After Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian native and California resident Oleksandr Zabelin started OutBaking — a Berkeley-based bakery that provides reliable jobs to Ukrainian refugees. Khrystyna Shevchenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Khrystyna Shevchenko
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The prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden investigation is expected to testify on Tuesday, marking the first time a special counsel will appear before Congress in the middle of a probe. It comes as House Republicans are aiming to ramp up their impeachment inquiry into the president and his family after weeks of stalemate.

David Weiss is set to appear for a transcribed interview before members of the House Judiciary Committee as the U.S. attorney battles Republican allegations that he did not have full authority in the yearslong case into the president’s son.

“Mr. Weiss is prepared to take this unprecedented step of testifying before the conclusion of his investigation to make clear that he’s had and continues to have full authority over his investigation and to bring charges in any jurisdiction,” Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesperson for Weiss, said in a statement Monday.

The rare move by the Justice Department to allow a special counsel or any federal prosecutor to face questioning before the conclusion of an investigation indicates just how seriously the department is taking accusations of interference.

Weiss’ appearance comes after months of back-and-forth negotiations between Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department as lawmakers subpoenaed several investigators and attorneys involved in the Hunter Biden case.

In July, Weiss, looking to correct the record of what he and the department see as a misrepresentation of the investigation, agreed to come to Capitol Hill but only if he was able to testify in a public hearing where he could directly respond to claims of wrongdoing by Republicans.

The two parties ultimately agreed on a closed-door interview with both Democratic and Republican members and their respective staff.

The interview Tuesday is expected to focus on testimony from an Internal Revenue Service agent who claimed that under Weiss, the investigation into the president’s son was “slow-walked” and mishandled. Weiss has denied one of the more explosive allegations by saying in writing that he had the final say over the case.

Two other U.S. Attorneys from Washington and California testified in recent weeks that they didn’t block Weiss from filing charges in their districts, though they declined to partner with him on it.

But the IRS whistleblower, who testified publicly over the summer, insists his testimony reflects a pattern of interference and preferential treatment in the Hunter Biden case and not just disagreement with their superiors about what investigative steps to take.

Questions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings overall have been central to a GOP-led impeachment inquiry into the president. That’s been led in part by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who is expected to have a prominent role in the questioning Tuesday.

But what information, if any, Weiss will be able to provide to Congress is unclear as under Justice Department policy and the law, he will be unable to address the specifics of his investigation.

In general, open investigations are kept under wraps to protect evidence, keep witnesses from being exposed, and avoid giving defense attorneys fodder to ultimately challenge their findings.

In the Hunter Biden case, defense attorneys have already indicated they plan to challenge the gun charges he is currently facing on several other legal fronts and suggested that prosecutors bowed to political pressure in filing those charges.
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Ohio becomes the latest flashpoint on Tuesday in the nation’s ongoing battle over abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to the procedure last year.

Voters will decide whether to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing an individual right to abortion and other forms of reproductive healthcare.

Ohio is the only state to consider a statewide abortion-rights question this year, fueling tens of millions of dollars in campaign spending, boisterous rallies for and against the amendment, and months of advertising and social media messaging, some of it misleading.

With a single spotlight on abortion rights this year, advocates on both sides of the issue are watching the outcome for signs of voter sentiment heading into 2024, when abortion-rights supporters are planning to put measures on the ballot in several other states, including Arizona, Missouri and Florida. Early voter turnout has also been robust.

Public polling shows about two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal in the earliest stages of pregnancy, a sentiment that has been underscored in half a dozen states since the Supreme Court’s decision reversing Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

In both Democratic and deeply Republican states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont — voters have either affirmed abortion access or turned back attempts to undermine the right.

Voter approval of the constitutional amendment in Ohio, known as Issue 1, would undo a 2019 state law passed by Republicans that bans most abortions at around six weeks into pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest. That law, currently on hold because of court challenges, is one of roughly two dozen restrictions on abortion the Ohio Legislature has passed in recent years.

Issue 1 specifically declares an individual’s right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including birth control, fertility treatments, miscarriage and abortion.

It still allows the state to regulate the procedure after fetal viability, as long as exceptions are provided for cases in which a doctor determines the “life or health” of the woman is at risk. Viability is defined as the point when the fetus has “a significant likelihood of survival” outside the womb with reasonable interventions.

Anti-abortion groups have argued the amendment’s wording is overly broad, advancing a host of untested legal theories about its impacts. They’ve tested a variety of messages to try to defeat the amendment as they seek to reverse their losses in statewide votes, including characterizing it as “anti-parent” and warning that it would allow minors to seek abortions or gender-transition surgeries without parents’ consent.

It’s unclear how the Republican-dominated Legislature will respond if voters pass the amendment. Republican state Senate President Matt Huffman has suggested that lawmakers could come back with another proposed amendment next year that would undo Issue 1, although they would have only a six-week window after Election Day to get it on the 2024 primary ballot.

The voting follows an August special election called by the Republican-controlled Legislature that was aimed at making future constitutional changes harder to pass by increasing the threshold from a simple majority vote to 60%. That proposal was aimed in part at undermining the abortion-rights measure being decided now.

Voters overwhelmingly defeated that special election question, setting the stage for the high-stakes fall abortion campaign.
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President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign said Monday it’s not worried after a U.S. political poll showed former President Donald Trump leading Biden in a 2024 matchup in key battleground states.

In the poll, voters cited their long-held concerns about Biden’s advanced age and the economy, but also new concerns over the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas.

In a statement shared with VOA from Biden’s campaign, White House assistant press secretary Kevin Munoz seemed unfazed.

“We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll,” he said.

The New York Times/Siena College poll predicts that Trump would triumph over Biden in five of six swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The poll showed Biden ahead in Wisconsin.

Pollsters looked at the usual issues: abortion, preserving democracy, the economy, national security and immigration — but also at how voters see Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters made their feelings on that last issue clear, gathering at the White House gates to express their dissatisfaction with Biden’s support for Israel.

Biden, meanwhile, is moving forward, crisscrossing the country to sell Americans on how his administration has improved their lives. On Monday in his home state of Delaware, he touted a $16 billion effort along the Atlantic seaboard.

“Twenty-five different projects, all to build the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington, is part of my agenda to invest in America,” he said. “And I’ve been fighting for this for a long time.”

It’s a stark contrast to Trump’s approach. The former president also spoke Monday as he arrived in New York to testify in a civil fraud case over accusations that he wildly overstated his net worth. He claims that his 91 felony charges, in four different jurisdictions, are all politically motivated.

“I’m leading all over the place,” Trump said. “But it’s a very unfair situation. This is really election interference. It’s kind of ridiculous.”

Pollsters say no one should be surprised that Americans are so deeply conflicted — but some, such as polling expert Mark Mellman and political scientist Todd Belt, question this poll.

“Anybody who’s paid close attention, I think, to American politics over the last number of years would assume it’s going to be a close race,” said Mellman, a Democratic pollster who also leads advocacy group Democratic Majority for Israel. The polls have consistently shown it to be a very close race. I think this poll is a bit of an outlier. It shows more support for Trump in some of these states than in lots of other polls, too.”

Mellman said he reads this recent poll as showing rare voter consensus on the Israel-Hamas conflict, in which both front-runners say they strongly support Israel.

Some analysts say that predictions this far ahead of a poll aren’t useful.

“People I have talked to from the Biden campaign have told me that No. 1, it’s way too far out,” said Belt, a professor of political management at The George Washington University. “And No. 2, they think that when it comes down to a general election, and it’s a binary choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, they think Joe Biden takes it because they believe that people just don’t want to go back to the chaos of the Trump years.”

The poll comes as Americans are voting this week, choosing state and local representatives and ballot initiatives.
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The captain of a dive boat that caught fire and sank off the California coast in 2019, killing 34 people in one of the state’s deadliest maritime disasters, was found guilty on Monday on a federal charge of seaman’s manslaughter.

Jerry Boylan, 70, was found guilty by a U.S. District Court jury in Los Angeles on a single charged count of “misconduct or neglect of a ship officer” under a federal homicide statute dating from steamboat accidents in the early 1800s.

The felony conviction, capping a 10-day trial, carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Sentencing was set for Feb. 8, 2025.

Boylan was captain of the 75-foot dive boat Conception, which went up in flames early in the morning on Sept. 2, 2019. The vessel was anchored in Platt’s Harbor near Santa Cruz Island, off the Santa Barbara Coast, during a sport diving trip.

Thirty-three passengers and one member of the crew died in the Labor Day holiday weekend blaze. They had been sleeping below deck when the fire began.

The five surviving crew members, including Boylan, had been above deck in berths behind the wheelhouse and escaped by leaping overboard as the burning vessel sank into the Pacific. They told investigators that flames coming from the passenger quarters were too intense to save anyone trapped below.

But the jury unanimously agreed with prosecutors that Boylan, as charged in the indictment, acted with “reckless disregard for human life by engaging in misconduct, gross negligence, and inattention to his duties.”

Among other lapses cited by prosecutors, Boylan neglected to maintain a night watch or roving patrol as required, failed to conduct sufficient fire drills and crew emergency training and left the vessel without attempting to fight the blaze.”

Prosecutors said he was the first to abandon ship and did so without using the boat’s public address system to warn passengers and crew about the fire.

 
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Israel’s airstrikes and military operations in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks are broadly supported inside Israel, but signs of dissent are emerging among some Jewish American communities. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, with Saba Shah Khan contributing. Camera: Gustavo Martínez Contreras
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Ahead of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in San Francisco, where U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet, a study comparing views of China and the U.S. across 24 countries shows that people’s views of Washington are more favorable than those of Beijing, especially among high and middle-income countries.

The new data essay released by Pew Research Center Monday, compares previously published views of the U.S. and China and highlights the differences across more than 10 measures, including confidence in U.S. and Chinese leaders, perception of their economic power and technological prowess.

Countries featured in the study include advanced economies in North America and Europe, as well as middle-income countries in Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Africa.

Skewed to the U.S.

When it comes to favorable views of the U.S. and China, the study found that high-income countries tend to “skew toward the US.” Japan and South Korea favor the U.S. over China by 57% and 62%.

There are smaller differences in views of the two countries in middle-income countries surveyed with countries having “generally positive” views of China and the United States.

The difference in the confidence in Biden and Xi was prominent in countries such as Germany and Sweden where 53% and 64% more expressed confidence in Biden over Xi. In Indonesia and Kenya, the difference in confidence toward the two leaders was only a few percentage points, with Biden maintaining a slight lead over Xi.

“These gaps in views of the American and Chinese leaders reflect both souring attitudes toward Xi in high-income countries and greater confidence in Biden,” the Pew researchers wrote.

Although views of China and the U.S. have fluctuated over the years, according to Pew, they have “rebounded dramatically in many of the countries surveyed” since Biden came to power, while views of China remain “among their most negative.”

“Confidence in the U.S. president was relatively low in 2007 when Bush was president but increased when Obama took office in 2008,” said Christine Huang, research associate at Pew Research Center and one of the authors of the latest study.

“Favorable views of the U.S. likewise because substantially more positive in most countries surveyed during the Obama era. Confidence in China’s president has also declined over time alongside favorable views of the country,” she told VOA in a written response.

Richard Turcsányi, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Palacky University Olomouc in the Czech Republic says “high-income countries are more often than not U.S. allies, so they are comfortable with the current international order …They tend to be democratic and thus dislike China for its authoritarian system.”

He said middle-income countries are rarely traditional U.S. allies and they are often “not fully democratic,” so these countries want to change some things in the world to elevate their roles.

“Many of them inhibit various dislikes and feelings of injustice, often targeting the U.S., Europe, and the West in general and China seems like an alternative. While they may not exactly like Beijing, the difference between the U.S. and China will be less pronounced in their eyes,” he added.

U.S. more interventionist

While the U.S. enjoys more favorable views than China in general, people in the 24 countries surveyed hold mixed views of Washington and Beijing when it comes to foreign policy.

The study shows that the U.S. is more likely to be viewed as an interventionist power than China in almost all countries. In Greece 93% of the people surveyed viewed the U.S. as a country that interferes in other nations’ affairs and 56% viewed the same of China leading to a 37% point difference in China’s favor. In Australia however, there is only a two-percentage point difference with Australians surveyed viewing the U.S. similarly as countries that will intervene in the affairs of other countries.

More people across the 24 countries, including in Japan, Canada and Mexico, also think the U.S. is more likely to take their countries’ interests into account than China. In addition to that, more people surveyed in the 24 countries, including South Korea, the U.K. and India, think the U.S. contributes to global peace and stability than China does.

Pew researchers say these results show that global views of the U.S. and China may not be as absolute as the overall favorable ratings both countries receive.

“A closer look at each country’s image shows areas where China outperforms the U.S.,” Huang from Pew told VOA.

Tech and military power

Compared to the starker contrasts between views of the U.S. and China in measures such as favorability and confidence in leaders, the study found that differences are less prominent in areas like technological power.

Among all the countries surveyed, a median 72% of the people view U.S. technology as “the best or above average,” and 69% have similar thoughts about Chinese technology. Despite the small overall difference, people surveyed in Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Argentina, were more likely to rate China’s technological achievements positively while U.S. technological achievements tend to receive more positive reviews in Asian countries included in the study, including South Korea and Japan.

Huang from Pew told VOA that regional variations in views of the U.S. and China’s technology may be tied to differences in market penetration of various products. “Chinese technology is seen especially likely to be considered well-made in Nigeria, where Chinese companies currently have control of much of the mobile market share,” she said.

While majorities in every country surveyed say the American military is above average or the best and only about half of the countries surveyed say the same of China, the Pew study found that “there is little difference” in ratings of Chinese and American militaries between middle-income countries such as Mexico and high-income countries like Germany.

Some researchers say results from public opinion studies can serve as important reference points for policymakers around the world. “Policymakers in many countries depend on public opinion because they stand in elections,” Turcsányi in Czech Republic told VOA.

“If the general mood around the leaders is that China is seen negatively with little economic promises, leaders will be willingly or unwillingly influenced by this sentiment and will act on it,” he added.

Pew researchers said they hope findings from the study can help policymakers and government officials establish a better understanding of the geopolitical balance between the U.S. and China.

“We can’t say for certain how it will be used, and it’s up to the officials to hopefully watch programs like this one and learn from our research,” Laura Silver, associate director at Pew Research Center and one of the authors of the study, told VOA.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed Monday that the United States maintains its focus on the Indo-Pacific region despite concurrent global challenges, such as the Israel-Hamas conflict.

At the Ankara airport, after concluding a two-and-a-half-hour discussion with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken said, “Even as we intensely focus on the crisis in Gaza, we are equally engaged in the vital work in the Indo-Pacific and other parts of the world to advance American interests.”

The top U.S. diplomat will arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday for the Group of Seven foreign ministers’ meetings and bilateral talks.  

Blinken said he plans to debrief his counterparts from G7 about the recent Middle East visit.

Japan chairs this year’s G7.  Supporting Ukraine’s economic recovery and energy needs, as well as regional security are on the agenda in Blinken’s bilateral meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Foreign Minster Yoko Kamikawa.

Kishida just returned from Manila and Kuala Lumpur where he confirmed that Japan will promote bilateral defense and maritime security cooperation with the Philippines and Malaysia. 

On Sunday, Kishida, during a joint news conference with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, announced that both countries had agreed to “accelerate adjustments towards the implementation” of the official security assistance grant program, known as OSA.

Japan has designated four Asia-Pacific countries — Bangladesh, Fiji, Malaysia, and the Philippines — as recipients of the OSA. Under this program, Japan provides materials, equipment and assistance for infrastructure development based on the security needs of these countries.

In Manila, Kishida and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines confirmed Friday that both countries would start negotiations on a reciprocal access agreement, a new bilateral deal aimed at strengthening defense cooperation.  

Japan also agreed to provide the Philippines with coastal radar systems under the OSA program.

Both the Philippines and Japan have been seeking to enhance trilateral defense ties with the United States in response to what they perceive as China’s increasing military aggression in the East and South China Sea.

Japan rejects China’s sovereignty claims over the Senkaku Islands located in the East China Sea.  The Philippines and China are on a collision course over the contested South China Sea, as shown in last month’s incident in which Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Philippine vessels near the Second Thomas Shoal.

Following the collision, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated Washington’s “ironclad” defense commitment to the Philippines. 

The United States has supported Japan’s decision to discharge treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in August.  Blinken said on August 15 that the U.S. is satisfied with Japan’s “safe, transparent, and science-based process.”

But despite assurances from Kishida’s government and external monitors including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the move has brought furious opposition from neighboring countries and environmental organizations who questioned its safety.

China, for example, has banned all seafood imports from Japan.  Beijing’s fierce protest also came at a time of increased geopolitical tensions between Japan and China.

“The PRC is hypocritically banning Japanese seafood while fishing from Japan’s waters for the exact same fish. Can’t blame them since the fish is outstanding but can blame them for their hypocrisy. America is sending this fish to a more deserving market: our U.S. military service members and their families,” said U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel in a social media posting on X, formerly known as Twitter.  He was referring to People’s Republic of China. 

Before heading to Asia, Blinken was in Israel, Jordan, West Bank, Iraq and Turkey where he reaffirmed Washington’s support for humanitarian pauses in Gaza to allow the delivery of lifesaving aid to civilians as Israel intensifies its offensive on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
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President Joe Biden signed last week a sweeping executive order to promote the safe, secure and trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence. VOA’s Julie Taboh reports on reactions by Washington-area AI experts.
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When Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle five years ago, it left boats, cars and trucks piled up to the windows of Bonny Paulson’s home in the tiny coastal community of Mexico Beach, Florida, even though the house rests on pillars 14 feet above the ground. But Paulson’s home, with a rounded shape that looks something like a ship, shrugged off Category 5 winds that might otherwise have collapsed it. 

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” Paulson said, recalling the warning to evacuate. Her house lost only a few shingles, with photos taken after the storm showing it standing whole amid the wreckage of almost all the surrounding homes.

Some developers are building homes like Paulson’s with an eye toward making them more resilient to the extreme weather that’s increasing with climate change, and friendlier to the environment at the same time. Solar panels, for example, installed so snugly that high winds can’t get underneath them, mean clean power that can survive a storm. Preserved wetlands and native vegetation that trap carbon in the ground and reduce flooding vulnerability, too. Recycled or advanced construction materials that reduce energy use as well as the need to make new material.

A person’s home is one of the biggest ways they can reduce their individual carbon footprint. Buildings release about 38% of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions each year. Some of the carbon pollution comes from powering things like lights and air conditioners and some of it from making the construction materials, like concrete and steel.

Deltec, the company that built Paulson’s home, says that only one of the nearly 1,400 homes it’s built over the last three decades has suffered structural damage from hurricane-force winds. But the company puts as much emphasis on building green, with higher-quality insulation that reduces the need for air conditioning, heat pumps for more efficient heating and cooling, energy-efficient appliances, and of course solar.

“The real magic here is that we’re doing both,” chief executive Steve Linton. “I think a lot of times resilience is sort of the afterthought when you talk about sustainable construction, where it’s just kind of this is a feature on a list … we believe that resilience is really a fundamental part of sustainability.”

Other companies are developing entire neighborhoods that are both resistant to hurricanes and contribute less than average to climate change.

Pearl Homes’ Mirabella community in Bradenton, Florida, consists of 160 houses that are all LEED-certified platinum, the highest level of one of the most-used green building rating systems.

To reduce vulnerability to flooding, home sites are raised 3 feet above code. Roads are raised, too, and designed to direct accumulating rainfall away and onto ground where it may be absorbed. Steel roofs with seams allow solar panels to be attached so closely it’s difficult for high winds to get under them, and the homes have batteries that kick in when power is knocked out.

Pearl Homes CEO Marshall Gobuty said his team approached the University of Central Florida with a plan to build a community that doesn’t contribute to climate change. “I wanted them to be not just sustainable, but resilient, I wanted them to be so unlike everything else that goes on in Florida,” Gobuty said. “I see homes that are newly built, half a mile away, that are underwater … we are in a crisis with how the weather is changing.”

That resonates with Paulson, in Mexico Beach, who said she didn’t want to “live day to day worried about tracking something in the Atlantic.” Besides greater peace of mind, she says, she’s now enjoying energy costs of about $32 per month, far below the roughly $250 she said she paid in a previous home.

“I don’t really feel that the population is taking into effect the environmental catastrophes, and adjusting for it,” she said. “We’re building the same old stuff that got blown away.”

Babcock Ranch is another sustainable, hurricane-resilient community in South Florida. It calls itself the first solar-powered town in the U.S., generating 150 megawatts of electricity with 680,000 panels on 870 acres. The community was also one of the first in the country to have large batteries on site to store extra solar power to use at night or when the power is out.

Syd Kitson founded Babcock Ranch in 2006. The homes are better able to withstand hurricane winds because the roofs are strapped to a system that connects down to the foundation. Power lines are buried underground so they can’t blow over. The doors swing outward in some homes so when pressure builds up from the wind, they don’t blast open, and vents help balance the pressure in garages.

In 2022 Hurricane Ian churned over Babcock Ranch as a Category 4 storm. It left little to no damage, Kitson said.

“We set out to prove that a new town and the environment can work hand-in-hand, and I think we’ve proven that,” said Kitson. “Unless you build in a very resilient way, you’re just going to constantly be repairing or demolishing the home.”

The development sold some 73,000 acres of its site to the state for wetland preservation, and on the land where it was built, a team studied how water naturally flows through the local environment and incorporated it into its water management system.

“That water is going to go where it wants to go, if you’re going to try and challenge Mother Nature, you’re going to lose every single time,” said Kitson. The wetlands, retention ponds, and native vegetation are better able to manage water during extreme rainfall, reducing the risk of flooded homes.

In the Florida Keys, Natalia Padalino and her husband, Alan Klingler, plan to finish building a Deltec home by December. The couple was concerned about the future impacts global warming and hurricanes would have on the Florida Keys and researched homes that were both sustainable and designed to withstand these storms.

“We believe we’re building something that’s going to be a phenomenal investment and reduce our risk of any major catastrophic situation,” Klingler said.

“People have been really open and receptive. They tell us if a hurricane comes, they’re going to be staying in our place,” Padalino said.
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A caravan of at least hundreds of migrants left from the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on Sunday heading for the U.S. southern border.

The smaller caravan plans to join a larger one that left six days ago and is currently stopped about 40 kilometers north of the town of Huixtla.

Organizers said the first had swelled to some 7,000 people while the government in the southern Chiapas state said it estimated the group at 3,500 people.

Many migrants are fleeing poverty and political instability in their homelands, hailing from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and especially Honduras and Venezuela, according to a Reuters witness.

“I think 3.4 months is too long to wait to get a humanitarian visa, to be able to travel through Mexican territory,” said Selma Alvarez from Venezuela. “Because we are at the mercy of coyotes, of criminals, it is good that we accompany each other in the caravan. It seems safer to me.”

Alvarez added that the group was impatient to get to the U.S. border and start the process to enter the U.S. with appointments secured via a U.S. government app, CBP One, and request asylum.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection next year, is under pressure to lower the number of people crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico.

A record number of people this year have crossed the Darien Gap region connecting Panama and Colombia.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit Sunday to Baghdad, where he met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

Blinken urged the Iraqi prime minister to hold accountable those responsible for continuing attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and fulfill Iraq’s commitments to protect all installations hosting U.S. personnel at the invitation of the Iraqi government.

U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked with drones or rockets in recent days, as more U.S. forces deploy to the Middle East to support regional deterrence efforts. U.S. military officials have blamed Iranian-backed proxies for the near-daily attacks on U.S. forces.

Blinken received a security briefing on the threat to U.S. facilities at the U.S. Embassy prior to his talks with al-Sudani, which lasted for more than an hour.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting Sunday, Blinken said al-Sudani is “working with his own security forces and others to take necessary action” to deal with attacks on U.S. forces and to prevent further attacks.

“This is a matter of Iraqi sovereignty. No country wants to have militia groups engaged in violent activity,” Blinken said at a news conference Sunday.

“We have a shared purpose and commitment in trying to make sure that these attacks don’t happen,” he added.

Al-Sudani has spoken out against those attacks. He reportedly will begin a regional tour to Iran and the Persian Gulf nations Monday.

Blinken and al-Sudani also discussed the need to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas from spreading, including in Iraq.

In a phone call on October 23, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin thanked al-Sudani for reaffirming the Iraqi government’s full commitment to protect U.S. forces in Iraq.

Earlier Sunday, Blinken held talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in another unannounced visit to the West Bank, reaffirming the U.S. commitment to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance and resume essential services in Gaza as Israel’s war against Hamas intensifies.

Blinken told reporters that he and Abbas agreed that it is critical for the Palestinian Authority to play a leading role in the future of Gaza.

“With regard to [the] future of Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian views, Palestinian voices, Palestinian aspirations need to be at the center of that,” Blinken said Sunday. “The Palestinian Authority is the representative of those voices so it’s important that they play a leading role.”

The top U.S. diplomat was headed to Turkey, where he will hold talks with officials in Ankara.
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More than a dozen U.S. states have enacted or introduced legislation to restrict drag shows. The moves are the product of socially conservative momentum against shows where performers who are mostly men dress mostly as women. Gustavo Martinez Contreras reports from a unique show in New Mexico. Camera: Gustavo Martinez Contreras.
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Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia set a course record to win the New York City Marathon men’s race on Sunday while Hellen Obiri of Kenya pulled away in the final 400 meters to take the women’s title.

Tola finished in 2 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds, topping the 2:05.06 set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011. Tola pulled away from countrymate Jemal Yimer when the pair were heading toward the Bronx at mile 20. By the time Tola headed back into Manhattan a mile later he was up by 19 seconds and left only chasing Mutai’s mark.

Albert Korir of Kenya, who won the 2021 NYC Marathon, finished second nearly 2 minutes behind Tola.

While the men’s race was well decided before the last few miles, the women’s race came down to the stretch. Obiri, Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia and defending champion Sharon Lokedi were all running together exchanging the lead. Obiri made a move as the trio headed back into Central Park for the final half-mile and finished in 2:27.23. Gidey finished second, 6 seconds behind.

Lokedi was 10 seconds behind Obiri, who won the Boston Marathon in April.

This was a stellar women’s field that was expected to potentially take down the course record of 2:22:31 set by Margaret Okayo in 2003. Unlike last year when the weather was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the 70s, Sunday’s race was much cooler with it being in the 50s — ideal conditions for record breaking times and for the 50,000 runners.

Instead the women had a tactical race with 11 runners, including Americans Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle in the lead pack for the first 20 miles. Taylor and Huddle both led the group at points before falling back and finishing in eighth and ninth.

Once the lead group came back into Manhattan for the final few miles, Obiri, Gidey and Lokedi pushed the pace.

As the trio entered Central Park they further distanced themselves from Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei, who finished fourth.

The men’s and women’s winners finished within a few minutes of each other. About an hour earlier, Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair race, finishing a few seconds short of his own course record by finishing in 1:25.29. It was the Swiss star’s record-extending sixth NYC Marathon victory.

“It’s incredible. I think it takes some time to realize what happened,” Hug said. “I’m so happy as well.”

He’s the most decorated champion in the wheelchair race at the event, breaking a tie with Tatyana McFadden and Kurt Fearnley for most wins in the division in event history.

Catherine Debrunner of Switzerland won her New York debut, shattering the course record in the women’s wheelchair race. She finished in 1:39.32, besting the previous mark by over 3 minutes, which was held by American Susannah Scaroni.

“It’s difficult to describe in words. I said to my coach if I win this race, it’s the best performance I ever showed,” she said. “Knew it’s the toughest marathon of all. It was the first time. I knew it was going to be so tough.”

Debrunner and Tola both earned a $50,000 bonus for topping the previous course records.

Tickets to Paris

Daniel Romanchuk and Aaron Pike qualified for the 2024 Paris Games by finishing as the top Americans in the men’s wheelchair race. Scaroni and McFadden qualified on the women’s side for the Olympics.
…

Using sidewalks as exam rooms and heavy red duffle bags as medical supply closets, volunteer medics spend their Saturdays caring for the growing number of migrants arriving in Chicago without a place to live.

Mostly students in training, they go to police stations where migrants are first housed, prescribing antibiotics, distributing prenatal vitamins and assessing for serious health issues. These student doctors, nurses and physician assistants are the front line of health care for asylum-seekers in the nation’s third-largest city, filling a gap in Chicago’s haphazard response.

“My team is a team that shouldn’t have to exist, but it does out of necessity,” said Sara Izquierdo, a University of Illinois Chicago medical student who helped found the group. “Because if we’re not doing this, I’m not sure anyone will.”

More than 19,600 migrants have come to Chicago over the last year since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending buses to so-called sanctuary cities. The migrants wait at police stations and airports, sometimes for months, until there’s space at a longer-term shelter, like park district buildings.

Once in shelter, they can access a county clinic exclusively for migrants. But the currently 3,300 people in limbo at police stations and airports must rely on a mishmash of volunteers and social service groups that provide food, clothes and medicine.

Izquierdo noted the medical care gap months ago, consulted experienced doctors and designed a street-medicine model tailored to migrants’ medical needs. Her group makes weekly visits to police stations, operating on a shoestring budget of $30,000, mostly used for medication.

On a recent Saturday, she was among dozens of medics at a South Side station where migrants sleep in the lobby, on sidewalks and an outdoor basketball court. Officers didn’t allow the volunteers in the station so when one patient requested privacy, their doctor used his car.

Abrahan Belizario saw a doctor for the first time in five months.

The 28-year-old had a headache, toothache and chest pain. He recently arrived from Peru, where he worked as a driver and at a laundromat but couldn’t survive. He wasn’t used to the brisk Chicago weather and believed sleeping outdoors exacerbated his symptoms.

“It is very cold,” he said. “We’re almost freezing.”

The volunteers booked him a dental appointment and gave him a bus pass.

Many migrants who land in Chicago and other U.S. cities come from Venezuela where a social, political and economic crisis has pushed millions into poverty. More than 7 million have left, often risking a dangerous route by foot to the U.S. border.

The migrants’ health problems tend to be related to their journey or living in crowded conditions. Back and leg injuries from walking are common. Infections spread easily. Hygiene is an issue. There are few indoor bathrooms and outdoor portable toilets lack handwashing stations. Not many people carry their medical records.

Most also have trauma, either from their homeland or from the journey itself.

“You can understand the language, but it doesn’t mean you understand the situation,” said Miriam Guzman, one of organizers and a fourth-year medical student at UIC.

The doctors refer patients to organizations that help with mental health but there are limitations. The fluid nature of the shelter system makes it difficult to follow-up; people are often moved without warning.

Chicago’s goal is to provide permanent homes, which could help alleviate health issues. But the city has struggled to manage the growing population as buses and planes arrive daily at all hours. Mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May, calls it an inherited issue and proposed winterized tents.

His administration has acknowledged the heavy reliance on volunteers.

“We weren’t ready for this,” said Rey Wences Najera, first deputy of immigrant, migrant and refugee rights. “We are building this plane as we are flying it and the plane is on fire.”

The volunteer doctors also are limited in what they can do: Their duffle bags have medications for children, bandages and even ear plugs after some migrants wanted to block out sirens. But they cannot offer X-rays or address chronic issues.

“You’re not going to tell a person who has gone through this journey to stop smoking,” said Ruben Santos, a Rush University medical student. “You change your way of trying to connect to that person to make sure that you can help them with their most pressing needs while not doing some of the traditional things that you would do in the office or a big academic hospital.”

The volunteers explain to each patient that the service is free but that they’re students. Experienced doctors, who are part of the effort, approve treatment plans and prescribe medications.

Getting people those medications is another challenge. One station visit prompted 15 prescriptions. Working from laptops on the floor — near dozens of sleeping families — the doctors mapped out which medics would pick up medications the following day and how they’d find the recipients.

Sometimes the volunteers must call for emergency help.

Thirty-year-old Moises Hidalgo said he had trouble breathing. Doctors heard a concerning “crackling” sound, suspected pneumonia and called an ambulance.

Hidalgo, who came from Peru after having left his native Venezuela more than a decade ago, once worked as a chef. He’s been walking around Chicago looking for jobs, but has been turned away without a work permit.

“I’ve been trying to find work, at least so that I can pay to sleep somewhere, because if this isn’t solved, I can’t keep waiting,” he said.

To stay warm while sleeping outside, he wore four layers of clothing; his loose pants cinched with a shoelace.

The medics hope Chicago can formalize their approach. And they say they’ll continue to keep at it — for some, it’s personal.

Dr. Muftawu-Deen Iddrisu, who works Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, said he wanted to give back. Originally from Ghana, he attended medical school in Cuba.

“I come from a very humble background,” he said. “I know how it feels. I know once sometime back someone did the same for me.” 
…

On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted leaders from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada at the inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit, which aimed to enhance economic ties, fortify U.S. investments in the region, and tackle immigration challenges. Veronica Villafane narrates this report by Paula Diaz.
…

Most members of the U.S. Congress have stood firmly behind Israel since the Hamas attack last month, but not Cori Bush. The Missouri Democrat called Israel’s response a “war crime” and an “ethnic cleansing campaign,” and was among the few House members who opposed a resolution supporting Israel. 

Her unwavering stance has angered some in her district. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell on Monday dropped a U.S. Senate bid to challenge Bush in next year’s 1st District Democratic primary, and moderate Democrats believe he could win. 

Bush isn’t alone. 

She’s among a small group of Democrats viewed by critics as insufficiently supportive of Israel — both long before and now after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel — or insufficiently critical of Hamas. Across those districts, moderates like Bell are being encouraged to run. In particular, Summer Lee in Pennsylvania, Jamaal Bowman in New York, Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan probably will face challengers. 

All five have condemned Hamas’ attack and antisemitism, but they’ve all made statements seen as inflammatory by Israel’s staunchest supporters and been critical of U.S. military aid to Israel. 

Bush and Omar accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing.” Summer Lee said it had committed “human rights violations.” And at a recent cease-fire rally, Bowman said: “We cannot allow the lives of anyone to be erased. This erasure of Palestinian lives and experience has been happening for decades.” 

Adding to the fraught politics for Democrats is the fact that others could face pressure for the opposite reason — such as Shri Thanedar in Detroit, who represents a heavily Democratic district with a big Muslim population but has backed Israel. 

Last week, the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting Israel. Bush, Bowman, Lee, Omar and Tlaib were among nine Democrats who opposed the measure, saying it failed to call for a cease-fire, create a pathway to peace, or express the need to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza. 

Bowman, Lee, Omar and Tlaib also were among the 17 sponsors of Bush’s resolution asking the Biden administration to call for a cease-fire. Critics of that resolution said it failed to mention Hamas’ unprovoked attack on Israel, hostages held by Hamas, or that the U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist organization. 

All five are considered progressives in the Democratic caucus and represent strongly Democratic districts, so the main threat to their re-election prospects would probably come from the Democratic Party. 

Stances spur call for challengers

Challenges to Bush and the others were possible even before the Hamas attack on October 7 or Israel’s subsequent attack on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But their stances after October 7 have fueled calls for primary challengers. 

Lee and Omar — who narrowly held off primary competitors in 2022 — may be particularly vulnerable. 

The progressive group Justice Democrats, which has backed primary challengers against moderate Democrats around the country, blamed the primary challenges on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and a network of Republican donors who help fund AIPAC’s efforts to elect unequivocal allies of Israel. 

“Democratic members are truly out of step with their voters and their bases who do not want to see us barreling toward another war on their taxpayer dollars,” Justice Democrats’ spokesperson Usamah Andrabi said. 

It is unfortunate, Andrabi said, that the House Democratic leadership has not taken a stronger stance against AIPAC’s efforts to knock off rank-and-file Democrats. 

It remains unclear whether House Democrats will help incumbents fend off primary challengers through campaign fundraising arms. One organization, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said it could potentially get involved in a primary race to protect an incumbent, but declined to discuss specifics. 

Before October 7, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries  issued statements of support for Omar and others, saying he will support the reelection of every House Democratic incumbent, regardless of ideology. 

AIPAC declined to discuss its campaign efforts, saying “there will be a time for political action, but right now our priority is building and sustaining congressional support for Israel’s fight to permanently dismantle Hamas, which perpetrated this barbaric, terrorist attack on the Jewish state.” 

Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress, has been an outspoken opponent of the Biden administration’s response to the conflict. On Friday, she posted a video on social media showing anti-war protests across the United States and accusing President Joe Biden of supporting what she said was genocide against the Palestinian people. “We will remember in 2024,” she said. The White House declined comment Saturday on the video. 

While Tlaib defeated her primary opponent handily last year, pro-Israel groups have already signaled that they will focus on defeating her in 2024. The Democratic Majority for Israel — which bills itself as the “voice of pro-Israel Democrats” — began running ads against Tlaib in Detroit this week. 

Tlaib’s metro Detroit House district includes a large Arab American population in Dearborn and a substantial Jewish constituency in Southfield. 

Her congressional neighbor, however, is in a different situation: Tlaib and Thanedar have feuded publicly since he criticized her statements on Hamas’ attack on Israel, and Thanedar — a freshman who represents Detroit — has since drawn criticism from Tlaib on how he runs his office. 

Thanedar’s Detroit district has been a center of pro-Palestinian pushback in the state, with thousands of demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in the city’s downtown on October 28. 

He has a primary challenger in former state Senator Adam Hollier — Thanedar beat Hollier by 5 percentage points in a nine-way primary in 2022 — but Hollier’s campaign said his run isn’t a response to Thanedar’s stance on Israel. 

Rabbis criticize representative

In Pittsburgh, Summer Lee has faced broad criticism from the Jewish community, where members just marked the five-year anniversary of a gunman’s rampage through the Tree of Life synagogue, killing 11 people in the worst attack on Jews on American soil. 

On Tuesday, a group of 36 rabbis and four cantors released a letter criticizing Lee for voting against the House resolution expressing support for Israel and for supporting Bush’s cease-fire resolution. 

“It’s a rare day in any Jewish community when you have Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Chabad and Reconstructionists together on one page,” said Rabbi Daniel Fellman of Pittsburgh’s Temple Sinai, who helped organize the effort. “But the reality is that Representative Lee isn’t representing her constituents.” 

Lee already has one declared opponent, and more may be coming. Bhavini Patel, 29, said she would have run regardless of Lee’s stance on Israel. But, she said, Lee’s standing in the Jewish community shows how Lee doesn’t try to understand the people she represents. 

Congresswoman accused of antisemitism

In Minneapolis, a former school board member, Don Samuels, is considering a second campaign against Ilhan Omar after he came within 2 percentage points of unseating her in 2022’s primary election. 

That close race turned mostly on the future of policing in the city where George Floyd was murdered. It remains to be seen how Omar’s stance on Israel will play out in her district, which has a large Somali American Muslim population. 

Omar has long been dogged by accusations that she is anti-Israel and antisemitic — accusations that have intensified since the Hamas attack. Since then, she has criticized both Hamas for its decision to attack Israel and the Israeli government’s response. Her main focus has been the impact on civilians in the Gaza Strip. She has called for a cease-fire and for Hamas to release hostages. 

In New York, current Westchester County Executive George Latimer is considering challenging Bowman. 

Latimer said people had encouraged him to challenge Bowman long before October 7, including overtures that had nothing to do with Israel. After Hamas’ attack, however, some in the Jewish community have intensified their efforts. 

A group of more than two dozen rabbis last month publicized a letter they wrote asking Latimer to challenge Bowman, citing the congressman’s posture on Israel. 

Latimer said he would decide in the coming months. 

Bush calls for ‘pro-peace agenda’

In Missouri, Bush — who has called Israel an “apartheid” state — said she is pushing a “pro-peace agenda.” 

Writing on social media, she said, “Israel’s collective punishment against Palestinians for Hamas’s actions is a war crime. I strongly condemn Hamas & their appalling violations of human rights, but violations of human rights don’t justify more human rights violations in retaliation.” 

Her challenger, Bell, said those types of comments “send the wrong message and we need to be sending to rogue nations and dictators and terrorist groups the message that that they cannot have missiles trained on Israel like we see with Hamas, like we see with Iran.” 
…

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged protests Saturday in London, Berlin, Paris, Ankara, Istanbul and Washington to call for a cease-fire in Gaza and castigate Israel after its military intensified its assault against Hamas. 

In London, television footage showed large crowds holding sit-down protests blocking parts of the city center, before marching to Trafalgar Square. 

Protesters held “Freedom for Palestine” placards and chanted “cease-fire now” and “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.” 

Police said they had made 11 arrests. One person was arrested for displaying a placard that could incite hate, contrary to terrorism legislation. 

Britain has supported Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages in an Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. Britain, along with United States and others in the West, has designated Hamas a terrorist organization.

Echoing Washington’s stance, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, and instead advocated humanitarian pauses to allow aid into Gaza. 

In Washington 

Thousands of protesters marched down the streets of Washington waving Palestinian flags, some chanting “Biden, Biden you cannot hide, you signed up for genocide,” before congregating at Freedom Plaza, steps away from the White House. 

Speakers denounced President Joe Biden’s support of Israel, declaring “you have blood on your hands.” Some vowed not to support Biden’s bid for a second term in the White House next year as well as campaigns by other Democrats seeking office, calling them “two-faced” liberals who were “not a refuge from right wingers.”  

Others lashed out at civil rights leaders for not condemning the killing of women and children by Israeli bombings.  

Gaza health officials said Saturday that more than 9,488 Palestinians have been killed so far in the Israeli assault. 

In Paris

In central Paris, thousands marched to call for a cease-fire with placards reading “Stop the cycle of violence” and “To do nothing, to say nothing is to be complicit.” 

It was one of the first, big gatherings in support of Palestinians to be legally allowed in Paris since the Hamas attack on October 7. 

French authorities had banned some previous pro-Palestinian gatherings over concerns about public disorder. 

France will host an international humanitarian conference on Gaza on Thursday as it looks to coordinate aid for the enclave. 

“We came here today to show the people of France’s solidarity with the Palestinian people and our support for peace, for a peace solution with two states, an Israeli state and a Palestinian state,” said Antoine Guerreiro, a 30 year old civil servant. 

Wahid Barek, a 66-year-old retiree, lamented the deaths of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. 

“I deplore civilian deaths on both sides. Civilians have nothing to do with these actions. It really is shameful,” he said. 

In Berlin, elsewhere

In Berlin, demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, demanding a cease-fire. One woman marched with her arm in the air, her hand covered in fake blood.  

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Istanbul and Ankara, a day before a visit to Turkey by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks on Gaza. 

Turkey, which has sharply criticized Israel and Western countries as the humanitarian crisis has intensified in Gaza, supports a two-state solution and hosts members of Hamas. Ankara does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization, unlike the United States, the European Union, and some Gulf states. 

In Istanbul’s Sarachane park, protesters held banners saying “Blinken, the accomplice of the massacre, go away from Turkey,” with a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blinken together with a red “X” mark on it. 

“Children are dying, babies are dying there, being bombed,” said 45-year-old teacher Gulsum Alpay. 

Footage from Ankara showed protesters gathered near the U.S. Embassy, chanting slogans and holding posters which read: “Israel bombs hospitals, Biden pays for it.” 
…

Ukraine said its forces hit a shipyard in the port city of Kerch in Russian-occupied Crimea on Saturday. 

“The evening of November 4, Armed Forces of Ukraine implemented successful strikes on marine and port infrastructure of the ‘Zalyv’ factory in the temporarily occupied city of Kerch,” the Department for Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Telegram post without giving further details.  

On Saturday evening, the Russia-appointed governor of the annexed Crimean Peninsula said that air defense missiles were fired in Kerch and that fragments fell on a shipyard, though no further information was provided.  

The reports could not be independently verified. 

Kerch is at the western end of the bridge to the Krasnodar region on the Russian mainland. The bridge, a crucial conduit for food and military supplies, has been hit twice by significant attacks.

Russian attacks injure at least 14

Meanwhile, Russian attacks in Ukraine wounded at least 14 civilians in the past day, officials said Saturday, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen returned to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Der Leyen’s Saturday visit took place days before the European Union is set to announce Ukraine’s progress in fulfilling necessary steps to begin membership negotiations with the bloc.   

“I must say, you have made excellent progress. This is impressive to see,” von der Leyen said after the meeting with Zelenskyy. “We should never forget you are fighting an existential war and at the same time you are deeply reforming your country.” 

Ukraine applied to become a member of the EU days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

The membership process usually takes years, but Ukraine considers membership vital as it battles Russia’s invasion and wants to join as soon as possible.   

The EU is set to announce on Wednesday whether Ukraine can begin accession talks with the group that would begin in December.    

Zelenskyy denies stalemate

During a press conference with von der Leyen, Zelenskyy denied that the war had reached a stalemate and said Ukraine needed more help from its allies to strengthen its air defenses. 

His comments came days after Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said in an article that the conflict was moving toward a new stage of static and attritional fighting, which could allow Moscow to rebuild its military power. 

Zelenskyy did acknowledge that Ukraine, now in its 21st month in the war, had yet to achieve any major breakthrough in its counteroffensive, but he said Ukrainian troops has no choice but to keep fighting.   

“Just like in the First World War,” Zaluzhnyi told The Economist, “we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate. There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”        

Moscow also rejected that characterization of the war.  

“Russia is steadily carrying out the special military operation. All the goals that were set should be fulfilled,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.        

Ukraine denied Russia’s claim on Friday that its latest assault in the Donbas town of Avdiivka was successful, saying of the fighting there that Russia’s “large-scale military assault has floundered on strong Ukrainian defenses.” 

U.S. and European officials have spoken to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, NBC reported, quoting an unidentified senior U.S. official and one former U.S. official as saying. 

NBC said the conversations had included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia. 

Reuters was not able to independently verify those conversations. 

Asked on Saturday about the NBC report, Zelenskyy reaffirmed his stance that this was not the time to negotiate with Russia, and he also denied that any Western leaders were pressuring him to do so. 

“Everyone knows my attitude, which coincides with the attitude of Ukrainian society. … Today, no one is putting pressure [on me to negotiate], not one of the leaders of the EU or the United States,” he told a joint news conference with von der Leyen, in Kyiv. 

“For us now to sit down with Russia and talk and give it something — this will not happen,” he said. 

In his daily address on Friday, Zelenskyy said he is grateful to the United States for “the new and very powerful sanctions” on more than 220 Russian “entities that work on aggression.”    

Some information in this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse.  
…

Latest developments:

Israeli strikes kill civilians at shelters in Gaza combat zone, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken seeks more aid. 
Blinken meets with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan.   
Blinken stressed preventing escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, doing more to protect Palestinians and substantially increasing aid to Gaza, when he met Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Netanyahu's war Cabinet.  

Israeli airstrikes left multiple fatalities across Gaza Saturday, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan seeking a solution for the war-torn area. 

Israeli strikes pummeled the enclave, including the south, where Gazans had been urged to seek refuge, Palestinians said. The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, or UNRWA, told Reuters that a deadly strike on a U.N.-run school in northern Gaza killed at least 15 Gazans and wounded dozens of others.  

The al-Fakhoura school in the Jabalia district was housing thousands of evacuees when it was hit, Juliette Touma, director of communications for UNRWA told Reuters.  

Touma said there were children among the casualties, but UNRWA had not yet been able to verify the death toll. 

Reuters pictures of the aftermath showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, with patches of blood spilled on the ground and over food, and people crying. 

“I was standing here when three bombings happened, I carried a body and another decapitated body with my own hands,” a young boy said in video obtained by Reuters, crying in despair. “God will take my vengeance.” 

Nearby, a resident comforted a woman in shock. 

Call to protect civilians

In Jordan, Blinken discussed with Arab counterparts the need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.  

Along with Jordanian officials, Blinken met with Arab foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Qatar Saturday, as well as the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee.  

Blinken also had a meeting with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.   

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters Saturday that although he condemned the Hamas attacks of October 7 and that though “nobody in their right mind” would “belittle” the pain felt by Israel that day, the war in Gaza could not be permitted to continue. 

“The whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come,” Safadi said after meeting with Blinken and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. 

The Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers asked for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, but Blinken said that would be counterproductive. He indicated the furthest he would go would be to support a pause to allow humanitarian supplies to be delivered and get civilians out of Gaza. 

“It is our view now that a cease-fire would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” Blinken said, in reference to Hamas’ attack on southern Israel that triggered the latest Gaza war. 

The United States stands behind Israel’s right “and obligation” to defend itself, Blinken said, but he also called for Israel to pause military operations and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. Protecting Palestinian civilians is the second priority of his trip, he noted.  

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We’re continuing with all our force, and Israel is refusing a temporary truce that doesn’t include the release of our hostages.”  

The U.S.-designated terror group Hamas took 230 hostages and killed 1,400 people in its attack.  

World reaction  

German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in a video speech Saturday to members of his party, The Greens, that “basically, Hamas must be destroyed because it is destroying the process of peace in the Middle East.” 

Habeck added, according to the German news agency Deutsch Presse-Agentur, that Hamas’ October 7 attack “requires a necessary consequence from Israel.” 

The vice chancellor said that “the Palestinians also have the right to their own state,” but he added that Hamas has no interest in such a solution. 

In Paris, several thousand protesters calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza took part in a pro-Palestinian march through the streets of Paris, with some shouting “Israel, assassin.” 

Chileans also marched to support the victims of Israel’s attacks in Gaza. 

U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, has accused President Joe Biden of supporting a “genocide” against Palestinians and warned of repercussions in next year’s election. 

In a video posted on social media platform X late Friday, the Democratic congresswoman from Michigan repeated her calls for Biden to back a cease-fire. 

“Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Tlaib said in the video clip, which showed images of the dead and wounded from bombings in Gaza, pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the U.S., Biden declaring support for Israel, and Netanyahu thanking the U.S. president. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her remarks. 

Death and hunger 

In besieged Gaza, Palestinians say the trickle of humanitarian aid coming through the southern Rafah crossing cannot keep up with the needs of the population.  

A rising number of bakeries also have stopped operating due to the fuel and water shortages as well as airstrike damage. 

Wael Abu Omar, a spokesperson for the Rafah crossing, said that in recent days the trucks have contained far more body bags than canned food. He claimed that recently delivered biscuits had already expired and were inedible. 

Lynn Hastings, a senior U.N. official based in Jerusalem, said she was aware of the reports of expired food but could not independently confirm they were the World Food Program’s food shipments — wouldn’t expire for another month. 

The WFP has warned that widespread food insecurity across Gaza was quickly becoming a crisis. 

“There is a real threat of malnutrition and people starving,” said Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the WFP. “There is some food that’s still available, but people can’t reach it. The situation is catastrophic.” 

Some information also came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.   
…

Until the Israel-Hamas war, President Joe Biden’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East were to further integrate Israel with its Arab neighbors and to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Both of those goals may now be in jeopardy as he focuses on keeping the conflict from spiraling into a regional war involving Iran-backed combatants in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria.

Biden has spoken nine times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the conflict broke out, said a senior administration official briefing reporters Friday. The official said Biden has also spoken to regional leaders — including those of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia — while national security adviser Jake Sullivan has engaged “almost daily” with partners in the region.

As Arab capitals erupt in anti-Israel demonstrations, U.S. officials believe the provision of humanitarian relief for Palestinian civilians in Gaza is a key to containing the war.

On Friday and Saturday, Biden’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was back in the region for the second time in less than a month to push for humanitarian pauses to allow for increased aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of civilians.

“We need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians,” Blinken declared in Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu, however, ordered thousands of Palestinian migrant workers back to Gaza and said Israel will neither allow fuel into the territory nor agree to a temporary stop in fighting that does not include a hostage release. More than 200 people were captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack on Israel and at least 1,400 were killed.

Blinken will be met with opposing demands in a meeting with his Arab counterparts in Amman, Jordan, on Saturday. Washington’s Arab partners are pushing for a more sustained cease-fire in Gaza, where Israeli attacks have killed more than 9,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.

Observers say that even if the U.S. can navigate the diplomatic stand-off in the short term, it must also keep an eye on the political horizon — laying the groundwork for decisions about who will govern post-war Gaza and how to achieve a two-state solution.

Containing the conflict

The United States is “determined that there not be a second or third front opened in this conflict,” Blinken said. It has deployed military assets to the region as a deterrent.

On Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, Hezbollah, a powerful militia and Hamas ally, has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Israeli soldiers. On Friday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stopped short of announcing his militia would fully enter the conflict but warned the U.S. that if Israel did not stop its assault on Gaza, the conflict could widen.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Tuesday claimed responsibility for missile and drone strikes targeting Israel, following the group’s attacks last month that were intercepted by U.S. ships in the Red Sea.

American troops in Iraq and Syria have also been under attack from Iran-allied groups, prompting concerns about strikes on other U.S. bases across the region.

Violence is also escalating in the West Bank, where more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in fights with Israeli soldiers and armed Israeli settlers.

Barbara Slavin, distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, said the longer Israel’s offensive on Gaza goes on, the more militancy brews in the region, the higher the risk of miscalculation and the harder it will be to contain the war.

“Arab public opinion is inflamed by these terrible scenes [in Gaza],” she told VOA. Even countries that have recently normalized relations with Israel, including United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, are under growing public pressure to sever those ties.

Biden has repeatedly warned Iran and its proxies not to escalate the conflict. Tehran officials have also declared they do not want to widen the war.

Iran likes “to be on the brink of a conflict without crossing that brink,” said Elisheva Machlis, senior lecturer of Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University. She told VOA that Iran is likely instructing its proxies not to create another front in the war but to cause just enough problems to draw the Israeli military’s attention away from Gaza.

With the potential for miscalculation, that strategy could backfire even if Tehran has no desire to get directly involved.

What happens next?

Both Israel and the U.S. have ruled out a return to a Hamas-controlled Gaza and largely agree that Israel will not govern the territory post-war. The allies differ on what happens next, with Washington insisting that the goal of the war cannot be only to defeat Hamas but must also be to work toward a two-state solution.

“At some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,” Blinken told the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this week.

Netanyahu’s office has released a statement saying the goal of the war is the elimination of Hamas and that “talk of decisions to hand over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority or any other party is a lie.”

Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel and supports a two-state solution. Plagued by corruption and deeply unpopular with its own people in the West Bank, it has declared no interest in assuming power in Gaza on the back of an Israeli military victory.

Blinken promised to talk to partners about “what will happen once Hamas is defeated,” beginning with the Saturday summit in Amman. At his Senate hearing, Blinken said if a permanent solution to Gaza cannot be achieved in one step, there are “other temporary arrangements” involving countries in the region and international agencies to provide security and governance.

In Amman, Blinken will discuss the “critical importance” of having a unified governance in Gaza and the West Bank and putting the foundation in place for a “very serious” process that will lead to a two-state solution, the senior administration official said.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, said there is also a need to ensure there is no further radicalization and empowerment of extremists across the region.

“There will be a need for Arab states to take the lead in trying to devise some sort of policy response which can tackle the underlying issues as well as the most immediate ones which prompted this attack on October 7,” he told VOA.

Hamas has cited Israel’s decades-long occupation of the West Bank, Israeli police raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and the detention of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails as motivation for its attack.

Securing a pause in fighting will be the first challenge to both the administration’s short-term goal of protecting Palestinian civilians and the longer-term aim of working toward a lasting peace in the region.

In what may be the clearest signal on the U.S. position on Arab demands for an indefinite cease-fire, the senior administration official said it “depends on the Israelis feeling secure” that something like Hamas’ October 7 massacre cannot happen again.
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Sheryl Crow and Olivia Rodrigo kicked off the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony Friday night, and Missy Elliott closed the show more than four hours later with a roof-shaking set, as the hall celebrated a strong representation of women and Black artists.

Chaka Khan, Kate Bush, “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, the Spinners and DJ Kool Herc were also inducted in a celebration of funk, art-rock, R&B and hip-hop, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Country music was represented by Willie Nelson, punk had Rage Against the Machine, the late George Michael repped pure pop and Link Wray defined guitar heroes.

The ceremony’s strong representation of Black and women artists this year came not long after the hall removed Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner from its board of directors. Wenner, who also co-founded the hall, had said that Black and female musicians “didn’t articulate at the level” of the white musicians featured in his new book of interviews. He later apologized.

The new inductees’ talent seemed to show how misguided Wenner’s initial stance was. Elton John’s songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, drew cheers when he slyly said he was honored to join the 2023 class with such “profoundly articulate women” and “articulate Black artists.”

Queen Latifah introduced Missy Elliott, who became the first female hip-hop artist in the rock hall, smashing the boundaries of fashion and style along the way. “Nothing sounded the same after Missy came onto the scene,” Latifah said. “She is avant-garde without even trying.”

Elliott then appeared onstage at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center as if beamed from a spaceship and with smoke machines pumping, a kinetic light show and a massive digital screen working overtime, performed “Get Ur Freak On,” “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” “Work It,” “Pass That Dutch” and “Lose Control.”

“Missy will wear you out!” Queen Latifah joked after the set. “This woman goes hard for the art.” Elliott, in a sparkly bucket hat, had her mother in attendance, the first time she saw her daughter perform live.

Elliott noted hip-hop’s anniversary, 50 years after its birth in New York. “To be standing here, it means so much to me,” she said. Of her fellow inductees, she said: “I’m honored just to be in a room with you all.”

The show kicked off when Crow and Rodrigo — both in black — traded verses as they played guitars. Stevie Nicks later joined Crow for a performance of “Strong Enough,” and Peter Frampton came out to help sing “Everyday Is a Winding Road.”

“This is a little bit like getting an Oscar for a screenplay you have not finished writing,” Crow said. She thanked her parents for unconditional love “and piano lessons.” She called music a “universal gift.”

Laura Dern inducted Crow, calling her friend “a badass goddess.” Dern said the music business initially had no idea what to do with a Southern female guitar-playing singer-songwriter. But it soon learned. “She mapped out the chapters of our lives,” Dern said.

John came out of retirement to perform and toast Taupin. “He became my best friend and my lyricist,” John said. “He is without doubt one the finest lyric writers of all time.”

John joked that the two never had an argument over their 56 years together. “He was disgusted by my behavior, but that’s a given.” John also revealed that the two have just finished a new album.

The two men hugged at the podium, and Taupin said he found in John when they met in 1967 someone “to inspire with their imagination and ignite your dreams.” John then sat at the piano to sing “Tiny Dancer.”

H.E.R., Sia and Common accompanied Khan for a medley of her funky hits that included “I Feel For You,” “Ain’t Nobody,” “Sweet Thing” and “I’m Every Woman,” the latter which brought nearly everyone to their feet.

At the podium, Khan called up guitarist Tony Maiden, a member of the band Rufus, which featured Khan in her early career. “Without him and the band, I would not be here today,” Khan said.

Nelson’s part of the ceremony took a fair chunk of the night, with Dave Matthews playing an acoustic “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and the legend joining Chris Stapleton on “Whiskey River,” dueting with Crow for “Crazy.” All three musicians combined with Nelson for a rollicking “On the Road Again,” which got a standing ovation.

Matthews said Nelson, 90, wrote his first song at 7 in 1940 and has put out more than 70 albums. He ran through the legendary musician’s career, including Farm Aid, IRS troubles and Nelson’s preference for pot. “It’s people like Willie Nelson who give me hope for the world,” Matthews said.

When it was his turn, Nelson thanked his wife, Annie, for “keeping me out here, doing what I’m meant to do.” He added: “Thanks for appreciating my music.”

Andrew Ridgeley honored his partner in Wham!, the late George Michael. “His music was key to his compassion,” Ridgeley said. “George is one of the greatest singers of our time.”

Michael attracted an intriguing trio of performers in his honor: Miguel, Carrie Underwood and Adam Levine, who each performed one of his hits — “Careless Whisper,” “Faith” and “One More Try.”

Another posthumous inductee was “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius. A huge sign from his old TV dance show was lowered and the crowd danced happily. Snoop Dogg, Questlove and Lionel Richie in a video called the program a rite of passage and a pioneering show that elevated Black music and culture.

Big Boi inducted Kate Bush, telling the crowd he never knew what to expect from her music and comparing her insistence on producing her own work to being very hip-hop. “Who sounds like Kate Bush?” he asked. “If you were hearing Kate’s music for the first time, why wouldn’t you believe this was a current artist?”

St. Vincent took the stage to perform a solemn “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God),” the Bush song that bumped up her popularity after the TV show “Stranger Things” featured it. Bush didn’t make it to Friday’s ceremony.

LL Cool J presented inductee DJ Kool Herc, called the Father of Hip-Hop. “Arguably, no one made a bigger contribution to hip-hop culture than DJ Kool Herc,” LL Cool J said and then turned to the older artist: “You lit the fire, and it’s still blazing.” A visibly moved Herc was unable to speak for a few moments before thanking his parents, James Brown, Marcus Garvey and Harry Belafonte, among others.

The Spinners, who became a hit-making machine with four No. 1 R&B hits in less than 18 months, were honored by a velvet-jacket-and-fedora-clad New Edition, who sang “I’ll Be Around,” “The Rubberband Man” and “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love.” John Edwards and Henry Fambrough represented the Philadelphia five-member group.

Also entering the hall as the class of 2023 were Rage Against the Machine and the late guitarist Link Wray. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin honored Wray with a virtuoso performance of the late guitar god’s seminal “Rumble” with a double-necked guitar. The stage was later filled with singers including John, Crow and Brittany Howard belting out the Band’s song “The Weight,” in honor of the late Robbie Robertson.

Ice-T presented activist punk-rockers Rage Against the Machine — “rock rocks the boat,” he said — and guitarist Tom Morello urged the crowd to fight for a world “without compromise or apologies.”

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction. Nominees were voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals.

ABC will air a special featuring performance highlights and standout moments on January 1.
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The New York City Marathon women’s record, which has stood for 20 years, could go down Sunday with one of the strongest fields assembled in the history of the race.

Reigning champion Sharon Lokedi looks to defend her title against a stellar group of female runners who include Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri, Olympic gold medalist and 2021 New York champion Peres Jepchirchir and former marathon world-record holder Brigid Kosgei.

“It was very life-changing,” Lokedi said of winning last year. “Very excited to be back here again.”

She’ll have some added support from her mother, who flew to New York from Kenya and will be waiting at the finish line in Central Park.

All will be aiming for the $50,000 bonus if they can beat the NYC event record of 2:22:31 set by Margaret Okayo in 2003. Obiri won the Boston Marathon in April, lowering her personal best to 2:21:38.

“The field will be very strong when I’m together with them,” Kosgei said.

Lokedi won in her marathon debut last year, taking the New York laurel wreath crown in 2:23.23. She pulled away in the final three kilometers of the race, winning in unseasonably warm temperatures in the 70s. It was one of the hottest days in race history since the marathon was moved to November in 1986.

The temperatures on Sunday are expected in the high 50s, considerably better for the 50,000 runners expected to start the race.

“I’m happy it will be cooler,” Lokedi said.

The four Kenyans all have a chance to win the race. There likely won’t be many American runners in contention because the U.S. Olympic marathon trials are three months away. Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle are the top U.S. runners in the race, returning after giving birth to daughters in 2022. Huddle finished third at the 2016 NYC Marathon in her debut at the distance.

“We’ve got a really strong group,” Taylor said. “When I look at the people seeded ahead of me, I’m like ‘holy moly.’ Their accolades are light years ahead of mine. But that’s the beauty of New York is that you can put all of that aside and anything can happen on that day.”

The current women’s world record is 2:11:53, set by Tigist Assefa of Ethiopia at the Berlin Marathon in September.

While the men’s field may not have the star power of the women’s side, there’s still a lot of intrigue. Defending champion Evans Chebet and two-time winner Geoffrey Kamworor pulled out of the race a few weeks ago, leaving it more open.

World Championship medalists Maru Teferi of Israel and Mosinet Geremew of Ethiopia could win the race, along with 2021 New York Marathon champion Albert Korir. There’s also marathon newcomer Edward Cheserek, who moved to the U.S. in 2010 and won 17 NCAA titles in his college career.

Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola also hopes to improve on his consecutive fourth-place finishes in in 2018-19. He placed third in the 2022 Toyko Marathon and the London Marathon this year. He’s seeking his first major marathon victory.

Ticket to Paris

The New York City Marathon serves as the U.S. Paralympic Trials, with up to four wheelchair racers set to become the first athletes across all sports to make the team for the 2024 Paris Games.

The top two Americans in the men’s and women’s NYC Marathon will qualify, provided they also record a minimum qualifying time since last October and are ranked high enough.

Susannah Scaroni has already posted that time and ranking.

“It would mean a lot. So much gratitude,” she said. “Would love to make the team in one of those two slots Sunday. It would be incredible to know I’m going to the Paralympics.”

Daniel Romanchuk is an eight-time major winner, most recently in Boston in 2022. He has consistently been the top American in majors, only surpassed by Swiss Marcel Hug, who has dominated the sport.

Extra protection

The New York Police Department will implement heightened security measures for the marathon.

“As tensions rise around the globe, there is a growing concern over the impact it will have here at home,” said NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban. “There are currently no credible or specific threats to the marathon or to our city. But having said that, we will still implement a comprehensive security plan.”

There have been numerous protests in New York City since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last month.
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A new, permanent addition to the sprawling National WWII Museum in New Orleans is a three-story complex with displays as daunting as a simulated Nazi concentration camp bunk room, and as inspiring as a violin pieced together from scrap wood by an American prisoner of war.

The Liberation Pavilion, which opened Friday, is ambitious in scope. Its exhibits filling 3,065.80 square meters commemorate the end of the war’s death and destruction, emphasize its human costs and capture the horror of those who discovered the aftermath of Nazi atrocities. Films, photos and recorded oral histories recount the joys and challenges awaiting those who returned from battle, the international effort to seek justice for those killed and tortured, and a worldwide effort to recover and rebuild.

Underlying it all is the idea that almost 80 years later, the war’s social and geopolitical legacies endure — from the acceleration of civil rights and women’s equality movements in the U.S. to the formation of international alliances to protect democracy.

“We live in a world created by World War II,” Rob Citino, the museum’s Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian. said when asked what he wants the pavilion’s visitors to remember.

It’s a grim tour at first. Visitors entering the complex pass a shimmering wall of military dog tags, each imprinted with the name of an American killed in action, a tribute to the more than 414,000 American war dead. The first centerpiece exhibit is a large crate used to ferry the coffin of an Army private home to his family in Ohio.

Steps away is a recreation of the secret rooms where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Then, a dimly lit room of wooden bunks and life-size projected images of the emaciated survivors of a Nazi concentration camp. Nearby is a simulated salt mine, its craggy walls lined with images of centuries-old paintings and crates of statuary — representing works of art plundered by the Germans and recovered after the war.

Amid the bleakness of the pavilion’s first floor are smaller and more hope-inspiring items, including a violin constructed by an American prisoner of war. Air Force 1st Lt. Clair Cline, a woodworker, used wood scavenged with the help of fellow prisoners to assemble the violin as a way of fighting the tedium of internment.

“He used bed slats and table legs. He scraped glue from the bottom of bits of furniture around the camp,” said Kimberly Guise, a senior curator at the museum.

The pavilion’s second floor focuses in part on what those who served faced upon returning home — “the responsibilities at home and abroad to defend freedom, advance human rights, protect democracy,” said Michael Bell, a retired Army colonel and the executive director of the museum’s Institute for the Study of War and Democracy.

Black veterans came back to a homeland still marred by segregation and even violence against people of color. Women had filled non-traditional roles at home and abroad. Pavilion exhibits make the case that their experiences energized efforts to achieve equality.

“Civil rights is the ’50s and women’s equality is more more like the ’60s,” Citino said. “But we think both of those seminal changes in American society can be traced back in a significant way to World War II.”

Other second-level exhibits include looks at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the post-war emergence of the United States as a world superpower and the formation of international alliances meant to sustain peace and guard against the emergence of other worldwide threats to freedom.

“We talk about NATO or the United Nations, but I don’t know that most people understand that these are creations, American-led creations, from the war,” said Bell. “What our goal is, at least I’d say my goal, is to give the visitor a frame of reference or a lens in which way they can look at things going on in the world.”

The third floor includes a multi-format theater with moving screens and a rotating audience platform featuring a production of images and oral histories that, in Bell’s words, “really lays out a theme about freedom under pressure and the triumph of the American-led freedom.”

Museum officials say the pavilion is the final permanent exhibit at the museum, which opened in 2000 as the National D-Day Museum — a project spearheaded by two University of New Orleans professors and historians, Gordon Mueller and the late author Stephen Ambrose.

It soon expanded to encompass all aspects of the Second World War — overseas and on the home front. It is now a major New Orleans tourist attraction and a downtown landmark near the Mississippi River, highlighted by its “Canopy of Peace,” a sleek, three-pointed expanse of steel and fiberglass held roughly 46 meters over the campus by towers of steel.

The Liberation Pavilion is the latest example of the museum’s work to maintain awareness of the war and its aftermath as the generation that lived through it dies off — and as the Baby Boom generation raised on its lore reaches old age.

“World War II is as close to the Civil War as it is to us. It’s a long time ago in human lives, and especially our media-drenched culture. A week seems like a year and 80 years seems like five centuries,” said Citino. “I think the museum realized a long time ago it has a responsibility to keep the memory of this war, the achievement of that generation alive. And that’s precisely what Liberation Pavilion’s going to be talking about.”
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