New Orleans, Louisiana — For 30 years, the Essence Festival of Culture has brought together people from all walks of life and from around the world to connect through conversation, shared experiences and, of course, music.

The nation’s largest annual celebration of Black culture was set to end Sunday with musical performances by Janet Jackson and a special tribute to Frankie Beverly & Maze, the soul band that closed the event for the festival’s first 15 years. Beverly, now 77, has said he is stepping away from performing live, and the group has been on a farewell tour.

Others scheduled to perform included Victoria Monet, Teedra Moses, Tank and the Bangas, Dawn Richard, SWV, Jagged Edge, Bilal and Anthony Hamilton.

Barkue Tubman-Zawolo, chief of staff, talent and diasporic engagement for Essence Ventures, told The Associated Press the festival helps connect the global Black community.

“Historically, as Black people, sometimes we’re not sure where our heritage comes from,” Tubman-Zawolo said. “America is just one place. But within America there’s a melting pot of different Black cultures: Africa, Latin, Europe, the Caribbean. Understanding that allows our power to be even greater.”

Tubman-Zawolo said those connections could be seen throughout this year’s Film Festival, held at the city’s convention center, where fans heard from storytellers from Nigeria, Ghana and the Caribbean “who are targeting our stories about us, for us, globally.”

She noted similar connections through the Food and Wine stage, where discussions highlighted Caribbean and African cuisine; the Soko Market Place, where vendors from all over the world shared their craft; and on the Caesars Superdome stage, which spotlighted Caribbean and African artists including Machel Montano of Trinidad and Ayra Starr of Nigeria.

“All of that occurred over four days,” Tubman-Zawolo said. “But the beauty of it is, it doesn’t stay here. (Fans) take it with them.”

New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said this year’s “We Love Us” theme was appropriate.

“This whole ‘We Love Us’ theme brought us together to build communities,” she said.

The festival’s impact on the city and state has surpassed $300 million, with more than 500,000 people visiting since 1994.

Essence started the festival as a way to celebrate 25 years of the magazine’s history.

“The locals are being incorporated in a manner that we can see and touch and feel and smell. That has been a part of the evolution of Essence,” Cantrell said.

The event’s current contract ends in 2026, but Essence Ventures CEO Caroline Wanga has said the festival’s “forever home” is New Orleans.

“That’s what we believe as well,” Cantrell said. “We have a foundation that’s been laid over 30 years. The city is always ready and prepared to host this event and more. I think staying in New Orleans is the best fit and best marriage, the best partnership.”
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Tokyo — U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel expressed regret Saturday for the handling of two cases of sexual assaults allegedly committed by American military personnel on Okinawa, which have again stoked resentment of the heavy U.S. troop presence on the strategic island in Japan’s far southwest.

The issue broke out late last month, triggering an uproar over reports that two American service members had been charged with sexual assaults months earlier.

Both cases were first reported in local media in late June. In one arrest made in March, a member of the U.S. Air Force was charged with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a teenager, and while in May a U.S. Marine was arrested on charges of attempted rape resulting in injury. Further details about the alleged victims were not released.

Okinawa police said they did not announce the cases out of privacy considerations related to the victims. The Foreign Ministry, per police decision, also did not notify Okinawa prefectural officials.

The cases are a reminder to many Okinawans of the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. service members, which sparked massive protests of the U.S. presence. It led to a 1996 agreement between Tokyo and Washington to close a key U.S. air base, although the plan has been repeatedly delayed due to protests at the site designated for its replacement on another part of the island.

Emanuel said he deeply regretted what happened to the individuals, their families and their community, but fell short of apologizing. “Obviously, you got to let the criminal justice process play out. But that doesn’t mean you don’t express on a human level your sense of regret.”

“We have to do better,” he said, adding that the U.S. military’s high standards and protocols for education and training of its troops was “just not working.”

Emanuel said the U.S. may be able to propose measures to improve training and transparency with the public at U.S.-Japan foreign and defense ministers’ security talks expected later this month in Tokyo.

On Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the Japanese authorities would do their utmost to provide more prompt disclosures of alleged crime related to U.S. military personnel on Okinawa while protecting victims’ privacy.

The cases could be a setback for the defense relationship at a time when Okinawa is seen increasingly important in the face of rising tensions with China.

Some 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Japan under a bilateral security pact, about half of them on Okinawa, where residents have long complained about heavy U.S. troop presence and related accidents, crime and noise.

Emanuel commented on the issue while visiting Fukushima, on Japan’s northeast coast.

Earlier Saturday, the ambassador visited the nearby town of Minamisoma to join junior surfers and sample locally-caught flounder for lunch, aiming to highlight the safety of the area’s seawater and seafood amid ongoing discharges of treated and diluted radioactive water from the tsunami-ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

China has banned Japanese seafood over the discharges, a move Emanuel criticized as unjustified.
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New York — After a historically bad first half of the year, the box office is suddenly booming.

“Despicable Me 4,” the Illumination Animation sequel, led the way over the holiday weekend with $75 million in ticket sales Friday through Sunday and $122.6 million since opening Wednesday, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Independence Day holiday weekend haul for the Universal Pictures’ release further extends the considerable box-office reign of the Minions, arguably the most bankable force in movies today. And it also kept a summer streak going for Hollywood.

Though overall ticket sales were down more than 40% from levels prior to the COVID 19 pandemic, heading into the summer moviegoing season, theaters have lately seen a succession of hits. After Sony’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” outperformed expectations, Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” rapidly cleared $1 billion in ticket sales worldwide, making it the first release since “Barbie” to reach that mark. Last weekend, the Paramount prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One” also came in above expectations.

With “Deadpool & Wolverine” tracking for a $160 million launch later this month, Hollywood’s summer is looking up.

“If you look at the mood of the industry about eight weeks ago, very different than today,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “The song says what a difference a day makes. What a difference a month has made.”

It helps to have the Minions at your disposal. Since first debuting in the 2010 original “Despicable Me,” each entry of the franchise — including two sequels and two “Minions” spinoffs — has seemingly guaranteed to gross around $1 billion. The four previous movies all made between $939 million (2022’s “Minions: Rise of Gru”) and $1.26 billion (2015’s “Minions”) globally.

That run has helped give Illumination founder and chief executive Chris Meledandri one of the most enviable track records in Hollywood. “Despicable Me 4,” directed by Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage, returns the voice cast led by Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig and doubles down on more Minion mayhem. Reviews (54% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) weren’t particularly good for the latest installment, which includes a witness protection plot and a group of Minions transformed into a superhero squadron. But in their 12-year run, little has slowed down the Minions.

“This is one of the most beloved franchises, quite frankly, in the history of film, and certainly animation,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “Chris Meledandri and Illumination have their finger on the pulse of what families and audiences around the world want to see.”

Family movies are powering the box office. “Despicable Me 4” performed strongly despite the still considerable drawing power of “Inside Out 2.” In its fourth weekend of release, the Pixar sequel added another $30 million domestically and $78.3 million overseas.

“Inside Out 2,” with $1.22 billion in ticket sales thus far, is easily the year’s biggest hit and fast climbing up the all-time ranks for animated releases. It currently ranks as the No. 5 animated release worldwide.

Instead of cannibalizing the opening weekend for “Despicable Me 4,” “Inside Out 2” may have helped get families back in the habit of heading to theaters.

“What happened, I think, is the release calendar finally settled into a nice rhythm,” said Dergarabedian, referencing the jumbled movie schedule from last year’s strikes. “It’s all about momentum.”

The continued strong sales for “Inside Out 2” were enough to put the film in second place for the domestic weekend. Last week’s top new film, “A Quiet Place: Day One,” slid to third with $21 million in its second weekend, with another $21.1 million from overseas theaters. That was a steep decrease of 60%, though the Paramount prequel has amassed $178.2 million worldwide in two weeks.

The run of hits has caused some studios to boost their forecasts for the summer movie season. Heading into the most lucrative season at theaters, analysts were predicting a $3 billion summer, down from the more typical $4 billion mark. Now, closer to $3.4 billion appears likely.

The weekend’s other top new release was Ti West’s “MaXXXine,” the third in a string of slasher films from A24 starring Mia Goth. In 2,450 locations, “MaXXXine” collected $6.7 million in ticket sales, a franchise best. The film, which follows “X” and “Pearl” (both released in 2022), stars Goth as a 1980s Hollywood starlet being hunted by a killer known as the Night Stalker.

Angel Studios, which last year released the unexpected summer hit “Sound of Freedom,” struggled to find the same success with its latest Christian film, “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot.” It debuted with $3.2 million.

Kevin Costner’s big-budget gamble, “Horizon: An American Saga,” didn’t do much to turn around its fortunes in its second weekend. The first chapter in what Costner hopes will be a four-part franchise – including a chapter two Warner Bros. will release in August – earned $5.5 million in its second weekend. The film, which cost more than $100 million to make, has grossed $22.2 million in two weeks.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Despicable Me 4,” $75 million.

2. “Inside Out 2,” $30 million.

3. “A Quiet Place Day One,” $21 million.

4. “MaXXXine,” $6.7 million.

5. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” $6.5 million.

6. “Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter 1,” $5.5 million.

7. “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot,” $3.2 million.

8. “Kaiki 2898,” $1.8 million.

9. “The Bikeriders,” $1.3 million.

10. “Kinds of Kindness,” $860,000.
    …

MATAGORDA BAY, TEXAS — The outer bands of Beryl brought rain and intensifying winds to Texas on Sunday as coastal residents boarded up windows, left beach towns under evacuation orders and braced for the tropical storm that forecasters expected to strengthen back into a hurricane before landfall.

Much of Texas’ shoreline was under a hurricane warning and landfall was expected early Monday. Officials in several coastal counties urged tourists along the beach for the Fourth of July holiday to leave.

The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with devastating winds and storm surge fueled by the Atlantic’s record warmth.

“We’re seeing the outer bands of Beryl approach the Texas coast now and the weather should be going downhill especially this afternoon and evening,” Eric Blake, a senior hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, said Sunday morning. “People should definitely be in their safe space by nightfall and we’re expecting the hurricane to make landfall somewhere in the middle Texas coast overnight.”

Beryl would be the 10th hurricane to hit Texas in July since 1851 and the fourth in the last 25 years, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

Three times in its one week of life, Beryl has gained 56 kilometers per hour in wind speed in 24 hours or less, the official weather service definition of rapid intensification.

Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water of the Atlantic and Caribbean, and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the rest of the storm season, experts said.

Texas officials warned people along the entire coastline to prepare for possible flooding, heavy rain and wind. The hurricane warning extended from Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, to Sargent, south of Houston.

Beryl lurked as another potential heavy rain event for Houston, where storms in recent months have knocked out power across the nation’s fourth-largest city and flooded neighborhoods. A flash flood watch was in effect for a wide swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expected Beryl to dump as much as 25 centimeters of rain in some areas.

Potential storm surges between 1.2 and 1.8 meters above ground level were forecast around Matagorda. The warnings extended to the same coastal areas where Hurricane Harvey came ashore in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, which was far more powerful than Beryl’s expected intensity by the time the storm reaches landfall.

In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May was boarding up his business Jimmy Hayes Electric on Sunday to protect the glass, “in case we get a little bit too much wind, too much trash blowing,” he said. He said he wasn’t concerned about the forecasted high winds or possible storm surge in town but people in lower-lying areas “need to get out of there.”

Those looking to catch a flight out of the area could find that option more difficult as Beryl closes in on the Texas coast. While the majority of flights from Houston’s two major commercial airports were leaving on time as of midday Sunday, more than 65 flights had been delayed and another four canceled, according to FlightAware data.

In Corpus Christi, officials asked visitors to cut their trips short and return home early if possible. Residents were advised to secure homes by boarding up windows if necessary and using sandbags to guard against possible flooding.

Traffic was nonstop for the past three days at an Ace Hardware store in the city as customers bought tarps, rope, duct tape, sandbags and generators, employee Elizabeth Landry said Saturday.

“They’re just worried about the wind, the rain,” she said. “They’re wanting to prepare just in case.”

Ben Koutsoumbaris, general manager of Island Market on Corpus Christi’s Padre Island, said there has been “definitely a lot of buzz about the incoming storm,” with customers stocking up on food and drinks, particularly meat and beer.

The White House said Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent emergency responders, search-and-rescue teams, bottled water, and other resources along the coast.

Some coastal cities called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas that are prone to flooding, banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks. In Refugio County, north of Corpus Christi, officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for its 6,700 residents.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling in Taiwan, issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 121 counties.

Beryl this past week battered Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, toppling trees but causing no injuries or deaths before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.

Before hitting Mexico, Beryl wrought destruction in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. Three people were reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica.
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JUNEAU, Alaska — Each year, a crush of tourists arrives in Alaska’s capital city on cruise ships to see wonders like the fast-diminishing Mendenhall Glacier. Now, long-simmering tensions over Juneau’s tourism boom are coming to a head over a new voter initiative aimed at giving residents a respite from the influx.

A measure that would ban cruise ships with 250 or more passengers from docking in Juneau on Saturdays qualified for the Oct. 1 municipal ballot, setting the stage for a debate about how much tourism is too much in a city that is experiencing first-hand the impacts of climate change. The measure would also ban ships on July 4, a day when locals flock to a downtown parade.

The “ship-free Saturdays” initiative that qualified last week will go to voters unless the local Assembly enacts a similar measure by Aug. 15, which is seen as unlikely.

Juneau, accessible only by water or air, is home to the Mendenhall Glacier, a major draw for the cruise passengers who arrive on multi-story ships towering over parts of the modest downtown skyline. Many residents of this city of about 32,000 have concerns about increased traffic, congested trails and the frequent buzz of sight-seeing helicopters transporting visitors to the Mendenhall and other glaciers.

Deborah Craig, who has lived in Juneau for decades, supports ship-free Saturdays. Craig, who lives across the channel from where the ships dock, often hears their early-morning fog horns and broadcast announcements made to passengers that are audible across the water.

The current “overwhelming” number of visitors diminishes what residents love so much about Juneau, she said.

“It’s about preserving the lifestyle that keeps us in Juneau, which is about clean air, clean water, pristine environment and easy access to trails, easy access to water sports and nature,” she said of the initiative.

“There’s this perception that some people are not welcoming of tourists, and that’s not the case at all,” Craig said. “It’s about volume. It’s about too much — too many in a short period of time overwhelming a small community.”

The current cruise season runs from early April to late October.

Opponents of the initiative say limiting dockings will hurt local businesses that rely heavily on tourism and could invite lawsuits. A voter-approved limit on cruise passenger numbers in Bar Harbor, Maine, another community with a significant tourism economy, was challenged in federal court.

Laura McDonnell, a business leader who owns Caribou Crossings, a gift shop in Juneau’s downtown tourist core, said she makes 98% of her annual revenue during the summer season.

Tourism is about all the “local businesses that rely on cruise passengers and our place in the community,” said McDonnell, who is involved in Protect Juneau’s Future, which opposes the initiative.

Some schools recently closed due to factors including declining enrollment, while the regional economy faces challenges, she said.

“I think that as a community, we really need to look at what’s at stake for our economy,” she said. “We are not in a position to be shrinking our economy.”

The cruise industry accounted for $375 million in direct spending in Juneau in 2023, most of that attributable to spending by passengers, according to a report prepared for the city by McKinley Research Group LLC.

After a two-year pandemic lull, cruise passenger numbers rose sharply in Juneau, hitting a record of more than 1.6 million in 2023. Under this year’s schedule, Sept. 21 will be the first day since early May with no large ships in town.

The tourism debate is polarizing, and the city has been trying to find a middle ground, said Alexandra Pierce, Juneau’s visitor industry director. But she noted there also needs to be a regional solution.

If the Juneau initiative passes, it will impact other, smaller communities in southeast Alaska because the ships, generally on trips originating in Seattle or Vancouver, Canada, will have to go somewhere if they can’t dock in Juneau on Saturdays, she said.

Some residents in Sitka, south of Juneau, are in the early stages of trying to limit cruise visitation to that small, island community, which is near a volcano.

Juneau and major cruise lines, including Carnival Corp., Disney Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Group, agreed to a limit of five large ships a day, which took effect this year. They more recently signed a pact, set to take effect in 2026, seeking a daily limit of 16,000 cruise passengers Sundays through Fridays and 12,000 on Saturdays.

Pierce said the overall goal is to keep total cruise passenger visitation around 1.6 million, and to even out daily numbers of visitors that can spike to about 18,000 on the busiest days and feel “a bit suffocating.” Juneau traditionally has been the most popular cruise port in the state.

A number of projects around Juneau are expected to help make existing cruise numbers feel less impactful. Those include plans for a gondola at the city-owned ski area and increased visitor capacity at the Mendenhall Glacier recreation area, she said.

Renée Limoge Reeve, vice president of government and community relations for the trade group Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, said the agreements signed with the city were the first of their kind in Alaska.

The best strategy is “ongoing, direct dialogue with local communities” and working together in a way that also provides a predictable source of income for local businesses, she said.

Protect Juneau’s Future, led by local business leaders, said the success of the ballot measure would mean a loss of sales tax revenue and millions of dollars in direct spending by cruise passengers. The group was confident voters would reject the measure, its steering committee said in a statement.

Karla Hart, a sponsor of the initiative and frequent critic of the cruise industry, said the threat of litigation has kept communities from taking steps to limit cruise numbers in the past. She was heartened by legal wins this year in the ongoing fight over the measure passed in Bar Harbor, a popular destination near Maine’s Acadia National Park.

She believes the Juneau initiative will pass.
…

Las Vegas — Roughly 130 million people were under threat over the weekend and into next week from a long-running heat wave that broke or tied records with dangerously high temperatures and is expected to shatter more from East Coast to West Coast, forecasters said.

Ukiah, north of San Francisco, hit 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Saturday, breaking the city’s record for the date and tying its all-time high. Livermore, east of San Francisco, hit 111 F (43.8 C), breaking the daily maximum temperature record of 109 F (42.7 C) set more than a century ago in 1905.

Las Vegas tied the record of 115 F (46 C), last reached in 2007, and Phoenix topped out at 114 F (45.5 C), just shy of the record of 116 F (46.7 C) dating to 1942.

The National Weather Service said it was extending the excessive heat warning for much of the Southwest through Friday.

“A dangerous and historic heatwave is just getting started across the area, with temperatures expected to peak during the Sunday-Wednesday timeframe,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said in an updated forecast.

In Las Vegas, where the mercury hit 100 F (37.7 C) by 10:30 a.m., Marko Boscovich said the best way to beat the heat is in a seat at a slot machine with a cold beer inside an air-conditioned casino.

“But you know, after it hits triple digits it’s about all the same to me,” said Boscovich, who was visiting from Sparks, Nevada to see a Dead & Company concert Saturday night at the Sphere. “Maybe they’ll play one of my favorites — ‘Cold Rain and Snow.’”

In more humid parts of the country, temperatures could spike above 100 F (about 38 C) in parts of the Pacific Northwest, the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, said Jacob Asherman, a weather service meteorologist.

Heat records shattered across the Southwest

Meteorologists predicted that temperatures would be near daily records in the region through most, if not all, of the coming week, with lower desert highs reaching 115 to 120 degrees F (46.1 to 48.8 C).

Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, with the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains.”

“How hot are we talking? Well, high temperatures across (western Nevada and northeastern California) won’t get below 100 degrees (37.8 C) until next weekend,” the service posted online. “And unfortunately, there won’t be much relief overnight either.”

Indeed, Reno hit a high of 104 F (40 C) on Saturday, smashing the old record of 101 F (38.3 C).

More extreme highs are in the near forecast, including 129 F (53.8 C) for Sunday at Furnace Creek, California, in Death Valley National Park, and then around 130 F (54.4 C) through Wednesday.

The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, eastern California, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021.

The worst is yet to come across the West and mid-Atlantic

Triple-digit temperatures are likely in the West, between 15 and 30 F (8 and 16 C) higher than average into next week, the National Weather Service said.

The Eastern U.S. also was bracing for more hot temperatures. Baltimore and others parts of Maryland were under an excessive heat warning as heat index values could climb to 110 F (43 C), forecasters said.

“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors,” read a National Weather Service advisory for the Baltimore area. “Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances.”

Deaths are starting to mount

In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, there have been at least 13 confirmed heat-related deaths this year, along with more than 160 other deaths suspected of being related to heat that are still under investigation, according to a recent report.

That does not include the death of a 10-year-old boy last week in Phoenix who suffered a “heat-related medical event” while hiking with family at South Mountain Park and Preserve, according to police.

California wildfires fanned by low humidity, high temperatures

Firefighters dispatched aircraft and helicopters to drop water or retardant on a series of wildfires in California.

In Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles, the Lake Fire has scorched more than 19 square miles (49 square kilometers) of grass, brush and timber. Firefighters said the blaze was displaying “extreme fire behavior” and had the “potential for large growth” with high temperatures and low humidity.

Festival revelers meet the heat with cold water and shade

At the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon, music fans coped by drinking cold water, seeking shade or freshening up under water misters. Organizers of the weekend revelries also advertised free access to air conditioning in a nearby hotel.

Angelica Quiroz, 31, kept her scarf and hat wet and applied sunscreen.

“Definitely a difference between the shade and the sun,” Quiroz said Friday. “But when you’re in the sun, it feels like you’re cooking.”

 
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Washington — The NATO summit scheduled for this week will include a discussion among the allies about strengthening security ties with South Korea and Japan against deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, experts said.

The leaders of 32 NATO members will convene in Washington July 9 to 11 to discuss ways to provide continued military support to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russia, which invaded more than two years ago.

Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea — sometimes referred to as the Indo-Pacific 4 or IP4 — are invited to the NATO summit. The United States, Japan and South Korea plan to meet on the sidelines of the summit.

Among the items that analysts expect NATO to discuss with Japan and South Korea is the growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

“The Russian-North Korean agreement is a problem for both NATO countries and for the countries in the Northeast Asia,” said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.

“I expect that it will be discussed at this meeting. It may become a critical aspect of the meeting, if, by that time, intelligence is saying that North Korea is sending many military personnel to support Russia in Ukraine,” Bennett said.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense pact in Pyongyang last month, some speculated that North Korea could dispatch army engineers to Russian-occupied Donetsk to rebuild the war-torn region.

Pentagon press secretary Major General Patrick Ryder said at a press conference on June 25 that the U.S. is keeping an eye on a possible dispatch of troops but warned North Korea about sending military forces, saying they would be “cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine.”

North Korea on June 27 renewed its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, saying, “We will always be on the side of the Russian army” in “the war of justice.”

Both Washington and Seoul have estimated that Pyongyang sent about 10,000 containers of munitions to Russia. Moscow and Pyongyang denied arms exchanges between the two.

But in the defense pact that Putin and Kim signed last month, they agreed to set up ways to bolster their defense capabilities and openly announced possible military and technical cooperation.

“NATO members will discuss the implications of closer Russia-North Korea relations and how best to respond, including in terms of risks and opportunities,” said Matthew Brummer, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

“Risks primarily include material outcomes, such as how North Korea involvement will come to bear on warfighting in Ukraine. But there are also opportunities to be exploited, including how to use increased North Korea involvement to drive a wedge between China and Russia,” he said.

“The reemerging axis between China, Russia and North Korea has most certainly precipitated the security link between Europe and Asia. As a result, I expect increased NATO involvement in East Asia, especially with Japan, which is the world’s greatest latent military power,” Brummer said.

Beijing said that it is keeping “a close eye” on the NATO summit and that it hopes the summit does not “target any third party.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Tuesday that “the Asia-Pacific lies beyond the geographical scope of the North Atlantic” and that “NATO’s attempt to make eastward inroads into the Asia-Pacific will inevitably undermine regional peace and stability.”

“The countries and people in this region are on high alert against this and firmly oppose any words or actions designed to bring military blocs into this region and stoke division and confrontation,” he said.

The U.S. State Department did not respond to an inquiry by VOA’s Korean Service seeking a response to Beijing’s comments.

Luis Simon, director of the Elcano Royal Institute in Brussels, Belgium, said he would not rule out NATO countries conducting joint military exercises with its East Asian partners “in the Korean Peninsula context rather than in a China context” because it offers “diplomatically an easier entry point.”

At the same time, he said, “It will be more with NATO allies rather than the NATO as a whole because NATO as a whole is very clear about being laser focused” on defending Ukraine.

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force announced on June 25 that it will hold a series of joint drills in July with Germany, Spain and France — all NATO members.

David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, also said that bilateral arrangements between South Korea and individual NATO countries could be possible as “a number of NATO countries are member states of the United Nations Command.”

The U.N. Command is a multinational military body created during the Korean War of 1950-53 to defend against North Korean aggression.

Some analysts said there are limits to NATO’s involvement in the Indo-Pacific.

“Most of the countries in NATO are focused on the Atlantic area, and those who have projection capabilities” that can go beyond that “have rather small ones,” said Barry Posen, Ford international professor of political science at MIT.

William Ruger, a nonresident senior fellow at Defense Priorities, said U.S. “capabilities, material and policy bandwidth” are not sufficient to deal with the security of both Europe and Asia.
…

PHOENIX, Arizona — Ron Falk lost his right leg, had extensive skin grafting on the left one and is still recovering a year after collapsing on the searing asphalt outside a Phoenix convenience store where he stopped for a cold soda during a heat wave.

Now using a wheelchair, the 62-year-old lost his job and his home. He’s recovering at a medical respite center for patients with no other place to go; there he gets physical therapy and treatment for a bacterial infection in what remains of his right leg, which is too swollen to use the prosthesis he’d hoped would help him walk again.

“If you don’t get somewhere to cool down, the heat will affect you,” said Falk, who lost consciousness due to heat stroke. “Then you won’t know what’s happening, like in my case.”

Sizzling sidewalks and unshaded playgrounds pose risks for surface burns as air temperatures reach new summertime highs in Southwest U.S. cities such as Phoenix, which just recorded its hottest June on record. The average daytime high was 43 degrees Celsius (109.5 degrees Fahrenheit), without a single 24-hour high below 37.7 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit).

Young children, older adults and homeless people are especially at risk for contact burns, which can occur in seconds when skin touches a surface of 82 C (180 F).

Since the beginning of June, 50 people have been hospitalized with such burns, and four have died at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, which operates the Southwest’s largest burn center, serving patients from six states, according to its director, Dr. Kevin Foster. About 80% were injured in metro Phoenix.

Last year, the center admitted 136 patients for surface burns from June through August, up from 85 during the same period in 2022, Foster said. Fourteen died. One out of five were homeless.

“Last year’s record heat wave brought an alarming number of patients with life-threatening burns,” Foster said of a 31-day period with temperatures at or above 43 C (110 F) during Phoenix’s hottest summer.

In Las Vegas, which regularly sees summertime highs in the triple digits, 22 people were hospitalized in June alone at the University Medical Center’s Lions Burn Care Center, said spokesperson Scott Kerbs. That’s nearly half as many as the 46 hospitalized during all three summer months last year.

As in Phoenix, the desert sun punishes Las Vegas for hours every day, frying outdoor surfaces such as asphalt, concrete and metal doors on cars and playground equipment such as swings and monkey bars.

Contact with pavement

Surface burn victims often include children injured walking barefoot on concrete or touching hot surfaces, adults who collapsed on a sidewalk while intoxicated, and older people who fell on the pavement due to heat stroke or another medical emergency.

Some don’t survive.

Thermal injuries were among the main or contributing causes of last year’s 645 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix.

One victim was an 82-year-old woman with dementia and heart disease admitted to a suburban Phoenix hospital after being found on the scorching pavement on an August day that hit 41.1 C (106 F).

With a body temperature of 40.5 C (105 F), the woman was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns on her back and right side, covering 8% of her body. She died three days later.

Many surface burn patients also suffered potentially fatal heat stroke.

Valleywise hospital’s emergency department recently adopted a new protocol for all heat stroke victims: submerging patients in a bag of slushy ice to quickly bring down body temperature.

Recovery for those with skin burns was often lengthy, with patients undergoing multiple skin grafts and other surgeries, followed by months of recovery in skilled nursing or rehabilitation facilities.

Bob Woolley, 71, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his hands, arms, leg and torso after he stumbled onto the broiling backyard rock garden at his Phoenix home while wearing only swim trunks and a tank top.

“The ordeal was extremely painful; it was almost unbearable,” said Woolley, who was hospitalized at the Valleywise burn center for several months. He said he considers himself “95% recovered” after extensive skin grafts and physical therapy and has resumed some former activities such as swimming and motorcycle riding.  

Children among the burned

Some burn victims in Phoenix and Las Vegas were children.

“In many cases, this involves toddlers walking or crawling onto hot surfaces,” Kerbs said of those hospitalized at the Las Vegas center.

Foster said about 20% of the hospitalized and outpatient skin-burn victims seen at the Phoenix center are children.

Small children aren’t fully aware of the harm a sizzling metal door handle or a scorching sidewalk can cause.

“Because they’re playing, they don’t pay attention,” said urban climatologist Ariane Middel, an assistant professor at Arizona State University who directs the SHaDE Lab, a research team that studies the effects of urban heat.

“They may not even notice that it’s hot.”

In measuring surface temperatures of playground equipment, the team found that in 37.7-degree C (100 F) weather without shade, a slide can heat up to 71.1 C (160 F), but a covering can bring that down to 43.8 C (111 F). A rubber ground cover can hit as high as 86.6 C (188 F), a handrail can heat up to 48.8 C (120 F) and concrete can reach 55.5 C (132 F).

Many metro Phoenix parks have covered picnic tables and plastic fabric stretched over play equipment, keeping metal or plastic surfaces up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. But plenty do not, Middel said.

She said cooler wood chips are better underfoot than rubber mats, which were designed to protect kids from head injuries but soak up heat in the broiling sun. Like rubber, artificial turf gets hotter than asphalt.

“We need to think about alternative surface types, because most surfaces we use for our infrastructure are heat sponges,” Middel said.

Pets in danger, too

Hot concrete and asphalt also pose burn risks for pets.

Veterinarians recommend dogs wear booties to protect their paws during outdoor walks in summer or keeping them on cooler grassy areas. Owners are also advised to make sure their pets drink plenty of water and don’t get overheated. Phoenix bans dogs from the city’s popular hiking trails on days the National Weather Service issues an excessive heat warning.

Recovering at Phoenix’s Circle the City, a respite care facility he was sent to after being released from Valleywise’s burn unit, Falk said he never imagined the Phoenix heat could cause him to collapse on the broiling asphalt in his shorts and T-shirt.

Because he wasn’t carrying identification or a phone, no one knew where he was for months. He has a long road ahead but still hopes to regain part of his old life, working for a concessionaire for entertainment events.

“I kind of went into a downward spiral,” Falk said. “I finally woke up and said, ’Hey, wait, I lost a leg.’ But that doesn’t mean you’re useless.”
…

BISMARCK, North Dakota — A Native American tribe in North Dakota will soon grow lettuce in a giant greenhouse complex that when fully completed will be among the country’s largest, enabling the tribe to grow much of its own food decades after a federal dam flooded the land where they had cultivated corn, beans and other crops for millennia.

Work is ongoing on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s 1.3-hectare greenhouse that will make up most of the Native Green Grow operation’s initial phase. However, enough of the structure will be completed this summer to start growing leafy greens and other crops such as tomatoes and strawberries.

“We’re the first farmers of this land,” Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said. “We once were part of an Aboriginal trade center for thousands and thousands of years because we grew crops — corn, beans, squash, watermelons — all these things at massive levels, so all the tribes depended on us greatly as part of the Aboriginal trade system.”

The tribe will spend roughly $76 million on the initial phase, which also will include a warehouse and other facilities near the tiny town of Parshall. It plans to add to the growing space in the coming years, eventually totaling about 5.9 hectares, which officials say would make it one of the world’s largest facilities of its type.

The tribe’s fertile land along the Missouri River was inundated in the mid-1950s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Garrison Dam, which created Lake Sakakawea.

Getting fresh produce has long been a challenge in the area of western North Dakota where the tribe is based, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The rolling, rugged landscape — split by Lake Sakakawea — is a long drive from the state’s biggest cities, Bismarck and Fargo.

That isolation makes the greenhouses all the more important, as they will enable the tribe to provide food to the roughly 8,300 people on the Fort Berthold reservation and to reservations elsewhere. The tribe also hopes to stock food banks that serve isolated and impoverished areas in the region, and plans to export its produce.

Initially, the MHA Nation expects to grow nearly 907,000 kilograms of food a year and for that to eventually increase to 5.4 million to 6.4 million kilograms annually. Fox said the operation’s first phase will create 30 to 35 jobs.

The effort coincides with a national move to increase food sovereignty among tribes.

Supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic led tribes nationwide to use federal coronavirus aid to invest in food systems, including underground greenhouses in South Dakota to feed the local community, said Heather Dawn Thompson, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Tribal Relations. In Oklahoma, multiple tribes are running or building their own meat processing plant, she said.

The USDA promotes its Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative, which “really challenges us to think about food and the way we do business at USDA from an Indigenous, tribal lens,” Thompson said. Examples include Indigenous seed hubs, foraging videos and guides, cooking videos and a meat processing program for Indigenous animals.

“We have always been a very independent, sovereign people that have been able to hunt, gather, grow and feed ourselves, and forces have intervened over the last century that have disrupted those independent food resources, and it made it very challenging. But the desire and goal has always been there,” said Thompson, whose tribal affiliation is Cheyenne River Sioux.

The MHA Nation’s greenhouse plans are possible in large part because of access to potable water and natural gas resources.

The natural gas released in North Dakota’s Bakken oil field has long been seen by critics as a waste and environmental concern, but Fox said the tribal nation intends to capture and compress that gas to heat and power the greenhouse and process into fertilizer.

Flaring, in which natural gas is burned off from pipes that emerge from the ground, has been a longtime issue in the No. 3 oil-producing state.

North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said that key to capturing the gas is building needed infrastructure, as the MHA Nation intends to do.

“With those operators that are trying to get to that level of zero, it’s certainly going to take more infrastructure, more buildout of pipes, processing plants, all of the above to stay on top of this issue,” he said.

The Fort Berthold Reservation had nearly 3,000 active wells in April, when oil production totaled 203,000 barrels a day on the reservation. Oil production has helped the MHA Nation build schools, roads, housing and medical facilities, Fox said.
…

washington — The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on what appears to be a nondescript door and calls cheerfully: “You ready to come out?” 

The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open, and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause. 

Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the “Martian” habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA’s research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet.  

They have been growing vegetables, conducting “Marswalks,” and operating under what NASA terms “additional stressors,” such as communication delays with “Earth,” including their families; isolation and confinement.  

It’s the kind of experience that would make anyone who lived through pandemic lockdowns shudder, but all four were beaming as they reemerged Saturday, their hair slightly more unruly and their emotion apparent.  

“Hello. It’s actually so wonderful just to be able to say hello to you,” Haston, a biologist, said with a laugh. 

“I really hope I don’t cry standing up here in front of all of you,” Jones, an emergency room doctor, said as he took to the microphone, and nearly doing just that several moments later as he spotted his wife in the crowd.  

The habitat, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, is a 3D-printed, 160-square-meter facility, complete with bedrooms, a gym, common areas, and a vertical farm for growing food. 

An outdoor area, separated by an airlock, is filled with red sand and is where the team donned suits to conduct their “Marswalks,” though it is still covered rather than being open air. 

“They have spent more than a year in this habitat conducting crucial science, most of it nutrition-based and how that impacts their performance … as we prepare to send people on to the Red Planet,” Steve Koerner told the crowd. Koerner is the deputy director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. 

“I’m very appreciative,” he added. 

This mission is the first of a series of three planned by NASA, grouped under the title CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog. 

A yearlong mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm. 

Under its Artemis program, America plans to send humans back to the Moon to learn how to live there long-term to help prepare a trip to Mars, sometime towards the end of the 2030s. 
…

U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump differ sharply on immigration. Both sparred over immigration at their first presidential debate. VOA’s immigration correspondent Aline Barros has the story.
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Tulum, Mexico — Beryl weakened to a tropical storm Friday after hitting Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, with fierce winds causing material damage but no injuries along the touristic Yucatan Peninsula.

Now headed for the Gulf of Mexico, Beryl is expected to intensify as it moves toward northeastern Mexico and the U.S. state of Texas by the end of the weekend, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).

After tearing through the Caribbean and coastal Venezuela leaving seven people dead, the storm hit southeast Mexico early Friday with winds of up to 175 kph.

It flattened trees and lampposts and ripped off roof tiles, according to Mexico’s civil protection authority.

Electricity was lost in at least three municipalities in the southeastern Quintana Roo state as Beryl moved deeper inland and weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

“On the initial reports, there appears to be no loss of life, and that is what matters most to us,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in his daily press briefing.

Mexico’s emergency authorities later told reporters there were no injuries or deaths, nor damage to critical infrastructure such as roads and the water system.

Electricity had been 70% restored and would be fully recovered by Sunday, civil protection chief Laura Velazquez said.

About 2,200 people had sought cover at temporary shelters and more than 25,600 security force members and employees of the CFE electricity agency were deployed to help residents and repair damage.

As a precaution, 348 flights were canceled at Cancun airport, the largest terminal in the Mexican Caribbean.

By Friday afternoon, state governor Mara Lezama said the airport had resumed service.

Re-intensification

The NHC said Beryl weakened from a Category 2 hurricane to Category 1 by the time it hit Yucatan — milder than earlier in the week when it left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean and parts of Venezuela.

It added on Friday that a hurricane watch — signaling a forecast re-intensification from tropical storm status — had been issued for much of the Texas coast ahead of Beryl’s anticipated arrival there late on Sunday.

By late Friday, the NHC tracked Beryl 995 kilometers southeast of Corpus Christi in Texas, while the storm’s maximum sustained winds had slowed to 95 kph.

In Mexico, hundreds of tourists were evacuated from hotels along the coast before the storm’s arrival.

The army, which deployed some 8,000 troops to Tulum, said it had food supplies and 34,000 liters of purified water to distribute to the population.

The army also set up a soup kitchen in Tulum for people who could return home due to flooding or blocked roads.

Alvaro Rueda, a 51-year-old bricklayer, told AFP his neighborhood had already started clearing up after the storm’s passage.

“Most of the stores are already open… we have purchased food, even if it is canned, there is food,” he said.

Beryl is the first hurricane since NHC records began to reach the Category 4 level in June, and the earliest to hit the highest Category 5 in July.

It is extremely rare for such a powerful storm to form this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November.

Scientists say climate change likely plays a role in the rapid intensification of storms like Beryl, since there is more energy in a warmer ocean for them to feed on.

North Atlantic waters are currently between one- and three-degrees Celsius warmer than normal, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
…

…

CANCUN/TULUM, Mexico — Tropical Storm Beryl was blowing out to the Gulf of Mexico on Friday afternoon and appeared likely to reach Texas by late Sunday, after its strong winds and heavy rain largely spared Mexico’s top beach destinations.

The core of the storm, downgraded from a hurricane, crossed the Yucatan Peninsula by Friday afternoon, with its maximum wind speeds slowing to around 105 kph after striking near the coastal beach resort of Tulum in the morning.

The storm, which at one point intensified to a massive Category 5 hurricane, left a deadly trail of destruction across the Caribbean earlier this week. However, there were no casualties in Mexico, the head of the country’s civil protection agency, Laura Velazquez, said in a press conference on Friday afternoon.

While Beryl’s passage over Mexico’s Quintana Roo and Yucatan states resulted in slower winds, the U.S. National Hurricane Center still forecast dangerous storm surges in the surrounding area.

For those who hunkered down as Beryl churned overhead, a sense of relief prevailed.

“Holy cow! It was an experience!” said Mexican tourist Juan Ochoa, who was staying in Tulum.

“Really only some plants flew up in the air,” he said. “Thank God we’re all OK.”

Tourist infrastructure was without major damage in Quintana Roo, the state government said in a statement.

Still, many in the area lost electricity, including 40% of Tulum, said Guillermo Nevarez, an official with Mexico’s national electricity company CFE, speaking to local broadcaster Milenio.

Civil protection chief Velazquez said she expected service to be restored in full by Sunday.

Among Mexico’s top tourist getaways, the Yucatan Peninsula is known for its white sand beaches, lush landscapes and Mayan ruins.

Stranded tourists camped out in Cancun’s international airport on Friday, unsure of when they would make it home.

Nora Vento said her flight home to Chile was postponed multiple times, and that her airline’s counter was unstaffed.

“So, I don’t know when I will get to Chile,” she said.

Beryl, currently located over the port of Progreso in Mexico’s Yucatan state, was expected to pick up intensity as it enters the Gulf of Mexico and forecast to regain hurricane status and approach the western Gulf coast on Sunday.

A hurricane watch was in effect for the Texas coast from the mouth of the Rio Grande northward to Sargent, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Mexico’s meteorological service issued a hurricane watch for the northeastern coast of Mexico from Barra el Mezquital to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

“There is an increasing risk of damaging hurricane-force winds and life-threatening storm surge in portions of northeastern Mexico and the lower and middle Texas Coast late Sunday and Monday where hurricane and storm surge watches have been issued,” the NHC said.

It warned that flash and urban flooding were possible across portions of the Texas Gulf Coast and eastern Texas from Sunday through the middle of next week.

Rainfall of 13 to 25 centimeters, with localized amounts of 38 centimeters, is projected across portions of the Texas Gulf Coast and eastern Texas beginning late on Sunday through the middle of next week.

Mexico’s national water commission, CONAGUA, flagged a risk of flooding around the tourist hubs, as well as in neighboring Campeche state.

Quintana Roo schools were closed, as were local beaches, and officials lifted a temporary ban on alcohol sales.

Beryl was the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season, and this week became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, with scientists pointing to its rapid strengthening as almost certainly fueled by human-caused climate change.

Before reaching Mexico, Beryl wreaked havoc across several Caribbean islands. It swept through Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in addition to unleashing heavy rainfall on northern Venezuela. It has claimed at least 11 lives, tearing apart buildings while felling power lines and trees.

Destruction in the islands of Grenada was especially pronounced.

Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell pointed to major damage to homes in Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique during a video briefing Thursday night. Parts of the latter two islands suffered “almost complete devastation,” he said.

“Many of our citizens have lost everything.”

Mexico’s major oil platforms, primarily located in the southern rim of the Gulf of Mexico, are not expected to be affected or shut down.

Beryl is also expected to have little impact on U.S. offshore oil and gas production, energy companies said on Friday while evacuating personnel from some facilities out of caution.

Research by the ClimaMeter consortium determined that climate change significantly intensified Beryl. According to the study, the storm’s severity, along with its associated rainfall and wind speed, saw an increase of 10%-30% as a direct result of climate change.
…

…

miami — Donald Trump distanced himself Friday from Project 2025, a massive, proposed overhaul of the federal government drafted by longtime allies and former officials in his administration — days after the head of the think tank responsible for the program suggested there would be a second American Revolution.  

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump posted on his social media website. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Plan expands presidential power

The 922-page plan outlines a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a plan to fire as many as 50,000 government workers to replace them with Trump loyalists.

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has worked to draw more attention to the agenda, particularly as Biden tries to keep fellow Democrats on board after his disastrous debate. 

Trump has outlined his own plans to remake the government if he wins a second term, including staging the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and imposing tariffs on potentially all imports. His campaign has previously warned outside allies not to presume to speak for the former president and suggested their transition-in-waiting efforts were unhelpful. 

‘The second American Revolution’

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Tuesday that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.” Former U.S. Representative Dave Brat of Virginia hosted the show for Bannon, who is serving a four-month prison term.   

“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said. 

Those comments were widely circulated online and blasted by the Biden campaign, which issued a statement saying Trump and his allies were “dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.” 

Some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior administration officials. The project’s director is Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump. Trump’s campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt was featured in one of Project 2025’s videos. 

John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, is a senior adviser. McEntee told the conservative news site The Daily Wire this year that Project 2025’s team would integrate a lot of its work with the campaign after the summer when Trump would announce his transition team.   

Trump’s comments on Project 2025 come ahead of the Republican Party’s meetings next week to begin to draft its party platform. 

Project 2025 has been preparing its own 180-day agenda for the next administration that it plans to share privately, rather than as part of its public-facing book of priorities for a Republican president. A key Trump ally, Russ Vought, who contributed to Project 2025 and is drafting this final pillar, is also on the Republican National Committee’s platform writing committee. 

A spokesperson for the plan said Project 2025 is not tied to a specific candidate or campaign.   

“We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president,” a statement said. “But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.”   

Plan ‘should scare’ Americans, say Democrats 

The Democratic National Committee said the plan and the Trump campaign are part of the same “MAGA operation.” A Biden campaign spokesperson said that Project 2025 staff members are also leading the Republican policy platform. 

“Project 2025 is the extreme policy and personnel playbook for Trump’s second term that should scare the hell out of the American people,” said Ammar Moussa.   

On Thursday, as the country celebrated Independence Day and Biden prepared for his television interview after his halting debate performance, the president’s campaign posted on X a shot from the dystopian TV drama “The Handmaid’s Tale” showing a group of women in the show’s red dresses and white hats standing in formation by a reflecting pool with a cross at the far end where the Washington Monument should be. The story revolves around women who are stripped of their identities and forced to give birth to children for other couples in a totalitarian regime. 

“Fourth of July under Trump’s Project 2025,” the post said. 
…

washington — The United States has flatly rejected Russia’s claim that it has not violated international sanctions imposed on North Korea, calling on Moscow to stop illegal arms transfers from Pyongyang.

“The U.S. and like-minded countries have successfully highlighted Russia’s U.N. Security Council Resolutions violations,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday, responding to an inquiry made about Russia’s denial of violating North Korea sanctions.

“Unfortunately, we now have a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council willing to openly flout sanctions to support the Kim [Jong Un] regime’s priorities.”

The spokesperson continued: “We call on the DPRK and Russia to cease unlawful arms transfers and urge the DPRK to take concrete steps toward abandoning all nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and related programs.” DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

In a Monday press conference, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia insisted that his country had complied with international sanctions against North Korea.

“We’re not violating the North Korea sanctions regime and all those allegations that come out. They are not proved by material evidence,” he said.

The Russian ambassador went even further, questioning the integrity of a now-defunct U.N. panel of experts charged with monitoring North Korea sanctions. The panel’s annual mandate was not extended this year, following Russia’s veto at the U.N. Security Council in March.

Nebenzia alleged that the panel of experts got involved in the politics after being encouraged by certain countries, adding that “that was the major mistake that they made.”

“The sanctions regime against DPRK is an unprecedented thing in the United Nations. It’s not time bound. It doesn’t have any provisions for reviewing, and this cannot be tolerated.”

The Kremlin’s refusal to renew the expert panel’s annual mandate marked a drastic change from its earlier support for U.N. Resolution 1718, which put in place an arms embargo on North Korea by banning all imports and exports of most weapons and related material.

The U.N. Security Council passed the resolution unanimously in October 2006, just several days after North Korea’s first nuclear test.

This week’s exchange between Washington and Moscow comes as Russia has been deepening military ties with North Korea.

Russian President Vladmir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty during their summit in Pyongyang last month.

In recent months. the U.S. government has repeatedly blown the whistle on Russia’s alleged violations of international sanctions, accusing Moscow of financially and materially facilitating Pyongyang’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

In a May briefing, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby released specific figures of the refined oil Russia has provided to North Korea so far this year, stressing it has already exceeded the limit set by the U.N. Security Council.

“Russia has been shipping refined petroleum to the DPRK. Russian shipments have already pushed DPRK inputs above [those] mandated by the U.N. Security Council. In March alone, Russia shipped more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to the DPRK,” Kirby said.

In October last year, the White House released three satellite images showing containers moved by ships and trains, saying North Korea had provided Russia with more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and ammunition.

Experts in Washington say this standoff between the U.S. and Russia over North Korea will likely persist for some time.

Scott Snyder, president of the Korea Economic Institute of America, told VOA’s Korean Service via email on Thursday that the recent defense pact between Moscow and Pyongyang is not something the U.S. can afford to ignore.

“North Korea will remain a source of conflict in U.S.-Russia relations as long as North Korea sustains their strategic relationship, which will continue at least until the end of military hostilities in Ukraine,” Snyder said.

Evans Revere, who formerly served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on Friday that Russia is setting itself up as North Korea’s backer.

“Russia has made it clear that it intends to oppose U.N. Security Council sanctions, work with North Korea and others to find ways to get around current U.N. Security Council restrictions and strengthen its tactical and strategic coordination with North Korea,” Revere said.

“Russia, which was once part of the important coalition supporting the use of pressure and sanctions to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, has now gone over to the other side and become Pyongyang’s de facto protector.”

Jiha Ham contributed to this report.
…

Washington — The United States will host a NATO summit in Washington next week, at which more military support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s ongoing invasion will top the agenda. 

Douglas Jones, deputy U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, told VOA earlier this week that NATO will put forward “concrete ways” to accelerate Ukraine’s eventual membership in the alliance. 

Retired U.S. Air Force four-star General Philip Breedlove was the commander of U.S. European Command and the 17th Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO Allied Command Operations from 2013 to 2016.  

In an interview with VOA, Breedlove said that NATO should use next week’s summit to detail how it will help Ukraine “win the war against Russia and to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian lands.”  

Allowing Russia to keep that Ukrainian territory it has occupied would amount to “capitulation,” Breedlove said, adding that whoever wins the U.S. presidential election in November must remember that capitulation to Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine “is not a way forward.”  

The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity: 

VOA: What are the main challenges for NATO ahead of the summit in Washington? 

Retired four-star U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove: I think the main challenge is going to be how to move forward with Ukraine. There are quite a number of NATO nations that want to get started on Ukraine’s program to join [NATO], there are other nations that are not ready for that yet. And so I think that the compromise is this “bridge” to NATO, whereby Ukraine will be invited to join in the headquarters on a U.S. base somewhere. I hear that maybe Wiesbaden [Germany] is that place. More importantly though, since there will not be a formal offer to Ukraine for membership, the members of NATO are going to need to discuss how do we begin to guarantee the security of Ukraine. 

VOA: How do you think the elections in Europe and the U.K. will affect — and maybe already have affected — NATO’s immediate future?  

Breedlove: So I would broaden that scope. In elections in America, elections in many of our countries, we see a growing nationalistic trend, some isolationist trends, and these are all going to have to be addressed by NATO as a body. Because the strength of NATO is solidarity first, and so we have to figure out how to maintain that solidarity in the alliance when we have several nations that are now challenging norms. NATO has always made it through this. I remind people — and some of my French friends hate it when I do — but we were once thrown out of a capital of a NATO country. And so NATO has faced challenges in the past.  

And I think that NATO will survive this current set of issues as well and frankly maybe be stronger. The absolute audacity, the criminality, the inhumane war that [Russian President] Mr. [Vladimir] Putin is waging on Ukraine is in a way drawing NATO closer together, even though there are less than perfect conversations about how we should go about fixing things. Broadly now, people understand what Mr. Putin is, what Russia represents, and the problems that this is going to give us in the future. And we see nations now realizing that they have to invest in their defense.  

VOA: According to Politico, some Trump-aligned national security experts are saying that he is “mulling a deal” where NATO commits to no further eastward expansion, specifically into Ukraine and Georgia, and negotiates with Putin over how much Ukrainian territory “Moscow can keep” in exchange for a cease-fire. What would that mean for Georgia and Ukraine?  

Breedlove: So, what you’re talking about, to me, amounts to capitulation. I don’t believe that Mr. [Donald] Trump would capitulate in quite that manner to Russia and give in to all of Russia’s demands. I think what we need to focus on is what changes in respect to Russia in these conversations, remembering that Russia is a nation that amassed its army, marched across internationally recognized borders and is now trying to subjugate one of its neighbors. I do not believe that even Mr. Trump will sign up to that as an end result. 

At some point we will have to sit down at the table, and what it looks like coming away from the table, I think, is a long way from being determined. And I do not believe that the American people will support capitulation. … And so I think that whoever is the next president, as their team sits down to try to resolve this, we’re going to have to remember that capitulation is not a way forward. 

VOA: If Georgia’s domestic political problems grow, what effect will that have on its prospects for joining NATO? 

Breedlove: I think that the question should be asked like this: if Russia’s interference in Georgia’s internal affairs continues and gets worse, what does that mean? Because I believe that there is Russian bad money and Russian bad people and politics involved in Georgia right now. Georgia is a hybrid warfare battleground whereby Russia is trying to use all manner of influence to drag Georgia away from the West and to regain control of Georgian politics. 

VOA: It’s clear that during next week’s summit, Ukraine will not be offered NATO membership. But apart from the offer to establish a “bridge” at a NATO base, what do you think can be done to bring Ukraine and NATO closer together?   

Breedlove: Well, the first thing to do is to help them win this war. Our policies are very weak. We say things like “we’re going to be there for as long as it takes” or “we’re going to give them everything they need.” What we fail to say is — we’re going to be there as long as it takes to do what? We’re going to give them everything they need to do what? And that “to do what” should sound something like “to completely defeat the Russian forces inside of Ukraine and drive them back behind Russia’s borders.” But we are not doing that. And so one of the most important things about this upcoming summit … is that we need a demonstrative public declaratory policy on how we would support Ukraine to win the war against Russia and to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian lands. 
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washington — A grant of nearly $1 million is being provided to Alaska Public Media as part of a two-year plan to strengthen local news for rural communities.

The nonprofit Cooperation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, awarded the $936,000 grant to the Alaska Public Media, which is made up of radio and TV media outlets.

Lori Townsend, news director for Alaska Public Media, or APM, said the funding will help deepen “the connection between the local community and its public broadcasting station.”

Investing in this way, she told VOA via email, means “the community will continue to support the local and regional journalism they can only get from their local newsroom.”

Townsend said the grant will allow Alaska Public Radio to help rural station partners better reach remote areas that have less coverage.

An NPR-member station, Alaska Public Radio produces national and state-specific daily news programming such as Alaska News Nightly. The award-winning statewide program has been broadcast for over four decades.

The stations also relay national and international news through NPR and the BBC. But many of the 733,400 Alaska residents receive important information in their regions from local stations, information such as emergency messages related to fires, earthquakes or other disasters as part of emergency messaging system for the state.

Most of Alaska’s communities are not on the road system and public radio is a lifeline, said Townsend.

“The public radio system in Alaska has been a more than four-decade model of collaboration and providing critical news, information and public safety service to Alaskan communities,” she added.

Federal investment in rural communities is critical for the 99% of the U.S. population who have access to public broadcastings, said Brendan Daly, of CPB. The nonprofit oversees federal investment in public broadcasting.

Rural and Indigenous communities depend on the state’s public media for news and public affairs, said Daly. “This is especially true in Alaska, which is such a large and rural state.”

The two-year grant will be used to fund reporters and editors, travel and equipment.

“The editors and reporters will mostly likely be a mix of new hires and existing Alaska journalists, currently working in the APM network and other newsrooms in Alaska,” said Townsend.

Stations will apply to host the new hires, Townsend said. The idea is to put the staff in stations across the state to make it easier to collaborate.

“We are in an exciting time of increased recognition of the importance of journalism in supporting and strengthening the bedrock of democracy,” said Townsend.

She added that the Alaska desk will work closely with communities on local priorities and on “elevating voices that are seldom heard.”

The plan is to produce stories that “resonate with not only Alaskans, but the rest of the nation and world, as geopolitical conflicts and world resource needs draw more attention to the Arctic,” she said.
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With four months remaining until the U.S. presidential election, political divisions among the electorate are stark. Some voters blame the media for deepening the sense of separation. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has more.
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U.S. President Joe Biden says he “screwed up” in last week’s debate with Donald Trump but is staying in the race for reelection. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns looks at the presidential campaign as Americans celebrate Independence Day. Contributor: Evgeny Maslov. Camera: Vladimir Badikov.
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The Fourth of July Independence Day holiday in the United States includes lots of fireworks. One town in Oregon is forgoing the noisy celebration that disturbs marine birds nesting on its rocky shore. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya takes us to The Great Puffin Watch Party.
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