After a career spanning three decades and just as many continents, the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Beckett has a new assignment that he hopes will be his shortest yet: freeing his colleague Evan Gershkovich.  

Since Gershkovich was detained in Russia in March, Beckett has been working on his case in an informal capacity in addition to his duties as Washington bureau chief. But in his new role as assistant editor, Gershkovich will be Beckett’s sole priority.

“The longer this goes on, the harder we need to work,” Beckett told VOA recently over coffee. “I couldn’t think of a greater cause to pile in on.” 

 Russian authorities arrested Gershkovich while he was on a reporting trip. Moscow accused the reporter of spying, which he, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The U.S. has also declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained.  

The Journal’s response to the arrest has been lauded by media advocates for its relentless coverage and social media blitzes, high-profile events and full-page newspaper ads. News about Gershkovich’s case remains at the top of the outlet’s homepage. 

“If you were ever in Evan’s situation, what would you like to see your employer doing on your behalf?” Beckett said. That’s his guiding principle. 

Four main constituencies are involved in working to free Gershkovich, according to Beckett: the reporter’s family, his newspaper, the U.S. government and the public. 

Gershkovich’s older sister Danielle is part of that first group. Her brother’s plight, she says, has clarified the important role that reporters play.  

“It makes me just believe stronger that journalism must be protected, and journalists must be protected and be able to do their jobs,” she told VOA.  

Beckett is quick to add that he is part of a larger “Team Evan” composed of the Journal’s lawyers and top editors. But in his role, he plans to start by working closely with those key groups, adding, “This is all learning on the job.”

And while discussions for Gershkovich’s release will be government-to-government, Beckett said, part of the strategy is to keep the public’s attention on the reporter. 

People should care about Gershkovich’s case, Beckett said, because it underscores broader threats against journalists and press freedom around the world. 

“The countries that matter the most to the United States, at the moment, are also the same countries that are doing the most against press freedom,” Beckett said. “And if those countries are attacking press freedom, how do you know what is happening in the world? And, therefore, how do you know what’s happening to America’s place in the world?”  

Prolonged detention

Authorities have repeatedly extended Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention, most recently in early October when a court ordered the reporter to remain in custody until at least November 30.

Under Russian law, he can be detained for up to one year before a trial has to begin.  

That reality hits hard for Gershkovich’s family.

“Every single day he’s detained is a day too long,” said his sister, Danielle Gershkovich.  

Media watchdogs rank Russia among the world’s worst press freedom environments, noting it is one of the countries with the most journalists in prison. 

Gershkovich is one of two American journalists imprisoned there.

Authorities in mid-October detained Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Russia said Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, was arrested for failing to register as a foreign agent.  

Russia’s Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. 

Over the course of his career Beckett — who originally hails from Scotland — has worked in several places that now have repressive media environments, including Mexico, India and Hong Kong.

Since working on securing Gershkovich’s release, Beckett has found himself reflecting on another Journal colleague — Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped in Pakistan and killed in 2002. 

At the time, Beckett was covering terrorist financing and had met Pearl just a few months before Islamist militants captured him. 

“It was a huge shock to the Wall Street Journal,” Beckett said. Pearl and Gershkovich’s cases are very different, but Beckett admits the case has him thinking more about Pearl. 

Beckett didn’t know Pearl well, but he has never even met Gershkovich in person. Besides some emails here and there, they’ve never really interacted, Beckett said.  

He acknowledges the ironic one-sidedness of their relationship. The Scotsman spends most of his days thinking about Gershkovich. After many months of conversations with Gershkovich’s family, friends and close colleagues, Beckett knows more about the reporter than most people.  

“I have never met him, but I feel like I know him very well,” Beckett said. In turn, Beckett recognizes that Gershkovich barely knows who he is at all.  

None of that really matters, though, Beckett added.

“I think he would rather have me doing this than not.”  

Thinking about the moment when Gershkovich will be released is sensitive for Beckett. When asked about their eventual meeting, he averted his eyes.  

“I get pretty emotional,” he said after a long pause, still concentrating on the coffee shop door. “That would be an extraordinary time.” 
…

The United States is providing up to $150 million in additional military aid for Ukraine in a package expected as soon as Wednesday, three U.S. military officials tell VOA, a week after Ukraine used its newest weapon from the United States to pummel Russian military targets deep into Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine.

The package includes more GMLRS rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), TOW anti-tank missiles, AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and 155 mm rounds, according to two of the officials who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss the package prior to its announcement.

The availability of 155 mm rounds has raised concerns in recent days as U.S. partners Ukraine and Israel both need them to fight their wars, one against Russia’s invasion, the other against Palestinian militant group Hamas, who killed hundreds of Israelis and kidnapped dozens more in a brazen terrorist attack on October 7.

Washington has said it is able to support Tel Aviv’s and Kyiv’s military needs.

The U.S. withdrew some 155 mm rounds from its war reserves stockpile in Israel to replenish U.S. stockpiles in Europe earlier this year, but after October 7, much of those rounds were redirected back to Israel to provide to the Israel Defense Forces, according to a senior defense official.

“Yes, 155 [mm rounds] is an area that both have in common. But broadly speaking, that’s just one small area, and we don’t assess right now that we’re going to have any problems providing them with both,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Monday.

Ukraine launched ATACMS at Russian forces last week after the United States secretly provided a small number of the long-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine in recent days. The ATACMS provided to Ukraine have a maximum range of about 170 kilometers (106 miles), nearly twice as far as the other HIMARS artillery rockets in Ukraine’s arsenal and have allowed Ukraine to reach deeper into Russian-controlled territory.

Ukraine said last week that it destroyed at least nine Russian helicopters, an anti-aircraft launcher and an ammunitions depot in Berdiansk and Luhansk during attacks in which ATACMS are thought to have been used against Russian positions.

“Our agreements with President [Joe] Biden are being implemented, and they are being implemented very accurately. ATACMS have proven themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said following the attacks.

The package expected Wednesday marks the 49th time that the U.S. has used the presidential drawdown authority to provide Ukraine’s miliary with equipment from U.S. stockpiles.

The U.S. has provided about $44 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022.

The Pentagon still has about $5 billion of congressionally approved funding for Ukrainian military aid, after the Pentagon discovered in June that it had overestimated the value of weapons shipped to Ukraine by about $6 billion.

When calculating its aid package estimates, the Defense Department was counting the cost incurred to replace the weapons given to Ukraine, while it should have been totaling the cost of the systems actually sent, officials told VOA at the time the error was found.

The Pentagon continues to dip into its aid arsenal despite Congress excluding new aid for Ukraine in a stopgap spending bill passed last month to prevent a government shutdown.

Soon after the stopgap spending bill passed, the House ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his position as speaker.

The House has yet to vote in a new speaker, and new aid for Ukraine could hinge on who is selected.
…

Zara-owner Inditex, the world’s biggest clothing retailer, has agreed to buy recycled polyester from a U.S. start-up as it aims for 25% of its fibers to come from “next-generation” materials by 2030.

As fast-fashion retailers face pressure to reduce waste and use recycled fabrics, Inditex is spending more than $74 million to secure supply from Los Angeles-based Ambercycle of its recycled polyester made from textile waste.

Polyester, a product of the petroleum industry, is widely used in sportswear as it is quick-drying and durable.

Under the offtake deal, Inditex will buy 70% of Ambercycle’s production of recycled polyester, which is sold under the brand cycora, over three years, Inditex CEO Oscar Garcia Maceiras said at a business event in Zaragoza, Spain.

Garcia Maceiras said Inditex is also working with other companies and start-ups in its innovation hub, a unit looking for ways to curb the environmental impact of its products.

“The sustainable transformation of Inditex … is not possible without the collaboration of the different stakeholders,” he said.

The Inditex investment will help Ambercycle fund its first commercial-scale textile recycling factory. Production of cycora at the plant is expected to begin around 2025, and the material will be used in Inditex products over the following three years.

Zara Athleticz, a sub-brand of sportswear for men, launched a collection on Wednesday of “technical pieces” containing up to 50% cycora. Inditex said the collection would be available from Zara.com.

Some apparel brands seeking to reduce their reliance on virgin polyester have switched to recycled polyester derived from plastic bottles, but that practice has come under criticism as it has created more demand for used plastic bottles, pushing up prices.

Textile-to-textile polyester recycling is in its infancy, though, and will take time to reach the scale required by global fashion brands.

“We want to drive innovation to scale-up new solutions, processes and materials to achieve textile-to-textile recycling,” Inditex’s chief sustainability officer Javier Losada said in a statement.

The Ambercycle deal marks the latest in a series of investments made by Inditex into textile recycling start-ups.

Last year it signed a $104 million, three-year deal to buy 30% of the recycled fiber produced by Finland’s Infinited Fiber Co., and also invested in Circ, another U.S. firm focused on textile-to-textile recycling.

In Spain, Inditex has joined forces with rivals, including H&M and Mango, in an association to manage clothing waste, as the industry prepares for EU legislation requiring member states to separately collect textile waste beginning January 2025.
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Another Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives may seek a floor vote Wednesday to try to become the chamber’s next speaker, after lawmakers struggled for three weeks to fill one of the top leadership roles in the U.S. government.

Republicans meeting in a closed-door session late Tuesday picked Representative Mike Johnson as their latest House speaker candidate, and the fourth since Representative Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the job.

Johnson is a lawmaker from the state of Louisiana who rallied Republicans around former President Donald Trump’s legal effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He received 128 votes Tuesday night to beat other candidates. McCarthy, who was not a declared candidate, came in second place with 43 votes.

It was unclear if Johnson would be able to muster the support of most of the Republicans in the House, something the three previous candidates to replace McCarthy have been unable to do.

Republicans hold a slim 221-212 majority, and with Democrats united behind House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, any Republican candidate can only lose a few Republican votes and still achieve the simple majority threshold to win the speaker role.

Republicans moved on to Johnson after another candidate, Representative Tom Emmer, withdrew his candidacy earlier Tuesday.

Emmer had outlasted eight other candidates in rounds of secret balloting. The 62-year-old Emmer has served as majority whip, one of the top leadership posts in the House Republican Conference, since earlier this year.

Former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform early Tuesday afternoon that he did not know Emmer well and referred to him as a RINO – a term meaning Republican in Name Only.

“The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!” Trump posted.

As many as 20 Republican House lawmakers said they would not vote for Emmer, leading to his withdrawal.

The role of speaker of the House has been vacant since October 3 when eight Republicans joined with all 212 House Democrats to make McCarthy the first-ever speaker to be removed from his position.

A right-wing faction of the Republican Party was displeased with McCarthy for passing a short-term measure funding the government to keep it open past a September 30 deadline with Democratic legislators’ help.

Since McCarthy’s ouster, House Republicans have been unsuccessful in coalescing around a replacement. They first nominated Representative Steve Scalise of the southern state of Louisiana, who was not able to secure the needed votes.

The Republican caucus next gave its nod to Representative Jim Jordan of the Midwestern state of Ohio. Jordan is a conservative firebrand and staunch supporter of Trump.

But Jordan also failed to gain a 217-vote majority in the House, falling well short on a first vote in the full House and then losing ground on two subsequent ballots.

The Republican infighting has left the role of speaker unfilled, leaving the House unable to respond to crucial budget matters. A Nov. 17 deadline looms for budget issues to be resolved or a partial government shutdown will go into effect.

The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is second in the line of presidential succession.

 
…

Richard Roundtree, a trailblazing Black actor who played the private eye John Shaft in the “Shaft” films of the 1970s and also took on dramatic roles dealing with race relations in America, died on Tuesday aged 81, the Hollywood Reporter said, citing his manager.

Roundtree died at his home in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer, the Reporter said, citing his manager, Patrick McMinn.

Roundtree’s representatives did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for confirmation.

“Richard’s work and career served as a turning point for African American leading men in film. The impact he had on the industry cannot be overstated,” McMinn said in a statement, according to Variety, another show business trade publication.

Roundtree shot to fame with the 1971 Blaxploitation movie “Shaft” about a private detective in the Harlem section of New York, and he reprised the role in a number of sequels and a short-lived network TV series.

The rugged and streetwise character, who wore flashy leather jackets and who was accompanied by a catchy theme song from Isaac Hayes, helped define cool for a Black leading man and also gained acceptance from white audiences.

Roundtree also had a role in the groundbreaking ABC television slavery drama “Roots” in 1977 and other prominent projects of the era, playing motorcycle daredevil Miles in 1974’s “Earthquake.”

Among his more poignant films was 1996’s “Once Upon a Time … When We Were Colored”, the story a tight-knit Black community confronting the racism of post-war Mississippi.

He also played opposite Peter O’Toole’s Robinson Crusoe in “Man Friday” in 1975 and alongside Laurence Olivier’s depiction of General Douglas MacArthur in 1981’s “Inchon.”

Roundtree worked regularly until the end, with 159 acting credits to his name plus three upcoming projects yet to be released, according to IMDB.com.

He was married twice and is survived by four daughters – Nicole, Tayler, Morgan and Kelli Roundtree – and his son, James, Variety said.
…

The United States is trying to rein in some of the outrage that inflamed tensions and sparked protests around the world following last week’s explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

Much of the anger has focused on Israel, with many protesters following the lead of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which accuses Israel of carrying out an airstrike, calling the incident a “genocidal massacre.”

But the U.S. has been pushing back, publicly sharing its initial intelligence assessments while also sharing more detailed findings with key governments.

“We have gone out and shared analysis with a lot of our partners around the world,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters late Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the incident.

“Thus far it’s been fairly robust in terms of what we’ve been able to provide,” the official added. “I suspect we will be updating it and sending additional information out as we move forward.”

It is unclear, at this point, how much of an impact the intelligence sharing is having. 

Jordan and Egypt last week called off a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Amman, blaming Israel for the blast. And the explosion continues to be featured prominently at pro-Palestinian demonstrations around the world.

“One of the things that our diplomats have asked … is that the intelligence community do more to lay out our thinking,” the senior official said.

And it is not just U.S. diplomats. 

“There has been intense interest in the hospital explosion and conflicting accounts about what happened,” a second senior U.S. official told VOA. “The U.S. government has worked to be able to share as much information as we could in the interest of transparency.”

The tactic of declassifying and sharing this type of sensitive intelligence is increasingly part of the U.S. playbook.

U.S. officials used it most notably in the lead-up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

Since then, however, the U.S. has used what the White House calls “strategic downgrades” to counter Chinese claims about a spy balloon that traversed much of the United States and to defuse a potential crisis in Mali.

And in the case of last week’s explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital, U.S. intelligence officials believe there is compelling evidence to exonerate Israel.

Based on information culled from a variety of sources, including satellite imagery, data on missile activity and intercepted communications, as well as publicly available video and images, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded with “high confidence” that Israel was not responsible for the hospital explosion.

“There are two primary reasons,” said a second U.S. intelligence official, who like the other officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“The first is what we see when we look at the blast effects,” the official said. “The damage at the hospital is consistent with what we would expect to see from a rocket and inconsistent with the larger craters and broader blast effects that we would expect to see were this an airdrop munition or an artillery round.

“The detonation of the warhead resulted in only light structural damage at the hospital,” the official continued. “There was no observable damage to the main hospital building, no large impact craters, only light damage to the roofs of the two structures near the main hospital building. And both of them remained intact.”

The second reason for high confidence that Israel was not involved, according to the official, comes from videos that captured the launch and explosion, from four different angles.

Based on two of the videos, U.S. intelligence determined the rocket was launched from within the Gaza Strip, traveling in a northeasterly direction.

Then, about 10 seconds into the rocket’s flight, the motor starts having trouble and becomes unstable.

“We can tell that in part based on the fluctuating intensity of the rocket’s plume,” the official said.

Five seconds later, the videos show a flash – “our assessment is that that is the rocket motor failing,” the official said, and five seconds after that, one object hit the ground followed by a second, a few seconds later, resulting in a large explosion.

“Our conclusion is that there was a catastrophic motor failure that likely occurred which separated the motor and the warhead,” the official said. “The warhead landed in the hospital compound.”

Gaza’s health ministry said the explosion killed about 500 people. But U.S. officials told VOA news last week that they assessed the number of deaths was likely between 100 and 300, with the actual death toll likely on the lower end of the scale.

Officials late Tuesday said getting a more accurate count will likely be difficult and cast doubt on the ability of Hamas authorities to keep track of casualties given that they themselves “are struggling to function at this point in time.”   

U.S. intelligence officials likewise pushed back on some theories, popular on social media, that seek to blame Israel for a Palestinian rocket falling in Gaza, including claims that the rocket was shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

“Our understanding is that the Iron Dome would not intercept a rocket that was still burning,” the U.S. intelligence official said. “Their SOPs [standard operating procedures] are that they would have to calculate where it’s likely to go. And until that rocket has finished burning through its propellant, it’s not going to be clear exactly how far it’s going to go.”

And the officials backed up Israeli claims that the failure rate for Hamas rockets is high. Israel in recent days has said that on Oct. 21 alone, as many as one in five Hamas rockets failed, hitting Gaza instead of targets in Israel.

One area in which U.S. intelligence is still trying to get clarity is the question of who fired the rocket that ended up striking the Ahli Arab Hospital.

The current U.S. assessment points to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, as the most likely culprit. But officials say they have “low confidence” in the finding because it is based, in part, on an intercepted communication between other militants thought to be part of Hamas. 

“They themselves are speculating about who’s responsible,” the U.S. intelligence official said, adding the audio examined by U.S. intelligence is different than audio circulated by Israeli officials last week, which has been subject to criticism.

“There is additional audio that was passed to us by the Israelis that has been carefully vetted and determined to be authentic communications of Palestinian militants. … The language patterns have been evaluated and determined to be authentic,” according to the official.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad has denied it launched the rocket that fell on the Ahli Arab Hospital.

But U.S. officials counter that, using geolocation techniques and other data, they are confident the rocket that caused the damage was fired from Gaza and suffered a catastrophic failure, causing the warhead to land by the hospital.

Still, they say if new information comes to light, they will examine it closely.

“This issue is not closed for us,” said the senior U.S. intelligence official. “If we get additional information that would point in a different direction, we would report that out, as well.”

 
…

U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked with drones or rockets at least 13 times over the past week, Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Tuesday, confirming earlier VOA reporting.

Responding to a question from VOA, Ryder blamed Iranian-backed proxies for the near daily attacks on U.S. forces.

“We know that the groups conducting these attacks are supported by the IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and the Iranian regime. What we are seeing is the prospect for more significant escalation against U.S. forces and personnel across the region in the very near term coming from Iranian proxy forces and ultimately from Iran,” he said.

“If and when we would decide to respond, we will do so at a time and place of our choosing,” Ryder added.

The attacks have resulted in about 20 minor injuries to Americans in Syria and four minor injuries to American personnel in Iraq, all of whom have returned to duty, two U.S. officials told VOA. The military continues to monitor for any potential traumatic brain injuries caused by the attacks, one of the officials added.

One U.S. contractor at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq died after suffering a cardiac episode while sheltering in place during a false alarm for an air attack.

Attacks across bases

U.S. troops shot down two one-way attack drones targeting American forces at al-Tanf garrison in southern Syria on Monday, resulting in no injuries.

On Saturday, a one-way attack drone targeted al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, resulting in no casualties or damage.

Three separate attacks occurred at al-Harir Air Base in northern Iraq on Friday, as U.S. and coalition forces were targeted with three one-way attack drones, resulting in no casualties or damage.

On Thursday, Iranian-backed militants targeted U.S. and coalition forces in four locations across Iraq and Syria. At Green Village, a Syrian Democratic Forces base in northeastern Syria that hosts coalition troops, U.S. forces shot down a one-way attack drone that resulted in no casualties. At Mission Support Site Euphrates in Syria, multiple rockets launched toward the base resulted in no damage or injuries. In Iraq, rocket attacks targeted forces at al-Asad Air Base and U.S. and coalition forces near Baghdad’s International Airport, but neither resulted in casualties or damage.

Four additional attacks occurred on October 18, according to U.S. officials. Two drones targeted al-Tanf garrison in Syria during one attack. U.S. and coalition forces destroyed one drone, while the other drone reached the base and resulted in minor injuries to about 20 personnel, two U.S. officials confirmed to VOA.

U.S. forces in northern Iraq shot down another drone in the early hours of October 18 near al-Harir Air Base, formerly known as Bashur Air Base, resulting in no injuries or damage to coalition equipment or facilities. Two drones targeted al-Asad Air Base in two separate attacks on October 18; one was shot down and the other was damaged, resulting in minor injuries to coalition forces.

Ryder had said last week that these attacks occurred on October 17, but an official told VOA that he was referring to the time in Washington when they occurred, not the local time in Iraq.

US increasing protection in region

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday placed an undisclosed number of troops on prepare-to-deploy orders and activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery as well as additional Patriot batteries to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. forces.

“What you see from this posture announcement … is that we are preparing for this escalation, both in terms of defending our forces and being prepared to respond decisively,” a senior defense official told reporters Monday.

Austin had already placed more than 2,000 military personnel on heightened alert with a prepare-to-deploy order last Tuesday.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group is speeding to the Middle East region, and the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group remains in the eastern Mediterranean.

Three ships with the USS Bataan amphibious ready group are positioning thousands of Marines in waters near Israel. A squadron of A-10 attack aircraft has arrived in the Middle East, with another A-10 squadron’s deployment extended, and more F-15 and F-16 fighter jets also are rolling into the region.

The U.S. has said the increased military presence is intended to deter malign actors such as Hezbollah or Iran from expanding the conflict.

Last week, the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the Red Sea, shot down four missiles and multiple drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, weapons that the Pentagon said were “heading along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel.”

There were no casualties, and the ship did not appear to be the target of the attack, Ryder said.
…

Republican Representative Tom Emmer withdrew his candidacy for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, the latest setback for lawmakers who have struggled for three weeks to fill one of the top leadership roles in the U.S. government.

The role of speaker of the House has been vacant since October 3 when Representative Kevin McCarthy became the first-ever speaker to be removed from his position. Eight Republicans joined with all 212 House Democrats for that vote. 

A right-wing faction of the Republican Party was displeased with McCarthy for passing a short-term measure funding the government to keep it open past a September 30 deadline.   

Emmer outlasted eight other candidates in rounds of secret balloting earlier Tuesday. The 62-year-old Emmer has served as majority whip, one of the top leadership posts in the House Republican Conference, since earlier this year. He has represented the Midwestern state of Minnesota since 2015.

Former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform early Tuesday afternoon that he did not know Emmer well and referred to him as a RINO – a term meaning Republican in Name Only.

“The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!” Trump posted.

As many as 20 Republican House lawmakers said they would not vote for Emmer, and he withdrew later in the day.

Since McCarthy’s ouster, House Republicans have been unsuccessful in coalescing around a replacement. They first nominated Representative Steve Scalise of the southern state of Louisiana, who was not able to secure the needed votes.

The Republican caucus next gave its nod to Representative Jim Jordan of the Midwestern state of Ohio. Jordan is a conservative firebrand and staunch supporter of Trump. 

But Jordan also failed to gain a 217-vote majority in the House, falling well short on a first vote in the full House and then losing ground on two subsequent ballots.

The Republican infighting has left the role of speaker unfilled, leaving the House unable to respond to crucial budget matters. A November 17 deadline looms for budget issues to be resolved or a partial government shutdown will go into effect.

The U.S. Speaker of the House is second in the line of presidential succession.   
…

Thirty-three U.S. states are suing Meta Platforms Inc., accusing it of damaging young people’s mental health through the addictive nature of their social media platforms.

The suit filed Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, alleges Meta knowingly installed addictive features on its social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, and has collected data on children younger than 13, without their parents’ consent, violating federal law.

“Research has shown that young people’s use of Meta’s social media platforms is associated with depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and many other negative outcomes,” the complaint says.

The filing comes after Meta’s own research in 2021 found that the company was aware of the damage Instagram can do to teenagers, especially girls.

In Meta’s 2021 study, 13.5% of teen girls said Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls said it makes eating disorders worse.

Meta responded to the lawsuit by saying it has “already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.”

“We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the company added.

Meta is one of many social media companies facing criticism and legal action, with lawsuits also filed against ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube.

Measures to protect children on social media exist, but they are easily circumvented, such as a federal law that bans kids under 13 from setting up accounts.

The dangers of social media for children have been highlighted by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who said the effects of social media require “immediate action to protect kids now.”

In addition to the 33 states suing, nine more state attorneys general are expected to join and file similar lawsuits.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

Some Islamic organizations, Jewish temples of worship and even schools in the United States have received threats of violence as the war between Israel and Hamas continues. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks into what is driving the anger and how those communities are trying to remain safe.
…

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, is expected to take the stand on Tuesday as a key witness against the former president in a civil fraud case that threatens to break up Trump’s business empire.

Trump is expected to be in the courtroom Tuesday, according to a person familiar with his plans. That could set up a tense face-to-face encounter with Cohen, who has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics since cutting ties with him five years ago.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is arriving fresh off a Monday campaign stop in New Hampshire and just days after being fined $5,000 by the judge overseeing the case for violating a gag order.

The lawsuit by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges Trump inflated the value of his properties by billions of dollars in statements to banks to secure better loan terms.

Cohen served as Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer for years before cutting ties amid his own legal troubles. His testimony during a 2019 Congressional probe of Trump’s finances was the impetus for James’ lawsuit.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and defended the valuations of his properties, saying the case is a “fraud” and a political witch hunt.

He has occasionally appeared in court over the past month, complaining in inflammatory remarks to reporters that it is a distraction from his campaign.

During opening statements, Trump’s lawyers called Cohen a “serial liar,” citing his two guilty pleas in 2018 on felony charges including tax evasion and lying to Congress during a probe of Trump’s Russia ties.

Cohen began a three-year prison sentence in 2019 but was released to home confinement the following year.

Cohen told Reuters on Monday that Trump calling him a liar was the “perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Interesting that they would question my veracity when my lying to Congress was done at the direction of, in connection with and for the benefit of Donald,” he said.

In September before the trial began, Justice Arthur Engoron found that Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth and ordered the dissolution of companies that control crown jewels of his real estate portfolio, including Trump Tower in Manhattan. That ruling is on hold while Trump appeals.

The trial largely concerns damages. James is seeking at least $250 million in fines, a permanent ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

Early in the trial, Engoron barred the parties from speaking publicly about court staff after Trump shared a social media post attacking Engoron’s clerk and identifying her by name.

Trump deleted the post, but last week Engoron revealed that a screenshot had remained live on his campaign site for weeks.

Engoron, who said the lapse appeared to be “inadvertent,” fined Trump $5,000 and warned that future violations would bring “far more severe” sanctions including imprisonment.
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At least seven people were killed Monday after a “superfog” of smoke from marsh fires and dense morning fog caused a series of wrecks on Interstate 55 near New Orleans that left a long stretch of mangled and scorched cars, trucks and tractor-trailers.

An estimated 158 vehicles were involved and 25 people injured, according to the Louisiana State Police, who warned the death toll could climb as first responders worked into the night looking for victims, the smell of burnt wreckage still heavy in the air.

Vehicles were crushed, piled atop each other and engulfed by flames. Some people got out of their vehicles and stood on the side of the road or on the roofs of their cars looking in disbelief at the disaster, while others cried out for help.

Clarencia Patterson Reed was driving with her wife and niece and could see people waving their hands for her to stop, but when she did her car was hit from behind and on the side by two other vehicles, she told the The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate.

“It was ‘Boom. Boom.’ All you kept hearing was crashing,” Reed said. She was able to scramble out of her car, but her wife was pinned inside and injured her leg and side.

Another driver Christopher Coll, said he was already braking when a pickup truck “drove up on top of my work trailer and took me for a ride.”

Coll could smell smoke as he heard the sounds of crashing cars and popping tires. He was able to kick open his passenger door to escape and then helped others — pulling out one person through a car window.

While 25 people were transported to the hospital, with injuries ranging from minor to critical, others sought medical aid on their own, authorities said.

Gov. John Bel Edwards asked for prayers “for those hurt and killed” on Monday and issued a call for blood donors to replenish dwindling supplies.

Louisiana State Police shared aerial photos on their Facebook page showing the crashed cars and extensive debris on both northbound and southbound lanes of the elevated interstate, which passes over swamp and open water between lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas.

As of Monday afternoon, state troopers were still working “to notify families, investigate the exact causes of the crashes” and coordinate with the state’s transportation department to have the bridge inspected.

Traffic backed up for miles in both directions on I-55. The lack of visibility also prompted closures of parts of I-10 and the 24-mile (39-kilometer) Lake Pontchartrain Causeway at times.

School buses were summoned to transport stranded motorists from the accident sites. At midday, state police told reporters at the scene that one vehicle went over the highway guardrail and into the water, but the driver escaped unharmed. 

The National Weather Service said there were multiple wetland fires in the region. Smoke from the fires mixed with fog to create a “superfog.” Visibility improved as the fog lifted, according to the agency, but similarly dangerous conditions could occur in coming days. 
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American gymnastics icon Mary Lou Retton has returned home following a lengthy hospital stay because of pneumonia, her daughter said Monday.

Shaley Kelley Schrepfer, the oldest of Retton’s four daughters, posted an update on Retton’s condition on Instagram nearly two weeks after the family disclosed that the former Olympic all-around champion was in intensive care.

The 55-year-old Retton is now in “recovery mode,” according to Schrepfer.

“We still have a long road of recovery ahead of us,” Schrepfer wrote. “But baby steps.”

The family disclosed earlier this month that Retton — who became the first American female gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Los Angeles Games — was “fighting for her life” and unable to breathe on her own.

Donations have poured into a fundraiser the family set up to help offset Retton’s medical expenses after the family said she didn’t have medical insurance. There were more than 8,300 donations totaling nearly $460,000 by Monday afternoon.

Retton was 16 when she became an icon of the U.S. Olympic movement during her gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Summer Games. The native of Fairmont, West Virginia, also won two silver and two bronze medals at those Olympics to help bring gymnastics — a sport long dominated by Eastern European powers like Romania and the Soviet Union — into the mainstream in the U.S.
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U.S. troops shot down two drones targeting American forces in southern Syria on Monday, the latest in a string of drone attacks targeting American bases and facilities in the Middle East as officials warn of a “significant threat” of escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters that Iranian-backed forces launched two one-way attack drones at al-Tanf garrison on Monday that were taken out by American defense systems, resulting in no injuries.

“We know that these groups are groups that are backed by Iran,” Ryder said. “We will ultimately hold Iran responsible.”

The attack marked at least the fifth drone or rocket attack on U.S. forces in the Middle East in a week, which the Pentagon has described as an “uptick.” Some of the attacks resulted in minor injuries and damage.

“There is a significant threat of escalation throughout the region, and that would be, that would include towards U.S. forces,” a senior military official told reporters.

Last week, two drones targeted al-Tanf in Syria. A drone targeted Al-Harir Air Base — formerly Bashur Air Base — in northern Iraq. Two drones targeted al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, and rockets targeted U.S. and coalition forces near Baghdad’s International Airport.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday placed an undisclosed number of troops on prepare-to-deploy orders and activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, as well as additional Patriot batteries to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. forces.

“What you see from this posture announcement … is that we are preparing for this escalation, both in terms of defending our forces and being prepared to respond decisively,” a senior defense official told reporters Monday.

These moves come after Austin had already placed more than 2,000 military personnel on heightened alert with a prepare-to-deploy order last Tuesday.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group is speeding to the Middle East region, and the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group remains in the eastern Mediterranean.

Three ships with the USS Bataan amphibious ready group are positioning thousands of Marines in waters near Israel. A squadron of A-10 attack aircraft has arrived in the Middle East, with another A-10 squadron’s deployment extended, and more F-15 and F-16 fighter jets also are rolling into the region.

The U.S. has said the increased military presence is intended to deter malign actors such as Hezbollah or Iran from expanding the conflict.

Last week, the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the Red Sea, shot down four missiles and multiple drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, weapons that the Pentagon said were “heading along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel.”

Ryder had originally said on Thursday that three missiles were intercepted.

There were no casualties, and the ship did not appear to be the target of the attack, Ryder said.

Since Hamas’s bloody October 7 attack on Israel, at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed and at least 5,000 Palestinians have died.
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Booksellers in the U.S. state of Texas are challenging a new law that would require them to rate all the books they sell to schools to determine their sexual content. Deana Mitchell has our story from the Texas capital.
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Students can expect to pay $40,000 to $80,000 per academic year to attend a four-year American college or university, but there are ways to drastically reduce costs if you are an international student set on studying in the U.S. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum, Saqib Ul Islam
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An Alaska Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was diverted to Portland, Oregon, after an off-duty pilot inside the flight deck attempted to disable the aircraft engines.

Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 operated by Horizon Air from Everett, Washington, diverted on Sunday after reporting a credible security threat related to an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who was traveling in the flight deck jump seat, the airline said.  

The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines in a notice seen by Reuters the individual sought to disable the engines on the Embraer 175 regional jet by deploying the fire suppression system and added the crew was able to subdue the individual and remove him from the flight deck. The engines were never disabled, Alaska said.  

A 44-year-old man, Joseph David Emerson, was booked on 83 counts of attempted murder and endangering an airplane, according to Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office booking information.

An FAA pilot database shows Emerson is listed as a certified pilot who received a medical clearance last month.

“I’ll just give you a heads-up. We’ve got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit,” the pilot told FAA air traffic control, according to audio posted by LiveATC. “It doesn’t sound like he’s causing any issue at the back. I think he’s subdued… We want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked.”

The FAA told airlines in a separate notice on Monday the incident “is not connected in any way, shape or form to current world events” but said it is “always good practice to maintain vigilance.”

It is standard practice for off-duty pilots to sit in jump seats to return home or to a future flight assignment.

Alaska Airlines said all passengers on board were able to travel on a later flight.
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Republicans, whose party infighting has paralyzed the U.S. House of Representatives for three weeks, will begin again on Monday to try to pick a new speaker to lead the chamber and address funding needs for Israel, Ukraine and the federal government.

Factional strife between right-wing hardliners and more mainstream Republicans led to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3 and derailed leadership bids by two would-be successors: No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise and prominent conservative Jim Jordan.

The leadership vacuum has stymied congressional action as it faces a Nov. 17 deadline to avoid a government shutdown by extending federal agency funding, and a request from President Joe Biden to approve military aid for Israel and Ukraine.

“This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We’re essentially shut down as a government.”

The task of choosing a new Republican nominee for the job of House speaker begins again on Monday at 6:30 p.m. EST (2230 GMT), when nine declared candidates, including No. 3 House Republican Tom Emmer, will appear at a closed-door candidate forum.

McCarthy has endorsed Emmer, stressing his experience in working to marshal party votes on major legislation since January, when Republicans became the majority party in the House.

“This is not a moment in time to play around with learning on the job,” McCarthy told NBC’s “Meet the Press”, although he added: “It’s going to be an uphill battle.”

With a narrow majority of 221-212 in the House, it is not clear whether any Republican can get the 217 votes needed to claim the speaker’s gavel.

Any candidate nominated by the party conference can afford to lose no more than four Republicans when the full House votes, and the conference is split over spending cuts, Ukraine funding and other hot-button issues.

Matt Gaetz, the Republican who initiated McCarthy’s ouster, complained to reporters that Jordan was “knifed by secret ballot” after the conference voted late last week to end his bid for speaker.

Jordan tried and failed three times to win a floor vote inside the House. He had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who is a clear favorite to win the party’s nomination to run again as president in 2024.

Democrats described Jordan as a dangerous extremist and opponents inside his own party were angered by a pressure campaign from his supporters that resulted in death threats.

Sevenof the nine new candidates for speaker – Jack Bergman, Byron Donalds, Kevin Hern, Mike Johnson, Dan Meuser, Gary Palmer and Pete Sessions – voted to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden on the day that Trump supporters assaulted Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

The two remaining candidates, Emmer and Austin Scott, did not vote to block certification of the election results.

House Republicans have been embroiled in chaos all year. McCarthy needed an agonizing 15 votes to win the speaker’s gavel in January, and along the way had to made concessions that enabled a single member to force a vote for his removal.

That happened this month when eight Republicans forced him out after he passed legislation with Democratic support that averted a partial government shutdown. 

Investors say the tumult has contributed to market turbulence and Biden has urged Republicans to sort out their problems. 
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The United States, South Korea, and Japan held their first ever combined aerial exercise Sunday in an effort to send a tough message to North Korea.

It’s not new for the United States to hold aerial drills with Japan or with South Korea. But the three countries had never held such an exercise together until Sunday.

That’s when a U.S. B-52 bomber flew alongside Japanese and South Korean fighter jets just south of the Korean Peninsula.

Philip Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, called it a “new era” in defense ties.

Though Japan and South Korea are both close U.S. allies, their bilateral ties are strained by historical disputes.

But in August, the three countries agreed to hold more defense drills to counter North Korea.

It is particularly significant that a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber participated in this week’s drill, says Seoul-based scholar Park Won-gon.

Park says Pyongyang particularly fears strategic aircraft like the B-52, because it was bombers like this that devastated the North during the Korean War.

North Korea has also blasted U.S.-Japan-South Korea military cooperation.

In an editorial Friday, North Korean state media called the air drill an “intentional nuclear war” provocation.

North Korea has rapidly expanded its number of nuclear weapons in recent years, and now regularly threatens to conduct preemptive strikes if necessary.
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese travels Monday to the United States for a four-day visit, hoping to make progress on the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal. 

Australia’s formal security ties with the United States date to the early 1950s.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in Canberra Monday that “the alliance between Australia and the United States is central to Australia’s foreign policy.”

His official visit to the U.S. will include Albanese’s ninth meeting with President Joe Biden in the past 16 months.

The Australian Prime Minister said he will hold talks with members of the U.S. Congress about the legislation that’s needed to ensure the progress of the AUKUS alliance. Australian media have reported that some U.S. lawmakers have significant concerns about the pact.

AUKUS is a trilateral accord announced in September 2021 with the United States and Britain that would give Australia access for the first time to nuclear-powered submarines. 

It is estimated the agreement could cost Australia up to $244 billion and is widely seen as a counter to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Kevin Rudd is Australia’s Ambassador to the United States and a former Prime Minister.

He told the Australia Broadcasting Corp. Monday that the AUKUS partnership would be a key part of Albanese’s visit to Washington, along with talks on clean energy.

“Ensuring that all the relevant AUKUS legislation finds its way successfully through the U.S. Congress,” Rudd said.  “Two, broadening the economic relationship in information technology, defense technology as well as clean energy technology and beyond that again, to enhance our clean energy compact and new work together on critical minerals.”

China has previously criticized the AUKUS accord, accusing the United States, Britain and Australia of going “down a dangerous road for their own selfish political gains … in complete disregard of the concerns of the international community.” 

Sunday, Albanese confirmed he would visit Beijing in early November to meet President Xi Jinping. 

A dispute over Australian wine exports at the World Trade Organization has been suspended as both countries try to defuse long-running trade and diplomatic tensions.

China has agreed to review controversial tariffs on imports of Australian wine.  In return, the government in Canberra is suspending its action in the WTO.

The tariffs were imposed in 2020 as bilateral relations rapidly deteriorated over various geopolitical disputes. Restrictions on other Australian commodities, including barley, have already been lifted.   Albanese has taken a less confrontational approach to China than the previous conservative government he defeated in an election last year.

In Washington this week, Albanese will attend a state dinner and an Oval Office meeting with President Biden.
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Charles Nahale spent a restless night trying to sleep in the back seat of his pickup truck after a wildfire destroyed his home and the town of Lahaina. The next two nights weren’t much better: The singer and guitarist put his feet on one chair and sat in another as he took refuge on the grounds of an evacuated hotel where he once performed for guests.

Nahale eventually found a timeshare condo with a bed, shower and kitchen — lodging he was able to keep until Friday, when, yet again, he had to move, this time with officials setting him up in a different hotel condo.

He is one of many whose lives have become transient since the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century left at least 99 people dead. The blaze destroyed thousands of buildings and unmoored residents who now face myriad challenges posed by Maui’s location and status as a vacation hub.

“It’s hard to begin the healing process when you’re worried about the essentials,” Nahale said.

Some are bouncing from hotel room to hotel room, in some cases to make way for the return of tourists who are crucial to the local economy. Many are struggling to find places to rent amid a housing shortage — and steep prices — that plagued the island even before the fire wiped out an estimated 3,000 homes and apartments in Lahaina.

And it’s not feasible for authorities to bring in the mobile homes used to shelter people after natural disasters elsewhere, given Hawaii’s humidity and the difficulty of shipping them from the U.S. mainland.

The government, via the Federal Emergency Management Agency, paid for Nahale and some 8,000 other displaced residents to move into hotels, vacation rentals and other short-term housing after the Aug. 8 fire. There are still about 6,900 people in short-term lodging more than two months later.

It’s unusual for FEMA to put so many people in hotels after a disaster, particularly for months, but Maui had plenty of empty hotel rooms after tourists left in the wake of the fire.

In other states, people unable to move home after a disaster might move in with friends and family members who live within a few hours’ drive. That’s trickier on Maui, an island of about 150,000 people that’s a 30-minute plane ride from the nearest major city, Honolulu.

Bob Fenton, administrator of the FEMA region including Hawaii, is leading the government’s response. His agency has the authority to house people in hotels for six months, and in some cases that can be extended, he said. Still, he wants to see people get into stable housing — “a place they could be for the next two Christmases,” Fenton said in an interview.

The Red Cross, whose case workers are administering FEMA’s hotel stay program, is sending Nahale to another condo unit with a kitchen, but it will only be available for 12 days. Finding a long-term rental is hard when thousands of others are also looking, he said.

Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern said at a news conference Wednesday that no one is being cut off from short-term housing before there is a long-term solution. Gov. Josh Green urged anyone who feels they are being pushed out to talk to a Red Cross worker.

Tiffany Teruya is among the lucky ones who found a two-bedroom rental to stay in with her 13-year-old son. The monthly cost for the “tiny, tiny cottage” was $3,000, more than double what she paid for their subsidized apartment in a building that burned in Lahaina.

She signed a lease on Wednesday, paying the first month’s rent and a deposit using aid money and $2,000 from a cousin. Catholic Charities is arranging to pay for the next three months.

The cottage belongs to a member of her extended family. She said about 30 others saw the house before her, including families of three, four and even six people.

“These people are desperate too, you know what I’m saying?” said Teruya, who was a restaurant waitress on Lahaina’s famed Front Street before the fire.

A Maui-based software developer, Matt Jachowski, built a website aimed at matching fire evacuees with landlords. More than 600 families have sought housing on the site, but he said very few have actually found lodging because landlords want more in rent than the evacuees can afford to pay.

His analysis showed that the median rent that evacuees are requesting — $1,500 for a one-bedroom, $2,400 for a two-bedroom — is about two-thirds of market rate. Some landlords wanted as much as $8,000 to $10,000 a month, saying they could get that from tourists, Jachowski said.

To help, FEMA has raised the rental assistance it’s offering to evacuees by 75%. Displaced Lahaina residents will be eligible for up to nearly $3,000 for a one bedroom. This could help plug the gap between what renters can pay and what landlords are asking — at least in the short term, Fenton said.

Longer term, Maui will need to build more affordable housing, Fenton said, noting some developments are awaiting zoning approval or need to be evaluated for sufficient sources of water.

If other temporary solutions fall short, FEMA is preparing to build up to 500 modular units using prefabricated materials or 3D printing. The agency has identified four sites — three in Lahaina and one in central Maui — near power, water and sewer infrastructure. Utility lines would have to be extended to individual lots but could then be repurposed for permanent housing after the modular homes are removed.

Nahale called the experience of rotating hotels on the island a “second wave of humanitarian disaster.” He said the compassionate thing would be to let people stay where they are through the holidays.

But tourists are returning and beginning to fill some of the rooms. Green and Maui Mayor Richard Bissen say the island needs to welcome travelers back to support the economy and give people jobs. Maui’s unemployment rate hit 8.4% in September compared to 3.4% the same month last year.

Playing music helps Nahale cope with the ordeal. Before moving to his new condo, he showed two visiting journalists the only guitar he was able to grab before his home burned. Then he began strumming a song written by his late friend, the famous Hawaiian musician Roland Cazimero.

“Please be careful/ Of the dangers of the world/ Careful not to be afraid/ Of the roads we’ve yet to go,” Nahale sang, first in English and then in Hawaiian.

“That song just came to mind,” he said. “That song can help heal.”
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A California research team is conducting a five-year ecological study of six songbird species in northwestern New Mexico oil fields to see how sensory intrusions affect the birds’ survival, reproduction and general health.

The Santa Fe New Mexican says the study by avian researchers from California Polytechnic State University will zero in on the specific impacts of noise and light pollution.

As the human population swells and generates more light and sound, researchers are curious about how those multiplying stressors might compound the challenges of climate change in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, the newspaper reported.

Clint Francis, an ecology professor at California Polytechnic, said early studies that examined whether excessive noise and light decreased bird populations were done in more urban settings, where the birds were threatened by prowling cats, toxic chemicals and speeding cars.

The next step is to isolate either noise or light in a rural area to see how one or the other affects the songbirds, Francis said.

He did such research in this same northwestern New Mexico region in 2005. This time the aim is to observe how the two together affect the birds in a locale where the conditions can be clearly measured in tandem.

“We try to hold everything constant but vary noise and light pollution to try to understand whether there is, perhaps, surprising cumulative effects when you have both of those stimuli together,” Francis told the New Mexican.

The research will focus on six types of songbirds: ash-throated flycatchers, gray flycatchers, mountain bluebirds, Western bluebirds, chipping sparrows and house finches.

Francis hopes the study will uncover information that can help people adjust their noise and light to coexist better with birds.

The study is being funded by a grant of almost $900,000 from the National Science Foundation.
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While screenwriters are busy back at work, film and TV actors remain on picket lines, with the longest strike in their history hitting the 100-day mark Saturday after talks broke off with studios. On the same day, the actors’ union and an alliance representing major studios announced in a joint statement that negotiations will resume next week on Tuesday, with several studio executives expected to join. Here’s a look at where things stand, how their stretched-out standoff compares to past strikes, and what happens next.

Inside the talks that failed

Hopes were high and leaders of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists were cautiously optimistic when they resumed negotiations Oct. 2 for the first time since the strike began 2 1/2 months earlier.

The same group of chief executives from the biggest studios had made a major deal just over a week earlier with striking writers, whose leaders celebrated their gains on many issues actors are also fighting for: long-term pay, consistency of employment and control over the use of artificial intelligence.

But the actors’ talks were tepid, with days off between sessions and no reports of progress. Then studios abruptly ended discussions Oct. 11, saying the actors’ demands were exorbitantly expensive and the two sides were too far apart to continue.

“We only met with them a couple of times, Monday, half a day Wednesday, half a day Friday. That was what they were available for,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher told The Associated Press soon after the talks broke off. “Then this past week, it was Monday and a half a day on Wednesday. And then, ‘Bye-bye.’ I’ve never really met people that actually don’t understand what negotiations mean. Why are you walking away from the table?”

The reasons, according to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, included a union demand for a fee for each subscriber to streaming services.

“SAG-AFTRA gave the member companies an ultimatum: either agree to a proposal for a tax on subscribers as well as all other open items, or else the strike would continue,” the AMPTP said in a statement to the AP. “The member companies responded to SAG-AFTRA’s ultimatum that unfortunately, the tax on subscribers poses an untenable economic burden.”

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, one of the executives in on the bargaining sessions, told investors on an earnings call Wednesday, “This really broke our momentum unfortunately.”

SAG-AFTRA leaders said it was ridiculous to frame this demand as though it were a tax on customers, and said it was the executives themselves who wanted to shift from a model based on a show’s popularity to one based on the number of subscribers.

“We made big moves in their direction that have just been ignored and not responded to,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, told the AP. “We made changes to our AI proposal. We made dramatic changes to what used to be our streaming revenue share proposal,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

The studios said just after the talks broke off that the per-subscriber charge would cost them $800 million annually, a figure SAG-AFTRA said was a vast overestimate.

The AMPTP later responded that the number was based on a union request for $1 per customer per year, which was lowered to 57 cents after SAG-AFTRA changed its evaluation to cut out nonrelevant programming like news and sports.

What happens next in the actors strike?

The actors are in unscripted territory. Their union has never been on a strike this long, nor been on strike at all since before many of its members were born. Not even its veteran leaders, like Crabtree-Ireland, with the union for 20 years, have found themselves in quite these circumstances.

SAG-AFTRA says it is willing to resume at any time, but that it won’t change its demands.

“I think that they think that we’re going to cower,” Drescher said. “But that’s never going to happen because this is a crossroads and we must stay on course.”

The writers did have their own false start with studios that may give some reason for optimism. Their union attempted to restart negotiations with studios in mid-August, more than three months into their strike. Those talks went nowhere, breaking off after a few days. A month later, the studio alliance came calling again. Those talks took off, with most of their demands being met after five marathon days that resulted in a tentative deal that its members would vote to approve almost unanimously.

How did previous actors strikes play out?

Hollywood actors strikes have been less frequent and shorter than those by writers. The Screen Actors Guild (they added the “AFTRA” in a 2011 merger) has gone on strike against film and TV studios only three times in its history.

In each case, emerging technology fueled the dispute. In 1960 — the only previous time actors and writers struck simultaneously — the central issue was actors seeking pay for when their work in film was aired on television, compensation the industry calls residuals. The union, headed by future U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was a smaller and much less formal entity then. The vote to strike took place in the home of actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, the parents of current SAG-AFTRA member and vocal striker Jamie Lee Curtis.

Mid-strike, the actors and studios called a truce so all could attend the Academy Awards — a move forbidden under today’s union rules. Host Bob Hope called the gathering “Hollywood’s most glamorous strike meeting.”

In the end, a compromise was reached where SAG dropped demands for residuals from past films in exchange for a donation to their pension fund, along with a formula for payment when future films aired on TV. Their 42-day work stoppage began and ended all within the span of the much longer writers strike.

A 1980 strike would be the actors’ longest for film and television until this year. That time, they were seeking payment for their work when it appeared on home video cassettes and cable TV, along with significant hikes in minimum compensation for roles. A tentative deal was reached with significant gains but major compromises in both areas. Union leadership declared the strike over after 67 days, but many members were unhappy and balked at returning to work. It was nearly a month before leaders could rally enough votes to ratify the deal.

This time, it was the Emmy Awards that fell in the middle of the strike. The Television Academy held a ceremony, but after a boycott was called, only one acting winner, Powers Boothe, was there to accept his trophy.

Other segments of the actors union have gone on strike, too, including several long standoffs over the TV commercials contract. A 2016-2017 strike by the union’s video game voice actors lasted a whopping 11 months. That segment of the union could strike again soon if a new contract deal isn’t reached.

What’s happening to movies and TV shows?

The return of writers has the Hollywood production machine churning again, with rooms full of scribes penning new seasons of shows that had been suspended and film writers finishing scripts. But the finished product will await the end of actors strike, and production will remain suspended on many TV shows and dozens of films, including “Wicked,” “Deadpool 3” and “Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 2.”

The Emmys, whose nominations were announced the day before the actors strike was called, opted to wait for the stars this time and move their ceremony from September to January — though that date could be threatened, too.

The Oscars are a long way off in March, but the campaigns to win them are usually well underway by now. With some exceptions — non-studio productions approved by the union — performers are prohibited from promoting their films at press junkets or on red carpets. Director Martin Scorsese has been giving interviews about his new Oscar contender ” Killers of the Flower Moon.” Stars and SAG-AFTRA members Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert DeNiro haven’t.
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