The Full Belmonte, 4/24/2024
American and Ukrainian flags fly near the US Capitol on April 20. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Foreign aid
“President Joe Biden is poised to sign legislation today granting billions in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. His expected signature comes after the Senate passed the $95 billion foreign aid package Tuesday following months of delays. The bipartisan legislation includes sanctions on Iran, the seizure of frozen Russian sovereign assets and a measure that could lead to a nationwide ban of TikTok. Its passage is a significant victory for Biden, congressional Democrats and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who has long pushed to send aid to Ukraine even as the right wing of his party increasingly soured on support for Kyiv.” [CNN]
Abortion
“The Supreme Court will hear arguments in a high-stakes abortion rights case today where it will consider whether hospitals have an obligation under federal law to provide emergency abortions to women who are in medical emergencies. In recent months, several stories have detailed the accounts of pregnant women in distress who were denied emergency care in states with outright abortion bans or restrictive laws. On Tuesday, President Biden visited his rival's home turf in Florida, one week before a restrictive abortion ban in that state goes into effect. His campaign is seeking to galvanize voters by seizing on abortion, arguing that former President Donald Trump's vision for America is a threat to personal freedoms and health care.” [CNN]
Justice Dept. reaches $138.7M settlement with victims of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar over FBI misconduct claims
“The agreement settles 139 claims brought over the department’s failure to investigate allegations that could have brought Nassar to justice sooner and prevented dozens of assaults. The settlement brings to a close the last major legal case over Nassar’s prolific abuses. Nassar, 60, is serving an effective life sentence for federal convictions relating to possession of child pornography, as well as state convictions for sexual assaults of patients.”
Read more at Washington Post
Trump v. gag order
Former President Trump speaks to the media at Manhattan criminal court today. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“Former President Trump keeps testing the limits of the gag order in his hush-money trial.
‘You're losing all credibility with the court,’ Judge Juan Merchan told one of Trump's attorneys, Todd Blanche, today after Blanche argued that Trump has simply been responding to political attacks in his capacity as a candidate.
The judge honed in on comments Trump made outside the courthouse yesterday, attacking his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who is a witness in the case.
Trump responded today with an all-caps post on Truth Social calling Merchan ‘highly conflicted, to put it mildly,’ and saying he should recuse himself.
Merchan did not rule Tuesday on whether Trump has violated his gag order, but he told Blanche that his defense of Trump on that point wasn't especially persuasive. ‘You've presented nothing,’ he said.” [Axios]
Columbia President Minouche Shafik is facing mounting discontent as the school grapples with intense protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
“Some faculty and student groups have called on her to step down, while other professors and alumni say changing leadership now would throw the campus into further chaos. A faculty group has drafted a resolution censuring Shafik, but doesn’t call for her ouster. A spokesman for Columbia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Late Monday, the university said students could choose to attend classes in person or online for the final few weeks of the term. Tensions are also flaring at other schools around the country, with student groups setting up collections of tents on central campus spots and lodging various demands, including that their schools divest from companies that do business with Israel. The protests have forced some colleges to rethink their graduation plans.” [Wall Street Journal]
With graduation near, colleges seek to balance safety and students’ right to protest Gaza war
“Since the Gaza war began, colleges and universities have struggled to balance campus safety with free speech rights amid intense student debate and protests. Many schools that tolerated protests and other disruptions for months are now doling out more heavy-handed discipline.” Read More at AP News
Armed teachers
“State legislators in Tennessee passed a bill Tuesday allowing K-12 teachers and school staff to be armed. Educators who seek to bring a handgun on school grounds will be subject to certain conditions, according to a summary of the bill. They will be required to get an enhanced carry permit, complete a background check and undergo dozens of hours of training, among other requirements. The bill now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Bill Lee for his signature. The contentious debate on arming teachers comes as gun violence remains the leading cause of death for kids in America. This year alone, 436 children under 18 have been killed in gun violence, according to the Gun Violence Archive.” [CNN]
The U.S. is drafting sanctions on Chinese banks aiding the Russian war effort, according to people familiar with the matter.
“The banks serve as key intermediaries for commercial exports to Moscow, handling payments and providing client companies credit for trade transactions. Beijing has heeded Western warnings not to send arms to Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine war. But China is now Moscow’s primary supplier of circuitry, aircraft parts, machines and machine tools, which U.S. officials say has allowed Russia to rebuild its military industrial capacity. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Beijing, officials are counting on the threat of banks losing access to the dollar and the risk of roiling trade ties with Europe to persuade China to change tack.” [Wall Street Journal]
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom in Moscow today. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
“A Russian court rejected Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich's latest appeal, meaning he will remain imprisoned at least until this summer. Gershkovich has been held for over a year on charges for which the Russian government has presented no evidence.” Go deeper. [Axios]
London Seals Rwanda Deal
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in London on April 22 regarding the new Rwanda deportation bill.Toby Melville/AFP via Getty Images
“Five migrants, including a child, died on Tuesday while trying to cross the English Channel to Britain—mere hours after the U.K. Parliament passed controversial legislation that allows London to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
‘We introduced the Rwanda bill to deter vulnerable migrants from making perilous crossings and break the business model of the criminal gangs who exploit them,’ British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, pointing to Tuesday’s deaths as ‘what tragically happens’ when migration goes unchecked. More than 6,000 people—many in small, packed boats—have migrated to Britain this year via the English Channel.
Under the so-called Safety of Rwanda Bill, anyone who arrived ‘illegally’ in Britain after Jan. 1, 2022—that is, asylum-seekers who came without authorization from another safe country, essentially meaning those who arrived by dinghy via the English Channel—will be sent to the Rwandan capital of Kigali, where they will either be granted asylum and resettled in Rwanda or be sent to a third country. According to the BBC, 52,000 people in Britain meet those criteria. Sunak said the first flights will depart in 10 to 12 weeks, with multiple flights occurring each month. He did not specify how many flights were planned nor for how many migrants.
The law compels British judges to consider Rwanda ‘a safe country’ and gives ministers the power to ignore future international court rulings that may go against the measure. There are no provisions in place to amend the law if conditions change in Kigali. Although Rwanda is considered one of Africa’s most stable countries, some regional experts have accused President Paul Kagame of suppressing political dissent and other authoritarian practices.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said Kigali is ‘pleased’ with the U.K. Parliament’s decision and looks ‘forward to welcoming those relocated to Kigali.’
Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson first introduced the Rwanda bill in April 2022, only for the European Court of Human Rights to block it two months later. Britain’s Supreme Court then ruled in November 2023 that Rwanda was not a safe country for migrants to be transported to, arguing that they risked being sent back to their countries of origin. The court pointed to evidence of Rwanda’s poor human rights record as well as ‘serious and systematic defects’ in how it processes asylum claims. It also noted that in 2021, the U.K. government itself criticized Rwanda for ‘extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture.’
Still, Sunak pushed for the law’s passage, hoping to appease his divided Conservative Party ahead of general elections scheduled for no later than January 2025. The opposition Labour Party vowed to scrap the law if it takes power. ‘No foreign court will stop us from getting flights off,’ Sunak said.
Yet, analysts expect the Rwanda bill to face numerous legal hurdles, both from individuals slated for deportation and rights groups. Amnesty International U.K. said the plan ‘takes a hatchet to international legal protections for some of the most vulnerable people in the world,’ and United Nations special rapporteurs warned airlines that they could be ‘complicit in violating internationally protected human rights and court orders’ if they conduct the flights.” [Foreign Policy]
“Torrential flooding. Continued heavy rains since Friday have caused massive flooding and prompted Chinese authorities to raise alarms in the southern province of Guangdong on Tuesday to the highest level in a four-tier rainstorm warning system. Floods of this magnitude usually don’t occur in the region until late June. Yet over the past week, flash floods have killed at least four people and forced more than 110,000 others to evacuate. At least 25,000 Chinese have been displaced to emergency shelters, and another 10 people remain missing. State media called the crisis a ‘once in a century’ flood, and local officials warned of more to come.
This year, Guangdong has already recorded the highest monthly rainfall since record-keeping began in 1959, with at least 44 rivers in the Pearl River basin swelling above the warning line. According to a United Nations report published on Tuesday, Asia was the continent most affected by climate and weather events in 2023. ‘Floods were the leading cause of death in reported events in 2023 by a substantial margin,’ the World Meteorological Organization said, recording more than 2,000 people killed and another 9 million people directly impacted.” [Foreign Policy]
“Demarcation in progress. Armenia and Azerbaijan installed their first border marker on Tuesday as part of an agreement that U.S. and European Union diplomats are calling an important step toward peace. As part of the deal, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed to give Baku four abandoned villages that Armenian forces took from Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Several small sections of a vital trade highway to Georgia may also be handed over.
‘Beyond the internationally recognized borders, Armenia has no aspirations, no claims, and we hope that in the border delimitation process, the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia will be restored,’ Pashinyan said.
Last September, Azerbaijani troops recaptured the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists in a one-day lightning offensive. Since then, several countries have tried to mediate talks between the two nations—without success. Although foreign officials praised the start of demarcation, Armenians near the settlements protested the decision, arguing that they are now on the front lines and could become isolated from the rest of the country.” [Foreign Policy]
“Suspended services. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry announced plans on Tuesday to suspend consular services for men of military fighting age who are living abroad. Thousands of Ukrainian men ages 18 to 60 have left Ukraine either to avoid the draft in Kyiv’s war against Russia or for other purposes, such as work or school. Ukrainian martial law bans all men aged 18 and over from leaving the country. Although the announcement did not specify which consular services would be impacted, it did say the new restrictions ‘do not affect the provision of consular assistance in emergency situations with Ukrainian citizens abroad.’
Ukrainian officials fear that a full-scale Russian offensive could occur in the next few weeks, with Ukrainian troops reportedly involved in 86 combat situations on Monday alone. To prepare for such an assault, President Volodymyr Zelensky lowered the age of conscription from 27 to 25 earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote late Tuesday or Wednesday on whether to approve a $95 billion emergency spending package, $61 billion of which would go toward supporting Ukraine’s war effort. The bill also provides $26 billion in aid to Israel and humanitarian relief to war zones, such as Gaza, as well as $8 billion to counter China in the Indo-Pacific, specifically regarding Taiwan. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to approve the legislation and is already preparing another aid package for Kyiv worth around $1 billion, CNN reported.” [Foreign Policy]
“Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape criticized Biden on Sunday for implying that ‘cannibals’ may have eaten the U.S. president’s late uncle after he was shot down over the area during World War II. ‘President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such,’ Marape said. U.S. military records say nothing about Biden’s relative being shot down or eaten, only that the plane was forced to ‘ditch in the ocean’ off the northern coast of New Guinea for unknown reasons and that ‘[t]hree men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash.’ A fourth crew member survived the crash and was rescued by a passing barge.” [Foreign Policy]
“Europe’s leaders aren’t just discussing the risk of a new war on the continent. They’re preparing for it.
Hardly a day goes by without a fresh warning about the need to reinforce defenses in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military ambitions.
While Putin insists he has no intention of attacking states in Europe, he said the same thing before invading Ukraine.
That war has transformed the security landscape facing the European Union and NATO, making what seemed unimaginable a few years ago appear quite plausible today.
It’s got Europe ramping up defense spending and tackling the thorny issue of how to pay for it.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke of putting the UK’s defense industry on “a war footing” during a visit yesterday to Poland, whose invasion by Nazi Germany sparked British entry into World War II.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is warning that Europe is again living in a “pre-war” situation.
French President Emmanuel Macron says Europe faces an “existential” risk and refuses to rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, an idea Germany quickly dismissed.
The jitters are provoking governments to look at the vulnerability of their energy infrastructure, a point driven home by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power system.
Take Sweden, NATO’s newest member. As Lars Paulsson and Niclas Rolander write, it’s upgrading its civil defenses and focusing on how to protect its energy supply — a mix of nuclear, hydro and wind.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen holds up Finland as a model. Bordering Russia, it maintains a robust civil-defense infrastructure to respond to a national emergency.
War still seems an abstract prospect for many Europeans, who’ve grown comfortable on decades of peace after their continent was laid to waste in the 1940s.
It’s no longer a hypothetical question for their leaders.” — Karl Maier [Bloomberg]
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Tusk and Sunak at the Armourd Brigade barracks yesterday in Warsaw. Photographer: Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg
“Beijing’s claims to the energy riches under the South China Sea — based on a vague 1947 map — were rejected by a United Nations-backed tribunal in 2016. But as Philip Heijmans reports, President Xi Jinping dismissed the ruling, and escalating tensions in the disputed waters point to an uncomfortable truth for nations like Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as the US: In this standoff, China is winning.” [Bloomberg]
WATCH: Tensions are escalating in the South China Sea. Source: Bloomberg
“Presidential frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum is strengthening her advantage in the race to be Mexico’s next leader. Three new surveys added to the Bloomberg Poll Tracker show her 28.6 points ahead of the main opposition rival, Xóchitl Gálvez.” [Bloomberg]
“President Nicolás Maduro said the UN’s human rights workers he expelled more than two months ago can return to Venezuela during a fourth visit from the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan.” [Bloomberg]
The Federal Trade Commission
PHOTO: ALYSSA SCHUKAR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The FTC banned employers from using noncompete contracts to prevent most workers from joining rival firms.
“The measure, approved by the agency’s Democratic majority on a 3-to-2 vote, marks the first time in more than 50 years that FTC officials have issued a regulation to mandate an economywide change in how companies compete. The Biden administration pushed for a regulatory assault on noncompetes in 2021, when the White House issued a blueprint for stricter enforcement of antitrust laws. The FTC’s final rule becomes effective in four months. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to sue the agency as soon as Wednesday over the rule. The suit would argue that the FTC lacks the legal authority to issue the rule and would ask a federal court to invalidate it, Chamber officials said this week.” [Wall Street Journal]
Good morning. We’re covering TikTok’s pro-China tilt —
TikToking. Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
A turnabout
“The debate over TikTok has shifted very quickly. Just a few months ago, it seemed unlikely that the U.S. government would force ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell it. The platform is popular, and Congress rarely passes legislation aimed at a single company.
Yet a bipartisan TikTok bill — packaged with aid for Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel and Palestinians — is now on its way to becoming law. Late last night, the Senate passed the measure, 79 to 18, three days after the House passed it, 360 to 58. President Biden said he would sign it today. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok within 12 months, it will be banned in the United States.
What explains the turnabout?
I have asked that question of policymakers and their aides in recent weeks and heard a similar answer from many. Parts of the debate over TikTok — about the overall benefits and drawbacks of social media, for instance — are complicated, and they would not justify the forced sale of a single company, the policymakers say. But at least one problem with TikTok falls into a different category.
It has become a leading source of information in this country. About one-third of Americans under 30 regularly get their news from it. TikTok is also owned by a company based in the leading global rival of the United States. And that rival, especially under President Xi Jinping, treats private companies as extensions of the state. ‘This is a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese government,’ Christopher Wray, the director of the F.B.I., has told Congress.
When you think about the issue in these terms, you realize there may be no other situation in the world that resembles China’s control of TikTok. American law has long restricted foreign ownership of television or radio stations, even by companies based in friendly countries. ‘Limits on foreign ownership have been a part of federal communications policy for more than a century,’ the legal scholar Zephyr Teachout explained in The Atlantic.
The same is true in other countries. India doesn’t allow Pakistan to own a leading Indian publication, and vice versa. China, for its part, bars access not only to American publications but also to Facebook, Instagram and other apps.
TikTok as propaganda
Already, there is evidence that China uses TikTok as a propaganda tool.
Posts related to subjects that the Chinese government wants to suppress — like Hong Kong protests and Tibet — are strangely missing from the platform, according to a recent report by two research groups. The same is true about sensitive subjects for Russia and Iran, countries that are increasingly allied with China.
Consider this data from the report:
Source: Network Contagion Research Institute | Actual hashtags do not include spaces. Black Lives Matter hashtag is #BLM. | By The New York Times
The report also found a wealth of hashtags promoting independence for Kashmir, a region of India where the Chinese and Indian militaries have had recent skirmishes. A separate Wall Street Journal analysis, focused on the war in Gaza, found evidence that TikTok was promoting extreme content, especially against Israel. (China has generally sided with Hamas.)
Adding to this circumstantial evidence is a lawsuit from a former ByteDance executive who claimed that its Beijing offices included a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members who monitored ‘how the company advanced core Communist values.’
Many members of Congress and national security experts find these details unnerving. ‘You’re placing the control of information — like what information America’s youth gets — in the hands of America’s foremost adversary,’ Mike Gallagher, a House Republican from Wisconsin, told Jane Coaston of Times Opinion. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, has called Chinese ownership of TikTok ‘an unprecedented threat to American security and to our democracy.’
In response, TikTok denies that China’s government influences its algorithm and has called the outside analyses of its content misleading. ‘Comparing hashtags is an inaccurate reflection of on-platform activity,’ Alex Haurek, a TikTok spokesman, told me.
I find the company’s defense too vague to be persuasive. It doesn’t offer a logical explanation for the huge gaps by subject matter and boils down to: Trust us. Doing so would be easier if the company were more transparent. Instead, shortly after the publication of the report comparing TikTok and Instagram, TikTok altered the search tool that the analysts had used, making future research harder, as my colleague Sapna Maheshwari reported.
The move resembled a classic strategy of authoritarian governments: burying inconvenient information.
The coming fight
The fight over TikTok won’t end even when Biden signs the bill. Chinese officials have signaled that they will not allow ByteDance to sell TikTok, and ByteDance plans to fight the law in court. It will have some American allies, too.
On the political left, groups like the A.C.L.U. say that the TikTok bill violates the First Amendment. (You can read the A.C.L.U.’s argument here.) On the right, Jeff Yass, who’s both a TikTok investor and a major Republican campaign donor, is leading the fight against the bill. He is also a former board member at the Cato Institute, which has become a prominent TikTok defender. Yass may be the person who convinced Donald Trump to reverse his position and oppose the bill.
These opponents hope to use TikTok’s popularity among younger Americans to create a backlash in coming weeks. And they may have some success. But they are in a much weaker position than they were a few months ago.
As Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, told me, ‘The fears that TikTok gives China too much of a way into the U.S. seem to be overriding any political concerns.’ There is a long history of members of Congress overcoming partisan divisions to address what they see as a national security threat. Even in today’s polarized atmosphere, it can still happen.
For more
Under the proposed law, ByteDance will have to sell TikTok within 270 days. It will probably have a hard time finding a buyer with enough money.
Read more about the U.S. push to force a sale of TikTok.” [New York Times]
Restoring sight could soon be possible.
“How? Several companies are experimenting with a type of gene therapy called optogenetics. They’re trying to create a bionic eye that can restore sight in visually impaired people.
The timeline: Clinical trials of one product — the Science Eye — are set to begin in the next 18 months. This technology could be on the market in the next five years.”
Read this story at Washington Post
WNBA's staying power
WNBA executive Keia Clarke speaks during the TN50: Business of Women's Sports Summit today. Photo: Axios and Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment.
“Brands will be missing out if they don't understand that the rise of women's sports is here to stay, New York Liberty CEO Keia Clarke said today at the TN50: Business of Women's Sports Summit.
‘This is the tipping point. It's for the long haul now and it's our job to really showcase the value and longevity,’ Clarke said at the event produced by Axios and Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment.
Why it matters: Thanks to Caitlin Clark's arrival, the WNBA is under pressure to capitalize financially as it heads into arguably the most anticipated season in its 28-year history — and a new media-rights deal.”
Go deeper. [Axios]
“A full "pink" moon rose in the evening sky Tuesday, and it will appear full for several nights.” [USA Today]
April's Pink Moon seen in Paris, France, April 23, 2024.
Getty
“Lives Lived: Phyllis Pressman began working at Barneys so she could spend more time with her husband, who had taken over the store from his father. She created Chelsea Passage, the store’s home goods bazaar, a pivot point in Barneys’ evolution from a discount men’s wear store to an elite lifestyle behemoth. She died at 95.” [New York Times]