U.S. lawmakers this week marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody, and they are divided about how to hold Iran accountable for human rights abuses. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
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Commercial casinos in the U.S. had their best July ever this year, winning nearly $5.4 billion from gamblers, according to figures released Thursday by a national gambling industry group.

The American Gaming Association said the casinos’ winnings were up nearly 6% from July 2022.

The association also said the casinos remain on pace to have their best year ever in 2023, with winnings from in-person casino games, sports betting and internet gambling at nearly $38 billion over the first seven months of this year, 11% ahead of what they won during the same period in 2022.

The association, the national trade group for the gambling industry, also revealed that revenue from traditional in-person casino games in July was $4.4 billion, a monthly record. It said those figures were aided by seasonal travel trends and the addition of several new physical casino properties around the country, including in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Sports betting generated nearly $498 million in revenue in July, up more than 28% from a year ago. Internet gambling in Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia generated $481.5 million, up nearly 23% from a year ago.

The group said 21 of 31 commercial gambling states that were operational a year ago and have complete data available posted year-over-year revenue growth in July.

Only five states reported their casinos won less over the first seven months of this year than they did a year earlier: Florida (-0.8%); Indiana (-0.5%); Iowa (-0.1%); Louisiana (-0.1%), and Mississippi (-3.8%).

The figures do not include money won at tribal-run casinos, which report their revenue separately.

Combined revenue from online sports betting and internet gambling increased 25.2% year-over-year in July. The rate of revenue growth from land-based casinos, which includes money won from gamblers at slot machines, table games and retail sports betting, remained steady at 2.5% in both June and July. It had been flat for the three months before then.

Through July, year-to-date commercial sports betting revenue reached $5.46 billion, exceeding the same period in the previous year by more than 63%.

Over that same period, internet gambling revenue was $3.45 billion, up 22.6% from a year earlier.
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Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, was criminally charged  Thursday with deceiving a gun dealer into selling him a firearm. It was thought to be the first indictment ever of a sitting U.S. president’s child.

The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, charged Biden with three criminal counts related to lying about the fact he was using illegal drugs in October 2018 when he purchased a Colt Cobra handgun,  which would have banned him under the law from owning a firearm.

The charges, brought by U.S. special counsel David Weiss, say nothing about any violations of U.S. tax law. A prior deal under which Biden, 53, would have pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enroll in a program to avoid prosecution on the gun charge collapsed in a July hearing.

The tax investigation into Biden is continuing. Weiss previously said any possible charges would need to be brought in either the District of Columbia or the Los Angeles-based Central District of California.

The indictment came two days after House of Representatives Republicans opened an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. The White House has denounced that step, made without a vote by the full House, as unsubstantiated and politically motivated.

The White House declined to comment on the indictment. An attorney for Hunter Biden could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesperson for Weiss declined to comment.

Special counsel status 

Weiss was elevated to special counsel status in August after investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings for years as the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware. Weiss was originally nominated by then-President Donald Trump.

The younger Biden for years has been the focus of attacks by Trump and his Republican allies, who have accused him of wrongdoing relating to Ukraine and China, among other matters. Hunter Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, investment banker and artist, and he has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.

While Republican lawmakers have collected testimony that Joe Biden at times joined calls with his son’s business associates, they have yet to produce evidence that the president personally benefited.

“Today’s charges against Hunter Biden are a very small start, but unless U.S. Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in the fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy,” said Republican Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, one of the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry that kicked off this week.

Hunter Biden disclosed in December 2020 that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs. He has denied wrongdoing.

While most U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump were asked to step down when Biden took office in January 2021, as is routine, the Justice Department asked Weiss to stay on.

Hunter Biden has never held a position in the White House or on his father’s campaign. The president has said he has not discussed foreign business dealings with his son and has said his Justice Department would have independence in any investigation of a member of his family.

Trump and other Republicans have alleged what they called conflicts of interest from Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma at the time his father was vice president to Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump in a July 2019 phone call with Ukraine’s president asked him to have his government open an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives later voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress stemming from these efforts, though the Senate ultimately voted to keep Trump in office.

In a 2021 memoir, Hunter Biden wrote of his substance abuse issues, including his use of crack cocaine and alcohol. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after, sources said at the time, testing positive for cocaine.

The president has two surviving children, Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden. His son Beau Biden died in 2015 of cancer and his daughter Naomi Biden died as an infant after a car accident that also killed Joe Biden’s first wife.

Hunter Biden appears to be the first child of a sitting president to be indicted, according to Aaron Crawford, who specializes in presidential history at the University of Tennessee.

Crawford said family members of several presidents have been ensnared in legal or financial problems, including George H.W. Bush’s son Neil, who was on the board of directors of a failed savings and loan, and Richard Nixon’s brother Don, who was rescued from business failures by wealthy businessman Howard Hughes.
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NASA said on Thursday it has selected a research director to investigate UFO sightings on the recommendation of an independent panel of experts. 

Administrator Bill Nelson, who made the announcement, has yet to identify the appointee. 

The unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, is the official term for what most call UFOs — unidentified flying objects. The panel, which included physicists, astronomers and biologists, wouldn’t say whether eyewitness accounts of UAP prove the existence of life beyond our horizons. 

That’s still an open question, according to Nelson. “If you ask me do I believe there’s life in a universe that’s so vast that it’s hard for me to comprehend how big it is, my personal answer is, ‘Yes,'” he said. 

In his statement, Nelson conceded that “[NASA scientists] don’t know what these UAP are.” 

In 2021, the national intelligence director published a comprehensive report, sharing never-before-seen scientific data and military observations on coastal sightings of UAP. Some of the high-flying objects are said to outpace and outmaneuver even the best fighter jets, without any apparent thrust or flight control systems. 

UAP have mystified Americans since June 1947, when newspapers first reported that a metallic “flying saucer” appeared in the sky over mountain ranges in Washington state. Sensational accounts of UAP sightings have cropped up all over the world since, including the debunked Roswell, New Mexico incident that made headlines that same year.

For the better part of a century, conspiracy theorists have accused the government of withholding facts or even lying to the public. But Nelson promised that NASA’s incoming research director would disclose all UAP-related developments to “shift the conversation about UAP from sensationalism to science.”

The director will manage “centralized communications, resources and data analytical capabilities to establish a robust database for the evaluation of future UAP,” NASA said. 

The appointment comes as academics claim to be making inroads in the search for extraterrestrial life. In recent weeks, the controversial Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb recovered tiny meteorite fragments off the coast of Papua New Guinea. His team is evaluating whether the unusual metallic samples are bits of alien technology. 

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters. 
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All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

While the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically transformed the way Americans work, with millions of people now working a hybrid schedule, the office itself remains stuck in pre-pandemic times.

“The offices that we have have largely been designed as a place that people need to come. Many of them are cube farms that are really boring, unexciting, and nobody wants to be there,” says Aditya Sanghvi, senior partner at McKinsey & Company, who leads the management consulting firm’s real estate practice. “The office has suddenly become a choice. It’s an option. And the office has to be better for someone than working from home and enduring the commute to come into the office.”

More Americans than ever have a hybrid schedule, splitting time between working from home and going into the office. A spring 2022 survey of 25,000 Americans by McKinsey & Company found that 58% of respondents were able to work from home at least one day a week. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that more than one-third of Americans, 34%, worked from home at least some of the time in 2022.

Despite these changes in how Americans work, the workplace has largely remained the same.

“If you’re going to be working in a cubicle, you might as well be working from home. You won’t have to engage in the commute, which is a productivity killer,” says Ryan Luby, an associate partner at McKinsey & Company who co-authored the report. “And then when you get to the office, if you’re not engaging with anyone else, you might as well not be there.”

Enter the U.S. federal government. Even though the government is often perceived as an unwieldy bureaucracy where little changes, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the agency that oversees federal buildings, is among those taking the lead to determine what the office of the future will look like.

“What we’re trying to do is create a workplace and an environment that allows you to be as productive as you can be without getting in the way. And that means a variety of spaces for a variety of the people that work for us,” says Chuck Hardy, GSA’s chief architect.

Hardy is overseeing GSA’s Workplace Innovation Lab, a 25,000-square-foot space, located inside the organization’s Washington headquarters, where federal workers can try out the latest in workplace furnishings and technology, supplied by private vendors. During the yearlong experiment, federal workers from across the government can sign up to work in the lab, testing out the different layouts and latest innovations. In return, they are asked to provide feedback on their experience.

“The office should be a magnet not a mandate. We’re looking to have an office that brings people back to it purposefully,” Hardy says. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. And in certain agencies and certain offices, it can be multiple solutions. And so, we’re looking at what is that mix of a solution?”

Some spaces in the lab feature comfortable chairs and sofas. Others look more like traditional workspaces. Almost everything can be moved around. The air quality is monitored, and sustainable technology solutions are being tested. Hardy says the office of the future also needs to have advanced acoustics and technology.

Sanghvi foresees more seamless meeting spaces.

“There needs to be immersive conference rooms where it almost feels like there’s no difference between whether or not someone’s sitting with you in the office or somebody’s by video,” he says. “And I assume over the next 10 years, we’ll get a great evolution in that.”

The office needs to change because the role of the workplace has changed, according to Luby.

“The office should be a place where you’re doing group work, where you’re doing community-oriented collaborative activities,” Luby says. “That space should be suited for collaboration, community gathering and facilitating those moments that matter. It’s going to be much more group oriented. It’s going to be a more flexible space, more modular.”

The office of the future might even help workers with their errands.

“One of the reasons that a lot of people work from home is that they have to pick up the kids or do dry cleaning. They have to take care of the dog,” Sanghvi says. “And so, what if there were pet care in the building? What if there was child care in the building?”

Sanghvi believes landlords have to take a more active role in transforming workspaces for the new post-pandemic reality.

“We all trust our hotels to help us with services when we stay in a hotel,” he says. “Many retailers trust the shopping mall owners with doing marketing on behalf of everyone and driving traffic. So, it’s just a different motion for offices, but it’s pretty well-established elsewhere.”

Office planners of the future will likely try to address three main criteria, according to Hardy at the GSA.

“It has to be quality, has to be serving a purpose, but it still has to be beautiful,” he says. “And so, that’s what we’re looking for here — you don’t want to go into a building that looks like you’re in a basement. … You’re seeing office settings that have similarities to a living room setting or have similarities to a den. You’re seeing furniture that’s a little more comfortable.”

Which means the office of the future could feel a little bit more like home.
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The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Americans work. With millions of people now working from home at least part of the time, experts say offices must evolve to meet their needs. The U.S. General Services Administration, the agency that oversees federal buildings, is trying to determine what that means. VOA’s Dora Mekouar visited its Workplace Innovation Lab to learn more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum.
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Poverty in the United States surged dramatically in 2022, particularly among children, after social support programs put in place during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic were allowed to expire, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau. 

Across the U.S, 12.4% of Americans were living in poverty in 2022, up from just 7.8% in 2021. The increase was even more pronounced among children, with 12.4% living in poverty last year, compared to 5.2% in 2021. 

“This is devastating,” said Aileen Carr, interim executive director of Georgetown Law School’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. “This is the worst [increase] we’ve ever seen, especially with child poverty. It is hard to overstate the human suffering that these numbers represent.” 

The data was released as part of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which the government calculates separately from the official poverty figures. The SPM considers both the amount of money families receive from government benefit programs and the variations in the cost of living across different communities in the U.S. 

The official poverty level income rate for a family with two adults and two children was $29,678 in 2022. The SPM, meant to provide a more nuanced picture, set the rate for that same family of four, assuming that they lived in rental housing, at $34,518. 

Pandemic programs expire

In many ways, the low poverty numbers from 2021 were an aberration. At the time, the federal government was supporting the income of millions of Americans with a variety of pandemic-related relief programs. One of the most effective was the Child Tax Credit, which for one year provided lower-income parents with a monthly payment based on the number of children in their household. 

At the time, supporters of the credit predicted it would dramatically reduce the number of children living below the poverty line, and the data from the program bore those predictions out.  

Supporters also argued that the benefits of the program to both children and society at large would greatly outweigh the costs, because reduced childhood poverty is closely related to better outcomes in the areas of health, education and future participation in the workforce. 

An extension of the Child Tax Credit was originally considered as part of the Build Back Better Act, a bill that contained many of President Joe Biden’s policy priorities, but the scaled-down version that eventually passed as the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 did not extend the program. 

While Republicans in Congress have supported some versions of a child tax credit in the past, and some are currently advocating for a more measured expansion, others have expressed resistance to Democrats’ plan to bring back the pandemic-era scope of assistance. Among their concerns is that the credit might serve as a disincentive to employment, keeping parents out of the workforce.  

When the issue was debated in 2021, one estimate suggested that permanent implementation of the credit would reduce the U.S. workforce by 1.5 million. The price tag of the measure, estimated at $1.6 trillion over 10 years, would add significantly to the nation’s budget deficit unless measures were put in place to offset the costs, and the Democrats’ plan to balance the outlay with increased tax revenues runs counter to Republicans’ resistance to tax increases. 

Families struggle

The fact that poverty increased beginning in 2022 was not news to people who see the effects of economic deprivation in the United States every day. 

Judy Estey, executive director of The Platform of Hope, a Washington-based organization that she says “works with primarily Black and brown families who have been historically economically disadvantaged.” 

Estey told VOA that the withdrawal of pandemic-era support programs, and particularly the Child Tax Credit, has made some of her clients’ already difficult circumstances even worse.  

“We have been watching families who already were facing a lot of barriers and challenges struggle even more,” she said. 

While pandemic aid was still available, Estey said, her organization tracked significant improvement in its clients’ financial condition, often out of proportion to the amount of aid they were receiving.  

While pandemic aid increased household income by about 12%, she said, The Platform of Hope saw a 24% improvement in clients’ debt levels, and a 21% increase in their savings. 

Advocates frustrated 

Advocates of increased spending on social programs, such as Carr of Georgetown Law, are particularly frustrated by the end of the Child Tax Credit because it was so measurably successful. 

“This is one policy fix that is so clear, and so straightforward, and it works,” she said. “And we made a choice. Now there are 5.2 million more children — 5.2 million children — that are now poor, that weren’t last year.” 

Elizabeth Lower-Basch, deputy executive director for policy at the Center for Law and Social Policy, described the figures released this week as “not surprising, but deeply disappointing.” 

She stressed that the poverty levels in the U.S. are very much dependent on policy choices made in Washington.  

During the pandemic, “we made a decision that we were going to take poverty, and particularly child poverty, seriously, and make sure that people have what they need,” she told VOA. “That’s cash assistance, but also food benefits and health care. Now, we’re really rolling back that support, and with child poverty, we’re back where we were.” 

That poverty levels are rising at a time when unemployment in the U.S. is near record low levels and wage growth has been strong demonstrates the continued need for government programs to aid low-income families, Lower-Basch said.  

“Having working parents — even full-time, year-round working parents — is not enough to keep kids out of poverty,” she said. 

Lawmakers promise action

After the Census Bureau released its data this week, there was a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill as Democratic lawmakers pledged to bring back the tax credit at the first opportunity.  

Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, said he would make certain that a year-end tax package includes an expansion of the Child Tax Credit. 

Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a press conference Wednesday that the tax credit should be restored, adding that it “pays for itself.” 

However, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives appears unlikely to reintroduce the tax credit. 

White House comment 

At the White House on Wednesday, Jared Bernstein, chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, said that the Biden administration supports the reintroduction of the Child Tax Credit and plans to fight for it.  

“We intend to continue to not only fight for the enhanced Child Tax Credit, but to do so in a fiscally responsible way,” he said during a press conference.

Berstein pointed out that the measure is part of President Biden’s budget proposal, and that it will be paid for by increasing the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans 

“So, not only are we talking about re-achieving historically low levels of child poverty, but we were talking about doing so in the context of injecting much more fairness into the very top end of the tax code,” Bernstein said. 
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Hanoi and Washington have announced an upgrade in bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the top designation in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy. A U.S. strategy of noninterference into Vietnam’s domestic politics has been crucial to Hanoi agreeing to the deal, experts say, but activists and rights groups are frustrated by the lack of focus on human rights as the crackdown on civil society worsens in the Southeast Asian country.

U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Hanoi on Sunday to meet with General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. That afternoon, Trong and Biden announced they had agreed to a comprehensive strategic partnership for peace, cooperation, and sustainable development. In a lengthy joint statement, a paragraph was dedicated to the “promotion and protection of human rights.”

Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch Phil Robertson said human rights were treated as an “afterthought” during the visit.

“The White House statement afterwards was pathetic, flagging an ongoing U.S. – Vietnam human rights ‘dialogue’ that conveniently sequesters human rights issues to a symbolic, once a year meeting with mid-level officials who talk but don’t get anything concrete done,” Robertson wrote over email.

Singer and activist Do Nguyen Mai Khoi fled Vietnam for the United States in 2019 after being threatened with arrest. She is disappointed with Washington’s standpoint as she has seen authorities jail all of the country’s activists “who didn’t want to stay quiet or live in hiding” and the government has begun arresting environmentalists and NGO leaders, she told VOA.

There are currently 191 activists in prison in Vietnam, according to the U.S.-based human rights group The 88 Project.

“Human rights and activism in Vietnam has gotten worse and worse since I left,” Mai Khoi wrote over the messaging app Signal. “[The U.S.] thinks they already have done enough for human rights by announcing some statements every time a famous activist gets arrested or giving a prize to a famous political prisoner. I think the U.S. could do better than that.”

Non-interference

Persuading Hanoi that the United States will steer clear of domestic politics has been a yearslong project.

In the past, Vietnamese leaders have been wary that an upgraded partnership with the U.S. would come with the agenda of shifting the country’s communist political system, said Le Hong Hiep, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. By putting democratic values to the side, he said, Washington was able to persuade Hanoi to upgrade ties.

“There’s a kind of commitment on the U.S. side not to interfere in Vietnam’s politics,” Hiep said. “In recent years they also have become less critical of Vietnam’s human rights record and that also helped to ease the concern of Vietnam’s leadership.”

To quell anti-American resistance, the Biden administration softened its language regarding promoting democracy and made a distinction between “good communists and bad communists” in their National Security Strategy, said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“When you look at the National Security Strategy, the language that was included was not that authoritarian states are a danger to the United States. It says that the administration will focus on opposing authoritarian states who export their authoritarianism,” Poling stated. “What the Biden administration did was steadily soften that language not exclusively for Vietnam, but for Vietnam more than any other country.”

General Secretary Trong spoke to the importance of noninterference while announcing the upgraded partnership Sunday.

“We value America’s stance of supporting a strong, independent, and self-reliant Vietnam,” Trong stated, as reported in the Vietnamese daily newspaper, Thanh Nien. “We also want to emphasize that the understanding of noninterference in each other’s internal affairs are basic principles that are very important.”

Civil society

Duy Hoang, executive director of Viet Tan, an unsanctioned pro-democracy political party in Vietnam, said there’s been a wave of activist arrests since 2017 and authorities are now cracking down on NGOs and environmentalists.

While he sees the potential benefits the upgraded U.S. partnership could have, he’d like Washington to speak more publicly on human rights.

“It’s important for the people of Vietnam to know that the United States is a friend of the people of Vietnam, not just the government,” he told VOA. “I want to see the U.S. government to be a little bit stronger on human rights.”

Further, he is concerned about how stated aims of the partnership, including addressing climate change, will be addressed considering the active crackdown on civil society.

Five prominent environmentalists have been jailed on tax evasion charges in the last two years, a charge Hoang describes as “trumped up financial charges.” Most recently, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, the former CEO of the environment-focused NGO Change, was arrested for tax evasion and remains in pre-trial detention.

“How can we talk about environmental protection without environmental activists,” Hoang said.

Mai Khoi is still hopeful the U.S. partnership could help human rights conditions in Vietnam but said she’d be disappointed if the deal goes through without the release of leading climate activists, including Hong.

“I will be very disappointed if the climate activists … are still in jail and the upgrade to the partnership still happens,” Mai Khoi said, noting activists she’d liked to see released but who remain jailed.
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With just more than 24 hours before a strike deadline, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Wednesday that offers from the companies aren’t enough and the union is getting ready to strike.

In an online address to union members, Fain said General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have raised their initial wage offers but have rejected some of the union’s other demands.

“We do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifices and contributions our members have made to these companies,” he said. “To win we’re likely going to have to take action. We are preparing to strike these companies in a way they’ve never seen before.”

The union is threatening to strike after contracts with companies that haven’t reached an agreement by 11:59 p.m. Thursday. But the strikes would be focused on a small number of factories per company. It would be the first time in the union’s 80-plus-year history that it struck all three companies at the same time.

Talks continued Wednesday with the companies, but it appeared that both sides are still far apart.

Automakers contend that they need to make huge investments to develop and build electric vehicles while still building and engineering internal combustion vehicles. They say an expensive labor agreement could saddle them with costs that would force them to raise prices above their non-union foreign competitors. And they say they have made fair proposals to the union.

“If there is a strike, it’s not because Ford didn’t make a great offer. We have, and that’s what we can control,” said Ford CEO Jim Farley.

Fain said the final decision on which plants to strike won’t be made until Thursday night and will be announced at 10 p.m. Eastern time.

The union president said it is still possible that all 146,000 UAW members could walk out, but the union will begin by striking at a limited number of plants.

“If the companies continue to bargain in bad faith or continue to stall or continue to give us insulting offers, then our strike is going to continue to grow,” Fain said. He said the targeted strikes, with the threat of escalation, “will keep the companies guessing.”

The union will not extend contracts, so those who stay at work will do so with an expired agreement. Fain said he understands sentiment behind an all-out strike, which is still possible. But he said the targeted-strike strategy is more flexible and effective.

If there’s no deal by the end of Thursday, union officials will not bargain on Friday and instead will join workers on picket lines, he said.

The UAW started out demanding 40% raises over the life of a four-year contract, or 46% when compounded annually. Initial offers from the companies fell far short of those figures.

The UAW later lowered its demand to around 36%. In addition to general wage increases, the union is seeking restoration of cost-of-living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, pension increases for retirees and other items.

Wednesday, Fain said the companies upped their wage offers, but he still called them inadequate. Ford offered 20% over 4-½ years, while GM was at 18% for four years and Stellantis was at 17.5%. The raises barely make up for what he described as minimal raises of the past. In a 2019 agreement the union got 6% pay raises over four years with lump sums in some years as well as profit sharing checks.

Top pay for an assembly plant worker is now $32 per hour.

All three companies’ offers on cost-of-living adjustments were deficient, he said, providing little or no protection against inflation, or annual lump sums that many workers won’t get.

The companies rejected pay raises for retirees who haven’t received one in over a decade, Fain said, and they’re seeking concessions in annual profit-sharing checks, which often are more than $10,000.

In a statement, Stellantis said it gave the union a third wage-and-benefit offer and is waiting for a response.

“Our focus remains on bargaining in good faith to have a tentative agreement on the table before tomorrow’s deadline,” Tobin Williams, the company’s head of human resources in North America, said in a statement. “The future for our represented employees and their families deserves nothing less.”

GM said in a statement that it continues to bargain in good faith, making “additional strong offers.”

The company reported progress including guaranteed annual wage increases and investment, investing in U.S. factories and shortening the number of years for employees to make top wages.

Farley, the Ford CEO, said in a statement that his company has made four “increasingly generous” offers since Aug. 29. “We still have not received any genuine counteroffer,” he said.

Farley said Ford has raised its wage offer, eliminated wage tiers and shortened from eight years to four years the time it would take hourly workers to reach top scale, and added more time off.

Thomas Kochan, a professor of work and employment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said both sides are going to have to make big compromises quickly in order to settle the disputes before the Thursday deadline.

“It’ll go down to the wire, and there won’t be an agreement until the final moment, if there is one at all,” he said.

The union, he said, knows its initial proposals weren’t realistic for any of the companies, but the companies know they’re going to have to make a very expensive settlement, including addressing tiered wages for people doing the same jobs.

With Fain in charge of the union, the negotiations have been the most public in U.S. history, he said, putting pressure on both sides to reach an agreement.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin met Wednesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Russia’s most advanced spaceport amid warnings from the United States and South Korea against a potential arms transfer. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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One-time Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, 76, will not run for reelection in the Senate, he announced on Wednesday.

The elder statesman amassed a multimillion-dollar net worth working in private equity. Then he swapped careers: In 2003, he was sworn in as governor of Massachusetts, following in the footsteps of his father, who served as governor of Michigan.

At the height of his political career, Romney was the Republican party’s pick for the 2012 presidential election. He received 206 electoral votes, but they weren’t enough to defeat then-President Barack Obama.

The most prominent Mormon politician of his time, Romney moved to Utah where he had a political second-coming years after losing his bid for the White House.

Since 2019, Romney has served in the Senate, where he has been an outspoken critic of both Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden. His record of crisscrossing party lines has earned him a unique mix of supporters and detractors on both sides of the aisle.

Voted to convict Trump

Romney voted to convict his own party’s president in both of Trump’s impeachment trials. “[The president is] guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust,” Romney said.

Once a standard-bearer, he has found himself an outsider among many Republicans. Romney has for the most part stuck to his beliefs while the Republican Party’s talking points have shifted over the last several years.

“I doubt my support will mean anything positive to any of the [2024 presidential] candidates at the finish line,” he said recently, reflecting on his diminishing presence in his own party. “I’m not looking to get involved in that.”

“At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders,” he said in a video posted to X on Wednesday, apparently referring to older colleagues who have made headlines over concerns about their age.

Pelosi still in picture

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 83, has decided to run for reelection, igniting outrage from some detractors. Senator Mitch McConnell, 81, froze while speaking in two recent press conferences, raising questions about his competence to lead.

Romney is the sixth incumbent senator to announce he’ll retire when his term ends in 2025 — joining Republican Mike Braun of Indiana and Democrats Tom Carper of Delaware, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dianne Feinstein of California and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

“[Young people] need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in,” Romney said.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Four former Memphis police officers pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal civil rights charges in the violent beating and death of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop nine months ago. 

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills and Justin Smith were led by U.S. marshals into a courtroom wearing handcuffs and leg restraints for their first hearing since they were charged Tuesday with using excessive force and conspiring to lie about the January 7 beating of Nichols as he cried out for his mother just steps from his home. 

Magistrate Judge Charmiane G. Claxton accepted the not guilty pleas from lawyers for the four officers, who were fired for violations of Memphis Police Department policy after Nichols died, three days the beating. He was punched, kicked and hit with a baton in a pummeling that was caught on police video. 

A fifth officer who was also fired and indicted by a federal grand jury, Emmitt Martin, was scheduled to make his first appearance Thursday. All five were charged with deprivation of rights under the color of law through excessive force and failure to intervene, and through deliberate indifference; conspiracy to witness tampering; and obstruction of justice through witness tampering. 

The five officers also have been charged in state court with second-degree murder and other alleged offenses in the beating death of Nichols, which is one of several violent encounters between police and Black people that have sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality and police reform in the U.S. 

The five former officers, all Black like Nichols, have pleaded not guilty to the state charges as well. 

Claxton ordered the release of the four officers who were present in court Wednesday on a $50,000 unsecured bond, which means that they don’t have to pay any money unless they fail to appear in court.
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U.S. consumer prices jumped by the most in more than a year in August, mostly riding higher on an increase in gasoline prices, the government said Wednesday. However, analysts say underlying price pressures were tame enough that the country’s central bank may not see the need to increase its benchmark interest rate at next week’s meeting.

The country’s consumer price index edged higher last month by 3.7% on an annualized basis, after a 3.2% increase in July, the Labor Department said. Prices were up six-tenths of a percentage point in August over July after increasing by 0.2% for two straight months.

Even with the higher prices, analysts said policymakers at the central bank, the Federal Reserve, could refrain from increasing their benchmark interest borrowing rate at next week’s meeting as they wait for further evidence of the country’s inflation track.

The Fed has raised the rate 11 times in the last year and a half to curb borrowing and spending to tame inflation, which reached a recent peak of 9.1% in June 2022. The Fed’s key borrowing rate courses through the U.S. economy, helping establish interest rates for business and consumer loans.

Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said in a statement, “The Federal Reserve is poised to hold interest rates steady at their meeting next week but there are still some concerns within this [consumer price] report — gasoline prices, motor vehicle insurance, maintenance and repair — that the Fed won’t dispel the idea of an additional interest rate hike before year-end.”

The key culprit in the August inflation increase was the rising price of gasoline for motorists at service stations, where prices peaked at nearly $4 a gallon (3.8 liters) in the third week of the month.

U.S. President Joe Biden, campaigning for reelection in 2024, took note of the economic trends in a statement, “Overall inflation has also fallen substantially over the last year, but I know last month’s increase in gas prices put a strain on family budgets.”

In national polling, Americans who are particularly conscious of their household expenses have given Biden poor marks for his handling of the economy. Biden in turn noted in his statement, “Unemployment has remained below 4% for 19 months in a row, the share of working-age Americans with a job is the highest in 20 years, and real wages are higher now than they were before the pandemic.”

The Federal Reserve attempts to adopt policies that keep the increase in U.S. consumer prices at an annualized rate of 2%.

With the rate currently higher than that, U.S. economic fortunes are certain to be a key factor in next year’s presidential contest, with Biden’s Republican opponents blaming him for higher inflation because of increased government spending that he supported. Biden said the money for infrastructure repairs helped create thousands of new jobs and was needed to fix deteriorating roads and bridges.
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An escaped murderer was captured Wednesday after eluding hundreds of searchers for two weeks, bringing relief to anxious residents of southeastern Pennsylvania who endured sleepless nights as he hid in the woods, broke into suburban homes for food, changed his appearance, and fled under gunfire with a rifle pilfered from a garage, authorities said.

State police announced Danelo Souza Cavalcante’s capture on social media on Wednesday, as the search entered its 14th day, and planned a news conference announcing details for 9:30 a.m.

Cavalcante’s condition wasn’t released, but aerial video footage from Fox 29 News showed a handcuffed man in a gravel lot and wearing a grey, long-sleeve shirt with law enforcement officers holding both arms. Later, the man stands at the back of an armored vehicle while an officer cuts the back of the shirt from neck to waist.

The end to the search for Cavalcante, 34, unfolded just beyond Philadelphia’s heavily populated suburbs, in an area of woods, rolling farmland and a county park. The search forced schools to close right at the start of the academic year, led to warnings for homeowners to lock their doors, and blocked roads over the busy Labor Day weekend.

Overnight into Wednesday, heavily armed law enforcement officers searched for the fugitive through a night of downpours and thunder.

Cavalcante escaped from the Chester County jail in southeastern Pennsylvania on Aug. 31 by crab-walking up between two walls that were topped with razor wire, then jumping from the roof and dashing away. He had been awaiting transfer to state prison after being sentenced days earlier for fatally stabbing his girlfriend, and is wanted in connection with another killing in Brazil. 

Authorities said over the weekend that Cavalcante had slipped out of the initial search area, shaved and changed his clothing, stole a vehicle to travel miles to seek aid from former co-workers in the northern part of the county, and then abandoned the vehicle, at least in part because it was low on fuel. 

Authorities have declined to say how they think Cavalcante slipped out of the first search area, and officials have pushed back against questions about whether they blew a chance to catch him.

Then, late Monday, a motorist alerted police to a man matching Cavalcante’s description crouching in the darkness along a line of trees near a road in northern Chester County. Police found footprints and tracked them to the prison shoes identical to those Cavalcante had been wearing. A pair of work boots was reported stolen from a porch nearby.

State police said they believe he was looking for a place to hide when he saw an open garage. There, he stole a .22-caliber rifle and ammunition, and fled when the homeowner who was in the garage drew a pistol and shot at him several times, state police said.

“He didn’t, I believe, recognize that the owner was in there. And I think he was probably looking for a place to hide, ran for that garage, saw the firearm, grabbed that, encountered the homeowner and fled with the firearm,” Lt. Col. George Bivens said Tuesday.

That led hundreds of law enforcement personnel to search an area of about 8 to 10 square miles near South Coventry Township, roughly 30 miles northwest (50 kilometers) of Philadelphia.

Cavalcante’s escape was big news in Brazil, where prosecutors in Tocantins state say he is accused of “double qualified homicide” in the 2017 slaying of Válter Júnior Moreira dos Reis in the municipality of Figueiropolis, which authorities say was over a debt the victim owed him in connection with repair of a vehicle.

Pennsylvania authorities even broadcast a recording of Cavalcante’s mother speaking in Portuguese imploring him to surrender peacefully.

Cavalcante received a life sentence in Pennsylvania in August for killing his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, in front of her children in 2021. Prosecutors say he murdered her to stop her from telling police he was wanted in the Brazil killing. He had been arrested in Virginia after Brandao’s killing, and authorities say they believe he was trying to return to Brazil.

The prison tower guard on duty when Cavalcante escaped was fired. The escape went undetected for more than an hour until guards took a headcount. 
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Donald Trump skipped the first Republican debate in Wisconsin last month, and the GOP frontrunner has indicated he will not join his party’s second debate in California on Sept. 27.

Republican primary voters are split over whether this strategy will help or hurt the former president in his quest to win the GOP’s nomination to unseat Joe Biden in next year’s presidential election.

“I have zero issue with him not debating,” said Marilyn Moses, a registered nurse and self-identified Trump supporter from Zionsville, Indiana. “When you’re that far ahead in the polls, why should he even have to? I mean, Biden isn’t debating on the Democratic side, and no one’s saying a word about that.” 

Historically, expectations are different for sitting presidents. According to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, no sitting president has participated in a primary debate, even those who faced significant primary challenges.

“Plus, as I’m sure you’re aware, Trump’s got a lot going on right now,” she told VOA, referencing the multiple criminal indictments he is facing.

The former president reinforced his debate-skipping strategy on his social media site Truth Social writing, “The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had. I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

It is an approach Trump explained in a June interview with Fox News host Bret Baier in which he wondered aloud, “Why would I allow people at 1 or 2% and 0% to be hitting me with questions all night?”

Despite big leads over all his Republican rivals, there are still some party members who are unhappy with Trump’s strategy.

“I’m disappointed in his decision not to debate,” William Keene, a former police officer from Pismo Beach, California, told VOA. “His decision might be smart for him, but not for the country. We deserve to see him battle over ideas with the other candidates. There’s no way I’d vote for anyone who is afraid to debate.”

Strategy or fear?

“I wouldn’t say he’s afraid,” said Robert Collins, professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy at Dillard University in New Orleans. “We’ve seen him debate many times and he did well.”

Rather than skipping the debates out of fear, Collins told VOA it was likely a strategic decision.

“When you’re as far ahead in the polls as he is, the prevailing political advice among campaign strategists and political consultants is to advise their candidates not to debate,” he said. “The reason is because the moment you get on stage with your opponents, you’re giving them credibility they didn’t earn themselves, and you’re giving them an opportunity for free publicity by attacking you.”

It’s a strategy that appears to be working. Morning Consult conducted a poll of potential Republican primary voters one day after last month’s first GOP primary debate. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they backed Trump for the presidential nomination. 

That number, and the large lead Trump held over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, remained unchanged from before the debate.

“I don’t think that should surprise anyone,” Collins laughed. “Indictments, impeachments, insurrections, and everything else — his polling numbers don’t change.” 

“That’s because he’s a polarizing figure,” Collins continued. “Voters know him so well from his first term as president, and if they support him, they’ll support him through anything. If they don’t, nothing is likely to change their mind. So, what could he say on a primary debate stage that is likely to help him?”

Frank Fogel, a Republican voter from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, agrees with Collins. He believes that given Trump’s lead, attending a debate can only hurt the former president.

“These other candidates like Chris Christie and DeSantis know they can’t win,” he told VOA. “The only reason they’re in the debate is to try to stop Trump.”

“And the debate was on Fox News,” Fogel continued, echoing complaints by the Republican frontrunner, himself. “Why on Earth would Trump go to a debate run by what’s basically the Ron DeSantis Network. Their whole mission is to take him down, but thankfully they won’t be able to.”

Shifting circumstances

Some of the former president’s supporters, however, are worried he could be making a grave mistake.

“I think he’s making a horrible decision by not showing up for the debates,” Joseph Johnson, an engineer from Los Angeles, told VOA. “He could very well lose the nomination if he keeps standing on the sideline while his policy gets ripped apart by other candidates.”

“Silence in situations like this looks like weakness,” Johnson continued, “like he’s not willing or able to defend himself.”

Another Republican voter, attorney Cory Johnson from Boston, believes a shift in circumstances could cause Trump to change his mind.

“I think it’s a smart strategic decision for now, but if one of the other candidates truly breaks out and has a big moment, then Trump might have to switch tactics,” said Johnson, who supports the Florida governor.

“And I hope it happens,” he added. “I want Governor DeSantis to have an opportunity to directly challenge Trump in front of a larger audience.”

Still, Johnson said he found the Trump-less debate refreshing and appreciated the policy discussions that he believes could not have taken place if the Republican frontrunner “was sucking all the oxygen out of the room with his antics.”

A poll by The Economist/YouGov from Aug. 26-29 suggests that even though most Republicans (61%) agree with Trump’s decision to skip the debate, the majority hope he will attend the second one. Fifty-seven percent of Republican voters said they think Trump should participate in the event, while just 17% said they did not. Twenty-six percent said they were not sure.

“As much as people might want it, I think it would be unlikely to happen,” explained Collins, the university professor from New Orleans. “Maybe after the anti-Trump vote coalesces around a single candidate later in the race and everyone else has dropped out — if that challenger has 35% or 40% of the vote — maybe then Trump will decide it would benefit him to debate.”
…

Pentagon military planners will no longer be holding back when it comes to deploying forces and capabilities to defend the United States and its allies in cyberspace.

The Defense Department Tuesday unveiled an unclassified version of its updated cybersecurity strategy, calling for the nation’s cyber forces to persistently seek out and engage adversaries including China and Russia, as well as terrorist organizations and transnational criminal groups, to minimize threats to the U.S.

It also emphasized the need to work with a variety of partners, across the U.S. government and even with the private sector, to make sure U.S. cyber efforts do not go to waste.

“Cyber capabilities held in reserve or employed in isolation render little deterrent effect on their own,” according to the unclassified strategy. “These military capabilities are most effective when used in concert with other instruments of national power, creating a deterrent greater than the sum of its parts.”

The release of the unclassified version of the Pentagon’s 2023 Cyber Strategy comes more than three months after the classified version was shared with U.S. lawmakers.

At the time, the Pentagon said the new strategy would see U.S. cyber forces “campaign in and through cyberspace below the level of armed conflict to reinforce deterrence and frustrate adversaries.”

The concept, described by senior cyber defense officials as “persistent engagement,” has repeatedly been on display.

Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Cyber Command announced one of its teams had just completed a two-month-long operation in Lithuania, working with the NATO ally to search for and disrupt or minimize threats to networks belonging to the Ministry of the Interior. 

Other recent deployments include “hunt forward” operations in Albania and Latvia earlier this year. And according to Cyber Command officials, there have been 50 such deployments to some 23 countries going back to 2018.

U.S. military officials have said information gained during these operations has not only helped allies but proved invaluable as the U.S. tries to protect its own networks — including during the country’s 2020 presidential election, when the U.S. applied lessons it learned from helping officials in Montenegro a year earlier.

“There is a recognition that we will, as a department, need to disrupt malicious cyber activity coming at the United States,” said Mieke Eoyang, the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy.

“The cyber domain is one that is constantly being updated, patched, modified as technology changes,” she told Pentagon reporters while briefing them on the updated cyber strategy. “So outside of an armed conflict, there is a need for us in the department to remain engaged with the cyber domain, to be able to deny adversaries advantageous positions.”

The new Pentagon cyber strategy also incorporates lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, notably the Kremlin’s failure, so far, to use its cyber capabilities to its advantage.

“Prior to this conflict, there was a sense that cyber would have a much more decisive impact in warfare than what we experienced,” Eoyang said.

“What this conflict has shown us is the importance of integrated cyber capabilities in and alongside other war fighting capabilities,” she said. “Cyber is a capability that is best used in concert with those others and may be of limited utility when used all by itself.”

U.S. and Ukrainian officials say that is a lesson Russia’s cyber forces have started to learn. And the new cyber strategy warns that Moscow could apply that knowledge in future dealings with the West.

“Russia has repeatedly used cyber means in its attempts to disrupt Ukrainian military logistics, sabotage civilian infrastructure, and erode political will,” according to the unclassified strategy. “In a moment of crisis, Russia is prepared to launch similar cyberattacks against the United States and our Allies and partners.”

But while the new strategy describes the cyber threat from Russia as acute, it points to China as posing the most significant challenge.

“Malicious cyber activity informs the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] preparations for war,” the strategy said, echoing a warning shared even by U.S. civilian officials. 

“In the event of conflict, the PRC likely intends to launch destructive cyberattacks against the U.S. homeland in order to hinder military mobilization, sow chaos, and divert attention and resources,” the report added. “It will also likely seek to disrupt key networks which enable Joint Force power projection in combat.”

Speaking separately Tuesday, a key U.S. National Security Agency official was equally blunt.

“PRC officials have gone as far as to state that they view technology as the main battlefield between the United States and the PRC,” NSA Assistant Deputy Director David Frederick told a virtual forum.

“We’ve got indications all the way back to that 2010 to 2012 timeframe, and more recently, that the PRC would use attacks on critical infrastructure as part of a conflict,” Frederick said of Beijing’s willingness to fight in the cyber domain.

“They would not only aim to achieve disruptions to a U.S. military plan, but also induce societal panic,” he added.

Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, who in the past have accused the U.S, of “distorting the truth” on Beijing’s cyber policies, called the allegations by the Pentagon and the NSA “groundless.”

“The Chinese government’s position on cybersecurity is consistent and clear. We firmly oppose and combat cyberattacks of any kind,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.

Liu further cited PRC reports detailing alleged U.S. government cyberattacks on China’s critical infrastructure.

“The U.S. must take seriously and respond to the concerns from the international community, and immediately stop carrying out cyberattacks around the world,” Liu added. “We will continue to take necessary action to prevent and stop all kinds of cyberattacks that threaten the security of our critical infrastructure.”

VOA also reached out to the Russian Embassy in Washington for comment.

Russian officials have routinely denied any involvement in cyberattacks, especially those aimed at civilian infrastructure.

Pentagon officials, however, believe the new cyber strategy will help them push back against China and Russia by positioning U.S. cyber forces to identify malicious cyber activity “in the early stages of planning and development.”

The strategy further calls on U.S. cyber teams to “defend forward by disrupting the activities of malicious cyber actors and degrading their supporting ecosystems.”

As for whether such an approach could spark a larger conflict with U.S. adversaries, the strategy acknowledges the concern.

“As it campaigns in cyberspace, the Department will remain closely attuned to adversary perceptions and will manage the risk of unintended escalation,” it said.
…

U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday that lawmakers will launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, advancing an investigation concerning allegations Biden benefited from his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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Five former Memphis police officers are now facing federal civil rights charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols as they continue to fight second-degree murder charges in state courts arising from the killing. 

Tadarrius Bean, Desmond Mills, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin and Justin Smith were indicted Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Memphis. The four-count indictment charges each of them with deprivation of rights under the color of law through excessive force and failure to intervene, and through deliberate indifference; conspiracy to witness tampering, and obstruction of justice through witness tampering. 

The new charges come nine months after the violent beating of Nichols by police officers during a January 7 traffic stop near his home in Memphis. Nichols died at a hospital three days later, and the five officers have pleaded not guilty to state charges of second-degree murder and other alleged offenses in connection with the case. 

Blake Ballin, an attorney representing Mills on the state criminal charges, said the federal indictment “is not unexpected” and Mills will defend himself against the federal charges as he is in state court. There was no immediate response from attorneys for other defendants in the case. 

Caught on police video, the beating of the 29-year-old Nichols was one in a string of violent encounters between police and Black people that sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality and police reform in the U.S. 

The Justice Department announced an investigation in July into how Memphis Police Department officers use force and conduct arrests, one of several “patterns and practices” investigations it has undertaken in other U.S. cities. 

In March, the Justice Department said it was conducting a separate review concerning use of force, de-escalation strategies and specialized units in the Memphis Police Department. Federal investigators also are looking specifically into Nichols’ arrest and death. And, Nichols’ mother has sued the city and its police chief over her son’s death. 
…

For at least the second time this year, U.S. cyber forces have come to the aid of a Baltic ally, as concerns linger about potential cyberattacks from Russia and other Western adversaries.

U.S. Cyber Command Tuesday announced the completion of a two-month-long, so-called “defensive hunt” operation in Lithuania, alongside Lithuanian cyber teams.

The focus of the operation, according to a spokesperson with the U.S. Cyber National Mission Force, was to look for malicious cyber activity on networks belonging to Lithuania’s Interior Ministry.

Neither U.S. nor Lithuanian officials were willing to specify the exact nature of the threat, but just last year Vilnius was hit with a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), claimed by the Russian hacking group known as Killnet.

“We need to develop competences and be more resilient to cyberattacks,” Lithuanian Vice Minister of the Interior Arnoldas Abramavičius, said in the joint statement.

“The war in Ukraine has shown that cyberattacks are a powerful tool of modern warfare, so it is extremely important to be prepared and to ensure the security of our networks,” said Abramavičius. “I believe that the results of this mission [with the United States] will be mutually beneficial.”

The U.S. Cyber National Mission Force spokesperson, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss limited details of the operation, said the effort involved about 20 U.S. cyber troops, hunting for malicious activity and potential vulnerabilities under guidelines set by Vilnius.

This is at least the second time U.S. cyber forces have deployed to Lithuania. U.S. Cyber Command said its forces conducted similar operations in the country last May.

And both Vilnius and Washington have also been working on a continuous basis through Lithuania’s Regional Cyber Defense Center, set up in 2021, to further coordinate efforts with Ukraine, Georgia and Poland.

Word of the completion of the latest U.S-Latvian cyber operation comes just days after a top U.S. intelligence official warned the cyber threat from Moscow has not waned as Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on.

“The Russians are increasing their capability and their efforts in the cyber domain,” CIA Deputy Director David Cohen told a cybersecurity summit in Washington on Thursday.

“There are no laurels to be rested on here,” he said. “There is this is a pitched battle every day.”

Concerns about possible Russian cyber activity also prompted what U.S. officials described as a “hunt forward” operation in Latvia earlier this year that also involved Latvian and Canadian cyber forces.

Since 2018, U.S. cyber teams have deployed 50 times, conducting operations on more than 75 networks in more than 23 countries, according to information provided by the U.S. Cyber National Mission Force.

Some information from Reuters was used in this report.
…

An American researcher was “doing well” at a Turkish hospital, officials said Tuesday, after rescuers pulled him out of a cave where he fell seriously ill and became trapped 1,000 meters (more than 3,000 feet) below its entrance for over a week.

Rescuers from Turkey and across Europe cheered and clapped as Mark Dickey, a 40-year-old experienced caver, emerged from Morca Cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains strapped to a stretcher at 12:37 a.m. local time Tuesday. He was whisked to the hospital in the nearby city of Mersin in a helicopter.

Dickey fell ill on Sept. 2 with stomach bleeding. What caused his condition remained unclear.

Lying on the stretcher surrounded by reporters shortly after his rescue, he described his nine-day ordeal as a “crazy, crazy adventure.”

“It is amazing to be above ground again,” he said. A well-known cave researcher and a cave rescuer who had participated in many international expeditions, Dickey thanked the international caving community, Turkish cavers and Hungarian Cave Rescue, among others.

Dickey, who is from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, was part of an expedition to map the Morca Cave, Turkey’s third deepest, when he became sick. As he was too frail to climb out himself, cave rescue teams from Europe scrambled to help save him, mounting a challenging operation that involved pulling him up the cave’s steep vertical sections and navigating through mud and water at low temperatures in the horizontal sections.

Rescuers had to widen some of the cave’s narrow passages, install ropes to pull him up vertical shafts on a stretcher and set up temporary camps along the way before the operation could begin.

“It was great to see him finally get out because it was very dire in the early days of this rescue,” Carl Heitmeyer of the New Jersey Initial Response Team and a friend of Dickey’s told NBC’s “Today” show.

Asked whether he believes Dickey would return to caving, Heitmeyer said: “I hope his mom’s not watching, but I would bet on it.”

Among those who rushed to the Taurus Mountains was Dr. Zsofia Zador, a caving enthusiast and medical rescuer from the Hungarian rescue team, who was among the first to treat Dickey inside the cave.

Zador, an anesthesiologist and intensive care specialist from Budapest, was on her way to the hospital to start her early morning shift on Sept. 2, when she got news of Dickey’s condition.

The 34-year-old quickly arranged for a colleague to take her shift and rushed to gather her caving gear and medical equipment, before taking a plane to Turkey to join the rescue mission, she told The Associated Press by telephone from the camp near the entrance of the cave.

“He was relieved, and he was hopeful,” she said when asked to describe Dickey’s reaction when he saw her in the cave. “He was quite happy. We are good friends.”

Zador said Dickey was hypovolemic — or was suffering from loss of fluid and blood — but said he was in a “stable condition” by the time she reached him because paramedics had “treated him quite well.”

“It was a tricky situation because sometimes he was quite stable and it felt like he could get out on his own, but he could (deteriorate) once again,” she said. “Luckily he didn’t lose any consciousness and he saw the situation through.”

Around 190 experts from Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Turkey took part in the rescue, including doctors, paramedics and experienced cavers. Teams comprised of a doctor and three to four other rescuers took turns staying by his side at all times.

Zador said she had been involved in cave rescues before but Dickey’s rescue was the “longest” she experienced.

Dickey said after his rescue that he had started to throw up large quantities of blood inside the cave.

“My consciousness started to get harder to hold on to, and I reached the point where I thought ‘I’m not going to live,'” he told reporters.

A statement from the Mersin governor’s office said Dickey’s “general health” condition was “good”, without providing further details.

The Italian National Alpine and Speleological Corps said the rescue operation took more than 100 rescuers from around 10 counties a total of 60 hours. “Mark Dickey was in the cave for roughly 500 hours,” it said.
…

The giant pandas that have been living at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington for 23 years will return to China by the end of this year. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias takes a look at the diplomatic moves that brought them to the United States and how politics and new conservation strategies could impact the species’ future.
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Twenty-two years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., September 11 was again a date of mourning and reflection in the United States. Remembrance ceremonies were held for the nearly 3,000 people who died, with President Joe Biden promising to keep terrorism at bay. Here’s VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias with key moments from anniversary events across the United States.
…

New details have emerged of an apparently imminent prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran, with the U.S. acknowledging for the first time that as part of the deal, it will free five Iranians whose names the Iranian government confirmed to VOA.

The U.S. acknowledgment of its agreement to free five Iranians came in a State Department statement sent to VOA late Monday. Hours earlier, Western news agencies reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had notified the U.S. Congress of the impending move.

The U.S. and Iran already had confirmed on August 10 that under the prisoner deal, Tehran also would release five American citizens whom Washington has said were wrongfully detained by Tehran.

“As we have said previously, the U.S. has agreed to allow the transfer of funds from South Korea to restricted accounts held in financial institutions in Qatar and the release of five Iranian nationals currently detained in the United States to facilitate the release of five U.S. citizens detained in Iran,” a State Department spokesperson wrote to VOA.

Iran’s U.N. mission in New York confirmed in a message to VOA the names of the five Iranians whose freedom it expects to secure in the prisoner swap. The names were first reported earlier Monday by the Al-Monitor news site.

The five Iranian nationals named by Iran include Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, Mehrdad Ansari, Amin Hasanzadeh, Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani and Kambiz Attar Kashani. All five were among the 11 Iranians first identified by VOA in an August 24 report as potential candidates for inclusion in a U.S.-Iran exchange.

Asked by VOA to confirm whether the five individuals identified by Iran will be freed, the State Department spokesperson declined to address the issue. All were arrested on federal charges of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran or providing Tehran with other forms of illicit help.

There also was no confirmation from the U.S. on when or how the five Americans and five Iranians will be swapped.

The State Department spokesperson said the U.S. continues to work for the release of the five American citizens and to monitor their health and welfare closely with the help of its Swiss partners but added: “We have no update to share at this time.”

Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani as saying Monday that the exchange will happen “in the near future.”

Of the five individuals named by Iran, four are Iranians without U.S. citizenship: Afrasiabi, Ansari, Hasanzadeh and Kafrani. Afrasiabi and Hasanzadeh are permanent U.S. residents, while Kafrani has no legal status in the U.S. The fifth Iranian, Kashani, is an Iranian American dual national.

Three of the five are on supervised pre-trial release: Afrasiabi, Hasanzadeh and Kafrani. Their inclusion in a prisoner deal would mean that federal charges against them are dropped and they are freed from restrictions on their movements outside of their homes.

The other two, Ansari and Kashani, are serving sentences in federal prisons in Louisiana and Michigan, respectively. Their inclusion in the deal would mean being freed several months before concluding their prison terms, which end in December for Ansari and February for Kashani.

Speaking to VOA on Monday, Barry Rosen, a former U.S. hostage in Iran, said he expects most of the five Iranians to be freed by the U.S. will not return to Iran as they have significant ties to the U.S. He said an exchange of Iranian and American prisoners on an airport tarmac somewhere in the Middle East would provide Iran with a propaganda boost, but he doubted the U.S. would agree to choreograph the swap in such a way.

Critics of the Biden administration’s Iran policy told VOA that the agreement to free five Iranians would have negative consequences for the U.S.

“The Islamic republic will herald this as a significant win for its long-standing policy of seizing Western hostages in return for ransom and the freeing of duly-convicted Iranian nationals,” said Andrea Stricker of Washington-based research group Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Rather than facing U.S. penalties or repercussions, the regime will be emboldened to continue abducting innocent people,” she added.

The Biden administration has rejected critics’ characterizations of the unfreezing of $6 billion in funds in South Korean banks as a ransom payment. It has said Tehran will regain access to Iranian funds that had been frozen under U.S. sanctions and will be able to access them only via a third party for humanitarian purchases under U.S. supervision.

Jason Brodsky, policy director of U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, said he believes the U.S. unfreezing of $6 billion should have been “more than enough” to secure the release of the Americans held by Iran. “The additional release of Iranians charged with U.S. crimes is an attempt by Tehran to create a false equivalence between the justice system in the United States and the injustice system in Iran,” Brodsky said.

Sina Toosi, a researcher at the Washington-based Center for International Policy and a supporter of the emerging U.S.-Iran deal, reacted positively to Monday’s developments in a post on the X social media platform.

“It is a welcome development that the U.S. and Iran are close to implementing an agreement that will bring some relief to the families of unjustly held prisoners, as well as to millions of Iranians suffering from an economic crisis caused by U.S. sanctions,” Toosi wrote.

In August, Iran confirmed that it had placed the five American prisoners under house arrest. The U.S. named three of them as Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz but declined to name the other two whose detentions had not previously been confirmed, citing their privacy.

Namazi, Shargi, Tahbaz and one of the other U.S. prisoners were moved from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison to house arrest at an undisclosed hotel where they would be held under guard by Iranian officials, human rights lawyer Jared Genser said in a statement August 10. He said the fifth American, a woman, already was under house arrest.
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The Biden administration is reportedly considering supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles that are packed with cluster bombs and that could cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, according to four U.S. officials.

After seeing the success of cluster munitions delivered in 155 mm artillery rounds in recent months, the U.S. is considering shipping Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that can fly up to 306 kilometers and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles that have a 72-kilometer range and are packed with cluster bombs, according to Reuters news agency. The GMLRS rocket system would be able to disperse up to 404 cluster munitions. Ukraine has had a version of the GMLRS system in its arsenal for months.

The Biden administration has for months been mulling over the supply of ATACMS, fearing their shipment to Ukraine would be perceived as an overly aggressive move against Russia.

With Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces showing signs of progress, however, Washington is keen to boost the Ukrainian military at a vital moment, two sources told Reuters.

Ukraine’s military intelligence said Monday that Ukrainian forces had retaken control of several offshore gas and oil drilling platforms near Crimea.

It said on Telegram that the operation included Ukrainian special forces on boats who damaged a Russian Su-30 fighter jet and captured helicopter ammunition and radar equipment.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said Russia had occupied the platforms since 2015 and had used them for military purposes.

More territory gained

Ukraine also said on Monday that its troops had regained more territory on the eastern and southern fronts in the past week of its counteroffensive against Russian forces. 

Washington continues to assess the progress Ukrainian forces are making on the ground, and Russia’s overall strategic goals have failed in Ukraine, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a press briefing Monday,

“Their goals were to take Kyiv, to take the majority, if not all of the country, to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine. In all of those things they have failed,” he said.

Miller noted that the Ukrainians have taken back around 50% of the country that Russia occupied at the height of its full-scale invasion.

The State Department spokesman said that one indication of Russia’s difficulties in sustaining its military effort is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin “traveling across his own country, hat in hand, to beg [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un for military assistance.”

The meeting between the two leaders is expected to take place as early as Tuesday in Vladivostok, Russia.

“We are going to monitor very closely the outcome of this meeting,” Miller said. “I would remind both countries that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, and we aggressively, of course, have enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort. We will continue to enforce those sanctions and will not hesitate to enforce new sanctions if appropriate.”

German aid

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Monday that Berlin would not necessarily supply Kyiv with Taurus cruise missiles simply because the U.S. might decide to send ATACMS long-range missiles to the war-torn country.

“There is no automatism in this war,” Pistorius told reporters on the sidelines of a visit to Cologne, adding that Germany was not yet able to decide whether to provide Ukraine with Taurus missiles.

Kyiv has been pushing Berlin to supply it with the missiles, which are launched by fighter jets and have a range of more than 500 kilometers.

During a Monday meeting with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that he requested the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles from Germany as soon as possible.

“You will do it anyway — it’s just a matter of time — and I don’t understand why we are wasting time,” Kuleba said in response to a question at a joint press conference with Baerbock in Kyiv.

Kuleba noted that Ukraine, a major grain producer and exporter, needed more protection for its ports after Russia stepped up airstrikes on grain export infrastructure. 

The German foreign minister said that Germany would provide an additional $21.44 million in humanitarian aid, bringing Berlin’s additional aid to $408 million this year.

“Russia’s perfidious goal is to starve the people again this winter and to let them freeze to death,” she warned. 

Baerbock also expressed her country’s support for Ukraine’s entrance into the European Union but added that Kyiv has to do more to combat graft.

“Reform results in the areas of judicial reform and media legislation are already impressive. But there is still a long way to go in the implementation of the anti-oligarch law and the fight against corruption,” Baerbock said. 

Some information was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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