After a student in his classroom had yet another outburst, Tyler Wright couldn’t bear to see him get written up again. Wright, then a student teacher at a Charleston elementary school, led the child out to the hallway for a chat.

Within minutes, the student started crying.

“He was telling me that he really doesn’t get to see his dad and stuff like that,” Wright said. “That his dad was supposed to come see him but never did. At the end of the day, that was the root cause for the outbursts, because the child was angry.”

Wright told him that he grew up in a similar situation, but he still paid attention the best he could, despite what was going on at home. The conversation was all it took, Wright said, for the student to open up and improve his behavior.

Wright became a full-time teacher at Stono Park Elementary in January, thanks to a program in Charleston aimed at making the teaching profession more accessible to Black men, who are vastly underrepresented in classrooms in South Carolina and around the United States.

Just 7% of America’s public school teachers were Black during the 2017-18 school year although Black students make up 15% of the student population, according to the most recent available data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Their absence in classrooms is deeply felt, especially in states like South Carolina, where almost a fifth of students are Black and Black males account for less than 3% of teachers.

Having teachers who reflect the identity of their students can foster connections between teachers and students — and help avoid the kind of misinterpretation of behavior that can contribute to disparities in discipline for Black students, experts say. Research shows that Black teachers can lead to improved academic performance and higher graduation rates for Black students.

At a time of teacher shortages in South Carolina and around the country, the presence of Black teachers also can make it more likely for Black students to pursue careers in education themselves.

“The issue starts fairly young,” said Eric Duncan, a member of the policy team at the Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “They get negative impressions of school because they are traditionally overdisciplined or misidentified in terms of behavior challenges, when they may have some other issues or challenges that should be addressed in a more culturally proficient way.”

There are other barriers to the teaching for Black men. Many come from low-income families and face pressure to find higher-paying jobs, and there are license requirements that were deliberately created to prevent people of color from becoming teachers, Duncan said.

The program in Charleston, Men of CHS Teach, is a partnership between the University of South Carolina and the Charleston County School District. It places new teachers in elementary classrooms even if they haven’t participated in a student teacher program and creates an alternative pathway for them to get teaching licenses.

CCSD decided to focus on recruiting elementary teachers because it’s typically difficult to fill those positions with men, and research shows that if Black students have a teacher of color in elementary school, they’re less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to consider college. For Black boys of low-income backgrounds, those effects are even greater.

Program organizers hope to hire 20 male teachers of color within the next five years. Close to half of the district’s student population is non-white.

Wright was one of the program’s first inductees. He decided he wanted to teach after working as a student concerns specialist at one of the district’s high schools. A few years later, Wright is leading a classroom of his own.

The South Carolina districts that have seen the greatest increase in Black male teachers in recent years are Charleston, York 3, Richland 1 and Aiken, with a net total of almost 80 new hires from 2017 to 2021. However, they still have a small share of Black male teachers overall.

Statewide, the racial demographics of teachers barely changed between 2016 and 2021, according to an analysis of state teacher workforce data.

The program in Charleston was partially inspired by Call Me MiSTER, a Clemson University program that aims to recruit, train and certify men of color to become elementary school teachers in South Carolina.

Mark Joseph, the program’s director, said they’ve seen a decrease in applicants in recent years and have had to put more effort into recruitment. It’s a new era of teaching after the pandemic, Joseph said, and the program has had to adapt.

“We took a different approach in terms of talking about leadership, talking about college, talking about what it’s like being a part of a program that provides support, encouragement, brotherhood and teamwork,” he said.

One realization, he said, has been that teachers are ambassadors for the teaching profession.

After all, the teachers they’re looking to recruit aren’t coming out of thin air — they’re sitting in classrooms across South Carolina.
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The Biden administration has banned approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies HWT.UL and ZTE 000063.SZ because they pose “an unacceptable risk” to U.S. national security.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said Friday it had adopted the final rules, which also bar the sale or import of equipment made by China’s surveillance equipment maker Dahua Technology Co 002236.SZ, video surveillance firm Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd 002415.SZ and telecoms firm Hytera Communications Corp Ltd 002583.SZ.

The move represents Washington’s latest crackdown on the Chinese tech giants amid fears that Beijing could use Chinese tech companies to spy on Americans.

“These new rules are an important part of our ongoing actions to protect the American people from national security threats involving telecommunications,” FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.

Huawei declined to comment. ZTE, Dahua, Hikvision and Hytera did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rosenworcel circulated the proposed measure — which effectively bars the firms from selling new equipment in the United States — to the other three commissioners for final approval last month.

The FCC said in June 2021 it was considering banning all equipment authorizations for all companies on the covered list.

That came after a March 2021 designation of five Chinese companies on the so-called “covered list” as posing a threat to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting U.S. communications networks: Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications Corp Hikvision and Dahua.

All four commissioners at the agency, including two Republicans and two Democrats, supported Friday’s move.
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NASA’s Orion capsule entered an orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles around the moon Friday, as it neared the halfway mark of its test flight.

The capsule and its three test dummies entered lunar orbit more than a week after launching on the $4 billion demo that’s meant to pave the way for astronauts. It will remain in this broad but stable orbit for nearly a week, completing just half a lap before heading home.

As of Friday’s engine firing, the capsule was 380,000 kilometers from Earth. It’s expected to reach a maximum distance of almost 432,000 kilometers in a few days. That will set a new distance record for a capsule designed to carry people one day.

“It is a statistic, but it’s symbolic for what it represents,” Jim Geffre, an Orion manager, said in a NASA interview earlier in the week. “It’s about challenging ourselves to go farther, stay longer and push beyond the limits of what we’ve previously explored.”

NASA considers this a dress rehearsal for the next moon flyby in 2024, with astronauts. A lunar landing by astronauts could follow as soon as 2025. Astronauts last visited the moon 50 years ago during Apollo 17.

Earlier in the week, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with the capsule for nearly an hour. At the time, controllers were adjusting the communication link between Orion and the Deep Space Network. Officials said the spacecraft remained healthy.
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Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. 

Russia’s war in Ukraine passes 9-month milestone

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Russia would not break his country, as nine months have passed since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion. This week has been particularly bad, as Russia launched scores of missile attacks aimed at taking out the country’s power grid with winter temperatures dropping below freezing. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which he addressed by video. He urged the council to take “concrete steps to protect humanity and life” by adopting a resolution condemning any forms of “energy terror.”

He also repeated his call for U.N. experts to examine and assess critical infrastructure facilities in his country that have been or may be hit by Russian missiles. “Russia is doing everything to make the electric generator a more powerful and necessary tool than the U.N. Charter,” he said.

Human Rights Council orders investigation into crackdown on Iranian protesters

In a special session on Thursday, the Geneva-based Human Rights Council condemned Iran’s repression of peaceful demonstrators following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in mid-September and voted to create an international fact-finding mission to investigate the deadly crackdown. The 47-country council voted 25 in favor and 6 against — Armenia, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Pakistan and Venezuela — with 16 abstentions. The U.N. rights office says more than 300 protesters, including at least 40 children, have been killed by security forces since the protests began two months ago. At least 14,000 protesters have been arrested and at least 21 of them face the death penalty.

Security Council urges Yemen’s Houthis to extend truce

Security Council members on Tuesday urged Yemen’s Houthi rebels to renew a truce that expired in October and to engage in substantive talks to end the more than eight-year-old conflict. A two-month-long truce was originally agreed to on April 2 for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It led to a drop in civilian casualties and some relief in importing fuel and resuming commercial flights. The parties renewed it twice, but it expired on October 2 and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have not agreed to extend it.

In brief 

— The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that more than 50,000 people worldwide have lost their lives during migratory journeys since IOM’s Missing Migrants Project began documenting deaths in 2014. IOM noted the lack of action by governments in countries of origin, transit and destination to address the issue of missing migrants. More than 60% of missing migrants remain unidentified, according to the report. Of those whose nationality could be identified, more than 9,000 were from Africa, over 6,500 were from Asia and another 3,000 were from the Americas. More than half of the deaths occurred on routes to and inside Europe, with Mediterranean routes claiming over 25,000 lives.

— Several U.N. human rights experts said Friday that the Afghan Taliban’s treatment of women and girls may amount to gender persecution, a crime against humanity. Despite pledges to the contrary, the Taliban has increasingly tightened restrictions on females since taking power in August 2021. The de facto authorities have reimposed dress codes, prohibited most women from working outside the home, cut them off from secondary education and, most recently, forbidden them from going to parks and gyms. The U.N. experts, which include several special rapporteurs, said confining women to their homes is ‘tantamount to imprisonment” and is likely leading to more domestic violence and mental health challenges.

— U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Monday that Washington would seek international condemnation of North Korea’s November 18 intercontinental ballistic missile test. The test was Pyongyang’s eighth ICBM launch this year and part of a record 63 ballistic missile launches in 2022. At the U.N. Security Council, Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. would propose a presidential statement – one step below a council resolution. But such a statement requires all 15 members to agree, and Russia and China signaled they would block such a measure. To date, no statement has been adopted.

— The U.N. said Wednesday that the U.N. coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Amir Abdulla, is stepping down from his position for personal reasons. The secretary-general expressed his gratitude for Abdulla’s work. His deputy, Ben Parker, will act as officer in charge for the U.N. at the joint coordination center in Istanbul until the position is filled. Since the initiative was signed in late July, nearly 12 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain and other foodstuffs have been exported from three Ukrainian ports.

— U.N. Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer said on November 19 that she was encouraged by the announcement of the mass release of detainees in Myanmar. She repeated calls for the immediate release of all children and political prisoners, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The country’s military junta said it would release nearly 5,800 prisoners to mark national day on November 17.

Quote of Note

“The old methods and the fortress mentality of those who wield power simply don’t work. In fact, they only aggravate the situation. We are now in a full-fledged human rights crisis.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk at Thursday’s special session on the Iranian government’s crackdown on protesters.

What we are watching next week

Friday marks the International Day for the Elimination for Violence against Women and the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. Secretary-General Guterres is calling on governments to increase funding to women’s rights groups and organizations.

 
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Elon Musk said Friday that Twitter plans to relaunch its premium service that will offer different colored check marks to accounts next week, in a fresh move to revamp the service after a previous attempt backfired.

It’s the latest change to the social media platform that the billionaire Tesla CEO bought last month for $44 billion, coming a day after Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts and causing yet more uncertainty for users.

Twitter previously suspended the premium service, which under Musk granted blue-check labels to anyone paying $8 a month, because of a wave of imposter accounts. Originally, the blue check was given to government entities, corporations, celebrities and journalists verified by the platform to prevent impersonation.

In the latest version, companies will get a gold check, governments will get a gray check, and individuals who pay for the service, whether or not they’re celebrities, will get a blue check, Musk said Friday.

“All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates,” he said, adding it was “painful, but necessary” and promising a “longer explanation” next week. He said the service was “tentatively launching” Dec. 2.

Twitter had put the revamped premium service on hold days after its launch earlier this month after accounts impersonated companies including pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, and even Musk’s own businesses Tesla and SpaceX, along with various professional sports and political figures.

It was just one change in the past two days. On Thursday, Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts, following the results of an online poll he conducted on whether accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam” should be reinstated.

The yes vote was 72%. Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots. Musk also used one before restoring former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account.

“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted Thursday using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

The move is likely to put the company on a crash course with European regulators seeking to clamp down on harmful online content with tough new rules, which helped cement Europe’s reputation as the global leader in efforts to rein in the power of social media companies and other digital platforms.

Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think tank, said giving blanket amnesty based on an online poll is an “arbitrary approach” that’s “hard to reconcile with the Digital Services Act,” a new EU law that will start applying to the biggest online platforms by mid-2023.

The law is aimed at protecting internet users from illegal content and reducing the spread of harmful but legal content. It requires big social media platforms to be “diligent and objective” in enforcing restrictions, which must be spelled out clearly in the fine print for users when signing up, Meyers said.

Britain also is working on its own online safety law.

“Unless Musk quickly moves from a ‘move fast and break things’ approach to a more sober management style, he will be on a collision course with Brussels and London regulators,” Meyers said.

European Union officials took to social media to highlight their worries. The 27-nation bloc’s executive Commission published a report Thursday that found Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021.

The report was based on data collected over the spring — before Musk acquired Twitter — as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the bloc’s voluntary code of conduct on disinformation. It found that Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.

The numbers may yet worsen. Since taking over, Musk has l aid off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce along with an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Many others have resigned, including the company’s head of trust and safety.

Recent layoffs at Twitter and results of the EU’s review “are a source of concern,” the bloc’s commissioner for justice, Didier Reynders tweeted Thursday evening after meeting with Twitter executives at the company’s European headquarters in Dublin.

In the meeting, Reynders said he “underlined that we expect Twitter to deliver on their voluntary commitments and comply with EU rules,” including the Digital Services Act and the bloc’s strict privacy regulations known as General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.

Another EU commissioner, Vera Jourova, tweeted Thursday evening that she was concerned about news reports that a “vast amount” of Twitter’s European staff were fired.

“If you want to effectively detect and take action against #disinformation & propaganda, this requires resources,” Jourova said. “Especially in the context of Russian disinformation warfare.”
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A year after omicron began its assault on humanity, the ever-morphing coronavirus mutant drove COVID-19 case counts higher in many places just as Americans gathered for Thanksgiving. It was a prelude to a wave that experts expect to soon wash over the U.S.

Phoenix-area emergency physician Dr. Nicholas Vasquez said his hospital admitted a growing number of chronically ill people and nursing home residents with severe COVID-19 this month.

“It’s been quite a while since we needed to have COVID wards,” he said. “It’s making a clear comeback.”

Nationally, new COVID cases averaged around 39,300 a day as of Tuesday — far lower than last winter but a vast undercount because of reduced testing and reporting. About 28,000 people with COVID were hospitalized daily and about 340 died.

Cases and deaths were up from two weeks earlier. Yet a fifth of the U.S. population hasn’t been vaccinated, most Americans haven’t gotten the latest boosters and many have stopped wearing masks.

Meanwhile, the virus keeps finding ways to avoid defeat.

The omicron variant arrived in the U.S. just after Thanksgiving last year and caused the pandemic’s biggest wave of cases. Since then, it has spawned a large extended family of sub-variants, such as those most common in the U.S. now: BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BA.5. They edged out competitors by getting better at evading immunity from vaccines and previous illness — and sickening millions.

Carey Johnson’s family got hit twice. She came down with COVID-19 in January during the first omicron wave, suffering flu-like symptoms and terrible pain that kept her down for a week. Her son Fabian Swain, 16, suffered much milder symptoms in September when the BA.5 variant was dominant.

Fabian recovered quickly, but Johnson had a headache for weeks. Other problems lingered longer.

“I was like, ‘I cannot get it together.’ I could not get my thoughts together. I couldn’t get my energy together” said Johnson, 42, of Germantown, Maryland. “And it went on for months like that.”

Hot spots emerge

Some communities are being particularly hard hit right now. Tracking by the Mayo Clinic shows cases trending up in states such as Florida, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

In Arizona’s Navajo County, the average daily case rate is more than double the state average. Dr. James McAuley said 25 to 50 people a day are testing positive for the coronavirus at the Indian Health Service facility where he works. Before, they saw just a few cases daily.

McAuley, clinical director of the Whiteriver Indian Hospital, which serves the White Mountain Apache Tribe, said they are “essentially back to where we were with our last big peak” in February.

COVID-19 is part of a triple threat that also includes flu and the virus known as RSV.

Dr. Vincent Hsu, who oversees infection control for AdventHealth, said the system’s pediatric hospital in Orlando is nearly full with kids sickened by these viruses. Dr. Greg Martin, past president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, sees a similar trend elsewhere.

Pediatric hospitals’ emergency departments and urgent care clinics are busier than ever, said Martin, who practices mostly at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. “This is a record compared to any month, any week, any day in the past,” he said.

Looking to the future, experts see the seeds of a widespread U.S. wave. They point to what’s happening internationally — a BA.5 surge in Japan, a combination of variants pushing up cases in South Korea, the start of a new wave in Norway.

Some experts said a U.S. wave could begin during the holidays as people gather indoors. Trevor Bedford, a biologist and genetics expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said it could peak at around 150,000 new cases a day, about what the nation saw in July.

A new wave would be rough, said Dr. Mark Griffiths, medical director of the emergency department of Children’s Health Care of Atlanta-Spalding Hospital. “So many systems are on the brink of just being totally overburdened that if we get another COVID surge on top of this, it’s going to make some systems crack.”

One bright spot? Deaths are likely to be much lower than earlier in the pandemic. About 1 in 2,000 infections lead to death now, compared with about 1 in 200 in the first half of 2020, Bedford said.

Omicron’s yearlong reign

The same widespread immunity that reduced deaths also pushed the coronavirus to mutate. By the end of last year, many people had gotten infected, vaccinated or both. That “created the initial niche for omicron to spread,” Bedford said, since the virus had significantly evolved in its ability to escape existing immunity.

Omicron thrived. Mara Aspinall, who teaches biomedical diagnostics at Arizona State University, noted that the first omicron strain represented 7.5% of circulating variants by mid-December and 80% just two weeks later. U.S. cases at one point soared to a million a day. Omicron generally caused less severe disease than previous variants, but hospitalizations and deaths shot up given the sheer numbers of infected people.

The giant wave ebbed by mid-April. The virus mutated quickly into a series of sub-variants adept at evading immunity. A recent study in the journal Science Immunology says this ability to escape antibodies is due to more than 30 changes in the spike protein studding the surface of the virus.

Omicron evolved so much in a year, Bedford said, it’s now “a meaningless term.”

That rapid mutation is likely to continue.

“There’s much more pressure for the virus to diversify,” said Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases for Helix, a company that supplies viral sequencing information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doctors said the best protection against the bubbling stew of sub-variants remains vaccination. And officials said Americans who got the new combination booster targeting omicron and the original coronavirus are currently better protected than others against symptomatic infection.

Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, said getting the booster, if you’re eligible, is “the most impactful thing you could do.”

Doctors also urge people to continue testing, keep up preventive measures such as masking in crowds, and stay home when sick.

“COVID is still a very significant threat, especially to the most vulnerable,” said Dr. Laolu Fayanju of Oak Street Health in Cleveland, which specializes in caring for older adults. “People have to continue to think about one another. We’re not completely out of the woods on this yet.
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Driven by concerns about climate change, public education and, to a lesser extent, access to abortion, 21-year-old Ava Alferez made sure to vote in the 2022 midterm elections.

“I don’t think it’s right to complain about something if you don’t get out there and vote,” says the Virginia college student, who describes herself as a liberal democrat. “I also think that every vote matters.”

Alferez is among millions of America’s youngest voters who voted in near-record numbers during the 2022 midterms, breaking heavily for Democrats, and thwarting an anticipated ‘red wave’ that many expected would hand Republicans a significant majority in Congress. The strong showing signals that Gen Z is a rising political force.

“I think Republicans don’t account for Gen Z and they don’t realize the impact that we will have, especially within the next five years,” says Eric Miller, a 20-year-old Virginia college student who identifies as a Republican and says he voted for Donald Trump in 2020. “I think the 2022 midterms are a little bit of a wake-up call for Republicans to be more in touch with young people.”

Midterm elections occur halfway through a president’s four-year term. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives — where members serve two-year terms — and 35 of 100 Senate seats were up for grabs in 2022.

Historically, the president’s political party almost always loses seats in Congress with the opposing party traditionally making significant gains. Republicans did pick up a majority in the House this election cycle, but only by a handful of seats, while Democrats narrowly held on to the Senate.

“I think the data is going to bear out that young voters were quite consequential in many of these swing states and some of these elections,” says John Wihbey, an associate professor of media innovation and technology at Northeastern University.

The early numbers from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) suggest that 27% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 cast ballots Nov. 8, the second-highest youth midterms turnout in 30 years. (The highest was in 2018.)

“It is reproductive rights, climate change, immigration, racial justice, gender justice,” says Wihbey, listing the issues that drove young people to the polls.

Young evangelicals are not that different from their more liberal peers, according to a recent survey.

“They are diversity and equity conscious, more so than older generations and, therefore, they’re going to take those things seriously and listen to people who talk about those things, like AOC [New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] or [Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders,” says Kevin Singer, co-director of Neighborly Faith, a partner in the study. “They’re very, I guess you could say, cosmopolitan when it comes to their political perspectives.”

Wihbey says Gen Z doesn’t get its news from traditional sources like newspapers but rather gets secondhand or filtered news from social media, which has resulted in young voters forming opinions about politics at a much greater rate than previous generations.

“I wouldn’t say that’s surprising at all because everyone’s just on their phones all the time on social media,” says Alferez, who says she has voted in every election since reaching voting age. “It would make sense that they get all their information on TikTok or maybe if they see a political post, they’ll still look in the comments and everyone’s very opinionated and comments, and they’ll probably form opinions based on that.”

CIRCLE’s early analysis shows that young voter turnout may have delivered key wins for Democrats in some battleground states, but that doesn’t mean either political party can take the youth vote for granted.

“It’s possible that younger voters will be less tethered to a particular party and may vote on an issue basis more frequently,” Wihbey says. “I think part of what the digital world does is it creates fewer strong ties to particular parties or causes and emphasizes the new or the rising social issue.”

That appears to be true of young voters across the political spectrum, according to the results of the survey of young evangelicals.

“They’re less beholden to the Republican Party, I think, than older generations are, and we also see that they listen to Fox News and, say, CNN at about the same rate,” Singer says. “They listen to Joe Biden and listen to Elon Musk, and that’s not a huge surprise given that Generation Z is a lot more comfortable with drawing inspiration from a variety of sources than they are being held to the norms of certain institutions.”

Miller, the young Republican voter, says his generation is less interested in partisan bickering and more interested in finding common ground.

“We do a little more research. We don’t just watch, maybe, Fox News, and we listen to the other side, what they’re trying to say,” Miller says. “I think the center is where everything is key. Obviously, I don’t think the extremes will ever get along in any kind of time frame. But I think we can reach out to moderate Democrats, even liberals — but just not progressive liberals maybe — but I definitely see a way forward.”

The results of the survey of young evangelicals appears to confirm increased openness on the part of Gen Z conservatives.

“Young evangelicals are frankly just more peaceable with others than older generations are. Our study found that, for example, they’re more likely to be engaged with people of different faiths than their faith leaders encourage them to be,” Singer says. “There’s definitely more of an enthusiasm about diversity and pluralism and I think, for that reason, they’re more likely to entertain the perspectives of those with whom their parents would disagree.”

Signs of youth voter enthusiasm were evident ahead of Election Day. CIRCLE found that youth voter registration was up compared to 2018, especially in places where abortion-related issues were on the ballot, or where voters recently voted on abortion-related measures.

“My worry is that, as we see a lot of policy whiplash, whether it’s on reproductive rights or on other things, that they become cynical or disengage,” Wihbey says. “I think one of the most important things here is that they see the political system that we have in our democracy as an important lever of social change, and not as something that just is a kind of dead end.”
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Retailers braced for their biggest test of the year: Will U.S. consumers open their wallets wide for the Black Friday sales that kick off the holiday shopping season?

Consumer confidence is precarious, rattled by soaring inflation in the world’s biggest economy, casting uncertainty on this festive shopping season that starts the day after Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday.

A year ago, retailers faced product shortfalls in the wake of shipping backlogs and COVID-19-related factory closures. To avert a repeat, the industry front-loaded its holiday imports this year, leaving it vulnerable to oversupply at a time when consumers are cutting back.

“Supply shortages was yesterday’s problem,” said Neil Saunders, managing director for GlobalData Retail, a consultancy. “Today’s problem is having too much stuff.”

Saunders said retailers have made progress in recent months in reducing excess inventories, but that oversupply created banner conditions for bargain-hunters in many categories, including electronics, home improvement and apparel.

Juameelah Henderson always checks for sales, “but more so now,” she said while exiting an Old Navy store in New York with four bags of items.

The clothing chain’s prices were “pretty good,” she said. “If it’s not on sale, I really don’t need it.”

Higher costs for gasoline and household staples like meat and cereal are an economy-wide issue but do not burden everyone equally.

“The lower incomes are definitely hit worst by the higher inflation,” said Claire Li, a senior analyst at Moody’s. “People have to spend on the essential items.”

Leading forecasts from Deloitte and the National Retail Federation project a single-digit percentage increase, but it likely won’t exceed the inflation rate.

The consumer price index has been up about 8% on an annual basis, which means that a similar size increase in holiday sales would equate with lower volumes.

European countries including Britain and France have been marking Black Friday for a few years now, too, and are also enduring sky-high inflation. So merchants there face a similar dilemma.

“Retailers are desperate for some spending cheer, but the worry is that it could turn out to be more of a Bleak Friday,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said in London.

Diminishing savings

U.S. shoppers have remained resilient throughout the myriad stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, often spending more than expected, even when consumer sentiment surveys suggest they are in a gloomy mood.

Part of the reason has been the unusually robust state of savings, with many households banking government pandemic aid payments at a time of reduced consumption due to COVID-19 restrictions.

But that cushion is starting to whittle away. After hitting $2.5 trillion in excess savings in mid-2021, the benchmark fell to $1.7 trillion in the second quarter, according to Moody’s.

Consumers with incomes below $35,000 were affected the most, with their excess savings falling nearly 39% between the fourth quarter of 2021 and mid-2022, according to Moody’s.

Accompanying this drop has been a rise in credit card debt visible in Federal Reserve data and anecdotally described by chains that also report more purchases made with food stamps.

“We’re seeing continued pressure,” said Michael Witynski, chief executive of Dollar Tree, a discount retailer that has seen “shifts” in shoppers, “where they’re very consumable and needs-based focused to try and make that budget work and stretch it over the month.”

Mixed picture

Earnings reports from retailers in recent days have painted a mixed picture on consumer health.

Target stood on the downcast side of the ledger, pointing to a sharp decline in shopping activity in late October, potentially portending a weak holiday season.

The big-box chain expects a “very promotional” holiday season, said Chief Executive Brian Cornell.

“We’ve had a consumer who has been dealing with very stubborn inflation for quarter after quarter now,” Cornell said on a conference call with analysts.

“They’re shopping very carefully on a budget, and I think they’re looking at discretionary categories and saying, ‘All right, if I’m going to buy, I’m looking for a great deal and a great value.'”

But Lowe’s, another big U.S. chain specializing in home-improvement, offered a very different view, describing the same late-October period as “strong” and seeing no evidence of consumer deterioration.

“We are not seeing anything that feels or looks like a trade down or consumer pullback,” said Lowe’s Chief Executive Marvin Ellison.

Consumers like Charmaine Taylor, who checks airline websites frequently, are staying vigilant.

Taylor thus far has been thwarted in her travel aspirations due to high plane ticket prices. Taylor, who works in child care, isn’t sure how much she’ll be able to spend on family this year.

“I’m trying to give them some little gifts,” Taylor said at a park in Harlem earlier this week. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to. Inflation is hitting pretty hard.”
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The U.S. special envoy for women, girls and human rights in Afghanistan has sharply criticized the ruling Islamist Taliban for organizing public floggings of people, including women, accused of “moral crimes” such as theft and adultery. 

“This is both appalling and a dangerous sign that the Taliban are becoming more defiant in showing the world that they are embracing the policies of the past,” Rina Amiri said on Twitter. 

Her reaction came a day after the Taliban Supreme Court said that 11 men and three women had been flogged “for different sins, including adultery, robbery and other forms of corruption,” in a football stadium in the country’s east. 

The announcement noted that the punishment was administered Wednesday morning “in the presence of respected scholars, security forces, tribal elders and local residents.” 

It was the latest sign of the Taliban’s application of their strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah, to criminal justice, and restoring policies of their rule from 1996 to 2001, when flogging took place in much of Afghanistan. 

“It didn’t end up well before, and it will once again take the country on a perilous path,” Amiri warned. 

Earlier this month, reclusive Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered senior judges to apply Shariah punishments in cases already concluded. Taliban authorities have since implemented public floggings in at least two provinces for crimes such as adultery, false accusations of adultery, theft, banditry, alcohol consumption, apostasy and sedition. 

The Supreme Court said about two weeks ago that 19 people, including nine women, had been lashed in northeastern Takhar province for adultery, theft and running away from home. Each was lashed 39 times, it said. 

The Shariah legal system is derived from Islam’s holy book, the Quran, and the deeds as well as sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. 

Amnesty International urged the Taliban to immediately and unconditionally end the “criminal practice” of public flogging and all other forms of corporal punishment. The rights watchdog stressed the need for putting in place a formal justice mechanism with fair trials and access to legal remedies. 

“The Taliban continue to ignore widespread criticism as they flagrantly flout basic human rights principles in an alarming slide into what looks like a grim reminder of their rule” of decades ago, Amnesty said.  

“These outrageous punishments are just another step in the legalization of inhuman practices by the Taliban’s cruel justice system and expose the de-facto authorities’ complete disregard for international human rights law.” 

The Taliban returned to power in August 2021 after almost 20 years of insurgency against U.S.-led NATO troops and their Afghan partners. The international troops withdrew from Afghanistan just days after the Taliban seized power. 

No country has yet to formally recognize the Taliban rule because of human rights and terrorism-related concerns. The international community has been pressing the Islamist rulers to reverse restrictions on Afghan women if they want legitimacy for their men-only government. 

Since they seized power in August 2021, the Taliban have ordered women to cover their faces in public and not undertake long road trips without a close male relative. They have also ordered many female government staff members to stay at home. Women are banned from visiting gyms, parks and public baths. 

While public and private universities are open to women across Afghanistan, teenage girls are not allowed to attend secondary schools from grades seven to 12. 

U.S. envoy Amiri also criticized the Taliban for dissolving the Afghan Independent Bar Association last November, saying it was a model of gender inclusion. 

“Now women are sidelined from practicing law & many women judges & lawyers are forced to beg for food for their children rather than use their skills. Such injustice,” she said in a separate tweet Thursday. 

The Taliban defend their governance, saying it is in line with Afghan culture and Islamic law.
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Throngs of spectators lined the streets of New York on Thursday as colorful, high-flying balloons helped usher in the holiday season during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The annual tradition, which dates back nearly a century, packed streets as a procession of giant inflatables and floats streamed for more than 40 blocks from Central Park to Herald Square.

Children balanced atop metal barricades and hung from scaffolding to watch the balloons amid mostly sunny skies and a slight breeze.

“Blue, Blue. There’s Blue,” yelled Divyam Kumar, 6, as his father helped balance him and his 4-year-old brother Aanu Aryan on a metal rail.

The youngster was referring to the star of the animated show “Blue’s Clues” — not to be confused with the international cartoon sensation Bluey, an Australian cattle pup making her parade debut.

Bluey’s balloon towered as tall as a four-story building and stretched as wide as seven taxi cabs.

Stuart, the one-eyed Minion, was also there to thrill the crowd.

Snoopy, dressed as an astronaut, again made an appearance, as did Papa Smurf, Ronald McDonald and SpongeBob.

This year’s parade, by the numbers: 16 giant balloons, 28 floats, 40 novelty and heritage inflatables, 12 marching bands, 10 performance groups, 700 clowns and one Santa Claus.

The procession of characters were joined by singer Paula Abdul, in her first parade appearance; indie pop band Fitz and the Tantrums; boy band Big Time Rush; “Blue’s Clues & You!” host Josh Dela Cruz; singer Gloria Estefan; gospel singer Kirk Franklin; actor Mario Lopez; reggae star Ziggy Marley; and Miss America 2022 Emma Broyles.

Singers Joss Stone, Jordin Sparks and Betty Who were also part of the festivities, as well as the stars of “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin” — Adam Devine, Sarah Hyland and Flula Borg. Jimmy Fallon & The Roots were on a float celebrating Central Park.

President Biden and Jill Biden called into the parade, as they did last year. Biden thanked firefighters, police officers and first responders, saying, “They never take a break.”

They thanked the troops and Biden said he would be reaching out to speak to some today.

Asked about their plans for the day in Nantucket, the Bidens said it would involve family, and some time spent locally, thanking first responders.
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In December 2019, then-U.S. President Donald Trump was asked whether he thought it was worth it to have “all those” U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

“It could be debated. I could go either way,” Trump answered.

The comments came at the height of tense negotiations over Trump’s demand that Seoul pay much more to host approximately 28,000 U.S. troops.

Trump’s answer did not come out of the blue. Throughout his time as president — and in fact, even before and after his presidency — Trump regularly questioned the value of the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

According to I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, a 2021 book by two Washington Post journalists, Trump privately told close aides that he planned to “blow up” the U.S.-South Korea alliance if he won reelection in 2020.

In part because he lost that election, no one knows how serious Trump was about upending the U.S. relationship with South Korea.

Some analysts say Trump was only being transactional, as he was with many other allies, and that he never intended to abandon Seoul.

Others are not so sure, noting Trump once went so far as to suggest South Korea should get its own nuclear weapons so that Seoul could protect itself.

Faced with an increasingly hostile and nuclear-armed neighbor, South Korea can afford little ambiguity on the matter, which helps explain why a growing number of prominent voices in Seoul would like to see if Trump’s nuke offer still stands.

Going mainstream

One of the most outspoken advocates of South Korea getting its own nuclear weapons is Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a nonpartisan foreign policy research organization outside Seoul.

Cheong spoke to VOA several days after Trump announced his 2024 presidential bid. He said it is not just the possible return of Trump that is concerning — it’s the chance that his America First ideas will have a lasting impact on U.S. foreign policy.

“The United States has a presidential election every four years…[it] may go back to isolationism, which is why South Korea’s own nuclear armament is essential to maintain stable security and deter North Korea,” Cheong told VOA.

Fringe figures have long called for South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons, but recently the proposal has gone mainstream. This year, several well-known scholars have proposed Seoul either acquire its own nuclear arsenal or request the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that were removed in the early 1990s.

A poll published in May by the conservative Asan Institute for Policy Studies suggested that more than 70% of South Koreans support their country developing indigenous nuclear weapons — the highest level of support since the organization began asking the question in 2010.

Cheong is trying to turn that support into something more organized. In early November, he launched the ROK Forum for Nuclear Strategy, which promotes South Korea’s nuclear armament and discusses plans to make it happen. In its infancy, the group already has more than 40 members, according to Cheong.

Not just Trump

Trump is far from the only factor driving South Korea’s nuclear arms debate.

South Korean leaders are also alarmed at the rapid development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. North Korea has conducted a record number of launches this year, including both long-range missiles that could reach the United States and shorter-range ones that threaten Seoul. U.S. and South Korean officials say North Korea could conduct another nuclear test soon.

North Korea has also embraced a more aggressive nuclear posture. In October, leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a series of launches simulating a tactical nuclear strike on South Korea. The North is likely moving ahead with deploying tactical nuclear weapons to frontline positions, analysts say.

In addition, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the risks that non-nuclear states face when confronted with an aggressive, nuclear-armed neighbor.

Although South Korea is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, some South Korean analysts believe the United States may be reluctant to respond to a North Korean attack if Pyongyang has the ability to destroy a major U.S. city — in essence, the fear is that the United States would not want to risk San Francisco to save Seoul.

“North Korea believes there’s a slight chance that they could get away with a nuclear attack without getting a reprisal from the United States,” said Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general in the South Korean army.

Big obstacles

In Chun’s view, acquiring nuclear weapons is one way for South Korea to guarantee its security, although he acknowledges major barriers.

Among the uncertainties is the question of how China, Russia, and others in the region would respond. For instance, would Japan, another U.S. ally in Northeast Asia, feel compelled to get its own nuclear weapons?

Analysts are also unsure exactly how the United States would react if South Korea eventually did begin pursuing nuclear weapons. And many South Koreans who support acquiring nukes hint they would tread cautiously with that in mind.

“It’s not as if I’m going to risk the alliance in order to have South Korea get nuclear weapons. But what happens if the U.S. president says he’s going to pull U.S. troops from Korea? What if that becomes a reality?” asked Chun.

In some ways, the situation mirrors the 1970s, when South Korea briefly pursued a nuclear weapons program amid questions about the long-term U.S. security commitment.

Instead, South Korea ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It is now uncertain what consequences South Korea would face for abandoning its commitments under the pact.

Reassurance limits

When asked about the issue in recent months, Pentagon and State Department officials have ruled out the idea of returning tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. Instead, they have focused on how the U.S. is prepared to use the full range of its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend South Korea.

At a meeting earlier this month with his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said Seoul is not considering the return of tactical nuclear weapons and remains committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

At that Pentagon meeting, both sides agreed to several measures meant to reinforce the U.S. security commitment. The steps included increasing the deployment of U.S. strategic assets, such as long-range bombers and aircraft carriers, to South Korea, and vowing that any North Korean nuclear strike “will result in the end of the Kim regime.”

What they didn’t discuss, at least according to the 10-page joint communique released following the meeting, was Trump or his America First ideas — perhaps the one area where U.S. officials can offer the least reassurance.

“You can’t,” said Jenny Town, a Korea specialist at the Washington-based Stimson Center.

“Democracies are democracies and policies can shift,” she said.

Much depends on how Trump and his ideas fare in the 2024 elections. But even if Trump loses again, Town said, many in South Korea will have concerns about the future.

“It isn’t business as usual anymore,” she said. “It’s recent memory, and it doesn’t fade very quickly.”
…

In recent years, the trend of “Friendsgiving” has been taking off in the U.S. In this version of Thanksgiving, people who can’t spend the day surrounded by their biological families instead spend the holiday with friends. Genia Dulot reports.
…

The man facing possible hate crime charges in the fatal shooting of five people at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub was ordered held without bail in an initial court appearance Wednesday as the suspect sat slumped over in a chair.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, could be seen with injuries visible on their face and head in a brief video appearance from jail. Aldrich appeared to need prompting by defense attorneys and offered a slurred response when asked to state their name by El Paso County Court Judge Charlotte Ankeny.

The suspect was beaten into submission by patrons during Saturday night’s shooting at Club Q and released from the hospital Tuesday. The motive in the shooting was still under investigation, but authorities said Aldrich faces possible murder and hate crime charges.

Hate crime charges would require proving that the shooter was motivated by bias, such as against the victims’ actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The charges against Aldrich are preliminary, and prosecutors have not yet filed formal charges.

Defense attorneys said late Tuesday that the suspect is nonbinary and in court filings referred to the suspect as “Mx. Aldrich.” The attorneys’ footnotes assert that Aldrich is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

Prosecutor Michael Allen repeatedly referred to the suspect as “he” during a press briefing after the hearing and said the suspect’s gender status would not change anything about the case in his opinion. Allen said Aldrich was “physically competent” to stand charges.

Ankeny set the next hearing for Dec. 6.

Of 17 people injured by gunshots in the attack, 11 remained hospitalized late Wednesday, officials said.

Aldrich’s name was changed more than six years ago as a teenager, after filing a legal petition in Texas seeking to “protect himself” from a father with a criminal history, including domestic violence against Aldrich’s mother.

Aldrich was known as Nicholas Franklin Brink until 2016. Weeks before turning 16, Aldrich successfully petitioned a Texas court for a name change, court records show. A petition for the name change was submitted on Brink’s behalf by his legal guardians at the time.

“Minor wishes to protect himself and his future from any connections to birth father and his criminal history. Father has had no contact with minor for several years,” said the petition filed in Bexar County, Texas.

The suspect’s father, Aaron Brink, is a mixed martial arts fighter and pornography performer with an extensive criminal history, including convictions for battery against the alleged shooter’s mother, Laura Voepel, both before and after the suspect was born, state and federal court records show. A 2002 misdemeanor battery conviction in California resulted in a protective order that initially barred Aaron Brink from contacting the suspect or Voepel except through an attorney but was later modified to allow monitored visits with the child.

Aaron Brink told the San Diego CBS affiliate, KFMB-TV, that he was shocked to learn about Aldrich’s alleged involvement. He said his first reaction was to question why Aldrich was at a gay bar. Brink said he hadn’t had much contact with his child but had taught them to fight, “praising” Aldrich for violent behavior at an early age. He added that he’s sorry he let Aldrich down. Brink said “there’s no excuse for going and killing people. If you’re killing people, there’s something wrong. It’s not the answer.”

Local and federal authorities have declined to say why hate crime charges were being considered. District Attorney Michael Allen noted that the murder charges would carry the harshest penalty — life in prison — whereas bias crimes are eligible for probation. He also said it was important to show the community that bias motivated crimes are not tolerated.

Aldrich was arrested last year after their mother reported her child threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons, according to police. Ring doorbell video obtained by The Associated Press shows Aldrich arriving at their mother’s front door with a big black bag the day of the 2021 bomb threat, telling her the police were nearby and adding, “This is where I stand. Today I die.”

Authorities at the time said no explosives were found, but gun-control advocates have asked why police didn’t use Colorado’s “red flag” laws to seize the weapons Aldrich allegedly had.

Allen declined to answer questions related to the 2021 bomb threat following Wednesday’s court hearing.

The weekend assault took place at a nightclub known as a sanctuary for the LGBTQ community in this mostly conservative city of about 480,000 about 110 kilometers south of Denver.

A longtime Club Q patron who was shot said the club’s reputation made it a target. In a video statement, Ed Sanders said he thought about what he would do in a mass shooting after the 2016 massacre of 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

“I think this incident underlines the fact that LGBT people need to be loved,” said Sanders, 63. “I want to be resilient. I’m a survivor. I’m not going to be taken out by some sick person.”

Authorities said Aldrich used a long rifle and was halted by two club patrons including Richard Fierro, who told reporters that he took a handgun from Aldrich, hit them with it and pinned them down with help from another person until police arrived.

The victims were Raymond Green Vance, 22, a Colorado Springs native who was saving money to get his own apartment; Ashley Paugh, 35, a mother who helped find homes for foster children; Daniel Aston, 28, who had worked at the club as a bartender and entertainer; Kelly Loving, 40, whose sister described her as “caring and sweet,” and Derrick Rump, 38, another club bartender known for his wit.
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A Turkish airstrike launched as part of Ankara’s new offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters came uncomfortably close to hitting U.S. forces in northeastern Syria, further escalating tensions in the region, two sources tell VOA.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the approximately 900 U.S. troops in Syria tasked with countering the Islamic State terror group, first acknowledged the strike Tuesday, saying no U.S. personnel were at the base at the time.

But a U.S. defense official told VOA late Wednesday that U.S. troops were nearby, just 300 meters away from the base, located north of the city of Hasaka.

A source close to the leadership of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, further told VOA that the base is part of a larger compound and that U.S. forces were in a different building that is not part of the base itself.

“We have received additional information that there was a risk to U.S. troops and personnel,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino said in a statement shared with VOA. 

“These actions threaten our shared goals, including the continued fight against ISIS to ensure the group can never resurge and threaten the region,” he added, using another acronym for Islamic State. SDF officials said Tuesday’s airstrike killed two U.S.-trained members of its counterterrorism forces. 

An SDF spokesman told VOA Wednesday that U.S. troops had been at the base just five days earlier, doing some aerial surveillance of the area. 

The U.S. revelation that the Turkish airstrike might have directly endangered U.S. personnel follows repeated calls by U.S. officials for Turkey and the Syrian Kurds to pull back. 

“We continue to urge for de-escalation on all sides and in our conversations, and what we have said publicly is that these strikes from all sides risk our mission, which is to defeat ISIS,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Tuesday, responding to a question from VOA. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart, emphasizing the need to maintain communications. 

Turkey launched its most recent offensive, Operation Claw-Sword, against the Syrian Kurds this past week, blaming them for a November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed at least eight people and injured dozens more. 

The U.S.-backed SDF and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group, have denied responsibility. 

While the U.S. views the Kurdish-led SDF as a key ally in the fight against IS and as separate from the YPG, Ankara views the SDF and YPG as a single organization, arguing many fighters belong to both groups. 

“Turkey does continue to suffer a legitimate terrorist threat, particularly to their south,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday. ”They certainly have every right to defend themselves and their citizens.” 

But Kirby emphasized Washington’s concerns that the Turkish offensive, in the long run, will do more harm than good. 

“It might force a reaction by some of our SDF partners that would limit, constrain their ability to continue to fight against ISIS. … It’s still viable as a threat,” he said. 

The SDF told VOA Wednesday those fears are already starting to play out. 

“Due to our forces’ preoccupation with addressing the Turkish occupation, they cannot continue their mission of pursuing ISIS cells,” SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi said in a statement shared with VOA.

“Currently, we’re forced to be preoccupied with confronting Turkish aggression,” he added.

Other SDF officials speaking with VOA emphasized the change in posture should not be viewed as a policy decision or as a cessation of anti-IS operations, explaining they have no choice but to prioritize defending themselves against Turkish airstrikes and a possible Turkish ground assault.

The SDF also accused Turkey of boosting IS with its actions.

SDF spokesman Farhad Shami told VOA that Turkey launched five airstrikes against the security forces guarding IS families at the al-Hol displaced persons camp in northeast Syria Wednesday, allowing some of the families to escape. 

He said six individuals, including three women, have been recaptured.

The SDF additionally accused Turkey of targeting civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals and schools, and killing at least 15 civilians since the start of its offensive Saturday. 

Turkey rejected the SDF allegations Wednesday.

“It is the PKK/YPG terrorist organization that have long hampered civilian infrastructure across Syria as well as in Türkiye,” Turkish Embassy officials in Washington told VOA in a statement, accusing Syrian Kurdish forces of targeting civilians themselves.

“The PKK/YPG carried out from Syria another round of cross-border rocket and mortar attacks, indiscriminately targeting schools, kindergartens as well as residential areas, resulting in civilian casualties, including teachers and pupils,” the Turkish officials wrote, further accusing the group of collaborating with IS “to stage attacks in the west of Euphrates against Syrians.”

Turkey has said its offensive has so far killed 184 militants, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday signaled he was preparing to intensify efforts against the Syrian Kurds. 

“While we press ahead with air raids uninterrupted, we will crack down on terrorists also by land at the most convenient time for us,” Erdogan said during a speech to members of parliament.

“Turkey has the power to identify, catch and punish terrorists who are involved in attacks against our country and nation, and those helping them, inside and outside our borders,” he said. 

Mutlu Civiroglu, Patsy Widakuswara and VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report.
…

California condors are North America’s largest bird. But they came close to extinction before conservationists and Indigenous communities joined to save them. Matt Dibble reports from California on how the Yurok Tribe is helping condors recover.     
…

Skyrocketing food prices due to soaring inflation are taking a bite out of this year’s feast on Thanksgiving, a national holiday in the United States on November 24. People traditionally share a big meal and give thanks for their blessings.

Thanksgiving dinner often includes turkey and trimmings, such as cranberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.

A survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation indicates Thanksgiving dinner costs are up 20% from last year. And the cost of a turkey alone is up 21%.

Some people say they plan to pare down their big holiday feast.

“I will not have as much food this year. I used to have too much food anyway,” said Cynthia Walsh, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington. “What is more important is that my family is together to appreciate what we have.”

For those in need, food banks across the country are lending a hand. But with donations down, and a huge influx of clients, they are feeling the pinch.

Millions of people are reaching to the food banks for help.

Among them is Marguerita Vicencio, who came to the U.S. from Chile six years ago.

“My husband just lost his job, and this is the first time I’ve come to a food bank for help,” she said as she picked up supplies at Food for Others in Fairfax, Virginia, a Washington suburb.

Her 11-year-old son, Tomas Arancibia, said his family combines their Chilean roots with American Thanksgiving traditions.

“We’re going to celebrate with a turkey and the food we get here with my brothers and sisters and friends of our family,” he said.

Annie Turner, executive director of Food for Others, told VOA that high food prices are making it challenging for the nonprofit to support the clients.

“We’ve not only seen an increase in our food costs, but our donors are giving less money, so we have to buy more food ourselves,” she said. “Meanwhile, the number of families that are coming here has increased 60% over this time last year.”

“We get many families who come to get food for Thanksgiving, and we hand out stuffing, potatoes and other fresh produce,” she added. “Instead of providing a turkey, we give them a gift card to buy food, so they can get a turkey or other food they would prefer.”

In the Midwest, food service organizations in cities like Chicago and St. Louis are also getting inundated with clients.

“The number of people turning to our food programs is up 42% compared to last year,” said Greg Trotter, director of marketing and communications at Nourishing Hope, a social services group in Chicago. “Our donations have not been enough to keep pace with the increase in the number of people we serve, which includes a lot more families with children.”

“Even though we had to pay twice as much as we did for turkeys this year, we try to provide turkeys and other holiday food to anyone who comes in the door,” he said.

At the St. Louis Area Foodbank in Missouri, the organization is holding their “Thanksgiving Together” for the fifth year.

“We are distributing Thanksgiving meals to over 4,000 families, the highest we’ve ever planned for,” Meredith Knopp, the president and CEO of the foodbank, told VOA. “Since this area has such a diverse population, which includes people from Afghanistan and large Bosnian and Asian populations, we are also providing foods that they are more accustomed to since not everybody celebrates Thanksgiving.”

In Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S., the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank through its partner agencies reach 800,000 people every month.

Michael Flood, the CEO of the food bank, said a major problem is “we’re having supply issues getting enough turkeys for Thanksgiving.

“Besides turkeys, we’re bringing in truckloads of chickens for people during the holiday,” he said.

At St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, Arizona, the number of people who come in continues to skyrocket, said Jerry Brown, the director of public relations.

“We’ve had twice as many people than this time last year — 7,000 of them came to our two main locations in one week, which we’ve never had happen before,” Brown said. However, “donors are cutting back, so we’re spending more money on food and we’re giving out more food than we ever have before.”

Despite the obstacles, Brown said the food bank is determined to give families a good Thanksgiving.

“We’re anticipating we will be able to send 12,000 people home with food boxes before Thanksgiving,” Brown said. “We have prided ourselves at St. Mary’s for decades that the last car leaving us before Thanksgiving will have a turkey in the back seat.”
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The Thanksgiving travel rush was back on this year, as people caught planes in numbers not seen in years, setting aside inflation concerns to reunite with loved ones and enjoy some normalcy after two holiday seasons marked by COVID-19 restrictions.

Changing habits around work and play, however, might spread out the crowds and reduce the usual amount of holiday travel stress. Experts say many people will start holiday trips early or return home later than normal because they will spend a few days working remotely — or at least tell the boss they’re working remotely.

The busiest travel days during Thanksgiving week are usually Tuesday, Wednesday and the Sunday after the holiday. This year, the Federal Aviation Administration expects Tuesday to be the busiest travel day with roughly 48,000 scheduled flights.

Chris Williams, of Raleigh, North Carolina, flew Tuesday morning with his wife and two kids to Atlanta, Georgia, to spend the holiday with extended family.

“Of course, it’s a stressful and expensive time to fly,” said Williams, 44, who works in finance. “But after a couple years of not getting to spend Thanksgiving with our extended family, I’d say we’re feeling thankful that the world’s gotten to a safe enough place where we can be with loved ones again.”

Although Williams said the family’s budget has been tight this year, he’s capitalized on the opportunity to teach his kids some personal finance basics. His youngest, 11, has been learning how to budget her allowance money since March and is excited to buy small gifts for her friends on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. “Probably slime,” she said, “with glitter.”

The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 2.6 million travelers on Monday, surpassing the 2.5 million screened the Monday before Thanksgiving in 2019. The same trend occurred Sunday, marking the first year that the number of people catching planes on Thanksgiving week surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

“People are traveling on different days. Not everyone is traveling on that Wednesday night,” says Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president at the trade group Airlines for America. “People are spreading their travel out throughout the week, which I also think will help ensure smoother operations.”

AAA predicts that 54.6 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home in the U.S. this week, a 1.5% bump over Thanksgiving last year and only 2% less than in 2019. The auto club and insurance seller say nearly 49 million of those will travel by car, and 4.5 million will fly between Wednesday and Sunday.

U.S. airlines struggled to keep up as the number of passengers surged this year.

“We did have a challenging summer,” said Pinkerton, whose group speaks for members including American, United and Delta. She said that airlines have pared their schedules and hired thousands of workers — they now have more pilots than before the pandemic. “As a result, we’re confident that the week is going to go well.”

U.S. airlines plan to operate 13% fewer flights this week than during Thanksgiving week in 2019. However, by using larger planes on average, the number of seats will drop only 2%, according to data from travel-researcher Cirium.

Airlines continue to blame flight disruptions on shortages of air traffic controllers, especially in Florida, a major holiday destination.

Controllers, who work for the Federal Aviation Administration, “get tested around the holidays. That seems to be when we have challenges,” Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said a few days ago. “The FAA is adding another 10% to headcount, hopefully that’s enough.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has disputed such claims, saying that the vast majority of delays and cancellations are caused by the airlines themselves.

TSA expects airports to be busier than last year and probably about on par with 2019. The busiest day in TSA’s history came on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2019, when nearly 2.9 million people were screened at airport checkpoints.

Stephanie Escutia, traveling with four children, her husband and her mother, said it took the family four hours to get through checking and security at the Orlando airport early Tuesday. The family was returning to Kansas City in time for Thanksgiving after a birthday trip to Disney World.

“We were surprised at how full the park was,” said Escutia, 32. “We thought it might be down some, but it was packed.”

She welcomed the sense of normalcy and said her family would be gathering for Thanksgiving without worrying about keeping their distance this year. “Now we are back to normal and looking forward to a nice holiday,” she said.

People getting behind the wheel or boarding a plane don’t seem fazed by higher gasoline and airfare prices than last year or the widespread concern about inflation and the economy. That is already leading to predictions of strong travel over Christmas and New Year’s.

“This pent-up demand for travel is still a real thing. It doesn’t feel like it’s going away,” says Tom Hall, a vice president and longtime writer for Lonely Planet, the publisher of travel guides. “That’s keeping planes full, that’s keeping prices high.”
…

Police in the U.S. state of Virginia are investigating a shooting at a Walmart store late Tuesday that left multiple people dead and wounded. 

A police spokesman told reporters he did not know the number of dead, but at that moment it was “less than 10.” 

The spokesman also said police believe there was a lone shooter responsible for the attack and that the shooter was dead. 

The attack comes just days after a shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that left five dead and 18 wounded. 

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

Tiger Woods, who has played only nine competitive rounds in 2022, topped the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program for the second consecutive year to claim a $15 million bonus, the tour announced Tuesday.  

Woods, whose 82 PGA triumphs share the all-time record with Sam Snead, led the analysis of global media exposure with top-ranked FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy second and Jordan Spieth third.  

McIlroy, a four-time major winner, took home $12 million while Spieth, a three-time major champion, made $9 million.  

The second-year impact program paid money to 23 players, the top 20 as planned plus three additional players who would have made the list under tweaked 2023 criteria — Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and Americans Cameron Young and Sam Burns. Each will be paid $2 million.  

The program, designed to reward those who delivered greater interest in the PGA, uses data measurement of internet searches, news article mentions, weekend television sponsor exposure, popularity measurement and social media reach and engagement.  

Woods, a 15-time major winner who turns 47 next month, continued to recover this year from severe leg injuries suffered in a February 2021 car crash.  

Woods finished 47th at the Masters in his return to competition, making the cut and battling through the walk over 72 holes at hilly Augusta National.  

He made the cut in May at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills but withdrew due to leg pain after three rounds. Woods missed the cut at the British Open in July at St. Andrews.  

Woods has announced he will play in next week’s Hero World Challenge, an invitational which he hosts in the Bahamas. 

He also will partner with McIlroy against the US duo of Spieth and Justin Thomas, this year’s PGA Championship winner, in “The Match,” a 12-hole exhibition under lights next month at Pelican Golf Club in Belleaire, Florida. 

There is also a chance that Woods will make a third consecutive appearance with son Charlie at the father-son PNC Championship in Orlando on December 15-18. 

Thomas was fourth on the bonus list at $7.5 million followed in order by Spain’s Jon Rahm ($6 million), Masters champion Scottie Scheffler ($5.5 million), Tokyo Olympic champion Xander Schauffele ($5 million), US Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick ($5 million) and Americans Will Zalatoris ($5 million) and Tony Finau ($5 million).    
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday visited Palawan Island in the Philippines and reaffirmed U.S. support for a U.N. ruling that rejected China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. Harris is in the country as a show of U.S. support for its ally amid Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance in the region. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns to a House of Representatives committee, handing a defeat to the Republican former president who had called the Democratic-led panel’s request politically motivated.

The justices denied Trump’s October 31 emergency application to block a lower court’s ruling that upheld the Ways and Means Committee’s request for his tax records as a justified part of the panel’s legislative work. No justice publicly dissented from the decision.

The committee, which has sought six years of Trump’s tax records spanning 2015 to 2020, will have little time to complete its work related to the returns before a Republican takeover of the House. Republicans secured a narrow majority following the Nov. 8 midterm elections and take control of the House — and the committee — in January.

The fight over his tax returns is one of many legal woes for Trump as he moves forward with another run for the presidency in 2024. Trump last week announced the launch of his candidacy.

Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal said the Supreme Court’s action upholds the principle of congressional oversight.

“This rises above politics, and the committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years,” Neal said in a statement.

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Trump was the first president in four decades years not to release his tax returns as he sought to keep secret the details of his wealth and the activities of his real estate company, the Trump Organization.

The Ways and Means panel had told the Supreme Court in a legal filing that siding with Trump would harm the constitutional authority of a co-equal branch of government “by in effect preventing Congress from completing any investigation involving a former president whenever there are allegations that the investigation was politically motivated.”

The panel in its request invoked a federal law that empowers its chairman to request any person’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). House Democrats have said they need to see Trump’s tax returns to assess whether the IRS is properly auditing presidential returns and to gauge whether new legislation is needed.

In its filing, the committee told the justices that IRS policy “does not address what to do regarding a president who, like former President Trump, owned hundreds of business entities, had inordinately complex returns, used aggressive tax avoidance strategies and allegedly had ongoing audits.”

Trump’s lawyers have said the committee’s real aim was to publicly expose his tax returns and unearth politically damaging information about Trump.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, sided with Congress in December 2021 and threw out the challenge to the committee’s request, finding that the committee holds broad authority over a former president’s tax returns.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in August also ruled against Trump and in October refused a rehearing.

Tuesday’s order superseded one issued by Chief Justice John Roberts on November 1 that had effectively paused the dispute and prevented the panel from obtaining the Trump returns while the court considered how to proceed.

Trump has mounting legal worries. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week named a special counsel to oversee two investigations including a criminal probe related to the FBI’s seizure of government documents from Trump’s Florida home.

His real estate company is in the midst of a criminal trial in New York on tax fraud charges. A trial date for next year was set in a civil lawsuit by New York state’s attorney general accusing Trump and three of his adult children of fraudulently overvaluing the company’s assets and his net worth. In addition, an investigation in Georgia is examining whether he interfered with the 2020 election results in that state.
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NASA’s Orion capsule reached the moon Monday, whipping around the far side and buzzing the lunar surface on its way to a record-breaking orbit with test dummies sitting in for astronauts.

It’s the first time a capsule has visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo program 50 years ago and represents a huge milestone in the $4.1 billion test flight that began last Wednesday.

Video of the looming moon and our pale blue planet more than 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) in the distance left workers “giddy” at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, home to Mission Control, according to flight director Judd Frieling. Even the flight controllers themselves were “absolutely astounded.”

“Just smiles across the board,” said Orion program manager Howard Hu.

The close approach of 81 miles (130 kilometers) occurred as the crew capsule and its three wired-up dummies were on the far side of the moon. Because of a half-hour communication blackout, flight controllers in Houston did not know whether the critical engine firing went well until the capsule emerged from behind the moon. The capsule’s cameras sent back a picture of the Earth — a tiny blue dot surrounded by blackness.

The capsule accelerated well beyond 5,000 mph (8,000 kph) as it regained radio contact, NASA said. Less than an hour later, Orion soared above Tranquility Base, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on July 20, 1969. There were no photos of the site because the pass was in darkness, but managers promised to try for pictures on the return flyby in two weeks.

Orion needed to slingshot around the moon to pick up enough speed to enter the sweeping, lopsided lunar orbit. Another engine firing will place the capsule in that orbit Friday.

This coming weekend, Orion will shatter NASA’s distance record for a spacecraft designed for astronauts — nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) from Earth, set by Apollo 13 in 1970. And it will keep going, reaching a maximum distance from Earth next Monday at nearly 270,000 miles (433,000 kilometers).

The capsule will spend close to a week in lunar orbit before heading home. A Pacific splashdown is planned for December 11.

Orion has no lunar lander; a touchdown won’t come until NASA astronauts attempt a lunar landing in 2025 with SpaceX’s Starship. Before then, astronauts will strap into Orion for a ride around the moon as early as 2024.

Mission manager Mike Sarafin was delighted with the progress of the mission, giving it a “cautiously optimistic A-plus” so far.

The Space Launch System rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — performed exceedingly well in its debut, Sarafin told reporters. He said teams are dealing with two issues that require workarounds — one involving the navigational star trackers, the other the power system.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket caused more damage than expected, however, at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad. The force from the 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of liftoff thrust was so great that it tore off the blast doors of the elevator, leaving it unusable.

Sarafin said the pad damage will be repaired in plenty of time before the next launch.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. health official celebrated and vilified as the face of the country’s COVID-19 pandemic response, used his final White House briefing on Tuesday to denounce division and promote vaccines.

Fauci, who plans to retire soon as President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser and top U.S. infectious disease official, has dealt with the thorny questions around health crises from HIV/AIDS to avian flu and Ebola.

But it was his handling of COVID — and his blunt assessments from the White House podium that Americans needed to change their behavior in light of the pandemic — that made him a hero to public health advocates while serving under President Donald Trump, a villain to some on the right and an unusual celebrity among bureaucratic officials used to toiling in obscurity. Fauci has regularly been subjected to death threats for his efforts.

True to form, Fauci used the final press briefing to strongly encourage Americans to get COVID vaccines and booster shots, and touted the effectiveness of masks, all of which became partisan totems in the United States.

The United States leads the world in recorded COVID-19 deaths with more than 1 million.

After 13 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines given worldwide, Fauci said, there is “clearly an extensive body of information” that indicates that they are safe.

“When I see people in this country because of the divisiveness in our country … not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health, but have to do because of divisiveness and ideological differences, as a physician, it pains me,” Fauci said.

“I don’t want to see anybody hospitalized, and I don’t want to see anybody die from COVID. Whether you’re a far-right Republican or a far-left Democrat, doesn’t make any difference to me.”

Fauci is stepping down in December after 54 years of public service. The 81-year-old has headed the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, since 1984.

The veteran immunologist has served as an adviser to seven U.S. presidents beginning with Republican Ronald Reagan. He made his first appearance at the White House press briefing in 2001.

Republican lawmakers including fierce critic Senator Rand Paul, with whom Fauci tangled during Senate hearings, have vowed to investigate him when they take control of the House of Representatives following November’s congressional elections.

On Tuesday, Fauci said he “will absolutely cooperate fully” in any congressional oversight hearings launched by Republicans next year.
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Vice President Kamala Harris urged countries on Tuesday to stand up for territorial integrity and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which has been challenged by China, and said Washington would press an international campaign against “irresponsible behavior” in the disputed waters.

Harris did not cite China by name but was obviously referring to Beijing when she underscored America’s support to treaty ally the Philippines “in the face of intimidation and coercion in the South China Sea.”

She spoke aboard a Philippine coast guard patrol ship docked in Puerto Princesa in the western island province of Palawan, which lies at the edge of the disputed waters. The highly symbolic visit was the last leg of a two-day visit that kicked off in Manila on Monday with talks with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Citing profound stakes for America and the international community in the region, particularly in the busy South China Sea, she called for a broad effort to fight for unimpeded commerce and freedom of navigation and overflight in the disputed waters.

“We must stand up for principles such as respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, unimpeded lawful commerce, the peaceful resolution of disputes,” Harris said.

“We will continue to rally our allies and partners against unlawful and irresponsible behavior,” she said. “When the international rules-based order is threatened somewhere, it is threatened everywhere.”

A new confrontation erupted ahead of her visit to Palawan when the Philippine navy alleged a Chinese coast guard vessel had forcibly seized Chinese rocket debris as Filipino sailors were towing it to a Philippine-controlled island.

Marcos Jr. told reporters without elaborating that he was inclined to send a diplomatic protest to China over the incident. He added that he wanted a clarification because China denied that it forcibly seized the debris.

The long-seething territorial conflicts involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei are regarded as an Asian flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China rivalry in the region.

In her talks with Marcos Jr. on Monday, Harris reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to defend the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty which obligates the allies to help defend either side which comes under attack.

“An armed attack on the Philippines armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. Mutual Defense commitments,” Harris told Marcos Jr. “And that is an unwavering commitment that we have to the Philippines.”

Marcos Jr. thanked Harris, saying that with the upheavals in the region and beyond, “this partnership becomes even more important.”

In Palawan’s main city of Puerto Princesa, Harris visited a small fishing community and spoke with impoverished villagers about the impact of illegal fishing on their livelihood. She was welcomed by dancing children and talked with women drying fish under the sun by the sea. “This is my souvenir,” she told one of the women in jest as she held a nugget of fish. The proud villager joked that the vice president could take all their products home.

The U.S. will provide an additional $7.5 million in aid to Philippine maritime law enforcement agencies to boost their capacity to counter illegal fishing, carry out sea surveillance and help in search and rescue efforts, including in the South China Sea, according to a statement issued by her office.

The Philippine coast guard will also receive additional U.S. help to upgrade a vessel traffic management system for better safety at sea. The Philippines is also now receiving real-time surveillance data to be able to detect and counter illicit activities at sea in a project by the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal strategic bloc that involves the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, according to Harris’s office.

While the U.S. lays no claims to the strategic waterway, where an estimated $5 trillion in global trade transits each year, it has said that freedom of navigation and overflight is in America’s national interest.

In March, U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John C. Aquilino told The Associated Press that China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the disputed waters and armed them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby.

In Sunday’s incident in the Spratlys, the most hotly contested area, Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, commander of the Philippine military’s Western Command, said a Chinese coast guard ship twice blocked a civilian boat manned by Philippine navy personnel before seizing the debris it was towing off Thitu island.

China denied there was a forcible seizure and said the debris, which it confirmed was from a recent Chinese rocket launch, was handed over by Philippine forces after a “friendly consultation.”

Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military would constitute a more brazen act.

China has warned Washington not to meddle in what it calls an Asian dispute and has said that U.S. Navy and Air Force patrols and combat exercises in the disputed waters were militarizing the South China Sea.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims on historical grounds in the South China Sea. China has rejected the decision. 

 
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