New Orleans, Louisiana — The teaching of America’s racial history is dividing voters as state governments and federal judges weigh in on what is known as critical race theory.

“What we are seeing is that America is having a very public argument about how to discuss race in our country,” explained Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks. “It is a conversation about how we talk about the racist incidents in our past but also about how the past continues to shape inequalities in the present.

“But what makes the topic especially charged,” he added, “is that this is a debate that has reached our children and their classrooms.”

Banks says part of the issue is disagreement over an approach to the subject known as critical race theory.

Liberals largely see it as a way of understanding how American racism has shaped public policy, while conservatives view it as a divisive discourse aimed at shaming white Americans for past atrocities while further dividing the country’s racial groups.

“I have no problem with the teaching of history,” explained Cody Clark, a Republican voter from Denton, Texas. “But I don’t like the idea of teachers telling our children that some of them are privileged and some of them are oppressed. I think that just passes our divisions to the next generation.”

Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry this year signed an executive order banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, making the Pelican State the 18th in the country to limit or ban the subject.

Public school teachers and civil rights attorneys are responding. Civil rights attorneys in Little Rock are arguing before a federal judge that an Arkansas law banning critical race theory in schools violates the U.S. Constitution.

Louisiana public school teacher Lauren Jewett calls the bans misguided.

“I think it’s laughable and insulting in the same breath,” she told VOA. “K-12 teachers don’t teach critical race theory. It’s not in the state standards or our curricula and, to be honest, we don’t even have enough time to eat our lunches or meet all our students’ needs, let alone create new material.”

What is critical race theory?

While Jewett says laws banning critical race theory in public schools are political stunts, she also calls accurate accounts of American history essential.

“Our country has many uncomfortable and violent truths such as slavery, colonization, segregation, and mass incarceration,” she said. “It is important for our students to understand why things in the current day are the way they are and how history informs that. But that is not critical race theory.”

To understand what critical race theory is, Stanford Law professor Banks says you need to go back to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

“The decision said that racial segregation of our public schools was unconstitutional,” he told VOA, “but more than a decade later, civil rights leaders noticed nothing had changed. Black students were still going to different schools of a lower quality than their white peers.”

Banks says critical race theory was developed to help understand why — even when Americans passed laws to create equality — inequality seemed to prevail.

Civil rights lawyers including Derrick Bell, whose thought was vital to the development of critical race theory, concluded that racial bias is inherent in Western society’s legal and social institutions, as the race with the most political power had material reasons to protect that power at the expense of other races.

Well-developed among legal scholars in the 1970s, the theory was largely unknown to the public.

“Critical race theory was so obscure it wasn’t even something taught at most law schools,” Banks says. “It wasn’t in practice in corporate law or even civil rights law, but more like a framework or approach some academics might use to understand race-based issues.

“But that all changed after George Floyd was killed.”

Bogeyman in the mainstream

Banks says critical race theory grew to prominence largely as the target of Republican reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement that rose from the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minnesota.

Critical race theory “was a good target because it embodies three things that tend to give many Americans a lot of anxiety,” Banks said. The idea that “being critical of this country isn’t considered part of ‘the American spirit;’ [that] we have strains of anti-intellectuals that make theories repulsive; and we don’t feel comfortable talking about our racist past as if it’s unresolved.”

A 2023 poll by the Black Education Research Center at Columbia University found that 85% of respondents agreed that public school students should learn about the history of racism and slavery in the United States and its impact on events today.

That consensus evaporates when it comes to the government’s role in righting past wrongs.

“Of course, I think students should be learning about how our government has been prejudiced in the past in dealing with minorities through policies like slavery or not allowing mixed marriages,” explained Rebecca Urrutia, a Republican voter in Tolland, Connecticut. “I also think we need to teach about revisiting our laws to change any that are still unfair today.

“But I don’t think it makes sense to be teaching things like critical race theory to our kids,” she added. “If teachers are trying to convince white students that they have an inherent tendency toward privilege and discrimination against Black people, then I think this perpetuates the very cycle they claim they are trying to escape. Instead, teach our true history and our progress so we can learn from our mistakes and successes.”

Some Democratic voters view attacks on critical race theory as part of an effort to discredit movements that would promote the interests of minorities in the United States.

“They’re trying to turn critical race theory into a political bogeyman, and the result is getting closer and closer to censorship,” says California Democrat Evante Daniels.

“These anti-CRT laws are so unclear that schools become unsure what they can and can’t teach. Are LGBTQ clubs and ethnic studies okay? How about culturally relevant teaching? What happens when teachers are afraid to effectively teach about our past because they don’t know if they’re breaking a purposely ambiguous law?”

Banks of Stanford Law has similar fears.

“I actually understand if a parent has a concern about their second grader learning about things like white privilege,” he said. “That’s a valid concern. But if a teacher doesn’t know what is and isn’t allowed, they operate from fear and leave important parts of lessons out. The result, unfortunately for our kids and our country, is an impoverished education.”
…

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy. 

Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court. 

The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access. 

One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion. 

The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022. 

“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement. 

The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place. 

Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again in 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York. 

The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states. 

Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant. 

Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case. 

In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions. 

As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled. 

The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
…

TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday slammed as unjustified the new sanctions by the European Union and United Kingdom against Tehran over its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“While the president of Ukraine has admitted that no Iranian ballistic missiles have been exported to Russia, the measures of the European Union and United Kingdom in applying sanctions against Iran cannot be justified,” ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement.

Later Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador of Hungary, which holds the rotating EU presidency, to protest the new sanctions.

The European Union on Monday widened sanctions against Iran over its alleged support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, including targeting the national seafaring company, vessels and ports used to transfer drones and missiles.

Acting in parallel, the U.K. also announced fresh sanctions against Iran on Monday, freezing the assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line.

The sanctions also included the national airline, Iran Air, for transporting ballistic missiles and military supplies to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Iran has repeatedly rejected Western accusations that it has transferred missiles or drones to Moscow for use against Kiev.

Ahead of the sanctions announcement, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday the EU was using the “nonexistent missile pretext” to target its shipping lines.

“There is no legal, logical or moral basis for such behavior. If anything, it will only compel what it ostensibly seeks to prevent,” Araghchi wrote on X.

“Freedom of navigation is a basic principle of the law of the sea. When selectively applied by some, such shortsightedness usually tends to boomerang,” Araghchi wrote.

Iran’s economy is reeling from biting U.S. sanctions following the unilateral withdrawal of Washington in 2018 from a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

Baghaei said the new sanctions against Iran, which “affect the interests and fundamental rights of Iranians, are clear examples of systematic violations of human rights.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will use all of the capacities of cooperation with its partners to ensure its interests and national security,” he said.
…

London — As the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan enters its final days, there are growing frustrations over the apparent lack of progress toward securing a deal on climate finance, which is seen as a crucial step in reducing emissions and limiting global warming.

Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s COP29 president, called on delegates to show more urgency.

“People have told me that they are concerned about the state of the negotiations,” Babayev told delegates Monday. “It’s time for them to move faster. This week we will welcome ministers from around the world as the negotiations reach their final stage.

“Politicians have the power to reach a fair and ambitious deal. They must deliver on this responsibility. They must engage immediately and constructively,” he said.

Climate finance

Money is at the center of the COP29 negotiations — or, in COP terms, climate finance. Who will pay for poorer countries to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels — and how much will it cost?

It’s hoped that the COP29 meeting will set an ambitious new funding target. Most estimates put the cost of climate finance in excess of $1 trillion every year. It’s reported that many richer nations are reluctant to agree to such an amount.

The current target of $100 billion annually, agreed in 2009, was met only in 2022.

‘Failed promises’

Bolivia’s representative at COP29, Diego Balanza — who chairs a negotiating bloc of developing nations — accused richer nations of a decade of failed promises.

“Our countries are suffering the impacts of climate change due largely to the historical emissions of developed countries. For us as developing countries, our people’s lives, their very survival and their livelihoods, are at stake,” Balanza told delegates in Baku.

He added that most of the climate finance so far has been provided through loans, not grants, which “has adverse implications for the macroeconomic stability of developing countries.”

Slow pace

Many observers have criticized the slow pace of negotiations in Baku. Mohamed Adow, director of the campaign group Power Shift Africa, accused the Azerbaijani hosts of a lack of direction.

“This has been one of the worst COPs — at least, one of the worst first weeks of COPs — that I have attended in the last 15 years,” Adow told VOA. “There has been very limited progress on climate finance and even on the rules around carbon markets and how the world is going to cut emissions.”

‘Theatrics’

Simon Stiell, the United Nations Climate Change executive secretary, on Monday called on parties to “cut the theatrics.”

“There is still a ton of work to do to ensure COP29 delivers. Parties need to be moving much faster towards landing zones. … I’ve been very blunt: climate finance is not charity. It is 100% in every nation’s interest to protect their economies and people from rampant climate impacts. Parties must wrap up less contentious issues early in the week, so there is enough time for the major political decisions,” Stiell said.

Emissions cuts

An ambitious COP29 deal on climate finance is meant to unlock the crucial next stage of negotiations. Ahead of next year’s COP30 in Brazil, all countries are due to deliver action plans on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so-called ‘nationally determined contributions,’ with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a key target of the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change.

On the current trajectory, scientists estimate the world is heading for a likely catastrophic 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, which is predicted to cause widespread extreme weather and sea level rise.

Trump shadow

Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, fears the COP29 negotiations are being overshadowed by the recent U.S. presidential election win for Donald Trump.

Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change during his first term. His successor, Joe Biden, re-entered the deal on his first day in office.

“I think the cloud hovering over these talks is the known unknown, around the election of Donald Trump and what the Trump administration is going to do. So, you have the rich world, that is actually hiding behind Trump — and not wanting to respond to the calls that we’ve had from the developing countries on the US$1.3 trillion that they require for climate finance,” Adow told VOA.

The COP29 talks are due to close on Friday. The deadline could be extended if a deal is in sight.
…

As the COP29 climate summit enters the final stretch in Azerbaijan, there are growing frustrations over the apparent lack of progress toward securing a deal on climate finance – seen as a crucial step in reducing emissions and limiting global warming. Henry Ridgwell reports.
…

MANILA, Philippines — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday condemned China’s dangerous actions against the Philippines and renewed a warning that the United States would defend its treaty ally if Filipino forces come under an armed attack in the increasingly volatile waters.

During a visit to the Philippine province of Palawan next to the disputed South China Sea, Austin was asked if the strong U.S. military support to the Philippines would continue under incoming President Donald Trump, including $500 million in new military funding.

Austin expressed the belief that the strong alliance “will transcend” changes of administration.

“We stand with the Philippines, and we condemn dangerous actions by the PRC against lawful Philippine operations in the South China Sea,” he said, using the acronym of China’s official name.

He added: “The behavior of PRC has been concerning. They’ve used dangerous and escalatory measures to enforce their expansive South China Sea maritime claims.”

China has also had recent territorial spats with smaller coastal states, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, over the key global trade and security route. Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in long-unresolved disputes.

The outgoing Biden administration has taken steps to strengthen an arc of military alliances across the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan or in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed almost in its entirety.

That has dovetailed with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s thrust to strengthen his country’s external defenses, given an alarming escalation of territorial confrontations between Chinese and Filipinos forces in the South China Sea.

There has been intense speculation over how Trump would steer U.S. military engagements in Asia.

Marcos told reporters Tuesday that he congratulated Trump on his presidential election victory in a telephone call and renewed Philippine commitment to continue strengthening its alliance with the U.S.

“I expressed to him our continuing desire to strengthen that relationship between our two countries, which is a relationship that is as deep as can possibly be because it has been for a very long time,” Marcos said.

Austin was speaking during a joint news conference with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, in the military headquarters in Palawan.

They were given a demonstration of an unmanned vessel the U.S. has funded for use by the Philippine Navy for intelligence-gathering and defense surveillance.

Austin “reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. commitment to the Philippines” and reiterated that the allies’ Mutual Defense Treaty covers both countries’ armed forces, public vessels and aircraft…”anywhere in the South China Sea.”

He also reaffirmed his department’s “commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defense capabilities and capacity to resist coercion,” according to a joint statement.

Austin and Teodoro signed an agreement on Monday to secure from possible leakages the exchange of highly confidential military intelligence and technology in key weapons the U.S. would provide to Manila.

The Department of National Defense in Manila said the agreement aims to ensure the security of classified military information exchanges and would “allow the Philippines access to higher capabilities and big-ticket items from the United States.”

Neither side provided more details or released a copy of the agreement.

Two Philippine security officials, however, have told The Associated Press that such an agreement, similar to those Washington has signed with other allied countries, would allow the U.S. to provide the Philippines with higher-level intelligence and more sophisticated weapons, including missile systems.

It would also provide the Philippine military access to U.S. satellite and drone surveillance systems with an assurance that such intelligence and details about sophisticated weapons would be kept secure to prevent leaks, the two officials said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue publicly.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in Beijing on Monday that no military agreement “should target any third party … nor should it undermine regional peace or exacerbate regional tensions.”
…

RIO DE JANEIRO — With just two months remaining in President Joe Biden’s administration, the United States is ramping up financial, military and diplomatic support for Kyiv’s effort to defend itself against Russian aggression.

At the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Biden and leaders of 20 of the world’s largest economies are meeting, U.S. officials are pushing for the “strongest possible” language on Ukraine, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told VOA during a briefing Monday.

Western diplomats have renewed their push for stronger criticism on Moscow following Russia’s weekend airstrike, its largest on Ukrainian territory in months.

They’ve also warned that increased Russian war efforts could have a destabilizing effect beyond Europe. Earlier this month, the U.S. and Ukraine announced that North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to help Moscow reclaim territory seized by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region.

However, the final leaders’ statement did not include the language the U.S. pushed for. It highlights human suffering and the negative impacts of the war in Ukraine to the global economy without any condemnation to Russia. On Gaza, it called for cease-fire in Gaza and in Lebanon and commitment to the two-state solution, without mentioning Israel’s right to defend itself.

Finer acknowledges that finding a consensus on global conflicts is elusive given the diversity of the G20. In addition to mostly like-minded countries of the G7, the G20 also includes Russia, China and nations of the Global South.

Ever since the G20 summit in Bali in 2022 — held months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine — the global grouping has faced challenges hammering out a response to the conflict.

Long-range missiles authorized

The U.S. has been surging its military assistance to Kyiv. It is also authorizing Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, according to media reports quoting officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Finer declined to confirm but said it is “consistent” with the U.S. approach of tailoring its response to meet developments on the ground to “allow the Ukrainians to continue to defend their territory and their sovereignty.”

On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that if true, authorization for Kyiv to strike inside Russia with U.S. long-range missiles, “will mark a qualitatively new round of tensions and level of Washington’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.”

Last week in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to reassure European allies that Biden is “committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20,” the date of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has been critical of using American taxpayer’s money to help Kyiv. Without providing details, Trump often boasts he can swiftly end the war — a statement that many in Europe fear would mean forcing Ukraine to capitulate.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wants a “just end” to the war, and that a swift end “means losses.” On Saturday, he told Ukrainian public radio that under the Trump administration, “the war will end faster.”

“This is their approach, the promise to their country,” he said. “And for them, it is also very important.”

At the State Department, spokesperson Matthew Miller told VOA during Monday’s briefing that the U.S. seeks an end to the war in Ukraine that upholds the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, while ensuring it does not “reward a dictator” intent on seizing land by force.

The sentiment is shared by many European leaders, but they may ultimately be forced to accept a new political reality.

“No government in Europe is going to officially endorse a land-for-peace deal at this point. It’s diplomatically and legally impossible to do that,” said Edward Hunter Christie, a former NATO official and now senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Behind the scenes, however, some European leaders believe Ukraine’s chances are not strong enough, Christie told VOA, especially if the U.S. under Trump does not continue its assistance to Ukraine.

The U.S. is racing to disburse $20 billion as part of a Biden-driven G7 initiative agreed in June to provide Kyiv with $50 billion in loans. The funds are to be paid back using interest income from Russian assets frozen in Western financial institutions.

A senior administration official briefing reporters in Rio told VOA they are “working full speed” to get the loan disbursed before the end of the year.

Climate change, poverty alleviation

G20 host Brazil has worked to keep the focus of talks away from global conflicts and more on addressing divisions in the ongoing U.N. conference on climate change in Azerbaijan, as well as accelerating efforts to reduce global hunger and poverty — an initiative championed by summit host President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula’s approach to resist pressures from the G7 and the rest of the G20 on Ukraine and Gaza reflects Brazil’s strategy of “multi-alignment” in an increasingly fragmented global landscape, said Bruna Santos, director at the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute.

However, “neutrality risks alienating all sides in an increasingly polarized world,” Santos told VOA.

Negotiators in Rio have also been struggling to find consensus on shared language on climate financing, said diplomatic sources who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations.

Western nations have been pushing for China and wealthy Middle Eastern countries to join them in contributing to global funds for climate change mitigation — a proposal resisted by Brazil and other member countries of the Global South.

Another Lula proposal, a 2% tax on the super-rich that Brazil says can potentially generate up to $250 billion per year to help the world’s poor, has also met new resistance.

Argentinian right-wing President Javier Milei rejected the proposal after visiting Trump at his Florida residence, the first foreign leader to visit the president-elect.

Milei’s rejection is an example of how as president-elect, Trump has already affected dynamics among world leaders and upended Biden’s international priorities.

The senior administration told VOA that the U.S. was “really supportive” of Lula’s proposal, which was “very much in line” with the fiscal policy Biden has pushed in his term.

In the G20 joint statement released Tuesday, leaders agreed to work to “ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed.”

State Department bureau chief Nike Ching contributed to this report.
…

VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania’s Navy said on Tuesday it had increased monitoring of its waters after an undersea communications cable connecting the country with Sweden had been damaged.

An assessment is now being carried out along with allies, a spokesperson for the Lithuanian armed forces told Reuters.

The cable was one of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea which were severed in recent days, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.

A spokesperson for Arelion, the owner and operator of the communications cable, told Reuters on Tuesday that the link between Lithuania and Sweden was “fully out” but that the reason remained unclear.
…

NEW YORK — Arthur Frommer, whose “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.

Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.

“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”

Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry’s best-known brands, self-publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957.

“It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s debut.

The Frommer’s brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.

Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel “because it leads to a more authentic experience.” That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.

It didn’t hurt that his books hit the market as the rise of jet travel made getting to Europe easier than crossing the Atlantic by ship. The books became so popular that there was a time when you couldn’t visit a place like the Eiffel Tower without spotting Frommer’s guidebooks in the hands of every other American tourist.

Frommer’s advice also became so standard that it’s hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. “It was really pioneering stuff,” Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks “that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B — well, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Arthur.”

“Arthur did for travel what Consumer Reports did for everything else,” said Pat Carrier, former owner of The Globe Corner, a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The final editions of Frommer’s groundbreaking series were titled “Europe from $95 a Day.” The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. But the Frommer publishing empire did not disappear, despite a series of sales that started when Frommer sold the guidebook company to Simon & Schuster. It was later acquired by Wiley Publishing, which in turn sold it to Google in 2012. Google quietly shut the guidebooks down, but Arthur Frommer — in a David vs. Goliath triumph — got his brand back from Google. In November 2013 with his daughter Pauline, he relaunched the print series with dozens of new guidebook titles.

“I never dreamed at my age I’d be working this hard,” he told the AP at the time, age 84.

Frommer also remained a well-known figure in 21st century travel, opinionated to the end of his career, speaking out on his blog and radio show. He hated mega-cruise ships and railed against travel websites where consumers put up their own reviews, saying they were too easily manipulated with phony postings. And he coined the phrase “Trump Slump” in a widely quoted column that predicted a slump in tourism to the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected president.

Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and grew up during the Great Depression in Jefferson City, Missouri, the child of a Polish father and Austrian mother. “My father had one job after another, one company after another that went bankrupt,” he recalled. The family moved to New York when he was a teenager. He worked as an office boy at Newsweek, went to New York University and was drafted upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1953. Because he spoke French and Russian, he was sent to work in Army intelligence at a U.S. base in Germany, where the Cold War was heating up.

His first glimpse of Europe was from the window of a military transport plane. Whenever he had a weekend leave or a three-day pass, he’d hop a train to Paris or hitch a ride to England on an Air Force flight. Eventually he wrote “The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” and a few weeks before his Army stint was up, he had 5,000 copies printed by a typesetter in a German village. They were priced at 50 cents apiece, distributed by the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes.

Shortly after he returned to New York to practice law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he received a cable from Europe. “The book was sold out, would I arrange a reprint?” he said.

Soon after he spent his month’s vacation from the law firm doing a civilian version of the guide. “In 30 days I went to 15 different cities, getting up at 4 a.m., running up and down the streets, trying to find good cheap hotels and restaurants,” he recalled.

The resulting book, the very first “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” was much more than a list. It was written with a wide-eyed wonder that verged on poetry: “Venice is a fantastic dream,” Frommer wrote. “Try to arrive at night when the wonders of the city can steal upon you piecemeal and slow. … Out of the dark, there appear little clusters of candy-striped mooring poles; a gondola approaches with a lighted lantern hung from its prow.”

Eventually Frommer gave up law to write the guides full-time. Daughter Pauline joined him with his first wife, Hope Arthur, on their trips starting in 1965, when she was 4 months old. “They used to joke that the book should be called ‘Europe on Five Diapers a Day,'” Pauline Frommer said.

In the 1960s, when inflation forced Frommer to change the title of the book to “Europe on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day,” he said “it was as if someone had plunged a knife into my head.”

Asked to summarize the impact of his books in a 2017 Associated Press interview, he said that in the 1950s, “most Americans had been taught that foreign travel was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially travel to Europe. They were taught that they were going to a war-torn country where it was risky to stay in any hotel other than a five-star hotel. It was risky to go into anything but a top-notch restaurant. … And I knew that all these warnings were a lot of nonsense.”

He added: “We were pioneers in also suggesting that a different type of American should travel, that you didn’t have to be well-heeled.”

To the end of his life, he said he avoided traveling first class. “I fly economy class and I try to experience the same form of travel, the same experience that the average American and the average citizen of the world encounters,” he said.

As Frommer aged, his daughter Pauline gradually became the force behind the company, promoting the brand, managing the business and even writing some of the content based on her own travels. Her relationship with her father was both tender and respectful, and she summed it up this way in a 2012 email to AP: “It’s wonderful to have a working partner whose mind is a steel trap, and who doesn’t just have smarts, but wisdom. His opinions, whether or not you agree with them, come from his social values. He’s a man who puts ethics at the center of his life, and weaves them into everything he does.”

In addition to Pauline, Frommer’s survivors include his second wife, Roberta Brodfeld, and four grandchildren.
…

Russia vetoed a United Nation resolution Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire between Sudan’s warring parties and the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of Sudanese.

Russia was the only Security Council member that voted against the cease-fire resolution.

China, Russia’s ally, supported the resolution, drafted by the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone.

Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the council that Moscow vetoed the resolution because Sudan’s government should be “solely” responsible for what happens in Sudan.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “It is shocking that Russia has vetoed an effort to save lives, though perhaps it shouldn’t be.”

She added, “For months, Russia has obstructed and obfuscated, standing in the way of council action to address the catastrophic situation in Sudan and playing … both sides of the conflict, to advance its own political objectives at the expense of Sudanese lives.”

British Foreign Minister David Lammy said, “One country stood in the way of the council speaking with one voice. One country is the blocker. One country is the enemy of peace. This Russian veto is a disgrace, and it shows to the world yet again, Russia’s true colors.”

Polyanskiy accused the Security Council of operating under a double standard, pointing to the council’s failure to rein in Israel with what he said are violations of humanitarian law in Gaza.

War broke out between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, in the capital, Khartoum, just before the country was set to transition to civilian rule. The violence has spread to other regions around the country.

Eleven million people in Sudan have been displaced and half of the country’s population, an estimated 25 million people, are struggling with crisis-level food insecurity, according to the United Nations. Famine was confirmed in August in the northern part of Sudan’s Darfur region.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Athens, Greece — Greece will make an early repayment of 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in bailout-era debt in 2025, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a banking conference in Athens on Monday, describing the move as a signal of the country’s fiscal recovery.

“This … underscores our confidence in public finances and reflects our commitment to fiscal discipline,” Mitsotakis said.

Finance Ministry officials say they plan to reduce debt through primary surpluses, loan repayments and combating tax evasion.

Greece has rebounded from a 10-year financial crisis that forced it to borrow tens of billions of euros from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund.

But Mitsotakis’ center-right government, elected for a second term in 2023, is struggling to address a cost of living crisis that has sapped Greeks’ spending power. Despite the lack of any substantial challenge from opposition parties, the high cost of living has nibbled away at the government’s approval ratings and triggered union anger.

The country’s two main private and public sector unions have called a general strike for Wednesday that will keep island ferries in port and disrupt other forms of transport and public services. 

A protest march will be held in central Athens on Wednesday morning.

The GSEE main private sector union Monday accused the government of “refusing to take any meaningful measures that would secure workers dignified living conditions.”

“The cost of living is sky-high and our salaries rock-bottom, (while) high housing costs have left young people in a tragic position,” GSEE chairman Yiannis Panagopoulos said.

According to EU forecasts, Greece’s economy is expected to grow 2.1% in 2024 and maintain a broadly similar course over the following two years.

Unemployment, now below 10%, is expected to keep declining, while inflation is projected at 3% this year. 
…

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee is set to meet Wednesday to decide whether to release its investigative report on former Representative Matt Gaetz, who was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be attorney general in his new administration.

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, are demanding that the report be released so they can consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertake their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Last Wednesday, Trump named Gaetz, 42, a Republican congressman from Florida for eight years, to become the country’s top law enforcement official. Hours later, Gaetz resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion.

But it remained uncertain whether the panel would divulge what conclusions it had reached.

The committee, with five Democrats and five Republicans, had been looking into allegations that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and used drugs illicitly. Gaetz has denied the allegations. The Justice Department, which Gaetz hopes to lead, investigated the case but declined last year to bring any charges.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads the narrow Republican majority in the chamber, has contended that no ethics report should be made public because Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress. However, there have been instances where that has occurred in the past.

Johnson told CNN on Sunday that senators reviewing the Gaetz nomination as the country’s top law enforcement official will “have a vigorous review and vetting process,” but that they did not need to see the House Ethics Committee’s report. Some senators have suggested they could move to subpoena it if it is not turned over to them voluntarily.

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin on Sunday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the panel should share its report with the Senate.

“The Senate should have access to that,” Mullin said. “Should it be released to the public or not? That I guess will be part of the negotiations.”

Gaetz is one of several Trump appointees to his Cabinet who do not have the credentials normally seen in candidates for high-level government jobs.

Over the weekend, a lawyer for another Trump choice, Pete Hegseth, a 44-year-old Fox News host named to be defense secretary, revealed that Hegseth several years ago paid an undisclosed amount to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 to avert the threat of what he viewed as a baseless lawsuit becoming public.

Trump has stood by his Cabinet nominees, refusing to withdraw their nominations. But the controversies surrounding Gaetz, Hegseth and others could threaten their confirmations by the Senate to be in Trump’s Cabinet.

The president-elect also has sought — with little success so far — to get the Senate, in Republican control come January when he takes office, to agree to recess at times so he could name and install his Cabinet members without the need for contentious and time-consuming confirmation hearings.
…

fergus falls, minnesota — Nearly three years after a couple from India and their two young children froze to death while trying to cross the border from Canada into the U.S., two men went on trial Monday on human smuggling charges, accused of being part of a criminal network that stretched around the world.

Prosecutors say Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, ran part of the scheme and recruited Steve Shand, 50, of Florida, to shuttle migrants across the border. Both men have pleaded not guilty in federal court in Minnesota. They’re standing trial before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, with proceedings expected to last about five days. They each face four counts related to human smuggling.

On January 19, 2022, Shand was allegedly waiting in a truck for 11 migrants, including the family of four from the village of Dingucha in Gujarat state. Prosecutors say 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; the couple’s 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, died after spending hours wandering fields in blizzard conditions as the wind chill reached minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius).

Prosecutors say when Jagdish Patel’s body was found, he was holding Dharmik, who was wrapped in a blanket.

Before jury selection began Monday morning, defense attorneys objected to prosecutors’ plan to show seven photos of the frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel and his family, including close-up images of the children.

Shand’s attorney, Aaron Morrison, said the heart-wrenching images could cause “extreme prejudice to the jury” and asked for the photos to be removed as evidence.

Prosecutors argued the photos were necessary to show the family was not adequately prepared by Shand and Harshkumar Patel for the frigid conditions.

Tunheim allowed the images to remain evidence.

Patel is a common Indian surname and the victims were not related to Harshkumar Patel. Federal prosecutors say Harshkumar Patel and Shand were part of an operation that scouted clients in India, got them Canadian student visas, arranged transportation and smuggled them into the U.S., mostly through Washington state or Minnesota.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending this Sept. 30. By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates more than 725,000 Indians were living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans.

Harshkumar Patel’s attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, told The Associated Press that his client came to America to escape poverty and build a better life for himself and now “stands unjustly accused of participating in this horrible crime. He has faith in the justice system of his adopted country and believes that the truth will come out at the trial.” Attorneys for Shand did not return messages.

Court documents filed by prosecutors show Patel was in the U.S. illegally after being refused a U.S. visa at least five times, and that he recruited Shand at a casino near their homes in Deltona, Florida, just north of Orlando.

Over a five-week period, court documents say, Patel and Shand often communicated about the bitter cold as they smuggled five groups of Indians over a quiet stretch of border. One night in December 2021, Shand messaged Patel that it was “cold as hell” while waiting to pick up one group, the documents say.

“They going to be alive when they get here?” he allegedly wrote.

During the last trip in January, Shand had messaged Patel, saying: “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions, please,” according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say Shand told investigators that Patel paid him about $25,000 for the five trips.

Jagdish Patel grew up in Dingucha. He and his family lived with his parents. The couple were schoolteachers, according to local news reports.

Satveer Chaudhary is a Minneapolis-based immigration attorney who has helped migrants exploited by motel owners, many of them Gujaratis. He said smugglers and shady business interests promised many migrants an American dream that doesn’t exist when they arrive.

“The promises of the almighty dollar lead many people to take unwarranted risks with their own dignity, and as we’re finding out here, their own lives,” Chaudhary said.
…

Washington — The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions on organizations and firms involved in illegal settlement development in the occupied West Bank, including a well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership. 

Treasury sanctioned Amana, the largest organization involved in illegal settlement development in the West Bank, and its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd. Already sanctioned by Britain and Canada, Amana is one of the major funders and supporters of unauthorized settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Peace Now, a settlement tracking group, says its assets are valued at around 600 million Israeli shekels, or about $160 million, and that it has a yearly budget stretching into tens of millions of shekels. 

Amana, which is based in the West Bank and has no known connection to the U.S. appliance maker, over the past few years has underwritten loans, signed contracts, bought equipment and funded infrastructure projects for new settlements, according to Peace Now. The settlements, small farming outposts, have become some of the primary drivers of violence and displacement of Palestinians living in the West Bank. 

Additionally, the State Department imposed diplomatic sanctions on Eyal Hari Yehuda Co., which provides construction logistics to sanctioned groups, as well as company owner Itamar Yehuda Levi. The co-founder of the already sanctioned nonprofit group Hashomer Yosh, Shabtai Koshlevsky, and Israeli citizen Zohar Sabah, who has perpetrated acts of violence on Palestinians, also were hit with sanctions. 

The penalties come as settlers in the territory celebrate the incoming Trump administration, believing it will likely take a more favorable approach to the settlements. During his first term, Trump took unprecedented steps to support Israel’s territorial claims, including recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. 

Treasury’s Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the U.S. “remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to facilitate these destabilizing activities, which threaten the stability of the West Bank, Israel, and the wider region.” 

Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them. 

In February, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that targets Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory. That order is used to justify the financial penalties against the companies and men. 

In response, Texans for Israel, a Christian nonprofit, Israeli nonprofit Regavim and others in August sued the Biden administration in Amarillo, Texas, over its sanctions against Israeli extremists in the West Bank. 

Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who has spent years campaigning for the sanctions on violent West Bank settlers, said the sanctions on Amana were “an earthquake for the settlement project and especially the shepherds farms.” He called on the U.S. to extend the sanctions now to firebrand Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also a far-right settler in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet. 

Amana’s leadership has appeared at pro-settlement events alongside Cabinet members. Peace Now says the group’s secretary-general, Zeev Hever, was greeted by Smotrich at a June conference where Smotrich laid out his plans for the West Bank. 

Violence against Palestinians and their displacement have only picked up since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Around 8,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank during that time and over 700 killed, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Palestinian health officials. 

The Associated Press previously reported that the sanctions measures have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers as attacks and land-grabs escalate, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP. Additionally, Smotrich has previously vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’ behalf. 

Israel captured the West Bank along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. 

Settlement growth and construction have been promoted by successive Israeli governments stretching back decades, but it has exploded under Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, which has settlers in key Cabinet posts. There are now well over 100 settlements and 500,000 Israeli settlers sprawling across the territory from north to south — a reality, rights groups say, dimming any hopes for an eventual two-state solution. 

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “we once again call on the Government of Israel to take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land. The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who further destabilize conditions in the West Bank and support extremist violence in the region.” 
…

tbilisi, georgia — Demonstrators in Georgia’s capital have set up tents on a central thoroughfare and vowed Monday to stay around the clock to demand new parliamentary elections in the country.

The October 26 election kept the governing Georgian Dream party in power, but opponents say the vote was rigged with Russia’s assistance. Many Georgians viewed the election as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union. Several large protests have been held since then.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who has rejected the official results, declared on Monday that she would appeal the vote results to the Constitutional Court. Zourabichvili, who holds a mostly ceremonial position, has said Georgia has fallen victim to pressure from Moscow against joining the EU.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream, established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

On Sunday, demonstrators closed an avenue leading into the center of Tbilisi. Nika Melia, leader of Coalition for Change, one of the opposition groups, voiced hope that the protests around the clock will mark “the beginning of the intense, strong protest movement that will finish with the fall of Ivanishvili’s regime.”

The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June after the country’s parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.

The Central Election Commission said Georgian Dream won about 54% of the vote in October. Its leaders have rejected opposition claims of vote fraud. European election observers said the election took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.
…

Russian opposition members in exile took to the streets of Berlin Sunday to demand a pullout of Russian troops from Ukraine and the resignation of President Vladimir Putin in a protest that would have been impossible in Russia due to police and judicial pressure on opposition movements. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Berlin.
…

Warsaw — Many in Ukraine see the Biden administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russian territory as a turning point in the war but welcome it with a mix of gratitude and frustration. 

“Strikes are not made with words,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “The missiles will speak for themselves.” 

His tone reflects the high stakes involved in this decision, which comes as Ukraine braces for intensified Russian offensives following the reported deployment of 12,000 North Korean troops to bolster Moscow’s efforts. 

Ukrainian officials and analysts see the U.S. authorization as a crucial move, allowing Ukraine to target key military installations in Russia, particularly in the Kursk region, where new threats are emerging. However, Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former Minister of Defense (2019–2020) and adviser to the government, said the delay in granting such permissions has cost Ukraine dearly. 

“Ukraine has been asking for this for years, not months,” Zagorodnyuk told VOA. “The administration’s fear of escalation led to an overcautious approach. This reactive, piecemeal strategy — responding to Russian provocations rather than implementing a comprehensive plan — has not brought us closer to resolving the war. Instead, it has allowed Russia to escalate further.”  

Critical stage 

The decision follows an escalation of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, yet the timing raises questions about the long-term strategy of Western allies. 

Mark Voyger, director of the master’s program in Global Management at American University Kyiv, emphasized the operational and psychological importance of the decision. “Operationally, these missiles can target Russian storage facilities, command centers, and even North Korean troops preparing for offensive actions,” Voyger explained.  

“Better late than never, the time for inaction and … psychological [self-constraint] due to some presumed fear of escalation is over.” Voyger highlighted the risks of delay. “This decision should have been made earlier to save lives and give Ukraine a stronger hand on the battlefield. The reactive approach only emboldens Russia to escalate further.” 

Zagorodnyuk echoed these sentiments, warning that the U.S. policy of incremental aid has hindered Ukraine’s ability to gain the upper hand. “This piecemeal strategy, like doing little steps, step by step, as a reaction [to] some escalation from Russia’s side, is, first of all, escalatory itself. And secondly, [it] is not bringing us to any resolution of the war. Because we [are] essentially supporting Russia escalating the war.” 

Russian reaction 

Moscow condemned the U.S. decision as an escalation of U.S. involvement in the war and warned of serious consequences. 

“If such a decision was really formulated and brought to the attention of the Kyiv regime, then, of course, this is a qualitatively new round of tension and a qualitatively new situation in terms of the involvement of the United States in this conflict,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media.  

Russian state media have amplified narratives accusing the U.S. of directly fueling the conflict, potentially laying the groundwork for further rhetorical or military escalations. 

US leadership transition 

The approaching U.S. transfer of power adds another layer of uncertainty.  

There are fears in Kyiv that Washington’s critical support will be reversed, following President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises to end the war quickly with no clear outline of a strategy. 

“Unlike [U.S. President Joe] Biden, Trump immediately announced his ultimate goal to stop the war. The question is — how is he going to do that?” Zagorodnyuk said. While Ukrainians would welcome an end to the war, “some people suggest all kinds of concessions from Ukraine,” which he said, “is not going to stop the war.” 

In a VOA interview, Voyger added that the Biden administration’s timing of this decision might reflect concerns about securing support for Ukraine before a potential political shift. “If a new administration pulls back on military aid or restricts Ukraine’s ability to strike, it could significantly weaken Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and at the negotiating table,” he said. 

Stopping the war 

Both analysts agree that stopping the war needs a robust and proactive Western strategy. This includes providing Ukraine with sufficient long-range missiles, expanding the scope of permissible targets, and ensuring consistent support regardless of political changes in Washington.  

“The West needs to empower Ukraine to not just defend itself, but to achieve the operational success that forces Russia to reconsider its aggression,” Voyger said. 

Zagorodnyuk agrees the only way to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into serious negotiations is to put him in a position where he risks losing not just on the battlefield but also his hold on power. “The ideal situation for Ukraine would be that NATO allies, and first of all the United States, would provide us with the means to reach the effect [of] Putin [and Russia] losing its operations.   

“Ukraine can successfully do a series of counteroffensive operations [that] would bring Putin to a situation where he would understand that unless he stops the war, he would be losing tremendously, and that would impact his regime and his power.”
…

The Holocaust Museum LA recently installed a new exhibit on its roof: a German-made freight car that was used to deport Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe to the Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, Poland. From Los Angeles, Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
…

London — Britain on Monday imposed sanctions against Iran’s national airline and shipping carrier, measures it said were taken in response to Iran’s transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia. 

The state-owned Iran Air and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) will face an asset freeze for their role in supplying weapons to Russia for use on the battlefield against Ukraine, Britain said. 

“Iran’s attempts to undermine global security are dangerous and unacceptable,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said. “We reiterate our call on Iran to cease its support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.” 

The sanctions will further restrict Iran Air’s direct commercial air services to and from the U.K. 

Britain also sanctioned the Russian cargo ship PORT OLYA-3 for its role in transporting military supplies to Russia, it said. 
…

In New York City, where some communities have limited access to fresh produce, a unique classroom program is teaching students how to grow their own food and improve their eating habits. Aron Ranen has more on how gardening is shaping healthier futures for kids.
…

President-elect Donald Trump will come into office in January 2025 with unified control of the U.S. Congress. Republicans will hold majorities in both the Senate and House as the result of a mandate from American voters. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
…

A Russian attack on Ukraine’s northeast city of Sumy killed 11 people and injured at least 89, Ukrainian officials said.

“Sunday evening for the city of Sumy became hell, a tragedy that Russia brought to our land,” military administrator Volodymyr Artyukh said in a post on the Telegram messaging channel.

Sumy regional prosecutors said the attack damaged 90 apartments, 28 cars, two educational institutions and 13 buildings.

The attack followed a massive Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s power infrastructure earlier in the day, as well as news reports that the United States granted clearance for Ukraine to use long-range U.S. weapons to hit military targets in Russia.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country and its allies should focus on “really forcing Russia to end the war.”

“Today marked one of the largest and most dangerous Russian attacks in the entire war – 210 drones and missiles launched simultaneously – including hypersonic and aeroballistic ones,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

Zelenskyy has long been lobbying for permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System, known by its initials ATACMS, to hit targets inside Russia. He said in his address that negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin is not an effective strategy to end the war.

“This is the answer to all those who wanted to achieve something with Putin through conversations, phone calls, hugs – appeasement. Today, this ‘dove of peace’ sent us yet another barrage of ‘Kinzhal’ and ‘Kalibr’ missiles. That’s his diplomacy. His language is treachery,” Zelenskyy said.

Long-range capabilities

President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons as Russia deploys up to 12,000 North Korean troops to reinforce its war, according to a U.S. official and three other people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press reported.

In recent weeks, Putin has positioned troops – including those from North Korea – along the northern border of Ukraine in a push to regain territory.

Biden had been opposed to any escalation of the war in Ukraine, and Putin has said Moscow could provide long-range weapons for others to hit Western targets if NATO allies allow Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.

But Zelenskyy has argued that the restriction on long-range weapons has hampered Ukraine’s defense against Russian attacks. Long-range capabilities, he said, are a key component of Ukraine’s victory plan.

“Today, there’s a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions. But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves,” Zelensky said. “They certainly will.”

Russia downs 59 drones

Meanwhile, Russia shot down 59 Ukranian drones overnight, according to the Russian defense ministry.

“During the past night, attempts by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist UAV attacks against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation were thwarted,” the ministry said in a statement. 

The ministry said most of the drones were shot down across three regions bordering Ukraine: 45 in Bryansk, six in Kursk and three in Belgorod, Agence France-Presse reported.

Three drones were intercepted in the region of Tula, south of the capital, while two others were downed over the Moscow region.

Ukraine’s air force said on Monday that it shot down eight out of 11 Russian drones during an overnight attack.

Information from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Press was used in this report.
…