ANCHORAGE, Alaska — One person was killed and three were injured by a landslide that prompted a mandatory evacuation in the Alaska city of Ketchikan, authorities said.

Three people were transported to Ketchikan Medical Center following the landslide, which struck around 4 p.m. Sunday and damaged homes and infrastructure, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough and City of Ketchikan said in a joint statement Sunday.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared an emergency for Ketchikan, while Borough Mayor Rodney Dial and city Mayor Dave Kiffer issued a separate emergency declaration.

“Friends, is with a heavy heart we relay that a landslide in the city has taken a life, caused several injuries, damaged homes and impacted our community,” Dial said in the statement.

Kiffer said the loss of life was “heartbreaking, and my heart goes out to those who lost their homes.”

“In my 65 years in Ketchikan, I have never seen a slide of this magnitude. With the slides we have seen across the region, there is clearly a region-wide issue that we need to try to understand with the support of our State geologist,” Kiffer said.

Two of the victims were admitted to the hospital and one was treated and released. All other individuals have been accounted for, the statement said.

Multiple homes were impacted by the landslide and a mandatory evacuation was ordered for residents of Third Avenue and nearby streets, while a shelter was set up at Ketchikan High School, the borough and city said.

A potential secondary landslide area was identified to the south of the original slide location and crews were standing by, the statement said.
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New York — The rally in U.S. stocks faces an important test […]  with earnings from chipmaking giant Nvidia NVDA.O, whose blistering run has powered markets throughout 2024.  

The S&P 500 .SPX has pared a sharp drop it suffered after U.S. economic worries contributed to a sell-off at the beginning of the month and again stands near a fresh all-time high.  

Nvidia, whose chips are widely seen as the gold standard in artificial intelligence, has been at the forefront of that rally, jumping by more than 30% since its recent lows. The stock is up some 150% year-to-date, accounting for around a quarter of the S&P 500’s 17% year-to-date gain.  

The company’s Aug. 28 earnings report, coupled with guidance on whether it expects corporate investments in AI to continue, could be a key inflection point for market sentiment heading into what is historically a volatile time of the year. The S&P 500 has fallen in September by an average of 0.78% since World War Two, the worst performance of any month, according to CFRA data.  

“Nvidia is the zeitgeist stock today,” said Mike Smith, a portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, which holds the company’s shares in its portfolios. “You can think of their earnings four times a year as the Super Bowl.”  

Some investors are getting ready for fireworks. Traders are pricing in a swing of around 10.3% in Nvidia’s shares the day after the company reports earnings, according to data from options analytic firm ORATS. That’s larger than the expected move ahead of any Nvidia report over the last three years and well above the stock’s average post-earnings move of 8.1% over that same period, ORATS data showed.   

The results come at the end of an earnings season during which investors have taken a less forgiving view of big tech companies whose earnings failed to justify rich valuations or prodigious spending on AI. Examples include Microsoft MSFT.O, Tesla TSLA.O and Alphabet GOOGL.O, whose shares are all down since their July reports.  

Nvidia’s valuations have also climbed, as the stock soared about 750% since the start of 2023, making it the world’s third-most valuable company as of Thursday, while also drawing comparisons to the dotcom bubble of more than two decades ago. The company’s shares trade at about 37 times forward 12-month earnings estimates, compared with a 20-year average of 29 times, according to LSEG Datastream.  

Market sentiment could depend as much on Nvidia’s guidance as its results. Evidence that it sees robust demand will be a bullish sign that companies are continuing to invest rather than pull back in anticipation of an economic slowdown, said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager, equities, at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.  

Nvidia’s “connection to the largest companies in the U.S. stock market makes this a must-watch event,” he said. “The biggest piece that investors want to know is whether there is sustainability and what demand will look like in ’25 and ’26,” he said.  

The trajectory of monetary policy and the U.S. economy also looms large for investors. In a Friday morning speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered an explicit endorsement of interest rate cuts, saying further cooling in the job market would be unwelcome.  

Investors will be watching U.S. labor market data on Sept. 6 for evidence of whether last month’s unexpected downshift in employment carried over to August. Signs that employment is continuing to weaken could bring back the recession fears that rocked markets earlier this month.  

A tight presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and Republican former President Donald Trump may also whip up market uncertainty in the weeks ahead.  

The August surge in stocks may make it difficult for markets to make much more headway in the near term even if Nvidia’s earnings impress Wall Street, said John Belton, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which holds shares of the chipmaker.  

The S&P 500 trades at 21 times expected earnings, far above its long-term average of 15.7.  

“The stock market as a whole is still trading at stretched valuations so the bar remains high,” Belton said. 
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HONOLULU — Hurricane Hone passed just south of Hawaii early Sunday, dumping enough rain for the National Weather Service to call off its red flag warnings that strong winds could cause wildfires on the drier sides of islands in the archipelago.

Hone had top winds of 80 mph (130 kph), according to a 2 a.m. advisory from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, and was moving west near the southernmost point of the Big Island, close enough to sweep the coast with tropical storm force winds and to drop up to a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain on the windward and southeast-facing slopes of the Big Island, with locally higher amounts possible. 

Hurricane Gilma, meanwhile, increased to a Category 4 hurricane Saturday night, but it was still about 1,480 miles (2,380 kilometers) east of Hilo and forecast to weaken into a depression before it reaches Hawaii.

“Hone’s main threats to the state continue to be the potential for heavy rainfall leading to flooding, damaging winds and large surf along east-facing shores,” the weather service advised early Sunday. 

Some Big Island beach parks were closed due to dangerously high surf and officials were preparing to open shelters if needed, Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said.

Hone, whose name is Hawaiian for “sweet and soft,” poked at memories still fresh of last year’s deadly blazes on Maui, which were fueled by hurricane-force winds. Red flag alerts are issued when warm temperatures, very low humidity and stronger winds combine to raise fire dangers. Most of the archipelago is already abnormally dry or in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“They gotta take this thing serious,” said Calvin Endo, a Waianae Coast neighborhood board member who lives in Makaha, a leeward Oahu neighborhood prone to wildfires.

The Aug. 8, 2023, blaze that torched the historic town of Lahaina was the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, with 102 dead. Dry, overgrown grasses and drought helped spread the fire.

For years, Endo has worried about dry brush on private property behind his home. He’s taken matters into his own hands by clearing the brush himself, but he’s concerned about nearby homes abutting overgrown vegetation.

“All you need is fire and wind and we’ll have another Lahaina,” Endo said Saturday. “I notice the wind started to kick up already.”

The cause of the Lahaina blaze is still under investigation, but it’s possible it was ignited by bare electrical wire and leaning power poles toppled by the strong winds. The state’s two power companies, Hawaiian Electric and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, were prepared to shut off power if necessary to reduce the chance that live, damaged power lines could start fires, but they later said the safety measures would not be necessary as Hone blew past the islands. 

Roth said a small blaze that started Friday night in Waikoloa, on the dry side of the Big Island, was brought under control without injuries or damage.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates — U.S. rapper Macklemore has announced he is cancelling an upcoming show in Dubai over the UAE’s involvement in the conflict in Sudan, charges the Gulf state has denied.

The rapper best known for hits like 2012’s “Thrift Shop” made the announcement in a post on social media on Saturday.

“I have decided to cancel my upcoming show in Dubai this October,” he said.

“Over the last several months I’ve had a number of people reach out to me, sharing resources and asking me to cancel the show in solidarity with the people of Sudan,” he said.

“Until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there,” Macklemore added, referring to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that have been battling the Sundanese army.

War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese army, under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, which is commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

For months, the army has accused the UAE of supporting the RSF.

In June, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations Al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed called Abu Dhabi’s financial and military support for the RSF the “main reason behind this protracted war.”

The UAE has denied allegations of RSF support as “disinformation,” saying that it’s efforts are focused exclusively towards de-escalation and alleviating Sudan’s humanitarian suffering.

Macklemore has released socially aware music in the past, supporting LGBTQ+ rights while also criticizing ills including poverty and consumerism.

In his latest track released in May, Macklemore voices support for Palestinians and also praises students across the United States protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza.

The song, “Hind’s Hall,” is named after a building at Columbia University that students recently occupied and renamed after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza. 
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burke, vermont — Two bouts of flooding from storms in July has hampered businesses and destinations in an economically depressed section of northern Vermont, with some still closed as they continue to repair damage and others urging visitors, who were deterred by the weather, to make the trip. 

Kingdom Trails, a popular destination for mountain bikers, draws tens of thousands of visitors a year. But the storms that hit the region on July 10 and July 30 washed away some roads and bridges, damaged homes and trails, and discouraged visitors at the height of the season. 

Businesses and destinations are picking up the pieces, with some still closed in nearby Lyndonville, while others want to get the word out that they are very much open. 

“I can’t stress enough that we are open and our community is welcoming people,” said Abby Long, executive director of Kingdom Trails. “We’re encouraging folks to not only come visit Kingdom Trails and have an awesome time but sign up to volunteer mucking and gutting houses for the morning and then relax on the trails in the afternoon.” 

The storms caused $300,000 in damages to the trails — and that doesn’t account for the loss of membership revenue, she said. The trails were closed for about a day and a half as crews worked furiously to get them back open. The cost of repairs comes on top of the $150,000 in damages suffered in last summer’s flooding. 

“That is not sustainable,” Long said. 

So far, 341 businesses in Vermont have reported flood damage to the state this year, according to Economic Development Commissioner Joan Goldstein. Last summer, about 1,100 businesses were affected, she said. 

In Lyndonville, a popular diner that had been in business since 1978 will not be reopening after getting damaged in the July 10 storms. The owner of the Miss Lyndonville Diner is having repairs done and plans to sell the restaurant. She told the Caledonian Record that the flooding convinced her it was time to retire. 

Leaving ski industry

The nearby Village Sport Shop, which also has been in business for nearly 50 years, has decided to close its flooded Lyndonville shop and exit the ski industry, according to a social media post by the business. 

“With the multiple flooding events we have endured and the evolution we have needed to take as a business, we have come to the decision it is time to turn our focus towards the summer side of the business and relieve ourselves from the flood risks the lowest lying real estate on the strip endures,” the post said. The business has a trailside bicycle shop in East Burke. 

A bagel shop and a Walgreens drugstore were still temporarily closed as they recover from the flood damage. 

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration making federal funding available to help individuals and communities recover from the July 9-10 flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. Governor Phil Scott has requested a separate disaster declaration for the July 30 storms and flooding. 

In May, Vermont became the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by extreme weather fanned by climate change. But officials have acknowledged that collecting any money will depend on litigation against a much-better-resourced oil industry. 

In Burke, a town of about 1,650 that is home to the Burke Mountain ski area, Kingdom Trails is a huge economic driver, said Town Administrator Jim Sullivan. 

“It’s traumatic, it’s unbelievable the extent that it ripples out,” he said. “If Kingdom Trails can’t open, people cancel their reservations at the Airbnbs and at the inns. We have restaurants that are counting on all of those people coming here. And it’s just a chain event that eventually dwindles where you have these absolutely beautiful days and you just don’t have the people here that we normally would have if we didn’t have this devastation.” 

‘Screeching halt’

The East Burke Market was having a really good summer but when the trails closed down, business “came to a bit of a screeching halt,” said co-owner Burton Hinton. 

Each of the storms caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in road and property damage, Sullivan said. The town lost a bridge in the July 10 flooding and the whole mountain road in the storm weeks later, he said. 

“We’re still waiting for some direction from the federal government. In the meantime, everybody has really come together and done a great job of helping each other. True community,” he said. 

About 60 student-athletes who race in cross-country mountain biking with the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League, and 40 coaches, were in Burke to train at Kingdom Trails when the latest flooding hit on July 30. 

The group had to pivot to ride on gravel for a few days but then some trails reopened quickly, said Michael Morrell, with the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, who was with them. 

“The trail system up here and the trail crew are just so efficient, and the trails, many of the trails, they drain very well,” he said on August 1. 

Still, he said he felt terrible for those reliant on getting tourists to visit the local trails. 

“I feel so bad that their roads are closed,” Morrell said. ” … We’re just glad that we can help support them in any way we can.”
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YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, California — An unusually cold weather system from the Gulf of Alaska interrupted summer along the West Coast of the United States on Saturday, bringing snow to Washington state’s Mount Rainier and a lookout point of California’s Sierra Nevada.

Photos posted by the National Weather Service and local authorities showed a white-covered peak from Rainier and a dusting of snow at Minaret Vista, a lookout point southeast of Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada.

Madera County Deputy Sheriff Larry Rich said it was “definitely unexpected” to see snow at Minaret Vista in August.

“It’s not every day you get to spend your birthday surrounded by a winter wonderland in the middle of summer,” he said in a statement. “It made for a day I won’t soon forget, and a unique reminder of why I love serving in this area. It’s just one of those moments that makes working up here so special.”

Snow also fell overnight on Mammoth Mountain, a ski destination in California, with the National Weather Service warning hikers and campers to prepare for slick roads.

More light snow was possible in California on the crest of the Sierra Nevada, mostly around Tioga Pass and higher elevations of Yosemite National Park, the National Weather Service said.

August snow has not occurred in those locations since 2003, forecasters said.

Tioga Pass rises to more than 9,900 feet (3,017 meters) and serves as the eastern entryway to Yosemite. But it is usually closed much of each year by winter snow that can take one or two months to clear.

“While this snow will not stay around very long, roads near Tioga Pass could be slick and any campers and hikers should prepare for winter conditions,” the weather service wrote.

While the start of ski season is at least several months away, the hint of winter was welcomed by resorts.

“It’s a cool and blustery August day here at Palisades Tahoe, as a storm that could bring our first snowfall of the season moves in this afternoon!” the resort said in a social media post Friday.

The “anomalous cool conditions” will spread over much of the western U.S. by Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Despite the expected precipitation, forecasters also warned of fire danger because of gusty winds associated with the passage of the cold front.

At the same time, a flash flood watch was issued for the burn scar of California’s largest wildfire so far this year from Friday morning through Saturday morning.

The Park Fire roared across more than 671 square miles (1,748 square kilometers) after it erupted in late July near the Central Valley city of Chico and climbed up the western slope of the Sierra.

The fire became California’s fourth largest on record, but it has been substantially tamed recently. Islands of vegetation continue to burn within its existing perimeter, but evacuation orders have been canceled.

California’s wildfire season got off to an intense start amid extreme July heat. Blazes fed on dried-out vegetation that grew during back-to-back wet years. Fire activity has recently fallen into a relative lull.

Forecasts call for a rapid return of summer heat as the cold front departs.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on a visit to Taiwan Saturday that an isolationist policy isn’t “healthy” and called on the Republican Party to stand with her country’s allies, while still putting in good words for the party’s nominee, Donald Trump.

Haley, who ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, told reporters in the capital, Taipei, that supporting U.S. allies, including Ukraine and Israel, is vital. She underscored the importance of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, to be brought under control by force if necessary.

“I don’t think the isolationist approach is healthy. I think America can never sit in a bubble and think that we won’t be affected,” she said.

While the U.S. doesn’t formally recognize Taiwan, it is the island’s strongest backer and main arms provider. However, Trump’s attempt to reclaim the presidency has fueled worries. He said Taiwan should pay for U.S. protection in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published in July and dodged answering the question of whether he would defend the island against a possible Chinese military action.

When Haley shuttered her own bid for the Republican nomination, she did not immediately endorse Trump, having accused him of causing chaos and disregarding the importance of U.S. alliances abroad. But in May she said she would be voting for him, while making it clear that she felt her former boss had work to do to win over voters who supported her.

On Saturday, she spoke in Trump’s favor. She said that having previously served with Trump’s administration, “we did show American strength in the world,” pointing to their pushback against China and their sanctioning of Russia and North Korea, among other efforts.

“I think that all of that strength that we showed is the reason that we didn’t see any wars, we didn’t see any invasions, we didn’t see any harm that happened during that time. I think Donald Trump would bring that back,” she said.

Trump has claimed that if elected, he would end the conflict in Ukraine before Inauguration Day in January. But Russia’s United Nations ambassador said he can’t. Trump’s public comments have varied between criticizing U.S. backing for Ukraine’s defense and supporting it, while his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has been a leader of Republican efforts to block what have been billions in U.S. military and financial assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022.

Concerns among Ukraine and its supporters that the country could lose vital U.S. support have increased as Trump’s campaign surged.

Haley criticized Trump’s rival, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she would “do exactly” what President Joe Biden had done. She said Harris was part of his administration when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and when the Hamas-Israel war broke out last year.

“She was in the situation room right next to Joe Biden. She was there making the exact same decisions. Those decisions have made the world less safe,” she said.

Haley added that while the Republicans and Democrats may not currently concur on much, they agree on “the threats of China,” adding that Taiwan is now looking “to make sure that if China starts a fight with them, that they are prepared to make sure that they can fight back.”

She said her party should stand with the country’s allies and make sure that U.S. shows strength around the world. She also said any authoritarian regime and “communists” harming or hurting other free countries should be a personal matter to the U.S.

“We don’t want to see communist China win. We don’t want to see Russia win. We don’t want to see Iran or North Korea win,” she said.

Haley met Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te during this week’s trip. She called for more international backing for the self-ruled island, a coordinated pushback against China’s claims over it, and for Taiwan to become a full member of the United Nations.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that 38 warplanes and 12 vessels from China were detected around the island during a 24-hour period from Friday morning. Thirty-two of the planes crossed the middle of the line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary that’s considered a buffer between the island and mainland.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his endorsement of former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, on Friday. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti reports from Glendale, Arizona, where the two politicians campaigned together for the first time.
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TORONTO — A workers’ union Friday threatened a strike at one of Canada’s two major freight railroads, only hours after the company’s trains restarted following a potentially devastating stoppage. A government-ordered arbitration hearing wrapped up without a decision, and Canadian National trains were expected to keep moving at least through Monday morning.

CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. locked out their workers Thursday when negotiations over a new labor contract reached a deadline without an agreement. That resulted in a near total shutdown of freight rail in the country for more than a day, until Canadian National resumed its service Friday morning. Trains operated by CPKC remain parked, and its workers, who had already been on strike since Thursday, stayed on the picket line Friday.

The government forced the companies and the union, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, into arbitration overseen by the Canada Industrial Relations Board — an order the union is challenging. Friday’s nine-hour hearing ended with no order from the board.

The union filed a 72-hour strike notice against CN on Friday morning shortly after it announced that it planned to challenge the arbitration order, union spokesperson Marc-Andre Gauthier said.

If the board orders the union back to work, “the TCRC will lawfully abide by the decision, but will undertake steps to challenge to the fullest extent,” the Teamsters said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this will not provide immediate relief, but the Union is prepared to appeal to federal court if necessary.”

Canadian National, which has about 6,500 workers involved in the dispute, said the impact of the strike notice will depend on the timing of the Canada Industrial Relations Board’s decision. “It is in the national interest of Canada that the CIRB rule quickly, before even more harm is caused,” the railroad said in a written statement. CPKC has about 3,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers involved.

Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the union’s latest actions “will prolong the damage to our economy and jeopardize the wellbeing and livelihoods of Canadians, including union and nonunion workers across multiple industries.”

Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon announced the decision to force the parties into binding arbitration Thursday afternoon, more than 16 hours after the lockout shut down the railroads, saying the economic risk was too great to allow them to continue. The government had declined to order arbitration two weeks ago. MacKinnon said he had hoped that negotiations between the companies and the union on a new contract would succeed.

“This is not about disobeying the minister’s order. It’s about exercising our right,” Teamsters Canada President Francois Laporte said Friday in announcing the strike. “We will exercise our right within the legal framework.”

Canadian National trains had begun rolling at 7 a.m. across Canada, said CN spokesperson Jonathan Abecassis. The development initially appeared to at least partially end a work stoppage that threatened to wreak havoc on the economies of Canada and the United States. Both countries, across all industries, rely on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products.

“While CN is focused on its recovery plan and powering the economy, Teamsters are focused on getting back to the picket line and holding the North American economy hostage to their demands,” Abecassis said following the union’s strike notice.

Getting even one of the railroads running again is a relief for businesses. In most past rail labor disputes, only one of the Canadian railroads stopped and the economy was able to weather that disruption.

The negotiations that began last year are hung up on issues around the way workers are scheduled and contract rules designed to prevent fatigue. The railroads had proposed shifting away from the current system that pays workers based on the number of miles they travel, to a system based on the hours they work. The railroads said the switch would make it easier to provide predictable schedules. But the union resisted because it feared the proposed changes would erode hard-fought protections against fatigue and jeopardize safety.

In Canada, another issue at CN is the railroad’s intention to expand a system that allows it to temporarily relocate workers to other parts of its network when it’s short on employees in a certain region.

Regarding wages, the railroads said they both offered raises in line with other recent deals in the industry for what are already well-paying jobs. Canadian National has said its engineers make about $150,000 and conductors earn roughly $121,000 for working 160 days a year, although some of their time off is spent stuck at hotels on the road between train trips while getting required rest. CPKC says its pay is comparable.

Nearly all of Canada’s freight handled by rail — worth more than $730 million a day and adding up to more than 375 million tons of freight last year — stopped Thursday along with rail shipments crossing the U.S. border.

About 30,000 commuters in Canada were also affected because their trains use CPKC’s lines. CPKC and CN’s trains continued operating in the U.S. and Mexico during the lockout.

Billions of dollars of goods move between Canada and the U.S. via rail each month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“There are a lot of goods and services shipped across borders,” Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said at a rally in Calgary, Alberta, on Friday. “If this company chooses to continue its bad behavior, then it is going to have an impact. … They’ve got a lot of decisions they need to make. And they need to make the most important decision: Reward these workers with what they’ve earned and don’t try to diminish safety just so they need to feed their bottom lines.”
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HONOLULU, HAWAII — Tropical Storm Hone was approaching the southern edges of Hawaii on Saturday with gusts of wind and heavy rain, potentially inflicting flooding and wind damage on the Big Island over the weekend and raising the risk of wildfires on the drier sides of the islands.

The National Weather Service has issued a tropical storm warning for Hawaii County, which includes all of the Big Island, and a red flag warning for the leeward sides of all islands.

Hone, which means “sweet and soft” in Hawaiian, had top winds of 105 kilometers per hour (65 miles per hour) early Saturday. It will likely strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane as it passes near or south of the Big Island from Saturday night into early Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority told travelers it’s still safe to come to the islands but recommended that people postpone outdoor activities.

“We are not advising visitors to cancel their trips,” the agency said in a news release.

Hone was centered 465 kilometers (290 miles) east-southeast of Hilo and 805 kilometers (500 miles) east-southeast of Honolulu early Saturday.

The eastern and southeastern parts of the Big Island could get 11 to 25 centimeters (5 to 10 inches) of rain. The island could get sustained winds of 32 to 64 kph (20 to 40 mph) and gusts near 97 kph (60 mph).

The dry air north of the storm will spread arid conditions across the archipelago on Saturday, combining with strong winds to raise wildfire risks. Most of the state is already abnormally dry or in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The weather service’s red flag warning will be in effect from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. It issues the alert when warm temperatures, very low humidity and stronger winds combine to raise fire dangers. Winds are expected to be strongest where they blow downslope from higher terrain, over headlands and through passes, the hurricane center advised.

The situation recalls last year’s deadly wildfires on Maui, which were fueled by hurricane-force winds. But Hone’s wildfire risks are lower, said Laura Farris, a weather service meteorologist in Honolulu.

The August 8, 2023, blaze that torched the historic town of Lahaina caused the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. Powerful winds whipped up in part by a hurricane passing to Hawaii’s south helped fuel the flames that killed 102 people. Dry, overgrown grasses and drought helped spread the fire.

The state’s two power companies, Hawaiian Electric and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, said they would be monitoring conditions this weekend and ready to shut off power if necessary to reduce the chance that live, damaged powerlines could start fires.

The cause of the Lahaina blaze is still under investigation, but it’s possible it was ignited by bare electrical wire and leaning power poles toppled by the strong winds.

Moving westward across the Pacific behind Hone was Category 2 Hurricane Gilma, but it was expected to weaken over cooler waters as it encounters drier air in coming days and was forecast to become a tropical depression by Wednesday. Gilma may bring rain to Hawaii, but it’s not clear how much, Farris said.
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Seoul, South Korea — North Korea vowed Saturday to advance its nuclear capabilities, reacting to a report that the United States had revised its own nuclear strategic plan.

The country will “bolster up its strategic strength in every way to control and eliminate all sorts of security challenges that may result from Washington’s revised plan,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The New York Times reported this week that a U.S. plan approved by President Joe Biden in March was to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea.

The highly classified plan for the first time reorients Washington’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal, the Times said.

KCNA said North Korea’s foreign ministry “expresses serious concern over and bitterly denounces and rejects the behavior of the U.S.”

It added North Korea vowed to push forward the building of nuclear force sufficient and reliable enough to firmly defend its sovereignty.

Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies since North Korea’s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The United States and Seoul have accused North Korea of providing ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Pyongyang, which has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear weapons power, has described allegations of supplying weapons to Russia as “absurd.”

However, it did thank Russia for using its United Nations veto in March to effectively end monitoring of sanctions violations just as UN experts were starting to probe alleged arms transfers.

China, also a key ally of North Korea, presents itself as a neutral party in Russia’s offensive on Ukraine and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

But it is a close political and economic ally of Russia, and NATO members have branded Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war.

Moscow has looked to Beijing as an economic lifeline since the Ukraine conflict began, with the two boosting trade to record highs as Russia faces heavy sanctions from the West.
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williamsburg, virginia — Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of colonial America’s most lavish displays of opulence: an ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners grew exotic plants from around the world. 

Such plots dotted Britain’s colonies and served as status symbols for the elite. They were the 18th-century equivalent of buying a Lamborghini. 

The garden in Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who served in Virginia’s colonial legislature. He is perhaps best known as the first father-in-law of Martha Washington. She married future U.S. President George Washington after Custis’ son Daniel died. 

Historians also have been intrigued by the elder Custis’ botanical adventures, which were well-documented in letters and later in books. And yet this excavation is as much about the people who cultivated the land as it is about Custis. 

“The garden may have been Custis’ vision, but he wasn’t the one doing the work,” said Jack Gary, executive director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum that now owns the property. “Everything we see in the ground that’s related to the garden is the work of enslaved gardeners, many of whom must have been very skilled.” 

Posts, paths

Archaeologists have pulled up fence posts that were 3 feet (1 meter) thick and carved from red cedar. Gravel paths were uncovered, including a large central walkway. Stains in the soil show where plants grew in rows. 

The dig also has unearthed a pierced coin that was typically worn as a good-luck charm by young African Americans. Workers have also found the shards of an earthenware chamber pot, or portable toilet, that likely was used by people who were enslaved. 

Animals appear to have been intentionally buried under some fence posts. They included two chickens with their heads removed, as well as a single cow’s foot. A snake without a skull was found in a shallow hole that had likely contained a plant. 

“We have to wonder if we’re seeing traditions that are non-European,” Gary said. “Are they West African traditions? We need to do more research. But it’s features like those that make us continue to try and understand the enslaved people who were in this space.” 

The museum tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and restored buildings on 300 acres (120 hectares), which include parts of the original city. Founded in 1926, the museum did not start telling stories about Black Americans until 1979, even though more than half of the 2,000 people who lived there were Black, the majority enslaved. 

In recent years, the museum has boosted efforts to tell a more complete story, while trying to attract more Black visitors. It plans to reconstruct one of the nation’s oldest Black churches and is restoring what is believed to be the country’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children. 

There also are plans to re-create Custis’ Williamsburg home and garden, known then as Custis Square. Unlike some historic gardens, the restoration will be done without the benefit of surviving maps or diagrams, relying instead on what Gary described as the most detailed landscape archaeology effort in the museum’s history. 

The garden disappeared after Custis’ death in 1749. But the dig has determined it was about two-thirds the size of a football field, while descriptions from the time refer to lead statues of Greek gods and topiaries trimmed into balls and pyramids. 

Correspondence with Briton

The garden’s legacy has lived on through Custis’ correspondence with British botanist Peter Collinson, who traded plants with other horticulturalists around the globe. From 1734 to 1746, Custis and Collinson exchanged seeds and letters via merchant ships crossing the Atlantic. 

The men possibly introduced new plants to their respective communities, said Eve Otmar, Colonial Williamsburg’s master of historic gardening. For instance, Custis is believed to have made one of Williamsburg’s earliest written mentions of growing tomatoes, known then as “apples of love” and native to Mexico and Central and South America. 

Custis’ gardeners also planted strawberries, pistachios and almonds, among 100 other imported plants. It’s not always clear from his letters which were successful in the Virginia climate. A recent pollen analysis of the soil indicates the past presence of stone fruits, such as peaches and cherries, which weren’t a big surprise. 

The garden existed at a time when European empires and slavery were still expanding. Botanical gardens often were used for discovering new cash crops that could enrich colonial powers. 

But Custis’ garden was primarily about showing off his wealth. A study of the area’s topography placed his garden in direct view of Williamsburg’s only church house at the time. Everyone would have seen the garden’s fence, but few were invited inside. 

Exotic lily

Custis delighted his guests with the likes of the crown imperial lily, which was native to the Middle East and parts of Asia, and boasted clusters of drooping, bell-shaped flowers. 

“In the 18th century, those were unusual things,” Otmar said. “Only certain classes of people got to experience that. A wealthy person today — they buy a Lamborghini.” 

The museum is still trying to learn more about the people who worked in the garden. 

Crystal Castleberry, Colonial Williamsburg’s public archaeologist, has met with descendants of the more than 200 people who were enslaved by the Custis family on his various plantations. But there is too little information in surviving documents to determine if an ancestor lived and worked at Custis Square. 

Two people, named Cornelia and Beck, were listed as property with the Williamsburg estate after Daniel Custis died in 1757. But their names prompt only more questions about who they were and what happened to them. 

“Are they related to one another?” Castleberry asked. “Do they fear being split up or sold? Or are they going to be reunited with loved ones on other properties?”
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Chicago — Hundreds of pro-Palestinian delegates were sidelined at the Democratic National Convention that ended with Vice President Kamala Harris reaffirming her support for Israel.

“The people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7,” she said in her speech accepting the party’s presidential nomination Thursday evening.

As anti-war protesters filled the streets throughout the week, 270 pro-Palestinian Democrats calling themselves “cease-fire delegates” signed a petition demanding Harris, if she’s elected, enact an arms embargo on Israel.

The unheeded petition was pushed by leaders of the “Uncommitted” movement, which garnered hundreds of thousands of votes in Democratic primaries across the nation.

These delegates staged a sit-in outside Chicago’s United Center, the convention’s venue, to protest the Democratic National Committee, who denied a speaking request for Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric doctor who treats wounded children in Gaza.

The DNC, according to Uncommitted National Movement spokesperson Layla Elabed, didn’t want Harris to be “overshadowed.”

Asked by VOA for a reaction to Elabed’s claim, the Harris campaign said, “There have been a number of speakers who have spoken about the war in Gaza and the need to secure a cease-fire and hostage deal.”

Uncommitted delegates

Elabed spoke to VOA on behalf of the 30 “Uncommitted” delegates who voted present in the nomination roll call. That’s less than 1% of the roughly 4,700 delegates who voted for Harris.

The pro-Palestinian group, however, was given a speaking opportunity Monday in a panel event outside of the convention.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Muslim sympathetic to the Palestinian cause who spoke on the panel, was given time at the convention main stage on Wednesday. However, he did not mention Gaza in his speech.

The war in Gaza is “not the topic that I would decide” to speak about, Ellison told VOA before his speech, indicating that pragmatism is key to affect change within the party.

“I’m not one of those people who believe that we vote for perfection. What we vote for is conversation,” he said.

Party platform supports Israel

As the convention kicked off, Democrats voted to adopt the party’s platform that recommitted support for Israel, a cease-fire for hostage release deal and the two-state solution.

Pro-Palestinian delegates tried to include language backing enforcement of laws that ban giving military aid to individuals or security forces that commit gross violations of human rights.

“What we are asking is that our tax dollars not be used to kill men, women and children. This is not a controversial demand and is actually more aligned with our Democratic values,” Elabed said.

Compared to Biden, Harris appears to offer more sympathy for Palestinian suffering, repeating Thursday of the “devastating” situation in Gaza over the past 10 months.”

“So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again,” she said in her convention speech. “The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”

But policy-wise she signaled continuity from the current administration.

“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 in her speech to thunderous applause.

Harris’ current and former aides say her Israel policy is unlikely to diverge from President Joe Biden. Halie Soifer, national security adviser to Harris while she was in the Senate, said that the vice president has always been a “strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” while upholding humanitarian values.

“She does not want to see the suffering of innocent civilians, nor do the vast majority of Americans and Jewish Americans,” said Soifer, who is now CEO of Jewish Democratic Council of America.

“We don’t have to view it through binary lens,” she told VOA. “We support both.”

Not discouraged

Uncommitted delegates say they’re not discouraged.

Inga Gibson, a delegate from Hawaii, a state where seven out of 31 delegates are uncommitted, said she has made “tremendous progress” with her fellow delegates.

“I found that a lot of people are really with us on this issue, but they don’t know where to begin or how to get involved,” she told VOA.

She and other uncommitted delegates gave out keffiyehs, “Democrats for Gaza” flyers and “No More Bombs” pins. The pro-Palestinian symbols are emblematic of a key area of disagreement among Democrats – how much support to give to Israel.

Pro-Israel delegates say it should not create division within the party.

“We can all do better to try to understand the complications of the conflict,” Andrew Lachman, a delegate from California told VOA. “We’re all concerned about the civilians of Gaza, but we’re also concerned about the people of Israel and their safety and security.”

Polls show an increasing number of Americans want their leaders to reduce support for Israel. Some say Harris missed an opportunity.

As a former prosecutor, Harris can and should strictly enforce laws and suspend weapons even to allies who violate international or U.S. law, said Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Center for International Policy, a left-leaning think tank.

“She could make clear this doesn’t just apply to their misuse by Israel to cause disproportionate civilian harm in Gaza, but to their misuse by Netanyahu’s extremist government to dispossess and abuse Palestinians in the occupied West Bank,” she told VOA.

Turning protest into agenda

Scholars of social movements say it takes time and work to turn protests into a political agenda. Elisabeth Clemens, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, said that includes building coalitions, negotiating and compromising.

“Finding a way forward that almost never gets all the way to where the protesters hoped it would get but is nevertheless an important change,” she told VOA.

And on an issue as complicated as the Middle East peace process, there are different pressures exerted on multiple sides.

“American domestic politics only garners a slice of that,” she said.

Elabed said they’re in for the long game.

“Our strategy is not to abandon the Democratic Party, but to essentially revolutionize the Democratic Party and listen to its core base.”

For now, the vice president is their best bet.

“I don’t care what you think, you need to win to have power,” Ellison said. “Harris, the numbers are up everywhere. The chances for success are higher.” 
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Vice President Kamala Harris reaffirmed support for Israel in her Democratic National Convention acceptance speech. Pro-Palestinian delegates say they will push to condition U.S. military aid to Israel. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports from the convention in Chicago, Illinois.
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washington — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate with a famous political pedigree but whose bid was overshadowed by a brain worm and a dead bear, has announced the suspension of his campaign, endorsing the Republican Party’s nominee, former President Donald Trump. 

“In my heart, I no longer believe I have a realistic path to an electoral victory,” Kennedy said to a group of reporters and supporters in Phoenix. “I am not terminating my campaign. I am simply suspending it,” he added, explaining he did not want to help Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee.  

In 10 states where he could be a spoiler, Kennedy said he would have his name removed, but it would stay on the ballot in others where he said supporters could safely vote for him without risk of aiding the Democrats. 

On Thursday, Kennedy filed paperwork withdrawing from the ballot in Arizona, one of the swing states likely to determine the outcome of November’s presidential election. 

“My joining the Trump campaign will be a difficult sacrifice,” Kennedy told a crowd in Phoenix, Arizona. But, he added, it will be worthwhile if he gets a chance in a Republican administration to end what he contends is a wave of chronic diseases among America’s children. 

“In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election,” said Kennedy, alleging that the mainstream media censored him while the Democratic Party thwarted his access to the ballot in numerous states. 

He said Trump’s promise to negotiate an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine “alone would justify my support for his campaign.” 

Kennedy stepped off the podium after 50 minutes, taking no questions.  

He was expected to appear at a Trump rally later in the day in neighboring Glendale. 

“I want to thank Bobby, that was very nice,” Trump said about Kennedy’s endorsement before heading to Arizona. 

Famous name 

A 70-year-old environmental lawyer, Kennedy labeled himself a political outsider despite his lineage. He entered the presidential race as a longshot Democratic Party candidate before dropping that bid last October and announcing he would mount an independent campaign.  

With a surname almost synonymous with the Democratic Party (he is the nephew of President John. F. Kennedy and son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, both of whom were assassinated in the 1960s), RFK Jr. began his campaign polling in the low double digits in some states.  

Many in the extended Kennedy family expressed embarrassment and denounced their relative’s campaign after he dropped out of the Democratic Party, choosing instead to support the reelection of President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race and was replaced by Harris last month.  

Kennedy on Friday likened Harris’ move to the top of the Democratic ticket to “a palace coup.”  

The shakeup in the Democrats’ lineup further eroded support for Kennedy, who had benefited from those unenthused about a rematch of the 2020 election between Biden and Trump.  

“The more voters learned about RFK Jr. the less they liked him. Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” said Democratic National Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill in a statement following Kennedy’s announcement.  

Fringe appeal 

Kennedy, labeled a conspiracy theorist by his critics, appealed to some anti-establishment voters attracted by his contrarian foreign policy and long-standing campaign against vaccines. But he faced mainstream disdain and even ridicule.  

In May, Kennedy said a “brain fog” he suffered a decade ago was caused by a parasitic worm that had eaten part of his brain.  

Kennedy more recently was the target of late-night TV comedians and social media satire after he revealed that he had dumped a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park in 2014 as a prank.

A magazine article in July alleged Kennedy had molested a family babysitter decades ago. Asked about the allegation on a podcast, he said he was “not a church boy” and had “many skeletons” in his closet.  

“Third-party candidates often lose steam as the election approaches, but Kennedy’s trajectory has been particularly ignominious,” noted Nate Silver, a statistician and prominent election forecaster, in a Substack posting on Thursday. 

“In three-way polls against Biden and Trump, he initially polled at 10 or 11 percent, then gradually faded to 8 (save for a bounce just after Biden’s awful debate). In the Trump-Harris matchup, though, he’s dropped to about 4 percent.”

Trump has offered to “enlist” him in a second administration, Kennedy said on Friday.  

Trump, the previous day, acknowledged he had spoken with Kennedy several times but not recently.  

Trump told CNN Tuesday that he would “be open” to Kennedy playing a part in his administration if Kennedy dropped his presidential bid and endorsed the Republican nominee. 

Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, suggested in an interview Tuesday that Kennedy would do “an incredible job” as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy has claimed that agencies under HHS, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, have been captured by corporate interests, making them predators on the American public.  

“I love the idea of giving him some sort of role in some sort of major three-letter entity or whatever it may be and let him blow it up,” the Republican nominee’s son, Donald Trump Jr., told a conservative radio talk show on Wednesday.

‘Spoiler’ for MAGA? 

Democratic National Committee adviser Ramsey Reid argued in a memo released Friday that Kennedy’s role from the beginning had been to serve as a “spoiler” who would help Trump by drawing votes away from the Democratic candidate. 

“He was recruited into the race by MAGA Republicans like Steve Bannon, his candidacy was propped up by Trump’s largest donor, and he parroted MAGA attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris,” Reid said.  

On Thursday, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, some delegates looked forward to Kennedy’s withdrawal from the race. 

Montana delegate Mary Jo O’Rourke, whose father worked for RFK Jr.’s father in the Justice Department, told VOA she is a devotee of the Kennedy family, but it is time for the former Democrat “to go home and enjoy the rest of his life.”  

Kennedy had initially been viewed as siphoning more votes from Biden than Trump, but recent polls indicated he was appearing to attract more voters who would otherwise be inclined to cast a ballot for the Republican nominee.  

Of those who supported Kennedy in July, 4 in 10 shifted to Harris (compared with 2 in 10 who switched to Trump), according to Pew Research Center polling released last week.

Most voters, as the election day approaches, “go back to their parties. They’re not looking for an independent candidate. They’re looking to vote for one of the two likely winners,” John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA.

In a tight election in the half dozen or so swing states that will tip the balance of the electoral vote count, the presence or absence of a third party or independent candidate on the ballot could determine the overall outcome.  

The victor of the U.S. presidential race must win 270 electoral votes, with each state’s allocation equal to the number of senators and representatives it has in the Congress. It is possible for a candidate to receive the most total votes but lose the electoral vote count and thus the presidency.  

Kennedy told reporters on Friday he could still win if the Electoral College vote for Trump and Harris ends up tied at 269. In that case, members of the new Congress would select the president in early January. 
…

…

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Fires broke out Friday on a Greek-flagged oil tanker that was attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this week, with the vessel now appearing to be adrift in the Red Sea, authorities said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to the oil tanker Sounion, which was abandoned by its crew Thursday and reportedly anchored in place.

The Houthis didn’t immediately acknowledge the fire. The rebels are suspected to have gone back and attacked at least one other vessel that later sank as part of their monthslong campaign against shipping in the Red Sea over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The attacks have disrupted a trade route that typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it annually.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center reported the fires in a note to mariners Friday night.

“UKMTO have received a report that three fires have been observed on vessel,” the center said. “The vessel appears to be drifting.”

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said American officials were aware of the fires and continued to monitor the situation.

The vessel had been staffed by a crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, who were taken by a French destroyer to nearby Djibouti, the EU’s Aspides naval mission in the Red Sea said Thursday.

The Sounion has 150,000 tons of crude oil aboard and represents a “navigational and environmental hazard,” the mission warned. “It is essential that everyone in the area exercises caution and refrains from any actions that could lead to a deterioration of the current situation.”

The Houthis have targeted more than 80 vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors.

Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.

The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

As Iran threatens to retaliate against Israel over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the U.S. military told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area. Early Thursday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said that the Lincoln had reached the waters of the Middle East, without elaborating.

Washington also has ordered the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the region, while the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group was in the Gulf of Oman.

Additional F-22 fighter jets have flown into the region, and the USS Wasp, a large amphibious assault ship carrying F-35 fighter jets, is in the Mediterranean Sea.
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BEIJING/SINGAPORE/NEW YORK — State-linked Chinese entities are using cloud services provided by Amazon or its rivals to access advanced U.S. chips and artificial intelligence capabilities that they cannot acquire otherwise, recent public tender documents showed.

The U.S. government has restricted the export of high-end AI chips to China over the past two years, citing the need to limit the Chinese military’s capabilities.

Providing access to such chips or advanced AI models through the cloud, however, is not a violation of U.S. regulations since only exports or transfers of a commodity, software or technology are regulated.

A Reuters review of more than 50 tender documents posted over the past year on publicly available Chinese databases showed that at least 11 Chinese entities have sought access to restricted U.S. technologies or cloud services.

Among those, four explicitly named Amazon Web Services, or AWS, as a cloud service provider, although they accessed the services through Chinese intermediary companies rather than from AWS directly.

The tender documents, which Reuters is the first to report on, show the breadth of strategies Chinese entities are employing to secure advanced computing power and access generative AI models. They also underscore how U.S. companies are capitalizing on China’s growing demand for computing power.

“AWS complies with all applicable U.S. laws, including trade laws, regarding the provision of AWS services inside and outside of China,” a spokesperson for Amazon’s cloud business said.

AWS controls nearly a third of the global cloud infrastructure market, according to research firm Canalys. In China, AWS is the sixth-largest cloud service provider, according to research firm IDC.

Shenzhen University spent $27,996 (200,000 yuan) on an AWS account to gain access to cloud servers powered by Nvidia A100 and H100 chips for an unspecified project, according to a March tender document. It got this service via an intermediary, Yunda Technology Ltd Co, the document showed.

Exports to China of the two Nvidia chips that are used to power large-language models, or LLM, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are banned by the United States.

Shenzhen University and Yunda Technology did not respond to requests for comment. Nvidia declined to comment on Shenzhen University’s spending or on any of the other Chinese entities’ deals.

Zhejiang Lab, a research institute developing its own LLM, called GeoGPT, said in a tender document in April that it intended to spend 184,000 yuan to purchase AWS cloud computing services as its AI model could not get enough computing power from homegrown Alibaba.

A spokesperson for Zhejiang Lab said that it did not follow through with the purchase but did not respond to questions about the reasoning behind this decision or how it met its LLM’s computing power requirements. Alibaba’s cloud unit, Alicloud, did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not establish whether the purchase went ahead.

Moving to tighten access

The U.S. government is now trying to tighten regulations to restrict access through the cloud.

“This loophole has been a concern of mine for years, and we are long overdue to address it,” Michael McCaul, chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in a statement, referring to the remote access of advanced U.S. computing through the cloud by foreign entities.

Legislation was introduced in Congress in April to empower the Commerce Department to regulate remote access of U.S. technology, but it is not clear if and when it will be passed.

A department spokesperson said it was working closely with Congress and “seeking additional resources to strengthen our existing controls that restrict PRC companies from accessing advanced AI chips through remote access to cloud computing capability.”

The Commerce Department also proposed a rule in January that would require U.S. cloud computing services to verify large AI model users and report to regulators when they use U.S. cloud computing services to train large AI models capable of “malicious cyber-enabled activity.”

The rule, which has not been finalized, would also enable the Commerce secretary to impose prohibitions on customers.

“We are aware the Commerce Department is considering new regulations, and we comply with all applicable laws in the countries in which we operate,” the AWS spokesperson said.

Cloud demand in China

The Chinese entities are also seeking access to Microsoft’s cloud services.

In April, Sichuan University said in a tender document it was building a generative AI platform and purchasing 40 million Microsoft Azure OpenAI tokens to support the delivery of this project. The university’s procurement document in May showed that Sichuan Province Xuedong Technology Co Ltd supplied the tokens.

Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment. Sichuan University and Sichuan Province Xuedong Technology did not respond to requests for comment on the purchase.

OpenAI said in a statement that its own services are not supported in China and that Azure OpenAI operates under Microsoft’s policies. It did not comment on the tenders.

The University of Science and Technology of China’s Suzhou Institute of Advanced Research said in a tender document in March that it wanted to rent 500 cloud servers, each powered by eight Nvidia A100 chips, for an unspecified purpose.

The tender was fulfilled by Hefei Advanced Computing Center Operation Management Co Ltd, a procurement document showed in April, but the document did not name the cloud service provider. Reuters could not determine its identity.

The University of Science and Technology of China, or USTC, was added to a U.S. export control list known as the “Entity List” in May for acquiring U.S. technology for quantum computing that could help China’s military, and for involvement in its nuclear program development.

USTC and Hefei Advanced Computing Center did not respond to requests for comment.

Beyond restricted AI chips

Amazon has offered Chinese organizations access not only to advanced AI chips but also to advanced AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude, which they cannot otherwise access, according to public posts, tenders and marketing materials reviewed by Reuters.

“Bedrock provides a selection of leading LLMs, including prominent closed-source models such as Anthropic’s Claude 3,” Chu Ruisong, president of AWS Greater China, told a generative AI-themed conference in Shanghai in May, referring to its cloud platform.

In various Chinese-language posts for AWS developers and clients, Amazon highlighted the opportunity to try out “world-class AI models” and mentioned Chinese gaming firm Source Technology as one of its clients using Claude.

Amazon has dedicated sales teams serving Chinese clients domestically and overseas, according to two former company executives.

After Reuters contacted Amazon for comment, it updated dozens of posts on its Chinese-language channels with a note to say some of its services were not available in its China cloud regions. It also removed several promotional posts, including the one about Source Technology. Amazon did not give a reason for removing the posts and did not answer a Reuters query about that.

“Amazon Bedrock customers are subject to Anthropic’s end user license agreement, which prohibits access to Claude in China both via Amazon’s Bedrock API [application programming interface] and via Anthropic’s own API,” the AWS spokesperson said.

Anthropic said it does not support or allow customers or end-users within China to access Claude.

“However, subsidiaries or product divisions of Chinese-headquartered companies may use Claude if the subsidiary itself is located in a supported region outside of China,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.

Source Technology did not respond to a request for comment.
…

…

Just a month after US President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, Kamala Harris accepted the nomination to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. She contrasted her record and vision to that of her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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