A thick haze from Canadian wildfire smoke covered cities in the northeastern U.S. this week. U.S. East Coast residents are unaccustomed to such pollution. VOA Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti explains what’s different and shows us the strange look of the New York City skyline.
…

The White House has warned private entities, especially technology companies, about the risks of their products ending up in Iranian hands. Russia has been using drones in its war against Ukraine, attacking cities and destroying infrastructure, and — according to the White House — is working with Iran to produce them from inside Russia.

VOA Persian’s White House correspondent Farhad Pouladi on Friday spoke with John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, about this and other issues the administration is tackling regarding the Islamic Republic.

VOA: On Iran and Russia cooperation on drones, what advice does the administration have by issuing this new advisory?

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS JOHN KIRBY: Well, we want to make sure that private entities, certainly technology companies, understand the risks of their products potentially ending up in Iranian hands to be used for the manufacture of Iranian drones in this case that can be used to kill innocent Ukrainian people. So, the purpose of the advisory was really to make sure that the business community understands our concerns and is taking a look at its own procedures and procedures.

VOA: In the past two weeks, Iran unveiled a hypersonic missile called Fattah and a 2 kilometer-range missile called Kheibar. With the arms embargo under UNSC Resolution 2231 coming to an end in October, and considering Russia’s veto power, what is the U.S. hoping to do?

KIRBY: Well, I can’t get ahead of the U.N. process here. But you’re right. This activity by Iran, particularly with ballistic missiles, is a violation of 2231. Again, I won’t get ahead of the process here and where it’s going. Clear violations, we’re going to continue to work with our allies and partners at the U.N. and outside the U.N. to make sure that we’re putting enough pressure on Iran so that they stop this destabilizing activity. Their ballistic missile program continues to improve. It presents a clear threat to the region, certainly to our friends in the region. And now some of these capabilities, not ballistic missiles necessarily but in terms of UAVs, [unmanned aerial vehicles] now, this capability, this technology is being used inside Ukraine to kill innocent Ukrainians. And now we know that Iran is working with Russia on the potential construction of a manufacturing facility, or the conversion of one, to be used inside Russia to actually produce, organically, there inside Russia, Iranian-designed UAVs, so all the more reason to continue to put pressure on the regime.

VOA: So, Europeans swap their prisoners with Iran. What is the holdup for the Americans in Iran? You mentioned it behind the podium that a blue passport is a blue passport. So what is the holdup for them?

KIRBY: I would tell you that we never lose sight of our obligations, our sacred obligation to get home wrongfully detained Americans overseas, including in Iran. I don’t have anything with specific cases to talk to you today. I can just tell you that we never stopped working on this. We’re always going to try to find a way to bring these Americans home in a way that comports with our obligation to them but also with our national security. And we’re doing that right now.

VOA: The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] Board of Governors and the U.S. “urged Iran to fully cooperate with the agency.” And if it fails, the board should be prepared to hold Iran to account at the appropriate time. Isn’t that just a slap on the wrist from the U.S.?

KIRBY: We have done an awful lot inside the United States, just unilaterally let alone multilaterally with other countries, to hold the regime accountable for their destabilizing activities, for their constant pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities, for their support to Russia inside Ukraine, for their attacks on maritime shipping. I could go on, and on, and on. And we’re not going to take any tools off the table to continue to hold them accountable going forward. So I think in Tehran, again, I won’t speak for the regime, but I’d be hard pressed to look at the pressure they’re under and for them to believe that the United States is simply slapping them on the wrist. Now, yes, we want them to comply with the requirements of the IAEA as they should, as they must, but we’re not going to take any options off the table in terms of our ability to continue to put pressure on them so that they do comply, so that … we can get to a place where they don’t have a nuclear weapons capability.

VOA: Going to the sanctions issue as part of Iran’s nuclear deal, specifically on Iranian blocked assets, that can be used only for humanitarian relief and humanitarian commodities. Any changes to that, especially when it comes to news reports that Iran’s Central Bank chief was here?

KIRBY: I mean, I don’t have — I don’t have anything on those press reports. Look, we have sanctions in place that are going to stay in place to hold the regime accountable for their activities in the region, for the way they’re treating their own people, and certainly for the manner in which they’re supporting Ukraine — I’m sorry, Russia — in their fight inside Ukraine and killing innocent Ukrainian people.
…

Within hours of former President Donald Trump’s announcement on Thursday evening that he had been indicted by federal prosecutors for allegedly mishandling classified information, senior Republicans in Washington and beyond had rallied behind him, using social media to denounce the charges as a misuse of authority by the administration of President Joe Biden.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, currently the most powerful Republican in Washington, denounced the indictment in a tweet late Thursday. McCarthy called it “unconscionable” for the Biden administration to indict the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and the person most likely to challenge Biden in his reelection bid.

Even some of the Republicans who are challenging the former president for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 spoke out against the indictment. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dismissed the charges as a “weaponization” of the government, a word echoed by many of the former president’s supporters.

Republican leaders continued to express support Friday afternoon, after the indictment was unsealed, revealing that the former president is facing 37 felony counts. Trump is facing 31 counts of willful retention of national security documents, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, four counts related to concealing documents, and one count of making false statements and representations.

The indictment, among other things, cites a recording in prosecutors’ possession in which Trump describes a document he took from the White House related to confidential military planning. In the recording, he acknowledges that it is classified, and says that while he could have declassified it while president, he never did.

Trump claims innocence

Trump and his attorneys have repeatedly proclaimed his innocence. In an interview with CNN late Thursday, Trump’s then-attorney, Jim Trusty, called the charges “ludicrous” and said that Trump intends to mount a strong defense. He repeated the former president’s insistence that the charges are politically motivated.

Trusty also repeated a common complaint by Trump and his supporters, who point out that President Joe Biden, too, kept classified documents after his term as vice president ended in 2017. Biden, however, immediately returned the documents when they were discovered by an attorney working in his home in January of this year. Trump, by contrast, repeatedly denied possessing classified information until the FBI executed a search warrant on his Florida home last August and found dozens of secret documents.

On Friday, Trusty and another attorney who had been representing the former president announced that they had resigned and were no longer representing Trump.

The charges against Trump were filed by special counsel Jack Smith, a politically independent former head of the Department of Justice’s public integrity unit and a former war crimes prosecutor in The Hague.

As a special counsel, Smith operates outside the direct supervision of the Department of Justice, an arrangement put in place because of the political sensitivity of an investigation involving a former president and current presidential candidate. In addition to the documents case, Smith is also overseeing an investigation of Trump’s effort to overturn his election loss to Biden in 2020, which led to the storming of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.

Retaliation promised

McCarthy on Thursday tweeted, “Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades.”

He added, “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

How Republicans will seek to hold someone accountable for the indictment is unclear. Democrats immediately warned McCarthy against using Congress to interfere in the federal justice system.

Some of Trump’s most ardent supporters in Congress likewise assailed the decision to charge him.

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz wrote on Twitter, “This phony Boxes Hoax indictment against President Trump reflects the most severe election interference on the part of the federal government that we have EVER seen!”

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked law enforcement agencies on Twitter for participating in the investigation of the former president. “It’s shameful. Pathetic really. Ultimately the biggest hypocrisy in modern day history. A complete and total failure to the American people. A stain on our nation that the FBI and DOJ are so corrupt and they don’t even hide it anymore.”

Campaign trail

Several of the Republicans challenging Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024 had been cautiously increasing their criticism of the former president, concerned about alienating his significant base of supporters within the party.

However, on Thursday, many of Trump’s rivals were quick to take his side against the federal government.

“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” wrote DeSantis, currently Trump’s leading opponent. “We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?”

De Santis was referring to HIllary Clinton, the former Democratic presidential nominee who was investigated, but never charged, with mishandling classified information, and Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who is currently under federal investigation.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the U.N., said Friday, “This is not how justice should be pursued in our country.” She added, “The American people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards, and vendetta politics.”

In an interview on Fox News, Senator Tim Scott, also a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, called the charges against Trump an “injustice” and said, “What we’ve seen over the last several years is the weaponization of the Department of Justice against a former president.”

Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman running for the Republican presidential nomination, recorded a video in which he denounced the prosecution of Trump and said that, if elected, he would pardon the former president.

Some break ranks

Some Republicans were more willing to consider the validity of the charges.

“Let’s see what the facts are when any possible indictment is released,” former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie tweeted before the indictment was unsealed. “As I have said before, no one is above the law, no matter how much they wish they were. We will have more to say when the facts are revealed.” As of Friday evening, he had not released any further comments.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson released a statement calling on the former president to withdraw from the race for the Republican nomination.

“Donald Trump’s actions — from his willful disregard for the Constitution to his disrespect for the rule of law — should not define our nation or the Republican Party,” Hutchinson said. “This is a sad day for our country. While Donald Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence, the ongoing criminal proceedings will be a major distraction. This reaffirms the need for Donald Trump to respect the office and end his campaign.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared to try to have it both ways. In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Pence said that he was “deeply troubled” by the decision to charge the former president, but quickly followed up with, “But let me be very clear: No one is above the law.”
…

Here is the 49-page unsealed indictment in USA v Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
…

Donald Trump made history on Thursday. The 78-year-old former president and front-runner in next year’s Republican presidential primaries announced he has been indicted on federal criminal charges. None of his predecessors, since the United States declared independence in 1776, has ever faced such legal peril.  

While politics is a zero-sum game in many countries, including some democracies where rival leaders will use the levers of powers to neutralize their predecessors, that has not traditionally been the case in America. 

When he was president, Trump’s critics accused him of lurching towards authoritarianism and trying to use his political office to stay in power after he lost his bid for reelection.

Of course Trump, in his trademark approach to politics, is now alleging just such an abuse of office, accusing the Democratic administration of Joe Biden of weaponizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its parent agency, the Department of Justice, in “warfare for the law.” 

Trump, who like all defendants is presumed innocent pending the outcome of a trial, has been claiming the system is rigged against him since the first votes were cast in the Iowa caucuses in 2016. Back then he blamed rival candidate Ted Cruz and demanded, without success, that “a new election should take place or Cruz results (be) nullified.” 

Even when he won the general election later that year, he claimed fraud. Trump won the Electoral College vote (based on a majority of votes in each individual state) but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. 

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump stated without any evidence. 

During his four years in office, in which he was impeached twice by the House but not convicted in the Senate, Trump repeatedly stated he was the target of witch hunts and that he never did anything wrong. There was the “perfect phone call” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which he repeatedly pressed for the foreign leader to investigate Biden in a suggested quid pro quo. That led to the first impeachment. 

Then there was the ignominious day at the U.S. Capitol when Trump supporters stormed the symbol of American democracy after their president incited them to “fight like hell” or “you’re not going to have a country anymore. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Trump returned to the White House while the crowd headed into the Capitol. He then tweeted that his vice president, Mike Pence (now a Republican primary opponent) “didn’t have the courage” to thwart the ceremonial counting of ballots to declare Biden the victor of the 2020 election. 

That led to Trump’s second impeachment in the waning days of his presidency. 

A signature line of his political rallies was: “We will never give in, we will never give up, and we will never, ever back down.” 

During his presidency, Trump sometimes did back away from his more outlandish proposals, appointments and rhetoric, usually under intense pressure from Cabinet secretaries, key aides and family members. Trump always seemed to regret it, however, telling his lawyers and his advisers that he trusted his instincts more than their expert advice. That usually put him into greater jeopardy. 

Eventually he had a falling out with nearly everyone in his inner circle. Some of those whom he cast out would occasionally return to the fold. Top White House officials observed Trump seemed to have no true friends; all relationships were transactional and loyalty to the boss (who had never worked for anyone except his own father) was the ultimate desirable trait. 

Legal observers have little doubt Trump will fight these federal charges every step of the way and is unlikely to plea bargain, as that would be tantamount to admitting guilt to something, not a Trump trait. 

Within hours of announcing the indictment, Trump sent out fundraising letters imploring supporters: “Please make a contribution to peacefully stand with me today and prove that YOU will NEVER surrender our country to the radical Left.” The note concluded with suggested contributions between $24 and $250. 

Political observers do not expect the indictment to hurt Trump much with his core supporters, about a third of Republican Party voters. But overall, before news of the fresh charges, six in 10 Americans told pollsters Trump should not be president again.

The current expectation is that with perhaps a dozen other Republicans vying for the nomination by the time the first 2024 votes are cast at the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, the former president will remain the front-runner and be the most likely to capture his party’s nomination for a third consecutive time – although this time while battling serious criminal charges of violating the Espionage Act, making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice. 

Only once has an American president, out of office, returned to the White House. That was Grover Cleveland after defeating the incumbent president, Benjamin Harrison, in 1892.

Only once, in 1920, has a relevant political party nominated a convicted felon. That was Eugene V. Debs, who had run unsuccessfully for president four times previously and was a household name of the era.

Debs had been convicted of violating the Espionage and Sedition acts but was chosen by the Socialist Party again in 1920. He was allowed by authorities to issue one written statement weekly from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. He captured more than three percent of the vote in the general election. He remained a popular figure after President Warren Harding pardoned him the following year. 

If Trump loses the 2024 election for a second time, would Biden (the presumptive Democratic Party nominee again), even consider pardoning his vanquished rival if the Republican is convicted of one or more felonies?

Many in America never forgave Gerald Ford for pardoning his fellow Republican Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face certain impeachment for the Watergate scandal. And Ford paid the price in an election loss to Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Biden talks often of healing and bridging the deepest political divide since the Civil War. A devout Catholic of Irish ancestry, he takes solace in the words of popes who call for forgiveness and in the lines of his favorite poet.

Perhaps in Seamus Heaney’s line there lies a hint:  

History says, Don’t hope  

On the side of the grave.  

But then, once in a lifetime  

The longed-for tidal wave  

Of justice can rise up  

And hope and history rhyme.  

So hope for a great sea-change  

On the far side of revenge.  

Believe that a further shore  

Is reachable from here.  

Believe in miracles.  

And cures and healing wells.  

Editor’s note: VOA’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman, was VOA’s White House bureau chief during the Trump administration and extensively interacted with the 45th president.
…

Moscow has not only received hundreds of Iranian drones but is working with Iran to produce them from inside Russia, according to the White House — a sign of the deepening military partnership between the two countries.

“We have information that Russia is receiving materials from Iran needed to build a UAV manufacturing plant inside Russia,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby in a statement sent to VOA Thursday. “This plant could be fully operational early next year.”

The White House released satellite imagery of the planned location of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) manufacturing plant in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone.

Kirby said that currently, drones are built in Iran, shipped across the Caspian Sea from Amirabad, Iran to Makhachkala, Russia, and then used operationally by Russian forces against Ukraine.

On Friday, the Biden Administration is releasing a new advisory to help businesses and other governments “better understand the risks posed by Iran’s UAV program and the illicit practices Iran uses to procure components for it.”

“This will help governments and businesses put in place measures to ensure they are not inadvertently contributing to Iran’s UAV program,” Kirby added.

Russia has increasingly deployed drones to bombard Ukrainian cities and targets in recent weeks. They are “a difficult target because Ukraine has limited air defense resources,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told VOA Friday.

“Iranian drones are hard to detect; they are slow,” he said. “The Shaheds fly very low, use the river delta and forest, and drop from the radars.”

Ihnat noted that Moscow sends the drones to all parts of Ukrainian territory from different directions. “Ukraine Air defense today is focused on the protection of big towns, infrastructure objects, and critical infrastructure,” he said.

JCPOA sunset

This latest revelation is part of the administration’s periodic release of intelligence findings about Russia’s war in Ukraine, with the goal of further isolating Moscow and its supporters.

The timing coincides with sunset clauses in the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which imposed international restrictions on Iranian weapons.

Many of the JCPOA’s sunset clauses were already made obsolete after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions, which led Iran to breach its obligations and enrich uranium to higher levels beginning in July 2019.

Still, since the JCPOA was never officially nullified by its other signatories — Iran, the European Union, Russia and China — from a legal standpoint the sunset clauses matter.

In October 2023, the JCPOA bans on Iran’s import and export of missile-related technology will formally end, including on missiles and drones with a range of 300 kilometers (186 miles) or more.

In other words, in a few months it will be officially legal to trade Iranian missiles and drones.

The U.S. and partners want to alert businesses around the world about the Iran-Russia cooperation on drones and the drones’ devastating impact in the war in Ukraine, said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute. The goal is to interrupt the production of the drones, which depend on components available on world markets.

“The U.S. clearly wants to put businesses on notice in a preemptive move and to highlight the reputational risks,” he told VOA.

While the administration may try to disrupt the drones’ production chain, Vatanka is skeptical that Western political pressure will compel Iranian leaders to rethink their military cooperation with Moscow.

“Tehran has basically decided to put its money on Russia,” he said. “The calculation is as simple as it is cynical: By supporting Russia today in Ukraine, Iran can hope that Moscow will back Iran in its conflict with the U.S.”

Two-way support

As it purchases Iranian drones, mainly the Shahed-136, Russia has provided Iran with “unprecedented defense cooperation, including on missiles, electronics, and air defense,” Kirby said, adding that Tehran is seeking to purchase billions of dollars of additional Russian military equipment, including attack helicopters, radars, and YAK-130 combat trainer aircraft.

Earlier this year, Iran announced that it had finalized a deal to buy Russian Su-35 fighter jets.

“This is a full-scale defense partnership that is harmful to Ukraine, to Iran’s neighbors, and to the international community,” Kirby said, adding that the administration is working with allies and partners to hold Moscow and Tehran accountable, including through existing and additional sanctions and export restrictions.

Collaboration between Tehran and Moscow is likely to continue, said Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution.

He said the U.S. should be mindful of Moscow garnering support from other partners, namely Beijing.

“We should be careful not to so demonize China,” he told VOA. “In regard to the Ukraine conflict in particular as well as current geopolitics more generally, that we also drive Beijing and Moscow closer together under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The Shahed drones, often called suicide or kamikaze drones, have an operational range of around 2,000 kilometers. Packed with explosives, they can be directed at targets and detonate upon impact like a missile.

They can also be launched in a swarm where several of them are launched at the same time in formation.

On Friday, the Russian military mistakenly identified one of its own drones as Ukrainian and took it down.

Myroslava Gongadze contributed to this report.
…

Images of smoke obscuring the New York skyline and the Washington Monument this week have given the world a new picture of the perils of wildfire, far from where blazes regularly turn skies into hazardous haze.

A third day of unhealthy air from Canadian wildfires may have been an unnerving novelty for millions of people on the U.S. East Coast, but it was a reminder of conditions routinely troubling the country’s West — and a wake-up call about the future, scientists say.

“This is kind of an astounding event” but likely to become more common amid global warming, said Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth College geography professor and climate scientist. “This is something that we, as the eastern side of the country, need to take quite seriously.”

Millions of residents could see that for themselves Thursday. The conditions sent asthma sufferers to hospitals, delayed flights, postponed ballgames and even pushed back a White House Pride Month celebration. The fires sent plumes of fine particulate matter as far away as North Carolina and northern Europe and parked clumps of air rated unhealthy or worse over the heavily populated Eastern Seaboard.

At points this week, air quality in places including New York, the nation’s most populous city, nearly hit the top of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air-pollution scale. Local officials urged people to stay indoors as much as possible and wear face masks when they venture out.

Such conditions are nothing new — indeed, increasingly frequent — on the U.S. West Coast, where residents were buying masks and air filters even before the coronavirus pandemic and have become accustomed to checking air quality daily in summertime. Since 2017, California has seen eight of its 10 largest wildfires and six of the most destructive.

The hazardous air has sometimes forced children, older adults and people with asthma and other respiratory conditions to stay indoors for weeks at a time. Officials have opened smoke shelters for people who are homeless or who might not have access to clean indoor air.

So what’s the big deal about the smoke out East?

“The West has always burned, as has Canada, but what’s important now is that we’re getting these massive amounts of smoke in a very populated region, so many, many people are getting affected,” said Loretta Mickley, the co-leader of Harvard University’s Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group.

Fueled by an unusually dry and warm period in spring, the Canadian fire season that is just getting started could well become the worst on record. More than 400 blazes burned Thursday. Over a third are in Quebec, where Public Safety Minister François Bonnardel said no rain is expected until next week and temperatures are predicted to rise.

He said there have been no reports of injuries, deaths or home damage so far from the fires, but it remained unclear Thursday when more than 12,000 evacuees from various communities would be able to return. Manon Cyr, mayor of the evacuated town of Chibougamau, said she advised residents to be “Zen and patient. That’s the most important.”

But, she noted, the real solution will be a good dose of rain.

In neighboring Ontario, a haze hung over Toronto, Canada’s most populous city, where many school recess breaks, day care center activities and outdoor recreation programs were canceled or moved inside.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that hundreds of American firefighters and support personnel have been in Canada since May, and that he’d offered Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “any additional help Canada needs to rapidly accelerate the effort to put out these fires.” The two spoke Wednesday.

Wildfires aren’t the only air-quality problems that beset major population centers around the globe.

In Beijing, for example, decades of sandstorms blowing in from the Mongolian plains have mixed with human-made pollution, sometimes making neighboring buildings invisible to one another. Commuters have even been spotted walking down streets wearing plastic bags over their heads to insulate against particulates.

Many African countries in and near the Sahara Desert, too, regularly grapple with bad air mainly because of sandstorms. Senegal, in particular, has endured years of unsafe levels of air pollution, which is causing asthma and other respiratory diseases, climate experts say.

Chemically, wildfire smoke can be more toxic than typical urban pollution, but with an asterisk: With smog, “the problem is you’re in it all the time,” says Jonathan Deason, an environmental and energy management professor at George Washington University.

In New York City, Health Department spokesperson Pedro Frisneda said emergency rooms were seeing a “higher than usual” number of asthma-related visits from the blanket of smoke, estimating patients were in the “low hundreds.”

The city public school system — the nation’s largest — said Friday’s classes would be conducted remotely, a decision that mostly affected high schoolers because most other pupils already had a scheduled day off. Motorists even got a break Thursday and Friday from having to move their cars for street cleaning.

In Washington, a big Pride Month celebration on the White House’s South Lawn was moved from Thursday to Saturday, and a Washington Nationals-Arizona Diamondbacks game was postponed. Local officials closed public parks and suspended some road work.

Philadelphia ended trash collection ended early, for the sake of sanitation employees. Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, opened spaces usually used as hot-weather cooling centers so that residents could escape the unhealthy air.

A Chris Stapleton concert at a Syracuse amphitheater was pushed back, fireworks were canceled at Niagara Falls and racing was canceled at New York’s Belmont Park two days before the famed Belmont Stakes. It wasn’t yet clear whether the Triple Crown race itself might be affected; Gov. Kathy Hochul said that would depend on the air quality at the track Saturday.

And in central Pennsylvania, Country Meadows Retirement Communities temporarily closed walking areas and outdoor courtyards designated for residents in secured memory support units — “they may or may not recognize when they experience respiratory distress,” explained company spokesperson Kelly Kuntz. All 2,300 residents of its 10 facilities were asked to cancel outdoor trips and strenuous outdoor activities.

“Bocce is huge,” Kuntz said. “No bocce ball until this is done.”
…

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in a congressional redistricting case from Alabama, with two conservative justices joining liberals in rejecting a Republican-led effort to weaken a landmark voting rights law.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh aligned with the court’s liberals in affirming a lower court ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in an Alabama congressional map with one majority Black seat out of seven districts in a state where more than one in four residents is Black. The state now will have to draw a new map for next year’s elections.

The decision was keenly anticipated for its potential effect on control of the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives. Because of the ruling, new maps are likely in Alabama and Louisiana that could allow Democratic-leaning Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in two more congressional districts.

The outcome was unexpected in that the court had allowed the challenged Alabama map to be used for the 2022 elections, and in arguments last October the justices appeared willing to make it harder to challenge redistricting plans as racially discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The chief justice himself suggested last year that he was open to changes in the way courts weigh discrimination claims under the part of the law known as section 2. But on Thursday, Roberts wrote that the court was declining “to recast our section 2 case law as Alabama requests.”

Roberts also was part of conservative high-court majorities in earlier cases that made it harder for racial minorities to use the Voting Rights Act in ideologically divided rulings in 2013 and 2021.

The other four conservative justices dissented Thursday. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the decision forces “Alabama to intentionally redraw its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the State’s population. Section 2 demands no such thing, and, if it did, the Constitution would not permit it.”

The Biden administration sided with the Black voters in Alabama.

Attorney General Merrick Garland applauded the ruling: “Today’s decision rejects efforts to further erode fundamental voting rights protections, and preserves the principle that in the United States, all eligible voters must be able to exercise their constitutional right to vote free from discrimination based on their race.”

Evan Milligan, a Black voter and the lead plaintiff in the case, said the ruling was a victory for democracy and people of color.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court upheld what we knew to be true: that everyone deserves to have their vote matter and their voice heard. Today is a win for democracy and freedom not just in Alabama but across the United States,” Milligan said.

Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl said in a statement that state lawmakers would comply with the ruling. “Regardless of our disagreement with the Court’s decision, we are confident the Alabama Legislature will redraw district lines that ensure the people of Alabama are represented by members who share their beliefs, while following the requirements of applicable law,” Wahl said.

But Steve Marshall, the state’s Republican attorney general, said he expects to continue defending the challenged map in federal court, including at a full trial. “Although the majority’s decision is disappointing, this case is not over,” Marshall said in a statement.

Deuel Ross, a civil rights lawyer who argued the case at the Supreme Court, said the justices have validated the lower court’s view in this case. A full trial “doesn’t seem a good use of Alabama’s time, resources or the money of the people to continue to litigate their case.”

The case stems from challenges to Alabama’s seven-district congressional map, which included one district in which Black voters form a large enough majority that they have the power to elect their preferred candidate. The challengers said that one district is not enough, pointing out that overall, Alabama’s population is more than 25% Black.

A three-judge court, with two appointees of former President Donald Trump, had little trouble concluding that the plan likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the votes of Black Alabamians. That “likely” violation was the standard under which the preliminary injunction was issued by the three-judge panel, which ordered a new map drawn.

But the state quickly appealed to the Supreme Court, where five conservative justices prevented the lower court ruling from going forward. At the same time, the court decided to hear the Alabama case.

Louisiana’s congressional map had separately been identified as probably discriminatory by a lower court. That map, too, remained in effect last year and now will have to be redrawn.

The National Redistricting Foundation said in a statement that its pending lawsuits over congressional districts in Georgia and Texas also could be affected.

Separately, the Supreme Court in the fall will hear South Carolina’s appeal of a lower court ruling that found Republican lawmakers stripped Black voters from a district to make it safer for a Republican candidate. That case also could lead to a redrawn map in South Carolina, where six U.S. House members are Republicans and one is a Democrat.

Partisan politics also underlies the Alabama case. Republicans who dominate elective office in Alabama have been resistant to creating a second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority, or close to one, that could send another Democrat to Congress.

The judges found that Alabama concentrated Black voters in one district, while spreading them out among the others to make it much more difficult to elect more than one candidate of their choice.

Alabama’s Black population is large enough and geographically compact enough to create a second district, the judges found.

Denying discrimination, Alabama argued that the lower court ruling would have forced it to sort voters by race and insisted it was taking a “race neutral” approach to redistricting.

At arguments in October, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson scoffed at the idea that race could not be part of the equation. Jackson, the court’s first Black woman, said that constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War and the Voting Rights Act a century later were intended to do the same thing, make Black Americans “equal to white citizens.” 
…

In early May, The New York Times Magazine published an in-depth story about Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic with details about his alleged connections with a criminal group that is being prosecuted for a range of crimes including drug trafficking and murder.

The story drew broad attention internationally, not just in the Balkans where local investigative outlets have reported many of the same allegations, which Vucic denies.

The State Department declined to comment on the merit of the allegations in the story, however at least one high-ranking State Department official shared the story on social media. And the allegations were raised last month during a congressional hearing about the Western Balkans.

Outside analysts though have been vocal.

“It’s a shocking and horrific story that the highest levels of government are so intertwined with criminal enterprises. I think we have seen this in enough other nations that it is a growing concern, the conflation between authoritarian governments and criminal networks,” Gary Kalman, executive director of Transparency International USA, told VOA’s Serbian Service.

“It’s terrible. It’s too bad,” said Susan Rose-Ackerman, professor of law and political science at Yale University, who co-authored the book “Corruption and Government.” She told VOA that connections between people in political power and organized crime create an extreme version of political corruption.

The Times story reported that the connections between police and the criminal group, led by a soccer hooligan Veljko Belivuk, nicknamed Trouble, were well documented. The story also claimed “there is little doubt that Belivuk and his gang are in prison because Europol cracked the code” of the phone-messaging app through which they communicated.

Author Robert Worth reported that Belivuk testified in court that “his gang had been organized ‘for the need and by the order of Aleksandar Vucic.'” He added that the group, among others, used to intimidate political rivals and prevent fans at soccer games from chanting against Vucic.

Worth also wrote that he is skeptical that Vucic was unaware of all the groups did since Vucic “now exercises near-total control over almost every aspect of public life” in Serbia.

International context

Vucic has been in politics since the 1990s. He served as information minister to Slobodan Milosevic, where he led a crackdown on the press, and he publicly voiced support for Serbian war criminals.

His Serbian Progressive Party has now been in power for more than 10 years, during which he was also a prime minister.

Vucic’s spokespeople declined Worth’s requests for comments, but in an interview for pro-government Happy TV in Serbia, Vucic said that the “preposterous New York Times story was ordered” and that he understands it as a message during the dialogue about normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia has never recognized.

“I know how they do it,” said Vucic for Happy TV. “You know, CIA sets you up, CIA watches you, if you don’t behave well and don’t listen, this is only the beginning.”

It has become common practice in past years that Serbian authorities denote any criticism as treason, conspiracy against the country or a plot to overthrow the government.

Both Worth and The New York Times denied such allegations.

VOA interviewees noted that the most significant aspect of the story was the fact that it was published in English, in a reputable outlet with a great number of readers.

“It is an exposé of Aleksandar Vucic and his government. And it put it in an international context, given that it’s The New York Times,” Tanya Domi, professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, told VOA. “Everybody is reading this.”

Is Serbia a reliable partner for the United States?

“Is this reporting credible?” Senator Bob Menendez asked the State Department’s counselor Derek Chollet during a May hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about U.S. policy toward the Western Balkans, referencing the Times story.

“We believe it is. I can’t speak to the specifics of the article, but there is absolutely a lot of corruption,” replied Chollet, with Gabriel Escobar, State Department deputy assistant secretary, sitting next to him.

“So what are the real prospects for a reliable partner in Serbia with that background?” Menendez asked.

“We’re doing this with eyes open, but we are holding Vucic to account and his colleagues to account for their corruption, for their behavior and activity,” said Chollet, noting that corruption is a major issue in the whole region.

But in an interview for VOA’s Bosnian Service, Kurt Bassuener, senior associate at the Democratization Policy Council, pointed out that the U.S. has not sanctioned any Vucic administration official for corruption as it has done in some neighboring countries.

“They essentially dodged it,” Bassuener said of State Department officials. “They didn’t deal with any of the substance. And I think that’s emblematic of the overarching policy, which is pacification toward the region.”

Domi believes the United States and the West are pursuing the idea that Serbia is “a stabilizing force in the region.” But if the goal of such foreign policy toward the Western Balkans is to draw Serbia closer to the West and further from Russia, Domi says there is no proof such a strategy works.

Serbia is one of the rare European countries that has not introduced sanctions against Russia, and there is a strong pro-Russian sentiment in the country.

Transparency International’s Kalman said Washington’s strategy with Serbia could shift in the future.

“I think there is a possibility that the U.S., given sort of Serbia’s role and where it sits in the world, that they might put some pressure on to try and improve things in Serbia,” he said.

“How far they push and whether or not they are concerned that the Serbian government will start an alliance with countries and interests that the U.S. counter to their national security, and so then they back up. I don’t know the answer to that question,” Kalman said.
…

President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday announced an economic partnership focusing on energy transition and key technologies, and also vowed continued support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials encouraged people to spend time outdoors and wear masks inside if they had to be with other people.

This week, officials are again urging people to mask up — but this time, to protect themselves outdoors against smoke.

The tables have turned on the East Coast of the United States this week as wildfire smoke billows down from eastern Canada, prompting officials to urge people to stay indoors as much as possible — and to wear a mask if they go outside.

Wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia have sent hazardous smoke as far as North Carolina and northern Europe, disturbing the lives of millions, turning the skies a dystopian orange and underscoring the ever-rising threat of climate change.

“It’s critical that Americans experiencing dangerous air pollution, especially those with health conditions, listen to local authorities to protect themselves and their families,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday on Twitter.

In Canada, 20,000 people have been displaced as a result of more than 400 blazes that have burned 3.8 million hectares. Dry conditions and higher-than-normal temperatures have helped trigger fires across the country since May.

Many of the blazes now burning in Quebec were caused by lightning earlier this month.

Starting Wednesday, millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors as the U.S. National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for much of the East Coast. Spending time outdoors could cause respiratory problems as a result of the high levels of fine particulates in the atmosphere, health officials have warned.

The Midwest has not gone unscathed either, with smoke descending on Chicago earlier this week.

According to the private forecasting service AccuWeather, this week marks the worst outbreak of wildfire smoke to shroud the northeastern United States in over two decades. Poor air quality will likely continue into the weekend, the service said.

Up and down the East Coast, school officials canceled recess, sports games and field trips. The New York Yankees, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Washington Nationals are among the professional sports teams that have postponed games as a result of the smoke.

Reduced visibility has also caused flights to be delayed, with the Federal Aviation Administration saying Thursday morning on Twitter it “will likely need to take steps to manage the flow of traffic safely into New York City, DC, Philadelphia and Charlotte.”

Even the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., was closed Thursday due to poor air quality. The air quality in the nation’s capital and surrounding area reached its most dangerous levels in decades on Thursday.

“We’ve deployed more than 600 U.S. firefighters, support personnel, and equipment to support Canada as they respond to record wildfires — events that are intensifying because of the climate crisis,” Biden said on Twitter.

Biden and lawmakers including New York Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said the Canadian wildfires and subsequent smoke blanketing the East Coast are tied to climate change.

In light of the extreme smoke in New York City, which effectively hid the iconic skyline, Ocasio-Cortez said, “It bears repeating how unprepared we are for the climate crisis.”

In some regions, the air quality index, which evaluates major pollutants like particulate matter produced by fires, was above 400, according to AirNow, which marks 100 as “unhealthy” and 300 as “hazardous.”

The nightmarish landscapes that have gripped social media over the past couple of days may become the new normal as climate change worsens globally.

Last year, the United Nations said the number of extreme wildfires will rise 14% by 2030 and 30% by 2050. The world will be forced to “learn to live with fire,” the U.N. Environment Program report said.

For some parts of the United States, wildfires have already entered the realm of normal. The country’s West has for years been learning to live with wildfires, with California, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico among the states facing some of the worst of the conflagrations.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
…

After a series of renewed talks between the U.S. and China leading up to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expected visit to Beijing in coming weeks, experts said the two rivals need to come up with a plan to avoid conflict.

The talks had been stalled since February over a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying across the U.S.

The two countries agreed to “open lines of communications,” said a statement released after Dan Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, held talks with his Chinese counterparts on Monday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday that the two countries held talks “on improving bilateral relations and managing differences.”

The talks followed CIA Director William Burns’ apparent secret trip to Beijing in May, first reported by the Financial Times on June 2, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Vienna on May 10-11.

“The United States and China are moving slowly and cautiously to restore normal dialogue channels between them with the goal being able to establish so-called ‘guardrails’ to prevent bilateral relations from careening off track and leading to confrontation,” said Evans Revere, who served as acting assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the George W. Bush administration.

“It’s extremely important for Washington and Beijing to find a way to manage bilateral relations in a way that prevents misunderstanding, misperception and strategic competition from leading to conflict,” he told VOA via email.

The two nations are at odds over a range of issues, each seeing the other’s demands as attempts to undermine its national interests.

Washington has been vocal about China’s disregard for the rule of law, human rights and fair-trade practices. The U.S. has especially been keen on defending the right of passage in the Taiwan Strait against growing Chinese aggression.

Beijing says it has been respecting international law and accuses the U.S. of using the rule of law to undermine its sovereignty and advocating for human rights as a way to interfere in its domestic affairs. China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its own and takes Washington’s military presence in the region as a provocation.

Standing their ground

Hal Brands, professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said neither of them wants their differences to drive them toward conflict, but both are unwilling to relent.

“Both sides have reasons to keep the competition within bounds,” said Brands. “Neither side really wants a war, for instance. But neither side is willing to retreat on issues it cares most about.”

He added, “There is virtually no [chance] of a substantive improvement in U.S.-China relations in the coming year or so because differences on the key issues driving the competition – technology, Taiwan, trade, the balance of power in the Western Pacific and beyond – are nowhere near a resolution.”

Despite renewed talks between diplomatic and intelligence officials, military talks have not resumed, even as the two nations’ defense chiefs believe conflict would be catastrophic.

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu said at the Shangri-La security forum in Singapore on Sunday that “a severe conflict or confrontation between China and the U.S. will be an unbearable disaster” and proposed “seeking common ground.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, while also stressing that “conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating,” told the forum a day earlier that he was “deeply concerned” that China has been “unwilling to engage” in talks “for crisis management between our two militaries.”

While the top military chiefs were at the Shangri-La forum on Saturday, a Chinese navy ship made an “unsafe” move on a U.S. destroyer navigating the Taiwan Strait with a Canadian frigate to demonstrate their right to navigate, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said on Monday.

Differences over fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law have prevented the two countries from seeing eye to eye, according to experts.

“The ideological and value gap between Beijing and Washington is large and growing,” said Revere via email. “Under [President] Xi Jinping, China has taken an historic turn toward authoritarianism, illiberalism and strict centralization under Communist Party control.”

He added, “At the same time, China’s unprecedented military buildup and desire to become the dominant actor in the Western Pacific is clashing with the United States’ long-term role as the major power in the region.”

Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former deputy national security adviser at the White House National Security Council, said via email, “The two sides have fundamentally different views that aren’t easily bridged.”

“Both the United States and China are pessimistic about the likelihood of making progress bilaterally but feel that it is necessary to show third parties that they are trying.”
…

China and Cuba have reached a secret pact allowing Beijing to build an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island that is 160 kilometers from the United States, U.S. news outlets reported Thursday.

A senior White House official described the reports as “not accurate” without specifying what in the reports they took issue with.

According to the reports, which first appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the spy facility would allow China to collect electronic communications from throughout the southeastern U.S., where numerous military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic.

Asked about the report, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told Reuters: “We are not aware of the case and as a result we can’t give a comment right now.”

U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the project were quoted anonymously as saying that China has agreed to pay financially hard-pressed Cuba several billion dollars for the right to construct the facility, although it is not known when the project might be operational.

The prospective facility has alarmed the administration of President Joe Biden because of its proximity to the United States, the reports said. The White House and many lawmakers in Congress consider China to be the U.S.’s chief economic and military rival. The U.S. is the world’s biggest economy and China second.

Earlier this year, the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean, but not before it traversed the breadth of the United States and flew over numerous military bases. Last weekend, a Chinese warship abruptly sailed across the bow of a U.S. destroyer as it passed through international waters in the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. said the incident forced the American ship to slow down to avoid a collision.

A Defense Department official said the U.S. would not comment directly on the reports of a planned Chinese facility in Cuba.

“On a broader level, we are very aware of [China’s] attempts to invest in infrastructure around the world that may have military purposes, including in the Western Hemisphere,” the official said. “We will continue to monitor it closely and remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home and across the region.”

U.S. officials believe the Chinese facility in Cuba would allow Beijing to conduct signals intelligence, which could include monitoring a range of communications, including emails, phone calls and satellite transmissions, the news accounts said.

Republican opponents of Biden were quick to attack the administration about the Chinese venture into the Western Hemisphere although it was unclear what, if anything, the U.S. could do to stop it.

“Joe Biden needs to wake up to the real Chinese threats on our doorstep,” Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and a current Republican presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the closest U.S. state to Cuba, said on Twitter, “The threat to America from Cuba isn’t just real, it is far worse than this.”
…

In the Pacific Northwest, one of America’s biggest community garden projects is celebrating its 50th anniversary. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya gives us a look.
…

The Washington Post reports the U.S. government is suspending food aid to Ethiopia after an investigation uncovered a scheme to divert the food from the poor to the Ethiopian military.

The Post quoted a statement from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) which said: “After a country-wide review, USAID determined, in coordination with the Government of Ethiopia, that a widespread and coordinated campaign is diverting food assistance. We cannot move forward with distribution of food assistance until reforms are in place.”

The reported suspension could affect millions of Ethiopians who depend on food aid amid recurring droughts, high inflation and the aftermath of a war in the northern Tigray region.

The Post says the Ethiopian government spokesman, prime minister’s spokeswoman and National Disaster Risk Management Commission did not respond to requests for comment.

The report, based on USAID statements and documents, says the investigation by found that elements within the Ethiopian government were involved with the scheme.

It said that Ethiopian officials have been stealing donated food in order to feed soldiers and ex-combatants. It said officials have also sold flour on the open market to millers who re-exported it.

“Extensive monitoring indicates this diversion of donor-funded food assistance is a coordinated and criminal scheme, which has prevented life-saving assistance from reaching the most vulnerable,” reported The Post, quoting a USAID document prepared for donors. “The scheme appears to be orchestrated by federal and regional Government of Ethiopia [GoE] entities, with military units across the country benefiting from humanitarian assistance.”

The document said USAID investigators visited 63 flour mills in seven of Ethiopia’s nine regions and found “significant diversion” across all seven regions. Food from the United States, Ukraine, Japan and France donated to the United Nations World Food Program has been stolen, the report said.

It called on all donors who sent food aid to check how it is being used.
…

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced Thursday that the U.S. is investing more than $100 million in the Caribbean region to crack down on weapons trafficking, help alleviate Haiti’s humanitarian crisis and support climate change initiatives.

The announcement was made ahead of an official trip to the Bahamas for a meeting of Caribbean and U.S. leaders hosted by Harris and Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis.

As part of the initiatives, the U.S. Justice Department expects to appoint a coordinator to oversee cases involving illegal weapons smuggling in the Caribbean as island nations report a rise in violent crimes. In addition, the State Department vowed to help improve forensic work in the region, help strengthen local police departments and support a unit based in Trinidad and Tobago aimed at helping islands solve gun-related cases and provide training for the collection and analysis of related intelligence.

The U.S., with help from the U.K., also will establish a program in the eastern Caribbean to mentor local judges and prosecutors in a bid to improve prosecutions of gun-related crimes as island nations struggle with a backlog of cases.

The State Department also expects to work with Haiti’s National Police, a severely underfunded and understaffed agency struggling to quell a surge in gang violence, to help investigate and prosecute crimes with U.S. ties that involve gangs, weapons smuggling and human trafficking.

That initiative is considered key given that gangs are estimated to control up to 80% of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince as killings and kidnappings soar across the metropolitan area and beyond.

Harris announced that the U.S. Agency for International Development will invest nearly $54 million in Haiti to help fight a sharp rise in starvation and provide access to potable water and healthcare. Almost half of Haiti’s more than 11 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and 19,000 are in catastrophic famine conditions.

Another $10.5 million will go toward supporting Haiti’s agricultural sector as poverty deepens.

USAID also expects to invest $20 million to help Caribbean businesses that use technologies related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Another nearly $15 million will be used to boost emergency response and preparedness across the region.

Additional funds will help low-lying island nations whose economies largely depend on tourism prepare and adapt to climate change.

 
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that when it comes to defeating the Islamic State militant group, the “fight is not yet done.”

Speaking in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at the start of a ministerial meeting of the 80-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Blinken said the group has achieved territorial defeat of the group in Iraq and Syria, taken out its leaders and prevent large-scale attacks.

But Blinken highlighted several areas of focus to achieve what he called the “enduring end” of the Islamic State group.

He announced a goal for commitments of $600 million to help with programs in Iraq and Syria to address areas that militants exploit to recruit fighters, including funding for social services and ensuring accountability for crimes.

Blinken also discussed repatriations from the region, saying it is particularly important for countries to take back their nationals who traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight with the Islamic State group and are now in detention centers. Not doing so, he said, risked those fighters one day being freed and returning to militant activities.

He also said civilians, especially children, need to be taken back to their home countries in order to have hope and opportunities.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, told the meeting that while it is admirable that many countries, including smaller nations, have stepped forward and carried out repatriations, a number of wealthy countries he did not name have not done so. He called that lack of action “unacceptable” and said that being part of a coalition means “you must take your responsibility.”

Blinken also discussed the threat of Islamic State affiliates, including those in the Sahel region in Africa and in Afghanistan. He said there is a need to keep up with evolving threats and to also remain vigilant and ensure that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorists.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Beijing in coming weeks, rescheduling a trip canceled in February amid tensions that included a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States.

Officials speaking on condition of anonymity discussed the updated plans with reporters but did not give information on the exact timing of the expected trip to China.

The Financial Times reported the visit could come this month.

When asked about the issue Monday, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at a briefing there was no public update on Blinken traveling to China but that the United States looks forward to rescheduling that visit “when conditions allow.”

The State Department’s top official for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, and the National Security Council’s senior director for China, Sarah Beran, were in China earlier this week for what Patel described as “candid and productive discussions” with Chinese officials.

‘Candid, constructive and fruitful’

China’s foreign ministry called those talks “candid, constructive and fruitful communication on promoting the improvement of China-U.S. relations and properly managing differences.”

Patel highlighted the need for U.S. and Chinese officials to meet in person, whether in Beijing or Washington, saying there is no substitute for those engagements “to carry forward our discussion.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed the need for major powers to have open lines of communication last week ahead of a security conference in Singapore. His Chinese counterpart, General Li Shangfu, declined to meet with Austin on the sidelines of the conference, and while the two did shake hands at the forum, Austin said that was “no substitute for a substantive engagement.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Most transplanted hearts are from donors who are brain dead, but new research shows a different approach can be just as successful and boost the number of available organs.

It’s called donation after circulatory death, a method long used to recover kidneys and other organs but not more fragile hearts. Duke Health researchers said Wednesday that using those long-shunned hearts could allow possibly thousands more patients a chance at a lifesaving transplant — expanding the number of donor hearts by 30%.

“Honestly if we could snap our fingers and just get people to use this, I think it probably would go up even more than that,” said transplant surgeon Dr. Jacob Schroder of Duke University School of Medicine, who led the research. “This really should be standard of care.”

The usual method of organ donation occurs when doctors, through careful testing, determine someone has no brain function after a catastrophic injury — meaning they’re brain dead. The body is left on a ventilator that keeps the heart beating and organs oxygenated until they’re recovered and put on ice.

In contrast, donation after circulatory death occurs when someone has a nonsurvivable brain injury but, because all brain function hasn’t yet ceased, the family decides to withdraw life support and the heart stops. That means organs go without oxygen for a while before they can be recovered — and surgeons, worried the heart would be damaged, left it behind.

What’s changed: Now doctors can remove those hearts and put them in a machine that “reanimates” them, pumping through blood and nutrients as they’re transported –- and demonstrating if they work OK before the planned transplant.

Wednesday’s study, conducted at multiple hospitals around the country, involved 180 transplant recipients, half who received DCD hearts and half given hearts from brain-dead donors that were transported on ice.

Survival six months later was about the same –- 94% for the recipients of cardiac-death donations and 90% for those who got the usual hearts, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The findings are exciting and show “the potential to increase fairness and equity in heart transplantation, allowing more persons with heart failure to have access to this lifesaving therapy,” transplant cardiologist Dr. Nancy Sweitzer of Washington University in St. Louis, who wasn’t involved with the study, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

Last year, 4,111 heart transplants were performed in the U.S., a record number but not nearly enough to meet the need. Hundreds of thousands of people suffer from advanced heart failure but many are never offered a transplant and still others die waiting for one.

Researchers in Australia and the U.K. first began trying DCD heart transplants about seven years ago. Duke pioneered the U.S. experiments in late 2019, one of about 20 U.S. hospitals now offering this method. Last year, there were 345 such heart transplants in the U.S., and 227 so far this year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

In the Duke-led study, nearly 90% of the DCD hearts recovered wound up being transplanted, signaling that it’s worthwhile for more hospitals to start using the newer method.

Sweitzer noted that many would-be donors have severe brain injuries but don’t meet the criteria for brain death, meaning a lot of potentially usable hearts never get donated. But she also cautioned that there’s still more to learn, noting that the very sickest patients on the waiting list were less likely to receive DCD hearts in the study.

Schroder said most who received DCD hearts already had implanted heart pumps that made the transplant more difficult to perform, even if they weren’t ranked as high on the waiting list.

The study was funded by TransMedics, which makes the heart storage system.
…

Federal prosecutors have notified former U.S. President Donald Trump’s attorneys that he is the target of an investigation into his handling of classified materials, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, adding to his legal troubles as he campaigns for the White House in 2024. 

The Justice Department typically notifies people when they become targets of an investigation to give them an opportunity to present their own evidence before a grand jury. The notification does not necessarily mean Trump will be charged.  

News of the notification to Trump’s legal team surfaced just two days after his attorneys met with Justice Department officials to discuss the case.  

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s attorneys in the documents case could not be reached for comment. 

Trump’s legal team was notified on Monday, the person said. Although there are some signs that the documents investigation is coming to a close, the timing of when a person is told they are a target cannot necessarily be used as a predictor of when charges might be brought, said David Schoen, an attorney who represented Trump ally Steve Bannon during his criminal trial on contempt of Congress charges. 

“Sometimes they are issued at the beginning of a long investigation and sometimes at the conclusion of an investigation,” he said. 

Trump, the front-runner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has repeatedly described the multiple investigations as politically motivated.  

A federal grand jury has been investigating Trump’s retention of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021. 

A second criminal investigation is looking into alleged efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

A spokesperson for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the probes, declined to comment. 

Thousands of documents 

Investigators in August 2022 seized roughly 13,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. One hundred of these were marked as classified, even though one of Trump’s lawyers had previously said that all records with classified markings had been returned.  

Trump has defended his retention of documents, suggesting that he declassified them while he was president. However, Trump has not provided evidence of this, and his attorneys have not made that argument in court filings. 

Trump handed over 15 boxes of records in January 2022, a year after leaving office, but federal officials came to believe he had not returned all the documents.  

The Justice Department issued Trump a grand jury subpoena in May 2022 asking him to return any other records bearing classified markings, and top officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the materials. 

Trump’s attorneys turned over 38 pages marked as classified to FBI and Justice Department officials and showed them a storage room at Mar-a-Lago but did not permit the agents to open any of the boxes. 

One of Trump’s lawyers also signed a document attesting that all records with classified markings had been returned to the government, a claim later proven false after the FBI searched his home.  

Trump’s legal woes are growing.  

A jury in federal court in Manhattan in May decided in a civil lawsuit that Trump must pay $5 million in damages for sexually abusing former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll and then defaming her by branding her a liar. 

Trump also faces a criminal investigation by a county prosecutor in Georgia relating to his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss in that state. 

Trump’s legal woes are growing.  
…

Lionel Messi on Wednesday announced that he intends to join Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami as a free agent after parting ways with French champions Paris Saint-Germain and snubbing a lucrative contract offer in Saudi Arabia.

Messi, who played his final game for PSG over the weekend, was also linked with a return to Barcelona, but the Spanish club have had their hands tied due to LaLiga’s financial fair play rules.

“I made the decision that I’m going to go to Miami,” Messi said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo and Sport newspapers.

“I still haven’t closed it 100%. I’m still missing a few things, but we decided to go ahead. If Barcelona didn’t work out, I wanted to leave Europe, get out of the spotlight and think more about my family.”

Messi, who led Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in December and has earned a record seven Ballon d’Or awards, won the Ligue 1 title in his two seasons with PSG, as well as the French Super Cup in 2022.

“After winning the World Cup and not being able to go to Barca, it was time to go to the U.S. league to experience football in a different way and enjoy the day-to-day,” Messi said.

“Obviously with the same responsibility and desire to want to win and to always do things well. But with more peace of mind.”

Ownership stake

The MLS said it was pleased that Messi intends to join Inter Miami this summer.

Messi had wanted to go to a club where he could eventually have an ownership stake, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters this week. He also wanted to maximize his existing deal with Adidas and MLS’s relationship with Apple.

MLS earns a flat fee of around $250 million per year from Apple until it reaches a certain threshold of subscriptions, after which point it will earn a share of the revenue from those subscriptions.

Messi’s move to MLS is expected to drive viewers to the Apple TV streaming platform, as the world’s most recognizable soccer player.

The forward was also linked with a move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad after he received a formal offer.

The Gulf country has been looking to bring the game’s biggest players to its league and was successful in persuading Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo to join Al Nassr soon after the World Cup. French striker Karim Benzema joined Al Ittihad this week.

Inter Miami is co-owned by former England captain David Beckham, who was one of the first major European stars to move to the United States to play in the MLS, winning the MLS Cup twice with the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Messi will have his work cut out in Miami, however, with the club rock bottom of the Eastern Conference standings — six points from ninth place, the final spot which would give them a chance of qualifying for the playoffs.

The team sacked coach Phil Neville last week after a dismal run of 10 defeats and five wins this season, a stark contrast to last season when they finished sixth and qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs.
…

In a surprise announcement this week, the PGA Tour, golf’s long-established premier professional league, announced that it would merge with LIV Golf, an upstart league founded by the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which was founded in 2021 and began hosting tournaments only last year.

The announcement, unexpected by most people associated with the sport, was particularly surprising because the relationship between the two leagues had seemed overtly hostile since LIV began spending money lavishly to lure top golfers away from the PGA.

“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement released by his league.

“Today is a very exciting day for this special game and the people it touches around the world,” PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan said in the same document. “We are proud to partner with the PGA Tour to leverage PIF’s unparalleled success and track record of unlocking value and bringing innovation and global best practices to business and sectors worldwide.”

Major change

The pleasantries that marked the announcement were a marked departure from the way the PGA’s leadership was talking about LIV only last year. As LIV began competing with the PGA for talent, Monahan and others repeatedly cited the Saudi government’s poor human rights record, in an apparent attempt to shame golfers into remaining in the fold.

In a widely cited television interview last June, Monahan asked wavering PGA golfers to ask themselves, “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

John A. Fortunato, a professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business and author of the book Making the Cut: Life Inside the PGA Tour System, told VOA he was surprised by the PGA’s change in tone.

“My first impression was complete shock,” Fortunato said. “I didn’t see it coming. I just thought there was such antagonism between the two and that because of the association with the Saudis, the PGA would never merge with that group.”

Activist groups that oppose the Saudi regime, including 9/11 Families United, which blames the Saudi government for its ties to the 9/11 terror attacks, were angered by the announcement.

Terry Strada, who chairs the group, said in a statement, “PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sportswashing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation. But now the PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation.”

Tough competitor

LIV Golf first appeared on the scene in 2021 with a handful of big-name supporters, including Australian golf legend Greg Norman as its CEO, and a whole lot of money. As the league’s debut neared in 2022, it began spreading some of that money around.

LIV reportedly dangled signing bonuses in the tens of millions of dollars in a successful bid to entice several well-known players to join its ranks, attracting notable figures including American Dustin Johnson and Spaniard Sergio Garcia.

LIV also promised eye-popping purses for tournament winners, often several times the value of those offered at comparable PGA Tour events. In its inaugural tournament last year, winner Carl Schwartzel earned $4 million. At the same event, Schwarzel was a member of the team that won a group competition and split another $3 million.

That same weekend on the PGA Tour, Rory McIlroy won the prestigious RBC Canadian Open and took home a relatively modest $1.5 million.

Rethinking golf

The wealth of its prize money was not the only way in which LIV tried to differentiate itself from the PGA Tour. The Saudi-backed league marketed itself as a modernized version of the game, with events marked by raucous music, a relaxed dress code and new playing formats, including a team-based competition.

The league’s name comes from the Roman numerals that make up the number 54 — a reference to the number of holes played in the league’s tournaments, which consist of three rounds of 18 holes each. By contrast, PGA Tour events last for four rounds and 72 holes, though many of the lowest-performing participants are eliminated, or “cut,” at the halfway point.

After its initial tournament in 2022, the PGA announced that any of its members who had participated would be suspended and blocked from playing in future PGA-sponsored events.

However, as the year went on, a steady stream of players began migrating to the new league. And because the PGA does not sponsor some of the sport’s most significant tournaments, including the Masters Tournament and the U.S. Open, LIV players were not barred from them, and several finished in the top ranks.

This May, after LIV player Brooks Koepka won the PGA Championship — which is sponsored by the Professional Golfers’ Association of America, not the PGA Tour — many connected to the sport began to wonder if it would remain financially viable for the PGA Tour to continue suspending players of his caliber.

Work to be done

The answer, which became clear on Tuesday, was that it would not.

The leaders of the PGA Tour had swallowed their concerns about being associated with Saudi Arabia and agreed to a merger. The deal will leave the PGA Tour’s Monahan as CEO of the as-yet-unnamed new entity, with PIF’s Al-Rumayyan as chairman of the board.

Even with the deal signed, there appears to be a significant amount of work to be done to repair the damage the yearlong schism has inflicted on the sport.

Many players who remained loyal to the PGA Tour declined tens of millions of dollars each in signing bonuses offered by LIV, as well as the opportunity to play in its big-money tournaments. LIV CEO Norman last year told The Washington Post that Tiger Woods, tied for first in total career PGA Tour victories, turned down a sum that was “mind-blowingly enormous; we’re talking about high nine digits.”

For those players, having their loyalty rewarded with a surprise merger that invites LIV golfers back into PGA Tour events will likely be a bitter pill, and one that could threaten a successful reintegration.

Fortunato of Fordham told VOA he expects that LIV golfers will face some sort of penalty, most likely a fine. But he said that won’t make up for the fact that many of them earned windfall profits from their brief association with the league — money that other golfers consciously decided to forego.

“I want to see what they do for Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, who stuck with [the PGA] through all of this,” Fortunato said. “Do they do something further for those guys? It would have to be substantial. We’re talking about millions of dollars.”
…

Parents of children at a Los Angeles elementary school protested a book that discusses families that include LGBTQ parents. They also protested a Pride Month gathering at the school. But counterprotesters joined in the demonstrations, too. Angelina Bagdasaryan reports, with Anna Rice narrating. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian .
…

Nigerian immigrant Yemi Mobolade is the new mayor of Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in the western U.S. state of Colorado. VOA’s Haruna Shehu has this story from his inauguration. Video editing by Kim Dickens and Jon Spier.
…