Армія Росії почала будувати нові укріплення, щоб зупинити просування ЗСУ на Курщині – розвідка Британії

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За спостереженням британської розвідки, після початкової розгубленості російське командування відрядило додаткові війська в регіон
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Україна не буде створювати спеціальні табори для цивільних із Курської області РФ – Лубінець

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«Ми не очікуємо, що буде велика кількість бажаючих до нас приїхати. Але я не переживаю, що буде небезпечно для цивільного населення з Курської області»
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Ernesto grows into Category 2 hurricane as it aims for Bermuda

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Ernesto strengthened into a Category 2 storm Thursday night as it barreled toward Bermuda after leaving hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico without power or water. Sweltering heat enveloped the U.S. territory, raising concerns about people’s health.

A hurricane warning was in effect for Bermuda, with Ernesto expected to pass near or over the island Saturday.

The storm was centered about 660 kilometers south-southwest of Bermuda late Thursday. Its maximum sustained winds had risen to 155 kph, and the storm was moving north-northeast at 22 kph over open waters.

“I cannot stress enough how important it is for every resident to use this time to prepare. We have seen in the past the devastating effects of complacency,” said National Security Minister Michael Weeks.

Ernesto was forecast to possibly reach Category 3 strength Friday and then weaken as it approaches Bermuda, where it was forecast to drop 15 to 30 centimeters of rain, with up to 38 centimeters in isolated areas.

“All of the guidance show this system as a large hurricane near Bermuda,” said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Ernesto was then expected to pass near or east of Atlantic Canada on Monday.

Meanwhile, the spinning storm on Thursday was generating southern winds in Puerto Rico, which have a heating effect as opposed to the typical cooling trade winds that blow from the east.

“We know a lot of people don’t have power,” said Ernesto Morales with the National Weather Service as he warned of extreme heat and urged people to stay hydrated.

More than 290,000 of 1.4 million customers remained in the dark Thursday evening, more than a day after Ernesto swiped past Puerto Rico late Tuesday as a tropical storm before strengthening into a hurricane. A maximum of 735,000 clients had been without power Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands also were without water as many questioned the widespread power outage given that Ernesto was only a tropical storm when it spun past the island.

“I haven’t slept at all,” said Ramón Mercedes Paredes, a 41-year-old construction worker who planned to sleep outdoors on Thursday night to beat the heat. “I haven’t even been able to take a shower.”

At a small park in the Santurce neighborhood of the San Juan capital, Alexander Reyna, a 32-year-old construction worker, sipped on a bright red sports drink that friends provided as roosters crowed nearby above the slap of dominoes.

He had no water or power and planned to spend all day at the park as he lamented the lack of breeze, a slight film of sweat already forming on his forehead: “I have to come here because I cannot stand to be at home.”

The situation worried many who lived through Hurricane Maria, a powerful Category 4 storm that hit Puerto Rico in September 2017 and was blamed for at least 2,975 deaths in its sweltering aftermath. It also razed the island’s power grid, which is still being rebuilt.

The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory on Thursday warning of “dangerously hot and humid conditions.”

Faustino Peguero, 50, said he was concerned about his wife, who has fibromyalgia, heart failure and other health conditions and needs electricity. He has a small generator at home, but he is running out of gasoline and cannot afford to buy more because he hasn’t found work.

“It’s chaos,” he said.

Officials said they don’t know when power will be fully restored as concerns grow about the health of many in Puerto Rico who cannot afford generators or solar panels on the island of 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate.

Crews have flown more than 870 kilometers across Puerto Rico and identified 400 power line failures, with 150 of them already fixed, said Juan Saca, president of Luma Energy, a private company that operates the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico. The remaining failures will take more time to fix because they involve fallen trees, he added.

“We haven’t seen anything catastrophic,” he said.

When pressed for an estimate of when power would be restored, Alejandro González, Luma’s operations director, declined to say.

“It would be irresponsible to provide an exact date,” he said.

At least 250,000 customers across Puerto Rico also were without water given the power outages, down from a maximum of 350,000. Among them was 65-year-old Gisela Pérez, who was starting to sweat as she cooked sweet plantains, pork, chicken and spaghetti at a street-side diner. After her shift, she planned to buy gallons of water, since she was especially concerned about her two small dogs: Mini and Lazy.

“They cannot go without it,” she said. “They come first.”
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Російська армія в 6 кілометрах від Мирнограда, у місті ще 20 тисяч людей – голова МВА

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«Люди виїжджають, але не так швидко, як того потребує ситуація. В першу чергу ми намагаємося організувати евакуацію дітей і людей похилого віку»
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Harris to roll out populist proposals in first economic speech

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WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris is set to unveil plans for a federal ban on food and grocery “price gouging” and assistance of up to $25,000 in down payment support for first-time homeowners – populist proposals the vice president has embraced since becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

Harris is scheduled to outline her proposals Friday, in her first speech on the economy focusing on dealing with rising grocery and housing prices – key concerns for voters. She is set to speak in front of supporters at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, a battleground state that she and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, are vying to win in the November presidential election.

“In her first 100 days, Vice President Harris will work to enact a plan to bring down Americans’ grocery costs and keep inflation in check,” her campaign said in a memo to reporters Wednesday.

Harris aims to ensure “big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits,” her campaign said, and will specifically call out the “highly consolidated” meat processing industry. “The lack of competition gives these middlemen the power to drive down earnings for farmers while driving up prices for consumers.”

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trump called Harris’ proposal “communist price controls.”

“They don’t work, they actually have the exact opposite impact and effect,” he said. But it leads to food shortages, rationing, hunger, dramatically more inflation.”

In the U.S., the Federal Reserve sets interest rates independently, and presidential policies do not have much influence on lowering prices, at least in the short term.

“It is highly unlikely that any single policy introduced by a president could have a significant enough impact to bring inflation down from its current level to the Federal Reserve’s long-term target for the economy, which is 2%,” said Andrew Lautz, associate director for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Economic Policy Program.

Trump has said he will fight rising prices by boosting oil and gas production. While increasing energy supply could have a downward pressure on prices, and in turn on inflation, it won’t happen quickly, Lautz told VOA.

Lower inflation

While Americans are still feeling the pain, last month U.S. year-over-year inflation dipped under 3% for the first time since March 2021. Unemployment remains low, retail sales figures are upbeat, and most economists no longer warn of recession.

Still the overall health of the economy remains a key concern for voters, and a point of attack on the campaign trail.

“The only thing Kamala Harris can deliver is horrific inflation, massive crime and the death of the American dream,” Trump said.

Both candidates have also promised to slash federal taxes on tips received by workers in the service and hospitality industry.

Critics say that proposal won’t help fast food servers or other low-income workers who don’t get tips and is vulnerable to abuse.

“How can we be sure that it’s deserving working people, as opposed to opening the door to a whole bunch of other people who might treat their bonuses and performance fees like tips and exempt themselves?” said Steven Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

Such proposals are common during presidential campaigns, Rosenthal said. “We often see a race to the bottom, with the candidates trying to outbid themselves for how many tax cuts they can promise.”

If enacted, those promises will be costly at a time when the country needs to seriously think about fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, said Lautz.

“We are at nearly $28 trillion in federal debt held by the public,” he said. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that’s going to increase by another $20 trillion or so over the next decade.”

Trump previously held a commanding lead among voters on key economic issues, with various polls showing Americans think they will be better off financially under Trump than President Joe Biden.

However, a survey conducted for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business published this week found that 41% trust Trump to be better at handling the economy, while 42% believe Harris would be better – a figure up seven points from Biden’s numbers in July. 
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US applauds Sudan’s decision to open Adre border crossing with Chad

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Washington — The United States welcomed Thursday’s announcement by Sudan’s sovereign council to allow the use of the Adre border crossing with Chad for three months, while continuing efforts to bring both sides of Sudan’s warring military factions to the negotiating table.

The opening of the Adre border crossing is a long-awaited move by aid organizations aiming to deliver humanitarian assistance to famine-threatened areas of the Darfur region. The war-torn country faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

We “welcome the news as it relates to this border crossing with Chad,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told VOA during a briefing on Thursday. “We are continuing to call on the SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces] and RSF [Rapid Support Forces] to facilitate unrestricted humanitarian access through any and all available channels.”

The United States has invited leaders from both warring factions to Geneva, Switzerland, for talks aimed at negotiating a potential cease-fire to end the 16-month civil war.

The SAF had already rejected the talks several days earlier, while the RSF delegation, though in Switzerland, was absent from Wednesday’s open session.

“We’re still very focused on getting both sides in Sudan back to the table and to come to meaningful agreements about laying their arms down and doing the right thing for the people of Sudan,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday.

“You certainly need both military actors to be part of” the conversation on a cessation of violence, Patel told reporters on Thursday.

Diplomats from the African Union, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations were at the U.S.-mediated talks, which opened on Wednesday.

“Day 2 of our diplomatic talks on Sudan is under way. We continue our relentless work with international partners to save lives and ensure we achieve tangible results that build upon the Jeddah Process and implement the Jeddah Declaration,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello wrote on X.

The Jeddah Declaration, reached in May 2023, calls for full aid access by land and air to all populations regardless of who controls the area.

More than a year of fighting between SAF and RSF troops has displaced nearly 10 million people across the greater Horn of Africa country and left 26 million facing crisis-level hunger.  

“The medical system in Sudan is at a breaking point. Hospitals designed to serve tens of thousands are overwhelmed with over half a million displaced people, while the international community’s pledged aid remains largely undelivered,” Adil Al-Mahi, humanitarian organization MedGlobal’s country director in Sudan, told VOA on Thursday.

He added that the last operational hospital in El Fasher may be forced to close due to intense shelling. El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is the battleground for intense conflict between the SAF and RSF.

“The Saudi Hospital, the last public hospital in North Darfur, is barely functioning after continued bombardments. With each attack, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no regard for the protection of health facilities or the civilians within them. The international community must urgently intervene to protect these vital lifelines before it’s too late,” Al-Mahi said.
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Biden’s remarks on Venezuela prompt questions over US policy

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white house — President Joe Biden said Thursday he supports new elections in Venezuela, giving a VOA reporter a two-word response — “I do” — when asked “do you support new elections in Venezuela?”

Brazil’s leader had proposed a rerun of the July 28 election, which the White House says opposition challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won. Protests have bubbled up in the wake of President Nicolas Maduro’s victory claim, and the leader of the opposition is calling for massive protests this Saturday.  

But the administration told VOA hours later that Biden understood VOA’s question differently, leaving it unclear whether this represents a shift in Washington’s position on Venezuela’s political crisis.  

A National Security Council spokesperson reiterated the administration’s stance, telling VOA in an email that Biden “was speaking to the absurdity of Maduro and his representatives not coming clean about the July 28 elections.” 

“It is abundantly clear to the majority of the Venezuelan people, the United States, and a growing number of countries that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes on July 28. The United States again calls for the will of the Venezuelan people to be respected and for discussions to begin on a transition back to democratic norms.” 

The spokesperson did not say definitively where Biden stands on whether the election should be repeated.  

Earlier Thursday, an NSC spokesperson told VOA that the Biden administration is “considering a range of options to incentivize and pressure Maduro to recognize the election results and will continue to do so.” 

White House seeks vote data

Separately, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters: “We want to see the actual vote tallies, the data, and we haven’t seen that yet. So, we still need to see that.” 

Kirby also added, “it is not true that there’s been amnesty offered to Mr. Maduro” as part of any deal to resolve the crisis.  

Shortly after the election, Maduro began cracking down on political opponents, prompting rights groups to sound the alarm.

Strained ties 

Washington has long had strained ties with Caracas, Venezuela, caused by ideological differences with the left-leaning country, doubts about the validity of previous elections, U.S. sanctions on officials over human rights abuses, and crippling American economic sanctions on the oil-rich nation. 

Venezuela’s situation has led to a northward exodus of millions of Venezuelans, leaving both American authorities and those migrants in a delicate position.

Celia Mendoza, Carolina Valladares and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this story.
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Trump asks judge to delay hush money sentencing until after election

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NEW YORK — Donald Trump is asking the judge in his New York hush money criminal case to delay his sentencing until after the November presidential election.

In a letter made public Thursday, a lawyer for the former president and current Republican nominee suggested that sentencing Trump as scheduled on September 18 — about seven weeks before Election Day — would amount to election interference.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote that a delay would also allow Trump time to weigh next steps after the trial judge, Juan Merchan, is expected to rule September 16 on the defense’s request to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July presidential immunity ruling.

“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” Blanche wrote.

Blanche sent the letter to Merchan on Wednesday after the judge rejected the defense’s latest request that he step aside from the case.

In the letter, Blanche reiterated the defense argument that the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter works as a Democratic political consultant, including for Kamala Harris when she sought the 2020 presidential nomination. Harris is now running against Trump.

By adjourning the sentencing until after that election, “the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings,” Blanche wrote.

Merchan, who has said he is confident in his ability to remain fair and impartial, did not immediately rule on the delay request.

A message seeking comment was left with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s case.

Trump was convicted in May of falsifying his business’ records to conceal a 2016 deal to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with him. Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him during his first campaign.

Trump says all the stories were false, the business records were not and the case was a political maneuver meant to damage his current campaign. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a Democrat.

Trump’s defense argued that the payments were indeed for legal work and so were correctly categorized.

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge which would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.

Trump has pledged to appeal, but that cannot happen until he is sentenced.

In a previous letter, Merchan set September 18 for “the imposition of sentence or other proceedings as appropriate.”

Blanche argued in his letter seeking a delay that the quick turnaround from the scheduled immunity ruling on September 16 to sentencing two days later is unfair to Trump.

To prepare for sentencing, Blanche argued, prosecutors will be submitting their punishment recommendation while Merchan is still weighing whether to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. If Merchan rules against Trump on the dismissal request, he will need “adequate time to assess and pursue state and federal appellate options,” Blanche said.

The Supreme Court’s immunity decision reins in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors in pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal. Trump’s lawyers argue that in light of the ruling, jurors in the hush money case should not have heard such evidence as former White House staffers describing how the then-president reacted to news coverage of the Daniels deal.
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