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A large number of mysterious drones have been reported flying over parts of New Jersey and the East Coast in recent weeks, sparking speculation and concern over who sent them and why.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X.

Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to be a threat to public safety, but many state and municipal lawmakers have nonetheless called for stricter rules about who can fly the unmanned aircraft.

The FBI is among several agencies investigating and has asked residents to share videos, photos and other information they may have about the drones.

What’s the deal with the drones in New Jersey?

Dozens of witnesses have reported seeing them in the state starting in November.

At first they were spotted flying along the scenic Raritan River, which feeds the Round Valley Reservoir, the state’s largest aquifer, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of New York City.

But soon sightings were reported statewide, including near the Picatinny Arsenal, a military research and manufacturing facility, and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.

The aircraft have also recently been spotted in coastal areas.

Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Smith said a Coast Guard commanding officer told him a dozen drones closely followed a Guard lifeboat near Barnegat Light and Island Beach State Park in Ocean County over the weekend.

Federal officials offer assurances that drones don’t pose a threat

The growing anxiety among some residents is not lost on the Biden administration, which has faced criticism from Trump for not dealing with the matter more aggressively.

In a call with reporters Saturday that was organized by the White House, senior officials from the FBI, Pentagon, FAA and other agencies sought to assure people that the drones are not a national security or public safety threat or the handywork of a malicious foreign actor.

An FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said the public concern is understandable but added, “I think there has been a slight overreaction.”

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday that the military’s initial assessment after consulting with the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Council — that the drones are not of foreign origin — remained unchanged.

New Jersey congressman wants the military to take action

A New Jersey congressman has urged the Pentagon to authorize the use of force to bring down one or more drones to try to figure out who deployed them.

The objects could be downed over the ocean or in an unpopulated area on land, Smith said Saturday at a news conference.

“Why can’t we bag at least one of these drones and get to the bottom of it?” Smith said.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, another Republican Jersey Shore-area congressman, has also called for the military to shoot down the drones.

Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said people should not take it into their own hands to shoot down drones, which would break state and federal laws.

Drones have been spotted over New York City

Drone sightings have now been reported in New York, where a permit is required, and Mayor Eric Adams said the city was investigating and collaborating with New Jersey and federal officials.

The runways at Stewart International Airport — about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the city — were shut down for about one hour Friday night because of drone activity in the airspace, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

“This has gone too far,” she said in a statement.

The governor called on Congress to strengthen the FAA’s oversight of drones and give more investigative authority to state and local law enforcement.

“Extending these powers to New York State and our peers is essential,” she said. “Until those powers are granted to state and local officials, the Biden administration must step in by directing additional federal law enforcement to New York and the surrounding region to ensure the safety of our critical infrastructure and our people.”

Are these drones dangerous?

The White House has said that a review of the reported sightings shows that many of them are actually manned aircraft being flown lawfully, echoing the opinion of officials and drone experts.

The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”

Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, who was briefed by the Department of Homeland Security, said the reported drones have been up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter and sometimes travel with their lights switched off. This is much larger than those typically flown by drone hobbyists, and she said they appear to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio.

Who sent the drones?

Authorities say they do not know.

The FBI, Homeland Security and state police are investigating the sightings. Authorities say they don’t know if it is one drone that has been spotted many times or if there are multiple aircraft being flown in a coordinated effort.

Speculation has raged online, with some expressing concerns that the drone or drones could be part of a nefarious plot by foreign agents.

Officials stress that ongoing state and federal investigations have found no evidence to support those concerns, but Rep. Smith on Saturday echoed such speculation.

“The elusive maneuvering of these drones suggests a major military power sophistication that begs the question whether they have been deployed to test our defense capabilities — or worse — by violent dictatorships, perhaps maybe Russia, or China, or Iran, or North Korea,” he said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Wednesday that the aircraft are not U.S. military drones.

What have officials said about the sightings?

Trump has said he believes the government knows more than it’s saying. “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!” he posted on his social media site.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Thursday that the drones should be “shot down, if necessary.”

“We should be doing some very urgent intelligence analysis and take them out of the skies, especially if they’re flying over airports or military bases,” Blumenthal said.

Experts, however, warn not to shoot at anything in the sky.

Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings and said she doesn’t believe the assertion that the drones aren’t a risk to public safety.

“How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.”

Are drones allowed in New Jersey?

The flying of drones for recreational and commercial use is legal in the state, but it is subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions.

In New York City, a permit is required to take off or land an unmanned aircraft.

Operators must be FAA-certified.

Have drones been spotted anywhere else?

Sightings also have been reported in Virginia and elsewhere.

Two people said they spotted an aircraft Thursday night near Virginia Beach that was unlike any other they’ve seen.

The object was over the ocean, and they watched as it slowly moved over an Army National Guard facility, John Knight told The Virginian-Pilot.

“It was definitely different,” said Knight, who took videos of what he thinks was a drone the size of a small truck.

“It flew like a helicopter but made no noise,” he added.

The Virginia National Guard did not have any aircraft operating in the area Thursday night, according to spokesperson A.A. “Cotton” Puryear. Its leadership is aware of the incident and it’s under investigation.

Another military installation in the area is Naval Air Station Oceana Dam Neck Annex. NAS Oceana, the East Coast master jet base in Virginia Beach, is aware of recent reports of sightings in the area and is coordinating with federal and state agencies to ensure the safety of its personnel and operations, Katie Hewett, public affairs officer, said Friday by email.

Knight submitted the videos Thursday night to the FBI tip line.

In Massachusetts, 10 to 15 drones were reported hovering over a home Thursday night in Harwich on Cape Cod. A resident told police they were bright and she observed them for more than an hour.

Earlier that evening, an off-duty police officer in the same town noticed similar activity near a public safety complex, police said. The information was forwarded to the FBI and Massachusetts State Police.

Drones were also spotted last month in the U.K. The U.S. Air Force said several small unmanned aircraft were detected near four military bases in England that are used by American forces.
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OMAHA, NEBRASKA — A major ice storm created treacherous driving conditions across Iowa and eastern Nebraska this weekend and prompted temporary closures of Interstate 80 after numerous cars and trucks slid off the road. 

Many events were canceled across the region when the storm hit Friday evening, and businesses announced plans to open late Saturday as officials urged people to stay home if possible. Temperatures rose high enough in the afternoon to melt the ice in most places, however. 

“Luckily some warmer air is moving in behind this to make it temporary,” said Dave Cousins, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Davenport, Iowa. 

At least one person died in a crash caused by the icy roads in eastern Nebraska. The Washington County Sheriff’s office said a 57-year-old woman died after she lost control of her pickup on Highway 30 near Arlington and hit an oncoming truck. The other driver sustained minor injuries. 

Trees topple

Elsewhere a storm and wind gusts of up to 96 kilometers per hour prompted the first tornado warning in San Francisco, California, and caused some damage. Parts of neighboring San Mateo County were also included in the warning, which went out at 5:51 a.m. to about 1 million people in the area. It was lifted by 6:15 a.m. 

The storm toppled trees onto cars and streets and damaged some roofs in San Francisco, which has not seen a tornado since 2005, according to the Weather Service. The damage was being assessed to determine if there was indeed a tornado. 

“This was the first-ever warning for a possible tornado in San Francisco. I would guess there wasn’t a clear signature on radar for a warning in 2005,” said Roger Gass, a meteorologist in the Weather Service’s Monterey, California. He said he was not there in 2005. 

The fast-moving storm prompted warnings for residents to take shelter, but few people have basements in the area. 

“The biggest thing that we tell people in the city is to put as many walls between you and the outside as possible,” meteorologist Dalton Behringer said. 

Snow falls at ski resorts

In upstate New York, people were digging out after heavy snow fell. More than 84 centimeters was reported near Orchard Park, where residents are used to dealing with lake-effect snow this time of year. 

And in Nevada, up to 91 centimeters of snow was forecast for Sierra Nevada mountaintops, with a winter storm warning in effect through 10 p.m. More than one-third of a meter fell at some Lake Tahoe ski resorts, according to the National Weather Service’s Reno office. 

Interstate 80 was closed for about an 130-kilometer stretch from Applegate, California, to the Nevada state line just west of Reno, where rain was falling and a winter weather advisory remained in effect through the afternoon. 

In western Washington, tens of thousands of people lost electricity Saturday, local news outlets reported, amid a system that brought rain and gusty winds. 
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Hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island residents’ personal and bank information, including Social Security numbers, were likely hacked by an international cybercriminal group asking for a ransom, state officials said on Saturday. 

In what Rhode Island officials described as extortion, the hackers threatened to release the stolen information unless they were paid an undisclosed amount of money. 

The breached data affects people who use the state’s government assistance programs and includes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and healthcare purchased through the state’s HealthSource RI, Governor Dan McKee announced on Friday. 

Hackers gained access to RIBridges, the state’s online portal for obtaining social services earlier this month, the governor’s office said in a statement, but the breach was not confirmed by its vendor, Deloitte, until Friday. 

“Deloitte confirmed that there is a high probability that a cybercriminal has obtained files with personally identifiable information from RIBridges,” the governor’s office said in a statement on Saturday. 

A representative from McKee’s office was not immediately available to Reuters for comment. 

Anyone who has applied for or received benefits through those programs since 2016 could be affected. 

The state directed Deloitte to shut down RIBridges to remediate the threat, and for the time being, anyone applying for new benefits will have to do so on paper applications until the system is back up. 

Households believed to have been affected will receive a letter from the state notifying them of the problem and explaining steps to be taken to help protect their data and bank accounts. 
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ABC News has agreed to give $15 million to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit over comments that anchor George Stephanopoulos made on air involving the civil case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll, a court document filed on Saturday showed. 

The lawsuit, filed on March 19 in U.S. District Court in Southern Florida, accused Stephanopoulos of making the statements with malice and a disregard for the truth. It said the statements were distributed widely to third parties and repeated. 

“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement.   

The lawsuit cites a March 10 interview with U.S. Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican who has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager. During the interview, Stephanopoulos said Trump was found liable for rape and asked her how she could endorse the candidate. 

According to the settlement, ABC News must publish by Sunday a statement at the bottom of a March 10 online article that accompanied the interview. 

“ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Representative Nancy Mace on ABC’s “This Week on March 10, 2024,” the statement must say, according to the court document. 
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New York — Officials from the White House, FBI and DHS on Saturday stressed that most of the recently reported drone sightings in New Jersey and nearby states involved manned aircraft, and there was no evidence of any national security threat. 

An FBI official told reporters during an impromptu briefing that the agency was working with 50 local, state and federal partners to look into increased reports. The official said less than 100 of the over 5,000 reported sightings had turned out to merit further investigation, and all of the large fixed-wing reported sightings so far involved manned aircraft. 

“The combination of efforts so far … to include technical equipment, tip line information and noted consults has … not found any evidence to support large-scale [unmanned aerial systems] activities,” the official said, adding that many of the sightings occurred along regular flight paths. 

Extensive efforts were underway to investigate the remaining cases, using interviews and analysis of radar and intelligence, the official added. 

“We can’t ignore the sightings that have been there,” the official said. “We’re doing our best to find the origin of those drone activities, but I think there has been a slight over-reaction.” 

A spate of reported drone sightings that began in New Jersey in mid-November spread in recent days to include Maryland, Massachusetts and other states. The sightings have garnered media attention and prompted creation of a Facebook page called “New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it” with 56,000 online members. 

U.S. President Joe Biden is receiving regular updates on the issue, a White House official said. 

On Cape Cod in Massachusetts, residents and a police officer in Harwich reported seeing 10-15 drones flying in the Friday night sky, the Boston Herald reported. 

Police relayed the information to the Boston FBI and Massachusetts State Police. 

Governor Maura Healey said on Facebook that she is also “aware of a growing number of drone sightings across Massachusetts and we’re monitoring the situation closely.” 

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Saturday called for a boost in federal law enforcement efforts after the runways at a local airport in the Hudson Valley were shut down for one hour due to drone activity on Friday. 

“This has gone too far,” Hochul said in a statement on the social media network X, urging the Biden administration to boost law enforcement in New York and other areas, and calling on Congress to pass drone reform legislation. 

An official with the Federal Aviation Administration said a temporary ban on drone activity had been put in place over Picatinny Arsenal, a military base in Wharton, New Jersey, that was due to expire on December 26 and could be made permanent. 

There had been drone sightings over Picatinny and another naval weapons station in December, a military official told reporters, but there was no intelligence or observation that they were linked to a foreign actor or had malicious intent. Drone operations over military installations are generally banned, but occur from time to time, the official added. 

A second ban was put in place over Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that was due to expire on Decemver 20, but could be extended, the FAA official said. 

 
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Americans should eat more beans, peas and lentils and cut back on red and processed meats and starchy vegetables, all while continuing to limit added sugars, sodium and saturated fat.

That’s the advice released Tuesday by a panel of nutrition experts charged with counseling the U.S. government about the 2025 edition of the dietary guidelines that will form the cornerstone of federal food programs and policy.

But the 20-member panel didn’t weigh in on the growing role of ultraprocessed foods that have been linked to health problems, saying there’s not enough evidence to tell people to avoid them. And the group steered clear of updating controversial guidance on alcohol consumption, leaving that analysis to two outside reports expected to be released soon.

Overall, the recommendations for the 2025-30 Dietary Guidelines for Americans sound familiar, said Marion Nestle, a food policy expert.

“This looks like every other set of dietary guidelines since 1980: eat your veggies and reduce consumption of foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fat,” Nestle said in an email. “This particular statement says nothing about balancing calories, when overconsumption of calories, especially from ultra-processed foods, is the biggest challenge to the health of Americans.”

What the scientific panel said about healthy diets

The nutrition panel concluded that a healthy diet for people aged 2 years and older is higher in vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, fish and vegetable oils that are higher in unsaturated fat.

It is lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, refined grains and saturated fat. It may also include fat-free or low-fat dairy and foods lower in sodium and may include plant-based foods.

The panel, which met for nearly two years, was the first to focus on the dietary needs of Americans through what they called a “health equity lens,” said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, a Massachusetts General Hospital obesity expert who was part of the group. That meant considering factors such as household income, race, ethnicity and culture when recommending healthy diets. It will help ensure that the guidance “reflects and includes various population groups,” she said in an email.

The panel didn’t come to conclusions on ultraprocessed foods or alcohol

Ultraprocessed foods include the snacks, sugary cereals and frozen meals that make up about 60% of the American diet.

The panel considered more than 40 studies, including several that showed links between ultraprocessed foods and becoming overweight or developing obesity. But the nutrition experts had concerns with the quality of the research, leaving them to conclude that the evidence was too limited to make recommendations.

That decision is likely to bump up against the views of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to lead the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, who has questioned potential conflicts of interest among members of the dietary guidelines panel and vowed to crack down on ultraprocessed foods that contribute to chronic disease.

The panel also didn’t revise recommendations that suggest limiting alcohol intake to two drinks or less a day for men and one drink or less a day for women.

In 2020, the last time the guidance was updated, the government rejected the advice of scientific advisers to recommend less alcohol consumption.

Two groups — the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and a committee of the government agency that oversees substance abuse — are expected to release reports in the coming months on the effects of moderate alcohol use to inform the guidelines.

Do Americans follow dietary guidelines?

The advisory panel acknowledged that the diets of most Americans don’t meet the current guidelines. More than half of all U.S. adults have one or more diet-related chronic health conditions and 18 million U.S. households have insecure sources of food, according to the report.

“Nutrition-related chronic health conditions and their precursors continue to threaten health through the lifespan,” the report concludes. “Which does not bode well for the future of health in the United States.”

What happens next?

The scientific report informs the dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years. Tuesday’s recommendations now go to HHS and the Agriculture Department, where officials will draft the final guidance set for release next year.

Starting Wednesday, the public will have 60 days to comment on the guidance. HHS and USDA officials will hold a public meeting January 16 to discuss the recommendations.

The new guidance, which will be finalized by the incoming Trump administration, is consistent with decades of federal efforts to reduce diet-related disease in the U.S., said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“Broadly, I think these are well-formulated recommendations that the incoming administration would do well to adopt,” Lurie said. 
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WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been hospitalized after she “sustained an injury” during an official engagement in Luxembourg, according to a spokesperson.

Pelosi, 84, was in Europe with a bipartisan congressional delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Her spokesperson, Ian Krager, said in a statement that she is “currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals” and is unable to attend the remainder of events on her trip.

He did not describe the nature of her injury or give any additional details, but a person familiar with the incident said that Pelosi tripped and fell while at an event with the other members of Congress. Another person familiar with the situation said she injured her hip. The people requested anonymity to discuss the fall because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

Krager said that Pelosi “looks forward to returning home to the U.S. soon.”

Among the members on the trip was Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, who posted on social media that he was “praying for a speedy recovery” for Pelosi. The two lawmakers were captured holding hands in a group photo Friday at the U.S. Embassy in Luxembourg.

“I’m disappointed Speaker Emerita Pelosi won’t be able to join the rest of our delegation’s events this weekend as I know how much she looked forward to honoring our veterans,” McCaul wrote on X. “But she is strong, and I am confident she will be back on her feet in no time.”

The former leader’s fall comes two years after her husband, Paul, was attacked by a man with a hammer at their San Francisco home. The man, who was sentenced in October to 30 years in federal prison, broke into their home looking for Pelosi.

Pelosi, who was first elected in 1987 and served as speaker twice, stepped down from her leadership post two years ago but remained in Congress and was re-elected to represent her San Francisco district in November.

She has remained active in the two years since she left the top job, working with Democrats in private and in public and attending official events. Last summer, she was instrumental in her party’s behind the scenes push to urge President Joe Biden to leave the presidential ticket.

She attended the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington last weekend and was on the Senate floor Monday to attend the swearing in of her former Democratic House colleagues, Adam Schiff of California and Andy Kim of New Jersey.

Earlier this week, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, 82, tripped and fell in the Senate, spraining his wrist and cutting his face. McConnell, who is stepping down from his leadership post at the end of the year, missed Senate votes on Thursday after experiencing some stiffness in his leg from the fall, his office said. 
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday sued a New York doctor for allegedly providing a Texas woman with abortion pills by telemedicine.

The lawsuit by the Republican attorney general, which appeared to be the first of its kind, could offer a test of conservative states’ power to stop abortion pills from reaching their residents.

New York is among the Democratic-led states that have passed so-called shield laws aiming to protect doctors who provide abortion pills to patients in other states. The law says New York will not cooperate with another state’s effort to prosecute, sue or otherwise penalize a doctor for providing the pills, as long as the doctor complies with New York law.

“As other states move to attack those who provide or obtain abortion care, New York is proud to be a safe haven for abortion access,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats.”

In the lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Collin County, Paxton said that New Paltz, New York, Dr. Margaret Carpenter prescribed and provided mifepristone and misoprostol, the two drugs used in medication abortion, to a Texas woman via telemedicine.

Medication abortion accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions. It has drawn increasing attention since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision allowing states to ban abortion, which more than 20 have done.

The woman went to the hospital after experiencing bleeding as a complication of taking the drugs, which were subsequently discovered by her partner, according to the lawsuit.

Paxton claimed that Carpenter violated Texas’s abortion law and its occupational licensing law by practicing medicine in the state despite not being licensed there. He is seeking an injunction barring her from further violations of Texas’s abortion ban and at least $100,000 in civil penalties for each past violation.

Carpenter is a member of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which supports nationwide access to abortion through telemedicine, and helped start Hey Jane, an online telehealth clinic offering abortion pills, according to the coalition’s website. She could not immediately be reached for comment. 
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Patricia Hubbard Fox, the sister of the 72-year-old U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard sentenced to jail in Russia for almost seven years on charges of “being a mercenary” for his alleged participation in fighting in Ukraine, says in an exclusive VOA Russian interview that she is still unsuccessfully trying to find out the location of his prison in Russia. She refuted the charges against her brother, saying that he would not be able to fight alongside the Ukrainian army and that he was an English language teacher in a small Ukrainian town.

Click her for the full story in Russian.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team told VOA Persian on Friday that all options remain on the table when it comes to addressing Iran’s nuclear program.

“The Trump administration is committed to reestablishing peace and stability in the Middle East,” Brian Hughes, spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, said in an email, responding to an inquiry made by VOA Persian regarding a Friday Wall Street Journal report suggesting that the Trump administration is considering military options to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“President Trump will keep all options on the table as it relates to the Iran Regime, including Maximum Pressure,” Hughes said.

Click here for the full story in Persian.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden met virtually with G7 leaders Friday to secure support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion, less than six weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, a skeptic of aid to Ukraine, is set to take office.  

The talks followed Washington’s $20 billion disbursement earlier this week to a new World Bank fund that will provide economic support for Ukraine. The money is part of a new $50 billion loan for Kyiv from the Group of Seven democracies that will be paid back with interest income earned from Russian sovereign assets immobilized in G7 countries. 

Earlier this week Biden approved a new security assistance package for Ukraine that will provide Kyiv with additional air defense, artillery, drones, and armored vehicles — the 72nd such drawdown package announced by Washington since Russia’s invasion.   

“As the president made clear, we’re going to continue to provide additional packages right up until the end of this administration,” White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said during a news briefing Thursday.  

On Jan. 20, Biden will hand over power to Trump, who has been critical of using American taxpayers’ money to help Kyiv. Without providing details, Trump often boasts he can swiftly end the war — a statement that many in Europe fear would mean forcing Ukraine to capitulate. 

“We are likely to see the G7 redouble support for Ukraine in part because of concerns that President Trump may reduce support,” said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corp, to VOA in an interview. 

Additional sanctions on Russia appear to be in the works, Courtney told VOA. 

Syria aftermath 

G7 leaders also focused on fast-moving events related to the momentous transition of power in Syria following the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. 

On Thursday , the leaders said in a statement they “stand ready to support a transition process that leads to credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance” in Syria.  

Support for the new government is conditional upon “respect for the rule of law, universal human rights, including women’s rights, the protection of all Syrians, including religious and ethnic minorities, transparency and accountability,” the leaders’ statement said. 

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that toppled Assad, is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has a $10 million bounty on his head. The U.S. and other G7 countries have signaled that HTS’ delisting from their terror list would be dependent upon how inclusive the new government would be. 

In recent years, Jolani has distanced himself from extremist ideology. Since the rebels’ victory, he has sought to assure his non-sectarian stance to Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities, which include Christians, Kurds, Druze and the Alawite community, a sect from which the Assad family originates. 

Trump has also signaled that he wants the U.S. to stay out of the Syrian conflict. “This is not our fight,” Trump said on social media in response to Assad’s ouster. “Let it play out. Do not get involved!” 

It’s unclear whether a new U.S. administration would be able to maintain a hands-off approach that Trump said he wants. There are approximately 900 American troops stationed in Syria, and Washington has close ties with all of Syria’s neighbors including allies Turkey and Israel. Both are already making military maneuvers to secure their interests. 

Two days after the Syrian rebels took control of Damascus on Dec. 8, Israel launched airstrikes across the country, further weakening what remains of the Assad regime’s military, once a stalwart-ally of Israel’s archnemesis, Iran. Since then, Israeli troops have advanced deeper into the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syrian territory.  

The United Nations said Israel’s actions violate the country’s 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria. The U.S. said it is in line with Israel’s right to self-defense, to avoid weapons falling into extremists’ hands amid a vacuum in power.  

Meanwhile, Syrian Kurds near the northern border with Turkey have been displaced amid clashes between U.S.-backed Kurdish forces and Ankara-backed rebels. The U.S. brokered a ceasefire deal between the groups on Wednesday but it is unclear whether the fragile truce will hold. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are currently in the region for talks, hoping to ensure a smooth transition in Damascus and making a last-ditch diplomatic push to achieve a deal to end fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
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The U.S. mid-Atlantic state of Maryland may seem like an odd place for hula dancing. Yet every weekend, dancers gather in downtown Silver Spring to practice the ancient form of storytelling, despite the thousands of miles between them and Hawaii, the tropical island state where hula was born. VOA’s Keith Lane has the story.
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He may be better known to the world as the father of Tesla and Space X, but in a few months, Elon Musk is expected to take aim at U.S. government spending. VOA’s senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Presutti explains what skills Musk brings to the advisory committee known as DOGE.
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