Book Review: ‘A Day In September’ Examines The Lessons From A Key Civil War Battle

This book cover image released by Norton shows "A Day In September: The Battle of Antietam and the World it Left Behind" by Stephen Budiansky. (Norton via AP)

BY JEFF ROWE

About 57,000 books have been published on the American Civil War so what possibly could be left to explore ?

Quite a bit, it turns out, particularly regarding the bloodiest battle of the war and in American history, Antietam. In one day of savage fighting, Sept. 17, 1862, an estimated 6,500 soldiers were killed and at least 15,000 wounded.

In 291 brisk, fact-stuffed but engaging, thought-provoking pages, “A Day in September” by Stephen Budiansky examines how ill-prepared we as a nation were for war, but more significantly, what we learned and how those advances led to better military training, rapid improvements in battlefield medical care and the beginnings of a reconciling of the differences in North and South society, values and beliefs.

Some key American institutions at the outbreak of the Civil War were astonishingly primitive and Antietam revealed just how bad. Pre-Civil War, for example, most graduates of the U.S. Military Academy were well-schooled in math and engineering, much less so in military tactics.

Many soldiers lacked even rudimentary training such as target shooting. Militias often behaved like fraternal organizations or a mob, Budiansky writes.

Medical care was primitive. For example, most doctors of the Civil War era did not understand how disease was transmitted. Treatment of the wounded at Antietam typically was chaotic; drivers charged with taking wounded to field hospitals often were drunk, the book observes.

What might have made the book even more engaging would be to carry the lessons learned from these failings to the present day.

For example, can we resolve our current differences peacefully ?

This is an absorbing, illuminating, compelling book that calls on us to consider the advances in military strategy, medical care and diplomacy that Antietam gave us at horrific cost.

It also asks us to consider a rift between science and religion that emerged after the war. The book notes that our religious leaders also fell short, telling the populace on both sides during the Civil War that God was on their side, but as the author quotes Lincoln as observing, one side must be wrong.

Then and now, reasoned discussions and diplomacy largely failed and some Americans are openly talking about a potential Civil War II.

They would not if we absorbed some of the lessons from this book.

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Book Review: Iris Mwanza Goes Into ‘The Lions’ Den’ With A Zealous, Timely Debut Novel For Pride

This cover image released by Graydon House Books shows "The lion's Den" by Iris Mwanza. (Graydon House Books via AP)

BY DONNA EDWARDS

Grace Zulu clawed her way out of her village and into college to study law in the Zambian capital Lusaka. Now, at the end of 1990 and with AIDS running rampant, her first big case will test her personally and professionally: She must defend dancer Willbess “Bessy” Mulenga, who is accused of “committing acts against the order of nature.”

Iris Mwanza’s debut novel, “The Lions’ Den,” is as zealous, smart and fresh as its main character.

But, while Grace is a talented and hardworking lawyer, she’s also hot-headed and naive. She can’t see the forest for the trees beyond her own righteousness, and wouldn’t know diplomacy if it smacked her in the face — something that makes the character and the novel verge into frustrating and tiresome.

Fortunately, we have characters like Grace’s wise and eclectic landlady, Ms. Njavwa, who was a freedom fighter in Zambia’s struggle for independence. Ms. Njavwa and Grace’s discussions over dinner are punctuated by interruptions from her aptly named dogs David and Goliath, who eat better than Grace did in her home village growing up.

Food becomes a refrain in the novel, one of the many ways we see disparity in Zambia and between the characters, whether because they’re rural, gay, female, foreign, poor or some other “other.”

Yet the heavy topics come with bits of levity, which are sorely needed, especially when everything seems to be going wrong for Grace. Sometimes she only has herself to blame, but there’s no denying the odds are severely stacked against her in conservative Christian, early-1990s Zambia, when political unrest and government corruption festered after nearly 30 years of increasing authoritarianism under the country’s first President, Kenneth Kaunda. Grace must learn to work with people and navigate the system that has become riddled with bribes and favors if she has any hope of helping Bessy and holding police to account.

Alongside the history and politics embedded throughout the novel, religion also plays a huge role in the story, as the title implies. “The Lions’ Den” opens with the Biblical passage in which Daniel notes that he hasn’t done God nor the king any wrongs.

Grace’s ally and mentor, Father Sebastian, provides one type of religious view of the issues. The Christian colonialism dictating the law and societal opinions of LGBTQ+ people and women provide another. And Grace challenges all of it.

Then, in the final stretch, we finally get into courtroom drama mode; the culmination of Grace’s efforts that could have far-reaching effects beyond Bessy and his family.

On her website, Mwanza — who herself has worked as a lawyer in Zambia — says her goal was “to write a page-turner that doesn’t shy away from big societal issues.” She’s off to a great start. Her writing is well-versed and skilled beyond what you’d expect in a debut. While the pacing didn’t hit quite right for me, the characters and subject matter are compelling enough to push through any snags. Particularly with the novel’s timely release as Pride month comes to a close, “The Lions’ Den” is an important story told with nuance that makes it excellent for book clubs and sparking thoughtful discussion.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Book Review: ‘Means Of Control’ Charts The Disturbing Rise Of A Secretive US Surveillance Regime

This cover image released by Crown shows "Means of Control" by Bryon Tau. (Crown via AP)

BY FRANK BAJAK

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, former national security advisor John Poindexter launched Total Information Awareness, intent on preventing future assaults on the homeland by amassing extensive databases on people and their movements.

The Pentagon program had a creepy eye-surveilling-the-globe-from-a-pyramid logo and was roundly rejected by civil libertarians as Orwellian overkill. Adm. Poindexter, an Iran-Contra conspirator, was skewered by late-night talk show hosts and Congressional resistance moved to defund it.

Except TIA wasn’t DOA. Not by a longshot.

The data collection that Poindexter envisioned instead went underground, with code names such as “Basketball” and classified budgets. How private Beltway contractors grew what has become a secretive surveillance regime is exposed in disturbing detail by journalist Byron Tau in his first book, “Means of Control.” In the absence of a federal privacy law, the U.S. national security establishment has used commercially available data to craft a creeping panopticon.

As a Wall Street Journal reporter, Tau broke important stories on how the shadowy U.S. data collection and brokering industry has been indirectly — and legally, it seems — eavesdropping on tens of millions of Americans and foreigners in the service of U.S. military, intelligence and homeland security.

“In China, the state wants you to know you’re being watched. In America, the success lies in the secrecy,” he writes. “The government does not want you to notice the proliferation of license plate readers. It does not want citizens to understand that mobile phones are a surveillance system... that social media is being eavesdropped on.”

“Means of Control” traces Tau’s efforts to cut through thickets of secrecy to show how different kinds of data became available for purchase by the U.S. government post-9/11, how what author Shoshana Zuboff termed “surveillance capitalism” — the vacuuming up of personal data by Facebook, Google and others to feed the online ad market — stoked a thriving, under-the-radar bazaar of businesses selling data on people’s habits, predilections and, importantly for soldiers and spies, physical movements.

“I’ve spent years trying to unravel this world — a funhouse of mirrors draped in nondisclosure agreements, corporate trade secrets, needlessly classified contracts, misleading denials, and in some cases outright lies,” he writes.

Unlike Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency worker whose 2013 data dump sounded piercing alarms on U.S. government surveillance, Tau is an outsider. So he is often stymied. But he is not alone in this work, and generously credits his journalist competitors.

When Tau does get a breakthrough, it is often on surveillance partnerships that help foil a bad guy — like the U.S. border drug tunnel Department of Homeland Security agents uncover in 2018 with cellphone geolocation data obtained from a company called Venntel.

To gather intelligence, firms working closely with U.S. national security operators have embedded data-collecting software in smartphone apps — such as Muslim prayer apps popular in the Middle East. The app owners may or may not be aware of the software modules’ surveillance mission, though there’s a reason they’re getting paid to include the data-gathering SDKs (software development kits).

Some of these tools have been developed with CIA funding and some, like VISR (Virtual Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), have been widely shared inside U.S. intelligence and among U.S. military special operators, Tau writes. The companies involved come and go in the sort of musical chair game we’ve come expect in U.S. national security contracting.

Which hasn’t prevented some from being outed by privacy warriors led by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and, now, the Biden administration’s activist Federal Trade Commission.

Take X-Mode, one firm Tau examines.

In 2021, X-Mode was found to have been selling access to location data to the U.S. military. In January, the FTC banned X-Mode and its successor, Outlogic, from sharing or selling data on cellphone users’ location without their explicit consent. It expressed concern such data could be used to track visits to places like abortion clinics, places of worship and domestic abuse shelters.

Near the end of the helpfully annotated 291-page book, Tau offers a chapter on how to protect yourself from digital tracking. There are privacy/convenience tradeoffs. But is complete erasure truly possible? He asks Michael Bazzell, an expert in the field.

“Of course,” Bazzell says. “Will you enjoy that life? Maybe not.”

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Book Review: ‘Almost Surely Dead’ Is A Smart Supernatural Thriller For A Stormy Night

This cover image released by Mindy's Book Studio shows "Almost Surely Dead" by Amina Ahktar (Mindy's Book Studio via AP)

BY DONNA EDWARDS

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dunia Ahmed disappeared over a year ago. But before she vanished, weird things were happening, including multiple attempts on her life. So, obviously, two self-proclaimed journalists start a podcast to monetize her tragedy.

In her third novel, “Almost Surely Dead,” Amina Akhtar departs from trends and fashion to sink deep into a missing-person mystery with humorous cynicism and an increasingly creepy edge.

Two years ago, Dunia, a pharmacist, was in the middle of her regular commute when a fellow subway rider tried to throw her onto the tracks. And this New York nightmare scenario isn’t the first she’ll face.

Between her stalker ex-fiancé, David, and the unsettling notes showing up at her work and apartment, it seems like an open and shut case. But flashbacks to when Dunia was 5 suggest there may be something more sinister at play.

In these chapters, we see young Dunia’s beloved father telling her ghost stories on the sly, teaching her the pieces of her Desi culture that her mother would rather they sweep under the rug: jinns stealing princesses and grotesque churail. Dunia’s also a perceptive kid; she hears the whispers and knows her aunt was also deemed “pagal” — mentally ill, locked up somewhere back in Pakistan.

On top of the childhood trauma and jinn stories, Dunia’s been sleepwalking again since her mother’s death. Disoriented and exhausted, she can’t trust her own eyes and ears.

As the story progresses and the world opens up more, truths that Dunia couldn’t see at 5 years old come sifting up to the surface, and suddenly the narrative is a lot more complicated. Who should we direct our anger and fear at?

In a stark commentary on victim-blaming, other characters seem to answer: Dunia.

Dunia is victimized over and over — by people who seem to see it as their right to treat her poorly or make her relive her near-death experience, from virtual strangers wanting to hear about how she was almost killed to her sister demanding a level of communication not merited by their thin thread of a relationship.

Then there’s the podcast — at first fairly serious, but the transcripts soon devolve into “No spoilers!” and absurdly tasteless promotional ads. In one of many ruthless portrayals of society and the media, both hosts let David’s racism slide without comment when he calls Dunia exotic and talks about how he had a thing for Indian girls in his interview.

And beneath it all, growing until it can’t be ignored any longer, the supernatural stays at a steady hum.

“Almost Surely Dead” is the perfect psychological thriller for a dark and stormy night or a rainy day alone on the couch. Strap in, because there’s never a good stopping point with Akhtar, a master of pacing and suspense who keeps you guessing until the end.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Music Review: Paul McCartney And Wings’ Release Bare Bones ‘Band On The Run’ On 50th Anniversary

This image released by UMe shows the 50th Anniversary edition of “Band on the Run (Underdubbed).” (UMe via AP)

BY SCOTT BAUER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sometimes less is more.

At least that’s the thought behind Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Band on the Run (Underdubbed).”

Fifty years after its debut, the beloved album gets yet another rerelease, this time with a version that doesn’t include bonus tracks but instead pulls back some of the layers that were added after the original rough mixes. Hence, “underdubbed” in the title.

This isn’t the first time McCartney has revisited an album to strip off some of the bells and whistles to get closer to the original recording. He did it with the unfortunately titled “Let It Be Naked” back in 2003.

The “underdubbed” version of “Band on the Run” is notable for a slightly different song order from the U.S. release that will be jarring for those with the original sequencing committed to memory after decades of listening. The new order mirrors how the original tapes were discovered in McCartney’s archives and omits “Helen Wheels,” which McCartney didn’t intend to include on the album but did after it was a hit single.

Some of the changes with the songs themselves are subtle: a missing guitar riff or echo here, no backing vocals there. Others are more noticeable, like no orchestral overdubs, what sounds like a vocal flub on the title track and no vocals at all on “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.”

So, which version is better? They are different. The original still sounds fresh and exciting today, a half century later. There’s a reason why it’s McCartney’s best-selling, post-Beatles release.

The better question is whether it’s worth paying to hear the “underdubbed” version. The answer to that depends on your level of McCartney fandom.

If “Band on the Run” is part of your musical DNA, then “Underdubbed” is a fun alternate take that gives a window into what might have been. If that doesn’t interest you, or you’ve somehow never listened to the original, stick with enjoying it the way McCartney first put it out.

AP music reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/music-reviews

Ruth E. Carter Becomes 1st Black Woman To Win 2 Oscars

Ruth E. Carter poses with the award for best costume design for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

BY JONATHAN LANDRUM JR.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ruth E. Carter made history: The costume designer behind the “Black Panther” films became the first Black woman to win two Oscars.

Carter took home best costume design Sunday night at the 95th Academy Awards for the Marvel sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Carter also won in 2018 for “Black Panther,” which made her the first African American to win in the category.

In her acceptance speech, Carter thanked the film’s director Ryan Coogler and asked if “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman could look after her mother, Mabel Carter, who she said died “this past week.” Boseman died in 2020 of cancer at 43.

“This is for my mother. She was 101,” Carter said. “This film prepared me for this moment. Chadwick, please take care of mom.”

Carter then paid tribute to her mother backstage.

“I had a great relationship with her in her final years. The same relationship I always had with her. I was her ride-or-die. I was her road dog. I was her sidekick,” she said. “I know she’s proud of me. I know that she wanted this for me as much as I wanted it for myself.”

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” grappled with the grief of losing Boseman, its superhero.

In her career, Carter has been behind-the-scenes in some of Hollywood’s biggest films. She’s received Oscar nominations for her work in Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” and Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad” and received praise for her period ensembles in other projects such as Lee Daniels’ “The Butler,” Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” and the reboot of “ROOTS.” She’s created costumes for Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy and even Jerry Seinfeld for the “Seinfeld” pilot.

Carter played an influential role as lead costume designer in making “Black Panther” a cultural phenomenon as she infused the pride of African diaspora into the character’s stylish and colorful garments to help bring Wakanda to life. She wanted to transform the presence of Queen Ramonda - played by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett — as a queen in the first film to being a ruler in the sequel.

“Angela always wanted to play a queen, so to amplify her, we added vibranium … we gave her the royal color of purple, and adorned her in gold as she wore the crown at the UN,” Carter said. “When she sits on the throne, she’s in a gray one shouldered dress. The exposed shoulder shows her strength — Angela, she got those guns, right?”

Carter said she was able to pull off the win against a “tough lineup.” She was up against designers from “Elvis,” “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and “Babylon.”

She got her start in 1988 on Lee’s “School Daze,” the director’s second film. They’ve since collaborated on more than 10 films, including “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever.” She’s also worked with Robert Townsend on “The Five Heartbeats” and Keenen Ivory Wayans on “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.”

“I pulled myself up from my bootstraps,” Carter said. “I started in a single parent household. I wanted to be a costume designer. I studied. I scraped. I struggled with adversity in an industry that sometimes didn’t look like me. And I endured.”

Through the Oscar-nominated “Malcolm X,” she reached new heights. That film, starring Denzel Washington, propelled her into the “Hollywood makeup,” offering her more opportunities to work with directors who had different points-of-views and scripts.

Carter’s wish is that her historic win Sunday will offer more opportunities to women of color.

“I hope this opens the door for others … that they can win an Oscar, too,” Carter said.

___ For more coverage of this year’s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards

US Defends Decision To Shoot Down 3 Unidentified Objects

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, right, meets with Canada's Minister of National Defense Anita Anand, far left, at the Pentagon in Washington, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

BY ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Monday defended the shootdowns of three unidentified objects in as many days even as it acknowledged that officials had no indication the objects were intended for surveillance in the same manner as the high-altitude Chinese balloon that traversed American airspace earlier this month.

The three objects, including one shot down Sunday over Lake Huron, were unmanned and traveling at such a low altitude as to pose a risk to civilian commercial air traffic, said White House national security spokesman John Kirby. And though the Biden administration does not yet have evidence that they were equipped for spying purposes, officials have not ruled that out either, he said.

“These were decisions based purely and simply on what was in the best interests of the American people,” Kirby said of the action to shoot them down.

The weeks-long succession of objects, starting with a giant white orb first detected over U.S. skies in late January, has puzzled American officials and stirred curiosity around the world. Though the three most recent objects differed in size, maneuverability and other characteristics from the surveillance balloon shot down Feb. 4 off the Carolina coast, officials moved to eliminate each one from the sky — actions that Pentagon officials believe have no peacetime precedent.

“Because we have not been able to definitively assess what these most recent objects are, we acted out of an abundance of caution to protect our security, our interests and flight safety,” Kirby said.

One possibility that the U.S. has been able to rule out is any connection to extraterrestrial activity, the White House said Monday, tamping down lighthearted public speculation about aliens and outer space.

“I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no — again, no — indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the outset of a press briefing.

Other Western nations are also trying to assess the spate of incidents. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Monday that the government would do “whatever it takes” to protect the country, as the U.K. announced a security review. And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “there is some sort of pattern” to the balloon and three other objects, though the U.S. has not echoed that claim.

Kirby spoke from the White House podium hours after China alleged that more than 10 U.S. high-altitude balloons have flown in its airspace during the past year without its permission. American officials have vigorously denied the claim, with Kirby saying Monday, “We are not flying surveillance balloons over China.”

The Chinese allegation came after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that had crossed from above Alaska to South Carolina over a period of multiple days, sparking a new crisis in bilateral relations that have sunk to their lowest level in decades and prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a planned visit to China.

At the time, Blinken said he hoped to reschedule the trip at an appropriate time. but there are several upcoming opportunities for high-level talks with the Chinese, including as early as this weekend. Blinken and Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party foreign policy chief, will both be in Munich, Germany, for the annual Munich Security Conference that begins Friday.

The State Department said no meeting between the men has been scheduled but spokesman Ned Price added that the U.S. is “always assessing options for diplomacy.” “We are open and we are committed to keeping lines of communication open,” he told reporters.

The latest of the three objects was shot down Sunday over Lake Huron after being detected a day earlier over Montana.

On Friday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined U.S.-Canada organization known as NORAD that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected and shot down an object near sparsely populated Deadhorse, Alaska.

Later that evening, NORAD detected a second object flying at a high altitude over Alaska, U.S. officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace Saturday and was over the Yukon, a remote territory, when it was ordered shot down by Trudeau.

In both of those incidents, the objects were flying at roughly 40,000 feet (12,000 meters). The object on Sunday was flying at about 20,000 feet (6,000 meters).

None of the three most recent objects has been recovered, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Brussels, where he was scheduled to attend a NATO defense ministers meeting this week.

Austin said weather has impeded recovery efforts in Alaska, while in Canada the object was shot down in a very remote area that was also impeding efforts. In Alaska, where the object landed on sea ice, wind chill and safety concerns “are dictating recovery timelines,” he said.

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Colleen Long and Matthew Lee in Washington and Tara Copp in Brussels contributed to this report.

US Jet Shoots Down Unknown Object Flying Off Alaska Coast

Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder briefs reporters at the Pentagon in Washington, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

BY ZEKE MILLER, COLLEEN LONG AND TARA COPP

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. military fighter jet shot down an unknown object flying off the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday on orders from President Joe Biden, White House officials said.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the object was downed because it was flying at about 40,000 feet (13,000 meters) and posed a “reasonable threat” to the safety of civilian flights, not because of any knowledge that it was engaged in surveillance. Asked about the object’s downing, Biden on Friday said only that “It was a success.”

Commercial airliners and private jets can fly as high as 45,000 feet (13,700 meters).

Kirby described the object as roughly the size of a small car, much smaller than the massive suspected Chinese spy balloon downed by Air Force fighter jets Saturday off the coast of South Carolina after it transited over sensitive military sites across the continental U.S.

The twin downings in such close succession are extraordinary, and reflect heightened concerns over China’s surveillance program and public pressure on Biden to take a tough stand against it. Still, there were few answers about the unknown object downed Friday and the White House drew distinctions between the two episodes. Officials couldn’t say if the latest object contained any surveillance equipment, where it came from or what purpose it had.

The Pentagon on Friday declined to provide a more precise description of the object, only saying that U.S. pilots who flew up to observe it determined it didn’t appear to be manned. Officials said the object was far smaller than last week’s balloon, did not appear to be maneuverable and was traveling at a much lower altitude.

Kirby maintained that Biden, based on the advice of the Pentagon, believed it posed enough of a concern to shoot it out of the sky — primarily because of the potential risk to civilian aircraft.

“We’re going to remain vigilant about our airspace,” Kirby said. “The president takes his obligations to protect our national security interests as paramount.”

The president was briefed on the presence of the object Thursday evening after two fighter jets surveilled it.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Friday that an F-22 fighter aircraft based at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson shot down the object using an AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile, the same type used to take down the balloon nearly a week ago.

The object flew over one of the most desolate places on the nation. Few towns dot Alaska’s North Slope, with the two apparently closest communities — Deadhorse and Kaktovik — combining for about 300 people. Unlike the suspected spy balloon, which was downed to live feeds and got U.S. residents looking up to the skies, it’s likely few people saw this object given the blistering frigid conditions of northern Alaska this time of the year, meaning there are few people outside for a prolonged period of time.

Ahead of the the shoot-down, the Federal Aviation Administration restricted flights over a roughly 10-square mile (26-square kilometer) area within U.S. airspace off Alaska’s Bullen Point, the site of a disused U.S. Air Force radar station on the Beaufort Sea about 130 miles (210 kilometers) from the Canadian border, inside the Arctic Circle.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a tweet Friday that he had been briefed and supported the decision. “Our military and intelligence services will always work together,” he said.

The object fell onto frozen waters and officials expected they could recover debris faster than from last week’s massive balloon. Ryder said the object was traveling northeast when it was shot down. He said several U.S. military helicopters have gone out to begin the recovery effort

The unknown object was shot down in an area with harsh weather conditions and about six and a half hours of daylight at this time of year. Daytime temperatures Friday were about minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius).

After the object was detected Thursday, NORAD — North American Aerospace Defense Command —sent F-35s to observe it, a U.S. official said, adding that the military queried U.S. government agencies to make sure it did not belong to any of them, and had confidence it was not a U.S. government or military asset. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive national security matters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Because it was much smaller than the suspected Chinese spy balloon, there were fewer safety concerns about downing it over land, so the decision was made to shoot it down when it was possible. That happened over water.

The development came almost a week after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America. China insisted the flyover was an accident involving a civilian craft and threatened repercussions.

Biden issued the order but had wanted the balloon downed even earlier. He was advised that the best time for the operation would be when it was over water. Military officials determined that bringing it down over land from an altitude of 60,000 feet would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.

The balloon was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said. The U.S. has said Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of countries across five continents in recent years, and it learned more about the balloon program after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina.

China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage contributed to this report.

South African President Reelected Leader Of ruling ANC Party

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrates after being re-elected African National Congress president at the ANC national conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday, Dec. 19, 2022. Ramaphosa has won reelection as leader of the ruling African National Congress party. The results announced Monday showed an unexpectedly close race between Ramaphosa and former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

BY MOGOMOTSI MAGOME

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been reelected as the leader of the ruling African National Congress party.

Ramaphosa beat his rival, former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize by 2,476 votes to 1,897 votes from a total of 4,386 votes cast by party delegates from across the country.

Ramaphosa’s supporters burst into celebrations as results were announced Monday at the ANC’s crucial leadership conference in Johannesburg.

This comes as a welcome victory for Ramaphosa, who has been mired in a scandal and facing calls to step down as president of the country and to be replaced as the leader of the ANC.

Last week he survived a vote to start impeachment proceedings against him over a parliamentary report that said he may have broken anti-corruption laws by keeping undeclared sums of dollars at his farm and failing to declare their theft.

Ramaphosa’s victory paves the way for him to run for reelection to a second term as South Africa’s president in the national elections in 2024.

The crucial ANC conference has been marked by bitter divisions and scandals surrounding Ramaphosa, Mkhize and other leaders.

With crippling nationwide power cuts of more than 7 hours a day, an unemployment rate of 35% and widespread reports of corruption, Ramaphosa and the newly elected ANC leadership have many challenges to address as the party heading the government and the legislature.

Ramaphosa admitted that his government was partly to blame for the country’s electricity crisis, speaking at the opening of the conference on Friday. He vowed that his government would ensure an adequate supply of electricity by purchasing more renewable energy over the next few years.

Ramaphosa also pledged that his government would continue to fight corruption, even as he was embroiled in a graft scandal.

Ramaphosa has been facing calls to step down from his position over a damning parliamentary report that said he may have broken anti-corruption laws by hiding undeclared dollars in cash at his Phala Phala farm. The report questioned the source of the funds and why did not report it to the police.

Mkhize was forced to resign as health minister over a scandal in which his family was found to have benefitted from a government contract.

Although the race was closer than expected, Ramaphosa did manage to increase his margin of victory from the very narrow 179 votes he won by in 2017. This time Ramaphosa won by 579 votes.

Also, two of Ramaphosa’s main critics within his Cabinet were decisively sidelined. Cooperative Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who last week voted in parliament in favor of impeachment proceedings against Ramaphosa, declined a nomination to run for ANC president. Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, an outspoken critic of Ramaphosa, appeared isolated at the conference.

“Sisulu entered the presidential campaign as a woman who wanted to be president. She leaves it as someone who made serious miscalculations,” opined the Daily Maverick news website. “We believe a Cabinet reshuffle in 2023 is imminent.”

Despite Ramaphosa’s win, the ANC remains deeply divided. Former President Jacob Zuma leads nearly half of the party that is opposed to Ramaphosa and his anti-corruption drive. Defeated presidential candidate Mkhize has emerged as the public head of that faction.

“Mkhize won the backing of 43% of delegates, in part by promising plum posts to party powerbrokers. The results underscore that Ramaphosa faces substantial opposition within the ANC,” said Aleix Montana, Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft.

Oscar Mabuyane, who lost the contest for the position of ANC deputy president, said he is happy with Ramaphosa’s victory.

“This win is not only for the ANC perspective or a faction. It is for the country,” Mabuyane told The Associated Press.

Political analyst Hlengiwe Ndlovu said Ramaphosa had failed to unite the party after he was elected in 2017 and would need to do something more this time around.

“Even though he was promising unity, he never unified them,” said Ndlovu. “Instead, all we saw were widening divisions and factionalism. It will be interesting to see what he will do differently this time.”

Some delegates said that Ramaphosa deserved a second chance and called for the unity of the party despite delegates having supported different candidates.

Mandilakhe Kondile, a delegate from the Eastern Cape province, said Ramaphosa deserved another chance as the leader of the ANC.

“It is our strong belief that Ramaphosa was not given enough time to make meaningful changes, he had only led for five years,” said Kondile. “Now it is a second chance for him to deal with the issues facing South Africans and to unify the African National Congress.”

According to the ANC vote, Ramaphosa’s deputy will be Paul Mashatile, the party’s outgoing treasurer-general. The party reelected Gwede Mantashe to another term as national chairman.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula was elected as the party’s new secretary-general and his deputies will be Nomvula Mokonyane and Maropene Ramokgopa. The party’s new treasurer-general is Gwen Ramakgopa.

As Tigray Calms, Ethiopia Sees Growing Conflict In Oromia

FILE - Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks at a final campaign rally at a stadium in the town of Jimma in the southwestern Oromia Region of Ethiopia, June 16 2021. Even as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attends the U.S.-Africa summit this week to promote last month's peace agreement between his government and authorities from the country's Tigray region, the larger region of Oromia appears increasingly unstable (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)

BY CARA ANNA

NAIROBI, KENYA (AP) — As one deadly conflict in Ethiopia begins to calm, another is growing, challenging a government that’s eager to persuade the international community to lift sanctions and revive what was once one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.

Even as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attends the U.S.-Africa summit this week to promote last month’s peace agreement between his government and authorities from the country’s Tigray region, the larger region of Oromia appears increasingly unstable.

Africa’s second most populous country, with 120 million people, is again wrestling with deadly tensions between ethnic groups and their armed allies. Both the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups, the country’s largest, allege killings and blame the other. With telecommunications often cut and residents often fearing retaliation if they speak out, the death toll in the violence in Oromia is unknown.

Speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity out of fears for their safety, several residents of Oromia described deadly attacks in recent weeks.

One witness in the region’s Kiramu district said his father and cousin were among at least 34 people killed since Nov. 24. He blamed soldiers under the control of the Oromia regional government, saying he saw their uniforms.

“It all started with a confrontation between a single local militia and members of the Oromia special forces,” he said. “The special forces killed the militia who was a member of the Amhara community, and then a week-long killing followed.” He estimated that hundreds of people have since fled the area.

An ethnic Oromo resident of Kiramu, however, accused an Amhara armed group known as the Fano of attacking and killing civilians and said he had seen more than a dozen bodies and buried four of them on Nov. 29.

“This militia group is killing our people, burning villages and looting everything we own,” Dhugassa Feyissa told the AP. “They shoot at anyone they find … be it public servants, police officers or teachers.”

The Oromo and Amara have lived together for years, he said, but they had never seen fighting like this before.

The deputy administrator of the Gidda Ayanna district, which also has seen some of Oromia’s worst violence in recent weeks, also blamed the Amhara Fano fighters.

“Civilians in our area are being killed, displaced and looted. This group is heavily armed, so it is no match for farmers who are defenseless,” Getahun Tolera said, noting that his district now hosts some 31,000 people who fled nearby districts. “We are still going house-to-house and discovering bodies.”

Ethiopian federal government officials declined to comment on the killings in Oromia and have not yet openly spoken about them. The prime minister last week said only that some “enemies with extreme views” were trying to destabilize the country, without giving details.

Ethiopian security forces, Oromo insurgents and Amhara militia are all battling each other in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region, said William Davison, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

“Amid an intensifying government struggle against the rebels, all three have targeted civilians, particularly ethnic Amhara, which has led to an increase in violence by Amhara militia claiming to be defending their communities,” he said.

As Ethiopian federal security forces battle the Oromo Liberation Army, which the government has called a terrorist group, Oromo and Amhara residents and their armed allies also fight each other over grievances old and new.

Amhara settlers first moved en masse to Oromia in the 1980s during a famine in northern Ethiopia. They lived peacefully there until the past three years. The OLA split from an Oromo political organization and reportedly began targeting Amhara, at times as revenge for its losses to government forces. Amhara militia reportedly began targeting Oromos, and regional security forces became involved.

Oromos are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, followed by the Amhara, who have dominated the country’s politics for generations. Many Oromos were jubilant when Abiy, who identifies as Oromo, became prime minister in 2018. But that excitement has changed to frustration with the growing violence.

Rallies protesting the killings have been held in some communities in recent days. Last week, the government-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said “hundreds” of people had been killed in a “gruesome manner” in the past four months across 10 zones in the Oromia region, and it confirmed the presence of government forces, Amhara militia and the OLA in areas where repeated killings occur.

“The deliberate attacks against civilians in these areas are made based on ethnicity and political views … with the assertion that one supports one group over the other,” the commission said, urging the federal government to take urgent action.

Opposition parties also are speaking up. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, All Ethiopia Unity Party and Enat Party called for more security for the affected communities, and a senior Ethiopian official from the opposition National Movement of Amhara asked the federal government to intervene.

“The totality of us have become a country that shows no strong aversion to a continued bloodshed of innocents, wherever it may happen,” Belete Molla said in a Facebook post earlier this month.

Another prominent political figure, Oromo opposition politician Jawar Mohammed, earlier this month asserted that at least 350 people had been killed and over 400,000 displaced “just in the last 48 hours” in the Kiramu, Horo Guduru, Kuyu and Wara Jarso areas of Oromia.

“The government needs to quit pretending as if nothing is happening,” Jawar said in a Facebook post. “The conflict is fast becoming a communal war involving civilians. If not contained soon, it will likely spread to other parts of the two regional states and beyond.”

Pope, Anglican, Scottish church leaders to pray in Africa

Pope Francis arrives in the Paul VI hall to meet with Italian members of the Cursillos de Cristianidad movement at the Vatican, Saturday, 28, 2002. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

BY FRANCES D'EMILIO

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, the archbishop of Canterbury and the leader of a the church of Scotland will together lead a prayer vigil for peace while visiting South Sudan next month, the Vatican said Saturday.

It released details of the pontiff’s itinerary of his July 2-7 African travels, which he will begin in Congo. Then he travels to South Sudan, where he will make what is being billed as an historic “ecumenical pilgrimage of peace” along with the Rev. Justin Welby, who heads the Anglican church, and the Right Rev. Iain Greenshields, moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The visit seeks to boost a 2018 agreement aimed at ending civil war in South Sudan.

The African trip will be the first overseas voyage for the pontiff since he has taken to using a wheelchair on occasion in public lately as he struggles with a knee ligament problem.

Francis, 85, battled a major medical issue last summer, when he underwent intestinal surgery in July necessitated by what the Vatican said was a severe narrowing of the colon.

While warring parties signed the peace agreement after 20 months of violent conflict, South Sudan is facing heavy challenges, including an economy risking collapse, a deteriorating humanitarian situation and “an unsteady political will to implement the peace agreement,″ the Church of Scotland said.

“I am genuinely humbled at the opportunity to assist our brothers and sisters in South Sudan in the search for peace, reconciliation and justice,″ Greenshields said in the statement. He said Francis, Welby and himself are coming ”as servants of the Global Church.”

On the first full day of their pilgrimage in South Sudan, the three men will visit a camp in Juba for internally displaced people.

While in Congo, Francis will deliver the homily during Mass at Ndolo Airport in Kinshasha. After arriving in Goma, he will give another homily during Mass at the Kibumba Camp. Earlier this year, thousands of people in Congo were displaced after they fled clashes between the Congolese army and rebel fighters.

Francis will also meet with victims of violence in Beni and in the east of Congo, the Vatican said. Last year, two explosions on the same day hit a Catholic church and a market in Beni. The explosions were claimed by the Islamic State group’s Central Africa Province.

Police: 31 Dead In Church Fair Stampede In southern Nigeria

Image: Twitter

BY CHINEDU ASADU

ABUJA, NIGERIA (AP) — A stampede Saturday at a church charity sale in southern Nigeria left 31 people dead, police told The Associated Press, a shocking development at an event that organizers said aimed to “offer hope” to the needy.

The stampede at the program organized by the Kings Assembly pentecostal church in Rivers state involved many people who were seeking assistance, according to Grace Iringe-Koko, a police spokesperson in the state.

Many of the victims came to an annual “Shop for Free” charity program organized by the church. Such events are common in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, where more than 80 million people live in poverty, according to government statistics.

Saturday’s charity program was supposed to begin at 9 a.m. but dozens arrived as early as 5 a.m. to secure their place in line, Iringe-Koko said. Somehow they broke open the locked gate, she said, noting that in addition to the deaths, seven other people were injured but “responding to treatment.”

Videos from the scene showed the clothing and shoes meant for the beneficiaries. Doctors and emergency workers treated some of the injured as they lay in the open field.

The “Shop for Free” event was suspended while authorities investigated how the stampede occurred.

Berliners Open Their Hearts, Homes To Those Fleeing Ukraine

Emmanuel Oyedele, from left, Deborah Samuel, Shalom Odion, Kurrah David and host Christian Vollmann pose for a photo after an interview with The Associated press in Gross Koeris near Berlin, Germany, Monday, March 7, 2022. Vollmann offered his holiday home until the end of April to the Nigerian students who fled Kyiv after the Russian attack on Ukraine. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

BY KERSTIN SOPKE AND FRANK JORDANS

BERLIN (AP) — Emmanuel Oyedele’s dream of getting a business degree in Ukraine lies shattered in the rubble of Russia’s sudden fierce military assault, but right now the 28-year-old Nigerian says he feels blessed.

After hastily escaping Kyiv as Russian forces advanced, Oyedele, his brother and two young female friends spent days trying to flee Ukraine by train and on foot before eventually making it to Berlin, where they were welcomed into a stranger’s home.

“The stress, it’s all gone,” Oyedele said Monday from the lake-side house an hour outside the German capital where the Vollmann family says he and his group can stay until the end of April.

“The only stress I have right now is the sympathy, the sadness in me to see my brothers who are stuck in Kyiv or other regions of Ukraine,” Oyedele told The Associated Press. Aside from the threat of being caught in the fighting, lack of electricity means those left behind are now sleeping in cold apartments, without warm water or any way to cook, he said.

The U.N. says the number of people who have fled Ukraine since the start of the war has reached 2 million, and many more are still trying to get out. Among them are tens of thousands of foreigners, including many students from Asia and Africa who, like Oyedele, had hoped to get a foothold in Europe with a degree in Ukraine.

Reports of non-white people being turned back at the border as they tried to enter Poland prompted Oyedele and his friends to make a lengthy detour via Hungary, from where they were eventually able to get to Berlin.

Christian Vollmann, a tech entrepreneur in his mid-40s, was among hundreds of Germans waiting at the train station Friday night with a sign saying how many people he could take in and for how long.

“I felt helpless and wanted to do something,” Vollmann told AP after he and Oyedele had been paired up by volunteers trying to find homes for trainloads of weary refugees, many of whom were carrying little more than a bag each containing their most precious belongings and documents.

“We are so privileged here,” he said.

Germany took in almost 900,000 refugees in 2015, many of them fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The influx was accompanied by a deliberate effort on the part of many Germans to help the new arrivals integrate, but also led to social tensions and the rise of a new far-right party in the country.

So far, Berlin’s welcome to those fleeing the war in Ukraine has been big-hearted, but the sudden strain is beginning to show.

“It’s very important that people don’t just arrive in Berlin, but also are accommodated in other states so that we can manage it,” Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey said Monday.

Of the more than 10,000 people arriving in the German capital each day since Friday, the overwhelming majority have found shelter in private accommodation — with friends or volunteer hosts.

Giffey praised the goodwill of Berliners but warned that it likely won’t be a long-term solution.

“If someone clears out their children’s room, they can do that for a while, for one or two or perhaps a few weeks,” she said, but warned that eventually people might need long-term accommodation elsewhere.

Vollmann is convinced he made the right choice taking in Oyedele and his friends. The Nigerians and their German hosts have already spent a night around a campfire drinking beer and getting to know each other.

“It was great to see how grateful they were, how much joy they had and how many plans they’re already making,” Vollmann said.

He hopes the wave of support many Europeans are showing toward those fleeing Ukraine will continue.

“In my view this sends a very strong signal,” Vollmann said. “The more aggression there is, the more solidarity has to come from our side.”

Oyedele, too, has his hopes pinned on Europe.

“I think Germany has a space for me,” he said.

AP writer Geir Moulson contributed to this report.

Strained US Hospitals Seek Foreign Nurses Amid Visa Windfall

BY AMY TAXIN, AP

Registered Nurse Jorge Almeida Neri, originally from Portugal, takes his picture on his way to work in Newport News, Va., on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. Almeida Neri, a 26-year-old nurse from Portugal, arrived in the United States in December though he began the process before the pandemic. He said a required international nursing exam was delayed due to the virus and it took four months to get a consular interview, though other international nurses he's met waited much longer. He interviewed for his current job at a Virginia hospital, which he got through a staffing agency, about a year ago. (Jorge Almeida Neri via AP)

In this Feb. 1, 2022, photo provided by University of Louisville Hospital, Faith Akinmade, an ICU nurse at the University of Louisville Hospital in Louisville, Ky., who is originally from Nigeria, poses for a photo in front of the hospital. After completing college in the United States, Akinmade has been working at the hospital, but her work permit is set to expire in March and she said she needs it renewed, or her green card approved, to stay on the job. Hospitals and recruiters are hoping international nurses like Akimnade and others overseas will be able to snap up a larger-than-usual number of immigrant visas that are available this fiscal year to professionals seeking to move to the United States. (Tom Round/University of Louisville Hospital via AP

With American hospitals facing a dire shortage of nurses amid a slogging pandemic, many are looking abroad for health care workers.

And it could be just in time.

There’s an unusually high number of green cards available this year for foreign professionals, including nurses, who want to move to the United States — twice as many as just a few years ago. That’s because U.S. consulates shut down during the coronavirus pandemic weren’t issuing visas to relatives of American citizens, and, by law, these unused slots now get transferred to eligible workers.

Amy L. Erlbacher-Anderson, an immigration attorney in Omaha, Nebraska, said she has seen more demand for foreign nurses in two years than the rest of her 18-year career. And this year, she said, it’s more likely they’ll get approved to come, so long as U.S. consular offices can process all the applications.

“We have double the number of visas we’ve had available for decades,” she said. “That is kind of temporarily creating a very open situation.”

U.S. hospitals are struggling with a shortage of nurses that worsened as pandemic burnout led many to retire or leave their jobs. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases continue to rise and fall, placing tremendous pressure on the health care system. In California alone, there’s an estimated gap of 40,000 nurses, or 14% of the workforce, according to a recent report by the University of California, San Francisco.

Hospitals are filling the gap by hiring traveling nurses, but that can be expensive. And hospital administrators say not enough nurses are graduating from U.S. schools each year to meet the demand.

Some hospitals have long brought nurses from the Philippines, Jamaica and other English-speaking countries, and more are now following suit. And both longtime recruiters and newcomers are trying to take advantage of the green card windfall before the fiscal year ends in September.

The U.S. typically offers at least 140,000 green cards each year to people moving to the country permanently for certain professional jobs, including nursing. Most are issued to people who are already living in the United States on temporary visas, though some go to workers overseas. This year, 280,000 of these green cards are available, and recruiters hope some of the extras can be snapped up by nurses seeking to work in pandemic-weary hospitals in the United States.

The Biden administration, which has made moves to reverse Trump-era policies restricting legal immigration, has taken some steps to try to help foreign health care workers so they can assist with the pandemic. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it would speed the renewal of work permits for health care workers, which could help keep some foreign citizens already in the United States on the job. The State Department told consulates last year to prioritize applications for workers at facilities that are responding to the pandemic, an agency official said.

Faith Akinmade, a 22-year-old nurse from Nigeria, is among those hoping for a quick solution. After completing college in the U.S., Akinmade has been working as an ICU nurse for University of Louisville Hospital in Kentucky. But her work permit is set to expire in March. She said she needs it renewed, or her green card approved, to stay on the job.

“At this point and time, I just feel like I have faith that at the end of March something is going to show up to continue to work,” Akinmade said. She said the issue affects many of her international colleagues as well as domestic ones, who may be pressed to take on shifts for colleagues if their immigration paperwork doesn’t come through.

Dr. Roxie Wells, president of Cape Fear Valley Hoke Hospital in Raeford, North Carolina, said she started trying to bring over foreign nurses before the pandemic, but it wasn’t until last year that these recruits started getting consular interviews in larger numbers. So far, about 150 were approved to come work, but Wells said they’re still waiting on another 75.

“Obviously it has become more necessary during the pandemic,” she said. “The 150, if we didn’t have them, we would be in a precarious situation.”

The surge in the omicron variant in the United States has made the strained staffing situation even more apparent in hospitals as health care workers, like so many others, have been sickened by the highly contagious virus and sidelined from work at a time when more patients are coming in.

Sinead Carbery, president of Nurse Staffing Solutions for AMN Healthcare, said the demand for international nurses has risen between 300% and 400% since the pandemic began. The number of nurses that can be brought into the United States even with the additional green cards won’t be enough to meet demand, and many more recruiters are now seeking to hire nurses overseas because there are immigrant visas available, she said.

“This is a window of opportunity,” she said. “Because everything is flowing so well, there’s a lot of competition for that talent.”

National Nurses United, a union representing 175,000 registered nurses, said more scrutiny should be given to international recruitment to ensure foreign nurses aren’t brought in and subjected to unsafe working conditions. The union contends hospitals drove away U.S. nurses by keeping staffing levels so low — and this was well before concerns arose about worker safety and protections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michelle Mahon, the union’s assistant director of nursing practice, said many foreign nurses sign yearslong contracts with employers, which can make it hard for them to speak up about labor or patient safety concerns. She said hospitals that saw nurses quit during the pandemic are turning to an overseas workforce to replace them.

“This kind of dynamic is particularly attractive right now to employers who have not made any of the changes necessary to ensure patient and nursing safety during this COVID-19 pandemic,” Mahon said. “Instead of them addressing the actual problem, they want to go and pivot to this other really fake solution.”

Hospital administrators, however, contend there simply aren’t enough U.S.-trained nurses to go around. Patty Jeffrey, president of the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment, said the United States should expand nursing education programs to train more nurses domestically, as well as let more nurses come in from overseas. But she acknowledged bringing in a much larger number of nurses would require legislation.

“The calls are every day ringing off the hook: We need 100, we need 200, we need all these nurses,” Jeffrey said.

Jorge Almeida Neri, a 26-year-old nurse from Portugal, arrived in the United States in December, though he began the process before the pandemic. He said a required international nursing exam was delayed due to the virus and it took four months to get a consular interview, though other international nurses he’s met waited much longer. He interviewed for his current job at a Virginia hospital, which he got through a staffing agency, about a year ago.

“After getting everything certified, the immigration process started, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be quick.’ I was wrong,” he said.

Almeida Neri said many Portuguese nurses seek work overseas since wages are low, though many go elsewhere in Europe, which doesn’t take as long as the United States.

Despite the demand, there’s no guarantee hospitals will in fact snap up more visas. Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney, said U.S. consular offices aren’t required to issue visas solely because they’re available, and are hampered by limits on remote work and video interviews. He said most employment-based green cards tend to go to professionals already in the United States, not overseas, though more could be done to speed these up, too.

“Under their current policies, if they don’t make any changes, it is going to be hard,” he said of the likelihood the U.S. government will issue all the available visas, “but there’s a lot of things they could do.”

US House Shuffle Continues With California Districts In Play

BY MICHAEL R. BLOOD

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The once-a-decade reshaping of California congressional districts set off another round of political maneuvering Wednesday, with House members jumping into newly drawn districts that will play into the fight for control of Congress in 2022.

Republican U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel announced she will run in an inland district anchored in Orange County, avoiding a potential showdown on her old political turf with Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, a national progressive star and powerhouse fundraiser. Porter announced plans Monday to switch districts after her hometown of Irvine was drawn into the new coastal seat, the 47th.

"Although the district lines have changed, my mission has not," Steel said in a statement. "Californians today are facing so many challenges, from high taxes to concerns over affordability, crime, and the quality of education our children receive."

Democrats are defending a fragile eight-seat House majority in a midterm election next year, when the party that controls the White House historically loses seats in Congress. President Joe Biden's approval ratings have been shaky, adding further anxiety for Democrats hoping to hold the House and Senate.

The revised boundaries were endorsed Monday by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which was tasked with drawing new districts to account for shifts in population, a requirement that happens once a decade. Each district must represent 760,000 people.

In other moves, Republican U.S. Rep. Young Kim said she would run in an inland district anchored in Orange County, the 40th. The district has a Republican tilt and was vacated by Porter, who jumped to the neighboring contest where the the number of Democratic and Republican voters is nearly equal.

Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Harley Rouda, who was ousted by Steel in 2020 and planned to run against her next year, said on Twitter that he would "evaluate all the options" after Porter entered the race, a statement that didn't preclude he might drop out.

"I firmly believe that I am the most electable Democrat in this district but I am also a realist whose goal has always been to put my constituents ... first," he wrote.

In the state's farm belt, Democratic U.S. Rep. Josh Harder announced he would run for reelection in the 13th District, which includes his hometown of Turlock. The district is firmly Democratic in registration, with a large Latino population.

California will lose a House seat next year, dropping to 52 from 53 seats, because the population in other states is growing faster. It will remain the largest House delegation.

California is one of the nation's most Democratic states, where the party holds every statewide office and dominates the Legislature and congressional delegation. In many cases the new district lines appear to favor Democrats. Republican registration has been withering in the state for years, and registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2-to-1 statewide.

Still, there are a string of competitive districts that will factor in the fight for House control.

Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican who saw his district north of Los Angeles stripped of the Republican-rich community of Simi Valley, said Monday that "the commission has shown they were not acting independently when they drew all the Democratic incumbents into safer seats while making five out of the 11 Republican districts more vulnerable."

Celebration And Protests Mark Tunisia’s New Revolution Day

BYFRANCESCA EBEL 

An image of Mohammed Bouazizi is depicted on the facade of the post office building, in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. President Kais Saied changed the anniversary date of Tunisia's 2011 revolution – when former autocratic ruler Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled the country – to Dec. 17 to mark the day in 2010 when fruit seller Mohammed Bouazzi set himself alight, setting off the series of uprisings in Tunisia that led to what is now known as the Arab Spring.in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Riadh Dridi)

TUNIS, TUNISIA (AP) — Official observances took place at the birthplace of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, while opponents and supporters of the country’s president held rival demonstrations in the capital Friday, the new date the leader chose to mark Revolution Day.

A few hundred demonstrators gathered in Tunis on Friday morning to protest Tunisian President Kais Saied’s consolidation of power over the summer and his subsequent actions that have raised fears of democratic backsliding.

A smaller counter-protest in support of the president was held nearby.

Saied announced Monday, almost five months after his power grab, that he would prolong the suspension of parliament until an election in December next year. He also set a date for a national referendum on political reform for July 25, exactly a year since Saied took on sweeping powers.

The president’s opponents slammed his announcement.

Former parliament speaker Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s largest Islamist party, Ennahdha, called Saied’s moves “unconstitutional and illegal” and said the president had “deepened the political crisis in the country…and exacerbated Tunisia’s international isolation.”

The secretary-general of the country’s main trade union, the UGTT, said Saied’s announcement did not address the country’s economic and social problems. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated Tunisia’s deteriorating economy, and the country has an 18% unemployment rate.

Following nationwide antigovernment protests in July, Saied abruptly froze parliament, dismissed his government and assumed greater executive powers. In September, he partially suspended the country’s post-revolutionary Constitution and gave himself the power to rule by decree.

Though Saied’s measures have proven popular, welcomed by a public weary of political elites and economic turmoil, critics say Saied’s actions amount to a coup.

Among Saied’s recent announcements was his decision to move the country’s official Revolution Day from Jan. 14 – commemorating the date when former autocrat Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled the country amid unprecedented mass protests – to Dec. 17.

The new date marks the day in 2010 when fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in frustration over corruption, joblessness and repression. His desperate act set off an uprising across Tunisia that spread to other countries in what became known as the Arab Spring.

In the decade since, an annual celebration has always been held on Dec. 17 in Sidi Bouzid, Bouazizi’s hometown and the site of the revolution’s first protests.

Masked crowds fill Wuhan’s streets, trains as lockdown ends

A police officer wearing a face mask to protect against the spread of new coronavirus stands guard at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Wednesday, April 8, 2020. Within hours of China lifting an 11-week lockdown on the central city of Wuhan early Wednesday, tens of thousands people had left the city by train and plane alone, according to local media reports. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

BY SAM MCNEIL

WUHAN, CHINA (AP) — Amid streets newly bustling with cars and pedestrians, Wang Chun celebrated the lifting of a virus lockdown on her hometown of Wuhan on Wednesday with a dance outdoors after 2 1/2 months largely cooped up at home.

“I’m so happy Wuhan has defeated the virus,” Wang said after recording a K-Pop-inspired duet with a male partner for posting on the internet. Neither of them wore face masks, at least for a brief few minutes.

After she put on the mask again, Wang confronted the question many of the city’s 11 million residents are asking themselves: When will they be going back to work?

“That’s a very good question,” Wang responded with a giggle.

Wuhan ended its 76-day lockdown Wednesday morning, allowing residents to again travel in and out of the city without special authorization through the use of a mandatory smartphone app powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance showing they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.

Long lines formed at the airport and train and bus stations as thousands streamed out of the city to return to their homes and jobs elsewhere. Yellow barriers that had blocked off some streets were gone, although the gates to residential compounds remained guarded.

After more than two months indoors, Wuhan resident Tong Zhengkun was one of millions of enjoying a renewed sense of freedom.

“Being indoors for so long drove me crazy,” an emotional Tong said as he watched a celebratory midnight light display from a bridge across the broad Yangtze River flowing through the city, where the coronavirus outbreak began late last year.

Tong said his apartment complex was shut down after residents were found to have contracted the coronavirus. Neighborhood workers delivered groceries to his door.

Such measures won’t be entirely abandoned following the end of Wuhan’s closure, which began on Jan. 23 as the virus raged through the city and overwhelmed hospitals. Schools are still closed, people are still checked for fevers when they enter buildings, and masks are strongly encouraged. City leaders say they want to simultaneously bring back social and commercial life while avoiding a second wave of infections.

The economic costs of the outbreak in Wuhan and across China have yet to be calculated but are expected to be severe. Estimates of job losses range into the tens of millions, with the government offering aid to small and medium size businesses that furnish the most employment.

The ability to travel again is a huge relief, however, and about 65,000 people were expected to depart Wednesday by plane and train. It didn’t take long for traffic to begin moving swiftly through reopened bridges, tunnels and highway toll booths. Nearly 1,000 vehicles went through a toll booth at Wuhan’s border between midnight — when barricades were lifted — and 7 a.m., according to Yan Xiangsheng, a district police chief.

According to airport official Lou Guowei, the first flight left Wuhan Tianhe International Airport at 7:25 a.m. for Sanya, a coastal city in Hainan province known for its beaches.

“The crew will wear goggles, masks, and gloves throughout the flight,” chief flight attendant Guo Binxue was quoted as saying by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. “It will be very smooth because we have made much preparation for this flight


Xiao Yonghong had found herself stuck in Wuhan after returning to her hometown on Jan. 17 to spend the Lunar New Year with her husband, son and parents-in-law.

“We were too excited to fall asleep last night. I was looking forward to the lockdown lift very much. I set up an alert to remind myself. I was very happy,” said Xiao, who was waiting for her train outside Hankou station with her son and husband, all three of them wearing masks and gloves.

At the airport, Chen Yating took personal protection a step further, wearing white coveralls, gloves, a mask and a baseball cap. She was waiting to catch a flight to the southern Chinese business hub of Guangzhou.

“We are living in a good era,” Chen said. “It is not easy to have today’s achievement.”

The end of Wuhan’s lockdown came one day after Japan declared a state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures to try to stem the spread of the virus. India and much of Europe and the U.S. have also issued stay-at-home orders, although not nearly to the same extreme as Wuhan.

Restrictions in the city where most of China’s more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths from COVID-19 were reported have been gradually eased as cases declined. The government reported no new cases in the city on Wednesday, but said 62 had been recorded elsewhere — 59 of them coming from abroad. That underscores the government’s new emphasis on preventing new infections from overseas as well as a second wave of domestic cases, particularly among those who might have the virus but are not showing symptoms.

In most cases, the virus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever, cough and sore throat. But for some older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death. Over 307,000 people have recovered.

While there are questions about the veracity of China’s count, the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and Hubei province, where the city is located, have been successful enough that other countries adopted similar measures.

“The people in Wuhan paid out a lot and bore a lot mentally and psychologically,” resident Zhang Xiang said. “Wuhan people are historically famous for their strong will.”

During the lockdown, Wuhan residents could leave their homes only to buy food or attend to other tasks deemed absolutely necessary. Some were allowed to leave the city, but only if they had paperwork showing they were not a health risk and a letter attesting to where they were going and why. Even then, authorities could turn them back on a technicality such as missing a stamp, preventing thousands from returning to their jobs outside the city.

Residents of other parts of Hubei were allowed to leave the province starting about three weeks ago, as long as they could provide a clean bill of health. People leaving the city still face numerous hurdles at their final destinations, such as 14-day quarantines and nucleic acid tests.

Wuhan is a major center for heavy industry, particularly autos, and while major plants have restarted, the small and midsize businesses that employ the most people are still hurting from both a lack of workers and demand. Measures are being instituted to get them back on their feet, including 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) in preferential loans, according to the city government.

The exact source of the virus remains under investigation, though many of the first COVID-19 patients were linked to an outdoor food market in the city.

Associated Press producer Olivia Zhang in Wuhan, China, and writer Yanan Wang in Toronto contributed.

Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

'The Whole City Laid Off': US Jobless Claims Climb Sky HIgh

In this March 24, 2020, photo, Keisha Henry, right, and her business partner Erica Norwood pose for a portrait inside their lounge and catering business in New Orleans. Henry said she lost about $10,000 in revenue last week after three big functions she was slated to cater ended up canceling. Meanwhile, she still has expenses related to launching a bar and lounge six months ago. Henry said she regrettably had to lay off several employees. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

BY REBECCA SANTANA, DAVID A. LIEB

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Barely a week ago, David McGraw was cooking daily for hundreds of fine diners at one of New Orleans’ illustrious restaurants.

Today, he’s cooking for himself, at home — laid off along with hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. in a massive economic upheaval spurred by efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

U.S. Department of Labor figures to be released Thursday are expected to shatter the old record for the greatest number of new unemployment claims filed in a single week. There are more suddenly jobless Americans than during the Great Recession — and more than in the aftermath of major natural disasters such as hurricanes, fires and floods.

But McGraw, and others like him, don’t need official numbers to understand the new realities of life in one of the nation’s hot spots for the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.

“The whole city, laid off. Everybody,” said McGraw, using an exaggeration that didn’t seem like much of one. “Everybody who worked at a restaurant is laid off.”

Restaurants, hotels, airlines, automakers and entertainment venues all have been hit hard as cities, states and entire countries have ordered the closure of non-essential businesses and directed residents to remain at home.

The goal is to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. For most people, it causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

Virus precautions have affected the worldwide economy. Companies in Europe are laying off workers at the fastest pace since the global financial crisis in 2009, according to surveys of business managers.

Official labor statistics for Europe are not yet out, but companies have been announcing tens of thousands of job cuts, both permanent and temporary. The rise in joblessness may not be as sharp as in the U.S., however, because it is harder to fire workers in Europe, where many governments are supporting companies financially to keep workers on partially paid leave.

Some economists project that the U.S. could see around 3 million new unemployment insurance claims when figures are released for the week of March 15-21. That would be around 12 times as many as the previous week.

“It’s going to be an astronomical increase,” said Constance Hunter, president of the National Association for Business Economists and chief economist at the accounting firm KPMG. “We don’t have any recorded history of anything like this.”

In Labor Department records dating to 1967, the largest seasonally adjusted one-week number of new unemployment insurance claims was 695,000 in October 1982, when the national unemployment rate was around 10%.

Before coronavirus concerns escalated this month, the U.S. unemployment rate had been at a 50-year-low of 3.5%

That is certain to rise as the number of laid-off workers soars.

In Louisiana alone, 71,000 people filed new unemployment applications last week, compared to the usual 1,400 or 1,500 people per week, said state labor secretary Ava Dejoie.

Louisiana has one of the highest per capita counts of coronavirus cases in the U.S. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has ordered nonessential businesses to close, limited restaurants to takeout and delivery, banned gatherings over 10 people and directed residents to remain at home.

New Orleans restaurant owner and caterer Keisha Henry said she lost $10,000 in revenue last week after three big functions she was slated to cater ended up canceling. Meanwhile, she still has expenses related to launching a bar and lounge six months ago. Henry said she had to lay off several employees.

“I wish I could just keep them on and pay them, but being a small business, I don’t have enough capital to pay for the employees when we are not putting out a product,” she said.

Workers can seek unemployment benefits from their home state immediately after losing their jobs. But it typically takes two to three weeks before they receive any money, because state agencies first have to contact their former employers to verify their work history and then calculate the amount of their weekly benefits based on their previous wages.

That wait could last longer because of the sudden spike in unemployment claims. People should expect “that first benefit payments will take much longer than 21 days,” California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office warned earlier this week.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that 1 million unemployment claims had been filed in his state since March 13, a span a little longer than the federal reporting period.

Until last week, many state unemployment agencies had been staffed to handle a comparative trickle of claims. Now they are scrambling to add workers to handle the influx.

“Nobody can ramp up that fast without a little bit of a hiccup,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a New York-based group that advocates for low-wage workers and the unemployed.

Legislation signed last week by President Donald Trump could distribute $1 billion among states to help with the administration of unemployment claims. But it could take a while for that money to reach the states.

Under legislation pending Wednesday in Congress, unemployed workers would get whatever amount a state usually provides for jobless benefits, plus a $600 per week add-on funded by the federal government. That boost could last up to four months.

Though the extra money could help, it may not eliminate the uneasiness among the newly unemployed.

“I think we are putting a lot of hope that the system will return to business as usual in the coming weeks, and I just don’t believe that to be true,” said Ian Smith, who was laid off from his job as a server at an Atlanta-area restaurant. “The biggest thing keeping many of us up at night is what will the new normal look like?”

Many recently unemployed workers have reported frustrations with jammed phone lines and overloaded internet sites as they try to apply for unemployment aid.

Corey Rickmers, of Rockville, Maryland, was furloughed last week from his job as a digital engagement manager for a publishing company. This was his first time filing for unemployment benefits, and his claim was complicated by the fact he had previously worked out of state.

Rickmers said it took several hours of phone calls on Monday before he finally reached a person who could help him at the state’s labor department.

“The process is frustrating,” he said. “I can only imagine what millions of people around the country ... are having to fight for right now.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said a recent survey of more than 6,600 businesses in his state showed more than half have laid off employees. Normally, the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity receives between 250 and 1,000 unemployment claims a day. But DeSantis said the agency received 21,000 claims on Monday.

“We are working on getting them the relief,” DeSantis said. “But, man, that’s not only going to have an economic cost, that will have a health cost unless we work hard to remedy that as soon as possible.”

Rene Morgan, a web developer who lives in Davie, Florida, is among those filing new claims.

He had been working for only a couple of weeks at a biotechnology startup when he was let go earlier this month after the company’s supply chain from China was disrupted by the coronavirus crisis. He is putting his collection of iconic typewriters for sale on eBay to make money to pay rent while he waits to receive unemployment benefits from the state.

“I check back every day, and it keeps saying that my application is being processed,” Morgan sa

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland; Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami; Carlo Piovano in London; Christopher Rugaber in Washington; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; and Angie Wang in Atlanta contributed to this report.