Beijing — Top White House aide Jake Sullivan held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, after a senior military official warned the United States to stop “collusion” with Taiwan in a rare one-on-one meeting.

Sullivan, the first U.S national security adviser to visit China since 2016, stressed the importance of stability in the tense Taiwan Strait as he met with senior Chinese army chief Zhang Youxia at the Beijing headquarters of the Central Military Commission.

The White House adviser met Xi on Thursday afternoon, state media said, as he wrapped up three days of talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other high-ranking officials.

Sullivan’s visit came as China became embroiled in security rows with U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines.

“It’s rare that we have the opportunity to have this kind of exchange,” Sullivan told Zhang in opening remarks.

The two officials agreed to hold a call between the two sides’ theatre commanders “in the near future,” a readout from the White House added.

Sullivan also raised the importance of “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines have clashed in recent months, and “stability” in the Taiwan Strait, Washington said.

Zhang, in turn, warned that the status of the self-ruled island was “the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-U.S. relations.”

“China has always been committed to maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he said, according to a readout by Beijing’s defense ministry.

“But ‘Taiwan independence’ and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are incompatible,” he said.

“China demands that the U.S. halts military collusion with Taiwan, ceases arming Taiwan, and stops spreading false narratives related to Taiwan,” Zhang added.

He also asked Washington to “work with China to promote communication and exchanges between the two militaries and jointly shoulder the responsibilities of major powers.”

‘Destabilizing actions’

Thursday’s talks also saw Sullivan express “concerns about (Chinese) support for Russia’s defense industrial base,” the readout added — echoing long-standing U.S. claims that Beijing has rejected.

He also raised “the need to avoid miscalculation and escalation in cyber space, and ongoing efforts to reach a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza,” the White House said.

On Wednesday, Sullivan and Wang discussed plans for their leaders to talk in the coming weeks — and clashed over China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions.

Sullivan “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to defending its Indo-Pacific allies,” the White House said.

He also “expressed concern about (China’s) destabilizing actions against lawful Philippine maritime operations” in the disputed South China Sea, it said.

Chinese state media reported that Wang issued his own warning to Washington.

“The United States must not use bilateral treaties as an excuse to undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, nor should it support or condone the Philippines’ actions of infringement,” Wang told Sullivan, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Wang and Sullivan previously met five times over the past year and a half — in Washington, Vienna, Malta and Bangkok, as well as alongside U.S. President Joe Biden and Xi in California last November.

During their latest encounter, they also discussed the tense issue of Taiwan, the self-ruled democratic island that China claims.

China has kept up its saber-rattling since the inauguration this year of President Lai Ching-te, whose party emphasizes Taiwan’s separate identity.
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FRESNO, Calif. — The second elephant calf in two weeks has been born at a California zoo.

African elephant Amahle gave birth early Monday morning, according to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. The event came 10 days after Amahle’s mother, Nolwazi, gave birth to another male calf.

The new additions are the first elephants born at the zoo, about 240 kilometers southeast of San Francisco, which has embarked on a program to breed elephants in the hope that they can be seen by zoogoers in years to come.

“To have two healthy calves is a historic milestone,” Jon Forrest Dohlin, the zoo’s chief executive, said in a statement Tuesday. “We cannot wait for the public to see the new additions to our herd and share in our excitement.”

The elephants and their calves will continue to be monitored behind the scenes for now, Dohlin said. While the zoo expanded its exhibit in anticipation of growing its herd, some animal activists have opposed the breeding program, saying elephants shouldn’t be in zoos because of their complex needs.

In 2022, the zoo brought in male elephant Mabu hoping he’d breed with the two females. The future of elephants — which have relatively few offspring and a 22-month gestation period — in zoos hinges largely on breeding.
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Washington — The 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump in July was dead set on carrying out an attack but appears to have seen the former U.S. leader and current Republican presidential candidate as a “target of opportunity.”

Senior FBI officials shared the updated assessment of Thomas Matthew Crooks on Wednesday, saying the findings are based on almost 1,000 interviews and extensive analysis of his internet search activity and social media accounts.

“We saw through our analysis of all his — particularly his online searches — a sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event,” FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Kevin Rojek told reporters during a phone briefing.

“He looked at any number of events or targets,” Rojek said, adding that when the Trump campaign announced the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the shooter “became hyperfocused on that specific event.”

As for what motivated Crooks to carry out an attack in the first place, officials said that remains a mystery.

“At this time, the FBI has not identified a motive,” said Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch.

Wells also said the FBI investigation has found no credible evidence to suggest that the shooter told anyone of his plans or that he had any help from any individuals or foreign governments.

“I want to be clear. We have not seen any indication to suggest Crooks was directed by a foreign entity to conduct the attack,” he said.

The FBI officials further rejected conspiracy theories that have been circulating on social media regarding a potential second shooter.

They said a forensic examination of the shooter’s gun, an AR-style rifle, conclusively linked the weapon to all eight shell casings found on the roof of the building where he carried out the attack.

The FBI officials said only two other shots were fired — one by a local law enforcement officer, and one by a U.S. Secret Service sniper — which hit the shooter in the head, killing him.

FBI investigators have been scouring Crooks’ internet searches and social media activity, and talking to anyone who knew him, ever since he climbed on a roof of a building overlooking the Trump campaign rally in rural, western Pennsylvania and began shooting, leaving Trump with a bloody ear and killing a rallygoer and injuring two others.

Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that Crooks appeared to have become fixated on high-profile public figures and that just a week before the attempted assassination, he searched for information on the 1963 killing of U.S. President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.

“On July 6, he did a Google search for, quote, ‘How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?’” Wray said.

“That’s obviously significant in terms of his state of mind,” Wray added. “That is the same day that he registered for the Butler rally.”

FBI officials on Wednesday presented a more-detailed account of Crooks’ mindset and planning, saying the shooter appears to have started preparing to carry out an attack or shooting as far back as September 2023, using an online account to look at Trump’s campaign schedule.

Starting in April of this year, officials said, the shooter began researching campaign events for Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden.

“In the 30 days prior to the attack, the subject conducted more than 60 searches related to President Biden and former President Trump,” said the FBI’s Rojek, adding the shooter also looked up the dates and locations of the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

But Rojek said that Crooks’ focus on carrying out an attack appears to go back even further, and that he began researching how to make explosives in September 2019.

He said there is also no indication, so far, that Crooks was motivated by any political leanings.

“We’ve seen no definitive ideology associated with our subject either left leaning or right leaning,” Rojek said. “It’s really been a mixture, and something that we’re still attempting to analyze and draw conclusions on.”

It also appears Crooks was clear-headed and methodical in his attempt to kill Trump.  Lab tests showed no signs he was using alcohol or illicit drugs at the time of the attack, FBI officials said.
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In the summer of 1993, 46 Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and American kids gathered at a camp in the state of Maine. The camp was the brainchild of journalist and author John Wallach, who wanted to provide children of war the chance to build a more secure future. Jeff Swicord reports. Videographer: Karina Chaudhury
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Washington — Jobs in the U.S. clean energy industry in 2023 grew at more than double the rate of the country’s overall jobs, and unionization in clean energy surpassed for the first time the rate in the wider energy industry, the Energy Department said on Wednesday.

Employment in clean energy businesses – including wind, solar, nuclear and battery storage — rose by 142,000 jobs, or 4.2% last year, up from a rise of 3.9% in 2022, the U.S. Energy and Employment Report said. The rate was above the overall U.S. job growth rate of 2% in 2023.

Unionization rates in clean energy hit 12.4%, more than the 11% in the overall energy business, it said. That was driven by growth in construction and utility industries and after legislation passed in 2022 including the bipartisan CHIPS Act and President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the department said.

Construction jobs in clean energy, driven by the legislation and private-sector investments, “is expected to continue for decades to build out the clean energy infrastructure that we need,” Betony Jones, the Energy Department’s head of energy jobs, told reporters in a call. While unionized members “might move from project to project, there is continuity of that work in order for workers to make a career in that industry,” she said.

Employment in the utility scale and rooftop solar industries grew 5.3% adding more than 18,000 jobs, it said. The solar installation industry in California, the country’s most populous state, says it has lost more than 17,000 jobs due to high interest rates and the state’s lowering of net meter rates that allow customers to be credited for excess power their rooftop panels generate.

New jobs in fossil fuels were mixed. The natural gas workforce grew by more than 77,000 or 13.3%, while jobs in petroleum fell more than 44,000 or 6%. Coal jobs fell nearly 8,500 or 5.3% as power generation continued to switch from coal to gas, wind and solar. White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters that the report showed the administration’s commitment to pursue both energy and climate security.

Energy remained a mostly male workforce with an average of 73% in 2023 compared with the national workforce average that was 53% male, the same numbers as in the previous year. Women accounted for about half the energy jobs added in 2022, but only 17% of the jobs added in 2023, the report said.

 
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Washington — The White House welcomed on Tuesday the rescue of an Israeli hostage abducted October 7 by Hamas and said a Gaza cease-fire deal is being finalized.

But even if an agreement is reached, a truce is unlikely to extend beyond the six weeks of phase one of the three-phase deal. The next U.S. administration will still inherit the role of managing tensions in the region.

Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris has aimed to strike a balance between reaffirming U.S. support for Israel and advocating for Palestinian humanitarian needs — in essence, signaling a continuation of President Joe Biden’s policies on the Israel-Hamas war and, more broadly, the Middle East.

Harris summed up her position in her acceptance speech as the Democratic presidential nominee at the party’s convention in Chicago.

“President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination,” she said.

Democrats are enthusiastic about Harris, even though she has not yet laid out her own policies. And unlike Biden, a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, most of Harris’ exposure to foreign policy was during her tenure as vice president.

Not having “foreign policy baggage” might benefit Harris in the eyes of Democratic voters, said Natasha Hall, senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Hall pointed out that in October 2002, Biden was one of 77 senators who gave President George W. Bush the authority to use force in Iraq, a decision that eventually became a liability for Biden, much as his staunch support for Israel has become the most divisive issue in his own party.

Adviser’s influence

Those looking to see whether Harris’ Mideast policy will diverge from Biden’s can look to her national security adviser, Phillip Gordon, who is expected to remain in the role if she is elected. He would be the principal adviser to the president on all national security issues, including foreign policy.

“Phil Gordon is the type of adviser that colors in the lines,” Hall told VOA. “He’s the kind of person that I think very much is sort of old-fashioned American foreign policy.”

Gordon was against ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power in 2003. He chronicled American efforts to overthrow leaders in the Middle East in his 2020 book, “Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East.”

“The U.S. policy debate about the Middle East suffers from the fallacy that there is an external American solution to every problem, even when decades of painful experience suggest that this is not the case,” he wrote. “And regime change is the worst ‘solution.'”

Such an outlook would make a Harris administration “very, very cautious to deal assertively with Iran,” said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Political Studies Department at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.

From an Israeli perspective, however, Harris’ direct involvement in the administration’s recent decision to deploy more military assets to the Middle East to deter Iran is good news, Rynhold told VOA.

“If that is the policy that she goes on to adopt, then that crosses the minimal threshold of what Israel needs on Iran,” he said. “It may not be what Israel desires, which is a more forceful approach, but it is not a passive one.”

Current Harris aides have told VOA that Harris she intends to stay on the path that Biden has laid out: working beyond a cease-fire toward a two-state solution without sacrificing Israel’s security.

Harris’ former national security adviser while she was in the Senate, Halie Soifer, agreed.

“The vice president and the president have supported U.S. military assistance to Israel, not just for the existing agreement that we have with Israel,” said Soifer, who is now the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “But also an increase this year because of their security needs,” she told VOA

Generational and personal background

Biden’s generation, with a more visceral sense of the Holocaust, views Israel as a tiny democracy surrounded by hostile Arab powers. People of Harris’ generation and younger see Israel for what it is today: a thriving democracy and the region’s top military power. While Biden and Harris may share the same goal for Israel’s security, there’s not the same emotional resonance, Rynhold said.

Younger Americans “don’t remember a time when Jews and Israel were extremely vulnerable,” he said. “So they don’t have a same sense of that continuing vulnerability that President Biden really has.”

And for the president, Israel is integral to the story of America’s role in the world.

“America is there to prevent the Holocaust. America is there to support democracies, and Israel is central to his way of understanding that role,” Rynhold said.

If elected, Harris would become the first person to hold the highest office in the land whose parents are both immigrants. Barack Obama’s father was born in Kenya, and Donald Trump’s mother was born in the U.K. Harris’ father came from Jamaica and her mother, from India.

Unlike Biden, who often underscores that he is a Zionist, a loaded term often viewed with scorn in many parts of the world, Harris may be more sensitive to views from the Global South.

In a 2018 speech to an Indian American group, Harris spoke fondly of childhood visits to the home of her maternal grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, describing him as someone who had fought for “freedom and for justice and for independence.”

“She is aware of how the rest of the world may feel about the Middle East, about neocolonialism, neoimperialism,” Hall said. “I really hope that she has the opportunity to bring those experiences to bear if she becomes the president.”

But it’s hard to tell what a Harris doctrine would eventually look like.

“What she says now is directed to winning an election and keeping the Democratic Party together,” Rynhold said.

And since the party is evenly split between those sympathetic to Israel and those sympathetic to the Palestinians, she must express platitudes, he said.

“And that’s what she has done.”
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White House officials welcomed the rescue of an Israeli hostage held by Hamas Tuesday and said they are finalizing a Gaza cease-fire deal. But even if an agreement is reached, a future U.S. administration will still inherit the problem of managing tensions in the Middle East. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at potential U.S. policy under Vice President Kamala Harris should she win the November presidential election.
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WASHINGTON — The United States is urging certain foreign nations not to fuel Sudan’s civil war by arming fighting factions, as the country faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Meanwhile, Washington has also called on Sudan’s warring sides to enforce a code of conduct to reduce abuses, noting that the army is considering the proposal after its rival paramilitary forces have agreed to it.

More than 25 million people face acute hunger and more than 10 million have been displaced from their homes since fighting erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, the State Department said.

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen a significant proliferation of the number of external actors that are playing a role on both sides,” and they are not putting the interest of the Sudanese people “at the core of this,” said Tom Perriello, U.S. special envoy for Sudan.

“In addition to UAE [the United Arab Emirates] supporting the RSF,” Perriello told reporters on Tuesday, “we see foreign fighters coming in from across the Sahel. We’ve seen Iran, Russia, other negative actors on the SAF side.”

U.S.-brokered peace talks on Sudan that concluded last week in Geneva failed to end the country’s 16-month conflict. But one of the warring sides, the RSF, agreed to a code of conduct pledging to avoid violence against women, exploitation at checkpoints and the destruction of crops.

Perriello said that the U.S. has presented the proposal to the SAF leaders who were absent in the Switzerland negotiations.

“They have the code of conduct in front of them. We hope to get a response from them in the coming days,” Perriello said.

The United States has accused the SAF and RSF of war crimes, with the RSF specifically charged with ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity targeting the indigenous African-origin people of Darfur.

During the talks in Geneva, the U.S., along with representatives from the African Union, the United Arab Emirates, the United Nations, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, focused on reopening three humanitarian corridors — the Western border crossing in Darfur at Adre, the northern Dabbah Road from Port Sudan and the southern access route through Sennar.

Later this week, the U.S. will have a first formal follow-up with the heads of delegations.

Humanitarian assistance deliveries have resumed via two of the three routes: across the border at Adre from Chad and along the Dabbah Road into famine-stricken areas of Sudan.

In a statement late Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the reopening of humanitarian corridors, saying lack of humanitarian aid access into Darfur over the past six months has exacerbated the historic levels of famine and acute hunger across Sudan, particularly within the Zamzam camp.
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FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. — It’s been a wild week of weather in many parts of the United States, from heat waves to snowstorms to flash floods.

Here’s a look at some of the weather events:

Midwest sizzles under heat wave

Millions of people in the Midwest have been enduring dangerous heat and humidity.

An emergency medicine physician treating Minnesota State Fair-goers for heat illnesses saw firefighters cut rings off two people’s swollen fingers Monday in hot weather that combined with humidity made it feel well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celsius).

Soaring late summer temperatures also prompted some Midwestern schools to let out early or cancel sports practices. The National Weather Service issued heat warnings or advisories across Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Several cities including Chicago opened cooling centers.

Forecasters said Tuesday also will be scorching hot for areas of the Midwest before the heat wave shifts to the south and east.

West Coast mountains get early snowstorm

An unusually cold storm on the mountain peaks along the West Coast late last week brought a hint of winter in August. The system dropped out of the Gulf of Alaska, down through the Pacific Northwest and into California. Mount Rainier, southeast of Seattle, got a high-elevation dusting, as did central Oregon’s Mt. Bachelor resort.

Mount Shasta, the Cascade Range volcano that rises to 14,163 feet (4,317 meters) above far northern California, wore a white blanket after the storm clouds passed. The mountain’s Helen Lake, which sits at 10,400 feet (3,170 meters) received about half a foot of snow (15 centimeters), and there were greater amounts at higher elevations, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s Shasta Ranger Station.

Tropical storm dumps heavy rain on Hawaii

Three tropical cyclones swirled over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, including Tropical Storm Hone, which brought heavy rain to Hawaii; Hurricane Gilma, which was weakening; and Tropical Storm Hector, which was churning westward, far off the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico.

The biggest impacts from Tropical Storm Hone (pronounced hoe-NEH) were rainfall and flash floods that resulted in road closures, downed power lines and damaged trees in some areas of the Big Island, said William Ahue, a forecaster at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu. No injuries or major damage had been reported, authorities said.

Deadly Alaska landslide crashes into homes

A landslide that cut a path down a steep, thickly forested hillside crashed into several homes in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the latest such disaster to strike the mountainous region. Sunday’s slide killed one person and injured three others and prompted the mandatory evacuation of nearby homes in the city, a popular cruise ship stop along the famed Inside Passage in the southeastern Alaska panhandle.

The slide area remained unstable Monday, and authorities said that state and local geologists were arriving to assess the area for potential secondary slides. Last November, six people — including a family of five — were killed when a landslide destroyed two homes in Wrangell, north of Ketchikan.

Flash flood hits Grand Canyon National Park

The body of an Arizona woman who disappeared in Grand Canyon National Park after a flash flood was recovered Sunday, park rangers said. The body of Chenoa Nickerson, 33, was discovered by a group rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, the park said in a statement.

Nickerson was hiking along Havasu Creek about a half-mile (800 meters) from where it meets up with the Colorado River when the flash flood struck. Nickerson’s husband was among the more than 100 people safely evacuated.

The flood trapped several hikers in the area above and below Beaver Falls, one of a series of usually blue-green waterfalls that draw tourists from around the world to the Havasupai Tribe’s reservation. The area is prone to flooding that turns its iconic waterfalls chocolate brown.
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McALLEN, Texas — A federal judge in Texas on Monday paused a Biden administration policy that would give spouses of U.S. citizens legal status without having to first leave the country, dealing at least a temporary setback to one of the biggest presidential actions to ease a path to citizenship in years.

The administrative stay issued by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker comes just days after 16 states, led by Republican attorneys general, challenged the program that could benefit an estimated 500,000 immigrants in the country, plus about 50,000 of their children.

One of the states leading the challenge is Texas, which in the lawsuit claimed the state has had to pay tens of millions of dollars annually from health care to law enforcement because of immigrants living in the state without legal status.

President Joe Biden announced the program in June. The court order, which lasts for two weeks but could be extended, comes one week after the Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications.

“The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” Barker wrote.

Barker was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2019 as a judge in Tyler, Texas, which lies in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a favored venue for advocates pushing conservative arguments.

The judge laid out a timetable that could produce a decision shortly before the presidential election Nov. 5 or before a newly elected president takes office in January. Barker gave both sides until Oct. 10 to file briefs in the case.

The policy offers spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status, who meet certain criteria, a path to citizenship by applying for a green card and staying in the U.S. while undergoing the process. Traditionally, the process could include a yearslong wait outside of the U.S., causing what advocates equate to “family separation.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return an email seeking comment on the order.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton cheered the order.

“This is just the first step. We are going to keep fighting for Texas, our country, and the rule of law,” Paxton posted on the social media platform X.

Several families were notified of the receipt of their applications, according to attorneys advocating for eligible families who filed a motion to intervene earlier Monday.

“Texas should not be able to decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and their immigrant spouses without confronting their reality,” Karen Tumlin, the founder and director of Justice Action Center, said during the press conference before the order was issued.

The coalition of states accused the administration of bypassing Congress for “blatant political purposes.”

The program has been particularly contentious in an election year where immigration is one of the biggest issues, with many Republicans attacking the policy and contending it is essentially a form of amnesty for people who broke the law.

To be eligible for the program, immigrants must have lived continuously in the U.S. for at least 10 years, not pose a security threat or have a disqualifying criminal history and have been married to a citizen by June 17 — the day before the program was announced.

They must pay a $580 fee to apply and fill out a lengthy application, including an explanation of why they deserve humanitarian parole and a long list of supporting documents proving how long they have been in the country.

If approved, applicants have three years to seek permanent residency. During that period, they can get work authorization.

Before this program, it was complicated for people who were in the U.S. illegally to get a green card after marrying an American citizen. They can be required to return to their home country — often for years — and they always face the risk they may not be allowed back in.
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WASHINGTON — An Army private who fled to North Korea just over a year ago will plead guilty to desertion and four other charges and take responsibility for his conduct, his lawyer said Monday.

Travis King’s attorney, Franklin D. Rosenblatt, told The Associated Press that King intends to admit guilt to a total of five military offenses, including desertion and assaulting an officer. Nine other offenses, including possession of sexual images of a child, will be withdrawn and dismissed under the terms of the deal.

King will be given an opportunity at a Sept. 20 hearing at Fort Bliss, Texas, to discuss his actions and explain what he did.

“He wants to take responsibility for the things that he did,” Rosenblatt said.

In a separate statement, he added, “Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside his circle who did not pre-judge his case based on the initial allegations.”

He declined to comment on a possible sentence that his client might face. Desertion is a serious charge and can result in imprisonment.

The AP reported last month that the two sides were in plea talks.

King bolted across the heavily fortified border from South Korea in July 2023, and became the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years.

His run into North Korea came soon after he was released from a South Korean prison where he had served nearly two months on assault charges.

About a week after his release from the prison, military officers took him to the airport so he could return to Fort Bliss to face disciplinary action. He was escorted as far as customs, but instead of getting on the plane, he joined a civilian tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom. He then ran across the border, which is lined with guards and often crowded with tourists.

He was detained by North Korea, but after about two months, Pyongyang abruptly announced that it would expel him. On Sept. 28, he was flown to back to Texas, and has been in custody there.

The U.S. military in October filed a series of charges against King under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including desertion, as well as kicking and punching other officers, unlawfully possessing alcohol, making a false statement and possessing a video of a child engaged in sexual activity. Those allegations date back to July 10, the same day he was released from the prison.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith on Monday asked a federal appeals court to revive the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of retaining classified documents, after a lower court dismissed the indictment in July, according to a court filing.

In their brief, Smith and his team of attorneys urged the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to overturn the July 15 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon in which she concluded that Smith was unlawfully appointed and did not have the legal authority to bring the case.

“Congress has bestowed on the Attorney General, like the heads of many Executive Departments, broad authority to structure the agency he leads to carry out the responsibilities imposed on him by law,” they wrote.

“The district court’s contrary view conflicts with an otherwise unbroken course of decisions, including by the Supreme Court, that the Attorney General has such authority, and it is at odds with widespread and longstanding appointment practices in the Department of Justice and across the government.”

The Justice Department had previously said it planned to appeal the ruling.

In Monday’s brief, Smith’s office also asked the appellate court to schedule oral arguments.

Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, found that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint Smith in 2022 violated the U.S. Constitution. She also found that his budget, which is funded through an indefinite appropriation, was unlawful.

Trump’s lawyers had previously challenged the legal authority for Smith’s appointment, arguing that Smith’s office was not created by Congress and the special counsel was not confirmed by the Senate.

Trump’s campaign said on Monday that the court should reject Smith’s request and that other cases facing the former president should be dismissed.

“Not only should the dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida be affirmed but be immediately joined by a dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts. The Democrat Justice Department coordinated ALL of these Political Attacks, which are an Election Interference conspiracy against Comrade Kamala’s Political Opponent, President Trump. Let us come together to END all Weaponization of our Justice System,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Cannon’s ruling has faced staunch criticism, with many attorneys saying it flies in the face of prior court decisions which all upheld the legality of the rules that the Justice Department has relied on for years in appointing special counsels.

“The Attorney General validly appointed the Special Counsel, who is also properly funded,” Smith’s office wrote, adding that Cannon had “deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent” and also “misconstrued the statutes that authorized the Special Counsel’s appointment.”

Cannon’s decision to dismiss the case marked a legal victory for Trump and came not long after the Supreme Court ruled that he had broad criminal immunity from prosecution for official actions he took during his time in office.

That Supreme Court decision has led to major delays in Smith’s second criminal case against Trump, in which Trump is facing charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Smith faces a Friday deadline to tell the judge overseeing the election subversion case how he wishes to proceed in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Trump, who is running in the 2024 presidential election against Vice President Kamala Harris, was convicted in May on New York state charges involving hush money paid to an adult film star to avert a sex scandal before the 2016 election.

His sentencing has been postponed following the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.

In the documents case, Trump was indicted on charges that he willfully retained sensitive national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in 2021 and obstructed government efforts to retrieve the material.
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The rapid rise in disposable electronic cigarette, or vape, usage is creating a tidal wave of pollution, and it’s raising serious environmental concerns. Aron Ranen reports from New York City about one woman who is trying to make a difference.
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A memorial run has been held in Simi Valley, California to honor 13 U.S. service members killed three years ago during a suicide bombing as U.S. troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan. VOA’s Genia Dulot attended this year’s run and spoke to two Gold Star families as well as the event organizer, whose son survived the attack at the Kabul airport.
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