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The U.S. Congress is set to meet Monday to certify Donald Trump’s presidential election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. The vice president is in charge of presiding over the count of results from each of the country’s 50 states, putting Harris in the position of certifying her own loss. The procedure was long a formality in the election process, but four years ago turned to chaos as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring about 140 police officers, vandalizing the building and sending lawmakers rushing for safety. Similar scenes are not expected Monday, with Harris having conceded defeat and President Joe Biden highlighting the need for a peaceful process. Authorities have prepared just in case, erecting tall metal barriers around the Capitol complex. Speaking Sunday at the White House, Biden called what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 “one of the toughest days in American history.” “We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power,” Biden said.  He added that Trump’s conduct four years ago, which included repeated false claims that he won the election, “was a genuine threat to democracy.” “I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now,” Biden said. More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with storming the Capitol.  Trump has pledged to quickly issue pardons after he takes office on Jan. 20.   …

Two wildly audacious films — Brady Corbet’s 215-minute postwar epic “The Brutalist” and Jacques Audiard’s Spanish language, genre-shifting trans musical “Emilia Perez” — won top honors at the 82nd Golden Globes on Sunday. The Globes, which are still finding their footing after years of scandal and makeover, scattered awards around to a number of films. But the awards group put its strongest support behind a pair of movies that sought to be unlike anything else. “The Brutalist” was crowned best film, drama, putting one of 2024’s most ambitious films on course to be a major contender at the Academy Awards. The film, shot in VistaVision and released with an intermission, also won best director for Corbet and best actor for Adrien Brody. “I was told that this film was un-distributable,” said Corbet. “No one was asking for a three-and-half-hour film about a mid-century designer in 70mm. But it works.” “Emilia Perez” won best film, comedy or musical, elevating the Oscar chances of Netflix’s top Oscar contender. It also won best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña, best song (“El Mal”) and best non-English language film. Karla Sofia Gascon, the film’s transgender star who plays a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender-affirming surgery, spoke for the film. “The light always wins over darkness,” said Gascon, gesturing to her brightly orange dress. “You can maybe put us in jail. You can beat us up. But you never can take away our soul or existence or identity.” “I am who I am. Not who you want.” The night’s big actor winners included some surprises. One shocker was Moore’s win for best actress in a comedy or musical. Her comeback performance in “The Substance,” about a Hollywood star who resorts to an experimental process to regain her youth, landed the 62-year-old Moore her first Globe — a victory that came over the heavily favored Mikey Madison of “Anora.” “I’m just in shock right now. I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years, and this is the first thing I’ve ever won as an actor,” said Moore, who was last nominated by the Globes for a film role in 1991 for “Ghost.” “Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a popcorn actress.” Best actress, in a drama film, was a surprise, too. The Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres won for her performance in “I’m Still Here,” a based-on-a-true-story drama … “‘The Brutalist,’ ‘Emilia Perez’ triumph at Golden Globes” →

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif — “Emilia Perez” won best musical or comedy motion picture at the 82nd Golden Globes. “The Brutalist” won best motion picture drama, and Adrien Brody took home best actor for his role in the film. “Shogun” won best television drama, and “Hacks” won for TV comedy or musical. Emilia Perez” entered the night as the lead nominee, with 10 nods. Demi Moore, Sebastian Stan, Zoe Saldana, Kieran Culkin and Jean Smart were among the acting winners. Comedian Nikki Glaser hosted Sunday’s ceremony from the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. At a gala dinner Friday, Viola Davis received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and Ted Danson accepted the Carol Burnett Award. The Globes aired on CBS and streamed live for subscribers to Paramount+ with Showtime. Here’s a list of winners at Sunday’s Golden Globes: MoviesBest motion picture, drama “The Brutalist” Best motion picture, musical or comedy “Emilia Pérez” Best performance by a female actor in a motion picture, drama Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here” Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture, drama Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist” Best performance by a female actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy Demi Moore, “The Substance” Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy Sebastian Stan, “A Different Man” Best performance by a female actor in a supporting role, movie Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez” Best performance by a male actor in a supporting role, movie Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain” Cinematic and Box Office Achievement “Wicked” Best motion picture, non-English “Emilia Pérez” Best motion picture, animated “Flow” Best director Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist” Best screenplay Peter Straughan, “Conclave” Best original score Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Challengers” Best original song “El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez” music/lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille, Jacques Audiard TelevisionBest television series, drama “Shōgun” Best television series, comedy or musical “Hacks” Best performance by a female actor, TV series, drama Anna Sawai, “Shōgun” Best performance by a male actor, TV series, drama Hiroyuki Sanada, “Shōgun” Best performance by a female actor TV series, musical or comedy Jean Smart, “Hacks” Best performance by a male actor, TV series, musical or comedy Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear” Best limited series, anthology series or movie made for television “Baby Reindeer” Best performance by a male actor in a limited series, anthology series or movie made for television Colin Farrell, “The Penguin” Best performance … “Complete list of Golden Globe winners” →

Plains, Georgia — It never got old.  No matter how many times one crammed into the modest sanctuary at Maranatha Baptist Church, there was always some wisdom to be gleaned from the measured, Bible-inspired words of Jimmy Carter.  This was another side of the 39th president, a down-to-earth man of steadfast faith who somehow found time to teach Sunday school classes when he wasn’t building homes for the needy, or advocating for fair elections, or helping eradicate awful diseases.  For young and old, straight and gay, believers and nonbelievers, Black and white and brown, Maranatha was a far-off-the-beaten path destination in southwest Georgia where Carter, well into his 90s, stayed connected with his fellow citizens of the world.  Anyone willing to make the trek to his hometown of Plains, with its one blinking caution light and residents numbering in the hundreds, was rewarded with access to a white-haired man who once occupied the highest office in the land.  Carter taught his Sunday school class roughly twice a month to accommodate crowds that sometimes swelled to more than 500. (On the other Sundays, no more than a couple dozen regulars and a handful of visitors usually attended services).  Here, the former commander-in-chief and the onetime first lady, his wife of more than seven decades, were simply Mr. Jimmy and Ms. Rosalynn. And when it came to worshipping with them, all were welcome.  Sundays with Mr. Jimmy  Before the former president entered the sanctuary, with a bomb-sniffing dog outside and Secret Service agents scattered around, a strict set of rules would be laid out by Ms. Jan — Jan Williams, a longtime church member and friend of the Carters. She would have made quite a drill sergeant.  It felt like a good-cop, bad-cop routine. Ms. Jan barking out rules you knew had come straight from Mr. Jimmy, who studied nuclear physics and approached all things with an engineer’s orderly mind.  Most important for those wanting a photo with the Carters — and nearly everyone did — you had to stay for the main 11 a.m. church service. Picture-taking began around noon.  If you left the church grounds before that, there was no coming back. If you stayed, you followed rules. No autographs. No handshakes. No attempts at conversation beyond a brief “good morning” or “thank you.”  Carter, consistently in sports jacket, slacks and bolo tie, would start his lesson by moving around the … “Sunday school class with Jimmy Carter: What it was like” →

Will TikTok in the U.S. be banned this month? That’s the pressing question keeping creators and small business owners in anxious limbo as they await a decision that could upend their livelihoods. The fate of the popular app will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on Jan. 10 over a law requiring TikTok to break ties with its Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance, or face a U.S. ban. At the heart of the case is whether the law violates the First Amendment with TikTok and its creator allies arguing that it does. The U.S. government, which sees the platform as a national security risk, says it does not. For creators, the TikTok doomsday scenarios are nothing new since President-elect Donald Trump first tried to ban the platform through executive order during his first term. But despite Trump’s recent statements indicating he now wants TikTok to stick around, the prospect of a ban has never been as immediate as it is now with the Supreme Court serving as the final arbiter. If the government prevails as it did in a lower court, TikTok says it would shut down its U.S. platform by Jan. 19, leaving creators scrambling to redefine their futures. “A lot of my other creative friends, we’re all like freaking out. But I’m staying calm,” said Gillian Johnson, who benefited financially from TikTok’s live feature and rewards program, which helped creators generate higher revenue potential by posting high-quality original content. The 22-year-old filmmaker and recent college graduate uses her TikTok earnings to help fund her equipment for projects such as camera lens and editing software for her short films “Gambit” and “Awaken! My Neighbor.” Johnson said the idea of TikTok going away is “hard to accept.” Many creators have taken to TikTok to voice their frustrations, grappling with the possibility that the platform they’ve invested so much in could soon disappear. Online communities risk being disrupted, and the economic fallout could especially be devastating for those who mainly depend on TikTok and have left full-time jobs to build careers and incomes around their content. For some, the uncertainty has led them to question whether to continue creating content at all, according to Johnson, who says she knows creators who have been thinking about quitting. But Nicla Bartoli, the vice president of sales at The Influencer Marketing Factory, said the creators she has interreacted with have … “TikTok creators in US left in limbo while awaiting decision on potential platform ban” →

Washington — Dangerous wintry conditions descended Sunday on a large swath of the central United States as a severe storm system tracked eastward, prompting travel and work disruptions from Kansas City to Washington. Around a dozen states from Kansas to New Jersey were under winter storm warnings Sunday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), while areas across the U.S. South faced possible tornado and cold weather threats. Nationwide, over 60 million people were under some sort of weather alert, according to broadcaster CNN, while air traffic monitoring site FlightAware showed almost 2,200 flight cancellations and over 25,000 delays. Gusty winds from the storm system, the first of the year, brought blizzard conditions to Kansas and Missouri, while states farther east were blanketed in multiple inches of snow. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear implored residents to “please stay home” after reporting multiple vehicle crashes had closed a major highway. The NWS also warned that accumulations of up to a half inch of ice in some areas — as well as widespread tree damage from powerful wind gusts — could lead to “prolonged power outages.” A mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow began hitting Kansas early Sunday morning. Storm chaser Brian Emfinger said on X that roads around Kansas City were “a skating rink.” Video posted by the Weather Channel showed cars skidding off ice-coated highways and tractor trailers jack-knifing in Kansas, where some areas were expecting more than 30 centimeters of snow. “Areas of heavy snow will spread eastward through the Ohio Valley and central Appalachians tonight, reaching the northern Mid-Atlantic by Monday morning,” the NWS said in an update. Areas around Washington could see up to 25 centimeters overnight from Sunday into Monday, making “hazardous travel and closings” likely, The Washington Post reported. That could complicate the task of U.S. lawmakers, who by constitutional mandate must meet on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 to certify the winner of last year’s presidential election. “Whether we’re in a blizzard or not,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News Sunday, “we cannot delay that certification… I hope we have full attendance.” A joint session is to convene at 1:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Monday. Bitter cold With the jet stream diving southward, temperatures are expected to plunge, in some places to minus 18 degrees Celsius, while strong wind gusts compound the dangers. The mercury could sink tens of degrees below seasonal … “Central US pummeled by snow, ice as major storm heads east” →

NEW YORK — New York’s new toll for drivers entering the center of Manhattan debuted Sunday, meaning many people will pay $9 to access the busiest part of the Big Apple during peak hours.  The toll, known as congestion pricing, is meant to reduce traffic gridlock in the densely packed city while also raising money to help fix its ailing public transit infrastructure.  Drivers of most passenger cars will pay $9 to enter Manhattan south of Central Park on weekdays between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. and on weekends between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. During off hours, the toll will be $2.25 for most vehicles.  After years of studies, delays and a last-ditch bid by New Jersey to halt the toll, the program launched without major hiccups early Sunday. But transit officials cautioned the first-in-the-nation scheme could require adjustments — and likely would not get its first true test until the workweek.  “This is a toll system that has never been tried before in terms of complexity,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said at a news conference held at Grand Central Terminal Sunday. “We don’t expect New Yorkers to overnight change their behavior. Everybody’s going to have to adjust to this.”  The fee — which varies for motorcyclists, truck drivers and ride-share apps — will be collected by electronic toll collection systems at over 100 detection sites now scattered across the lower half of Manhattan.  It comes on top of tolls drivers pay for crossing various bridges and tunnels to get to the city in the first place, although there will be a credit of up to $3 for those who have already paid to enter Manhattan via certain tunnels during peak hours.  On Sunday morning, hours after the toll went live, traffic moved briskly along the northern edge of the congestion zone at 60th Street and 2nd Avenue. Many motorists appeared unaware that the newly activated cameras, set along the arm of a steel gantry above the street, would soon send a new charge to their E-Z Passes.  “Are you kidding me?” said Chris Smith, a realtor from Somerville, New Jersey, as he drove against traffic beneath the cameras, circumventing the charge. “Whose idea was this? Kathy Hochul? She should be arrested for being ignorant.”  Some residents and transit riders, meanwhile, said they were hopeful the program would lessen the bottlenecks and frequent honking in their … “Driving into Manhattan? It’ll cost you; new congestion toll starts Sunday” →

Six days of official funeral ceremonies marking the life and legacy of the 39th U.S. President Jimmy Carter are underway in his home state of Georgia, where VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more. …

The Walt Disney Co.’s “Mufasa” claimed the No. 1 spot on the North American box office charts over the first weekend of 2025. The photorealistic “Lion King” prequel earned $23.8 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” which has dominated the past two weekends, wasn’t far behind. “Sonic 3” stayed close with a 3-day estimate of $21.2 million, bringing its total domestic earnings to $187.5 million and helping the overall franchise cross $1 billion worldwide. “Mufasa’s” running total is slightly less, with $169.2 million. In third place, Focus Features’ “Nosferatu” remake defied the fate of so many of its genre predecessors and fell only 39% in its second weekend. Horror films typically fall sharply after the first weekend and anything less than a 50% decline is notable. “Nosferatu,” which added 140 screens, claimed $13.2 million in ticket sales, bringing its running total to $69.4 million since its Christmas debut. The film, directed by Robert Eggers, already surpassed its reported production budget of $50 million, though that figure does not account for marketing and promotion expenses. No new wide releases opened this weekend, leaving the box office top 10 once again to holdovers from previous weeks. Several have been in theaters since Thanksgiving. One of those, “Moana 2,” claimed the No. 4 spot for Disney in its sixth weekend in theaters. The animated sequel earned another $12.4 million, bumping its global total to $960.5 million. The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” dipped only slightly in its second weekend, bringing in $8.1 million. With $41.7 million total, it’s Searchlight’s highest grossing film since Disney acquired the company in 2019. A24’s erotic drama “Babygirl,” which added 49 locations, held steady at $4.5 million. Another Thanksgiving leftover, “Wicked,” rounded out the top five. Universal’s movie musical was made available to purchase on VOD on Jan. 31, but still earned another $10.2 million from theaters. The movie is up for several awards at Sunday’s Golden Globes, including nominations for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, best motion picture musical or comedy and “cinematic and box office achievement,” which last year went to “Barbie.” Also in theaters this weekend was the IMAX re-release of David Fincher’s 4K restoration of “Seven,” which earned just over $1 million from 200 locations. The 2025 box office year is already off to a better start than 2024, up around 20% from the same … “‘Mufasa’ and ‘Sonic 3’ rule first box office weekend of 2025” →

While much remains unknown about the man who carried out an attack in New Orleans on New Year’s and another who died in an explosion in Las Vegas the same day, the violence highlights the increased role of people with military experience in ideologically driven attacks, especially those that seek mass casualties. In New Orleans, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a veteran of the U.S. Army, was killed by police after a deadly rampage in a pickup truck that left 14 others dead and injured dozens more. It’s being investigated as an act of terrorism inspired by the Islamic State group. In Las Vegas, officials say Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, shot himself in the head in a Tesla Cybertruck packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, shortly before it exploded outside the entrance of the Trump International Hotel, injuring seven people. On Friday, investigators said Livelsberger wrote that the explosion was meant to serve as a “wakeup call” and that the country was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.” Service members and veterans who radicalize make up a tiny fraction of a percentage point of the millions who have honorably served their country. But an Associated Press investigation published last year found that radicalization among both veterans and active duty service members was on the rise and that hundreds of people with military backgrounds had been arrested for extremist crimes since 2017. The AP found that extremist plots they were involved in during that period had killed or injured nearly 100 people. The AP also found multiple issues with the Pentagon’s efforts to address extremism in the ranks, including that there is still no force-wide system to track it, and that a cornerstone report on the issue contained old data, misleading analyses and ignored evidence of the problem. Since 2017, both veterans and active duty service members radicalized at a faster rate than people without military backgrounds, according to data from terrorism researchers at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland. Less than 1% of the adult population is currently serving in the U.S. military, but active duty military members make up a disproportionate 3.2% of the extremist cases START researchers found between 2017 and 2022. While the number of people with military backgrounds involved in violent extremist plots remains small, the … “New Orleans attack, Vegas explosion highlight extremist violence by active military and veterans” →

Her greatest fear, dormant for decades, came rushing back in an instant: had she adopted and raised a kidnapped child? Peg Reif’s daughter, adopted from South Korea in the 1980s, had sent her a link to a documentary detailing how the system that made their family was rife with fraud: documents falsified, babies switched, children snatched off the street and sent abroad. Reif wept. She was among more than 120 who contacted The Associated Press this fall, after a series of stories and a documentary made with Frontline exposed how Korea created a baby pipeline, designed to ship children abroad as quickly as possible to meet Western demand. The reporting shook adoption communities around the world with details about how agencies competed for babies — pressuring mothers, bribing hospitals, fabricating documents. Most who wrote were adoptees, but some were adoptive parents like Reif, horrified to learn they had supported this system. “I can’t stand the thought that somebody lost their child,” Reif said. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t know if I can.” Forty years ago, she was struggling with infertility. She and her husband pinned their dreams for a family on adopting a baby from Mexico, paid an agency thousands of dollars and waited for months. Then the agency’s directors were arrested, and they learned that those Mexican babies had been taken from their families against their will. Reif was heartbroken but recalls even now looking at her husband and saying, “Thank God we don’t have a child who was stolen.” But now she isn’t sure of that. Because then they adopted two Korean children, and brought them to their home in rural Wisconsin, first a son and then a daughter. The two were not biological siblings, but both arrived with strangely similar stories in their files: their young unmarried mothers worked in factories with fathers who disappeared after they got pregnant. Back then, Reif still believed the common narrative about foreign adoption: it saved children who might otherwise live the rest of their lives in an orphanage, die or be damned to poverty. “I don’t believe that anymore,” Reif said. “I don’t know what to believe.” Cameron Lee Small, a therapist in Minneapolis whose practice caters to adoptees and their families, said many are feeling an intense sense of betrayal. Individual adoptees had long shared stories of falsified … “Fraud allegations rock South Korean adoptees and families” →

NAIROBI, KENYA — Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to make a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa. He once called helping with Zimbabwe’s transition from white rule to independence “our greatest single success.” And when he died at 100, his foundation’s work in rural Africa had nearly fulfilled his quest to eliminate a disease that afflicted millions, for the first time since the eradication of smallpox. The African continent, a booming region with a population rivaling China’s that is set to double by 2050, is where Carter’s legacy remains most evident. Until his presidency, U.S. leaders had shown little interest in Africa, even as independence movements swept the region in the 1960s and ’70s. “I think the day of the so-called ugly American is over,” Carter said during his warm 1978 reception in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. He said the official state visit swept aside “past aloofness by the United States,” and he joked that he and Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo would go into peanut farming together. Cold War tensions drew Carter’s attention to the continent as the U.S. and Soviet Union competed for influence. But Carter also drew on the missionary traditions of his Baptist faith and the racial injustice he witnessed in his homeland in the U.S. South. “For too long our country ignored Africa,” Carter told the Democratic National Committee in his first year as president. African leaders soon received invitations to the White House, intrigued by the abrupt interest from the world’s most powerful nation and what it could mean for them. “There is an air of freshness which is invigorating,” visiting Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda said. Carter observed after his first Africa trip, “There is a common theme that runs through the advice to me of leaders of African nations: ‘We want to manage our own affairs. We want to be friends with both of the great superpowers and also with the nations of Europe. We don’t want to choose up sides.’” The theme echoes today as China also jostles with Russia and the U.S. for influence, and access to Africa’s raw materials. But neither superpower has had an emissary like Carter, who made human rights central to U.S. foreign policy and made 43 more trips to the continent after his presidency, promoting Carter Center projects that sought to empower Africans to determine their own futures. As president, Carter focused on civil and political … “‘Our county ignored Africa,’ Jimmy Carter said. He didn’t” →

Two Federal Reserve policymakers said Saturday they feel the U.S. central bank’s job on taming inflation is not yet done, but also signaled they do not want to risk damaging the labor market as they try to finish that job.  The remarks, from Governor Adriana Kugler and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, highlight the delicate balancing act facing U.S. central bankers this year as they look to slow their pace of rate cutting. The Fed lowered short-term rates by a full percentage point last year, to a current range of 4.25%-4.50%.  Inflation by the Fed’s preferred measure is well down from its mid-2022 peak of around 7%, registering 2.4% in November. Still, that’s above the Fed’s 2% goal, and in December policymakers projected slower progress toward that goal than they had earlier anticipated.  “We are fully aware that we are not there yet — no one is popping champagne anywhere,” Kugler said at the annual American Economic Association conference in San Francisco, California. “And at the same time … we want the unemployment rate to stay where it is” and not increase rapidly.  In November, unemployment was 4.2%, consistent in both her and colleague Daly’s view with maximum employment, the Fed’s second goal alongside its price stability goal.  “At this point, I would not want to see further slowing in the labor market — maybe gradually moving around in bumps and chunks on a given month, but certainly not additional slowing in the labor market,” said Daly, who was speaking on the same panel.  The policymakers were not asked, nor did they volunteer their views, about the potential impact of incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s economic policies, including tariffs and tax cuts, which some have speculated could fuel growth and reignite inflation.   …

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and his family were given tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from foreign leaders in 2023, according to an annual accounting published by the State Department on Thursday, with first lady Jill Biden receiving the single most expensive present: a $20,000 diamond from India’s leader. The 7.5-carat diamond from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was easily the most costly gift presented to any member of the first family in 2023, although she also received a brooch valued at $14,063 from the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and a bracelet, brooch and photograph album worth $4,510 from the president and first lady of Egypt. The U.S. president himself received a number of expensive presents, including a commemorative photo album valued at $7,100 from South Korea’s recently impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol , a $3,495 statue of Mongolian warriors from the Mongolian prime minister, a $3,300 silver bowl from the sultan of Brunei, a $3,160 sterling silver tray from the president of Israel, and a collage worth $2,400 from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Federal law requires executive branch officials to declare gifts they receive from foreign leaders and counterparts that have an estimated value of more than $480. Many of the gifts that meet that threshold are relatively modest, and the more expensive ones are typically — but not always — transferred to the National Archives or put on official displays. The $20,000 diamond was retained for official use in the White House East Wing, according to a State Department document, while the other gifts to the president and first lady were sent to the archives. Vanessa Valdivia, a spokesperson for Jill Biden, said the diamond will be turned over to the archives after they leave office. She did not say what it was being used for. Ukraine’s ambassador, Oksana Markarova, said Friday on Facebook that a Ukrainian designer fashioned the brooch from the remains of a Russian rocket and that the piece was made from inexpensive materials, so its “true value … lies in its symbolism.” The embassy’s spokesperson, Halyna Yusypiuk, said U.S. officials provided the assessed value. Recipients have the option to purchase the gift from the U.S. government at its market value, although that is rare, particularly with high-end items. According to the State Department’s Office of Protocol, which compiles the list that will be published in Friday’s edition of the Federal Register, … “Jill Biden gets priciest gift from foreign leader in 2023 — a $20,000 diamond” →