Month: September 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump has arrived in Baltimore, the eastern U.S., majority-black city he recently called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”

Trump was there Thursday to address Republican congressional leaders attending an annual retreat.

Before he left the White House, Trump ignored a reporter’s question about what he would say to the residents of the city, instead saying only that it was going to be “a very successful evening.”

Ahead of the president’s visit, activist groups planned to protest “racism, white supremacy, war, bigotry and climate change,” organizers told The Baltimore Sun.

On Thursday, several hundred protesters lined the route Trump’s motorcade took to the city’s Inner Harbor area, where Trump was to speak.

Trump has denied charges of racism on his attacks on the city and its congressman, Elijah Cummings.

“There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know, that Elijah Cummings has done a terrible job for the people of his district, and of Baltimore itself,” he tweeted in July.

…

With a go-ahead from the Supreme Court, the Trump administration Thursday began enforcing a new rule denying asylum to most migrants arriving at the southern border — a move that spread despair among those fleeing poverty and violence in their homelands. 
  
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security agency that manages asylum cases said the policy would be effective retroactive to July 16, when the rule was announced. 
  
The new policy would deny refuge to anyone at the U.S.-Mexico border who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. without first seeking asylum there. 
 
The Supreme Court cleared the way, for now, to enforce it while legal challenges move forward. 

Previous asylum request is key
 
Migrants who make their way to the U.S. overland from places like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador would be largely ineligible, along with asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and South America who try to get in by way of the U.S.-Mexico border. 
 
Asylum seekers must pass an initial screening called a “credible fear” interview, a hurdle that most clear. Under the new policy, they would fail the test unless they sought asylum in at least one country they traveled through and were denied. They would be placed in fast-track deportation proceedings and flown to their home countries at U.S. expense. 
 
“Our Supreme Court is sentencing people to death. There are no safeguards, no institutions to stop this cruelty,” the immigration-assistance group Al Otro Lado said in a statement. 
 
The Mexican government likewise called the high court’s action “astonishing.” The effects of the new policy could fall heavily on Mexico, leaving the country with tens of thousands of poor and desperate migrants with no hope of getting into the U.S.  

Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan called the Supreme Court’s go-ahead a “big victory” in the Trump administration’s attempt to curb the flow of migrants. 
 
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in statement the policy was important. 
  
“Until Congress can act with durable, lasting solutions, the rule will help reduce a major ‘pull’ factor driving irregular migration to the United States and enable the administration to more quickly and efficiently process cases originating from the southern border, leading to fewer individuals transiting through Mexico on a dangerous journey,” said Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 
  
The American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is representing immigrant advocacy groups in the case, Lee Gelernt, said: “This is just a temporary step, and we’re hopeful we’ll prevail at the end of the day. The lives of thousands of families are at stake.” 

…

Outside observers will not be allowed without permission inside tent courts in South Texas where the Trump administration is processing thousands of migrants forced to wait in Mexico, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The first hearings under the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program began Wednesday in Laredo, Texas. A small number of migrants will have hearings before the tents in Laredo and Brownsville officially open next week.

The “Remain” program, which the U.S. ramped up this summer with Mexico’s cooperation, has been credited by American officials with driving down the number of migrant apprehensions at the southern border, a key goal of President Donald Trump. But immigration advocates say they’re concerned people seeking asylum and other migrants will be denied fair hearings.

Immigration hearings usually open

U.S. officials Wednesday said outside observers including the news media will not be allowed into the tents without permission. Under U.S. Department of Justice rules, immigration court hearings are generally open to the public, though immigration judges can close some hearings for privacy reasons or to protect “the public interest.”

One official said the government might allow potential observers to submit applications “as we move forward.”

The officials briefed reporters under the condition that they not be identified.

In El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, migrants are taken to immigration court and then bused back to the border if authorities decide they must continue to wait in Mexico. But in South Texas, authorities elected to build tents near international bridges on the property of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The tents have a walkway from each bridge that eventually lead to courtrooms with video-conferencing equipment. Immigration judges will hold hearings remotely. The officials said that if attorneys have formally agreed to represent migrants, they will be allowed to attend hearings in person. However, they said outside attorneys who routinely observe immigration proceedings will not be allowed at the hearings.

More than 40,000 waiting

More than 40,000 migrants have been told to wait for their immigration court dates in Mexico since the program went into effect this year.

Many are waiting in Mexican border cities with uncertain access to food and water, under the threat of kidnapping and extortion. While the Department of Homeland Security has pledged not to send people in “vulnerable populations” to wait in Mexico, a Salvadoran woman who was 8½ months pregnant reported that Border Patrol agents took her to the hospital so she could be treated for premature contractions, then forced her to go back to Mexico.

A reporter for BuzzFeed News was denied access to the initial hearings Wednesday in Laredo, as was Ashley Huebner, an attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“Attorneys aren’t jumping to go in and solicit paying clients in these courts,” Huebner said. “They want to ensure that people’s due process rights are being protected, and there’s no opportunity to do that.”

Kennji Kizuka, an advocate with Human Rights First, called the court restrictions a “due process nightmare.”

“It is just another attempt to cover up the flaws in this sham asylum process, a process created to block refugees from finding safety in the United States,” Kizuka said in a statement.

…

Thailand’s Constitutional Court announced Wednesday that it had declined to hear a case accusing the country’s prime minister of violating the constitution by omitting a sentence from the oath of office he and his government took before King Maha Vajiralongkorn. 
 
The issue raised questions about the legitimacy of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government, which took office in July. 
 
Prayuth failed to include the phrase “I will also uphold and comply with the constitution of the kingdom in every aspect.” It was unclear whether the omission was accidental or intentional. 
 
A statement from the court Wednesday said it lacked jurisdiction because the oath was a matter between the executive branch and the king. 
  
It also mentioned that the king had issued a royal message, delivered late last month but dated the day of the oath-taking, that encouraged Cabinet members to perform their duties according to the oath they swore. 
 
The king as a constitutional monarch is supposed to have no political role but holds a great amount of influence. 
  
The court’s decision appeared to preclude further legal challenges of Prayuth’s omission. The lower house of Parliament is supposed to debate the matter on Sept. 18 at the request of the opposition, but the court’s position gives Prayuth’s government ammunition to stave off any political attacks. 

Monarchy’s special status
  
The mention of the king’s note giving moral support to the government helps it defend against criticism, because the monarchy is treated as an untouchable institution in Thailand, where a tough lese majeste law provides penalties of up to 15 years in prison for insulting the royal family. 
 
The case went to the Constitutional Court after the state ombudsman forwarded complaints from two citizens who charged that Prayuth’s failure to pledge allegiance to the constitution was a breach of the charter. 
 
Opposition lawmakers pointed out the omission, and Prayuth responded that the matter was not a problem. The ombudsman’s office said he told them he had completed the oath-taking, without elaborating. 
 
The oath is written into the constitution that was adopted in 2017 when Prayuth headed a military government that took power in a 2014 coup. 
 
He became prime minister again after a general election in March that was held according to laws the military regime wrote to favor its political allies. 

…

Divers on Wednesday recovered the body of the last missing victim of a boat fire off the California coast that killed 34 people.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office announced the end of the search on Twitter, saying it was “relieved to report” the final victim had been found.

Authorities were still doing DNA tests to confirm the identities of seven of the victims.

New safety bulletin

Earlier in the day, the Coast Guard announced it has issued new safety recommendations in the wake of the tragedy near Santa Cruz Island, such as limiting the unsupervised charging of lithium-ion batteries and the use of power strips and extension cords.

The bulletin also suggests that owners and operators of vessels review emergency duties with the crew, identify emergency escapes, check all firefighting and lifesaving equipment onboard, and look at the condition of passenger accommodation spaces for “unsafe practices or other hazardous arrangements.”

The cause of the Sept. 2 fire has yet to be determined. Salvage efforts to recover the Conception, which authorities have said is expected to aid the investigation, resumed this week after several days of weather delays.

Five of the Conception’s six crew members survived and told investigators they made multiple attempts to save people who were trapped below deck.

Criminal, Marine Board investigations

Authorities have said they are looking at several factors in their investigation, including how batteries and electronics were stored and charged. They will also look into how the crew was trained and what crew members were doing at the time of the fire, which erupted in the middle of the night as the passengers slept.

The boat’s design will also come under scrutiny, particularly whether a bunkroom escape hatch was adequate.

The FBI, Coast Guard and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles are conducting a criminal investigation, and the Coast Guard has convened a formal Marine Board of Investigation.

The four members of the board will look into “pre-accident historical events, the regulatory compliance of the Conception, crew member duties and qualifications, weather conditions and reporting, safety and firefighting equipment, and Coast Guard oversight.”

That investigation is expected to take at least a year. The panel will seek to determine the factors that led to the fire, any possible evidence of misconduct, inattention to duty, negligence or willful ignorance of the law, and if any other factors caused or contributed to the deaths.

Coast Guard records show the Conception passed its two most recent inspections with no safety violations. Previous customers said the company that owns the vessel, Truth Aquatics, and the captains of its three boats, were very safety conscious.

Authorities have said 21 women and 13 men from 16 to 62 years old appear to have died from smoke inhalation.

…

The Republican leader of the U.S. Senate repeated Tuesday that he would not commit to bringing gun control legislation up for consideration until the White House comes forward with its own proposal.

“Let’s see if we can actually make a law here,” Senator Mitch McConnell told reporters. “To make a law, you have to have a presidential signature.

“They are working on coming up with a proposal that the president will sign,” he added. “Until that happens, all of this is theatrics.”

Democrats are pressuring McConnell to bring up legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last February that would toughen gun sale background checks by including sales made over the internet and at gun shows.

The White House threatened to veto that bill, saying it would impose “burdensome” requirements on some firearm sales.

Since then, however, President Donald Trump has given mixed messages on whether he might support legislation expanding background checks.

McConnell, who as majority leader decides what legislation comes to the Senate floor for consideration, did not directly respond to a reporter’s question on whether he personally supports expanded background checks.
 

…

Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire are vowing to hold a caucus and primary next year, even as party leaders in a handful of other states have canceled their contests to help smooth President Donald Trump’s path to reelection.

“Under no circumstances will the New Hampshire primary ever be canceled, whether there’s token opposition or a serious contest,” Steve Duprey, New Hampshire’s national Republican committeeman, said in an interview.

“It was never even up for discussion,” echoed Iowa GOP National Committeeman Steve Scheffler in a separate interview. “We’re not going to shut the door on anyone and say, ‘You’re not welcome.'”

At least three Republicans have stepped up to challenge Trump’s claim to his party’s 2020 presidential nomination: former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former South Carolina Gov. and U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh. None of them is expected to generate enough support to defeat — or even embarrass — the incumbent president in the months leading up to the November 2020 general election.

Still, Trump allies on the ground in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas moved in recent days to cancel their 2020 primary contests altogether to eliminate the possibility of trouble. Some said the cancellations were simply a cost-cutting measure, yet they follow aggressive steps by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee in recent months to strengthen Trump’s reelection chances.

Sinister motives?

Canceling primaries is not unprecedented, but it is not common. Republicans and Democrats canceled presidential nominating contests to protect incumbents across 10 or fewer states in 1992, 1996, 2004 and 2012.

Longtime Iowa Republican operative David Kochel, a frequent Trump critic, said he doesn’t ascribe “a sinister motive” to the recently announced cancellations. It’s often a political party’s job to help incumbents win reelection, he said.

“It does lend itself to the whole sinister anti-democratic thing,” Kochel added. “I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”

While polls suggest the overwhelming majority of Republican voters support Trump, some veteran GOP officials were troubled by the decisions to cancel elections altogether, dismissing the cost-cutting motive as spin.

“This was a shady backroom deal where a small group of party insiders made a big decision that stops hundreds of thousands of voters from participating in the process,” said South Carolina Republican operative Rob Godfrey, who previously worked for the state GOP and former Gov. Nikki Haley.

Chip Felkel, another veteran South Carolina Republican operative, cried foul as well.

“What’s the RNC and the Trump campaign afraid of?” asked Felkel, who worked for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential bid. “This to me, no matter how they spin it, suggests there’s weakness they don’t want to reveal.”

At least one New Hampshire Republican official went further.

Fergus Cullen, a former state GOP chairman, said the push to cancel primaries represent the “drip drip drip of autocratic tendencies in the Trump administration.”

“This is the kind of thing that happens in autocratic nations led by dictators,” Cullen said. “One way to ensure that the president of Russia gets 98% of the vote is you don’t allow anyone else on the ballot.”

GOP challengers

The Trump campaign has essentially ignored the prospect of a serious primary challenge when asked. The incumbent president is not expected to accept invitations for traditional primary activities, such as debates.

Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh would say only that “President Trump’s election is in November 2020.”

Trump himself, however, has already given his trio of challengers a derogatory nickname. “The Three Stooges, all badly failed candidates, will give it a go!” the president tweeted over the weekend after Walsh and Sanford formally joined Weld in the Republican field.

Both Walsh and Sanford have begun reaching out to potential supporters in New Hampshire, the state that has emerged as the unofficial staging ground of the GOP’s “Never Trump” movement. Former state party chair Jennifer Horn has become a fierce Trump critic, as have several former Republican officeholders in the state.

Cullen said that primary contest cancellations elsewhere mean that “New Hampshire is the only game in town” for a real Trump challenge.

“If anything, this means that the place to send a message is New Hampshire,” Cullen said. “It already was, but now there’s literally no other options.”

Even in the Granite State, however, Trump is expected to easily beat back primary challengers. And the bar may be high even for those Republicans hoping to embarrass Trump by denying him a significant portion of the vote.

President Barack Obama, for example, won New Hampshire’s 2012 presidential primary with only around 81% of the vote.

Still, New Hampshire Republicans will at least get a chance to be heard. The first-in-the-nation primary can only be canceled by changing state law.

New Hampshire GOP Chairman Stephen Stepanek, who ran the Trump campaign’s New Hampshire efforts in 2016, said he could “never conceive of the New Hampshire primary ever being canceled for any reason.”

The level of enthusiasm for Trump among New Hampshire Republicans “is just overwhelming,” he said. He also predicted that Trump will get “well into the 90s” in the state’s 2020 GOP primary.

“I think they’re going to be very excited to vote for him just to show their support for him,” Stepanek said.

…

Families of the passengers who died in one of the Boeing 737 Max crashes lobbied Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday to slow what they consider a rush to let the plane fly again.

Two of the relatives who took part in the two-hour meeting in Washington said Chao promised that the government will take as long as necessary to ensure that the plane is safe but stopped short of agreeing to an entirely new, top-to-bottom review.

A spokesman for Chao said the department and the Federal Aviation Administration have taken unprecedented steps to understand the accidents and the FAA’s certification of the plane in 2017. One of those steps, he said, included Chao’s appointment of a special committee to review the FAA’s process of certifying planes.

After the meeting, several dozen relatives held a vigil on the steps of the Transportation Department headquarters to mark the six-month anniversary of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302.

They carried pictures of many of the 157 people who died. Another 189 died in the October 2018 crash of a Max jet operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air.

Boeing delivers 18 planes

Separately, Boeing disclosed Tuesday that it delivered just 18 airliners in August, putting the company on pace for its worst showing since 2013. With Max deliveries halted since March, Boeing gave customers 276 planes through August, down from 481 in the same period last year.

Chicago-based Boeing has said it expects FAA approval for the Max to fly again early in the fourth quarter. U.S. airlines don’t expect to use the plane until at least December, and the wait could be longer in other countries because of signs that international regulators will take a slower approach than FAA.

Families call for new review

A group of 11 family members asked Chao to direct the FAA to conduct a completely new review of the Max instead of mainly examining changes Boeing made to flight-control software called MCAS, which was implicated in both crashes. FAA is part of her department.

Chao did not commit to full re-certification but said the FAA will wait for recommendations from a technical review board before it lets the plane fly, according to a department spokesman. The department is also being advised by a review panel that includes international regulators and by the special committee that Chao appointed, but the FAA won’t wait for those reports before deciding whether to approve the Max for flight, the spokesman said.

Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya died in the Ethiopian crash, said those panels and foreign regulators “can go far beyond just reviewing MCAS. Time will tell, but we were encouraged by the meeting.”

European officials have said they will insist on test flights during extreme maneuvers — both with Boeing’s new software and with MCAS turned off — to judge the stability of the plane.

The families also want pilots to train on flight simulators before airlines can resume using the plane. Boeing, which wants to avoid further delays, believes that computer training is adequate for now, with simulator sessions later.

People in the meeting said Chao pointed to the small number of Max simulators, making immediate simulator training less feasible.

Families describe anguish

For about half the meeting, Chao and several deputies listened to family members describe the passengers who died in the Ethiopian crash.

“It was very emotional,” said Paul Njoroge, whose wife, three young children and mother-in-law died in the crash. The family members described their losses “and how their life has been ever since the crash,” he said.

The relatives are planning their next steps.

“We are not going to away until the correct processes are being followed in ungrounding the plane, if it’s ever ungrounded,” Njoroge said.
 

…

New satellite images published Monday by the European Space Agency show an increase in air pollution in the Brazilian Amazon while fires burned in the region last month.

Several maps showed more carbon monoxide and other pollutants in August than in the previous month, when there were fewer fires.

The agency said fires released carbon dioxide once stored in the Amazon forests back into the atmosphere, potentially having an impact on the global climate and health.

Burning continues in the Amazon despite a 60-day ban on land-clearing fires that was announced last month by President Jair Bolsonaro.

Data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research showed the number of fires in all of Brazil has surpassed 100,000 so far this year, up 45 percent compared to the same period in 2018.

Renata Libonati, a professor in the department of meteorology at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University, said that aside from gases, the burning of forests also released particles into the atmosphere, which can lead to an increase in respiratory problems, especially among young children and the elderly.

Particles can be transported by winds in cities that are not immediately close to where the fires are taking place.

“The impact of the fires go far beyond where the forests are burning,” Libonati told The Associated Press.

The lack of rain during the current dry season in the Amazon region makes things worse, she said, as rain can help stop the progress of particle pollution.

…

Barcelona could cut deaths from air pollution and improve quality of life by implementing in full a plan to calm traffic and free up space for residents, researchers said Monday.

The compact Spanish city is home to more than 1.6 million people and is plagued by contaminants and noise largely due to heavy density of traffic, as well as lack of greenery.

A study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), published in the journal Environment International, found the city of Barcelona could prevent 667 premature deaths every year if it created 503 “superblocks” as first proposed.

The superblocks — which keep cars out of designated areas in the city and develop public space in streets — have been complex to roll out, with only six put in place so far.

“What we want to show with this study is that we have to go back and put the citizen at the center of … urban plans, because the health impacts are quite considerable,” said lead author and ISGlobal researcher Natalie Mueller.

As a city with the highest traffic density in Europe, Barcelona also needed to make it easier for people to commute in from the wider metropolitan area by public transport, she added.

The projected reduction in deaths from the superblocks plan would be achieved mainly as a result of a 24% decrease in air pollution from nitrogen oxide (NO2), along with lower traffic noise and urban heat, the study said.

Data released Friday from the Barcelona Public Health Agency showed air pollution accounted for 351 premature deaths in the city in 2018, around the same as in 2017.

Motor vehicles generated the main pollutant, with almost half the city’s population regularly exposed to NO2 levels above the safe limit set by the World Health Organization, the city council said.

From January 2020, Barcelona will implement low-emission zones on weekdays, keeping 125,000 vehicles out of the city.

The city council will also declare a climate emergency including a package of urgent measures to cut down on private vehicle use and boost public transport, among other actions.

It has already extended cycle paths and upgraded its shared bike scheme, while shrinking on-street parking.

‘Courage’ needed

Barcelona City Hall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it aimed to start drafting plans for three new superblocks shortly, as well as launching public consultations for others.

The ISGlobal study found that, besides reducing deaths, a full roll-out of the superblocks project would increase life expectancy by almost 200 days on average per inhabitant, and generate an annual economic saving of 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion).

The superblocks have sparked opposition in some local areas, notably among small traders who fear they could deter customers.

But Mueller said the concept was similar to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, which was initially unpopular but quickly accepted once people realized the benefits.

“Even if they don’t see it in the beginning, often in the end they are quite happy,” she said, noting the need for “courage” in public policy making.

…

The American Medical Association on Monday urged Americans to stop using electronic cigarettes of any sort until scientists have a better handle on the cause of 450 lung illnesses and at least five deaths related to the use of the products.

The AMA, one of the nation’s most influential physician groups, also called on doctors to inform patients about the dangers of e-cigarettes, including toxins and carcinogens, and swiftly report any suspected cases of lung illness associated with e-cigarette use to their state or local health department.

The recommendation followed advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday for people to consider not using e-cigarette products while it investigates the cause of the spate of severe lung illnesses associated with vaping.

Many, but not all, of the cases have involved those who used the devices to vaporize oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis.

CDC officials said some laboratories have identified vitamin E acetate in product samples and are investigating that as a possible cause of the illnesses.

Public health experts have not found any evidence of infectious diseases and believe the lung illnesses are probably associated with a chemical exposure.

Megan Constantino, 36, from St. Petersburg, Florida, quit vaping six days ago after hearing reports of the illnesses and deaths related to vaping.

“It scared me into quitting,” she said.

Like many users of vaping pens, Constantino picked up the device after quitting cigarette smoking three years ago, and said, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

She added, “I threw the last cartridge away. I took a picture of it and I literally cried.”

Constantino said many people who vape have been “on pins and needles” for the investigation results, and she is concerned that the reports of a link to vaping THC may give people an excuse to ignore the warnings.

E-cigarettes are generally thought to be safer than traditional cigarettes, which kill up to half of all lifetime users, the World Health Organization says. But the long-term health effects of vaping are largely unknown.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has faced mounting pressure to curb a huge spike in teenage use of e-cigarettes, a trend that coincided with the rising popularity of Juul e-cigarettes.

“We must not stand by while e-cigarettes continue to go unregulated. We urge the FDA to speed up the regulation of e-cigarettes and remove all unregulated products from the market,” AMA president Dr. Patrice Harris, said in a statement.

Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, which advocates for cigarette smokers to switch to nicotine-based vaping devices, said the AMA should be “ashamed of themselves for playing politics with people’s health and protecting the profits of drug dealers.”

He criticized the AMA for “fearmongering about nicotine vaping products” while not mentioning “the very real risks of vaping illicit THC products.”

Juul Labs declined to comment. Altria Group Inc owns a 35 percent stake in Juul.

…

Nissan Motor Co’s nominating committee will discuss Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa’s resignation and possible successors at a meeting on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Saikawa has expressed his desire to resign from the troubled automaker and is not “clinging to his chair”, the source said, declining to be identified because the information has not been made public.

The Nikkei newspaper earlier reported that Saikawa told reporters on Monday he wanted to “pass the baton” to the next generation as soon as possible. The executive has come under pressure since admitting last week to being improperly compensated.

…

A charity ship run by humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean spent a rainy Sunday searching open waters for a fragile rubber boat overloaded with migrants before finally plucking 50 people to safety not far off Libya’s coast.

The Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking, which is operated jointly by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, sent its own boats to pick up a pregnant woman close to full term, 12 minors and 37 men, all from sub-Saharan Africa.

“God bless you!” one of the men told the rescuers as they passed life vests to the wet and barefoot passengers.

At least two people feeling ill collapsed upon arrival on the Ocean Viking, while three others were soaked in fuel and two were suffering from mild hypothermia. The operation was witnessed by an Associated Press journalist aboard the ship, which found the migrant boat some 14 nautical miles (16 statute miles) from Libya.

The rescue occurred 14 hours after the Ocean Viking as well as Libyan, Italian and Maltese authorities, the United Nations’ refugee agency and Moonbird, a humanitarian observation plane, received an email by Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants. It was an urgent call seeking help for the rubber boat carrying 50 people without a working engine.

The Ocean Viking, which was already in the Libyan search and rescue zone of the central Mediterranean, informed all authorities that it was beginning an active search for the migrant boat. Throughout the morning, the charity ship chased several objects spotted on the horizon, including what turned out to be a floating palm leaf tangled with fishing gear and an empty small fishing boat.

Throughout the morning, the ship tried to contact Libyan officials without success. The AP journalist witnessed at least three phone calls to the Libyan Joint Rescue and Coordination Center that went unanswered.

The blue rubber boat jammed with the migrants was finally spotted on the horizon near a fishing boat at 1:30 p.m. The fishing boat did not respond to radio contact by the Ocean Viking, which then launched its rescue boats.

At 2:30 p.m., the Libyan Coastguard finally answered the phone and the Ocean Viking reported that its crew was in the process of rescuing the migrants.

A European Union plane taking part in the Operation Sophia anti-human trafficking operation flew over the Ocean Viking, the migrant boat and the fishing boat multiple times shortly before the people were rescued.

As required by maritime law, the ship asked Libyan authorities responsible for rescue coordination in that part of the Mediterranean to provide a place of safety to disembark the rescued migrants, but it also made the same request to Italian and Maltese officials. There was no immediate response.

International migration and human rights bodies say Libya is not a place of safety, and Doctors Without Borders does not consider any North African country safe for disembarkation of the migrants.

But for more than a year, migrant rescues performed by non-governmental groups have frequently led to sometimes weeks-long standoffs trying to get European authorities to allow migrants to be landed.

…

World War II veteran Henry Ochsner, who landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day and later received the French government’s highest honor for his service, has died. He was 96.

Family friend Dennis Anderson says Ochsner died Saturday at his home in California City of complications from cancer and old age.

As part of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division — known as the “Screaming Eagles” — Ochsner also fought at the Battle of the Bulge.

In 2017 Ochsner and nine other veterans were awarded France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor during a ceremony at Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Ochsner married Violet Jenson in 1947. He is survived by his wife, their four daughters and two granddaughters. Funeral plans are pending.

…

Bianca Andreescu displayed the same brand of big-serving, big-hitting, in-your-face tennis that Serena Williams usually does. 
 
And now the 19-year-old from Canada is a Grand Slam champion, earning her first such title while preventing Williams from collecting a record-tying 24th. 
 
Andreescu took charge early in the U.S. Open final, going up by a set and two breaks, then held off a late charge by Williams to win 6-3, 7-5 for the championship Saturday night. 
 
“Being able to play on this stage against Serena, a true legend in this sport, is amazing,” said Andreescu, who was appearing in her first major final, while Williams was in her 33rd. “Oh, man, it wasn’t easy at all.” 
 
This is the second year in a row that Williams has lost in the final at Flushing Meadows. This one had none of the controversy of 2018, when she got into an extended argument with the chair umpire while being beaten by Naomi Osaka.   

Still trails Court
 
Williams has now been the runner-up at four of the seven majors she has entered since returning to the tour after having a baby two years ago. The 37-year-old American remains stuck on 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one shy of Margaret Court’s mark for the most in history. 
 
“I’m just so proud that I’m out here and competing at this level. My team has been so supportive through all the ups and downs and downs and downs and downs,” Williams said. “Hopefully, we’ll have some ups soon.” 
 
Andreescu, the first player from Canada to win a major singles title, went up 5-1 in the second set and served for the victory there, even holding a match point at 40-30. But Williams erased that with a forehand return winner off a 105-mph serve. 
 
That launched a four-game run for Williams, who broke Andreescu again to make it 5-all. 
 
“I was just fighting at that point,” said Williams, a six-time U.S. Open champion. “Just trying to stay out there a little bit longer.” 
 
The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd was overwhelmingly supporting Williams, not surprisingly, and spectators got so loud as she tried to put together a successful comeback that Andreescu covered her ears with her hands after one point. 
 
“I just tried to block everything out,” Andreescu said afterward. “I’m just glad with how I managed, really.” 
 
Suddenly, this was a contest. 
 
Or so it seemed. 

Not Williams’ best
 
But as well as Andreescu handled everything — herself, her far-more-experienced and successful opponent, and even the moment — Williams was far from her best, especially while serving. She got broken for the sixth time in the final game. 
 
This was the largest age gap in a Grand Slam final, and it came almost exactly 20 years to the day since Williams won the U.S. Open for her first major title in 1999, a year before Andreescu was born. 
 
Andreescu is the first woman to win the trophy at Flushing Meadows in her main-draw tournament debut in the Open era, which started in 1968 when professionals were allowed into Grand Slam tournaments. She has participated in only four majors in her brief career. 

…

John Walker of VOA’s Afghanistan service contributed to this report. 

WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump says he has called off secret talks that were to be held Sunday at Camp David with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and “major Taliban leaders.” 

Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019

Trump, in a series of Saturday evening tweets, explained he immediately canceled plans for the meeting at the presidential retreat in the state of Maryland following a car bomb blast in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.

Trump said the Taliban carried out the attack “in order to build false leverage.”

The president added that if the Taliban “cannot agree to a cease-fire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then it probably doesn’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight.”

Negotiations to reach a peace agreement have been underway for months between U.S. diplomats and the Taliban, who have rejected calls for a cease-fire.

Stunning announcement

Trump’s tweeted revelation of the planned secret talks and his cancellation of them stunned analysts.

“For months, U.S. negotiators had worked in painstaking fashion to get a deal. They were on the cusp of one. And now, seemingly, a single Trump tweet has yanked the rug from under them,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia program and South Asia senior associate at The Wilson Center.

Kugelman tells VOA he does not think that talks are completely dead.

“Trump is a savvy negotiator and this may well be a ploy of sorts, meant to intimidate the Taliban and get it to scale down violence and come back to the negotiating table in a weaker position,” he said.

A peace deal, which would be expected to see the withdrawal of 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, could end the longest war in U.S. history.

It is estimated 150,000 people — including 40,000 civilians — have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in Kabul for providing refuge to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, who were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Fighters for the Taliban launched fresh attacks on Kabul and two other cities over the past week. The group now controls more territory in Afghanistan than at any other time since 2001.

U.S. officials contacted by VOA following the president’s tweet declined to comment.

The American diplomat leading the effort to reach an accord, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Aug. 31, “We are at the threshold of an agreement that will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable and sustainable peace, and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies or any other country.”

A draft agreement between the American and Taliban negotiators was reached days ago, but a full peace pact hinges on subsequent intra-Afghan talks.

It was known before Trump’s tweets that Ghani had scheduled and abruptly postponed a trip Saturday to the United States.

Analysts in Kabul had told VOA that it was a signal that the government there was not happy with the U.S.-Taliban peace deal and that there were differences in finding common ground on the process between Kabul and Washington.

…

China urged U.S.-led foreign troops Saturday to withdraw from Afghanistan in an “orderly and responsible” manner if a prospective peace deal is signed with the Islamist Taliban to end the 18-year war.

U.S. negotiators are in the final stage of their yearlong bilateral dialogue with the insurgent group. The peace process, being hosted by Qatar, could end America’s longest overseas military intervention.

“We call on the United States and the Taliban to continue with the negotiations and to implement the agreement after it is signed,” visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in neighboring Pakistan.

The top Chinese diplomat spoke after attending a trilateral dialogue with Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani and their host and Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

“In particular, we call on them [the U.S. and Taliban] to make good on their commitments regarding the troop drawdown and counterterrorism efforts so that the seeds of peace can be sown and take root,” Wang said. He reiterated China’s resolve to increase its economic and political engagement with Afghanistan to help in rebuilding efforts there.

Draft framework agreement ‘in principle’

U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said Monday that he had reached “in principle” a draft framework agreement with the Taliban. The document outlines a foreign troop drawdown timetable in return for Taliban assurances they will not harbor transnational terrorist groups that threaten U.S. and allied nations.

Khalilzad, however, said the agreement would have to be reviewed and approved by U.S. President Donald Trump before it was signed.

Khalilzad explained the deal would require 5,000 American forces to immediately withdraw from five Afghan bases within the first 135 days, but he did not discuss the fate of the residual U.S. military force of roughly 8,600 service members.

Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen told VOA this week, without elaborating, that all U.S. troops and their NATO allies would have to leave Afghanistan under the deal. Some reports said that could happen by the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

China’s Wang, however, cautioned against a hasty foreign troop withdrawal.

“The situation in Afghanistan is now at a critical stage. The withdrawal of foreign troops needs to be conducted in an orderly and responsible manner in order to ensure the smooth transition of the situation in Afghanistan,” Wang said.

Beijing’s increased regional involvement stems from concerns that fugitive anti-China militants could exploit continued instability in the neighboring country to threaten fragile security in western Chinese border regions.

Khalilzad has said the Taliban would also be bound under the deal to engage in peace negotiations with Afghan officials and other members of the turmoil-ridden Afghan society to discuss a cease-fire and the country’s political future.

But the Taliban refuse to engage in direct talks with the Afghan government, rejecting it as an American puppet.

Urged engagement

Wang supported U.S. calls for the insurgents to commit themselves to engaging in talks with government officials and other Afghan stakeholders to build a framework for intra-Afghan negotiations on a political arrangement that is acceptable to all parties in the event of foreign troop drawdown.

Afghanistan’s Rabbani, while addressing reporters, reiterated Kabul’s worries that the framework agreement Washington has reached with the Taliban could encourage the insurgents to try to militarily seize control of power if foreign forces leave the country.

“As the peace efforts continue, the Taliban have yet to show genuine commitment to peace. This is manifested by their decision to continue terrorist attacks, killing innocent Afghans from all walks of life on a daily basis,” Rabbani said.

The Taliban have intensified attacks across the country in recent days, killing scores of Afghan forces and bringing more territory under their control. The insurgents maintain that cessation of hostilities is not being discussed with the U.S., saying the issue will be on the agenda when intra-Afghan negotiations begin as an outcome of the deal with Washington.

China established the trilateral dialogue forum in 2017 with a mission to ease tensions between its two neighbors, Afghanistan and Pakistan, through increased bilateral security, political and economic cooperation. The tensions stem from long-running Afghan allegations that the Taliban leadership directs insurgent activities from alleged sanctuaries on Pakistani soil.

Islamabad rejects the charges, saying for the past decade its security forces have eliminated all militant infrastructures on the Pakistani side of the long, porous Afghan border. Pakistan also takes credit for arranging the ongoing U.S.-Taliban dialogue.

Pakistan’s Qureshi said Saturday that his country hoped the framework agreement being finalized between the U.S. and Taliban would lead to intra-Afghan negotiations for a sustainable and durable peace.

“In order for Pakistan to be peaceful, Afghanistan has to be peaceful,” Qureshi said. “We have undertaken serious [security] operations to clear our areas from terrorist activity … and there is international recognition for it.”

…

An American Airlines mechanic was ordered temporarily detained Friday after he was charged with purposely damaging an aircraft in July amid a dispute between the airline and its mechanics union involving stalled contract negotiations.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani will remain in custody pending a hearing Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Federal prosecutors are requesting he be detained pending trial.

Takeoff aborted

Pilots of a flight from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas, July 17 aborted takeoff plans after receiving an error message involving the flight computer, which reports speed, pitch and other data, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Miami.

It said after returning to the gate for maintenance, a mechanic discovered a loosely connected pitot tube, which measures airspeed and connects directly to the flight computer.

A later review of video surveillance footage before the flight captured “what appears to be the sabotage of the aircraft” by a man walking with a limp, the complaint said.

Union contract

When Alani was interviewed, he told law enforcement he was upset at the stalled contract between the union and American, which he said had affected him financially, according to the complaint. It said Alani claimed to have tampered with the aircraft to cause a delay or have the flight canceled in anticipation of obtaining overtime work.

Unions have complained that American is trying to outsource more maintenance jobs, a move American has indicated is necessary to cover increased wages.

In a statement Friday, American said it was scheduled to resume negotiations with its mechanics union at the National Mediation Board in Washington Sept. 16.

A U.S. federal court last month issued a permanent injunction against American’s mechanics union, which the airline had accused of illegal slowdowns it said had devastated its operations during the peak summer travel season.

Passengers continued safely

A spokesman for American said the airline had an “unwavering commitment” to safety and security and had placed passengers on the July 17 flight on another plane to get to their destination.

“At the time of the incident, the aircraft was taken out of service, maintenance was performed and after an inspection to ensure it was safe the aircraft was returned to service,” the spokesman said. “American immediately notified federal law enforcement, who took over the investigation with our full cooperation.”

Court records do not indicate whether Alani had an attorney.

The U.S. federal court order last month prohibits employees from “calling, permitting, instigating, authorizing, encouraging, participating in, approving, or continuing any form of disruption to or interference with American’s airline operations,” including a refusal to accept overtime or complete any maintenance repairs in the normal course of work.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida on Friday wrote on Twitter that on two days last week he had American flights canceled at the last minute because of mechanical issues and “now we learn an American mechanic was caught sabotaging planes due to labor dispute.” He added he wants mechanics to get a fair contract.

…

The announcement of John Lansing’s resignation as CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media is renewing questions about the mission and direction of the broadcasters it oversees.

The USAGM directly manages five international news entities, including Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America. Combined, the USAGM broadcasters transmit in 61 languages and have an unduplicated weekly audience of 345 million.

Lansing, 62, a veteran cable TV executive, was named CEO of USAGM in 2015 and has now served under two presidents. He will formally leave the agency at the end of September and start in mid-October as CEO of the domestic National Public Radio network.

“John Lansing is going to leave behind a really remarkable legacy,” said Amanda Bennett, director of the Voice of America. “He really focused USAGM on issues of a free and independent press. That’s going to be his legacy. That, and his sunny disposition.”

Trump nominee

President Donald Trump has nominated documentary filmmaker Michael Pack to replace Lansing. Pack, a senior fellow and former president at the Claremont Institute in California, has collaborated on film projects with former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon.

Pack’s name was sent to the Senate in January but has been stuck in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Efforts to reach committee Chairman Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, and ranking member Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, were unsuccessful.

Pack could become the CEO in one of two ways: by Senate approval or appointment by the advisory Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan panel that includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pack’s nomination sparked debate about Trump’s intentions for the agency, as has the president’s own words and repeated criticism of the U.S. media.

On Twitter last November, Trump complained about unfair coverage by CNN and mused, “Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”

A few days later, Bennett published an op-ed in The Washington Post stating that such a network already existed: VOA.

Under VOA’s charter, its journalists are required to report “accurate, objective and comprehensive” news. Other legal provisions, collectively known as the “firewall,” protect VOA journalists from political interference in their work.

“Whoever the next CEO is, they need to look at the history of the agency,” said Danforth Austin, a former reporter and executive at The Wall Street Journal who served as VOA director from 2006 to 2011.

Changed focus

Austin said that during WWII, and then the Cold War, VOA and the other U.S.-funded news entities were largely a propaganda tool. But from the 1960s on, they transformed into solid journalistic organizations with a mandate to provide balanced and independent news.

“There are all kinds of different groups with different ideas of what we should or shouldn’t be broadcasting,” Austin said. “I recall getting calls from the State Department saying, ‘You can’t do that!’ I would always politely suggest they call the secretary of state and hang up the phone.”

“Propaganda or news, you have to decide, ‘What’s the most effective approach?’ ” he added.

Representative Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Although he has no vote in the Senate, his committee wields influence on Capitol Hill over USAGM.

Engel praised Lansing on Friday for putting the USAGM’s networks “ … on a path toward becoming modern, effective news organizations providing unbiased information in some of the world’s most closed media spaces.”

But he said that if the Senate does not confirm Pack in a timely manner, the BBG should exercise its power and appoint someone.

“The existing Board of Governors retains the power to name a replacement. I urge the board to do so immediately, as we can’t predict when the Senate may act on the president’s nominee. This is too important a job to be left vacant for even a day,” he added.

The USAGM has its share of critics. Engel’s predecessor, former Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican, has called it a “broken agency.” Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state, said the agency was “practically defunct in terms of its capacity to tell a message around the world.”

Bennett and Austin attributed audience growth under Lansing to a focus on independent and unbiased news coverage. In 2018, USAGM’s audience expanded 24%, a record.

“Sixty percent of our audience around the world believes us and trusts us,” Bennett said. “John’s focus on editorial independence is what must carry on if we’re not to squander that trust built up over the years.”

…

Eight-and-a-half-months pregnant and experiencing contractions, a Salvadoran woman who had crossed the Rio Grande and was apprehended by the Border Patrol was forced to go back to Mexico.

Agents took her to the hospital, where doctors gave her medication to stop the contractions. And then, according to the woman and her lawyer, she was almost immediately sent back to Mexico.

There, she joined the more than 38,000 people forced to wait across the border for immigration court hearings under a rapidly expanding Trump administration policy. And her plight highlights the health risks and perils presented by the “Remain in Mexico” program.

The woman was waiting Thursday with her 3-year-old daughter in a makeshift tent camp in Matamoros, Mexico, next to an international bridge, due to give birth any day, said her attorney, Jodi Goodwin.

“She’s concerned about having the baby in the street or having to have the baby in a shelter,” Goodwin said.

Pregnant women face special hazards in Mexico because places where migrants wait to enter the U.S. often don’t have access to regular meals, clean water and medical care.

Many shelters at the Mexico border are at or above capacity, and some families have been sleeping in tents or on blankets in the blistering summer heat. Reports have abounded of migrants being attacked or kidnapped in Mexican border cities, especially in Tamaulipas state across from South Texas, where the Salvadoran mother is waiting for a November court date.

The Associated Press is not identifying the woman from El Salvador because she fears for her safety.

The U.S. government does not automatically exempt pregnant women from the “Remain in Mexico” program. U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the woman’s case.

The program, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, was instituted by the U.S. and Mexico as a way of deterring migrants from crossing the border to seek asylum. Mexico has cooperated with the expansion of the program at the behest of President Donald Trump, who threatened crippling tariffs in June if Mexico did not do more to stop migrants.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said people in “vulnerable populations” may be exempt from being sent to Mexico. But pregnant women are not necessarily considered vulnerable by CBP, a subsidiary of the department.

“In some cases, pregnancy may not be observable or disclosed, and may not in and of itself disqualify an individual from being amenable for the program,” CBP said in a statement. “Agents and officers would consider pregnancy, when other associated factors exist, to determine amenability for the program.”

Goodwin provided copies of the 28-year-old woman’s immigration paperwork and the bracelet from when she was admitted to Valley Regional Medical Center.

“In this particular case, this woman was actually taken to the hospital by CBP,” she said. “There’s no way that CBP could suggest that her pregnancy wasn’t known.”

The paperwork instructs her to return to Brownsville on Nov. 14 for a court hearing.

The U.S. government is establishing temporary tent courtrooms in Brownsville and Laredo, Texas, where immigration judges from around the U.S. will hear migrants’ cases by video. The hearings will start in those cities later this month.

The woman’s notice lists her address as a migrant shelter in Matamoros several miles from the primary international bridge near the camp where she is staying. Goodwin says she has never been to that shelter.

There are at least six cases of pregnant women border-wide who have been sent back to Mexico, according to U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat who recently sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general demanding an investigation into the issue. Goodwin also represents a woman from Peru who was seven months pregnant when border agents allowed her to enter, only to send her back to Mexico the next day.

Mexico offers limited health coverage to people regardless of nationality that includes some of the screenings a pregnant woman needs, said Lina Villa, a Mexico-based health official for Doctors Without Borders. But many migrants don’t know that they can get that coverage, she said.

As their deliveries near, many migrant women aren’t sure whether they’ll have access to a hospital and if they will need surgery, Villa said. They are worried about their child being born in Mexico instead of the U.S. and what that might mean for their prospects of eventually entering the U.S., she said.

“It’s a very, very difficult group of people that needs a lot of help, and they don’t get enough,” she said.

…

Hundreds of homes were evacuated and schools closed Thursday as crews battled a stubborn wildfire churning through heavy brush in Southern California.

The blaze near the Riverside County city of Murrieta and unincorporated community of La Cresta grew to more than 2 square miles (5.4 square kilometers) and was 7% contained, authorities said.

There were no reports of structure losses.

“There’s lots of heavy fuel in very steep terrain that we can’t get to on foot,” said Capt. Fernando Herrera with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Aircraft were making continuous drops of water and retardant, he said.  

More than 480 homes were in the mandatory evacuation zone and another 2,270 are under voluntary evacuation orders, according to Herrera.

The blaze erupted Wednesday afternoon on rural land and erratic winds quickly pushed flames down hills toward homes about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.

The cause may have been a lightning strike as hot, muggy weather produced thunderstorms. Those conditions will continue into Friday, the National Weather Service said.

It’s one of a number of fires burning around the state. There’s very little containment of a 1.5-square-mile (3.9-square-kilometer) blaze in rural forest land along the northern Sierra Nevada in Plumas County.  

…

Nearly three-quarters of Americans see weather disasters, like Hurricane Dorian, worsening and most of them blame global warming to some extent, a new poll finds. 

And scientists say they’re right. 

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey shows 72% of Americans think catastrophic weather is more severe, while 4% see it as less nasty. About one-quarter say those disasters are about as extreme as they always were. 

Half of those who think weather disasters are worsening say it’s mainly because of man-made climate change, with another 37% who think natural randomness and global warming are equally to blame. 

The poll was conducted in mid-August before Dorian formed, pummeled the Bahamas and put much of the U.S. East Coast on edge. 

“We continue to loot our environment and it causes adverse weather,” said John Mohr, 57, a self-described moderate Republican in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he was bracing for Dorian’s arrival. 

On Tybee Island, Georgia, Tony and Debbie Pagan said they rarely worried about hurricanes after buying their home nearly 50 years ago. 

Hurricane David in 1979 and Floyd in 1999 threatened them but did little damage. The last four years haven’t been so kind. 

One miss, but two hits

Hurricane Matthew raked the island in 2016 and pushed several inches of floodwater into the Pagans’ low-lying house. Hurricane Irma the following year sent 2 feet of water surging into the home. And this year Hurricane Dorian threatened, but didn’t hit. 

“This is climate change, though President Trump denies that it is,” Tony Pagan, 69, a retired electrician, said as he and his wife finished packing to leave Wednesday. “He needs to open his eyes.” 

Majorities of adults across demographic groups think weather disasters are getting more severe, according to the poll. College-educated Americans are slightly more likely than those without a degree to say so, 79% versus 69%. 

But there are wide differences in assessments by partisanship. Nine in 10 Democrats think weather disasters are more extreme, compared with about half of Republicans. 

Americans this summer also are slightly more likely to say disasters are more severe when compared with a similarly worded question asked after hurricanes in 2013 and 2017.  

“People are catching up with the science! Extreme events are always partly due to natural variability, but we do think many are increasing in frequency because of climate change,” Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said in an email. 

Heat, rain

It’s more than hurricanes. A recent U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that heat waves are happening more often, are nastier and last longer, while heavy downpours are increasing globally, said NASA and Columbia University climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig. 

Chris Dennis, 50, a registered nurse and self-described liberal Democrat in Greenville, South Carolina, said he is seeing more intense and more frequent weather disasters than in the past. 

“Years ago, we didn’t hear of these kinds of storms, at least that frequently,” Dennis said, taking a break from watching the CNN forum on climate change for Democratic presidential candidates. He said he kept noticing the damning statistics on carbon dioxide put in the air, saying the “numbers are cranking up like the national debt clock … that’s pretty significant, what we’re doing to our environment.”  

Scientific studies indicate a warming world has slightly stronger hurricanes, but they don’t show an increase in the number of storms hitting land, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said. He said the real climate change effect causing more damage is storm surge from rising seas, wetter storms dumping more rain and more people living in vulnerable areas. 

Skeptic

Not everyone sees climate change making weather worse. 

Though she’s weary of dealing with storms three of the past four years, Sandy Cason of Tybee Island said she’s not ready to blame climate change. She noted Georgia got hit by several powerful hurricanes in the 1800s. 

“If you go back and read, it’s a cyclical thing. It really is,” Cason said. “If you read enough about the old storms, I don’t think you can” attribute the most recent storms to climate change. 

The AP-NORC poll of 1,058 adults was conducted Aug. 15-18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone. 

…

Technology firms and academics have joined together to launch a “deepfake challenge” to improve tools to detect videos and other media manipulated by artificial intelligence.

The initiative announced Thursday includes $10 million from Facebook and aims to curb what is seen as a major threat to the integrity of online information.

The effort is being supported by Microsoft and the industry-backed Partnership on AI and includes academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, University of Oxford, University of California-Berkeley, University of Maryland and University at Albany.

Tool to detect altered video

It represents a broad effort to combat the dissemination of manipulated video or audio as part of a misinformation campaign.

“The goal of the challenge is to produce technology that everyone can use to better detect when AI has been used to alter a video in order to mislead the viewer,” said Facebook chief technical officer Mike Schroepfer.

Schroepfer said deepfake techniques, which present realistic AI-generated videos of people doing and saying fictional things, “have significant implications for determining the legitimacy of information presented online. Yet the industry doesn’t have a great data set or benchmark for detecting them.”

The challenge is the first project of a committee on AI and media integrity created by the Partnership on AI, a group whose mission is to promote beneficial uses of artificial intelligence and is backed by Apple, Amazon, IBM and other tech firms and non-governmental organizations.

Threat to democracy

Terah Lyons, executive director of the Partnership, said the new project is part of an effort to stem AI-generated fakes, which “have significant, global implications for the legitimacy of information online, the quality of public discourse, the safeguarding of human rights and civil liberties, and the health of democratic institutions.”

Facebook said it was offering funds for research collaborations and prizes for the challenge, and would also enter the competition, but not accept any of the prize money.

Oxford professor Philip Torr, one of the academics participating, said new tools are “urgently needed to detect these types of manipulated media.

“Manipulated media being put out on the internet, to create bogus conspiracy theories and to manipulate people for political gain, is becoming an issue of global importance, as it is a fundamental threat to democracy,” Torr said in a statement.
 

…

China may be a “new road” for North Korea if diplomacy with the United States fails, experts say.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a senior North Korean official Wednesday in Pyongyang during a three-day visit that began Monday, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Wang told Ri Su Yong, vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, that China’s prosperity cannot be impeded by any country, apparently referring to the U.S., with which Beijing has been involved in an ongoing trade dispute.

Wang said Beijing and Pyongyang should bolster cooperation and protect their mutual interests as Ri expressed hope for close ties, according to the ministry.

The Chinese diplomat also met Tuesday with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, and Ri said North Korea is willing to work with China to develop relations in the “new era.”

Wang’s trip to Pyongyang is widely believed to be in part preparation for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Reconciliation

Kim and Xi held their first summit in March 2018, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s landmark Singapore summit in June 2018, and have stepped up diplomacy in an apparent move to repair their relationship. Kim and Xi have met five times since the first summit.

Relations between the two historical East Asian allies soured when Kim took power in 2011 and began testing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. In response to North Korea’s weapons tests in 2016 and 2017, Xi supported U.S.-led sanctions against the country.

Wang’s visit to Pyongyang came as North Korea’s first Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said on Saturday that expectations for talks with the U.S. are fading.  Talks between Pyongyang and Washington have stalled since the breakdown of the Hanoi summit in February, where Kim failed to secure sanctions relief from Trump.

Ken Gause, director of the adversary analytics program at CNA, told VOA in an email, “There is a good chance that what Kim Jong Un meant by his end-of-the-year promise to go in a different direction is that North Korea intends to move closer to China.”

Kim said during his 2019 New Year’s Day speech that he was willing to seek a “new path” if the U.S. continued to force sanctions on North Korea. In April, Pyongyang said it would give the U.S. until the end of the year to become more flexible, and later reiterated its threat to pursue a “new road” if the U.S. and South Korea conducted scheduled military drills, which the two allies carried out in August.

“Expect Kim to continue efforts to ease sanctions and build friendlier ties with China, Russia and other willing countries,” Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said in an email to VOA about the China-North Korea meetings.

Manning thinks Wang’s visit is an attempt to “bolster ties with Pyongyang as a safeguard against provocative North Korean behavior and to position [itself] when current U.S. diplomatic efforts [with North Korea] grind to a halt.”

Common interests

According to Gary Samore, a senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center’s Korea Project, Beijing and Pyongyang share interests in boosting their ties, including removing U.S. troops from South Korea and disrupting Washington’s alliance with Seoul and Tokyo.

“On this issue of the U.S. alliance in the [East Asia] region, both North Korea and China have the same interest,” Samore said. “They want to remove a U.S. military presence in East Asia, not just in South Korea but in Japan as well … and eventually destroy the U.S. alliance system with South Korea and Japan. Unfortunately, President Trump is doing a lot of damage without China having to do anything. Trump is basically acting in a way that China finds very positive.”

In August, Trump said South Korea “agreed to pay substantially more money to the U.S. in order to defend itself from North Korea.” He often said South Korea should pay more to keep about 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, an idea that South Korea rejects.

Differences over cost-sharing for keeping the U.S. military in South Korea have apparently been exacerbated by Seoul’s decision in August to end an intelligence-sharing pact through which it agreed to share sensitive military information with Tokyo.

Seoul’s decision generated U.S. criticism because the withdrawal could complicate U.S. security cooperation with both South Korea and Japan to guard against a North Korean threat.

…

The captain and crew who leapt from a burning dive boat off Southern California saved themselves as 34 people perished below deck.  
 
Whether their escape from the Conception before dawn Monday was the only viable option, an act of cowardice or even a crime has yet to be determined. But there are laws providing for punishment of a ship’s master who shirks his duty to safely evacuate passengers. 
 
The responsibilities of master and crew are broadly defined, said professor Martin J. Davies, the maritime law director at Tulane University. With passengers, their duty is take reasonable care in all circumstances. 
 
If the captain made no attempt to save passengers trapped in a burning boat, that would be a violation of his duty. But it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong if crew members decided there was nothing they could do to help the passengers in the berth and abandoned ship to seek help from a boat nearby. 
 
“The notion of the captain always goes down with the ship is consistent with that only because the captain is expected to stay there and do something if that’s going to help,” Davies said. “The idea that the captain is actually supposed to die along with everyone else is not any kind of a legal requirement.” 
 

While authorities have said they view the disaster as an accident, prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles and the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office are taking part in the investigation.  
 
Whether anyone is criminally charged will depend on the conclusions of a multiagency investigation on land and sea into the cause of the fire. Investigators interviewed the captain and crew members Wednesday but wouldn’t reveal any of what they learned. 
 
Few details have emerged about what happened before the breathless captain made a mayday call at 3:15 a.m. Monday as he was apparently being overwhelmed by smoke on the boat. Passengers would have been sleeping at the time while the boat was anchored just off Santa Cruz Island.  

Blocked stairway, exit hatch 
 
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said fire above deck blocked the one stairway and an emergency exit hatch where 33 passengers and one crew member were sleeping in bunks. It’s not known if any alarm sounded or what the people below deck may have done to try to escape. 
 
Finding the cause of the fire could be difficult with the boat largely destroyed and sitting upside down in 60 feet (18 meters) of water. Other items that could provide valuable clues could have been carried away by the tides or destroyed in the fire, which burned so hot that DNA testing was needed to identify the dead. 
 
“All of that will be a very large hurdle to overcome,” said George Zeitler, a former Coast Guard inspector who runs his own marine investigation firm. “It will definitely make for a complex investigation.” 
 
Investigators will want to produce a timeline of the ship’s final voyage from the moment it pulled from a Santa Barbara dock early Saturday morning until the crew jumped overboard, experts said. They will look at the ship’s layout and whether the bunk room below deck was too cramped and had enough exits. They will also review maintenance records and study photos and videos from people who have been on the boat to look for valuable evidence. 
 
While lawsuits are almost a guarantee with such a high death toll, it’s not clear if any crime was committed, experts said. 
 
Under federal law, a captain or crew member can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if misconduct, negligence or inattention to duty leads to a death. The law can also be extended to a boat owner or charterer who engages in “fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct or violation of law” that takes a life. 

Italian case
 
High-profile cases of boating disasters have sent ship captains to prison for failing to perform their duties.  
 
Capt. Francesco Schettino was sentenced to 16 years in an Italian prison for abandoning ship and other crimes when he fled in a lifeboat after the Costa Concordia ran aground off Tuscany in 2012 and killed 32 people. He refused an order from the Italian Coast Guard to return to the ship. 
 

The Conception, owned by Truth Aquatics, was being chartered for three days by a commercial dive outfit based in Santa Cruz to explore the rugged Channel Islands, sometimes referred to as the Galapagos of North America, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Santa Barbara. 
 
Coast Guard records show fire safety violations on the Conception in 2014 and 2016 were quickly fixed. There were no deficiencies found in February or August 2018 inspections. 
 
The five survivors were all crew members, including the captain. They apparently jumped from the bow, where the stairway led to the sleeping quarters, and swam to the stern, where they escaped in a dinghy and were taken aboard a nearby boat. 
 
Attorney Gordon Carey, who practices maritime law, said the captain and crew should have done what they could to put out the fire, but not to the point of losing their own lives. 

‘Very, very high’ level of responsibility
 
“They may have an obligation to put themselves at risk, but they don’t have an obligation to commit suicide and certain death to save the passengers,” he said. “The captain’s duty is very, very high. I don’t think he has an obligation to kill himself, but he certainly has an obligation to do everything possible … to get that fire out and to get those people out.” 
 
Carey, who is not a criminal lawyer, said it’s possible the owner of the boat or captain could face charges if found criminally negligent for behavior or a design so reckless they should know people’s lives would be at risk in the event of a fire.  
 
Carey has been a scuba diver for 50 years and has been on many long-distance voyages to exotic dive spots around the world. He said he’s never been on a boat where the passengers slept below deck and he questioned why so many were crammed in a space toward the bow with only one staircase and one emergency hatch.  
 
He said an owner or captain must anticipate the normal range of risks — from collision to a breach of the hull to high seas to fire. 
 
Attorney James Mercante, a former merchant marine officer who has defended thousands of maritime casualty cases, said it was unusual that only crew members survived, but that is likely because they were above deck. 
 
Mercante said he would want to find out what the crew did upon being alerted to fight the fire and how long they had done so before they abandoned ship. 
 
“It must have spread awfully quickly if nobody but the crew got out,” Mercante said. 

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Pakistan warned Wednesday that India was “sowing the seeds” of another war in the region through its controversial actions in Kashmir, a disputed territory that has long been a flashpoint between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a month ago revoked a decades-old constitutionally provided limited autonomy for the two-thirds part of the divided Muslim-majority territory administered by India.

New Delhi also has since imposed curfew-like restrictions in Kashmir, deployed tens of thousands of additional troops there, cut off all communication and arrested thousands of people, including mainstream Kashmiri politicians and activists.

Now in its fifth week, the clampdown to quell violent protests in Kashmir has spurred severe international criticism of India.

Pakistan, which also controls a portion of Kashmir, swiftly denounced and rejected Indian actions, downgrading diplomatic as well as bilateral economic ties.

“India’s actions in occupied Kashmir come at a time when the region as a whole is inching towards stability, but India is sowing the seeds of a new war,” Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor told reporters Wednesday.

Ghafoor explained that Pakistan has successfully fought domestic terrorism and it is now closely cooperating with the United States to facilitate a political settlement to the 18-year-old war in neighboring  Afghanistan to promote regional stability.

The Kashmir dispute has already triggered two wars between India and Pakistan, and their militaries regularly trade fire across the Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned that India could attempt to open another conventional war with his country to try to divert global attention from human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Ghafoor said Pakistan doesn’t want war between the two countries. He reiterated Pakistan’s stated stance that its nuclear weapons are for deference.

Khan, meanwhile, has reached out to world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, to press the Modi government over settling the Kashmir issue. But India maintains its recent actions in its part of the disputed region are an “internal matter.”

Modi has also defended his decision to bring Kashmir under federal rule, saying it would help bring economic development and prosperity to the region.

Khan has also described Modi as “facist” and “supremacist,” comparing his Hindu nationalist government with Nazi Germany.

On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met with Khan in Islamabad to discuss Kashmir.

India has long alleged Pakistan-based militant groups foment separatist violence and terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir. Islamabad maintains it offers only political and diplomatic support for what it calls an indigenous Kashmiri struggle for freedom from Indian rule. 

On Wednesday, armed forces and youth in Indian-held Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar clashed after news broke that a student, who reportedly sustained bullet wounds during last month’s protests, died from his injuries, the first confirmed civilian death since the region was stripped of its autonomy.

Analysts note that international media coverage of the recent events in Kashmir has been highly critical of India. 

Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based expert on South Asian affairs, said India knows if it ends the prolonged lockdown in Kashmir, unrest is all but inevitable. 

“Given New Delhi’s awareness that the international media is already shining a critical lens on New Delhi’s tactics in Kashmir, it doesn’t want to have to face a situation where it needs to launch fresh crackdowns,” Kugelman said.  

That will severely undercut New Delhi’s narrative of Kashmir being calm and normal and fully behind the central government, he added.

…