U.S. President Joe Biden has directed additional support for Israel following a surprise attack on the Jewish state by the militant group Hamas Saturday. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has more on efforts to deescalate tensions.
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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel after the attack by Hamas that has left more than 1,000 dead on both sides. Americans were reported to be among those killed and missing.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.

The large deployment, which also includes a host of ships and warplanes, underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to deter the conflict from growing. But the Israeli government formally declared war Sunday and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas.

Preliminary reports indicate that at least four American citizens were killed in the attacks and an additional seven were missing and unaccounted for, according to a U.S. official. The numbers were in flux and could change as a fuller accounting is compiled, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss initial reports received by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Most, if not all, of those reported dead or missing are dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, the official said.

Along with the Ford the U.S. is sending the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt and the U.S. is augmenting Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.

“The U.S. maintains ready forces globally to further reinforce this deterrence posture if required,” Austin said in a statement.

In addition, the Biden administration “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions. The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days,” Austin said.

The Norfolk, Virginia-based carrier strike group( was already in the Mediterranean. Last week it was conducting naval exercises with Italy in the Ionian Sea. The carrier is in its first full deployment.

President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a telephone call Sunday, discussed “the taking of hostages by Hamas terrorists, including entire families, the elderly, and young children,” according to a White House statement describing their conversation. Biden stressed that all countries “must stand united in the face of such brutal atrocities.”

The president updated Netanyahu on U.S. diplomatic efforts and said additional assistance for Israeli forces was on the way, with more to come in the days ahead, the White House said.

They also discussed ways “to ensure that no enemies of Israel believe they can or should seek advantage from the current situation.”
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American mountaineer Anna Gutu and a Nepalese guide Mingmar Sherpa were confirmed dead Sunday after avalanches struck the slopes of a Tibetan mountain, while two others remained missing, according to Chinese media reports.

The avalanches struck Tibet’s Mount Shishapangma Saturday afternoon at 7,600 (about 25,000 ft) and 8,000 meters (about 26,000 ft) in altitude, according to state-owned Xinhua News Agency.

Two others, American climber Gina Marie Rzucidlo and a Nepalese mountain guide Tenjen Sherpa went missing, the news agency said. Sherpa was one half of a duo who shattered the record for the fastest climb of the 14 mountains more than 8,000 meters (about 26,000 feet) high in July this year. He wanted to become the youngest climber to scale all 14 peaks twice.

The avalanches also seriously injured Nepalese mountain guide Karma Geljen Sherpa, who was escorted down the mountain by rescuers and is currently in stable condition.

A total of 52 climbers from various countries including the U.S., Britain, Japan, and Italy were attempting to summit the mountain when the avalanches hit, Xinhua said.

Climbing activities on Shishapangma have since been suspended due to snow conditions.

Shishapangma is the 14th-highest mountain in the world, at over 8,027 meters (26,335 ft) above sea level.

October is a popular time to trek the Himalayas as it’s after the rainy monsoon season, but experts have cautioned that climate change has increased the risk of avalanches in the region.

At least 120 people in the Indian Himalayas were killed by avalanches over the past two years. 
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Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy “the beauty of the morning on the beach,” he recalled. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church.”

Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.

“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals, harming “innocent human beings,” in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.

As Dulak rejects being part of a religious flock, he has plenty of company. He is a “none” — no, not that kind of nun. The kind that checks “none” when pollsters ask “What’s your religion?”

The decades-long rise of the nones — a diverse, hard-to-summarize group — is one of the most talked about phenomena in U.S. religion. The nones are reshaping America’s religious landscape as we know it.

In U.S. religion today, “the most important story without a shadow of a doubt is the unbelievable rise in the share of Americans who are nonreligious,” said Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University and author of “The Nones,” a book on the phenomenon.

The nones account for a large portion of Americans, as shown by the 30% of U.S. adults who claim no religious affiliation in a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Other major surveys say the nones have been steadily increasing for as long as three decades.

So who are they?

They’re the atheists, the agnostics, the “nothing in particular.” Many are “spiritual but not religious,” and some are neither or both. They span class, gender, age, race and ethnicity.

While the nones’ diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups, most of them have this in common:

They. Really. Don’t. Like. Organized. Religion.

Nor its leaders. Nor its politics and social stances. That’s according to a large majority of nones in the AP-NORC survey.

But they’re not just a statistic. They’re real people with unique relationships to belief and nonbelief, and the meaning of life.

They’re secular homeschoolers in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, Pittsburghers working to overcome addiction. They’re a mandolin maker in a small Missouri River town, a former evangelical disillusioned with that particular strain of American Christianity. They’re college students who found their childhood churches unpersuasive or unwelcoming.

Church “was not very good for me,” said Emma Komoroski, a University of Missouri freshman who left her childhood Catholic religion in her mid-teens. “I’m a lesbian. So that was kind of like, oh, I didn’t really fit, and people don’t like me.”

The nones also are people like Alric Jones, who cite bad experiences with organized religion that ranged from the intolerant churches of his hometown to the ministry that kept soliciting money from his devout late wife — even after Jones lost his job and income after an injury.

“If it was such a Christian organization, and she was unable to send money, they should have come to us and said, ‘Is there something we can do to help you?'” said Jones, 71, of central Michigan. “They kept sending us letters saying, ‘Why aren’t you sending us money?'”

Jones does believe in God and in treating others equally. “That’s my spirituality if you want to call it that.”

About 1 in 6 U.S. adults, including Jones and Dulak, is a “nothing in particular.” There are as many of them as atheists and agnostics combined (7% each).

Many embrace a range of spiritual beliefs — from God, prayer and heaven to karma, reincarnation, astrology or energy in crystals.

“They are definitely not as turned off to religion as atheists and agnostics are,” Burge said. “They practice their own type of spirituality, many of them.”

Dulak still draws inspiration from nature, and from making mandolins in the workshop next to his home.

“It feels spiritually good,” Dulak said. “It’s not a religion.”

Burge said the nones are rising as the Christian population declines, particularly the “mainline” or moderate to liberal Protestants.

The statistics show the nones are well-represented in every age group, but especially among young adults. About four in 10 of those under 30 are nones — nearly as many as say they’re Christians.

The trend was evident in interviews on the University of Missouri campus. Several students said they didn’t identify with a religion.

Mia Vogel said she likes “the foundations of a lot of religions — just love everybody, accept everybody.” But she considers herself more spiritual.

“I’m pretty into astrology. I’ve got my crystals charging up in my window right now,” she said. “Honestly, I’ll bet half of it is a total placebo. But I just like the idea that things in life can be explained by greater forces.”

One movement that exemplifies the “spiritual but not religious” ethos is the Twelve Step sobriety program, pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous and adopted by other recovery groups. Participants turn to a “power greater than ourselves” — the God of each person’s own understanding — but they don’t share any creed.

“If you look at the religions, they have been wracked by scandals, it doesn’t matter the denomination,” said the Rev. Jay Geisler, an Episcopal priest who is spiritual adviser at the Pittsburgh Recovery Center, an addiction treatment site.

In contrast, “there’s actually a spiritual revival in the basement of many of the churches,” where recovery groups often meet, he said.

“Nobody’s fighting in those rooms, they’re not saying, ‘You’re wrong about God,'” Geisler said. The focus is on “how your life is changed.”

Scholars worry that, as people pull away from congregations and other social groups, they are losing sources of communal support.

But nones said in interviews they were happy to leave religion behind, particularly in toxic situations, and find community elsewhere.

Marjorie Logman, 75, of Aurora, Illinois, now finds community among other residents in her multigenerational apartment complex, and in her advocacy for nursing home residents. She doesn’t miss the evangelical circles she was long active in.

“The farther away I get, the freer I feel,” she said.
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In fifth grade, Stella Gage’s class watched a video about puberty. In ninth grade, a few sessions of her health class were dedicated to the risks of sexual behaviors.

That was the extent of her sex education in school. At no point was there any content that felt especially relevant to her identity as a queer teenager. To fill the gaps, she turned mostly to social media.

“My parents were mostly absent, my peers were not mature enough, and I didn’t have anyone else to turn to,” said Gage, who is now a sophomore at Wichita State University in Kansas.

Many LGBTQ+ students say they have not felt represented in sex education classes. To learn about their identities and how to build healthy, safe relationships, they often have had to look elsewhere.

As lawmakers in some states limit what can be taught about sex and gender, it will be that much more difficult for those students to come by inclusive material in classrooms.

New laws targeting LGBTQ+ people have been proliferating in GOP-led states. Some elected officials, including candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, have been pushing to remove LGBTQ+ content from classrooms.

Sex education curriculum varies widely. Some groups including Planned Parenthood have called for sex education to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ students, but some states outright forbid such an approach.

The penal code in Texas, for one, still says curriculum developed by the Department of State Health Services must say homosexuality is not acceptable and is a criminal offense, even though such language was deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. Attempts in the Legislature to remove that line from state law have failed.

In practice, LGBTQ+ students say they have looked elsewhere for sex education. Some described watching their peers turn to pornography, and others said they watched videos on YouTube about how to tell if someone is gay and how to flirt with people of the same sex.

Gage grew up in Oklahoma before her military family relocated and she spent her eighth and ninth grade years in a U.S. Department of Defense school in the Netherlands. She then finished high school in Kansas, where she began to recognize she wasn’t attracted only to men.

Not seeing a safe outlet at her high school to explore who she was, she went online to research for herself the history of the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S.

“I started to realize there is a huge portion of our history that is conveniently left out. But that history is important to queer youth,” she said. She never really questioned gender or social norms, she said, until she started to learn about discrimination others have faced throughout history. “We have such rigid boxes that we expect people to fit into. If you didn’t fit, you were called slurs. I wasn’t really aware that if you strayed from those norms that people would feel you were attacking their way of life.”

Still, the internet contains vast amounts of false information. Some advocates worry students turning to the internet to fill gaps in sex education will struggle to find their way through the morass.

“Any time you have a political controversy, there is a greater potential for a lot more disinformation to be generated,” said Peter Adams, senior vice president of research and design at the News Literacy Project.

When schools address sexuality, it is often in the context of disease prevention or anti-bullying programs. School can be a difficult place if your identity is seen only in such negative ways, said Tim’m West, a former teacher and now executive director of the LGBTQ Institute at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. West can relate: He grew up in Arkansas as a queer Black kid and preacher’s son and was constantly made to feel ashamed.

“What if you are a boy in high school that knows you like boys, and you sit in a divided room and listen to a teacher explain how not to have sex with girls. You would be sitting there rolling your eyes, because that is not your issue. But you also haven’t been given any instructions on how to protect yourself should you experiment with a person of the same gender,” West said.

Students need more applicable sex education regardless of their gender identity or expression, said Gage, who volunteers with a youth justice advocacy group and is also president of the Planned Parenthood Generation Action Chapter at Wichita State.

“We all have to make large decisions for ourselves about our sexuality and reproductive health. Those decisions should be grounded in knowledge,” she said.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., Ashton Gerber had more sex education classes than most. But Gerber, who is transgender, said the lessons weren’t all that applicable to their experience.

“Even if you can have sex education every day of the year, there is always going to be something that gets left out,” said Gerber, who is a student at Tufts University in Massachusetts. Gerber said educators should point students to trusted online resources so they can do their own research.

Not knowing who you are is a horrible feeling many LGBTQ+ students wrestle with, Gage said. But equally horrible is not feeling accepted once you do understand your sexual identity.

“Had I known then what I know now, I would have felt safe and confident coming out sooner,” Gage said. “No one should feel like they don’t understand themselves because we are forced to conformity in a world that doesn’t care. We can all be inclusive.” 
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A dose of patience may come in handy at the pharmacy counter this fall.

Drug and staffing shortages haven’t gone away. Stores are starting their busiest time of year as customers look for help with colds and the flu. And this fall, pharmacists are dealing with a new vaccine and the start of insurance coverage for COVID-19 shots.

Some drugstores have addressed their challenges by adding employees at busy hours. But experts say many pharmacies, particularly the big chains, still don’t have enough workers behind the counter.

Chris Adkins said he left his job as a pharmacist with a major drugstore chain a couple years ago because of the stress. Aside from filling and checking prescriptions, Adkins routinely answered the phone, ran the register and stocked pharmacy shelves.

“I just didn’t have time for the patients,” he said. “I am OK working hard and working long hours, but I just felt like I was not doing a good job as a pharmacist.”

In recent years, drugstores have struggled to fill open pharmacist and pharmacy technician positions, even as many have raised pay and dangled signing bonuses.

Larger drugstore chains often operate stores with only one pharmacist on duty per shift, said Richard Dang, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California. That kind of thin staffing can make it hard to recruit employees.

“I think that many pharmacists in the profession are hesitant to work for a company where they don’t feel supported,” said Dang, a former president of the California Pharmacists Association.

Customers have noticed.

John Staed, of Pelham, Alabama, said a CVS pharmacist gave him the wrong prescription about a decade ago: the pills were a different color than usual. He worries the chances for another mistake could increase as pharmacists take on more work.

“These pharmacists always look stressed,” he said.

A CVS spokeswoman said the company is focused on addressing concerns raised by its pharmacists and has taken several actions, including “providing additional pharmacy resources” in markets that need support. She declined to say how many pharmacists or technicians the company has hired.

Former Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer said in late June that the company had added more than 1,000 pharmacists in the second quarter, but was running into a shortage of job candidates. Walgreens is adding processing centers around the country to ease some of the prescription workload for its stores.

Brewer, who left in late August, also said the company was limiting hours at 1,100 pharmacies, or about 12% of its U.S. locations. That was down from 1,600 earlier this year, but a company executive has said it doesn’t expect to return all pharmacies to normal operating hours by year’s end.

Labor strife and staffing shortages in health care are not isolated to drugstores, as the recent Kaiser Permanente strike shows.

But drugstores have some additional challenges in the fall. Many customers come to them for vaccines for COVID-19, flu and pneumonia. Plus, federal officials have approved a new shot for people ages 60 and older for a virus called RSV.

All told, CVS touts in a pharmacy counter brochure that the company can offer more than 15 vaccines to customers.

Ongoing drug shortages also have kept pharmacy workers on the phone more.

Jonathan Marquess said one of his drugstores fielded 100 questions one day last fall about the antibiotic amoxicillin and the attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder treatment Adderall, two drugs in short supply.

Marquess runs several independent pharmacies in Georgia and serves on the National Community Pharmacists Association board. He has done a few things to help his stores adapt to the extra workload, he said, including training all employees to answer basic questions about vaccines.

Marquess also adds extra staff when he knows they will have an influx of customers, like when a nearby company sends its employees over for vaccines.

“We learned from our experiences,” he said. “Training your entire staff is very, very important.”

Pharmacists say customers aren’t powerless and can help things run smoothly.

People should bring all their insurance cards to vaccine appointments, especially since insurance coverage is new for the COVID-19 shots, Marquess said.

Dang said customers should avoid showing up right after pharmacies reopen from a lunch break or just before they close, times when pharmacists and technicians are especially busy.

Making appointments for vaccines gives pharmacy workers a better sense for their workload. Calling several days in advance for a prescription refill also helps, said Jen Cocohoba, a pharmacy professor at University of California San Francisco.

“That tiny piece of control can help, because there’s so many things you cannot predict when you’re inside the community pharmacy,” Cocohoba said.
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President Joe Biden expressed Washington’s unwavering support for Israel Saturday and the U.N. Security Council will meet in an urgent, private session Sunday following a deadly surprise attack by Hamas militants on several Israeli towns and cities. VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.
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The U.S. condemnation of the Hamas terror attack on Israel is being backed by pledges to make sure the Israeli military has what it needs to repel the assault and defend its people.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a phone call Saturday with Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised “his ironclad support” for the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, according to a Pentagon readout.

“Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” Austin said in a separate statement. “Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”

U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces and relationships with U.S. allies across the Middle East, likewise said it was in contact with its Israeli counterpart and was “closely tracking the situation surrounding the appalling terrorist attack.”

What shape the U.S. support will take, though, is unclear.

The U.S. maintains a weapons and ammunition stockpile in Israel and has made its contents available to Israel on at least two occasions.

In 2006, the U.S. granted Israel access to precision guided munitions during its war with Hezbollah. And in 2014, the U.S. gave Israel access to tank rounds and other ammunition to support operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. officials have declined to say, however, whether using the stockpile will be an option this time around.

“We will continue close consultations with the IDF regarding any requests for support they may have,” according to a U.S. military official, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the talks. “Our focus remains on consulting with Israel and ensuring they have the support they need as a result of this abhorrent terrorist attack by Hamas.”

There also are concerns about the stockpile itself. The U.S. pulled 300,000 artillery shells from the stockpile late last year and early this year to give to Ukraine.

And the types of armaments and equipment in the stockpile may not be of immediate use in pushing back Hamas fighters.

“My initial impression is that the things that Israel needs most right now are not in there,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“There have been concerns about what’s actually in that stockpile, whether it’s well maintained, whether it’s the right weapons and equipment, and how frequently we practice drying that equipment out,” he noted.

In addition, the U.S. maintains some military personnel in Israel, and U.S. forces periodically conduct exercises with Israeli troops — most recently this past July.

The U.S. military official said all U.S. personnel “are safe and accounted for,” without elaborating on how many are currently in the country.
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A massive number of migrating birds collided with McCormick Place — a Chicago convention center — this week, resulting in an unprecedented number of bird deaths.

Dave Willard has collected dead and injured birds from around the center during the migration season for about 40 years. In an interview with the Audubon website, Willard said that he and his colleagues collected 964 dead birds and approximately 80 “stunned live ones.”

“It was truly unprecedented,” he said of Thursday’s event.

Hundreds more dead and injured birds were subsequently found around the city.

Before this week’s catastrophe, the largest number of dead birds he had collected was 200.

“Unfortunate weather” combined with “disorienting brightly lit buildings” confused the birds, resulting in the high death and injury numbers.

“You pick up a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and realize, if it hadn’t been for a building in Chicago, it would be spending its winter in the foothills of the Andes,” Willard said. “It’s just a shame that a city can’t be less of an obstacle.”
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A delegation of U.S. lawmakers led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer arrived in China on Saturday in the first congressional visit to the country since 2019.

The trip comes amid a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries and as Chinese and U.S. officials try to lay the groundwork for a possible meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in November.

The delegation of six senators — three Democrats and three Republicans — landed in Shanghai on a U.S. government jet on an overcast and windy afternoon. The Republicans were led by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, the senior member of his party on the Senate Finance Committee.

Asked about his expectations for the visit, Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said he hoped it would be productive.

A series of high-ranking Biden administration officials have met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing in recent months, but no other U.S lawmakers have made the trip since China lifted its COVID-19 restrictions in December 2022.

China, in a statement earlier this week, said it hoped the visit would “contribute to a more objective understanding of China in the U.S. Congress.”

In a reminder of the tensions between the two countries, China’s commerce ministry said Saturday that new U.S. restrictions placed on 42 Chinese companies were “a typical act of economic coercion and unilateral bullying.”

The U.S. Commerce Department added the Chinese companies and seven others to its entity list on Friday. It said the companies supplied “U.S.-origin” semiconductors that Russia uses for missile guidance systems and drones in the war against Ukraine. American companies cannot export to organizations on the entity list without obtaining a special license.

Schumer’s office said the visit would focus on the need for reciprocity from China for U.S. business in trade and on maintaining American leadership in advanced technologies for national security. He also hoped to discuss human rights, fentanyl production and China’s role in the international community, as well as areas for potential cooperation.

A smooth visit could help pave the way for a Biden-Xi summit during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting of leaders in San Francisco next month. The senators hope to meet Xi in Beijing during their visit.

A Chinese international relations expert said that Schumer’s visit is a sign of improvement in China-U.S. relations.

“If the talks proceed well, there is the possibility that President Xi will meet Schumer,” said Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China. “If their meeting is realized, the chances for a Xi-Biden meeting will become greater.”

The White House has been in touch with Schumer and supports the delegation’s visit to the region, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after the trip was announced. The senators will go to South Korea and Japan after their stop in China.
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All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

As Americans shed pounds on weight loss drugs like Ozempic, snack food companies could be in for some shrinkage, as well.

“The food, beverage and restaurant industries could see softer demand, particularly for unhealthier foods and high-fat, sweet and salty options,” Morgan Stanley food analyst Pamela Kaufman says in a company report.

A survey of 300 people currently taking semaglutide weight loss drugs such as Ozempic showed the medicine can reduce calorie intake by 20% to 30% a day.

The people surveyed said they cut back the most on foods that are high in sugar and fat, reducing their consumption of sweets, sugary drinks and baked goods by up to two-thirds. The survey found 77% of people on weight loss drugs went to fast food restaurants less often, while 74% reduced their visits to pizza shops.

Approximated 1 in 5 American adults is obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s all of these food companies [and] beverage companies that have created the obesity,” says Angelica Gianchandani, professor of marketing at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. “At one time, it was innovation — creating all these different products and being able to put foods in bags and ziplocks [plastic bags] and easy to carry and transport — that was innovation. But all of this food creation in packaged goods, there’s a lot of processed foods, and the impact, if you’re not eating in moderation, has created this obesity.”

Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that 24 million people, roughly 7% of the U.S. population, will be taking this new class of obesity drugs by 2035. They project that overall consumption of soft drinks, baked goods and salty snacks could fall up to 3% by 2035.

But James Schrager, professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Chicago, says the snack industry continues to grow, and he doesn’t expect the increased use of semaglutides to have a major long-term impact.

“The growth comes from younger users, and younger users may not be the primary target for the drug,” he says. “Younger people — who don’t become obese usually, or at least in many cases — and who aren’t going to be taking the drug.”

Schrager says he’s worked as a consultant with some of the largest processed food companies in the world, and they are already concerned about providing healthier options.

“Way before this drug, [they worried] that the market will go away,” Schrager says. “They very much know that some of these are not good for some people’s health. …They would often say, ‘In a health-conscious world, we realize we may be out of business. How do we fix that?’”

The rise in semaglutide use also could cut into other obesity-related industries. The proportion of people paying for weight loss programs fell from 29% to 20% once they started taking the drug, according to the data. Gianchandani says weight loss businesses will pivot to health and wellness to stay afloat.

“And it will require people to have coaches, people to have nutritionists, to help give them a regimented diet to help them monitor,” she says. “These weight loss companies will encompass all of that, everything from food programs to coaching and support groups to help them maintain their weight and stay healthy.”

The report finds that patients taking the obesity drugs say they’re cutting back on sugary carbonated drinks (65%) and alcohol (62%). Almost one-fourth completely gave up alcohol. But Gianchandani says alcohol producers could benefit from the semaglutide craze.

“It’s going to capture a whole new market share. For them, it’s good,” she says, pointing out that alcohol producers are increasingly developing lower-calorie beverages. “They’re going to have a new product line to target a whole new demographic, and it will be millions of dollars of a market for them to benefit from.”
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Whales, dolphins and seals living in U.S. waters face major threats from warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels and decreasing sea ice volumes associated with climate change, according to a first-of-its-kind assessment.

Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration examined more than 100 stocks of American marine mammal species and found more than 70% of those stocks are vulnerable to threats, such as loss of habitat and food, due to the consequences of warming waters. The impacts also include loss of dissolved oxygen and changes to ocean chemistry.

The scientists found large whales such as humpbacks and North Atlantic right whales were among the most vulnerable to climate change, and that other toothed whales and dolphins were also at high risk.

The study, published last month in the journal PLOS ONE, is evidence that the way the U.S. manages whales and dolphins needs to adapt in the era of climate change, advocates for marine mammals said.

The news is bleak, but the assessment also is the first to look solely at marine mammal stocks managed by the U.S. and the results can help inform federal ocean managers about how to safeguard the vulnerable animals, said Matthew Lettrich, a biologist and lead author of the study.

“As the climate’s changing, we’re seeing some of the effects already, and some of our marine mammal populations are more vulnerable to those changes than others,” Lettrich said. “Based on this study, we see a good proportion are highly and very highly vulnerable.”

The researchers studied marine mammals living in the western North Atlantic ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. The animals are managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the arm of the federal government responsible for stewardship and protection of marine resources.

The scientists looked at the animals’ degree of exposure to climate change and sensitivity and capacity to adapt to it. They found 72% of the stocks were highly or very highly vulnerable to climate change, with a little less than half falling in the “very high” category.

The warming ocean primarily harms marine mammals by altering their ability to find food and reduces their amount of suitable habitat, the study said.

However, the scientists said changes to ocean temperature and chemistry also can change sound transmission. That can affect the sonar-like echolocation marine mammals such as dolphins use to communicate and hunt. Climate change “must be considered to adequately manage species,” the study states.

The NOAA study is significant because it’s the first to look broadly at U.S. marine mammals and attempt to predict their resiliency to climate change, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a biologist with Massachusetts-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation who was not involved in the study.

The whales will benefit from the study if the information is used to implement laws protecting them, Asmutis-Silvia said.

“The U.S. is one of the most data-rich countries when it comes to marine mammals, and those data should be driving what are arguably some of the world’s strongest laws to protect marine mammals,” she said. “However, data are meaningless without the political will to implement management measures.”

The impact of climate change on whales around the world has grown as a subject of scientific inquiry in recent years. Many studies about whales and climate change look only at a single species or a narrower geographic area, said Laura Ganley, a research scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

But the way climate change affects the giant animals is global in nature, so the broader approach is helpful, she said.

Many scientists have said the vanishing right whale that lives off New England in the summer is made more vulnerable by changes to its food availability caused by warming waters. But climate change also clearly affects less-studied species, Ganley said.

“This isn’t just impacting North Atlantic right whales or bottlenose dolphins. This is impacting most stocks in the United States, and not just the ones in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Maine,” said Ganley, who was not involved in the study.

Climate change also could affect the distribution and behavior of marine mammals, the study states.

Whales such as the right whale, which travels north every year from the waters off Georgia and Florida, migrate hundreds of miles annually to breed and feed. Many also migrate across international boundaries, which could require new kinds of cooperation between countries. That is true of seals with large populations in the U.S. and Canada, such as the gray seal, the study says.

The federal government has tried numerous methods in recent years to try to protect declining whale species, including implementing new restrictions on commercial fishing and new vessel speed restrictions. Whales are vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with large ships, and scientists have said both threats are made more severe by warming waters because ocean changes cause whales to move outside of protected zones.

Safeguarding whales during the era of climate change will require ocean managers to plan for a future in which whale habitats are potentially less suitable due to the warming waters, said Gib Brogan, campaign manager with environmental group Oceana.

“This study provides guidance on how managers could prioritize species that are most vulnerable to climate effects and give these species the attention that they need,” Brogan said. “If we are going to preserve biodiversity, including marine mammals, ocean managers need to explicitly account for current and future changes in the ocean as they consider ways to conserve marine life.”
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At least 115 decaying bodies were found at a storage facility for a “green” funeral operator after neighbors reported a stench emanating from the site in rural southern Colorado, police said Friday.

The owner tried to conceal the improper storage of corpses and said he was doing taxidermy at the facility, according to a suspension letter sent to him by state regulators that was made public Friday. No one has been arrested or charged.

The Return to Nature Funeral Home facility in the small town of Penrose had been unregistered with the state for 10 months when owner Jon Hallford spoke by phone with a state regulator Wednesday, the day after the smells were reported and police launched an investigation.

Hallford acknowledged that he had a “problem” at the property, though the Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration document obtained by The Associated Press didn’t explain what Hallford meant with his taxidermy claim or how he tried to conceal improper storage of human remains.

Officials declined to describe the scene inside the facility. A multi-agency effort to recover and identify the remains was underway in the town of about 3,000 people in the mountains west of Colorado Springs.

The Return to Nature Funeral Home provided “green” burials of non-embalmed bodies in biodegradable caskets, shrouds or “nothing at all,” according to its website.

The company charged $1,895 for a “natural burial,” not including the cost of a casket and cemetery space, according to the website.

The company also provided cremation services. Messages left for the Colorado Springs-based company were not returned.

Neighbors smelled something foul

On Friday, a sour, rotten stench wafted from the back of the building, where windows were broken. Coroner’s officials from Fremont County and nearby El Paso County parked their trucks outside and walked around the building.

Local residents said they smelled foul odors around the building for months but thought little of it, assuming a dead animal or septic system was to blame.

Funeral home officials were cooperating as investigators sought to determine any criminal wrongdoing, Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper said at a news conference.

“Without providing too much detail to avoid further victimizing these families there, the funeral home where the bodies were improperly stored was horrific,” Cooper said.

Some identifications would require taking fingerprints, finding medical or dental records and DNA, Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller said.

“This could take several months. As we identify each decedent, families will be notified as soon as absolutely possible,” Keller said.

Family members who have used the funeral home were asked to contact investigators.

‘Assumed it was a dead animal’

The bodies were inside a 2,500-square foot (230-square meter) building with the appearance and dimensions of a standard one-story house.

Authorities declined to say if the building was equipped to properly store bodies. They also wouldn’t disclose in what state the bodies were found or how they were stored. Under Colorado law, green burials are legal but state code requires that any body not buried within 24 hours must be properly refrigerated.

Joyce Pavetti, 73, could see the funeral home from the stoop of her house and said she caught whiffs of a putrid smell in the last few weeks.

“We just assumed it was a dead animal,” she said. On Wednesday night, Pavetti said she saw lights from law enforcement swarming the building.

The building had been occupied by different businesses over the years, said Pavetti, who once took yoga classes there. She said she hadn’t seen anyone in the area recently and noticed the hearse behind the building in recent months.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday used September’s job figures — showing the economy added 336,000 new jobs and unemployment remained steady at 3.8% — to tout his “Bidenomics” plan and chastise congressional Republicans.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday also showed that wage growth remained steady, with average hourly earnings up 4.2% over the last 12 months.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said that job growth was “from the middle out, and the bottom up, not the top down,” and that the unemployment rate was below 4% for 20 consecutive months, the longest stretch in 50 years.

“And inflation is coming down at the same time,” he said. “It’s down 60 percent since last summer. Core inflation was just 2.2 percent over the past three months.  And now we have the lowest inflation of any major economy in the world.”  

Despite the improving economic numbers, recent opinion polls show that a majority of Americans do not believe that Biden is doing a good job at steering the U.S. economy.

Only 36% of U.S. adults approve of the president’s handling of the economy, according to an August poll from The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Progress seen jeopardized

The Democratic president said the country’s economic progress was put in jeopardy last week when demands for drastic spending cuts by House Republicans almost shut down the federal government.

He said the cuts Republicans were seeking would have reduced funding for small business and manufacturers.

Biden said, “I am sick and tired of Republicans saying they want to cut the deficit when all they want to do is cut taxes for the very wealthy and for big corporations.” He said that is not what the economy needs right now.

Republicans say that large government spending cuts are needed to shrink the federal deficit, which was more than $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2023.

The president called on House Republicans not to put the country back in crisis mode. He said members of Congress have less than 40 days to fund the government and avoid a shutdown to protect the economic gains the nation has made. He added, “It’s time to stop fooling around. House Republicans, it’s time to do your job.”

The Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution on September 30 to fund the government for another 45 days, giving lawmakers more time to agree on funding legislation for the next fiscal year.

However, following that agreement, Republican Kevin McCarthy, who worked with Democrats to pass the continuing resolution, was voted out of his job as House speaker, opposed by a contingent of hard-right conservatives as well as Democrats.

Biden was asked if he could work with outspoken conservative Representative Jim Jordan if he were elected speaker. Jordan has been endorsed for the job by former President Donald Trump.

Biden said he would try to work with whoever is chosen as speaker. “Some people, I imagine, would be easier to work with than others, but I’ll try to work with them.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Former President Donald Trump lost a bid Friday to halt his civil fraud trial while he fights a pretrial ruling that could strip him of Trump Tower and other marquee properties.

An appeals court judge rebuffed Trump’s push to pause the New York trial, which will start next week, but agreed to leave him in control of his holdings for now. The decision, after an emergency hearing Friday afternoon, came five days into the closely watched trial.

Trump went to the courthouse for the first three days of the trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit, observing testimony — and complaining to TV cameras outside about a case he deemed a “a witch hunt and a disgrace.”

Trump’s lawyers had asked the state’s intermediate appellate court to suspend the trial and prevent Judge Arthur Engoron from enforcing a ruling he made last week. Engoron’s decision revoked the Republican presidential front-runner’s business licenses and put a court-appointed receiver in charge of his companies.

“This is a massive error. It is irreparable,” Trump lawyer Christopher Kise told the appellate judge, Associate Justice Peter H. Moulton. Kise argued that the ruling would make defendants in other cases fear that their companies and properties will be seized without recourse.

“We’re not seeking a delay. We’re seeking a fair trial,” Kise said.

Trump’s lawyers said Engoron’s ruling could harm not only the ex-president and other defendants but as many as 1,000 employees.

Offer from state

State Deputy Solicitor General Judy Vale told the appeals judge that James’ office had already offered to keep the business licenses as they are until after the trial. Kise acknowledged the offer, but said he was worried Engoron wouldn’t allow it.

“We could have resolved some of this, and we’re still happy to do so,” Vale said.

She called the defense arguments for a delay “completely meritless” and noted that mounting the trial has been “an enormous endeavor.” It has entailed extensive court planning, security resources for Trump’s attendance, and special arrangements for press and public access.

Ahead of the hearing, James said Trump and the other defendants “can continue to try to delay and stall, but the evidence is clear, and our case is strong.”

She declined to comment as she left the emergency hearing, at the state Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, in Manhattan.

In a statement, Kise said: “We are very pleased the First Department upheld New York law and put a halt to any cancellation of business certificates, receivers or dissolution. The trial court’s attempt to reach issues, entities and assets beyond the scope of this case has been suspended.”

The appellate court last week rejected the defense’s last-minute effort to delay the trial just days before it began. On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers dropped a lawsuit they filed against Engoron as part of that challenge.

Routine fraud found

Engoron ruled last week that Trump had committed years of fraud as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to fame and the White House.

The judge, ruling on the top claim in James’ lawsuit, found that Trump had routinely deceived banks, insurers and others by exaggerating the value of assets on his annual financial statements, which were used in making deals and securing loans.

Trump has denied wrongdoing, arguing that some of his assets are worth far more than what’s listed on the statements.

Before the appellate action, former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney testified at the trial Friday that values he assigned to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — as much as $739 million in 2018 — were based on the false premise that it could be sold as a private residence. Such use is prohibited by Trump’s 2002 agreement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“Were you aware that Mr. Trump had deeded away his right to use the property for any other purpose than a social club?” state lawyer Andrew Amer asked.

“I was not aware,” said McConney, who’s also a defendant in this case.

The trial will resume Tuesday with Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, on the witness stand. Weisselberg, a defendant, oversaw Trump’s dealmaking, was involved in securing loans and supervised McConney’s work on the financial statements. He left jail in April after serving about 100 days for dodging taxes on $1.7 million in job perks.

Procedures for ruling

As the trial was unfolding this week, Engoron issued an order Thursday setting procedures for enforcing his ruling. He gave both sides until October 26 to submit names of potential receivers and gave Trump and other defendants seven days to provide a court-appointed monitor, retired federal Judge Barbara Jones, with a list of all entities covered by the ruling.

He also ordered the defendants to give Jones advance notice of any application for new business licenses in any jurisdiction and any attempts to create new entities to “hold or acquire the assets” of a company that’s being dissolved under the ruling.

Trump’s lawyers argued in court papers that Engoron had “no rationale or legal authority” to impose what they described as “the corporate death penalty.” They also rapped the judge for not being clear in explaining the real-world effects of his decision.

At a pretrial hearing on September 26, Trump lawyer Kise pressed Engoron to clarify whether his ruling meant Trump would be required simply to close up some corporate entities or if he’d be forced to relinquish some of his most prized assets. 

Engoron then said he wasn’t “prepared to issue a ruling right now.”
…

The United Auto Workers union said Friday it will not expand its strikes against Detroit’s three automakers after General Motors made a breakthrough concession on unionizing electric vehicle battery plants. 

Union President Shawn Fain told workers in a video appearance that additional plants could be added to the strikes later. 

The announcement of the pause in expanding the strikes came shortly after GM agreed to bring electric vehicle battery plants into the UAW’s national contract, essentially assuring that they will be unionized. 

Fain, wearing a T-shirt that said “Eat the Rich” in bold letters, said GM’s move will change the future of the union and the auto industry. He said GM made the change after the union threatened to strike at a plant in Arlington, Texas, that makes highly profitable large SUVs. 

“Today, under the threat of a major financial hit, they leapfrogged the pack in terms of a just transition” from combustion engines to electric vehicles, he said. “Our strike is working, but we’re not there yet.” 

In addition to large general pay raises, cost of living pay, restoration of pensions for new hires and other items, the union wanted to represent 10 battery factories proposed by the companies. 

The companies have said the plants, mostly joint ventures with South Korean battery makers, had to be bargained separately. 

Friday’s change means the four U.S. GM battery plants would now be covered under the union’s master agreement and GM would bargain with the union “which I think is a monumental development,” said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.  He said the details of GM’s offer, made in writing, will have to be scrutinized. 

“GM went far beyond and gave them this,” Masters said. “And I think GM is thinking they may get something in return for this on the economic items.” 

GM, Ford and Stellantis declined immediate comment on Fain’s announcement. 

Shares of all three automakers rose after Fain’s announcement in apparent anticipation that deals might be near. GM’s shares ended Friday up almost 2%, Stellantis added 3% and Ford rose just under 1%. 

The automakers have resisted bringing battery plants into the national UAW contracts, contending the union can’t represent workers who haven’t been hired yet. They also say joint venture partners must be involved in the talks. 

They also fear that big union contracts could drive up the prices of their electric vehicles, making them more expensive than Tesla and other nonunion competitors. 

For the past two weeks the union has expanded strikes that began on September 15 when the UAW targeted one assembly plant from each of the three automakers. That spread to 38 parts-distribution centers run by GM and Stellantis, maker of Jeeps and Ram pickups. Ford was spared from that expansion because talks with the union were progressing then. 

Last week the union added a GM crossover SUV plant in Lansing, Michigan, and a Ford SUV factory in Chicago but spared Stellantis from additional strikes due to progress in talks. 

Automakers have long said they are willing to give raises, but they fear that a costly contract will make their vehicles more expensive than those built at nonunion U.S. plants run by foreign corporations. 

The union insists that labor expenses are only 4% to 5% of the cost of a vehicle, and that the companies are making billions in profits and can afford big raises. 

The union had structured its walkouts so the companies can keep making big pickup trucks and SUVs, their top-selling and most profitable vehicles. Previously it shut down assembly plants in Missouri, Ohio and Michigan that make midsize pickups, commercial vans and midsize SUVs, which aren’t as profitable as larger vehicles. 

In the past, the union picked one company as a potential strike target and reached a contract agreement with that company to be the pattern for the others. 

But this year, Fain introduced a novel strategy of targeting a limited number of facilities at all three automakers. About 25,000, or about 17%, of the union’s 146,000 workers at the three automakers are now on strike. 
…

Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. 

US Government to Resume Deportations to Venezuela

The Biden administration announced Thursday it will resume the deportation of migrants back to Venezuela in hopes of decreasing the numbers of Venezuelans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. On a background call with reporters — a method often used by U.S. authorities to share information with reporters without being identified — Biden officials said Venezuelan nationals who cross into the United States unlawfully will still be processed. But if it is found they do not have a legal basis to remain in the country, they will be “swiftly removed” back to Venezuela. The U.S. has not carried out regular deportations to Venezuela for years. VOA’s Immigration reporter Aline Barros.

Biden Says He Can’t Stop New Border Barrier Plan

President Joe Biden said Thursday he was unable to legally divert money away from a plan to build several miles of new barriers along the southern border — directly contradicting his campaign vow to build “not another foot of wall” and drawing harsh criticism from Mexico’s president. A notice to allow construction in Texas was released Wednesday night in the Federal Register, the official U.S. government gazette. Story by VOA’s White House correspondent Anita Powell and VOA’s Immigration reporter Aline Barros.

UN Agency: US-Mexico Border, World’s Deadliest Land Crossing for Migrants

The U.S.-Mexico border is the world’s deadliest land migration route, according to the United Nations migration agency. The most recent report from the International Organization for Migration shows hundreds of people die each year attempting to get to the United States through the dangerous deserts. VOA’s Immigration reporter Aline Barros.

Chicago Keeps Hundreds of Migrants at Airports While Waiting on Shelters and Tents

Hidden behind a heavy black curtain in one of the nation’s busiest airports is Chicago’s unsettling response to a growing population of asylum-seekers arriving by plane. Hundreds of migrants, from babies to the elderly, live inside a shuttle bus center at O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 1. They sleep on cardboard pads on the floor and share airport bathrooms. A private firm monitors their movements. The Associated Press reports.

Migrants Being Raped at Mexico Border as They Await Entry to US  

When Carolina’s captors arrived at dawn to pull her out of the stash house in the Mexican border city of Reynosa in late May, she thought they were going to force her to call her family in Venezuela again to beg them to pay $2,000 ransom. Instead, one of the men shoved her onto a broken-down bus parked outside and raped her, she told Reuters. “It’s the saddest, most horrible thing that can happen to a person,” Carolina said. Reported by Reuters.

US Officials in Mexico to Discuss Fentanyl, Human Migration

Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, were in Mexico for talks Wednesday with Mexican officials on the drug trade and a humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border. Blinken will be joined by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The U.S. delegation is set to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Rosa Icela Rodriguez, secretary for Security and Citizen Protection. Reported by Rob Garver.

Immigration around the world

Reporter’s Notebook: The End of Artsakh

The dog’s ribs are visible and her owner’s skeletal shoulders poke through a gray sweater. The dog’s name is Chalo, essentially “Spot” in Armenian, and the owner, 69, tells us to call her Tamar. She is a refugee in Armenia and wants her real name withheld for security reasons. We meet her in a park hours after she arrives in Goris, Armenia, where workers staff humanitarian tents in the last days of September for the 100,000-plus people fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh. By VOA’s Middle East correspondent Heather Murdock.

Pakistan to Begin Deportation of 1.7 Million Undocumented Afghans

Pakistan has ordered all undocumented immigrants, including 1.7 million Afghans, to leave the country by November 1, vowing mass deportations for those who stay. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar approved the plan Tuesday at a high-level meeting of his top civilian and military officials in Islamabad. Reported by Ayaz Gul and VOA Pakistan Bureau Chief Sarah Zaman.

Afghans Seeking Refuge in Pakistan Face New Uncertainties

Pakistan has ordered all undocumented immigrants to leave voluntarily by November 1 or face deportation. The new order primarily affects Afghans, many of whom fled their country after the Taliban took over in August 2021. VOA Pakistan Bureau Chief Sarah Zaman met with some Afghan women who once again are facing an uncertain future. VOA footage by Wajid Asad, Malik Waqar Ahmad and Wajid Shah.

New IOM Chief Seeks More Regular Pathways for Migration

On assuming her post as the new director general of the International Organization for Migration, Amy Pope said that one of her main priorities was to build more regular pathways for migration for people who have lost hope for a viable future and cannot stay home. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

Ethiopian Entrepreneur Awarded for App That Helps Refugees Find Work

An Ethiopian digital app inventor has been given a prestigious award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for creating an application designed to link refugees with employers. Last week in New York, Eden Tadesse accepted a Goalkeepers Global Goals Award at a ceremony attended by Kenyan President William Ruto, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Bill and Melinda Gates, among others. Maya Misikir reports for VOA from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Pakistan Turns Up Heat Over Cross-Border Attacks

A senior Pakistani diplomat said Thursday that while the Taliban had brought peace and security to Afghanistan, increased terrorist attacks from the neighboring country threatened stability in Pakistan, putting strains on an already difficult bilateral relationship. Ayaz Gul reports for VOA from Islamabad, Pakistan.

VOA60 Africa — Hundreds of Thousands of South Sudanese Refugees Face Hunger

The World Food Program says hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees fleeing Sudan’s five-month-long war are facing hunger, with 90% of families going days without meals. The fighting has forced out nearly 300,000 South Sudanese.

Taliban, Rights Groups Decry Pakistan’s Decision to Evict Afghan Immigrants

Afghanistan’s Taliban Wednesday urged Pakistan to review its plans to expel Afghan immigrants, rejecting charges the displaced community is involved in the security problems facing the neighboring country. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid released the statement a day after the Pakistani government ordered undocumented immigrants, including more than 1.7 million Afghans, to leave the country by November 1. Ayaz Gul reports for VOA from Islamabad, Pakistan.

Officials Describe ‘Surreal’ Scenes as Nagorno-Karabakh’s Aid, Health Crisis Grows

The unprecedented influx of more than 100,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia in less than a week has triggered a humanitarian and health crisis that will require a large-scale, longtime international effort and support to resolve, aid officials warned Tuesday. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

Armenian Refugees Say No Hope of Return to Nagorno-Karabakh

Nearly the entire population of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have fled to Armenia, and the one-time residents of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh are scattered. But as VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Ishkhanasar and Kornidzor near the Armenia border with Azerbaijan, many fear the war that drove them out is not over. Camerman Yan Boechat contributed.

Lebanon Reacts to Surge in Migration from Syria 

Lebanon is pushing back on the European Union’s calls for the country to assist migrants and refugees from Syria. There are growing concerns that Lebanon’s collapsing economy is fueling anti-immigrant sentiment and putting the country on a dangerous course. Lebanon’s caretaker interior minister, Bassam Mawlawi, has accused Syrian refugees and migrants of committing crimes, taking away jobs from Lebanese and potentially creating a demographic imbalance along sectarian lines, saying their numbers must be “limited.” Produced by Dale Gavlak.

News brief

— U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Friday “the extension and redesignation of Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months, from December 8, 2023, through June 7, 2025, due to ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions in Cameroon that prevent individuals from safely returning.”
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It’s been more than 20 years since “Spy Kids” made its way to movie theaters around the world. Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has rebooted the franchise to attract a new generation. VOA’s Veronica Villafañe spoke with the director and has more in this report.
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According to a 2022 Rice University study, between 1972 and 2017, at least 521 U.S. small towns and cities with populations between 1,000 and 200-thousand residents have disbanded their police departments, and the impact has been surprising. Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Andrey Degtyarev
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US and Mexican officials held talks about immigration, illicit drug trafficking and other shared challenges Thursday in Mexico City. But it was the confusion surrounding a possible expansion of the border wall that forced the US secretary of homeland security to take a pause from the agenda and clarify the administration’s stance. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the story.
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For years, Chinese officials have referred to the Tiananmen massacre as “political turmoil” and have attempted to make the violence of June 4, 1989, disappear.

Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred people to more than 10,000, though there has never been an official tally released. Thousands more were injured by troops who charged the student-led pro-democracy demonstration that began massing in Beijing’s vast open space in mid-April.

Against that backdrop, Tiananmen: A New Musical weaves a love story between two students in a production that opened Wednesday at the Phoenix Theatre Company in Arizona. Its world premiere will be Friday night.  

Wu’er Kaixi, who was one of the protest leaders and who now lives in Taiwan where he is a pro-democracy activist, served as a creative consultant.  

It is the latest in a subset of musicals that tackle serious issues. Cabaret addresses homophobia, antisemitism and the rise of Nazi Germany. Dear Evan Hansen grapples with suicide and bullying.  

It took three years to produce Tiananmen. Beijing’s growing willingness to track down its critics and exert pressure on them left many who auditioned wary of accepting roles that jeopardize family or business interests in China.  

The show’s musical director, theater veteran Darren Lee, told VOA Mandarin that before accepting the job, he had a career first: calling his parents to see if there were relatives still in China who would be endangered.

His family’s “most studious aunt” with the best “memory and connection to where we’ve all come from” greenlit Lee’s participation. The show’s original Chinese American director left the show because of “potential for retribution against his family in China if he were involved in telling this story,” Lee told Phoenix magazine.  

Lee said one of the core messages of the Tiananmen play is to explore the impact of this “long arm of fear” on people.  

“I’m an American-born Chinese person. I may share DNA with people in China, but I don’t have direct relatives that would be pressured in any way. So, I don’t have that same sense of — I guess it’s fear,” he said.

Producer Jason Rose said others involved in the show opted out due to concerns about family or business interests in China. Others used stage names or were credited as “Anonymous.”

Rose told VOA Mandarin he respected those decisions, but the show kept moving ahead despite possible pressure from Beijing.

“That’s what drew me to this show,” he said. “It is provocative. It is important. It is a celebration of bravery by these artists. … That is American art at its best, and to allow another country to dictate what’s going to be on the American stage — I’m sorry, that’s where I’ll hold up my hand and say, ‘Let’s go try and do this.’”

And while Kaixi hopes audiences will feel the students’ courage and the atmosphere of hope that permeated Tiananmen Square, he wants people to realize that the rulers of today’s China are no different from those who “decided to shoot and kill people” in 1989.

That view is reflected in a scene described by Rose in an opinion piece Sept. 15 in the Arizona Capitol Times. China’s leader in 1989, Deng Xiaoping, walking through the carnage left by the government’s attack, delivers a monologue: “People will forget what happened here. People will forget what we did here. Westerners will. China will. Because you will want smartphones. Because Beijing will want skyscrapers. Twenty-thousand dying will bring 20 years of stability. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And at the edge of memory, who defines the truth? Me.”

VOA Mandarin sought comment from the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco but did not receive a response.

Ellie Wang, who stars opposite Kennedy Kanagawa in Tiananmen, told Playbill, “This production is not just a celebration of art and storytelling but a powerful reminder of the importance of courage, resilience, and the universal desire for freedom.” 

Wen Baoling, a Hong Konger who lives in San Francisco, traveled to Phoenix to attend a preview of the show, which has a book by Scott Elmegreen, with music and lyrics by Drew Fornarola.

“I really wanted to support this team of very brave people who made this show about the Tiananmen massacre,” she said. “The Chinese regime tries to put a lot of pressure on people, even outside of China. So, we can’t really let the censorship — this complete erasure of history — we can’t let the Chinese regime extend that censorship outside of China and into the U.S.”

Audience member Jerry Vineyard told VOA Mandarin he had followed the Tiananmen protests when they began. He said the musical “brought up a lot of memories for me … because I remember I was in high school, I was 17, when all this happened. And I felt a lot of hope when I saw that started to happen. And then it just seemed like it was all dashed and crushed. And then … they mentioned in the play, the [Berlin] Wall came down shortly after. So, [Tiananmen] kind of got brushed away in history.”

Kaixi said the students’ pro-democracy movement of 1989 remains “unfinished business.”

“I hope everyone will remember this history, respect this history, and eulogize this history. This generation of young people, with their dedication and their bravery, can achieve the results we wanted,” he said.
…

Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a judge Thursday to dismiss the Washington federal election subversion case against him, arguing the Republican is immune from prosecution for actions they say were taken in his official role as president. 

The motion amounts to the most pointed attack yet by defense attorneys on the federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. It tees up a fight over the scope of presidential power, forcing courts to wrestle with whether the actions Trump took in his failed bid to remain in office fell within his duties as commander in chief or whether they strayed far outside his White House responsibilities and are subject to prosecution. 

“Breaking 234 years of precedent, the incumbent administration has charged President Trump for acts that lie not just within the ‘outer perimeter,’ but at the heart of his official responsibilities as president,” the defense motion states. “In doing so, the prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties.” 

The presidential immunity argument had been foreshadowed for weeks by defense attorneys as one of multiple challenges they intended to bring against the indictment.  

Challenge expected

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team is expected to vigorously contest the motion. It is not clear when U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan might rule, but potentially protracted arguments over the motion — including an expected appeal if she denies the request — could delay the case as courts step into what defense attorneys described as an unsettled question. 

The Supreme Court has held that presidents are immune from civil liability for actions related to their official duties. But Trump’s lawyers noted in their motion that no court has addressed the question of whether that immunity shields a president from criminal prosecution, hinting that the defense will likely fight the issue all the way to the nation’s highest court. 

“In addressing this question, the court should consider the Constitution’s text, structure, and original meaning, historical practice, the court’s precedents and immunity doctrines, and considerations of public policy,” they wrote. 

Prosecutors appeared to anticipate the immunity argument, writing in the indictment that though political candidates are permitted to challenge their election losses and to even falsely claim victory, Trump’s actions strayed far beyond what is legally permissible in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the building to disrupt the counting of electoral votes. 

In their motion, defense lawyers argue that the actions that form the basis of the indictment, including urging the Justice Department to investigate claims of voter fraud and pressing state officials on the administration of elections, cut to the core of Trump’s responsibilities as commander in chief. 

No such authority

The Justice Department has held that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted. The motion Thursday seeks to ensure that same protection to a former president for actions taken while in office, asserting that no prosecutor since the beginning of American democracy has had the authority to bring such charges. 

“Every action of the defendant charged in the indictment occurred while he was still in office as president of the United States, and, according to the prosecution, all concerned a federal government function,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Given the all-consuming nature of the presidency, these facts alone strongly support the notion that the indictment is based solely on President Trump’s official acts.” 

They contend that Trump’s tweets and public statements about fraud in the election and Vice President Mike Pence’s role in the certification were directly related to his assertion that the election’s outcome was tainted by fraud and that the Justice Department and certain states had failed to adequately investigate it. 

And they say meetings detailed in the indictment with Justice Department officials also fall within his official duties because he was urging his agency “to do more to enforce the laws that it is charged with enforcing.” 

Prosecutors alleged a broad range of criminal conduct in a four-count indictment issued August 1, accusing Trump of conspiring with a half-dozen allies to pressure state officials to alter the results of their elections; enlisting slates of fake electors in battleground states who could falsely claim that Trump had won; and persuading Pence to shirk his duty to certify the vote count before Congress. 

The indictment says Trump knew the claims he was pushing about election fraud were false but did so anyway in an effort to undermine the integrity of the democratic process. But Trump’s lawyers say “the president’s motivations are not for the prosecution or this court to decide.” 

Trump’s lawyers also argue his 2021 impeachment trial acquittal bars his prosecution, saying the Constitution suggests presidents can only be criminally charged in cases where they are impeached and convicted by the Senate. 

“President Trump was acquitted of these charges after trial in the Senate, and he thus remains immune from prosecution. The special counsel cannot second-guess the judgment of the duly elected United States Senate,” his lawyers wrote. 

Other cases

The case, one of four Trump is facing, is set for trial on March 4, 2024. 

His lawyers have separately sought the dismissal of a New York state case charging him with falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to a porn actress who alleged an extramarital affair with Trump years earlier. 

In court papers made public late Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers accused prosecutors of reviving a so-called “zombie case” to interfere with his comeback campaign for the White House and argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, only brought the case because of politics. 

Defense lawyers also sought late Wednesday to postpone until after the 2024 presidential election the trial in a separate criminal case in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding classified documents.
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The Kansas police chief who led a widely condemned raid on a small-town newspaper resigned earlier this week after body cam footage revealed him rifling through files about himself. But with the newspaper still struggling to operate nearly two months after the raid, the publisher and lawyer say the resignation is too little, too late.

Gideon Cody, the former police chief of Marion, Kansas, led the raid of the Marion County Record newspaper in August in a move that was denounced by news outlets and press freedom groups as a clear violation of the First Amendment.

After being suspended from his position last week by the town’s mayor, Cody resigned Monday evening.

But the resignation isn’t something to praise, the Record’s lawyer, Bernie Rhodes, told VOA, adding that the paper is still planning to take legal action.

“We should not be celebrating this whatsoever. We should be glad that his gun and badge have been taken away from him. But the city did nothing to convince me that they’re taking appropriate action,” Rhodes said. “The city took no action.

“I don’t understand why it took two months for someone to take Chief Cody’s gun and badge. He is clearly unfit for duty. And this should have happened a long time ago,” he said.

The paper’s owner and publisher, Eric Meyer, agreed.

“He should have been suspended immediately,” he said.

Meyer blames the stress of the raid for the death of his mother, Joan, the newspaper’s co-owner, who died of cardiac arrest a day after the raid.

Marion police did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. Marion Mayor David Mayfield also did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

The raid’s dramatic fallout has taken a toll on the newspaper’s operations, Meyer told VOA on Thursday.

“I keep saying we’re one head cold away from not being able to publish our newspaper. We’re right on that edge,” he said. “It’s a very big struggle to get the paper out each week.”

Although the Record has gotten thousands of new subscriptions since the raid, the newspaper’s staff are now working a “ridiculous number of hours,” Meyer said, acknowledging that the pace is not sustainable.

The Record has not yet taken any legal action, but a former Record reporter has done so in her personal capacity.

On Wednesday, Cody responded to a lawsuit filed in August against him by Deb Gruver, who said she suffered lasting emotional and physical injury when Cody took her cellphone from her hand during the raid.

Gruver recently resigned from the Record, citing worsening mental health since the raid. She declined to comment about recent developments in the case but spoke to VOA in August about the paranoia she said she has experienced in the incident’s aftermath.

“I don’t feel really that safe anymore here,” she told VOA in the paper’s newsroom. “I don’t feel safe in Marion. I’m not sure I ever did, really, but I certainly don’t now.

“They violated our rights, and I won’t ever be the same,” Gruver said then.

In his response this week, Cody denied most of the allegations concerning his actions related to the raid.

“Defendant Cody did not act alone, nor did he orchestrate a complex conspiracy of other law enforcement officers to carry out illegal or malicious plans against Plaintiff Gruver,” reads Cody’s response to the federal lawsuit.

The raid on the weekly newspaper has come to symbolize the yearslong plight of local news in the United States.

Rhodes, the lawyer, said the Record is waiting until the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, or KBI, completes its inquiry into the incident and releases its report before the paper takes legal action.

Melissa Underwood, KBI’s communications director, told VOA the “case is wrapping up,” but she did not know an exact timeline.

Despite the many all-nighters spent working on the paper since the raid, Meyer said he has somehow managed to maintain an optimistic outlook.

“You can look at Marion, Kansas, as the place where there’s a bunch of corruption going on,” he said. “Or you can look at Marion, Kansas, as the place where there was a bunch of corruption going on, and we caught it, whereas they might not have caught it in other places.”
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An updated rule curbing exports of U.S. chipmaking equipment to China is in the final stages of review, according to a government posting and a source, a sign the Biden administration is poised to soon tighten restrictions on Beijing. 

Reuters exclusively reported Monday that U.S. officials had warned China in recent weeks to expect rules restricting shipments of semiconductor equipment and advanced AI chips to China to be updated this month. 

The updates would add restrictions and close loopholes in rules first unveiled on October 7, 2022, sources say. Those rules angered Beijing and further strained relations with Washington. 

A regulation titled “Export Controls to Semiconductor Manufacturing Items, Entity List Modifications” was posted on the Office of Management and Budget website on Wednesday. 

A person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity, confirmed the posting refers to the expected restriction on sending chipmaking tools to China. 

Export control rules are generally not posted by OMB until there is agreement between the State, Defense, Commerce and Energy departments on their content, former officials said.  

The government has yet to post an anticipated companion rule updating restrictions on exports of high-end chips used for artificial intelligence.

A source said the Biden administration is seeking to publish both rules simultaneously. A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce declined to comment.
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