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YONKERS, NEW YORK — A co-founder of the social media ALS ice bucket challenge, which has raised more than $200 million worldwide for Lou Gehrig’s disease research, died Sunday at the age of 37, according to the ALS Association.Pat Quinn was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2013, a month after his 30th birthday, the organization said in a statement announcing his death.  “Pat fought ALS with positivity and bravery and inspired all around him,” the association said. “Those of us who knew him are devastated but grateful for all he did to advance the fight against ALS. … Our thoughts are with the Quinn family and all of his friends and supporters. Pat was loved by many of us within the ALS community and around the world.”In 2014, Quinn saw the ice bucket challenge on the social media feed of professional golfer Chris Kennedy, who first dared his wife’s cousin Jeanette Senerchia to take a bucket of ice water, dump it over her head, post a video on social media and ask others to do the same or to make a donation to charity. Senerchia’s husband had ALS.Quinn and co-founder Pete Frates, along with their teams of supporters, helped popularize the challenge. The ALS Association said Quinn “knew it was the key to raising ALS awareness,” calling it “the greatest social media campaign in history.” Frates, a former Boston College baseball player, died in December 2019 at the age of 34.When the two picked it up, the phenomenon exploded, the organization said. Thousands of people participated in the viral trend, including celebrities, sports stars and politicians — even Donald Trump before his election and cartoon character Homer Simpson. Online videos were viewed millions of times.”It dramatically accelerated the fight against ALS, leading to new research discoveries, expanded care for people living with ALS, and significant investment from the government in ALS research,” the organization’s statement said.Lou Gehrig’s disease, named after the New York Yankees great who suffered from it — is also known as ALS or motor neuron disease. It is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that leads to paralysis due to the death of motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain. There is no known cure.  The organization added that Quinn continued to raise awareness and funds after popularizing the challenge. In 2015, the association honored him, among others, as “ALS Heroes” — an award given to people living with the disease who have had a significant, positive impact on the fight against it. 
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As coronavirus cases surge globally, the COVID-19 deaths of two senior Serbian Orthodox Church clerics — one who died weeks after presiding over the funeral of the other — are raising questions about whether some religious institutions are doing enough to slow the spread of the virus.More reports are emerging about people who attended religious services and contract the virus — some after parishioners seemed to ignore the pleas of church and health officials to wear masks, practice social distancing and other steps to combat the virus that’s killed nearly 1.4 million people worldwide.In Belgrade, many mourners paying their respects Saturday to Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej ignored precautions, and some kissed the glass shield covering the patriarch’s body, despite warnings not to do so from Serbia’s epidemiologists.That scene unfolded three weeks after the 90-year-old Irinej led prayers at the funeral of Bishop Amfilohije in nearby Montenegro, an event attended by thousands, where many kissed the bishop’s remains in an open casket.The highly publicized episodes happened as Serbia reported thousands of newly confirmed infections daily in the country of 7 million and as the government in recent days has tightened measures to hold off the virus. As the country’s health system strains to treat more and more people for the virus, some patients in Belgrade hospitals with less serious conditions are being transferred to hospitals elsewhere.Those same kinds of tough decisions and terrible predicaments are playing out across the United States.California enacts a nighttime curfew starting Saturday night to try to keep people away from parties, social mixing and drinking — the kinds of activities blamed for causing infections to soar. The state’s curfew will run from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for most of the state’s residents and last through at least Dec. 21.”Large numbers of people getting together oblivious of controls — no masks, no social distancing, often indoors — a lot of those things are in fact occurring at night,” said Dr. Mark Cullen, an infectious disease expert who recently retired from Stanford University.Overflowing morguesPresident Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is doing “very well” in quarantine after being infected with the virus. Trump Jr. is among more than 12 million Americans who have been infected — and that total also includes the president himself, his wife and his youngest son.In Texas, overflowing morgues prompted the state’s National Guard to send a 36-member team to El Paso to help morgue workers handle the increasing number of COVID-19 deaths.”The Texas military will provide us with the critical personnel to carry out our fatality management plan and we are very grateful to them for their ongoing support,” El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said late Friday.In North Carolina, The Charlotte Observer reported that three more people who attended large events at the United House of Prayer for All People in Charlotte last month died — bringing the total deaths linked to the church’s events to 12.Public health contact tracers and other officials have connected more than 200 COVID-19 cases to the church’s events, including people who attended the events and those who came in contact with them, the newspaper reported.And in Michigan, 61 pastors at Grand Rapids-area churches decided to stop holding in-person worship services, weddings and other big gatherings, largely in response to the pleas of the state’s health care workers, who have been overwhelmed by the surge in new cases.In Illinois, as the state tightened restrictions to combat an alarming surge in cases, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that clergy and bereavement ministers won’t be required to attend graveside services if they are worried that more than 10 people could show up.The troubling developments linked to church gatherings came as officials across the U.S. in cities and towns brace for an event synonymous with large gatherings: Thanksgiving Day.Health officials are begging people not to travel for Thanksgiving and asking families to resist inviting anyone over to the house who does not already live there.”Don’t let down your guard, even around close friends and relatives who aren’t members of your household,” Arizona’s health department said on Twitter.
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An Iranian anti-hijab activist who fled Iran after being sentenced to 12 years in prison is now facing deportation while detained in a repatriation center in Turkey.Nasibeh Shemsai, 36, was arrested at Istanbul Airport on November 5 as she attempted to take an Italy-bound flight using a fake passport to reunite with her brother in Spain.She was initially taken to a police station in Istanbul, then was transferred to a repatriation center in Edirne, a border province in northwestern Turkey, where she could be sent back to Iran.Anti-hijab protestsAn architect by occupation and a mountaineer, Shemsai in 2018 climbed Iran’s highest peak, Mount Damavand, and took off her scarf in a picture in solidarity with “the Girls of Enghelab [revolution] Street” who participated in protests against Iran’s compulsory hijab in 2017.Shemsai was also seen in a FILE – Veiled Iranian women attend a ceremony in support of the observance of the Islamic dress code for women, in Tehran, Iran, July 11, 2019.Previous deportationsPeyman Aref, an Iranian journalist based in Brussels, said for many Iranians such as Shemsai, Turkey is not a safe destination because of alleged cooperation between Iranian and Turkish authorities.“Turkey and Iran have close intelligence cooperation. Turkey handed over many Iranian activists to Iran in recent years,” Aref told VOA, referring to the deportations of Mohammad Rajabi and Saeed Tamjidi.The Turkish Foreign Ministry did not respond to VOA’s request for comment on these allegations.Rajabi, 26, and Tamjidi, 28, participated in November 2019 anti-government protests in Iran. After initially being arrested and released, they fled to Turkey to seek asylum. However, they were detained by Turkish authorities and deported to Iran, where they were immediately arrested and sentenced to death last February.The Iranian Supreme Court upheld their death sentences last July but suspended the executions pending a retrial.Reuters: Iran Suspends Executions of 3 Protesters Rights activists had said the death sentences were aimed at intimidating future protesters Shemsai’s Istanbul-based lawyer, Ugur Ozdemir, told VOA that his client applied for international protection in Turkey on Tuesday while being held in the repatriation center.Ozdemir said the previous deportation of Iranian activists who had applied for international protection dissuaded Shemsai from seeking refuge from Turkish authorities immediately after crossing the Iranian border.Non-refoulementSome human rights organizations say Turkey needs to abide by the non-refoulement principle of refugee protection regardless of geographical limitation. Non-refoulement forbids the return of a person to a country where he or she may face persecution.“Even if only one person is forcibly deported, it is a sufficient reason for others to feel unsafe here,” Tarik Beyhan, the campaigns and communications director of Amnesty International’s Turkey office, told VOA.Beyhan said his organization recognizes Turkey’s role in hosting about 4 million refugees. However, “it does not mean that it is possible to accept any violation of human rights, international standards and non-refoulement principle, even if it happens once.”Increased cooperationSome experts say that the recent increase in cooperation between Iran and Turkey on foreign and security policy has prompted harsher treatment of Iranian refugees in Turkey.Last September, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held a virtual Turkey-Iran High-Level Cooperation Council meeting in which they agreed to take steps together in the region in the interests of both countries, including joint operations against militant groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Iranian wing, PJAK.Both the PKK and PJAK are designated terrorist organizations by the United States and Turkey.“As Turkish and Iranian leaders find greater common ground to join forces, there are also greater risks for Iranian nationals who have taken refuge in Turkey,” said Aykan Erdemir, the director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Turkish parliamentarian.“The latest wave of deportations indicates that the Turkish government is likely to grant the Iranian regime greater room for maneuver in cracking down on dissidents,” Erdemir told VOA.
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is blaming his rival, opposition leader Juan Guaido, for U.S. President Donald Trump’s apparent reelection defeat.Maduro said Thursday, he received a message from someone in the United States he refused to identify, that if Trump had trusted Maduro instead of Guaido, the election result would have been different.Maduro seemed to mock Trump for recognizing Guaido as Venezuela’s self-proclaimed interim president saying, “You preferred to bet on an imbecile and that imbecile led you to defeat.”Maduro’s comments might also be a public rebuke of Trump and his administration, which has long favored Guaido, who was also backed by some other Western leaders.Thursday a team of Trump campaign lawyers claimed nationwide vote fraud is resulting from what they characterized as a conspiracy among Democrats, a voting machine company in Canada, Venezuelan socialist leaders, Cuban and Chinese communists, antifa and philanthropist George Soros.
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Former Peruvian president Martin Vizcarra has lost his last opportunity to reverse his dismissal from office.A majority of the judges on Peru’s Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled Vizcarra’s lawsuit inadmissible, rejecting his claim that the Congress, which voted overwhelming last Monday to impeach him, acted improperly.Peru’s Congress ousted Vizcarra under the “permanent moral incapacity” clause based on unverified allegations he received $630,000 in bribes from construction companies while he serving as a regional governor.Manuel Merino, the leader of Congress, succeeded Vizcarra but he resigned Sunday, less than a week after becoming interim president following days of street protests, which turned deadly when two protesters were killed during confrontations with police.Lawmaker Francisco Sagasti, who was next in line to lead the country, was sworn in as the new interim president on Tuesday.Sagasti will serve until next July and Peruvians will chose a permanent leader in April.
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President Donald Trump announced Tuesday on Twitter that he had fired Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, for a recent statement Krebs made regarding election security. Krebs has consistently debunked allegations of voter fraud over the past week, tweeting, “On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.’ ” On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that Krebs’s statements were “highly inaccurate,” alleging “massive improprieties and fraud.” Trump’s tweet was labeled as “disputed” by Twitter. “Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,” he tweeted. The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud – including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020
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The U.S. Justice Department is dropping its drug trafficking and money laundering case against former Mexican defense secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday. Barr said the department would drop its case so Cienfuegos “may be investigated and, if appropriate, charged, under Mexican law.” Cienfuegos, who was charged in federal court in Brooklyn, was arrested in Los Angeles last month.  Cienfuegos, who led Mexico’s army for six years under ex-President Enrique Peña Nieto, was the highest-ranking former Cabinet official arrested since the top Mexican security official Genaro Garcia Luna was arrested in Texas in 2019. Cienfuegos was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York in 2019 and accused of conspiring to participate in an international drug distribution and money laundering scheme. Prosecutors alleged he helped the H-2 cartel smuggle thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana while he was defense secretary from 2012 to 2018.  Prosecutors said intercepted messages showed Cienfuegos worked to ensure that the military did not take action against the cartel and that operations were initiated against rivals in exchange for bribes. He was also accused of introducing cartel leaders to other corrupt Mexican officials.  In court papers last month, U.S. prosecutors had argued Cienfuegos was a significant flight risk and said he would “likely seek to leverage his connections to high level H-2 Cartel members in Mexico, as well as former high-level corrupt government officials, to assist him in fleeing from U.S. law enforcement and shelter him in Mexico.” Had he been convicted of the charges in the U.S., he would’ve faced at least 10 years in federal prison.  Under Cienfuegos, the Mexican army was accused of frequent human rights abuses, but that was true of both his predecessors and his successor in the post. The worst scandal in Cienfuegos’ tenure involved the 2014 army killings of suspects in a grain warehouse. FILE – Blood is seen on the wall of a building in the Tlatlaya community after 22 people, alleged members of the drug cartel, were killed in a confrontation with soldiers of the Mexican Army, in Tlatlaya, Mexico, June 30, 2014.The June 2014 massacre involved soldiers who killed 22 suspects at the warehouse in the town of Tlatlaya. While some died in an initial shootout with the army patrol — in which one soldier was wounded — a human rights investigation later showed that at least eight and perhaps as many as a dozen suspects were executed after they surrendered. Barr said in a joint statement with Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero that the U.S. Justice Department had made the decision to drop the U.S. case in recognition “of the strong law enforcement partnership between Mexico and the United States, and in the interests of demonstrating our united front against all forms of criminality.”  The Justice Department said it has provided Mexico with evidence collected in the case. 
 
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The fashion industry, which used to rely on face-to-face interaction, has been forced to adapt to COVID realities for employees. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.Camera: David Gogokhia      
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An updated U.S. citizenship test will require applicants to answer more questions than before and could reduce the number of tests held each day, experts said.The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency on Friday announced the updated test now has 128 civics items to study and will require applicants answer 20 questions instead of 10. To pass, applicants must answer 12 correctly, or 60%. That’s the same pass rate as before.The new test also removes geography questions and alters prior ones, such as requiring applicants to name three branches of government instead of one. It also changes the answer to a question on whom U.S. senators represent from “all people of the state” to “citizens in their state,” which has drawn criticism over its accuracy.Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Washington-based, nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said that the changes to the naturalization test would possibly triple the amount each Citizenship and Immigration Services officer spends testing applicants.Pierce said that under previous rules, applicants could potentially only answer six of 10 questions if they gave all the correct answers, but now applicants must respond to 20 questions even when they already got 60% of them correct.”These changes reduce the efficiency of this already struggling agency,” Pierce said, referring to its citizenship application backlog. “The administration is adding hundreds of thousands of more minutes to these naturalization exams.”Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Dan Hetlage said the new test “covers a variety of topics that provide the applicant with a more well-rounded testing experience.”Hetlage said applicants 65 years and older who have been living in the U.S. legally for at least 20 years are provided special consideration. They will be able to study from a smaller number of civics topics and will need to only get six out of 10 questions correct to pass.People who apply for naturalization on or after Dec. 1 will take the new version of the test. The test is one of the very final steps in obtaining American citizenship, a monthslong process that requires immigrants to have permanent legal residency for at least five years before applying.More than 840,000 immigrants became U.S. citizens during the 2019 fiscal year, up 11% from a year earlier, according to U.S. government statistics.In recent years, the average wait time for an applicant to naturalize has also grown. It was nearly 10 months in the 2019 fiscal year compared with fewer than six months three years prior. The government lists estimated naturalization processing times on its website of between 14.5 and 26 months in Houston and 16.5 and 32 months in New York.
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Election security officials have no evidence that ballots were deleted or lost by voting systems in this month’s U.S. election, two security groups said in a statement released Thursday by the lead U.S. cybersecurity agency. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the groups said about the November 3 election won by Joe Biden, a Democrat. Republican President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud and has yet to concede. The groups, the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee (GCC) and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), said the election was the most secure in U.S. history. “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections and you should, too,” the groups said in the statement released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). CISA, led by the top U.S. cybersecurity official, Christopher Krebs, runs a website that debunks misinformation about the election. The security groups said all the states with close results in the race have paper records of each vote, which can be counted if necessary.  
 
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The sound of heavy weapons erupted across the Ethiopian border town. Immediately, Filimon, a police officer, started to run.Shaken and scared, he paused when asked about his wife and two small children, ages 5 and 2.”I don’t know where my family is now,” he said, unsure if they were left behind in the fighting or are somewhere in the growing crowd of thousands of new refugees over the border in Sudan.In an interview with The Associated Press by phone from Sudan on Thursday, the 30-year-old gave one of the first witness accounts from what experts warn is a brewing civil war with devastating humanitarian consequences. The conflict could also draw in neighboring countries.Filimon, who gave only his first name, said those attacking the Tigray regional town of Humera last week came from the direction of nearby Eritrea, though it was impossible to know whether the attackers were Eritrean forces.Tigray regional leaders have accused Eritrea of joining the weeklong conflict in the region at the request of Ethiopia’s federal government, which regards the Tigray government as illegal. Ethiopia has denied the involvement of Eritrean forces.Thousands fleeFilimon’s worries are far more immediate. After a daylong journey on foot with about 30 others who were also fleeing, he has spent two days in Sudan, exposed to the sun and wind in a border town that is quickly becoming overwhelmed.About 11,000 refugees have fled into Sudan, where authorities are preparing for up to 100,000, the United Nations refugee agency said Thursday.Half of the refugees are children.It was too early to collect statements from the refugees about the fighting, the agency said. Fleeing combatants were separated from civilians. Injured people — injured how, it was still unclear — were being treated.Tensions over the deadly conflict in Ethiopia are spreading well beyond its cut-off northern Tigray region, as the federal government said some 150 suspected operatives accused of seeking to “strike fear and terror” throughout the country had been detained. Hours later, police in Addis Ababa said they had arrested 242 people allegedly recruited “to cause terror in the capital.”The government said the suspects “happen to be ethnically diverse,” but concerns remain high among ethnic Tigrayans amid reports of being singled out by authorities.”We don’t go to the office because they might also arrest us,” said one ethnic Tigrayan in the capital. “I’m in hiding, actually.”Ethiopia’s Parliament voted to remove immunity from prosecution for 39 top Tigray region officials, including its president, accusing them of revolting and “attacking the federal army.”Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is rejecting international pleas for negotiation and de-escalation, saying that cannot occur until the ruling leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) are removed and arrested and its heavily stocked arsenal is destroyed.In a bloody sign of how volatile Ethiopia’s tensions have become, Amnesty International said it had confirmed that scores of civilians were “hacked to death” in Mai-Kadra in the Tigray region on Monday night. It cited photos and videos of bodies strewn in the streets and witnesses who saw them. Amnesty International said it has not been able to confirm who was responsible.Abiy on Thursday asserted that the western part of the Tigray region had been liberated and accused the TPLF rulers of seeking to destroy Ethiopia. He accused the TPLF forces of abuses. Defense Minister Kenea Yadeta said a transitional administration will be set up in “rescued” areas, the Ethiopian News Agency reported.Acting President Debretsion Gebremichael of the Tigray Region called on the population to mobilize and defend themselves. Tigray TV, aligned with the TPLF, asserted that fighter jets had bombed the Tekeze hydroelectric dam.War months in the makingWhat appeared to be a sudden slide toward civil war has been months in the making. After taking office in 2018, Abiy announced sweeping political reforms that won him the Nobel Peace Prize but marginalized the TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. The TPLF later left the coalition and in September held a local election in defiance of the federal government.Each side now regards the other as illegal, and each blames the other for starting the fighting.Rallies occurred in multiple cities in support of the federal government’s military offensive. At a blood drive in Addis Ababa, donor Admasu Alamerew said, “I also want to pass my message to those people who are causing conflict and urge them to fear God and make peace.”Communications and transport links remain severed in the Tigray region, making it difficult to verify claims, while the United Nations and others warn of a looming humanitarian disaster as food and fuel run short for millions of people.The conflict risks drawing in Ethiopia’s neighbors, notably Sudan and Eritrea, which are at bitter odds with the TPLF. Experts fear that the Horn of Africa, one of the world’s most strategic regions, could be destabilized, despite Abiy’s past peacemaking efforts.Meanwhile, more than 1,000 citizens of various countries are stuck in the Tigray region, the U.N. has said. Long lines have appeared outside bread shops, and supply-laden trucks are stranded at its borders. Fuel is already being rationed.Over the border in Sudan, thousands of Ethiopian refugees waited, few possessions in hand, as authorities hurried to find a place to host them.”It’s just countryside. There’s nothing there. Everything will have to be provided,” said Charles Franzen, disaster response director for the aid group World Relief, whose largest program is in Sudan. At first, he said, for people who were already in a fragile stage, there will be a “fair amount of human suffering.”
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After the recent terror attacks in France and Austria, European leaders held a summit Tuesday in France to coordinate the response against terrorism, and they are pushing for a “common coordinated and rapid” European response to counterterror attacks.The question of how to respond to Islamist attacks like the recent ones in Nice and Vienna brought together Tuesday French President Emmanuel Macron and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz at the Elysee Palace in Paris where they were joined by videoconference with the leaders of Germany, the Netherlands, and top EU officials.President Macron urged a “common coordinated and rapid” European response to counterterror attacks.Macron detailed the need to develop common databases between EU states, improve cooperation between law enforcement, share intel and enact tougher legislation on the continent. Any threat at EU external borders or inside even one member state is a threat to the entire EU, said the French president.European leaders also stressed the need for what they said should be a “determined fight against terrorist propaganda and hate speech on the internet.” Macron mentioned Netherlands and Austria as good examples of how this fight should be carried out.He said the Internet is a space of freedom, and social networks are, too, but this freedom exists only if there is security and if it does not serve as a refuge for those who flout European values or seek to indoctrinate with deadly ideologies. Macron said terrorist propaganda must be removed within an hour once it is flagged.To counter jihadist terrorism, EU leaders also are calling for measures to ensure that the teachings of imams on the continent do not include hate speech.Charles Michel is the president of the European Council.Michel said religious freedom is key in Europe, but there also is a need to guarantee that imams preach the right values of tolerance and peace.This meeting took place on the eve of the anniversary of the November 2015 attacks that killed more than 100 people in Paris. 
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As severe weather events increase in frequency and intensity across the U.S. and around the world, scientists and forecasters are seeking more effective weather-mapping programs. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
Camera: Adam Greenbaum   Produced by: JulieTaboh/Adam Greenbaum
 
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A celebration of music, from arias in an art house and guitars in prison, to subway dj-ing and using the earth as a harp.  Note this episode previously aired 4/2018) 
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An unknown number of people are killed and several others wounded  during inter-communal violence between two Tonj East County communities; Sudanese officials in Kassala State close their border with neighboring Ethiopia; and health officials say over a dozen children in Jonglei State have died of acute malnutrition due to ongoing flooding in the area.
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