Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.

Vice President J.D. Vance is in the former Soviet Republic of Armenia, the first ever visit by a sitting U.S. vice president to the country.

The Trump comes as part of a wider swing through the South Caucasus to promote a U.S.-backed peace initiative between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as NPR's Charles Maines reports.

Addressing journalists in the capital Yerevan,

Vance said a proposed transit corridor between Armenia and Azerbaijan would unlock the region's

potential.

It is going to open up a whole new world of trade, transit, and energy flows in this region of the world.

Build is the Trump route for international peace and prosperity.

The corridor seeks to reinforce efforts to end decades of war between the South Caucasus' rivals

and eventually facilitate U.S. access to critical minerals further east.

Vance also announced new trade deals with Armenia and nuclear energy, advanced computer

chips and drones. The growing U.S. role comes at the expense of the region's traditional power broker

Russia currently bogged down by its war in Ukraine. Charles Mainz, NPR News. The Trump administration

is fighting a court order to create housing for homeless veterans in L.A. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports.

Los Angeles has the country's most homeless veterans, and homeless vets won a class action

lawsuit in federal court two years ago, ordering the VA to build housing inside the huge VA

campus in West L.A. The Biden administration appealed, but the vets won again in the ninth U.S.

Circuit last year. Now the Trump administration is appealing that ruling. Mark Rosenbaum is a lawyer

for the plaintiffs. Now this administration owns veteran homelessness. It's fighting our nation's veterans.

It's going to a federal court and saying that veterans, unhoused, disabled

veterans cannot call upon their government to house unhoused veterans on veteran property.

The Departments of Justice and VA declined to comment. Quill Lawrence NPR News.

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