The Department of Justice announced Tuesday five criminal cases involving people accused of stealing or illegally transferring U.S. technology to businesses and governments in China, Russia and Iran.
Why it matters: The cases, and four arrests associated with them, were the first enforcement actions taken by a new DOJ team meant to prevent nation-state adversaries from stealing critical U.S. technologies.
The big picture: About 10% of students in K-12 public schools are English learners, meaning they are learning English for the first time. These students often struggle academically and were severely affected by pandemic school closures, according to data.
Researchers saythey could benefit from enrolling in what are known as two-way dual language immersion programs where half the students are native English speakers looking to learn, say, Spanish, and the other half are native Spanish speakers.
Instead, English learners are increasingly left out of dual language immersion programs as these schools expand into wealthier and less accessible neighborhoods, says researcher Conor P. Williams, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.
Details: Williams and otherresearchers examined 1,600 dual-language immersion programs in 13 states and Washington, D.C., and found that the share of English learners in a majority of programs in several cities declined over the past five years, while the share of white native-English speakers increased.
Several studies have found that English learners do better in bilingual programs instead of in English-only programs.
Native English speakers also benefit from being in school with non-English speakers. That's when utility comes into play — students who have little choice but to learn each others' languages, Williams says.
Between the lines: Programs for English learners have always been underfunded and some states have particularly troubling policies, Amalia Chamorro, director of the education policy project at UnidosUS, tells Axios Latino.
For example, even though some Arizona public schools have dual language immersion programs, English learners are effectively barred from participating in them. Instead, they are required under law to be in English immersion programs.
"Leaning into bilingualism, multilingualism, multiculturalism is an asset," Chamorro says, but the needs of English learners should be considered, too.
UnidosUS and 162 other organizations are asking Congress to fund English learner programs to the tune of $2 billion for the upcoming fiscal year.
The budget was $890 million in the 2023 budget year, which amounts to only $174 per English learner, according to UnidosUS.
What they're saying: Education leaders should consider establishing programs in neighborhoods with a high percentage of non-native English speakers to ensure equity among the student body, the researchers of the new study say.
They also recommend thatstate and federal governments create competitive grants for schools interested in establishing their dual language programs.
Finally, the researchers say education leaders should address the bilingual teacher shortage by creating a pipeline and establishing provisional teacher licenses for adults with college degrees who are proficient in the non-English languages being taught in dual immersion programs.
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Arfiya Eri, who last month became the first Japanese person of Uyghur heritage to be elected to the country's National Diet, hopes to show the world that while Uyghurs face genocide in China, elsewhere they are succeeding in politics, business and other fields, she told Axios in an interview.
What she's saying: "We are of course victims of genocide. But we are so much more than that. We also deserve to succeed and we deserve to thrive, and that's something I hope to model through my work," Eri told Axios.
A U.S. Department of Justice case against a U.S. citizen accused of working with Chinese government and party officials to surveil local residents could help provide new details about how the Chinese Communist Party allegedly operates in the United States.
The big picture: The Chinese government has long sought to silence global dissent by surveilling, harassing and threatening its critics abroad, and in some cases forcibly bringing them back to China, as part of a phenomenon known as transnational repression.
As the race toward global EV adoption heats up, many Latin American countries with bountiful lithium reserves areadopting a cautious approach to mining the metal.
Why it matters: The world's largest known deposits of the material used for electric vehicle batteries are in Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, known as the lithium triangle.
Thai voters made clear in Sunday's election that they want change. The question is now whether the military-aligned establishment will let them have it.
Why it matters: Sunday's result was a political earthquake, not just because pro-democracy parties trounced pro-military ones, but also because the progressive party that finished first, Move Forward, campaigned on the once-taboo topic of reforming the monarchy.
If you're traveling this Memorial Day weekend, you may want to hit the road early to account for extra traffic.
What we're hearing: AAA estimates that 42.3 million Americans will travel during the holiday weekend — a 7% increase over last year. It is projected to be the third busiest Memorial Day weekend.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday called on the international community to force the Israeli government to implement the UN resolutions related to the conflict or freeze Israel’s membership in the world body.
Why it matters: Abbas was speaking during the UN's first-ever ceremony commemorating the Nakba, or the "catastrophe," which marks the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the events that led to Israel's founding in 1948.
China sentenced a 78-year-old U.S. citizen to life in prison Monday on spying charges — a move that could furthercomplicate U.S.-China diplomatic ties.
Driving the news: A court in the southeastern Chinese city of Suzhou didn't release the details of its charges against the 78-year-old John Shing-Wan Leung, who also holds permanent residency in Hong Kong, except to say that he was detained in Suzhou on April 15, 2021, according to a brief statement posted online.
Concerns about a rush on the border following the end of a restrictive pandemic policy have not materialized — with daily crossings cut in half compared to the record-breaking days leading up to May 11.
Why it matters: It's good news for the Biden administration's post-Title 42 approach, which included a tougher image on the border and a strict new asylum policy.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken is considering naming Dan Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, as the State Department's point person for the Abraham Accords, three U.S. officials told Axios.
Why it matters: In the months since the right-wing Israeli government was sworn in, most of the Arab countries that began normalizing relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords have largely paused the process.
Driving the news: Biden told reporters in Delaware he expects to resume talks with congressional leaders on Tuesday and that he plans to leave as scheduled for the G7 summit in Japan one day later, per a pool report.
Turkish President Recep TayyipErdoğan and opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu are heading for a runoff on May 28, electoral officials announced.
State of play: Erdoğan significantly outperformed the pre-election polls to win 49.5% of the vote, just short of the majority required to win outright.
Cyclone Mocha lashed Myanmar's Rakhine state on Sunday with devastating winds and heavy rain, killing at least six people and causing extensive damage, the UN and local media reported.
The big picture: The storm, which packed maximum sustained winds of 155 mph as it moved ashore just north of the port city of Sittwe, disrupted telecommunication networks, making it hard to know the extent of the destruction. But there were early reports of "significant damage," OCHA said late Sunday local time.
Tropical Cyclone Mocha, which struck Myanmar and Bangladesh as a high-end Category 4 storm on Sunday, is a catastrophic example of a rapidly strengthening storm — one that leaps multiple intensity categories.
Why it matters: Rapid intensification, along with higher rainfall rates, are key ways that climate change is influencing nature's strongest storms.
Nearly 11 million people in the Pacific Northwest were under heat advisories — as forecasters warned cities including Seattle and Portland could see more temperature records set Monday from the intense heat wave.
