RIYADMEDIA

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washington — House Republicans unveiled on Friday their legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the month and fund the government into late March, when a new president and Congress would make the final decision on agency spending and priorities for fiscal 2025.

Republicans also added a hot-button immigration issue to the measure by requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when someone registers to vote. Inclusion of the citizenship requirement is a nonstarter in the Senate, complicating prospects for the spending bill’s passage.

Lawmakers are returning to Washington next week following a traditional August recess spent mostly in their home states and districts. They are not close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that will fund the agencies during the next fiscal year, so they’ll need to approve a stopgap measure to prevent a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins October 1.

“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

Bipartisanship urged

But in a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray said avoiding a shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party.

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” Schumer and Murray said.

It is a crime under federal law for a noncitizen to vote, or even register to vote, in a federal election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Johnson’s decision to add the proof of citizenship requirement to the spending measure comes after the House Freedom Caucus called for it in a position statement last month. The group of conservatives, banking on a win by Republican nominee Donald Trump, also urged that the measure fund the government into early next year so Republicans could get more of their priorities in legislation.

Some Republican leaders had wanted to pass the final spending bills by the end of this Congress so that the new president, whether it be Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, could focus more on getting staffed and pursuing their own top priorities rather than dealing with spending disagreements.

Republicans say requiring proof of citizenship would ensure American elections are only for American citizens, improving confidence in the nation’s federal election system. But opponents say the available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in federal elections is incredibly rare and such a requirement would disenfranchise millions of Americans who don’t have the necessary documents readily available when they want to register.

What remains to be seen is what happens if the bill passes the House this week and the Senate declines to take it up or votes it down.

The bill would fund agencies at current levels until March 28, though there’s also money to help cover additional security costs associated with Inauguration Day and $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.
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ASHEVILLE, north carolina — Seth Kaller, an appraiser and collector of historic documents, spreads a broad sheet of paper across a desk. It’s in good enough condition that he can handle it, carefully, with clean, bare hands. There are just a few creases and tiny discolorations, even though it’s just a few weeks shy of 237 years old and has spent who knows how long inside a filing cabinet in North Carolina. 

At the top of the first page are familiar words but in regular type instead of the sweeping Gothic script readers are accustomed to seeing: “WE the People.” 

And the people will get a chance to bid for this copy of the U.S. Constitution — the only one of its type thought to be in private hands — at a sale by Brunk Auctions on September 28 in Asheville, North Carolina. 

The minimum bid for the auction of $1 million has already been made. There is no minimum price that must be reached. 

This copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting that it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people.

Few copies remain 

It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned. 

Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them. They were sent to special ratifying conventions, where representatives, all white and male, wrangled for months before accepting the structure of the U.S. government that continues today. 

“This is the point of connection between the government and the people. The Preamble — ‘we, the people’ — this is the moment the government is asking the people to empower them,” auctioneer Andrew Brunk said. 

What happened to the document up for auction between Thomson’s signature and 2022 isn’t known. 

Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and he oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution. 

The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty bookcase, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book. 

“I get calls every week from people who think they have a Declaration of Independence or a Gettysburg Address and most of the time it is just a replica, but every so often something important gets found,” said Kaller, who appraises, buys and sells historic documents. 

“This is a whole other level of importance,” he added. 

Washington letter

Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet printed front and back is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation’s long-term health. 

“To secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each and yet provide for the interest and safety for all — individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,” wrote the man who would become the first U.S. president. 

Brunk isn’t sure what the document might go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution like this sold, it went for $400 – in 1891. In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record for a book or document. 

But that document was meant to be distributed to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The signed copy being sold later this month was one meant to be sent to leaders in every state so people all around the country could review and decide if that’s how they wanted to be governed, connecting the writers of the Constitution to the people in the states who would provide its power and legitimacy. 

The auction listing doesn’t identify the seller, saying it’s part of a collection that is in private hands. 

Other items up for auction in Asheville include a 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation and a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough, where representatives spent two weeks debating if ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the nation instead of the states.
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A Russian missile strike on the historic Ukrainian town of Lviv on September 4 killed at least seven people and damaged parts of the city’s historic downtown. On Thursday, rebuilding began, even as the city mourned the dead. Omelyan Oshchudlyak reports. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych.
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washington — A South Korean senior official has rekindled debate over the U.S. commitment to that nation’s defense, bringing up the possibility of the U.S. rolling back its nuclear umbrella if former President Donald Trump is reelected.

Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s deputy national security director, said in a Seoul forum Tuesday the reelection of Trump could “weaken a U.S. nuclear umbrella” designed to protect South Korea from North Korean aggression.

“Trump as candidate can be seen as pursuing transactional benefits in terms of the South Korea-U.S. alliance,” Kim said, according to news reports. “It is not unlikely that he would suggest negotiating defense cost-sharing or the deployment of U.S. strategic assets from a cost perspective.”

Skepticism about America’s willingness and capability to protect South Korea from a North Korean nuclear attack has grown among South Koreans as North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs become increasingly sophisticated. A recent poll by South Korea’s Institute of National Unification revealed that 66% of respondents supported the country having its own nuclear weapons.

Concern over commitment

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said Kim’s remarks reflect widespread concern among U.S. allies.

There is a concern that “Trump, if reelected, would pursue policies that will weaken U.S. alliances around the world, including in Europe and East Asia,” Samore told VOA Korean Wednesday via email.

“In the case of Korea, Trump might seek to resume summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un and make concessions that weaken the U.S.-ROK alliance, as he did at the Singapore summit in June 2018,” Samore said. ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the official name for South Korea.

According to the joint statement released after the 2018 summit, Trump “committed to provide security guarantees” to North Korea, while the North Korean leader reaffirmed “commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

“However, I think it’s premature to predict exactly what policies President Trump will adopt toward Korea if he is reelected,” Samore added. “There are too many uncertainties, including, for example, who President Trump appoints for his top foreign policy and defense positions.”

Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told VOA Korean Tuesday via email the South Korean official’s assessment of Trump is justifiable.

“I think the official is correct,” O’Hanlon said, adding Trump could take steps to address this concern. “I do not know if he will.”

‘Treat us properly,’ says Trump

Trump has often complained that U.S. allies do not pay the U.S. enough for bases and troops used in their defense. In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump said, “I want South Korea to treat us properly,” suggesting he would demand that South Korea pay more for the American troops stationed there.

But Frederick Fleitz, who served as chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump White House, told VOA Korean by phone Tuesday that Trump’s reelection is not likely to affect the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Making clear that he was speaking for himself, not for Trump, Fleitz said the former president “was a strong friend of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan when he was in office last time and he’ll be a strong friend again.”

“Why would there be such a big change in a second Trump term when he didn’t do that in the first term?” Fleitz asked. “The second Trump administration, concerning South Korea, will be countering the threat from North Korea and this new axis relationship between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.”

Fleitz stressed there is no evidence to suggest Trump would link the defense cost-sharing with offering a nuclear umbrella, adding discussions on how much South Korea pays for U.S. troops in South Korea will not be a “deal breaker” for the second Trump administration.

“It is an issue that will be resolved among friends,” he said. “The security threats in the region are so severe — I think that’s what the U.S. will focus on.”

Redeployment of nukes

Robert Peters, a fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean Tuesday via email it is “far more likely” that America’s extended deterrence commitment to South Korea would strengthen during a second Trump term.

Peters said a second Trump administration could consider redeploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula, due to the threats coming from North Korea and China.

“I think a second Trump administration would field SLCM-N [nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles] in the near term and potentially reintroduce American nuclear weapons to South Korea as a means to assure the ROK, deter North Korea and strengthen regional stability,” said Peters.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is widely expected to inherit incumbent President Joe Biden’s Asia policies should she win the election.

The Biden administration is not considering the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. In 1991, the U.S. withdrew from South Korea all its nuclear weapons, roughly 100 in number, according to some studies.

“The United States does not assess returning nuclear weapons to the Indo-Pacific as necessary at this time,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement on May 31 in response to a VOA Korean inquiry. “The United States has no plans to forward deploy nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula.”

In April 2023, Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol adopted the Washington Declaration, in which the U.S. declared that its commitment to the defense of South Korea will be backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.

During this week’s high-level security talks between the U.S. and South Korea, the Biden administration reiterated its commitment to defend South Korea with nuclear weapons if necessary to deter attacks from North Korea.

“We reaffirm the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, and that any DPRK [North Korea] nuclear attack on the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime,” Bonnie Jenkins, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security,  told reporters after Wednesday’s talks.

VOA Korean contacted the Trump campaign and asked what Trump’s stance is on the U.S. nuclear umbrella offered to South Korea, but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
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washington — Russia, Iran and China are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races, targeting American voters with an expanding array of sophisticated influence operations.

The latest assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, shared Friday, warns that Russia remains the preeminent threat, with Russian influence campaigns seeking to boost the chances of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

Russian actors, led by networks created by the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, “are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president,” a senior intelligence official told reporters, briefing on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

“RT has built and used networks of U.S. and other Western personalities to create and disseminate Russia-friendly narratives while trying to mask the content in authentic Americans’ free speech,” the official said.

And RT, the official added, is just part of a growing Kremlin-directed campaign that is looking to impact not just the race for the White House, but smaller elections across the United States, with an added emphasis on swing states.

“Russia’s influence apparatus is very large and it’s worth highlighting that they have other entities that are active,” the official said. “Russia is working up and down ballot races, as well as spreading divisive issues.”

Tracking the Russian influence efforts has become more difficult, with U.S. officials saying that there is a greater degree of sophistication and an increased emphasis on amplifying American voices with pro-Russian views rather than seeding social media with narratives crafted in the Kremlin.

“It’s not just about Russian bots and trolls and fake social media persona, although that’s part of it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told VOA Friday.

“We’re not taking anything for granted,” he added. “There’s no question that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has every intent to try to sow discord here in the United States, to try to pump disinformation and Russian propaganda through to the American people, through what he believes were our credible sources, be they online or on television and we have to take that seriously.”

The intelligence officials declined to share additional specifics about Russia’s network of influence operations. But indictments Wednesday from the U.S. Justice Department have shed some light on the scope of the Kremlin’s recent operations.

In one case, the U.S. charged two employees of RT with using fake personas and shell companies to funnel almost $10 million to Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company producing videos and podcasts for a stable of conservative political influencers.

The aim, prosecutors said, was to produce and disseminate content promoting what Moscow viewed as pro-Russian policies.

In a separate action, the U.S. seized 32 internet domains linked to an operation directed by a key aide to Putin. The aim, U.S. officials said, was to mimic legitimate U.S. news sites to spread Russian-created propaganda.

RT publicly ridiculed the allegations while some of the influencers working with Tenet posted statements on the X social media platform saying they were unaware of the company’s links to Moscow.

As for the latest U.S. intelligence allegations, the Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to VOA’s request for comments, though it has described previous accusations as “Russophobic.”

Requests for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns have also, so far, gone unanswered.

But earlier U.S. intelligence assertions of Russian support for Trump have raised the ire of the Trump campaign, which has pointed to public statements by Russia’s Putin supporting Trump’s opponents.

“When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America’s adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond,” national press secretary for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, told VOA in an email this past July.

U.S. intelligence officials, however, said it would be a mistake to put any faith in Putin’s words, including public comments Thursday expressing support for Harris.

The U.S. intelligence community “does not take Putin’s public statements as representative of Russia’s covert intentions,” the senior official said. “There are many examples over the past several years where Putin’s public statements do not align with Russian actions. For example, his comments that he would not invade Ukraine.”

Experts say Iran, China trying to influence results

U.S. intelligence agencies Friday emphasized Russia is not alone in its effort to shape the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, warning both Tehran and Beijing are sharpening their influence campaigns with just about 60 days until America voters go to the polls.

“Iran is making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year’s elections, even as its tactics and approaches are similar to prior cycles,” the intelligence official said, describing a “multi-pronged approach to stoke internal divisions and undermine voter confidence in the U.S. democratic system.

U.S. intelligence agencies previously assessed that Iran has focused part of its efforts on denigrating the Trump campaign, seeing his election as likely to worsen tensions between Tehran and Washington.

U.S. officials last month also blamed Iran for a hack-and-leak operation targeting the Trump campaign, though they said that Iran-linked actors have also sought to infiltrate the Harris campaign.

As for China, U.S. intelligence officials said it appears Beijing is still content to stay out of the U.S. presidential race, seeing little difference between Trump and Harris.

But there are indications China is accelerating its efforts to impact other political races.

U.S. intelligence “is aware of PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempts to influence U.S. down-ballot races by focusing on candidates it views as particularly threatening to core PRC security interests,” the official said.

“PRC online influence actors have also continued small scale efforts on social media to engage U.S. audiences on divisive political issues, including protests about the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote negative stories about both political parties,” the official added.

‘Malicious speculations against China’

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, Friday, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment.

“China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election, and we hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue of China in the election,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.

Liu added that accusations Beijing is using social media to sway U.S. public opinion “are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes.”

While U.S. intelligence officials have identified Russia, Iran and China, as the most prominent purveyors of disinformation, they are not alone.

Officials have said countries like Cuba are also engaging in influence operations, though at a much smaller scale.

And other countries are edging closer to crossing that line.

“We are seeing a number of countries considering activities that, at a minimum, test the boundaries of election influence,” according to the U.S. assessment. “Such activities include lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event they are elected to office.”

Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.
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washington — Shortly after appearing in court for an appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, Donald Trump stepped Friday in front of television cameras and brought up a string of past allegations of other acts of sexual misconduct, potentially reminding voters of incidents that were little-known or forgotten. 

The former president has made hitting back at opponents and accusers a centerpiece of his political identity, but his performance at his namesake Manhattan office tower was startling even by Trump’s own combative standards. At times he seemed to relish using graphic language and characterizations of the case, which could expose the former president to further legal challenges. 

Trump’s remarks came just four days before he will debate Vice President Kamala Harris, with early voting about to begin in some parts of the country and Election Day just two months away. 

Trump is staying in the public eye while Harris prepares for the debate in private with her advisers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That’s a reflection of their divergent campaign styles, with Trump frequently engaging with reporters — often in friendly settings — while Harris has done just one interview and no news conferences since taking President Joe Biden’s place atop the Democratic ticket. 

Trump on Friday repeatedly brought up Harris’ lack of news conferences. But his own comments — in which he talked about the cases against him for more than half an hour without mentioning any campaign issues — threatened to cause him more legal jeopardy. And after convening reporters for what his campaign said was a news conference, Trump walked off without taking any questions. 

Legal team makes arguments

A jury returned a $5 million verdict finding Trump liable of sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. His legal team made its appeal arguments Friday morning. 

Juries now have twice now awarded Carroll huge sums for Trump’s claiming she made up a story about him attacking her in a department store dressing room in 1996 to help her sell a memoir. 

But that hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to make nearly identical statements to reporters. At his news briefing Friday, he said again that Carroll was telling a “made up, fabricated story.” 

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, warned in March after a jury awarded Carroll another $83 million that she would continue to monitor Trump’s comments and would consider suing again if he kept it up. 

Earlier in court, he walked in quietly and passed in front of Carroll without acknowledging or looking at her. 

The former president reacted at times during the proceedings, such as shaking his head when Carroll’s attorney said that Trump sexually abused her client. He periodically tilted his head from side to side, but otherwise sat still and mostly alone. 

A Manhattan jury in May found Trump responsible for sexual abuse. Carroll says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room, but the former president’s legal team says the verdict should be overturned because some evidence that was allowed during the trial should have been excluded while other evidence that should be excluded was allowed. He denies guilt. 

In the midst of running for president and facing a series of other legal cases against him, Trump did not attend the Carroll trial and wasn’t there when the charges were read — though he assailed the verdict as “a disgrace” on his social media site. 

Later Friday, he’s traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, to address the Fraternal Order of Police. 

More than 12 women make accusations

Carroll is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment. She went public in a 2019 memoir. Trump denied it, saying he never encountered Carroll at the store and did not know her. He has called her a “nut job” who invented her story to sell a memoir. 

Trump faces unprecedented criminal and civil jeopardy for a major-party nominee. 

He has separately been convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York state case related to hush money payments allegedly made to a porn actor. The judge in that case is expected to decide Friday whether to postpone Trump’s sentencing. 

Trump has also been ordered to pay steep civil fines for lying about his wealth for years. 

And he’s still contending with cases alleging his mishandling of classified documents, his actions after the 2020 election, and his activities during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — though none are likely to go to trial prior to Election Day. 
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Winder, Georgia — The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school and his father, who was arrested for allowing his son to have a weapon, will stay in custody after their lawyers decided not to seek bail Friday. 

Colt Gray, who has been charged with four counts of murder, is accused of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. His father, Colin Gray, faces related charges in the latest attempt by prosecutors to hold parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. 

The two appeared in back-to-back hearings Friday morning with about 50 onlookers in the courtroom, where workers had set out boxes of tissue along the benches, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some victims’ family members in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal. 

During his hearing, Colt Gray, wearing khaki pants and a green shirt, was advised of his rights as well as the charges and penalties he faced for the shooting at the school where he was a student. 

After the hearing, he was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles. The judge then called the teen back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole. The judge also set another hearing for December 4.

Shortly afterward, Colin Gray was brought into court dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting and answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma. 

Colin Gray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said. 

“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said. 

The charges come five months after Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021. 

The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma. 

The Barrow County hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Apalachee High School shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week. 

Before Colin Gray’s arrest was reported, the AP knocked on the door of a home listed as his address seeking comment about his son’s arrest. 

According to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press, Colt Gray is accused of using a “black semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” to kill the two students and two teachers. Authorities have not offered any motive or explained how he obtained the gun or got it into the school. 

He was charged as an adult in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack. 

A neighbor remembered Schermerhorn as inquisitive when he was a little boy. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team. Irimie, who immigrated from Romania, volunteered at a local church, where she taught dance. 

Colt Gray denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday. Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time. 

The attack was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control but there has been little change to national gun laws. 

It was the 30th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.
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Ukraine has a new foreign minister, one of the latest moves as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embarks on the largest overhaul of his administration since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports on the appointment of nine new ministers in the Cabinet shakeup. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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Music cassette tapes are making a comeback in the U.S, with more than 430,000 sold in 2023 – about five times the number sold just a decade ago. Cassette tapes are especially popular with younger generations who grew up with digital music. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Videographer: Sergii Dogotar
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Warsaw — A Polish court on Friday ordered the arrest of three Belarusian officials accused of illegally diverting a Ryanair flight in 2021 in order to seize a dissident journalist on board. 

Air traffic control officials forced the plane heading from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk after a false bomb alert and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich and his companion Sofia Sapega. 

Following investigations, “the Warsaw regional court announced three arrest orders for three people” involved in the diverting of the Polish-registered plane, the tribunal’s spokeswoman, Anna Ptaszek. 

Poland’s state prosecution service identified them as a former director of the Belarusian aviation agency, a team leader at Minsk air traffic control, and an official from Belarus’s KGB security service. 

The three men are residents outside Poland, but Ptaszek said the court orders “allow prosecutors to seek procedures to pursue them internationally”, Ptaszek said. 

The court said the three face possible sentences of 15 years for diverting an aircraft, on aggravated charges categorizing it as a “terrorist” action. 

Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza cited audio recordings from the Minsk airport control tower on the day of the flight that were leaked by a controller who later fled to Poland. 

In January 2022 a New York federal court charged four Belarusians with “conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.”

The U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization called the diversion “unlawful.” 

The bomb threat “was deliberately false” and was ordered by “senior government officials of Belarus,” it said in a statement in July 2022. 

Protasevich was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023 but was later pardoned after recording a “confession” video that his allies said was coerced. 
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Moscow — The Kremlin on Friday accused the United States of applying unacceptable pressure on Russian media after the U.S. Justice Department charged Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife with schemes to violate U.S. sanctions. 

The two indictments were announced just one day after the U.S. took several legal actions against Russia to combat alleged efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential elections, including charging two employees of the Russian state media network RT and sanctioning RT and its top network editor. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has said Russia is not seeking to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, told reporters that Washington was trying to ensure that Moscow’s own perspective on world affairs was not available to people. 

“Washington continues to try to put pressure on Russia, on Russian citizens, and even on the Russian media, which is engaged in informing both citizens inside our country and world public opinion about what is happening, from our perspective,” said Peskov. 

“Washington does not even accept that there should be options out there for anyone to get news from our perspective.  

This is nothing other than blatant pressure. We strongly condemn this stance as unacceptable,” he said. 

Moscow still grants accreditation to Western journalists to work in Russia, though many have left since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges in March 2023. 

Gershkovich, who denied the charges, was freed in a prisoner swap last month. 

Russia has said it will take retaliatory measures against U.S. media in response to Washington’s moves against RT. 

Asked what those measures would be, Peskov said Russia carefully evaluated the editorial policies of various foreign media outlets and would take those factors into account when making any decisions, on what he suggested would be a case-by-case basis. 

 
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Amy Kellogg — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced Wednesday that he is pardoning another 30 political prisoners, the third such prisoner release in the past three months.

The names of those released were not published, but the country’s most famous prisoner of conscience, prominent opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, is not expected to be included. She was part of the troika of women including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo who ran a united campaign for change against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election.

Even so, Kalesnikava’s sister Tanya Khomich is hoping the recent pardons are a signal to the world that Lukashenko may be ready to bargain for the freedom of other political prisoners in exchange for some sort of concessions.

Khomich also hopes that Luksashenko, who has held power in Belarus for the last 30 years, may be thinking of his own future, and could be open to appeals from Western countries to release the prisoners.

“Luksashenko doesn’t want to be forgotten once peace happens with Ukraine,” Komich told VOA. “He doesn’t want Belarus to be swallowed altogether by Russia either.”

There is mounting urgency in Kalesnikava’s case, because she and Belarus’ highest-profile prisoners have been held incommunicado for nearly 600 days. People close to them say there is a terrifying total blackout on any official details about their conditions.

Kalesnikava, along with Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and others, have been denied letters, lawyer visits and phone calls, according to supporters and families.

But whispers always manage to escape prison walls, and the latest to reach Khomich is that the1.7 meter tall Kalesnikava now weighs under 45 kilograms and is unsure she will make it out of detention alive.

“Just imagine,” Khomich said. “It is the 21st century, we are in the center of Europe and someone is starving. Maria is kept incommunicado. Please don’t let her die of hunger.”

Kalesnikava, who became critically ill in prison from a perforated ulcer, needs a special diet that is not provided for her, according to her sister.

Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to government-in-exile chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, feels equal urgency about freeing political prisoners.

He said the 30 names on the list were serving short terms and were in for more minor “offenses,” such as commenting or liking anti-regime posts on social media. And while he says he is happy about anyone getting out of prison, he suggested the pardons are not a sign that Lukashenko is softening his stance, but simply attempting to clean up his image.

“State propaganda advertises this as a big humanitarian gesture by the regime,” Viacorka said. “It’s Lukashenko’s act before so-called elections next year to show how human he is and that he cares about people, because even his supporters are not happy about the cruel repressions that are taking place.”

Viacorka also said international diplomatic pressure was involved in Lukashenko’s move to pardon the 30 political prisoners, but that domestic public opinion also played a role. He noted that those pardoned will not be entirely “free,” but released from prison and monitored via secret services, with some possibly blocked from leaving the country.

“Most of them were forced to write a pardon letter to Lukashenko and confess to crimes they never committed,” he said. “This is also a form of humiliation for the people, but it also shows Lukashenko very well. He wants people to recognize his power. To humiliate them and make them recognize his power.”

Despite the pardons, Viacorka says the human rights situation in Belarus has deteriorated lately, with jail terms increasing from a few to 10 or 15 years. Political prisoners are forced to wear yellow badges so that other detainees know not to talk to them in the event of a chance encounter.

“They want to break them emotionally,” Tanya Khomich said, noting that her imprisoned sister alternates between an “isolation cell” and a “punishment cell,” describing each as small fetid rooms with hole-in-the-floor toilets. A major difference, Khomich said, is that in the isolation cell, Maria Kalesnikava can have her toothbrush and soap, while in the punishment cell, she is not allowed any personal items.

With repression this intense and the Belarusian KGB vigorously and effectively monitoring electronic communications, Viacorka said, opposition activity is now happening “offline.”

“People meet in private apartments, they distribute samizdat,” he said, describing clandestinely self-published material. “There are plenty of cyber partisans too. Belarus has good hackers.”

According to Viacorka, many of these “cyber partisans” are state employees that secretly help the opposition, which provides Western countries information about what and whom in Belarus to sanction. There are also groups trying to assist Ukrainians and to keep Belarus officially out of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Still, Viacorka said the opposition in exile is actively discouraging people inside Belarus from engaging in any open political activity at this moment of chaos, with war ongoing in Ukraine.

“We shouldn’t sacrifice people lightly while we don’t have clarity,” he said. “Lukashenko makes mistakes. We want to be ready when the moment is right. Right now, we are at the peak of terror.”

And while Lukashenko’s regime has silenced Maria Kalesnikava and other opposition activists by jailing them, the Belarusian people have not forgotten these prisoners, Viacorka said.

Noting the prominent role that women play in the opposition, he added: “I see what they say about woman power. The toxic masculinity of Lukashenko versus the female empathy of our leaders is what makes our movement so sustainable.”
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RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Friday with top United States military leaders and more than 50 partner nations in Germany to press for more weapons support as Washington announced it would provide another $250 million in security assistance to Kyiv.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the meeting of the leaders was taking place during a dynamic moment in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, as it conducts its first offensive operations of the war while facing a significant threat from Russian forces near a key hub in the Donbas.

So far, the surprise assault inside Russia’s Kursk territory has not drawn away President Vladimir Putin’s focus from taking the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, which provides critical rail and supply links for the Ukrainian army. Losing Pokrovsk could put additional Ukrainian cities at risk.

While Kursk has put Russia on the defensive, “we know Putin’s malice runs deep,” Austin cautioned in prepared remarks to the media before the Ukraine Defense Contact Group met. Moscow is pressing on, especially around Pokrovsk, Austin said.

Recent deadly airstrikes by Russia have renewed Zelenskyy’s calls for the U.S. to further loosen restrictions and obtain even greater Western capabilities to strike deeper inside Russia. However, the meeting Friday was expected to focus on resourcing more air defense and artillery supplies and shoring up gains on expanding Ukraine’s own defense industrial base, to put it on more solid footing as the final days of Joe Biden’s U.S. presidency wind down.

Zelenskyy said he would continue to press for the long-range strike capability. “Strong long-range decisions by partners are needed to bring the just peace we seek closer,” Zelenskyy said Friday on Telegram.

Western partner nations were working with Ukraine to source a substitute missile for its Soviet-era S-300 air defense systems, Austin said.

The U.S. is also focused on resourcing a variety of air-to-ground missiles that the newly delivered F-16 fighter jets can carry, including the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, which could give Ukraine a longer-range cruise missile option, said Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, who spoke to reporters traveling with Austin.

No decisions on the munition have been made, LaPlante said, noting that policymakers would still have to decide whether to give Ukraine the longer-range capability.

“I would just put JASSM in that category, it’s something that is always being looked at,” LaPlante said. “Anything that’s an air-to-ground weapon is always being looked at.”

For the past two years, members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group have met to resource Ukraine’s mammoth artillery and air defense needs, ranging from hundreds of millions of rounds of small arms ammunition to some of the West’s most sophisticated air defense systems, and now fighter jets. The ask this month was more of the same — but different in that it was in person, and followed a similar in-person visit Thursday in Kyiv by Biden’s Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer as Zelenskyy shores up U.S. support before the administration changes.

Since 2022, the member nations together have provided about $106 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. The U.S. has provided more than $56 billion of that total.

The German government said Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to meet Zelenskyy in Frankfurt on Friday afternoon.
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Caracas, Venezuela — A U.S. Navy sailor held in Venezuela since late last month was arrested for entering “without any type of document,” the South American country’s attorney general said Thursday.

An American official on Wednesday announced the sailor had been detained at a time of soaring tensions between Washington and Caracas in the aftermath of disputed elections in Venezuela, with the opposition party claiming it can prove were stolen.

In his first comments on the matter, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab said the sailor “entered without any type of document, without any means of subsistence for what he came to do in the country.”

He said the sailor held dual U.S. and Mexican nationalities.

For its part, the Pentagon said the sailor had been in Venezuela on “personal travel.”

“This wasn’t something that was authorized,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.

“The U.S. Navy is looking into this. We’re working with the State Department,” she said, adding that: “Of course, we’d like to see the sailor returned home.”

Venezuela was rocked by protests after President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of a disputed July 28 election, with 25 civilians and two soldiers killed and more than 2,400 people arrested.

The opposition claims it won by a landslide, and the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize Maduro’s claimed victory without seeing detailed voting results.

On Monday, Washington seized Maduro’s plane in the Dominican Republic and flew it to Florida, a move the Venezuelan leader condemned as “piracy” but which Washington said was necessary due to sanctions violations.

The following day, Washington denounced an arrest warrant issued for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and warned of further action against Maduro.

The U.S. State Department has warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela for reasons including crime, unrest and wrongful detention.
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Port-au-Prince, Haiti — During a trip to Haiti on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $45 million in new humanitarian aid for the Caribbean nation, which has been wracked by violence for years.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beijing’s announcement also follows falling birth rates in the country. The number of newborn babies fell to 9.02 million in 2023, and the overall population declined for the second consecutive year. 
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Russia appears to be struggling to find buyers for its liquefied natural gas from a flagship Arctic development after the West imposed sanctions, forcing Moscow to store the gas in a huge container vessel in the Arctic Sea. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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London — The United States announced new sanctions Thursday on ships that transport Russian gas from Moscow’s Arctic LNG 2 terminal in Russia’s Murmansk region.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putin’s flagship

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

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

Earlier sanctions

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

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

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

Kremlin response

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

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

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

Novatek did not respond to VOA requests for comment.

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

The United States is now by far the world’s biggest supplier of LNG, with two-thirds of it exported to Europe.
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