Tag Archives: Washington

Outbreak of hantavirus infections kills three in Washington state

A micrographic study of liver tissue seen from a Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) patient seen in this undated photo obtained by Reuters, July 6, 2017. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Handout via REUTERS

By Laura Zuckerman

(Reuters) – Five people have been stricken with the rare, rodent-borne hantavirus illness in Washington state since February, three of whom have died, in the state’s worst outbreak of the disease in at least 18 years, public health officials reported on Thursday.

The three fatal cases also mark the highest death toll from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in Washington state during a single year since the respiratory ailment was first identified in the “Four Corners” region of the U.S. Southwest in 1993.

The disease has been found to be transmitted to humans from deer mice, either through contact with urine, droppings, saliva or nesting materials of infected rodents or by inhaling dust contaminated with the virus.

Victims in the latest outbreak were men and women ranging in age from their 20s to their 50s from four counties across the state, said David Johnson, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Health.

The first diagnosed case this year was in February and the most recent was last month, when the infection killed a resident of Spokane County in the eastern part of the state near Washington’s border with Idaho. Three of the five cases, including another one that proved fatal, were confirmed in the Puget Sound region of King and Skagit counties.

The only common factor among those infected by the disease, which typically kills more than a third of its victims, is that they were all exposed to infected mice, Johnson said.

The last time five confirmed hantavirus cases were diagnosed in Washington state in a single year was in 1999, although just one of those proved fatal, Johnson said.

Washington has reported 49 of the 690 hantavirus cases tallied nationwide from 1993 to January 2016, ranking fifth among 10 Western states that account for the bulk of all documented infections, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Eighteen infections with four deaths were reported nationally in 2015. The year before, the CDC counted 35 cases, of which 14 were fatal.

The most highly publicized hantavirus outbreak occurred in 2012, when 10 visitors to Yosemite National Park in California were diagnosed with the infection, three of whom died, prompting a worldwide alert. All but one of those were linked to tent cabins later found to have been infested by deer mice.

(Editing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Tait)

Seattle employers cut hours after latest minimum wage rise, study finds

FILE PHOTO: Protest signs are pictured in SeaTac, Washington just before a march from SeaTac to Seattle aimed at the fast food industry and raising the federal minimum wage and Seattle's minimum wage to $15 an hour December 5, 2013. REUTERS/David Ryder/File Photo

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – A Seattle law that requires many businesses to pay a minimum wage of at least $13 an hour has left low-wage workers with less money in their pockets because some employers cut working hours, a study released on Monday said.

Low-wage workers on average now clock 9 percent fewer hours and earn $125 less each month than before the Pacific Northwest city set one of the highest minimum wages in the nation, the University of Washington research paper said.

Even so, overall employment at city restaurants, where a large percentage of low-wage earners work, held steady.

Seattle, which has a booming economy and a strong technology sector, is midway through an initiative to increase its minimum wage for all employers to $15 an hour. The city is at the forefront of a nationwide push by Democratic elected officials and organized labor in targeting $15 for all workers.

“Most people will tell you there is a level of minimum wage that is too high,” Jacob Vigdor, a professor of public policy at the University of Washington and director of the team studying the increase, said in a phone interview. “There is a sense that as you raise it too high, then you get to a point where employers will really start cutting back.”

Many companies reached that point after Seattle, a city of nearly 700,000 residents, raised the minimum to $13 an hour for large employers beginning Jan. 1, 2016, according to the study.

Seattle’s labor market held steady when the minimum rose to $11 from $9.47 on April 1, 2015, the university found in a study released last year.

“Raising the minimum wage helps ensure more people who live and work in Seattle can share in our city’s success, and helps fight income inequality,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement in response to the study, which the city commissioned.

The federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 an hour since 2009, and the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress has opposed an increase.

Critics of minimum wage increases say they lead to layoffs and force some companies out of business.

The latest research from the University of Washington found no major reduction in hours or jobs at Seattle restaurants, in keeping with a finding in a study conducted by University of California, Berkeley, that was released last week.

Lawmakers in California, the nation’s most populous state, voted last year to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. Elected officials in several states, including New York and Oregon, and large cities such as Chicago have in the last two years approved their own minimum pay hikes.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Putin says U.S. missile systems in Alaska, South Korea challenge Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting with representatives of international news agencies in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 1, 2017.

By Denis Pinchuk and Andrew Osborn

ST PETERSBURG/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that elements of a U.S. anti-missile system in Alaska and South Korea were a challenge to Russia and that Moscow had no choice but to build up its own forces in response.

Putin, speaking at an economic forum in St Petersburg, said Russia could not stand idly by and watch while others increased their military capabilities along its borders in the Far East in the same way as he said had been done in Europe.

Participants attend a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia, June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei

Participants attend a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia, June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

He said Moscow was particularly alarmed by the deployment of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system to South Korea to counter a North Korean missile threat and to reported U.S. plans to beef up Fort Greely in Alaska, a launch site for anti-ballistic missiles.

“This destroys the strategic balance in the world,” Putin told a meeting with international media, the start of which was broadcast on state TV.

“What is happening is a very serious and alarming process. In Alaska, and now in South Korea, elements of the anti-missile defence system are emerging. Should we just stand idly by and watch this? Of course not. We are thinking about how to respond to these challenges. This is a challenge for us.”

Washington was using North Korea as a pretext to expand its military infrastructure in Asia in the same way it had used Iran as a pretext to develop a missile shield in Europe, charged Putin.

RUSSIAN RESPONSE

Putin said the Kurile Islands, a chain of islands in the Far East where Moscow and Tokyo have rival territorial claims, were “quite a convenient place” to deploy Russian military hardware to respond to such threats.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said last year Russia planned to deploy some of its newest missile defence systems and drones to the islands, part of a drive to rearm military units already stationed there. He has also spoken of Russia building a military base there.

“I don’t agree that we are unilaterally starting to militarize these islands,” said Putin. “It is simply a forced response to what is happening in the region.” Any talk of demilitarizing the islands could only occur once tensions in the entire region had been reduced, he said.

Tokyo and Moscow have long been locked in talks over the contested islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan. Putin said Russia was alive to the danger that Japan might allow U.S. troops to deploy there if it struck a deal to hand over some of the islands to Tokyo’s jurisdiction.

“Such a possibility exists,” said Putin.

Russia did not want to worsen already poor relations with Washington by fueling what he described as an arms race, but Putin said the United States was still consumed by what he called an anti-Russian campaign.

“How will the situation develop? We don’t know,” said Putin.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov and Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alexander Winning)

Hanford nuclear site accident puts focus on aging U.S. facilities

An aerial photo shows Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, U.S. on July 5, 2011. Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The collapse of a tunnel used to store radioactive waste at one of the most contaminated U.S. nuclear sites has raised concerns among watchdog groups and others who study the country’s nuclear facilities because many are aging and fraught with problems.

“They’re fighting a losing battle to keep these plants from falling apart,” said Robert Alvarez, a former policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy who was charged with making an inventory of nuclear sites under President Bill Clinton.

“The longer you wait to deal with this problem, the more dangerous it becomes,” said Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he focuses on nuclear energy and disarmament.

The Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment.

No radiation was released during Tuesday’s incident at a plutonium-handling facility in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, but thousands of workers were ordered to take cover and some were evacuated as a precaution.

The state of facilities in the U.S. nuclear network has been detailed by the Department of Energy, Government Accountability Office and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. They have noted eroding walls, leaking roofs, and risks of electrical fires and groundwater contamination.

In 2016, Frank Klotz, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department agency overseeing maintenance of nuclear warheads, warned Congress about risks posed by aging facilities.

Decontaminating and demolishing the Energy Department’s shuttered facilities will cost $32 billion, it said in a 2016 report. It also noted a $6 billion maintenance backlog.

In the 1940s the U.S. government built Hanford and other complexes to produce plutonium and uranium for atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project.

“That was an era when the defense mission took priority over everything else,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We’re dealing with the legacy of that.”

RISKS DOCUMENTED

Many of those sites are now vacant but contaminated.

A 2009 Energy Department survey found nearly 300 shuttered, contaminated and deteriorating sites. Six years later it found that fewer than 60 had been cleaned up.

A 2015 Energy Department audit said delays in cleaning contaminated facilities “expose the Department, its employees and the public to ever-increasing levels of risk.”

Risks identified at the sites included leaking roofs carrying radioactivity into groundwater, roof collapses and electrical fires that could release radioactive particles.

A 2014 Energy Department audit noted a high risk of fire and groundwater contamination at the shuttered Heavy Element Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is surrounded by homes and businesses near California’s Bay Area.

Problems have also been identified at active facilities including the Savannah River Site, a nuclear reservation in South Carolina. A 2015 report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board found “severe” erosion in concrete walls of an exhaust tunnel used to prevent release of radioactive air.

A 2016 Energy Department audit of one of the United States’ main uranium handling facilities, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, warned that “intense precipitation or snow” could collapse parts its roof, possibly causing an accident involving radioactivity.

“It sounds crazy, but it’s true,” said Don Hancock, who has studied the Tennessee facility in his work at the Southwest Information and Research Center, an Albuquerque nonprofit that monitors nuclear sites.

In Hanford’s case, risk of a tunnel collapse was known in 2015, when the Energy Department noted wooden beams in one tunnel had lost 40 percent of their strength and were being weakened by gamma radiation.

Energy Department spokesman Mark Heeter in nearby Richland said in an email that the agency saw Tuesday’s prompt discovery of the collapse as a success.

“The maintenance and improvement of aging infrastructure across the Hanford site … remains a top priority,” he said.

Nationwide, part of the risk comes from having to maintain and safeguard so many sites with different types of nuclear waste, said Frank Wolak, head of Stanford University’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development.

“You’re asking for trouble with the fact that you’ve got it spread all over the country,” he said. “The right answer is to consolidate the stuff that is highly contaminated, and apply the best technology to it.”

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Ben Klayman)

Tunnel collapses at Washington nuclear waste plant; no radiation released

A 20-foot wide hole over a decommissioned plutonium-handling rail tunnel is shown at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Hanford Site, Washington, U.S., May 9, 2017. Courtesy Department of Energy/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James and Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium-handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, but there was no indication workers or the public were exposed to radiation, federal officials said.

Workers evacuated or took cover and turned off ventilation systems after damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle, officials with the Department of Energy’s Hanford Joint Information Center said.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, center spokesman Destry Henderson said in a video posted on Facebook.

“The roof had caved in, about a 20-foot section of that tunnel, which is about a hundred feet long,” he said.

“This is purely precautionary. No employees were hurt and there is no indication of a spread of radiological contamination,” Henderson said of the shelter order.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, Energy Department officials said. Energy Department Secretary Rick Perry has been briefed on the incident.

Tom Carpenter, the executive director with watchdog organization Hanford Challenge who has spoken with workers at the site since the incident, called the tunnel collapse worrisome and said the evacuation was the correct call.

“There is a big hole there and radiation could be beaming out,” he said.

“It’s not clear to me that they know whether particulate radiation has escaped,” Carpenter added. “If there is a cloud of radioactive particulates, then that can have an impact on worker health and the community. It does not take a lot for those particulates to end up in someone’s lung.”

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. Carpenter called it the most contaminated U.S. site.

Carpenter said he expects total cleanup costs could reach $300 billion to $500 billion.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle and Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Workers at Washington nuclear waste plant take cover after tunnel collapse

The Purex (Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant) separations facility at the Hanford Works is seen in an undated aerial photo. The building has been vacant for nearly twenty years but remains highly contaminated, according to the Department of Energy. DOE/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, leading authorities to evacuate some workers and instruct others to take cover, federal officials said.

Workers took cover and turned off ventilation systems after minor damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said by telephone from the Hanford Joint Information Center.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, she said.

“The tunnel itself was breached. There was a 20-foot wide hole,” the spokeswoman said.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, and no further evacuations have been ordered for workers, nor have any warnings for civilians around the site been issued, she said.

She declined to identify herself, citing agency policy.

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River, about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

“This is a potentially serious event,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I can see why the site ordered emergency measures. Collapse of the earth covering the tunnels could lead to a considerable radiological release.”

Lyman pointed to a description of the storage tunnels from a report from the Consortium For Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation in 2015 about the Hanford site, saying there is quite a lot of cesium-137 and plutonium in those tunnels. Those are radioactive materials that can cause radiation sickness and death depending on the amount and length of exposure.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. The site has been described in media reports as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.

The evacuation did not affect the nearby nuclear power plant operated by Energy Northwest, company spokesman John Dobken said. The Columbia nuclear plant was located about 12 miles southeast of where the incident at Hanford occurred, he said.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Some Chase branches in Seattle closed by protests over pipeline loans

Native American leaders and climate activists demonstrate outside of a Chase Bank location, to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, in Seattle, Washington, U.S. May 8, 2017. REUTERS/David Ryder

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Native American leaders and climate activists protested at several Chase branches in Seattle on Monday, forcing them to close temporarily as demonstrators demanded the bank not lend to projects like the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Police said 26 people were arrested by late afternoon. Activists said they disrupted operations at 11 Chase branches, and two other branches closed as well.

Darcy Donahoe-Wilmot, a spokeswoman for Chase, which is a unit of JP Morgan Chase & Co, declined to comment.

At a branch in downtown Seattle, about 50 protesters occupied the main lobby, where they made speeches, sang songs, held signs and banners and even ordered a tall stack of pizzas before police blocked the doors.

At another Seattle branch, a handful of protesters went inside while two others locked themselves by their necks to the front doors with bicycle locks.

“I have a personal responsibility to make sure we have a livable climate,” said a protester who locked herself to the door and would only identify herself as 21-year-old Andrea from Olympia, Washington.

Organizers of the protests aimed to dissuade Chase from lending to the companies behind two major oil infrastructure projects, the Keystone XL pipeline and Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, and tar sands oil production in general. Protesters said they were fighting global warming.

Keystone XL is a project of TransCanada Corp and Trans Mountain Pipeline is a project of Kinder Morgan Inc.

These efforts echo similar efforts with other banks as activists have shifted to targeting the financial backers of the pipelines rather than sites like the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, where thousands protested last year.

Bank are more sensitive to bad publicity than the pipeline companies, said Seattle city council member Mike O’Brien, who participated in one of the protests on Monday.

“It’s a relatively small percentage of their overall portfolio,” protest organizer Ahmed Gaya said of the banks’ stakes in various oil and gas pipelines. “If you can make that very small part … have a vastly disproportionate effect on their public image, that’s very persuasive.”

In April, Citigroup executives conceded they had approved investments in the Dakota pipeline too quickly after a noisy protest at its annual shareholder meeting, while Greenpeace activists protested Credit Suisse’s dealings with companies behind the same pipeline. The previous month, Dutch bank ING Groep agreed to sell its $120 million share of a loan for the Dakota pipeline.

(Reporting by Tom James, Editing by Ben Klayman and Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. appeals to higher court over ruling against Trump’s revised travel ban

Demonstrators rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the White House. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Mica Rosenberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. government took the legal battle over President Donald Trump’s travel ban to a higher court on Friday, saying it would appeal against a federal judge’s decision that struck down parts of the ban on the day it was set to go into effect.

The Department of Justice said in a court filing it would appeal against a ruling by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

On Thursday, Chuang issued an emergency halt to the portion of Trump’s March 6 executive order temporarily banning the entry of travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. He left in place the section of the order that barred the entry of refugees to the United States for four months.

Another federal judge in Hawaii struck down both sections of the ban in a broader court ruling that prevented Trump’s order from moving forward.

In Washington state, where the ban is also being challenged, U.S. District Court Judge James Robart put a stay on proceedings for as long as the Hawaii court’s nationwide temporary restraining order remained in place, to “conserve resources” and avoid inconsistent and duplicate rulings.

The decisions came in response to lawsuits brought by states’ attorneys general in Hawaii and refugee resettlement agencies in Maryland who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center.

Detractors argue the ban discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom. Trump says the measure is necessary for national security to protect the country from terrorist attacks.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a media briefing the government would “vigorously defend this executive order” and appeal against the “flawed rulings.”

The Department of Justice filed a motion late on Friday night seeking clarification of Hawaii’s ruling before appealing to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The 9th Circuit court last month upheld a decision by Judge Robart that halted an original, more sweeping travel ban signed by the President on Jan. 27 in response to a lawsuit filed by Washington state.

The new executive order was reissued with the intention of overcoming the legal concerns.

Trump has vowed to take the fight all the way to U.S. Supreme Court.

The 4th Circuit is known as a more conservative court compared to the 9th Circuit, said Buzz Frahn, an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett who has been tracking the litigation nationwide.

“The government is probably thinking that the 4th Circuit … would lend a friendlier ear to its arguments,” he said.

Judges have said they were willing to look behind the text of the order, which does not mention Islam, to probe the motivation for enacting the ban, Frahn said. Trump promised during the election campaign to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives, with Trump’s pick for the high court – appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch – still awaiting confirmation.

Hans von Spakovsky, from the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, said the Department of Justice might want to time their appeals to reach the Supreme Court after Gorsuch is confirmed. He said the court would be likely to hear the case.

“They will take it because of its national importance,” Spakovsky said.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Sue Horton, Mary Milliken and Paul Tait)

Trump Middle East envoy meets Palestinian leader Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy held his first talks on Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, amid Palestinian concerns that the new administration in Washington is more favorably disposed toward Israel.

Jason Greenblatt’s talks with Abbas took place in Ramallah, the Palestinian seat of government, a day after he held a lengthy meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement,” Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting.

In a separate statement issued by the U.S. Consulate General, the two men “reaffirmed the commitment of both the Palestinian Authority and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians”.

Abbas stressed that the Palestinian strategic choice was to achieve a two-state solution, the statement added.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has been ambivalent about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy in the region for the past two decades.

“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like … I can live with either one,” Trump told a Feb. 15 news conference during a visit to Washington by Netanyahu, causing consternation across the Arab world and in many European capitals.

However, Trump last Friday held his first telephone conversation with Abbas since becoming president and invited him to the White House.

Tuesday’s statement said Abbas had told Greenblatt he believed that under Trump’s leadership “a historic peace deal was possible”.

Abbas and Greenblatt also discussed plans to strengthen the Palestinian economy and the importance of ensuring economic opportunities for Palestinians, the statement said.

On Monday, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel’s settlement building “with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security”, the Israeli leader’s office said.

One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.

Greenblatt, a longtime top lawyer in Trump’s company, also serves as the president’s special negotiator for trade deals, among other responsibilities.

(Reporting by Ori Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Germany’s Merkel to visit Washington March 14

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a joint news conference with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi following talks at the El-Thadiya presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Washington on March 14 to meet President Donald Trump, their first encounter after a rocky start to relations amid disagreements about trade, Trump’s travel ban and his comments about the media.

A U.S. official announced the visit, which comes shortly before a meeting in Germany of the finance ministers of the G20 industrialized countries and will help lay the groundwork for Trump’s visit to Germany in July for a meeting of G20 leaders.

The new Republican president and Merkel issued a joint statement after a telephone call in January, underscoring the importance of the NATO alliance and vowing to work together more closely to combat terrorism.

A few days later, Merkel sharply criticized Trump’s temporary travel ban on citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries. She has also repeatedly underscored the importance of a free press when asked about Trump’s negative comments about the media.

Merkel had a warm relationship with Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama.

The meeting between Trump and Merkel is likely to cover a wide range of issues, including the global economy, trade, the fight against Islamic State, NATO and ties with Russia and China.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin; Writing by Eric Walsh; Editing by Frances Kerry)