Atlanta, Georgia — When he returned to Plains, Georgia, in 1981, President Jimmy Carter was defeated — rejected by voters in a landslide election to Republican Ronald Reagan. The pouring rain at Carter’s welcome home reception reflected his gloomy mood and that of the country.

“In office, he was a political failure. He lost overwhelming[ly] to Ronald Reagan. But he was a substantive and visionary success,” says author and historian Jonathan Alter, who recognizes what many know Carter for today — humanitarian work with his Carter Center, “waging peace, fighting disease and building hope” around the world that led to Jimmy Carter receiving the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

“He’s done terrific work supervising elections in more than 100 countries. But former presidents don’t have as much power as presidents, not nearly as much, and the list of his accomplishments as president that were ignored, minimized, or forgotten entirely was very long,” said Alter.

The Iran hostage crisis, rising inflation and oil embargoes of the 1970s doomed Carter’s White House tenure, casting a long shadow over his legacy. However, the onetime peanut farmer, Georgia governor, president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s 100th birthday milestone comes as authors and historians reevaluate his failures and accomplishments as a one-term U.S. president.

Alter’s biography, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life,” is among several that conclude his four years in the White House were anything but a failure.

“Not just famously [the] Camp David accords and opening relations with China,” Alter told VOA in an interview in August at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, “but a long string of legislative accomplishments on the environment and many other issues that actually exceed the legislative accomplishments of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.”

Carter signed the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act protecting more than 100 million acres — including land, national parks, refuges, monuments, forests and conservation areas — which Alter says is now considered one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever passed.

“The story I tell in my book is a surprising one,” says Alter. “It’s of somebody who worked hard in ways that actually bore fruit.”

“I think we’ll remember President Carter as a president who served in very enormously difficult times who had to deal with circumstances that were far beyond his control,” says Emory University’s first “Jimmy Carter Professor of History” Joseph Crespino. Carter routinely visited with Crespino and his students in Atlanta to discuss the good and bad decisions he made while president.

“Putting human rights front and center in American foreign policy — no president had done that in the way that Jimmy Carter had,” Crespino told VOA during a recent interview at his office on campus at Emory University. “It was important in shifting the balance of power in the Cold War, but it was also an important moment in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to reassert once again America’s moral responsibilities in the world.”

Crespino says some of Carter’s overlooked domestic accomplishments include reorganizing the federal government and deregulation of the airline, trucking and beer industries. “We oftentimes associate a kind of freeing up of the free enterprise economy with the conservative turn that came in with Ronald Reagan, when in fact Jimmy Carter before Reagan was already doing a lot of deregulatory work in his presidency in recognizing the kind of limits of government oversight of these private industries.”

Members of Carter’s Cabinet, including former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, are grateful his long life has allowed him to witness the longer lens of history reflect more positively on his legacy.

“There’s no place in the world I know where people don’t have some good things to say about him,” Young told VOA as he spoke with reporters September 17 at Carter’s 100th birthday concert at the Fox theater in Atlanta. “Whether he succeeded or not … he gave it as good a try and came as far as the world would let him go.”

A world that continues to benefit from the Carter Center’s work, including fighting diseases including Guinea worm, which is down to a few cases in Africa and could become only the second disease ever eradicated.
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During any campaign, it is crucial that voters and candidates have a way to measure the state of public opinion. Polling — surveying representative samples of the electorate — allows everyone to understand and adapt to prevailing sentiments. But it has its flaws.
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Jimmy Carter is the first U.S. president to reach the age of 100. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Georgia on the historic milestone.
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Los Angeles — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.

Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday, family spokesperson Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.

McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given. He was 88.

Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson held by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”

As an actor, he played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a fondness for shoot-out Westerns and cowboy dramas.

He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.

At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, while he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, the ‘man in black’ wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut, and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.

“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”

One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, Performing Songwriter, that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”

Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.

Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Why Me,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do),” “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”

In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.
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Los Angeles — Vice President Kamala Harris is set to rally in Las Vegas on Sunday night as both she and Republican Donald Trump continue to make frequent trips to Nevada, looking to gain momentum in the swing state as Election Day nears.

The rally is part of Harris’ latest West Coast swing, which included making her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking over for President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket. On Friday, the vice president walked alongside a towering, rust-colored border wall fitted with barbed wire in Douglas, Arizona, and met with federal authorities.

She attended a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday and had plans for a Sunday event in Los Angeles before heading to Nevada, with a return to Washington set for Monday night.

“This race is as close as it could possibly be,” she said Saturday to a raucous crowd of donors. “This is a margin-of-error race.”

Harris said even if there is enthusiasm, she’s running like an underdog. And she invited people to “join our team in battleground states” to help get voters to the polls — even if it’s Californians making calls from home.

On Sunday, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake became the latest prominent Republican to endorse Harris and Walz. He credited them with a “fine character and love of country” and said he wants a president who does not treat political adversaries as enemies or try to subvert the will of voters.

Flake, a longtime critic of the former president, joins a list of anti-Trump Republicans who have said they will vote for the Democratic ticket, not just refrain from voting for Trump. Among them is Dick Cheney, the deeply conservative former vice president, and his daughter, Liz.

On Sunday, Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor and a sharp critic of Trump, said Harris has yet to earn his vote, though Trump won’t get it.

In Nevada, all voters automatically receive ballots by mail unless they opt out — a pandemic-era change that was set in state law. That means most ballots could start going out in a matter of weeks, well before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Harris plans to be back in Las Vegas on Oct. 10 for a town hall with Hispanic voters. Both she and Republican rival Donald Trump have campaigned frequently in the city, highlighting the critical role that Nevada, and its mere six votes in the Electoral College, could play in deciding an election expected to be exceedingly close.

Trump held his own Las Vegas rally on Sept. 13 at the Expo World Market Center, where Harris is speaking Sunday. Her campaign has frequently scheduled events in the same venue where her opponent previously spoke, including in Milwaukee, Atlanta and suburban Phoenix. During his Las Vegas event, the former president singled out people crossing into the U.S. illegally, saying Harris “would be the president of invasion.”

During a campaign stop in the city in June, Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips received by waiters, hotel workers and thousands of other service industry employees. Harris used her own Las Vegas rally in August to make the same promise.

Fully doing away with federal taxes on tips would probably require an act from Congress. Still, Nevada’s Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, has endorsed Harris.

Ted Pappageorge, the culinary union’s secretary-treasurer, said the difference between the dueling no-taxes-on-tips proposals is that Harris has also pledged to tackle what his union calls “sub-minimum wage,” where employers pay service industry workers small salaries and meet minimum wage thresholds by expecting employees to supplement those with tips.

Harris has no public schedule for Tuesday, when her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, squares off against Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance for the first and only vice presidential debate of the campaign. But Harris and Walz will campaign jointly on Wednesday, making a bus tour with various stops through central Pennsylvania.

The campaign says that during that swing, both will emphasize plans to energize U.S. manufacturing, including by using tax credits to encourage steel production and overhaul federal permitting systems to increase American construction.
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Washington — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has authorized the military to reinforce its presence in the Middle East with “defensive” air-support capabilities and put other forces on a heightened readiness status, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

“(Austin) increased the readiness of additional U.S. forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.  

The statement did not detail what new aircraft would be deploying to the region. 

“Secretary Austin made clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people,” Ryder added. 
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BEIRUT — In Syria, 37 militants affiliated to the extremist Islamic State group and an al-Qaida-linked group were killed in two strikes, the United States military said Sunday. 

Two of the dead were senior militants, it said. 

U.S. Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday, targeting a senior militant from the al-Qaida-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others. They say he was responsible for overseeing military operations. 

They also announced a strike from earlier this month on Sept. 16, where they conducted a “large-scale airstrike” on an IS training camp in a remote undisclosed location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants, including “at least four Syrian leaders.” 

“The airstrike will disrupt ISIS’ capability to conduct operations against U.S. interests, as well as our allies and partners,” the statement read. 

There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory. 

U.S. forces advise and assist their key allies in northeastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, located not far from strategic areas where Iran-backed militant groups are present, including a key border crossing with Iraq. 
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new york — U.S. suicides last year remained at about the highest level in the nation’s history, preliminary data suggests. 

A little more than 49,300 suicide deaths were reported in 2023, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number that could grow a little as some death investigations are wrapped up and reported. 

Just under 49,500 were reported in 2022, according to final data released Thursday. The numbers are close enough that the suicide rate for the two years are the same, CDC officials said. 

U.S. suicide rates have been rising for nearly 20 years, aside from a two-year drop around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. So “a leveling off of any increase in suicide is cautiously promising news,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University public health professor who studies suicide. 

Indeed, there’s reason for optimism. A 2-year-old national crisis line allows anyone in the U.S. to dial 988 to reach mental health specialists. That and other efforts may be starting to pay off, Keyes said, but it “really remains to be seen.” 

Experts caution that suicide — the nation’s 11th-leading cause of death in 2022 — is complicated and that attempts can be driven by a range of factors. Contributors include higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services, and the availability of guns. About 55% of all suicide deaths in 2022 involved firearms, according to CDC data. 

The CDC’s Thursday report said: 

—Suicide was the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10–14 and 20–34, and the third-leading cause for people ages 15–19. 

—Deaths continue to be more common among boys and men than girls and women. The highest suicide rate for any group — by far — was in men ages 75 and older, at about 44 suicides per 100,000 men that age. 

—Among women, the highest rate was in those who were middle-aged, about 9 per 100,000. But more dramatic increases have been seen in teens and young women, with the rate for that group doubling in the last two decades. 

—The overall suicide rate in 2022 and 2023 was 14.2 per 100,000. It also was that high in 2018. Before then, it hadn’t been that high since 1941. 
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WASHINGTON — Fall means it’s time for just about everybody to get up to date on their flu and COVID-19 vaccines – and a lot of older adults also need protection against another risky winter virus, RSV.

Yes, you can get your flu and COVID-19 shots at the same time. Don’t call them boosters — they’re not just another dose of last year’s protection. The coronavirus and influenza are escape artists that constantly mutate to evade your body’s immune defenses, so both vaccines are reformulated annually to target newer strains.

“Right now is the best time” to get all the recommended fall vaccinations, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as she got her flu shot Wednesday. She has an appointment for her COVID-19 shot, too. It’s “the single most effective thing you can do to protect yourself, your family, your community.”

While they’re not perfect, vaccinations offer strong protection against a bad case of flu or COVID-19 — or dying from it.

“It may not prevent every infection but those infections are going to be less severe,” said CDC’s Dr. Demetre Daskalakis. “I would rather have my grandmother or my great-grandmother have a sniffle than have to go to the emergency room on Thanksgiving.”

The challenge: Getting more Americans to roll up their sleeves. Last year, just 45% of adults got a flu vaccination and even fewer, 23%, got a COVID-19 shot. A survey released Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases shows an equally low number intend to this fall.

And the coronavirus still killed more Americans than flu last year.

“Maybe we believe that it’s not going to be me but let’s not take a chance,” said Dr. Michael Knight of George Washington University. “Why not get a vaccine that’s going to help you reduce that risk?”

Who needs a fall COVID-19 or flu vaccination?

The CDC urges both an updated COVID-19 shot and yearly flu vaccine for everyone ages 6 months and older. If you recently had COVID-19, you can wait two or three months but still should get an updated vaccination because of the expected winter surge.

Both viruses can be especially dangerous to certain groups including older people and those with weak immune systems and lung or heart disease. Young children also are more vulnerable. The CDC counted 199 child deaths from flu last year.

Pregnancy also increases the chances of serious COVID-19 or flu – and vaccination guards mom plus ensures the newborn has some protection, too.

What’s new about the COVID-19 shots?

Last fall’s shots targeted a coronavirus strain that’s no longer spreading while this year’s are tailored to a new section of the coronavirus family tree. The Pfizer and Moderna shots are formulated against a virus subtype called KP.2 while the Novavax vaccine targets its parent strain, JN.1. Daskalakis said all should offer good cross protection to other subtypes now spreading.

The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines can be used by adults and children as young as 6 months. The Novavax shot is a more traditional protein vaccine combined with an immune booster, and open to anyone 12 and older.

Which flu vaccine to choose?

High-dose shots and one with a special immune booster are designed for people 65 and older, but if they can’t find one easily they can choose a regular all-ages flu shot.

For the shot-averse, the nasal spray FluMist is available for ages 2 to 49 at pharmacies and clinics — although next year it’s set to be available for use at home.

All flu vaccinations this year will guard against two Type A flu strains and one Type B strain. Another once-common form of Type B flu quit spreading a few years ago and was removed from the vaccine.

What about that other virus, RSV?

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a coldlike nuisance for most people but it, too, packs hospitals every winter and can be deadly for children under 5, the elderly and people with certain high-risk health problems.

The CDC recommends an RSV vaccination for everyone 75 and older, and for people 60 to 74 who are at increased risk. This is a one-time shot, not a yearly vaccination – but only 24% of seniors got it last year. It’s also recommended late in pregnancy to protect babies born during the fall and winter.

And while “your arm may hurt and you may feel crummy for a day,” it’s also fine to get the RSV, flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time, Daskalakis said.

What will it cost?

The vaccines are supposed to be free under Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance plans if people use an in-network provider.

About 1.5 million uninsured adults got free COVID-19 vaccinations through a federal program last year but that has ended. Instead, the CDC is providing $62 million to health departments to help improve access — and states and large cities are starting to roll out their plans.

Call your local health department to ask about options because in many areas, “availability of vaccine at lower or no cost is expected to trickle in over the next couple of weeks,” advised Dr. Raynard Washington, who heads the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, health department.

Check the government website, vaccines.gov, for availability at local pharmacies.
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PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wisconsin — Former President Donald Trump meandered Saturday through a list of grievances against Vice President Kamala Harris and other issues during an event intended to link his Democratic opponent to illegal border crossings.

A day after Harris discussed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump spoke to a crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about immigration. He blamed Harris for migrants committing crimes after entering the U.S. illegally, alleging she was responsible for “erasing our border.”

“I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion,” he said. “We’re going to liberate the country.”

Trump hopes frustration over illegal immigration will translate to votes in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states. The Republican nominee has denounced people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border as “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if elected. And polls show Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.

Trump shifted from topic to topic so quickly that it was hard to keep track of what he meant at times. He talked about the two assassination attempts against him and blamed the U.S. Secret Service for not being able to hold a large outdoor rally instead of an event in a smaller indoor space. But he also offered asides about climate change, Harris’ father, how his beach body was better than President Joe Biden’s, and a fly that was buzzing near him.

“I wonder where the fly came from,” he said. “Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer. We can’t take it any longer.”

Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ Friday event in Douglas, Arizona, where she announced a push to further restrict asylum claims beyond Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year. Harris denounced Trump’s handling of the border while president and his opposing a bipartisan border package earlier this year, saying Trump “prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

“I had to sit there and listen” to Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who puts it on? Fox News. They should not be allowed to put it on. It’s all lies. Everything she says is lies.”

The Republican nominee also intensified his personal attacks against Harris, insulting her as “mentally impaired” and a “disaster.”

Trump professed not to understand what Harris meant when she said he was responsible for taking children from their parents. Under his administration, border agents separated children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in a policy that was condemned globally as inhumane and one that Trump himself ended under pressure from his own party.

Harris, at a rally in San Francisco, told supporters there were “two very different visions for our nation” and voters see it “every day on the campaign trail.”

“Donald Trump is the same old tired show,” she said. “The same tired playbook we have heard for years.”

She said Trump was “a very unserious man.” “However, the consequences of putting him back in the White House are extremely serious.”

At Trump’s event, on either side of the stage were poster-sized mug shots of men in the U.S. illegally accused of a crime, including Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a case Trump cited in his speech.

Wisconsin Republicans in recent days have cited the story of Coronel Zarate’s arrest in Prairie du Chien as more evidence that people in the country illegally are committing crimes across the United States, not just in southern border states. Prosecutors charged Coronel Zarate on September 18 with sexual assault, child abuse, strangulation and domestic abuse. His lawyers declined to comment. 
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REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware — The Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah was a “measure of justice” for victims of a four-decade “reign of terror,” President Joe Biden said Saturday. 

The comments came after Lebanon’s Hezbollah group confirmed earlier Saturday that Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut the previous day. 

Biden noted that the operation to take out Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’ massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023. 

“Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a ‘northern front’ against Israel,” Biden said in a statement. 

He also noted that Hezbollah under Nasrallah’s watch has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese. 

Hezbollah attacks against U.S. interests include the truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy and multinational force barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the kidnapping of the Central Intelligence Agency chief of station in Beirut, who died while held captive. The U.S. said Hezbollah leaders armed and trained militias that carried out attacks on U.S. forces during the war in Iraq. 

The White House sees the death of Nasrallah as a huge blow to Hezbollah. At the same time, the administration has sought to tread carefully as it has tried to contain Israel’s war with Hamas, which, like Hezbollah, is backed by Iran, from exploding into an all-out regional conflict. 

The White House and Pentagon were quick Friday, shortly after the strike, to say publicly that Israel offered it no forewarning of the operation. 

“President Biden and I do not want to see conflict in the Middle East escalate into a broader regional war,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement Saturday that echoed Biden’s description of a “measure of justice.” She added, “diplomacy remains the best path forward to protect civilians and achieve lasting stability in the region.” 

The confirmation of Nasrallah’s death comes during a week that began with Biden’s top national security aides working on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to build support for a 21-day Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire that they hoped might also breathe new life into stalled efforts to secure a truce in Gaza. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant speech Friday to the United Nations, vowing to keep up operations against Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israeli citizens displaced by rocket attacks can return home. Shortly after, Israel carried out the strike that killed Nasrallah. 

Biden reiterated Saturday that he wants to see cease-fires both in Gaza and between Israel and Hezbollah. 

“It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability,” Biden said. 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused the United States of supporting the killing that took out Nasrallah and dozens of others. 

“The world community will not forget that the order of the terrorist strike was issued from New York and the Americans cannot absolve themselves from complicity with the Zionists,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying in a statement read on Iranian state television. 
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united nations — Russia’s foreign minister reinforced the Kremlin’s disagreements with the West in his United Nations General Assembly remarks Saturday and showed no interest in a genuine peace with Ukraine. 

“I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” Sergey Lavrov said. 

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin revised his government’s nuclear doctrine, in a clear attempt to discourage the West from lifting its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons to strike inside Russian territory. 

Lavrov dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula as “doomed,” and said a resolution of the conflict is not possible unless the root causes of the crisis, as Moscow sees them, are addressed. 

The veteran diplomat also took the opportunity to repeat complaints about NATO, Washington, London and the European Union. 

His speech came a few hours after Lebanese Hezbollah acknowledged the death of their leader, Hassan Nasrallah, following a series of targeted Israeli airstrikes in Beirut. 

“We are particularly concerned by the now almost commonplace practice of political killings, as once again, took place yesterday in Beirut,” he told the assembly. 

At a news conference following his speech, Lavrov expressed concerns about a wider regional war. 

“A lot of people say that Israel wants to create the grounds to drag the U.S. directly into this,” he said. “And so, to create these grounds, is trying to provoke Iran and Hezbollah. So the Iran leadership, I think, are behaving extremely responsibly, and this is something that we should take due note of.” 

War in Ukraine 

In February 2022, Russia and China declared a “no limits partnership,” just days before President Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

The United States has repeatedly accused China of assisting the Kremlin with its war. 

“China, another permanent member of this council, is the top provider of machine tools, microelectronics, and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, to restock, to ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal aggression,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday at a high-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine that President Zelenskyy attended. 

Beijing denies the charge and has sought to distance itself publicly from Moscow on the war. 

“The top priority is to commit to no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no provocation by any party, and push for de-escalation of the situation as soon as possible,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the General Assembly on Saturday. 

Beijing says it is committed to playing “a constructive role” in ending the conflict. 

China and ‘multipolar world’ 

On the margins of the annual U.N. meetings, China and Brazil launched what they are calling the group of friends for peace for Ukraine, which includes several other countries from the global south. 

In a sign of China’s desire to be recognized as a global economic and political power, Wang said international relations should be “more democratic.” 

“Gone are the days when one or two major powers call the shots on everything,” he said. “We should advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world and see that all countries, regardless of their size, have their own place and role in the multipolar system.” 

Wang also called for full U.N. membership for the Palestinians and urged implementation of a two-state solution. 

“There must not be any delay in reaching a comprehensive cease-fire, and the fundamental way out lies in the two-state solution,” he said. 

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi asked the assembly how the international community could believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim on Friday that “Israel yearns for peace.”   

“Yesterday, while he was here, Israel conducted an unprecedented, massive air attack on Beirut. Prime Minister Netanyahu wants the war to continue. We must stop that! I repeat, we must stop that! We must pressure Israel to come back to a political solution for a two-state solution,” she said to much applause. 

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister also expressed concern about regional stability following the escalation in Lebanon. 

“We call on all parties to show wisdom and to show restraint in order to avoid a true war breaking out in the region,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said. 
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PERRY, Florida — Hurricane Helene caused dozens of deaths and billions of dollars of destruction across a wide swath of the southeastern United States, and more than 3 million customers went into the weekend without power and, for some, a continued threat of floods.

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday packing winds of 225 kilometers per hour and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. The storm uprooted trees, splintered homes and sent creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was essentially cut off because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. There were hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in eastern Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from the roof of a hospital that was surrounded by water from a flooded river.

The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. Several flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect in parts of the southern and central Appalachian Mountains, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.

Among the at least 44 people killed in the storm were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

When the water hit knee-level in Kera O’Neil’s home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape.

“There’s a moment where you are thinking, ‘If this water rises above the level of the stove, we are not going to have much room to breathe,’” she said, recalling how she and her sister waded through chest-deep water with one cat in a plastic carrier and another in a cardboard box.

Evacuations and record rainfall

In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail.

People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a town of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed.

Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people.

Atlanta received a record 28.24 centimeters of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since recordkeeping began in 1878, Georgia’s Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. Some neighborhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water.

Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.

Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours.

Big Bend region hit hard

Florida’s Big Bend is a part of the state where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up so much of the state’s coastlines elsewhere are largely absent.

It’s a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her 4-year-old Chihuahua mix, Lucy, could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on her salary as a housekeeper.

At least, until her house was carried away by Helene. Friday afternoon, Hartway wandered around her street near Ezell Beach, searching for where the storm may have deposited her home.

“It’s gone. I don’t know where it’s at. I can’t find it,” she said of her house.

Born and raised in rural Taylor County, Hartway said there is nowhere in the world she would rather be, even after Helene. But she’s watched as wealthier residents from out of state have bought up second homes here. She wonders how many of them will sell out — and what will happen to the locals who have nowhere else to go.

“There’s so many people down here … this was all they had,” she said.

The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023.

All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to retreat to their attics to escape the rising water. He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas.

More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who died when trees struck their trucks. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin reported at least one death in his state.

Power loss and infrastructure damage

President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late Friday morning.

Officials urged people who were trapped to call for rescuers and not tread floodwaters, warning they can be dangerous due to live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.

In Georgia, an electrical utility group warned of “catastrophic” damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of customers were without power, said crews had to cut their way through debris just to determine what was still standing in some places.

The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 30 kilometers northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August.

The destruction extended far beyond Florida.

Historic flooding expected

A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out part of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line.

Another slide hit homes in North Carolina, and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday.

“This is something that we’re going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come,” Cole said.

Forecasters warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help.

Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.
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BALTIMORE — Glock pistols are a popular choice for people committing gun crimes, in part because they can be easily converted into fully automatic weapons using a small device, according to a new report based on data from nearly three dozen U.S. cities.

Often called Glock switches or auto sears, the devices have received heightened attention in recent years because they’re increasingly turning up at crime scenes. They effectively turn semiautomatic weapons, which fire one bullet per trigger pull, into machine guns that can spray continuous gunfire.

Authorities believe the shooters who killed four people and injured 17 others in Birmingham, Alabama, last weekend were using conversion devices to make their guns more powerful. About 100 shell casings were recovered from the scene.

A report by the anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety says criminals often choose Glocks because they’re relatively cheap and easy to operate and modify. But the brand is perhaps best known for its popularity among law enforcement officers, who almost exclusively carry Glock handguns.

The report was released this week ahead of a conference Thursday in Baltimore hosted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that falls under Everytown’s umbrella. The organization called on Glock and other weapons manufacturers to take responsibility for their products and do more to prevent violence.

“We have to build that level of accountability for them as well,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said in an interview. “At some point, as a country, the sanctity of the lives of Americans has to begin to outweigh the sanctity of American guns.”

A spokesperson for Glock didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Scott and other mayors said while local elected officials are often at the forefront of pushing for better gun policies, Congress must also step up and address the issue.

Researchers found that four gun manufacturers accounted for more than 40% of the recovered guns they studied, with Glock alone accounting for 18%. The team compiled data from 34 U.S. cities about guns recovered from crime scenes in 2023.

“They’re basically profiting off of pain,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown. “They’re prioritizing profits over safety.”

Meanwhile, the prevalence of machine gun conversion devices has increased dramatically — 570% between 2017 and 2021, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The devices are banned under federal law. Most are small pieces of metal or plastic made with a 3D printer or ordered online.

The report also found that recoveries of Polymer80 ghost guns — untraceable, unassembled firearms that can be purchased online — increased nearly 1,200% across 28 cities over the past five years. Those numbers have started trending downward following the implementation of a new federal rule and a wave of state legislation banning the weapons, according to the report. Polymer80, once a leading manufacturer of ghost guns in the U.S., also shut down operations last month after a deluge of lawsuits.

The city of Baltimore was among those who filed suit. City officials announced a settlement agreement in February after the Nevada-based company agreed to stop selling its products to Maryland residents.

The city’s lawsuit accused Polymer80 of intentionally undermining federal and state firearms laws by designing, manufacturing and providing gun assembly kits without serial numbers to buyers who don’t undergo background checks. It was filed the same day Maryland’s statewide ban on ghost guns went into effect in 2022 following a law change that expanded the definition of a firearm to include “an unfinished frame or receiver.”

A year later, recoveries of ghost guns in Baltimore had dropped 25%, according to the report.

Gun violence has also decreased significantly in the city over roughly the past two years, a positive trend that experts and officials attribute to a wide range of factors, including expanded anti-violence programs and ongoing police reform. Violence is trending downward nationally as well following a sharp spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report suggests several actions that manufacturers could take to keep their firearms out of the hands of criminals, including through increased oversight of the gun dealers they work with. Manufacturers could also focus on producing safer weapons that aren’t easily modified and fund advertising campaigns to increase public awareness of gun safety.

“I think common sense can get through to people. I think wanting to save the lives of our children can get through to people,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas. “Manufacturers could do things tomorrow that would make guns safer and save lives.”
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SAO PAULO/BRASILIA BRAZIL — Brazil’s Supreme Court said on Friday that social platform X still needs to pay just over $5 million in pending fines, including a new one, before it will be allowed to resume its service in the country, according to a court document. 

Earlier this week, the Elon Musk-owned U.S. firm told the court it had complied with orders to stop the spread of misinformation and asked it to lift a ban on the platform. 

But Judge Alexandre de Moraes responded on Friday with a ruling that X and its legal representative in Brazil must still agree to pay a total of $3.4 million in pending fines that were previously ordered by the court. 

In his decision, the judge said that the court can use resources already frozen from X and Starlink accounts in Brazil, but to do so the satellite company, also owned by Musk, had to drop its pending appeal against the fund blockage.  

The judge also demanded a new $1.8 million fine related to a brief period last week when X became available again for some users in Brazil. 

X, formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

According to a person close to X, the tech firm will likely pay all the fines but will consider challenging the fine that was imposed by the court after the platform ban.  

X has been suspended since late August in Brazil, one of its largest and most coveted markets, after Moraes ruled it had failed to comply with orders related to restricting hate speech and naming a local legal representative. 

Musk, who had denounced the orders as censorship and called Moraes a “dictator,” backed down and started to reverse his position last week, when X lawyers said the platform tapped a local representative and would comply with court rulings. 

In Friday’s decision, Moraes said that X had proved it had now blocked accounts as ordered by the court and had named the required legal representative in Brazil. 
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The global coalition to ensure the defeat of Islamic State group terrorists is ending its military mission in Iraq. U.S. officials said a two-phased plan would not hinder counter-IS operations elsewhere in the region but did not detail how, or if, U.S. troop numbers would change. Carla Babb reports.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, where Trump repeated claims that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine by making a deal with Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Washington — Former President Donald Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York on Friday, amid increased skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine’s war efforts from the Republican presidential nominee and lawmakers loyal to him.

Trump announced the meeting at a press conference Thursday, which was confirmed for VOA by Zelenskyy’s team. The meeting comes a day after the Ukrainian leader met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday to discuss U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.

Tension has been brewing between the two leaders. Trump is known for his skeptical remarks on U.S. involvement in Ukraine and claims that he can quickly end the conflict by making a deal between Ukraine and Russia, if elected.

During a campaign event on Wednesday, Trump slammed Zelenskyy for making “little, nasty aspersions” toward him. He appeared to be referring to Zelenskyy’s comments in a recent New Yorker magazine article that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”

Trump suggested the Ukrainian leader together with the Biden administration are at fault for prolonging the war that followed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said in North Carolina. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine is now “in rubble” and in no position to negotiate the war’s end.

“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” said Trump.

The former U.S. president has repeatedly said he wants the Russia-Ukraine war to end but has not stated whether he wants Kyiv to win or keep all its territories. His position stands in contrast with that of Biden and Harris, who have championed American aid and military support for the embattled country.

“Ukraine will prevail, and we’ll continue to stand by you every step of the way,” Biden said Thursday as he met with Zelenskyy at the White House.

During her meeting with Zelenskyy, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated the administration’s support for Kyiv’s war efforts and underscored that it is up to Ukraine to decide how the war will end.

Without mentioning his name, Harris criticized Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, whose proposal to end the war would mean Ukraine had less territory and would not join NATO.

“These proposals are the same of those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”

Vance suggested in a recent interview that Ukraine and Russia halt fighting and create a demilitarized zone at the current battle lines. Kyiv would need to adhere to a neutral status and stop its bid to join NATO.

Zelenskyy, in the same New Yorker interview, said that Vance’s plan would “give up” Ukrainian territory, calling Trump’s running mate “too radical.”

“His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice,” he said. “The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable.”

Zelenskyy, who has been in the United States since Sunday to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, was scheduled to depart Thursday but extended his visit as Trump announced the meeting.

Partisan politics

On Wednesday, congressional Republicans loyal to Trump demanded that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for organizing Zelenskyy’s visit earlier this week to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November U.S. presidential election. Zelenskyy met with the Democratic governor of the state, Josh Shapiro.

In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit to the factory that made munitions for Ukraine was a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats” that amounts to “election interference.”

The White House called Johnson’s letter a “political stunt” and pointed out that Zelenskyy recently met the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in a “similar event.”

Ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid includes a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers.

The White House said no announcement was imminent regarding Ukraine’s request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia.
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Panama has begun deporting migrants who cross the dangerous Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama as part of an agreement with the United States signed in July. Veronica Villafane narrates this story by Oscar Sulbaran.
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New York — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

This meeting between the countries’ top diplomats comes amid growing U.S. concerns over Chinese firms supplying chips and drones to Moscow, which have significantly bolstered Russia’s battlefield capabilities in its war against Ukraine.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has told the Congress that China’s material support for Russia’s war effort “comes from the very top.”

Blinken’s talks with Wang will take place ahead of a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, expected later this fall.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the U.N. General Assembly that Ukraine would never accept a deal imposed by other nations to end Russia’s 31-month invasion, questioning the motives of China and Brazil in pushing for negotiations with Moscow.

For months, U.S. officials have accused China of actively aiding Russia’s war effort. Washington has sanctioned Chinese firms providing crucial components to Russia’s defense industry.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently told VOA that the U.S. openly discusses its “differences” with China to ensure that both countries “at least understand where the other is coming from, even if we can’t reach an agreement.”

He added that Washington is managing its relationship with China to prevent it from “veering from competition into conflict.”
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Washington — The U.S. State Department announced a $20 million reward on Thursday for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former White House official John Bolton.

U.S. officials said in August 2022 that they had uncovered a plot by Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to kill Bolton, who served as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump.

The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program “is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction” of Poursafi, a notice said Thursday.

The move came as Trump, 78, who is running for a new White House term, claimed there were “big threats” on his life by Iran.

Bolton, considered a foreign policy hawk, is a fierce critic of Iran and advocated that Trump unilaterally withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

Poursafi allegedly offered an unidentified person inside the United States $300,000 to kill Bolton in the capital area.

The plan was likely set in motion after the U.S. killing of top IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020, the Justice Department said at the time.

But it never made headway because the ostensible assassin became an informant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Iranian authorities have dismissed the allegations as “fiction.”

The United States designated the entire IRGC a “foreign terrorist organization” in 2019, after previously designating its external operation, the Quds Force.
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