U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called out Russia at the United Nations on Thursday for the impact its “unjustified, unconscionable” war in Ukraine is having on global hunger and called for the war to end.

“Every member of this council, every member of the United Nations should tell Moscow, enough. Enough using the Black Sea as blackmail,” Blinken said of Russia’s recent withdrawal from the year-old deal that saw nearly 33 million tons of Ukrainian grain exported to the world. “Enough treating the world’s most vulnerable people as leverage. Enough of this unjustified, unconscionable war.”    

Speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting he chaired on global food insecurity as part of the United States’ August presidency of the 15-nation council, Blinken emphasized the link between conflict and hunger in crises around the world.  

“Scarce resources, heightened tensions between communities and nations, warring parties weaponizing food to subjugate populations,” he said. “Indeed, conflict is the largest driver of food insecurity, with violence and unrest pushing 117 million people into extreme deprivation last year.” 

The council unanimously agreed on a four-page-long presidential statement calling for respect of international humanitarian law and unimpeded access to aid for civilians in need. The council also emphasized the need to “break the vicious cycle between armed conflict and food insecurity.”  

Separately, Secretary Blinken said almost 90 countries, many of them in the global south, had signed onto a U.S.-authored joint communique committing to end the use of famine, starvation, and food as weapons of war.  

“Hunger must not be weaponized,” he said. 

He also announced $362 million in new funding to tackle drivers of food insecurity and enhance resilience in 11 African countries and Haiti.   

Since January 2021, Washington has provided more than $17.5 billion to address famine and food insecurity, including more than $7.2 billion to the World Food Program – nearly half its entire budget.  

Russia’s envoy dismissed Western interest in the issue of food insecurity, saying it is only driven by a desire to “demonize Russia.” 

“How can we talk about any desire on your countries’ part to address international food security issues; all that drives you is the desire to punish Russia in your pipe dreams of dealing it a strategic defeat,” Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said. “You do not care the slightest bit about the interests of the countries of the global south, but we do.” 

He said Russia is prepared to return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative if all its demands are met. He pointed to Moscow’s announcement that it would send 25,000 to 50,000 tons of free grain to six African countries in the coming months as proof of its goodwill.

Since Moscow unilaterally left the grain deal last month, it has repeatedly targeted several Ukrainian ports, destroying critical infrastructure, facilities, and more than 180,000 tons of grain. Moscow has also warned that it will consider any ships in the Black Sea as carrying military cargo and, therefore, legitimate targets. 

Food prices 

The World Bank said Monday that food price inflation remains high worldwide. The most-affected countries are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.    

The Food and Agriculture Organization said in its annual state of food security report released last month that the world is still recovering from economic setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic and coping with the fallout of the war in Ukraine on food and energy markets.   

The FAO estimates that between 691 million and 783 million people in the world faced hunger in 2022, significantly higher than in 2019 before the pandemic. Much of that hunger was at the regional level, with Africa, the Caribbean, and Western Asia all seeing rising hunger levels.

U.N. famine prevention and response coordinator Reena Ghelani told the council that the number of people suffering from acute food insecurity reached a record 250 million last year. She said 376,000 of them were facing famine-like conditions in seven countries. Another 35 million were on the brink of famine.  

“Every one of the seven countries where people faced famine-like conditions last year was affected by armed conflict or extreme levels of violence,” she said.  

Hunger and famine continue to threaten millions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In Sudan, the U.N. said this week that more than 6 million people– about 13% of the population – are now one step away from famine. Across Sudan, more than 20 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity, due to a combination of conflict, economic decline and mass displacement.    

In Somalia, the risk of famine still lingers among communities of displaced people in parts of the country, despite the scale-up of humanitarian assistance and better-than-forecast rains, which have brought some relief from a devastating drought.     

Funding shortfalls are hurting the ability of humanitarian groups to assist the most vulnerable in several at-risk countries.  
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Mexican officials met Tuesday with U.S. and Canadian officials in Mexico to talk about combating the trafficking of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. To get a better understanding of the problem, VOA visited addicts and a counselor from a harm reduction center in Washington. Júlia Riera has the story.
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U.S. President Joe Biden called Thursday for the immediate release of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted last week in a military coup.

Biden said in a statement that Niger is “facing a grave challenge to its democracy.”

“The Nigerien people have the right to choose their leaders. They have expressed their will through free and fair elections—and that must be respected,” Biden said.

Defense chiefs from the Economic Community of West African States were due to complete a second day of talks in neighboring Nigeria about the situation.

Days after the coup, ECOWAS enacted sanctions against the coup leaders and set a Sunday deadline for Bazoum to be reinstated with the potential of using military force if he is not.

General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who declared himself the new head of state, said in a televised address Wednesday that the junta “rejects these sanctions altogether and refuses to give into any threats, wherever they come from. We refuse any interference in the internal affairs of Niger.” 

Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, told reporters Wednesday in Abuja that the military option was a “last resort” for the West African bloc.  But Musah said preparations had to be made for that possibility.

“There is a need to demonstrate that we cannot only bark but can bite,” he said.

ECOWAS also sent a delegation on Wednesday to Niger’s capital, Niamey, for talks with junta members.

Britain said Thursday it was temporarily reducing its embassy staff in Naimey due to security concerns.

On Wednesday, the United States said it was ordering the “temporary departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members from the U.S. Embassy in Niamey.” It also raised its travel advisory to Level 4 – Do Not Travel – for Niger.

France’s military and foreign ministry continued Wednesday to evacuate people from Niger. The foreign ministry said about 1,000 people left Niger on four flights. The evacuees included French nationals along with others from Niger, Portugal, Belgium, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Germany, Canada, India, Austria and the United States.

Italy also carried out its own evacuation flight.

Military leaders put Bazoum under house arrest on July 26 and named Tchiani, commander of the presidential guard, as their new leader on Monday. Coup leaders said they were acting in response to what they described as a worsening security situation and the government’s lack of action against jihadis.

The coup has been condemned by Western countries, including the U.S., which says it stands with Nigeriens, ECOWAS and the African Union as it continues to work to roll back the coup, U.S. officials say.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by telephone Wednesday with Bazoum to discuss the situation in Niger, the State Department said.

Spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement about the call that the United States “remains committed to the restoration of the democratically-elected government” in Niger.

“We reiterate that the safety and security of President Bazoum and his family are paramount,” Miller said.  “The United States is dedicated to finding a peaceful resolution that ensures that Niger remains a strong partner in security and development in the region.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to appear Thursday in a federal courthouse in Washington to face charges for his attempts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

Ahead of Thursday’s proceedings, security was heightened in the area surrounding the courthouse.

Trump is expected to undergo intake processing, including having his fingerprints taken, and enter a not guilty plea.

A grand jury indicted Trump on four felony counts this week, including conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to deprive voters of their right to fair elections.

Prosecutors said in the indictment that Trump repeatedly made claims of election fraud that he knew were not true, and that he pressured state election officials and then-Vice President Mike Pence to act to keep Trump in power.

A mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 as members of Congress met to certify the election results.

Trump has denied wrongdoing. Since leaving office, he has repeatedly asserted that the 2020 election was fraudulent and cast the investigations against him as politically motivated. He remains a leading candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.

Trump has already pleaded not guilty in two other criminal cases.

He was charged in another federal court with unlawfully retaining classified information at his Florida estate and refusing government demands that he return documents.

Trump was also charged in the state of New York with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Aided by rain, firefighters fought to contain a massive blaze that swept through the California desert into Nevada and threatens the region’s famous spiky Joshua trees. 

The York Fire that erupted last Friday is California’s largest wildfire this year. As of early Wednesday it had burned through more than 333 square kilometers of land and was 30% contained, fire officials said. 

Humid monsoonal weather conditions Tuesday afternoon brought brief but heavy rain, especially on the south end of the fire, and kept its spread to a minimum, fire officials said. Similar conditions were expected on Wednesday, with drier weather poised to return on Thursday. 

“Right now, the monsoonal influence is still over the fire,” said Marc Peebles, a spokesperson for California’s incident management team for the York Fire. “There’s always the possibility of showers that will help the effort.” 

Firefighting amid fragility

The 400 or so firefighters battling the blaze have had to balance their efforts with concerns about disrupting the fragile ecosystem in California’s Mojave National Preserve. 

Crews used a “light hand on the land,” clearing and carving fire lines without the use of bulldozers in order to reduce the impact in the ecologically-sensitive region, which is home to some 200 rare plants. 

“You bring a bunch of bulldozers in there, you may or may not stop the fire, but you’ll put a scar on the landscape that’ll last generations,” said Tim Chavez, an assistant chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. 

Fire crossed state line

The blaze ignited near the remote Caruthers Canyon area of the vast wildland preserve, crossed the state line into Nevada on Sunday and sent smoke further east into the Las Vegas Valley. 

The fire started on private lands within the preserve, but the cause remains under investigation. Less than 3% of the land in the 6,475-square kilometer preserve is privately owned. 

While it’s one of the largest national parks outside of Alaska and Hawaii, the vast majority of the Mojave National Preserve’s 880,000 visitors last year were just passing through on their way between Southern California and Las Vegas. 

The desert landscape is varied — from mountains and canyons to sand dunes and mesas, to Joshua tree forests and volcanic cinder cones — and features about 10,000 threatened desert tortoises within its boundaries. 

Some of the preserve’s plants can take centuries to recover from destruction. The pinyon-juniper woodlands alone could take roughly 200 to 300 years to return, while the blackbrush scrub and Joshua trees — which grow only in the Mojave Desert — are unlikely to regrow after this catastrophic blaze, said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. 

The 2020 Dome Fire in a different part of the national preserve destroyed an estimated 1 million Joshua trees. 

But fire itself isn’t the only worry. On federal lands, with few people and little property at risk, firefighters sometimes forgo certain equipment like bulldozers, chainsaws and aircraft. 

“You don’t disturb any more soil than you absolutely have to; you don’t cut trees unless they absolutely have to come down,” said Chavez, speaking about the tactics in general. 

When there are ecological and cultural sensitivities at stake, firefighters negotiate with federal officials to determine what equipment can and cannot be used. 

“It’s not just going out there and throwing everything we’ve got at it,” Chavez said. 

In Nevada, the fire has entered the state’s newest national monument, Avi Kwa Ame, said Lee Beyer, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service. But Beyer said the number of acres burned within the boundaries of the vast monument in southern Nevada wasn’t yet known. 

President Joe Biden established the monument in March, permanently protecting the desert mountain region considered sacred by some tribes. The area stretches more than 202,300 hectares and includes Spirit Mountain, a peak northwest of Laughlin called Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE’ kwa-meh) by the Fort Mojave Tribe and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

On Wednesday, firefighters continued to make progress on the Bonny Fire, a 9 square kilometer wildfire that broke out nearly a week ago in California’s Riverside County and is now 60% contained. Evacuation orders remain in place for residents near the fire, but some evacuation warnings were lifted late Tuesday, fire officials said. 
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The Mexican government said Wednesday that a dead body had been found caught in the controversial floating barriers installed by Texas authorities to stop migrants crossing into the United States.

U.S. authorities informed Mexico that “they found the body of a lifeless person stuck in the southern part of the buoys” on the Rio Grande river, the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement.

The cause of death and nationality of the victim were unknown, it added.

The ministry expressed “concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of migrants that these state policies will have.”

The buoys were installed in the river at a popular migrant crossing point in July on the instructions of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, along with large razor-wire barriers on shore.

In response, the US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit in a federal court, saying the buoys illegally obstruct river navigation and lack federal authorization.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said that the barriers violate his country’s sovereignty.

Hundreds of migrants die each year along the U.S.-Mexico border, mostly while trying to cross the Rio Grande. 
…

The historic indictment charging former President Donald Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election alleges, among other things, that Trump and his advisers orchestrated an elaborate plot to undermine the workings of the Electoral College, one of the least understood elements of the U.S. election system.

The indictment, released Tuesday, charges that Trump sought to create confusion surrounding the outcome of the election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, by causing individuals in seven states to send fake election results, known as electoral votes, to Congress.

The hope, according to prosecutors, was that the appearance of the false results alongside officially verified results would give Trump’s allies in Congress justification to claim that the results of the election were unclear and to delay the certification of Biden’s victory.

At minimum, the delay would have provided Trump’s team with more time to contest the result. If the fake results were ultimately accepted — a result that most experts say would have been illegal — the shift in votes across the seven targeted states would have made Trump the winner.

In the end, Congress ignored the fake electoral votes and certified Biden’s victory, but only after a mob of thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, forcing the evacuation of Congress, injuring many police officers and contributing to several deaths.

Trump responds

Trump, who is the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, released a statement angrily denouncing the decision to charge him as “election interference” and decrying the charges against him as “fake.”

“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” it read. “President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.”

Tuesday’s indictment was filed in federal court in Washington. Trump is also facing a federal indictment in Florida over his retention of classified national security documents after leaving office, and state-level charges in New York for orchestrating an illegal scheme to pay hush money to a former adult film actress during the 2016 presidential election. It is also widely expected that Trump will soon face state charges in Georgia related to his effort to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in that state.

The Electoral College

The indictment accuses Trump and several unnamed associates of persuading people in seven targeted states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to pose as legitimately selected electors. Electors are individuals who play a key role in U.S. presidential elections.

The United States elects presidents through a complex system that involves an entity called the Electoral College, which exists for the sole purpose of choosing the next president every four years.

The Electoral College is made up of 538 individual electors, apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia. Before Election Day, the parties of each candidate name a slate of electors, who pledge to cast a vote for that party’s candidate in the Electoral College if their candidate wins the election in their state. Pledged electors whose candidate loses have no authority to cast electoral votes.

On Election Day, the 50 states and the District of Columbia all hold elections according to local election laws. When Americans cast their votes for president, they are technically not voting for a specific candidate. Rather, they are voting for the slate of electors who have pledged to vote for their preferred candidate when the Electoral College convenes.

Federal requirements

According to federal law, presidential elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. After the election, federal law further requires officials in each state to ascertain the identities of the electors who were chosen by the voters.

This ascertainment is the practical equivalent of declaring one candidate the winner of a state’s election, and that is how the process is typically characterized in the news media. In all but two states, electoral votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. In Maine and Nebraska, it is possible for each candidate to receive a partial share of the state’s votes.

Then, on a date also specified by federal law, all the electors in each state and the District of Columbia assemble to formally cast their votes for the president. Those votes are counted and certified by the state executive — typically the governor — and are sent to Congress.

On the sixth day of January following the election, members of both houses of Congress meet in a joint session, at which the sitting vice president oversees the formal counting of the electoral votes. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive a majority of the 538 electoral votes, meaning 270 or more.

In a typical U.S. election, every part of this process after the ascertaining of electors is considered a formality. Once the results in each state are declared, it is a simple matter to determine which candidate will receive the most votes when the Electoral College convenes, and that person is considered the president-elect.

However, there was nothing typical about the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

Claims of fraud

The indictment alleges that Trump and his associates attempted to subvert the Electoral College in the aftermath of the election on November 3, 2020.

Immediately after it became apparent that he had lost the election, Trump and his allies began spreading claims that the results in many of the states that Biden won had been fraudulent. Those claims were untrue and were eventually proved false in dozens of lawsuits.

However, while holding out hope that they might be able to persuade some state officials to change their results, Trump’s associates began contacting individuals who had been the former president’s pledged electors in several targeted states.

According to the indictment, Trump and his associates persuaded these individuals to agree to meet on the same day as the certified electors and to hold an election in which they would declare that Trump had received their electoral votes, even though they had no legal authority to cast electoral votes.

Shifting plans

At first, the effort was characterized as an attempt to “preserve” an alternate slate of electors in each of these states in case efforts to get officials to overturn state election results were successful. Some of the individuals who participated in the scheme did so in the belief that their votes would not be sent to Congress unless their states officially declared Trump the winner.

However, according to prosecutors, the plan changed in the weeks following the election. The indictment presents evidence that Trump and his associates ultimately decided that they would cause the false vote counts to be sent to Congress regardless of the outcome of their efforts to change election results in the individual states.

The indictment alleges that an attorney working on Trump’s behalf provided detailed instructions for the creation of fraudulent votes to be sent to Congress. In the end, seven slates of fake electors sent results to Washington before the January 6 joint session of Congress.

State-level prosecutions

While the fake electoral votes were not accepted by Congress, many of the individuals who signed the false certifications have either been charged with crimes under state laws or remain under investigation.

In Michigan, the state attorney general has charged 16 people with forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery for claiming to be duly chosen electors for Trump and submitting fake votes to Congress.

In Georgia, an investigation into the submission of fake electoral votes is ongoing, but at least eight of the 16 people have accepted plea deals with prosecutors that will allow them to avoid prosecution. The remainder may still face charges.

Prosecutors in Arizona, New Mexico and Wisconsin are conducting investigations.

In Pennsylvania, the fake electors demanded that the document they signed include language specifying that they were only claiming to be duly chosen electors if state officials changed the election results to declare Trump the winner. They are, therefore, expected to avoid criminal prosecution.

In Nevada, prosecutors have announced they will not pursue a case against that state’s fake electors, saying that state laws did not support any charges.
…

Former U.S. President Donald Trump will be facing two vastly different pools of possible jurors and judges with divergent views when he goes on trial in Washington, accused of illegally orchestrating an attempt to upend his 2020 election loss, and in Florida for allegedly trying to hoard classified national security documents.

Trump was indicted by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday in the Washington case, and Trump is set to make his first court appearance on Thursday afternoon.

A federal court grand jury handed up a four-count indictment alleging that Trump conspired to defraud the United States to stay in power even though he knew he had lost his reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden and then helped foment the January 6, 2021, riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block lawmakers from certifying the election outcome.

Jurors do not necessarily decide criminal cases the way they voted in elections, but when the case goes to trial — and that could be months from now — Trump will face a pool of would-be jurors, all residents of Washington, the national capital, who voted against him 92% to 5% in the 2020 election.

In the southern state of Florida, where Trump lives at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate in the winter months, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has indicated she is likely to hold the classified documents case Smith filed against Trump at the courthouse where she normally presides, in Fort Pierce, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the resort city of Miami.

If the trial is in Fort Pierce, jurors would be chosen from a list of voters in five counties, four of which handed Trump more than 60% of their votes in the 2020 election, while he eked out a slim majority in the fifth county.

The two federal judges overseeing the cases have already issued rulings for and against Trump.

Cannon, a Trump appointee to the federal bench in the waning days of his presidency, was randomly picked to oversee the classified documents case. Last year, she appointed a special master Trump sought, over the protests of Smith’s prosecutors, to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, which at the time delayed the government’s investigation.

The government appealed her decision and an appellate court rebuked Cannon, ruling that she had no right to name the special master.

More recently, when Smith sought to start the classified documents trial in December and Trump’s lawyers wanted to push it past the 2024 election, Cannon pretty much split the difference, ordering the trial to start in May 2024.

In Washington, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, nominated to the federal bench by former Democratic President Barack Obama, was randomly selected to oversee the case accusing Trump of election interference to stay in power.

Smith alleged that Trump knew he had lost but continued to make false claims that he had been cheated out of another four-year term in the White House and then tried to keep Congress from certifying that Biden had won, resulting in the mayhem at the Capitol on January 6 two years ago.

A specially appointed committee in the House of Representatives examined the riot at length in public hearings last year, and Chutkan played a role in the committee’s evidence gathering.

Trump sought to block release of documents sought by the committee by asserting executive privilege over the material, even though he was no longer president and Biden had cleared the way for the National Archives to turn over the papers. Chutkan ruled that Trump could not claim that his privilege “exists in perpetuity.”

Chutkan notably wrote, “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”

Chutkan is one of two dozen federal judges in Washington who have overseen the cases of rioters charged with offenses for their roles in the January 6 rampage at the Capitol building.

She has sentenced all 38 defendants convicted in her court to prison terms, ranging from 10 days to more than five years. In four of the cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.

“It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment,” she said at one sentencing.
…

The Biden administration has recently been emphasizing the strength of the U.S. economy, but some small business owners remain skeptical. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias visited their shops and found out more about their economic struggles, ahead of election season.
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Republican candidates for their party’s presidential nomination are increasingly open to the idea of ending the trade relationship between the U.S. and China that, since 2000, has given Beijing permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status and has smoothed commerce between the world’s two largest economies.

In his effort to gain ground on former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday said he would revoke China’s trade status as part of what he characterized as a “Declaration of Economic Independence.”

“The abusive relationship, the asymmetric relationship between our two countries, must come to an end,” DeSantis told a crowd in New Hampshire. “No more massive trade deficits. No more importing of goods with stolen intellectual property. No more preferential trade status.”

In a statement provided to VOA, the Chinese Embassy in Washington criticized DeSantis and other GOP candidates for “smearing and blame-shifting” on the issue of trade.

Origins of PNTR

China was in negotiations to join the World Trade Organization in 2000, a move that many believed would open the country to foreign investment and allow non-Chinese companies access to its more than 1 billion consumers.

Until 2000, the specific trading relationship between the U.S. and China was the subject of annual reassessment, a situation that created uncertainty for companies looking to develop business relationships in China.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton made the decision to grant China PNTR.

Although trade between the two countries expanded rapidly, the U.S. frequently complained that China had failed to live up to its side of the bargain. They cited government interference to support Chinese firms, currency manipulation and other tactics that critics claimed Beijing was using to tilt the playing field in its favor.

Many of those practices were cited by the Trump administration as justification for the imposition of broad tariffs on Chinese goods during his term in office.

Evolving GOP position

Even Trump did not go as far as revoking China’s trade status with the U.S. It is a move that would be extremely disruptive and would put at risk billions of dollars of two-way trade between the world’s two largest economies.

However, the former president has added a call for the revocation of China’s PNTR status to his campaign for the presidency in 2024. In a campaign video released earlier this year, the former president made his new position clear.

“We will revoke China’s most favored nation trade status, and adopt a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods — everything from electronics to steel to pharmaceuticals,” Trump said.

“This will include strong protections to ensure China cannot circumvent restrictions by passing goods through conduit countries — countries that don’t make a product, but all of a sudden they’re making a lot of the product, it comes right through China, right out of China, and right into our country.”

Leverage on fentanyl

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has put forward a more comprehensive China policy than many of her rivals for the nomination, and in a speech in June she floated the possibility of using the potential revocation of China’s trade status as leverage in talks with Beijing.

Haley noted that Chinese firms supply Mexican drug cartels with the precursor chemicals used in manufacturing the drug fentanyl, a major contributor to the opioid crisis in the U.S.

“China cannot plead innocence here,” she said in remarks delivered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “It knows exactly what it’s doing by putting these chemicals into the hands of the cartels.

“We’ve tried sanctions, but they’re not working,” Haley said. “We must ratchet up the pressure. As president, I will push Congress to revoke permanent normal trade relations until the flow of fentanyl ends. If China wants to start normal trade again, it will stop killing Americans.”

Biden administration actions

While the Biden administration’s rhetoric regarding China has not been as pointed as that of Republican presidential contenders, the White House has struggled to maintain a productive relationship with Beijing over the past two and a half years.

When he took office in 2021, President Joe Biden inherited a regime of tariffs on different imports from China that were put in place during the Trump administration. The administration has left most of them in place.

In addition, Biden has overseen the implementation of export controls meant to prevent China from obtaining specific goods, including advanced microprocessors and the machines used to build them. This has led to complaints from Beijing and accusations that the U.S. is attempting to hamstring China’s growth prospects.

The official position of the Biden administration is that China is an economic competitor, not an enemy, a position that Republican candidates for the presidential nomination have derided as naive and shortsighted.

Chinese reaction

In response to an inquiry from VOA, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington issued a statement reacting to calls for revocation of PNTR.

“China-U.S. economic relations are mutually beneficial,” the statement said. “Overstretching the concept of national security and politicizing economic, trade and investment issues run counter to the principles of market economy and international trade rules. Pushing for decoupling with China not only harms the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, but also destabilizes global industrial and supply chains.

“The Chinese side is strongly against drawing attention by smearing and blame-shifting in the election campaign.”

‘Declaration of economic war’

Many economists argue against the elimination of PNTR, warning that such a dramatic change would be damaging to the interests of the U.S.

In a July 19 debate sponsored by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, economist Mary Lovely argued that such a move would be economically disastrous, leading to high prices for American consumers and harm to U.S. manufacturers.

“Revoking permanent normal trade relations with the People’s Republic of China is not in the best interest of American families, American workers or American businesses,” said Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“Removing PNTR is a declaration of economic war with China,” she continued. “An abrupt and destabilizing decoupling of the world’s two largest economies will hurt the United States and undermine ongoing efforts to work with like-minded countries to reduce our exposure to China.”
…

A customer goes into a store in the United States that is popular for trendy and cheap clothes — known as “fast fashion” — for an impulsive wardrobe addition.

The person buying those clothes may be planning to keep them for only a short time, and then throwing them out when a new fashion trend arrives.

Fast fashion refers to the mass-produced and low-cost clothing items that manufacturers churn out by the millions each day, especially in China, but also in countries such as India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Turkey.

But what most people don’t realize is that most of the clothes are made from materials that are bad for the environment and end up in landfills.

“Fast fashion has huge implications for the environment,” said Eliot Metzger, director of sustainable business and innovation at the World Resources Institute in Washington. “Not many people realize how much water and energy it takes to create a T-shirt. And if that T-shirt is going to the landfill, replaced by another T-shirt, that is going to multiply what is already an unsustainable pattern.”

Global issue

Fast fashion is not only a problem in the United States but in poorer countries where donated clothes arrive and are then resold by vendors.

“Kenya and Ghana import quite a lot of fast fashion clothing that is causing a huge amount of pollution,” explained Erica Cirino, communications manager for the Plastic Pollution Coalition in Washington. “The landfills are so overwhelmed by textile waste that they begin flowing into the surrounding waterways.

From stylish to disastrous

When retailers first introduced fast fashion apparel in the 1990s, the inexpensive and trendy clothing appealed to consumers. Today, its omnipresence in stores and on the internet in the U.S. and other wealthy countries, has made the fast fashion industry a disaster for the environment.

The clothes are often made from synthetic plastic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, which are produced from petroleum-based products — fossil fuels that are causing global warming.

“The heavy reliance by brands on polyester, nylon, acrylic is only increasing,” said Cirino, “so a great majority of clothing today is made out of plastic that is much less expensive than natural materials.”

Researchers have found microfibers from clothing in a wide range of land and aquatic ecosystems — from mountains to ocean floors.

“We call this a global microplastic cycle, where tiny microfibers and other microplastics can move thousands of miles from urban areas, where there are tons of people wearing synthetic clothing, to the most remote corners of the planet, including the top of Mount Everest,” said Britta Baechler, associate director of oceans plastics research with the Ocean Conservancy in Portland, Oregon.

Each year, approximately 6.5 million metric tons of microfibers are released into the environment worldwide, according to the Journal of Hazardous Materials. That’s equivalent to more than 32 billion T-shirts.

“As you’re walking, the material is rubbing together and that that causes fibers to break loose that shed directly into the air and make their way into the waterways,” Baechler told VOA.

Microfibers in washing machines

However, experts say, the biggest source of environmental microfiber is washing machines in the U.S. that do not have filters to catch the tiny fibers.

Wastewater treatment plants filter out the majority of microfibers, but because they are so small, some still get into the waterways. They harm small aquatic organisms that ingest them by creating blockages that hinder their absorption of nutrients from food.

It is not yet clear what the effect of microfibers is on humans.

“When we wear this clothing, we’re inhaling and potentially absorbing these plastic particles and their toxic chemical additives through our skin, so we’re exposed at all times,” said Cirino.

Unlike some materials, there is currently no widespread system for recycling textiles.

There are facilities to recycle paper, glass and some plastics, there isn’t an easy way to recycle textiles by shredding them and making them into new textiles, explained Swarupa Ganguli, lead environmental protection specialist in the office of land and emergency management for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Fashionable options

Instead of buying fast fashions, environmental groups say people should think about purchasing clothes at second-hand shops or on the internet and rent outfits for special occasions.

The Patagonia outdoor clothing and gear company in Ventura, California, has a program called Worn Wear to try to keep its clothes out of landfills. The company rebuys some of its used clothing, which is cleaned and resold.

“Worn Wear is based on the premise that reducing the environmental impact of our products must be a shared responsibility between Patagonia and our customers,” said Corey Simpson, the communications manager for product and sport community. “We want to help you with responsible product care while you’re using your gear, and we want to buy it back from you when you no longer need it, whether it can be passed on to someone new or recycled into something new.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency favors what is being called a circular economy approach. This includes redesigning clothes and encouraging the reuse and recycling of clothing.

“The idea is to shift the consumer mindset from using clothing quickly and then throwing it away, and instead to reuse, reduce and recirculate it back into the economy,” Ganguli told VOA.

While “the circular economy for textiles has huge potential,” said Metzger with the World Resources Institute, “I don’t think you can say it is working until the circular economy for textiles is slowing and reversing the consumption.”
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Legal jeopardy for Donald Trump is growing after a federal grand jury in Washington indicted the former U.S. president, accusing him of illegally trying to upend his 2020 election loss to retain power. VOA’s Michael Brown reports.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump continues to defy expectations as he surges ahead of other Republican contenders for the presidential nomination despite multiple indictments against him — and with words of support from some of his own rivals. As he was indicted again Tuesday over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, VOA’s Anita Powell looks at the unprecedented path of the former president.
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Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who on Tuesday charged Donald Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election, is a seasoned American lawyer who has led Kosovo war crimes probes in The Hague.

In November 2022, shortly after Trump announced another White House bid, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Smith to oversee two independent investigations into the former president, saying that he had “built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor.”

More than eight months later, Smith has charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and attempting to obstruct certification of his rival Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory – seismic accusations against a former U.S. leader.

The accusations come on top of separate felony charges Smith brought against Trump over claims he criminally retained classified documents after leaving office and conspired to obstruct the probe.

Prior to his becoming the face of the fiercely divisive Trump cases, Smith spent many years at the Department of Justice and more recently in international tribunals.

A Harvard Law School graduate, Smith began his prosecutorial career in the 1990s.

He boasts a resume that includes several years at the Justice Department in multiple positions, including chief of the agency’s Public Integrity Section, where he led a team handling corruption and election crimes cases, and later acting U.S. attorney for the middle district of Tennessee.

From 2008 to 2010, he served as an investigator for the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, where he was charged with supervising sensitive probes of foreign government officials over war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

His most high-profile work prior to the Trump probe occurred at the special court on Kosovo in The Hague, where he led investigations and adjudications of war crimes committed in the Balkan republic during the 1990s wars that ripped apart Yugoslavia.

‘Milestone’ 

In 2018, Smith was named chief prosecutor of the court, known as the Kosovo Specialist Chambers.

It opened its first trial in 2021 against former rebel commander Salih Mustafa, who was convicted the following year of murder and torture related to his time at a makeshift jail operated by the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Smith described the case as a “milestone” for the court, whose activities remain highly sensitive given that former rebel commanders still dominate political life in Kosovo. 

The court, which operates under Kosovo law but is based in Netherlands to shield witnesses from intimidation, has issued war crimes charges against several senior members of the KLA, including former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci.

After being appointed special counsel by Garland, Smith pledged to work “independently” and to “move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”

On Tuesday, he said his office would seek a “speedy” trial for Trump “so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens.”

And, while asserting Trump remained innocent until proven guilty, he said that an attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by the former president’s supporters was “fueled by lies – lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing” certification of Biden’s victory.

The earlier indictment over the classified documents had sparked outrage among Republicans, but in his first comments after it was unsealed in June, Smith underlined that the United States has “one set of laws … and they apply to everyone.”

“Laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced,” he added.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will chair a high-level meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that will highlight global food insecurity and the conflicts that worsen it.

“We know this for sure: Where there is conflict, there is hunger,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters at a news conference Tuesday to kick off Washington’s Security Council presidency this month.

She said Blinken will have “announcements and deliverables” on Thursday, and she urged nations to sign on to a draft communiqué Washington plans to issue on the subject.

Thomas-Greenfield, who has been the U.S. envoy at the United Nations since February 2021, said she will again use the rotating council presidency to push global food insecurity to the top of the council’s agenda. She has helmed the 15-nation council twice before on behalf of the United States, and both times focused on the issue.

The annual state of food security report released last month by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization found that the world is still recovering from economic setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic and coping with fallout of the war in Ukraine on food and energy markets.

The FAO estimates that 691 million to 783 million people in the world faced hunger in 2022, significantly higher than in 2019 before the pandemic. Much of that hunger was at the regional level, with Africa, the Caribbean and Western Asia all seeing rising hunger levels.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned when Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on July 17 that its decision would “strike a blow to people in need everywhere.”

Experts agreed, saying the deal’s collapse would negatively affect the prices of commodities such as wheat, corn and soybeans, ultimately hurting poorer consumers.

The U.N. has so far been unsuccessful in getting Moscow to reverse its decision.

Thomas-Greenfield said Washington has seen indications that Russia might be interested in talks.

“What we have been told is that they are prepared to return to discussions,” she said. “We haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.”

She said if the Russians want to get their fertilizer to global markets and continue to have some access to international financial transactions, they will have to return to the deal.

Thomas-Greenfield said Washington would continue to highlight Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine during its August presidency. It plans a meeting to discuss the protection of civilians in Ukraine, including children, on August 24 — Ukraine’s independence day.

Russia’s deputy ambassador told reporters Tuesday that Moscow objected to the council scheduling any meetings on Ukraine this month. Thomas-Greenfield said that was “a little stunt” and would not stop the U.S. from conducting the council’s business.

Human rights

The U.S. envoy says human rights guide the Biden administration’s foreign policy and will also be a priority during the U.S. presidency in the form of invitations to civil society representatives and human rights organizations to brief the council on relevant topics.

Some council members have opposed the idea of bringing human rights issues into the council, saying there are other U.N. forums such as the Human Rights Council, where such issues should be discussed. Thomas-Greenfield disagrees.

“Human rights belong in the Security Council, because human rights are about peace and security,” she said. “Places where human rights are being violated, we see situations of peace and security being destabilized.”
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WASHINGTON — Washington added more China-based companies to a blacklist Tuesday, barring their goods from entering the United States as officials seek to remove forced labor — especially involving minorities such as the Uyghur people — from supply chains.

Battery maker Camel Group, along with spice and extract company Chenguang Biotech Group, are the latest to be included in the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) entity list, according to U.S. authorities.

The firms were targeted over accusations of working with China’s government to recruit, transport or receive forced labor or members of persecuted groups such as Uyghur minorities out of the Xinjiang region.

“Today’s additions demonstrate the United States’ unwavering commitment to eliminating forced labor, including by ensuring that goods made by forced labor are not imported into our country,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.

The U.S. government and lawmakers in other Western countries have labeled China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in the northwestern Xinjiang region “genocide” — a charge Beijing vehemently denies.

Rights groups said at least 1 million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in the region and face widespread abuses, including forced sterilization of women and coerced labor.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “We will continue to work with all of our partners to keep goods made with forced labor from Xinjiang out of U.S. commerce while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade.”

The UFLPA, adopted by Congress with bipartisan support in 2021, bans the import of all goods from the Xinjiang region unless companies offer verifiable proof that production did not involve forced labor.

Apart from Tuesday’s additions to the entity list, two other China-based companies — printer manufacturer Ninestar Corporation and chemical products firm Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical Co. — were added earlier this year.
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Thousands of Marines backed by advanced U.S. fighter jets and warships are slowly building up a presence in the Persian Gulf. It’s a sign that while America’s wars in the region may be finished, its conflict with Iran over its advancing nuclear program continues to worsen, with no solutions in sight.

The dispatch of the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan to the Gulf, alongside stealth F-35 fighters and other warplanes, comes as America wants to focus on China and Russia.

But Washington is seeing once again that while it’s easy to get into the Middle East militarily, it’s difficult to ever get fully out — particularly as Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

There is no sign that diplomacy will revive the deal soon, and Iran in recent weeks has resumed harassing and seizing ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Some 20% of the world’s oil passes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the wider world.

For hard-liners in Tehran’s theocracy, the move projects power to surrounding nations as part of a wave of assaults attributed to Iran since 2019. It also serves as a warning to the United States and its allies that the Islamic Republic has the means to retaliate, particularly as American sanctions result in the seizure of ships carrying Iranian crude oil. Worries over another seizure likely has left a ship allegedly carrying Iranian oil stranded off Texas as no company has yet to unload it.

For the U.S., keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping remains a priority to ensure global energy prices don’t spike, particularly as Russia’s war on Ukraine pressures markets. Gulf Arab nations need the waterway to get their oil to market and worry about Iran’s intentions in the wider region.

Those fears have cemented the longtime American presence in the Persian Gulf. In the two decades that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks, there were at times two different American aircraft carriers patrolling the Gulf to provide fighter jets for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later for the battle against the Islamic State group.

But slowly, the Pentagon began to wind down the naval presence, leaving a gap of months that brought gasps from Gulf Arab states and commentators worried about Iran. The USS Nimitz sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz in November 2020 as the last American carrier in the Persian Gulf. The last Marine expeditionary unit — an armada carrying Marines, aircraft and vehicles prepared for an amphibious assault — came through in November 2021.

Washington’s worries have changed since then. Russia’s war on Ukraine shifted some of the American focus back to Europe. China continues its push to control more of the South China Sea, and the U.S. Navy has responded with increased patrols.

In recent months, the U.S. military has again begun dialing up its Mideast presence. It conducted a Strait of Hormuz patrol with the top U.S., British and French naval commanders in the region on board. In late March, A-10 Thunderbolt II warplanes arrived at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon ordered F-16 fighters, as well as the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, to the region. Stealth F-35A Lightning II fighter jets arrived last week.

Now, America will have part of a Marine expeditionary unit in the region for the first time in nearly two years. The deployment of thousands of Marines and sailors consists of both the USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall, a landing ship.

Those vessels left Norfolk, Virginia, on July 10 on a mission the Pentagon described as being “in response to recent attempts by Iran to threaten the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters.” The Bataan passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea last week on its way to the Mideast.

While the U.S. military hasn’t discussed precisely what it will be doing with the increased presence in the region, the movements have gotten Iran’s attention. In recent days, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian called his counterparts in both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to say that “we can have peace, stability and progress in the region without the presence of foreigners.”

Iran’s army chief, General Abdolrahim Mousavi, said the U.S. deployment would bring only “insecurity and damage” to the region.

“For years, Americans have been in and out of the region with pipe dreams, but the security of the region will only endure with the participation of the regional nations,” Mousavi said, according to Iranian state television.

Iran also made a point to again show off its Abu Mahdi cruise missile, first unveiled in 2020, which could be used to targets ships at sea up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away.

All that raises the risk of conflict, though previous recent buildups of U.S. forces in the region haven’t resulted in open warfare. The two sides have been in combat in the past, however. In 1988, America attacked two Iranian oil rigs used for military surveillance and sank or damaged Iranian ships in the largest U.S. naval battle since World War II.

With diplomacy stalled and Iran willing to be more aggressive at sea, the U.S. appears again to be relying on military might to convince Tehran to dial back. But that leaves the rest of the issues between them beyond the seas to continue to fester.
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Since Russia invaded Ukraine, more than 17,000 Ukrainian refugees have moved to the Los Angeles area. Olena Kochetkova fled after a rocket strike killed her husband in their Mariupol bakery. For VOA, Svitlana Prystynska has the story of how one new business has helped other immigrants along the way.
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The commission that enforces U.S. election rules will not be regulating AI-generated deepfakes in political advertising ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Deana Mitchell has our story.
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Zhang Chunxiao, the wife of Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei, is calling for the release of her husband, who was arrested in Laos Friday morning while boarding a train for Thailand. 

Zhang told VOA Mandarin on Monday that Lu had been transferred from a local Vientiane immigration office to Laos’ national immigration department. 

She said in Lu’s last message to her on Friday night, he said three police officers were with him to take him away, and he might not be able to message her again. 

Peter Dahlin, the founder of the nongovernmental organization, Safeguard Defenders, confirmed to VOA Mandarin in an email that Lu has been taken to the immigration department’s main office near the airport in Vientiane Monday morning, Laos time.  

“This shows that they are planning to process his deportation today, and one local source tells us Chinese embassy personnel are on-site as well. It may happen very soon, as it appears imminent unless pressure from other governments makes the Laotian government reconsider,” he said. 

“His deportation will make them violate both their legally binding commitment under the U.N. Convention Against Torture, but also the general principle of non-refoulment, that is, to not send people back if they stand a risk of torture or maltreatment,” he added. 

According to the Safeguard Defenders website, Lu held a valid visa for Laos when he crossed into the country earlier this month.  

“He planned to travel by train to Thailand along the route that starts at Thanaleng Station, southeast of the capital, Vientiane. The station is a short distance from the Thai-Laotian Friendship Bridge. Lu planned to fly from Thailand to the US to reunite with his wife and daughter” according to the site. 

Forced into car

Two friends from North America were with Lu in Laos.  

The trio had arrived at the station around 8:35 a.m. to buy tickets for the 10 a.m. train on July 28, when local police confiscated the passports of Lu and one of the others, according to the NGO’s website.  

Police returned and handcuffed Lu, the site said. One of Lu’s companions said that about 10 immigration police were involved in the incident that ended with Lu being forced into a car and taken away. 

“As in China, the railways have their own separate police force. It is unclear if Lu is now being held at a railway police detention centre or is already at the immigration detention centre at the airport,” according to the site. 

Laos maintains an extradition treaty with China but in the past “all known cases of Chinese nationals returned to China have been conducted under illegal or irregular operations … or by having the Laotian government order their deportation,” to China, according to Safeguard Defenders. 

VOA Mandarin contacted the Lao and Chinese embassies in Washington for comment. The Lao embassy did not respond. In an email, the Chinese embassy said “Unfortunately, we do not have anything to offer” on the reasons for Lu’s arrest or what’s going to happen to him next. 

The countries maintain a close relationship. 

On April 17, China’s Wang Yi, now the foreign minister, met with Saleumxay Kommasith, deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Laos.  

Wang said, “China and Laos are friendly neighbors linked by mountains and rivers. Bilateral relations have stood the test of changing international situation and even wars and are rock-solid and unshakable.”  

Saleumxay Kommasith said, “The Lao people wholeheartedly appreciate the strong support and selfless help of the CPC, the Chinese government and the Chinese people. Laos is ready to work with China to strengthen exchanges and cooperation.” 

Lawyer took on sensitive cases

Lu had a history of taking on sensitive cases and defending people seen as political targets by Chinese authorities. 

He represented 12 Hong Kong residents, the so-called Hong Kong 12, after they were intercepted at sea by Chinese authorities as they tried to flee to Taiwan on August 23, 2020

China revoked Lu’s license to practice law in January 2021. Two months later, he was banned from leaving China. 

Dahlin said Lu “will certainly be detained upon his return, possibly also for crossing the Chinese border illegally. Upon detention, his fate is, of course, sealed, and it’s unlikely that he will not be arrested, prosecuted, brought to trial and convicted.” 

Zhang said international society, including the U.N. and U.S., are pressuring Laos for Lu’s release. 

In a social media video, she said, “If repatriated to China, my husband will be tortured and detained. I plea to the Laotian government to allow him to be protected by the U.N. as an international refugee.” 

She hopes to reunite with Lu soon because their daughter hasn’t seen her father for almost two years. 

VOA contacted the State Department for updates on Lu’s case but didn’t get a response by the time of publication. 

Dahlin, of Safeguard Defenders, said, “The Laotian government must be made aware that blatant violation of international law, as this is, and doing the bidding of a foreign police state, that is, China, will come with consequences, and Lu, of course, must be released, and allowed to continue his travel, and ultimately, reunite with his wife and kid.” 
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The United States arrived at the Women’s World Cup as the favorite to win an unprecedented third consecutive title. But after an underwhelming draw against the Netherlands, there’s a real chance the Americans could be eliminated in group play for the first time in tournament history. 

The U.S. plays Portugal in the third and final match of Group E play, and if Portugal pulls off an upset Tuesday at Eden Park in Auckland, the Americans could be in big trouble. 

The United States needs to either win or draw against Portugal, one of eight teams playing in its first World Cup, to ensure the Americans continue to play in this tournament. 

“I think we feel like we have to win everything all the time,” said American star Megan Rapinoe. “That’s the expectation for ourselves. That’s the expectation playing for [the] U.S. national team. It’s just kind of like, ‘Why would you come into the World Cup if you don’t think that you should win it, and if you don’t think that you can win it?'” 

‘We have to stay focused’

The United States sits atop the group after a 3-0 victory over Vietnam in the tournament opener, and a 1-1 draw with the Netherlands last Thursday in Wellington. The Dutch are tied with the U.S. on points, but the Americans have the tiebreaker on goals scored. 

Portugal lost to the Dutch in its opener but then beat Vietnam 2-0. So, if the Portuguese beat the United States, they’ll move on, and the Americans would then need Vietnam to beat the Dutch in Dunedin — while keeping their advantage on goal differential — to advance. 

“One thing is for sure, that we have a job to do, and that’s first and foremost to take care of our game. So, our main focus right now is our performance, our team, and Portugal,” U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski said. “What happens on the other side is something we can’t control. We have to stay focused on the things we can control.” 

Portugal could use a swarming defense to try to prevent the United States from scoring the way Vietnam — unsuccessfully — played the Americans in the opener. 

Portugal defender Ana Borges said her team will be prepared. 

“This is the stage where we want to be. It’s against these teams that we want to play because we’re going to learn and grow from them,” Borges said. “Not saying anything about the other team, but if we weren’t prepared for this challenge, we wouldn’t be playing football.” 

China-England  

England is in very good shape headed into its Group D finale against China, needing only a draw Tuesday night in Adelaide, Australia, to win the group and advance to the round of 16. 

Even a loss would be OK and push England through as group winners so long as Denmark doesn’t beat Haiti. If Denmark won and England lost, the group winner would be decided by FIFA tiebreakers. 

England edged out a 1-0 victory over Haiti to open the tournament, then beat Denmark by the same score. 

China lost 1-0 to Denmark in the opener but rebounded with a 1-0 win over Haiti and is now trying to keep its streak intact of advancing out of group play in all eight of its World Cup appearances. 

It will be a tough task: China can advance to the round of 16 if the Chinese beat England. But if Denmark beats Haiti, coupled with a China win, then FIFA tiebreakers would come into a play. A loss would mean China’s only chance at advancing would be if Haiti beat Denmark. 

England and China meet for just the fifth time, but first since a 2-1 China victory in 2015. 

England has scored in each of its last 15 matches at the Women’s World Cup for a tally of 25 goals since 2015. A goal against China would make England the first team to score in 16 consecutive matches in the tournament. 

China is looking to win consecutive World Cup games for the first time since 1999. 

Vietnam-Netherlands  

The Netherlands wants to win every match in the Women’s World Cup, but none more than Tuesday’s game against Vietnam. 

At stake: avoiding Sweden in the knockout round. 

The Dutch, the tournament runner-up in 2019, need only a win or a draw in the Group E match played in Dunedin, New Zealand. And even a loss would be OK so long as the United States beats Portugal in a game being played simultaneously. 

But the Netherlands has mapped out the tournament and wants no part of Sweden anytime soon. 

“The first aim is always to win and get to the last 16. And then after that, if we can score goals. We will, of course,” Dutch coach Andries Jonker said. “But looking at our colleagues from the U.S. and Portugal, we’ve noticed it’s not all that easy. We’ve never shown any kind of arrogance, but if we get chances to score goals, we will. We would prefer to play against the number two in this group and not Sweden.” 

The Netherlands are tied with the United States for the top spot in the group after playing to a 1-1 draw against the Americans and a 1-0 win over Portugal. 

Vietnam has already been eliminated from its first Women’s World Cup following losses to the United States and Portugal. Vietnam has lost its last five internationals by a combined score of 18-1. 

“The Netherlands tries to have as many goals as possible, and I have to say, we are at a low level,” Vietnam coach Mai Duc Chung said. “If we compare with Asia, we’re still at a low level. So, if we compare with the world, we are still quite behind. It is a success for us already. In the past two matches, we have tried our best. Great effort already.” 

Haiti-Denmark  

First-time Women’s World Cup participant Haiti would like to stick around a bit longer but needs a miracle in the Group D finale against Denmark to have any shot to advance. 

Haiti needs to beat Denmark in the Tuesday match played in Perth, Australia, and hope England beats China. If both those things happen, Haiti’s only chance would still come down to FIFA’s tiebreaker system. 

It’s very long odds for Haiti, which has played better in this tournament than its 0-2 record shows. Haiti held both England and China to one goal each in the first two matches. 

Haiti is on a six-game losing streak headed into what is probably its final game of this tournament. 

Denmark, meanwhile, is trying to advance to the group stage for the first time since 1995. Denmark was a 1-0 winner over China to start the tournament, then lost 1-0 to England and heads into the game tied for second in the group with China with three points each. 

A win over Haiti pushes Denmark through to the next round so long as England doesn’t lose to China. That scenario would put tiebreakers into play. 

The Danes, in the tournament for the first time since 2007, can also get through with a draw, but again, only if England beats China. 

Denmark has won five of its last seven international matches. 
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For thousands of years, canoes were the primary means of travel for the Native Americans known as the Coast Salish peoples. Tribal Canoe Journey, an event celebrating indigenous tribes of the West Coast, is back after a pandemic hiatus. Natasha Mozgovaya has more. Camera: Natasha Mozgovaya.
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U.S. President Joe Biden has selected Colorado Springs as the permanent location of the U.S. Space Command headquarters, the U.S. military said Monday, ending a long-running debate over potentially moving it to Republican-stronghold Alabama. 

The Pentagon said the decision by Biden, a Democrat, would ensure “peak readiness” of the command during a critical period. 

Experts have said keeping the base in Colorado Springs would avoid a lengthy transition period to Huntsville, Alabama, a spot favored by former Republican President Donald Trump, and which is known as “Rocket City” for its role in developing space rockets. 

“It will also enable the command to most effectively plan, execute and integrate military space power into multi-domain global operations in order to deter aggression and defend national interests,” the Pentagon said in a statement. 

Biden’s decision comes as a Republican senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, is blocking hundreds of U.S. military appointments to protest the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing costs for service members who travel to get an abortion. 

Biden last week criticized Tuberville for preventing many women and people of color from moving into more senior roles, some of them historic in nature. 

Those include Air Force General CQ Brown, the first Black person to lead any branch of the armed services, whom Biden has nominated to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Navy Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who would become the first woman to command the service and become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 
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Crews battled “fire whirls” in California’s Mojave National Preserve this weekend as a massive wildfire crossed into Nevada amid dangerously high temperatures and raging winds.

The York Fire was mapped at roughly 284 square kilometers on Monday with no containment. The blaze erupted Friday near the remote Caruthers Canyon area of the vast wildland preserve, crossed the state line into Nevada on Sunday and sent smoke further east into the Las Vegas Valley.

Wind-driven flames 6 meters high in some spots charred tens of thousands of hectares of desert scrub, juniper and Joshua tree woodland, according to an incident update.

A fire whirl — sometimes called a fire tornado — is a “spinning column of fire” that forms when intense heat and turbulent winds combine, according to the National Park Service.

The vortexes — which can be anywhere from a few meters tall to several hundred meters high, with varying rotational speeds — were spotted Sunday on the north end of the York Fire.

“While these can be fascinating to observe they are a very dangerous natural phenomena that can occur during wildfires,” the park service wrote.

Crews expected to face limited visibility due to the fire’s thick smoke. The cause of the York Fire remains under investigation.

To the southwest, the Bonny Fire burned about 9.3 square kilometers in the rugged hills of Riverside County. The blaze was about 20% contained on Monday. 

More than 1,300 people were ordered to evacuate their homes Saturday near the community of Aguanga that is home to horse ranches and wineries.

One firefighter was injured in the blaze.

Gusty winds and the chance of thunderstorms into Tuesday will heighten the risk of renewed growth, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement.
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