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Trump Comments on NATO Send Shock Waves Throughout Europe

Shock waves across European capitals and a rare rebuke from NATO followed the latest comments by former President Donald Trump about the U.S. commitment to the alliance. Trump said that if he returned to the White House, he would invite Russia to attack allies that he termed “delinquent.” VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.

Biden Forms Task Force to Address Mishandling of Classified Documents During Presidential Transitions

washington — President Joe Biden on Monday launched a task force aimed at addressing the “systemic” problem of mishandling classified information during presidential transitions, days after a Justice Department special counsel’s sharply critical report said he had done just that.

The Presidential Records Transition Task Force will study past transitions to determine best practices for safeguarding classified information from an outgoing administration, the White House said. It will also assess the need for changes to existing policies and procedures to prevent the removal of sensitive information that by law should be kept with the National Archives and Records Administration.

The report from special counsel Robert Hur listed dozens of sensitive documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former Washington office. The papers were marked as classified or later assessed to contain classified information.

The majority of the documents, Hur’s report stated, appeared to have been mistakenly removed from government offices, though he also detailed some items that Biden appeared to knowingly retain. He concluded that criminal charges were not warranted in the matter.

“I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” Biden said last week after Hur’s report was released. He added that “things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved were moved not by me but my staff.”

First findings

Biden aides first discovered some of the documents as they cleared out the offices of the Penn-Biden Center in Washington in 2022, and more were discovered during subsequent searches by Biden’s lawyers and the FBI.

Biden promptly reported the discoveries to federal authorities, which prompted the special counsel probe. By contrast, former President Donald Trump is accused of resisting efforts to return classified government records that he moved to his Florida residence before leaving office in 2021 and of obstructing the investigation into them in a separate special counsel investigation.

In even the best of circumstances, presidential transitions can be chaotic as records of the outgoing administration are transferred to the National Archives and thousands of political appointees leave their jobs to make way for the incoming administration.

Officials of multiple administrations have said there is a systemic problem with mishandling of classified information by senior government officials, particularly around transitions, magnified by rampant overclassification across the government.

Former Vice President Mike Pence turned over some classified documents discovered at his home last year. And several times a year, former officials from all levels of government discover they possess classified material and turn it over to the authorities.

“Previous presidential transitions, across administrations stretching back decades, have fallen short in ensuring that classified presidential records are properly archived at NARA,” the White House said. “In light of the many instances that have come to light in recent years revealing the extent of this systemic issue, President Biden is taking action to strengthen how administrations safeguard classified documents during presidential transitions and to help address this long-standing problem going forward.”

Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”

Subjects of documents

Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless. Investigators did find evidence of willful retention of a subset of records found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, house, including in a garage, office and basement den, but not enough to suggest charges. The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. He kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.

Biden also retained his personal notebooks after leaving the vice presidency, some of which investigators found contained classified information, though other officials have kept similar documents as their personal property.

“President Biden takes classified information seriously – he returned the documents that were found, he fully cooperated with the investigation, and it concluded that there was no case,” said Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office. “Now he is taking action to help strengthen future transitions to better prevent classified documents from being accidentally packed up and removed from the government, like we have seen with officials from every administration for decades.”

The task force will be led by Katy Kale, deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, who was assistant to the president for management and administration during the Obama administration, the post that oversees the human resources and document retention functions at the White House.

The panel will include representatives from the White House, General Services Administration, NARA, the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The task force is to produce its recommendations ahead of the next presidential transition. It is set to operate independently from the White House Transition Coordinating Council, which is chaired by the White House chief of staff and required by law to be stood up six months before any presidential election.

Consumers Have Fewer Choices as Brands Prune Their Offerings

NEW YORK — How much choice is too much?

Apparently for Coca-Cola, it’s about 400 different types of drinks.

That’s why the beverage company recently decided to discontinue half of them, shedding brands like Tab, Zico coconut water, Diet Coke Fiesty Cherry and Odwalla juices but still leaving about 200 others to choose from.

It’s a move that other businesses are making as well, reducing the variety of offerings from mayonnaise to cereals to cars and instead focusing on what they think will sell best.

Stew Leonard’s, a supermarket chain that operates stores in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, now has 24 cereal flavors or types, down from 49 in 2019. Edgewell Personal Care Co., the maker of Schick razors and Banana Boat suntan lotion, has trimmed certain varieties of its anti-bacteria wipes Wet Ones, among others. And Dollar General, based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, used to stock six different kinds of mayonnaise on its shelves and is now looking to drop a couple of them.

“The consumer is not going to know the difference,” Todd J. Vasos, CEO of Dollar General, told analysts in December. “Actually, it’s going to make her life a little simpler when she goes to the shelf.”

Just a year ago, Kohl’s store in Clifton, New Jersey had tables stacked high with sweaters and shirts in a rainbow of colors as well as dress racks crammed with a wide assortment of styles. Now, it boasts a more edited approach — tables have slim piles of knit shirts that focus on fewer colors, and many dress racks have been reduced to just three or four styles.

Under its new CEO Tom Kingsbury, Kohl’s has been cutting back on the colors and variations of sweaters, jeans and other items, while sending their buyers into the New York market more frequently to bring in fresh trendy merchandise.

“We would go out, and we would buy a lot of goods and it would come in 12, 14 months later, and it didn’t perform very well,” Kingsbury told analysts in a call in November. “We’re going to be using the marketplace, so that we can react to the business quickly, getting into trends.”

Some customers like the changes so far.

“It’s pretty organized,” said Kimberly Ribeiro, 30, who was at the Kohl’s store on a recent Friday. “If it’s not so cluttered, then you don’t get overwhelmed.”

Even in the auto world, shoppers are finding fewer choices. Both General Motors and Ford have been touting how they are limiting the number of option combinations customers can get on their vehicles to reduce manufacturing and purchasing complexity.

That’s a reversal from a few years ago when there was an explosion of choices, encouraged in part by online shopping that paid no mind to space constraints. But that didn’t always lead to sales, so companies started pruning selections a year or two before the pandemic.

During the pandemic, the pruning only accelerated, with companies focusing on necessities as they wrestled with supply chain clogs. But even after the pandemic, when goods began moving freely again, many businesses decided less was better and justified the limited selection by asserting shoppers don’t want so much choice. It’s also more profitable for companies because they’re not carrying over as many leftovers that need to be discounted.

Overall, new items accounted for about 2% of products in stores in 2023 across categories such as beauty, footwear, technology and toys, down from 5% of items in 2019, says market-research firm Circana.

Eric O’Toole, president of Edgewell’s North America division, noted the pandemic presented “a really valuable stimulus” for reassessing assortment.

“We avoid jumping on fads, as the supply chain and retailer costs required to support  

getting to shelf typically don’t generate a return in the end,” O’Toole said. “A tighter,  

more curated portfolio supports healthy profit management.”

Many think they’re doing shoppers a favor, with studies showing that fewer choices, not lots of variety, encourage shoppers to buy more.

In 2000, psychologists Sheena Lyengar and Mark Lepper published a study that showed limited selection is better for the shopper. In their experiment, Lyengar and Lepper found consumers were 10 times more likely to purchase jam on display when the number of jams available was cut down from 24 to 6 even though they were more likely to stop at the display offering more selection. Subsequent studies have confirmed this phenomenon. 

“Retailers are recognizing that they have to be respectful of shoppers’ time,” said Paco Underhill whose company, Envirosell, studies consumer behavior.

Still, retailers can’t just slash products willy-nilly, said David Berliner, who leads the business restructuring and turnaround practice at BDO.

“You want to make these cuts so they’re not even aware of it, and you want the store to still look full,” Berliner said. “If you do it too much, you might scare some away.”

Yellen to Visit Pittsburgh, Detroit to Tout Biden’s Economic Wins

WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan this week as part of an election-year push aimed at showcasing what she calls “the strongest economic comeback of our lifetimes.”

Yellen will visit Pittsburgh on Feb. 13 and Detroit on Feb. 14 for events with elected officials and community leaders focused on the Biden administration’s efforts to lower health care costs, support small businesses and boost economic opportunity, the Treasury said.

The trips build on Yellen’s visits to Illinois and Wisconsin in January and other states such as Nevada and North Carolina last year. But the administration’s marketing efforts have failed to convince the American public, according to recent polls.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed President Joe Biden is running six percentage points behind Republican front-runner former President Donald Trump, with voters focused on immigration challenges, Biden’s age and are still unhappy about the economy despite big improvements since he took office in 2021.

Yellen has counseled patience in the past, arguing that the shock caused by the COVID pandemic left lingering concerns, while expressing confidence about improving consumer sentiment.

“Over the past three years, the Biden administration has driven the strongest economic comeback of our lifetimes,” Yellen said in a speech to be given at the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. She will also meet with Democratic Senator Bob Casey, a strong supporter of Biden.

She will hail strong economic growth in the U.S., a quicker and more rapid cooling of inflation than in other advanced economies, and the continued strength of the labor market.

With unemployment below 4% and household median wealth up 37% between 2019 and 2022 — the largest three-year increase on record — Americans now had more purchasing power, she said.

In Detroit, whose economic recovery has lagged behind other cities somewhat, Yellen will speak at a joint event with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, meet with Senator Debbie Stabenow and local business leaders, and give a speech focused on small businesses.

Detroit has seen economic advances, but other Midwestern counterparts have higher numbers of workers earning a living wage, according to University of Michigan economists.

Biden Welcomes King of Jordan to Discuss Hostage Deal

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Washington Monday and the two leaders are expected to discuss the ongoing effort to free hostages held in Gaza, and growing concern over an Israeli military operation in the port city of Rafah.

It is the first meeting between the allies since three American troops were killed last month in a drone strike against a U.S. base in Jordan. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the fatalities, the first for the U.S. after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The meeting with King Abdullah II comes as Biden and his aides are working to broker another pause in Israel’s war against Hamas in order to send humanitarian aid and supplies into the region and get hostages out. The White House faces growing criticism from Arab-Americans over the administration’s continued support for Israel in the face of growing casualties in Gaza.

It appeared a deal for another pause in the fighting was getting close. A senior U.S. administration official said Sunday that after weeks of shuttle diplomacy and phone conversations, a framework was essentially in place for a deal that could see the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for a halt to fighting.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, acknowledged that gaps remained but declined to specify what they are. The official said Israeli military pressure on Hamas in Khan Younis over the last several weeks has helped bring the militant group closer to accepting an agreement. The potential for an agreement took up the majority of Biden’s call Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The official said the two leaders also had a significant back and forth about the potential expansion of Israeli military operations into Rafah and that Biden reiterated U.S. opposition to the idea under the “current conditions” while more than 1.3 million people are sheltering there.

It was the most forceful language yet from the president on the possible operation. Biden, who last week called Israel’s military response in Gaza “over the top,” also sought “urgent and specific” steps to strengthen humanitarian aid. Israel’s Channel 13 television said the conversation lasted 45 minutes.

The official said the Israelis “made clear they would not contemplate an operation” in Rafah without safeguarding the civilian population. The official said the U.S. is not sure there is a feasible or implementable plan to relocate civilians out of Rafah to allow military operations to take place.

Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel’s actions and have eschewed public support for long-term planning over what happens next, arguing that the fighting must end before such discussions can begin. They have been demanding a cease-fire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket.

Biden had planned to visit Jordan during his trip to Israel in October shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, but the trip was scrapped. On his way home from Israel, Biden announced he’d helped broker the first deal to pause fighting temporarily and to open the crossing in Rafah to humanitarian aid.

In the months since, members of his administration have made repeated trips to the region to engage with leaders there.