Lawmakers remember journalist Barbara Walters as a ‘trailblazer,’ ‘glass ceiling shatterer’

Just In | The Hill 

Lawmakers are praising journalist Barbara Walters and remembering her as a “trailblazer” and “glass ceiling shatterer” following her death on Friday. 

Walters repeatedly broke barriers throughout her career that spanned more than half a century, becoming the first woman to co-host a news program when she started as an anchor for The Today Show and the first woman to co-host a network evening news program when she joined ABC Evening News. 

She interviewed every sitting president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, world leaders like Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and celebrities like Michael Jackson. 

ABC News confirmed Walters death on Friday at the age of 93. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it was her “privilege” to sit down with Walters on multiple occasions and see her “masterful” work firsthand. 

“Barbara Walters was a trailblazer and an icon: transforming television journalism with her intellect and integrity, courage and poise,” she said. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted that many of Walters’s interviews were “unforgettable” and that she broke a glass ceiling for many women and girls. He said Walters always wanted to get the truth. 

Former President Trump also praised Walters, saying in a Truth Social post that she was the “greatest of them all, by far.” Walters interviewed Trump on multiple occasions, including in 2015 while he was running for president. 

“I knew her well, was interviewed by her many times, and there was nobody like the legendary Barbara Walters – And never will be!” he said. 

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) tweeted that Walters always drew the audience into her interviews and was “quintessential” in her job. 

“Many younger women came of age watching Barbara Walters torpedo her way into the hearts and minds of Americans as a pioneering woman in the man’s world of journalism,” she said. 

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said Walters will be remembered as a “fearless trailblazer who shattered the glass ceiling & paved the way for women in journalism.”

​In The Know, Blogs, House, Senate, Barbara Lee, Barbara Walters, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Sheila Jackson Lee Read More 

NOAA satellite captures Earth mosaic showing stunning panoramic view

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released the first image from its NOAA-21 Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument

The recently-launched satellite captured a stunning panoramic view of the Earth, created from swaths of data captured throughout the full globe over a period of 24 hours between Dec. 5 and Dec. 6. 

Polar-orbiting satellites observe the entire planet twice each day, unlike geostationary satellites.

According to the agency, the mosaic image shows bright blue water containing phytoplankton in the Caribbean Sea, weather systems moving and smog from agricultural fires in Northern India.

2022 SPACE STORIES THAT ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD

Dr. Satya Kalluri, Joint Polar Satellite System program scientist, said in a release that the turquoise color around Cuba and the Bahamas is due to sediment in the shallow waters around the continental shelf.

VIIRS provides measurements of ocean color helping to detect harmful algal blooms and monitor phytoplankton activity and sea surface temperature. 

Over land, the satellite – which also flies on the Joint Polar Satellite System’s NOAA-20 and Suomi-NPP satellites – is able to detect and measure the intensity of wildfires, droughts and floods. 

The fire intensity is fed into a product that tracks the thickness and movement of wildfire smoke. 

RUSSIAN SPACE CAPSULE LEAK LIKELY DUE TO MICROMETEORITE STRIKE, OFFICIAL SAYS

VIIRS also generates critical environmental products on snow and ice cover, clouds, fog, aerosols and dust, as well as the health of the world’s crops. 

The instrument was launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base on Nov. 10.

NOAA-21, previously known as JPSS-2, is the second operational satellite in a series called the Joint Polar Satellite System.

NOAA and NASA oversee the development, launch, testing and operation of all the satellites in the system.

 

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LeBron James scores season-high 47 points on 38th birthday



CNN
 — 

LeBron James knows how to celebrate in style, scoring a season-high 47 points as he inspired the Los Angeles Lakers to a 130-121 win over the Atlanta Hawks on his 38th birthday.

James helped his team come back from 15 points down at the State Farm Arena and ended the game with 10 rebounds and nine assists.

“I feel better than 18,” James told reporters. “At 18 years old I knew how to play the game, I knew I belonged in the NBA but I didn’t know what I could become. I just knew that [if] I continued to put in the work, continued to be true to the game that I could be one of the greatest players to ever play this game, I just always believed that, so there are times when I’m on the floor when I feel like a kid again … I wouldn’t say 18 but I definitely felt like a kid again at moments out on the court.”

According to Reuters, only two other players have scored more points in a game after turning 38, with Michael Jordan and Jamal Crawford netting 51 points each.

“Just awesome man, he’s put the team on his back and been doing what he’s done for the last 20 years. A hell of a performance,” coach Darvin Ham told reporters when asked about James.

“Dropping 47 [points] is inspiring because he plays the game the right way… He motivates and inspires the team to go out there and do their jobs.”

Lakers’ Thomas Bryant finished with 19 points, including a season-high 17 rebounds, while Russell Westbrook got 14 points and Dennis Schroder 12 points.

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Russia fires 20 cruise missiles at Ukraine on New Year’s Eve, at least 1 dead, dozens injured

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

Russia on Saturday fired 20 cruise missiles at Ukraine as civilians looked to welcome in the New Year, resulting in the death of at least one and dozens injured.

Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 12 of the 20 missiles launched using Tu-95ms strategic bombers positioned in the Caspian Sea along with ground-based missile systems Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said on Telegram. 

The strikes hit locations across the Kyiv, Zhytomyr and the Khmelnytskyi regions. 

RUSSIA READIES AIR DEFENSES OVER MOSCOW, GIVES SHELTER MAPS TO BORDER CITY AHEAD OF NEW YEAR

Ukrainian air defense forces shot down six missiles in Kyiv where at least one person was killed and 16 were injured, along with five missiles in the Zhytomyr region and one in the Khmelnytskyi region, which left seven injured, including three in “serious condition” according to Ukrainian news outlets. 

 Five districts in the western, central, southern, and eastern parts of Kyiv were hit including at least one hotel, the Ukraine Palace concert hall, and residential buildings.

 KYIV, LVIV WITHOUT POWER AFTER RUSSIA LAUNCHES ‘MASS’ AIR AND SEA BASED CRUISE MISSILE ATTACK ACROSS UKRAINE

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko took to Twitter to announce the strikes Saturday morning and said, “There are explosions in Kyiv! Stay in shelters!”

Klitschko said that while Kyiv residents still had access to water and heat, certain train lines had been closed and roughly 30 percent of the city was without electricity.

 

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No. 3 TCU upsets No. 2 Michigan 51-45 in wild CFP semifinal

Top News: US & International Top News Stories Today | AP News 

TCU quarterback Max Duggan (15) dives for yardage as Michigan linebacker Junior Colson (25) defends during the first half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football semifinal playoff game, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Max Duggan accounted for four touchdowns, TCU returned two interceptions for scores and the third-ranked Horned Frogs withstood a frenetic second-half surge by No. 2 Michigan to win the Fiesta Bowl 51-45 on Saturday night and advance to the College Football Playoff national championship.

TCU (13-1), the most unlikely team ever reach the four-team playoff in its nine-year history, has one more game left in its improbable season and it will come against either No. 1 Georgia or No. 4 Ohio State on Jan. 9 at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Coming off a losing 2021 season and picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 in Sonny Dykes’ first year as coach, the Horned Frogs will try to win the program’s first national championship since 1938.

Duggan and the Frogs will no doubt be underdogs — again. That didn’t matter much against Michigan (13-1) as they took it to the big, bad Big Ten champions and turned the Fiesta Bowl into circa-2010, Big 12-style scorefest.

It was the highest scoring Fiesta Bowl ever and the second-highest scoring CFP game behind Georgia’s 54-48 Rose Bowl victory against Oklahoma on Jan. 1, 2018.

Maybe it was fitting.

TCU, the little private school from Forth Worth, Texas, that was left out of the Big 12 when it first formed in the mid-1990s, became the first team from the conference to win a CFP game and will be the first to play for a national title since Texas in 2009.

Hub peek embed (Collegefootball) – Compressed layout (automatic embed)

This one was 34-16 with 2:46 left in the third quarter and the Hypnotoads, a nickname borrowed for the animated TV show “Futurama,” and their purple-clad fans could sense their wild ride wasn’t over.

Of course, nothing has come easy for these Frogs all year. During their unbeaten regular season, they won seven straight games by 10 points or fewer.

What followed was five touchdown drives — with a TCU turnover tucked in between — each taking less than a minute.

Roman Wilson’s 18-yard touchdown run on a reverse and a 2-point conversion pulled Michigan within 41-38 with 14:13 left in the fourth quarter.

Back came the Frogs, unleashing their best weapon. Future first-round draft pick Quentin Johnston took a short crosser from Duggan and turned it up the sideline for a 76-yard score that put the Frogs up 10.

Duggan threw for 225 yards and two interceptions and ran for 57. Johnston had six catches for 163 yards and Emari Demercado, picking up the slack for an injured Kendre Miller, ran for 150. All of that against a defense that ranked third in the nation coming in.

TCU finally got a stop on Michigan’s next possession and turned it into a 33-yard field goal by Griffin Kell to go up 51-38 with 10:02 left.

After the Frogs and Wolverines combined for 62 points in 20 second-half minutes, the pace was throttled back. But Michigan cut the lead to six with 3:14 left on J.J. McCarthy’s 5-yard TD pass to Wilson.

McCarthy was spectacular at times with 343 yards passing, 52 rushing and three touchdowns. He also made two killer mistakes, tossing pick-sixes in each half.

TCU couldn’t ice it and Michigan got one more shot, starting from its 25 with 52 seconds left — but couldn’t get first first down.

Before TCU could line up in victory formation, there was an officials’ review for targeting on the Frogs. What was another minute or so of drama in a season filled it for TCU?

The play was clean. Duggan, the Heisman Trophy runner-up, took one last snap and a knee and the exhausted Frogs rushed the field and celebrated under cloud of purple and white confetti.

The Frogs hopped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, with safety Bud Clark making two of the biggest plays of the game. First, he chased down Michigan’s Donovan Edwards to prevent a long touchdown on the very first play from scrimmage.

TCU then used a goal line stand — stymieing a Philly Special-style fourth down play by Michigan — to keep the Wolverines off the board.

On Michigan’s next possession, Clark broke fast on a throw to the sideline by McCarthy and raced 41 yards with a pick-6 that put TCU up 7-0.

Duggan completed a long touchdown drive with a 1-yard plunge with 2:27 left in the first quarter and the Frogs were up 14-0 on touchdown-favorite Wolverines.

Michigan broke the ice with a field goal and then looked as if it had flipped the game back its way.

Rod Moore picked off a tipped pass at midfield by Duggan and McCarthy went deep to Roman Wilson on the next play for what appeared to be a 51-yard touchdown pass. A review overturned the call and set up Michigan inside the 1. No problem for a team with the nation’s best offensive line, right?

Michigan ran a quick hand off to fullback Kalel Mullings, who fumbled. TCU recovered, putting down another Michigan scoring threat.

Coach Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines put up a better showing in their second straight CFP semifinal appearances, but will lament the missed opportunities. Their first three first-and-goal situations produced three points.

Michigan fell to 1-6 in bowl games under Harbaugh.

UP NEXT

TCU: The Frogs are a combined 1-9-1 all-time against Georgia and Ohio State.

Michigan: The Wolverines open next season in the Big House against East Carolina.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.appodcasts.com

___

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/ap_top25

 

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Trump's returns shed light on tax offsets, foreign accounts

Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns Friday, providing the most detailed picture to date of his finances over a six-year period, including his time in the White House, when he fought to keep the information private in a break with decades of precedent.

The documents include individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, along with Trump’s business entities from 2015-2020. They show how Trump used the tax code to lower his tax obligation and reveal details about foreign accounts, charitable contributions and the performance of some of his highest-profile business ventures, which had largely remained shielded from public scrutiny.

The disclosure marks the culmination of a yearslong legal fight that has played out everywhere from the presidential campaign to Congress and the Supreme Court as Trump persistently rejected efforts to share details about his financial history — counter to the practice of transparency followed by all his predecessors in the post-Watergate era. The records release comes just days before Republicans retake control of the House and weeks after Trump announced another campaign for the White House.

The records show how Trump limited his tax liability by offsetting his income against corporate losses as well as millions of dollars in business expenses, asset depreciation and other deductions.

While Trump paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a report released last week by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. He paid nearly $1 million in 2018, but only $133,445 in 2019 and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought reelection.

The records also detail Trump’s foreign holdings.

Trump, according to the filings, reported having bank accounts in China, Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2015 through 2017, even as he was commander in chief. Starting in 2018, however, he only reported an account in the U.K. The returns also show that Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes he paid on various business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.

In several years, Trump appears to have paid more in foreign taxes than he did in net U.S. federal income taxes, with income reported in countries including Azerbaijan, China, India, Indonesia, Panama, the Philippines, St. Martin, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The documents also show that Trump’s charitable donations often represented only a sliver of his income. In 2020, the year the coronavirus ravaged the economy, Trump reported no charitable donations at all. In 2019 and 2018 he reported writing checks for about $500,000 in donations. In earlier years the numbers were higher — $1.8 million in 2017 and $1.1 million in 2016.

It’s unclear whether the reported sums included Trump’s $400,000 annual presidential salary, which he had said, as a candidate, that he would forgo and which he claimed he donated to various federal departments.

Jeff Hoopes, an accounting professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, described Trump’s returns as “large and complicated” with “hundreds of entities scattered all over the globe.”

He noted that many of those entities are slightly unprofitable, which he described as “pretty magical as far as the tax code.”

“It’s hard to know if someone’s really bad at business or really good at tax planning, because they both look like the same thing,” he said.

Daniel Shaviro, a taxation professor at New York University, cited the large financial losses from so many of Trump’s businesses, despite their often healthy sales, as something that should raise suspicions from auditors. “There’s fishy looking stuff here.”

Shaviro also cited examples of suspicious or sloppy math even in smaller businesses, such as an aviation firm dubbed “DT Endeavor I LLC,” which in 2020 reported both sales and expenses of $160,144. Such exact matches are unusual, Shaviro said. Yet the form also reported an $18,923 loss.

“The return doesn’t say, ‘Guess what? I’m committing fraud,’” Shaviro said, “but there are red flags.”

The release marks the latest setback for Trump, who has been mired in investigations, including federal and state inquiries into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Department of Justice also has been investigating reams of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club and possible efforts to obstruct the investigation.

In a statement Friday, Trump lashed out at Democrats and the Supreme Court for the release.

“It’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” he said. “The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”

He said the returns demonstrated “how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions” to build his businesses.

The returns were released by the House Ways and Means Committee, which held a party-line vote last week to make the returns public after years of legal wrangling.

The returns detail how Trump used tax law to minimize his liability, including carrying forward massive losses from previous years. Trump said during his 2016 campaign that paying little or no income tax in some years “makes me smart.”

In 2020, more than 150 of Trump’s business entities listed negative qualified business income, which the IRS defines as “the net amount of qualified items of income, gain, deduction and loss from any qualified trade or business.” In total for that tax year, combined with nearly $9 million in carryforward loss from previous years, Trump’s qualified losses amounted to more than $58 million.

Another of Trump’s money losers: the ice rink his company operated until last year in New York City’s Central Park. Trump reported a total of $2.6 million in losses from Wollman Rink over the six years made public. The rink, an early Trump Organization jewel run through a contract with New York City’s government, reported a loss of $1.3 million in 2015 despite taking in $9.3 million in revenue, according to the tax returns. The rink turned a $298,000 profit in 2016, but was back to melting cash in each of the next four years.

“Trump seems to be creating huge losses that are suspicious or questionable under current law,” said Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who said he had spent 20 years preparing taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals and “never saw anyone lose money as regularly and as large as Trump lost money year after year.”

“To me, Trump’s business operations were phenomenally unsuccessful and I struggle to figure out how much of it is attributable to Trump’s unluckiness as a businessman and how much of it is attributable to Trump’s inflation,” he said.

Aspects of Trump’s finances had been shrouded in mystery since his days as an up-and-coming Manhattan real estate developer in the 1980s.

Trump, known for building skyscrapers and hosting a reality TV show before winning the White House, did offer limited details about his holdings and income on mandatory disclosure forms and financial statements he provided to banks to secure loans and to financial magazines to justify his ranking on lists of billionaires.

Trump’s longtime accounting firm has since disavowed the statements, and New York’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit alleging Trump and his Trump Organization fraudulently inflated asset values on the statements. Trump and his company have denied wrongdoing.

In October 2018, The New York Times published a Pulitzer Prize-winning series based on leaked tax records that contradicted the image Trump had tried to sell of himself as a self-made businessman. It showed that Trump received a modern-day equivalent of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate holdings, with much of that money coming from what the Times called “tax dodges” in the 1990s.

A second series in 2020 showed that Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.

In its report last week, the Ways and Means Committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded a requirement mandating audits of a president’s tax filings.

The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on April 3, 2019 — more than two years into his presidency — when the Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., asked the agency for information related to the returns.

Every president and major-party candidate since Richard Nixon has voluntarily made at least summaries of their tax information available to the public.

___

Associated Press writers Gary Fields, Paul Wiseman and Farnoush Amiri in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI funeral to be held Thursday in St. Peter’s Square, with Pope Francis presiding

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

Pope Francis will celebrate a funeral service for the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI next week after the retired pope passed away Saturday.

The Vatican announced Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away Saturday at 9:34 a.m. He was 95 years old.

Benedict’s body is currently being held in Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City, where he spent the majority of his life post-papacy.

POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI DEAD AT 95, VATICAN SAYS

On Jan. 2, his body will be moved for viewing by the faithful to St. Peter’s Basilica. In accordance with tradition, the body of the deceased pope will be exhibited to the public to allow mourners to pray for the pontiff on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Jan. 5, Pope Francis will preside over the late pontiff’s funeral mass in St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican stated. 

POPE BENEDICT’S VISION OF CATHOLICISM, VATICAN II, AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH ENDURE THROUGH HIS TEACHINGS

The service will be open to the public and the Vatican has provided contacts for Catholics worldwide wishing to concelebrate the mass remotely.

Benedict was elected to the papacy in 2005. He later claimed that he prayed he would not be chosen throughout the conclave but was forced to accept what he believed was God calling him to greater service

POPE BENEDICT XVI GIVES FAREWELL TO CARDINALS, PROMISES OBEDIENCE TO SUCCESSOR

In February 2013, at 85 years old, Benedict became the first pope in centuries to resign from his post

“I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise [of the pontificate],” he said at that time. 

From Pope Francis’ ascension onward, the former pontiff went by the title “Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,” but per canon law, exercised no authority over the church.

On June 29, 2021, Benedict celebrated the Platinum Jubilee — 70th anniversary — of his ordination into the priesthood

 

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Russian strikes intensify as Ukrainians return for holiday

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Multiple blasts rocked Kyiv and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 14 others, in a sign that the pace of Russia attacks had picked up before New Year’s.

Some Ukrainians defied the danger, however, to return to the country to reunite with families for the holidays.

Ukrainian officials claimed Russia was now deliberately targeting civilians, seeking to create a climate of fear to see out the year grimly and usher in a bloody 2023.

First lady Olena Zelenska expressed outrage that such massive missile attacks could come just before New Year’s Eve celebrations.

“Ruining lives of others is a disgusting habit of our neighbors,” she said.

The blasts also came at an unusually quickened rhythm, one that alarmed officials just 36 hours after Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba highlighted the harsh civilian toll of this latest offensive — that “this time, Russia’s mass missile attack is deliberately targeting residential areas, not even the energy infrastructure.”

The deadly blast in the Ukrainian capital occurred among the multi-story residential buildings of the Solomianskyi district. One person wounded in the attacks is in a critical condition, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. He said two schools were damaged, including a kindergarten.

Various residential buildings and civilian infrastructure were damaged in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon as part of massive attacks spanning the country. A top official in the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, published photos and video of a partially collapsed six-story hotel in Kyiv. Mayor Klitschko said a Japanese journalist was among those injured in the capital.

Russia launched 20 cruise missiles over Ukraine on Saturday afternoon, of which Ukrainian forces shot down 12, according to Ukrainian military chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy published a video address shortly after Russia launched the New Year’s Eve cruise missiles over Ukraine saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “hiding behind the military, behind missiles, behind the walls of his residences and palaces.” Addressing the Russians, he added that “no one in the world will forgive you for this. Ukraine will not forgive.”

At least four civilians were wounded in the Khmelnytskyi province of western Ukraine, according to regional Gov. Serhii Hamalii. Six people were wounded in the southern region of Mykolaiv.

Mykolaiv Gov. Vitalii Kim said that the Russians were targeting civilians more directly than just by attacking infrastructure as in the past.

“In many cities residential areas, hotels, just roads and garages are affected,” he wrote on Telegram.

In Zaporizhzhia region, as a result of a missile attack, two houses were destroyed, and around eight damaged. Four people were also wounded, among them a pregnant woman and a 14-year-old girl, said regional Gov. Oleksandr Starukh.

Even though Russia’s 10-month war rumbles on with no end in sight, for some families the new year is nevertheless a chance to reunite, however briefly, after months apart.

At Kyiv’s central railway station on Saturday morning, Mykyta, still in his uniform, gripped a bouquet of pink roses tightly as he waited on platform 9 for his wife Valeriia to arrive from Poland. He hadn’t seen her in six months.

“It actually was really tough, you know, to wait so long,” he told The Associated Press after hugging and kissing Valeriia.

Nearby, another soldier, Vasyl Khomko, 42, joyously met his daughter Yana and wife Galyna who have been living in Slovakia due to the war, but returned to Kyiv to spend New Year’s Eve together.

Back in February, fathers, husbands and sons had to stay behind as their wives, mothers and daughters boarded trains with small children seeking safety outside the country. Scenes of tearful goodbyes seared television screens and front pages of newspaper across the world.

But on the last day of the year marked by the brutal war, many returned to the capital to spend New Year’s Eve with their loved ones, despite the ongoing Russian attacks.

As Russian attacks continue to target power supplies leaving millions without electricity, no big celebrations are expected and a curfew will be in place as the clock rings in the new year. But for most Ukrainians being together with their families is a luxury.

Valeriia first sought refuge from the conflict in Spain but later moved to Poland. Asked what their New Year’s Eve plans were, she answered simply: “Just to be together.”

The couple declined not to share their family name for security reasons as Mykyta has been fighting on the front lines in both southern and eastern Ukraine.

On platform 8, another young couple reunited. University student Arseniia Kolomiiets, 23, has been living in Italy. Despite longing to see her boyfriend Daniel Liashchenko in Kyiv, Kolomiiets was scared of Russian missiles and drone attacks.

“He was like, ‘Please come! Please come! Please come!’” she recalled. “I decided that (being) scared is one part, but being with beloved ones on the holidays is the most important part. So, I overcome my fear and here I am now.”

Although they have no electricity at home, Liashchenko said they were looking forward to welcoming 2023 together with his family and their cat.

Natalya Kontonenko had traveled from Finland. It was the first time she had seen her brother Serhii Kontonenko since the full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24. Serhii and other relatives traveled from Mykolaiv to Kyiv to meet Natalya.

“We are not concerned about the electricity, because we are together and that I think is the most important,” he said.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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Misery in El Paso: Hundreds of homeless migrants live in squalor amid deportation fears


El Paso, Texas
CNN
 — 

One-year-old Brenda’s tiny feet are bare on the cold asphalt of an El Paso parking lot as the harsh reality starts to sink in for her parents. They are undocumented. They are homeless. And their daughter barely escaped death when they crossed the Rio Grande.

“My daughter would have died because she was super frozen,” said Glenda Matos.

Matos’ pain is clear in her eyes as she recalls her daughter being drenched, in the freezing cold, all while crying hysterically. Matos and her husband, Anthony Blanco, say they had nothing to keep their daughter warm, not even body heat, because they, too, were wet and cold.

Matos says she hugged Brenda tightly and ran from house to house begging for help until they finally found a kind El Paso resident who helped them with clothes and shelter.

“I asked God for help,” Glenda said. “God… put those people in my way.”

Brenda's tiny feet bear a rosary while on the asphalt of an El Paso parking lot.

For Matos, the tiny red rosary with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, hanging from Brenda’s ancle, saved them. Matos says she wrapped the religious token on her daughter’s little body for protection when they left their native Venezuela.

Brenda and her parents are some of the hundreds of migrants living in squalor in the streets of downtown El Paso around Sacred Heart Parish. The makeshift camp – with its piles of blankets, strollers and tents lining both sides of a busy street – has city officials expressing concerns about safety and public health given the area is packed with migrants who have no running water or proper shelter.

The surge of migrants aggregating here started a few weeks ago, when anxiety about the scheduled end of the Trump-era pandemic public health rule known as Title 42 prompted thousands of migrants to turn themselves in to border authorities or to cross into the United States illegally in a very short period of time.

Title 42 allows immigration authorities to swiftly return some migrants to Mexico. The policy was scheduled to lift last week, but a Supreme Court ruling kept the rule in place while legal challenges play out in court.

While the impact of the ruling has sent ripples throughout the southern border, the scene in El Paso is one of a kind. It’s the only U.S. border town where hundreds of migrants are living in the streets longer than expected. It’s a new phenomenon that city officials say had never happened during prior migrant surges.

It’s driven, in part, by the anxiety created by the uncertainty of Title 42, which motivated some migrants to cross the border illegally. These migrants don’t have family or sponsors in the US to receive them. And many also fear that traveling out of town without the proper paperwork could lead to apprehension by US immigration authorities.

Evelyn Palma sits with her five children in the streets of El Paso, Texas.

The misery around Sacred Heart Parish is palpable. Evelyn Palma has blankets hooked and draped on a chain-linked fence to keep the cold and the drizzle from hitting her five children, ages 1 to 8, some of them shirtless. She’s been living on the street for eight days. But Friday was especially miserable because it was 40 degrees and it poured overnight.

“We woke up drenched,” Palma said.

The 24-year-old mother from Honduras says she and her children turned themselves in to immigration authorities earlier this month, but they were swiftly returned to Mexico, likely under Title 42. That’s why, she says, that a week ago she decided to evade authorities by crossing the river.

She is part of the growing number of migrants who El Paso city officials say have decided to enter the US illegally and, for various reasons, have not left the city.

“They are people who came into the country in anticipation of Title 42 going away,” said Mario D’Agostino, El Paso’s deputy city manager.

The living conditions Palma and other migrants are enduring has officials concerned about their safety and overall public health. City spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta says that the spread of disease is top of mind.

“We are still in the middle of what is being called a ‘tripledemic,’ with continuing high infection levels of upper respiratory infections across the community,” Cruz-Acosta said.

Evelyn Palma receives gifts for her children in the streets of El Paso, Texas.

And while the city has space for about 1,500 migrants at shelters that have been erected at the convention center and at a public school, those beds are only offered to migrants who have turned themselves in to border authorities and have been allowed to stay in the US pending their immigration cases. Those migrants receive documentation from US Customs and Border Protection that allows them to travel within the country.

Migrants who enter the country illegally are not offered city-provided shelter because federal dollars are being used to foot the bill. And those monies can’t be used to serve people who entered the country illegally, according to D’Agostino.

City officials have been referring undocumented migrants to non-profit organizations and churches like Sacred Heart Parish, which turns into a shelter when night falls.

That’s why hundreds of migrants aggregate on the streets around the church, hoping to score one of the 120 to 130 slots to enter the church for the night.

Around 6 p.m., a line of migrants forms outside the church’s gymnasium. Parents can be seen clutching their children to try to keep them warm. Women and men with children are given priority, according to Rafael García, the priest that runs the shelter. García says it’s tough to send people away but that his church has limited resources to serve the growing need.

Angello Sánchez and his 4-year-old son Anyeider were allowed into the shelter for the night several times this week. The Colombian father says he was trying to protect his son from the cold because his little face still had windburn from being out in the elements during the recent freeze.

“I got here from southern Mexico on a train. It was so cold and he wasn’t wearing any jacket,” Angello said.

Palma, the mother of five, says she was offered entry into the shelter with her children but decided not to take the offer because a pregnant friend who is accompanying her was denied access.

El Paso, which means “The Pass” in Spanish, has historically been a gateway for migrants passing through into the United States.

“For hundreds of years people have been passing through and it’s just part of their journey,” D’Agostino said. “In normal times the community doesn’t even realize it.”

But this migrant surge is different because migrants are staying for days and even more than a week, city officials say.

Besides lacking family or sponsors in the US to receive them, many migrants don’t have money to pay for their transportation out of the city. And in the makeshift migrant camp around Sacred Heart Parish, word is spreading about another factor that has some undocumented migrants hunkering down in El Paso: The fear of getting detained at immigration checkpoints located in the interior of the US.

In the last week, at least 364 undocumented migrants who were traveling in commercial buses headed to northern cities were detained at these immigration checkpoints, according to tweets posted by El Paso’s border patrol chief.

Palma says she heard about the checkpoints and the apprehensions and decided to stay in El Paso longer while she figures out what to do.

“If immigration detains me, they’ll return me,” Palma said.

Juan Pérez, from Venezuela, was down the street and said that “immigration is in the exits [of the city]… they’ll return us and send us to Mexico.”

The US has 110 Border Patrol checkpoints in the southern and northern borders, where vehicles are screened for the “illegal flow of people and contraband,” according to a recent US Government Accountability Office report. The checkpoints are usually between 25 and 100 miles from the border, according to the same report.

Anthony Blanco holds a hand-written sign asking for a job while his wife, Glenda Matos, plays with Brenda in the streets of El Paso, Texas.

Anthony Blanco says he’s not afraid of being detained at these interior checkpoints.

“I’ve walked through many different countries without documents. I don’t think we’re going to be detained, but if that happens, it was God’s will,” Blanco said.

For days this week, Blanco has been holding a sign on the street corner that reads, “Help me with work so I can support my wife and baby,” and asking drivers who pass by for money for bus tickets to Denver.

Why Denver? He says word has spread that there is work there and living is more affordable.

Friday morning, a day which was especially miserable because it was cold after a hard overnight rain, Blanco was all smiles. He says he had collected enough money to continue his journey to Denver.

“Thank God,” Blanco said.


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BYU football mourns the lost of offensive lineman Sione Veikoso, who was killed in construction accident

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BYU offensive lineman Sione Veikoso was killed in a construction accident in Kailua, Hawaii, the team announced late Friday.

“Rest in Love Sione. God be with you till we meet again,” the Cougars wrote on Twitter.

Before he enrolled in BYU, Veikoso served a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2018-20 in Brazil. He began his college career at Arizona State.

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He eventually transferred to BYU and appeared in one game during the 2022 college football season. Veikoso was a three-star high-school recruit.

FORMER NEBRASKA QUARTERBACK TOMMY ARMSTRONG JR. RESCUES FAMILY FROM HOUSE FIRE

“We are extremely saddened to learn of the tragic death of one of our brothers, Sione Veikoso,” BYU head coach Kalani Sitake wrote on Twitter. “His passing is heartbreaking to all of us. We offer our deepest condolences and prayers to his family as we share in their grief. Our love for you is forever, Sione!”

Veikoso was part of a crew working on a 15-foot retaining wall when it partially collapsed, according to KITV News in Honolulu. Multiple individuals were trapped after the collapse. 

Firefighters responded to the scene and removed the rubble to reach the people who were trapped, the report revealed. At least two were in serious condition.

“The BYU Football Family mourns the passing of our dear teammate and fellow Cougar, Sione Veikoso,” BYU athletics director Tom Holmoe said on Twitter. “May his family and friends feel our love and faith at this most sacred and difficult time. Peace be with you now and forever Sione.”

No other details were immediately available.

 

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