RIYADMEDIA

Since 2015, one of America’s oldest eye clinics, Wills Eye Hospital, has been helping
wounded Ukrainian soldiers with severe head or face injuries get their vision back. For one surgeon with Ukrainian roots, the work is personal. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Pavlo Terekhov.
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Atlanta, Georgia — When he returned to Plains, Georgia, in 1981, President Jimmy Carter was defeated — rejected by voters in a landslide election to Republican Ronald Reagan. The pouring rain at Carter’s welcome home reception reflected his gloomy mood and that of the country.

“In office, he was a political failure. He lost overwhelming[ly] to Ronald Reagan. But he was a substantive and visionary success,” says author and historian Jonathan Alter, who recognizes what many know Carter for today — humanitarian work with his Carter Center, “waging peace, fighting disease and building hope” around the world that led to Jimmy Carter receiving the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

“He’s done terrific work supervising elections in more than 100 countries. But former presidents don’t have as much power as presidents, not nearly as much, and the list of his accomplishments as president that were ignored, minimized, or forgotten entirely was very long,” said Alter.

The Iran hostage crisis, rising inflation and oil embargoes of the 1970s doomed Carter’s White House tenure, casting a long shadow over his legacy. However, the onetime peanut farmer, Georgia governor, president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s 100th birthday milestone comes as authors and historians reevaluate his failures and accomplishments as a one-term U.S. president.

Alter’s biography, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life,” is among several that conclude his four years in the White House were anything but a failure.

“Not just famously [the] Camp David accords and opening relations with China,” Alter told VOA in an interview in August at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, “but a long string of legislative accomplishments on the environment and many other issues that actually exceed the legislative accomplishments of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.”

Carter signed the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act protecting more than 100 million acres — including land, national parks, refuges, monuments, forests and conservation areas — which Alter says is now considered one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever passed.

“The story I tell in my book is a surprising one,” says Alter. “It’s of somebody who worked hard in ways that actually bore fruit.”

“I think we’ll remember President Carter as a president who served in very enormously difficult times who had to deal with circumstances that were far beyond his control,” says Emory University’s first “Jimmy Carter Professor of History” Joseph Crespino. Carter routinely visited with Crespino and his students in Atlanta to discuss the good and bad decisions he made while president.

“Putting human rights front and center in American foreign policy — no president had done that in the way that Jimmy Carter had,” Crespino told VOA during a recent interview at his office on campus at Emory University. “It was important in shifting the balance of power in the Cold War, but it was also an important moment in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to reassert once again America’s moral responsibilities in the world.”

Crespino says some of Carter’s overlooked domestic accomplishments include reorganizing the federal government and deregulation of the airline, trucking and beer industries. “We oftentimes associate a kind of freeing up of the free enterprise economy with the conservative turn that came in with Ronald Reagan, when in fact Jimmy Carter before Reagan was already doing a lot of deregulatory work in his presidency in recognizing the kind of limits of government oversight of these private industries.”

Members of Carter’s Cabinet, including former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, are grateful his long life has allowed him to witness the longer lens of history reflect more positively on his legacy.

“There’s no place in the world I know where people don’t have some good things to say about him,” Young told VOA as he spoke with reporters September 17 at Carter’s 100th birthday concert at the Fox theater in Atlanta. “Whether he succeeded or not … he gave it as good a try and came as far as the world would let him go.”

A world that continues to benefit from the Carter Center’s work, including fighting diseases including Guinea worm, which is down to a few cases in Africa and could become only the second disease ever eradicated.
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VIENNA — Picknicking with friends in the park after prayers at a Vienna mosque, Saima Arab, a 20-year-old pedicurist originally from Afghanistan, is thankful for her freedoms in Austria.

“We could never do this in Afghanistan, never cook, go out, just sit in public like this,” said Arab, who came to Austria in 2017. “Home is like a prison there.”

Many Austrians, however, are worried about their country’s ability to integrate migrants, especially Muslims, and their desire for stricter immigration laws was a key issue in Sunday’s election which gave victory to the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) for the first time.

Both the FPO and the runner-up, the ruling conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), ran on pledges to tighten asylum laws and crack down on illegal immigration.

The FPO victory added to critics’ concerns about the rise of the far right in Europe after electoral gains in recent months by the Alternative for Germany and the National Rally in France.

“Whatever the government looks like after the election, I’m certain it’ll work towards toughening up asylum and immigration law,” Professor Walter Obwexer, an adviser to the government on migration law, said before the vote.

Arab, who also spoke to Reuters in an interview conducted before the election, said she did not like to talk about politics but hoped she too would vote in Austria one day.

The number of people in Austria born abroad or whose parents were jumped by more than a third between 2015 and last year, and now account for around 27% of the population of about 9 million.

Together the FPO and the OVP won over 55% of the vote and one of the two is almost certain to lead the next government, feeding expectations that Austria, like neighboring Germany and Hungary, and France, will adopt tougher rules.

Opinion polls showed immigration and inflation were key voter concerns. Such is the worry that Austria is taking in migrants faster than it can integrate them that even some Austrians of Muslim origin feel Austria is stretched.

“I wonder if the system is close to collapse,” said Mehmet Ozay, a Turkish-born Austrian FPO supporter, arguing there were too many asylum seekers not contributing to state coffers.

Taylor Swift concert

The FPO has combined its tough talk on immigration with criticism of Islam.

The issue took center stage last month when police arrested a teenager with North Macedonian roots on suspicion of masterminding a failed Islamic State-inspired attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.

Running on the campaign slogan “Fortress Austria,” the FPO promoted “remigration,” including returning asylum seekers to their countries of origin, especially if they fail to integrate, and limiting asylum rights.

That has unsettled some who feel the party, which dropped some of its more polarizing slogans in the campaign, is demonizing foreigners.

The FPO, which did not reply to a request for comment, denies this. It says asylum seekers are a drain on state resources, and draws attention to crimes some of them commit.

“The FPO routinely talk about refugees and asylum seekers as rapists and thieves and drug dealers,” said Hedy, a social worker and Austrian citizen who arrived as a refugee from Afghanistan. He declined to give his last name.

“Something very similar happened to the Jews in Vienna before the Second World War,” he said, adding that the FPO, which wants to ban “political Islam,” would embolden xenophobes.

The FPO, whose first leader was a former Nazi lawmaker, has sought to distance itself from its past, and in 2019 helped pass a law allowing foreign descendants of Austrian victims of National Socialism to acquire Austrian citizenship.

This month FPO leader Herbert Kickl called Adolf Hitler the “biggest mass murderer in human history,” as he roundly denounced the Nazi dictator’s legacy in a television debate.

Still, Alon Ishay, head of the Austrian Association of Jewish Students, said he saw some parallels between targeting of Jews in the early Nazi era and attitudes to Muslims now.

“There are rhetorical similarities when you talk about deportation, when you talk about taking people’s citizenship away,” he said, also speaking before Sunday’s election.

FPO-backer Ozay disagreed, saying that Muslims such as himself were free to do as they liked in Austria.

“If there were daily attacks by FPO voters I would understand the fear that things would get even more extreme if Kickl came to power,” he said. “But that’s not how it is. It’s just fear stirred up by the other parties.”
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During any campaign, it is crucial that voters and candidates have a way to measure the state of public opinion. Polling — surveying representative samples of the electorate — allows everyone to understand and adapt to prevailing sentiments. But it has its flaws.
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Jimmy Carter is the first U.S. president to reach the age of 100. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Georgia on the historic milestone.
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HELSINKI — Norway may put a fence along part or all the 198-kilometer (123-mile) border it shares with Russia, a minister said, a move inspired by a similar project in its Nordic neighbor Finland.

“A border fence is very interesting, not only because it can act as a deterrent but also because it contains sensors and technology that allow you to detect if people are moving close to the border,” Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said in an interview with the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK published late Saturday.

She said the Norwegian government is currently looking at “several measures” to beef up security on the border with Russia in the Arctic north, such as fencing, increasing the number of border staff or stepping up monitoring.

The Storskog border station, which has witnessed only a handful of illegal border crossing attempts in the past few years, is the only official crossing point into Norway from Russia.

Should the security situation in the delicate Arctic area worsen, the Norwegian government is ready to close the border on short notice, said Enger Mehl, who visited neighboring Finland this summer to learn about how the entire 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) Finnish-Russian land border was closed.

The Finnish government was prompted to close all crossing points from Russia to Finland in late 2023 after more than 1,300 third-country migrants without proper documentation or visas — an unusually high number — entered the country in three months, just months after the nation became a member of NATO.

To prevent Moscow using migrants in what the Finnish government calls Russia’s “hybrid warfare,” Helsinki is currently building fences with a total length of up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) in separate sections along the border zone that makes up part of NATO’s northern flank and serves as the European Union’s external border.

Finnish border officials say fences equipped with top-notch surveillance equipment — to be located mostly around crossing points — are needed to better monitor and control any migrants attempting to cross over from Russia and give officials time to react.

Inspired by Finland’s project, Enger Mehl said that such a fence could also be a good idea for Norway. According to NRK, her statement was supported by police chief Ellen Katrine Hætta in Norway’s northern Finnmark county.

“It’s a measure that may become relevant on all or part of the border” between Norway and Russia, Enger Mehl said.

The Storskog border station is currently surrounded by a 200-meter (660-foot) -long and 3.5-meter (12-foot) -high fence erected in 2016 after some 5,000 migrants and asylum-seekers had crossed over from Russia to Norway a year earlier.

Norway, a nation of 5.6 million, is a NATO member but isn’t part of the European Union. However, it belongs to the EU’s Schengen area, whose participants have abolished border controls at their mutual borders, guaranteeing free movement of citizens.
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Los Angeles — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.

Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday, family spokesperson Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.

McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given. He was 88.

Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson held by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”

As an actor, he played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a fondness for shoot-out Westerns and cowboy dramas.

He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.

At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, while he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, the ‘man in black’ wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut, and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.

“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”

One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, Performing Songwriter, that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”

Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.

Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Why Me,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do),” “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”

In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.
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Los Angeles — Vice President Kamala Harris is set to rally in Las Vegas on Sunday night as both she and Republican Donald Trump continue to make frequent trips to Nevada, looking to gain momentum in the swing state as Election Day nears.

The rally is part of Harris’ latest West Coast swing, which included making her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking over for President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket. On Friday, the vice president walked alongside a towering, rust-colored border wall fitted with barbed wire in Douglas, Arizona, and met with federal authorities.

She attended a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday and had plans for a Sunday event in Los Angeles before heading to Nevada, with a return to Washington set for Monday night.

“This race is as close as it could possibly be,” she said Saturday to a raucous crowd of donors. “This is a margin-of-error race.”

Harris said even if there is enthusiasm, she’s running like an underdog. And she invited people to “join our team in battleground states” to help get voters to the polls — even if it’s Californians making calls from home.

On Sunday, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake became the latest prominent Republican to endorse Harris and Walz. He credited them with a “fine character and love of country” and said he wants a president who does not treat political adversaries as enemies or try to subvert the will of voters.

Flake, a longtime critic of the former president, joins a list of anti-Trump Republicans who have said they will vote for the Democratic ticket, not just refrain from voting for Trump. Among them is Dick Cheney, the deeply conservative former vice president, and his daughter, Liz.

On Sunday, Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor and a sharp critic of Trump, said Harris has yet to earn his vote, though Trump won’t get it.

In Nevada, all voters automatically receive ballots by mail unless they opt out — a pandemic-era change that was set in state law. That means most ballots could start going out in a matter of weeks, well before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Harris plans to be back in Las Vegas on Oct. 10 for a town hall with Hispanic voters. Both she and Republican rival Donald Trump have campaigned frequently in the city, highlighting the critical role that Nevada, and its mere six votes in the Electoral College, could play in deciding an election expected to be exceedingly close.

Trump held his own Las Vegas rally on Sept. 13 at the Expo World Market Center, where Harris is speaking Sunday. Her campaign has frequently scheduled events in the same venue where her opponent previously spoke, including in Milwaukee, Atlanta and suburban Phoenix. During his Las Vegas event, the former president singled out people crossing into the U.S. illegally, saying Harris “would be the president of invasion.”

During a campaign stop in the city in June, Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips received by waiters, hotel workers and thousands of other service industry employees. Harris used her own Las Vegas rally in August to make the same promise.

Fully doing away with federal taxes on tips would probably require an act from Congress. Still, Nevada’s Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, has endorsed Harris.

Ted Pappageorge, the culinary union’s secretary-treasurer, said the difference between the dueling no-taxes-on-tips proposals is that Harris has also pledged to tackle what his union calls “sub-minimum wage,” where employers pay service industry workers small salaries and meet minimum wage thresholds by expecting employees to supplement those with tips.

Harris has no public schedule for Tuesday, when her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, squares off against Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance for the first and only vice presidential debate of the campaign. But Harris and Walz will campaign jointly on Wednesday, making a bus tour with various stops through central Pennsylvania.

The campaign says that during that swing, both will emphasize plans to energize U.S. manufacturing, including by using tax credits to encourage steel production and overhaul federal permitting systems to increase American construction.
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Moscow — Russia announced Sunday that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Monday.

The announcement came as Russia has condemned Israel’s “political murder” of Iran-backed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

Mishustin will hold talks with Pezeshkian and First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, the government statement said.

“It is planned to discuss the full range of Russian-Iranian cooperation in the trade and economic and cultural and humanitarian spheres,” Russia said.  

The talks will focus on “carrying out large joint projects in fields involving transport energy, industry and agriculture,” the statement added.  

Western governments have accused Iran of supplying both drones and missiles to Moscow for its war on Ukraine, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Pezeshkian is set to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Russia next month to attend the BRICS summit.

After leaving Iran, Russian Prime Minister Mishustin will attend a meeting in Armenia on Tuesday of the Eurasian Economic Forum, the government said Sunday, referring to a body within the framework of a grouping of former Soviet states.

The statement said the meeting would discuss digitalization, market operations and cooperation within the Eurasian Economic Union, made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

Russia often presents the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as an alternative to Western political and economic groupings.
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Lisbon — Thousands of protesters waving Portuguese flags and roaring the national anthem rallied in Lisbon on Sunday to express their anger at “illegal” and “uncontrolled” immigration.

The demonstrators marched behind banners demanding the “end of mass immigration” and the expulsion of immigrants guilty of crimes, at the protest called by the far-right Chega party, the country’s third-largest political force.

Immigration is “very good” but “rules are needed,” said Cecilia Guimaraes, a 66-year-old teacher whose parents emigrated to Canada. 

“We emigrated legally. That’s how it should happen in a developed country,” she told AFP, complaining of a rise in insecurity she fears is linked to foreign arrivals.

Chega lawmaker Rui Afonso said Portugal and other European countries were unable to control entries, which generated a “feeling of insecurity” because “we don’t know their past.”

Afonso added that European nations were ill-equipped to “decently” take in immigrants who were sometimes “forced to live on the street and fall into crime.”

Among the protesters was Chega leader Andre Ventura, whose party more than quadrupled its seats at this year’s election.

Tensions surfaced as the market approached working-class neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Some protesters engaged in a standoff with pro-immigration activists in favor of a Portugal open to foreigners.

Posters reading “No Portugal without immigrants” also covered walls and bus stops along the route of the march.

The number of foreigners living in Portugal jumped by 33.6 percent last year to reach more than one million, about one-tenth of the total population, according to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum.

The center-right government toughened migration policy in June. It scrapped a measure allowing immigrants to apply for regularization if they could prove they had been working for at least one year even if they had entered the country illegally. 
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Berlin — A man has been arrested after allegedly setting two fires in the western German city of Essen that left 30 people injured and driving a van into two shops, authorities said Sunday. 

Emergency services were alerted to two fires in residential buildings in quick succession shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, police said. The injured people included eight children who were seriously hurt, and two of them were in a life-threatening condition after inhaling smoke. 

Shortly after the fires broke out, a van drove into two shops in the city, causing damage to property but no injuries. The suspect then allegedly threatened people with weapons, but several men managed to push him back with shovels and poles and hold him until police arrived. 

Police said the suspect was a 41-year-old Essen resident with Syrian citizenship. They said the man’s motive appeared to be that his wife had left him, and he targeted houses and shops where people who supported her lived. 

The fire service said that, when it arrived at the scene of the first blaze, smoke was billowing from the entrance of the building and people were calling for help from windows. Neighbors had put up ladders to help people escape, but they weren’t long enough to reach the upper floors. 

The suspect hasn’t commented so far on what happened Saturday but was previously known to authorities for threats and damage to property, police said. Prosecutors were seeking to have him kept in custody on suspicion of arson and attempted murder. 
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KYIV — More than 100 Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russia Sunday, officials said, sparking a wildfire and setting an apartment block alight in one of the largest barrages seen over Russian skies since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense reported that it had shot down 125 drones overnight across seven regions. The southwestern region of Volgograd came under particularly heavy fire, with 67 Ukrainian drones reportedly downed by Russian air defenses.

Seventeen drones were also seen over Russia’s Voronezh region, where falling debris damaged an apartment block and a private home, said local governor Aleksandr Gusev. Images on social media showed flames rising from the windows of the top floor of a high-rise building. No casualties were reported.

A further 18 drones were reported over Russia’s Rostov region, where falling debris sparked a wildfire, said Gov. Vasily Golubev.

He said that the fire did not pose a threat to populated areas, but that emergency services were fighting to extinguish the blaze, which had engulfed 20 hectares (49.4 acres) of forest.

Meanwhile, 13 civilians were injured in an overnight barrage on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia Sunday after Ukrainian military leaders warned that Moscow could be preparing for a new military offensive in the country’s south.

The city was targeted by Russian guide bombs in 10 separate attacks that damaged a high-rise building and several residential homes, regional governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on his official Telegram channel. More people could still be trapped beneath the rubble, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said that the Zaporizhzhia attack had damaged the city’s transport links. “Today, Russia struck Zaporizhzhia with aerial bombs. Ordinary residential buildings were damaged and the entrance of one building was destroyed. The city’s infrastructure and railway were also damaged,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“In total, 13 people were injured, and two were rescued from under the rubble. I thank all the emergency services for their rapid response and providing necessary assistance. The rubble clearing is still ongoing.”

The attacks come after the Ukrainian military warned Saturday that Russian forces may be preparing for offensive operations in the wider Zaporizhzhia region. Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, said that Russia was amassing personnel in this direction.

Ukraine’s air force also reported that 22 Russian drones were launched over the country overnight. It said that 15 were shot down in Ukraine’s Sumy, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, and Odesa regions, and that five more were destroyed using electronic defenses. The fate of the remaining two drones was not specified.
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Washington — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has authorized the military to reinforce its presence in the Middle East with “defensive” air-support capabilities and put other forces on a heightened readiness status, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

“(Austin) increased the readiness of additional U.S. forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.  

The statement did not detail what new aircraft would be deploying to the region. 

“Secretary Austin made clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people,” Ryder added. 
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Puerto de la Estaca, Spain — Rescue teams on Sunday resumed searching for at least 48 migrants who went messing the day before when their boat overturned just as it was being rescued off Spain’s Canary Islands, killing at least nine people.

Hopes of finding survivors were slim as sea rescue teams searched the waters off El Hierro, an island in the Atlantic archipelago.

It is the latest in a series of such disasters off the coast of Africa.

“The search operation is resuming,” Spain’s maritime rescue organisation told AFP.

The 48 are “presumed dead,” Canaries regional president Fernando Clavijo told journalists on Saturday night.

More bodies will likely appear “over the next two, three days,” washed up by the current, he added.

Twenty-seven migrants were rescued and nine bodies recovered after the boat, which had set out from Nouadhibou in Mauritania, some 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) away, overturned off El Hierro.

The tragedy hit when rescuers arrived to assist the migrants after they themselves called emergency services, Spanish officials said.

Migrants rushed to one side of the precarious boat, causing it to tip.

The migrants “had gone two days without food or water”, which may have fueled their panic, Anselmo Pestana, head of the Canary Islands prefecture, told journalists in the port of La Estaca.

Spanish government sources said the boat may have been carrying up to 90 people, instead of 84 as originally announced, which could put the number of missing at more than 50.

This disaster follows the death of 39 migrants in early September when their boat sank off Senegal while attempting a similar crossing to the Canaries, from where migrants hope to reach mainland Europe.

Thousands of migrants have died in recent years setting off from west Africa to reach Europe via the Atlantic aboard overcrowded and often dilapidated boats.

 
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BEIRUT — In Syria, 37 militants affiliated to the extremist Islamic State group and an al-Qaida-linked group were killed in two strikes, the United States military said Sunday. 

Two of the dead were senior militants, it said. 

U.S. Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday, targeting a senior militant from the al-Qaida-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others. They say he was responsible for overseeing military operations. 

They also announced a strike from earlier this month on Sept. 16, where they conducted a “large-scale airstrike” on an IS training camp in a remote undisclosed location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants, including “at least four Syrian leaders.” 

“The airstrike will disrupt ISIS’ capability to conduct operations against U.S. interests, as well as our allies and partners,” the statement read. 

There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory. 

U.S. forces advise and assist their key allies in northeastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, located not far from strategic areas where Iran-backed militant groups are present, including a key border crossing with Iraq. 
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BRUSSELS — Pope Francis on Sunday wrapped up a weekend trip to Belgium, where he faced some of the strongest criticism yet levied during one of his foreign trips.

The 87-year-old pontiff was pressed by high-profile figures at three of the five major events on his three-day visit in unusual and sometimes fierce language for a papal trip.

In a meeting with Belgian dignitaries on Friday, both King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for more concrete action to help survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy. And in later events at two Catholic universities, officials denounced his stance on the role of women in the church and society.

Francis did not specifically mention the criticisms at his last event in Belgium on Sunday, a celebration of Mass at Brussels’ King Baudouin soccer stadium. But the pope did add to the prepared text for his sermon and made a strong condemnation of Catholic clergy abuse.

“There is no place for abuse,” the pontiff said, drawing scattered applause from the estimated 37,000 attendees. “There is no place for the cover-up of abuse.

“I ask everyone, do not cover up abuse. I ask bishops, do not cover up abuse.”

The Belgian tour, which started with a one-day visit to nearby Luxembourg, was Francis’s 46th trip abroad since being elected as pope in March 2013. The visit was meant to focus on the 600th anniversary of the two Catholic universities.

Francis has also faced such criticism on previous tours, especially on the issue of clergy sexual abuse. On a trip to Chile in 2018 groups of demonstrators protested outside his events and Catholic churches were attacked before his visit.

But the pope, leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, is not usually confronted directly in public by political leaders or Catholic officials organizing his events.

Professors and students at UCLouvain, where Francis gave a talk on Saturday afternoon, issued a press release moments after the pope had finished speaking, saying they wanted to express their “disapproval” of his views.

The pope’s speech at the university largely called for global action on climate change, but he also responded to a letter to him from students and professors that had asked about the Catholic Church’s teaching on women.

Francis emphasized that the church, which bans ordination of women to the priesthood, was not run like a corporation. He described women as having “a fertile welcome, care [and] vital devotion.”

The Vatican did not respond to the university’s statement.

Francis apologized on Friday for sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Belgium, saying the Church must “be ashamed and ask forgiveness.” He also held a two-hour meeting with a group of survivors, who pressed him to provide better financial compensation for victims.
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new york — U.S. suicides last year remained at about the highest level in the nation’s history, preliminary data suggests. 

A little more than 49,300 suicide deaths were reported in 2023, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number that could grow a little as some death investigations are wrapped up and reported. 

Just under 49,500 were reported in 2022, according to final data released Thursday. The numbers are close enough that the suicide rate for the two years are the same, CDC officials said. 

U.S. suicide rates have been rising for nearly 20 years, aside from a two-year drop around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. So “a leveling off of any increase in suicide is cautiously promising news,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University public health professor who studies suicide. 

Indeed, there’s reason for optimism. A 2-year-old national crisis line allows anyone in the U.S. to dial 988 to reach mental health specialists. That and other efforts may be starting to pay off, Keyes said, but it “really remains to be seen.” 

Experts caution that suicide — the nation’s 11th-leading cause of death in 2022 — is complicated and that attempts can be driven by a range of factors. Contributors include higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services, and the availability of guns. About 55% of all suicide deaths in 2022 involved firearms, according to CDC data. 

The CDC’s Thursday report said: 

—Suicide was the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10–14 and 20–34, and the third-leading cause for people ages 15–19. 

—Deaths continue to be more common among boys and men than girls and women. The highest suicide rate for any group — by far — was in men ages 75 and older, at about 44 suicides per 100,000 men that age. 

—Among women, the highest rate was in those who were middle-aged, about 9 per 100,000. But more dramatic increases have been seen in teens and young women, with the rate for that group doubling in the last two decades. 

—The overall suicide rate in 2022 and 2023 was 14.2 per 100,000. It also was that high in 2018. Before then, it hadn’t been that high since 1941. 
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WASHINGTON — Fall means it’s time for just about everybody to get up to date on their flu and COVID-19 vaccines – and a lot of older adults also need protection against another risky winter virus, RSV.

Yes, you can get your flu and COVID-19 shots at the same time. Don’t call them boosters — they’re not just another dose of last year’s protection. The coronavirus and influenza are escape artists that constantly mutate to evade your body’s immune defenses, so both vaccines are reformulated annually to target newer strains.

“Right now is the best time” to get all the recommended fall vaccinations, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as she got her flu shot Wednesday. She has an appointment for her COVID-19 shot, too. It’s “the single most effective thing you can do to protect yourself, your family, your community.”

While they’re not perfect, vaccinations offer strong protection against a bad case of flu or COVID-19 — or dying from it.

“It may not prevent every infection but those infections are going to be less severe,” said CDC’s Dr. Demetre Daskalakis. “I would rather have my grandmother or my great-grandmother have a sniffle than have to go to the emergency room on Thanksgiving.”

The challenge: Getting more Americans to roll up their sleeves. Last year, just 45% of adults got a flu vaccination and even fewer, 23%, got a COVID-19 shot. A survey released Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases shows an equally low number intend to this fall.

And the coronavirus still killed more Americans than flu last year.

“Maybe we believe that it’s not going to be me but let’s not take a chance,” said Dr. Michael Knight of George Washington University. “Why not get a vaccine that’s going to help you reduce that risk?”

Who needs a fall COVID-19 or flu vaccination?

The CDC urges both an updated COVID-19 shot and yearly flu vaccine for everyone ages 6 months and older. If you recently had COVID-19, you can wait two or three months but still should get an updated vaccination because of the expected winter surge.

Both viruses can be especially dangerous to certain groups including older people and those with weak immune systems and lung or heart disease. Young children also are more vulnerable. The CDC counted 199 child deaths from flu last year.

Pregnancy also increases the chances of serious COVID-19 or flu – and vaccination guards mom plus ensures the newborn has some protection, too.

What’s new about the COVID-19 shots?

Last fall’s shots targeted a coronavirus strain that’s no longer spreading while this year’s are tailored to a new section of the coronavirus family tree. The Pfizer and Moderna shots are formulated against a virus subtype called KP.2 while the Novavax vaccine targets its parent strain, JN.1. Daskalakis said all should offer good cross protection to other subtypes now spreading.

The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines can be used by adults and children as young as 6 months. The Novavax shot is a more traditional protein vaccine combined with an immune booster, and open to anyone 12 and older.

Which flu vaccine to choose?

High-dose shots and one with a special immune booster are designed for people 65 and older, but if they can’t find one easily they can choose a regular all-ages flu shot.

For the shot-averse, the nasal spray FluMist is available for ages 2 to 49 at pharmacies and clinics — although next year it’s set to be available for use at home.

All flu vaccinations this year will guard against two Type A flu strains and one Type B strain. Another once-common form of Type B flu quit spreading a few years ago and was removed from the vaccine.

What about that other virus, RSV?

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a coldlike nuisance for most people but it, too, packs hospitals every winter and can be deadly for children under 5, the elderly and people with certain high-risk health problems.

The CDC recommends an RSV vaccination for everyone 75 and older, and for people 60 to 74 who are at increased risk. This is a one-time shot, not a yearly vaccination – but only 24% of seniors got it last year. It’s also recommended late in pregnancy to protect babies born during the fall and winter.

And while “your arm may hurt and you may feel crummy for a day,” it’s also fine to get the RSV, flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time, Daskalakis said.

What will it cost?

The vaccines are supposed to be free under Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance plans if people use an in-network provider.

About 1.5 million uninsured adults got free COVID-19 vaccinations through a federal program last year but that has ended. Instead, the CDC is providing $62 million to health departments to help improve access — and states and large cities are starting to roll out their plans.

Call your local health department to ask about options because in many areas, “availability of vaccine at lower or no cost is expected to trickle in over the next couple of weeks,” advised Dr. Raynard Washington, who heads the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, health department.

Check the government website, vaccines.gov, for availability at local pharmacies.
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PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wisconsin — Former President Donald Trump meandered Saturday through a list of grievances against Vice President Kamala Harris and other issues during an event intended to link his Democratic opponent to illegal border crossings.

A day after Harris discussed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump spoke to a crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about immigration. He blamed Harris for migrants committing crimes after entering the U.S. illegally, alleging she was responsible for “erasing our border.”

“I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion,” he said. “We’re going to liberate the country.”

Trump hopes frustration over illegal immigration will translate to votes in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states. The Republican nominee has denounced people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border as “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if elected. And polls show Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.

Trump shifted from topic to topic so quickly that it was hard to keep track of what he meant at times. He talked about the two assassination attempts against him and blamed the U.S. Secret Service for not being able to hold a large outdoor rally instead of an event in a smaller indoor space. But he also offered asides about climate change, Harris’ father, how his beach body was better than President Joe Biden’s, and a fly that was buzzing near him.

“I wonder where the fly came from,” he said. “Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer. We can’t take it any longer.”

Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ Friday event in Douglas, Arizona, where she announced a push to further restrict asylum claims beyond Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year. Harris denounced Trump’s handling of the border while president and his opposing a bipartisan border package earlier this year, saying Trump “prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

“I had to sit there and listen” to Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who puts it on? Fox News. They should not be allowed to put it on. It’s all lies. Everything she says is lies.”

The Republican nominee also intensified his personal attacks against Harris, insulting her as “mentally impaired” and a “disaster.”

Trump professed not to understand what Harris meant when she said he was responsible for taking children from their parents. Under his administration, border agents separated children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in a policy that was condemned globally as inhumane and one that Trump himself ended under pressure from his own party.

Harris, at a rally in San Francisco, told supporters there were “two very different visions for our nation” and voters see it “every day on the campaign trail.”

“Donald Trump is the same old tired show,” she said. “The same tired playbook we have heard for years.”

She said Trump was “a very unserious man.” “However, the consequences of putting him back in the White House are extremely serious.”

At Trump’s event, on either side of the stage were poster-sized mug shots of men in the U.S. illegally accused of a crime, including Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a case Trump cited in his speech.

Wisconsin Republicans in recent days have cited the story of Coronel Zarate’s arrest in Prairie du Chien as more evidence that people in the country illegally are committing crimes across the United States, not just in southern border states. Prosecutors charged Coronel Zarate on September 18 with sexual assault, child abuse, strangulation and domestic abuse. His lawyers declined to comment. 
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VIENNA — Austrians elect a new parliament Sunday with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) aiming to secure its first general election win in a neck-and-neck race with the ruling conservatives that has been dominated by economic worries and immigration.

Having led opinion polls for months, the FPO’s edge over the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) has shrunk to almost nothing as Chancellor Karl Nehammer casts himself as a statesman and depicts his rival, FPO leader Herbert Kickl, as a toxic menace.

Whoever wins will fall well short of an absolute majority, polls show but claim the right to lead a coalition government. Projections are due minutes after polls close at 5 p.m. (1500 GMT), with results being finessed over the ensuing hours.

“What’s at stake is whether the FPO will appoint the chancellor or not,” said Kathrin Stainer-Haemmerle, political science professor at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences.

“Should that happen, then I have to say the role of Austria in the European Union would be significantly different. Kickl has often said that (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban is a role model for him and he will stand by him.”

The Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO, which is critical of Islam and pledges tougher rules on asylum-seekers, won a national vote for the first time in June when it beat the OVP by less than a percentage point in European elections.

An FPO victory would make Austria the latest European Union country to register surging far-right support after gains in countries including the Netherlands, France and Germany.

President Alexander Van der Bellen, who oversees the formation of governments, has voiced reservations about the FPO because of its criticism of the EU and its failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The party also opposes EU sanctions on Moscow, citing Austria’s neutrality.

He has hinted he might thwart Kickl, noting the constitution does not require him to ask the first-placed party to form a government, even though that has long been the convention.

The OVP, which like the FPO backs tougher immigration rules and tax cuts, is the only party open to forming a coalition with the far-right party. Polls suggest they could muster a majority together, but Nehammer says his party won’t join a government with Kickl.

“Ideally I would vanish into thin air for you, but I won’t do you that favor, Mr. Nehammer,” Kickl, 55, said this week when asked if he would stand aside to let his party be junior partner under the OVP.

‘Fortress Austria’

Kickl has relished the role of opposition firebrand but has at times appeared uncomfortable trying to moderate his tone to widen his leadership appeal.

The FPO wants to stop granting asylum altogether and build a “fortress Austria” preventing migrants from entering, even though that would be widely viewed as illegal or impractical.

In his closing campaign speech, Kickl said sanctions against Moscow were hurting Austria even more than Russia, adding, “if you look at Germany, VW for example, the threat of mass unemployment and everything that then spills over into Austria.”

Nehammer has sought to depict Kickl as a conspiracy theorist shouting from the sidelines while he is running Austria.

The 51-year-old Nehammer has since 2021 led a coalition with the left-wing Greens, but the alliance has proved fractious with the economy struggling and inflation worrying voters.

Some voters think Nehammer’s crisis-management efforts against severe flooding that struck Austria this month probably helped him regain ground in the election race.

Susanne Pinter, 55, a Greens supporter in Vienna said the floods had helped Nehammer look statesman-like, as she fretted about the prospect of a far-right victory.

“If the FPO wins … it’ll have bad consequences for women, people of migrant origin and climate change,” she said. 
…

UNITED NATIONS — European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway’s foreign minister said Friday.

Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press that “there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized.”

Eide said many issues need to be addressed, including the security interests of Israel and the Palestinians, recognition and normalization of relations after decades of conflict and the demobilization of Hamas as a military group.

“These are pieces of a bigger puzzle,” Norway’s chief diplomat said. “And you can’t just come in there with one of these pieces, because it only works if all the pieces are laid in place.”

But even if the puzzle is completed, it’s unlikely to gain traction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Eide believes that after decades of failed or stalled negotiations, “we need to take a new approach” to achieving an independent Palestinian state.

To accelerate work on these issues, Eide said almost 90 countries attended a meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s current gathering of world leaders. He and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister co-chaired the session to launch “The Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Palestinian State and a Two-State Solution.”

“We have to see how we can come out of this deadlock and try to use this deep crisis also as an opportunity to move forward,” Eide told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza later Friday.

Norway is the guarantor of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hailed as a breakthrough in the decades-long conflict between Arabs and Jews, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian Authority. Eide said more than 30 years later, Israel’s “occupation” is continuing, and there are no negotiations leading to a final settlement and an independent Palestinian state, which led to Norway’s decision in May to recognize a Palestinian state.

Eide brought up the alliance again Saturday during his address to the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, stressing that “while cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon are most urgently needed, ending hostilities must not be confused with lasting solutions.”

He again called on the 44 U.N. member nations that haven’t done so to recognize the state of Palestine and allow it to become a full member of the United Nations.

And he called on “everyone who can, to help to build Palestine’s institutions, and on regional actors to help embed a political settlement in a broader regional framework.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that his country, the joint Islamic-Arab ministerial committee, Norway and the European Union launched the alliance “because we feel responsible to act to change the reality of the conflict without delay.”

He told the assembly Saturday that the coalition aimed “to promote the two-state solution,” calling on all countries to join the group and to recognize the Palestinians as an independent state.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged all countries to take practical measures “to bring about the free Palestine next to a secure Israel.”

First meetings will be in Saudi Arabia and Belgium

Eide said this new effort is built on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, “but updated to today’s reality.”

The 2002 initiative, endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967. 
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brussels — Pope Francis’ burdensome trip through Belgium reached new lows Saturday when defiant Catholic university women demanded to his face a “paradigm change” on women’s issues in the church and then expressed deep disappointment when Francis dug in. 

The Catholic University of Louvain, the Francophone campus of Belgium’s storied Catholic university, issued a scathing statement after Francis visited and repeated his view that women are the “fertile” nurturers of the church, inducing grimaces in his audience. 

“UC Louvain expresses its incomprehension and disapproval of the position expressed by Pope Francis regarding the role of women in the church and society,” the statement said, calling the pope’s views “deterministic and reductive.” 

Francis’ trip to Belgium, ostensibly to celebrate the university’s 600th anniversary, was always going to be difficult, given Belgium’s legacy of clerical sexual abuse and secular trends that have emptied churches in the once staunchly Catholic country. 

Francis got an earful Friday about the abuse crisis starting with King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander Croos and continuing on down to the victims themselves. 

But it’s one thing for the pope to be lambasted by the liberal prime minister for the church’s mishandling of priests who raped children. It’s quite another to be openly criticized by the Catholic university that invited him and long was the Vatican’s intellectual fiefdom in Belgium. 

Church needs ‘paradigm shift,’ say students

The students made an impassioned plea to Francis for the church to change its view of women. It is an issue Francis knows well: He has made some changes during his 11-year pontificate, allowing women to serve as acolytes, appointing several women to high-ranking positions in the Vatican, and saying women must have greater decision-making roles in the church. 

But he has ruled out ordaining women as priests and has refused so far to budge on demands to allow women to serve as deacons, who perform many of the same tasks as priests. He has taken the women’s issue off the table for debate at the Vatican’s upcoming three-week synod, or meeting, because it’s too thorny to be dealt with in such a short time. He has punted it to theologians and canonists to chew over into next year. 

In a letter read aloud on stage with the pope listening attentively, the students noted that Francis’ landmark 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be) made virtually no mention of women, cited no women theologians and “exalts their maternal role and forbids them access to ordained ministries.” 

“Women have been made invisible. Invisible in their lives, women have also been invisible in their intellectual contributions,” the students said. 

“What, then, is the place of women in the church?” they asked. “We need a paradigm shift, which can and must draw on the treasures of spirituality as much as on the development of the various disciplines of science.” 

Francis said he liked what they said, but repeated his frequent refrain that “the church is woman,” only exists because the Virgin Mary agreed to be the mother of Jesus, and that men and women were complementary. 

“Woman is fertile welcome. Care. Vital devotion,” Francis said. “Let us be more attentive to the many daily expressions of this love, from friendship to the workplace, from studies to the exercise of responsibility in the church and society, from marriage to motherhood, from virginity to the service of others and the building up of the kingdom of God.” 

Louvain said such terminology had no place in a university or society today. It emphasized the point with the entertainment for the event featuring a jazz rendition of Lady Gaga’s LGBTQ+ anthem “Born This Way.” 

“UC Louvain can only express its disagreement with this deterministic and reductive position,” the statement said. “It reaffirms its desire for everyone to flourish within it and in society, whatever their origins, gender or sexual orientation. It calls on the church to follow the same path, without any form of discrimination.” 

The comment followed a speech Friday by the rector of the Dutch campus of the university in which he ventured that the church would be a much more welcoming place if women could be priests. 

The university’s back-to-back criticism was especially significant as Francis was long held up in Europe as a beacon of progressive hope following the conservative papacies of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. 

Pope prays at king’s tomb

Yet Francis toed the conservative line earlier in the day too. 

He went to the royal crypt in the Church of Our Lady to pray at the tomb of King Baudouin, best known for having refused to give royal assent, one of his constitutional duties, to a parliament-approved bill legalizing abortion. 

Baudouin stepped down for one day in 1990 to allow the government to pass the law, which he would otherwise have been required to sign, before he was reinstated as king. 

Francis praised Baudouin’s courage when he decided to “leave his position as king to not sign a homicidal law,” according to the Vatican summary of the private encounter, which was attended by Baudouin’s nephew, King Philippe, and Queen Mathilde. 

The pope then referred to a new legislative proposal to extend the legal limit for an abortion in Belgium, from 12 weeks to 18 weeks after conception. The bill failed at the last minute because parties in government negotiations considered the timing inopportune. 

Francis urged Belgians to look to Baudouin’s example in preventing such a law and added that he hoped the former king’s beatification cause would move ahead. 
…