Author: Worldcrew

At Café Bar-Ba-Reeba on Chicago’s north side, there is one key ingredient that could make or break Executive Chef Matt Holmes’ menu.

“We feature it in our paeallas, which are our signature dish here at Café Bar Ba Reeba, as well as use it in a dessert and some other dishes as well, so its incredibly important to have high quality saffron,” Holmes explained to VOA from his test kitchen above the restaurant, where he was preparing one of those signature dishes.

Saffron has long been one of the world’s most expensive spices, at times traded as currency. The saffron “crocus” that produces the spice grows mostly in parts of Europe, Iran and India.

It is a staple in cuisine throughout Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but less so in the United States, where saffron — while a $60 million market  has limited appeal.

But Rumi Spice, Holmes’ saffron supplier, is hoping to change that.

“We are named after Juhalladin Rumi, he was a 13th century poet and philosopher who was born in present day Afghanistan, and a Sufi mystic,” says founder Kimberly Jung.  “One of his most famous sayings is, ‘Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure.’”

Veterans inspired by relationships

Kimberly Jung, Keith Alaniz and Emily Miller are three of the founders of Rumi Spice, U.S. military veterans who served in Afghanistan who returned with more than just combat experience.

“I was never able to resolve just going to Afghanistan, spending time, and then leaving and never thinking about the place again, especially when you form relationships with people who live there,” says Alaniz.

Those relationships inspired the business strategy for Rumi Spice — increasing demand in the U.S. for saffron produced by Afghan farmers they met in Herat province. Saffron has very limited demand in Afghanistan, leaving the market for it outside the country.

“Afghanistan has essentially been cut off from the international market for 30 years,” says Alaniz.  “They are producing a great product but they aren’t able to get a fair value for their goods because they are not able to export it anywhere.”

Another challenge

Afghanistan’s enduring instability isn’t the only challenge to getting Afghan saffron to market.

“Near to 20 years we’ve been growing saffron, there are still no certificates for our saffron product,” says Abdullah Faiz, chancellor of Heart University, which is working with Purdue University in Indiana to develop a “department of food technology,” with Afghan saffron farmers in mind.

“The department of food technology will teach and give training for the farmers to produce the saffron with hygiene quality,” says Faiz, adding that it could help increase demand for Afghan saffron in new markets.

Quality, taste is key

A lack of international certification hasn’t stood in the way of Rumi Spice, which conducts rigorous tests to make sure the saffron it is importing is clean and pure before arriving in the United States.

The quality and taste of Rumi Spice saffron is what attracted Matt Holmes as a customer.

“It’s much higher potency,” says Holmes.  “So while we pay a premium to use Rumi, it actually goes a longer way, so that’s another benefit of using a higher quality product  you can stretch how much you are using each time.”

Famous investor

“Our supply is outpacing our demand,” says Alaniz, “which is good for us because it keeps our prices low at the moment, but we hope to increase more demand here in the U.S. so we can purchase more saffron.”

“The good thing about Rumi is they have a premium product that’s fantastic to use,” says Chef Matt Homes.  “You are kind of doing double duty with the program that they have with helping farmers in Afghanistan and helping women, being a positive influence instead of just selling a product, so you really get the best of both worlds.”

These are qualities investors also are noticing.  Rumi Spice was recently featured on the U.S. reality television show “Shark Tank,” where entrepreneur Marc Cuban committed $250,000 for a 15 percent stake in the company, signaling his faith in Rumi Spice, and the future potential for saffron grown in Afghanistan.

 
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Donald Trump is back in Washington after wrapping up his first international trip as president. The nine day trip was free of any major controversies abroad, but did produce several eyebrow-raising moments.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday paid tribute to “a new generation of American patriots” who, he said, “are fighting to win the battle against terrorism.”

They are “risking their lives to protect our citizens from an enemy that uses the murder of innocents to wage war on humanity itself,” added Trump.

He made the remarks in a Memorial Day speech at the 253-hectare Arlington National Cemetery just after he laid a wreath to honor the more than 300,000 military veterans who are buried there.

Trump is expected at any time to announce a decision on a Pentagon request for an increase in the number of U.S. troops for the continuing war in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama, in the final months of his presidency, did not make a decision on the Defense Department request, preferring to hand it off to the incoming president who would be commander-in-chief by the time any additional forces would head to what has become America’s longest-running military campaign.

The United States invaded Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaida, which had been given protection by the Taliban-led government in Kabul.

While the Taliban were driven from the capital and Afghanistan now has a democratically-elected government, strongly backed by Washington diplomatically and militarily, the hardline Islamic militancy is still fighting and recently has been inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan forces.

The conflict, overall, has killed nearly 2,400 American military personnel plus more than 1,100 coalition soldiers. That death toll pales in comparison to the estimated 170,000 fatalities among local fighters and civilians in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.

There are currently about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and commanders have requested an additional 5,000.

Although NATO’s formal combat role in the country ended in 2014, it has a total of 13,000 troops in Afghanistan and is considering an increase in the number.

“Sending a few thousand more U.S. and other NATO troops to Afghanistan will have at most a marginal effect. It may stabilize the front lines of a war where the main battles are in the rear, politics, governance, geo-economics, and diplomacy,” said Barnett Rubin, associate director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

He added that a troop increase could be helpful if there is also an aggressive push for a political settlement, “but instead the military wants to postpone negotiation until we and the government are in a better position.”

Afghan defense officials and military commanders say they do not need more foreign fighters, rather more advisers for training, better equipment and engineering technology.

Rubin, a former top adviser on Afghanistan at both the State Department and United Nations, told VOA that Washington’s “priority is not the stability of Afghanistan, but maintaining a long-term military presence there to strike threats in the region, and the countries of the region will keep the war going as long as necessary to make the U.S. withdraw.”

The Taliban currently control about 40 percent of Afghanistan.
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Developments over the weekend concerning President Donald Trump include his discussions with the Group of Seven over climate change, trade and North Korea, as well as his return to turmoil in Washington; while fallout from G-7 meeting leaves Merkel saying Europe can’t count on U.S. or Britain; and North Korea tests another missile:

Europe Left Uneasy by Trump’s Message — White House press spokesman Sean Spicer declared Saturday night Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as U.S. president had been a success in a tweet posted as the American leader was flying back to Washington “after very productive 9 days.” Just hours earlier President Trump told American troops stationed in Sicily he had strengthened bonds with allies. That isn’t how Europe leaders and most of the continent’s media see it.

Merkel: Europe Must Stay United in Face of Ally Uncertainty — German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging European Union nations to stick together in the face of new uncertainty over the United States and other challenges. Merkel said Sunday at a campaign event in Bavaria that “the times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days.”

WATCH: Trump returns after nine-day foreign trip

Back Home, Trump Assails News Reports of White House Turmoil — President Donald Trump returned to the life he is accustomed to in Washington Sunday, assailing news media reports on the White House turmoil linked to investigation of his aides and their ties to Russia. On his first morning back from a 9-day trip to the Middle East and Europe, Trump declared on Twitter that his “trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!” Then, he quickly turned to long-standing grievances against the media.

WATCH: Top agenda items at Group of Seven meeting in Italy

Climate Change Among Most Contentious Issues at G-7 Summit — Climate change was among the most contentious agenda items Friday at the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Sicily, but both American and British government officials are publicly denying any major discord. The leaders had a “very good discussion” about climate issues, British Prime Minister Theresa May told reporters, adding there was “no doubt around the table” — which included U.S. President Donald Trump — about how important the issue is.

US Splits With G-7 Counterparts on Climate Change — In an unprecedented move, a Group of Seven summit communique has carved out a unique place for the United States to break with its counterparts on a major issue. In a pared-down final communique, all G-7 nations, except the United States, pledged action to mitigate climate change.

Scuffles Break Out, Tear Gas Fired at End of G-7 Protest — A group of protesters sought to break through a police cordon at the end of a protest march against world leaders meeting on the island of Sicily on Saturday, scuffling with security forces, who fired tear gas to disperse them.

Report: Trump Tells ‘Confidants’ US Will Leave Paris Climate Deal — U.S. President Donald Trump has told “confidants,” including the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave a landmark international agreement on climate change, the Axios news website reported Saturday, citing three sources with direct knowledge.

National Security Adviser: ‘Not Concerned’ About Kushner Back-channel Reports — Asked about reports that U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law had tried to set up a clandestine communication channel with Russia before the president took office, U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said Saturday that so-called “back-channeling” was normal.

Iran’s Supreme Leader: Saudi Arabia is ‘Cow Milked’ by US — Iran’s Supreme Leader has said that Saudi Arabia is a “cow being milked” by the United States. A Saturday report by the semi-official Fars news agency quotes Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying that Saudi Arabia trades its wealth with “pagans and enemies.”

N. Korea Unwilling to Act on Seoul’s Conciliatory Moves, Experts Say — North Korea appears determined to make headway in its nuclear and missile programs, despite South Korea’s diplomatic overture aimed at restoring peace on the divided peninsula, U.S. experts say.

North Korea Test-fires Another Ballistic Missile — North Korea test-fired another short-range ballistic missile early Monday, just days after the G-7 demanded that Pyongyang give up its nuclear ambitions. The Trump administration, while serving up strong words against the North and its leader Kim Jong Un, has yet to come out with a firm policy on how to react to Pyongyang.

Sources: 3rd US Naval Strike Force Deployed to Deter North Korea — The United States is sending a third aircraft carrier strike force to the western Pacific region in an apparent warning to North Korea to deter its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, two sources have told VOA. The USS Nimitz, one of the world’s largest warships, will join two other supercarriers, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan, in the western Pacific, the sources told VOA’s Steve Herman.

US Considering Laptop Ban on All International Flights — The U.S. Homeland Security chief says he’s considering banning laptop computers from the passenger cabins of all international flights to and from the United States. John Kelly says there are signs of a “real threat” against civilian aviation from carry-on electronic devices.

Tillerson Declines to Host Ramadan Event at State Department — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.
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Takuma Sato on Sunday became the first Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500, in a race that featured a horrific crash involving the driver who started from the pole position.

In the 101st running of the iconic U.S. auto race in the midwestern state of Indiana, Sato passed three-time winner Helio Castroneves of Brazil in the closing laps of the 200-lap drive around the oval track, and held on to win by the slim margin of two-tenths of a second.

“Unbelievable feeling!” a jubilant Sato, 40, declared. Five years ago, the Japanese driver had a great chance to win the prestigious event, but on the final lap collided with eventual champion Dario Franchitti of Scotland.

“He drove unbelievable,” said Michael Andretti, head of the team Sato drives for, Andretti Autosport.

“I couldn’t do what he was doing (on the closing laps),” said Castroneves, who barely avoided two crashes.

The most horrific crash involved pole sitter Scott Dixon of New Zealand, the 2008 Indy 500 winner. With just over a quarter of the 500-mile (805 km) race completed, Briton Jay Howard’s car made contact with the outside wall after turn one and slid down into Dixon’s.

Dixon’s car was sent flying and sliding sideways on the inside safety barrier, flames shooting out as the back end of the car was ripped away. Miraculously, Dixon climbed out of the race car and walked away, as did Howard.

“I’m a little beaten up there. It was a bit of a rough ride,” said Dixon.

Sunday’s race featured 35 lead changes among a race record 15 drivers.

Twenty-two-year-old rookie Ed Jones of Britain placed third, and last year’s winner, Alexander Rossi of the United States, ended up seventh.  The only female driver in the annual event, Pippa Mann of Britain, climbed from 28th at the start and overcame a pit stop penalty to finish 17th in the 33-car field.
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Since 1971, when the U.S. Congress declared Memorial Day a national federal holiday, Americans have spent the final Monday in May honoring all who died during military service throughout U.S. history.

But it all began in 1865, just after the end of the Civil War, when a group of freed American slaves held what came to be seen as the first commemoration of the nation’s war dead.

According to historical accounts, in an expression of gratitude to those who died fighting against slavery, the freed slaves exhumed the bodies of more than 250 Union soldiers from a mass grave at a Confederate prison camp in Charleston, South Carolina, and gave them a proper burial. A few weeks later, about 10,000 people marched on May 1 to commemorate the war dead. 

Historian and author David Blight, writing in The New York Times about the events in Charleston in 1865, cited a newspaper account the New York Tribune that described “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.” 

Decoration Day

In 1868, the commemoration become known officially as Decoration Day, a day to clean up and place flowers on the graves of the war dead.

Two decades later, U.S. states had adopted it as an official holiday. But for more than 50 years, the holiday only remembered those killed in the Civil War, not in any other American conflict. 

It wasn’t until America’s entry into World War One that the tradition was expanded to include those killed in all wars. 

What is now celebrated as Memorial Day was not officially recognized nationwide until that act of Congress in 1971.

Nearly, thirty years later, in 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, encouraging all citizens to pause for a minute of silence each year on Memorial Day to remember those who sacrificed their lives in all American military conflicts. 

 
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.

Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department.

Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

According to an April 6 memo seen by Reuters, the office — which typically initiates such events — recommended that Tillerson hold an Eid al-Fitr reception.

Ramadan event

His rejection of the request suggests there are no plans this year for any high-profile Ramadan function at the State Department. The month of fasting and prayer for Muslims gets under way in many countries on Saturday.

When asked by Reuters to comment on Tillerson declining a request to host an Eid al-Fitr event in July for Ramadan, a State Department spokesperson said:

“We are still exploring possible options for observance of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of Ramadan. U.S. ambassadors are encouraged to celebrate Ramadan through a variety of activities, which are held annually at missions around the world.”

Muslim activists have accused President Donald Trump’s administration of having an unfriendly attitude toward Islam, encapsulated by its attempts to ban citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

The administration says that while it strongly opposes Islamist militants, it has no quarrel with Islam. Aides point to Trump’s visit this month to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam where he addressed the leaders of more than 50 Muslim countries, as evidence of that.

Members of Congress, Muslim civil society and community leaders, diplomats from Muslim countries and senior U.S. officials usually attend the State Department Ramadan event, a symbol of the U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts with Muslim countries and people.

If Tillerson avoids hosting one this year, that could send a message “that it is not as important to this administration to engage with Muslims,” said former U.S. diplomat Farah Pandith, who served in the Bush and Obama administrations and helped plan Ramadan events at the White House and State Department.

Tillerson issued a statement on Friday to mark the start of Ramadan, which he called “a month of reverence, generosity, and self-reflection.”

“Most importantly, it is a cherished time for family and friends to gather and give charity to those who are less fortunate,” he said.

Past events

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright started the tradition 18 years ago of America’s top diplomat hosting a public event for Ramadan, a lunar month.

The secretary of state of the time usually gives remarks there on the meaning of Ramadan.

In April, the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs made a request to Tillerson’s office that he deliver remarks at an Eid al-Fitr reception this year, and suggested a two-week range of dates in July. The event would serve to “highlight State Department initiatives and the importance of Muslim engagement,” the memo said.

It noted that by hosting a reception just after Ramadan, rather than an iftar – an often sumptuous dinner at sunset – a State Department event could be held any time of the day, thus preventing “a very late evening for the Secretary.”

Several weeks later, that office and other offices at the State Department were alerted that Tillerson declined the request, the officials said.

Reuters was told of the request being declined but did not see Tillerson’s reply. An official with the Office of Religion and Global Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Several prominent Muslim-American groups in the Washington area who are normally invited to the Ramadan event told Reuters this week that they had yet to receive an invitation from the State Department, which they said was unusual.

Also In Politics

“If they’re having one, we haven’t been invited,” said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington. A representative for her group has been invited to the State Department event in the past, she said.

Fraught relationship

Trump’s administration has had a fraught relationship with Muslims. As a presidential candidate, the Republican urged a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, called for more surveillance of mosques and warned that radical Muslims were “trying to take over our children.”

Trump has since toned down his rhetoric and courts have halted his temporary travel ban on people from six mostly Muslim countries.

White House officials did not respond to a request for comment on whether they would continue the tradition this year of hosting a Ramadan-related event at the White House.

The State Department celebrates other religious traditions though some of those commemorations are not as well-established as the State Department’s Ramadan event. In 2014, then-secretary of state John Kerry hosted the first ever celebration at the State Department marking Diwali, the Hindu festival.

The White House also traditionally hosts annual Christmas and Easter events as well as a Seder dinner to mark the Jewish Passover.

The top U.S. diplomat has personally hosted a Ramadan event every year since 1999, often in the State Department’s grand Benjamin Franklin room, apart from three years.

In 2006 and 2015, deputies of the secretary of state at the time hosted either an iftar dinner or an Eid al-Fitr reception. In 2014, Kerry hosted a reception for Eid al-Adha, another important Muslim holiday.
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The mother of the CEO of the ride-hailing company Uber died in a boat accident Friday evening in Fresno County, the company said.

Bonnie Kalanick, 71, died after the boat she and her husband, Donald, 78, were riding hit a rock in Pine Flat Lake in the eastern part of the county, authorities said.

They are the parents of Travis Kalanick, 40, who founded Uber in 2009. The company has since grown to become an international operation with a market value of nearly $70 billion.

The couple have been longtime boaters. In a memo to Uber staff, Liane Hornsey, the chief human resources officer, called the incident an “unthinkable tragedy.” She wrote that “everyone in the Uber family knows how incredibly close Travis is to his parents.”

About 5 p.m. Friday, officers were called to the scene of the accident and found a man and woman on a shore of the lake, the Fresno County Sheriff’s office said in a statement.

The woman died at the scene, and the man suffered moderate injuries, the sheriff’s office said. He told officers the boat had sunk.

An autopsy of the woman is planned, the office said.

Uber identified the couple as the Kalanicks. Donald Kalanick is being treated at a hospital and is in stable condition, the company said.

Crews will try to remove the boat from the lake Saturday, the sheriff’s office said.
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Jim Bunning, a baseball star who later served nearly a quarter-century in the U.S. Congress, has died at age 85 in his home state of Kentucky.

Bunning, who died Friday, had suffered a stroke in October 2016. He served six two-year terms as a congressman beginning in 1987, and was elected twice to the U.S. Senate.

Bunning pitched for 17 years, originally for the Detroit Tigers then for three other teams, and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. The only Hall of Famer ever elected to Congress, he was a staunch conservative whose outspoken style aroused some controversy during his later years in the Senate, Bunning chose not to run for re-election in 2010.

Known in baseball for his consistency — rarely missing a turn in his team’s pitching rotation, shrugging off fatigue or minor injuries — Bunning had the second-highest total of strikeouts, 2,855, when he retired as an athlete. He threw a perfect game in the National League and also had a no-hitter in the American League — an unusual distinction — and also was the second pitcher ever to win at least 100 games and amass 1,000 strikeouts in each of American baseball’s two major leagues.

Bunning’s wife, Mary Catherine, whom he married in 1952, survives him. The couple had five daughters and four sons.
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The Senate Intelligence Committee, investigating Russian meddling in U.S. 2016 election, has asked President Donald Trump’s political organization to hand over all documents going back the campaign’s launch in June 2015, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing two people briefed on the request.

The letter from the Senate panel seeking all documents, emails and telephone records arrived at Trump’s campaign committee last week and was addressed to its treasurer, the Post said.

This marked the first time the Trump campaign organization has been drawn into the bipartisan committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election, it said.

Dozens of former campaign staffers are expected to be contacted soon to ensure they are aware of the request, the Post said, citing the two people.

The letter was signed by Republican Senator Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, and Senator Mark Warner, its top Democrat, according to the Post, which said representatives for Burr and Warner declined to comment.

The Senate panel’s investigation is among several in Congress into Russian interference in the election, and is separate from a probe into the matter being led by a special counsel appointed last week by the Justice Department, former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller.

Trump’s campaign committee, based at Trump Tower in New York, is now led by Michael Glassner, a former deputy campaign manager, and John Pence, a nephew of Vice President Mike Pence, the Post said.

Glassner did not immediately respond to a request for comment and a White House representative had no immediate comment, the Post said.

Trump’s administration has been dogged by concerns about its ties to Russia and questions over whether Trump associates may have cooperated with Russians as they sought to meddle in last year’s election on Trump’s behalf.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Moscow tried to sway the November vote in Trump’s favor. Russia has denied involvement, and Trump has denied any collusion between

his campaign and Russia.

Controversy has engulfed Trump since he fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9 as Comey oversaw an investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia.
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A federal judge Friday tossed out two life sentences for one of Virginia’s most notorious criminals, sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, and ordered Virginia courts to hold new sentencing hearings.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson in Norfolk said Malvo is entitled to new sentencing hearings after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.

Malvo was 17 when he was arrested in 2002 for a series of shootings that killed 10 people and wounded three over a three-week span in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, causing widespread fear throughout the region.

His accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, was executed in 2009.

Sentenced in Maryland

Malvo also was sentenced to life in prison in Maryland for the murders that occurred there. But his lawyers have made an appeal on similar grounds in that state. A hearing is scheduled in June.

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh, who helped prosecute Malvo in 2003, said the Virginia attorney general can appeal Jackson’s ruling. If not, Morrogh said he would pursue another life sentence, saying he believes Malvo meets the criteria for a harsh sentence.

Michael Kelly, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, said Friday evening that the office is “reviewing the decision and will do everything possible, including a possible appeal, to make sure this convicted mass murderer serves the life sentences that were originally imposed.”

He also noted that the convictions themselves stand and emphasized that, even if Malvo gets a new sentencing hearing, he could still be resentenced to a life term.

Supreme Court ruling

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional. Then, last year, the Supreme Court applied that case retroactively to sentences issued before 2012.

Malvo’s first trial took place in Chesapeake after a judge agreed to move it from Fairfax because of pretrial publicity. A jury convicted Malvo of capital murder for the slaying of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was shot in the head outside a Home Depot store. Under Virginia law, a capital murder conviction requires either a death sentence or life without parole. Prosecutors sought a death sentence, but a jury opted for life in prison.

Malvo then negotiated a plea bargain in Spotsylvania County and agreed to a life sentence and waived his appeal rights.

Virginia’s argument

The attorney general’s office argued unsuccessfully that the Supreme Court rulings should not apply to Malvo. To begin with, while the jury in Chesapeake had only the option of a death penalty or life without parole, the capital murder statute required them to make specific findings about Malvo, including a conclusion that he poses a future danger. The state argued that the jury’s findings provide the kind of individualized assessment that the Supreme Court requires to sentence a juvenile to life in prison.

The state also argued that Malvo knowingly waived his appeal rights when he struck the plea bargain in Spotsylvania County.

Jackson, in his ruling, wrote that Malvo was entitled to a new sentencing hearing because the Supreme Court’s ruling grants new rights to juveniles that Malvo didn’t know he had when he agreed to the plea bargain.

Malvo has been serving his sentence at Red Onion state prison in southwest Virginia.
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Preparing for North Korea’s growing threat, the Pentagon will try to shoot down an intercontinental-range missile for the first time in a test next week. The goal is to more closely simulate a North Korean ICBM aimed at the U.S. homeland, officials said Friday

The American interceptor has a spotty track record, succeeding in nine of 17 attempts against missiles of less than intercontinental range since 1999. The most recent test, in June 2014, was a success, but that followed three failures. The system has evolved from the multibillion-dollar effort triggered by President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 push for a “Star Wars” solution to ballistic missile threats during the Cold War — when the Soviet Union was the only major worry.

North Korea is now the focus of U.S. efforts because its leader, Kim Jong Un, has vowed to field a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching American territory. He has yet to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, but Pentagon officials believe he is speeding in that direction.

‘Left unchecked,’ North Korea will succeed

Marine Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said this week that “left unchecked,” Kim will eventually succeed.

The Pentagon has a variety of missile defense systems, but the one designed with a potential North Korean ICBM in mind is perhaps the most technologically challenging. Critics say it also is the least reliable.

The basic defensive idea is to fire a rocket into space upon warning of a hostile missile launch. The rocket releases a 5-foot-long device called a “kill vehicle” that uses internal guidance systems to steer into the path of the oncoming missile’s warhead, destroying it by force of impact. Officially known as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, the Pentagon likens it to hitting a bullet with a bullet.

Test set for Tuesday

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, which is responsible for developing and testing the system, has scheduled the intercept test for Tuesday.

An interceptor is to be launched from an underground silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and soar toward the target, which will be fired from a test range on Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. If all goes as planned, the “kill vehicle” will slam into the ICBM-like target’s mock warhead high over the Pacific Ocean.

The target will be a custom-made missile meant to simulate an ICBM, meaning it will fly faster than missiles used in previous intercept tests, according to Christopher Johnson, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency. The target is not a mock-up of an actual North Korean ICBM.

“We conduct increasingly complex test scenarios as the program matures and advances,” Johnson said Friday. “Testing against an ICBM-type threat is the next step in that process.”

Military in need of a success story

Officials say this is not a make-or-break test.

While it wasn’t scheduled with the expectation of an imminent North Korean missile threat, the military will closely watch whether it shows progress toward the stated goal of being able to reliably shoot down a small number of ICBMs targeting the United States. The Pentagon is thirsting for a success story amid growing fears about North Korea’s escalating capability.

“I can’t imagine what they’re going to say if it fails,” said Philip Coyle, senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He headed the Pentagon’s office of operational test and evaluation from 1994 to 2001 and has closely studied the missile defense system.

“These tests are scripted for success, and what’s been astonishing to me is that so many of them have failed,” Coyle said.

The interceptor system has been in place since 2004, but it has never been used in combat or fully tested. There currently are 32 interceptors in silos at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenberg, north of Los Angeles. The Pentagon says it will have eight more, for a total of 44, by the end of this year.

$7.9B sought for missile defense 

In its 2018 budget presented to Congress this week, the Pentagon proposed spending $7.9 billion on missile defense, including $1.5 billion for the ground-based midcourse defense program. Other elements of that effort include the Patriot, designed to shoot down short-range ballistic missiles, and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, which the U.S. has installed in South Korea as a defense against medium-range North Korean missiles.

The Trump administration has yet to announce its intentions on missile defense.

President Donald Trump recently ordered the Pentagon to undertake a ballistic missile defense review. Some experts argue the current strategy for shooting down ICBM-range missiles, focused on the silo-based interceptors, is overly expensive and inadequate. They say a more fruitful approach would be to destroy or disable such missiles before they can be launched, possibly by cyberattack.
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The United States is again receiving intelligence from a key ally, putting to rest, for now at least, the latest flap over Washington’s handling of sensitive information.

Britain resumed intelligence sharing with the U.S. late Thursday, saying it had received “fresh assurances” after American officials leaked key details of the investigation into the Manchester terror attack to the media.

“While we do not usually comment on information sharing arrangements, having received fresh assurances, we are now working closely with our key partners around the world including all those in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance,” said Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, Britain’s top counterterrorism officer.

The “Five Eyes” alliance is the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

British police furious

Tensions between the U.S. and Britain, simmering since U.S. officials began leaking details like the name of the Manchester bomber just hours after the attack, came to a boil Thursday. Manchester police were reported to be furious that the New York Times published unreleased forensic photographs from the crime scene.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, who earlier said she intended to make clear “that intelligence that is shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure,” did just that during an encounter with U.S. President Donald Trump at Thursday’s NATO summit in Brussels, according to a spokesman.

Watch: May on Pressing Trump About Manchester Intel Leaks

And it seems the message resonated.

“My administration will get to the bottom of this,” Trump said in a statement, calling the leaks “deeply troubling” and “a grave threat to our national security.”​

‘Initiated appropriate steps’

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also took action, saying Thursday he had “initiated appropriate steps” to take care of the problem.

Some British officials were quick to caution that despite the flare-up, there likely would be no lasting damage to what has been a strong and steady relationship between the two countries.

“When one side talks the other side listens,” one official told VOA on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials were likewise eager to condemn the leaks, emphasizing the need to assure allies the intelligence community can be trusted.

Other incidents

But the dispute with Britain over details of the Manchester investigation is just the latest and follows another incident that has threatened to unsettle U.S. allies.

Israel this week said it had changed its intelligence sharing protocols with the U.S. after Trump shared highly classified information with Russian diplomats during a visit to the White House two weeks ago.

“I can confirm that we did a spot repair,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio Wednesday. “What we had to clarify with our friends in the United States, we did.”

But even though both Israel and Britain say their intelligence sharing relationships with the U.S. remain excellent, the incident may add to nagging doubts held by some U.S. allies since Trump took office.

“We don’t want to create a situation where other intelligence services, our allies like the Brits, like the Israelis, feel very hesitant to share intelligence and share information with us because of the fear that this information or this intel can end up on the front page of newspapers,” Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent, told VOA.

“Sharing it [the intelligence] with the Russians, an entity that’s considered hostile both to us, from an intelligence perspective, and to the country … is very damaging to the relationship,” he added.

Top U.S. intelligence officials also acknowledge there is a danger.

“The release of information not only undermines confidence in our allies about our ability to maintain secure information that we share with them, it jeopardizes sources and methods that are invaluable to our ability to find out what’s going on and what those threats are,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers earlier this week.

For now, there is no evidence that the leaks from the Manchester investigation or Trump’s disclosure to the Russians, have resulted in any lasting problems, although intelligence assessments have not been completed.

And despite any misgivings, U.S. allies are unlikely to bail out on long-standing intelligence relationships that have been cultivated for decades.

“We still have the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world,” Soufan said. “We need our allies to work with us, but let’s be frank, they need us more than we need them. So this is going to create some frustrating feelings, but I think we will overcome that.”

 
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