UNITED NATIONS — The United States supports creating two permanent United Nations Security Council seats for African states and one seat to be rotated among small island developing states, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield will announce on Thursday.

The move comes as the U.S. seeks to repair ties with Africa, where many are unhappy about Washington’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and deepen relations with Pacific Islands nations important to countering Chinese influence in the region.

Thomas-Greenfield told Reuters she hopes the announcement will “move this agenda forward in a way that we can achieve Security Council reform at some point in the future,” describing it as part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s legacy.

The push for two permanent African seats and a rotating seat for small island developing states is in addition to Washington’s long-held support for India, Japan and Germany to also get permanent seats on the council.

Developing nations have long demanded permanent seats on the Security Council, the most powerful body in the United Nations. But years of talks on reform have proved fruitless and it is unclear whether U.S. support could fuel action.

Ahead of making the announcement at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday, Thomas-Greenfield clarified to Reuters that Washington does not support expanding veto power beyond the five countries that hold it.

The Security Council is charged with maintaining international peace and security and has the power to impose sanctions and arms embargos and authorize the use of force.

When the U.N. was founded in 1945, the Security Council had 11 members. This increased in 1965 to 15 members, made up of 10 elected states serving two-year terms and five permanent veto-wielding nations: Russia, China, France, the U.S. and Britain.

Legitimacy problem

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backs Security Council reform.

“You have a Security Council that corresponds exactly to the situation after the Second World War … that has a problem of legitimacy, and that has a problem of effectiveness, and it needs to be reformed,” Guterres told Reuters on Wednesday.

Any change to the Security Council membership is done by amending the founding U.N. Charter. This needs the approval and ratification by two-thirds of the General Assembly, including the Security Council’s current five veto powers.

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly has annually discussed reform of the Security Council for more than a decade. But momentum has grown in recent years as geopolitical rivalries have deadlocked the council on several issues, particularly after permanent veto-wielding member Russia invaded Ukraine.

“Much of the conversation around Security Council reform has been just that: a conversation,” Thomas-Greenfield will say on Thursday, according to prepared remarks reviewed by Reuters of her announcement that Washington supports moving to negotiations on a draft text to amend the U.N. Charter to expand the council.

Thomas-Greenfield told Reuters she could not say how long it might take to get the General Assembly to vote on such a resolution.

Each year the General Assembly elects five new members from different geographical groups for two-year terms on the Security Council. Africa currently has three seats rotated among states.

“The problem is, these non-permanent seats don’t enable African countries to deliver the full benefit of their knowledge and voices to the work of the council … to consistently lead on the challenges that affect all of us – and disproportionately affect Africans,” Thomas-Greenfield will say.

She will also say that small island developing states deserve a rotating elected seat because they offer “critical insights on a range of international peace and security issues: including, notably, the impact of climate change.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris joined President Joe Biden in commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the worst terror attack on American soil. Whoever takes the presidency in January, whether Harris or her rival, former President Donald Trump, also at the ceremonies, will continue to face a range of threats. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from ground zero in New York, from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and from the Pentagon.
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MOSCOW — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American blasted off Wednesday for an express trip to the International Space Station. 

The space capsule atop a towering rocket set off at 1623 GMT from Russia’s manned space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and was scheduled to dock with the space station three hours later, in contrast to some missions that last for days. 

The mission commander is Alexei Ovchinin, with Russian compatriot Ivan Vagner and American Donald Pettit in the crew. 

The blast-off took place without obvious problems and the Soyuz entered orbit eight minutes after liftoff, a relief for Russian space authorities after an automated safety system halted a launch in March because of a voltage drop in the power system. 

On the space station, Pettit, Vagner and Ovchinin will join NASA’s Tracy Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, and Russians Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko. 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson canceled a vote scheduled for Wednesday on his stopgap funding bill, saying more work is needed to build support for a measure, less than three weeks before a government shutdown deadline. 

“No vote today, because we’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress, with small majorities, and that’s what you do,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. 

The vote had been set for later on Wednesday. 

Johnson added that Republicans will be working through the weekend to find a bill that would gain enough votes for passage, now that his measure, opposed by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats, has faltered. 

House Republicans have attached a controversial provision requiring people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote, a measure meant to force Democrats to take stances on the politically charged issue of non-citizen voting, which is already illegal in federal elections. 

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim his 2020 loss was the result of fraud, has urged Republicans to pass the voting measure ahead of the November 5 election. 

The federal government’s fiscal year ends on September 30, when funding for many agencies expires. Without some sort of extension, federal programs not deemed essential would have to suspend many of their operations, forcing thousands of government workers to go on leave. 

Success for the funding bill was not guaranteed in the chamber that Republicans control by a narrow 220-211 margin. Several House Republicans have said they would vote against the measure, citing spending concerns, and many members of the caucus generally oppose stopgap spending measures. 

Two Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday in voting against a procedural move to advance the bill. 

Democrats broadly see the citizenship registration requirement as meant to undermine confidence in administering elections. 

“We’re watching a movie we’ve seen over and over again,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday. “House Republicans are trying to pass a bill so partisan that it even splits their own caucus. This proposal isn’t even serious.” 

The White House on Monday said Biden would veto this funding package were it to pass, citing the “unrelated cynical” voting requirement. The administration also wants a temporary funding period shorter than six months, as well as more money for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fix infrastructure damaged by natural disasters. 

Lawmakers face an even more critical self-imposed deadline on January 1, before which they must act to raise or extend the nation’s debt ceiling or risk defaulting on more than $35 trillion in federal government debt.
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Washington — The post-pandemic spike in U.S. inflation eased further last month as year-over-year price increases reached a three-year low, clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next week.

Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose 2.5% in August from a year earlier. It was the fifth straight annual drop and the smallest such increase since February 2021. From July to August, prices rose just 0.2%.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices rose 3.2% in August from 12 months earlier, the same as in July. On a month-to-month basis, core prices rose 0.3% last month, a pickup from July’s 0.2% increase. Economists closely watch core prices, which typically provide a better read of future inflation trends.

For months, cooling inflation has provided gradual relief to America’s consumers, who were stung by the price surges that erupted three years ago, particularly for food, gas, rent and other necessities. Inflation peaked in mid-2022 at 9.1%, the highest rate in four decades.

Fed officials have signaled that they’re increasingly confident that inflation is falling back to their 2% target and are now shifting their focus to supporting the job market, which is steadily cooling. As a result, the policymakers are poised to begin cutting their key rate from its 23-year high in hopes of bolstering growth and hiring.

A modest quarter-point cut is widely expected next week. Over time, a series of rate cuts should reduce the cost of borrowing across the economy, including for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards.

The latest inflation figures could inject themselves into the presidential race in its final weeks. Former President Donald Trump has heaped blame on Vice President Kamala Harris for the jump in inflation, which erupted in early 2021 as global supply chains seized up, causing severe shortages of parts and labor. Harris has proposed subsidies for home buyers and builders in an effort to ease housing costs and backs a federal ban on price-gouging for groceries. Trump has said he would boost energy production to try to reduce overall inflation.

A key reason why inflation eased again in August was that gas prices tumbled by about 10 cents a gallon last month, according to the Energy Inflation Administration, to a national average of about $3.29.

Economists also expect the government’s measures of grocery prices and rents to rise more slowly. Though food prices are roughly 20% more expensive than before the pandemic, they have barely budged over the past year.

Another potential driver of slower inflation is that the cost of new apartment leases has started to cool as a stream of newly built apartments have been completed.

According to the real estate brokerage Redfin, the median rent for a new lease rose just 0.9% in August from a year earlier, to $1,645 a month. But the government’s measure includes all rents, including those for people who have been in their apartments for months or years. It takes time for the slowdown in new rents to show up in the government’s data. In July, rental costs rose 5.1% from a year ago, according to the government’s consumer price index.

Americans’ paychecks are also growing more slowly — an average of about 3.5% annually, still a solid pace — which reduces inflationary pressures. Two years ago, wage growth was topping 5%, a level that can force businesses to sharply raise prices to cover their higher labor costs.

In a high-profile speech last month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted that inflation was coming under control and suggested that the job market was unlikely to be a source of inflationary pressure.

Consumers have propelled the economy for the past three years. But they are increasingly turning to debt to maintain their spending and credit card, and auto delinquencies are rising, raising concerns that they may have to rein in their spending soon. Reduced consumer spending could lead more employers to freeze their hiring or even cut jobs.
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BATON ROUGE, La. — Hurricane Francine barreled early Wednesday toward Louisiana and is expected to make landfall in coming hours as forecasters raised threats of potentially deadly storm surge, widespread flooding and destructive winds on the northern U.S. Gulf coast.

Francine drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters to jump from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane on Tuesday night. The National Hurricane Center said Francine might even reach Category 2 strength with winds of 155 to 175 kph before crashing into a fragile coastal region that still hasn’t fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes since 2020.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry warned at midday Tuesday — when Francine was still a tropical storm — that residents around south Louisiana and in the heavily populated state capital of Baton Rouge and nearby New Orleans — should “batten down all the hatches” and finish last preparations before a 24-hour window to do so closed.

Once Francine makes landfall, Landry said, residents should stay in place rather than venture out into waterlogged roads and risk blocking first responders or utility crews working to repair power lines.

The governor said the Louisiana National Guard is being deployed to parishes that could be impacted by Francine. They are equipped with food, water, nearly 400 high-water vehicles, about 100 boats and 50 helicopters to respond to the storm, including possible search-and-rescue operations.

Francine was centered Wednesday morning about 395 kilometers southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana, and was moving northeast at 17 kph with maximum sustained winds of 90 150 kmh, the Miami-based hurricane center said. Some additional strengthening is expected Wednesday morning and then Francine is expected to weaken quickly after it moves inland.

A hurricane warning was in effect along the Louisiana coast from Cameron eastward to Grand Isle, about 80 kilometers south of New Orleans, according to the center. A storm surge warning stretched from the Mississippi-Alabama border to the Alabama-Florida border Such a warning means there’s a chance of life-threatening flooding.

In downtown New Orleans, cars and trucks were lined up for blocks on Tuesday to collect sandbags from the parking lot of a local YMCA. CEO Erika Mann said Tuesday that 1,000 bags of sand had already been distributed by volunteers later in the day to people hoping to protect homes from possible flooding.

One resident picking up sandbags was Wayne Grant, 33, who moved to New Orleans last year and was nervous for his first potential hurricane in the city. The low-lying rental apartment he shares with his partner had already flooded out in a storm the year before and he was not taking any chances this time around.

“It was like a kick in the face, we’ve been trying to stay up on the weather ever since,” Grant said. “We’re super invested in the place, even though it’s not ours.”

Francine is the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. There’s a danger of life-threatening storm surge as well as damaging hurricane-force winds, said Brad Reinhart, a senior hurricane specialist at the hurricane center.

There’s also the potential for 10 to 20 centimeters of rain with the possibility of 30 centimeters locally across much of Louisiana and Mississippi through Friday morning, Reinhart said.

The hurricane center said parts of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle were at risk of “considerable” flash and urban flooding starting Wednesday, followed by a threat of possible flooding later in the week into the lower Mississippi Valley and lower Tennessee Valley as the soggy remnants of Francine sweep inland.

Francine is taking aim at a Louisiana coastline that has yet to fully recover since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated Lake Charles in 2020, followed a year later by Hurricane Ida.

A little over three years after Ida trashed his home in the Dulac community of coastal Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish – and about a month after he finished rebuilding – Coy Verdin was preparing for another hurricane.

“We had to gut the whole house,” he recalled in a telephone interview, rattling off a memorized inventory of the work, including a new roof and new windows.

Verdin, 55, strongly considered moving farther inland, away from the home where he makes his living on nearby Bayou Grand Caillou. After rebuilding, he said he’s there to stay.

“As long as I can. It’s getting rough, though,” he said.

Francine’s storm surge on the Louisiana coast could reach as much as 3 meters from Cameron to Port Fourchon and into Vermilion Bay, forecasters said. They said landfall was likely somewhere between Sabine Pass — on the Texas-Louisiana line — and Morgan City, Louisiana, about 350 kilometers to the east.
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In the U.S. presidential election, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, clashed with his Democratic Party rival, Kamala Harris, Tuesday evening over issues such as abortion, immigration and foreign policy. VOA’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman has details from the candidates’ first debate in Philadelphia.
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WASHINGTON — Taylor Swift, one of the music industry’s biggest stars, endorsed Kamala Harris for president shortly after the debate ended on Tuesday night.

“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post.

She included a picture of herself holding a cat and signed the message “Childless Cat Lady,” a reference to comments made by JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate.

Swift has a dedicated following among young women, a key demographic in the November election.
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The United States announced new sanctions on Iran Tuesday, over Tehran’s supplying of missiles to Russia for use in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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WASHINGTON — A controversial law on “foreign influence transparency” is heading toward full implementation in Georgia, even though the country aspires to join the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

September 2 was the deadline for Georgian nongovernmental organizations and media organizations receiving more than one-fifth of their funding from abroad to register as “organizations serving the interests of a foreign power.” Only 1.6% of the country’s organizations chose to do so. Many organizations expect they will be forced to register and fined for allegedly serving foreign interests.

Georgia’s so-called “foreign agent” law has been labeled a “Russian-style law” and heavily criticized by Georgia’s Western partners, who say it undermines the hope of most Georgians that their country will join European institutions. Georgia’s government, however, insists the law simply seeks to ensure “transparency.”

On October 26, Georgians will head to the polls to elect a new parliament, and the political opposition believes these elections will be a referendum on whether the country will continue to move toward integration with Europe. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien spoke with Voice of America’s Georgian Service about what the Biden administration will be most closely watching.

VOA: The Georgian government is moving ahead with implementation of the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, which has triggered criticism and the imposition of travel restrictions against Georgian government officials by the U.S. and a pause in aid by both the U.S. and the EU. What message does the Biden administration have now for the Georgian leadership? Will the process of implementing the law affect whether the October parliamentary election will be seen as free and fair?

U.S.  Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien: We want the Georgian people to be able to register their votes in a free and fair election. For that to happen, we need to see the whole process work well, all these organizations [being] able to work effectively over the next several months without fear of oppression or violence.

This law, as we’ve said repeatedly, is flawed fundamentally. There are ways that European states protect their election systems. This law does not do that. Having a government agency essentially force a registration and have access to all the data in that organization is at odds with modern European practice. … It’s caused an enormous amount of damage to Georgia’s prospects for joining the EU and NATO.

The elections need to be free and fair. It’s good that the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe will be able to have a mission to observe some parts [of the election], but it also depends on the community groups. All of that is one big system, and this law tries to kick one leg out from a three-legged stool. It doesn’t work. And so, I’m worried that it means the elections will not be free and fair, and they certainly won’t be seen as free and fair. Without that, Georgia can’t make the next step forward.

VOA: The U.S. and Georgia have been strategic partners for over three decades. The Biden administration has taken several steps, including visa restrictions, pausing aid and postponing joint military drills. What might the next steps be? What are the options on the table?

O’Brien: We’ve already put in place restriction on travel to the U.S. that’s affected dozens of people. We’re not allowed to say who exactly. But it’s a very significant step.  We have suspended help, assistance to a range of the Georgian society. That’s a shame, but it’s necessary. And the EU’s said that the process of joining the EU is effectively suspended. We do not want to see a return to the kind of violence, harassment and oppression that we saw in the spring, where civil society groups, individuals were visited by often-thuggish groups with Russian accents, they were visited by members of the government. All of those things can’t happen.

VOA: Meanwhile, [ruling party] Georgian Dream leaders have promised to “ban opposition parties” following the elections. How does this sound coming from the leadership of a country aspiring to EU and NATO membership, and what concerns does it raise about the ruling party’s intentions?

O’Brien: It doesn’t sound like a democracy. One party doesn’t get to decide what other party gets to compete. It’s for the citizens to decide what parties take their seats in parliament, according to fair rules that are understood in advance. So, I think that was a very revealing comment. And it suggests that this is not a government capable of bringing Georgia toward Europe.

VOA: Russian intelligence services are accusing the U.S. of plotting “regime change” in Georgia. Some Georgian Dream members also have accused U.S. organizations like the NDI or IRI [the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, both of which are American nongovernmental organizations funded by the U.S. government] of helping the opposition. What do you make of these accusations, and are you worried about possible Russian interference or malign influence in the Georgian elections?

O’Brien: Well, anyone who believes the Russian security services, I think, is fooling themselves. The American organizations are very transparent. It’s known who we work with, and we work to support the Georgian people so that they can organize themselves inside or outside government. That’s the full goal. We don’t pick winners and losers. We are for the Georgian people, most of whom, almost 90% of whom, want to move toward Europe, and it’s this government with its very bad legal drafting — like it’s just bad lawyering — that has caused this problem. And we would like them to fix it so that the Georgian people can organize themselves and could have a free and fair election.

If the government succeeds in … denying access to resources by all these groups, the only ones left standing will be Russian sources of information. So, whatever the case has been till now, what the government is doing [now] makes it much easier for Russia to dominate Georgia’s information space.

VOA: After so many high-level engagements with the Georgian authorities, and Prime Minister [Irakli] Kobakhidze speaking about the need for “resetting” the relationship, do you have any indication that they might be ready to change course?

O’Brien: No. And they’re in denial. They haven’t noticed we’ve suspended $95 million in assistance. The EU is suspending a proportionate amount: They are saying you don’t get to move toward Europe. And what Georgian Dream tries to tell its voters, and all Georgian citizens, is [that] everything is fine. It is not fine. Georgia wants to join the European Union. There are clear rules. The people responsible for those rules are saying you have made a mistake. You have written a bad law. They are on the verge of writing two new bad laws and those need to stop in order for the people of Georgia to get what they overwhelmingly want.

We’ve said again and again to the Georgian officials: The transparency you say you want is readily available. All the American organizations are transparent. The European organizations are transparent. There are ways to achieve that. But they’ve chosen to do it in a way that lets the [Georgian] Ministry of Justice control your local neighborhood organization. And that’s not democratic, and it’s not part of Europe. We want them to turn back so that the Georgian people can be part of Europe.
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State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy addressed Indo-Pacific security and highlighted the need to maintain the status quo on the Taiwan Strait during their U.S.-U.K. Strategic Dialogue, underscoring its global significance. 

“We also discussed joint efforts to ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and freedom of navigation and overflight of the South China Sea. For both of us, maintaining peace and stability, preserving the status quo is essential,” Blinken told reporters during a joint press conference with Lammy in London. 

“It’s essential not just to us; it’s, again, essential to countries all around the world,” Blinken added.    

U.S. officials have stressed the need to keep open high-level communication between Washington and Beijing to clear up misperceptions and prevent their competition from escalating into conflict. 

Earlier this week, the United States and China held theater-level commander talks for the first time in an effort to stabilize military relations. 

The video teleconference Monday, between Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and General Wu Yanan, commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command, was aimed at preventing misunderstandings, particularly in regional hotspots like the South China Sea.  

According to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Paparo emphasized the Chinese military’s responsibility to adhere to international laws and norms to ensure operational safety.  

“Paparo also urged the PLA to reconsider its use of dangerous, coercive, and potentially escalatory tactics in the South China Sea and beyond.” 

In Beijing, China’s Ministry of National Defense issued a press release Tuesday stating the two commanders exchanged views on matters of mutual concern, but did not provide further details about the discussion. 

Washington has been seeking to establish new channels for regular military communication with Beijing after relations hit a historic low when the U.S. downed a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon last year. 

The theater-level commander talks differ from the broader discussions between U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs, which cover all strategic issues impacting both nations, Ryan Haas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA. 

The theater-level talks provide a platform for more focused discussions on operational issues, crisis management, and deconfliction at an operator-to-operator level, added Haas, a former senior official on the White House National Security Council from 2013 to 2017. 

The virtual meeting between Paparo and Wu followed a meeting last month in Beijing, where U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s top military adviser agreed to the talks.
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washington — Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is blocking the quick promotion of the top military aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over concerns that he and other senior staff did not immediately notify President Joe Biden when Austin was hospitalized with complications from cancer treatment earlier this year. 

Biden in July nominated Lieutenant General Ronald Clark to become commander of U.S. Army forces in the Pacific. But Clark has faced criticism from Republicans over his role as one of Austin’s top aides when the defense secretary was in the hospital in January and did not tell Biden or other U.S. leaders. 

Republicans said the fact that Biden was kept in the dark about Austin not being in command for days could have meant confusion or delays in military action, even though decision-making authorities had been transferred to the deputy defense secretary. 

Tuberville’s hold comes a year after he came under intense criticism from colleagues in both parties for holding up hundreds of military promotions over a Pentagon abortion policy. The Senate finally approved 425 military promotions and nominations in November after Tuberville relented. 

Republican colleagues said they agreed with Tuberville on the abortion policy but openly pressured him to drop the holds, voicing concern about military readiness and the toll it was taking on service members and their families who had nothing to do with the regulations. 

A spokeswoman for Tuberville, Hannah Eddins, said Tuesday that the senator has concerns about Clark’s role during Austin’s hospitalization, including that he did not inform Biden. She said that Tuberville is waiting on an a report from the Pentagon’s inspector general that will review the matter. 

“As a senior commissioned officer, Lieutenant General Clark’s oath requires him to notify POTUS when the chain of command is compromised,” Eddins said, using an acronym for the president of the United States. 

Majority Democrats could still bring Clark’s nomination up for a vote, but Tuberville’s hold likely delays his confirmation because several days of floor time would be needed to confirm him. The nomination will expire with the end of the congressional session and the next president would have to renominate Clark or someone else to the post if he is not confirmed by early January. 

Pentagon spokesperson James Adams said that Tuberville’s new hold, which was first reported by The Washington Post, “undermines our military readiness.” 

“Lt. Gen. Clark is highly qualified and was nominated for this critical position because of his experience and strategic expertise,” Adams said in a statement. “We urge the Senate to confirm all of our qualified nominees.” 

Austin has come under bipartisan criticism for initially keeping Biden in the dark about his health issues and hospitalization. Austin was admitted to intensive care for complications from prostate cancer surgery on January 1, but the White House was not told until January 4. Austin’s senior staff were notified on January 2. 

The defense secretary later said he takes full responsibility and had apologized to Biden. Still, Austin insisted that there were no gaps in control of the department or the nation’s security because “at all times, either I or the deputy secretary was in a position to conduct the duties of my office.” 

An earlier Pentagon review of the matter blamed privacy restrictions and staff hesitancy for the secrecy, and called for improved procedures, which have been made. 

The White House also laid out a new set of guidelines to ensure it will be informed any time a Cabinet head cannot carry out their job. The new guidelines include a half-dozen instructions for Cabinet agencies to follow when there is a “delegation of authority,” or when secretaries temporarily transfer their authority to a deputy when unreachable due to medical issues, travel or other reasons. 
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London — Google lost its final legal challenge on Tuesday against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that came with a whopping fine. 

The European Union’s Court of Justice upheld a lower court’s decision, rejecting the company’s appeal against the $2.7 billion penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer. 

“By today’s judgment, the Court of Justice dismisses the appeal and thus upholds the judgment of the General Court,” the court said in a press release summarizing its decision. 

The commission’s punished the Silicon Valley giant in 2017 for unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service to the detriment of competitors. It was one of three multibillion-dollar fines that the commission imposed on Google in the previous decade as Brussels started ramping up its crackdown on the tech industry. 

“We are disappointed with the decision of the Court, which relates to a very specific set of facts,” Google said in a brief statement. 

The company said it made changes in 2017 to comply with the commission’s decision requiring it to treat competitors equally. It started holding auctions for shopping search listings that it would bid for alongside other comparison shopping services. 

“Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services,” Google said. 

At the same time, the company appealed the decision to the courts. But the EU General Court, the tribunal’s lower section, rejected its challenge in 2021 and the Court of Justice’s adviser later recommended rejecting the appeal. 

European consumer group BEUC hailed the court’s decision, saying it shows how the bloc’s competition law “remains highly relevant” in digital markets. 

“Google harmed millions of European consumers by ensuring that rival comparison shopping services were virtually invisible,” director general Agustín Reyna said. “Google’s illegal practices prevented consumers from accessing potentially cheaper prices and useful product information from rival comparison shopping services on all sorts of products, from clothes to washing machines.” 
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washington — The U.S. Justice Department announced September 4 that two Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, had been charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the Southern District of New York.

“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”

That same day, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 internet domains used in the Russian government-directed “Doppelganger” foreign malign influence campaign, which it said violated U.S. money-laundering and criminal trademark laws.

Experts who study disinformation say disrupting the paid-influencer campaign is an important step in efforts to counter the Kremlin’s broader disinformation strategy of spreading propaganda that undermines support for Ukraine and stokes American political divisions.

Disrupting the Doppelganger campaign

“Persistent efforts to impersonate authoritative news websites and promote their content at scale in a coordinated manner can have a tangible impact, casting propaganda narratives far and wide consistently,” wrote Roman Osadchuk and Eto Buziashvili, researchers at the Disinformation Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

According to an FBI affidavit, Russia’s “Doppelganger” campaign created domains impersonating legitimate media sites, produced fake social media profiles and deployed “influencers” worldwide.

According to the Atlantic Council researchers, the primary method used by those involved in “Doppelganger” is to post, on X and other social media platforms, links to fake news sites in replies to posts by politicians, celebrities, influencers and others with large audiences.

Osadchuk told VOA that while the FBI’s measures are unlikely to stop Russian influence activities, they will make them more costly, noting those involved in the Russian influence campaign will be forced “to rewrite scripts, change the operation’s infrastructure, etc.”

At the same time, according to Osadchuk, the U.S. government’s moves against those involved in the influence campaign, which were widely covered in the U.S. and international media, will educate a broader audience.

“Researchers of the Russian disinformation have known about the Doppelganger campaign for some time,” he said. “Now, Americans and people in other countries have learned about it and maybe will become more aware that not all information they consume is coming from legitimate sources and hopefully will be more attentive to the domain names and other signs that might indicate that the page they are reading is not The Washington Post or Fox News but a fake created by Kremlin-linked entities.”

Influencers will be more aware

In a statement it released after indicting the two RT employees, the Justice Department said that “over at least the past year, RT and its employees, including Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, deployed nearly $10 million to covertly finance and direct a Tennessee-based online content creation company [U.S. Company-1],” and that “U.S. Company-1″ had “published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.”

While the Justice Department did not specifically identify “U.S. Company-1,” it is thought to refer to Tenet Media, a Tennessee company co-founded by entrepreneur Lauren Chen, who recruited six popular U.S. influencers with a large following.

YouTube subsequently took down Tenet Media’s channel on the platform, along with four other channels that YouTube said were operated by Chen.

Bret Schafer, a disinformation researcher at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a political advocacy group set up under the auspices of the German Marshall Fund, a Washington think tank, told VOA that by financing the U.S. content creation company, Russia was able to create an information channel with a large audience, and to use it for such messages as blaming the U.S. and Ukraine for the March terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

Shutting down that Russian information channel sent a powerful message to influencers and content creators to do “due diligence about people funding their work and to try to figure out who’s behind these companies and their motives,” Schafer added.

Ben Dubow, a disinformation researcher affiliated with the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based research group, believes that influencers contracted by Tenet Media are unlikely to lose their existing followers, but that they might have difficulty attracting new ones.

“Hopefully, people who might otherwise explore those influencers will recognize their names and understand them as untrustworthy now,” he told VOA.

The Justice Department’s indictment quotes RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonian, as saying in an interview on Russian television that RT built “an enormous network, an entire empire of covert projects,” to influence Western audiences.

The FBI affidavit also revealed that one of the sanctioned Russian companies had a list of 2,800 people active on social media in the U.S. and 80 other countries, including “television and radio hosts, politicians, bloggers, journalists, businessmen, professors, think-tank analysts, veterans, professors and comedians,” whom the company refers to as “influencers.”

Concrete steps and good timing

Several experts commended the U.S. government for taking concrete steps.

“They are sanctioning individuals and disrupting the supply chain of influence available to these threat actors,” noted Olga Belogolova, director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“Punitive measures absolutely have to be part of the package,” said Jakub Kalenský, a senior analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki. “Otherwise, the aggressors have a free hand to continue their aggression unopposed. And in order to identify those who deserve to be punished, a proper investigation from the authorities is necessary.”

Experts also said that the Justice Department’s actions were taken early enough to prevent influence in the November U.S. elections and to signal to Russia and other foreign actors that the U.S. government is monitoring their actions and will respond aggressively.

“Of course, that was what the Obama administration was concerned about in 2016 and led to them not being as transparent as they probably should have been with the American public about what they knew about Russian interference,” Schafer said.

In announcing their actions against the Russian disinformation campaign, U.S. government representatives did not mention which political party or candidate they thought that the Russians were trying to assist.

“I know that the U.S. government, including agencies and the Foreign Malign Influence Center at ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence], have been doing a lot of thinking over the last few years about how to strategically communicate these actions without unintentionally amplifying the very campaigns they are trying to thwart or politicizing the topic. And I think they’ve actually done a good job of striking that balance, at least from what I’ve seen thus far,” Belogolova said.

Ihor Solovey, who heads the Ukrainian government’s Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security, welcomed the U.S. government’s actions but told VOA that more steps are needed to thwart Russian activities on social media.

“X, TikTok or even more so the Russian Telegram – they are unlikely to want to spend on the fight against bots, troll farms or planned disinformation,” he said, adding that only pressure by a state, or even a coalition of states, will be able to force these social media platforms to block intruders and malicious content.

Andrei Dziarkach of VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
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GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Arizona — There has been another fatality at Grand Canyon National Park, authorities announced Monday.

Park officials said Patrick Horton, 59, of Salida, Colorado, was on the 10th day of a noncommercial river trip along the Colorado River and was discovered dead by members of his party Saturday morning.

Officials said the National Park Service was investigating Horton’s death in coordination with the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Horton was believed to have been the seventh person to die at the canyon since July 31 and the 15th this year.

Park officials reported 11 fatalities in 2023 and say there are usually about 10 to 15 deaths per year. 
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NEW YORK — He had some help: Morgan Wallen tops the 2024 Country Music Association Awards nominations with seven.

For a third year in a row, Wallen is up for both the top prize — entertainer of the year — and the male vocalist categories.

Rounding out the entertainer of the year categories are Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton and Lainey Wilson.

Post Malone’s massive radio hit, “I Had Some Help,” which features Wallen, is the main reason why the country singer leads the pack this year. It is up for single, song, musical event and music video of the year. His last nomination is a second one in the musical event category, for his collaboration with Eric Church, “Man Made a Bar.”

Single of the year is awarded to the artist, producer and mix engineers; song of the year is given to the songwriters.

Ahead of the nominations announcement, some fans speculated that Beyoncé, whose landmark country-and-then-some reclamation Cowboy Carter was released during the eligibility window, could receive a nomination at the 2024 CMAs. She did not.

Earlier this year, the album hit No. 1 on the Billboard country albums chart, making her the first Black woman to top the chart since its 1964 inception.

The album was five years in the making, a direct result of what Beyoncé has called “an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” most likely a reference to a 2016 CMAs performance that resulted in racist backlash.

The CMA Awards are nominated and voted on by members of the Country Music Association, which includes music executives, artists, publicists, songwriters and other industry professionals.

Wallen is followed by both Cody Johnson, who is also nominated in the male vocalist category for the third year in a row, and 7-time male vocalist of the year winner, Stapleton.

Stapleton and Johnson have five nominations each.

But Stapleton could take home seven trophies, should he sweep his categories.

Stapleton is both an artist and producer on “White Horse,” up for single of the year, and Higher, up for album of the year.

At the CMAs, production credits are not counted as separate nominations, although they are factored into trophy counts.

First-time nominee Post Malone and Wilson, last year’s entertainer of the year winner, are tied with four nominations. All of Malone’s nominations are for “I Had Some Help.”

Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome and Hoskins are tied with three nominations for their work as producers and co-writers on “I Had Some Help.”

Jelly Roll, Combs, Kacey Musgraves and Megan Moroney also boast three nods each. The latter three could take home four trophies: Combs is both artist and producer on Fathers & Sons, up for album of the year. The same is true for Musgraves’ album Deeper Well.

And Moroney is both artist and director of her nominated music video, “I’m Not Pretty.”

The CMA Awards will air on November 20 on ABC at 8 p.m. Eastern. It can be streamed the next day on Hulu.
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washington — Donald Trump has signaled support for a potentially historic federal policy shift to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, putting his position in line with that of his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

The commonality reflects a major shift toward broad public support for legalization in recent years and marks the first time that both major-party presidential candidates support broad cannabis reform, according to the U.S. Cannabis Council.

The Republican presidential nominee posted on his social media platform late Sunday that he would “continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug,” and also said he would be voting “yes” on a proposal to allow the sale of marijuana to adults for any reason in Florida.

Coming shortly before the two will meet for a pivotal debate, Trump’s post sets up the possibility that he could criticize Harris for her past cannabis prosecutions when she was district attorney in San Francisco. Because drug prosecutions disproportionately affect nonwhite defendants in the U.S., the line of attack could also fit with Trump’s efforts to increase his support among nonwhite men.

Harris backs decriminalization and has called it “absurd” that the Drug Enforcement Administration now has marijuana in the Schedule I category alongside heroin and LSD.

Earlier in her career, she oversaw the enforcement of cannabis laws and opposed legalized recreational use for adults in California while running for attorney general in 2010.

Harris has absorbed attacks on her prosecutorial record on the debate stage before, most notably from Democrat-turned-Trump supporter Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and announced in 2022 that she was leaving the party.

Trump said during his 2016 run that pot policy should be left up the states. During his term in the White House, though, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions lifted an Obama-era policy that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the marijuana trade in states where the drug is legal.

The DEA process to change the drug’s federal classification is already underway, kickstarted by President Joe Biden’s call for a review. But the DEA hasn’t made a final decision on the shift, which would not legalize recreational marijuana outright. It may not decide until the next presidential administration, putting a spotlight on the candidates’ positions.

Federal drug policy has lagged behind that of many states in recent years, with 38 having already legalized medical marijuana and 24 legalizing recreational use.

About 70% of adults supported legalization in a Gallup poll taken last year, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm and more than double the roughly 3 in 10 who backed it in 2000. Support was even higher among young voters, a key demographic in seven main battleground states.

“We believe cannabis reform is a winning issue,” said David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council, in a statement Monday.

The federal policy shift wouldn’t legalize marijuana outright for recreational use. Instead, it would move marijuana out of Schedule I to the Schedule III category, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids.

The proposed shift is facing opposition from advocates who say there isn’t enough data and from attorneys general in more than a dozen states, according to the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Trump chimed in on the ballot question on the same day that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican who previously challenged him for the 2024 presidential nomination, spoke at City Church Tallahassee, where he ardently opposed two ballot initiatives this November: one to enshrine abortion rights and the other to legalize recreational marijuana.

For months DeSantis has publicly opposed the marijuana amendment, saying it would reduce the quality of life in Florida cities by leaving a marijuana stench in the air.

The Florida Republican Party has also formally denounced the amendment, saying in a May resolution that it would “benefit powerful marijuana special interests, while putting children at risk and endangering Florida family-friendly business and tourism climates.”
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nicosia, cyprus — Cyprus and the United States have signed a defense cooperation framework agreement that outlines ways the two countries can enhance their response to regional humanitarian crises and security concerns, including those arising from climate change.

Cyprus Defense Minister Vassilis Palmas and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander hailed the agreement Monday as another milestone in burgeoning Cypriot-U.S. ties in recent years that saw the lifting in 2022 of a decades-old U.S. arms embargo imposed on the east Mediterranean island nation.

“The Republic of Cyprus is a strong partner to the United States, in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, and plays a pivotal role at the nexus of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East,” Wallander said after talks with Palmas.

The U.S. official praised Cyprus for acting as a haven for American civilians evacuated from Sudan and Israel last year and for its key role in setting up a maritime corridor to Gaza through which more than 20 million pounds of humanitarian aid has been shipped to the Palestinian territory.

“It is evident that Cyprus is aligned with the West,” Wallander said.

Palmas said Cyprus would continue building toward “closer, stronger and beneficial bilateral defense cooperation with the United States.”

According to a joint statement, the agreement also foresees working together on dealing with “malicious actions” and bolstering ways for the Cypriot military to operate more smoothly with U.S. forces.

 
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BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Tropical Storm Francine formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday and was expected to drench the Texas coast with rain before coming ashore in Louisiana as a hurricane on Wednesday night. 

“We’re going to have a very dangerous situation developing by the time we get into Wednesday for portions of the north-central Gulf Coast, primarily along the coast of Louisiana, where we’re going to see the potential for life-threatening storm surge inundation and hurricane force winds,” said Michael Brennan, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. 

Heavy rain was already falling in northeastern Mexico and deep South Texas, where some places could get up to 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) into Monday night, Brennan said. 

Francine is taking aim at a stretch of coastline that has yet to fully recover since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 2020, followed a year later by Hurricane Ida. Over the weekend, a 22-story building in Lake Charles that had become a symbol of the destruction was imploded after sitting vacant for nearly four years, its windows shattered and covered in shredded tarps. 

The storm surge pushed by Francine could reach as much as 3 meters (10 feet) along a stretch of Louisiana coastline from Cameron to Port Fourchon and into Vermilion Bay. And if the current track holds, the storm could blow northward up the Mississippi River, into the Illinois area by Saturday. 

“Francine is expected to bring multiple days of heavy rainfall, considerable flash flooding risk,” Brennan said. 

Residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s riverfront capital, began forming long lines as people filled up their gas tanks and stocked up on groceries. Others went to fill sandbags at city-operated locations to try to keep floodwaters from entering their homes. 

“It’s crucial that all of us take this storm very seriously and begin our preparations immediately,” Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said during a news conference Monday morning. 

She urged residents to prepare a disaster supply kit, complete with enough food, water and essential supplies for three days. 

The hurricane center said Monday morning that Francine was located about 395 kilometers (245 miles) southeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande, and about 770 kilometers (478 miles) south-southeast of Cameron, Louisiana, sustaining top winds of about 85 kilometers (53 miles) per hour. 

The storm is expected to be centered just offshore through Tuesday, and then intensify significantly from Tuesday night into Wednesday as it nears the upper Texas coast and Louisiana, according to the hurricane center. 

A storm surge watch has been issued from just east of Galveston, Texas, to the Mississippi-Alabama border, while a hurricane watch has been issued for much of the Louisiana coast, from Cameron to Grand Isle. 
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NABLUS, West Bank — The Western-backed Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession Monday for a U.S.-Turkish dual national activist who a witness says was shot and killed by Israeli forces while demonstrating against settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

Dozens of mourners — including several leading PA officials — attended the procession. Security forces carried the body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi which was draped in a Palestinian flag while a traditional black-and-white checkered scarf covered her face. The 26-year-old’s body was then placed into the back of a Palestinian ambulance. 

Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli said Turkey was working on repatriating Eygi’s remains for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim as per her family’s wishes, but “because the land crossing from the Palestinian territories to Jordan was closed as of Sunday, the ministry was trying to have the body flown directly to Turkey.” 

U.S. officials did not respond to a request for comment. 

Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli peace activist who participated in Friday’s protest, said Israeli forces shot her on Friday in the city of Nablus while posing no threat, adding that the killing happened during a period of calm after clashes between soldiers and Palestinian protesters. Pollak said he then saw two Israeli soldiers mount the roof of a nearby home, train a gun in the group’s direction and fired, with one of the bullets striking Eygi in the head. 

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity” in the area of the protest. 

The West Bank has seen a surge of violence since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians. 

 
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — One month after a judge declared Google’s search engine an illegal monopoly, the tech giant faces another antitrust lawsuit that threatens to break up the company, this time over its advertising technology.

The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintains a monopoly over the technology that matches online publishers to advertisers. Dominance over the software on both the buy side and the sell side of the transaction enables Google to keep as much as 36 cents on the dollar when it brokers sales between publishers and advertisers, the government contends in court papers.

Google says the government’s case is based on an internet of yesteryear, when desktop computers ruled and internet users carefully typed precise World Wide Web addresses into URL fields. Advertisers now are more likely to turn to social media companies like TikTok or streaming TV services like Peacock to reach audiences.

In recent years, Google Networks, the division of the Mountain View, California-based tech giant that includes such services as AdSense and Google Ad Manager that are at the heart of the case, actually have seen declining revenue, from $31.7 billion in 2021 to $31.3 billion in 2023, according to the company’s annual reports.

The trial over the alleged ad tech monopoly begins Monday in Alexandria, Virginia. It initially was going to be a jury trial, but Google maneuvered to force a bench trial, writing a check to the federal government for more than $2 million to moot the only claim brought by the government that required a jury.

The case will now be decided by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton and is best known for high-profile terrorism trials including Sept. 11 defendant Zacarias Moussaoui. Brinkema, though, also has experience with highly technical civil trials, working in a courthouse that sees an outsize number of patent infringement cases.

The Virginia case comes on the heels of a major defeat for Google over its search engine. which generates the majority of the company’s $307 billion in annual revenue. A judge in the District of Columbia declared the search engine a monopoly, maintained in part by tens of billions of dollars Google pays each year to companies like Apple to lock in Google as the default search engine presented to consumers when they buy iPhones and other gadgets.

In that case, the judge has not yet imposed any remedies. The government hasn’t offered its proposed sanctions, though there could be close scrutiny over whether Google should be allowed to continue to make exclusivity deals that ensure its search engine is consumers’ default option.

Peter Cohan, a professor of management practice at Babson College, said the Virginia case could potentially be more harmful to Google because the obvious remedy would be requiring it to sell off parts of its ad tech business that generate billions of dollars in annual revenue.

“Divestitures are definitely a possible remedy for this second case,” Cohan said “It could be potentially more significant than initially meets the eye.”

In the Virginia trial, the government’s witnesses are expected to include executives from newspaper publishers including The New York Times Co. and Gannett, and online news sites that the government contends have faced particular harm from Google’s practices.

“Google extracted extraordinary fees at the expense of the website publishers who make the open internet vibrant and valuable,” government lawyers wrote in court papers. “As publishers generate less money from selling their advertising inventory, publishers are pushed to put more ads on their websites, to put more content behind costly paywalls, or to cease business altogether.”

Google disputes that it charges excessive fees compared to its competitors. The company also asserts the integration of its technology on the buy side, sell side and in the middle assures ads and web pages load quickly and enhance security. And it says customers have options to work with outside ad exchanges.

Google says the government’s case is improperly focused on display ads and banner ads that load on web pages accessed through a desktop computer and fails to take into account consumers’ migration to mobile apps and the boom in ads placed on social media sites over the last 15 years.

The government’s case “focuses on a limited type of advertising viewed on a narrow subset of websites when user attention migrated elsewhere years ago,” Google’s lawyers write in a pretrial filing. “The last year users spent more time accessing websites on the ‘open web,’ rather than on social media, videos, or apps, was 2012.”

The trial, which is expected to last several weeks, is taking place in a courthouse that rigidly adheres to traditional practices, including a resistance to technology in the courtroom. Cellphones are banned from the courthouse, to the chagrin of a tech press corps accustomed at the District of Columbia trial to tweeting out live updates as they happen.

Even the lawyers, and there are many on both sides, are limited in their technology. At a pretrial hearing Wednesday, Google’s lawyers made a plea to be allowed more than the two computers each side is permitted to have in the courtroom during trial. Brinkema rejected it.

“This is an old-fashioned courtroom,” she said.
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President Joe Biden’s poor performance during the debate against Donald Trump in June led to his withdrawal from the race and the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Here’s a look at other presidential debates in history that shifted the direction of the campaign.
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