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As VOA approached the 77,000-square-foot detention center from one side, three young cousins trekking on a dirt side road stopped.

“Yep, that’s Ursula,” said Ramon Montoya through the driver’s window of a red pickup, referring to the detention center, a sterile dirty-white box with burgundy trim that stands a few kilometers north of Mexico. Locally, the center is called by the name of the street it’s on, Ursula.

The Kansas-born son of Mexican-native parents and meat industry workers, 20-year-old Montoya moved to McAllen, Texas, with his family when he was in the fourth grade. 

“Where the Tex meets the Mex,” he described it, “a fusion of two cultures.”

“I love it here,” Montoya continued. “This place has a lot to offer and it’s sad to see it disgraced by something like this.”

Detention center

The detention center is also the country’s largest U.S. Border Patrol Processing Center and it is a short stroll from Montoya’s home. For him, there’s no escaping the reality of family separation in the South Texas border region, where illegal border crossers regularly seek refuge from economic hardship, cartel and domestic violence in their home countries.

Inside the facility since early May, more than 1,000 migrant parents and children were held and later routinely separated.

In Texas, a Republican stronghold politically, a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, showed a majority of state voters opposed separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border; while 28 percent supported it. Republican men were more likely to support the separation than were women and Democrats.

An executive order this week shifted the focus from family separation to family unit detention. But it did not clear up how families already separated are to be reunified and what kind of conditions detained families will be held in.

It did not ease the hit in the gut for some first- and second-generation Americans in a state that continues to swing toward greater diversity, where Latinos may outnumber non-Hispanic white residents by 2022.

Montoya, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, calls the situation shameful. 

“Put yourself in their place for just a second, and you might be able to understand why so many people are devastated by this,” he said.

​Laws not working

About an hour drive southeast of McAllen is Brownsville, an area rich with nature reserves that cut across the U.S.-Mexico barrier.

The proximity to sandy beaches on the Gulf with their palm trees and green parrots is what brought retired educator Larry Genuchi here 26 years ago.

Similar to McAllen, the area’s sizable share of Hispanic residents make for a diverse blend of shared traditions. But also like McAllen, the community has heard stories of migrant despair. It is also the site of a former Walmart-turned-foster care facility that houses more than 1,400 unaccompanied migrant boys, some of them forcibly separated from their families.

In an interview and downtown tour along the U.S.-Mexico border, Genuchi expressed nostalgia for the days he would stroll right across the bridge, before crime became rampant in neighboring Matamoros, Tamaulipas. He says he now hears gunshots across the Rio Grande River.

But while the 70-year-old from Lubbock, Texas, doesn’t claim to have all the answers, for him there is clearly a wrong one to solving illegal immigration.

“I’m a parent and a I’m also a grandfather and I’m telling you,” he said, “taking away children, putting them in danger — boy, that goes against everything in my body.”

Genuchi, who only shares his voting record with “God and my wife,” is appreciative of law enforcement for doing “the very best that they can.” But some policies, he suggests, need to change.

“All they’re trying to do now, I think, is just enforce the laws that are there,” Genuchi said. “But they’re finding out the laws don’t work real well.”

Caring but realistic

Newly elected GOP Hidalgo County Chair Adrienne Peña-Garza, the first woman to hold the position in the county, is transparent about her own role as a Hispanic Republican resident in an “extremely” democratic area.

Shielded from Thursday’s torrential downpour that resulted in Texas’ worst flooding post-Hurricane Harvey, Peña-Garza spoke to VOA by phone in her friend’s truck.

The porous border, as she describes it, needs to be fixed, and while she doesn’t think children should be separated from their parents under most circumstances, she believes stories in which a child’s safety is in question go underreported, along with the quiet heroism of McAllen’s Border Patrol agents whom she describes as “merciful and compassionate.”

But as a mother and community member herself, rhetoric on the issue is important, and she is careful in talking to the media.

“I know that there have been people in my party in the past that had been a little too far to the right on rhetoric, where they sound like they don’t care about individuals,” Peña-Garza said.

“I care about all people no matter where you’re from, but at the same time we’re talking about U-S-of-A, we’re talking about border security, we’re talking about what’s best for people.”

Next to “Ursula,” Ramon Montoya imagines his own family coming to McAllen at a different moment in time.

“We have so many examples in our world’s history where people have been victim to these kinds of injustices, and now we’re the ones causing the harm,” Montoya said. “I choose to believe that we’re better than this.”
…

During the hottest hours, when the sun is highest in the sky and the blistering pavement could fry an egg, Rashida Tlaib is relentlessly walking door-to-door in a Detroit neighborhood in search of votes.

And she’s doing so without eating any food or drinking any water during the day.

That’s because Tlaib is a practicing Muslim, which means she is fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

“I know that my faith comes up more on social media, but at the doors I don’t get it as much,” she told VOA during a break beneath the much needed shade of trees along the street.

Making a connection

While others would stay indoors in the air conditioning during the stifling heat wave, Tlaib views it as an opportunity to build name recognition, as she seeks to represent Michigan’s 13th District in the U.S. Congress.

“People still can’t pronounce my name, but they remember what I’ve done, and they remember that I’ve come to their home,” she said.

Tlaib is no stranger to politics, having served in Michigan’s Legislature. She is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, but on these streets — in a predominantly African-American neighborhood — she is a local, someone who attended schools in the area.

“It’s that direct connection to the neighborhood that I think people are much more excited about,” said Tlaib, acknowledging that walking from house to house gives her the chance to directly connect with potential voters and to hear about their concerns and needs.

A chance at making history

She is campaigning in one of the poorest congressional districts in the state of Michigan and the country, and her religion and race rarely come up as topics of conversation when she encounters voters.

“For me, the direct door-to-door contact has been about constituent issues,” she explained, adding that most people have welcomed the opportunity to speak with her. “At the doors, I think it’s really how you make people feel, and I haven’t faced much opposition, and I haven’t seen that big push back or opposition yet.”

She says few of the people she meets realize she is on the cusp of making history — again.

“I tell them I’m the first Muslim woman ever elected in the Michigan Legislature, and if I’m elected in this congressional race I’ll be the first ever in Congress.”

Several candidates

“Is she a shoo-in? No. Is she a possibility? Yes. She is a formidable candidate,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn, Michigan-based Arab American News, a weekly publication serving the large Arab-American population in Southeastern Michigan.

He says Tlaib’s candidacy, and two other races prominently featuring Muslim Americans in Michigan, show a new political awakening in the larger Muslim-American community nationwide, where about 100 are running for public office this year, many of them Democrats hoping to be a part of a “blue wave” in the congressional midterm elections in November.

“We were, at one time, people who were in hiding,” he told VOA. “We were changing our names in this country. Despite September 11, despite the Trump era, we are moving forward, we are running for election, we are winning and we are making a significant impact in our society.”

‘Bigger than me’

The significance of the moment is not lost on Rashida Tlaib, who isn’t just representing Muslim Americans, but also is part of a larger group of hundreds of women this year seeking public office across the country.

“Nationally, this is a pretty historic campaign,” she said. “People that are supporting me, from this Muslim woman in Tampa who told me, ‘Please win, because if you win, we belong.’ I told her, “We’ve already won. You absolutely belong.’ It means so much bigger than me.”

But if Tlaib is to win, she’ll need support outside the Arab-American community in Michigan, most of whom don’t live in the district she seeks to represent and can’t vote for her.

Tlaib faces several challengers seeking to replace Congressman John Conyers Jr., who resigned in December amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The winner of the August 7 Democratic primary will likely head to Congress next year because there is currently no Republican running in the November general election.

If Tlaib wins the election, she may not be the only Muslim-American woman in the next U.S. Congress. Fayrouz Saad, a Democrat, is running in a competitive race in Michigan’s 11th district, while Ilhan Omar, the nation’s first Somali-American lawmaker, is campaigning for the Democratic primary election for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District on August 14.
…

After President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday, families seeking refuge from violence in their home countries are no longer being separated at the U.S. border. Still, more than 2,300 migrant children are living in shelters without their parents, and the Trump administration doesn’t have a plan in place to reunite these children with their parents.

One mother from Guatemala cried Friday as she held her young son for the first time in a month. Agents separated them after she crossed the border in May. “Te amo. Te amo.” “I love you. I love you,” she repeated as she kissed him and wrapped a blanket around him. 

The mother, Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia, sued the U.S. government for separating her from her 7-year-old son. The lawyer who helped her worked for free.

​Long-term consequences

Government video shows children being held in cages, lying under Mylar blankets. They have also been placed in tents and shelters throughout the U.S., some as far away from Texas as Oregon.

The American Medical Association warned that as a result of being separated from their families, these children could suffer health consequences that could last a lifetime. 

Dr. Colleen Kraft, the president of the American Association of Pediatrics, has taken an active role in speaking out for these children. She warns that children who are exposed to toxic stress do not develop language or other skills at the proper age as a result of the trauma of being forcibly removed from their parents.

Trauma causes the body to produce high levels of stress hormones that can kill brain cells, affect the heart and cause children to regress. Some regress to wetting themselves. Others could develop a stutter. Some develop behavior problems.

“It may take a long time for this trauma to be resolved and these children to be healed,” Kraft said.

No one knows that more than Dr. Lisa Fortuna, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Boston University Medical School. Fortuna works with migrant children separated from their parents. She says the family separations have been going on for some time, and it’s very hard on children, no matter their age.

“I’ve had multiple kids tell me about feeling very cold, not eating enough, not having support of their parents or adults that care about them and that that was very, very distressing for them,” Fortuna said.

Touch important

Caregivers at some of the facilities where the children are being held say they are not allowed to touch even very young children. These rules were put in place for teenagers, but Myriam Golden, a social worker who specializes in treating traumatized children, says touch is very important, especially for small children.

“When you rock a child, they can hear your heart rate. You can hear their heart rate, and it is through that co-regulation, children can be soothed,” she said. Goldin is one of the founders of the Gil Institute for Trauma, Recovery and Education in Virginia.

Fortuna says a parent’s touch teaches a child that they are being taken care of and loved. She says if children are not touched, they can become despondent and withdrawn. They don’t learn how to relate to others. They lose the ability to trust. They can stop expressing emotion even if they are reunited with their parents.

Goldin cites a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Adverse Childhood Experiences, that shows that early childhood experiences have a profound impact on future violence and victimization. Goldin says the study proves scientifically that if the needs of children are not met, long-term mental and physical health problems can result.

Not every child separated from their family will have permanent health problems, but young children are the most vulnerable, and the separation from a parent can compound the stress they may have already experienced in unsafe conditions in their home countries.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose a 20 percent tariff on vehicles assembled in the European Union and shipped to the United States, in retaliation for European tariffs on American imports.

On Friday, the day new EU tariffs went into effect, Trump tweeted, “…if these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!”

Auto industry experts say such tariffs could negatively impact the U.S. economy, as well as Europe’s.

“It’s really a tangle; it’s not a simple question” of cars being made in one place and sold in another, Kasper Peters, communications manager of ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, said Friday in an interview with VOA.

In March, ACEA Secretary General Erik Jonnaert noted the impact European carmakers with plants in the United States have on local economies. “EU manufacturers do not only import vehicles into the U.S. They also have a major manufacturing footprint there, providing significant local employment and generating tax revenue,” Jonnaert said in a statement.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said earlier this week that his department plans to wrap up by July or August an investigation into whether imported cars and car parts are a threat to national security. But Daniel Price, a former senior economic adviser to President George W. Bush, told The Washington Post that Trump’s threat of new tariffs “short-circuited the … process and conclusively undercut the stated national security rationale of that investigation.”

The new EU tariffs enacted Friday apply to billions of dollars’ worth of American goods — including jeans, bourbon and motorcycles.

The action is the latest response to Trump’s decision to tax imported steel and aluminum.

The U.S. is scheduled to start taxing more than $30 billion in Chinese imports in two weeks.

Like the EU, China has promised to retaliate immediately, putting the world’s two largest economies at odds. 

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president, John Murphy, was cited by the Associated Press as saying he estimates that $75 billion in U.S. products could be subjected to new foreign tariffs by the end of the first week of July.

Separately, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said, “The U.S. is abusing the tariff methods and starting trade wars all around the world.”

“Clarity [is] still lacking about how far things will ultimately go between [the] U.S. and China and the potential ripple effect for world trade,” said financial analyst Mike van Dulken.

During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to apply tariffs, saying countries around the world had been exploiting the U.S.

A former White House trade adviser says Trump “has been so belligerent that it becomes almost impossible for democratically elected leaders — or even a non-democratic leader like [Chinese President] Xi Jinping — to appear to kowtow and give in.”

Phillip Levy, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said, “The president has made it very hard for other countries to give him what he wants.”
…

Honduras native, Carlos and his 17-year-old son were nabbed after crossing the Rio Grande River into the U.S.

“We were walking after we crossed the river,” he told VOA in Spanish. “All wet. That’s when they detained us. We went to immigration, and they separated my son from me.”

Carlos, who did not want to share his last name, was in detention for six days before he was released and reunited with his son. They plan to join relatives in Orlando, Florida.

In the meantime, they are learning what they can do to stay in the United States. When asked about asylum, Carlos did not understand what it meant — a common reaction among those VOA interviewed.

“I don’t know what I can do [to stay],” he said.

Assistance for asylum seekers

To help people like Carlos, the Texas Civil Rights Project has taken a front seat in coordinating with other allied organizations to direct people to immigration service providers and get them pro-bono legal representation in their immigration proceedings.

Lawyers at the project have also attended mass sessions at the Federal Court House in McAllen, Texas. They gather as much information as they can within the five to 10 minutes they have with those who were separated from their children and sent to court after being charged with criminal misdemeanors for illegal entry.

“We go through every interview, every parent who has been separated from a child,” Efren Olivares, a lawyer with the project, told VOA. “The vast majority of them, in McAllen anyways, are asylum seekers and fled their country escaping violence and threats,” he said.

No changes – yet

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced changes to asylum regulations that would rule out claims made on the basis of “private” violence like spousal abuse and gang cruelty.

Those changes, if they have been implemented, have not affected the process in McAllen, where Carlos is basing his claim on gang violence.

“Here you’re free. …There’s a lot of evil over there. A lot of gangs,” Carlos said in Spanish.

Even if gang violence is still an accepted claim, Carlos’ chances of being granted asylum are slim. In 2016, for every one person who got asylum, 10 more didn’t.

Carlos left his wife and daughters in Honduras. On the way to the United States, he was robbed twice.

“A Mexican man took everything we had. It was a very hard moment,” he said.

Hidalgo County Republican GOP chairwoman Adrienne Peña-Garza told VOA the current asylum process is not working. She hopes Congress acts to improve things.

“People are using the asylum to get over here, but then at the same time there are those that truly are running away from terrifying situations,” she said.

Fixing asylum

A conservative Republican, Peña-Garza says the issue is complicated, but believes that it can be developed in “a more proper manner.”

“There are loopholes that are being abused, but at the same time we do want to be a compassionate country that is going to listen to the concerns of those that are in dire need. There has to be a balance there, and I haven’t seen it,” she said.

David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, told VOA the United States has trained asylum officers to do the job of evaluating claims.

“[Trump] is really fundamentally calling asylum in United States a loophole and that is not the correct frame for what our asylum system is, which is ultimately about not repeating what we did during World War II, which was about sending people back to prosecution and death, but about creating a process by which we evaluate every claim individually and then adjudicate them on an individual basis,” he said.

At the moment, he says people who are trying to claim asylum legally by presenting themselves at ports of entry, are being turned away, a violation of both domestic and international law. The American Immigration Council has filed a lawsuit in a California court challenging the “unlawful practice of turning away asylum seekers who present themselves at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

“You have to address the issue of people trying to come the right way and make it easy for them to do so and that would ultimately fix the problem,” said Biers.

Carlos is at least getting his day in court. He and his son have been released from detention to join their relatives in Florida, pending an initial court hearing on June 27. They will be asked why they came to the United States illegally and be required to demonstrate a credible fear of going back.

If they manage that hurdle, they will be given another court date, likely some time well into the future. The immigration court system currently has a backlog of 700,000 cases.

 
…

Kremlin officials are discussing a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States National Security Adviser John Bolton when he visits Moscow next week, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

The Kremlin confirmed Thursday Bolton was planning to visit the Russian capital to discuss plans for a possible summit next month between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Bolton will meet next week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Russia’s, Reuters reported Friday — citing Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.

National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis confirmed Thursday in a tweet that “On June 25-27, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton will meet with U.S. allies in London and Rome to discuss national security issues, and travel to Moscow to discuss a potential meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin.”

Media reports Thursday quoted unnamed sources who said the meeting is expected to take place next month during Trump’s visit to Europe. The two leaders could meet before the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels, or following President Trump’s visit to Britain two days later.

A location has not been disclosed, but several foreign media organizations reported earlier that Putin and Trump could meet in one of the European capitals following the NATO summit. Some media reports say Vienna is a possible venue.

Trump has expressed interest in restoring Putin’s standing on the global stage. Trump proposed earlier this month at the G-7 summit in Quebec that Russia be readmitted to the Group of Eight countries. Russia’s membership was suspended after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
…

With World Cup 2018 now firmly under way in Russia, the Kremlin indicated it was back to business Thursday, holding a new round of talks with neighboring Ukraine and hinting at movement toward a possible summit meeting with President Donald Trump as early as next month.

President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, as the two leaders tried to bridge differences over the stalled Minsk peace accords aimed at curtailing violence in east Ukraine that has killed an estimated 10,000 civilians. 

According to a statement issued by Poroshenko’s press office, the Ukrainian leader pressed Putin to allow the deployment of U.N.-backed peacekeepers into the Donbass territory in east Ukraine, largely held by Russian-backed rebels, as “an important instrument in the fulfillment of Minsk.”

Another pressing issue, the fate of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Senstov, currently serving a 20-year sentence in northern Russia on charges of carrying out a terrorist act in opposition to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Sentsov is more than a month into a hunger strike aimed at gaining the release of about 70 Ukrainians in Russian prisons as a result of Moscow’s simmering proxy war in Ukraine. 

In recent days, Russia and Ukraine have moved toward an agreement to allow human rights envoys to access imprisoned nationals on both sides of the conflict, including Sentsov.

But the Russian leader has thus far ruled out a trade with Ukraine for Sentsov on grounds that he, as a resident of Crimea, is now a Russian citizen and the Kremlin has no right to interfere in court decisions. 

Trump-Putin Summit?

Meanwhile, Kremlin officials announced that a top White House envoy is headed to Moscow to lay the groundwork for a summit as early as next month between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his weekly call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, insisted neither Moscow nor Washington was ready to issue a formal statement with details but did confirm media reports that U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton would visit Russia next week. 

“As far as we know, such a visit will indeed take place.  This is all we can say at the moment,” said Peskov in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.

Both Trump and Putin have long expressed interest in a formal summit but the sudden push for a July meeting seems to have gained traction in the wake of what the White House argues was a successful meeting earlier this month with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in Singapore. 

In a replay reminiscent of the scramble to arrange the North Korean summit, Bolton and Russian officials will seek to hash out logistics, including the date, time, and location as well as any potential joint communique to come out of a meeting with the Russian leader.

(Both Russian and U.S. media report Austria would be the desired host country, either before or after Trump’s visit to the NATO summit in Brussels July 11.)

Trump, observers note, is hemmed in by an investigation into contacts between his presidential campaign and Russian government agents on the road to his 2016 election win.

Putin, too, has previously acknowledged that allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. elections, charges the Russian president vehemently denies, starkly limit options for a productive summit.

The U.S. president has repeatedly seemed eager to defy both his critics and foreign policy expectations when it comes to Russia — recently even angering traditional U.S. allies at the G-7 summit in Quebec, when he argued Russia should be reinstated to the Group of Eight countries, despite being kicked out for its annexation of Crimea.

For that reason, Russian political observers suggest most Kremlin officials saw a Trump-Putin summit, in whatever form, as a win, “a priori.” Relations, they note, could hardly be worse than they are now.

“For Russian foreign policy, holding a summit between Putin and Trump has become something of a fixation,” writes Russian foreign policy analyst Vladimir Frolov, in The Republic, an independent online publication.  

“For whatever reason, it’s thought that the meeting could resolve all problems, if only the leaders could talk face to face, without intermediaries, when Trump has none of his advisors to hold him back, and he can finally make good on his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia.”

 
…

With World Cup 2018 now firmly under way in Russia, the Kremlin indicated it was back to business Thursday, holding a new round of talks with neighboring Ukraine and hinting at movement toward a possible summit meeting with President Donald Trump as early as next month.

President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, as the two leaders tried to bridge differences over the stalled Minsk peace accords aimed at curtailing violence in east Ukraine that has killed an estimated 10,000 civilians. 

According to a statement issued by Poroshenko’s press office, the Ukrainian leader pressed Putin to allow the deployment of U.N.-backed peacekeepers into the Donbass territory in east Ukraine, largely held by Russian-backed rebels, as “an important instrument in the fulfillment of Minsk.”

Another pressing issue, the fate of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Senstov, currently serving a 20-year sentence in northern Russia on charges of carrying out a terrorist act in opposition to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Sentsov is more than a month into a hunger strike aimed at gaining the release of about 70 Ukrainians in Russian prisons as a result of Moscow’s simmering proxy war in Ukraine. 

In recent days, Russia and Ukraine have moved toward an agreement to allow human rights envoys to access imprisoned nationals on both sides of the conflict, including Sentsov.

But the Russian leader has thus far ruled out a trade with Ukraine for Sentsov on grounds that he, as a resident of Crimea, is now a Russian citizen and the Kremlin has no right to interfere in court decisions. 

Trump-Putin Summit?

Meanwhile, Kremlin officials announced that a top White House envoy is headed to Moscow to lay the groundwork for a summit as early as next month between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his weekly call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, insisted neither Moscow nor Washington was ready to issue a formal statement with details but did confirm media reports that U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton would visit Russia next week. 

“As far as we know, such a visit will indeed take place.  This is all we can say at the moment,” said Peskov in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.

Both Trump and Putin have long expressed interest in a formal summit but the sudden push for a July meeting seems to have gained traction in the wake of what the White House argues was a successful meeting earlier this month with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in Singapore. 

In a replay reminiscent of the scramble to arrange the North Korean summit, Bolton and Russian officials will seek to hash out logistics, including the date, time, and location as well as any potential joint communique to come out of a meeting with the Russian leader.

(Both Russian and U.S. media report Austria would be the desired host country, either before or after Trump’s visit to the NATO summit in Brussels July 11.)

Trump, observers note, is hemmed in by an investigation into contacts between his presidential campaign and Russian government agents on the road to his 2016 election win.

Putin, too, has previously acknowledged that allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. elections, charges the Russian president vehemently denies, starkly limit options for a productive summit.

The U.S. president has repeatedly seemed eager to defy both his critics and foreign policy expectations when it comes to Russia — recently even angering traditional U.S. allies at the G-7 summit in Quebec, when he argued Russia should be reinstated to the Group of Eight countries, despite being kicked out for its annexation of Crimea.

For that reason, Russian political observers suggest most Kremlin officials saw a Trump-Putin summit, in whatever form, as a win, “a priori.” Relations, they note, could hardly be worse than they are now.

“For Russian foreign policy, holding a summit between Putin and Trump has become something of a fixation,” writes Russian foreign policy analyst Vladimir Frolov, in The Republic, an independent online publication.  

“For whatever reason, it’s thought that the meeting could resolve all problems, if only the leaders could talk face to face, without intermediaries, when Trump has none of his advisors to hold him back, and he can finally make good on his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia.”

 
…

Charles Krauthammer, a longtime conservative columnist and political commentator, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 68.

The announcement came nearly two weeks after the Washington Post columnist wrote in a letter to readers that the cancer, for which he had surgery last year, had returned, and he had only a few weeks to live.

“This is the final verdict. My fight is over,” the Pulitzer Prize winner wrote.

“I leave this life with no regrets,” he wrote in the farewell message. “It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”

Krauthammer won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in commentary for his “witty and insightful columns on national issues” at the Washington Post. He later became a panelist on PBS’ “Inside Washington” and eventually joined Fox News as a political analyst.
…

Charles Krauthammer, a longtime conservative columnist and political commentator, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 68.

The announcement came nearly two weeks after the Washington Post columnist wrote in a letter to readers that the cancer, for which he had surgery last year, had returned, and he had only a few weeks to live.

“This is the final verdict. My fight is over,” the Pulitzer Prize winner wrote.

“I leave this life with no regrets,” he wrote in the farewell message. “It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”

Krauthammer won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in commentary for his “witty and insightful columns on national issues” at the Washington Post. He later became a panelist on PBS’ “Inside Washington” and eventually joined Fox News as a political analyst.
…

The Pentagon has agreed to house on military bases as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children who illegally crossed the U.S. southern border.

Pentagon spokesman Army Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis told VOA Thursday that the Defense Department had accepted a request for assistance with migrant detainees from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Defense Department is now figuring out the logistics of how to provide up to 20,000 temporary beds for the migrant children.

The government has looked at three bases in Texas and one in Arkansas as possible housing locations. Davis stressed, however, that the base visits did not guarantee that any or all of the children would be placed in those locations.

“Our department typically has the land resources needed to fulfill a request like this,” Davis said, “but we still have to work out the infrastructure needs.”

The request is specifically for housing unaccompanied migrant children and does not include children who have crossed the border illegally with their parents and have become separated from the adults after being detained.

“That is a separate issue,” Davis told VOA.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that keeps children and parents together for at least 20 days after they are apprehended for crossing the border illegally.

The Pentagon most likely will have no role in operating the temporary shelters once completed, Davis said.

Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas and Dyess Air Force Base, Goodfellow Air Force Base and Fort Bliss in Texas are the bases that have been looked at as potential housing sites.
…

The Pentagon has agreed to house on military bases as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children who illegally crossed the U.S. southern border.

Pentagon spokesman Army Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis told VOA Thursday that the Defense Department had accepted a request for assistance with migrant detainees from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Defense Department is now figuring out the logistics of how to provide up to 20,000 temporary beds for the migrant children.

The government has looked at three bases in Texas and one in Arkansas as possible housing locations. Davis stressed, however, that the base visits did not guarantee that any or all of the children would be placed in those locations.

“Our department typically has the land resources needed to fulfill a request like this,” Davis said, “but we still have to work out the infrastructure needs.”

The request is specifically for housing unaccompanied migrant children and does not include children who have crossed the border illegally with their parents and have become separated from the adults after being detained.

“That is a separate issue,” Davis told VOA.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that keeps children and parents together for at least 20 days after they are apprehended for crossing the border illegally.

The Pentagon most likely will have no role in operating the temporary shelters once completed, Davis said.

Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas and Dyess Air Force Base, Goodfellow Air Force Base and Fort Bliss in Texas are the bases that have been looked at as potential housing sites.
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