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CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Two U.S. citizens have been arrested in Venezuela, part of a group of seven whom President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday branded as “mercenaries” in the latest roundup ahead of the embattled leader’s expected inauguration to a new term later this week. Maduro said the detained U.S. citizens were “very high level” but did not provide further details or evidence of the arrests. “Just today we’ve captured seven foreign mercenaries, including two important mercenaries from the United States,” said Maduro, who is set to take office for a third term on Friday following last July’s contested election that the opposition says it won in a landslide. Maduro said the group of detainees includes two Colombians who he said were captured in unspecified parts of Venezuela, as well as three others who came from the war in Ukraine. Neither the U.S. Department of State nor Colombia’s Foreign Ministry responded immediately to requests for comment. Venezuelan rights groups have warned of a revolving door of prisoners, with fresh detentions coming in even as older prisoners are released, including arrests of foreign nationals. In late 2023, Venezuela’s government released dozens of prisoners including 10 Americans after months of negotiations between Caracas and Washington, while the U.S. released a close ally of Maduro, Colombian businessman Alex Saab. In remarks delivered from the Miraflores presidential palace, Maduro on Tuesday claimed that his government’s security forces have captured what he called 125 foreign mercenaries from 25 different countries who he said had entered the South American nation “to practice terrorism against the Venezuelan people.” The remarks come as opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez is touring the region in a bid to grow his international support. Gonzalez has been declared president-elect by several governments, including the United States. On Monday, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said Gonzalez was the “true winner” of the July 28 vote. While the government-aligned electoral authority and Venezuela’s top court have decreed that Maduro won the election, the government has not released ballot-box level results to back up the claim. The opposition, however, has published thousands of scanned copies of voting machine receipts its observers gathered days after the vote, accounting for over 80% of votes cast and showing a lopsided Gonzalez victory. …

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to block a plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants that would spare them the risk of the death penalty.  The Justice Department argued in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas were accepted. It said the government would be denied a chance for a public trial and the opportunity to “seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world.”  The military judge at Guantanamo Bay and a military appeals panel rejected Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out the plea agreement, saying he had no power to do so after the senior Pentagon official for Guantanamo approved it in July.  Mohammed was due to enter his guilty plea on Friday and his two co-defendants next week.  The Justice Department brief said the defendants, by contrast, would not be harmed by a short delay, given that the prosecution has been ongoing since 2012 and the plea agreements would likely result in them serving long prison sentences, potentially for the rest of their lives.  “A short delay to allow this Court to weigh the merits of the government’s request in this momentous case will not materially harm the respondents,” the government argued.  …

LOS ANGELES — Firefighters scrambled to corral a fast-moving wildfire in the Los Angeles hillsides dotted with celebrity homes as a fierce windstorm hit Southern California on Tuesday. The blaze could be seen for miles as scores of residents abandoned their cars and fled on foot to safety as roads became blocked.  About 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures are under threat, said Kristin Crowley, fire chief of the Los Angeles. Fire Department.  California Governor Gavin Newsom said he saw “many structures already destroyed.” Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the blaze.  The cause of the fire was not immediately known, and no injuries had been reported, officials said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.  Newsom warned residents across Southern California not to assume they are out of danger, saying the worst of the winds are expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday.  Forecasters predicted the windstorm would last for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months. The National Weather service said it could be the strongest Santa Ana windstorm in more than a decade across Los Angeles and Ventura counties.  Roughly half a million utility customers were at risk of their power being shut off to reduce the risk of the equipment sparking blazes.  In the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, a fire swiftly consumed about 5 square kilometers (2 square miles) of land, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.  Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. Other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to escape the danger and waited to be picked up.  Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.  “We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with … “30,000 ordered to flee Los Angeles-area wildfire; 13,000 structures threatened” →

LOS ANGELES — Peter Yarrow, the singer-songwriter best known as one-third of Peter, Paul and Mary, the folk-music trio whose impassioned harmonies transfixed millions as they lifted their voices in favor of civil rights and against war, has died. He was 86. Yarrow, who also co-wrote the group’s most enduring song, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” died Tuesday in New York, publicist Ken Sunshine said. Yarrow had bladder cancer for the past four years. “Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life. The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest,” his daughter Bethany said in a statement. During an incredible run of success spanning the 1960s, Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers released six Billboard Top 10 singles and two No. 1 albums and won five Grammys. They also brought early exposure to Bob Dylan by turning two of his songs, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” into Billboard Top 10 hits as they helped lead an American renaissance in folk music. They performed “Blowin’ in the Wind” at the 1963 March on Washington at which the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. After an eight-year hiatus to pursue solo careers, the trio reunited in 1978 for a “Survival Sunday,” an anti-nuclear-power concert that Yarrow had organized in Los Angeles. They would remain together until Travers’ death in 2009. Upon her passing, Yarrow and Stookey continued to perform both separately and together.   Born May 31, 1938, in New York, Yarrow was raised in an upper-middle-class family he said placed high value on art and scholarship. He took violin lessons as a child, later switching to guitar as he came to embrace the work of such folk music icons as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Upon graduating from Cornell University in 1959, he returned to New York, where he worked as a struggling Greenwich Village musician until connecting with Stookey and Travers. Although his degree was in psychology, he had found his true calling in folk music at Cornell when he worked as a teaching assistant for a class in American folklore his senior year. Soon after returning to New York, he met impresario Albert Grossman, who would go on … “Peter Yarrow of folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary dies at 86” →

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to delay this week’s sentencing in his hush money case, asking a New York appeals court to intervene as he fights to avoid the finality of his conviction before he returns to the White House.  Trump turned to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court a day after the trial judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, rebuffed his bid to indefinitely postpone sentencing and ordered it to go ahead as scheduled on Friday.  Trump is seeking an emergency order that would spare him from being sentenced while he appeals Merchan’s decision last week to uphold the historic verdict. Oral arguments were expected before a single judge later Tuesday, with a decision likely soon thereafter.  A quick decision is necessary “to prevent ongoing violations” of Trump’s constitutional rights “and a threatened disruption” of the presidential transition process, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote in a filing with the Appellate Division.  Trump, less than two weeks from his inauguration, is poised to be the first president to take office convicted of crimes. If his sentencing doesn’t happen before his second term starts Jan. 20, presidential immunity could put it on hold until he leaves office.  Merchan has signaled that he is not likely to punish Trump for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and will accommodate the transition by allowing him to appear at sentencing by video, rather than in person at a Manhattan courthouse.  Still, the Republican and his lawyers contend that his sentencing should not go forward because the conviction and indictment should be dismissed. They have previously suggested taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Merchan last Friday denied Trump’s request to throw out his conviction and dismiss the case because of his impending return to the White House, ruling that Trump’s current status as president-elect does not afford him the same immunity from criminal proceedings as a sitting president.  Merchan wrote that the interests of justice would only be served by “bringing finality to this matter” through sentencing. He said giving Trump what’s known as an unconditional discharge — closing the case without jail time, a fine or probation — “appears to be the most viable solution.”  In his filing Tuesday, Blanche argued that Merchan’s interpretation of presidential immunity was wrong and that it should extend to a president-elect during “the complex, sensitive … “President-elect Donald Trump tries again to get Friday’s hush money sentencing called off” →

WASHINGTON — The United States determined on Tuesday that members of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces and allied militias committed genocide in Sudan and it imposed sanctions on the group’s leader over a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement the RSF and aligned militias had continued to direct attacks against civilians, adding that they had systematically murdered men and boys on an ethnic basis and had deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of sexual violence. The militias have also targeted fleeing civilians and murdered innocent people escaping conflict, Blinken said. “The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities,” Blinken said. Washington announced sanctions on the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is also known as Hemedti, barring him from traveling to the United States and freezing any U.S. assets he might hold. “For nearly two years, Hemedti’s RSF has engaged in a brutal armed conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of Sudan, killing tens of thousands, displacing 12 million Sudanese, and triggering widespread starvation,” the Treasury Department said in a separate statement. Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months, creating a humanitarian crisis in which U.N. agencies have struggled to deliver relief. The war erupted in April 2023 amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule. …

Meta is ending its fact-checking program in the U.S. and replacing it with a “Community Notes” system similar to that on Elon Musk-owned X, the Facebook parent said on Tuesday.   The Community Notes model will allow users on Meta’s social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Threads to call out posts that are potentially misleading and need more context, rather than placing the responsibility on independent fact checking organizations and experts.   “Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how … A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor,” Meta said.   Meta added that its efforts over the years to manage content across its platforms have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable.”  The company said it would begin phasing in Community Notes in the United States over the next couple of months and would improve the model over the course of the year.  It will also stop demoting fact-checked content and use a label notifying users there is additional information related to the post, instead of the company’s current method of displaying full-screen warnings that users have to click through before even viewing the post.   …

Los Angeles — President Joe Biden is establishing two new national monuments in California that will honor Native American tribes, the White House confirmed Tuesday, as Biden seeks to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 through his “America the Beautiful” initiative. Proclamations set to be signed Tuesday will create the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and the Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California. The declarations bar drilling and mining and other development on the 624,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) Chuckwalla site and roughly 225,000 acres (800 square kilometers) near the Oregon border in Northern California. The new monuments will protect clean water for communities, honor areas of cultural significance to tribal nations and Indigenous peoples, and enhance access to nature, the White House said. Biden, who has two weeks left in office, is set to visit Los Angeles and the Eastern Coachella Valley on Tuesday after meeting Monday with the families of the victims in the New Year’s attack in New Orleans. Biden announced Monday he will ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, including in California and other West Coast states. The plan is intended to block possible efforts by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling. The flurry of activity has been in line with the Democratic president’s “America the Beautiful” initiative launched in 2021, aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change. The Pit River Tribe has worked to get the federal government to designate the Sáttítla National Monument. The area is a spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Tribes and encompasses mountain woodlands and meadows that are home to rare flowers and wildlife. A number of Native American tribes and environmental groups began pushing Biden to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument, named after the large desert lizard, in early 2023. The monument would protect public lands south of Joshua Tree National Park, spanning the Coachella Valley region in the west to near the Colorado River. Advocates say the monument will protect a tribal cultural landscape, ensure access to nature for local residents and preserve military history sites. “The designation of the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla National Monuments in California marks an historic step toward protecting lands of profound cultural, ecological and historical significance for all Americans,” said Carrie … “Biden to announce creation of 2 new national monuments to protect tribal lands in California “ →

WASHINGTON/TOKYO — U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to block Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel cast a shadow over Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Japan on Tuesday for farewell meetings with Washington’s most important ally in Asia. The rejection, announced on Friday, has jolted U.S. efforts to boost ties with Asian allies just as South Korea’s political crisis potentially complicates a revived relationship between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo. The trilateral alliance is a key plank in the countries’ efforts to counter China’s military buildup. Investment into the U.S. could also be chilled, but analysts say any damage to the wider U.S.-Japan relationship will likely be limited given shared security concerns about China. On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba described Biden’s decision to block the sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel as “perplexing.” Accompanied by White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Blinken met Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya in Tokyo and will hold talks later in the day with Ishiba and other senior Japanese officials Numerous trips to Japan over the last four years “is evidence, not just of the importance, but of the centrality the United States attaches to our partnership. President Biden asked me to come on this last trip to underscore that,” Blinken told Iwaya. “We have, between our two countries, a partnership that started out focusing on bilateral issues, that worked on regional issues and that now is genuinely global,” he added. Ahead of his trip, the State Department said that Blinken wanted to build on the momentum of U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation. In Seoul on Monday, Blinken reaffirmed confidence in South Korea’s handling of its political turmoil as investigators there sought an extension of a warrant to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol. Allies of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have also reassured Seoul and Tokyo that he will support continuing to improve ties and advance military, economic and diplomatic cooperation to counter China and North Korea, Reuters reported ahead of Trump’s Nov. 5 re-election. Tension, limited damage from Nippon Steel decision Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel filed a lawsuit on Monday charging that Biden violated the U.S. Constitution by blocking their $14.9 billion merger through what they termed a sham national security review. They called for the U.S. federal court to overturn the decision. Nicholas Szechenyi, a Japan expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Biden’s decision … “Blinken visits Japan as Nippon Steel decision weighs on relations “ →

Annapolis, Maryland — The next round of bitter cold was set to envelop the southern U.S. on Tuesday, after the first significant winter storm of the year blasted a huge swath of the country with ice, snow and wind. The immense storm system brought disruption even to areas of the country that usually escape winter’s wrath, downing trees in some Southern states, threatening a freeze in Florida and causing people in Dallas to dip deep into their wardrobes for hats and gloves. By early Tuesday, wind chill temperatures could dip as low as minus 10.5 C from Texas across the Gulf Coast, according to the National Weather Service. A low-pressure system is then expected to form as soon as Wednesday near south Texas, bringing the potential of snow to parts of the state that include Dallas, as well as to Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. The polar vortex that dipped south over the weekend kept much of the country east of the Rockies in its frigid grip Monday, making many roads treacherous, forcing school closures, and causing widespread power outages and flight cancellations. Ice and snow blanketed major roads in Kansas, western Nebraska and parts of Indiana, where the National Guard was activated to help stranded motorists. The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for Kansas and Missouri, where blizzard conditions brought wind gusts of up to 72 kph. The warnings extended to New Jersey into early Tuesday. A Kentucky truck stop was jammed with big rigs forced off an icy and snow-covered Interstate 75 on Monday just outside Cincinnati. A long-haul driver from Los Angeles carrying a load of rugs to Georgia, Michael Taylor said he saw numerous cars and trucks stuck in ditches and was dealing with icy windshield wipers before he pulled off the interstate. “It was too dangerous. I didn’t want to kill myself or anyone else,” he said. The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes plunges south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Studies show that a fast-warming Arctic is partly to blame for the increasing frequency of the polar vortex extending its grip. Temperatures plunge across the country The eastern two-thirds of the U.S. dealt with bone-chilling cold and wind chills Monday, with temperatures in some areas far below normal. A cold weather advisory will take effect early Tuesday across the Gulf Coast. In Texas’ capital of … “The next round of bitter cold and snow will hit the southern US” →

President Ronald Reagan is often credited with defeating the Soviet Union, in part by helping Afghan rebels, but it was the administration of President Jimmy Carter that laid the groundwork.   Considered a foreign policy novice by many when he entered the White House, Carter made the early decision to provide covert aid to Afghan insurgents months before the Soviet invasion. The move offers a window into one of the defining issues of his presidency, showing a president unafraid to confront the Soviets while pursuing a policy of détente.   “I think people’s image of Carter as a deeply religious man, a deeply moral man, is very much influenced by the activities he’s done after he left office. [But] he definitely had a ruthless side to him, and he had a side that was very willing to use force, including nuclear weapons,” said David Gibbs, a history professor at the University of Arizona.  The covert aid program initiated under Carter became the backbone of the Afghan insurgency, setting the stage for the Soviet Union’s eventual withdrawal in 1989.   In a bold move six months before the Soviets’ December 1979 invasion, Carter signed a secret directive known as a “presidential finding” that authorized the CIA to provide nonlethal aid to rebels fighting Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed communist government. That finding stayed under wraps for nearly two decades, coming to light only when several Carter administration officials, including former CIA Director Robert Gates and national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, disclosed its existence in the 1990s, suggesting the Carter administration aimed to lure the Soviets into a Vietnam-style quagmire. ‘Afghan trap’ Brzezinski’s revelations were the most striking. In a 1998 interview with a French magazine, Carter’s Polish-born, ardently anti-communist adviser denied provoking the Soviets but claimed the administration had “knowingly increased the probability” of a Soviet invasion. Calling the program “an excellent idea,” he said it had the “effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.” Although Brzezinski later disputed the accuracy of the interview and never repeated the claim, the so-called “Afghan trap” thesis gained traction, with critics excoriating the Carter administration for instigating the Soviet invasion and causing decades of conflict in Afghanistan. Among scholars who see the aid program as a deliberate provocation, Gibbs said he was initially loath to read too much into the Brzezinski interview before becoming convinced of its veracity. As Gibbs described it to VOA, a … “How Carter’s covert aid to Afghan rebels redefined his foreign policy record” →

WASHINGTON — The U.S. on Monday eased some restrictions on Syria’s transitional government to allow the entry of humanitarian aid after Islamist insurgents ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last month. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license lasting six months that authorizes certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions. The move does not lift sanctions on the nation that has been battered by more than a decade of war but indicates a limited show of U.S. support for the new transitional government. The general license underscores America’s commitment to ensuring its sanctions “do not impede activities to meet basic human needs, including the provision of public services or humanitarian assistance,” a Treasury Department statement said. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said his agency “will continue to support humanitarian assistance and responsible governance in Syria.” Since Assad’s ouster, representatives from the nation’s new de facto authorities have said the new Syria will be inclusive and open to the world. The U.S. has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month. The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS; Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaida; and the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the first U.S. diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster. The U.S. and U.N. have long designated HTS as a terrorist organization. HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people. Much of the world ended diplomatic relations with Assad because of his crackdown on protesters and sanctioned him and his Russian and Iranian associates. Most of the Western-led sanctions targeted Assad and his associates for the brutal crackdown on protesters and their manufacturing of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon, which reportedly generated billions of dollars as packages of the little white pills were smuggled across Syria’s porous borders. With Assad out of the picture, Syria’s new authorities hope the international community will pour money into the country to rebuild its battered infrastructure and make its economy viable again. Syria’s … “US eases restrictions on Syria while keeping sanctions in place” →

WASHINGTON — The U.S. cyber watchdog agency CISA said Monday there was “no indication” the recently reported breach at the U.S. Treasury Department had affected any other federal agency.  Late last month the U.S. Treasury reported that an unspecified number of computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services.   BeyondTrust said last month that a limited number of clients were affected but has not elaborated.  “As the forensic investigation is ongoing, BeyondTrust is unable to confirm the other customers who may or may not have been impacted,” the company said Monday in an email.  The Washington Post has reported that the hackers breached the U.S. Treasury office that administers economic sanctions, aiming to steal information about Chinese entities that the U.S. government might be considering designating for financial sanctions.  Republican lawmakers have demanded a briefing about the breach, which is the latest in a series of intrusions blamed on Beijing.  Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, has previously described the Treasury hack reports as “irrational” and represented “smear attacks” against China.  …

Washington/New York — The U.S. Defense Department said on Monday it has added Chinese tech giants including gaming and social media leader Tencent Holdings and battery maker CATL to a list of firms it says work with China’s military.   The list also included chip maker Changxin Memory Technologies, Quectel Wireless and drone maker Autel Robotics, according to a document published on Monday. The annually updated list of Chinese military companies, formally mandated under U.S. law as the “Section 1260H list,” designated 134 companies, according to a notice posted to the Federal Register. U.S.-traded shares of Tencent, which is also the parent of Chinese instant messaging app WeChat, fell 8% in over-the-counter trading. Tencent said in a statement that its inclusion on the list was “clearly a mistake.” It added: “We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business.” CATL called the designation a mistake, saying it “is not engaged in any military related activities.” A Quectel spokesperson said the company “does not work with the military in any country and will ask the Pentagon to reconsider its designation, which clearly has been made in error.” The other companies and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to requests or did not immediately comment. Amid strained relations between the world’s two biggest economies, the updated list is one of numerous actions taken by Washington in recent years to highlight and restrict Chinese companies it says pose security risks. Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the additions showed that it was “reckless” for American firms to conduct business with a growing swath of Chinese corporations. “The U.S. isn’t just safeguarding a handful of technologies anymore,” he said. “The garden of sensitive technologies is growing, and the fence protecting them is being fortified. Today’s list lays bare that these aren’t just commercial companies. They’re critical enablers of China’s military modernization, directly fueling Beijing’s strategic ambitions.” Other companies added include MGI Tech, which makes genomic sequencing instruments, and Origincell Technology, which lawmakers have alleged operates a cell bank network and bio-storage technologies. Neither firm immediately responded to requests for comments. U.S. lawmakers had pushed the Pentagon throughout 2024 to add some of the companies, including CATL, to the list. Ford Motor is building a battery plant in Michigan and plans to license CATL technology … “US adds Tencent, CATL to list of Chinese firms allegedly aiding Beijing’s military” →