LA to host Summit of the Americas for region's leaders
WASHINGTON — Los Angeles has been chosen by the Biden administration to host this year’s Summit of the Americas, a key gathering that U.S. officials hope will help mend diplomatic fences in the Western Hemisphere, officials familiar with the decision said.
The White House is expected to announce later Tuesday that the meeting — to be held on U.S. soil for the second time since the forum was created nearly three decades ago — will take place in early June in Los Angeles.
The administration is expected to cite the city’s “deep and robust” ties throughout the hemisphere as one of the reasons it was selected, according to a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the formal announcement.
President Joe Biden will attend the meeting. Former President Donald Trump skipped the last summit, which was held in Peru in 2018. The summit is scheduled to convene every three years, though it was delayed this time by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For the Biden administration, holding the meeting in Los Angeles provides ways to show the connection between U.S. domestic and foreign policy. The city has a large population of Latinos with family members spread throughout Central and South America. Los Angeles has also been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, a disease that disproportionately affects Latinos.
The Los Angeles venue “is especially relevant for those of us who are hyphenated Americans,” the White House official said, noting “more than 224 languages spoken” in the greater Los Angeles area representing 140 countries.
The first such summit was held in Miami in 1994, with President Clinton as the host. It was billed as an early post-Cold War venue for regional partnerships in trade, aid and security.
—Los Angeles Times
Woman who drove past Mar-a-Lago barriers found not guilty
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Connecticut woman charged with driving a rented SUV through barriers at Mar-a-Lago in January 2020, prompting the Secret Service and Palm Beach County sheriff's officers to fire at her vehicle, was temporarily insane at the time of the incident, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer accepted Hannah Roemhild's not-guilty plea at a hearing Tuesday morning.
Lawyers for Roemhild, now 32, have said the opera singer has long dealt with mental health issues and had not taken her medication at the time of the incident. She appeared at the hearing via Zoom from a residence in Connecticut where she has been living under federal supervised release since last year.
"(She) is relieved that these matters have been resolved and that she can go on living a normal, productive, healthy life," said David Roth, her attorney.
Roemhild was found not guilty of two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer, fleeing police and resisting arrest, according to court records.
She also was charged in federal court with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon outside former President Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion, which some called the "winter White House" while he was in office.
The "deadly weapon" was the Jeep SUV that Roemhild had rented during a visit to Palm Beach County.
—The Palm Beach Post
Final Michigan school shooting survivor returns home
OXFORD, Mich. — Kylie Ossege, the longest-hospitalized victim in the Nov. 30 Oxford High School shooting, has been back home for the past week, her family said.
Ossege's family provided an update Sunday on her GoFundMe page, which has raised about $139,000 of the $150,000 it seeks to aid in her recovery. Ossege, 17, was shot in the chest.
"After one week at home, we are adjusting," the Jan. 16 update reads. "Kylie began outpatient physical and occupational therapy. The therapists have welcomed her and have been so kind. We are seeking to establish our new routine.
"Despite the cold," the page adds, on Saturday Kylie "felt able to make the trip to the farm to see Blaze," a horse.
Ossege's family reported in early December that she had moved from the intensive care unit at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital-Oakland to a standard room where she was to remain for up to six more weeks.
Ossege is one of seven survivors of the shooting.
Classmates Hana St. Juliana, 14, Tate Myre, 16, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed.
—The Detroit News
Kamala Harris headed to Honduras for inauguration
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will attend the inauguration of President-elect Xiomara Castro in Honduras next week, the White House said Tuesday, signaling a potential shift in relations with the Central American country as Harris continues efforts to deter migration.
“The vice president’s visit will further the commitment she and President-elect Castro made ... to deepen the partnership between the United States and Honduras and work together to advance economic growth, combat corruption, and address the root causes of migration,” Harris’ deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh wrote in a statement announcing attendance at the Jan. 27 ceremony.
Until speaking with Castro on Dec. 10 in a phone call, Harris had not had direct contact with any Honduran leaders, despite leading American efforts to curb migration from the region. The number of people stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border last year reached record levels, with many migrants beginning their journeys in Central America.
The Biden administration has shunned Honduras’ president, Juan Orlando Hernández, whose brother was sentenced last year to life in prison for drug trafficking by a federal judge in Manhattan in a case that implicated the Honduran president.
The administration has been desperate to find a Central American partner to work with. El Salvador and Guatemala, the other two countries in what is known as the Northern Triangle, have taken authoritarian turns.
—Los Angeles Times
