Month: April 2023

SpaceX’s giant new rocket blasted off on its first test flight Thursday but exploded minutes after rising from the launch pad and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites.

The plan called for the booster to peel away from the spacecraft minutes after liftoff, but that didn’t happen. The rocket began to tumble and then exploded four minutes into the flight, plummeting into the gulf. After separating, the spacecraft was supposed to continue east and attempt to circle the world, before crashing into the Pacific near Hawaii.

Throngs of spectators watched from South Padre Island, several miles away from the Boca Chica Beach launch site, which was off limits. As it lifted off, the crowd screamed: “Go, baby, go!”

The company plans to use Starship to send people and cargo to the moon and, eventually, Mars. NASA has reserved a Starship for its next moonwalking team, and rich tourists are already booking lunar flybys.

It was the second launch attempt. Monday’s try was scrapped by a frozen booster valve.

At 394 feet and nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, Starship easily surpasses NASA’s moon rockets — past, present and future. The stainless steel rocket is designed to be fully reusable with fast turnaround, dramatically lowering costs, similar to what SpaceX’s smaller Falcon rockets have done soaring from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Nothing was to be saved from the test flight.

The futuristic spacecraft flew several miles into the air during testing a few years ago, landing successfully only once. But this was to be the inaugural launch of the first-stage booster with 33 methane-fueled engines.
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The Pentagon is positioning military forces near Sudan to help evacuate U.S. Embassy personnel in Khartoum, if needed, amid the explosion of violence between the African country’s two warring factions. 

U.S. Africa Command is monitoring the situation in Sudan and conducting “prudent planning for various contingencies,” according to a statement from the Department of Defense.

“As a matter of policy and security, we do not speculate on potential future operations,” it added.

At least 330 people have been killed and about 3,200 others injured since fighting broke out April 15 between government and armed opposition forces in Sudan, according to the World Health Organization.

Washington has called for the two groups to “renounce violence and return to negotiations,” adding that the country’s two top generals “are responsible for ensuring the protection of civilians and noncombatants.”

The fighting between the army and RSF broke out Saturday after months of rising tension over the country’s political future and plans to integrate the RSF into the national army.

The World Health Organization reports the fighting has restricted movement in the capital, creating challenges for doctors and other health care workers. 
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The Supreme Court initially gave itself a deadline of Wednesday to decide whether women seeking access to a widely used abortion pill would face more restrictions while a court case plays out. But on the day of the highly anticipated decision the justices had only this to say: We need more time.

In a one-sentence order, the court said it now expects to act by Friday evening. There was no explanation of the reason for the delay.

The new abortion controversy comes less than a year after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright.

The following is a look at the drug at issue in the new case, how the case got to the nation’s highest court and what the delay might say about what’s going on.

WHAT IS MIFEPRISTONE?

Mifepristone was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration more than two decades ago. It has been used by more than 5 million women to safely end their pregnancies, and today more than half of women who end a pregnancy rely on the drug, the Justice Department said.

Over the years, the FDA has loosened restrictions on the drug’s use, extending from seven to 10 weeks of pregnancy when it can be used, reducing the dosage needed to safely end a pregnancy, eliminating the requirement to visit a doctor in person to get it and allowing pills to be obtained by mail. The FDA also approved a generic version of mifepristone that its manufacturer, Las Vegas-based GenBioPro, says makes up two-thirds of the domestic market.

Mifepristone is one of two pills used in medication abortions, along with misoprostol. Health care providers have said they could switch to misoprostol only if mifepristone is no longer available or is too hard to obtain. Misoprostol is somewhat less effective in ending pregnancies.

HOW DID THE CASE GET STARTED?

A lawsuit over mifepristone was filed in Amarillo, Texas, late last year. Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group, represents the pill’s opponents, who say the FDA’s approval of mifepristone was flawed.

Why Amarillo? U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated by then-President Donald Trump, is the sole district court judge there, ensuring that all cases filed in the west Texas city land in front of him. Since taking the bench, he has ruled against President Joe Biden’s administration on several other issues, including immigration and LGBTQ protections.

On April 7, Kacsmaryk issued a ruling that would revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, but he put the decision on hold for a week to allow an appeal.

Complicating matters, however, on the same day Kacsmaryk issued his order, a court in Washington state issued a separate ruling in a lawsuit brought by liberal states seeking to preserve access to mifepristone. The Washington judge, Spokane-based Thomas O. Rice, whom then-President Barack Obama nominated, ordered the FDA not to do anything that might affect the availability of mifepristone in the suing states. The Biden administration has said it is impossible to follow both judges’ directives at the same time.

HOW DID THE CASE GET TO THE SUPREME COURT?

The Biden administration responded to Kacsmaryk’s ruling by asking the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent it from taking effect for now. 

Last week, the appeals court narrowed Kacsmaryk’s ruling so that the initial approval of mifepristone in 2000 is not affected, for now. But it agreed with him that changes the FDA made to relax the rules for prescribing and dispensing the drug should be put on hold. Those rules included expanding when the drug could be taken and allowing for the drug’s delivery through the mail.

The appeals court acted by a 2-1 vote. The judges in the majority, Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, are both Trump picks.

The Biden administration and the maker of mifepristone, New York-based Danco Laboratories, appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that allowing the appeals court’s restrictions to take effect would cause chaos. Facing a tight deadline, the Supreme Court gave itself some breathing room and issued an order suggesting it would act by Wednesday evening. That timeline was extended to Friday, the day the justices will hold a previously scheduled private conference.

The justices could talk about the issue further then. The additional time could also be part of an effort to craft an order that has broad support among the nine justices. Or one or more justices might be writing a separate opinion and asked for a couple of extra days.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT?

The Supreme Court’s delay suggests a maddening reality about an institution that ordinarily adheres to a schedule that hasn’t changed much in years: Even experts can be in the dark about when the court will decide things and how.

Cases are argued over seven months from October to April, and the most important decisions typically come right before the justices take a long summer break. The court does not say which cases it plans to hand down on a given day, and the court, in a search for consensus, will sometimes pass on the biggest issues it faces and decide a very small legal point.

But nowhere is the uncertainty as great as a separate category of cases that have come to be known as the shadow docket.

Apart from death row inmates seeking 11th-hour reprieves, shadow docket cases generally involve emergency appeals to the justices before lower courts have reached final decisions. That includes the mifepristone case.

When the justices consider this set of cases, they don’t usually have a deadline to act. A few years back, an order concerning an elections case in Texas came in the wee hours of a Saturday morning for no reason other than that’s when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg finished work on her dissenting opinion.
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The battle between the United States and authoritarian regimes is moving beyond the confines of cyberspace and increasingly is playing out on U.S. soil as countries like China and Iran target dissidents and minority groups in ever more brazen operations.

FBI senior counterintelligence officials Wednesday warned of new tactics and of “lines that are being crossed” by a growing number of countries, saying the U.S. is now facing an “inflection point” in trying to fend off transnational repression.

“The change that we’re trying to highlight is sort of an increase in the level of threats, and threats of violence, threats of intimidation that cross lines we have not previously seen,” a senior FBI counterintelligence official told reporters, briefing them on the condition of anonymity under guidelines set by the bureau.

“China, Iran and other countries see this as a priority for them to stabilize their regimes and make sure that they continue to exist,” a second senior official said. “They’re increasing the priority of this … they’re more willing to go on U.S. soil to go after dissidents.”

Wednesday’s warning from the FBI comes just days after the FBI arrested two New York City residents, charging them with operating a secret and illegal police station on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security.

“We cannot and will not tolerate the Chinese government’s persecution of pro-democracy activists who have sought refuge in this country,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said while announcing the charges on Monday.

“We remain resolved and steadfast to fight against any efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to oppress and intimidate our residents,” he added.

FBI officials declined Wednesday to share details on just how many countries are engaged in transnational repression, which includes tactics like stalking, intimidation, or assault, against people residing in the U.S.

Multiple threats

“We try not to rack and stack threats,” the first FBI official said, noting China and Iran “have been significant offenders.”

Other U.S. officials have pointed to indictments against suspects linked to Belarus, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And concerns about Russia are ever present.

But regardless of which government is behind the acts of repression, human rights organizations agree the threat is growing.

A database maintained by the U.S.-based Freedom House has tracked 854 physical incidents of transnational repression committed in 91 countries by 38 governments since 2014, including 79 incidents in 2022 alone.

China was the most prolific, according to the Freedom House data, engaging in 253 incidents of what the organization described as “direct, physical transnational repression” over the past nine years.

Turkey was second, followed by Tajikistan, Russia, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Iran and Rwanda.

Growing sophistication

FBI and other law enforcement officials also warn that many of these countries are becoming more sophisticated and more brazen in their efforts to silence critics in the U.S.

In its Worldwide Threat Assessment earlier this year, U.S. intelligence agencies said the Chinese government is actively monitoring Chinese students abroad, mobilizing Chinese student associations to help stifle dissent.

And when that is not enough, Beijing is willing “to enlist the aid of China-based commercial enterprises to help surveil and censor PRC critics,” the report said.

As for Iran, the report cautioned that Tehran “remains committed to developing surrogate networks inside the United States, an objective it has pursued for more than a decade.”

Some of Iran’s attempts have made headlines in the U.S., including multiple plots targeting Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American human rights activist and VOA Persian TV host.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department charged three members of an Eastern European criminal gang in connection with a plot to kill Alinejad outside her New York City home.

In a separate plot last year, U.S. prosecutors charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a murder-for-hire plot targeting former U.S. national security adviser Ambassador John Bolton.

In another case, last year, an official with China’s MPS was charged with trying to interfere with the congressional campaign of a U.S. military veteran who had been involved with the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square.

Reaction

China’s embassy in Washington, late Wednesday, rejected the FBI’s allegations.

“China’s police do not engage in ‘transnational repression and coercion’ against the so-called ‘dissidents’ and ‘dissenters,’” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.

“The Chinese government strictly abides by international law, and fully respects the law enforcement sovereignty of other countries,” he said, accusing the U.S. of seeking “to smear China’s image.”

Other countries named by U.S. officials as engaging in transnational repression, including Iran, Belarus, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have yet to respond to requests for a response to the U.S. allegations.

U.S. officials, however, have repeatedly dismissed denials like those from China.

US pushback

“As alleged, these brazen acts of transnational repression violate U.S. law; they infringe on our sovereignty; and perhaps most critically, they are an attack on our most fundamental values,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said during a speech last month in Washington.

“We will use every tool to expose the repressive tactics of autocratic regimes and force their agents to answer for their unlawful behavior,” she said. “And we will support our allies and partners in doing the same.”

Over the past two years, the FBI has ramped up training, both for its analysts and for its field officers, including those who work closely with airports and other transportation hubs, to help them better recognize activities that may point to transnational repression plots.

But the governments engaging in transnational repression are finding more sophisticated ways to silence those they do not like, including the growing use by China and Iran of private investigators, who are not always aware of what is going on.

“We’ve seen where the private investigators are not witting to what’s going on and where, in fact, the subjects are using some kind of cut-out company to mask who is behind,” an FBI official told VOA separately, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

In other cases, the official said China has even tried to co-opt local police.

“When you’re dealing with local law enforcement, they tend to trust other law enforcement,” the official told VOA. “So, when they get a request from, let’s say, Chinese law enforcement they’re going to accept it at face value.”

FBI outreach

“One of the things we’re trying to do is to conduct outreach to private investigator associations, just to apprise them of the threat and explain if you get this type of request, it may be transnational oppression,” the official said.

“Same thing with local police departments,” the official added. “Part of the outreach is explaining hey, some of these countries use things like red notices for political reasons, where they’re going after someone who disagrees with them, and the charges are made up.”

The FBI has also invested in outreach to immigrant communities that have been targeted in the past or that are likely to be targeted in the future.

Already, the FBI’s threat intimidation guide has been translated into more than 60 languages. And efforts to make sure those communities are comfortable dealing with the FBI are ongoing.

Still, it can be tricky.

Officials say authoritarian regimes often make good use of cyberspace to intimidate and silence those they do not like.

“It’s certainly an enabler,” a second FBI official told VOA. “Any country with even limited resources can certainly engage in at least online harassment with very little investment or expertise.”

And some authoritarian regimes, like China and to a lesser extent Iran, have even managed to use threats and money to coerce those they are targeting to help silence others.

“This is almost an area of potential double victimization,” the second FBI official told VOA. “A person could be threatened with impacts to their loved ones back in the autocratic country if they don’t report on others here in the United States.”

“It’s really challenging,” the official added.

Masood Farivar contributed to this report.
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The yearslong fight by a Native American media outlet to have its editorial independence restored is the focus of a documentary that examines challenges for Indigenous journalists.

“Everyone says the same thing after watching the film: ‘I had no idea this was happening here in the U.S.,'” says Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, co-director of the documentary “Bad Press.”

Her film follows Angel Ellis of Mvskoke Media as she works to overturn the tribal council’s repeal of a press freedom act that had enshrined her paper’s rights.

That paper — Mvskoke Media — serves the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

Tribal nations each have their own laws, constitution and governance. But of the 574 federally recognized tribes, only five have laws protecting freedom of the press. Without those protections, the media outlets are at risk of censorship and intimidation.

When the Native American Journalists Association, or NAJA, surveyed 65 media workers in 2018, it found that journalists were being restricted when covering the news.

More than half of the respondents said tribal affairs had gone unreported because of censorship at least some of the time, and 46% reported intimidation and harassment. One-third said officials had to approve stories before publication all or most of the time.

As a reporter and the executive director of NAJA, the promotion of press freedom is a core focus for Landsberry-Baker.

She started work at Mvskoke Media — then known as the Muscogee Nation News —right out of journalism school. There, she says, she experienced firsthand the “censorship from tribal administrations.”

Press freedom “provides a mechanism for accountability” between tribal officials and citizens, Landsberry-Baker told VOA. “If you don’t have an independent media outlet that’s reporting on what’s happening, then you don’t have educated and informed citizens and thusly, informed voters.”

But media rights on tribal lands are further complicated by funding.

A 2018 report by the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance found that 72% of Native American newspapers and radio stations were owned and controlled by tribal governments.

Less than half of 1% of media workers identify as Native American, according to 2019 data, the most recent available from the News Leaders Association, and mainstream media fall short in coverage of Indigenous issues. For some Native American communities, a tribal news outlet may be the only source of information about tribal affairs.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is in a minority of tribal outlets whose media rights are enshrined. In 2015, it passed legislation naming Mvskoke Media an independent news source. The law cited a need to have “news and activities reported objectively and without interference or bias.”

So when the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s National Council in 2018 revoked that act in an emergency session, Landsberry-Baker decided she had to act.

“I knew this story can’t go untold in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and I have to do something about it, and I have to document it in some way,” Landsberry-Baker said. She placed a phone call to Joe Peeler, who signed on as co-director of a documentary and flew from Los Angeles to Oklahoma to begin filming.

Their film, “Bad Press,” zeroes in on proceedings in which at least one council member argued that the news published by Mvskoke Media wasn’t positive enough, therefore warranting the repeal.

Following the decision, a Muscogee (Creek) Nation official took editorial control of the paper, requiring all articles to be submitted for approval before publication.

David Hill, principal chief of Muscogee (Creek) Nation, did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

In the months that followed, 10 of Mvskoke Media’s 16 employees quit.

Ellis was one of the few who stayed, saying she felt compelled to support her community and continue to tell its stories.

“Our community is one that’s been almost left out of the textbooks, the history books,” Ellis told VOA. “Many of the stories were not considered interesting to the mainstream. And I see our journalism that we’re doing as a way to compile it, to take that snapshot of us. … That way when people are looking back, they know how we got where we are.”

Ellis, who is now director of Mvskoke Media, started at the paper in 2008.

“It’s more than just a newsletter. It’s more than a newspaper. It’s more than a news program,” Ellis said. “It’s the combative weapon against erasure that we’re trying to achieve.”

Ellis, who in 2011 was dismissed from the paper over a dispute stemming from a front-page story about an official arrested for embezzlement, had returned to the media outlet in 2018, just three months before the act was repealed.

She says having the documentary camera crew follow her provided not only visibility but protection.

The crew also kept Ellis committed as the fight dragged on. Landsberry-Baker and her team ended up filming almost 500 hours of footage over a four-year period.

“I had no idea how the story would end, but I felt some responsibility to be able to document this important moment for my tribe and to see how things would play out good or bad,” Landsberry-Baker said.

As it turns out, things ended up working in favor of press freedom. In 2021, a constitutional amendment was placed on the midterm election ballot of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. A majority — 76.25% — voted in favor of press freedom.

“To see that citizen engagement, and to see them embracing this concept of news, good or bad, is our story, and we feel like it’s an important component to our sovereignty — was an overwhelming, uniting factor throughout the whole thing,” Ellis said.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation also went on to elect a principal chief who had campaigned on a pro-media platform. Several other candidates who supported press freedom were elected to the National Council.

Landsberry-Baker says the documentary, which debuted in January at the Sundance Film Festival, is a culmination of her life’s work.

Since its release, journalists from tribes across the U.S. have told her that the film reflects their own struggles with press freedom.

“Our ultimate impact goal is to see more tribes with free press protections at whatever level is comfortable for them,” she said. “And so I’m really hopeful that [the documentary] lays out one path and one way to do that.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden welcomes Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House for talks Thursday that are expected to cover migration, climate change and efforts to counter drug trafficking. 

The meeting comes just over a week after the United States, Colombia and Panama announced an agreement on a two-month campaign to try to stop migrants from passing through the Darien Gap, a key route used by migrants traveling from South America to the southern U.S. border. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden and Petro would also discuss economic and security cooperation. 

Last week, Petro tweeted that this is a key time to reinforce the relationship and mutual cooperation between the two countries, not only in the fight against narcotics trafficking, but also in the protection of the Amazon, climate change and rural development. 
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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Swedish counterpart outside Stockholm Wednesday, a rare visit intended to show Washington’s support for Sweden’s bid to join NATO. VOA’s Pentagon correspondent, Carla Babb, is traveling with the secretary and has this report from a Swedish naval base.
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The watchdog for U.S. assistance to Afghanistan warned lawmakers Wednesday that American aid to the country could be diverted to the Taliban as he accused the Biden administration of stonewalling his efforts to investigate. 

“Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer, we are not currently funding the Taliban,” John Sopko, the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, testified to the House Oversight Committee. “Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending for the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.” 

The stunning disclosure by Sopko comes as House Republicans are using the power of their new majority to hold the Biden administration accountable over its handling of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. 

It also comes a week after the White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called “hotwash” of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that President Joe Biden was “severely constrained” by former President Donald Trump’s decisions. 

Republicans, who have called Biden’s handling of Afghanistan a “catastrophe,” and a “stunning failure of leadership,” criticized the review and after-action reports conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon as partisan. The White House privately transmitted the reports to Congress last week, but they remain highly classified and will not be released publicly. 

Sopko initially started the job in 2012 to oversee U.S. spending in Afghanistan when there was a large American presence in the country. But since the withdrawal, the work of the IG has shifted to monitoring the more than $8 billion dedicated to Afghanistan. The lack of U.S. military presence in the country has made keeping track of the large sums of money flowing into the country nearly impossible, Sopko said. 

He testified Wednesday to Congress that work is more complicated by the fact that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have not been cooperating with his probe since withdrawal and asked for lawmakers’ help in getting access to the necessary documents and testimony. 

“We cannot abide a situation in which agencies are allowed to pick and choose what information an IG gets, or who an IG can interview, or what an IG may report on,” Sopko said in his opening testimony. “If permitted to continue, it will end SIGAR’s work in Afghanistan but also Congress’s access to independent and credible oversight of any administration.” 

Sopko, who previously served in oversight roles in the House and Senate, testified that he had never seen this level of “obfuscation and delay” from any of the other previous administrations. 

Republicans were quick to join in Sopko’s criticism of the administration. Even one Democrat on the committee, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., said that he regretted the agencies’ refusal to cooperate. 

“I’m going to go on the record and urge all three of those agencies today to cooperate more so that we might not be in a position of hearing what we’ve heard today or in a position of frustration like I am right now,” Mfume told Sopko during the hearing. 

The White House on Wednesday called the hearing, led by Oversight Chairman James Comer, another example of House Republicans’ “political stunts.” 

“You can expect they will continue to falsely claim that the Biden Administration has ‘obstructed’ oversight — despite the fact that we have provided thousands of pages of documents, analyses, spreadsheets, and written responses to questions, as well as hundreds of briefings to bipartisan Members and staff and public congressional testimony by senior officials, all while consistently providing updates and information to numerous inspectors general,” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, said in a statement. 

A spokesperson for USAID said Wednesday that the agency “has consistently provided SIGAR responses to hundreds of questions, as well as thousands of pages of responsive documents, analyses, and spreadsheets describing dozens of programs that were part of the U.S. government’s reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.” 

A request for comment from the State Department was not immediately returned. 

Since the withdrawal, SIGAR has released several reports, nearly all of them critical of both Biden and Trump’s handling of how to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan in its final months. 

Over the past two years, Sopko said his staff has requested numerous documents and interviews with officials who were involved in the withdrawal but had been stonewalled. He said those requests involved information about the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals as well as ongoing humanitarian aid and questions about whether that assistance might be transferred to the Taliban. 

“It sounds like you’re a Republican member of Congress because Republican members of Congress send letters over to the administration and we don’t get answers either,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told Sopko during his testimony.

Despite the so-called stonewalling, Sopko said that he and his agents have been able to compile interviews with around 800 current and former U.S. employees who were involved both in the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal. 

“I think we had more sources in Afghanistan than all the other IGs combined and the GAO. So, we’re still trying to get that information, but the best information, like actual contract data, and actually the names of people is best, and it should by law come from State and AID,” Sopko said. 
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The U.S. Justice Department is asking Congress for additional authority to funnel seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

In December, Congress authorized the Justice Department to transfer the proceeds of forfeited Russian assets to the State Department for Ukrainian reconstruction.

But the power applies only to assets seized in connection with violating U.S. sanctions under certain presidential executive orders. 

As a result, millions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets seized and forfeited in violation of U.S. export controls and other economic countermeasures cannot be transferred.

Now, the Justice Department is urging Congress to expand the range of seized assets that it can transfer for Ukrainian rebuilding. 

“We’re leaving money on the table if we don’t expand our ability to use the forfeited assets that we gain from enforcement of our export control violations and expanding the sanctions regimes that that transfer authority is applicable to,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. “So I urge the Congress to give us the additional authority so we can make the oligarchs pay for rebuilding Ukraine as well.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has cracked down on Russian oligarchs and investigated war crimes.

The law enforcement agency set up a task force shortly after the invasion to enforce sweeping U.S. sanctions and export controls. 

Task Force Kleptocapture has since seized more than $500 million in assets owned by Russian oligarchs and others who support Moscow and dodge U.S. sanctions, Monaco said.

The seized assets include a $300 million super yacht owned by Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, and a $90 million yacht belonging to Viktor Vekselberg, another Russian oligarch. 

The Justice Department is believed to have used its congressionally granted authority to transfer seized Russian funds only once. 

In February, Garland authorized the transfer of $5.4 million seized from a Denver-based bank account of sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.

In the more than one year since Russia’s assault on Ukraine, the Justice Department has charged more than 30 individuals with sanctions evasion, export control violations, money laundering and other crimes, and arrested defendants in more than a half-dozen countries, Monaco said. 
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The 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard who is facing criminal charges for leaking top-secret military intelligence records to a group of friends on a gamer web site remained in jail on Wednesday as his detention hearing was delayed for two weeks.

The suspect, Jack Teixeira, was arrested last week by heavily armed FBI agents at his mother’s residence in Dighton, Massachusetts, and had been scheduled for the hearing in Boston on Wednesday.

The hearing was intended to determine whether he should be detained while awaiting trial on two charges of copying and taking the classified documents off the Cape Cod air base where he worked and then sending them to his friends on the Discord social media site — possibly to impress them about his access to the sensitive material and to educate them about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Investigators say they believe that Teixeira passed on the documents to his friends believing they would not be further disseminated. But one of his friends posted the material to a wider audience, and the documents quickly spread worldwide on social media sites.

The classified material, according to U.S. news accounts, disclosed U.S. spying on friends and foes across the globe, American assessments of the strength of Russian and Ukrainian military forces, and a belief that the Chinese air force holds a distinct aerial advantage over the military defense of Taiwan, the democratic island territory that Beijing claims is part of mainland China.

Authorities with information about the investigation have said that the young cadre of friends linked to Teixeira liked to play war games online and were intensely interested in weaponry and military gear.

Federal prosecutors in the case told U.S. Magistrate Judge David Hennessy they intended to seek Teixeira’s continued detention. However, about two hours before the hearing, Teixeira’s team of federal public defenders filed a request asking the judge to delay the detention hearing for two weeks because they needed “more time to address the issues presented by the government’s request for detention.” Hennessy agreed to the delay.

It was not clear whether Teixeira will opt to challenge the government’s detention request, but in the U.S., high-profile defendants are often jailed pending trial.

On Wednesday morning, Teixeira was brought to the courtroom in handcuffs and orange jail garb as he waived his right to a preliminary hearing. He said nothing beyond answering yes and no to questions about whether he understood his rights and the proceeding.

Authorities say the leaked documents at the center of the case constitute the most serious U.S. security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010. The Pentagon has called the leak from the Massachusetts air base in the northeastern U.S. a “deliberate, criminal act.”

A criminal complaint made public on Friday charges Teixeira with one count of violating the Espionage Act related to the unlawful copying and transmitting of sensitive defense material, and a second charge related to the unlawful removal of defense material to an unauthorized location.

Legal experts say that Teixeira could face more charges as additional evidence is presented over time to a grand jury.

Some material in this report came from Reuters.
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The U.S. State Department has established a special task force to deal with the crisis in Sudan, a spokesperson confirmed to VOA on Wednesday.

The spokesperson said the State Department has established a Sudan Military Conflict Task Force to oversee the Department’s planning, management and logistics related to events in Sudan.

The spokesperson told VOA: “The United States condemns in the strongest terms violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The ongoing fighting between the SAF and RSF threatens the security and safety of Sudanese civilians and undermines efforts to restore Sudan’s democratic transition.”

Fighting in Khartoum broke out Saturday between members of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, and has since spread further into the country, reportedly leaving hundreds of people dead and injured.

The leaders of the rival groups – SAF head General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF chief General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, popularly known as Hemedti – joined forces to mount a 2021 coup that returned the country to military rule.

The two men have since turned on each other, amid squabbles over power-sharing in the new government.

State Department officials told VOA late Tuesday they are unaware of the death or injury of any U.S. citizens in Sudan at this time.

The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum’s security alert of April 18 stated that because of the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and the closure of the airport, there are no plans for the U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens. It said travel alerts and Sudan’s Travel Advisory will be updated as the situation evolves.

The State Department said, “It is imperative that U.S. citizens in Sudan make their own arrangements to stay safe in these difficult circumstances.”

The State Department says the U.S. Embassy is continuing to closely monitor the situation in Khartoum and surrounding areas, where there is ongoing fighting, gunfire, and security force activity. It says U.S. citizens also are advised to remain sheltered in place; to attempt to stay at the lower levels of their location, remain away from windows, and attempt to keep away from the roadways; to monitor local media for updates; and to review State Department travel advisory for Sudan.

The State Department says Americans in Sudan should enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive security alerts and email if they need assistance.

All routine consular services at the U.S. Embassy Khartoum are suspended at this time given the unsafe environment. The Embassy is providing only emergency consular services as the security situation in Sudan permits. The State Department says it will always seek to provide consular services wherever possible but the perilous security situation in Khartoum severely impacts its ability to perform that work currently.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking from a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven in Japan, said he delivered a message to both of Sudan’s warring leaders.

“This morning, I made calls to Generals Burhan and Hemedti, urging them to agree to a 24-hour cease-fire to allow Sudanese to safely reunite with their families and to obtain desperately needed relief supplies,” he said.   

VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this story.
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The Supreme Court is deciding whether women will face restrictions in getting a drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a lawsuit continues.

The justices are expected to issue an order on Wednesday in a fast-moving case from Texas in which abortion opponents are seeking to roll back Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug, mifepristone.

The drug first won FDA approval in 2000, and conditions on its use have been loosened in recent years, including making it available by mail in states that allow access.

The Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, the maker of the drug, want the nation’s highest court to reject limits on mifepristone’s use imposed by lower courts, at least as long as the legal case makes it way through the courts. They say women who want the drug and providers who dispense it will face chaos if limits on the drug take effect. Depending on what the justices decide, that could include requiring women to take a higher dosage of the drug than the FDA says is necessary.

Alliance Defending Freedom, representing anti-abortion doctors and medical groups in a challenge to the drug, is defending the rulings in calling on the Supreme Court to let the restrictions take effect now.

The legal fight over abortion comes less than a year after conservative justices reversed Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright.

Even as the abortion landscape changed dramatically in several states, abortion opponents set their sights on medication abortions, which make up more than half of all abortions in the United States.

The abortion opponents filed suit in November in Amarillo, Texas. The legal challenge quickly reached the Supreme Court after a federal judge issued a ruling on April 7 that would revoke FDA approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions.

Less than a week later, a federal appeals court modified the ruling so that mifepristone would remain available while the case continues, but with limits. The appeals court said that the drug can’t be mailed or dispensed as a generic and that patients who seek it need to make three in-person visits with a doctor, among other things.

The generic version of mifepristone makes up two-thirds of the supply in the United States, its manufacturer, Las Vegas-based GenBioPro Inc., wrote in a court filing that underscored the perils of allowing the restrictions to be put into effect.

The court also said the drug should only be approved through seven weeks of pregnancy for now, even though the FDA since 2016 has endorsed its use through 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Complicating the situation, a federal judge in Washington has ordered the FDA to preserve access to mifepristone under the current rules in 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia that filed a separate lawsuit.

The Biden administration has said the rulings conflict and create an untenable situation for the FDA.

In an order issued last Friday by Justice Samuel Alito, the court put the restrictions on hold through Wednesday to give the court time to consider the emergency appeal.

If the justices aren’t inclined to block the ruling from taking effect for now, the Democratic administration and Danco have a fallback argument, asking the court to take up the challenge to mifepristone, hear arguments and decide the case by early summer.

The court only rarely takes such a step before at least one appeals court has thoroughly examined the legal issues involved.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans already has ordered an accelerated schedule for hearing the case, with arguments set for May 17.

Mifepristone has been available for use in medication abortions in the United States since the FDA granted approval in 2000. Since then, more than 5 million women have used it, along with another drug, misoprostol, to induce abortions.
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The truth about American cities: Despite popular belief, they are much less violent than they were just a couple of years ago.

Violence has dropped across dozens of cities after a surge of shootings, murders and burglaries triggered by the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic.

Consider New York, the nation’s largest city and something of a gauge for crime trends in other big cities.

The city witnessed a staggering 50% increase in homicides in 2020 and 2021. But last year, they fell by 11% to 433, and so far this year, they’ve dropped another 7% to 113, according to city police data.

Although the city’s murder rate remains above its pre-pandemic level, it is far lower than the early 1990s when it recorded more than 2,200 murder victims, said David Kennedy, a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

“The popular perception that New York City is distinctively dangerous is simply not correct,” Kennedy said in an interview. “It’s far safer than many, many, many other places in the United States.”

Yet most people don’t take a long view of crime trends, noted Eddie Garcia, chief of the Dallas Police Department and president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. 

“They don’t care where we were 25 to 30 years ago,” Garcia said. “They care where we are today. And certainly, violence has been rising for the last three to five years.”

Tapping into that fear, House Republicans traveled to New York on Monday for a hearing focused on “violent crime and lawlessness in the city.”

Accusing Manhattan’s top prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, of letting criminals off the hook, Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, cited 2022 data showing rising felony assaults, robberies, burglaries and auto thefts.

“Imagine that — you leave criminals on the street, you get more crime,” Jordan said.

Left unmentioned were homicides, which have fallen in New York over the past year, making it one of the safest big cities in the country.

“It is simply a fact that New York City is dramatically safer than it used to be,” Kennedy said.

New York’s fewer homicides reflects a national trend.

Consulting firm AH Datalytics reports a nearly 10% fall in homicides in more than 70 cities this year.

The list includes cities that have struggled with violent crime in recent years: Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Even Chicago, the nation’s “murder capital” last year, has slashed homicides by 17% through April 9.

But some cities buck the trend. Homicides are up in 25 cities tracked by AH Datalytics, such as Washington, Dallas and Kansas City.

“There is no single story about all major U.S. cities,” Kennedy said. “Except in the broadest terms, individual cities are often on very separate tracks.”

Garcia acknowledged that gun crime remains a challenge in his city, where homicides have spiked by 20% this year after a decline in 2022.

But gun-related aggravated assault, a better gauge of violent crime, is down in Dallas, Garcia said.

“Although one life is too many — we don’t want to lose lives — what would worry me would be if our gun-related aggravated assaults were rising,” Garcia said in an interview with VOA.

Under Garcia, Dallas has launched a new, data-driven crime plan focused on reducing violent incidents.

The plan is paying dividends, he said.

“We’ve had the least amount of violent incidents in the city of Dallas, more than we’ve had in five years,” he said.

Why crime falls in one city but not another is often hard to pin down with precision. But over the long run, most cities converge on a national trend, said Richard Rosenfeld, an emeritus professor of criminology at the University of Missouri.

That has fueled hope among some criminologists that U.S. cities may have turned a corner and may resume a decades-long downtrend in crime rates.

But Rosenfeld cautioned that the country is not out of the woods yet. Most U.S. cities still have higher homicide rates than before the pandemic, he said.

The pandemic delivered a shock to homicide rates by changing conditions in every sector of society, he said.

“But the undoing of the conditions of the pandemic has taken a far longer period of time than the abrupt changes that occurred when the pandemic first took place,” Rosenfeld said.

Among other disruptions, the pandemic unleashed a wave of unemployment and record inflation that wreaked havoc on society.

“Assuming that those conditions continue to … moderate, we should not see big spikes and homicide in the immediate future,” Rosenfeld said.

But crime ravages poor, mostly Black neighborhoods. And even if the overall violent crime rates drop, it will mean nothing to the people most vulnerable: young Black men.

“And the focus should be on that reality and not trying to read tea leaves about what’s going to happen in the next six months,” Kennedy said.

Republicans meeting in Manhattan on Monday blasted the city’s top prosecutor, saying he was coddling criminals instead of protecting victims.

Garcia said he agreed that “the lack of accountability has played a role in violence in this country.”

“I can tell you there have been irresponsible decisions made by judges allowing individuals back out on the street after they’ve admitted gun crime,” Garcia said.

“We don’t get to say we’re serious about gun crime in this country when I have men and women who sacrificed their lives to take criminal elements off the street … only to see those individuals back out on the street in a matter of days or weeks,” he said.
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During Ramadan, an Islamic community in California is raising awareness about domestic violence. For VOA, Genia Dulot brings us the story of a domestic violence shelter for Muslim immigrants in San Diego.
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A leaked U.S. military assessment says the Chinese military may soon deploy a high-altitude spy drone that travels at least three times the speed of sound, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday. 

The newspaper cited a secret document from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 

The document, which Reuters could not confirm or verify independently, features satellite imagery dated August 9 that shows two WZ-8 rocket-propelled reconnaissance drones at an air base in eastern China, about 350 miles (560km) inland from Shanghai, according to the newspaper. 

The U.S. assessment said China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had “almost certainly” established its first unmanned aerial vehicle unit at the base, which falls under the Eastern Theater Command, the branch of the Chinese military responsible for enforcing Chinese sovereignty claims over Taiwan, the newspaper reported. 

The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Chinese government could not immediately be reached for comment. 

The Washington Post said it obtained the assessment of the program from a trove of images of classified files posted on the Discord messaging app, allegedly by a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who was arrested last week. 

The FBI on Thursday arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard, over the leaks online of classified documents that embarrassed Washington with allies around the world. 

The leaks first became widely known earlier this month, setting Washington on edge about the damage they may have caused. The episode embarrassed the U.S. by revealing its spying on allies and purported Ukrainian military vulnerabilities. 

Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen’s recent meeting with U.S. House of Representative Kevin McCarthy had upset Beijing. China, which claims democratically ruled Taiwan is one of its provinces, says Taiwan is the single most important and sensitive issue in its relations with the United States. 

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims. 
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The United States and Britain announced sanctions Tuesday in connection with a diamond and art dealer accused of providing financial support to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.

Britain said it froze the assets of Nazem Ahmad and barred anyone in the country from doing business with him or any company he owns.

The United States, which enacted similar sanctions against Ahmad in 2019, announced actions against what it said is a network of 52 individuals and entities in multiple countries that have “facilitated the payment, shipment, and delivery of cash, diamonds, precious gems, art, and luxury goods” for Ahmad’s benefit.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement those entities helped Ahmad evade U.S. sanctions “to maintain his ability to finance Hizballah and his luxurious lifestyle.”

Along with the Treasury Department, the U.S. State Department also called attention to a $10 million reward for more information about Hezbollah’s financing.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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A Russian court has refused to release U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich from jail while he awaits trial on accusations that he spied on Russia while on a reporting assignment last month. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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The number of migrants encountered at the United States-Mexico border increased 25% from February (130,024 encounters) to March (162,317), according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Yet the March encounters are 23% lower than in March 2022 (211,181 encounters), and the month-over-month change is the lowest seasonal increase in two years, the agency said in its monthly border enforcement report. It added that the increase in encounters from February to March is typical as the weather gets warmer.

“We continue to respond to the challenges presented by increasing global migration. CBP will continue to enforce our immigration laws and ramp up efforts to combat smuggler misinformation as we prepare to return to expedited removal proceedings under Title 8 authorities, which carry stricter consequences like a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful entry,” CBP Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller wrote in a statement.

CBP officials credited a parole program for reducing some migrant numbers at the border. The parole program began on January 5 for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the four countries that had the highest numbers of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. during the preceding three months.

The humanitarian parole program is an authority given by Congress to the Homeland Security Secretary to create a program for urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons. Its current use for these four countries is directly affecting the decrease in unauthorized migration, including crossing between ports of entry. It also makes it easier to quickly expel migrants from those nations if they cross the border without authorization.

The program allows up to 30,000 migrants a month from each country to enter the U.S. To qualify, these migrants must apply for legal entry while outside the U.S. They must meet all health requirements, pass a background check, and have a U.S. sponsor. Then they proceed with travel arrangements to the U.S.

During March, a total of 27,783 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans were paroled into the country, where they can live for up to two years. Besides applying for humanitarian parole, some of the pathways available under immigration law are family sponsorship and employment-based visas, among others.

Encounters of migrants from these four countries between ports of entry declined from a seven-day average of 1,231 on February 28 to a seven-day average of 339 on March 31, a drop of 72%.

Those who arrive at the U.S. Mexico border and did not apply for humanitarian parole can apply for a Title 42 waiver exemption. Using the CBP One app, migrants seeking asylum without a visa authorizing them to enter the U.S. must request processing appointments, but the demand has been overwhelming and some complain the app is not working properly.

Watch related video by Victor Hugo Castillo:

Still, U.S. immigration officials reported that from January 12, when use of the app started, more than 74,000 individuals have secured an appointment via CBP One. The top nationalities using the app are Mexican, Venezuelan and Haitian.

In anticipation of the May 11 end of Title 42, a policy that allows for the immediate expulsion of migrants during public health emergencies, the Biden administration began testing faster asylum screening for migrants detained crossing into the U.S. without authorization.

Those who can’t establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be quickly removed through a process known as expedited removal under Title 8 authority.

Under Title 8, the federal code of laws dealing with immigration, those arriving at the border without documents or trying to enter between ports of entry can be removed without their case being decided by an immigration court.

However, if a migrant wants to claim asylum, an asylum officer interviews them before removal, deportation or the granting of authorization to enter the U.S. to continue the asylum process.

Federal law allows people from other countries to seek asylum in the U.S. if they fear persecution at home. They must be present in the U.S. and prove a fear of persecution.

Immigration experts say Title 8 has always been in use at the border, even during the pandemic. Those removed under Title 8 are also subject to additional long-term consequences beyond removal from the United States, including bars to future immigration benefits.
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