Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

U.N. says 230,000 displaced by Myanmar fighting

(Reuters) – An estimated 230,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Myanmar and need assistance, the United Nations said on Thursday, as a major armed ethnic group expressed concern about military force, civilian deaths and a widening of the conflict.

Myanmar has been in crisis since a Feb. 1 coup ousted an elected government, prompting nationwide anger that has led to protests, killings and bombings, and battles on several fronts between troops and newly formed civilian armies.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said relief operations were ongoing but were being hindered by armed clashes, violence and insecurity in the country.

It said 177,000 people were displaced in Karen state bordering Thailand, 103,000 in the past month, while more than 20,000 people were sheltering at 100 displacement areas after fighting between People’s Defense Forces and the army in Chin State bordering India.

Several thousand people had fled fighting in northern Kachin and Shan States, regions with established ethnic minority armies with a long history of hostilities with the military.

The Karen National Union (KNU), one of Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority groups, said it was worried about the military’s excessive use of force and the loss of innocent civilian lives as fighting intensifies all over the country.

“The KNU will continue to fight against military dictatorship and provide as much protection as possible to people and unarmed civilians,” it said in a statement.

The military says it seized power to protect democracy because its complaints of fraud in a November election won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party were ignored.

PROTESTS

Anti-junta protests took place in Kachin State, Dawei, Sagaing Region and the commercial capital Yangon on Thursday, with demonstrators carrying banners and making three-finger gestures of defiance.

Some showed support for those resisting military rule in Mandalay, the second-biggest city, where a firefight took place between the army and a newly formed guerrilla group on Tuesday, the first sign of armed clashes in a major urban center since the coup.

The military-owned Myawaddy Television said four members of the militia were arrested on Thursday, describing them as “terrorists”.

At least 877 people have been killed by security forces and more than 6,000 arrested since the coup, according to the Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), an advocacy group which the junta has declared an illegal organization.

A diplomatic effort by Southeast Asian countries to halt the violence and initiate dialogue between all sides has stalled and the generals say they will stick to their plan of restoring order and holding elections in two years.

In its nightly news bulletin, state-run MRTV reported on the visit of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing to Russia, where a military university named him an honorary professor.

Unlike most global powers, Russia has embraced the junta and the country has long been a key source of Myanmar’s weaponry. His visit comes amid international pressure on countries not to sell arms to the military or do business with its vast network of companies.

State media on Thursday carried excerpts from a speech in Russia by Min Aung Hlaing in which he said it was necessary for countries to avoid encroaching on another country’s sovereignty.

“Myanmar is striving for restoring political peace and stability,” it quoted him saying. “The current government is focusing on the reappearance of honesty over democracy.”

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Giles Elgood)

WFP says communities on verge of starvation in Madagascar after drought

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Communities in Madagascar are on the verge of starvation, with women and children walking for hours to reach food after the worst drought in four decades devastated the south of the island, the World Food Program said.

Acute malnutrition has almost doubled over the last four months, the WFP said, with more than a quarter of people suffering in one area.

“I met women and children who were holding on for dear life, they’d walked for hours to get to our food distribution points,” David Beasley, WFP executive director, said in a statement.

“There have been back-to-back droughts in Madagascar which have pushed communities right to the very edge of starvation. Families are suffering and people are already dying from severe hunger,” he added. Beasley blamed climate change for the crisis.

WFP said $78.6 million was needed to fight the crisis.

“Families have been living on raw red cactus fruits, wild leaves and locusts for months now,” Beasley said.

Bole, a mother of three from Ambiriky, in southern Madagascar, who also is caring for two orphans after their mother died, told the agency that to survive they relied on cactus leaves for their meals.

“We have nothing left. Their mother is dead and my husband is dead. What do you want me to say? Our life is all about looking for cactus leaves again and again to survive,” she said.

(Writing by Omar Mohammed; Editing by Alison Williams)

Biden administration extends residential eviction ban until end of July

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Thursday said it was extending the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 residential eviction moratorium until July 31.

Reuters first reported the expected extension on Tuesday. The national ban on residential evictions was first implemented last September and was extended in March until June 30. A CDC statement Thursday extending it to July 31 said “this is intended to be the final extension of the moratorium”.

The CDC said the “the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a historic threat to the nation’s public health. Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or congregate settings — like homeless shelters — by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.”

On Tuesday, a group of 44 U.S. lawmakers had called for the extension, citing an estimate that about “6 million renter households are behind on their rent and at risk of eviction”.

The Supreme Court has yet to act on a petition by landlord groups which argued the CDC exceeded its authority when it halted evictions to help renters during the pandemic. The CDC imposed the ban to combat the spread of COVID-19 and prevent homelessness during the pandemic.

Lawyers for the landlord groups cited the Reuters story Wednesday reporting the expected extension in asking the Supreme Court to take immediate action to halt the ban.

The landlords said earlier that property owners “have been losing over $13 billion every month under the moratorium”. One group estimated that 40 million Americans were behind on rent in January, with $70 billion of missed payments by the end of 2020.

The moratorium covers renters who expected to earn less than $99,000 a year, or $198,000 for joint filers, or who reported no income, or received stimulus checks.

Renters also had to swear they were doing their best to make partial rent payments, and that evictions would likely leave them homeless or force them into “shared” living quarters.

Congress has approved $47 billion in relief for renters but much of that money has not yet been distributed.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Philippa Fletcher)

Exclusive: WHO estimates COVID-19 boosters needed yearly for most vulnerable

By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) forecasts that people most vulnerable to COVID-19, such as the elderly, will need to get an annual vaccine booster to be protected against variants, an internal document seen by Reuters shows.

The estimate is included in a report, which is to be discussed on Thursday at a board meeting of Gavi, a vaccine alliance that co-leads the WHO’s COVID-19 vaccine program COVAX. The forecast is subject to changes and is also paired with two other less likely scenarios.

Vaccine makers Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc, with its German partner BioNTech, have been vocal in their view that the world will soon need booster shots to maintain high levels of immunity, but the evidence for this is still unclear.

The document shows that the WHO considers annual boosters for high-risk individuals as its “indicative” baseline scenario, and boosters every two years for the general population.

It does not say how these conclusions were reached, but shows that under the base scenario new variants would continue to emerge and vaccines would be regularly updated to meet these threats.

The U.N. agency declined to comment on the content of the internal document while Gavi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The document, which is dated June 8 and is still “work in progress,” also predicts under the base case that 12 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses will be produced globally next year.

That would be slightly higher than the forecast of 11 billion doses for this year cited by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA), signaling that the U.N. agency does not expect a significant ramp-up of vaccine production in 2022.

The document predicts manufacturing problems, regulatory approval issues and “transition away from some technology platforms” as potential drags on supplies next year.

It does not signal which technologies could be phased out, but the European Union, which has reserved the world’s largest volume of COVID-19 vaccines, has bet heavily on shots using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, such as those by Pfizer and Moderna, and has forgone some purchases of viral vector vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

WORST-CASE SCENARIO

The scenarios will be used to define the WHO’s global vaccination strategy and the forecasts may change as new data emerge on the role of boosters and the duration of vaccine protection, Gavi says in another document, also seen by Reuters.

So far about 2.5 billion doses have been administered worldwide, mostly in rich countries where over half of the population has received at least one dose, whereas in many poorer countries less than 1% has been vaccinated, according to Gavi’s estimates.

This gap could widen next year under the WHO’s most pessimistic forecast, as the need for annual boosters could push once again poorer nations to the back of the queue.

In its worst-case scenario, the U.N. agency says production would be 6 billion doses next year, due to stringent regulation for new shots and manufacturing issues with existing ones.

That could be compounded by the need for annual boosters for the entire world, and not just the most vulnerable, to combat variants and limited duration of protection.

In the more optimistic situation, all vaccines in the pipeline would get authorized and production capacity would ramp up to about 16 billion doses to meet demand. Vaccines would also be shared equitably across the world.

There would be no need for boosters as vaccines would show strong efficacy against variants and long protection.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by Josephine Mason and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Russia warns Britain it will bomb ships next time

By Guy Faulconbridge and Katya Golubkova

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia warned Britain on Thursday that it would bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea if there were any further provocative actions by the British navy off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea.

Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding after the warship breached what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world say belong to Ukraine.

Britain said Russia was giving an inaccurate account of the incident. No warning shots had been fired and no bombs had been dropped in the path of the Royal Navy destroyer Defender, it said.

In Moscow, Russia summoned Ambassador Deborah Bronnert for a reprimand over what it said were Britain’s “dangerous” action in the Black Sea – while foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused London of “barefaced lies”.

“We can appeal to common sense, demand respect for international law, and if that doesn’t work, we can bomb,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.

Ryabkov, referring to Moscow’s version of events in which a Russian aircraft bombed the path of the British destroyer, said that in future bombs would be sent “not only in its path, but also on target.”

The Black Sea, which Russia uses to project its power in the Mediterranean, has for centuries been a flashpoint between Russia and its competitors such as Turkey, France, Britain and the United States.

Russia seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and considers areas around its coast to be Russian waters. Western countries deem the Crimea to be part of Ukraine and reject Russia’s claim to the seas around it.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the British warship, which was travelling from the Ukrainian port of Odessa to the Georgian port of Batumi, was acting in accordance with the law and had been in international waters.

“These are Ukrainian waters and it was entirely right to use them to go from A to B,” Johnson said. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace accused Russian pilots of conducting unsafe aircraft maneuvers 500 feet (152 m) above the warship.

“The Royal Navy will always uphold international law and will not accept unlawful interference with innocent passage,” Wallace said.

Under international law of the sea, innocent passage permits a vessel to pass through another state’s territorial waters so long as this does not affect its security.

Britain disputed the Russian version of events, with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab calling it “predictably inaccurate”.

BLACK SEA DISPUTE

During its 2008 war with Georgia, Russia bristled at U.S. warships operating in the Black Sea, and in April the United States cancelled the deployment of two warships to the area.

Ties between London and Moscow have been on ice since the 2018 poisoning with a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service.

The British destroyer visited the Ukrainian port of Odessa this week, where an agreement was signed for Britain to help upgrade Ukraine’s navy.

Russia said it had ventured as far as 3 km (2 miles) into Russian waters near Cape Fiolent, a landmark on Crimea’s southern coast near the port of Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet.

Britain’s BBC released footage from the ship showing a Russian coast guard warning that he would shoot if the British ship did not change course.

“If you don’t change the course, I’ll fire,” a heavily accented Russian voice said in English to the British ship. The BBC said shots were fired and that as many as 20 Russian aircraft were “buzzing” the British ship.

Britain said the shots were part of a Russian gunnery exercise. Russia released footage filmed from a Russian SU-24 bomber flying close to the British ship.

“These aircraft posed no immediate threat to HMS Defender, but some of these maneuvers were neither safe nor professional,” Britain’s Wallace said.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Additonal reporting by Michael Holden and William James, Joe Brock in Singapore and Dmitry Antonov and Tom Balmforth in Moscow; Editing by Kate Holton and Angus MacSwan)

Lasers and flaming torches light up battle over new Israeli settlement

By Ali Sawafta and Rami Ayyub

BEITA, West Bank (Reuters) – In a fusion of the modern and the medieval, green laser beams and flaming torches light up the night sky in a remote part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as Palestinians wage a battle to stop a new Jewish settlement.

The “Night Disruption” protests south of Nablus are aimed at halting the rapid growth of a settler outpost that began in early May and is now home to 53 Israeli families on what the Palestinians say is their land.

Israeli troops have shot dead five Palestinians during stone-throwing protests since Givat Eviatar was set up, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military did not comment on fatalities, but said troops used live fire only as a last resort.

The army has deployed soldiers during the night-time demonstrations, as well as at Friday protests in the nearby village of Beita which have lasted several months.

During the night protests that began last week, burning tires have engulfed settler homes in acrid smoke.

“We come at night, we light up the mountain, to send them a message that they can’t have even an inch of this land,” said one masked Palestinian this week. He lit fires while others flashed laser pointers to dazzle the settlers in their homes.

The Israeli military said it faced “hundreds of Palestinians throwing stones, lighting fires, burning tires and throwing explosives” at its troops.

“The large number of violent rioters endangers the lives of Israeli civilians and a military force has been deployed to provide protection,” it said in a statement.

Protests against an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood were one factor behind 11 days of hostilities between Israel and Gaza militants in May in which over 250 Palestinians and 13 in Israel were killed.

SETTLER OUTPOST

The settlers named the outpost after Eviatar Borovsky, an Israeli stabbed to death in 2013 by a Palestinian at a nearby road junction. The outpost has been built up and evacuated three times since then.

But it was set up without government authorization – which makes it illegal under Israeli law – and presents an early test for new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Bennett was once a senior leader of the settler movement and heads a far-right religious party.

But he sits precariously atop a new coalition that spans the political spectrum from far-right to far-left, making sensitive policy decisions on the Israeli-Palestinian difficult.

The Israeli military issued an order to evacuate the outpost on June 6. But that was under Bennett’s predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Bennett replaced on June 13.

The evacuation order has since been postponed, the Israeli military said, and Bennett has not said if he plans to implement it.

A spokesman for Bennett’s office declined comment, but the settlers are intent on staying on what they call “Eviatar’s Hill” and Palestinians call “Jabal Al-Sabih” or “The Morning Mountain”, because the sunlight strikes it early.

“They won’t drive us away from here. This is our homeland, this is our forefathers’ land. We love the land, we want to be here, we know they come out of hate,” said Eli Shapira, a 30-year-old teacher and father of four.

As construction proceeds, some settler families live in caravans. Some roads are already paved, and others are lined with electricity cables.

EAST-WEST CORRIDOR

More than 440,000 Israeli settlers live uneasily among some 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, land that Israel captured and occupied in a 1967 war but which Palestinians say is the heartland of a future state.

The Palestinians and most countries view Israel’s settlements as illegal under international law. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical links to the land and its own security needs.

Palestinian officials say the new outpost would help create an unbroken east-west line of Israeli settlements through the northern West Bank, cutting the territory in half and rendering Palestinian statehood unviable.

The site lies 30 km inside the West Bank in fertile olive and grape-growing territory for Palestinians around Nablus.

Nearby there are many hilltop Jewish settlements, whose residents want to extend their territory.

“Israel is a strong country and not only will we not be weakened, not only will terrorism not scare us or make us flee from our homeland – we will build more and more,” said Yossi Dagan, head of the Shomron Regional Council representing settlements in the area.

On Sunday Israel’s military rejected an appeal by the settlers against evacuation, saying the outpost “undermined security stability” in the area.

The settlers have until Monday to appeal to the Supreme Court, a military spokesman said, although the decision over the evacuation ultimately rests with Bennett.

Moussa Hamayel, Beita’s deputy mayor, said they had heard reports that the outpost might be dismantled. But he was skeptical.

“We don’t trust their promises, not until we see (the outpost) completely empty,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Rami Amichay; Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Stephen Farrell and Mike Collett-White)

Fifty-one people unaccounted for in Florida building collapse -officials

By Marco Bello and Rich McKay

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) – Hundreds of fire and rescue workers scoured through tons of rubble on Thursday after a 12-story oceanfront residential building partially collapsed close to Miami, with at least one person dead and 51 still unaccounted for, officials said.

Sally Heyman, a Miami-Dade County Commissioner, said officials have been unable to make contact with 51 people who “supposedly” live in the building, home to a mix of people including families and part-time “snow birds” who spend the winter months in the state of Florida.

Officials said the building, built in 1981, was going through a recertification process requiring repairs and that another building was being newly constructed next door, although the cause of the collapse remained unclear.

“We have 51 people that were assumed to have been there, but you don’t know between vacations or anything else, so we’re still waiting,” Heyman told CNN by phone. “The hope is still there, but it’s waning.”

A fire official said 35 people were rescued from the building in Surfside, a seaside enclave of 5,700 residents on a barrier island across Biscayne Bay from the city of Miami, including two who were pulled from the rubble as response teams used trained dogs and drones in a search for survivors.

Footage from WPLG Local 10, a Miami TV station, showed a rescue team pulling a boy from piles of debris and rebar, and firefighters using ladder trucks to rescue residents trapped on balconies.

Emergency responders and officials were still looking for people who might be in the rubble, as well as trying to identify residents not home at 1:30 a.m. (0530 GMT), when an entire side of the building pulled away and fell to the ground below.

“We all woke up in the early morning hours to a tragic scene,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who toured the scene of the catastrophe on Thursday afternoon. “We still have hope to identify additional survivors.”

The Champlain Towers South had more than 130 units, about 80 of which were occupied. It had been subject to various inspections recently due to the recertification process and the adjacent construction of a building called 88 Park, Surfside Commissioner Charles Kesl told Local 10.

“There were garage underground issues related to that, to make sure that it was done soundly,” Kesl said. “And, to my understanding, there were some cracks from that project – minor cracks – that were just patched up. Nothing, based on my understanding, to the magnitude that would indicate that there was a structural problem that could result in something so catastrophic.”

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said construction work was being done on the roof of the Champlain Towers South but there was no indication that it caused the collapse.

“It’s hard to imagine how this could have happened,” Burkett told reporters. “Buildings just don’t fall down.”

Burkett said that part of the building with balconies facing the beach “pancaked” where one floor appears to have fallen atop another, cascading down.

“The back of the building, probably a third or more, is totally pancaked,” he said.

Resident Barry Cohen and his wife were rescued from the building.

“At first it sounded like a flash of lightning or thunder,” Cohen, a former vice mayor of Surfside and a resident of the building, told reporters at the scene. “But then it just kept on – steadily for at least 15 to 30 seconds – it just kept on going and going and going.”

Cohen also said there had been construction for more than a month on the building’s roof.

The Miami-Dade Police have assumed control of the investigation. More than 80 fire and rescue units responded, the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department wrote in a Twitter message early Thursday.

Eyewitness video obtained by Reuters showed neighbors gathering across the street from the rubble.

“This whole building here, it’s completely gone,” a person can be heard saying.

(Reporting by Marco Bello in Surfside, Florida; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru, Rich McKay in Atlanta and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew Lewis)

Fed officials say “temporary” inflation surge may last longer than thought

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A period of high inflation in the United States may last longer than anticipated, two U.S. Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday, prompting one to pull forward his views on when the central bank should start raising interest rates.

Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic said with growth surging to an estimated 7% this year and inflation well above the Fed’s 2% target, he now expects interest rates will need to rise in late 2022.

“Given the upside surprise in recent data points I pulled forward my projection,” Bostic said, placing him among seven Fed policymakers who at the central bank’s meeting last week projected the overnight policy rate may need to lift from the current near zero level sometime next year.

That marked a decisive shift from the end of 2020, when 12 Fed policymakers felt crisis-levels of interest rates would need to remain in place into 2024.

The difference in the meantime: Vaccines that have driven back the spread of the coronavirus, and an economic reopening that has proceeded faster, and driven inflation higher, than Fed officials anticipated.

Both Bostic and Fed Governor Michelle Bowman on Wednesday said that while they largely agree recent price increases will prove temporary, they also feel it may take longer than anticipated for them to fade.

“Temporary is going to be a little longer than we expected initially…Rather than it being two to three months it may be six to nine months,” Bostic said in an interview on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.

TAKING SOME TIME

Prices for goods like lumber and used cars have pushed some measures of inflation to multi-year highs, with the consumer price index showing a 5% annualized increase in May, the fastest since 2008. Though some prices have begun to ease already, the higher prices have registered among elected officials, and forced the Fed to begin thinking about how to ensure prices don’t spiral too high or too fast.

Bowman in remarks to a Cleveland Federal Reserve bank conference said she agrees prices are being driven by clogged supply chains and surging demand as the economy reopens, factors that should ease.

But she put no frame around when that might happen, saying that “it could take some time,” and would need to be closely watched as the Fed sets policy.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other policymakers have staked their current outlook on a presumption that the surge in prices seen as the economy reopened would ease on its own, allowing the Fed to hit its 2% inflation target on average over time.

Powell told a U.S. congressional committee on Tuesday that recent high inflation readings resulted from a “perfect storm” of circumstances related to the reopening, and would abate.

How quickly that happens, however, may influence the Fed’s upcoming decisions about when to begin reducing its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases, and eventually raise interest rates.

Bostic said that “three or four months” of continued job gains should yield enough progress in the recovery of employment to consider pulling back on the bond purchases, a precursor in his view to raising rates.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

U.S. Supreme Court limits union power in farm-access ruling

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court again tightened the reins on organized labor on Wednesday, declaring in a case brought by two fruit companies that a decades-old California regulation that let union organizers enter agricultural properties without an employer’s consent violated constitutional property rights.

The 6-3 ruling, with the court’s conservative justices in the majority, overturned a 2019 lower court decision throwing out the challenge to the regulation by the companies in the most populous U.S. state. The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the decision.

The court found that the regulation, which gave union organizers access to the companies’ workers, was akin to the government taking private property for public use without just compensation in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

The challenge was brought by Dorris, California strawberry producer Cedar Point Nursery and Fresno-based Fowler Packing Company, which ships grapes and mandarin oranges. The justices made clear that any limitation on the ability of owners to exclude others from their property without compensation is unconstitutional.

“The access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers’ property. It therefore constitutes a per se physical taking,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board regulation, in place since 1975, had allowed union organizers, with notice to regulators and the employer, to enter agricultural premises to talk with employees for three non-working hours per day during four 30-day periods each year. The organizers did not require an employer’s consent.

It marked the latest setback for unions at the Supreme Court, which in 2018 ruled in another case that non-members cannot be forced, as they are in certain states, to pay fees to unions representing public employees such as police and teachers that negotiate collective bargaining agreements with employers.

‘PROTECTS EVERYONE’S FREEDOM’

“Today’s ruling is a huge victory for property rights,” said Joshua Thompson, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group that represented the companies.

Cedar Point owner Mike Fahner said, “This decision protects everyone’s freedom to decide for themselves who is – and is not – allowed on their own property.”

The regulation’s defenders had argued that such a sweeping ruling could hurt not just union organizing but also food, factory and social work inspections, or even Border Patrol entries onto private property to enforce immigration laws.

In a dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer emphasized the temporary nature of the union activity in this case.

“The regulation does not appropriate anything. It does not take from the owners a right to invade (whatever that might mean),” Breyer wrote.

Breyer also said the ruling could undermine other regulations requiring government officials or others to enter a property.

“Most such temporary-entry regulations do not go ‘too far.’ And it is impractical to compensate every property owner for any brief use of their land,” Breyer added.

The two fruit companies had sought to halt enforcement of the regulation. They challenged it after disputes with the United Farm Workers, a union whose history traces back to the famous labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, who died in 1993.

On Twitter, the union said the ruling failed to balance farmers’ property rights with farm workers’ civil rights.

“Farm workers are the hardest-working people in America. This decision denies workers the right to use breaks to freely discuss whether they want to have a union,” it said.

Unions have said the rule in practice afforded them little time to reach workers during the narrow window of seasonal farm work either before or after work. They have said that farm workers often are migrants who change job sites frequently and may not understand English or Spanish, making work site access one of the only ways to inform them of their labor rights.

Both companies called the regulation outdated. They said farm employees are easier to reach than ever, including through smartphones and radio stations, and that nearly all of their 3,000 workers can communicate in English and Spanish.

Organizers disrupted work on Cedar’s property with bullhorns, while Fowler was accused of denying organizers access, drawing a complaint with regulators, according to the lawsuit.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the challenge.

Former President Donald Trump’s administration had backed the companies. Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration reversed the government’s position.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Member of Oath Keepers to plead guilty to role in U.S. Capitol attack

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A member of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia group is due to plead guilty on Wednesday to charges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

The man, Graydon Young, is one of 14 members of the Oath Keepers group charged with crimes including conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding for taking part in the assault on Congress, which left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.

A court filing said a “plea agreement hearing” is scheduled for Wednesday, but did not specify to which charges the 54-year-old resident of Engelwood, Florida, will plead. Young is the brother of Laura Steele, 52, of Thomasville, North Carolina, who also faces charges in the case.

More than 480 people have been arrested and charged with taking part in the unrest, which saw rioters smash windows, battle police inside and outside the Capitol and sent lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence into hiding.

Another defendant, Robert Reeder, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

A judge on Wednesday is also scheduled to hand down the first criminal sentence to one of the Capitol rioters. Anna Morgan-Lloyd, 49, of Bloomfield, Indiana, agreed last month to plead guilty to a single charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Federal prosecutors have recommended three years of probation, a $500 fine, and 40 hours of community service.

“There is no evidence that the defendant poses a continuing threat to the public or that she will engage in similar conduct in the future,” prosecutors said in their sentencing memo, adding that a three-year probationary term will place her under government supervision “for a significant period of time.”

Federal prosecutors said in court papers that Young on Dec. 22 made plans to fly from Florida to North Carolina on Jan. 4, with a return trip on Jan. 8. On Dec. 26, prosecutors said, he wrote to a Florida company engaged in firearms and combat training: “I have joined Oath Keepers. I recommended your training to the team. To that effect, four of us would like to train with you.”

The indictment says Young and eight other indicted Oath Keepers pushed their way in a “stack” up the steps on the east side of the Capitol building.

His plea hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT) on Wednesday.

The Oath Keepers are a loosely organized group of activists who believe that the federal government is encroaching on their rights, and “explicitly focus” on recruiting current and former police, emergency services and military members.

Reeder, a 55-year-old Maryland resident, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. He faces a maximum of six months in prison.

During a court hearing, Reeder’s attorney stressed that his client “didn’t touch anything” or “destroy anything” or “physically engage in any kind of resistance” while he was inside the Capitol.

Reeder told the judge he used to work for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, but since he was charged, he was not been able to work and has been forced to rely on random “odd-jobs” such as painting a friend’s house. “My security clearance was revoked,” Reeder said.

He is due to be sentenced on Aug. 18.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Jan Wolfe; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)