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WASHINGTON — A man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with fellow Proud Boys extremist group members was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison after he berated and insulted the judge who punished him. Marc Bru repeatedly interrupted Chief Judge James Boasberg before he handed down the sentence, calling him a "clown" and a "fraud" presiding over a "kangaroo court." The judge warned Bru that he could be kicked out of the courtroom if he continued to disrupt the proceedings. "You can give me 100 years and I'd do it all over again," said Bru, who was handcuffed and shackled. "That's the definition of no remorse in my book," the judge said. Prosecutors described Bru as one of the least remorseful rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They say Bru planned for an armed insurrection — a "January 6 2.0" attack — to take over the government in Portland, Oregon, several weeks after the deadly riot in Washington, D.C. "He wanted a repeat of January 6, only he implied this time would be more violent," prosecutors wrote in a court filing ahead of his sentencing. Bru has been representing himself with an attorney on standby. He has spewed anti-government rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the sovereign citizen movement. At the start of the hearing, Bru demanded that the judge and a prosecutor turn over five years of their financial records. The judge gave him a 10-minute break to confer with his standby lawyer before the hearing resumed with more interruptions. "I don't accept any of your terms and conditions," Bru said. "You're a clown and not a judge." Prosecutors had warned the court that Bru intended to disrupt his sentencing. On Tuesday, he called in to a nightly vigil outside the jail where he and other rioters are being held. He told supporters of the detained Jan. 6 defendants that he would "try to put on a good show" at his sentencing. Boasberg convicted Bru of seven charges, including two felonies, after hearing trial testimony without a jury in October. Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of seven years and three months for Bru, a resident of Washington state. "Bru appears to have envisioned and been planning for a true armed insurrection, and from his post-conviction comments, he appears only to have become further radicalized and angry since then," they wrote. Bru absconded before his trial, skipped two court hearings and "defiantly boasted via Twitter that the government would have to come get him if it wanted him." "Approximately a month later, it did," prosecutors added. Bru represented himself at his bench trial but didn't present a defense. Instead, he repeatedly proclaimed that he refused to "consent" to the trial and "showed nothing but contempt for the Court and the government," prosecutors wrote. Bru flew from Portland, Oregon to Washington a day before then-President Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally near the White House. Before Trump's speech, he joined dozens of other Proud Boys in marching to the Capitol and was one of the first rioters to breach a restricted area near Peace Circle. Bru grabbed a barricade and shoved it against police officers. He later joined other rioters inside the Capitol and entered the Senate gallery, where he flashed a hand gesture associated with the Proud Boys as he posed for selfie photos. He spent roughly 13 minutes inside the building. Several weeks after the riot, Bru exchanged text messages with a friend about buying gas masks in bulk. He also texted a Proud Boys recruit and indicated that he wanted to "repeat the violence and lawlessness of January 6 in Portland in order to take over the local government," prosecutors said. "In fact, those text messages indicate that Bru's chief takeaway from January 6 is that it was not violent enough or not sufficiently dedicated to overthrowing the government," prosecutors wrote. "In other words, in the aftermath of January 6, Bru was plotting an armed insurrection, not feeling remorseful." The FBI initially arrested Bru in March 2021 in Vancouver, Washington. After his pretrial release, Bru was charged with separate drunken driving-related offenses in Idaho and Montana. In July, Bru was secretly living in Montana when a drunken driver hit his car. Police officers who responded to the collision arrested Bru on a warrant stemming from his failure to appear in court before trial. He has "continued to spew disinformation" from jail since his re-arrest and trial, prosecutors said. "If anything, he appears to be growing more defiant and radicalized," they wrote. More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. About 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials. Over 750 have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving some term of imprisonment, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.  

NEW YORK — British billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club, pleaded guilty Wednesday to insider trading and conspiracy charges in New York.  The 86-year-old businessman entered the plea in Manhattan federal court six months after he was charged in the case. He had been free on $300 million bail, with a yacht and private plane serving as collateral.  Lewis did not speak as he left court, and he was shielded from photographers by his aides, a lawyer and an umbrella.  U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the plea deal includes the largest financial penalty for insider trading in a decade.  Broad Bay Limited, which Lewis owns, will pay more than $50 million in financial penalties, the prosecutor said in a release.  "Today's guilty pleas once again confirm — as I said in announcing the charges against Joseph Lewis just six months ago – the law applies to everyone, no matter who you are or how much wealth you have," Williams said.  He said Lewis abused inside information he gathered from corporate boardrooms to tip off his friends, employees and romantic interests.  Federal sentencing guidelines call for a prison sentence of between 18 and 24 months, although Lewis can seek less than that. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 28.  As part of the guilty plea, Lewis and Broad Bay Limited have agreed that Lewis and his companies will resign and surrender control over board seats and participation in board meetings for any corporation publicly traded in the United States. They also agreed to quit ownership of certain investments over the five-year period of probation and to cooperate with the U.S. government's ongoing investigation and prosecution.  Lewis has a fortune that Forbes estimates at $6.1 billion and assets in real estate, biotechnology, energy and agriculture. He bought an interest in Tottenham Hotspur, one of England's most storied soccer clubs, in 2001.  Under his ownership, the Premier League club built a state-of-the-art stadium at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion.  Today, a trust benefiting members of Lewis' family is the majority owner of ENIC, the holding company that owns the team. Lewis himself is not a beneficiary of that trust and relinquished operational control of the club in October 2022, according to corporate filings.  Lewis' Tavistock Group owns all or parts of over 200 companies worldwide, according to its website, and his art collection boasts works by Picasso, Matisse and Degas. His business connections include Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Justin Timberlake, with whom he built a Bahamian oceanside resort that opened in 2010.  According to the indictment against him, Lewis' investments in various companies gave him control of board seats, where he placed associates who let him know what they learned behind the scenes. Prosecutors said Lewis improperly shared confidential information between 2019 and 2021 to his chosen recipients and urged them to profit from the tips. 

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GENEVA — United Nations agencies warn the Gaza Strip is slipping into an ever more disastrous situation as the Israel-Hamas war continues unabated and hundreds of thousands of people suffering from a chronic lack of food and water face an acute risk of famine. "We have more than half a million people in Gaza facing catastrophic food insecurity levels. The risk of famine increases each day as the conflict limits the delivery of life-saving aid to people in need," said Abeer Etefa, World Food Program senior communications officer and spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa. Speaking to journalists in Geneva on Tuesday from Cairo, Etefa said WFP has procured 21,000 tons of food supplies from across the region — enough for around 2 million people inside Gaza for one month. "The problem is that all the food is on the border outside in Egypt, but not yet inside Gaza." Once this issue is resolved, she said, "The biggest challenge is how to move supplies inside Gaza to get it to areas that are out of reach." She said access and distributions were only possible in the south of Gaza, not in the north. For the first time in six weeks, since a humanitarian pause allowed aid to get into Gaza, she said WFP recently was able to deliver 200 metric tons of food supplies for around 15,000 people in Gaza City. Unfortunately, she said, "All areas north of Wadi Gaza [wetlands] have been extremely difficult to reach because of the restricted access to the area." Israel has repeatedly said that humanitarian aid is entering Gaza but is being stolen by Hamas or is not being efficiently distributed. Israeli government spokesman Elon Levy said Tuesday there were "no limitations on the admission of humanitarian aid." "International actors interested in seeing more aid in Gaza should send more," he said. "We still have a problem that U.N. agencies are unable to distribute the aid as quickly as Israel is processing it." Etefa maintained that the threat of famine is a big fear, noting that a report by the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Phase Classification has found devastating levels of food insecurity in Gaza. "All the 2 million people in Gaza are in crisis … and almost a fourth of these people, or more than half a million people, are in the worst stage of hunger, which is IPC five, which means that people are starving." She said virtually all Palestinians in Gaza are skipping meals every day while many adults go hungry so children can eat. "We are seeing a very worrisome situation in terms of children's malnutrition. Of course, the shortage of water is making things worse because children get weaker with diarrhea. Pregnant women are not getting enough to eat, and this will impact the health of their babies when they are born," she said. She noted that the shortage of food, clean water, and medical assistance is particularly severe in the northern areas, a situation confirmed by humanitarian workers in the area. After several days of aborted missions, the World Health Organization reports that a convoy of much needed humanitarian supplies managed to enter northern Gaza on Monday.  WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said one of the convoys, mainly carrying fuel, was prevented from reaching Al-Shifa hospital by a desperate mob of hungry people.  "The people were holding it up as multiple times it was trying to move forward and trying to leave and trying to get onto the road because they were so desperate looking for food," he said. "The team on the ground had to convince them that there was only fuel. They had to show them that there was nothing to eat for them, nor food for anyone else."  He said the desperation seen on the ground also is apparent inside the hospital.  "We had grave reports of people who as they were waiting for surgeries were begging for water, begging for food," he said.  WFP spokeswoman Etefa said Gaza has "the largest concentration of people in what looks like famine-like conditions anywhere in the world," adding that it was alarming to see how quickly this has happened. She said, "What is so concerning is to see how many months of conflict, of chaos" it has taken other countries "to get to this point." She said places like Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, or Sudan have gone through years of conflict before reaching the high level of hunger that Gaza has reached in fewer than 100 days. "The risks and stakes are very high," she said. "This is probably one of the conflicts that has the fastest deterioration rates in terms of food security." 

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AILA members César Magaña Linares and Raquel Fernández—a Salvadoran Dreamer with TPS and a second generation Venezuelan American—call for intra-immigrant solidarity.

The post A Bridge We Can All Cross first appeared on Blog: Think Immigration.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

BEIJING — The death toll from a landslide in a remote, mountainous part of southwestern China rose to 34 on Wednesday, while 10 people remained missing, Chinese state media reported.  The disaster struck early Monday in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province. Search and rescue operations continued amid freezing temperatures and falling snow. More than 1,000 rescuers were working at the site with the help of excavators, drones and rescue dogs, the Ministry of Emergency Management said Tuesday. Two survivors were found Monday and were recovering at a local hospital. State news agency Xinhua, citing a preliminary investigation by local experts, said the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep clifftop area, with the collapsed mass measuring around 100 meters wide, 60 meters in height and an average of 6 meters in thickness. It did not elaborate on what caused the initial collapse. Aerial photos posted by Xinhua showed the side of a heavily terraced mountain that had spilled over several village homes. More than 900 villagers were relocated. Zhenxiong county lies about 2,250 kilometers southwest of Beijing, with altitudes ranging as high as 2,400 meters. Rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for the next days.  Heavy snow has been falling in many parts of China, causing transportation chaos and endangering lives. Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week. The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to China’s border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.  On Tuesday, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in a remote part of Xinjiang killed at least three people and caused extensive damage in freezing weather. Officials suggested the area's sparse population contributed to the "very strong" quake's low death toll.  In all, natural disasters in China left 691 people dead and missing last year, causing direct economic losses of about 345 billion yuan ($48 billion), according to the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources implemented emergency response measures for geological disasters and sent a team of experts to the site. 

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Wednesday unveiled plans to strengthen the bloc's economic security, including measures to protect sensitive technology from falling into the hands of geopolitical rivals such as China.  Brussels has bolstered its armory of trade restrictions to tackle what it deems to be risks to European economic security, following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and global trade tensions.  The fallout from the war in Ukraine hit Europe particularly hard, forcing the bloc to find alternative energy sources. Now, it wants to avoid a similar over-reliance on China, which dominates in green technology production and critical raw materials.  On Wednesday, EU officials outlined an economic security package containing five initiatives, including toughening rules on the screening of foreign direct investment and launching discussions on coordination around export controls.  The EU has already proposed new rules that it says are necessary to keep the bloc competitive during the global transition to clean technology and to bring more production to Europe.  "In this competition, Europe cannot just be the playground for bigger players, we need to be able to play ourselves," said the EU's most senior competition official, Margrethe Vestager.  "By doing what we are proposing to do, we can de-risk our economic interdependencies," she told reporters in Brussels.  Wednesday's package is part of the EU's focus on de-risking but not decoupling from China, pushed strongly by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  "The change in EU-China relations has been the driving force of this embrace of economic security, which is something extremely new for the EU," said Mathieu Duchatel, director of international studies at the Institut Montaigne think tank.  “Focus on riskier transactions”  EU officials also pushed back on claims that the package had been watered down and that some of the initiatives would kick in too late.  One of the initiatives is to revise the EU's regulation on screening foreign direct investment, but others recommend further discussions, raising concerns that action could come too late.  For example, the commission said it wanted to promote further discussions on how to better support research and development of technologies that can be used for civil and defense purposes.  The EU also wants all member states to establish screening mechanisms, which could later lead to investments being blocked if they are believed to pose a risk.  "I would not agree that the package is watered down," the EU's trade commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, said.  He later said the EU wanted "to focus on riskier transactions and spend less time and resources on low-risk ones."  The negotiations are likely to prove a delicate balancing act for the commission. Investment and export control decisions are up to national governments; therefore, it must avoid overstepping its mark. 

BANGKOK — China's central bank said Wednesday it will cut the amount of reserves it holds for banks as part of a slew of measures to support the slowing economy. The announcement by the governor of the People's Bank of China prompted a surge in share prices, with Hong Kong's benchmark jumping 3.6%. Chinese stock markets have languished in recent months as investors pulled money out, discouraged by a faltering recovery from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sell-off earlier in the week was followed by unconfirmed reports that the government planned to get state-owned investment companies to funnel offshore funds into the markets to help staunch the losses. The central bank's moves appear to be part of a concerted effort to stabilize the markets and instill greater confidence in the outlook for the world's second-largest economy. Central bank Gov. Pan Gongsheng told reporters in Beijing that the deposit reserve requirement would be cut by 0.5 percentage points as of Feb. 5. Pan said that would inject about 1 trillion yuan or $141 billion into the economy. As of December, the reserve requirement ratio was 7.4%. Unlike bank reserves — the cash banks must keep on hand to cover unexpected demand — these reserves are held by the central bank and used mainly as a monetary policy tool. Such changes are usually conveyed in a written notice by the central bank, not at a news conference. Pan said the central bank also plans to issue a policy soon on lending to property developers to help support the industry. China's economy is recovering, he said, allowing ample room for policy maneuvers. "At present, our country's financial risks are generally controllable, the overall operations of financial institutions are sound, and financial markets are operating smoothly," the government website China.com cited Pan as saying. The economy expanded at a 5.2% annual pace in the October-December quarter, enabling the government to attain its target of about 5% annual growth for 2023. But the recovery remains uneven, and most forecasts say the economy will grow more slowly in 2024. Chinese leaders have been talking up the economy in an all-out effort to counter such expectations. Initial reactions were cautious. Mark Williams of Capital Economics said the latest moves would "provide only a small boost for China's economy." "Meaningful improvements in household or corporate borrowing would require substantial rate cuts or a significant change in economic sentiment. Neither seems likely in the near future," he said in a commentary. The slow pace of the recovery after China dropped stringent anti-virus precautions in late 2022 has added to gloom over a crisis in the once-booming property market as dozens of developers defaulted on loans after the government cracked down on excessive borrowing a few years ago. That has left many Chinese families who had invested their life savings in unbuilt homes in limbo, unsure if the developers would deliver those apartments. There have been some signs of improvement: Last week, the government resumed its reporting on the rate of unemployment among young people, which stood at a record 21.3% in June. According to a revised methodology, the latest youth unemployment rate was 15%. Overall unemployment stood at 5.1%. Many youths also were left without work after the government cracked down on technology companies, which tended to hire younger workers. More recently, moves to impose more controls on online gaming spurred massive sell-offs of game company shares, leading the authorities to apparently backpedal on that plan. The Federal Reserve and other major central banks have been raising interest rates and finding other ways to raise the cost of borrowing to help stem inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in mid-2022 in the United States. Central banks are now easing their monetary policies as price pressures abate. In China, regulators are grappling with the opposite problem, a risk that weak demand will cause prices to spiral lower, discouraging investment and hobbling growth. The moves by the central bank this week will ease credit and pump money into the economy to try to spur businesses and consumers to start spending more. China's loan prime rate is now 3.45%. It's the lending rate commercial banks give their highest quality customers and is a benchmark for other loans. The Federal Reserve's benchmark rate is about 5.4%. The central bank cut the reserve requirement twice in 2023, by 0.25 percentage points each time. A key policy tool for controlling the amount of money circulating in the economy, it peaked at more than 20% in 2011 and now is at its lowest level since the early 2000s. "The authorities will likely launch more measures to stabilize market sentiment, such as mobilizing state resources to support the stock market," Raymond Yeung of ANZ said in a report. "The authorities are clearly concerned about market sentiment." He noted that the central bank is also acting to avoid a weakening in the Chinese currency, the yuan. Pan told reporters in Beijing that the PBOC would ensure the yuan's value remains stable. Like many other analysts, Yeung said the latest moves might not be enough to fully reassure investors and that more needs to be done to foster wider reforms. "This requires some structural measures to boost private sector confidence and the long-term outlook of the real estate sector," he said. "The measures announced so far do not seem sufficient."

In the Western United States, livestock auctioneers compete in a fast-talking contest to crown the Mile High Auctioneer champion. In Denver, Colorado, VOA's Scott Stearns has the story.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

AMMAN, JORDAN — Continuing retaliatory attacks and targeted assassinations along the Lebanon-Israel border are prompting warnings of an escalation that could unleash a wider conflict in the region.  Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia said it targeted Israel’s northern army command Mount Meron base Tuesday, its second such attack on the post in recent days. Later Tuesday, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at Lebanon’s southern districts of Bint Jbeil, Nabatieh and Iqlim al-Tuffah, destroying homes and wounding several people, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.  The border skirmishes have forced citizens on both sides to move further inland for safety.  Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York this week, linked the retaliatory aerial bombings to the war in Gaza.  “It is minor fighting, and I don’t think the intention is to have a big war,” he said. “It also has to do with what’s going on in Gaza — it’s not acceptable Arab-wise, it’s not acceptable world-wise.”  However, analyst Dania Koleilat Khatib points to Israel’s increasing use of targeted assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in Lebanon, such as Wissam al-Tawil and Saleh Arouri, as potential triggers for a wider conflict with Hezbollah.  Khatib, president of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building in Beirut, told VOA that Hezbollah is “poking” Israel but doesn’t want an escalation. However, she said an escalation is possible if the United States does not rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  “I think the Israeli army doesn’t want to go to Lebanon because they know they cannot win,” she said. “They can destroy Beirut, but they cannot destroy Hezbollah. But I see it escalating unless there is U.S. pressure.”   Professor Filippo Dionigi of the University of Bristol in Britain told the France 24 TV network that Israel’s targeted assassinations have gone beyond the “rules of engagement.”  “The other possibility is error, is over-shooting, involving citizens to a greater [degree] than they’re already involved,” he said. “That can create unwanted consequences on both sides of the conflict and therefore open the possibility of a greater escalation and even a possibility of an all-out war.”  Other observers say that Lebanon’s dire economic crisis means there is little appetite for war with Israel and that Hezbollah would risk a significant public backlash.  Tobias Borck, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, warned in Britain’s MailOnline, as the Gaza war continues, “I think the risk of something going wrong compounds the longer this goes on.” 

With the growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for climate change, a Kenyan-Dutch company is introducing electric bikes in sub-Saharan Africa for deliveries in urban areas to help reduce emissions. The transport sector plays a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of global warming. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa     

BEIJING — At least 39 people died and nine people were injured after a fire broke out in China's southeastern Jiangxi province, state media said on Wednesday.  Rescuers are still trying to reach people trapped in the building, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The broadcaster said the fire broke out inside a building that houses an internet cafe in the basement and tutoring centers on upper floors. It is unclear how many remain trapped in the building.  Officials for the Yushui district of Jiangxi province said the fire broke out in the basement of a shopping area at 3:24 p.m. on Wednesday. They said 120 rescue, firefighters, police and local government officials were deployed to the scene.  The local government said that search and rescue operations are underway, and that the cause of the fire is under investigation.  Over the weekend, a fire in a boarding school dorm in central Henan province killed 13 children.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced an update to its Policy Manual providing that USCIS, in our discretion and under certain conditions, may excuse a nonimmigrant’s failure to timely file an extension of stay or change of status request if the delay was due to extraordinary circumstances beyond the control of the applicant or petitioner.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.