WARSAW, Poland — Poland is investing about $2.5 billion to step up security and deterrence on its border with Russia and its ally Belarus, the prime minister said Saturday.

Donald Tusk said work on the Shield-East project, which includes building military fortifications, has already begun. Poland is on the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union, and Tusk stressed it bears additional responsibility for Europe’s security.

“We have taken the decision to invest into our safety and first of all, into a safe eastern border, some 10 billion zlotys,” Tusk said.

“We are opening a great project of the construction of a safe border, including a system of fortifications and of the shaping of terrain, [of] environmental decisions that will make this border impenetrable by a potential enemy,” Tusk said.

“We have begun these works to make Poland’s border a safe one in times of peace and impenetrable for an enemy in times of war,” he said.

He was addressing Polish troops in Krakow, in the south, to mark 80 years since the allied victory in the Battle of Monte Cassino against the Nazis during World War II.

Poland’s previous right-wing government built a $400 million wall on the border with Belarus to halt massive inflow of migrants that began to be pushed from that direction in 2021, but the current pro-EU government says it needs to be strengthened.

Poland is a staunch ally of Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia’s invasion.
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TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s president on Saturday vetoed the so-called “Russian law” targeting media that has sparked weeks of mass protests.

The law would require media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. Critics of the bill say that it closely resembles legislation used by the Kremlin to silence opponents and that it will obstruct Georgia’s bid to join the EU.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with Georgia’s ruling party, said Saturday that the law contradicts Georgia’s constitution and “all European standards” and added that it “must be abolished.”

The ruling party, Georgian Dream, has a majority sufficient to override Zourabichvili’s veto and is widely expected to do so in the coming days. The Georgian government insists that the law is intended to promote transparency and curb what it deems harmful foreign influence in the country of 3.7 million. 
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BEIJING — Cases of bird flu have been confirmed among wild fowl in western China, the agriculture ministry said Saturday, as concerns grow over a U.S. outbreak infecting cattle. 

Two counties in Qinghai province confirmed 275 cases of H5 influenza among dead Pallas’s gull and other wild birds, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a notice on its website. 

The ministry received a report on the cases from the China Animal Disease Control Center, and the national Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed the finding, the notice said. 

The H5N1 outbreak among dairy cattle in at least nine U.S. states since late March has raised questions over whether it could spread to humans. No such cases have been reported. 

The U.S. announced on May 11 that it would spend close to $200 million to fight the outbreak. 

News of the China bird flu cases came as the nation’s anti-graft watchdog announced a corruption probe of the agriculture minister Saturday. 

Tang Renjian, 61, is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law” by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervisory Commission, CCDI said on its website. 

The term is CCDI’s typical euphemism for corruption. 

The notice gave no further details. 
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TOKYO — The U.S. ambassador to Japan stressed Friday the importance of increased deterrence and his country’s commitment to its key ally as he visited two southwestern Japanese islands at the forefront of Tokyo’s tension with Beijing.

Rahm Emanuel visited Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost island just east of Taiwan, a self-governed island also claimed by China. He later visited another Japanese island, Ishigaki, home to Japan Coast Guard patrol boats defending the disputed East China Sea islands and Japanese fishermen from armed Chinese coast guard ships that routinely enter Japanese waters.

Japan has been making a southwest shift of its defense posture and is further accelerating its military buildup under a 2022 security strategy that focuses on counterstrike capability with long-range cruise missiles.

Emanuel was the first U.S. ambassador to visit Yonaguni. Escorted by Mayor Kenichi Itokazu, he looked toward Taiwan, only 110 kilometers (68 miles) away. He met with Japanese Self Defense Force servicemembers at a local base installed in 2016 and where a missile defense system is planned.

The ambassador said the main purpose of his visit was to show U.S. support for the local fishing community. He also met with a local fisherman who was among those affected by China’s increasingly assertive actions in the regional seas.

China fired five missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in 2022 after the visit to Taiwan of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Emanuel said the fisherman told him he could not sell his fish for about a week after the Chinese action.

“If they don’t have deterrence, that’s going to be worse,” Emanuel told The Associated Press from Ishigaki, the second island he visited Friday. “If you have a very robust deterrence, it ensures that there is peace, ensures that there is security, ensures economic prosperity. Without that, it’s more likely to be a green light to those that want to use economic coercion and confrontation as their only means of expression.”

Emanuel said Yonaguni fishers still catch fish for a living, supporting the local economy and helping reinforce Japanese territorial rights. “That’s what a real win looks like — economic security,” he said on social platform X.

In Ishigaki, Japan’s coast guard protects fishing boats in the disputed waters around the Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that Tokyo calls Senkaku. Beijing also claims the islands and calls them Diaoyu, and its coast guard ships often face off with their Japanese counterparts.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the ambassador’s trip to the islands, saying it was “meaningful” for the ambassador to improve his understanding of Tokyo’s efforts in reinforcing its security in the southwestern region, where additional military units and missile defense systems are being deployed.

While local officials back the reinforcement of Japanese troops on the islands, residents staged a small protest amid concerns they may be the first to be affected in a possible U.S.-China conflict.

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki supports the Japan-U.S. security alliance but has called for a reduction in the number of American troops housed on the island. About half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan are based in Okinawa.

Tamaki also criticized the use of Yonaguni’s commercial airport by a U.S. military aircraft used by the ambassador.
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WASHINGTON — Seventy years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled separating children in schools by race was unconstitutional. On paper, that decision — the fabled Brown v. Board of Education, taught in most every American classroom — still stands.

But for decades, American schools have been re-segregating. The country is more diverse than it ever has been, with students more exposed to classmates from different backgrounds. Still, around 4 out of 10 Black and Hispanic students attend schools where almost every one of their classmates is another student of color.

The intense segregation by race is linked to socioeconomic conditions: Schools where students of color compose more than 90% of the student body are five times more likely to be located in low-income areas. That in turn has resounding academic consequences: Students who attend high-poverty schools, regardless of their family’s finances, have worse educational outcomes.

Efforts to slow or reverse the increasing separation of American schools have stalled. Court cases slowly have chipped away at the dream outlined in the case of Brown v. Board, leaving fewer and fewer tools in the hands of districts to integrate schools by the early 2000s.

The arc of the moral universe, in this case, does not seem to be bending toward justice.

“School integration exists as little more than an idea in America right now, a little more than a memory,” said Derek Black, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “It’s actually an idea that a pretty good majority of Americans think is a good idea. But that’s all.”

More than just diverse schools

The dream of Brown was never as simple as diversity. It was about equality, and the opportunity that came with it.

From the beginning, funding and integration have been inseparable.

“Whiter schools and districts have more resources, and that is wrong,” said Ary Amerikaner, a former Obama administration official and the founder of Brown’s Promise. “But it is a reality. And that undermines opportunity for students of color, and it undermines our future democracy.”

We remember Brown v. Board as the end of segregated schools in the United States. But stating values does not, alone, change reality. Though the case was decided in 1954, it was followed by more than a decade of delay and avoidance before school districts began to meaningfully allow Black students to enter white schools.

It took further court rulings, monitoring and enforcement to bring a short-lived era of integration to hundreds of school districts. For the students who took part in those desegregation programs, their life trajectory changed — the more years spent in integrated schools, the better Black children fared on measures like educational attainment, graduation rates, health, and earning potential, with no adverse effects on white children.

For a brief period, it seemed the country recognized the deeper remedies required. “All things being equal, with no history of discrimination, it might well be desirable to assign pupils to schools nearest their homes,” Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in Swann v. Mecklenburg, a 1971 decision that upheld the use of busing to integrate schools in North Carolina. “But all things are not equal in a system that has been deliberately constructed and maintained to enforce racial segregation.”

But not long after, another series of court decisions would unwind those outcomes. Fifty years ago, in Milliken v. Bradley, the court struck down a plan for integrating Detroit public schools across school district lines. The ruling undermined desegregation efforts in the north and Midwest, where small districts allowed white families to escape integration.

Other decisions followed. In Freeman v. Pitts, the court ruled resegregation from private choice and demographic shifts could not be monitored by the court. More than 200 districts were released from court-monitored desegregation plans. By 2007, when the court ruled in Parents Involved v. Seattle Public Schools, even voluntary integration plans could no longer consider assigning students on the basis of race.

“If you have the tools taken away from you … by the Supreme Court, then you really don’t have a whole lot of tools,” said Stephan Blanford, a former Seattle Public Schools board member.

One district as a microcosm

The arc of history is clear in the city where the landmark Swann busing case originated.

At its peak, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools was considered such a success at integrating classrooms and closing the gap between Black and white students that educators around the country came to tour the district. Today, more than 20 years after a court ruling overturned busing students on the basis of race, CMS is the most segregated district in North Carolina.

While there are no laws that keep kids siloed by race and income, in so many schools that is the reality.

Charlotte’s sprawling, complex busing plan brought Black and white students into the same schools — and by extension, made white children’s resources available to Black students for the first time. The district’s integration program ended when white families sued after their children did not get their top choice of school placement in a lottery that considered race.

Instead, the district created a school assignment process that said diversity “will be based on the family’s decisions.” It left the families of Mecklenburg County, some of whom have always had better choices than others, on their own. In the first year of the district’s choice program, Black families were more likely to try to use the choice plan to pick an alternative school. They were also more likely to get none of the magnet schools they wanted.

In the decades that followed, the district re-segregated. Years of busing had unwound the segregated makeup of the schools, but the underlying disparities and residential segregation had been left untouched.

Charlotte is a place where the divide between affluence and poverty, and the clear racial lines that mirror it, are so stark that people who live there refer to the city in two parts — the well-off “wedge” and the poorer “crescent.” How could anything other than an explicit consideration of those conditions ever hope to ameliorate them?

Solutions to segregated schools exist in this context, often relying on individual families to make choices that are limited by their circumstances. Magnet schools and inter-district transfers — two common policies that may create great individual opportunities — are limited and will always leave some students behind.

Wherever you look, families are divided in how they view integration. For white and affluent families, it can exist as a noble idea, one filled with self-reflection. But for families of color or poor families — those with less of a safety net — the point of integration often is to place their children somewhere better.

Efforts to integrate schools can take two paths, Stefan Lallinger, executive director of Next100, a public policy think tank, says. They either fight around the margins, creating slightly less segregated spaces, or they address the problem head on, which in many parts of the country would mean tackling boundaries deliberately drawn to separate rich from poor.

How to move forward in a system that resists?

Amerikaner and Saba Bireda founded Brown’s Promise on the idea of bridging the divide between funding and integration, leveraging state courts to obtain the tools the Supreme Court has taken away from districts. 

Their strategy has some precedence. In Connecticut, a 1989 lawsuit in state court resulted in the creation of an inter-district transfer program, which allows students in Hartford to transfer into suburban schools and magnet programs, breaking up concentrations of poverty and racially isolated schools.

“This country had to be moved to integration,” Bireda said. “And unfortunately, 70 years later, we feel like we still need litigation. We need the push of the courts.”

More recent lawsuits have taken place in New Jersey and in Minnesota. In 2015, Alex Cruz-Guzman became a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging segregation in Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. Cruz-Guzman immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a teenager. As a parent, he noticed his children’s schools consisted almost entirely of other Latino students. When he tried to place them in more integrated schools, the family faced long waitlists.

The case wound its way through court for nearly a decade, almost reaching a settlement in the legislature before that bill failed to pass.

Cruz-Guzman recalls people asking why he would join a case that likely would not resolve in time to benefit his own children, who struggled with learning English for a time in predominantly Latino schools. To him, the arc of the case is about the kids whose lives could change in the future.

“It’s not only my kids. My grandkids will benefit from it,” he says. “People for generations will benefit.”

How far those legal cases can reach remains to be seen. Actual solutions are imperfect. But integration is something this country has tried before, and while it lasted, by many measures, it worked.

Anniversaries are moments to stop and contemplate. Seventy years after Brown, the work towards achieving its vision remains unfinished. Where there are no perfect, easy answers, what other choice is there besides trying imperfect pathways that bring about an increasingly diverse country somewhere closer to the promise of Brown?

“What’s the alternative?” Bireda said. “We are headed towards a country that is going to be majority people of color. … We can be a strong multiracial democracy, but we cannot be that if we continue to allow most children in the United States not to go to school with children who are from different backgrounds.”
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Friday overhauled its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena that have marked church history, putting the brakes on making definitive declarations unless the event is obviously fabricated.

The Vatican’s doctrine office revised norms first issued in 1978, arguing that they were no longer useful or viable in the internet age. Nowadays, word about apparitions or weeping Madonnas travels quickly and can harm the faithful if hoaxers are trying to make money off people’s beliefs or manipulate them, the Vatican said.

The new norms make clear that such an abuse of people’s faith can be punishable canonically, saying, “The use of purported supernatural experiences or recognized mystical elements as a means of or a pretext for exerting control over people or carrying out abuses is to be considered of particular moral gravity.”

The Catholic Church has had a long and controversial history of the faithful claiming to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, of statues purportedly weeping tears of blood and stigmata erupting on hands and feet evoking the wounds of Christ.

When confirmed as authentic by church authorities, these otherwise inexplicable signs have led to a flourishing of the faith, with new religious vocations and conversions. That has been the case for the purported apparitions of Mary that turned Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France, into enormously popular pilgrimage destinations.

Church figures who claimed to have experienced the stigmata wounds, including Padre Pio and Pope Francis’ namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, have inspired millions of Catholics even if decisions about their authenticity have been elusive.

Francis himself has weighed in on the phenomenon, making clear that he is devoted to the main church-approved Marian apparitions, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, who believers say appeared to an Indigenous man in Mexico in 1531.

But Francis has expressed skepticism about more recent events, including claims of repeated messages from Mary to “seers” at the shrine of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even while allowing pilgrimages to take place there.

“I prefer the Madonna as mother, our mother, and not a woman who’s the head of a telegraphic office, who sends a message every day at a certain time,” Francis told reporters in 2017.

The new norms reframe the Catholic Church’s evaluation process by essentially taking off the table whether church authorities will declare a particular vision, stigmata or other seemingly divinely inspired event supernatural.

Instead, the new criteria envisages six main outcomes, with the most favorable being that the church issues a noncommittal doctrinal green light, a so-called “nihil obstat.” Such a declaration means there is nothing about the event that is contrary to the faith, and therefore Catholics can express devotion to it.

The bishop can take more cautious approaches if there are doctrinal red flags about the reported event. The most serious envisages a declaration that the event isn’t supernatural or that there are enough red flags to warrant a public statement “that adherence to this phenomenon is not allowed.”

The aim is to avoid scandal, manipulation and confusion, and the Vatican fully acknowledged the hierarchy’s own guilt in confusing the faithful with the way it evaluated and authenticated alleged visions over the centuries.

The most egregious case was the flip-flopping determinations of authenticity by a succession of bishops over 70 years in Amsterdam about the purported visions of the Madonna at the Our Lady of All Nations shrine.

Another similar case prompted the Vatican in 2007 to excommunicate the members of a Quebec-based group, the Army of Mary, after its founder claimed to have had Marian visions and declared herself the reincarnation of the mother of Christ.

The revised norms acknowledge the real potential for such abuses and warn that hoaxers will be held accountable, including with canonical penalties.

The norms also allow that an event might at some point be declared “supernatural,” and that the pope can intervene in the process. But “as a rule,” the church is no longer in the business of authenticating inexplicable events or making definitive decisions about their supernatural origin.

And at no point are the faithful ever obliged to believe in the particular events, said Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Vatican doctrine office.

“The church gives the faithful the freedom to pay attention” or not, he said at a news conference.

Despite the new criteria, he said the church’s past decision-making on alleged supernatural events — such as at Fatima, Guadalupe or Lourdes — remains valid.

“What was decided in the past has its value,” he said. “What was done remains.”

To date, fewer than 20 apparitions have been approved by the Vatican over its 2,000-year history, according to Michael O’Neill, who runs the online apparition resource The Miracle Hunter.

Neomi De Anda, executive director of the International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton, said the new guidelines represent a significant and welcome change to the current practice, while restating important principles.

“The faithful are able to engage with these phenomena as members of the faithful in popular practices of religion, while not feeling the need to believe everything offered to them as supernatural as well as the caution against being deceived and beguiled,” she said in an email.

Whereas in the past the bishop often had the last word unless Vatican help was requested, now the Vatican must sign off on every recommendation proposed by a bishop.

Robert Fastiggi, who teaches Marian theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan and is an expert on apparitions, said at first glance that requirement might seem to take authority away from the local bishop.

“But I think it’s intended to avoid cases in which the Holy See might feel prompted to overrule a decision of the local bishop,” he said.

“What is positive in the new document is the recognition that the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother are present and active in human history,” he said. “We must appreciate these supernatural interventions but realize that they must be discerned properly.”

He cited the biblical phrase that best applies: “Test everything, retain what is good.”
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The US presidential race is on — and each of the candidates is attempting to pull certain populations away from his competitor. The Black voting bloc in the US has historically voted Democrat. But as VOA’s Carolyn Presutti shows us, the Biden campaign is getting worried.
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Diyarbakir, Turkey / Washington — A Turkish court gave several lengthy prison sentences to pro-Kurdish politicians for instigating protests in southeastern Turkey in 2014 when the Islamic State group attacked the Syrian border town of Kobani.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the former co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), on Thursday received the longest sentences among the 108 defendants, 18 of whom had been in pretrial detention.

Demirtas was sentenced to 42 years for a total of 47 crimes, including “disrupting the unity and the integrity of the state,” while Yuksekdag received just over 30 years in prison for “attempts to challenge the unity of the state, of inciting criminal acts, and of engaging in propaganda on behalf of a terror organization.”

The trial stemmed from the 2014 Kobani protests, in which hundreds of pro-Kurdish protesters took to the streets in predominantly Kurdish provinces of Turkey over the government’s inaction toward IS militants who were advancing to capture Kobani in October 2014.

HDP, which initiated the call for protests, demanded the opening of a corridor to Kobani through Turkey so that military aid from other parts of Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan could reach the IS-besieged town.

During the protests, in which 37 people died and 761 people were injured, clashes occurred between the security forces and protesters and between the Islamist Kurdish groups and protesters. HDP later called for de-escalation.

At the time of the protests, Ankara was involved in a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. However, the peace process ended in 2015, and Ankara accused the HDP in connection with the deaths in the 2014 protests. The party denies any involvement.

Convictions

The first hearing in the Kobani trial was held in 2021. In the more than 3,000-page indictment, senior HDP members were listed as defendants and charged with 29 offenses, including “homicide and harming the unity of the state.”

In the end, 12 defendants were acquitted of all charges and 24 defendants were convicted. The other 72 defendants at large are to be tried in the future.

The defendants’ lawyers and the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the HDP’s successor, view the trial as political. Lawyer Nahit Eren, the head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association and a member of the legal team, told VOA Turkish that they would appeal the verdict.

On Friday, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said, “There is no place for calls for violence in democracies.”

“Therefore, in this sense, it is a decision made by our independent and impartial judiciary. This is the decision of the first level court, there are the first and second level of appeal processes. We will wait for the result of these processes together,” he added.

Turkish Deputy Minister of Interior Bulent Turan noted that there were acquittals and sentences in the verdict.

“Although it did not please some people, justice was served,” Turan said in a post on X.

Following the verdict on Thursday, local governors imposed a four-day ban on protests in the predominantly Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir, Siirt, Tunceli and Batman. On Friday, police officers did not let DEM Party members gather for a demonstration in Diyarbakir but allowed them to make a media statement.

Reactions

Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday that the trial was “manifestly political and unjust.”

“The conviction of Selahattin Demirtaş, Figen Yuksekdag and other leading Kurdish opposition politicians in a mass trial is the latest move in a campaign of persecution that has robbed mainly Kurdish voters of their chosen representatives, undermined the democratic process and criminalized lawful political speech,” Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director, said in the statement.

The convictions of pro-Kurdish politicians come at a time when “normalization” between the ruling Justice and Development Party and the opposition is a hot topic on the Turkish political agenda.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met main opposition Republican People’s Party leader Ozgur Ozel on May 2, and both leaders have been vocal about ending Turkey’s polarized political environment.

Some experts think that the convictions are causing the Kurdish public to question the statements on normalization.

“While the normalization is talked about so much, the fact that such a normalization was not reflected in the judiciary will cause serious damage to the Kurdish public,” Roj Girasun, the director of Diyarbakir-based Rawest Research, told VOA Turkish.

“Is this final verdict a postponement of normalization or a complete shelving? It is too early to answer,” Girasun said.

Another expert and political scientist, Vedat Kacal, thinks that the verdict is a bureaucratic move to try to discourage Kurdish voters from hoping for a solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey through elections.

“[The verdict] can be interpreted as a psychological method of pushing Kurdish voters back into the narrow patterns of the Kurdish right by making them despair about the ballot box and the future of Turkish politics,” Kacal told VOA Turkish.
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washington — Hundreds of Syrian mercenaries have been sent by Turkey to Niger in recent months to protect Ankara’s economic and military interests in the West African nation, a rights group and experts said. 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has researchers throughout Syria, reports that recruitment of Syrian fighters for deployment to Niger has been going on for several months. 

“We have confirmed that about 1,100 Syrian fighters have already been deployed to Niger since September of last year,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory. 

Syrian nationals are being recruited from areas under the control of Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups in northwest Syria, Abdulrahman told VOA. 

Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), a France-based advocacy group, said it has also documented such recruitments. 

“These Syrian fighters are being transported from Syria into Turkey, and then using Turkish airports, they are sent [to Niger] by Turkish military airplanes,” Bassam Alahmad, executive director of STJ, told VOA. 

Turkey has in the past deployed Syrian fighters to other conflict zones, including Azerbaijan and Libya, through SADAT International Defense Consultancy, a private military company that reportedly has close ties with the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

“It’s very clear that in Niger, Turkey is just extending a policy that views Africa as clear area of growth for Turkey in terms of commercial and military interests, and in terms of extending Turkey’s power in the world,” says Nicholas Heras, a Middle East expert at the New Lines Institute, a research organization in Washington. 

Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory also said that SADAT was behind the recruitment of Syrian nationals from areas under the control of Turkey. 

The Istanbul-based company declined to comment. VOA also contacted Turkey’s Foreign Ministry but has received no response. 

A Syrian fighter, who went by the name Ahmed, told AFP this week that a Turkey-backed Syrian militia called the Sultan Murad Division was involved in recruiting him for the Niger deployment. 

The Syrian fighter, who was in Aleppo province, said new recruits will be trained at camps before participating in battles in Niger. 

“The first two batches of fighters have already gone, and a third batch will follow soon,” he said. 

Another Syrian fighter told AFP that he was recruited for duty in Niger “on a six-month contract with a salary of $1,500.” 

A third Syrian fighter said that after two weeks of military training, he was tasked with guarding a site near a mine in Niger, according to AFP. 

Syrian fighters have cited economic incentives as the main motive for accepting such job offers. 

The Syrian Observatory said the Turkey-backed Syrian mercenaries have been stationed in the tri-border area between Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. 

“For those getting wounded in battle, they receive up to $30,000 in compensation,” Abdulrahman said. “For those getting killed, their families receive up to $60,000.” 

The United Nations says the tri-border region in recent years has become a major hotspot for insecurity, including terror activities carried out by militant groups. 

This comes at a time when Nigerien and U.S. defense officials are discussing plans to withdraw all American forces from the country. Niger’s military junta, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected president in July of last year, has demanded an end to U.S. military presence in the country.

In December 2023, France also ended its military presence in Niger after a similar demand was made by the junta leaders. 

Experts say Niger’s junta recognizes a continued need for security support, so they are increasingly relying on mercenaries deployed by Russia and Turkey. 

“France and the United States were security partners that were there supporting Nigerien forces through cooperation and agreements that didn’t cost the Nigerien public significant tax dollars,” said Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington. “Now upon their departure you have smaller contingents of Russian mercenaries, or these reports of Syrian mercenaries being sent by Turkey.” 

“You’re just witnessing this very strange rhetoric around the reclaiming of national sovereignty by Niger’s junta, which has no legitimate claim to popular political support, and then them ceding that sovereignty to these mercenaries and spending Nigerien tax dollars on hiring these groups whether they be Russian or Turkish,” he told VOA. 

Eizenga said the number of fatalities linked to attacks by Islamist militant groups in Niger has increased significantly since the junta took power in July 2023, arguing that coup leaders’ interests are not aligned with national interests in Niger. 

“The fact that they are inviting and courting these mercenary groups to come in is another example of exactly that,” he said. 

This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service with some information from AFP. 
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SAN FRANCISCO — The man convicted of attempting to kidnap then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison. 

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley handed down the sentence for David DePape, 44, whom jurors found guilty last November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official. Prosecutors had asked for a 40-year prison term. 

DePape was given 20 years for one count and 30 years for another count. The sentences will run concurrently. He was also given credit for the 18 months that he’s been in custody. 

DePape stood silently as Corley handed in the sentence and looked down at times. His public defense attorneys had asked the judge to sentence him to 14 years, pointing out that he was going through a difficult time in his life and had no prior criminal history. 

Corley said she took into account when giving DePape’s sentence the fact that he broke into the home of a public official, an unprecedented act in the history of the country. 

“He actually went to the home. That is completely, completely unprecedented,” she said. 

Proud of ‘Pop’

Before sentencing, Christine Pelosi read victim statements on behalf of her father and mother, explaining how the violent attack changed their lives. 

“The Pelosi family couldn’t be prouder of their Pop and his tremendous courage in saving his own life on the night of the attack and in testifying in this case,” Aaron Bennett, a spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. “Speaker Pelosi and her family are immensely grateful to all who have sent love and prayers over the last eighteen months, as Mr. Pelosi continues his recovery.” 

DePape admitted during trial testimony that he broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home October 28, 2022, intending to hold the speaker hostage and “break her kneecaps” if she lied to him. He also admitted to bludgeoning Paul Pelosi with a hammer after police showed up, saying his plan to end what he viewed as government corruption was unraveling. 

The attack on Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was captured on police body camera video just days before the midterm elections. 

Defense attorneys argued DePape was motivated by his political beliefs, not because he wanted to interfere with Nancy Pelosi’s official duties as a member of Congress, making the charges against him invalid. 

One of his attorneys, Angela Chuang, said during closing arguments that DePape was caught up in conspiracy theories. 

At trial DePape, a Canadian who moved to the U.S. more than 20 years ago, testified that he believed news outlets repeatedly lied about former President Donald Trump. In rants posted on a blog and online forum that were taken down after his arrest, DePape echoed the baseless, right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles runs the U.S. government. 

DePape also told jurors he had planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and record his interrogation of the Democratic speaker, who was not at the home at the time of the attack, to upload it online. 

Prosecutors said he had rope and zip ties with him, and detectives found body cameras, a computer and a tablet. 

Paul Pelosi also testified at the trial, recalling how he was awakened by a large man bursting into the bedroom and asking, “Where’s Nancy?” He said that when he responded that his wife was in Washington, DePape said he would tie him up while they waited for her. 

“It was a tremendous sense of shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house, and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Pelosi told jurors. 

DePape is also charged in state court with assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. Jury selection in that trial is expected to start Wednesday. 

Paul Pelosi suffered two head wounds in the attack, including a skull fracture that was mended with plates and screws he will have for the rest of his life. His right arm and hand were also injured. 
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White House — President Joe Biden continues his outreach effort among Black voters this week with a string of events to commemorate civil rights milestones and address the next generation of leaders.  

Ahead of the November presidential election, his campaign is aiming to address an apparent erosion of support among a group that historically backs Democratic Party candidates. 

On Friday, Biden delivered an address at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, where he targeted his likely opponent, presumptive Republican nominee former President Donald Trump. 

“My predecessor and his extreme MAGA friends are responsible for taking away our fundamental freedoms, from the freedom to vote to the freedom to choose,” Biden said, referring to Make America Great Again Trump supporters, and Republican efforts to restrict voting and abortion rights. 

The Trump campaign said their candidate is “surging with Black and Hispanic Americans” despite Biden’s “persistent gaslighting and the multimillion-dollar ad buys he is forced to make.” 

“Black and Hispanic voters, like all Americans, are worse-off now than they were under President Trump — by a lot — and every poll reflects that reality,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement sent to VOA.  

“They have less money and higher prices for everything while being forced to live under a weak president who puts illegal immigrants’ interests ahead of theirs,” she said. 

Trump has been courting Black voters, including by using his legal troubles to appeal to them on the theme of unfair persecution by the criminal justice system. 

“I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” Trump said during a February speech at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual gala, at which he received the “Champion of Black America” award. 

Targeting young Black voters 

Aiming to win over young Black voters, Biden met Friday with leaders of the Divine Nine, a group of historically Black sororities and fraternities, social organizations in colleges and universities.  

His engagements followed a private meeting Thursday with plaintiffs and family members from Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that found laws promoting segregation are unconstitutional. 

Biden is set to cap his outreach with a commencement address at Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater, the historically Black, all-male Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday. Biden will focus his remarks on the next generation of Black men, a group whose support for the president has been slipping. 

His speech comes in the wake of campus protests across the country, where young progressives voice their frustration with Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.  

Biden is set to end the weekend with an address at a dinner in Detroit for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a leading civil rights organization, and a visit to a Black-owned small business in the city. 

The Biden campaign said the engagement was a signal of how the administration is working to earn the support of Black voters and addressing their key priorities. 

“We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote,” Trey Baker, a senior adviser to the campaign, said in a statement. 

Polls slipping 

Black voters have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party and helped ensure Biden’s win in 2020. Ahead of the November election, a Washington Post/Ipsos poll shows Biden continues to enjoy the support of the majority of the Black community.  

However, lower stated interest in voting relative to 2020 and a slightly narrower gap in standing present some warning signs for the Biden campaign. Only 62% of Black voters said that they are absolutely certain to vote this year, compared to 74% this time in 2020.

Meanwhile, Black voter support in national and state polls for Trump has been “surprisingly robust,” according to research by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. 

“Older Black voters have far fewer concerns with Biden. They remember the first Trump term, and it’s a pretty simple choice for them — Biden, of course,” said Larry Sabato, the center’s director. “It’s younger Blacks who were expecting more from Biden.” 

Many young Black voters are frustrated by what they see as Biden’s inaction on their top priorities and angered by his handling of the economy and the Israel-Hamas war. 

Sabato predicted that no more than 13% of Black Americans will end up voting for Trump. He said that for Blacks it is a choice between Biden and not voting. 

“Black turnout,” he added, “is key.”
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washington — The co-founder of a local reporting initiative in California is being recognized for her work mentoring young reporters and improving community news.

Tasneem Raja, who helped set up the Cityside Journalism Initiative in the San Francisco Bay Area, has a long career mentoring reporters and reaching groups typically under-covered by media outlets.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit Cityside Journalism Initiative launched at a time when the news media industry was shedding jobs. Its mission statement: to create a newsroom that “amplifies community voices, shares the power of real information, and investigates systems, not just symptoms.”

The organization is now running Berkeleyside, which was founded in 2009, and The Oaklandside, which launched in 2020.

“We also try to go a step further and say, you know, ‘We’re not just here in some cases, to report on what’s going on. We’re also here to help people,’” Raja told VOA.

As editor-in-chief of The Oaklandside, Raja sees her role as creating opportunities for people who reflect the demographics and concerns of her outlet’s community.

Those efforts led to her being given the 2024 Gwen Ifill Award. Presented by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) in memory of PBS journalist Ifill, the award honors the work each year of a female journalist of color.

“What particularly struck us about Tasneem’s work is her dedication to creating spaces [and] making news by and about the communities on which they’re reporting,” said IWMF Executive Director Elisa Lees Munoz. “Local news is vital to covering underreported issues and marginalized populations; Tasneem’s career has been spent advancing that much needed coverage.”

Another area that stood out in Raja’s career is her efforts to support new journalists.

Her mentoring, Munoz told VOA, “builds a new generation of women of color in media and news leadership.”

“Tasneem brings this mentality into her newsrooms as well, seeing the value of diverse perspectives and lived experiences to cultivate ‘green’ [inexperienced] employees into skilled journalists,” Munoz added.

Among those efforts is Raja’s work to create a policy that allocates an annual stipend for each employee to use for professional development.

“For me, it starts with creating a healthy newsroom that is going to empower people to do their best work, hiring great talents, creating a space where they feel supported and they have opportunities to learn and grow,” Raja said. “Gwen was somebody who was really ahead of the curve of that, really modeling what healthy, thoughtful, empowering inclusive mentorship was like.”

That supportive process is also reflected in the Cityside Journalism Initiative’s work.

During the pandemic, Cityside set up a hotline where reporters would answer questions and provide information. Actions like that, Raja said, underscore Cityside’s mission of not only reporting on the community but actively and tangibly helping it.

“We want to be part of the solution. We can’t do everything, we aren’t setting out to do everything, but we are setting out to just talk to community members in Oakland, Berkeley and now Richmond,” said Raja, referring to a third media outlet they are setting up.

Before moving to the Bay Area in 2019, Raja was co-founder of The Tyler Loop, a nonprofit news startup in eastern Texas. She has also worked for NPR’s “Code Switch,” focusing on stories on race, culture and identity in America and the nonprofit, politically progressive Mother Jones, where she led a data team that built a database of mass shootings in America.

Alongside her work for Cityside, Raja is on the board of directors of The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom focused on women and the LGBTQ community.

Similar to media outlets across the U.S., the Cityside Journalism Initiative is currently focused on elections. Oaklandside in particular is looking to engage with the community in its coverage.

Among those they are keen to connect with, said Raja, are “casual” voters and those who are new to voting.

“By starting with those conversations, we’re looking forward to building a solid foundation upon which we’re going to shape all our coverage,” said Raja. “Ultimately, we hope to be part of moving the needle in empowering more people to feel like they want to and can exercise that big civic right that we have.”
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Washington — Two figures dressed in black and with their faces covered are caught on security camera vandalizing the Media Development Foundation office in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.  

The video, taken in the early hours of May 9, shows the individuals putting up posters that falsely claim the nongovernmental organization’s executive director, Tamar Kintsurashvili, is a foreign agent.  

Kintsurashvili told VOA the attack didn’t come as a big surprise. The goal is “to present us as enemies of this country,” she said. 

The vandalism came amid large-scale protests in Georgia over a “foreign agent” law that passed its third and final reading in parliament Tuesday.  

WATCH: Georgia riled by new protests after parliament passes ‘foreign agent’ law

If enacted, the law will require nonprofits and news outlets that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “organizations pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” They would also be required to submit detailed annual financial accounts. Groups that don’t comply would face fines.  

Kintsurashvili’s organization, the Media Development Foundation, receives some foreign funding to support its work. But, said Kintsurashvili, “Being labeled as foreign agent undermines trust in our activities.”  

Last week, hundreds of critics of the law — including around 30 journalists who covered the protests — received threatening phone calls, according to media reports and watchdogs. Numerous offices faced similar vandalism to the Media Development Foundation, and at least six opposition politicians and activists were beaten.

Kintsurashvili worries the harassment will become more common in Georgia now that the law’s enactment appears imminent.  

“The purpose of this legislation is not transparency,” she said. “They want to silence unwanted voices, critical voices,” she continued, referring to the government.  

Georgia’s Washington embassy did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment. As of publication, a VOA request for comment sent Friday via the web portal for the prime minister, who is part of the ruling Georgian Dream party, has received no response. 

President Salome Zourabichvili said she would veto the bill, but the Georgian Dream party — which reintroduced the law last month after protests prompted its withdrawal last year — controls a big enough majority to override her. 

The law’s supporters say it will help bolster transparency and protect Georgian sovereignty. Its opponents say it will be used to silence and intimidate critics of the government.  

“It’s not just about supporting Georgia. It’s about supporting democracy,” said Mamuka Andguladze, chair of the Media Advocacy Coalition group in Tbilisi.  

Nika Gvaramia, a former journalist and the founder of the opposition Ahali political party, told VOA he believes Georgian Dream may use the foreign agent law to try to influence the October elections in its favor.  

Others say the law could also harm Georgia’s bid to join the European Union, which the majority of Georgians support.   

Dubbed the “Russian law” for its resemblance to a similar piece of legislation that the Kremlin has used for years to stamp out dissent, critics worry the law bodes poorly for Georgia’s democratic future and risks pushing Tbilisi squarely into Moscow’s hold. 

“This law will be used to implement some Soviet-style repression in Georgia, and to target critical voices,” said Eto Buziashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Based in Tbilisi, Buziashvili researches propaganda from Russia and the South Caucasus region.  

Buziashvili and other analysts have documented a barrage of Russian propaganda about the bill.  

“We’re seeing a lot of other overlap between the government’s arguments about why the bill is needed and what is being said in Russian and pro-Russian sources,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, told VOA. 

One of the primary narratives is that the Tbilisi protests were organized by the West. 

“The idea that the West is funding and coordinating these protests is something that’s being shared pretty explicitly by Russian channels,” said Kyle Walter, who heads global research at Logically, a British tech startup that fights disinformation. 

Other propaganda narratives attempt to distance the Georgian law from its Russian counterpart by falsely claiming the Georgian one is similar to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. Another false narrative depicts the law as necessary to stop the West from coercing Georgia into going to war with Russia as a second front of the war in Ukraine.  

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

Many, if not all, of these narratives are not necessarily new, according to Walter and Buziashvili. But they do highlight the Kremlin’s apparent support for Georgia’s foreign agent law. 

The narratives also underscore what’s at stake for a country that was once lauded as a bastion of democracy among former Soviet states but in recent years has found itself increasingly wobbling between the West and the Kremlin.  

“It’s another stage of Russia’s conflict with the West more broadly,” Walter said. 

Journalists and political leaders who spoke with VOA, however, said most Georgians can see through the propaganda. 

“They recognize Russian propaganda very easily. For us, it’s at first sight,” said Eka Kvesitadze, a journalist at the pro-opposition Georgian broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi. 
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LONDON — Paul McCartney is a billionaire Beatle.

According to figures released Friday, the former member of the Fab Four is the first British musician to be worth 1 billion pounds ($1.27 billion).

The annual Sunday Times Rich List calculated that the wealth of the 81-year-old musician and his wife, Nancy Shevell, had grown by 50 million pounds since last year thanks to McCartney’s 2023 Got Back tour, the rising value of his back catalogue and Beyonce’s cover of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” on her “Cowboy Carter” album.

A “final” Beatles song, “Now and Then,” was also released in November and topped music charts in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. Surviving Beatles McCartney and Ringo Starr completed a demo track recorded in 1977 by the late John Lennon, adding in a guitar recording by George Harrison, who died in 2001.

The newspaper estimated 50 million pounds of the couple’s wealth is due to Shevell, daughter of the late U.S. trucking tycoon Mike Shevell.

McCartney ranked 165th overall on the newspaper’s respected and widely perused list of the U.K.’s 350 richest people. The top spot went to Gopi Hinduja and his family, who own the banking, media and entertainment conglomerate Hinduja Group and are worth an estimated 37 billion pounds ($47 billion).

Other entertainment figures on the list include “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, whose fortune is estimated at 945 million pounds ($1.2 billion), and singer Elton John, estimated to be worth 470 million pounds ($597 million).

King Charles III ranked 258th with an estimated wealth of 610 million pounds ($775 million). The king’s fortune includes the large inherited private estates of Sandringham in England and Balmoral in Scotland. The total does not include items held in trust by the monarch for the nation, such as the Crown Jewels.
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HALIFAX. Canada — China’s effort to establish itself as a “near-Arctic power” have become increasingly confined to the territory of its close ally Russia as other nations lose interest in cooperating with Beijing, according to Canadian security experts. 

The degree in which China poses a serious geopolitical threat in the Arctic region is debatable among experts. 

Chinese efforts to establish research stations in up to half a dozen Arctic nations ground to a halt because of travel restrictions during the COVID pandemic. Mounting concerns over China’s human rights record and its aggressive actions elsewhere have made several of those countries reluctant to see operations resume, said experts. 

“In many ways our fear of China and the Arctic dates back to five or six years ago when China’s power and influence seemed very much to be on the uptick in the region,” said Adam Lajeunesse, a professor focusing on Arctic issues at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. “Its political, economic and soft power influence in the Arctic outside of Russia has collapsed. 

“Our fears of China are still lagging events. A lot from pre-COVID era when there was a lot of fears that China was going to dominate Arctic infrastructure. … That didn’t happen,” Lajeunesse said.  

VOA reported in December 2022 that China had sent or announced plans to send several people to its two most important scientific outposts in Norway and Iceland after lengthy absences of Chinese scientists from both sites.

But there were no signs of China trying to renew two other scientific projects in Sweden and Finland, where national organizations told VOA that Chinese activity was set to end or had ended. 

An earlier plan to set up a research base in Denmark’s autonomous island of Greenland was shelved in the face of opposition in Copenhagen, according to Marc Lanteigne, a social studies professor at the Arctic University of Norway. 

That has left Beijing — which has no direct access to Arctic waters — to focus its Arctic ambitions on Russia, with which it established a “no limits” partnership days before Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

China’s interests in the region are believed to include fisheries, extraction of minerals and other resources, and a shorter sea route to Europe — all of which become more viable as the Arctic ice pack recedes in the face of climate change. 

“China respects the sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction rights of Arctic countries,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA in an emailed statement. “Issues related to the Arctic not only affect Arctic countries but also have global significance.” 

“China will work with all parties in getting to know more about the Arctic, as well as in its protection, exploration and management, with the view of greater peace, stability and sustainable development in the region,” Liu added. 

Many experts are watching China’s arctic activities and national security professionals told VOA on the sidelines of an April 30 conference sponsored by the Canadian Military Intelligence Association there are still limits to how much cooperation China can expect from Russia. 

“There is little doubt among Western nations that China will continue to seek research, infrastructure, and increased military engagement through direct and indirect means in support of its Belt and Road Initiatives,” said Al Dillon, co-founder and CEO of Sapper Labs, a company that supports the intelligence and cyber defense needs of Canada and other English-speaking countries. 

“The collaboration with Russia is concerning in this regard, while Russia will surely want to retain its own sovereignty and independence in the Arctic. The extent of this collaboration remains to be seen; however, we can be assured it will occur.” 

Artur Wilczynski, a former Canadian ambassador to Norway and retired senior official in several intelligence-related agencies, told VOA that Russia “was originally skeptical with non-Arctic state involvement in the region.” 

“Given Western sanctions and the Russian need for investment, China may exert more pressure on Russia rather than other Arctic states,” Wilczynski said. “It may be easier for them to meet their Arctic interests through closer collaboration with Russia in the short term than try to address increasing Western skepticism of their engagement in either the North American or Western European Arctic.” 

Despite the focus on Russia, Samuel Jardine, head of research at London Politica, said Beijing is interested in acquiring access to the Canadian Arctic — a goal that may have led to a scandal over Chinese interference in the past two Canadian elections. 

“In effect Canada is a doorway for China to not being seen to be isolated merely in the ‘Russian Arctic’ and maintaining influence and access to the whole region,” Jardine told VOA in an email. “Something fundamental for a “Polar Great Power” which claims to be a “near-Arctic” state.” 

Michel Lipin contributed to this article.
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This week, President Joe Biden drastically increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum products, and semiconductors. The move follows his administration’s review of former President Donald Trump’s trade policies toward China. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at how the two presidential candidates differ in their approach.
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Gigantic metal sculptures made by Kosovo-born artist Petrit Halilaj adorn the rooftop of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in an ode to a childhood affected by war. Garentina Kraja has the story. Camera: Vladimir Badikov 
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HOUSTON — Fast-moving thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings, downing trees and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area.

Officials urged residents to keep off roads, as many were impassable and traffic lights were expected to be out for much of the night.

“Stay at home tonight. Do not go to work tomorrow, unless you’re an essential worker. Stay home, take care of your children,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said in an evening briefing. “Our first responders will be working around the clock.”

The mayor said four people died during the severe weather. At least two of the deaths were caused by falling trees, and another happened when a crane blew over in strong winds, officials said.

Streets were flooded, and trees and power lines were down across the region. Whitmire said wind speeds reached 160 kph, “with some twisters.” He said the powerful gusts were reminiscent of 2008’s Hurricane Ike, which pounded the city.

Hundreds of windows were shattered at downtown hotels and office buildings, with glass littering the streets below, and the state was sending Department of Public Safety officers to secure the area.

“Downtown is a mess,” Whitmire said.

There was a backlog of 911 calls that first responders were working through, he added.

At Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, the retractable roof was closed due to the storm. But the wind was so powerful it still blew rain into the stadium. Puddles formed on the outfield warning track, but the game against the Oakland Athletics still was played.

The Houston Independent School District canceled classes Friday for some 400,000 students at all its 274 campuses.

The storm system moved through swiftly, but flood watches and warnings remained for Houston and areas to the east. The ferocious storms moved into neighboring Louisiana and left more than 215,000 customers without power.

Flights were briefly grounded at Houston’s two major airports. Sustained winds topping 96 kph were recorded at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

About 900,000 customers were without electricity in and around Harris County, which contains Houston, according to poweroutage.us. The county is home to more than 4.7 million people.

The problems extended to the city’s suburbs, with emergency officials in neighboring Montgomery County describing the damage to transmission lines as “catastrophic” and warning that power could be impacted for several days.

Heavy storms slammed the region during the first week of May, leading to numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes.
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PARIS — French police on Friday shot dead an armed man who was trying to set fire to a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen.

“National police in Rouen neutralized early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6:45 am (0445 GMT) to reports of “fire near the synagogue,” a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died.”

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism.”

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.
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