#state-department

#state-department

The US State Department identified a rapidly growing and troubling trend of forced labor as a result of cyber scam operations, as it launched its annual human trafficking report, US Ambassador at Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Cindy Dyer said Thursday.Traffickers have leveraged pandemic-related economic hardships, increased global youth unemployment, and international travel restrictions to exploit thousands of adults and children in a multi-billion dollar industry over the last two years in these schemes, she said at a State Department briefing.

The big cat known as P-22, who eked out his existence in Griffith Park for over 10 years, suffered from kidney disease, arthritis and other chronic conditions before his death in December, according to the final results of a necropsy released Wednesday.P-22 was euthanized after state wildlife officials captured him and found he was suffering from several long-term health problems as well as injuries from being hit by a car.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay delivers a speech Monday at the group's headquarters in Paris to announce the United States' request to resume membership in the organization.Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images The U.S. may soon rejoin UNESCO several years after exiting the body, in part because of what the Trump administration called a bias against Israel.

Yesterday morning, as I left my home and began my daily walk to the bus for the penultimate day of the 2022-23 school year, the sun caught my eye.Rather than the shining ball of bright light that it normally is, it appeared as an orange disk that, while still too bright to look at directly, did not dominate the morning sky the way it typically does.

(Carlos Gauna / Cal State Long Beach)

If you swam off the coast of Santa Barbara or San Diego recently, chances are you had company.You just may not have noticed.A new study from Cal State Long Beach found that juvenile white sharks are more common at some California beaches than previously thought.

(California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

A wild wolverine was spotted multiple times in California last month, only the second specimen to be verified by experts in the past century, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.Over a two-week period in May, the wolverine was reported twice in Inyo National Forest and once in Yosemite National Park.

Israeli military prosecutors will not pursue criminal charges against soldiers who detained and gagged a 78-year-old Palestinian American man and then left him unconscious in a building site shortly before he was pronounced dead.The Israeli Army announced on Tuesday that soldiers involved in the detention of the man, Omar Assad, 78, during an early-morning operation in January 2022 in a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would only face internal disciplinary measures.

A federal judge in Florida sentenced a businessman and former drug trafficker with Haitian and Chilean citizenship to life in prison on Friday for his role in the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise of Haiti.Rodolphe Jaar is the first person to be convicted and sentenced in what federal prosecutors have described as a sprawling conspiracy to murder the Haitian leader and seize power, aided by Haitian officials, Colombian mercenaries and illegal arms shipments from the United States.

A Florida fifth-grade teacher is under investigation by the state Board of Education after screening a Disney movie for her students.The film in question, Strange World, is a sci-fi story featuring a diverse cast of animated characters, one of whom happens to be gay.A minor subplot of the film refers to this character having a crush on another character of the same sex.

An American citizen was arrested in Russia and was being detained in Moscow, the U.S. State Department said on Sunday.The man was accused of drug trafficking, according to Russian state media.The press service for a court in Moscow's Khamovniki district told the Interfax news agency that the man was an ex-paratrooper and musician and accused him of organizing a drug-dealing business involving young people.

Henry Kissinger celebrated his 100th birthday on May 27, proving once again his remarkable staying power as one of America's most well-known and influential foreign policy players in modern times.Presidents and other leaders of U.S. national security seek his counsel even today.But his Machiavellian legacy, which continues to shape America's foreign policy, is nothing to celebrate, and we continue to pay a price for it.

This week in Washington IP news, Congress is having a relatively quiet week, but the House will further discuss the impact of Pharmacy Benefit Managers on patients and the pharmaceutical industry.Elsewhere the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is holding an event offering guidance on how women entrepreneurs can seek startup capital.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Wednesday that the U.S. government remained intensely engaged in efforts to get Moscow to free Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been held for more than a month on espionage charges that his employer and American officials vehemently deny.

The first US-led effort to evacuate private American citizens from the conflict in Sudan was completed Saturday, with a convoy organized by the US government reaching Port Sudan after a long journey from Khartoum.A U.S. government-organized convoy carrying U.S citizens, locally employed staff, and nationals from allied and partner countries arrived at Port Sudan on April 29, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Turkey's parliament has approved a bill to allow Finland to join Nato, clearing the way for Helsinki to join the western defence alliance as war rages in Ukraine.The Turkish parliament was the last among the 30 members of the alliance to ratify Finland's membership, after Hungary's legislature approved a similar bill this week.

The ominous, sometimes orange haze that has been lingering over New York City since Monday is likely to stick around until the weekendas the smoke from the Canadian wildfires continue to envelop the five boroughs.The state Department of Environmental Conservation issued a statement Wednesday forecasting that air quality in New York City will be at Unhealthy levels through 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

As the city continues to be shrouded in a smoke-filled haze from Canadian wildfires, Mayor Eric Adams and senior administration officials Wednesday advised New Yorkers to stay indoors as much as possible, particularly those with underlying health conditions.At 10 p.m. Tuesday night the city's air quality index hit 218, a level considered to be very unhealthy, Adams and his team said during a Wednesday morning press briefing at New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM) headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn.

As the war enters its 451st day, we take a look at the main developments.Here is the situation as it stands on Saturday, May 20, 2023.Ukrainian air defences repelled another Russian air attack on the capital Kyiv and other locations, destroying 19 drones and missiles out of 28 launched, the Ukrainian military said.

Another bill signed the same day requires trans adults to get permission from state boards for gender-affirming care.People participate in the 15th annual Miami Beach Pride Celebration parade on April 16, 2023 in Miami Beach, Florida.Joe Raedle / Getty Images While gleefully tossing Sharpies into a crowd at an evangelical school on Wednesday, far right Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a series of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bills, including one horrifying bill that allows the state to temporarily take trans children away from their families if they're receiving or are planning to receive gender-affirming care.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A Woodland Hills pet owner got more than she bargained for early Friday morning when a coyote breezed through the dog door and unnerved her cat.Around 4 a.m.Friday, homeowner Mia Shoshan said her brother was awakened by the sound of the dog door opening, although the family's two small dogs were with them, she told KTLA.

Father George Kovalenko gives a eulogy at Christopher James Campbell's funeral in Kyiv, Ukraine on May 5, 2023.Julian Hayda/NPR KYIV, Ukraine When Christopher James Campbell dropped out of school, sold his belongings and moved to Ukraine in the spring of 2022, his loved ones weren't sure why."He would always say, 'I feel like I have a unique ability to help.

(California Department of Water Resources)

The Kern River is swollen with so much runoff from the epic Sierra Nevada snowpack that state water officials have decided to open a rarely used relief valve, diverting floodwaters into the California Aqueduct to be used as drinking water in Southern California.

The Oakland Unified School District has settled a week-long strike with its teachers union a deal that will boost pay a total of $70 million.But as the administration figures out how to pay for those raises, could it also face stiff fines for the time its 34,000 students went without teachers?District officials had no answers early this week, but the experience of another large Northern California school district's lengthy strike last year is sobering: The Sacramento City Unified School District expects to be hit with a hefty $47 million in penalties after a two-week strike left it short of the state's required 180-day instruction time.

A headline about a new Washington state law claimed that if parents there don't agree to gender-transition surgery for their children, their children could be taken away."Washington Democrat Governor Inslee signs controversial bill allowing government to take away minors from parents if they refuse to agree to gender transition surgery," read the headline, referring to Gov. Jay Inslee, on The Gateway Pundit.

Washington state's Democratic governor signed into law this week a bill protecting young people seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care.S.B. 5599 allows minors seeking legal reproductive or gender-affirming health care to remain in licensed youth shelters without notifying their parents.Previously, shelters were required to contact a minor's parents within 72 hours if they turned up at the shelter, unless they were being abused or neglected.

The US State Department will no longer issue assignment restrictions as a condition of granting security clearance, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced to the department's workforce on Wednesday in a memo obtained by CNN.The change comes after an intensive review of the practice, which was perceived as discriminatory by diplomats and Democratic lawmakers, particularly because the limits appeared to fall disproportionately on employees with Asian American and Pacific Islander backgrounds.

"I have a lot of Afghan veterans on this committee, and in fairness to them, I believe that they should be able to see the dissent cable as well - not just me and the ranking member," he said."If we can work out this last step, then I think we've resolved a litigation fight in the courts and [achieved] a good result for our veterans."

The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, electronically transmitted a subpoena to the State Department on Tuesday morning for a dissent cable written by US diplomats serving in Afghanistan before the US withdrawal from the country, according to a committee aide.

Volkswagen's annual shareholder meeting was briefly disrupted Wednesday by protests over the company's factory in China's Xinjiang province, with a shouting, topless activist interrupting the speech by CEO Oliver Blume before she was hustled away by security personnel.Additionally a cake-like object was thrown during a speech by board chairman Hans-Dieter Poetsch, apparently in the direction of board member Wolfgang Porsche, who represents his family's shareholding in the company, the dpa agency reported.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The expiration of the national COVID-19 public health emergency Thursday evening will mean the end of free at-home tests for some, though many Californians will still be able to get their hands on screening kits.At the end of the scheduled May 11 sunset date, a federal rule requiring insurers to reimburse policyholders for the cost of up to eight at-home COVID tests per month will end.

ALBANY - Dr. James McDonald, an upstate New York native, was nominated Friday by Gov. Hochul to lead the state Health Department.McDonald has been serving as the acting commissioner of the department since Dr. Mary Bassett stepped down at the beginning of the year to resume her previous position with the Harvard Chan School of Public Health in Massachusetts.

ALBANY - Dr. James McDonald, an upstate New York native, was nominated Friday by Gov. Hochul to lead the state Health Department.McDonald has been serving as the acting commissioner of the department since Dr. Mary Bassett stepped down at the beginning of the year to resume her previous position with the Harvard Chan School of Public Health in Massachusetts.