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WASHINGTON — Chrysler parent Stellantis said Saturday it is recalling 1.46 million vehicles worldwide due to a software malfunction in the anti-lock brake system that can increase the risk of a crash.

The recall includes nearly 1.23 million Ram 1500 trucks from the 2019 and 2021-2024 model years in the United States, as well as about 159,000 vehicles in Canada, 13,000 in Mexico and 61,000 outside North America.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a software malfunction might result in the anti-lock brake system control module disabling the electronic stability control system.

The issue means the vehicles do not comply with a federal motor vehicle safety standard on electric stability control systems.

Stellantis said if the issue occurs, the ABS, ESC, adaptive cruise control and forward collision warning indicator lights will be illuminated at vehicle start up, indicating the systems are not working. Foundational braking would be working, it added.

The company said it is unaware of any related injuries or crashes.

Stellantis also said Saturday it is recalling about 33,000 Jeep Gladiator models from 2020-2024 and Jeep Wrangler vehicles from 2018-2024 due to a potential internal short circuit issue in the instrument panel cluster.
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Close to the U.S. capital of Washington, the rural state of West Virginia was solidly Democratic for most of the 20th century. But now it’s a Republican stronghold, delivering overwhelming wins for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. VOA’s congressional correspondent, Katherine Gypson, went to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, to see how the 2024 election season is playing out. Videographers: Adam Greenbaum, Henry Hernandez and Mary Cieslak
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Jerusalem — The family of a Turkish-American woman shot dead while demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank demanded an independent investigation into her death on Saturday, accusing the Israeli military of killing her “violently.”

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was “shot in the head” while participating in a demonstration in Beita in the West Bank on Friday.

“Her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military,” Eygi’s family said in a statement.

“A U.S. citizen, Aysenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter.

“We call on President (Joe) Biden, Vice President (Kamala) Harris, and Secretary of State (Antony) Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties.”

The Israeli military said its forces “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them” during the protest.

Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization, and was in Beita on Friday for a weekly demonstration against Israeli settlements, according to ISM.

In recent years, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have frequently held weekly protests against the Eviatar settlement outpost overlooking Beita, which is backed by far-right Israeli ministers.

During Friday’s protest, Eygi was shot in the head, according to the U.N. rights office and Rafidia hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Turkey said she was killed by “Israeli occupation soldiers,” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemning the Israeli action as “barbaric.”

Washington called it a “tragic” event and has pressed its close ally Israel to investigate.

But her family has demanded an independent probe.

“Given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate,” her family said.

Her family said Eygi always advocated “an end to the violence against the people of Palestine.”

Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where about 490,000 people live, are illegal under international law.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel which triggered the war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 690 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials.
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WASHINGTON — Boeing’s beleaguered Starliner made its long-awaited return to Earth on Saturday without the astronauts who rode it up to the International Space Station, after NASA ruled the trip back too risky.

After years of delays, Starliner launched in June for what was meant to be a roughly weeklong test mission — a final shakedown before it could be certified to rotate crew to and from the orbital laboratory.

But unexpected thruster malfunctions and helium leaks en route to the ISS derailed those plans, and NASA ultimately decided it was safer to bring crewmates Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back on a rival SpaceX Crew Dragon — though they’ll have to wait until February 2025.

The gumdrop-shaped Boeing capsule touched down softly at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, its descent slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags, having departed the ISS around six hours earlier.

As it streaked red-hot across the night sky, ground teams reported hearing sonic booms. The spacecraft endured temperatures of 1,650 degrees Celsius during atmospheric reentry.

NASA lavished praise on Boeing during a post-flight press conference where representatives from the company were conspicuously absent.

“It was a bullseye landing,” said Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program. “The entry in particular has been darn near flawless.”

Still, he acknowledged that certain new issues had come to light, including the failure of a new thruster and the temporary loss of the guidance system.

He added it was too early to talk about whether Starliner’s next flight, scheduled for August next year, would be crewed, instead stressing NASA needed time to analyze the data they had gathered and assess what changes were required to both the design of the ship and the way it is flown.

Ahead of the return leg, Boeing carried out extensive ground testing to address the technical hitches encountered during Starliner’s ascent, then promised — both publicly and behind closed doors — that it could safely bring the astronauts home. In the end, NASA disagreed.

Asked whether he stood by that decision, NASA’s Stich said: “It’s always hard to have that retrospective look. We made the decision to have an uncrewed flight based on what we knew at the time and based on our knowledge of the thrusters and based on the modeling that we had.”

History of setbacks

Even without crew aboard, the stakes were high for Boeing, a century-old aerospace giant.

With its reputation already battered by safety concerns surrounding its commercial jets, its long-term prospects for crewed space missions hung in the balance.

Shortly after undocking, Starliner executed a powerful “breakout burn” to swiftly clear it from the station and prevent any risk of collision — a maneuver that would have been unnecessary if crew were aboard to take manual control if needed.

Mission teams then conducted thorough checks of the thrusters required for the critical “deorbit burn” that guided the capsule onto its reentry path around 40 minutes before touchdown.

Though it was widely expected that Starliner would stick the landing, as it had on two previous uncrewed tests, Boeing’s program continues to languish behind schedule.

In 2014, NASA awarded both Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts to develop spacecraft to taxi astronauts to and from the ISS, after the end of the Space Shuttle program left the US space agency reliant on Russian rockets.

Although initially considered the underdog, Elon Musk’s SpaceX surged ahead of Boeing, and has successfully flown dozens of astronauts since 2020.

The Starliner program, meanwhile, has faced numerous setbacks — from a software glitch that prevented the capsule from rendezvousing with the ISS during its first uncrewed test flight in 2019, to the discovery of flammable tape in the cabin after its second test in 2022, to the current troubles.

With the ISS scheduled to be decommissioned in 2030, the longer Starliner takes to become fully operational, the less time it will have to prove its worth.
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washington — House Republicans unveiled on Friday their legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the month and fund the government into late March, when a new president and Congress would make the final decision on agency spending and priorities for fiscal 2025.

Republicans also added a hot-button immigration issue to the measure by requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when someone registers to vote. Inclusion of the citizenship requirement is a nonstarter in the Senate, complicating prospects for the spending bill’s passage.

Lawmakers are returning to Washington next week following a traditional August recess spent mostly in their home states and districts. They are not close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that will fund the agencies during the next fiscal year, so they’ll need to approve a stopgap measure to prevent a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins October 1.

“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

Bipartisanship urged

But in a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray said avoiding a shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party.

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” Schumer and Murray said.

It is a crime under federal law for a noncitizen to vote, or even register to vote, in a federal election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Johnson’s decision to add the proof of citizenship requirement to the spending measure comes after the House Freedom Caucus called for it in a position statement last month. The group of conservatives, banking on a win by Republican nominee Donald Trump, also urged that the measure fund the government into early next year so Republicans could get more of their priorities in legislation.

Some Republican leaders had wanted to pass the final spending bills by the end of this Congress so that the new president, whether it be Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, could focus more on getting staffed and pursuing their own top priorities rather than dealing with spending disagreements.

Republicans say requiring proof of citizenship would ensure American elections are only for American citizens, improving confidence in the nation’s federal election system. But opponents say the available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in federal elections is incredibly rare and such a requirement would disenfranchise millions of Americans who don’t have the necessary documents readily available when they want to register.

What remains to be seen is what happens if the bill passes the House this week and the Senate declines to take it up or votes it down.

The bill would fund agencies at current levels until March 28, though there’s also money to help cover additional security costs associated with Inauguration Day and $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.
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ASHEVILLE, north carolina — Seth Kaller, an appraiser and collector of historic documents, spreads a broad sheet of paper across a desk. It’s in good enough condition that he can handle it, carefully, with clean, bare hands. There are just a few creases and tiny discolorations, even though it’s just a few weeks shy of 237 years old and has spent who knows how long inside a filing cabinet in North Carolina. 

At the top of the first page are familiar words but in regular type instead of the sweeping Gothic script readers are accustomed to seeing: “WE the People.” 

And the people will get a chance to bid for this copy of the U.S. Constitution — the only one of its type thought to be in private hands — at a sale by Brunk Auctions on September 28 in Asheville, North Carolina. 

The minimum bid for the auction of $1 million has already been made. There is no minimum price that must be reached. 

This copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting that it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people.

Few copies remain 

It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned. 

Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them. They were sent to special ratifying conventions, where representatives, all white and male, wrangled for months before accepting the structure of the U.S. government that continues today. 

“This is the point of connection between the government and the people. The Preamble — ‘we, the people’ — this is the moment the government is asking the people to empower them,” auctioneer Andrew Brunk said. 

What happened to the document up for auction between Thomson’s signature and 2022 isn’t known. 

Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and he oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution. 

The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty bookcase, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book. 

“I get calls every week from people who think they have a Declaration of Independence or a Gettysburg Address and most of the time it is just a replica, but every so often something important gets found,” said Kaller, who appraises, buys and sells historic documents. 

“This is a whole other level of importance,” he added. 

Washington letter

Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet printed front and back is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation’s long-term health. 

“To secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each and yet provide for the interest and safety for all — individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,” wrote the man who would become the first U.S. president. 

Brunk isn’t sure what the document might go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution like this sold, it went for $400 – in 1891. In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record for a book or document. 

But that document was meant to be distributed to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The signed copy being sold later this month was one meant to be sent to leaders in every state so people all around the country could review and decide if that’s how they wanted to be governed, connecting the writers of the Constitution to the people in the states who would provide its power and legitimacy. 

The auction listing doesn’t identify the seller, saying it’s part of a collection that is in private hands. 

Other items up for auction in Asheville include a 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation and a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough, where representatives spent two weeks debating if ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the nation instead of the states.
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washington — A South Korean senior official has rekindled debate over the U.S. commitment to that nation’s defense, bringing up the possibility of the U.S. rolling back its nuclear umbrella if former President Donald Trump is reelected.

Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s deputy national security director, said in a Seoul forum Tuesday the reelection of Trump could “weaken a U.S. nuclear umbrella” designed to protect South Korea from North Korean aggression.

“Trump as candidate can be seen as pursuing transactional benefits in terms of the South Korea-U.S. alliance,” Kim said, according to news reports. “It is not unlikely that he would suggest negotiating defense cost-sharing or the deployment of U.S. strategic assets from a cost perspective.”

Skepticism about America’s willingness and capability to protect South Korea from a North Korean nuclear attack has grown among South Koreans as North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs become increasingly sophisticated. A recent poll by South Korea’s Institute of National Unification revealed that 66% of respondents supported the country having its own nuclear weapons.

Concern over commitment

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said Kim’s remarks reflect widespread concern among U.S. allies.

There is a concern that “Trump, if reelected, would pursue policies that will weaken U.S. alliances around the world, including in Europe and East Asia,” Samore told VOA Korean Wednesday via email.

“In the case of Korea, Trump might seek to resume summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un and make concessions that weaken the U.S.-ROK alliance, as he did at the Singapore summit in June 2018,” Samore said. ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the official name for South Korea.

According to the joint statement released after the 2018 summit, Trump “committed to provide security guarantees” to North Korea, while the North Korean leader reaffirmed “commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

“However, I think it’s premature to predict exactly what policies President Trump will adopt toward Korea if he is reelected,” Samore added. “There are too many uncertainties, including, for example, who President Trump appoints for his top foreign policy and defense positions.”

Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told VOA Korean Tuesday via email the South Korean official’s assessment of Trump is justifiable.

“I think the official is correct,” O’Hanlon said, adding Trump could take steps to address this concern. “I do not know if he will.”

‘Treat us properly,’ says Trump

Trump has often complained that U.S. allies do not pay the U.S. enough for bases and troops used in their defense. In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump said, “I want South Korea to treat us properly,” suggesting he would demand that South Korea pay more for the American troops stationed there.

But Frederick Fleitz, who served as chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump White House, told VOA Korean by phone Tuesday that Trump’s reelection is not likely to affect the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Making clear that he was speaking for himself, not for Trump, Fleitz said the former president “was a strong friend of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan when he was in office last time and he’ll be a strong friend again.”

“Why would there be such a big change in a second Trump term when he didn’t do that in the first term?” Fleitz asked. “The second Trump administration, concerning South Korea, will be countering the threat from North Korea and this new axis relationship between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.”

Fleitz stressed there is no evidence to suggest Trump would link the defense cost-sharing with offering a nuclear umbrella, adding discussions on how much South Korea pays for U.S. troops in South Korea will not be a “deal breaker” for the second Trump administration.

“It is an issue that will be resolved among friends,” he said. “The security threats in the region are so severe — I think that’s what the U.S. will focus on.”

Redeployment of nukes

Robert Peters, a fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean Tuesday via email it is “far more likely” that America’s extended deterrence commitment to South Korea would strengthen during a second Trump term.

Peters said a second Trump administration could consider redeploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula, due to the threats coming from North Korea and China.

“I think a second Trump administration would field SLCM-N [nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles] in the near term and potentially reintroduce American nuclear weapons to South Korea as a means to assure the ROK, deter North Korea and strengthen regional stability,” said Peters.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is widely expected to inherit incumbent President Joe Biden’s Asia policies should she win the election.

The Biden administration is not considering the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. In 1991, the U.S. withdrew from South Korea all its nuclear weapons, roughly 100 in number, according to some studies.

“The United States does not assess returning nuclear weapons to the Indo-Pacific as necessary at this time,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement on May 31 in response to a VOA Korean inquiry. “The United States has no plans to forward deploy nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula.”

In April 2023, Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol adopted the Washington Declaration, in which the U.S. declared that its commitment to the defense of South Korea will be backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.

During this week’s high-level security talks between the U.S. and South Korea, the Biden administration reiterated its commitment to defend South Korea with nuclear weapons if necessary to deter attacks from North Korea.

“We reaffirm the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, and that any DPRK [North Korea] nuclear attack on the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime,” Bonnie Jenkins, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security,  told reporters after Wednesday’s talks.

VOA Korean contacted the Trump campaign and asked what Trump’s stance is on the U.S. nuclear umbrella offered to South Korea, but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
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washington — Shortly after appearing in court for an appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, Donald Trump stepped Friday in front of television cameras and brought up a string of past allegations of other acts of sexual misconduct, potentially reminding voters of incidents that were little-known or forgotten. 

The former president has made hitting back at opponents and accusers a centerpiece of his political identity, but his performance at his namesake Manhattan office tower was startling even by Trump’s own combative standards. At times he seemed to relish using graphic language and characterizations of the case, which could expose the former president to further legal challenges. 

Trump’s remarks came just four days before he will debate Vice President Kamala Harris, with early voting about to begin in some parts of the country and Election Day just two months away. 

Trump is staying in the public eye while Harris prepares for the debate in private with her advisers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That’s a reflection of their divergent campaign styles, with Trump frequently engaging with reporters — often in friendly settings — while Harris has done just one interview and no news conferences since taking President Joe Biden’s place atop the Democratic ticket. 

Trump on Friday repeatedly brought up Harris’ lack of news conferences. But his own comments — in which he talked about the cases against him for more than half an hour without mentioning any campaign issues — threatened to cause him more legal jeopardy. And after convening reporters for what his campaign said was a news conference, Trump walked off without taking any questions. 

Legal team makes arguments

A jury returned a $5 million verdict finding Trump liable of sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. His legal team made its appeal arguments Friday morning. 

Juries now have twice now awarded Carroll huge sums for Trump’s claiming she made up a story about him attacking her in a department store dressing room in 1996 to help her sell a memoir. 

But that hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to make nearly identical statements to reporters. At his news briefing Friday, he said again that Carroll was telling a “made up, fabricated story.” 

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, warned in March after a jury awarded Carroll another $83 million that she would continue to monitor Trump’s comments and would consider suing again if he kept it up. 

Earlier in court, he walked in quietly and passed in front of Carroll without acknowledging or looking at her. 

The former president reacted at times during the proceedings, such as shaking his head when Carroll’s attorney said that Trump sexually abused her client. He periodically tilted his head from side to side, but otherwise sat still and mostly alone. 

A Manhattan jury in May found Trump responsible for sexual abuse. Carroll says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room, but the former president’s legal team says the verdict should be overturned because some evidence that was allowed during the trial should have been excluded while other evidence that should be excluded was allowed. He denies guilt. 

In the midst of running for president and facing a series of other legal cases against him, Trump did not attend the Carroll trial and wasn’t there when the charges were read — though he assailed the verdict as “a disgrace” on his social media site. 

Later Friday, he’s traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, to address the Fraternal Order of Police. 

More than 12 women make accusations

Carroll is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment. She went public in a 2019 memoir. Trump denied it, saying he never encountered Carroll at the store and did not know her. He has called her a “nut job” who invented her story to sell a memoir. 

Trump faces unprecedented criminal and civil jeopardy for a major-party nominee. 

He has separately been convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York state case related to hush money payments allegedly made to a porn actor. The judge in that case is expected to decide Friday whether to postpone Trump’s sentencing. 

Trump has also been ordered to pay steep civil fines for lying about his wealth for years. 

And he’s still contending with cases alleging his mishandling of classified documents, his actions after the 2020 election, and his activities during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — though none are likely to go to trial prior to Election Day. 
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Winder, Georgia — The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school and his father, who was arrested for allowing his son to have a weapon, will stay in custody after their lawyers decided not to seek bail Friday. 

Colt Gray, who has been charged with four counts of murder, is accused of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. His father, Colin Gray, faces related charges in the latest attempt by prosecutors to hold parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. 

The two appeared in back-to-back hearings Friday morning with about 50 onlookers in the courtroom, where workers had set out boxes of tissue along the benches, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some victims’ family members in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal. 

During his hearing, Colt Gray, wearing khaki pants and a green shirt, was advised of his rights as well as the charges and penalties he faced for the shooting at the school where he was a student. 

After the hearing, he was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles. The judge then called the teen back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole. The judge also set another hearing for December 4.

Shortly afterward, Colin Gray was brought into court dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting and answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma. 

Colin Gray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said. 

“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said. 

The charges come five months after Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021. 

The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma. 

The Barrow County hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Apalachee High School shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week. 

Before Colin Gray’s arrest was reported, the AP knocked on the door of a home listed as his address seeking comment about his son’s arrest. 

According to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press, Colt Gray is accused of using a “black semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” to kill the two students and two teachers. Authorities have not offered any motive or explained how he obtained the gun or got it into the school. 

He was charged as an adult in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack. 

A neighbor remembered Schermerhorn as inquisitive when he was a little boy. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team. Irimie, who immigrated from Romania, volunteered at a local church, where she taught dance. 

Colt Gray denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday. Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time. 

The attack was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control but there has been little change to national gun laws. 

It was the 30th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.
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Music cassette tapes are making a comeback in the U.S, with more than 430,000 sold in 2023 – about five times the number sold just a decade ago. Cassette tapes are especially popular with younger generations who grew up with digital music. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Videographer: Sergii Dogotar
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Moscow — The Kremlin on Friday accused the United States of applying unacceptable pressure on Russian media after the U.S. Justice Department charged Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife with schemes to violate U.S. sanctions. 

The two indictments were announced just one day after the U.S. took several legal actions against Russia to combat alleged efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential elections, including charging two employees of the Russian state media network RT and sanctioning RT and its top network editor. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has said Russia is not seeking to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, told reporters that Washington was trying to ensure that Moscow’s own perspective on world affairs was not available to people. 

“Washington continues to try to put pressure on Russia, on Russian citizens, and even on the Russian media, which is engaged in informing both citizens inside our country and world public opinion about what is happening, from our perspective,” said Peskov. 

“Washington does not even accept that there should be options out there for anyone to get news from our perspective.  

This is nothing other than blatant pressure. We strongly condemn this stance as unacceptable,” he said. 

Moscow still grants accreditation to Western journalists to work in Russia, though many have left since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges in March 2023. 

Gershkovich, who denied the charges, was freed in a prisoner swap last month. 

Russia has said it will take retaliatory measures against U.S. media in response to Washington’s moves against RT. 

Asked what those measures would be, Peskov said Russia carefully evaluated the editorial policies of various foreign media outlets and would take those factors into account when making any decisions, on what he suggested would be a case-by-case basis. 

 
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Caracas, Venezuela — A U.S. Navy sailor held in Venezuela since late last month was arrested for entering “without any type of document,” the South American country’s attorney general said Thursday.

An American official on Wednesday announced the sailor had been detained at a time of soaring tensions between Washington and Caracas in the aftermath of disputed elections in Venezuela, with the opposition party claiming it can prove were stolen.

In his first comments on the matter, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab said the sailor “entered without any type of document, without any means of subsistence for what he came to do in the country.”

He said the sailor held dual U.S. and Mexican nationalities.

For its part, the Pentagon said the sailor had been in Venezuela on “personal travel.”

“This wasn’t something that was authorized,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.

“The U.S. Navy is looking into this. We’re working with the State Department,” she said, adding that: “Of course, we’d like to see the sailor returned home.”

Venezuela was rocked by protests after President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of a disputed July 28 election, with 25 civilians and two soldiers killed and more than 2,400 people arrested.

The opposition claims it won by a landslide, and the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize Maduro’s claimed victory without seeing detailed voting results.

On Monday, Washington seized Maduro’s plane in the Dominican Republic and flew it to Florida, a move the Venezuelan leader condemned as “piracy” but which Washington said was necessary due to sanctions violations.

The following day, Washington denounced an arrest warrant issued for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and warned of further action against Maduro.

The U.S. State Department has warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela for reasons including crime, unrest and wrongful detention.
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Port-au-Prince, Haiti — During a trip to Haiti on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $45 million in new humanitarian aid for the Caribbean nation, which has been wracked by violence for years.  

He also called for the renewal of the United Nations mandate for the Multinational Security Support, or MSS, mission to combat the armed gangs that dominate much of the capital.

“At this critical moment, you do need more funding. We do need more personnel to sustain and carry out the objectives of this mission,” Blinken told a news conference on a rare visit to Port-au-Prince.

The top U.S. diplomat said he plans to convene a ministerial meeting at the coming U.N. General Assembly to encourage greater international contributions to address Haiti’s security, economic, and humanitarian needs.

The MSS mandate is set to expire at the beginning of October.  U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly exploring the possibility of changing the mission into a traditional U.N. peacekeeping operation, a move that would ease funding, provide more equipment and enable use of military forces rather than only police officers.

Blinken said that while the MSS mission itself needs to be renewed, it also needs to ensure that it is “reliable” and “sustainable.”

“A peacekeeping operation would be one such option.  I think there are others,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Blinken’s visit to Port-au-Prince underscores U.S. support for Haiti as the country grapples with gang violence.

On Thursday, Blinken met with Edgard Leblanc Fils from Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council.

“Both concurred on the critical need to make timely advancements on election preparations,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Apart from Fils, Blinken also held talks with Prime Minister Garry Conille, MSS head Godfrey Otunge and Normil Rameau, head of the Haitian National Police.

The United States and Canada are the top funders of the MSS in Haiti. The first-year estimated cost for the mission is $589 million. The U.S. has already provided $309 million — $200 million toward the MSS mission base and $109 million in financial support.

Gang-related violence and drug trafficking have fueled political instability and insecurity in Haiti, leading to unbearable conditions for Haitians.

At least 80% of Port-au-Prince is no longer under Haitian authorities’ control, with violence spreading to other parts of the country.

In the past year, displacement in Haiti has tripled as gang violence grips the Caribbean nation. The U.N. says at least 578,000 people have been displaced because of violence, including murders, kidnappings and rapes.

The situation is further exacerbated by widespread hunger, with nearly half the 11.7 million population facing acute food insecurity.

 After Haiti, Blinken arrived in Santo Domingo later Thursday.  His visit follows the start of Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader’s second term in mid-August.    

The Dominican Republic will host the 2025 Summit of the Americas, where Western Hemisphere leaders will address shared challenges and policy issues facing the region.  

VOA’s Liam Scott contributed to this report.  
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beijing — The Chinese government is ending its intercountry adoption program, and the United States is seeking clarification on how the decision will affect hundreds of American families with pending applications to adopt children from China.

In a phone call with U.S. diplomats in China, Beijing said it “will not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those cases covered by an exception clause. The embassy is seeking clarification in writing from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, the U.S. State Department said Thursday. 

“We understand there are hundreds of families still pending completion of their adoption, and we sympathize with their situation,” the State Department said. 

At a daily briefing Thursday, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said China is no longer allowing foreign adoptions of the country’s children, with the only exception for blood relatives to adopt a child or a stepchild. 

She didn’t explain the decision other than to say that it was in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions. 

Many foreigners have adopted children from China over the decades, visiting the country to pick them up and then bringing them to new homes overseas. 

U.S. families have adopted 82,674 children from China, the most from any foreign country. 

China suspended international adoptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government later resumed adoptions for children who had received travel authorization before the suspension in 2020, the U.S. State Department said in its latest annual report on adoptions. 

A U.S. consulate issued 16 visas for adoptions from China from October 2022 through September 2023, the first in more than two years, the State Department report said. It wasn’t clear if any more visas had been issued since then. 

In January, Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency said it was winding down operations after concerns were raised about fabricated documents and procedures, and Norway’s top regulatory body recommended stopping overseas adoptions for two years pending an investigation into several cases. 

Beijing’s announcement also follows falling birth rates in the country. The number of newborn babies fell to 9.02 million in 2023, and the overall population declined for the second consecutive year. 
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London — The United States announced new sanctions Thursday on ships that transport Russian gas from Moscow’s Arctic LNG 2 terminal in Russia’s Murmansk region.

The measures target the owners of two LNG tankers, the New Energy and the Mulan. The U.S. State Department said the New Energy had used “deceptive shipping practices, including shutting off its automatic identification system, to load cargo from the U.S.-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.”

It comes as a new analysis shows Russia appears to be struggling to find buyers for its liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from its flagship Arctic LNG 2 project amid tightening Western sanctions, forcing Moscow to store the gas in a huge container vessel in the Arctic Sea.

The Arctic LNG 2 project was meant to produce almost 19.8 million metric tonnes of LNG every year to sell primarily to Asian markets, potentially earning billions of dollars for Novatek, the private company that runs the project, and the Kremlin.

Instead, Russia is struggling to sell the gas, according to analyst Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services. He has been using satellite and ship-tracking data to monitor LNG vessels servicing the Arctic LNG 2 facility.

“So far, we’re aware of three cargoes that have been loaded from Arctic LNG 2 … and all of them really have not gone anywhere. In recent days, what we’ve seen is that two of them have had to offload their cargo onto this huge floating storage unit that Russia’s Novatek has had moored up near Murmansk for over a year and never used — it’s also under sanctions. They’re offloading these cargoes into the storage unit because they can’t find a buyer,” Marzec-Manser told VOA.

He said that storage unit, named the Saam, will rapidly fill up if Russia can’t find buyers, creating a bottleneck and potentially forcing Novatek to halt production.

Putin’s flagship

Arctic LNG 2 was a flagship development for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pledged that it would one day help Russia to become the world’s biggest producer of LNG.

“Production of liquefied natural gas in the Russia Arctic zone will have increased three-fold by 2030, up to 64 million tons per year. … Of course, it will contribute significantly in the development of our northern regions and in the strengthening of Russian technological sovereignty,” Putin told delegates at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok in September 2023.

Earlier sanctions

That goal now seems unlikely. The West, led by the United States, imposed sanctions on Novatek and businesses linked to Arctic LNG 2 following Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Crucially, according to Marzec-Manser, that included the vessels intended to transport the gas.

“So, there’s a whole fleet of cargo vessels that are sitting in shipyards in Asia, which are specifically designed to flow through the Arctic seas. They’re called ‘ice-class’ vessels, and they’ve not been able to sell them to Novatek because of these sanctions,” Marzec-Manser said.

“What Novatek then did was to say, ‘Right, what we’re going to try and do is buy really old LNG vessels, which aren’t designed for the Arctic waters, but we can at least shuttle them backwards and forwards during the summer months.’ But then the U.S. has sanctioned those vessels, as well,” he told VOA.

Kremlin response

Russia is looking for ways to circumvent the sanctions. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in April that “attempts to squeeze Russia out of energy markets and switch to more expensive markets are continuing,” adding that Moscow “will look for ways to overcome these illegal obstacles, unfair competition and illegal actions.”

Analysts say Russia is assembling a so-called “dark fleet” of LNG vessels that are difficult to track.

“It’s a game of cat and mouse, and as we see, new vessels which are owned by unknown Middle Eastern entities entering Russian waters, it’s only then that you can properly join the dots to say, well, this is clearly being used to service some of these [LNG] projects, and it’s only then that the sanctions come in,” Marzec-Manser told VOA.

Novatek did not respond to VOA requests for comment.

Russia is still able to sell LNG and other hydrocarbon products from oil and gas fields that are not subject to Western sanctions. However, the state-owned gas giant Gazprom recorded a net loss of $6.9 billion in 2023 — its first annual loss in more than 20 years — as Moscow cut supplies to European customers following the invasion of Ukraine and the West’s imposition of sanctions.

The United States is now by far the world’s biggest supplier of LNG, with two-thirds of it exported to Europe.
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A shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday was a stark reminder that firearms kill more Americans per capita than in any other large, high-income country, according to health experts. Vice President Kamala Harris wants stricter gun regulation. Her opponent, former President Donald Trump, pledges to roll back gun restrictions. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
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Los Angeles — Hunter Biden plans to change his “not guilty” plea in his federal tax case, his defense attorney said Thursday just as jury selection was set to begin.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the judge about Hunter Biden’s plans to change his previous plea, just months after the president’s son was convicted of gun charges in a separate case, but did not provide further details.

The latest case accuses Hunter Biden of a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while pulling in millions of dollars from foreign business entities. He is already facing potential prison time after a Delaware jury convicted him in June of lying on a 2018 federal form to purchase a gun that he possessed for 11 days.

Hunter Biden walked into the courtroom holding hands with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and flanked by Secret Service agents. Initially, he pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his 2016 through 2019 taxes and his attorneys have indicated they will argue he didn’t act “willfully,” or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.

Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses last year in a deal with the Justice Department that would allow him to avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble. But the agreement imploded after a judge questioned unusual aspects of it, and he was subsequently indicted in the two cases.

His decision to change his plea came after the judge issued some unfavorable pre-trial rulings for the defense, including rejecting a proposed defense expert lined up to testify about addiction.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, placed some restrictions on what jurors would be allowed to hear about the traumatic events that Hunter Biden’s family, friends and attorneys say led to his drug addiction.

The judge barred attorneys from connecting his substance abuse struggles to the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from cancer or the car accident that killed his mother and sister when he was a toddler.

The indictment alleged that Hunter Biden lived lavishly while flouting the tax law, spending his cash on things like strippers and luxury hotels — “in short, everything but his taxes.”

Hunter Biden’s attorneys had asked Scarsi to also limit prosecutors from highlighting details of his expenses that they say amount to a “character assassination,” including payments made to strippers or pornographic websites. The judge has said in court papers that he will maintain “strict control” over the presentation of potentially salacious evidence.

Prosecutors could have presented more details of Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings, which have been at the center of Republican investigations into the Biden family often seeking — without evidence— to tie the president to an alleged influence peddling scheme.

The special counsel’s team has said it wants to tell jurors about Hunter Biden’s work for a Romanian businessman, who they say sought to “influence U.S. government policy” while Joe Biden was vice president.

The defense accused prosecutors of releasing details about Hunter Biden’s work for the Romanian in court papers to drum up media coverage and taint the jury pool.

Sentencing in Hunter Biden’s Delaware conviction is set for Nov. 13. He could face up to 25 years in prison, but as a first-time offender, he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.
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LONDON — Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein won’t face charges of indecent assault in Britain, prosecutors announced on Thursday.

The Crown Prosecution Service, which in 2022 authorized two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein, said it decided to discontinue proceedings because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”

“We have explained our decision to all parties,” the CPS said in a statement. ”We would always encourage any potential victims of sexual assault to come forward and report to police, and we will prosecute wherever our legal test is met.”

Weinstein became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement in 2017 when women began to go public with accounts of his behavior. After the revelations emerged, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault that reportedly took place between the 1980s and 2015.

In June 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in relation to an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.

Unlike many other countries, Britain does not have a statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.

Weinstein, who has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone, remains in custody in New York while awaiting retrial in Manhattan, prosecutors said in August.

After the retrial, he is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said. Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 while already serving a 23-year sentence in New York.

His 2020 conviction in Manhattan was thrown out earlier this year when the state’s top court ruled that the judge in the original trial unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren’t part of the case.

Weinstein, the co-founder of the Miramax entertainment company and The Weinstein Company film studio, was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, having produced films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game.”
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Washington — A judge will hear arguments Thursday about the potential next steps in the federal election subversion prosecution of Donald Trump in the first hearing since the Supreme Court narrowed the case by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers submitted dueling proposals late Friday before the status conference. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding over the case that charges Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump is not expected to be present, and it was not immediately clear whether Chutkan will make any rulings Thursday.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed a new indictment last week to strip out certain allegations against Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and comply with the Supreme Court ruling. His team said it could be ready at any time to file a legal brief laying out its position on how to apply the justices’ immunity opinion to the case. 

Defense lawyers said they intend to file multiple motions to dismiss the case, including one that piggybacks off a Florida judge’s ruling that said Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.

Neither side envisions a trial happening before the November election, especially given the amount of work ahead. Chutkan is tasked with determining which of the acts alleged in the indictment can remain part of the case in light of the Supreme Court opinion.

The justices in July ruled that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity for the exercise of their core constitutional duties and are presumptively immune from prosecution for all other official acts. 

Smith’s team responded to the ruling with a revised indictment last week that removed references to Trump’s efforts to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to remain in power, an area of conduct for which the Supreme Court said Trump is immune. 

The case is one of two federal prosecutions against Trump. The other, charging him with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was dismissed in July by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. She said Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful.

Smith’s team has appealed that ruling. Trump’s lawyers say they intend to ask Chutkan to dismiss the election case on the same grounds. 
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WASHINGTON — The White House is signaling an openness to blocking the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, as a government review of the proposed takeover by the Japanese company is wrapping up. 

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Joe Biden plans to stop the deal from going forward. A White House official, insisting on anonymity to discuss the matter, did not deny the report and said Biden still needs to receive the official recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). That review could end as soon as this month. 

Biden had voiced his objections to the merger, backing his supporters in the United Steelworkers union who oppose the deal. The objection carries weight as U.S. Steel is headquartered in the swing state of Pennsylvania and is a symbol of Pittsburgh’s industrial might in an election year when Republicans and Democrats alike are promising more domestic manufacturing jobs. 

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, came out against the deal this week. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has said he would block the merger if he were still in the White House. 

Stock in U.S. Steel fell roughly 17% on the news that Biden would stop the merger. 

The CFIUS review process generally pertains to business issues with national security implications. U.S. Steel spokesperson Amanda Malkowski said in an email that the company had not received any update on the process and that the company sees “no national security issues associated with this transaction, as Japan is one of our most staunch allies.” 

“We fully expect to pursue all possible options under the law to ensure this transaction, which is best future for Pennsylvania, American steelmaking, and all of our stakeholders, closes,” Malkowski said. 

A spokesman representing Nippon Steel said the company had not received any updates from the federal government on the review process. 

U.S. Steel on Wednesday hosted a rally in support of the acquisition. It said in a statement that without the Nippon Steel deal the company would “largely pivot away from its blast furnace facilities, putting thousands of good-paying union jobs at risk, negatively impacting numerous communities across the locations where its facilities exist, and depriving the American steel industry of an opportunity to better compete on the global stage.” 
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washington — China’s consul general in New York left his post as scheduled after completing his posting last month, the State Department said on Wednesday, hours after New York’s governor said she asked for his expulsion in the aftermath of the arrest of a former aide who was accused of secretly acting as a Chinese agent.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Consul General Huang Ping “was not expelled.”

“Our understanding is that the consul general reached the end of a regular scheduled rotation in August, and so rotated out of the position, but was not expelled,” Miller said.

“But of course, when it comes to the status of particular employees of a foreign mission, I would refer you to the foreign country to speak to it. But there was no expulsion action.”

China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Huang Ping’s status.

Governor asked for envoy’s expulsion

Earlier on Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul told an event that she spoke by phone at the request of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to a high-ranking State Department official “and I had conveyed my desire to have the consul general from the People’s Republic of China in the New York mission expelled.”

“And I’ve been informed that the consul general is no longer in the New York mission,” she said.

Miller said Hochul had spoken on Wednesday to Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

Asked by an audience member if she had been interviewed by investigators, including the FBI, Hochul said: “They asked me one question.”

“I’m not able to talk about it but it had something to do with identifying whether or not something was my signature and that was it,” she said.

Former aide charged

Linda Sun, 41, a former aide to Hochul, was charged on Tuesday with secretly acting as an agent of the Chinese government in exchange for millions of dollars in compensation and gifts, including meals of gourmet duck.

Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, 40, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo in Brooklyn, after being arrested on Tuesday morning.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said that while working in state government, Sun blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from meeting with officials and sought to arrange for a high-level New York state official to visit China. In exchange, Chinese government representatives allegedly arranged for millions of dollars in transactions for Hu, who had business activities in China.

Prosecutors said Sun and Hu used the money to buy a 2024 Ferrari Roma sports car, as well as property on New York’s Long Island and in Honolulu worth about $6 million.

Hochul was not accused of any wrongdoing. Her office fired Sun in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct and reported Sun’s actions immediately to authorities. Her office also has assisted law enforcement throughout the process, a spokesperson for the governor said.

According to the website of China’s consulate in New York, Huang Ping had been the consul general since November 2018. Prior to that, Huang, 61, served as a Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe and did stints as an official at the embassy in Washington and China’s consulate in Chicago.
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