Author: PolitCens

The Little Saigon district in California’s Orange County is home to a large concentration of Vietnamese people. In hopes of engaging these voters, candidates for public office are putting up signs and holding events. VOA’s Long Nguyen reports, Elizabeth Cherneff narrates. Camera: Vu Nguyen.
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Rome — A major Vatican meeting gathering clerics and laity across the globe to discuss the future of the Catholic Church closes this weekend, thwarting discussion of women becoming priests or deacons in the world’s largest Christian denomination.

But that didn’t stop a half-dozen Catholic women from “ordination” in a secret ceremony in Rome that was not authorized by the Vatican.

Jesuit Father Allan Deck, a professor at the Los Angeles-based Loyola Marymount University, told VOA that the Catholic Church under Pope Francis’ leadership recognizes the need for adaptability to realize its spiritual mission in the world at this time of significant change.

“Not the first time that the church in its 2,000-year history has experienced very significant shifts,” he said. “The church, in order to accomplish its mission, has to engage people, circumstances and times. And it has to be capable of development, while at the same time remaining faithful to its mission and to the revelation that has been communicated to it. This is hard. This is what’s happening.”

While Catholic women participated over the past month in what many consider the most significant Catholic gathering since the 1960s — called the “synod on synodality” — many of their number were let down by a Vatican decision to sideline talk of the ordination of female priests or deacons, instead referring the matter to a future study group.

Bridget Mary Meehan, an American co-founder of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, told VOA that her organization has performed 270 ordinations of women in 14 countries since its creation in 2002.

“We wanted to share with Pope Francis that it is time to build a bridge between the international women priests’ movement and the Vatican,” she said. “We are on the same page as he is about a synodal church. We believe all are called, all are equal and all are co-responsible for the mission of the church — to be the face of Christ in the world in loving and compassionate service. One of these ways is ordained ministry.”

Advocates say women play a huge role in daily Catholic ministries — also called the diakonia — in education, pastoral care and hospitals worldwide. In some places, women are especially active because there are no priests, such as in the Amazon. But often their leadership is not recognized.

Meehan “ordained” six Catholic women from France, Spain and the United States on a barge on Rome’s Tiber River earlier this month to acknowledge their central role in ministry around the world.

“We did it because we felt that it’s time for us, after 22 years of serving the church in the diakonia ministry, to really share the good news that women are being ordained by Catholic communities who want to call them forward to ministry among them,” Meehan said.

“It’s like a renewal of ministry that is already in the midst of the Catholic Church. It’s already occurring,” she said.

Although Pope Francis has appointed more women to top jobs at the Vatican than any of his predecessors, he has ruled out female priests or deacons ministering in the Catholic Church.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, who has led the Pacific Island nation to build closer ties with China in recent years, secured his third term in office on Saturday. He defeated two other candidates in an election closely monitored by countries around the world.

Maamau won about 55% of the vote, while his nearest challenger, Kaotitaaake Kokoria, won 42% of the vote, New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Kiribati said. Kiribati’s chief justice, Tetiro Semilota, declared Maamau the winner and congratulated him.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon became the first international leader to congratulate Maamau for his victory on Saturday. “We look forward to working with the Government of Kiribati to deliver on our shared priorities,” he wrote in a post on social media platform X.

Kiribati is one of the countries that relies heavily on foreign aid. The cost of living, rising sea level and relations with China were the main issues leading up to Friday’s presidential election.

Saturday’s outcome is viewed as the Kiribati voters’ endorsement of policies Maamau’s government has implemented over the last four years, including deepening the Pacific Island nation’s ties with China.

During the parliamentary election in August, the ruling Tobwaan Kiribati Party, or TKP, secured 33 out of 44 seats in the new parliament, and Maamau won his seat by winning close to 83% of the votes in his district.

“The TKP has a very healthy majority [in the parliament], and it sort of shows that the people of Kiribati want to see more of what has been happening [over the last few years],” said Henryk Szadziewski, an expert on Pacific-China relations at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Since switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019, Kiribati has deepened its engagement with Beijing. The Maamau administration’s efforts to elevate security ties with the Chinese government have prompted concerns from partners such as Australia and the United States.

In 2021, China helped Kiribati revamp a World War II-era airstrip on the island of Kanton, which is less than 3,000 kilometers from Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where major U.S. military bases are located.

In February, Kiribati’s acting police commissioner, Eeri Aritiera, revealed that Chinese police would help Kiribati’s community policing program and IT department, raising concerns from the U.S. that the cooperation could negatively impact Kiribati’s sovereignty.

Some analysts say since China has ambitions to deepen its economic and security reach in the Pacific region, Australia and the United States are very concerned about any advancement in security relations between Beijing and Pacific Island countries.

“It’s unclear how the policing arrangement with Kiribati will evolve in Maamou’s next term, but it’s unlikely that Chinese engagement will cease or decrease,” said Meg Keen, a senior fellow at Lowy Institute in Australia.

Despite these concerns, Szadziewski said Kiribati’s efforts to build closer ties with China shouldn’t be viewed through a pure zero-sum lens. “The Kiribati economy is heavily reliant on tourism and fishing, and China has stepped up with infrastructure projects in that respect,” he told VOA by phone.

But China’s engagement with Kiribati hasn’t been “all benevolence,” Szadziewski said. “Kiribati has opened up its maritime domain for increased Chinese fishing, so there is something in it for China that’s economic,” he said.

During a reception celebrating the fifth anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between China and Kiribati, the Chinese ambassador to Kiribati, Zhou Limin, said the relationship has further consolidated and vowed to strengthen synergy between the two countries in the future.

Under Maamau’s third term, Keen in Australia said, Kiribati will likely maintain its close relationship with China while also trying to seek assistance from other countries, such as Australia, to help improve the country’s infrastructure and climate resilience.

“There’s no indication that the relationship with China will change under another term for Maamau, and he will be seeking a strong legacy in his final term by working with any development partner that can assist with his ambitious development goals,” Keen told VOA in a written response.

She added that most Pacific leaders don’t view maintaining relations with China or other democratic countries such as Australia as “an either/or choice.”

In response to China’s elevated relations with Kiribati, Australia and the United States have also stepped up efforts to deepen ties with the Pacific Islands nation.

In 2023, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that Canberra would “rapidly scale up” security and development with Kiribati during her visit to the country. In February, the U.S. Coast Guard conducted joint patrols with Kiribati in the country’s exclusive economic zone.

Despite these efforts, Szadziewski at the University of Hawaii said it’s important for democratic countries to understand the priorities of Pacific Island countries and try to engage with them on “equal footing.”

“Pacific Island states have heightened sensitivity about sovereignty, so they prefer to see exchanges with other states on an equal footing,” he told VOA, adding that democratic countries should ensure the priority of their engagement with Pacific Island countries is not solely about geopolitics.

“If China is your main concern and why you are in the region, that’s not going to be something of interest to the Pacific Island leaders,” Szadziewski said.

In addition to the presidential election in Kiribati, Palau is going to hold a general election on November 5, with the current president, Surangel Whipps Jr., running against former president Tommy Remengesau Jr. in a race that analysts say Beijing will be closely following.

Experts say competition for geopolitical influence between China and the U.S. as well as its allies will intensify as countries try to engage with winners emerging from these important elections in the Pacific region.

“Election periods will always heighten activities, and competition [between these countries] is only going to get more intense over the next couple of years,” Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told VOA by phone.
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Shells fell on the Alaska Native village as winter approached, and then sailors landed and burned what was left of homes, food caches and canoes. Conditions grew so dire in the following months that elders sacrificed their own lives to spare food for surviving children.

It was Oct. 26, 1882, in Angoon, a Tlingit village of about 420 people in the southeastern Alaska panhandle. Now, 142 years later, the perpetrator of the bombardment — the U.S. Navy — is set to say it is sorry.

Rear Adm. Mark Sucato, the commander of the Navy’s northwest region, will issue the apology during a ceremony on Saturday, the anniversary of the atrocity. While the rebuilt Angoon received $90,000 in a settlement with the Department of Interior in 1973, village leaders have for decades sought an apology as well, beginning each yearly remembrance by asking three times, “Is there anyone here from the Navy to apologize?”

“You can imagine the generations of people that have died since 1882 that have wondered what had happened, why it happened, and wanted an apology of some sort, because in our minds, we didn’t do anything wrong,” said Daniel Johnson Jr., a tribal head in Angoon.

The attack was one of a series of conflicts between the American military and Alaska Natives in the years after the U.S. bought the territory from Russia in 1867. The U.S. Navy issued an apology last month for destroying the nearby village of Kake in 1869, and the Army has indicated that it plans to apologize for shelling Wrangell, also in southeast Alaska, that year, though no date has been set.

The Navy acknowledges the actions it undertook or ordered in Angoon and Kake caused deaths, a loss of resources and multigenerational trauma, Navy civilian spokesperson Julianne Leinenveber said in an email.

“An apology is not only warranted, but long overdue,” she said.

Today, Angoon remains a quaint village of about 420 people, with colorful old homes and totem poles clustered on the west side of Admiralty Island, accessible by ferry or float plane, in the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest. The residents are vastly outnumbered by brown bears, and the village in recent years has strived to foster its ecotourism industry. Bald eagles and humpback whales abound, and the salmon and halibut fishing is excellent.

Accounts vary as to what prompted its destruction, but they generally begin with the accidental death of a Tlingit shaman, Tith Klane. Klane was killed when a harpoon gun exploded on a whaling ship owned by his employer, the North West Trading Co.

The Navy’s version says tribal members forced the vessel to shore, possibly took hostages and, in accordance with their customs, demanded 200 blankets in compensation.

The company declined to provide the blankets and ordered the Tlingits to return to work. Instead, in sorrow, they painted their faces with coal tar and tallow — something the company’s employees took as a precursor to an insurrection. The company’s superintendent then sought help from Naval Cmdr. E.C. Merriman, the top U.S. official in Alaska, saying a Tlingit uprising threatened the lives and property of white residents.

The Tlingit version contends the boat’s crew, which included Tlingit members, likely remained with the vessel out of respect, planning to attend the funeral, and that no hostages were taken. Johnson said the tribe never would have demanded compensation so soon after the death.

Merriman arrived on Oct. 25 and insisted the tribe provide 400 blankets by noon the next day as punishment for disobedience. When the Tlingits turned over just 81, Merriman attacked, destroying 12 clan houses, smaller homes, canoes and the village’s food stores.

Six children died in the attack, and “there’s untold numbers of elderly and infants who died that winter of both cold, exposure and hunger,” Johnson said.

Billy Jones, Tith Klane’s nephew, was 13 when Angoon was destroyed. Around 1950, he recorded two interviews, and his account was later included in a booklet prepared for the 100th anniversary of the bombing in 1982.

“They left us homeless on the beach,” Jones said.

Rosita Worl, the president of Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, described how some elders that winter “walked into the forest” — meaning they died, sacrificing themselves so the younger people would have more food.

Even though the Navy’s written history conflicts with the Tlingit oral tradition, the Navy defers to the tribe’s account “out of respect for the long-lasting impacts these tragic incidents had on the affected clans,” said Leinenveber, the Navy spokesperson.

Tlingit leaders were so stunned when Navy officials told them, during a Zoom call in May, that the apology would finally be forthcoming that no one spoke for five minutes, Johnson said.

Eunice James, of Juneau, a descendant of Tith Klane, said she hopes the apology helps her family and the entire community heal. She expects his presence at the ceremony.

“Not only his spirit will be there, but the spirit of many of our ancestors, because we’ve lost so many,” she said.
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MIAMI, FLORIDA — The last Kmart on the U.S. mainland sits at the west end of a busy suburban Miami shopping center, quiet and largely ignored.

All around it are thriving chain stores attracting steady streams of customers in sectors where the former box-store chain was once a major player: Marshalls, Hobby Lobby, PetSmart and Dollar Tree.

But at this all-but-last outpost of a company once famed for its “Blue Light Specials,” only an occasional shopper pops in, mostly out of curiosity or nostalgia, then leaves after buying little or nothing.

“I hadn’t seen Kmart in so long,” said Juan de la Madriz, who came to the shopping center on a recent weekday to buy dog food at PetSmart. The architect spotted the Kmart and wondered if he could find a gift for his newborn grandson. He exited 10 minutes later having spent $23 on a stuffed dog and a wooden toy workbench.

“It will be sad if it closes,” he said about the store, “but everything now is on computers.”

The last full-size Kmart in the 50 states closed Sunday in Long Island, New York, making the Miami store — now a fraction of its former size — the last operating in the continental United States. At its peak 30 years ago, Kmart operated about 2,500 locations. Today, four others remain: three in the U.S. Virgin Islands and one in Guam. There is also a website.

Transformco, the Illinois-based holding company that owns Kmart and what’s left of another former retail behemoth, Sears, did not respond to email requests for comment or allow the store manager to speak. The company’s plans for the Miami location are unknown — but there is no indication it will close soon.

The last outpost

If the Miami Kmart were a brand-new mom-and-pop retailer, a shopper might think it could eventually thrive with advertising and a little luck. Kmart long had a reputation for clutter and mess, but this store is immaculate, and the merchandise is precisely stacked and displayed.

The size of a CVS or Walgreens drug store, the branch occupies what was its garden section during its big-box days. A couple years ago, an At Home department store took over the rest of the space.

“Get it all! Must Haves. Wish Fors. Friendly Faces,” the sign next to the door reads.

Halloween and Christmas decorations line the entryway, next to the 30 shopping carts that no one is using. A robotic voice says “Welcome,” as does a cheery employee, one of three spotted in the store. A lone customer checks out the Halloween candy.

Straight ahead are a few dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines and dryers: the appliance department. In the store’s main room, there is a large section of toiletries and diapers, a few hardware essentials and some cleaning and pet supplies. The toy department comprises a couple rows of dolls, action figures, games and squirt guns. Sun dresses, summer tops and sweatshirts make up the small clothing section. Oh, and there are snacks.

Also still present: a recorded voice intoning a once-familiar message over a loudspeaker.

“Attention Kmart shoppers,” it says, announcing that almost all items are on sale.

If there were only customers to hear it, like there used to be.

A fast rise and a slow death

Kmart was founded by the retailer S.S. Kresge Company in Michigan in 1962 and grew quickly, reaching 2,000 stores in 20 years. The company sold almost everything, from clothing to jewelry, TVs to dog food, appliances to toys to sporting goods. By the mid-1980s, it was the nation’s second-largest retailer behind Sears, and there were stores in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The roots of Kmart’s decline were laid during that decade when management bought Waldenbooks, Borders Books, Builders Square, Sports Authority and a stake in OfficeMax, thinking the company needed diversification. They were wrong. By the late 1990s, the company had sold those retailers yet still needed $5 billion in refinancing — the equivalent of $9 billion today.

In 2002, Kmart declared bankruptcy as Walmart and Target devoured its market share. Its website never took off, allowing Amazon to beat it in the e-commerce space. There were executive pay scandals, a purchase by a hedge fund manager who stripped it bare and a disastrous 2005 acquisition of Sears.

Mark Cohen, a former Sears Canada CEO and former director of retail studies at Columbia University’s graduate school of business, said Kmart would have thrived if not for the top executives who ran it into the ground. It could have been Walmart.

“It sold in its heyday things that people continue to buy in large quantities today,” Cohen said. “Kmart went down the drain because it was led by incompetent managers.”

Transformco bought Kmart and Sears out of another bankruptcy in 2019 for $5 billion — its critics say mostly for the stores’ real estate. There were 202 Kmarts remaining.

Over the past five years, the firm has kept closing Kmarts until all that’s left in the states is Miami Store #3074.

Nostalgia does not translate into sales

On the day that de la Madriz dropped in to buy his grandson’s gift, only a few customers trickled in and out of the store every hour.

College students Joey Fernandez and Wilfredo Huayhua spent five minutes inside before leaving empty-handed. They knew about the chain’s near-demise, spotted the store while in the shopping center and went in to reminisce. It seemed small, they said, compared to the Kmarts they remembered.

“We were bummed out — I spent a lot of my childhood at Kmart,” said Fernandez, 18. Still, he might be back — the store has good prices on the facial cleanser he uses.

Teacher Oliver Sequin had been entering Marshalls when he spotted the Kmart. That, too, triggered nostalgia but also reminded him he needed Band-Aids for his 5-year-old son. That was all he purchased.

“I remember when Kmarts were bigger,” Sequin said. “But, to be honest, I like this one better. It is clean and organized, not like they were.”
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A proposed multibillion-dollar missile defense system for Guam has been reduced to 16 sites on the island from the original 22, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said in a draft environmental impact statement on Friday.

The project is designed to create “360 degree” protection for the U.S. Pacific territory from missile and air attacks of all kinds, the agency said. Plans include integrating Raytheon’s SM-6, SM-3 Block IIA, Lockheed Martin’s  THAAD, and the Patriot PAC-3, which uses components from both companies, over about 10 years.

The environmental impact study, which began last year and included a public comment period this year, proposes “deploying and operating and maintaining a combination of integrated components for air and missile defense positioned on 16 sites” on the island. The report does not say why the number of sites was reduced.

All of the remaining 16 sites are on U.S. military property.

The project is crucial to the U.S. and its Indo-Pacific allies because it provides a logistical hub far from U.S. shores – Guam is closer to China than it is to Hawaii.

China’s massive conventional ballistic missile inventory includes the DF-26, with an estimated range of about 4,000 km (2,500 miles), which can also carry anti-ship and nuclear warheads. Newer weapons in development, such as the hypersonic glide vehicle DF-27, are drawing increased attention from U.S. military planners.

“It’s a forward operating base for long-range bombers, and a port for ships, so that navy ships can sally forth from there,” said Peter Layton, a defense and aviation expert at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. “Certainly places in Japan and the Philippines are a lot closer (to China)… but a lot more exposed.”

There will be public meetings in Guam next month to discuss Friday’s report, the agency statement said.
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Mexico city — The fate of Latin American economies, deeply reliant on remittances from the United States, hangs in the balance with the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, Fitch Ratings said on Friday.

Why it’s important

The potential disparity in immigration policies between the Republican and Democratic administrations could significantly affect Central American nations, which are heavily dependent on remittances from the U.S.

Key comment

“Central America is highly vulnerable to U.S. immigration policies, as remittances fund a large component of their economic activity,” said Fitch, a U.S.-based credit rating agency.

In countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua, remittances currently account for more than 30% of their gross domestic product, the ratings agency said, adding that Mexico is also one of the largest recipients of remittances globally, where inflows have steadily increased over the past decade to close to 3.5% of GDP, from 2%.

By the numbers

Remittances to Nicaragua have tripled in the past five years, while those to other countries, specifically El Salvador and Jamaica, have considerably slowed.

A study based on data from the U.S. Current Population Survey showed that a 1% increase in the country’s household earnings results in a 0.2% to 0.3% increase in remittances sent abroad.

Context

The U.S. elections could usher in changes in immigration policies, with Donald Trump’s campaign showing a willingness to restrict border crossings and increase deportations, while the potential Kamala Harris administration would aim to pass a bipartisan law to reform the asylum process and limit immigration parole.

Policy changes could significantly affect migrants and the Central American economies that are heavily dependent on the money they send back home from the United States.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton, the space agency said Friday.

A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station at midweek. The capsule was hoisted onto the recovery ship where the four astronauts had routine medical checks.

Soon after splashdown, a NASA astronaut had a “medical issue” and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution,” the space agency said in a statement.

The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained at the hospital as a “precautionary measure,” NASA said.

The space agency said it would not share details about the astronaut’s condition, citing patient privacy.

The other three astronauts were discharged and returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

It can take days or even weeks for astronauts to readjust to gravity after living in weightlessness for several months.

The astronauts should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.

SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”

Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.

The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
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washington — Hackers linked to the Chinese government have broken into parts of the U.S. telecommunications system in a breach that might be connected to an attempt to access data from the presidential campaigns of Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.  

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency late Friday said they were investigating “unauthorized access” to commercial telecommunications infrastructure, attributing the attack to Chinese-affiliated actors.

The agencies said they immediately notified affected companies once the breach was detected and had offered assistance, though there might be additional victims.

“The investigation is ongoing, and we encourage any organization that believes it might be a victim to engage its local FBI field office or CISA,” the statement said.

“Agencies across the U.S. government are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses across the commercial communications sector,” it added.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington dismissed the U.S. hacking allegations as disinformation, calling the U.S. “the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks.”

“For some time, the U.S. has compiled and spread all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats,” said embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu in an email to VOA.

“China’s position is consistent and clear,” he said. “China firmly opposes and combats cyberattacks and cyber theft in all forms.”

Word of the breach linked to China followed a report by The New York Times on Friday that Chinese hackers are thought to have broken into telecommunications networks to target the Trump campaign.

People familiar with the investigation told the Times that the Chinese hackers specifically looked to access data from phones used by Trump and his running mate, Republican Senator JD Vance.

Separately, a person familiar with the investigation told VOA that people affiliated with the campaign of Vice President Harris were also targeted. 

Investigators are still trying to determine what data the hackers were able to get, if any, and whether the hackers could listen in on conversations in real time.  

The FBI declined to comment on the Trump and Harris campaign breaches.

In a statement shared with VOA, the Trump campaign acknowledged the breach and blamed Harris for letting it happen.

“This is the continuation of election interference by Kamala Harris and Democrats who will stop at nothing, including emboldening China and Iran attacking critical American infrastructure, to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign communications director.

“Their dangerous and violent rhetoric has given permission to those who wish to harm President Trump,” Cheung added.

The Trump campaign did not respond to questions asking for more details on how Harris or her campaign enabled the Chinese hack.

The Harris campaign has yet to respond to VOA’s request for comment.

U.S. intelligence agencies have warned for months that foreign adversaries have been using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations to meddle with the November 5 U.S. presidential election.

According to a declassified intelligence assessment issued this week, “foreign actors — particularly Russia, Iran and China — remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests.”

It further warned that Russia and Iran were formulating plans to spark election-related violence.

In addition, reports issued this week by private cybersecurity firms likewise indicated a significant uptick in activity by actors linked to Russia, China and Iran.

All three nations have repeatedly denied accusations of election meddling.

And while U.S. intelligence officials assess there is little agreement among the three countries on the desired outcomes of the presidential election — Russia is said to want a Trump win, Iran is said to be rooting for Harris, and China sees both as equally bad — the Trump campaign has become a frequent target of attacks.

Last month, the U.S. Justice Department charged three Iranian hackers tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with a hack-and-leak operation seeking to undermine Trump’s reelection bid.

U.S. intelligence officials have also accused Iran of trying to ensnare the campaign of current U.S. President Joe Biden before he stepped down in favor of Harris.

But U.S. security officials have been even more leery of China.

U.S. agencies, led by CISA and the FBI, have been warning that China-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. computer systems and networks, in some case hiding for years.

The China-linked group, known as Volt Typhoon, has been “positioning itself to launch destructive cyberattacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans,” according to an advisory issued in February.

“What we’ve found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement at the time.
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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of major government contractor SpaceX and a key ally of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the last two years, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, confirmed to The Associated Press that Musk and Putin have had contact through calls. The person didn’t provide additional details about the frequency of the calls, when they occurred or their content.

Musk, the world’s richest person who also owns Tesla and the social media platform X, has emerged as a leading voice on the American right. He’s poured millions of dollars into Trump’s presidential bid and turned the platform once known as Twitter into a site popular with Trump supporters, as well as conspiracy theorists, extremists and Russian propagandists.

Musk’s contacts with Putin raise national security questions, given his companies’ work for the government, and highlight concerns about Russian influence in American politics.

Here’s what to know:

What they talked about

Musk and Putin have spoken repeatedly about personal matters, business and geopolitics, The Journal reported Thursday, citing multiple current and former officials in the United States, Europe and Russia.

During one talk, Putin asked Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite system over Taiwan as a favor for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose ties to Putin have grown closer, The Journal reported. Putin and Xi have met more than 40 times since 2013. 

Russia has denied the conversations took place. In 2022, Musk said he’d spoken to Putin only once, in a call 18 months earlier focused on space.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said Friday that it was “not aware of the specifics” of any requests made by Putin on China’s behalf.

There was no immediate response to messages left with X and Tesla seeking Musk’s comment.

What the talks mean for national security

Musk’s relationship with Putin raises national security questions given the billions of dollars in government contracts awarded to SpaceX, a critical partner to NASA and government satellite programs.

Trump also has vowed to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.

The head of any large defense contractor would face similar questions if they held private talks with one of America’s greatest adversaries, said Bradley Bowman, a former West Point assistant professor and Senate national security adviser who now serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based defense think tank.

Bowman said the timing of the calls as reported by The Journal and Musk’s changing views on Ukraine was a “disturbing coincidence.”

“The policy of the U.S. government is to try to isolate Vladimir Putin, and Elon Musk is directly undercutting that,” Bowman said. “What is Putin doing with Musk? Putin is trying to reduce his international isolation and impact American foreign policy.”

The request from Putin on Starlink as a favor to China is also likely to get attention, given U.S. support for Taiwan and concerns about the growing partnership between the Kremlin and Beijing.

Musk, whose Tesla operates Gigafactory Shanghai, has developed a close relationship with China’s top leaders. His remarks about China have been friendly, and he has suggested Taiwan cede some control to Beijing by becoming a special administrative region.

Moscow has growing ties to other American adversaries. The U.S. has accused Russia of sending ballistic missiles to Iran and said North Korea sent troops to Russia, possibly for combat in Ukraine.

On Ukraine, Musk’s views have shifted since he initially supported Kyiv following Russia’s invasion in 2022 and provided it with his Starlink system for communications.

Musk then refused to allow Ukraine in 2023 to use Starlink for a surprise attack on Russian soldiers in Crimea.

He also floated a proposal to end the war that would have required Ukraine to drop its plans for NATO membership and given Russia permanent control of Crimea, which it seized in 2014. The plan infuriated Ukrainian leaders.

One person familiar with the talks between Musk and Putin told The Journal that there is no evidence the contact between Musk and Putin represents a security problem for the U.S.

Asked about Musk’s contacts with Putin, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday that he had no information to share.

The CIA, Pentagon and National Security Agency had no comment. The State Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Musk’s close ties to Trump

Musk recently appeared at a Trump rally, sporting a Make America Great Again hat and delivered an ominous warning that if Trump lost the race, “this will be the last election.”

Last year, Musk mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s request for aid for his country with a meme and said in February that the U.S. should cut its assistance because Ukraine couldn’t win.

Trump, who has praised Putin’s leadership and criticized the NATO alliance and U.S. aid for Ukraine, has raised questions about what he would be willing to concede if he’s elected in a negotiation over Ukraine’s future.

U.S. intelligence officials and private tech analysts have concluded that Russia is working to covertly support Trump with disinformation and propaganda targeting his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Since he took over X, it has become a leading online source of Russian propaganda and disinformation aimed at Americans.

Trump has faced scrutiny over his own recent contacts with Putin, outlined in a new book by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward.

Woodward quoted an unnamed Trump aide who said the former president and Putin may have had as many as seven conversations since Trump lost reelection in 2020.

Before one of the calls, the aide said they were asked to leave Trump’s office to give the two privacy.

The Trump campaign and the Kremlin have denied those calls occurred.

In response to questions about Musk and Putin, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the billionaire “a once-in-a-generation industry leader” whose ideas could benefit “our broken federal bureaucracy.”

“As for Putin, there’s only one candidate in the race that he did not invade another country under, and it’s President Trump,” Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has long said that he will re-establish his peace through strength foreign policy to deter Russia’s aggression and end the war in Ukraine.”

Russia confirms one conversation

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Friday rejected The Journal’s report as “absolutely false information.”

Peskov said Putin and Musk once held a “medium-length phone conversation” prior to 2022 that was “as more of an introductory nature” and that the two talked about “visionary technologies, technological solutions for the future.”

“After that, Musk had no contacts with Putin,” Peskov said, dismissing The Journal’s article as political.

“The election has entered its home stretch, and of course the opponents stop at nothing,” Peskov said. “Remember that a week ago they were saying that Putin allegedly talks to Trump all day long. Now he allegedly talks to Musk all the time. It’s all untrue.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence told the AP that they would “refrain from commenting” about communication between Putin and Musk.
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Vice President Kamala Harris says she believes the U.S. should lead by building alliances to manage conflict. Former President Donald Trump says his projection of strength, and unpredictability, can stop wars before they begin. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara spoke to experts on which foreign policy approach would be better at reducing conflict, amid wars in the Middle East and Europe.
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U.S. Republican Vice Presidential Nominee JD Vance grew up in Appalachia, attended an Ivy League school, and could become one of the youngest vice presidents in U.S. history. Carolyn Presutti takes us back to his roots. Camera: Henry Hernandez, Saqib Ul Islam. Contributor: Lynn Davis.
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Four astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton.

A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week.

The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.

SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”

Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.

The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
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NEW DELHI — This week’s movement toward rapprochement between the leaders of China and India is raising questions about New Delhi’s commitment to the Quad, the loose four-nation alliance widely seen as a U.S.-led bid to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.

India’s participation in the grouping, which also includes Japan and Australia and is formally known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, has been at least partly driven by a vexing border dispute that has seen repeated clashes between Chinese and Indian troops along their Himalayan border.

Presidents Narendra Modi of India and Xi Jinping of China agreed Wednesday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia to reduce their differences and jointly work out a plan for patrolling the border. The agreement is expected to result in closer political and economic ties.

“The thaw in India-China relations is a boon to both countries. This is particularly significant for China because India may now be less inclined to confront Beijing as part of Quad,” Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international affairs at Bucknell University, told VOA. “In this sense, the effectiveness of Quad would be diluted with a less enthusiastic India.”

India and China share certain common interests as the two largest developing nations. China was India’s biggest trade partner last year, though there are signs that the U.S. might take its place this year.

“This suggests that the U.S. may wish to push forward its Indo-Pacific strategy without relying too heavily on support from India,” Zhu said.

The Quad has served as an important element in the American effort to establish a network of alliances and partnerships to counter China’s rising economic and military power, marked by its aggressive behavior in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

“By remaining relatively informal, the Quad can quietly achieve many of the functions performed by NATO, up to and including military contingency planning,” wrote James Jay Carafano, a security affairs expert, on the website of the Liechtenstein-based think tank Geopolitical Intelligence Services AG.

China’s state-run newspaper Global Times described the improved China-India relationship as a response to U.S. and Western European efforts to reduce their economic reliance on China, a process sometimes described as “decoupling.”

“In the context of the US ‘decoupling’ strategy, the strengthened cooperation between China and India takes on even greater significance,” the paper said in an editorial published Thursday. “The pressures from the US ‘decoupling’ strategy and technological restrictions have heightened regional tensions and increased geopolitical risks for both nations.”

The editorial also said that the potential geopolitical shift has already generated market optimism. “It’s based on the recognition of their complementary strengths and the vast opportunities for collaboration across diverse sectors, including manufacturing, infrastructure and sustainable development.”

Nevertheless, it is uncertain whether the border agreement will be sustained in the face of decades-old differences between the world’s two most-populous countries.

They fought a war in 1962 and were engaged in a border clash in 2020 in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died. There is some concern in India about whether China will in fact pull back troops in the disputed border areas and implement the agreement on the ground.

India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Thursday that “agreements, once reached, must be scrupulously respected” and “disputes and differences must be settled by dialogue and diplomacy.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with key negotiators Thursday to discuss a Mideast cease-fire during a stop in the negotiating hub of Qatar. The parties have spent months trying to broker an end to hostilities in Gaza and Lebanon and bring home about 100 hostages believed to still be held in Gaza. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell has the story.
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The U.S. Interior Department on Thursday gave final approval to ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in Nevada, the first domestic source of the battery metal to be permitted by President Joe Biden’s administration and one that will become a key supplier to Ford and other electric vehicle manufacturers. 

Shares of the Australia-based critical minerals miner jumped more than 20% in New York trading on Thursday afternoon before easing down. 

The approval ends a more-than six-year review process during which regulators, ioneer and conservationists tussled over the fate of a rare flower found at the mine site, a tension that exposed the sometimes competing priorities between climate change mitigation efforts and biodiversity protection. 

The permit, which had been expected by the end of the year, comes amid a flurry of recent moves by Biden officials to support critical minerals production and offset China’s market dominance.  

It also unlocks a $700 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as a $490 million equity investment from Sibanye Stillwater to fund the project. 

“This is a science-based decision,” Laura Daniel-Davis, the Interior Department’s acting deputy secretary, told Reuters. “We’re trying to send a signal that there’s no topic with greater importance than addressing climate change.” 

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is controlled by the Interior Department, on Thursday issued the Rhyolite Ridge project’s record of decision — essentially the mine’s permit — and said the project will “include significant protections for the local ecosystem” and help create hundreds of jobs in the rural region.  

The project, roughly 362 kilometers north of Las Vegas, Nevada, contains enough lithium to power roughly 370,000 electric vehicles each year. Construction is slated to begin next year, with production commencing by 2028, a timeline that would make Rhyolite Ridge one of the largest U.S. lithium producers alongside Albemarle and Lithium Americas. 

The U.S. Geological Survey has labeled lithium a critical mineral vital for the U.S. economy and national security.  

“We’re proud to be the first U.S. lithium mine permitted by the Biden administration,” James Calaway, ioneer’s chairman, told Reuters. 

The project will extract lithium as well as boron, a chemical used to make ceramics and soaps, from a clay-like deposit. The lithium will be processed on site into two main derivatives used to make batteries, and the company said it plans to recycle half of all the water used at the site, higher than the industry average. 

Ford and a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic have agreed to buy lithium from the mine. 
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Polls show that Americans’ trust in news reporting is at an all-time low. And while the decline has many causes, it reflects both the changing media landscape and the values of media consumers.

Nearly 250 years since the principle was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, a majority of Americans still agree that a free press is crucial to a democratic society, according to polling by the Pew Research Center. But how they feel about the existing press is a different matter.

The same polls show that only one-third of Americans believes the country’s media report the news objectively. And a September Gallup poll reveals that Americans’ overall trust in mass media has declined to an all-time low of 32%.

Much of the narrative around declining faith in media has been shaped by political partisanship. The last time that America saw such low levels of media confidence was in 2016, when Donald Trump amplified longstanding conservative complaints about liberal media bias by attacking critical coverage of his presidential campaign as “fake news.”

Accordingly, self-identified Republicans report less trust in media, reaching a low of 11% compared with 58% for Democrats.

However, partisan trends don’t capture the whole picture. While partisan divergence in media confidence significantly widened during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush, overall trust in media institutions has been declining for supporters of both parties as well as independents since Gallup first began tracking it in the 1970s.

The rise of partisan cable news networks in the 1990s and digital news, along with social media in the 2000s, has reflected and exacerbated this trend. And dissatisfaction with perceived bias in coverage of conflicts such as the Iraq War or Israel’s invasion of Gaza has also reduced trust in traditional news sources among left-leaning Americans, often driving them toward unreliable alternative sources.

As Americans lose trust in traditional media, they also engage less with it. While over half of adults in the U.S. now report getting their news from social media, audiences and advertising revenue have shrunk when it comes to newspapers and TV news.

In fact, part of the story behind declining trust in media is Americans across the political spectrum becoming less interested in news overall. Nearly two-thirds of Americans are experiencing news fatigue while 38% report that they follow the news closely, compared with 51% in 2016.

Do Americans want independent journalism?

The simultaneous loss of trust and interest in news media has raised questions beyond simple accusations of partisan bias. While criticism of the media often focuses on whether the core principles of independent journalism are being upheld, the principles themselves may not be popular.

A recent study by the Media Insight Project found that common journalistic values such as amplifying marginalized voices, holding power to account or increasing public transparency do not enjoy majority support.

In fact, such values may not be as integral to journalism as is commonly believed. As Columbia University journalism professor Michael Schudson writes, the modern idea of journalism as an independent investigative force and a check on government power has been a fairly recent development.

And amid today’s rapid social, political and technological changes, the role that people expect journalism to play in society may once again be shifting.
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