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MEREDITH, New Hampshire — Burt Rutan was alarmed to see the plane he had designed was so loaded with fuel that the wing tips started dragging along the ground as it taxied down the runway. He grabbed the radio to warn the pilot, his older brother Dick Rutan. But Dick never heard the message. 

Nine days and three minutes later, Dick, along with copilot Jeana Yeager, completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history: the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling. 

A decorated Vietnam War pilot, Dick Rutan died Friday evening at a hospital in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with Burt and other loved ones by his side. He was 85. His friend Bill Whittle said he died of a severe lung infection. 

“He played an airplane like someone plays a grand piano,” said Burt Rutan of his brother, who was often described as having a velvet arm because of his smooth flying style. 

A design, a dream

Burt Rutan said he had always loved designing airplanes and became fascinated with the idea of a craft that could go clear around the world. His brother was equally passionate about flying. The project took six years. 

There was plenty to worry Burt during testing of the light graphite plane, Voyager. There were mechanical failures, any one of which would have been disastrous over a distant ocean. When fully laden, the plane couldn’t handle turbulence. And then there was the question of how the pilots could endure such a long flight on so little sleep. But Burt said his brother had an optimism about him that made them all believe. 

“Dick never doubted whether my design would actually make it around, with still some gas in the tank,” Burt Rutan said. 

Voyager left from Edwards Air Force Base in California just after 8 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1986. Rutan said with all that fuel, the wings had only inches of clearance. Dick couldn’t see when they started dragging on the runway. But when Burt called on the radio, copilot Yeager gave a speed report, drowning the message. 

“And then, the velvet arm really came in,” Burt Rutan said. “And he very slowly brought the stick back and the wings bent way up, some 30 feet at the wingtips, and it lifted off very smoothly.” 

They arrived back to a hero’s welcome as thousands gathered to witness the landing. Both Rutan brothers and Yeager were awarded a Presidential Citizenship Medal by President Ronald Reagan, who described how a local official in Thailand at first “refused to believe some cockamamie story” about a plane flying around the world on a single tank of gas. 

“We had the freedom to pursue a dream, and that’s important,” Dick Rutan said at the ceremony.  

A vet of combat missions

Richard Glenn Rutan was born in Loma Linda, California. He joined the U.S. Air Force as a teenager and flew more than 300 combat missions during the Vietnam War. 

He was part of an elite group that would loiter over enemy anti-aircraft positions for hours at a time. The missions had the call sign “Misty” and Dick was known as “Misty Four-Zero.” Among the many awards Dick received were the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. 

He survived having to eject twice from planes, once when his F-100 Super Sabre was hit by enemy fire over Vietnam, and a second time when he was stationed in England and the same type of plane had a mechanical failure. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of lieutenant colonel and went on to work as a test pilot. 

Dick Rutan set another record in 2005 when he flew about 10 miles (16 kilometers) in a rocket-powered plane launched from the ground in Mojave, California. It was also the first time U.S. mail had been carried by a such a plane. 
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tokyo — Japan and India on Saturday decried remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden describing them as “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, which the president said during a campaign fundraising event earlier in the week. 

Japan said Biden’s judgment was not based on an accurate understanding of its policy, while India rebutted the comment, defending itself as the world’s most open society. 

Biden grouped Japan and India as “xenophobic” countries, along with Russia and China as he tried to explain their struggling economies, contrasting the four with the strength of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. 

Japan is a key U.S. ally, and both Japan and India are part of the Quad, a U.S.-led informal partnership that also includes Australia in countering increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific. 

Just weeks ago, Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on an official visit, as the two leaders restated their “unbreakable alliance” and agreed to reinforce their security ties in the face of China’s threat in the Indo-Pacific. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made a state visit to Washington last year, when he was welcomed by business and political leaders. 

The White House said Biden meant no offense and was merely stressing that the U.S. was a nation of immigrants, saying he had no intention of undermining the relationship with Japan. 

Japan is aware of Biden’s remark as well as the subsequent clarification, a Japanese government official said Saturday, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. 

The official said it was unfortunate that part of Biden’s speech was not based on an accurate understanding of Japanese policies, and that Japan understands that Biden made the remark to emphasize the presence of immigrants as America’s strength. 

Japan-U.S. relations are “stronger than ever” as Prime Minister Kishida showed during his visit to the U.S. in April, the official said. 

In New Delhi, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday also rebutted Biden’s comment, saying India was the most open society in the world. 

“I haven’t seen such an open, pluralistic, and diverse society anywhere in the world. We are actually not just not xenophobic, we are the most open, most pluralistic and in many ways the most understanding society in the world,” Jaishankar said at a roundtable organized by the Economic Times newspaper. 

Jaishankar also noted that India’s annual GDP growth is 7% and said, “You check some other countries’ growth rate, you will find an answer.” The U.S. economy grew by 2.5% in 2023, according to government figures. 

At a hotel fundraiser Wednesday, where the donor audience was largely Asian American, Biden said the upcoming U.S. election was about “freedom, America and democracy” and that the nation’s economy was thriving “because of you and many others.” 

“Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said. “Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.” 

Japan has been known for a strict stance on immigration. But in recent years, it has eased its policies to make it easier for foreign workers to come and stay in Japan to mitigate its declining births and rapidly shrinking population. The number of babies born in Japan last year fell to a record low since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. 

India, which has the world’s largest population, enacted a new citizenship law earlier this year by setting religious criteria that allows fast-tracking naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, while excluding Muslims. 
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washington — Supporters of two U.S. nationals seen as unjustly imprisoned overseas are raising concerns about what they see as a murky process by which the U.S. government decides whether to designate such individuals as wrongfully detained.

Granting a wrongful detention designation to a U.S. national means the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs is authorized to work with a coalition of government and private sector organizations to secure the detainee’s freedom.

Hostage rights advocates and relatives of the two U.S. nationals jailed in Iran and Russia tell VOA they want answers as to why the pair have been waiting months or years for a wrongful detention designation, while other Americans jailed in the same two countries have received the designation much more quickly.

Designations are granted if a review by the secretary of state concludes that the U.S. national’s case meets criteria  defined in the Levinson Act of 2020.

One U.S. national whose case has been under review for years is 62-year-old retired Iranian ship captain Shahab Dalili. After immigrating to the U.S. with his family in 2014 upon being granted permanent residency, he returned to Iran in 2016 to attend his father’s funeral and was arrested.

Iranian authorities sentenced Dalili to 10 years in prison for allegedly cooperating with a hostile government, a reference to the U.S. His family denies the charge.

While not a U.S. citizen, Dalili is considered a “U.S. national” under the Levinson Act, by virtue of his lawful permanent resident status.

The other U.S. national, whose case has been under review for months, is Alsu Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old U.S.-Russian dual citizen and Prague-based journalist with VOA sister network RFE/RL.

Kurmasheva had traveled to Russia last year to visit her elderly mother, but authorities blocked her from departing in June and confiscated her U.S. and Russian passports. They jailed her in October and charged her with failing to register as a foreign agent and with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military, offenses punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

RFE/RL and the U.S. Agency for Global Media say the charges were filed in reprisal for Kurmasheva’s work as a journalist.

Asked about Kurmasheva at a Tuesday news briefing, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the Biden administration remains “deeply concerned” about her detention and believes she should be released.

He said a “deliberative and fact-driven process” is underway regarding a wrongful detention designation in her case, but he declined to elaborate.

Speaking with reporters last August, Patel said Dalili’s case “has not yet been determined wrongfully detained” and declined to say more. There has been no update since then, Dalili’s son Darian told VOA.

In contrast to the unresolved status of Dalili’s eight-year detention, two Iranian Americans whom Iran freed from detention last September in a prisoner exchange with the U.S., and whom U.S. officials declined to name, received wrongful detention designations in what appears to be a relatively quick time.

The two individuals, whose backgrounds are revealed for the first time in this report as a result of a VOA open-source investigation, are San Diego-based international aid worker Fary Moini and Boston-based biologist Reza Behrouzi of Generate:Biomedicines.

Moini and Behrouzi were among five Americans released by Iran in the September exchange. The first indications that the two had been detained in Iran came from images of them published by news outlets and by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan as the group traveled to the U.S. via Qatar.

A day later, Iran’s NourNews site named the two previously unidentified Americans as “Reza Behrouzi” and “Fakhr al-Sadat Moini,” but gave no detail of their backgrounds. NourNews spelled Moini’s first name differently than “Fary,” the name she uses publicly in the U.S.

U.S. officials said all five of the Americans had been designated as wrongfully detained, including three previously known detainees who had been jailed for years: Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz and Emad Sharghi.

VOA contacted the State Department to ask when, where and why Moini and Behrouzi were detained in Iran, but it declined to provide an on-the-record response. Neither of the two responded to VOA requests for comment sent by email and through their social media profiles.

But Behrouzi and Moini were active on their Facebook and X accounts until three months and 11 months respectively before their release, indicating both were detained for less than a year.

Upon hearing from VOA about the State Department’s silence on Moini’s and Behrouzi’s detentions in Iran, Darian Dalili said he believes “something is not right” about how they got their designations.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the prominent status of these two people, whereas my father [Shahab Dalili] is a regular father of two,” the younger Dalili said.

Nizar Zakka — a Lebanese American who spent almost four years in what the U.S. said was unjust detention in Iran until being freed in 2019 — has urged the Biden administration to seek Shahab Dalili’s release as a wrongfully detained U.S. national.

Zakka told VOA he was happy that Moini and Behrouzi were released. But he said their attainment of wrongful detention designations in what appears to be a matter of months, while Dalili has waited years without securing that status, shows the designation process is not transparent.

“The public has a right to know how two people freed by Iran in return for the U.S. unfreezing a huge sum of Iranian funds got their designations, whereas Dalili has not,” Zakka said. “U.S. nationals like Dalili also should not be left behind,” he added.

Russian American journalist Kurmasheva’s wait for a U.S. decision on whether she is wrongfully detained after more than six months of Russian imprisonment also contrasts with the case of American reporter Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal.

Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on March 29, 2023, on spying charges while working in the country as an accredited journalist. Twelve days later, Secretary of State Blinken announced his determination that Gershkovich was wrongfully detained.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told VOA he does not know why Gershkovich got his designation so quickly while his wife continues to wait.

“The designation of Evan’s detention as wrongful was the right thing to do,” Butorin said. “But the designation process is opaque, and I don’t know where we are in it. I do know the State Department will prioritize those individuals formally designated as wrongfully detained in a prisoner exchange, so the designation is important for Alsu.”

Hostage rights advocate Diane Foley, president of U.S. nonprofit group Foley Foundation, told VOA she believes a big factor in Kurmasheva’s wait for a designation is her dual citizenship.

Foley said Gershkovich’s case for a designation was clearer because he is solely a U.S. citizen. She said Kurmasheva’s Russian citizenship means she is subject to Russian media regulations that the U.S. must examine to determine if she is jailed in violation of the detaining country’s own law, one of the criteria of the Levinson Act.

“That is what slows everything down,” Foley said. “But we are pushing for Alsu to get the designation because she is a press freedom advocate and there is no excuse for Russia to retaliate by detaining her on a technicality.”
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berlin — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union leaders denounced Saturday a recent spate of attacks on politicians in Germany, including one that sent a member of the European Parliament to the hospital with serious injuries. 

Matthias Ecke, 41, a member of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was hit and kicked Friday by a group of four people while putting up posters in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, police said. An SPD source said his injuries would require an operation. 

Shortly before, what appeared to be the same group attacked a 28-year-old campaigner for the Greens, who was also putting up posters, police said, although his injuries were not as severe. 

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of thing,” Scholz told a convention of European socialists in Berlin. 

The attacks exemplify increased violence in Germany in recent years, often from the far-right, targeting especially leftist politicians. The BfV domestic intelligence agency says far-right extremism is the biggest threat to German democracy. 

Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer, a conservative, said such aggression and attempts at intimidation recalled the darkest era of German history, a reference to Nazi rule. 

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, a former German conservative minister, and the Italian head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, both condemned the attack on Ecke. 

“The culprits must be brought to account,” von der Leyen said on X. 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser vowed “tough action and further protective measures” in response to the attacks. 

Far-right support 

The heads of the SPD in Saxony, Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, issued a statement in which they blamed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the rise in violence. 

“These people and their supporters bear responsibility for what is happening in this country,” they said. 

The AfD did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The party says it is the victim of a campaign by the media and political establishment. 

The AfD has seen a surge in support in the past year take it to second place in opinion polls nationwide. It is particularly strong in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where surveys suggest it could come first in regional elections in September. 

Nationwide, the number of attacks on politicians of parties represented in parliament has doubled since 2019, according to government figures published in January. 

Greens party politicians face the most aggression, according to the data, with attacks on them rising sevenfold since 2019 to 1,219 last year. AfD politicians suffered 478 attacks and the SPD was third with 420. 

Theresa Ertel, a Greens candidate in municipal elections in Thuringia this month, said she knew of party members who no longer wanted to stand because of the aggressive political atmosphere. 

The Greens in her region had agreed that information stands should always have at least three staff for extra safety. 
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LONDON — London Mayor Sadiq Khan has a lot of cleaning up to do.

Khan, who made history Saturday by becoming the city’s first mayor elected to a third term, has pledged to make the River Thames swimmable.

It wasn’t a top campaign issue, but it’s an audacious goal considering the waterway was declared biologically dead not long before his birth in the city in 1970 and flows as an open sewer of sorts when heavy rains overwhelm London’s ancient plumbing system.

Taming the Thames would not be Khan’s first swim upstream. His narrative is built around overcoming the odds.

As he frequently points out, he is the son of a bus driver and a seamstress from Pakistan. He grew up in a three-bedroom public housing apartment with seven siblings in South London. He attended a rough school and went on to study law. He was a human rights lawyer before he was elected to Parliament in 2005 as a member of the center-left Labor Party, representing the area where he grew up.

In 2016, he became the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital, overcoming an opponent whose mayoral campaign was “at least somewhat Islamophobic,” said Patrick Diamond, a public policy professor at Queen Mary University of London.

“It was seen as an affirmation of him in terms of his status as a leading Muslim politician, but also as an affirmation of London in terms of its diversity, its liberalism, its cosmopolitanism,” Diamond said. “That was significant in a country which doesn’t historically have a very strong track record for having diversity in its senior politicians.”

Khan has faced subtle and overt discrimination throughout his career due to his ethnicity and religion. Some of the sharpest barbs have come from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has feuded with him since Khan assailed Trump’s campaign pledge in 2015 to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

During a campaign rally Wednesday in Wisconsin, Trump said London and Paris were “no longer recognizable” after they “opened their doors to jihad.”

Khan, who has referred to Trump as the “poster boy for racists,” responded by saying Thursday’s election was a chance to “choose hope over fear and unity over division.”

“One of the things that he does incredibly well, and I would defy anyone to disagree with this, is representing London’s different and diverse communities,” said Jack Brown, a lecturer in London studies at King’s College London. “He hasn’t got absolutely everything right, but he is kind of a bringer together of different communities.”

Khan, who was ahead of the national Labor Party in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, has taken a lot of flak for large pro-Palestinian marches in the city since the Israel-Hamas war. But he’s also known for speaking out against antisemitism and for building bridges with Jewish leaders, Brown said.

Despite his success at the polls, Khan is not an incredibly popular mayor. He’s been blamed for a lot of problems, many of which are beyond his control.

The mayor of London doesn’t have the authority of mayors in Paris or New York because power is shared with the city’s 32 boroughs and the financial district.

Khan has a 20-billion-pound ($25 billion) budget that primarily goes toward transport, policing and working with councils and developers to achieve his affordable housing targets that he has fallen far short of meeting. Borough councils are responsible for schools, rubbish collection, social services and public housing.

His time in office has been overshadowed by crises: first the U.K.’s break from the European Union, which weakened London’s thriving financial services industry, and then the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a cost-of-living crisis.

He has touted measures he put in place such as freezing rail and bus fares and providing free meals for all primary school pupils among his biggest achievements.

Khan has deflected much criticism by blaming his difficulties on a Conservative government that has impeded his plans. He said a projected win by Labor in a national election later this year would change his fortunes.

“For too long we’ve had a government that appears to be anti-London, that thinks the way to level up our country, to make it more equal, is make London poorer,” Khan told The Associated Press.

But Diamond said a Labor government will face the same fiscal problems as the current administration and is unlikely to suddenly make Khan’s life easier.

“You can’t always play the party politics card,” Diamond said. “The general sense in London is that Sadiq Khan does that too often. Or you can blame the Conservative government once or twice, but if it’s your only message, I think people maybe get a little bit tired and switch off to some extent.”

Khan has been criticized by opponents for a rise in crime — particularly incidents involving knives. He has responded by pledging more support for programs that work with youths to prevent crime while blaming government funding cuts.

In the outer suburbs, Khan has come under fire for expanding the city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone that fines drivers of more-polluting older cars 12.50 pounds (about $16) a day. Although the policy was introduced in central London in 2015 by his predecessor, Boris Johnson, it has widely been attributed to Khan because of its unpopular expansion, although it only applies to a small fraction of vehicles.

His main opponent, Susan Hall, a London Assembly member, vowed to “stop the war on motorists” and scrap the program on her first day in office if elected.

Khan, who has made cleaning up London’s air pollution a personal mission since he developed asthma as an adult, considers those efforts among his biggest wins.

Making the Thames swimmable in the next decade would expand his mission from clean air to clean water. Brown said that might be a more tangible achievement — given that air pollution is often invisible — but it’s probably not something that won over a lot of voters.
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HOUSTON, TEXAS — High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water.

A flood watch remained in effect through Sunday afternoon as forecasters predicted additional rainfall Saturday night, bringing another 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 7.6 centimeters) of water to the soaked region and the likelihood of major flooding.

Friday’s fierce storms forced numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes. Officials redoubled urgent instructions for residents in low-lying areas to evacuate, warning the worst was still to come.

“This threat is ongoing, and it’s going to get worse. It is not your typical river flood,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the nation’s third-largest county.

She described the predicted surge of water as “catastrophic.” Schools in the path of the flooding canceled classes and roads jammed as authorities closed highways taking on water.

For weeks, drenching rains in Texas and parts of Louisiana have filled reservoirs and saturated the ground. Floodwaters partially submerged cars and roads this week across parts of southeastern Texas, north of Houston, where high waters reached the roofs of some homes.

More than 21 inches (53.34 centimeters) of rain fell during the five-day period that ended Friday in Liberty County near the city of Splendora, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Houston, according to the National Weather Service.

In the rural community of Shepherd, Gilroy Fernandes said he and his spouse had about an hour to evacuate after a mandatory order. Their home is on stilts near the Trinity River, and they felt relief when the water began to recede on Thursday.

Then the danger grew while they slept.

“Next thing you know, overnight they started releasing more water from the dam at Livingston. And so that caused the level of the river to shoot up by almost five or six feet overnight,” Fernandes said. Neighbors who left an hour later got stuck in traffic because of flooding.

The Harris County Joint Information Center told KPRC-TV that 196 people and 108 animals have been rescued by emergency response agencies in Harris County.

Elsewhere, in neighboring Montgomery County, Judge Mark Keough said there had been more high-water rescues than he was able to count.

“We estimate we’ve had a couple hundred rescues from homes, from houses, from vehicles,” Keough said.

In Polk County, located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northeast of Houston, officials have done over 100 water rescues in the past few days, said Polk County Emergency Management Coordinator Courtney Comstock.

She said homes below Lake Livingston Dam and along the Trinity River have flooded.

“It’ll be when things subside before we can do our damage assessment,” Comstock said.

Authorities in Houston had not reported any deaths or injuries. The city of more than 2 million people is one of the most flood-prone metro areas in the country and has long experience dealing with devastating weather.

Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dumped historic rainfall on the area, flooding thousands of homes and resulting in more than 60,000 rescues by government rescue personnel across Harris County.

Of particular concern was an area along the San Jacinto River in the northeastern part of Harris County, which was expected to continue rising as more rain falls and officials release extra water from an already full reservoir. Judge Hidalgo on Thursday issued a mandatory evacuation order for those living along portions of the river.

Most of Houston’s city limits were not heavily affected by the weather, except for the northeastern neighborhood of Kingwood. Officials said the area had about four months of rain in about a week’s time. Houston Mayor John Whitmire said rising flood waters from the San Jacinto River were expected to affect Kingwood late Friday and Saturday.

Shelters have opened across the region, including nine by the American Red Cross.

The weather service reported the river was nearly 74 feet (22.56) meters late Saturday morning after reaching nearly 77.7 feet (23.7 meters). The rapidly changing forecast said the river is expected to fall to near the flood stage of 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) by Thursday.

The greater Houston area covers about 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) — a slightly bigger footprint than the state of New Jersey. It is crisscrossed by about 1,700 miles (2,736 kilometers) of channels, creeks and bayous that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 feet (80 kilometers) to the southeast from downtown.

The city’s system of bayous and reservoirs was built to drain heavy rains. But engineering initially designed nearly 100 years ago has struggled to keep up with the city’s growth and bigger storms.
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ATLANTA, GEORGIA — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia’s top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online.

So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught of threats, posted a message to his nearly 71,000 followers on the social platform X explaining what had happened and saying that all votes would be counted correctly.

He faced immediate criticism from one commenter about why he was weighing in on another state’s election while other responses reiterated false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“It’s still the right thing to do,” Sterling told a gathering the following day, stressing the importance of Republican officials speaking up to defend elections. “We have to be prepared to say over and over again — other states are doing it different than us, but they are not cheating.”

Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, is part of an effort begun after the last presidential election that seeks to bring together Republican officials who are willing to defend the country’s election systems and the people who run them. They want officials to reinforce the message that elections are secure and accurate, an approach they say is especially important as the country heads toward another divisive presidential contest.

The group has held meetings in several states, with more planned before the November 5 election.

With six months to go before the likely rematch between Democratic President Joe Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump, concerns are running high among election officials that public distrust of voting and ballot counting persists, particularly among Republicans. Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, continues to sow doubts about the last presidential election and is warning his followers — without citing any evidence — that Democrats will try to cheat in the upcoming one.

This past week, during a campaign rally in Michigan, Trump repeated his false claim that Democrats rigged the 2020 election. “But we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election,” he said.

Just 22% of Republicans expressed high confidence that votes will be counted accurately in November, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last year.

“It’s an obligation on Republicans’ part to stand up for the defense of our system because our party — there’s some blame for where we stand right now,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, who is part of the group and won reelection last year.

The effort, which began about 18 months ago, is coordinated by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the center-right think tank R Street Institute. The goal has been to start conversations about trust in elections, primarily among conservative officials, and to develop a set of principles to accomplish that.

“This has never been and will never be about Trump specifically,” said Matt Germer, director of governance for the R Street Institute and a lead organizer of the effort. “It’s about democratic principles at a higher level — what does it mean to be a conservative who believes in democracy, the rule of law?”

He said an aim is to have a structure in place to support election officials who might find themselves in situations like that of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2020, when he supported Trump but rejected false claims that the election was stolen. Prosecutors in Georgia have since charged Trump and others, alleging a plot to overturn the results. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

“You can be a Republican and you can believe in all the Republican ideas without having to say the election was stolen,” Germer said.

A guiding principle for the group is that Republican officials should “publicly affirm the security and integrity of elections across the U.S. and avoid actively fueling doubt about elections in other jurisdictions.”

Kim Wyman, a Republican who previously served as Washington state’s top election official, said it’s imperative when officials are confronted with questions about an election somewhere else that they don’t avoid the question by promoting election procedures in their own state.

It’s OK to say you don’t know the various laws and procedures in another state, Wyman said, but she urged fellow Republicans to emphasize what states do have in common — “the security measures, the control measures to make sure the election is being conducted with integrity.”

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who has participated in meetings organized by the group, said he believes there are certain aspects of elections that officials should feel comfortable talking about. But he said he would remain cautious of speaking directly about something specific happening in another state.

“If I start going beyond my realm and my role, then they don’t trust me. And if they don’t trust me, then they don’t trust the elections in Kansas, and that’s pretty important,” Schwab said in an interview.
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PARIS — France’s world-leading cosmetics sector is counting on talks between Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron next week to help minimize the impact on French companies of tough new Chinese import rules requiring the sharing of formulas and manufacturing know-how. 

President Xi’s first visit to Europe in five years comes amid a backdrop of tense trade relations, with the European Union threatening China’s electric vehicle and green energy industries with tariffs. 

But progress toward an agreement between France and China on the regulation of cosmetics, including lipstick and fragrances, could be a bright spot in discussions in Paris next week. 

President Macron’s office said ahead of the meeting that cosmetics would be a topic of “great attention,” and that they sought to “find a solution that also protects the interests of our companies.” 

France is the world’s leading cosmetics exporter, shipping nearly 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) worth of makeup and skin care products to China last year, second in importance only to aerospace products. 

New Chinese safety rules due to come into effect next year threaten that trade. 

From May 2025, cosmetics exporters will be required to share detailed information on their manufacturing processes with Beijing and receive Chinese inspectors in their factories, a measure that raises concerns about losing control of intellectual property. 

Under a plan proposed in talks between the two sides in the past year, French authorities would take responsibility for assuring the safety of some of its exports without the need for Chinese inspections. 

France would grant some similar measures to China, but it was not clear what areas those would cover. 

“This reciprocity will assure the highest standards of safety to Chinese consumers,” said Emmanuel Guichard, secretary general of France’s cosmetics industry association FEBEA, adding that the plan could be formalized during talks between Xi and Macron. 

FEBEA’s members include L’Oreal, LVMH and Coty. 

Under the agreement, France’s consumer and anti-fraud watchdog DGCCRF would ensure the safety of a number of French manufacturers that qualify for “white list” status. 

The agency said in a report issued Friday on its recent activities that it held its first meeting on certification of French cosmetics for export to China with China’s National Medical Products Administration, or NMPA, in December. 

The Elysee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The DGCCRF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NMPA could not be reached for comment on a holiday weekend. Sunday is Labor Day in China, recognized as a national holiday. 
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WASHINGTON — Communities to commemorate Indigenous missing and murdered

Sunday, May 5, is Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day in the U.S., a date set aside to raise awareness about an epidemic of violence and violent crimes in Native and Indigenous communities.

Communities across the U.S. are marking the day with gatherings, marches and workshops.

Native and First Nations communities in the U.S. and Canada say authorities often fail to investigate these cases, and the lack of closure inflicts despair on tribal communities.

Under the Biden administration, federal agencies have been ordered to enhance public safety and criminal justice for Native Americans. This includes the establishment of a Missing & Murdered Unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services. 

Read more:

Thousands of Native American families may lose Internet access 

This month, the U.S. Internet affordability program will run out of funds, and unless Congress provides additional plans, more than 23 million low-income families will be forced to pay for more expensive service plans or do without the internet altogether.  

Native Americans on rural reservations may be hardest hit, CNN reported this week. About 329,500 tribal households are currently enrolled in the program, with the majority of those concentrated in Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and South Dakota. 

The White House, the Federal Communications Commissions and digital equity advocacy groups are urging Congress to pass the bipartisan ACP Extension Act, which would allocate an additional $7 billion to keep the program running until the end of the year.

In 2021, Congress passed the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, which allocated more than $14 billion to help low-income families afford high speed Internet. It has offered eligible households a discount of up to $30 per month toward Internet service and up to $75 per month for households on tribal lands. Households also received one-time discounts on the purchasing of laptops, desktop computers or tablets.

Read more:

Navajo resolve to ban uranium hauling on reservation  

Navajo President Buu Nygren on April 29 signed a resolution urging President Joe Biden to halt uranium hauling on Navajo lands. 

The legislation, supported by the Navajo Nation Council, underscores the lasting devastation caused by past uranium mining and calls for executive action to prevent further harm to land, water and public health. 

“The transportation of uranium ore across Navajo Nation lands represents a disregard for Navajo Nation law, threatens its territorial integrity and is a threat to the sovereignty of the Navajo Nation,” the resolution reads. “The need to halt plans to transport uranium across Navajo Nation lands is a pressing public need which requires final action by the Navajo Nation Council.”

According to the Navajo Nation’s Radioactive and Related Substances Equipment, Vehicles, Persons and Materials Transportation Act of 2012, the transportation of uranium within the Navajo Nation is prohibited. However, a provision in the law exempts the transportation of uranium along state and federal highways that cross the reservation.

“We are unwavering in our stance against uranium,” Nygren said Monday. “This legislation is a product of the dedication of our legislative and executive bodies of government. Today, united, we are sending a powerful message to Washington, D.C.”

Indigenous students mocked at ND high school prom 

A North Dakota high school has apologized after a group of white high school students were caught on video mocking traditional powwow dancing during their annual prom dance on April 20.

A number of Native American students from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe captured videos of the incident at the Flasher High School dance. The mother of one of the Indigenous students posted some of them on Facebook. 

“At no time was there any intentional intent to disrespect the Native American culture,” Flasher Public School superintendent Jerry Erdahl posted on Facebook. “To the Native American people, we are sincerely apologetic. Now, for us here at Flasher Public School, is the time to educate both students and staff on cultural sensitivity issues that can affect values, morals and beliefs of others.”

Read more:

Lakota reaction to SD governor’s upcoming memoir 

South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem continued to face backlash this week in the wake of revelations that she shot and killed a rambunctious 14-month-old puppy because he was “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.” The same day, she also killed a male goat because he smelled “disgusting.”

Oliver Semans, a Sicangu Lakota citizen from the Rosebud Reservation, told VOA that people are upset.

“You know, dogs are sacred to the Lakota people. Súŋka wakan, sacred dog. Before the horse, it was the dogs that used to take and carry our teepee poles and other things. And when we got the horses, the horses were called wakan, sacred.”

The Guardian newspaper broke the story April 26 after getting an advance copy of a forthcoming book in which Noem described the incident as an example of her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly.” 

Noem has defended her actions, characterizing the dog as a “working dog, not a puppy” and saying she chose to protect her family.
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KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, injuring at least six people and hitting critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, regional officials said on Saturday.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the Russian forces launched 13 Shahed drones targeting the regions in the northeast and center of the country. The air defense units downed all the drones, the Air Force commander said.

However, debris from the downed drones struck civilian targets in Kharkiv in the northeast, injuring four people and sparking a fire in an office building, the regional governor said.

Oleh Synehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said a 13-year-old child and a woman were being treated at a hospital. Two other women were treated on site. Emergency services were bringing the fire under control, he said.

In the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were wounded, said Serhiy Lysak, the regional governor. He said a critical infrastructure facility and three houses were damaged.
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PARIS — Freshly cooked bread, select cheeses and a broad veggie offer will be among the meals to be offered to athletes and visitors during the 2024 Paris Olympics — including, of course, gourmet dishes created by renowned French chefs.

About 40,000 meals are expected to be served each day during the Games to the more than 15,000 athletes from 200 different countries housed at the Olympic village.

Visitors, too, will be able to enjoy some specially created snacks at the different venues.

French food services company Sodexo Live!, which was selected to oversee the catering at the athletes’ village and 14 venues of the Paris Games, said it has created a total of 500 recipes, which will notably be offered at a sit-down eatery for up to 3,500 athletes at the village, meant to be the “world’s largest restaurant.”

“Of course, there will be some classics for athletes, like pasta,” said Nathalie Bellon-Szabo, global CEO of Sodexo Live! But the food will have a “very French touch.”

Athletes will also have access to “grab and go” food stands, including one dedicated exclusively to French cuisine cooked up by chefs.

Renowned French chef Amandine Chaignot, who runs a restaurant and a café-bistro in Paris, on Tuesday unveiled one of her recipes based on the iconic croissant.

“I wanted the recipe I suggested to be representative of the French terroir, but I wanted athletes to enjoy it at the same time,” she told The Associated Press. “It was quite obvious for me to make a croissant that I could twist. So, you have a bit of artichoke puree, a poached egg, a bit of truffle and a bit of cheese. It’s both vegetarian and still mouthwatering.”

Every day, during the July 26-August 11 Games, a top chef — including some awarded with Michelin stars — will cook in front of the athletes at the Olympic Village, “so they’ll be able to chat and better understand what French cuisine is about — and to understand a bit of our culture as well,” Chaignot said.

Daily specials will be accompanied by a wide range of salads, pastas, grilled meat and soups. Cheeses will include top quality camembert, brie and sheep’s milk-based Ossau-Iraty from southwestern France.

The Olympic Village will also feature a boulangerie producing fresh baguettes and a variety of other breads.

“The idea is to offer athletes the chance to grab a piping-hot baguette for breakfast,” said baker Tony Doré, who will be working at the Olympic Village’s main restaurant.

Athletes will even be able to participate in daily bakery trainings, and learn to make their own French baguette, said Doré.

In an effort to provide as many options as possible, meals offered will revolve around four cuisines: French, Asian, African and the Caribbean and international food.

Paris 2024 organizers have promised to make the Games more sustainable and environment-friendly — and that includes efforts to reduce the use of plastic. To this effect, the main restaurant at the village will use only reusable dishes.

Additionally, organizers say all meals will be based on seasonal products and 80% will come from France.

Plant-based food will represent 60% of the offer for visitors at the venues, including a “vegetarian hot-dog,” said Philipp Würz, head of Food and Beverage for the Paris 2024 Committee.

There’s “a huge amount of plant-based recipes that will be available for the general public to try, to experience and, hopefully, they will love it,” said Würz.

The urban park at the Place de la Concorde, in central Paris, will offer visitors 100% vegetarian food — a first in the Games’ history. The place will be the stage for Paris 2024’s most contemporary sporting disciplines: BMX freestyle, 3×3 basketball, skateboarding and breakdancing.
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KASHAN, Iran — The historic Kashan bazaar in central Iran once sat on a major caravan route, its silk carpets known the world over. But for the weavers trying to sell their rugs under its ancient arches, their world has only unraveled since the collapse of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and wider tensions with the West.

Rug exports, which exceeded $2 billion two decades ago, have plummeted to less than $50 million in the last year in the Persian calendar that ended in March, according to government customs figures. With fewer tourists coming and difficulties rising in making international transactions, Iranian rugs are going unsold as some weavers work for as little as $4 a day.

“Americans were some of our best customers,” said Ali Faez, the owner of one dusty carpet shop at the bazaar. “Rugs are a luxury product and they were eager to buy it and they used to make very good purchases. Unfortunately, this has been cut — and the connection between the two countries for visitors to come and go has gone away.”

Kashan’s rug-weaving industry has been inscribed in UNESCO’s list of the world’s “intangible cultural heritage.” Many of the weavers are women, with the skills needed for the Farsi weaving style passed down from generation to generation, using materials like vine leaves and the skins of pomegranate fruit and walnuts to make the dyes for their threads. A single rug can take months to make.

For decades, Western tourists and others would pass through Iran, picking up rugs as gifts and to take back home. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the U.S. increased sanctions on Iran’s theocratic government over the U.S. Embassy siege, Tehran’s links to militant attacks and other issues.

But in 2000, the outgoing administration of former President Bill Clinton lifted a ban on the import of Iranian caviar, rugs and pistachios.

“Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood,” then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said at the time. “We welcome efforts to make it less dangerous.”

By 2010, with concerns rising over Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. again banned Iranian-made Persian rugs. But in 2015, Iran struck a nuclear deal with world powers which greatly reduced and drastically lowered the purity of Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. The rug trade was allowed once again.

Three years later, in 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal. Since then, Iran began enriching uranium at near-weapons-grade levels and has been blamed for a series of attacks at sea and on land, including an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack targeting Israel last month.

For the carpet weavers, that’s meant their wares were once again banned under U.S. law.

“It started when Trump signed that paper,” Faez told The Associated Press, referring to the renewed sanctions. “He ruined everything.”

Abdullah Bahrami, the head of a national syndicate for handwoven rug producers, also blamed the collapse of the industry on the Trump sanctions. He put the value of exports to the U.S. as high as $80 million annually prior to the sanctions.

“The whole world used to know Iran by its rugs,” Bahrami told the state-run IRNA news agency in March.

Making things worse is what carpet sellers see as a drop in tourists to Kashan as well. High-value American and European tourism in Iran has largely stopped, the daily Shargh newspaper warned last year. Ezzatollah Zarghami, Iran’s minister of tourism, insisted in April that 6 million tourists visited the country over the last 12 months, though that likely includes religious pilgrims as well as Afghans and Iraqis with less spending money.

But even those tourists that do show up face the challenge of Iran’s financial system, where no major international credit card works.

“I had a Chinese customer the other week. He was struggling to somehow make the payment because he loved the rug and didn’t want to let go of it,” Faez said. “We have to pay a lot of commission to those who can transfer money and have bank accounts abroad. Sometimes they cancel their orders because they don’t have enough cash with them.”

The collapse of the rial currency has left many Iranians also unable to purchase the handwoven rugs. Wages in the industry are low, leading to a growing number of Afghan migrants working in workshops around Kashan as well.

Designer Javad Amorzesh, one of just a few of Kashan’s old-school artists, said his orders have fallen from 10 a year to just two. He has laid off staff and now works alone in a cramped space.

“Inflation rose every hour. People were hit repeatedly by inflation,” he said. “I used to have four to five assistants in a big workshop.”

Offering a bitter laugh alone in his workshop, he added, “We’ve been left isolated.”
…

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argues that a fractured democracy can have destructive effects on the economy — an indirect jab at Donald Trump.

Yellen delivered an address Friday in Arizona, using economic data to paint a picture of how disregard for America’s democratic processes and institutions can cause economic stagnation for decades.

Yellen, taking a rare step toward to the political arena, never mentioned Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, by name in her speech for the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum, but she hinted at the former president’s potential impact if he regains the White House.

Her remarks serve as a sort of warning for business leaders who may overlook Trump’s disregard for modern democratic norms because they prefer the former president’s vision of achieving growth by slashing taxes and stripping away regulations.

Yellen acknowledged that democracy “doesn’t seem like typical terrain for a treasury secretary,” but she added that “democracy is critical to building and sustaining a strong economy.”

“The argument made by authoritarians and their defenders that chipping away at democracy is a fair or even necessary trade for economic gains is deeply flawed,” she said. “Undercutting democracy undercuts a foundation of sustainable and inclusive growth.” She pointed to a study suggesting that democratization increases gross domestic product per capita by around 20% in the long run.

Yellen cited the insurrection on January 6, 2021, as a day when democracy came under threat as “rioters, spurred on by a lie, stormed the Capitol.” Trump, who made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, has been charged with conspiring to overturn the election, among four criminal cases he is facing. He denies any wrongdoing.

And though Yellen didn’t specifically cite Trump’s comments, he again undermined the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power this week when he refused to commit to accepting this year’s presidential results in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Farther from home, Yellen cited other global threats to democracy such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump and those associated with him say they want to centralize the government’s powers within the Oval Office, such that he might subject people or companies that cross him to investigations, lawsuits and other penalties. That approach could undermine the rule of law that has enabled America’s market-based economy to thrive.

In her speech, Yellen pointed to China as a cautionary example and warned that its future growth is “far from certain.” She said the absence of some democratic pillars will “continue to pose challenges as China navigates the transition to an advanced economy.”

Yellen’s speech comes when there is speculation that if Trump regains the White House he may put political pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower its benchmark interest rate, which stands at a two-decade high of roughly 5.3%. Fed Chair Jerome Powell this week said gaining confidence to lower rates “will take longer than previously expected.”

“As chair of the Federal Reserve, I insisted on the Fed’s independence and transparency because I believe it matters for financial stability and economic growth,” Yellen said in her speech. “Recent research has been consistent with my belief: It has shown that greater central bank independence is associated with greater price stability, which contributes significantly to long-term growth.”

A representative from the Trump campaign did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Other leading economists and academics are challenging the right’s claims to the mantles of economic growth and liberty.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a friend of Yellen’s, last month published a book entitled The Road to Freedom. Stiglitz, in an interview, said Trump has preyed on people’s economic insecurities after decades of inequality and the erosion of the middle class.

“The economic state is what creates the fertile field for these demagogues,” Stiglitz said. “If they were feeling their incomes were going up rather than down, I don’t think they would find Trump attractive.”

In a paper released this week, Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said that businesses should be more concerned about the rule of law and democratic values.

She argued that there need to be stronger nonpartisan business associations and that CEOs and executives need to be fully aware of how a move away from democracy could hurt their bottom lines.

There is “indisputable evidence of the economic costs of democratic decline,” she said. “These costs include stagnation, policy instability, cronyism, brain drain, and violence.”
…

Protests related to the Israel-Hamas war have boiled over on college campuses across the United States, some leading to clashes with police and confrontations between student groups. And despite the dangers, student journalists and their news organizations are leading the press coverage. VOA’s Robin Guess has the story.
Camera: Keith Lane
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new york — Anti-war demonstrations ceased this week at a small number of U.S. universities after school leaders struck deals with pro-Palestinian protesters, fending off possible disruptions of final exams and graduation ceremonies.

The agreements at schools including Brown, Northwestern and Rutgers universities stand out amid the chaotic scenes and 2,400-plus arrests on 46 campuses nationwide since April 17. Tent encampments and building takeovers have disrupted classes at some schools, including Columbia University and the University of California-Los Angeles.

Deals included commitments by universities to review their investments in Israel or hear calls to stop doing business with the longtime U.S. ally. Many protester demands have zeroed in on links to the Israeli military as the war grinds on in Gaza.

The agreements to even discuss divestment mark a major shift on an issue that has been controversial for years, with opponents of a long-running campaign to boycott Israel saying it veers into antisemitism. But while the colleges have made concessions around amnesty for protesters and funding for Middle Eastern studies, they have made no promises about changing their investments.

“I think for some universities, it might be just a delaying tactic” to calm the protests, said Ralph Young, a history professor who studies American dissent at Temple University in Philadelphia. “The end of the semester is happening now. And maybe by the time the next semester begins, there is a cease-fire in Gaza.”

Some university boards may never vote on divesting from Israel, which can be a complicated process, Young said. And some state schools have said they lack the authority to do so.

But Young said dialogue is a better tactic than arrests.

Talking “at least gives the protesters the feeling that they’re getting somewhere,” he said. “Whether they are getting somewhere or not is another question.”

Israel has called the protests antisemitic; its critics say the country uses such allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters were caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — have called it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.

Administrators at the University of California at Riverside announced an agreement Friday with protesters to close their campus encampment. The deal included the formation of a task force to explore removing Riverside’s endowment from the broader UC system’s management and investing those funds “in a manner that will be financially and ethically sound for the university with consideration to the companies involved in arms manufacturing and delivery.”

The announcement marked an apparent split with the policy of the 10-campus UC system, which last week said it opposes “calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel.”

Demonstrators at Rutgers — where finals were paused because of the protests on its New Brunswick, New Jersey, campus — similarly packed up their tents Thursday afternoon. The state university agreed to establish an Arab Cultural Center and to not retaliate against any students involved in the camp.

Protesters at Brown in Rhode Island agreed to dismantle their encampment on Tuesday. School officials said students could present arguments for divesting Brown’s endowment from companies contributing to and profiting from the war in Gaza.

In addition, Brown President Christina Paxson will ask an advisory committee to make a recommendation on divestment by September 30, which will be put before the school’s governing corporation for a vote in October.

Northwestern’s Deering Meadow in suburban Chicago also fell silent after an agreement Monday. The deal curbed protest activity in return for reestablishing an advisory committee on university investments and other commitments.

The arrangement drew dissent from both sides. Some pro-Palestinian protesters condemned it as a failure to stick to their original demands, while some supporters of Israel said it represented cowardly capitulation.

Seven of 18 members subsequently resigned from a university committee that advises the administration on addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia and expressions of hatred on campus, saying they couldn’t continue to serve “with antisemitism so present at Northwestern in public view for the past week.”

Michael Simon, the executive director of an organization for Jewish students, Northwestern Hillel, said he resigned after concluding that the committee could not achieve its goals.

Faculty at Pomona College in California voted in favor of divesting from companies they said are funding Israel’s war in Gaza, a group of faculty and students said Friday.

The vote Thursday is not binding on the liberal arts school of nearly 1,800 students east of Los Angeles. But supporters said they hoped it would encourage the board to stop investing in these companies and start disclosing where it makes its investments.

Meanwhile, arrests of demonstrators continued elsewhere.

About a dozen protesters who refused police orders to leave an encampment at New York University were arrested early Friday, and about 30 more left voluntarily, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said. The school asked city police to intervene, he added.

NYPD officers also cleared an encampment at The New School in Greenwich Village at the request of school administrators. No arrests were announced.

Another 132 protesters were arrested when police broke up an encampment at the State University of New York at New Paltz starting late Thursday, authorities said.

And nine were arrested at the University of Tennessee, including seven students who Chancellor Donde Plowman said would also be sanctioned under the school’s code of conduct.

The movement began April 17 at Columbia, where student protesters built an encampment to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

Over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive after October 7, when Hamas militants entered Israel and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.
…

Washington — On Saturday, March 2, at 2:20 a.m., Serhii Gadarzhi woke up to a drone approaching his apartment building in Odesa, Ukraine. He heard an explosion just outside his windows and rushed to his 2-year-old daughter’s bedroom. She was there. He grabbed the child, wrapped her in a blanket and went to check on his wife and their 4-month-old son.

“The door was open. There was nothing behind it — just emptiness. My Anichka is gone. My boy Timosha is gone,” Gadarzhi relates on the Odesa Baptist YouTube channel.

Their bodies were found in the rubble after almost 24 hours of searching. All seven floors had collapsed on top of his wife and the baby sleeping on her chest, Gadarzhi said. That Russian attack with Iranian-made drones killed 12 people, including five children and seven adults.

“I want to say to Mr. James Michael Johnson: Dear brother, we have a war going on. A terrible war. And so many believers, brothers and sisters, are being killed. Little children are being killed. Help is very important to us. Especially military help because if there were a missile to shoot down that drone, the drone wouldn’t have flown in our house,” he says on the video.

Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, had for months delayed bringing to the floor of the House a bill providing $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, including ammunition for its air defense systems. The bill was finally approved on April 20 despite resistance from some members of Johnson’s own Republican Party.

Just three days before the vote, Gadarzhi, a Ukrainian Baptist and son-in-law of a local Baptist pastor, told his story to Johnson in person. Gadarzhi told VOA that the speaker already knew about his family’s tragedy.

“One can see in his eyes that he was compassionate, that he wanted to support us and his response was very sincere,” he said.

That meeting followed eight months of behind-the-scenes efforts by Ukrainian Protestants and their allies in the United States to tell Republican members of Congress about the suffering of the faithful at the hands of the Russian forces in the occupied portions of Ukraine.

Steven Moore, an Oklahoma native, was behind some of these efforts. He worked as a chief of staff in the House of Representatives to a leading Republican member for seven years, after which he lived in Ukraine for a year.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, he was visiting his mother in Tulsa but was back in Ukraine on day five of the full-scale invasion. Moore founded the Ukraine Freedom Project NGO (UFP), which began delivering food and supplies to the front for the residents and Ukraine’s armed forces.

Through his work, he learned about abuses inflicted on Ukrainian civilians by the Russian occupying forces, but one story struck him. Victor, an Evangelical pastor from Lugansk, was evacuating a group of civilians, including a pregnant woman and a baby, when Russians stopped his car and took him to a basement.

“They tortured him for 25 days, including one day when they were torturing him with an electrical Taser. And a Russian Orthodox priest was standing over him, trying to cast demons out of him because he was an Evangelical Christian. It blew my mind,” Moore told VOA.

He shared this story with a friend, Karl Ahlgren, a fellow Oklahoman and former chief of staff of a Republican congressman.

“When the full-scale invasion started, Republicans in particular were pretty supportive of Ukraine, and then their support waned. We had to regroup and figure out what we could do to get the right message out to Republicans,” said Ahlgren, who joined UFP as a vice president for public policy.

Beginning in September 2023, Moore, Ahlgren and their Chief Operating Officer Anna Shvetsova met with about 100 members of Congress and their staff, telling them about the persecution of Ukrainian Protestants by Russians.

UFP conducted a survey that showed 70% of Evangelical Christians who vote Republican are more likely to support Ukraine if they learn about Russia torturing and murdering people of their faith, Moore said. They were surprised to discover that most members of Congress knew nothing about it.

“Of the people we met with, there were probably three or four who knew some of the things we were talking about,” Ahlgren said.

Moore said the group “had video of people talking about being tortured, and we would show these videos to members of Congress, to their staff, and they would tear up.”

Other organizations, including the advocacy group Razom for Ukraine, joined the effort.

“I’m an American Baptist. I was shocked, in particular, that so many Baptist churches in occupied Ukraine have been harassed,” said Melinda Haring, a senior adviser for Razom for Ukraine. “More than 26 pastors have been killed since the full-scale war, and 400 Baptist congregations have lost their premises or some of their property.”

She said that at the meetings with the members of Congress and their staffers, she and her colleagues provided statistics of damage caused by Russia to the Ukrainian Christians, told personal stories and prayed together.

Some efforts specifically targeted Johnson, a Southern Baptist from Louisiana.

“We sponsored a billboard with Mike Johnson’s favorite Bible verse,” Haring said. “It’s a passage from the Book of Esther. Esther is before her uncle Mordecai, and she’s afraid to see the king; if she goes and sees the king without his permission, she can be killed, and Mordecai says, ‘You were chosen for a time like this.’

“We learned that Mike Johnson believed he was chosen to be the speaker of the House for an important time. So, our billboard had a picture of a destroyed Baptist church in Berdiansk with that Bible quote.”

Razom placed six of the billboards in Louisiana, including one in front of Johnson’s Cypress Baptist Church in Shreveport.

Razom, UFP and other organizations cosponsored multiple trips by Ukrainian religious leaders to the United States and helped them to organize meetings with members of Congress.

In November, 18 religious leaders and members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations visited the United States. In early February, dozens of representatives of Ukrainian churches attended Ukrainian Week in Washington, organized around the National Prayer Breakfast.

Then, four of them met with Johnson.

“The meeting with the speaker was very warm, and the conversation was constructive,” said Anatoliy Kozachok, the senior bishop of the Ukrainian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith.

He said they handed Johnson two letters urging him to support Ukraine, one from all Ukrainian Christians and one from the Protestants. The speaker told them he and his colleagues were working hard to resolve the issue.

“We felt united as people with the same values. There was a desire to help and to find a solution to the issue of aid for Ukraine,” Kozachok told VOA.

Another meeting participant, Valeriy Antonyuk, head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, said the group discussed shared values with Johnson.

“We Baptists have always defended everyone’s right to practice their faith freely,” he told VOA.

The Ukrainian church leaders were far from the only ones bringing intense pressure on Johnson to defy much of his own party and allow the aid bill to come to a vote, and only Johnson knows how decisive their efforts were in his final decision.

But with Ukrainian forces losing ground and desperately short of ammunition, the bill sailed through Congress on a vote of 311 to 112 and was signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24, clearing the way for the military assistance to begin flowing again.
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tbilisi, georgia — Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Friday rejected criticism from the United States and European Union of a draft “foreign agents” bill, saying opponents of it were unwilling to engage in a meaningful discussion. 

The draft legislation, which is winding its way through the Georgian Parliament, would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, a requirement opponents attack as authoritarian and Kremlin-inspired. 

Several thousand protesters took to the streets again Friday to voice their opposition, moving toward the headquarters of the ruling Georgian Dream party and then attending a Holy Friday service ahead of Orthodox Easter Sunday.  

The European Union and the United States have urged Tbilisi to drop the legislation or risk harming its chances of European Union membership and a broader Euro-Atlantic future. 

The standoff is seen as part of a wider struggle that could determine whether Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that has experienced war and revolution since the fall of the Soviet Union, moves closer to Europe or back under Moscow’s influence. 

Kobakhidze said the legislation was necessary for transparency and accountability in the South Caucasus nation. 

“I explained to [senior U.S. diplomat Derek] Chollet that false statements made by the officials of the U.S. State Department about the transparency bill and street rallies remind us of similar false statements made by the former U.S. ambassador in 2020-2023,” Kobakhidze said on X. 

He said the previous U.S. statements had encouraged violence from what he called foreign-funded actors and had supported “revolutionary processes” that he said had been unsuccessful.  

“I clarified to Mr. Chollet that it requires a special effort to restart the relations [between Georgia and the United States] against this background, which is impossible without a fair and honest approach.” 

The White House has expressed concern that the legislation could stifle dissent and free speech. 

Kobakhidze also expressed disappointment about a conversation with European Council President Charles Michel, saying the EU had “been reluctant to engage in substantive discussions.” 

“Furthermore, I highlighted that we have not yet heard any counterarguments against this proposed legislation,” he said. 

Michel said on X that “Georgian citizens’ call for an open democratic and pluralistic society must be heeded. … Georgia’s future belongs with the EU. Don’t miss this historic chance.” 

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party and a former prime minister, has said he will fight for what he called “the full restoration of the sovereignty of Georgia.” 
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washington — “Is it good for the Jews?” That has been a question long asked by Jewish Americans, especially immigrants and those of the second generation, scarred by memories of the Holocaust, when assessing the policies of the U.S. government and the pledges of political candidates.

Most of them, most of the time since Franklin Roosevelt first ran for president in 1932, have voted for the Democrat at the top of the ticket.

Fast forward 92 years. More Jews have been voting Republican in recent elections, while many younger and left-leaning Jewish voters no longer see unequivocal support for Israel as a litmus test.

Instead, rising antisemitism is reforging a sense of Jewish self-identity — especially among those who consider themselves fully assimilated and accepted in the American mainstream culture.

Antisemitism “comes from all sides,” said Rachel Sass, antisemitic incident specialist at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “There are right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, anti-Israel protesters. There isn’t necessarily a clear political or ideological bent, just antisemitism.”

There has been a 900% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in the past decade, with a spike since the Israel-Hamas conflict blew up last year, according to the ADL. 

Jewish Americans are further alarmed by chants on college campuses — in reaction to Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terror attack — of “from the river to sea” and “go back to Poland,” along with some physical assaults on Jewish students.

“I’ve seen people respond with a level of fear, being afraid to reveal their Jewish identity. I’ve seen other people who have even leaned more into pride in their Jewish identity, wanting to be even more open because they feel that it’s very important,” said Sass.

Bestselling novelist Allison Winn Scotch said on the social media platform Threads, “Every day, as a Jewish American, I get increasingly nervous that we can’t come back from the brink of this. I don’t know where my family could go though, and I don’t know how we would stay safe when we got there anyway.”

She continued, “Your Jewish friends are living with a blooming seed of dread in the pits of our stomachs.”  

America provided a refuge for Eastern European Jews escaping 19th-century pogroms, who followed the emigration from the more established and prosperous German Jewish community.

Many Jews in the United States, however, did not feel totally accepted into broader American culture until the civil rights movement. Changes not only benefited Blacks but also removed remaining barriers to Jews — such as housing covenants and restricted country club memberships, as well as hiring discrimination at prestigious law firms and entry quotas at the Ivy League universities that such attorneys were drawn from.

The contemporary surge in antisemitism is not institutional.

“It’s children being targeted at school with antisemitic bullying, synagogues being targeted with threats of bombs or shootings, people even being assaulted on the street because they are visibly Jewish or Orthodox,” according to Sass at the ADL.

American Jews, as is the case with other ethnic or minority groups, do not wholly cast votes based on a single issue.

“We swing with the rest of the country around economic issues, war and peace and all kinds of issues,” Mark Mellman, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told VOA.

The Republican Jewish Coalition’s political and communications director, Sam Markstein, said, “I think this will be the first time for a lot of Jewish voters who’ve never even considered voting Republican in their lives seriously making that consideration this year because of the dereliction of leadership by the Biden administration on these issues.”

Donald Trump, hoping for a second term as president but defeated by Joe Biden four years ago, received somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the Jewish vote in 2020, according to several polls and Jewish organizations.

“Anybody who knows anything about Donald Trump knows that his alliances are based on people’s commitment to him personally, not to a set of values, not to a set of strategic interests,” said Mellman.

Republicans have done a better job than Democrats in condemning politicians in their respective parties who make antisemitic remarks, Markstein contended, pointing out the RJC supports primary challengers to Republicans in Congress who make such discriminatory comments.

“Unfortunately, there are too many on the Democratic side that don’t seem to want to follow that path and want to either run and hide or issue mealy-mouthed responses that piss everybody off,” Markstein told VOA.

Although Jews constitute only 2.4% of the U.S. adult population, they are more likely to vote than the general registered voting population and to make political donations.

“The Jewish vote in those [swing] states is going to be the decisive [factor],” Markstein predicted.

The Republicans tend to draw most of their Jewish strength from the religious Orthodox, the fastest-growing but still smallest Jewish community among the three largest denominations. Most Orthodox Jews strongly support Israel.

“Day after day, the administration’s response gets less and less supportive of Israel,” Markstein contended.

A majority of Conservative and Reform Jews tend to vote for Democrats and are more open-minded about a two-state solution in the Middle East that would create a sovereign Palestine. 

“To retain Jewish support, Biden’s campaign needs to keep doing exactly what they’re doing — standing strong with Israel, against antisemitism and behind the American Jewish community,” Mellman said. “That’s exactly what I think American Jews are looking for at this very difficult time. It’s exactly what the president is doing.”

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the release of all imprisoned journalists — including three American reporters — who have been jailed over their work, in a Friday statement commemorating World Press Freedom Day.

“Journalism should not be a crime anywhere on Earth,” Biden said in the statement. “On World Press Freedom Day, the United States calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists who have been put behind bars for simply doing their jobs. And we call for the protection of journalists everywhere, including during military operations.”

At the end of 2023, 320 journalists were jailed for their work around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

That total includes three American journalists: Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva in Russia, and Austin Tice in Syria.

Gershkovich, a Russian correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been jailed since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The State Department has also declared him wrongfully detained.

“We’re so proud of him. I can’t believe he’s holding up so well. And he works so, so hard to be able to keep his spirits up,” Gershkovich’s sister Danielle said at a Friday in Washington Friday commemorating World Press Freedom Day.

Danielle said her family manages to stay in touch with Evan through letters.

“I get a letter from him — it’s like Christmas morning. And I hear his voice in my head when I’m reading it. And it just feels like I get to chat to my brother. It’s a lifeline to my parents and I,” she said at the event, which was held at The Washington Post headquarters.

Since his jailing, Russian authorities have not publicly revealed any evidence to substantiate the spying accusations against Gershkovich, who was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work in the country. The reporter will be held in pretrial detention until at least June.

Meanwhile, Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been jailed for more than six months and is also set to be held in pretrial detention until at least June.

The dual U.S.-Russian national traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June 2023. She was waiting for them to be returned when she was arrested in October 2023.

Kurmasheva stands accused of failing to self-register as a so-called “foreign agent” and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russia military. The journalist and her employer reject the charges against her.

“She’s the mom of two wonderful young women who had to grow up awfully quickly over the last six months that she’s been in prison,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said at the event.

In a prerecorded video message, Kurmasheva’s 15-year-old daughter Bibi called for her mother’s immediate release.

“My mom, Alsu, has been behind bars in Russia for six months now, because she is a journalist,” she said. “My sister and I are so proud of her, and we miss her so, so much. She needs to be freed immediately so she can come home to us. Free Alsu.”

Press freedom groups have criticized the State Department for not yet declaring Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open additional resources to help secure her release.

Russia’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

This year’s World Press Freedom Day takes place against a backdrop that experts say is concerning for journalists around the world.

“Media freedom is under siege,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday in a statement. “Without facts, we cannot fight mis- and dis-information. Without accountability, we will not have strong policies in place. Without press freedom, we won’t have any freedom. A free press is not a choice, but a necessity.”

In particular, the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has led to the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, began gathering data in 1992. As of Friday, at least 97 journalists have been killed since the war began, including 92 Palestinians, two Israelis, and three Lebanese, according to CPJ.

“Journalists are civilians, so they need to be protected as any civilian is during a war zone. They shouldn’t be targeted,” CPJ chief Jodie Ginsberg said at the event on Friday.

New York-based CPJ has accused Israel of targeting journalists, which the Israeli government has denied.

About half of the world’s population is set to vote in national elections in 2024, which has press freedom experts concerned about the safety of reporters and potentially harmful effects for press freedom.

“This year is going to be really indicative not just of the future of a free press, but the future of democracy, because how we treat our media in the run-up to these elections is a litmus test for how the other freedoms that we enjoy, and the other democratic rights we enjoy, are likely to be treated afterwards,” Ginsberg said.

Discussions about press freedom tend to center on the negative, but Clayton Weimers, the head of the U.S. office of Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said it’s also important to recognize governments that are defending press freedom.

“World Press Freedom Day should be a celebration of the values of the free press,” Weimers said.

RSF on Friday released its annual press freedom index, which ranks 180 countries and territories in terms of media freedom. Norway and Denmark topped the list this year.

“There’s no freedom without press freedom,” Weimers said. “It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”
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As Orthodox Christians in Ukraine prepare to celebrate Easter on May 5th, Orthodox priests in Ukraine are finding themselves trying to serve their church and support their state, even when those two are at adds. VOA’s Anna Kosstutschenko reports.
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