisy calls for an immediate cease-fire.

More than two dozen Palestinian journalists this week issued an open letter urging their American colleagues to boycott the dinner.

“You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” the letter said. “It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured and killed for doing our jobs.”

According to the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists, at least 97 journalists — including 92 Palestinians — have been killed since war erupted on October 7 with Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel. At least 16 others have been wounded.

The group Code Pink, part of an anti-war coalition planning demonstrations, said it intended to “shut down” the dinner to protest “the complicity of the Biden administration in the targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli military.”

It said its action would be “nonviolent” but offered no details.

The gala dinner and a surrounding series of society events are taking place as the Gaza protest movement has been spreading to colleges across the country, and as police crackdowns on some campuses have led to hundreds of arrests.

This year’s comedian will be Colin Jost, a longtime writer and actor with NBC’s Saturday Night Live.

The 81-year-old Biden will follow with his own speech, sure to include some self-mockery, some ribbing of the press and, no doubt, some sharp-elbowed jabs at Trump, his presumptive opponent in November’s presidential election.

The annual dinner has been organized since 1920 by the influential White House Correspondents’ Association, which honors top reporters and awards journalism scholarships.

Last year, 2,600 people attended.

The association declined an AFP request to comment on the boycott call and the planned demonstration.  
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brighton, colorado — Republican activists gathered in a school lunchroom last month to hear political pitches from candidates and agreed on the top issue in the Denver suburbs these days: immigration.

The area has been disrupted by the arrival of largely Venezuelan migrants coming north through Mexico, they said. Virtually everyone in the meeting said they were uncomfortable with the new population, which has overwhelmed public services and become a flashpoint in local and national elections. 

“We’ve lived here our whole lives, and now we have to pay for hotels and debit cards and health care” for the migrants, through government spending, said Toni Starner, a marketing consultant. “My daughter’s 22 and she can’t even afford to buy a house.” 

Some 1,200 miles to the south, migrants are also transforming the prosperous industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico. Haitian migrants speak Creole on downtown streets and Central American migrants ask motorists for help at intersections. 

But the new arrivals aren’t even part of Mexico’s political conversation as the country gears up for its presidential vote on June 2. 

“If it were a problem, the politicians would already be mentioning it in their campaigns,” said Ingrid Morales, a 66-year-old retired academic who lives on Monterrey’s south side. 

Parallel presidential elections

Every 12 years, the coincidence of presidential elections in the U.S. and Mexico provides a valuable comparative snapshot. The different ways migration is resonating in the two countries’ elections this year reflects the neighbors’ very different styles of democracy. 

Mexican politics are still dominated by institutional political parties, while Donald Trump disrupted the United States’ two-party system with his more populist approach and moved anti-immigration sentiment to center stage in U.S. politics. 

Mexican politics also revolve more around “bread-and-butter” issues such as the economy than in the wealthier United States, which is increasingly consumed with questions of national identity, said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. 

What’s more, just about every Mexican family has an immediate experience with migration, with many still having relatives living in other countries. While migrants must travel through Mexico to enter the U.S., they are more dispersed as they travel and have not generated similar scenes of an overwhelmed Mexican side of the border. 

“In Mexico, there isn’t that same perception of chaos,” Selee said. 

Migration is major campaign issue in US

Trump is making that perception of chaos his campaign’s main theme as he tries to return to the White House. AP VoteCast, a survey of the national electorate, found immigration was a top issue among voters in the Republican presidential primary’s initial states. An AP-NORC poll conducted last month found that 58% of Americans say immigration is an extremely or very important issue for them personally. 

In contrast, Mexico’s presidential frontrunner, Claudia Sheinbaum, didn’t even include a mention of immigration when she announced 100 campaign commitments last month. When she came to the state where Monterrey sits — Nuevo Leon — in February she talked about security and the water supply. Her main opponent, Xochitl Galvez, visited the city last month and talked about her proposals to raise police salaries and combat gender violence. 

But Monterrey, a three-hour drive from the Texas border, has increasingly become a critical waystation, even destination, for tens of thousands of migrants. Local authorities and international organizations have scrambled to find a place for the new arrivals. 

Femsa, the owner of the ubiquitous convenience store chain Oxxo, has hired hundreds of migrants to work in its stores through a program with the United Nations refugee agency. 

An annual survey of Nuevo Leon found last year that nearly nine in 10 residents noticed an increase in migrants and about seven in 10 felt that they should be provided with work. It’s not as if Mexicans aren’t divided over the issue: Those surveyed in Nuevo Leon were split over whether Mexico should admit more migrants or stop the flow. 

The lack of clear political advantage could explain why politicians have stayed away from talking about immigration, said Luis Mendoza Ovando, a political analyst and columnist with the main local newspaper, El Norte. 

Migrants settle in Colorado

Colorado became a stop on the migrant trail even more recently than Monterrey. In late 2022, Venezuelans crossing into Texas from Mexico found that it costs less to take a bus from the border city of El Paso to Denver, Colorado, than many of the United States’ better-known metropolises. And Denver — a liberal, fast-growing city — offered migrants food and shelter. 

Now, Denver’s mayor, Mike Johnston, reports that his city of 710,000 has received nearly 40,000 migrants, what he calls the highest number of new migrants per capita of any city in the United States. The largely Venezuelan population is mainly confined to Denver but has started to trickle into surrounding suburbs like Brighton, often selling flowers or window-washes at street corners. 

Unlike in Monterrey, where many migrants found jobs with established employers, paperwork hassles and federal regulations have prevented most migrants in Denver from receiving authorization to work. Irregular labor such as yard work or housecleaning is their only way of making a living. 

That’s led to a heavy burden on Denver’s coffers, and other cities in Colorado have watched in alarm. The two next largest after Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs, both passed resolutions saying they don’t want large numbers of migrants sent to their cities. 

The migrants in Denver say they feel increased pressure in the form of fewer city benefits and stepped up warnings from local police that they can’t sell windshield washes, flowers or home-cooked food from streetcorners without a permit. The wary feelings towards them extend to the heavily Hispanic suburbs just north of Denver that comprise the state’s 8th congressional district, likely to be one of the most heated fights in this year’s battle for control of the House of Representatives. 

State Representative Gabe Evans, one of the Republicans competing for the party’s nomination against Democratic Representative Yadira Caraveo, said that the district’s residents are fed up. 

Evans’ grandfather immigrated from Mexico and earned his U.S. citizenship by serving in World War II. 

“The citizenship for the Chavez family was paid for in blood,” Evans said. “Then you have people crossing the border and just getting handed things.” 

Cynthia Moreno, a Democrat, said her father came from Mexico legally in the 1920s. Though she has personal sympathy for the migrants’ plight, she’s aghast they’re allowed to stay. 

“If I lived in Denver, I’d be pissed right now,” Moreno said, calling immigration “the nation’s top priority.” 

Lawmakers deadlocked on immigration

That 1986 immigration bill was the last significant one passed by Congress, which has deadlocked for decades over whether to legalize additional generations of people living in the country illegally. In a sign of how the politics of immigration have shifted, that issue didn’t even come up in the bipartisan immigration bill that Trump killed earlier this year. Instead, the proposal focused on border enforcement. 

The legislation never made it to the floor of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But Caraveo, who introduced her own package of immigration measures last month that included a proposal to legalize those brought to the country illegally as children, said she would have supported the bipartisan immigration bill anyway. 
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state department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Riyadh from Monday through Tuesday to participate in regional talks on humanitarian assistance in Gaza, a post-war roadmap for the Palestinian territories, and stability and security in the Middle East.    

“The secretary will discuss ongoing efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza that secures the release of hostages and how it is Hamas that is standing between the Palestinian people and a cease-fire,” according to the State Department.   

The Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, a regional alliance of Arab countries bordering the Persian Gulf, will convene in Riyadh next week.    

Blinken will participate in a GCC ministerial meeting to advance coordination on regional security.  

Additionally, Saudi Arabia is hosting a special session of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh on Sunday and Monday. Expected participants include heads of state and top executives from both the public and private sectors. The meeting aims to tackle a broad range of global challenges, including humanitarian issues, climate change, and economic concerns.  

Gaza, post-war roadmap  

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza remains dire, despite an increase in daily aid and Israel beginning to utilize a northern crossing and Ashdod Port for humanitarian deliveries.  

The United States is collaborating with partners to establish a maritime humanitarian corridor; however, these efforts are insufficient as the entire population of Gaza faces the risk of famine and malnutrition.     

U.S. officials have stated that Washington is committed to advancing lasting peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians, including through practical steps aimed at establishing a Palestinian state that exists alongside Israel.   

“The West Bank and Gaza must be reunified under the Palestinian Authority. A revitalized Palestinian Authority is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza and establishing the conditions for stability,” said Barbara Leaf, an sssistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department during a recent briefing.     

Washington also has made clear that Hamas should not play a role in such governance.   

However, analysts say there are many hurdles to the U.S. vision.    

Michael Hanna, the program director at the International Crisis Group, noted that the current Israeli government has shown a “total rejection of the idea of a two-state solution.” Moreover, “the physical reality has changed so dramatically since 1967 that it makes the possibility of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state almost an impossibility.”    

He said “there’s no real assurance” that countries in the Middle East are particularly committed to post-war reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.    

“It’s very difficult for many of these regional parties to engage politically at the moment while the war rages on,” he said.  

Prospects for Saudi-Israel normalization 

The Biden administration continues to work on a potential agreement that could lead to Saudi normalization with Israel, despite what some officials and analysts consider a remote possibility.   

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the two-state solution and the return of the Palestinian Authority to control Gaza, demands that are widely supported by the international community.    

The Saudis have demanded, as a prerequisite, to see an Israeli commitment to the two-state solution.  

“If Netanyahu’s positions do not change, he will probably not be able to deliver normalization with Saudi Arabia. It may be that a U.S.-Saudi offer for such a normalization will be publicly made, so when Israelis go to the polls, they can take this option into account,” Nimrod Goren, a senior fellow for Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute, told VOA in an email.  

Alleged rights violations being investigated

Blinken’s upcoming meetings in the Middle East come as the U.S. evaluates new information from the Israeli government to determine whether to blacklist certain Israeli military units.   

These units are accused of violating the human rights of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank before the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel.  

Critics have pointed out that the State Department’s “slow rolling” in making its decision highlights the special treatment that Israel continues to receive. 
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washington — About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire, and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.

About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.

Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.

The data will matter this election year as Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are trying to win support from older Americans, who traditionally turn out in high numbers, with their policy proposals.

Everyday expenses hamper saving

The AARP’s study, based on interviews completed with more than 8,000 people in coordination with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, finds that one-third of older adults with credit card debt carry a balance of more than $10,000 and 12% have a balance of $20,000 or more. Additionally, 37% are worried about meeting basic living costs such as food and housing.

“Far too many people lack access to retirement savings options and this, coupled with higher prices, is making it increasingly hard for people to choose when to retire,” said Indira Venkateswaran, AARP’s senior vice president of research. “Everyday expenses continue to be the top barrier to saving more for retirement, and some older Americans say that they never expect to retire.”

The share of people 50 and older who say they do not expect to retire has remained steady. It was 23% in January 2022 and 24% that July, according to the study, which is conducted twice a year.

“We are seeing an expansion of older workers staying in the workforce,” said David John, senior strategic policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute. He said this is in part because older workers “don’t have sufficient retirement savings. It’s a problem and its likely to continue as we go forward.”

In the AARP survey, 33% of respondents 50 and older believe their finances will be better in a year.

Based on the 2022 congressional elections, census data released Tuesday shows that voters 65 and older made up 30.4% of all voters, while Gen Z and millennials accounted for 11.7%.

Biden has tried to court older voters by regularly promoting a $35 price cap on insulin for people on Medicare. He trumpets Medicare’s powers to negotiate directly with drugmakers on the cost of prescription medications.

Trump, in an interview with CNBC in March, indicated he would be open to cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The former president said “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.”

Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that Trump “will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.”

Candidates court senior voters

A looming issue that will affect Americans’ ability to retire is the financial health of Social Security and Medicare.

The latest annual report from the program’s trustees says the financial safety nets for millions of older Americans will run short of money to pay full benefits within the next decade.

Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance that covers 65 million older and disabled people, will be unable to pay full benefits for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031, the report forecast. And just two years later, Social Security will not have enough cash on hand to pay out full benefits to its 66 million retirees.

An AP-NORC poll from March 2023 found that most U.S. adults are opposed to proposals that would cut into Medicare or Social Security benefits, and a majority support raising taxes on the nation’s highest earners to keep Medicare running as is.
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NEW YORK — Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war at universities across United States, some of whom have clashed with police in riot gear, remained defiant Saturday and vowed to keep their demonstrations going, while several school faculties condemned university presidents who have called in law enforcement to remove protesters.

As Columbia University continues negotiations with those at a pro-Palestinian student encampment on the New York school’s campus, the university’s senate passed a resolution Friday that created a task force to examine the administration’s leadership, which last week called in police to clear the protest, resulting in scuffles and more than 100 arrests.

Although the university has repeatedly set and then pushed back deadlines for the removal of the encampment, the school sent an email to students Friday night saying that bringing back police “at this time” would be counterproductive, adding that they hope the negotiations show “concrete signs of progress tonight.”

As the death toll mounts in the war in Gaza, protesters nationwide are demanding that schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.

The decisions to call in law enforcement, leading to hundreds of arrests nationwide, have prompted school faculty members at universities in California, Georgia and Texas to initiate or pass votes of no confidence in their leadership. They are largely symbolic rebukes, without the power to remove their presidents.

But the tensions increase pressure on school officials, who are already scrambling to resolve the protests as May graduation ceremonies near.

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, gave protestors who have barricaded themselves inside a building since Monday until 5 p.m. Friday to leave and “not be immediately arrested.” The deadline came and went. Only some of the protesters left, others doubled down. After protesters rebuffed police earlier in the week, the campus was closed for the rest of the semester.

In Colorado, police swept through an encampment Friday at Denver’s Auraria Campus, which hosts three universities and colleges, arresting some 40 protesters on trespassing charges.

Students representing the Columbia encampment, which inspired the wave of protests across the country, said Friday that they reached an impasse with administrators and intend to continue their protest.

After meetings Thursday and Friday, student negotiators said the university had not met their primary demand for divestment, although there was progress on a push for more transparent financial disclosures.

“We will not rest until Columbia divests,” said Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a fourth-year doctoral student.

In the letter sent to Columbia students Friday night, the university’s leadership said, “We support the conversations that are ongoing with student leaders of the encampment.”

Columbia President Minouche Shafik faced significant criticism from faculty Friday but retained the support of trustees.

A report by the university senate’s executive committee, which represents faculty, found Shafik and her administration took “many actions and decisions that have harmed Columbia University.” Those included calling in police and allowing students to be arrested without consulting faculty, misrepresenting and suspending student protest groups and hiring private investigators.

“The faculty have completely lost confidence in President Shafik’s ability to lead this organization,” said Ege Yumusak, a philosophy lecturer who is part of a faculty team protecting the encampment.

In response, university spokesperson Ben Chang said in the evening that “we are committed to an ongoing dialogue and appreciate the Senate’s constructive engagement in finding a pathway forward.”

Also Friday, Columbia student protester Khymani James walked back comments made in an online video in January that recently received new attention. James said in the video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and people should be grateful James wasn’t killing them.

“What I said was wrong,” James said in a statement. “Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification.”

James, who served as a spokesperson for the pro-Palestinian encampment as a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, was banned from campus Friday, according to a Columbia spokesperson.

Protest organizers said James’ comments didn’t reflect their values. They declined to describe James’ level of involvement with the demonstration.

Police clashed with protesters Thursday at Indiana University, Bloomington, where 34 were arrested; Ohio State University, where about 36 were arrested; and at the University of Connecticut, where one person was arrested.

The University of Southern California canceled its May 10 graduation ceremony Thursday, a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested on campus. The university said it will still host dozens of commencement events, including all the traditional individual school ceremonies.

Universities where faculty members have initiated or passed votes of no confidence in their presidents include Cal Poly Humboldt, University of Texas at Austin and Emory University.
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washington — As student protests against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza continue at more than three dozen American universities, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the demonstrations were “a hallmark” of American democracy. At the same time, he criticized the students for their “silence” on Hamas.

“It is also notable that there is silence about Hamas. It’s as if it wasn’t even part of the story,” Blinken said to reporters Friday during a visit to Beijing. “But as I’ve also said repeatedly, the way Israel goes about ensuring that October 7th never happens again matters profoundly.”

Speaking in a country where dissent is often harshly suppressed, Blinken said he understood the war invokes “strong, passionate feelings” and voiced support for the students’ right to protest.

“It’s a hallmark of our democracy that our citizens make known their views, their concerns, their anger, at any given time, and I think that reflects the strength of the country, the strength of democracy,” he said.

Protests have grown in campuses across the country since Columbia University in New York started cracking down on pro-Palestinian protesters occupying a lawn on its campus on April 18. Police interventions have led to hundreds of arrests but have failed to contain the spread of antiwar demonstrations.

“We have students of all backgrounds and of all histories and identities coming out here to stand on the side of justice and to oppose genocide,” said Malak Afaneh, who spoke with VOA from the encampment at the University of California-Berkeley. The third-year law student who has Palestinian parents said there has been an “outpouring of community support.”

In many universities, Jewish students participated in expressing their anger about U.S. support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza and their schools’ financial and academic ties to Israel and to weapons manufacturers.

“We have a university that’s actively investing money into companies that are helping fuel [the war], kill these innocent people,” a Jewish student from Georgetown University told VOA, declining to share her name because of security concerns. “And it’s just not something that I morally can – I have never been able to stand by – but especially not now anymore.”

Yet some Jewish students have complained of rising antisemitism and have felt unsafe on their own campuses, including Columbia, because of the protests.

Overall, the protests are peaceful, even as some are met with counterprotests from pro-Israel and pro-Zionist students. Demonstrations are broadly protected as free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Antisemitic language

Still, the protests are potentially explosive for university administrators, particularly as some students have been called out for using antisemitic language.

Interpreted differently by its supporters, a chant like, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is seen by many Jews and Israelis as a call to dismantle the Jewish state and replace it with a Palestinian state that extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. 

The demonstrations are also becoming a political headache for President Joe Biden. Student protesters and progressive Democrats who support their cause are important constituencies for Biden ahead of the November presidential election. His reelection bid depends in part to his ability to pacify progressives’ anger about his administration’s support of Israel, a close U.S. ally. 

An added complication for Biden is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to portray the antiwar sentiment in the U.S. as antisemitic. On Wednesday, Netanyahu called the protests “horrific” and said they must be stopped. 

“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” he said. “They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty.”

Netanyahu, who is facing protests demanding his resignation at home, said the American demonstrations are “reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s,” drawing parallels to scenes that preceded the Holocaust under Nazi Germany.

Ties are already tense as the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress demand that Israel improve its conduct of the war. In March, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, described the Israeli prime minister as an impediment to peace in the Middle East and called for a new election to replace him. Schumer is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S.

Republicans decry protests

Netanyahu’s criticisms of the protests are echoed by Republican lawmakers who accuse the students of condoning terrorism and supporting Hamas. Republican-led committees in Congress have summoned university administrators to testify, accusing them of allowing campuses to become hotbeds of antisemitism.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and several other Republican lawmakers visited Columbia University, calling for the resignation of university President Minouche Shafik and decrying the student protests as violent and uncontrollable.

“This is dangerous. This is not the First Amendment, this is not free expression,” Johnson said, amid raucous booing and shouts from protesters.

The speaker demanded that Biden call out the country’s military reserve force to quell the protests. “There is an appropriate time for the National Guard,” he said. “We have to bring order to these campuses.”

The White House declined to weigh in, saying decisions to call in National Guard units to break up protests are up to state governors.
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ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s planned meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, set for May 9 at the White House, has been postponed because of changes in the Turkish leader’s schedule, a Turkish official said on Friday. 

A new date will soon be set, the official said, requesting anonymity. 

The White House had not formally announced the visit, but a U.S. official told Reuters in late March that the White House had offered, and Ankara had accepted, May 9 for the meeting. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is “fully prepared” to impose sanctions over China’s support for Russia’s defense industry. His comments came Friday, following a meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping. More from VOA’s Bill Gallo in Seoul, South Korea.
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New York — Columbia University backed off late Thursday from an overnight deadline for pro-Palestinian protesters to abandon an encampment there as more college campuses in the United States sought to prevent occupations from taking hold.

Police have carried out large-scale arrests in universities across the country, at times using chemical irritants and tasers to disperse protests over Israel’s war with Hamas.

The office of New York-based Columbia University President Minouche Shafik issued a statement at 11:07 p.m. (0307 GMT Friday) retreating from a midnight deadline to dismantle a large tent camp with around 200 students.

“The talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned,” the statement said. “We have our demands; they have theirs.”

The statement denied that New York City police were invited on the campus. “This rumor is false,” it said.

A student, identifying herself only as Mimi, told AFP she had been at the camp for seven days.

“They call us terrorists, they call us violent. But the only tool we actually have are our voices,” she said.

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

More than 200 people protesting the war were arrested Wednesday and early Thursday at universities in Los Angeles, Boston and Austin, Texas, where around 2,000 people gathered again Thursday.

Riot officers in the southern state of Georgia used chemical irritants and tasers to disperse protests at Emory University in Atlanta.

Photographs showed police wielding tasers as they wrestled with protesters on neatly manicured lawns.

The Atlanta Police Department said officers responding to the school’s request for help were “met with violence” and used “chemical irritants” in their response.

The spreading protests began at Columbia University, which has remained the epicenter of the student protest movement.

Free speech?

The protests pose a major challenge to university administrators who are trying to balance campus commitments to free expression with complaints that the rallies have crossed a line.

Pro-Israel supporters and others worried about campus safety have pointed to antisemitic incidents and allege that campuses are encouraging intimidation and hate speech.

“I’ve never felt more scared to be a Jew in America right now,” said Skyler Sieradsky, a 21-year-old student of philosophy and political science at George Washington University.

“There are students and faculty standing by messages of hate, and standing by messages that call for violence.”

Demonstrators, who include a number of Jewish students, have disavowed antisemitism and criticized officials equating it with opposition to Israel.

“People are here in support of Palestinian people from all different backgrounds… (compelled by) their general sense of justice,” a 33-year-old graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin, who said he was Jewish and gave his name as Josh, told AFP. 

U.S. ally Israel launched its war in Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7 that left around 1,170 people dead, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Hamas militants also took roughly 250 people hostage. Israel estimates 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.

Coast to coast

At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, 93 people were arrested for trespassing on Wednesday, authorities said they were canceling events at the May 10 graduation ceremony.

The ceremony, which usually attracts 65,000 people, made headlines this month when administrators canceled a planned speech by a top student after complaints from Jewish groups that she had links to antisemitic groups. She denied the charge.

At Emerson College in Boston, local media reported classes were canceled Thursday after police clashed with protesters overnight, tearing down a pro-Palestinian encampment and arresting 108 people.

In Washington, students from Georgetown and George Washington University (GW) established a solidarity encampment on the GW campus Thursday.

Protests and encampments have also sprung up at New York University and Yale — both of which also saw dozens of students arrested earlier this week — Harvard, Brown University, MIT, the University of Michigan and elsewhere.

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt said its campus could remain closed into next week due to protesters occupying buildings.

On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden denounced “blatant antisemitism” that has “no place on college campuses.”

But the White House has also said the president supports freedom of expression at U.S. universities.
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washington — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in China on Wednesday has been met with skepticism, cynicism and suggestions that the absence of a red carpet for the top U.S. diplomat’s arrival was a not-so-subtle message from Beijing.

Blinken kicked off his three-day visit to China in Shanghai with online commenters and analysts noting China had omitted the usual practice of laying out a red carpet for a distinguished visitor.

Posting on X, Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of Chinese state media Global Times, said, “Blinken has arrived in Shanghai, China. Many people noticed when he stepped off the plane that there seemed to be no red carpet on the ground. His China visit should be seen as an ‘imploring’ one, although the U.S. made some tough public opinion preparations in advance.”

Gordon Chang, a distinguished senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute think tank, responded to Hu Xijin’s post, “#China, before #Blinken even stepped off his plane in #Shanghai today, insulted him.”

An X user under the name Lord Bebo, who claims to be anti-mainstream media, posted, “Blinken arrives in China and is met WITHOUT RED CARPET. No band or anything … he’s welcomed like a somebody unimportant.” His post received more than 10,000 likes.

U.S.-China relations have eased since the two sides resumed high-level contacts, but many differences remain.

Before Blinken’s visit, U.S. media reported that the U.S. discussed sanctioning some Chinese banks to counter their support for Russia. Blinken also stated in releasing the State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices that the Uyghurs in Xinjiang are victims of genocide and crimes against humanity.

He arrived in China the same day President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that includes Taiwan military aid and pushes TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest its U.S. operations.

“What an awkward moment for Blinken as he lands in China,” Canadian geopolitics expert Abishur Prakash said. “The U.S. is full-steam ahead on taking on China, led by the bills around TikTok, Taiwan and support nations in the Indo-Pacific against Beijing.”

‘Face-to-face diplomacy matters’

On his day of arrival, Blinken posted a video speech against a backdrop of Shanghai’s iconic buildings, such as the neon-lit Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center.

“We just arrived here in Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China to work on issues that matter to the American people,” he said in the video. “One of those is fentanyl, synthetic opioids, the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.

“President [Joe] Biden, President Xi [Jinping], when they met in San Francisco at the end of last year, agreed to cooperate to help prevent fentanyl and the ingredients that make it from getting to the United States. We will be working on that.”

Blinken said he would be talking not only to his counterparts in the Chinese government, but also to students, academics, business leaders and “the people who are building bridges and ties between our countries.

“And of course, we will be dealing with areas where we have real differences with China, dealing with them directly, communicating clearly. Face-to-face diplomacy matters,” he said. “It’s important to avoid miscommunications, misperceptions, and to advance the interests of the American people.”

Reaction takes anti-American tone

On Chinese social media, Blinken’s overtures were met with cynicism.

On Weibo, China’s largest social platform, Blinken’s second visit to China had limited coverage, and the discussion was dominated by an anti-American tone.

A Weibo user under the name of Xiao Fan Hao She argued that the United States has not officially listed all fentanyl-like substances on the control list.

“We ask whether the United States believes that it can solve the domestic problems in the United States by shifting the blame externally, shirking responsibility, and smearing China’s image,” she wrote.

A Weibo user under the name of An Hao Xin said, “Coming with him is also the bargaining chip of ‘bank sanctions.’ To be honest, if you want to kick SWIFT out, just do it quickly. Why are you hesitating?”

Another commenter said, “If you dare to overturn the table, then we just aid Russia with weapons and see who suffers.”

Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch and visiting professor at Princeton University, linked the visit to U.S. Middle East policy, saying on X that Blinken “would have an easier time telling the Chinese government not to provide military supplies to Russia as it commits war crimes in Ukraine if the U.S. government were not arming Israel as it commits war crimes in Gaza.”

But Roth also said, “It will be shameful if Blinken is so determined to make nice to Beijing that he doesn’t publicly mention its crimes against humanity targeting Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.”

Jonathan Cheng, the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, said on X, “Unnamed Chinese official to Blinken: ‘Perception is always the first button that must be put right. Whether China and the United States are rivals or partners is a fundamental issue, on which there must not be any catastrophic mistake.’ ”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — Ukraine has sidelined U.S.-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now in its fight against Russia, in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, two U.S. military officials told The Associated Press.

The U.S. agreed to send 31 Abrams to Ukraine in January 2023 after an aggressive monthslong campaign by Kyiv arguing that the tanks, which cost about $10 million apiece, were vital to its ability to breach Russian lines.

But the battlefield has changed substantially since then, notably by the ubiquitous use of Russian surveillance drones and hunter-killer drones. Those weapons have made it more difficult for Ukraine to protect the tanks when they are quickly detected and hunted by Russian drones or rounds.

Five of the 31 tanks have already been lost to Russian attacks.

The proliferation of drones on the Ukrainian battlefield means “there isn’t open ground that you can just drive across without fear of detection,” a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide an update on U.S. weapons support for Ukraine before Friday’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.

For now, the tanks have been moved from the front lines, and the U.S. will work with the Ukrainians to reset tactics, said Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady and a third defense official who confirmed the move on the condition of anonymity.

“When you think about the way the fight has evolved, massed armor in an environment where unmanned aerial systems are ubiquitous can be at risk,” Grady told the AP in an interview this week, adding that tanks are still important.

“Now, there is a way to do it,” he said. “We’ll work with our Ukrainian partners, and other partners on the ground, to help them think through how they might use that, in that kind of changed environment now, where everything is seen immediately.”

News of the sidelined tanks comes as the U.S. marks the two-year anniversary of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of about 50 countries that meets monthly to assess Ukraine’s battlefield needs and identify where to find needed ammunition, weapons or maintenance to keep Ukraine’s troops equipped.

Recent aid packages, including the $1 billion military assistance package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday, also reflect a wider reset for Ukrainian forces in the evolving fight.

The U.S. is expected to announce Friday that it also will provide about $6 billion in long-term military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said, adding that it will include much sought after munitions for Patriot air defense systems. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

The $1 billion package emphasized counter-drone capabilities, including .50-caliber rounds specifically modified to counter drone systems; additional air defenses and ammunition; and a host of alternative, and cheaper, vehicles, including Humvees, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles.

The U.S. also confirmed for the first time that it is providing long-range ballistic missiles known as ATACMs, which allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian-occupied areas without having to advance and be further exposed to either drone detection or fortified Russian defenses.

While drones are a significant threat, the Ukrainians also have not adopted tactics that could have made the tanks more effective, one of the U.S. defense officials said.

After announcing it would provide Ukraine the Abrams tanks in January 2023, the U.S. began training Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr Army base in Germany that spring on how to maintain and operate them. They also taught the Ukrainians how to use them in combined arms warfare — where the tanks operate as part of a system of advancing armored forces, coordinating movements with overhead offensive fires, infantry troops and air assets.

As the spring progressed and Ukraine’s highly anticipated counteroffensive stalled, shifting from tank training in Germany to getting Abrams on the battlefield was seen as an imperative to breach fortified Russian lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on his Telegram channel in September that the Abrams had arrived in Ukraine.

Since then, however, Ukraine has only employed them in a limited fashion and has not made combined arms warfare part of its operations, the defense official said.

During its recent withdrawal from Avdiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine that was the focus of intense fighting for months, several tanks were lost to Russian attacks, the official said.

A long delay by Congress in passing new funding for Ukraine meant its forces had to ration ammunition, and in some cases they were only able to shoot back once for every five or more times they were targeted by Russian forces.

In Avdiivka, Ukrainian forces were badly outgunned and fighting back against Russian glide bombs and hunter-killer drones with whatever ammunition they had left.
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nairobi, kenya — About 1,300 delegates and 400 companies participated in the fourth American Chamber of Commerce summit in Nairobi, Kenya, where Kenya’s president William Ruto says his country is ready for business — and means business.

“The 2024 summit’s theme — catalyzing the future of U.S. East Africa Trade and Investment intentionally — draws on the previous edition to develop a strategic platform for commercial advocacy, which will strengthen bilateral trade between Kenya and the U.S., as well as between our region and the U.S.,” said Ruto.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo participated in this year’s summit — which ended Thursday — saying it’s not enough to state the intentions of the United States to invest more and collaborate with Kenya.

“You also have to show up and that’s why I am here,” she said. “And when we show up, we also have to listen and learn.”

Raimondo announces US-Kenya partnership

In her first official trip to East Africa, Raimondo reiterated President Joe Biden’s December 2022 message that the U.S. is all-in on Africa. To that end, she said she traveled with 14 members of the President’s Advisory Council on doing business in Africa.

“Africa has changed the narrative and the companies that are here today know that,” said Raimondo. “And they reflect the optimism and the commitment from the U.S. business community about the opportunities in Kenya and across the continent.”

Raimondo also announced a partnership “to harness artificial intelligence, facilitate data flows and empower digital upskilling with Kenya.”

The partnership, she said, is the first of its kind with an African nation to promote the safe development and deployment of AI. In addition, seven private-sector deals on digital transformation and commitments were made involving companies including the NBA, CISCO, Pfizer, and Qualcomm.

Two new grants by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency were announced to expand semiconductor fabrication in Kenya and the construction of a fiber network along the railways.

Rebecca Miano, Kenya’s cabinet secretary with the Ministry of Investments, Trade, and Industry, told participants that Kenya should be a destination for investors and not only because of its young, educated and innovative workforce.

“We also have a green story: decarbonizing the world,” Miano said. “Kenya is a key player.”

Miano said that up to 95 percent of the electricity consumed in Kenya is renewable.

“We have a target to make it 100% in the next few years,” she said.

Summit explores tech, climate, energy

The two-day AmCham summit brought together businesses to stimulate commercial opportunities, said Maxwell Okello, CEO of AmCham Kenya.

This year’s summit focused on key areas such as the tech space, climate action and green energy, said Okello.

“I am sure you’ve walked around and seen the pavilion under the title ‘Digital Transformation Africa,’ which brings together technology ecosystems both Kenyan but American as well,” said Okello. “Secondly, we have shone the light on … matters related to climate action and green business because we know we need to be green as we are moving forward.”

Out of 400 companies at the event, Wandia Gichuru, CEO of Vivo Fashion Group, got a special shout-out from U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman, who said she was wearing a top made by Gichuru’s apparel company.

“We were very excited, not only she was wearing something Vivo, but she also made the announcement that we would be opening our very first U.S. store in Atlanta this May,” said Gichuru. “… and we hope that the ambassador and our president will visit the store while they are in the U.S. for the state visit in May.”

President Ruto is set to visit the United States next month in the first state visit since he was elected.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden was in Syracuse, New York, Thursday to tout a deal to provide memory chip maker Micron Technology with $6.1 billion in federal grants to support the firm in building factories in the states of New York and Idaho.

“We’re bringing advanced chip manufacturing back to America after 40 years,” Biden said Thursday. He said the funding, paired with a $125 billion investment from Micron, represents the “single biggest private investment ever in history of these two states.”

The investment will support the construction of two plants in Clay, a suburb of Syracuse, New York, and one in Boise, Idaho. The grant will unleash “$50 billion in private investment by 2030 as the first step towards Micron’s investment of up to $125 billion across both states over the next two decades,” the White House said in a statement.

The deal was announced last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, who personally lobbied Micron to invest in his state. It’s the latest in a series of awards given by the administration, intended to shore up domestic production of advanced semiconductors using funds from the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The aim is to boost domestic manufacturing and reduce reliance on chip supplies from China and Taiwan.

This investment will “supercharge Micron to build the most advanced memory chip factory in the world, Schumer said Thursday. “America’s future will be built in Syracuse, not in Shanghai.”

The administration recently awarded Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor, Intel, GlobalFoundries, Microchip Technology, and BAE Systems, more than $29 billion in federal grants for chipmaking investments. It’s part of an effort to catch up in the global semiconductor manufacturing race currently dominated by China, Taiwan and South Korea.

The U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity has decreased from 37% in 1990 to 12% today, largely because other governments have offered manufacturing incentives and invested in research to strengthen domestic chipmaking capabilities, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

To address such stiff foreign competition, the $280 billion bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act offers $52 billion in incentives for domestic semiconductor production and research, as well as an investment tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing.

Manufacturing revival

The announcements are part of the economic vision the president is offering to voters in his re-election bid – that he is working to create a manufacturing revival in the country, including in Republican-controlled districts such as where the Micron plant will be located.

“Micron’s total investment will be the largest private investment in New York and Idaho’s history, and will create over 70,000 jobs, including 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs and tens of thousands of indirect jobs,” the White House said.

Ahead of the November presidential election, Biden’s strategy appears to be to announce investments in manufacturing facilities in Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina and Ohio, states where Democrats lack a strong foothold.

It is not clear whether the approach will succeed as voters will not immediately feel the effects. The initial phase of the Micron project, for example, would see the first plant opened in 2028 and the second in 2029.

Meanwhile, voters are concerned about high inflation, and dislike Biden’s economic job performance. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 34% of respondents approving of Biden’s approach on the economy, compared to 41% who favor the approach of former president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Still, Biden’s trip to New York is an opportunity for him to celebrate another victory following a string of good news for the president. On Wednesday, he secured the endorsement of the North America’s Building Trades Unions and signed a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after months of congressional gridlock.

Paris Huang contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — The nation’s economy slowed sharply last quarter to a 1.6% annual pace in the face of high interest rates, but consumers — the main driver of economic growth — kept spending at a solid pace.

Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — decelerated in the January-March quarter from its brisk 3.4% growth rate in the final three months of 2023.

A surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, reduced first-quarter growth by nearly 1 percentage point. Growth was also held back by businesses reducing their inventories. Both those categories tend to fluctuate sharply from quarter to quarter.

By contrast, the core components of the economy still appear sturdy. Along with households, businesses helped drive the economy last quarter with a strong pace of investment.

The import and inventory numbers can be volatile, so “there is still a lot of positive underlying momentum,” said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

The economy, though, is still creating price pressures, a continuing source of concern for the Federal Reserve. A measure of inflation in Friday’s report accelerated to a 3.4% annual rate from January through March, up from 1.8% in the last three months of 2023 and the biggest increase in a year. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose at a 3.7% rate, up from 2% in fourth-quarter 2023.

From January through March, consumer spending rose at a 2.5% annual rate, a solid pace though down from a rate of more than 3% in each of the previous two quarters. Americans’ spending on services — everything from movie tickets and restaurant meals to airline fares and doctors’ visits — rose 4%, the fastest such pace since mid-2021.

But they cut back spending on goods such as appliances and furniture. Spending on that category fell 0.1%, the first such drop since the summer of 2022.

The state of the U.S. economy has seized Americans’ attention as the election season has intensified. Although inflation has slowed sharply from a peak of 9.1% in 2022, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic levels.

Republican critics of President Joe Biden have sought to pin responsibility for high prices on Biden and use it as a cudgel to derail his re-election bid. And polls show that despite the healthy job market, a near-record-high stock market and the sharp pullback in inflation, many Americans blame Biden for high prices.

Last quarter’s GDP snapped a streak of six straight quarters of at least 2% annual growth. The 1.6% rate of expansion was also the slowest since the economy actually shrank in the first and second quarters of 2022.

The economy’s gradual slowdown reflects, in large part, the much higher borrowing rates for home and auto loans, credit cards and many business loans that have resulted from the 11 interest rate hikes the Fed imposed in its drive to tame inflation.

Even so, the United States has continued to outpace the rest of the world’s advanced economies. The International Monetary Fund has projected that the world’s largest economy will grow 2.7% for all of 2024, up from 2.5% last year and more than double the growth the IMF expects this year for Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Businesses have been pouring money into factories, warehouses and other buildings, encouraged by federal incentives to manufacture computer chips and green technology in the United States. On the other hand, their spending on equipment has been weak. And as imports outpace exports, international trade is also thought to have been a drag on the economy’s first-quarter growth.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, cautioned last week that the “flipside″ of strong U.S. economic growth was that it was “taking longer than expected” for inflation to reach the Fed’s 2% target, although price pressures have sharply slowed from their mid-2022 peak.

Inflation flared up in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, causing severe supply shortages. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made things significantly worse by inflating prices for the energy and grains the world depends on.

The Fed responded by aggressively raising its benchmark rate between March 2022 and July 2023. Despite widespread predictions of a recession, the economy has proved unexpectedly durable. Hiring so far this year is even stronger than it was in 2023. And unemployment has remained below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s.

Inflation, the main source of Americans’ discontent about the economy, has slowed from 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.5%. But progress has stalled lately.

Though the Fed’s policymakers signaled last month that they expect to cut rates three times this year, they have lately signaled that they’re in no hurry to reduce rates in the face of continued inflationary pressure. Now, a majority of Wall Street traders don’t expect them to start until the Fed’s September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
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