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Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories 

NEW YORK — For the second day in a row, New York City Mayor Eric Adams laced into the federal government and the governor of Colorado, a fellow Democrat, over busloads of asylum seekers who continue to arrive at the city’s doorstep.

“At one time we had to deal with Republican governors sending migrants to New York,” Adams said Wednesday during an unrelated press conference. “Now we’re dealing with Democratic governors sending migrants to New York. This is just unfair.”

A day earlier, Adams had criticized Governor Jared Polis for sending asylum seekers to places like Chicago and New York. The latter has already seen an influx of more than 30,000 migrants since the spring.

Shortly afterward, in an interview with POLITICO, the Colorado governor said that around 70 percent of migrants arriving in Denver have final destinations elsewhere in the country, including New York, and that his office was working with Denver officials to help them on their way.

The process has been going on for weeks, he added, but last month’s winter storm caused a backlog of asylum seekers who have been stuck in the Mile High City and only now able to leave.

How many people have traveled from Denver to the five boroughs is unclear. The Colorado governor’s office was not able to provide POLITICO with numbers. And while the mayor spoke with his counterpart in Denver last week, City Hall Spokesperson Fabien Levy said Adams only learned about the extent of the arrivals Monday during a call with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

New York City has a similar program to send asylum seekers to other cities if their final destination is elsewhere. Levy said the Adams administration attempts to connect travelers to organizations, family members or services on the other end, but that some of the arrivals from Colorado have ended up in the New York City shelter system.

The influx of asylum seekers crossing the southern border intensified toward the end of the year as a Trump-era policy known as Title 42 — which allowed the federal government to expel migrants as Covid-19 precaution — was expected to expire. The Supreme Court, however, blocked that expiration in a ruling last week.

Regardless, the strain on the social safety nets of cities around the country has begun to sow divisions within the Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, Lightfoot called Colorado’s move “inhumane” — an assessment Adams said he shared.

“You’re damn right I [agree],” he said during Wednesday’s press conference. “For the governor of Colorado to say that I’m going to push the problem to the city — and didn’t even notify us … this is just unacceptable.”

A spokesperson for Polis, however, said that Colorado was honoring the wishes of asylum seekers who often have been traveling for months. And while officials in Denver have made it clear that migrants are welcome to say, many are looking to go elsewhere.

“If the mayor is insinuating that people are being ‘sent’ like Republican governors have been doing, that is simply incorrect,” the governor’s spokesperson Conor Cahill said in a statement. “We respect the agency and authority of migrants to make their own decisions about where they are going.”

“That being said,” he added,” we share the mayor’s passion for federal immigration reform and look forward to partnering with him to continue urging Congress and the White House to get something done immediately.”

Indeed, despite their disagreements about busing, all three leaders expressed frustration at a lack of federal coordination from lawmakers and the Biden Administration.

“Why don’t you tell the federal government to fix this mess they’ve created?” Adams said Wednesday, addressing critics of his administration. “It’s unacceptable and I’m not going to sit back and allow New Yorkers to carry the burden of a man-made crisis. This must be fixed.”

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Just In | The Hill 

Twitter said it’s planning to lift its ban on political ads and focus more on “caused-based” advertising. 

In other news, SpaceX kicked off the year with its first rocket launch. We’ll also take a peek at what’s to come in the tech world at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. Subscribe here.

Twitter to scale back ban on political ads 

Twitter on Tuesday announced plans to scale back its ban on political ads and allow more “cause-based” advertising on the platform.  

“We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics. Today, we’re relaxing our ads policy for cause-based ads in the US. We also plan to expand the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks,” the company’s safety team tweeted.   

“Moving forward, we will align our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets,” Twitter said.  

The social media platform banned all political ads in 2019, a move championed by Twitter co-founder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey.  

Dorsey said at the time that paying to increase the reach of political messages on the platform can make the decision to follow an account or retweet a post “compromised by money.” 

Read more here. 

First launch of 2023

On the heels of a record-breaking year, SpaceX kicked off the new year with its first rocket launch and landing of 2023. If Elon Musk has his way, this would be the first of nearly 100 launches for the rocket company this year, setting the pace for an ambitious year for private space companies.  

A sooty Falcon 9 booster leapt off its launch pad at Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:56 a.m. EST on Tuesday, followed up by the rocket’s first stage returning to Earth just eight minutes later. 

The flight, which was the 15th for this particular booster, ferried 114 small satellites into space as part of SpaceX’s 6th dedicated rideshare mission, called Transporter-6.

Nearly an hour later, those passengers — a bevy of small satellites and small orbital transfer vehicles that carried satellites for a later deployment into different orbits — began to separate from the rocket’s upper stage.  

The whole process, a complex orbital ballet of satellites shooting into space in perfect sequence, took more than half an hour to complete.

The mission is the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company’s sixth dedicated rideshare mission to date, and SpaceX announced during the live broadcast that it plans to launch at least three of these missions this year.

The company also plans to offer rideshare opportunities on its Starlink launches, which it says averages one a week. 

Read more here.

A PEEK AT WHAT’S TO COME FOR TECH 

We’re at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, featuring new products and innovations to come as well as business leaders, regulators and policymakers discussing the state of the tech industry and the challenges ahead.

At an unveiling of some exhibitors Tuesday evening, we saw products ranging from Atmos Gear’s new electric inline skates (which The Hill’s on-the-ground reporter Rebecca Klar did not venture to test out) and Prinker’s temporary tattoo printer (which Rebecca did try).

There’s a big focus on the metaverse this year — and defining what the metaverse even means.

Steve Koenig, vice president of research with the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organizes the trade show, said the metaverse is “closer than you think,” and said metaverse technology goes beyond the immersive virtual reality worlds to encompass services that blend the physical and virtual worlds.

That was a common theme throughout discussions Wednesday, too. During a panel, Cathy Hackl, chief metaverse officer and founder at consulting firm Journey, said the metaverse doesn’t equal VR or “one specific company.” She said beyond the gaming world, the fashion industry is also leading the way in incorporating metaverse tech.

“I wholeheartedly believe the world’s next Coco Chanel is a 10-year-old girl designing skins on Roblox,” she said.

Other panelists compared the need for companies to develop metaverse and Web 3 strategies to how they approached creating an online presence with the rise of the internet two decades ago. Today, asking someone about their “Web 3 strategy” is akin to asking someone “what’s your internet strategy” in 1994, said Adam Friedman, an executive at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

“Everyone is going to have one, you may just not realize it,” he said.  

What’s to come?: Later this week we will hear from CISA Director Jen Easterly about cybersecurity preparedness and senators about federal tech priorities for the 118th Congress.

SALESFORCE EXPECTED TO LAY OFF 10 PERCENT OF STAFF 

The business software giant Salesforce is set to lay off 10 percent of its workforce, nearly 8,000 employees, and cut back its office spaces, according to a letter to employees on Wednesday citing concerns about the direction of the economy. 

“The environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions,” the company’s chief executive officer, Marc Benioff, said in the letter.

The decision by Salesforce is the latest in a string of moves by tech companies to turn to layoffs amid fears of inflation and a looming recession. In November, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced it would lay off 11,000 employees. In the same month, HP said it planned up to 6,000 layoffs over the next three years.

It was also reported in November that Amazon was planning to lay off as many as 10,000 workers, but the company says it has not determined the final number of positions that will be affected 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Semi-protecting semiconductors poses a risk to national security 

Notable links from around the web:  

Tom Zhu: Elon Musk’s right-hand man at Tesla (CNN / Laura He) 

Drone advances in Ukraine could bring dawn of killer robots (The Associated Press / Frank Bajak and Hanna Arhirova)

One more thing: Coinbase to pay $100M settlement

The U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase reached a $100 million settlement with New York regulators to resolve an investigation that found the company was “vulnerable to serious criminal conduct,” according to a press release published Wednesday.  

New York Superintendent of Financial Services Adrienne A. Harris announced in the press release that Coinbase will pay a $50 million penalty to New York for violating virtual currency, money transmitter, transaction monitoring and cybersecurity regulations.

These violations made the platform susceptible to fraud, possible money laundering, suspected activity related to child sexual abuse material and potential narcotics trafficking, according to the release. 

Coinbase will also invest an additional $50 million to improve its compliance program as a part of the settlement.  

Read more here. 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.

​Overnight Technology, Policy, Technology, CES, Las Vegas Read More 

Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories 

Ukraine is swatting away as many Iranian-made drones as Russia can throw at its infrastructure sites, knocking down as many as 80 air vehicles over Kyiv during Russia’s surprise New Year’s Eve blitz alone, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week.

So how did they do it? According to Ukrainian officials and advisers to Kyiv who spoke to POLITICO, much of it is thanks to the German-made Gepard system, a vehicle that can send dual streams of 35mm rounds ripping into the sky to hit the drones. Berlin has sent 30 Gepard vehicles to Ukraine over the past year, with seven more on the way this year.

The weapon, essentially an anti-aircraft gun that sits atop a tracked vehicle, provides Ukraine with a mobile air defense system that has played a key role in destroying Russian drones and missiles as the Kremlin continues to send waves of both at power stations and electrical generating plants. The aerial assaults have plunged Kyiv and other cities into darkness and shut off the heat for tens of thousands of civilians forced to shiver through the winter.

Since September, Ukrainian air defenses have destroyed 540 Iranian kamikaze drones, according to Yurii Ihnat, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force. The Gepard “is effective against these UAVs, as well as against cruise missiles,” he added, “but this weaponry, which is intended for air defense of the Ground Forces, is not enough.”

Given the volume of drone and missile threats, Ukrainian forces still have to use a wide range of expensive anti-aircraft missile systems, both older Soviet-era weapons as well as newer radar systems and missile launchers sent by Western allies.

While U.S. officials can’t confirm the huge number of downed drones, “we don’t have any reason to not believe what they say,” one Defense Department official who requested anonymity to discuss the issue said. “But we have to defer to them, since we can’t be there and see it for ourselves or account for it for ourselves.”

While the Gepard has proven exceptionally effective, problems loom on the horizon.

Many of the rounds for the vehicles’ two guns were manufactured in Switzerland, and the government there has refused to allow Germany to re-export those rounds to Ukraine, citing its neutral status.

German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht wrote to the Swiss government in October asking to send 12,400 rounds of Swiss-made ammunition to Ukraine, a request that was rejected. In December, German manufacturer Rheinmetall said it would open a new production line to start making 35mm ammunition, though the first rounds won’t be available until later this year.

That lack of domestic industrial capacity has increasingly alarmed Western governments since the start of the war. As a result, the U.S. and its European allies are hurriedly working to identify munitions they might be able to pull out of older stockpiles and considering ways to begin pooling resources as the war in Ukraine continues to drain warehouses across NATO.

In Washington, closed-door talks have begun about pulling Cold War-era munitions out of bunkers and upgrading them enough to be useful to Kyiv, according to one person familiar with the discussions. One such program has already started, with missiles for long-retired U.S.-made HAWK air defense systems slated to get the necessary updates to be sent to the fight.

The HAWK missiles would be paired with several launchers Spain has pledged to send Ukraine. The Hawk is still in use in Europe and elsewhere, but was phased out by the U.S. Army in the early 1990s in favor of the Patriot system, meaning the existing missiles in American warehouses need to be refurbished.

Those ‘90s retirements were part of a wider trend across the NATO alliance that saw a slowdown in production on many weapons and cuts to defense spending as Europe rushed to embrace the peace dividend widely assumed to come with the end of the Soviet Union.

The U.S. is also looking for ways to choke off the supply of Iranian drones at the source.

“We are looking at ways to target Iranian UAV production through sanctions, export controls, and talking to private companies whose parts have been used in the production,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “We are assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to technologies used in drones.”

Lara Seligman contributed to this report

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