Port-au-Prince, Haiti — During a trip to Haiti on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $45 million in new humanitarian aid for the Caribbean nation, which has been wracked by violence for years.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putin’s flagship

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

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

Earlier sanctions

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

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

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

Kremlin response

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

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

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

Novatek did not respond to VOA requests for comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Governor asked for envoy’s expulsion

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

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

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

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

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

Former aide charged

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

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

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

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

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

According to the website of China’s consulate in New York, Huang Ping had been the consul general since November 2018. Prior to that, Huang, 61, served as a Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe and did stints as an official at the embassy in Washington and China’s consulate in Chicago.
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pentagon — Venezuela has detained a U.S. Navy sailor who was visiting the country while on personal travel, U.S. officials have confirmed to VOA.

The reason for the detention is unknown.

A defense official who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity because of international sensitivities said the sailor was detained “on or about August 30, 2024, by Venezuelan law enforcement authorities while on personal travel to Venezuela.”

“The U.S. Navy is looking into this and working closely with the State Department,” the defense official added.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. was tracking the detention closely and was seeking additional information.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby added that the U.S. was “obviously in touch” with Venezuelan authorities.

The tension in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship has been further stretched since Venezuela held elections earlier this year.

The Biden administration has questioned the results that kept Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in power, stating last month that “Maduro and his representatives have tampered with the results of that election, falsely claimed victory and carried out widespread repression to maintain power.”

Earlier this week, the U.S. seized Maduro’s plane over alleged sanctions violations.

Guita Mirsaeedi and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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state department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Thursday, marking his first visits to both Caribbean nations as the top U.S. diplomat.

Blinken’s visit to Port-au-Prince underscores U.S. support for Haiti, with additional humanitarian assistance anticipated as the country grapples with gang violence. His trip to Santo Domingo follows the start of Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader’s second term in mid-August.

A senior State Department official told reporters on Wednesday that the United States is prioritizing efforts with its international partners to set up a structure that ensures “a reliable source of financing and staffing” for a security mission in Haiti.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly considering the possibility of transitioning a largely U.S.-funded multinational security force into a traditional United Nations peacekeeping operation.

“A formal PKO (peacekeeping operation) is one of the ways that we could accomplish that, but we’re looking at multiple ways to do that,” said Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

With about a month left in the mandate of the U.N.-ratified, Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti, progress has been limited, and many pledges remain unfulfilled.

“The one-year anniversary of the mission is October 2, and we’re going to work to ensure that it’s poised for success and renewal of its mandate in whatever form that takes,” Nichols told VOA on Wednesday.

Multinational security support

Gang-related violence and drug trafficking have fueled political instability and insecurity in Haiti, leading to an unbearable living situation for the Haitian people.

In October 2022, Haiti requested the deployment of an international force to assist the Haitian National Police in combating heavily armed gangs and facilitating humanitarian aid. In October 2023, the United Nations Security Council authorized the MSS.

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

During a visit to Haiti in July, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced an additional $60 million in humanitarian assistance for the Haitian people, along with providing armored vehicles for the national police.

While in Haiti, Blinken will review the progress made toward improving security and encourage efforts to appoint the provisional electoral council so Haiti can move toward elections, according to the State Department.

Blinken will hold talks with Edgard Leblanc Fils, president of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, and Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille. Blinken also will meet with MSS head Godfrey Otunge and Normil Rameau, head of the Haitian National Police.

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

In the past year, displacement in Haiti has tripled as gang violence grips the Caribbean nation. The United Nations reports that at least 578,000 people have been displaced due to violence, including murders, kidnappings and rapes.

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

Gangs, some aligned with political elites, accumulated their control over territory and illicit markets during the tenure of the deeply unpopular former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who took office after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, according to a Congressional Research Service report. Henry resigned in April 2024 following the formation of a Transitional Presidential Council.

The Dominican Republic

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

“In the Dominican Republic, we will reinforce our shared priorities such as promoting democratic governance, supporting free and fair elections in the region, and fighting corruption,” Nichols told reporters.

On August 16, President Luis Abinader was inaugurated for a second four-year term. He has vowed to boost security by training more police over the next four years. His administration has barred migrants from neighboring Haiti.

“We certainly hope to see more normal relations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti,” Nichols said. “The countries are inexorably linked, and we certainly will have those conversations with leaders on both sides of the border.”

The U.S. and the Dominican Republic signed a historic Open Skies agreement on August 2. Once in effect, the agreement will expand opportunities for airlines, travel companies and people-to-people exchanges. More than 4 million U.S. citizens visit the Dominican Republic each year.

The Dominican Republic is a crucial partner for the U.S. in hemispheric affairs, due to its position as the second-largest economy in the Caribbean, after Cuba, and the third-largest country by population, behind Cuba and Haiti. The U.S. is its primary trading partner.

Additionally, the Dominican Republic is home to Pueblo Viejo, one of the world’s largest gold mines, and serves as a major global supplier of ferronickel.

The United States said it will continue robust collaboration with the Dominican Republic to advance inclusive economic growth, bolster democratic institutions, uphold human rights, and enhance governance and security.

The Dominican Republic and the United States, along with five Central American countries, are parties to the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA-DR. This agreement enhances economic opportunities by eliminating tariffs, opening markets, reducing barriers to services and promoting transparency.

The U.S. Agency for International Development is investing more than $9.5 million to strengthen the Dominican Republic’s existing justice system and to reduce crime and violence.
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Pentagon — The United States is planning to send Michael Chase, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, to China’s top annual security forum this month, two U.S. defense officials have confirmed to VOA.

One of the officials, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity ahead of the forum, called Chase’s upcoming attendance “consistent participation from the U.S.” 

Chase is more senior than the U.S. representative at last year’s Xiangshan Forum, but his rank is on par with historical norms for Pentagon representatives who attend the annual meeting. The Pentagon did not send a representative from 2020-2022 due to the pandemic.

“This engagement is meant to be more of the same” to keep the lines of military communication open and ensure that China has a clear understanding of the United States’ position on global security issues, the defense official told VOA. 

The forum comes on the heels of a face-to-face meeting in Singapore between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, in late May.

Austin spoke with Dong for the first time in April, marking the first dialogue between the two countries’ defense chiefs in nearly 17 months. The top U.S. military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, spoke with his Chinese military counterpart in December.

“Of course talks can make a difference. Having those mil-to-mil communications, those senior channels open, actually allows for the avoidance of a miscalculation,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters earlier this year.

Chinese state media reports say that more than 90 countries and international organizations plan to send delegations to Beijing for the September 12-14 forum.

Reuters was first to report the decision.

Beijing has asserted its desire to control access to the South China Sea and bring democratically ruled Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary. President Joe Biden has said U.S. troops would defend the island from attack.

China’s defense ministry has said the Taiwan issue is the “core of China’s core interests.”

Tensions have risen sharply between China and U.S. ally the Philippines in the South China Sea, with China’s coast guard using water cannons to threaten Filipino fishing ships. China has also used collision and ramming tactics, undersea barriers and a military-grade laser to stop Philippine resupply and patrol missions.

Last year, Austin and his Philippine counterpart established the U.S.-Philippines Bilateral Defense Guidelines, which reaffirmed that an armed attack in the Pacific – including anywhere in the South China Sea – on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces, would invoke mutual defense commitments outlined in the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit widened to the highest level in more than two years in July as businesses likely front-loaded imports in anticipation of higher tariffs on goods, suggesting trade could remain a drag on economic growth in the third quarter.

While the surge in imports reported by the Commerce Department on Wednesday would subtract from gross domestic product, it was an indication of strong domestic demand and inconsistent with financial market fears of a recession.

“The July trade data suggest that net trade will weigh on third-quarter GDP growth, but that is hardly cause for concern when it reflects the continued strength of imports, painting a better picture of domestic demand than renewed recession fears would suggest,” said Thomas Ryan, North America economist at Capital Economics.

The trade gap increased 7.9% to $78.8 billion, the widest since May 2022, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said.

The government revised the trade data from January through June 2024 to incorporate more comprehensive and updated quarterly and monthly figures.

Imports increased 2.1% to $345.4 billion. Goods imports rose 2.3% to $278.2 billion, the highest since June 2022. They were boosted by an increase in capital goods, which increased $3.3 billion to a record high, mostly reflecting computer accessories.

Imports of industrial supplies and materials, which include petroleum, increased $2.8 billion. There were also rises in imports of nonmonetary gold-finished metal shapes.

President Joe Biden’s administration has announced plans to impose steeper tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, batteries, solar products and other goods.

The government said last week a final determination will be made public in the “coming days.” There are also fears of even higher tariffs on Chinese imports should former President Donald Trump return to the White House after the November 5 election.

The politically sensitive goods trade deficit with China increased $4.9 billion to $27.2 billion. Exports to China fell $1.0 billion while imports advanced $3.9 billion.

“Imports of goods from China increased, which shows how difficult it will be to direct U.S. manufacturers away from their dependence on lower-cost goods originating from China if that is what Congress and political candidates wish to do,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS.

Exports gained 0.5% to $266.6 billion. Goods exports climbed 0.4% to $175.1 billion. Exports of motor vehicles, parts and engines decreased $1.7 billion to the lowest since June 2022. Consumer goods exports fell $800 million.

Exports of capital goods surged $1.8 billion to a record $56.1 billion, boosted by semiconductors.

The goods trade deficit increased 6.9% to $97.6 billion after adjusting for inflation.
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Islamabad — An American diplomat has condemned the Taliban’s new morality law in Afghanistan, warning that it “aims to complete the erasure of women from public life.” 

Rina Amiri, the United States special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights, posted on social media late Tuesday that she raised concerns about the law during her recent meetings with counterparts in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. 

“My message was clear:  Our support for the Afghan people remains steadfast, but patience with the Taliban is running out,” Amiri wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The way to legitimacy domestically & internationally is respecting the rights of the Afghan people.” 

The U.S. warning comes days after the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, enacted the contentious decree that orders Afghan women not to speak aloud in public and cover their bodies and faces entirely when outdoors.  

The 114-page, 35-article law also outlines various actions and specific conduct that the Taliban government, called the Islamic Emirate, considers mandatory or prohibited for Afghan men and women in line with its strict interpretation of Islam.  

The legal document empowers the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, which the Taliban revived after coming back to power in August 2021, to enforce it strictly.  

Enforcers are empowered to discipline offenders, and penalties may include anything from a verbal warning to fines to imprisonment. The law requires them to prevent “evils” such as adultery, extramarital sex, lesbianism, taking pictures of living objects and befriending non-Muslims. 

Official Taliban media quoted Akhundzada this week as ordering authorities to “rigorously enforce” the new vice and virtue decree across Afghanistan “to bring the people closer to the Islamic system.” 

The law was enacted amid extensive restrictions on Afghan women’s education and employment opportunities. 

Since regaining power three years ago, the Taliban have prohibited girls ages 12 and older from continuing their education beyond the sixth grade and restricted women from seeking employment, except in certain sectors such as health.  

Afghan females are not allowed to visit parks and other public places, and a male guardian must accompany them on road trips or air travel. 

The United Nations promptly responded to the new law last month, condemning it as a “distressing vision” for the impoverished country’s future and urging de facto authorities to reverse it. 

The Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country, has dismissed U.N.-led foreign criticism as offensive.  

 Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesperson, asserted that “non-Muslims should first educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values” before expressing concerns or rejecting the law. “We find it blasphemous to our Islamic Sharia when objections are raised without understanding it,” he said. 
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Peace continues to elude Gaza as the conflict there speeds toward the one-year mark, with public rage over the recent killing of hostages, fears over the spread of polio — and amid all this, ongoing, delicate negotiations helmed by Washington. Anita Powell files from the White House.
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new york — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s request to intervene in his New York hush money criminal case, thwarting the former president’s latest bid to overturn his felony conviction and delay his sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Trump’s lawyers permission to file paperwork asking the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to take control of the case. He said they had failed to satisfy the burden of proof required for a federal court to seize the case from the state court where Trump was convicted in May.

The ruling leaves Trump’s case in state court, where he is scheduled to be sentenced September 18.

Trump’s lawyers had sought to move the case to federal court so they could then seek to have the verdict overturned and the case dismissed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling granting ex-presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts.

Hellerstein, who denied Trump’s request last year to move the case to federal court, said nothing about the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling affected his “previous conclusion that the hush money payments” at issue in Trump’s case “were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”

Hellerstein sidestepped a defense argument that Trump had been the victim of “bias, conflicts of interest, and appearances of impropriety” at the hands of the judge who presided over the trial in state court, Juan M. Merchan.

“This Court does not have jurisdiction to hear Mr. Trump’s arguments concerning the propriety of the New York trial,” Hellerstein wrote in a four-page decision.

Instead, Hellerstein noted, Trump can pursue a state appeal or, after exhausting that path, seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It would be highly improper for this Court to evaluate the issues of bias, unfairness or error in the state trial,” Hellerstein wrote. “Those are issues for the state appellate courts.”

Hellerstein’s ruling came hours after Trump’s lawyers filed paperwork seeking his permission to pursue federal court intervention. Trump’s lawyers had initially asked the federal court to step in last week, but their papers were rejected because they hadn’t first obtained Hellerstein’s permission to file them, as required.

Messages seeking comment were left with Trump’s lawyers and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case.

Earlier in the day Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors raised objections to Trump ‘s effort to delay post-trial decisions in the case while he sought to have the federal court step in.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office argued in a letter to the judge presiding over the case in state court that he had no legal obligation to hold off on post-trial decisions and wait for Hellerstein to rule.

Prosecutors urged the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, not to delay his rulings on two key defense requests: Trump’s call to delay sentencing until after the November election, and his bid to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.

Merchan has said he will rule September 16 on Trump’s motion to overturn the verdict. His decision on delaying sentencing has been expected in the coming days.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 presidential run. Trump has denied her claim and said he did nothing wrong.

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation or a fine.
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washington — The Justice Department announced criminal charges Tuesday against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other senior militants in connection with the October 7, 2023, rampage in Israel, marking the first effort by American law enforcement to formally call out the masterminds of the attack. 

The seven-count criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City includes charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death. It also accuses Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah of providing financial support and weapons, including rockets, that were used in the attack. 

The impact of the case may be mostly symbolic given that Sinwar is believed to be hiding out in tunnels and the Justice Department says three of the six defendants named in the complaint are believed now to be dead. The complaint was originally filed under seal in February to give the U.S. time to try to take into custody the then-Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, but was unsealed Tuesday weeks after Haniyeh’s death and because of other developments in the region, the Justice Department said. 

“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement. “These actions will not be our last.” 

Washington pushes for cease-fire

The charges come as the White House says it is developing a new cease-fire and hostage deal proposal with its Egyptian and Qatari counterparts to try to bring about an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the nearly 11-month war in Gaza. A U.S. official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press there was no reason to believe the charges would affect the ongoing negotiations. 

National security spokesperson John Kirby said the recent “executions” of six hostages — including one American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin — by Hamas “underscores the sense of urgency” in the talks. 

Sinwar was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Haniyeh in Iran and sits atop Israel’s most-wanted list. He is believed to have spent most of the past 10 months living in tunnels under Gaza, and it is unclear how much contact he has with the outside world. He was a long-serving Palestinian prisoner freed in an exchange of the type that would be part of a cease-fire and hostage release deal. 

Other Hamas leaders charged include Haniyeh; Marwan Issa, the deputy leader of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza who helped plan last year’s attack and who Israel says was killed when fighter jets struck an underground compound in central Gaza in March; Khaled Mashaal, another Haniyeh deputy and a former leader of the group thought to be based in Qatar; Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ longtime shadowy military leader, who is thought to be dead following an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza in July; and Lebanon-based Ali Baraka, Hamas’ head of external relations. 

‘Violent, large-scale terrorist attack’

During the October 7 attack, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The indictment calls the massacre the “most violent, large-scale terrorist attack to date” in Hamas’ history. It details how Hamas operatives who arrived in Israel with “trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and paragliders” engaged in a brutal campaign of violence throughout southern Israel that included rape, genital mutilation and machine-gun shootings at close range. 

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction and forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to flee their homes, often multiple times. 
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With just over two months to go before Election Day in the United States, presidential nominees Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are campaigning on the economy and preparing for their first debate. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns looks at the race.
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SEOUL, South Korea — An Apple TV+ documentary series, “K-pop Idols,” premiering Friday, offers an intimate look at how the K-pop industry is embracing diversity while grappling with challenges in a field that demands perfection.

The six-part series features Korean American star Jessi and up-and-coming K-pop bands like Cravity and Blackswan, documenting the highs and lows of their careers.

K-pop is known for its blend of vocals with precise choreography.

Blackswan members Fatou and Nvee told The Associated Press they practice up to 10 hours daily, including choreography and vocal sessions before the “comeback” season which refers to a string of events to promote their latest songs.

The grueling practice starts early.

Once under contract, K-pop trainees enter a system that includes classes in manners, language, dance, and choreography. As of 2022, there were 752 K-pop trainees under entertainment labels, according to a Korea Creative Content Agency report.

Despite recent pushback against the perennial “dark side of K-pop” narrative, the documentary shows that some industry problems persist.

Former Blackswan member Youngheun said members had a curfew and were not allowed to drink or date. “We even had to report when we were getting our nails done and going to the convenience store in front of our house,” she shared in the documentary.

Rigid control extends to diet.

Blackswan member Gabi is seen eating a meal of egg, chicken breast and what resembles sweet potato sticks during her trainee period. “I am dieting because Mr. Yoon [the label’s head] told me I need to lose weight,” Gabi said.

The pressure applies to boy bands, too.

Cravity member Wonjin shared that he was given two weeks to lose weight to join the label. “I would eat like one egg a day […] I lost about 7kg,” he said in the documentary.

Bradley Cramp, one of executive producers of the documentary, noted that such restrictions exist in other competitive industries as well.

“I honestly don’t know one idol or elite sports athlete or entertainer that doesn’t deal with the issue of diet and self-image and mental health to some degree or another,” he told The Associated Press.

The documentary also touches on K-pop’s new challenge: embracing diversity.

Following BTS’ international success, K-pop labels have been actively recruiting foreign talents, which sometimes brings unfamiliar challenges.

In the documentary, Yoon Deung Ryong, the founder of Blackswan’s label DR Music, struggles to settle internal conflicts among members, which later escalated to online clashes between fans.

“If the company says, ‘don’t fight,’ they won’t fight,” he said, referring to traditional K-pop groups. He added that he can’t control a “multinational group” the same way because of language and cultural differences. There are currently no Korean members in Blackswan after member changes.

With K-pop’s global expansion, fundamental questions remain about the essence of K-pop.

“In a K-pop group, if there are no Korean members, I feel like it’s just a K-pop cover group, isn’t it?” Blackswan’s former Korean member Youngheun said in the documentary.

However, Cravity’s Hyeongjun disagrees. “If foreigners come to Korea and sing in other languages, I am not sure if I can call that K-pop, but since they [Blackswan members] are active in Korea and use Korean, they are K-pop.”

Cramp said social media has impacted K-pop’s ecosystem in various ways, including creating a “symbiotic relationship” between K-pop stars and fans, and forcing stars to live their lives “under a microscope.”

“There’s a desire to be real. But on the other hand, you have to obviously keep certain things kind of out of the public spotlight,” he told the AP. “You want to be famous, but yet at the same time, you still want your privacy and you want to be able to go and have dinner with your friends and have a good time and not be filmed doing it.”

“K-Pop Idols” is now available on Apple TV+.
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Mexico City — “That’s it, dude! Done!” exclaimed Eliezer López as he jumped up and down, throwing his arms to the sky and drawing a sign of the cross across his chest. His joy was so contagious, his friends started to emerge from nearby tents to celebrate with him.

López, a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant in Mexico City, had reason to rejoice: After several frustrating attempts, he was able to secure an appointment to seek asylum in the U.S.

He is one of thousands of migrants whose U.S.-bound journey has landed them in the Mexican capital, the southernmost point until recently from which migrants can register to request an appointment to seek asylum through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s mobile app known as CBP One.

Since June, when the Biden administration announced significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum, the app became one of the only ways to request asylum at the Southwest border.

This U.S. asylum policy and its geographic limits are a driving force behind the emergence of migrant encampments throughout the Mexican capital where thousands of migrants wait weeks — even months — in limbo, living in crowded, makeshift camps with poor sanitation and grim living conditions.

From point of transit to temporary destination

Historically, Mexico City has not been a stop for northbound migrants. They try to cross the country quickly to reach the northern border. But the delays in securing an appointment, coupled with the danger that plagues cartel-controlled northern Mexico border cities and the increased crackdown by Mexican authorities on migrants have combined to turn Mexico City from a point of transit to a temporary destination for thousands.

Some migrant camps have been dismantled by immigration authorities or abandoned over time. Others, like the one where López has lived for the past few months, remain.

Like López, many migrants have opted to wait for their appointment in the somewhat safer capital, but Mexico City presents its own challenges.

Shelter capacity is limited, and unlike large U.S. cities like Chicago and New York, which rushed last winter to find housing for arriving migrants, in Mexico City they are mainly left to their own devices.

Andrew Bahena, coordinator of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, said that up until late 2023 many migrants were contained in southern Mexican cities like Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala. Many tried to disguise their location to defeat CBP One’s geographic limits, but when U.S. authorities took notice, more migrants began aiming for Mexico City to make their appointments from there, he said.

As a result, there has been an increase in the migrant population living in the Mexico City camps.

“We talk about this as border externalization and it’s something the United States and Mexico have been jointly implementing for years,” said Bahena. “The CBP One app is probably one of the best examples of that today.

“These folks are asylum seekers, they’re not homeless people living in Mexico,” he added.

A maze of tents and tarps

When López first arrived in Mexico City at the end of April, he thought about renting a room only to realize it was not an option.

He earned $23 a day working three times a week at a market. Rent was $157 per person to share a room with strangers, an arrangement that has become commonplace in Mexican cities with migrant populations.

“The camp is like a refuge,” said López. Migrants can share space with people they know, avoid the curfews and strict rules of shelters and potentially stay longer if necessary.

The camps are a maze of tents and tarps. Some call their space “ranchito,” or small ranch, assembled from wood, cardboard, plastic sheets, blankets and whatever they can find to protect them from the chilly mountain air and intense summer rains that pound the city.

At another camp in La Merced neighborhood, hundreds of blue, yellow and red tents fill a plaza in front of a church. It’s one of the capital’s largest camps and just a 20-minute walk from the city center.

“This is a place where up to 2,000 migrants have been living in the last year,” said Bahena. “About 40% are children.”

Migrants in La Merced have organized themselves, building an impromptu pump that moves water from the public system and distributes it on a fixed schedule, with every tent receiving four buckets of water every day.

“At the beginning there were a lot of problems, lots of trash and people in Mexico didn’t like that,” said Héctor Javier Magallanes, a Venezuelan migrant, who has been waiting nine months for a CBP One appointment. “We made sure to fix those problems little by little.”

As more migrants kept arriving at the camp, he set up a task force of 15 people to oversee security and infrastructure.

Despite efforts to keep the camp clean and organized, residents haven’t been able to avoid outbreaks of illnesses, exacerbated by drastic weather changes.

Keilin Mendoza, a 27-year-old Honduran migrant, said her kids constantly get colds, especially her 1-year-old daughter.

“She’s the one that worries me the most, because she takes the longest to recover,” she said. Mendoza has tried accessing free medical attention from humanitarian organizations at the camp, but resources are limited.

Israel Resendiz, coordinator of Doctors Without Borders’ mobile team, said the uncertainty of life in the camps weighs heavily on migrants’ mental health.

“It’s not the same when a person waiting for their appointment […] can get a hotel, rent a room or have money for food,” Resendiz said. “The majority of people don’t have these resources.”

The secretary of inclusion and social welfare and the secretary of the interior in Mexico City didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press about the camps. Press representatives of Clara Brugada, the incoming mayor of Mexico City, said the issue must first be discussed at the federal level.

Meanwhile, tensions between camp residents and neighbors have increased, sometimes leading to mass evictions of the camps.

In late April, neighbors from the trendy and central Juárez neighborhood blocked some of the city’s busiest streets, chanting, “The street is not a shelter!”

Eduardo Ramírez, one of the protest organizers, said it’s the government’s job to “help these poor people that come from their countries in search of something better and have the bad luck of traveling through Mexico.”
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Migrant-related crime in New York has many residents on edge, with some blaming the influx of undocumented migrants into the city over the past two years. Aron Ranen and Igor Tsikhanenka spoke to law enforcement officials, politicians, activists and migrants about the controversy in this story narrated by Aron Ranen.
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Washington — A decision on whether to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug in the U.S. won’t come until after the November presidential election, a timeline that raises the chances it could be a potent political issue in the closely contested race.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration last week set a hearing date to take comment on the proposed historic change in federal drug policy for Dec. 2.

The hearing date means a final decision could well come in the next administration. While it’s possible it could precede the end of President Joe Biden’s term, issuing it before Inauguration Day “would be pretty expedited,” said cannabis lawyer Brian Vicente.

That could put a new spotlight on the presidential candidates’ positions on marijuana. Vice President Kamala Harris has backed decriminalizing the drug and said it’s “absurd” to have it in the DEA’s Schedule I category alongside heroin and LSD. The Democratic nominee’s position has shifted over the years; she once oversaw the enforcement of cannabis laws and opposed legalized recreational use for adults in California while running for attorney general in 2010.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, signaled support for a Florida legalization measure on Saturday, following earlier comments that he increasingly agrees that people shouldn’t be jailed for the drug now legal in multiple states, “whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

During his run for president in 2016, Trump said that he backed medical marijuana and that pot should be left up to the states. But during his first term, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions lifted an Obama-era policy that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the pot trade in states where the drug is legal.

Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a query about his position on rescheduling the drug.

The Justice Department proposed reclassifying it in May, saying the change would recognize marijuana’s medical uses and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. The proposal, which would not legalize marijuana for recreational use, came after a call for review from Biden, who has called the change “monumental.”

The DEA has said it doesn’t yet have a position on whether to go through with the change, stating in a memo that it would keep weighing the issue as the federal rulemaking process plays out.

The new classification would be the most significant shift in U.S. drug policy in 50 years and could be a potent political issue, especially with younger voters. But it faces opposition from groups such as Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Its president, Kevin Sabet, argues there isn’t enough data to move cannabis to the less-dangerous Schedule III category, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids. The DEA’s move to hold the hearing is “a huge win in our fight to have this decision guided by medical science, not politics,” he said in a statement, adding that 18 states’ attorneys general are backing his opposition.

The hearing sparked some consternation among pot industry players, though little surprise about the DEA decision to hold one.

“While the result ultimately may be better, I think we’re so used to seeing delays that it’s just a little disappointing,” said Stephen Abraham, chief financial officer at The Blinc Group, supplier of cartridges and other hardware used in pot vapes. “Every time you slow down or hold resources from the legal market, it’s to the benefit of the illicit market.”

The proposal, which was signed by Attorney General Merrick Garland rather than DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, followed a recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Federal drug policy has lagged behind that of many states in recent years, with 38 having already legalized medical marijuana and 24 legalizing its recreational use.

Lawmakers from both major political parties have pushed for the change as marijuana has become increasingly decriminalized and accepted. A Gallup poll last year found 70% of adults support legalization, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm and more than double the roughly three in 10 who backed it in 2000.

The marijuana industry has also grown quickly, and state-licensed pot companies are keen on rescheduling partly because it could enable them to take federal business-expense tax deductions that aren’t available to enterprises involved in “trafficking” any Schedule I or II drug. For some of Vicente’s clients, the change would effectively reduce the tax rate from 75% to 25%.

Some legalization advocates also hope rescheduling could help persuade Congress to pass legislation aimed at opening banks’ doors to cannabis companies. Currently, the drug’s legal status means many federally regulated banks are reluctant to lend to such businesses, or sometimes even provide checking or other basic services.

Rescheduling could also make it easier to research marijuana, since it’s difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies on Schedule I substances. Some medical marijuana patient advocates fear that the discussion has already become deeply politicized and that the focus on rescheduling’s potential effect on the industry has shifted attention from the people who could benefit.

“It was our hope that we could finally take the next step and create the national medical cannabis program that we need,” said Steph Sherer, founder and president of Americans for Safe Access. The organization advocates for putting cannabis in a drug category all its own and for creating a medical cannabis office within DHS.

The immediate effect of rescheduling on the nation’s criminal justice system, though, would likely be more muted, since federal prosecutions for simple possession have been fairly rare in recent years.
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Ankara, Turkey/Washington — A nationalist Turkish youth group physically assaulted two U.S. soldiers Monday in western Turkey, the U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the local governor’s office said, adding that 15 assailants had been detained over the incident.

In a statement, the Izmir governor’s office said members of the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), a youth branch of the nationalist opposition Vatan Party, “physically attacked” two U.S. soldiers dressed in civilian clothes in the Konak district.

It added that five U.S. soldiers joined in after seeing the incident, and that police intervened. All 15 attackers had been detained and an investigation was launched into the matter, it said.

A White House spokesperson said Monday, Washington was “troubled” by the assault but added it was “appreciative that Turkish police are taking this matter seriously and holding those responsible accountable.”

The U.S. Embassy to Turkey also confirmed the attack and said the U.S. soldiers were now safe.

“We can confirm reports that U.S. service members embarked aboard the USS Wasp were the victims of an assault in Izmir today, and are now safe,” it said on social media platform X.

Earlier, the TGB posted a video on X showing a group holding down a man on the street and putting a white hood over his head, while shouting slogans.

The group said the man was a soldier on board the USS Wasp, an amphibious assault ship. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara had said earlier Monday that the ship was carrying out a port visit to the Aegean coastal town of Izmir this week.

“U.S. soldiers who carry the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot dirty our country. Every time you step foot in these lands, we will meet you the way you deserve,” TGB said.

U.S.-Turkey ties have been strained in recent years by the U.S. alliance with Syrian Kurds that Turkey deems extremists, and over Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 defenses that prompted U.S. sanctions and removal from a F-35 jet program.

There has also been divergence over Israel’s war in Gaza, where over 40,000 people have been killed according to Gaza authorities, and over which Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has sharply criticized Washington’s ally.

Earlier this month, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey said U.S.-Turkey relations are now “in a better place than we’ve been in a while” and noted the “useful role” Turkey played in a recent prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia.
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