Another attempted coup in Africa, and a glimmer of hope for reviving the Black Sea grain deal. VOA Correspondent Margaret Besheer has more on the top stories this week at the United Nations.
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Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

UN chief reaches out to Moscow on grain deal revival

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that he had reached out to Russia with “concrete proposals” to renew the collapsed grain export deal Moscow pulled out of in July and then followed with a series of attacks on Ukraine’s ports and grain infrastructure. He did not go into detail on the proposal, saying only that it addressed some of Moscow’s concerns.

Mali peacekeeping drawdown enters new phase

The United Nations entered the second phase of drawing down one of its largest peacekeeping missions, after military authorities in Mali announced in June that they wanted the mission out by the end of this year. The mission, known as MINUSMA, has until December 31 to carry out the Herculean task of repatriating more than 12,000 international peacekeepers and separating from 4,300 civilian staff, against the backdrop of continued instability and threats from armed groups. On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a one-year renewal of the sanctions regime and panel of experts on Mali.

Secretary-general calls for peaceful resolution over Zimbabwe election results

Guterres called for peaceful and transparent resolutions to any challenges to the legitimacy of Zimbabwe’s presidential election that returned Emmerson Mnangagwa to office. In a statement, he expressed concern about the arrest of observers, reports of voter intimidation, threats of violence, harassment and coercion.

War depriving Ukrainian children of education

The U.N. Children’s Fund said millions of children across Ukraine and in seven neighboring asylum countries were being deprived of an education and the skills needed to help Ukraine recover from the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion. An assessment by UNICEF and the Ukrainian Ministry of Education found that Russian attacks had destroyed more than 1,300 schools, and that others were damaged and not ready to open for the academic year, which began this week.

In brief

— U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths released an additional $20 million on Tuesday from the Central Emergency Response Fund to assist people in Sudan. Humanitarian needs continue to rise as more than 4.5 million people have been displaced by the violence sparked by rival generals in mid-April.

— UNICEF and the World Food Program said Friday that nearly a quarter of Mali’s population was suffering from moderate or acute food insecurity and that almost a million children under 5 years old were at risk of falling into acute malnutrition by December. And for the first time in Mali, the agencies warned that more than 2,500 people were at risk of famine in the Menaka region, many of them children.

— The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees said Sunday that nearly 300,000 Palestinian refugee children were back in school in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA opened three new schools this year to accommodate a growing student population. But the agency, which faces chronic funding shortages, said it would not be able to continue operations in its schools beyond September without a cash injection of nearly $200 million.

— Tuesday was the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. August 29 marks the day in 1991 when Kazakhstan closed the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. The former Soviet Union used the facility between 1949 and 1989 to carry out more than 450 underground and atmospheric nuclear tests, which caused lasting environmental and health impacts. U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu urged countries that have not yet signed or ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to do so. Since it was agreed upon in 1996, the treaty has 186 signatories and 178 states have ratified it. North Korea is the only country to have carried out nuclear tests in the 21st century.

Quote of note

“Many countries face deep-seated governance challenges. But military governments are not the solution. They aggravate problems. They cannot resolve a crisis; they can only make it worse.”

— Guterres to reporters Thursday on the coup in Gabon. The African continent has seen nine coups since 2020.

Did you know?

September starts a marathon month of diplomacy. There will be meetings of major groups, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the G20 and the G7 plus China. Guterres will be attending all of these gatherings. The month will be capped off by a high-level week at the U.N. General Assembly, which gets underway in the third week in September and is expected to draw a large number of world leaders.
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An art exhibition in Rockville, Maryland, pays tribute to women in Iran who have been killed for speaking out against injustice. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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In 2023, the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service unveiled a state-of-the-art project: the U.S. Park Police Horse Stables and Wells Fargo Education Center. Reporting from the National Mall in Washington, Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Elena Matusovsky
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The United States, South Korea, and Japan are imposing new sanctions on individuals and companies that facilitate North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs, following Pyongyang’s failed launch of a spy satellite last week – the second attempt this year.

The move also came after North Korea’s military exercise that rehearsed occupying all South Korea territory and a tactical nuclear strike drill earlier this week.

South Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Friday it has sanctioned North Korea’s Ryu Kyong Program Development Company and five individuals associated with that firm, including its chief, Ryu Kyong-chol, and four others from branch offices in China.

South Korea was the first country to sanction the named individuals and the company, according to the ministry, for activities that include helping North Korea to develop satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Japan’s foreign ministry said Friday it has imposed sanctions on three groups and four individuals involved in North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.

Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, Matsuno Hirokazu, told reporters after a Cabinet meeting his government would continue to seek North Korea’s denuclearization and closely coordinate with the United States and South Korea.

In Washington, the U.S. Treasury Department Thursday targeted two individuals and one entity, Russia-based Jon Jin Yong, Sergey Mikhaylovich Kozlov, and Intellekt LLC in a separate sanctions announcement.

They were cited for involvement in “generating revenue for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) unlawful development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles.” DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The three countries pledged to continue working with allies to counter North Korea’s destabilizing activities, citing its use of ballistic missile technology as a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

North Korea watchers alarmed

Some analysts warned North Korea’s missile launches in recent months indicated significant technological advancement.

In July, North Korea successfully tested its newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-18.  It marked North Korea’s second solid-propellant ICBM launch following its first test-firing on April 13.

“A solid propellant rocket can be moved around as an individual missile, it doesn’t need any support vehicles.  It could be launched in less than a minute probably.  So even if you have found it and might be tracking it, you may not be able to destroy it [in time],” said Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“This is a very reliable means for attacking the United States or Europe,” Postol told VOA.

But how did North Korea make such a significant breakthrough?

Go Myong-Hyun, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul-based think tank, said many experts suspect North Korea received the solid-fueled propellant technology from a third party.

“North Korea is a resource poor country. And there are other things North Korea would need to use the time, resources, or the manpower to reinvent.  Regarding the solid-fueled rocket engine, there’s no need for North Korea to reinvent the wheel,” he told VOA on Friday.

“The examination and analysis about open-source data show that there’s a lot of commonalities between North Korean missiles and the Russian systems, especially Hwasong-18,” Go said.

US, South Korea, Japan in solidarity

On Aug. 18, the U.S., South Korea, and Japan issued “Camp David Principles” after their leaders’ first trilateral summit, where the three allies said they “stand united” in commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea under the U.N. Security Council resolutions, but ”remain committed to dialogue with the DPRK with no preconditions.”

Cooperation among the three countries can be very effective in preventing illegal money flowing into North Korea, according to regional experts.

Seoul-based Park Won-gon who is the director of Institute of Unification Studies at Ewha Womans University told VOA that South Korea and the United States have made significant progress over the past years in “preventing DPRK from cashing in through its IT personnel, cryptocurrency and illegal hacking.”

“This is indeed [North Korea leader] Kim Jong-un’s money to govern,” said Park Won-gon.  “If the money to govern is interrupted, North Korea will have less money to spend on its nuclear and missile programs and overall economy, which could be the motivation for the North to come to the negotiating table.”
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A U.S. congressional delegation visiting Taiwan said Friday the U.S. would act if the island was attacked and promised to resolve the $19 billion backlog in its defense purchases from the U.S.

“Know that any hostile unprovoked attack on Taiwan will result in a resolute reaction from the U.S.,” said Rob Wittman, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in a speech, ahead of meetings with President Tsai Ing-Wen.

U.S. law requires Washington provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and treat all threats to the island as matters of “grave concern,” but remains ambiguous on whether it would commit forces in response to an attack from China.

Wittman of Virginia, along with Carlos Gimenez of Florida and Jen Kiggans of Virginia, arrived Thursday for a three-day visit to Taiwan. The three Republicans are meeting with Tsai and the head of Taiwan’s National Security Council Wellington Koo.

Taiwan is a self-ruled island claimed by China that has faced increasing military harassment in recent years as Chinese fighter jets and navy ships hold daily exercises aimed at the island, often coming near the island or encircling it. Over the years, to beef up its defense, Taiwan has bought $19 billion in military items from the U.S., but most of that remains undelivered.

“We have an obligation to make sure that we fill the backlog of foreign military sales that exist now between our countries,” Wittman said, adding that both Republicans and Democrats were working on the issue.

The U.S. has started finding new ways to support Taiwan in defense aid. In July, the United States has announced $345 million in military aid in a major package drawing on America’s own stockpiles.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration approved the first-ever U.S. military transfer to Taiwan under a program generally reserved for assistance to sovereign, independent states. The amount was modest at $80 million, and officials did not specify what exactly the money would be used for.
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Canada this week updated its travel advisory to the U.S., warning members of the LGBTQ+ community that some American states have enacted laws that may affect them.

The country’s Global Affairs department did not specify which states, but it is advising travelers to check the local laws for their destination before traveling.

“Since the beginning of 2023, certain states in the U.S. have passed laws banning drag shows and restricting the transgender community from access to gender-affirming care and from participation in sporting events,” Global Affairs spokesperson Jérémie Bérubé said Thursday in an emailed statement.

“Outside Canada, laws and customs related to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics can be very different from those in Canada,” the statement added. “As a result, Canadians could face certain barriers and risks when they travel outside Canada.”

Bérubé said no Canadians in the U.S. have complained to Global Affairs of how they were treated or kept from expressing their opinions about LGBTQ+ issues.

The Human Rights Campaign — the largest U.S.-based organization devoted to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans — in June declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S.

The NAACP in May issued a travel advisory for Florida warning potential tourists about recent laws and policies championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, including bills that ban gender-affirming care for minors, target drag shows, restrict discussion of personal pronouns in schools and force people to use certain bathrooms.

In Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders this year signed a law prohibiting transgender people at public schools from using the restroom that matches their gender identity. Similar laws have been enacted in states such as Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Asked about the travel advisory change this week, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said travel advisories issued by Global Affairs Canada are based on advice from professionals in the department whose job it is to monitor for particular dangers.

“Every Canadian government needs to put at the center of everything we do the interests — and the safety — of every single Canadian and every single group of Canadians,” Freeland said.

She did not say whether her government had discussed the matter with its U.S. counterpart.

“It sounds like virtue-signaling by Global Affairs,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

“In no U.S. state, to my knowledge, has any government charged or discriminated against an LGBTQ+ traveler because of their sexual identity or orientation. This all strains the credibility of the department,” he added.

David Mulroney, Canada’s former ambassador to China, also criticized the advisory.

“Travel advisories are meant to highlight things that threaten the safety of Canadian travelers, not things the govt and its supporters disagree with. It’s about danger signaling, not virtue signaling,” Mulroney tweeted.

Helen Kennedy, the executive director of Egale Canada, an LGBTQ+ rights group in Toronto, commended the Canadian government for putting out the advisory.

“There are 500 anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation making their way through various state legislatures at the moment,” Kennedy said. “It’s not a good image on the U.S.”

Kennedy also said Canada needs to take a serious look at how safe LGBTQ+ communities are in Canada as similar policies have been recently enacted in the provinces of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, which now require parental consent when children under 16 years old want to use different names or pronouns at school.
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Nearly 60,000 asylum-seekers are in New York City’s care. Some of them have no choice but to sleep outside, and some residents don’t want them. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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A former organizer of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Thursday to 17 years in prison for spearheading an attack on the U.S. Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.

The sentence for Joseph Biggs is the second longest among hundreds of Capitol riot cases so far, after the 18-year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.

Federal prosecutors had recommended a 33-year prison sentence for Biggs, who helped lead dozens of Proud Boys members and associates in marching to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Biggs and other Proud Boys joined the mob that broke through police lines and forced lawmakers to flee, disrupting the joint session of Congress for certifying the electoral victory by Biden, a Democrat.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said the Jan. 6 attack trampled on an “important American custom,” certifying the Electoral College vote.

“That day broke our tradition of peacefully transferring power, which is among the most precious things that we had as Americans,” the judge said, emphasizing that he was using the past tense in light of how Jan. 6 affected the process.

Biggs acknowledged to the judge that he “messed up that day,” but he blamed being “seduced by the crowd” of Trump supporters outside the Capitol and said he’s not a violent person or “a terrorist.”

“My curiosity got the better of me, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life,” he said, claiming he didn’t have “hate in my heart” and didn’t want to hurt people.

Prosecutors, though, defended their decision to seek 33 years behind bars for Biggs, saying it was justified because he and his fellow Proud Boys committed “among the most serious crimes that this court will consider,” pushing the U.S. government “to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”

“There is a reason why we will hold our collective breath as we approach future elections,” prosecutor Jason McCullough said. “We never gave it a second thought before January 6th.”

The judge who sentenced Biggs also will separately sentence four other Proud Boys who were convicted by a jury in May after a four-month trial in Washington, D.C., that laid bare far-right extremists’ embrace of lies by Trump, a Republican, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Enrique Tarrio, a Miami resident who was the Proud Boys’ national chairman and top leader, is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday. His sentencing was moved from Wednesday to next week because the judge was sick.

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6. He had been arrested two days before the Capitol riot on charges that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier rally in the nation’s capital, and he complied with a judge’s order to leave the city after his arrest. He picked Biggs and Proud Boys chapter president Ethan Nordean to be the group’s leaders on the ground in his absence, prosecutors said.

Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. He served in the U.S. Army for eight years before getting medically discharged in 2013. Biggs later worked as a correspondent for Infowars, the website operated by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Biggs, Tarrio, Nordean and Proud Boys chapter leader Zachary Rehl were convicted of charges including seditious conspiracy, a rarely brought Civil War-era offense. A fifth Proud Boys member, Dominic Pezzola, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but was convicted of other serious charges.

Prosecutors also recommended prison sentences of 33 years for Tarrio, 30 years for Rehl, 27 years for Nordean and 20 years for Pezzola. The judge is scheduled to sentence Rehl later on Thursday. Pezzola and Nordean are scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.

Defense attorneys argued that the Justice Department was unfairly holding their clients responsible for the violent actions of others in the crowd of Trump supporters at the Capitol.

More than 1,100 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 600 of them have been convicted and sentenced.

Besides Rhodes, six members of the anti-government Oath Keepers also were convicted of seditious conspiracy after a separate trial last year.
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When U.S. President Joe Biden visits Vietnam in early September, experts say Washington and Hanoi are likely to upgrade ties to a strategic partnership, an important step for bilateral relations. Experts add, however, that this should not be misinterpreted as Vietnam aligning with the United States.

In Hanoi’s diplomatic hierarchy, a strategic partnership is the second tier, only surpassed by the highest-level designation – a comprehensive strategic partnership.

The White House said August 28 that U.S. President Joe Biden would be going to Hanoi September 10, to meet with Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who holds the country’s top position, and other leaders on ways to further deepen bilateral cooperation.

While experts said upgraded ties are close to a sure thing if Biden’s visit goes as planned, they said that Vietnamese leaders are upgrading their partnerships more broadly as a defense to China’s growing aggression in the region.

“This is not Vietnam moving into a U.S. orbit. This is Vietnam maintaining its own independent orbit – maintaining its own space from China,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“That leaves a lot of room for pragmatic cooperation and shared interest but Vietnam is not coming to our side of the playground,” he said.

‘Web of partnerships’

Vietnam has been busy on the diplomatic front over the past year, seeking to upgrade ties with many in the region.

In December, Vietnam upgraded ties with South Korea to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy, also held with China, Russia, and India.

Vietnam is also expected to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership with Australia this year, which was announced after Foreign Affairs Minister Bui Thanh Son and his counterpart, Penny Wong, met in Hanoi on August 22.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also visited Hanoi August 27. There, he met with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the two discussed embarking on a comprehensive strategic partnership.

These enhanced ties are a concerted effort by Hanoi to create a bulwark against Beijing, said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

Vietnam “has to upgrade their relationship with all these countries that can help them in case of crisis or even help them to boost their resilience against Chinese encroachment,” Vuving said. “If you look at that kind of web of partnerships with all the significant powers in the region, you can be a little more secure. That’s the overall strategy for Vietnam. Reaching out – geopolitical promiscuity.”

Threats to Vietnam’s territorial sovereignty often play out in the South China Sea, known in Vietnam as the East Sea. Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone extends 200 nautical miles off the coastline. China claims nearly all of the resource-rich waters with its nine-dash line – a disputed map demarcation encompassing most of the South China Sea.

China “has coast guard ships and militia ships harassing and disrupting Vietnam’s exploration for oil every day,” Vuving said. “They are pushing the Vietnamese fishermen out of their own EEZ.”

This ceaseless badgering of Vietnamese operations at sea is a top rationale for upgraded ties with the United States and other partners, said Ray Powell, who leads Stanford University’s Project Myoushu on the South China Sea.

“The constant pressure that China puts on [Vietnam] from all kinds of angles factors into their desire to keep raising the levels of those partnerships,” Powell said. “In a lot of ways it is more about balancing against China than it is about aligning with the United States.”

Balancing act

This year marks 10 years since Washington and Hanoi launched a comprehensive partnership. Although experts say the Biden administration is keen to jump two levels to a comprehensive strategic partnership, Vietnamese leaders must be cautious about not angering Beijing even while trying to counter its growing power.

Hanoi and Washington normalized bilateral relations in 1995, and elevated to a comprehensive partnership in 2013. The partnership is a formal designation in Vietnamese foreign policy which puts the U.S. currently in the third tier among Vietnam’s diplomatic partners.

Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said moving one step up to a strategic partnership is the likely outcome of Biden’s visit as Hanoi treads carefully in order to keep peace with Beijing. “Vietnam is quite careful at balancing that relationship with the two great powers,” he said.

Still, the strategic partnership would be an important step for Vietnam to “toughen up” its maritime capabilities, enable potential arms procurement, and send a message to Beijing, he said.

“Very strongly, it would respond to China’s pressure that if you push me too far I will have the U.S. [partnership] at least to help protect my own national interest,” Giang said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the date of the White House statement referenced in graph 3.
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The Biden administration recently announced an extension and redesignation of the program that gives temporary protection from deportation for nationals of Sudan and Ukraine. Nationals of El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua will also have their protection extended in September.

The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program allows migrants whose home countries are considered unsafe to live and work in the United States for a period of time if they meet certain requirements established by the U.S. government.

In a call Wednesday with reporters, immigration advocates urged the Biden administration to designate new countries to receive TPS status and redesignate current ones to allow more people to qualify for the program and work legally in the U.S.

Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, said current TPS holders have high labor force participation rates and contribute billions to the U.S. economy every year.

“TPS raises wages through the provision of work authorization for people who don’t have it. … Higher wages also mean more spending back in the economy, which creates more jobs,” he said.

The original TPS designations for Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador were made more than 20 years ago. When the Biden administration extended TPS for those countries in June, it was for current TPS holders.

If the Biden administration were to redesignate TPS, it would change the cut-off date of when people had to have entered the U.S. in order to qualify for the program, and those who entered within the last 20 years would be eligible.

According to a report by the Niskanen Center, a Washington-based policy research institute, the “vast majority” of TPS holders are employed.

“More than 94% of TPS holders were in the labor force as of 2017, working in sectors ranging from retail to health care. According to some estimates, ending TPS for just El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti would lead to a loss of over $160 billion to U.S. GDP over a decade,” the report shows.

New countries

Advocates also called for new TPS designations. Immigrants rights groups have ongoing campaigns for Mauritania and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Nils Kinuani, the immigration coordinator for the Congolese Community of Washington Metropolitan, told VOA the group had conversations with DHS officials in April, and they are still hopeful.

“Last winter, we were joined by over 110 organizations, national and state, to request a TPS designation for DRC. We launched the campaign in February 2023. We have been also working with congressional leaders to push for this designation,” Kinuani said.

According to the State Department, the DRC is suffering a humanitarian crisis marked by civil conflicts that have spanned more than two decades.

Black Mauritanian leaders and others have also urged the administration to designate Mauritania under TPS status.

“This is the longest TPS campaign many of our organizations have worked on; a stark difference from the TPS designation for countries like Ukraine, which received TPS within a week of the conflict starting. The United States had a long-standing policy of not deporting Mauritanians because of the country’s well documented record of human rights abuses, which include the practice of enslaving Black people and maintaining an apartheid regime,” Haddy Gassama, policy and advocacy director of the UndocuBlack Network, wrote in a statement.

A bipartisan letter from Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican Representative Mike Carey was sent to President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urging officials to consider the circumstances in Mauritania and requesting immediate TPS designation for Mauritanians living in the United States.

DHS officials did not disclose why these countries have yet to receive a TPS designation, but they said DHS is “monitoring” the situation.

Who has TPS designations?

Congress established TPS in 1990. Currently, 16 countries are designated for the program.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote in an email to VOA on background — often used by U.S. officials to share information with reporters without being identified — that TPS is not to be equated with other recently expanded pathways to legal residence in the United States.

These include “a dramatic expansion of refugee resettlement processing from the Western Hemisphere; parole processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans; expanded Family Reunification Programs; expanded labor visas; and direct access to appointments at Ports of Entry via the CBP One app,” the official wrote.

Current TPS holders who want to extend their status must register again during the 60-day registration period for their country’s designation.

What is the process for a country to receive TPS designation?

Congress authorized the DHS secretary to decide when a country should be placed under TPS designation.

Before making a decision to designate a country, the secretary is required to consult with various government agencies. While the specific agencies are not outlined in the law, these consultations typically involve the Department of State, the National Security Council, and sometimes the Department of Justice.

“The Department regularly monitors country conditions and consults other appropriate government agencies to determine whether a TPS designation is warranted. The department does not have anything specific to share regarding the status of these considerations for any particular country,” a DHS official wrote in an email.

These designations are set for six, 12, or 18 months. About two months before a country’s TPS expiration, the secretary has to decide once again if the U.S. will terminate or extend the TPS benefit.

Whatever the decision, it needs to be published in the Federal Register — the nation’s daily publication system for a variety of public documents.

The TPS program, however, does not lead to permanent U.S. residency. As of March, about 610,000 foreign nationals currently hold TPS status.

TPS holders who leave the U.S. without first obtaining a travel authorization may lose their TPS status and won’t be able to reenter the country.
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has delivered a recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Administration on marijuana policy, and Senate leaders hailed it Wednesday as a first step toward easing federal restrictions on the drug.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the agency has responded to President Joe Biden’s request “to provide a scheduling recommendation for marijuana to the DEA.”

“We’ve worked to ensure that a scientific evaluation be completed and shared expeditiously,” he added.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that HHS had recommended that marijuana be moved from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance.

“HHS has done the right thing,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “DEA should now follow through on this important step to greatly reduce the harm caused by draconian marijuana laws.”

Rescheduling the drug would reduce or potentially eliminate criminal penalties for possession. Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD.

According to the DEA, Schedule I drugs “have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse.”

Schedule III drugs “have a potential for abuse less than substances in Schedules I or II and abuse may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.” They currently include ketamine and some anabolic steroids.

Biden requested the review in October 2022 as he pardoned thousands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., issued a statement calling for marijuana to be completely descheduled.

“However, the recommendation of HHS to reschedule cannabis as a Schedule III drug is not inconsequential,” he added. “If HHS’s recommendation is ultimately implemented, it will be a historic step for a nation whose cannabis policies have been out of touch with reality.”

Bloomberg News first reported on the HHS recommendation.

In reaction to the Bloomberg report, the nonprofit U.S. Cannabis Council said: “We enthusiastically welcome today’s news. … Rescheduling will have a broad range of benefits, including signaling to the criminal justice system that cannabis is a lower priority and providing a crucial economic lifeline to the cannabis industry.”
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Tropical Storm Idalia brought heavy rain to the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina late Wednesday after slamming into Florida’s Gulf Coast as a powerful hurricane early in the day.

The National Hurricane Center warned of the potential for flooding in the Carolinas on Thursday as the center of the storm moved back into the Atlantic.

The forecast path for Idalia could take it to Bermuda still at tropical storm strength sometime around Sunday.  The island dealt Wednesday with rains from another storm, Hurricane Franklin.

Idalia knocked out power to nearly 500,000 customers in Florida and neighboring Georgia while flooding coastal areas in Florida and spawning at least one tornado in South Carolina.

The storm made landfall with winds of about 200 kph and was tied with an 1896 hurricane as the strongest ever to hit Florida’s Big Bend area, where the peninsular state curves to meet its panhandle region to the west.

Storm surges pushed the coastal surf to nearly 2.5 meters higher than normal at Cedar Key, near the landfall site, but the hurricane came ashore at low tide, minimizing an even worse surge of floodwaters.

Authorities reported at least two people were killed in weather-related car crashes in Florida, while Georgia reported one death related to the storm.

In preparation for rescue and repair efforts, about 5,500 National Guard troops were activated, and more than 30,000 utility workers stood by ahead of the storm’s arrival. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.   
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A Ukrainian community group in the western U.S. state of Colorado organized a job fair for newly arrived war refugees. Svitlana Prystynska has our story from Denver. Camera: Volodymyr Petruniv.
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Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared to briefly freeze and be unable to answer a reporter’s question during an event in Kentucky on Wednesday, weeks after he had a similar episode in Washington. 

According to video from a local news station, the 81-year-old was asked whether he would run for reelection in 2026. The senator asked the reporter to repeat the question before trailing off and staring straight ahead for about 10 seconds. 

A woman standing at the front of the room with McConnell asked him whether he heard the question, and she repeated it. When McConnell did not answer, she announced to the room that “we’re going to need a minute.” McConnell eventually answered two additional questions — though not the one about a 2026 campaign — and was halting and appeared to have some difficulty speaking. The woman then ended the news conference and McConnell left the room, walking slowly. 

McConnell’s reaction was similar to an earlier incident when he froze for about 20 seconds at a news conference in the Capitol in late July. He went back to his office with aides and then returned to answer more questions. 

The latest incident in Covington, Kentucky, on Wednesday adds to the questions in recent months about McConnell’s health and whether the Kentucky Republican, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has served as Republican leader since 2007, will remain in his leadership post. 

His office said afterward that McConnell was feeling “momentarily lightheaded” and would see a physician before his next event. Similarly, after the July episode, aides said McConnell was lightheaded. McConnell told reporters several hours later that he was “fine.” Neither McConnell nor his aides have given any further details about what happened. 

In March, McConnell suffered a concussion and a broken rib after falling and hitting his head after a dinner event at a hotel. He did not return to the Senate for almost six weeks. He has been using a wheelchair in the airport while commuting back and forth to Kentucky. Since then, he has appeared to walk more slowly and his speech has sounded more halting. 

McConnell had polio in his early childhood, and he has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in climbing stairs. In addition to his fall in March, he also tripped and fell four years ago at his home in Kentucky, causing a shoulder fracture that required surgery. 
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Christian Glass was a geology geek, a painter and a young man beset by a mental health crisis when he called 911 for help getting his car unstuck in a Colorado mountain town last year.

When sheriff’s deputies arrived, he refused to get out of the car after saying that supernatural beings were after him, body camera video shows. The officers shouted, threatened and coaxed. Glass made heart shapes with his hands and prayed: “Dear Lord, please, don’t let them break the window.”

They did, and the 22-year-old grabbed a small knife. Then he was hit with bean bag rounds, stun gun charges and, ultimately, bullets that killed him and led to a murder charge against one deputy and a criminally negligent homicide charge against another.

As part of a $19 million settlement this spring with Glass’ parents, Colorado’s Clear Creek County this month joined a growing roster of U.S. communities that respond to nonviolent mental health crises with clinicians and EMTs or paramedics, instead of police.

The initiatives have spread rapidly in recent years, particularly among the nation’s biggest cities.

Data gathered by The Associated Press show at least 14 of the 20 most populous U.S. cities are hosting or starting such programs, sometimes called civilian, alternative or non-police response teams. They span from New York and Los Angeles to Columbus, Ohio, and Houston, and boast annual budgets that together topped $123 million as of June, AP found. Funding sources vary.

“If someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, law enforcement is not what they need,” said Tamara Lynn of the National De-Escalation Training Center, a private group that trains police to handle such situations.

There’s no aggregate, comprehensive data yet on the programs’ effects. Their scope varies considerably. So does their public reception.

In Denver, just an hour’s drive from where Glass was killed, a program called STAR answered 5,700 calls last year and is often cited as a national model. Its funding has totaled $7 million since 2021.

In New York, a more than $40 million-a-year program dubbed B-HEARD answered about 3,500 calls last year, and mental health advocates criticize it as anemic.

Representatives from some other cities were frank about challenges — staffing shortages, acclimating 911 dispatchers to sending out unarmed civilians, and more — at a conference in Washington, D.C., this spring.

Still, officials in places including New York see no-police teams as an important shift in how they address people in crisis.

“We really think that every single B-HEARD response is just a better way that we, the city, are providing care to people,” said Laquisha Grant of the New York Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health.

Federal data is incomplete, but various studies and statistics show that mentally ill people make up a substantial proportion of those killed by police. Often, the dead are people of color, though Glass was not.

Calls for change

The alternative approach dates back decades but gained new impetus from calls for wide-ranging police reform after the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There also were specific pleas for better responses to psychiatric crisis after such tragedies as the death of Daniel Prude that year in Rochester, New York. Prude was just out of a psychiatric hospital and running naked through snowy streets when he was suffocated by police who had been called to help him. He was Black, as was Floyd.

Reports of mental distress made up about 1% of police calls in a 2022 study involving nine police agencies; there’s no nationwide statistic. A long-established civilian response program in Eugene, Oregon, says it diverts 3% to 8% of calls from police. The Vera Institute of Justice, a police reform advocacy group, suggests alternative teams could handle 19% if homelessness, intoxication and some other troubles were included.

In Denver, STAR teams arrive in vans stuffed with everything from medical gear to blankets to Cheez-Its. In one recent instance, they spent three hours — more time than police could likely have spent — with a Denver newcomer who was living on the streets. The team helped him get a Colorado ID voucher, groceries, and medications and took him to a shelter.

“It’s really about meeting the needs of the community and making sure we are sending the right experts, so we can actually solve the problem,” says Carleigh Sailon, a former STAR manager who now works elsewhere.

STAR responded to 44% of calls deemed eligible last year, said Evan Thompkins, a STAR program specialist.

A Stanford University study found that petty crime reports fell by a third and violent crime stayed steady in areas that STAR served in its earliest phase. Throughout the program’s three years, police have never been called for backup due to safety concerns but have helped direct traffic, Thompkins said.

Identifying callers’ needs

Some observers wonder if safety worries will grow as non-police programs do. While there’s an appeal to the idea of pulling cops out of psychiatric crisis calls, “the challenge is identifying those calls,” said Stephen Eide, a senior fellow specializing in mental health issues at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank.

In New York, dispatchers must gauge the potentially life-or-death risk of “imminent harm” while deciphering sometimes frantic 911 calls that often come from bystanders or relatives, not the person in crisis.

Officials say B-HEARD answered 53% of eligible calls in the last six months of 2022, the most recent data available. But that was 16% of all mental health crisis calls within the program’s limited territory.

Combined, staffers citywide answered about 2% of the 171,000 such calls throughout last year.

“Very unimpressive,” says Ruth Lowenkron, an attorney involved in a federal lawsuit that seeks changes in B-HEARD.

Grant says the city is exploring whether more calls could qualify. Meanwhile, officials note that B-HEARD’s social workers and EMTs resolve about half of calls by talking to people or taking them to social service or community health centers, rather than the hospitals where armed officers have traditionally brought people in crisis. Plans call for extending B-HEARD citywide.

Grant credits the program with “providing people with more options and letting people know that they can stay safely in their homes, in their communities, with the connection to the right resources.” 
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Washington is following events in Libreville “very, very closely,” the White House said Wednesday, hours after military officers in the West African nation of Gabon seized power from the family that has ruled the nation for more than half a century.

The White House also defended U.S. commitments to Africa after being asked whether a wave of coups in the region was a sign that Washington has taken its eye off the resource-rich, volatile continent.

“It all kind of unfolded overnight,” said John Kirby, director of strategic communications for the National Security Council, during a virtual briefing with reporters.

Gabon’s longtime President Ali Bongo Ondimba released a video confirming his house arrest, just hours after he was confirmed the winner of a recent election that observers said was marred by irregularities.

He took office after the death of his father in 2009 and weathered a coup attempt in 2019. The Bongo family has led the former French colony continuously since 1967 and has been accused by rights groups of becoming fabulously wealthy in a nation that is rich in resources, but where average citizens struggle to survive amid high unemployment.

“It’s deeply concerning to us,” Kirby said of the events. “We will remain a supporter of the people in the region, supporting the people of Gabon and their demand for democratic governance, of course. But we’re going to also stay focused on continuing to work with our African partners and … all the people on the continent to address challenges and to support democracy. So, again, we’re watching this closely.”

Since 2020, military officers have toppled regimes in Sudan, Mali, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger.

‘Contagion effect’

Analyst Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution said Wednesday that the events illustrated “the contagion effect in full swing,” and she described the power seizure as “another big blow” to the United States, France and the Economic Community of West African States.

She added: “Each additional one, any single one is harder to reverse as focus & resources of [international] democracy supporters [are] divided.”

Kirby said the White House was not ready to reach the same conclusions.

“I think it’s just too soon to do a table slap here and say, ‘Yep, we got a trend here going,’ or, ‘Yep, there’s going to be a domino effect,’” he said.

On the Africa in Transition blog maintained by the Council on Foreign Relations, analyst Ebenezer Obadare pointed to a worrying trend in the region.

“The gangsta militariat (more gangsta than militariat) is the logical outcome of the African military’s involvement in politics, insofar as the latter has resulted in the militarization of politics, the politicization of the military, and subsequently the de-professionalization of the armed forces,” he wrote.

Kirby also batted away claims that Washington is not invested in the continent.

“I don’t think any measured consideration of the president’s foreign policy goals over the last two and a half years would lead anybody to conclude that we’re walking away from Africa or that we haven’t been paying attention to it,” he said.

“We are very focused on the continent on many different levels, including investment in infrastructure and economic development, again announcing millions and millions of dollars to help bolster African infrastructure and investment, and that’s on top of all the security cooperation that we have with African partners.”

At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the world body was trying to gather facts before acting. Gabon currently holds a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

“Until we know what exactly is happening on the ground, we won’t take any actions,” she said. “But let me just say clearly: We condemn any efforts by militaries to take power by force.”

VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
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Gotion Inc. is the US subsidiary of a Chinese EV battery maker. It plans to build a plant on a parcel of farmland in Michigan. But that’s dividing local residents. VOA’s Carolyn Calla Yu reports from Green Charter Township, Michigan. Camera:  Songlin Zhang, Contributor: Bo Gu
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wrapped up a four-day visit to China on Wednesday in the latest move by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to stabilize commercial and trade links between the world’s two largest economies.

In public remarks Wednesday, Raimondo said that she is hopeful about holding regular and direct talks with Chinese officials, but that she is “very clear-eyed” and does not expect every issue with Beijing will be resolved “overnight.”

Earlier in her visit, she said American companies have told her that China’s unlevel playing field and unpredictable regulatory environment with steep penalties have made the country “uninvestible.”

Raimondo said the two sides planned to hold meetings with technical experts to talk about disputes over protecting trade secrets as well as sharing information about export controls.

“We are not returning to the days when we had dialogue for dialogue’s sake, but shutting down communication and de-coupling services is neither in our economic or national security goals,” Raimondo told reporters during a phone briefing.

While the United States and China maintain more than $700 billion in annual trade, escalating tensions in recent years have made it more challenging for U.S. firms to operate in China.

“I did mention that my own emails had been hacked,” she said, “and I mentioned that as an example of an action that erodes trust at a time that we are trying to stabilize the relationship and increase channels of communication.”

U.S. officials have said Washington is not seeking a “de-coupling” with the Beijing government, but focusing on “de-risking.” Biden signed an executive order earlier this month to restrict U.S. investments in some sensitive and high-tech industries in China, including in semiconductors, microelectronics, quantum computing and certain artificial intelligence capabilities.

In Beijing, Chinese officials said the United States was engaging in “de-coupling” under the guise of “de-risking.” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Aug. 10 that the U.S. decision “seriously disrupts the security of global industrial and supply chains.”

The two countries have traded other restrictions in recent months.

In May, China’s Cyberspace Administration banned its corporations from buying memory chips from U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc., as the U.S. works with its allies to ensure that advanced semiconductor manufacturing stays out of the reach of the Chinese industry.

In March, Chinese officials closed the Beijing offices of the U.S. due diligence company Mintz Group and detained five of its employees, accusing the firm of doing “unapproved statistical work.” With 18 offices worldwide, Mintz Group specializes in background checking, fact gathering and internal investigations.

Raimondo visited Shanghai Disneyland and a Boeing facility, as well as New York University’s campus in Shanghai on Wednesday, after meetings with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Tuesday.  She held meetings with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao on Monday.

Although Raimondo agreed to launch an information exchange on export control enforcement and a new working group on commercial issues, Congressional critics are skeptical about Washington’s ability to work constructively with Beijing.

Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, accused the Biden administration of being “at best naive” in starting a working group with China.

McCaul said it is a dangerous move because the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, “steals U.S. intellectual property and hacks the emails of senior government officials, including Secretary Raimondo. The administration must stop treating the CCP as anything other than an adversary who will stop at nothing to harm our national security and spread its malign authoritarianism around the globe.”

Raimondo’s visit follows recent trips by other senior U.S. officials, including CIA Director Bill Burns in May and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, as well as separate trips by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and U.S. Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry in July.
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The recent killing of three Black people in Jacksonville, Florida, has drawn attention to a grim reality that researchers have long documented: Black Americans are the most frequent victims of racially motivated hate crimes in the United States.

A new report released Tuesday confirms the trend, showing that Black people were the targets of more than one-fifth of all hate crimes reported in major U.S. cities last year, the highest share of any group.

The report, based on police data analyzed by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, found that hate crimes targeting Black people fell by an average of 6% last year, after surging in the previous two years.

But the trend was not uniform across the country, and many cities and states reported their worst numbers ever.

Out of 42 cities surveyed by the center, more than half showed an increase in anti-Black hate crimes, with some reaching historic highs. New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, and Sacramento, California, all set modern records.

Five states — Colorado, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Utah — also broke their records for anti-Black hate crimes, while incidents in California and New York state — both with large Black populations — surged by more than 20%, according to the report.

Historically, African Americans have been the most frequent victims of hate crimes in the U.S., and that did not change last year.

The report found they were the targets of 22% of all hate crimes in 2022, the highest share of any group. In 2021, the share was as high as 31%.

Jews came in second last year, with 16% of all hate incidents, followed by gay men, with 12%, and white people, with 8.5%, according to the report.

Overall, hate crimes reported to police in the 42 U.S. cities rose 10% in 2022. That’s on top of a nationwide increase of nearly 31%  seen in 2021.

Frequent targets of hate crime

The report comes just days after a white gunman killed two Black men and a Black woman at a Florida variety store in a hate-fueled rampage.

The 21-year-old shooter, who took his own life after the killings, left behind a racist screed in which he expressed hatred for Black people. One firearm he used in the attack had swastikas drawn on it.

“Blacks remain the most frequent target not only for these extremist killers but have been the most frequent target for overall hate crime for every year since data has been collected, right up through our partial 2023 totals,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and the lead author of the report.

The FBI, which has been collecting hate crime data since 1991, said it was investigating the Jacksonville shooting as an anti-Black hate crime.

“From everything we know now, this was a targeted attack — a hate crime that was racially motivated,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Monday during a call with civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials.

The shooting was not the first of its kind in Jacksonville this year.

In May, three white men were charged in connection with the shooting death of a 39-year-old Black man in downtown Jacksonville.

‘Replacement’ theory

Legin said the vast majority of racially motivated homicides over the past five years have been carried out by white supremacists and right-wing ideologues.

The cycle is being repeated this year, he said.

“We expect this killing cycle to continue, especially as we enter a volatile election season,” Levin said. “These atrocities are often carried out by angry young adult males who make recent weapon acquisitions, act within their home state, and who reference the ‘replacement’ doctrine statements of previous killers.”

The replacement theory, which asserts that non-white immigrants are being brought into the U.S. to “replace” white people, inspired a white gunman to shoot and kill 10 Black people in May 2022 at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

While the total number of extremist-motivated homicides fell last year, the figures “ignore the numerous plots and thwarted attacks which unfortunately could have driven the death count substantially higher,” Levin said.

He attributed the surge in hate crimes to several factors, including the proliferation of online and political rhetoric that promotes bigotry, stereotypes and conspiracy theories.

“The ubiquity and seepage of hateful rhetoric of various depths now in the mainstream of sociopolitical discourse demonizes whole groups of people and creates a deep well,” Levin said.
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As John Eastman prepared to surrender to Georgia authorities last week in an indictment related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, he issued a statement denouncing the criminal case as targeting attorneys “for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients.”

Another defendant, Rudy Giuliani, struck a similar note, saying he was being indicted for his work as Donald Trump’s attorney. “I never thought I’d get indicted for being a lawyer,” he said.

The 18 defendants charged alongside Trump in this month’s racketeering indictment in Fulton County include more than a half-dozen lawyers, and the statements from Eastman and Giuliani provide early foreshadowing of at least one of the defenses they seem poised to raise: that they were merely doing their jobs as attorneys when they maneuvered on Trump’s behalf to undo the results of that election.

The argument suggests a desire to turn at least part of the sprawling prosecution into a referendum on the boundaries of ethical lawyering.

But while attorneys do have wide berth to advance untested or unconventional positions, experts say a “lawyers being lawyers” defense will be challenging to pull off to the extent prosecutors can directly link the indicted lawyers to criminal schemes alleged in the indictment. That includes efforts to line up fake electors in Georgia and other states who would falsely assert that Trump, not Democrat Joe Biden, had won their respective contests.

“The law books are replete with examples of lawyers who were disciplined for claiming they were representing their clients,” said Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush’s winning presidential campaign in 2000 in a dispute ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. “Lawyers are required to follow very stringent rules of propriety. And there are certain things you can’t do for your clients. You cannot tell the court facts you have reason to know are not true.”

A more complicated question, though, is how far lawyers can go in advancing legal theories — even poorly supported ones — to achieve a desired outcome for a client, said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official.

“Bad lawyering” in and of itself is not a crime, nor is “testing the waters” of legal arguments, he said.

“The real question is, at what point does a lawyer who knows that the legal theory that that lawyer is espousing has never been accepted anywhere — when does the lawyer cross the line if the lawyer suggests sort of that it is OK, that it’s clearly OK?” Saltzburg said. “And that’s a fuzzy line.”

Of course, attorneys are expected, as Eastman noted in his statement, to zealously represent clients — though he did privately acknowledge that he anticipated the Supreme Court might unanimously dismiss a legal theory he advanced that then-Vice President Mike Pence was entitled to reject the counting of electoral votes.

There’s also a long history of election-related lawsuits, none more famous than the 2000 Florida fight between Democrat Al Gore and the Bush campaign. Justice Department counsel Jack Smith acknowledged as much in his own federal indictment against Trump, saying he was entitled like any candidate to file lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures and contest the results through other legal means.

But the Georgia indictment lists numerous acts in which prosecutors allege that lawyers went beyond conventional legal advocacy and engaged themselves in criminal activities.

It alleges, for instance, that former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark — who has denied any wrongdoing — drafted a memo he wanted to send to Georgia officials falsely claiming that fraud had been identified that could have affected the election outcome in that state. It also accuses another lawyer, Sidney Powell, of plotting to illegally access voting equipment in a rural county in Georgia in an attempt to prove voting fraud claims.

And the indictment says multiple other lawyers — including Kenneth Chesebro, Giuliani and Eastman — were involved in discussions about enlisting fake electors in battleground states won by Biden in place of the legitimate ones. A lawyer for Chesebro has said that each allegation against him related to his work as an attorney; lawyers for Powell declined to comment Tuesday.

“The difference here is between recommending to the client that it may be possible to appoint electors other than those identified by the secretary of state, and then the client does it or doesn’t do it,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal expert at New York University. “It’s different when the lawyer himself or herself proceeds to follow that advice.”

He added: “The lawyer as actor, as opposed to the lawyer as advocate, gets less freedom to trespass on legal principles.”

Richard, who represented the Bush campaign in 2000, said there was no fair comparison to those legitimate court challenges of that era and the alleged misconduct 20 years later. The fighting then was done in court, and once the Supreme Court ruled, the matter was considered resolved.

When it came to that decision, Richard said, “I remember people said to me, ‘How is anybody going to govern after this?’ I said, ‘The Monday after this is over, everybody will go back to work, and everybody will acknowledge that we have a president’ — and that’s exactly what happened.”
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President Joe Biden met with Costa Rica’s leader Tuesday to talk about concerns near and far, including the toll that irregular migration is taking on the small Central American nation and the challenges posed by China’s increased global ambitions, which rely on semiconductors.

Biden was quick to praise the relationship the U.S. and Costa Rica have built in the past year.

“Just over a year ago in California, we stood together with partners across the region for the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection,” Biden said from the Oval Office, where he met with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves on Tuesday afternoon. “You’ve done an incredible job since then, been a great partner.”

Chaves echoed the warm sentiments.

“Costa Rica has been, and shall remain, one of the strongest allies in the world regarding your economic and security interests that are ours,” he said.

The White House says the two nations align ideologically as well.

“Costa Rica has been a regional leader,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “They are a strong democracy with a thriving economy and leading by example on migration management.”

The leaders had serious issues to discuss, like the challenges posed by a flood of migrants streaming through Costa Rica en route to the U.S. Earlier in the year, Chaves said his nation needed help.

“What we have to do is to ask countries like the United States to help us to fulfill what we want: to be good international citizens, good citizens of the world, a country that continues to be generous, but the costs are becoming immense,” he said. “Let there be clearer signals in the United States.”

And analysts say the small coastal nation – famed for its beaches and biodiversity – also has a role to play in countering China’s economic ambitions.

A program funded by Biden’s 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to counter China, is looking to Costa Rica as a partner in the manufacture of semiconductors: the chips so small they measure in nanometers but that power machines that can fly to the moon.

“Recently, the United States announced that Costa Rica would receive funds from the so-called ‘ITSI’ Fund, which is part of the CHIPS and Science Act, to help it build out some parts of its semiconductor supply chains,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He noted that Costa Rica is not new to the industry.

“Intel, specifically, has an operation in Costa Rica,” he said. “So we’re not trying to build something from scratch. There is a foundation there to build on. And I think much of the proof will be in the pudding of the actual training programs themselves, whether Costa Rica can build out the human capital to attract more spending in that space.”
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President Joe Biden met with Costa Rica’s leader Tuesday to talk about challenges near and far, including the toll that irregular migration is taking on the small Central American nation and the challenges posed by China’s global ambitions — which rely on technology fueled by semiconductors. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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The United States is providing up to $250 million in additional military aid for Ukraine in a package that includes more rockets for HIMARS and AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles that can be used to defend Ukrainian skies.

This is the first time the U.S. has provided Ukraine with Sidewinders, which can be used for short range, air-to-air attacks.

The aid also includes mine-clearing equipment and anti-tank weapons such as TOW missiles and shoulder-fired Javelins.

The latest aid package marks the 45th authorized presidential drawdown of military equipment from Defense Department inventories since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Once again, long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems known as ATACMS were not included in the package, drawing criticism from analysts such as retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who served as the commanding general for U.S. Army forces in Europe from 2014 to 2017.

“Unfortunately, the Ukrainians are going to continue to suffer a lot of casualties because we, the West, have not provided capabilities that they need,” Hodges told VOA on Tuesday. “And I’m talking specifically about long-range precision weapons.”

Moscow began a renewed offensive in Ukraine earlier this year that has stalled.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has characterized the current counteroffensive against Russian forces as slow but steady, with Ukrainian forces inserting reserve troops and breaking through some elements of Russian forces’ southeastern defensive lines this month.

“Ukraine continues to get after it and fight,” Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told VOA in a briefing at the Pentagon last Thursday. “They are making some progress along the front line, but it’s going to be tough.”
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