Author: PolitCens

Washington — The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday upgraded its economic outlook for the United States this year, while lowering its expectations for growth in Europe and China. It left its forecast for global growth unchanged at a relatively lackluster 3.2% for 2024. 

The IMF expects the U.S. economy — the world’s largest — to expand 2.8% this year, down slightly from 2.9% in 2023 but an improvement on the 2.6% it had forecast for 2024 back in July. Growth in the United States has been led by strong consumer spending, fueled by healthy gains in inflation-adjusted wages. 

Next year, though, the IMF expects the U.S. economy to decelerate to 2.2% growth. With a new presidential administration and Congress in place, the IMF envisions the nation’s job market losing some momentum in 2025 as the government begins seeking to curb huge budget deficits by slowing spending, raising taxes or some combination of both. 

The IMF, a 190-nation lending organization, works to promote economic growth and financial stability and reduce global poverty. In its latest forecast, it expects China’s economic growth to slow from 5.2% last year to 4.8% this year and 4.5% in 2025. The world’s No. 2 economy has been hobbled by a collapse in its housing market and by weak consumer confidence — problems only partly offset by strong exports. 

The 20 European countries that share the euro currency are collectively expected to eke out 0.8% growth this year, twice the 2023 expansion of 0.4% but a slight downgrade from the 0.9% the IMF had forecast three months ago for 2024. The German economy, hurt by a slump in manufacturing and real estate, isn’t expected to grow at all this year. 

Worldwide inflation has been cooling — from 6.7% in 2023 to a forecast 5.8% this year and 4.3% in 2025. It’s falling even faster in the world’s wealthy countries, from 4.6% last year to a forecast 2.6% this year and 2% — the target range for most major central banks — in 2025. The progress against inflation has allowed the Fed and the European Central Bank to finally reduce rates after they had aggressively raised them to combat the post-COVID-19 inflation surge. 

But just as lower borrowing costs aid the world’s economies, the IMF warned, the need to contain enormous government deficits will likely put a brake on growth. The overall world economy is expected to grow 3.2% in both 2024 and 2025, down a tick from 3.3% last year. That’s an unimpressive standard: From 2000 through 2019, before the pandemic upended economic activity, global growth had averaged 3.8% a year. 

The IMF also continues to express concern that geopolitical tension, including antagonism between the United States and China, could make world trade less efficient. The concern is that more countries would increasingly do business with their allies instead of seeking the lowest-priced or best-made foreign goods. Still, global trade, measured by volume, is expected to grow 3.1% this year and 3.4% in 2025, improving on 2023’s anemic 0.8% increase. 

India’s economy is expected to 7% this year and 6.5% in 2025. While still strong, that pace would be down from 8.2% growth last year, a result of consumers slowing their spending after a post-pandemic boom. 

The IMF predicts that Japan’s economy, hurt by production problems in the auto industry and a slowdown in tourism, will expand by a meager 0.3% this year before accelerating to 1.1% growth in 2025. 

The United Kingdom is projected to register 1.1% growth this year, up from a dismal 0.3% in 2023, with falling interest rates helping spur stronger consumer spending.
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FALL CITY, WASHINGTON — Law enforcement officials found five people killed in a shooting inside a home southeast of Seattle on Monday morning and took a teenager into custody, police said.

Several people called 911 around 5 a.m. to report a shooting in Fall City, Washington, King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Mike Mellis said at a media briefing Monday afternoon.

Arriving deputies immediately took one teen into custody while another teenager who had been hurt was taken to a Seattle hospital, Mellis said. Both teens live at the house, Mellis said.

Deputies entering the home found the bodies of five people, he said. Two were adults and three were described by Mellis as young teenagers. No names have been released yet.

“Once bodies were discovered, clearly we understand that this is a hugely significant crime scene,” he said.

Mellis said the shooting appears to involve members of a family, but added that they didn’t yet know how they were related. He also said there was no ongoing threat to the community.

“I have no reason to think that there will be any additional arrests,” he said.

The teen in custody was booked into King County’s juvenile detention facility, according to Mellis. The teen will appear in court for a first hearing on Tuesday or Wednesday, a spokesperson for the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said in an email.

A neighbor told KING-TV that a couple and their five children lived in the home.

“I’m just in total shock, I keep bursting into tears,” Lynne Trowern, told the news outlet.

An emailed statement Monday evening from King County Councilmember Sarah Perry said the shooting involved a family of seven people.

Sheriff Patricia Cole-Tindall told KING-TV that she was “very sad, very disturbed” to learn about the shooting.
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MOSCOW — Russian officials from President Vladimir Putin down say it makes no difference to Moscow who wins the White House on November 5.

Yet anyone watching Kremlin-guided state media coverage of the U.S. election would conclude Donald Trump is strongly favored.

State TV’s main Channel One news program this month showed video of billionaire Elon Musk and TV host Tucker Carlson denigrating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris before zooming in on what it cast as a series of stumbling performances.

Harris’ tendency to burst into fits of laughter, something Putin himself spoke about sarcastically last month, has featured prominently in broadcasts and state TV has played compilations of her least eloquent statements during the campaign.

By contrast, the same Channel One report portrayed Trump and running mate JD Vance as sure-footed and imbued with common sense on everything from transgender politics to immigration, but facing sinister forces as evidenced by assassination plots.

The Kremlin says the choice of who becomes the next U.S. president is a matter exclusively for the American people to decide and that it will work with whoever is elected.

It has denied steering coverage, although some former state media employees have spoken publicly about weekly Kremlin meetings at which guidance on different issues is given.

The state media’s apparent preference for Trump may be no surprise.

Trump has been far less openly supportive of Ukraine in its war against Russia than incumbent President Joe Biden or Harris, raising fears in Kyiv that it could lose its most important ally if he wins.

Trump, who has repeatedly praised Putin over the years and boasted of having a good working relationship, last week blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for helping start the war.

This month he declined to confirm reports he had spoken to Putin on several occasions since leaving office in 2021 saying only: “If I did, it’s a smart thing.”

Harris by contrast has called Putin “a murderous dictator,” vowed to continue backing Ukraine, and said that opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s death in prison was “a further sign of Putin’s brutality.” The Kremlin has denied any hand in Navalny’s demise.

State TV has often showcased guest speakers on its prime time geopolitical talk shows who express a preference for Trump, even if their reasons sometimes vary.

Andrei Sidorov, a senior academic at Moscow State University, told a major state TV talk show in October that Trump would be better for Russia because he would stir division that could trigger a long-held fantasy of anti-Western Russian hawks – the disintegration of the United States during infighting between its constituent states.

“I am for Trump. I was always for Trump – he’s a destroyer. If he’s elected … then civil war will really be on the agenda,” Sidorov said, forecasting a Democratic win would see the same “crap” as now, continuing.

“(But) Trump could really lead to our geopolitical adversary collapsing without any missiles being fired.”

A 2017 U.S. intelligence report said Putin had directed a sophisticated influence campaign to denigrate Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and support Trump in the 2016 race for the White House. The Kremlin denied meddling and Trump denied any collusion with Russia during that campaign.

Despite the two current candidates’ different approaches to Moscow, some Russian officials – who are navigating the worst period in U.S.-Russia relations since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis – have expressed wariness of both.

Harris, they say, would mean a continuation of what Moscow sees as Biden’s proxy war with Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

Trump, who raised hopes in Moscow of better ties before he took office in 2017, is remembered for imposing sanctions when in the White House despite warm words about Putin. In Moscow’s eyes, he appeared boxed in on Russia policy by the wider U.S. political establishment.

“I have no illusions. (When Trump was president) he had several conversations with President Vladimir Putin. He received me at the White House a couple of times. He was friendly,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recalled in September.

“But sanctions against the Russian Federation were imposed under President Trump on a regular basis. As a result, we concluded that we need to rely on ourselves. We will never in our history count on ‘a good guy’ getting into the White House.”

One senior Russian source said there were different views at top levels of the Kremlin about Trump, but confirmed some believed a Trump victory might not go well for Moscow.

“Look what happened last time he became president. Everyone said beforehand that U.S.-Russia relations would benefit, but they ended up even worse. Trump says a lot of things but doesn’t always do what he says,” said the source, who declined to be named given the matter’s sensitivity.

The same source questioned whether Trump’s purported reluctance to keep financing and arming Ukraine and his talk of being able to end the war swiftly would survive lobbying efforts from powerful U.S. factions who argue that Ukraine’s fate is existential for the West and that Kyiv must not lose.

A second senior source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Moscow was not expecting much from either candidate. Trump had been “pretty tough” on Moscow when in power, was worryingly impulsive and had tough views on Russia’s ally China, he said.

The source added that he did not expect to see big change in Moscow-Washington relations whoever was elected.

“Neither Trump nor Harris are going to change the relationship with Russia fundamentally. There is not going to be some great new friendship,” said the source.

“The West views Russia and China as bad and the West as good and it is hard to see any leader changing a belief that is now ingrained within the Washington elite.”
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Across the country, about 14 million voters are members of unions – workers’ organizations formed to protect their rights. But even though union members make up a small part of the American electorate, presidential candidates eagerly seek their endorsement. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports from Nevada, where unions have a powerful voice in this year’s presidential election.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. government on Monday condemned the weekend killings by gunmen of two Mozambique opposition figures ahead of protests against a disputed election result, with Washington urging “a swift and thorough investigation into the murders.”

Why it’s important

The United States is the largest bilateral donor to Mozambique, providing over $560 million in assistance annually, according to the U.S. State Department website.

Washington joined the European Union and Mozambique’s former colonial ruler Portugal in the condemnation and the call for an investigation into the murders of opposition lawyer Elvino Dias and opposition party official Paulo Guambe on Saturday after multiple rounds were fired at a car in which they were travelling.

Key quotes

“The United States condemns the killings of lawyer Elvino Dias and Podemos parliamentary candidate Paulo Guambe in Mozambique,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

“We join the calls made by all four of Mozambique’s national political parties in urging a swift and thorough investigation.”

Context

Mozambique police on Monday fired teargas and bullets at protesters in the capital Maputo who had gathered at the scene where the two opposition party figures were shot dead on Saturday after a disputed election.

The full results of Mozambique’s Oct. 9 national election are expected this week, with early results showing that the ruling party Frelimo is set for another win. Opposition candidates say the poll was rigged.

Frelimo has ruled the southern African country since 1975 and has been accused of electoral fraud by opposition leaders, civil society and election observers. It denies the allegations.

The State Department urged Mozambique’s state institutions, political leaders, citizens and stakeholders to resolve electoral disputes peacefully and lawfully while rejecting violence and inflammatory rhetoric.
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WASHINGTON — Jill Biden unveiled Monday what she says is a reimagined White House public tour that will engage visitors’ senses to teach them about the mansion’s history and events that happened there. 

New to the tour is the Diplomatic Reception Room, which previously had been off-limits. This ground-floor room is where President Franklin D. Roosevelt recorded his “fireside chats.” Snippets of some of those conversations will now play for visitors. 

Tourists will also be able to go into several other ground-floor rooms that previously were cordoned off at the doorway: the library; the China Room, which houses the collection of presidential place settings; and the Vermeil Room, which houses a collection of gold-plated silver tableware. 

There’s also greater access to the East Room and State Dining Room, and the Red, Blue and Green Rooms, all located on the floor above, known as the State Floor. 

New displays, or reader rails, provide written details about the rooms, their contents and some of the history that happened there, in addition to offering experiences that encourage visitors to touch, see and hear. 

For example, the display in the China Room plays a brief loop of some of the place settings. In the State Dining Room, there’s a replica of a prayer that’s on the mantel beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln so people can now read it because they were kept too far away from it. 

“As a teacher for 40 years, I know that we all learn in different ways,” the first lady, who teaches English and writing at a community college, said Monday at a White House event to mark the unveiling of the updated tour. People use all of their senses to learn, she said. 

“We’ve made replicas so that you can feel the features of some of the sculpture’s faces and touch the shining fabric on the furniture of the Blue Room,” she said. “You can now hear President Roosevelt’s ‘fireside chats’ in the room in which he recorded them, so you can feel as if you are there right beside him.” 

“We’ve added screens and information so you can read about what you see in each of the rooms, for you visual learners,” Jill Biden said. 

After walking the tour route herself, the first lady decided to expand it and add more educational and historical content, according to aides. It had been decades since the tour was last updated. 

“The White House tour now lets visitors touch, hear and see their history up close,” she said Sunday. 

Some 10,000 people tour the White House every week. 

When they enter through the East Wing, Jill Biden will be there on video to welcome them, while President Joe Biden will be on video in the East Room to talk about some of the history that happened there. The next president, who takes office in January, and his — or her — spouse can record their own greetings since the changes are meant to carry over from one administration to the next.  

Collages of printed photos that line the hallway are now digital, making it easier to change them around, while a new vertical 3D model of the 18-acre White House campus explains how the executive mansion was built and expanded over the past 200-plus years. 

The first lady’s office has worked on the project for the past two years with the National Park Service, the White House Curator’s office, the private, nonprofit White House Historical Association, presidential libraries and the History Channel, which partnered with ESI Design on the interactive experiences. 

The project was funded by a $5 million gift from the History Channel to the National Park Service. The White House is a national park.
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washington — The United States added more than two dozen entities to a trade blacklist Monday over alleged support of weapons and drone development programs in Iran and Pakistan, and for other issues including aiding Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. 

The 26 targets, mostly in Pakistan, China and the United Arab Emirates, were said to have violated export controls, been involved in “weapons programs of concern,” or evaded U.S. sanctions and export controls on Russia and Iran, the Commerce Department said. 

Their addition to the so-called “entity list” restricts them from getting U.S. items and technologies without government authorization. 

“We are vigilant in defending U.S. national security from bad actors,” Alan Estevez, undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said in a statement. 

“Our actions today send a message to malicious actors that if they violate our controls, they will pay a price,” he added. 

Nine entities in Pakistan were accused of being front companies and procurement agents for the already blacklisted Advanced Engineering Research Organization. 

Since 2010, the group was said to have procured U.S.-origin items by disguising their end users, who include a Pakistani entity responsible for the country’s cruise missile and strategic drone program. 

“This activity is contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States,” the Commerce Department said. 

Six entities in China were added to the list for allegedly acquiring U.S.-origin items to support China’s military modernization or to aid Iran ‘s weapons and drone programs, among other reasons. 

And three entities in the UAE, alongside another in Egypt, were said to have acquired or attempted to obtain U.S. components to avoid sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the department said. 

On Monday, the Commerce Department also removed Canada-based Sandvine from the entity list, after the company took steps to “to address the misuse of its technology that can undermine human rights.” 

The U.S. had placed Sandvine on the trade restriction list in February 2024 for allegedly helping the Egyptian government target human rights activists and politicians. 

The company had been added “after its products were used to conduct mass web monitoring and censorship and target human rights activists and dissidents, including by enabling the misuse of commercial spyware,” the Commerce Department said. 
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Koror, Palau — Driving toward the center of Palau’s commercial city of Koror, election yard signs for presidential, senate and house of delegates’ candidates in this tiny island nation’s November elections line the street as waves of the pristinely blue Pacific Ocean lap the shore not far away.

The serenity of the surroundings belies just how high the stakes are in this year’s elections. Palau sits on the front line of competition for geopolitical influence between the United States and China in the Pacific Ocean. And competition between the candidates is tense, leading some to worry about how winners and losers will respond to the results once the votes are cast.

“This election is a very critical one and I just hope everything will end peacefully,” Kaipo Recheungel, a Palauan transportation service operator, told this reporter as we drove past hotels and bars along main street.

Palau has some 16,000 registered voters and elections are scheduled for Nov. 5, the same day millions of American voters will choose their next president. Because Palau is one of the few countries in the world that has official diplomatic relations with Taiwan as well as close ties with the United States, Beijing will be watching the election closely.

“Palau recognizes Taiwan, and it has a strong defense and security relationship with the U.S., so undermining Palau is an extremely high priority for China,” said Cleo Paskal, a nonresident senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in a phone interview with VOA.

Deepening US ties

Palau is one of three Pacific Island nations that receive significant economic support from the U.S. under the Compacts of Free Association, or COFA. Under the agreement, the U.S. provides economic aid worth billions of dollars, while Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia give the U.S. exclusive military access to their land, water and airspace, as well as the right to deny China access to their ports and territorial waters.

Under the leadership of President Surangel Whipps Jr., Palau’s ties with Washington have deepened.

Last month, U.S. lawmakers passed funding for key provisions in COFA for Palau. The U.S. military is also helping to repair a runway on a World War II-era Japanese airfield on the island of Peleliu and installing two radar systems on Palau.

In 2023, Whipps Jr. asked the U.S. to permanently deploy Patriot missile defense batteries to Palau in response to China’s aggressive posture in the Pacific. The proposal was rejected, though, in a resolution passed by Palau’s Senate last November.

Despite the Palauan senate’s rejection of the U.S. missile battery deployment, the country’s House of Delegates approved another joint resolution that supported the idea of establishing a U.S. military base in Palau.

The idea of inviting the U.S. to establish a military base in Palau was first proposed in 2020 by Palau’s former president and Whipp Jr’s brother-in-law, Tommy Remengesau Jr., who is running against Whipps Jr. in the upcoming election.

“Since Palau is small, having the protection of the United States is important because we see what’s happening now in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China,” Whipps Jr., who is running for reelection in November, told VOA at his office in Koror.

“We have reefs and islands that are far away from us, and it could also be easily taken over, just like how the Chinese have invaded what are clearly Philippine reefs,” he said.

Since coming to power in 2021, Whipps Jr. has been critical of China’s aggressive military activities in the Indo-Pacific region, along with what he describes as Beijing’s attempt to “weaponize” tourism against Palau.

“In 2015 and 2016, tourism numbers from China went through the roof, which helped Palau’s economy grow 30%, but since Palau never switched diplomatic recognition [from Taiwan] to China, that number just basically collapsed in the following years,” Whipps Jr. said.

In response, China’s state-run media People’s Daily said in August that the Palauan president’s comments were an attempt to twist the intention behind a travel advisory that China issued in June and an effort to “smear and discredit China.”

Beijing’s crosshairs

In addition to economic pressure, some Palauan officials said the country’s national security is threatened by repeated incursions into its territorial waters by Chinese research vessels; cyberattacks linked to China; the establishment of illegal Chinese scam operations in Palau; and attempts to bribe politicians.

“The cyberattack happened just a day before Palau and the U.S. exchanged diplomatic notes on COFA, so it shows that the adversaries are watching and observing situations in Palau closely,” Jennifer Anson, Palau’s national security coordinator, told VOA at a cafe in downtown Koror.

As China continues to exert pressure on Palau, Whipps Jr. said it’s important for Palau to uphold its “special relationship” with the U.S.

“The U.S. military leaders have told me that when it comes to security and defense, Palau is considered part of the homeland, and given China’s expansionist program that’s destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, [the increased U.S. military presence in Palau] is about deterrence and ensuring that we all continue to live in peace,” he told VOA.

Despite Whipps Jr.’s emphasis on bolstering security ties with the U.S., some Palauan people, including his opponent, Remengesau Jr., say the government needs to be more transparent about the purpose and potential impact of U.S. military expansion in the country.

“The [current] government has fallen short of informing Palauan people about the intended militarization for defense purposes,” Remengesau Jr. told VOA at his home in Palau.

“Our relationship with the U.S. is supported, and we understand and abide by our partnership responsibilities, but we also need to be very clear about our concerns about U.S. militarization in Palau, including how this development will affect Palau’s environment and social fabric, as well as what is this militarization defending us from since we don’t have any enemies,” he added.

Some political observers have echoed Remengesau Jr.’s concern, saying the increased U.S. military presence will “put a target” on Palau and potentially invite further Chinese aggression against the Pacific Island nation.

“Many Palauans think President Whipps Jr.’s slogan that ‘presence is deterrence’ doesn’t make sense because now is not wartime, and they worry about what China might do if the U.S. continues to expand its military presence in Palau,” Kambes Kesolei, editor of one of Palau’s main newspapers Tia Belau, told VOA.

US protection

While some Palauans are concerned about the increased U.S. military presence, others say it’s important for Palau to have U.S. military protection amid intensifying geopolitical competition between Beijing and Washington in the Pacific region.

“Taiwan is a target, and Palau is a target, so I’m appreciative of the U.S. presence here because we are protected by them,” Lucius Malsol, a Palauan tour operator, told VOA at a park in downtown Koror.

Despite the division over the U.S. military presence among Palauan people, some political observers say the outcome of November’s election won’t significantly change Palau’s foreign policy direction.

“A lot of Palauans are in the U.S. military and any politician in a position to make a decision takes all of that into consideration, so I don’t see how Palau could change our foreign policy direction drastically,” said Leilani Reklai, publisher and editor of Palau’s main newspaper Island Times.

However, Reklai and Kesolei agree that Whipps Jr. will continue to deepen Palau’s engagement with the U.S. if he is reelected, while Remengasau Jr. would likely take a more “neutral approach” to relations with Washington.
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MANILA, Philippines — The U.S. Army’s recent deployment of a midrange missile system to the northern Philippines was “incredibly important” and allowed American and Filipino forces to jointly train for the potential usage of such heavy weaponry in Asian archipelago conditions, a U.S. general said Monday. 

The Biden administration has moved to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any possible confrontation over Taiwan and other Asian flashpoints. The Philippines has also worked on shoring up its territorial defenses after its disputes with China started to escalate last year in the increasingly volatile South China Sea. 

China has vehemently opposed the increased deployment of American combat forces to Asia. But it has been particularly alarmed by the U.S. Army’s deployment in April of the Typhon missile system, a land-based weapon that can fire the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, to the northern Philippines as part of joint combat exercises in April with Philippine troops. 

“What it does collectively, it provides us the opportunity to understand how to employ that capability — the environmental challenges here are very unique to any other place in the region,” U.S. Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, Commanding General of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, said when asked how the missile system has helped participants in joint combat training in the Philippines. 

“Last year, we also deployed long-range fires capabilities with HIMARS and we were able to move those around with fixed-wing aircraft around the archipelago environment,” Evans told The Associated Press in an interview in Manila, referring to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, the truck-mounted launchers, which fire GPS-guided missiles capable of hitting distant targets. 

“Those are just incredibly important operations because you get to work in the environment, but most importantly, you’re working alongside our partners here in the Philippines to understand how those will be integrated into their operations,” Evans said without elaborating. 

The Typhon missile system was supposed to be flown out of the Philippines last month, but three Philippine security officials told the AP recently that the longtime treaty allies had agreed to keep the missile system in the northern Philippines indefinitely to boost deterrence despite China’s expressions of alarm. 

The Philippine officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive U.S. missile deployment publicly. 

Evans flew to Manila to start talks with Philippine army counterparts on holding annual military exercises by the allied forces in the Southeast Asian country next year, particularly the Salaknib drills, which aim to boost the combat-readiness of thousands of American and Filipino troops in increasingly realistic settings. 

“Conceptually, it is scheduled to be a larger, more complex exercise,” Evans said, adding that there could be joint training maneuvers from the jungles in the northern Philippines to former U.S. military bases in the region. 

“We’re also planning on bringing new equipment to train alongside our Filipino army teammates that last year we did not have,” he said without providing details. 

“Our job is to get 1% better each day alongside our Filipino army teammates in terms of readiness,” he said. “Those relationships that are built, the readiness that is developed, should remove any doubt about the importance of our alliances and the work we do here with the Philippine army.” 

Evans and other U.S. Army officials attended a ceremony Sunday marking the anniversary of a historic moment in U.S.-Philippine relations when U.S. Gen. Douglas Macarthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines in October 1944 by wading ashore into the coast of central Leyte province to help lead the liberation of the country from Japanese occupation forces. 

On Monday, Evans and his men laid a wreath in an austere ceremony at the American Cemetery in metropolitan Manila, the largest such U.S. World War II cemetery and memorial in the world. 

The Leyte Gulf ceremony reflected the long history that had bonded American and Filipino forces in war and peace, he said. 

“That trust was built over eight decades,” Evans said.
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Paris — French drugmaker Sanofi’s confirmation that it will sell a controlling stake in its consumer health unit to a U.S. investment fund sparked a new political backlash Monday, stoked by fears the deal marks a loss of sovereignty over key medications.  

Paris “must block the sale” using powers to protect strategic sectors, Manuel Bompard, a senior lawmaker in the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, told the TF1 broadcaster.  

Politicians and unions have torn into Sanofi’s proposed 16-billion-euro ($17.4 billion) deal with U.S. investment fund CD&R for a controlling stake in Opella.  

The subsidiary makes household-name drugs including Doliprane branded paracetamol  whose yellow boxes dominate the French market.  

Under pressure, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s minority government said it had secured a two-percent stake in Opella for public investment bank Bpifrance and “extremely strong” guarantees against job cuts and offshoring.  

Opella employs over 11,000 workers and operates in 100 countries.  

Sanofi said it is the third-largest business worldwide in the market for over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements.  

CD&R — which has a battery of investments in France — would help build Opella into a “French-headquartered, global consumer healthcare champion,” the pharma giant said in a statement.  

‘Just words’

But with memories of drug shortages during and since the Covid-19 pandemic still raw for many, critics say the defenses are too weak.

A small stake “won’t give the French state a say in strategic decisions” at Opella, said Bompard, whose LFI dominates a left alliance that is the largest opposition group against Barnier and President Emmanuel Macron.  

Thomas Portes, also of the LFI, posted on X that the government had offered “no guarantees, just words.”  

Economy Minister Antoine Armand said a contract between CD&R, Sanofi and the government included maintaining production sites, research and development and Opella’s official headquarters in France, as well as investing at least 70 million euros over five years.  

It covers “keeping up a minimum production volume for Opella’s sensitive products in France,” Armand added, including Doliprane, digestive medication Lanzor and Aspegic branded aspirin.  

There would be financial penalties for closing French production sites, laying off workers or failing to buy from French suppliers.  

That includes Seqens, a company re-establishing production in France of Doliprane’s active ingredient paracetamol.  

“Workers are not at all reassured by the latest developments,” said Johann Nicolas, a CGT union representative at Opella’s Doliprane plant in Lisieux, northern France.  

He added that a picket had throttled production there from around 1.3 million boxes of the drug per day to around 265,000.  

The proposed protections in the deal have also failed to win over even some in the government camp.  

Monday’s guarantees “do not at all indicate a commitment for the long term, whether on investment, supply or jobs,” Charles Rodwell, a lawmaker in Macron’s EPR party who has closely followed the case, told AFP.  

He vowed “painstaking” parliamentary surveillance of government action over the deal including measures to “block” the sale if ministers fall short.

Brand loyalty

Macron said last week that “the government has the instruments needed to protect France” from any unwanted “capital ownership.”  

Emotion over the Opella sales is closely linked to Doliprane.  

Boxes of the non-opioid analgesic against mild to moderate pain and fever often line entire pharmacy walls.  

The drug comes in many doses — from 100 mg for babies to 1,000 mg for adults — and in tablet, capsule, suppository and liquid forms.  

It is so ubiquitous that French people call any paracetamol product Doliprane, even when made by a different manufacturer.  

Sanofi, among the world’s top 12 health care companies, says the planned spinoff is part of a strategy to focus less on over-the-counter medication and more on innovative medicines and vaccines, including for polio, influenza and meningitis.
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Mel Nichols, a 37-year-old bartender in Phoenix, Arizona, takes home anywhere from $30 to $50 an hour with tips included. But the uncertainty of how much she’s going to make on a daily basis is a constant source of stress.

“For every good day, there’s three bad days,” said Nichols, who has been in the service industry since she was a teenager. “You have no security when it comes to knowing how much you’re going to make.”

That uncertainty exists largely because federal labor law allows businesses to pay tipped workers, like food servers, bartenders and bellhops, less than the minimum wage as long as customer tips make up the difference. Voters in Arizona and Massachusetts will decide in November whether it’s good policy to continue to let employers pass some of their labor costs to consumers.

The ballot measures reflect an accelerating debate over the so-called subminimum wage, which advocates say is essential to the sustainability of the service industry and detractors say pushes the cost of labor off employers’ shoulders and leads to the exploitation of workers.

The amount tipped workers make varies by state. Fourteen states pay the federal minimum, or just above $2 an hour for tipped workers and $7 an hour for non-tipped workers.

Arizona employers can pay their tipped workers $3 less hourly than other workers. Under current rates, that means tipped workers’ base pay is $11.35 an hour.

Voters will decide whether to approve a measure backed by state Republicans and the Arizona Restaurant Association to change the minimum for tipped workers to 25% less than the regular minimum wage as long as their pay with tips is $2 above that minimum.

The hourly minimum wage in Arizona is currently $14.35 and increases yearly according to inflation.

Voters in Massachusetts are being asked to eliminate the tiered minimum-wage system.

There, voters will decide on a measure to incrementally increase the state’s tipped worker wage — currently $6.75 per hour — until it meets the regular minimum wage by January 2029. The measure was put forward by One Fair Wage, a not-for-profit that works to end the subminimum wage.

If voters approve the measure, the Bay State would join seven states that currently have a single minimum wage. Michigan will soon join that group after an August state Supreme Court ruling initiated a phase-out of the subminimum wage.

“When you’re not making the money that you should be making to pay your bills, it becomes hard on you,” said James Ford, a longtime Detroit-based hospitality worker. ”[The ruling] makes me think we’re moving forward.”

Other states have wage measures on the ballot. In California, voters will choose whether to raise the hourly minimum wage from $16 to $18 by 2026 in what would be the highest statewide minimum wage in the country. Measures in Alaska and Missouri would gradually raise minimum wages to $15 an hour while also requiring paid sick leave.

In the last two years, Washington, D.C., and Chicago also have started to eliminate the subminimum wage.

Employers must ensure that workers get the full minimum if they don’t make that much with tips. But they don’t always comply with federal labor law. One in 10 restaurants and bars investigated nationally by the U.S. Labor Department between 2010 and 2019 violated a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act, resulting in the establishments paying $113.9 million in back wages.

The issue disproportionately affects women, who make up about 47% of the U.S. workforce but nearly 70% of those who work in tipped professions, according to an AP analysis of U.S. Census data.

In Arizona, Republican state Sen. J.D. Mesnard, the sponsor of Proposition 138, said the measure is a win for both businesses and lower-wage workers.

“The employer is protected in the sense that they can preserve this lower base, knowing that there are going to be tips on top of it,” Mesnard said. “The tipped worker is guaranteed to make more than minimum wage, which is more than they’re guaranteed today.”

Nichols doesn’t support it.

“It would reduce my hourly, and anything that reduces my hourly is not something that I want to lean into,” she said. “I don’t believe that business owners need any more cuts in labor costs.”

Proposition 138 was initially put forward as a response to a ballot measure pushed by One Fair Wage that would create a single minimum wage of $18, but the group abandoned the effort after threats of litigation from the restaurant association over how it collected signatures.

Instead, One Fair Wage will focus on trying to pass a wage hike in the Legislature. Democratic State Rep. Mariana Sandoval said she hopes her party in November can flip the Legislature, where Republicans hold a one-seat majority in both chambers.

After working for tips for more than 20 years, server Lindsay Ruck, who works at a restaurant at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, said she’s faced her fair share of belligerent customers. But because their tips make up such a significant part of her pay — approximately $60 an hour — she’s hesitant to stand up to them.

To Ruck, higher base pay — not less — is called for.

“I think that there should be just a single minimum wage and then people should get tipped on top of that,” Ruck said.

The National Restaurant Association and its state affiliates warn of reduced hours, lower employment and menu price hikes if employers can’t rely on tips to pay their workers. That’s why Dan Piacquadio, a co-owner of Harold’s Cave Creek Corral restaurant outside Phoenix, is hoping voters pass Proposition 138.

“This is just a way to protect our current system that’s been there for 20 years and protect restaurant owners, keep restaurants affordable, and most importantly, keep very good pay for all tipped workers,” Piacquadio said.

Between 2012 and 2019, the number of restaurants and people employed at those restaurants grew at a faster clip in the seven states that have a single minimum wage compared to states that pay the federal minimum tipped wage, according to labor economist Sylvia Allegretto.

“We are sitting here in a state that has a $16 minimum wage,” Allegretto said from Oakland, California, where she works at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. “No subminimum wage, and we’ve got a thriving restaurant industry.”
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Taipei, Taiwan — A U.S. and a Canadian warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait together Sunday less than a week after China conducted a new round of war games around the island, with Beijing denouncing the mission as “disruptive.”

The U.S. Navy, occasionally accompanied by ships from allied countries, transits the strait around once a month. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, also says the strategic waterway belongs to it.

The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said Monday that the destroyer USS Higgins and the Canadian frigate HMCS Vancouver made a “routine” transit Sunday “through waters where high-seas freedom of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”

The transit demonstrated the United States’ and Canada’s commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all countries, it said in a statement.

“The international community’s navigational rights and freedoms in the Taiwan Strait should not be limited. The United States rejects any assertion of sovereignty or jurisdiction that is inconsistent with freedoms of navigations, overflight, and other lawful uses of the sea and air,” it said.

China’s Eastern Theater Command said its forces monitored and warned the ships.

“The actions of the United States and Canada caused trouble and are disruptive to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” it added.

China staged war-games last Monday it said were a warning to “separatist acts” and which drew condemnation from the Taiwanese and U.S. governments.

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
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Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the nine Black students who integrated a high school in Arkansas’ capital city of Little Rock in 1957 while a mob of white segregationists yelled threats and insults, has died at age 83.

Mothershed Wair died Saturday at a hospital in Little Rock after having complications from multiple sclerosis, her sister, Grace Davis, confirmed Sunday to The Associated Press.

The students who integrated Central High School were known as the Little Rock Nine.

For three weeks in September 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block the Black students from enrolling in Central High, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated classrooms were unconstitutional. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent members of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to escort the students into school on Sept. 25, 1957.

Davis said she was enrolled at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville when her sister and the other students — Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls — integrated Central High School.

“I didn’t think anybody was really going to hurt her because, you know, we’ve had racial incidents in Little Rock over the years,” Davis said of her sister. “People would say things that were mean, but they never really hurt anybody.”

Davis said in the years that followed she and her sister spoke about the experience.

“I think one time somebody put some ink on her skirt or something when she was coming through the hallway. And, of course, there was always name-calling,” Davis said. “But she never really had any physical confrontations with any of the students up there.”

Faubus closed all of the schools in Little Rock in 1958 to try to avoid further integration. Mothershed went out of state to finish her remaining high school classes. The academic credits transferred back to Little Rock, and she ultimately earned her diploma from Central High School.

“She was always a fighter,” Davis said of her sister. “She’s been sick her entire life. She was born with a congenital heart defect and was told at an early age that she would never get out of her teens. So as she approached her 16th birthday, I remember Mother talking about how afraid she was because she thought she was going to die. But she did what she wanted to do. She enjoyed life.”

Mothershed earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics education from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Mothershed married Fred Wair in 1965. The couple have one son, Scott; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2005, and Mothershed Wair moved back to Little Rock, Davis said.

According to the National Park Service, Mothershed Wair worked in the East St. Louis, Illinois, school system for 10 years as a home economics teacher and for 18 years as a counselor for elementary career education before retiring in 1994. She also worked at the Juvenile Detention Center of the St. Clair County Jail in Illinois, and was an instructor of survival skills for women at the American Red Cross.

Each member of the Little Rock Nine was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, and they donated them to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock in 2011.
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Mount Rainier National Park, Washington — Two crew members who were missing following the crash of a fighter jet in mountainous terrain in Washington during a routine training flight have been declared dead, the U.S. Navy said Sunday.

The EA-18G Growler jet from the Electronic Attack Squadron crashed east of Mount Rainier on Tuesday afternoon, according to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. Search teams, including a U.S. Navy MH-60S helicopter, immediately launched from NAS Whidbey Island to try to find the crew and crash site.

Army Special Forces soldiers trained in mountaineering, high-angle rescue and technical communications were brought in to reach the wreckage, which was located Wednesday by an aerial crew resting at about 1,828 meters (6,000 feet) in a remote, steep and heavily wooded area east of Mount Rainier, officials said.

Locating the missing crew members “as quickly and as safely as possible” had been their priority, Capt. David Ganci, commander, Electronic Attack Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Thursday.

The aviators’ names won’t be released until a day after their next of kin have been notified, the Navy wrote in a press release Sunday, adding that search and rescue efforts have shifted into a long-term salvage and recovery operation as the cause of the crash is still being investigated.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share the loss of two beloved Zappers,” said Cmdr. Timothy Warburton, commanding officer of the aviators’ Electronic Attack Squadron, in the press release.

“Our priority right now is taking care of the families of our fallen aviators. … We are grateful for the ongoing teamwork to safely recover the deceased.” Ganci said they could not identify the missing crew until 24 hours after their families had been notified of their status.

The crash remains under investigation.

The EA-18G Growler is similar to the F/A-18F Super Hornet and includes sophisticated electronic warfare devices. Most of the Growler squadrons are based at Whidbey Island. One squadron is based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

The “Zappers” were recently deployed on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The search took place near Mount Rainier, a towering active volcano that is blanketed in snowfields and glaciers year-round.

The first production of the Growler was delivered to Whidbey Island in 2008. In the past 15 years, the Growler has operated around the globe supporting major actions, the Navy said. The plane seats a pilot in front and an electronics operator behind them.

“The EA-18G Growler aircraft we fly represents the most advanced technology in airborne Electronic Attack and stands as the Navy’s first line of defense in hostile environments,” the Navy said on its website. Each aircraft costs about $67 million.

Military aircraft training exercises and travel can be dangerous and sometimes result in crashes, injuries and deaths.

In May, an F-35 fighter jet on its way from Texas to Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles crashed after the pilot stopped to refuel in New Mexico. The pilot was the only person on board in that case and was taken to a hospital with serious injuries.

Last year, eight U.S. Air Force special Operations Command service members were killed when a CV-22B Osprey aircraft they were flying in crashed off the coast of Japan.
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WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — John Kinsel Sr., one of the last remaining Navajo Code Talkers who transmitted messages during World War II based on the tribe’s native language, has died. He was 107. 

Navajo Nation officials in Window Rock announced Kinsel’s death on Saturday. 

Tribal President Buu Nygren has ordered all flags on the reservation to be flown at half-staff until Oct. 27 at sunset to honor Kinsel. 

“Mr. Kinsel was a Marine who bravely and selflessly fought for all of us in the most terrifying circumstances with the greatest responsibility as a Navajo Code Talker,” Nygren said in a statement Sunday. 

With Kinsel’s death, only two original Navajo Code Talkers are still alive: Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald and Thomas H. Begay. 

Hundreds of Navajos were recruited by the Marines to serve as Code Talkers during the war, transmitting messages based on their then-unwritten native language.

They confounded Japanese military cryptologists during World War II and participated in all assaults the Marines led in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, including at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu and Iwo Jima. 

The Code Talkers sent thousands of messages without error on Japanese troop movements, battlefield tactics and other communications crucial to the war’s ultimate outcome. 

Kinsel was born in Cove, Arizona, and lived in the Navajo community of Lukachukai. 

He enlisted in the Marines in 1942 and became an elite Code Talker, serving with the 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Marine Division during the Battle of Iwo Jima. 

President Ronald Reagan established Navajo Code Talkers Day in 1982 and the Aug. 14 holiday honors all the tribes associated with the war effort. 

The day is an Arizona state holiday and Navajo Nation holiday on the vast reservation that occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah. 
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WARSAW, Poland — The prominent American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum urged continued support for Ukraine as she accepted a prestigious German prize Sunday, arguing that pacifism in the face of aggression is often nothing more than appeasement.

Applebaum made her appeal to an audience in Frankfurt, where she was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She was joined by her husband, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who like his wife is a strong voice on the international stage for supporting Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s brutal invasion.

“If there is even a small chance that military defeat could help end this horrific cult of violence in Russia, just as military defeat once brought an end to the cult of violence in Germany, we should take it,” Applebaum said.

Many Germans have embraced an ethos of pacifism because of their nation’s aggression under Adolf Hitler during World War II. And many have misgivings now about supplying weapons to Kyiv, fearing Russia and worried that it could cause the war to spread beyond Ukraine’s borders to the rest of Europe.

“Some even call for peace by referring solemnly to the ‘lessons of German history,” Applebaum noted, according to a transcript of her speech published by the prize organization.

“As I am here today accepting a peace prize, this seems the right moment to point out that ‘I want peace’ is not always a moral argument,” Applebaum said. “This is also the right moment to say that the lesson of German history is not that Germans should be pacifists.”

“On the contrary, we have known for nearly a century that a demand for pacifism in the face of an aggressive, advancing dictatorship can simply represent the appeasement and acceptance of that dictatorship.”

She argued that the “real lesson” from German history should be that Germans “have a special responsibility to stand up for freedom and to take risks in doing so.”

The prize, which is endowed with $27,185, was awarded in St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt — which is considered the birthplace of German parliamentary democracy — at the end of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The prize has been awarded since 1950. It honors individuals who have contributed to turning the idea of peace into reality through literature, science or art. Last year’s prize was awarded to British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie for his perseverance despite enduring decades of threats and violence.

The German news agency dpa reported that Applebaum’s strong support for continuing to arm Ukraine triggered some criticism, citing Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, the head of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, which awards the prize.

Nonetheless she received strong applause for her speech, dpa reported from Frankfurt.

Following pacifism to its logical conclusion, Applebaum argued, would “mean that we should acquiesce to the military conquest of Ukraine, to the cultural destruction of Ukraine, to the construction of concentration camps in Ukraine, to the kidnapping of children in Ukraine.”

Applebaum writes for The Atlantic magazine. She has written books that focus on totalitarianism in Eastern Europe, including “The Gulag,” and “The Iron Curtain” and “Red Famine,” about dictator Joseph Stalin’s war on Ukraine. She recently published “Autocracy, Inc. The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.” In 2004, she was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

The prize jury said Applebaum’s analyses of communist and post-communist systems in the Soviet Union and Russia reveal “the mechanisms by which authoritarians grab hold of power and maintain their control.”

The laudation for Applebaum was delivered by the Russian historian Irina Scherbakova, a founding member of the human rights organization Memorial, which is now banned in Russia and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
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New York — Manhattan’s famed luxury store row Fifth Avenue is in line for a major makeover.

New York City officials unveiled a plan last week to transform a central portion of the thoroughfare between Bryant Park and Central Park into a more pedestrian-centered boulevard.

They propose doubling the size of sidewalks, reducing traffic lanes from five to three, as well as adding seating areas and hundreds of trees and planters, among other improvements.

The vision is to emulate iconic strolling and shopping boulevards such as the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

“As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of one of the most famous streets in the world, New Yorkers can look forward to a brand-new Fifth Avenue that will return the street to its former glory as a pedestrian boulevard,” Madelyn Wils, interim president of the Fifth Avenue Association, which runs the local business improvement district, said in a statement. “Reversing the century-old trend of putting cars first, this visionary design will transform our overcrowded avenue into a spacious and green corridor for shoppers and workers, visitors and New Yorkers, and everyone on Fifth.”

The plan would cost more than $350 million and be paid through a mix of public and private financing, according to Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the Future of Fifth Partnership.

Officials said the project represents the avenue’s first major redesign and could pay for itself in less than five years through increased property and sales tax revenue.

But some transit advocates have voiced concerns, saying the plan does not give enough consideration to the needs of the public bus system or the city’s many cyclists.

A public meeting will be held later this month on the plan, and construction could begin in 2028.

Officials say Fifth Avenue is roughly 100 feet wide, with just two 23-foot sidewalks, even though pedestrians make up 70% of all traffic on the corridor.

Some 5,500 pedestrians traverse its blocks on average each hour, a number that swells to 23,000 people an hour during the holidays, officials said.

“People across the globe identify Fifth Avenue as a premier destination for strolling and shopping,” Meera Joshi, the city’s deputy mayor for operations, said in a statement. “But its larger-than-life reputation means that its sidewalks have reached their capacity, hosting more people per hour in peak seasons than Madison Square Garden.”

The Fifth Avenue plan was among other ambitious plans for roadways city officials revealed [last] week.

They also proposed capping stretches of the Cross Bronx Expressway, a major highway that cuts through the borough of the Bronx.

City officials said the proposals would build parks and greenspaces atop the covered highway, helping restore urban neighborhoods hollowed out by the expansion of the national highway system and the development of suburbs.

“This is a historic opportunity to right the wrongs of the past and reconnect communities once again,” Joshi said. 
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