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WASHINGTON AND LONDON — Three U.S. lawmakers have called for more scrutiny of NewsBreak, a popular news aggregation app in the United States, after Reuters reported it has Chinese origins and has used artificial intelligence tools to produce erroneous stories.

The Reuters story drew upon previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, cease-and-desist emails and a 2022 company memo registering concerns about “AI-generated stories” to identify at least 40 instances in which NewsBreak’s use of AI tools affected the communities it strives to serve.

“The only thing more terrifying than a company that deals in unchecked, artificially generated news, is one with deep ties to an adversarial foreign government,” said Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee.

“This is yet another example of the serious threat posed by technologies from countries of concern. It’s also a stark reminder that we need a holistic approach to addressing this threat — we simply cannot win the game of whack-a-mole with individual companies,” he said.

The lawmakers expressed concerns about NewsBreak’s current and historical links to Chinese investors, as well as the company’s presence in China, where many of its engineers are based.

In response to a request from Reuters for comment about the lawmakers’ statements, NewsBreak said it was an American company: “NewsBreak is a U.S. company and always has been. Any assertion to the contrary is not true,” a spokesperson said.

NewsBreak launched in the U.S. in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, a Chinese news aggregation app. Both companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, the CEO of NewsBreak, and the companies share a U.S. patent registered in 2015 for an “Interest Engine” algorithm, which recommends news content based on a user’s interests and location, Reuters reported.

Yidian in 2017 received praise from ruling Communist Party officials in China for its efficiency in disseminating government propaganda. Reuters found no evidence that NewsBreak censored or produced news that was favorable to the Chinese government.

“This report brings to light serious questions about NewsBreak, its historical relationship with an entity that assisted the CCP, and to Chinese state-linked media,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House select committee on China, in a reference to Yidian and its former investor, state-linked media outlet Phoenix New Media.

Americans have the right to “full transparency” about any connections to the CCP from news distributors, Krishnamoorthi said, particularly with regard to the use of “opaque algorithms” and artificial intelligence tools to produce news.

Reuters reported the praise Yidian received from the Communist Party in 2017 but was unable to establish that NewsBreak has any current ties with the party.

U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican, said IDG Capital’s backing of NewsBreak indicated the app “deserves increased scrutiny.”

“We cannot allow our foreign adversaries access to American citizen’s data to weaponize them against America’s interests,” she said.

NewsBreak is a privately held start-up, whose primary backers are private equity firms San Francisco-based Francisco Partners and Beijing-based IDG Capital, Reuters reported. In February, IDG Capital was added to a list of dozens of Chinese companies the Pentagon said were allegedly working with Beijing’s military.

IDG Capital has previously said it has no association with the Chinese military and does not belong on that list. It declined to comment on the lawmaker’s reaction.

A spokesperson for Francisco Partners, which has previously declined to answer questions from Reuters on their investment in NewsBreak, described the story as “false and misleading” but declined to provide details beyond saying the description of them as a “primary backer” of NewsBreak was incorrect because their investment was less than 10%.

They did not provide documentation to prove the size of the holding. NewsBreak has told Reuters as recently as May 13 that Francisco Partners is NewsBreak’s primary investor. NewsBreak did not respond to two requests late Friday asking for documentation supporting the assertion.
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PHOENIX — The season’s first heat wave is already baking the Southwest with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix — America’s hottest big city — employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year.  

Starting this season, the Phoenix Fire Department is immersing heatstroke victims in ice on the way to area hospitals. The medical technique, known as cold water immersion, is familiar to marathon runners and military service members and has also recently been adopted by Phoenix hospitals as a go-to protocol, said Fire Capt. John Prato.  

Prato demonstrated the method earlier this week outside the emergency department of Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, packing ice cubes inside an impermeable blue bag around a medical dummy representing a patient. He said the technique could dramatically lower body temperature in minutes.  

“Just last week we had a critical patient that we were able to bring back before we walked through the emergency room doors,” Prato said. “That’s our goal — to improve patient survivability.”  

The heatstroke treatment has made ice and human-sized immersion bags standard equipment on all Phoenix fire department emergency vehicles. It is among measures the city adopted this year as temperatures and their human toll soar ever higher. Phoenix for the first time is also keeping two cooling stations open overnight this season.  

Emergency responders in much of an area stretching from southeast California to central Arizona are preparing for what the National Weather Service said would be “easily their hottest” weather since last September.  

Excessive heat warnings were issued for Wednesday morning through Friday evening for parts of southern Nevada and Arizona, with highs expected to top 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) in Las Vegas and Phoenix. The unseasonably hot weather was expected to spread northward and make its way into parts of the Pacific Northwest by the weekend.  

Officials in Maricopa County were stunned earlier this year when final numbers showed 645 heat-related deaths in Arizona’s largest county, a majority of them in Phoenix. The most brutal period was a heat wave with 31 subsequent days of temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.4 Celsius) or higher, which claimed more than 400 lives.  

“We’ve been seeing a severe uptick in the past three years in cases of severe heat illness,” said Dr. Paul Pugsley, medical director of emergency medicine with Valleywise Health. Of those, about 40% do not survive. 

Cooling down patients long before they get to the emergency department could change the equation, he said.  

The technique “is not very widely spread in non-military hospitals in the U.S., nor in the prehospital setting among fire departments or first responders,” Pugsley said. He said part of that may be a longstanding perception that the technique’s use for all cases of heatstroke by first responders or even hospitals was impractical or impossible. 

Pugsley said he was aware of limited use of the technique in some places in California, including Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto and Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, and by the San Antonio Fire Department in Texas. 

Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix embraced the protocol last summer, said Dr. Aneesh Narang, assistant medical director of emergency medicine there.  

“This cold water immersion therapy is really the standard of care to treat heatstroke patients,” he said. 
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seattle, washington — Retired Major General William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90. His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.

“The family is devastated,” Greg Anders said. “He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly.”

Anders said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, given the ecological and philosophical impact it had, along with making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked.

A report came in around 11:40 a.m. local time that an older-model plane had crashed into the water and had sunk near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said.

Only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 airplane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.

William Anders said in a 1997 NASA oral history interview that he didn’t think the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free but there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons for going ahead.

He estimated there was about a one-in-three chance that the crew wouldn’t make it back and the same chance the mission would be a success and the same chance that the mission wouldn’t start to begin with. He said he suspected Christopher Columbus sailed with worse odds.

He recounted how the Earth looked fragile and seemingly physically insignificant yet was home.

“We’d been going backwards and upside down, didn’t really see the Earth or the sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earthrise,” he said. “That certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing. To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape really contrasted.”

The National Transportation Safety Board and FAA are investigating the crash.
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President Joe Biden stressed the need for transatlantic unity during his speech at the monument overlooking the beach where, 80 years ago, Allied troops fought a battle that delivered a decisive blow to Nazi aggression. VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell reports from Pointe du Hoc, France.
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State College, Pennsylvania — Looking out over a sea of graduates at Penn State Law school’s recent commencement, one could be forgiven for thinking it was in Central Asia.

One after another, 47 Uzbek men and women were called up on stage to be conferred an LLM (Master of Laws) degree by this American institution founded some 200 years ago. Nearly a third of the Class of 2024 hails from Uzbekistan, a country of 37 million people that has sent scores of students to this university in recent years.

But this year’s size is unprecedented: No American university has ever admitted and bestowed this many degrees to Uzbeks at the same time.

“They are the true ambassadors of their country,” Associate Dean Stephen Barnes told VOA. “We are a better community, better university, and a better country because of their contributions.”

Barnes sees in these Uzbeks an “insatiable desire” to engage with the wider world.

As he explains, since 2021, Penn State has been forging ties with Tashkent State University of Law, Uzbekistan’s premier legal education provider, and the University of World Economy and Diplomacy based in Tashkent, which has an international law program. An undergraduate diploma from these schools qualifies one for an LLM, bypassing the JD (Juris Doctor), America’s most common initial law degree.

Temurbek Polatov, 23, who spoke at the commencement, believes his cohort carries a unique responsibility to serve their homeland. He and others aspire to shape U.S.-type law firms and an independent bar association in Uzbekistan, which still largely retains a Soviet-style legal profession and judiciary.

Experts often mention corrupt courts and the lack of the rule of law as systemic problems hindering investment.

Most Uzbeks studying at Penn State were awarded grants, while three received full scholarships from their government.

Law grad priorities

Doniyorbek Davronov, 26, who served in two ministries before coming to the United States, wants to launch a legal clinic assisting Uzbek migrants worldwide.

“With millions working abroad,” Davronov said, “the state and civil society must work together to defend their interests.”

He observed the U.S. immigration system up close while doing clinical training, attending court hearings and visiting detention centers.

Davronov said thousands of Uzbeks are constantly stranded on the U.S.-Mexico border, and many are behind bars. “We can help them from Uzbekistan, collaborating with our American colleagues, providing necessary facts.”

Classmate Shahboz Murodullayev, 23, shares his passion, proposing to create a network of services for migrants.

Jamshidbek Ibrohimov, 27, who earned an LLM from Penn State last year, is now working at Rogers & Rogers, a Pittsburgh-based immigration law firm that often represents Central Asians.

“We should never underestimate the role of community organizations, which are crucial in fighting for the interests of their own people. They can provide the first line of assistance to migrants,” he said.

Ibrohimov sees value in gaining practical experience in the U.S. before returning to Uzbekistan, where he worked at the Justice Ministry.

“I want to be part of positive change, something I already feel I’m doing from here,” Ibrohimov told VOA.

Shakhrizoda Mamasolieva, 23, plans to train at U.S. firms while translating legal literature into Uzbek and helping youth get into American schools.

“We are supporting Uzbekistan’s development. I’m more capable of contributing from here because of my network and opportunities available,” she says.

She, too, received a scholarship from the university and worked on campus to earn extra money.

Farzin Vahidov, 25, from the Class of 2023, is Penn State Law’s student adviser, connecting it with Central Asia.

“We have the most open-minded and enthusiastic youth coming here. This is why Penn State accepts them and cherishes their presence on campus,” Vahidov said. “As for the alumni, some already work in high levels back at home, but I think the greatest achievements are yet to come.”

Rejoining legal community at home

Azizjon Jamolov, 32, will return to a new job in Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court. He will head the human resources department and hopes to introduce new ethics norms and best practices.

“I’m inspired by what I learned here, especially the way the judiciary functions and the level of professional integrity,” Jamolov said.

He acknowledges that it will be extremely difficult to change people’s mentality, especially in the fight against corruption, but he is optimistic that the administration will back his initiatives.

Jamolov studied through the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation, a state program aiming to curb Uzbekistan’s “brain drain” and create a cadre for the government and other sectors.

Since 2018, the foundation has sponsored roughly 2,000 degrees and trainings abroad, with some 550 currently underwritten. Applicants must be admitted to one of the top 300 schools in the world and convince authorities that they will come back to Uzbekistan to lead in their field.

This is quite a small contingent among the over 110,000 Uzbeks studying internationally, according to UNESCO, mostly in neighboring countries and Russia, and only about 1,500 in America.

Uzbekistan is one of the top five countries with students abroad, along with China, India, Vietnam and Germany.

But El-Yurt Umidi and state educators urge quality over quantity. Penn State graduates agree and point to individual freedom and ambition as driving factors.

Along with Davronov and Jamolov, Behruz Shamsuddinov, 28, is an El-Yurt Umidi fellow, ready for any position the government has in store for him “as long as there is enough space to push for the rule of law.” Shamsuddinov has a background in criminal justice and wants to see the system reform.

Professor Stephen Ross, whose contract law classes many Uzbeks have taken at Penn State, believes his students have gained vast comparative knowledge. “I would hope that the president and the ministers would have the confidence to know that they are trying to shape Uzbekistan in the best way for Uzbeks, and they can borrow the things that work from the U.S. for Uzbekistan,” Ross told VOA.

Professor Lara Fowler, who teaches environmental, energy and natural resources law, says these graduates have a better understanding of issues because of deep exchanges with classmates from around the globe.

Associate Dean Barnes and the faculty argue that legal skills, critical thinking and mastering professional English, in particular, are universally applicable.

Penn State Law, fostering ties with counterparts in Central Asia, is expecting another batch of some 50 students from Uzbekistan this year.
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White House — U.S. President Joe Biden is aiming to persuade leaders of the world’s seven richest economies on a plan that could potentially provide up to $50 billion in loans for Ukraine’s war effort by using interest from frozen Russian assets held in Western financial institutions.

The U.S. leader wants his G7 counterparts to endorse the plan at their upcoming summit in Apulia, Italy, set to kick off June 13. But before G7 partners can get on board, much of the scheme’s details must first be ironed out, a source familiar with Biden’s plan told VOA. If agreed upon, the loan could be disbursed as early as during the next few months.

Most of the approximately $280 billion Russian assets frozen by Western financial institutions following Moscow’s 2022 invasion are in Europe, the bulk of which are in Belgium, France and Germany.

In April, Biden signed legislation allowing Washington to seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian assets that had been immobilized in U.S. financial institutions.

Resisting pressure from the U.S. and Ukraine to seize the assets directly, EU officials in May agreed on a more restrained plan of using only the interest generated by these assets, an estimated $3 billion a year or more.

But the Biden administration is pushing for a more aggressive scheme. In simple terms, a loan of up to $50 billion will be issued up front to Ukraine by Western allies, which will be paid back using the assets’ interest income in the years to come.

If not the G7, the U.S. — possibly with other allies including Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and the EU — would issue the loan jointly and be entitled to a share of interest generated by the assets, the source said.

Details of the plan are unclear as intensive diplomacy continues to work out the legal and technical requirements. But G7 finance ministers broadly agreed to support the principles of the plan during their meeting in May.

The group’s discussions have focused on what can be done to unlock the value of Russians’ frozen assets for the benefit of the Ukrainian people, said U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo.

“They talked through a number of options that will allow us to make sure that Ukraine has access to the money you need to not only invest in the economy but to invest in defense,” Adeyemo told VOA. “And my expectation is that as we get to the leaders meeting, those leaders are going to endorse some of those options.”

The push is driven in part by the situation in the battlefield, where Moscow’s forces have made strategic advances north and north-east of Kharkiv, the second biggest city in Ukraine. Russia has also intensified attacks along the eastern front.

American taxpayers’ reluctance to fund the war is another driving factor. Although the U.S. Congress in April agreed on a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, Republican opposition had stalled its passage.

In his Friday meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on the sidelines of D-Day celebrations in France, Biden apologized to the Ukrainian president for “those weeks of not knowing what was going to pan — in terms of funding,” blaming “very conservative members who were holding it up.” He pledged to continue to support Zelenskyy’s war efforts.

But as other G7 countries face the same war funding fatigue among their constituents, Biden began working with allies and partners to make Russia pay instead of burdening taxpayers, in a way that maintains unity without crossing any country’s red lines, the source said.

While there is an overall agreement to give Ukraine as much as possible, as early as possible, there are challenging legal and regulatory implications of lending based upon the anticipated returns on frozen assets, said Kristine Berzina, managing director of Geostrategy North at the German Marshall Fund think tank.

“How do you lend against the anticipated profits of the assets, how does that fit into the existing sanctions regime, and how long will those assets truly be frozen?” she pointed out to VOA as the key issues at stake. “How can you guarantee that the sanctions which freeze these assets do not get changed by the Europeans before that 50 billion is provided?”

Moscow has threatened retaliation. In May, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that Russia will identify U.S. property, including securities, that could be used as compensation for losses sustained as a result of any seizure of frozen Russian assets in the U.S.

While some Western countries may be concerned by the threat, others are worried about the precedent of using frozen assets under international law.

Biden will seek to allay those fears when he meets with G7 leaders next week. He faces many challenges, including the European Parliament this weekend, where hundreds of millions of voters from 27 nations could help decide on the continent’s struggle between unity and nationalism, as well as determine the fate of European support for Ukraine.

VOA’s Oksana Bedratenko contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Middle East next week, the U.S. State Department said on Friday, as Washington tries to put pressure on Israel and Hamas to accept a cease-fire proposal that President Joe Biden laid out last week. 

In his eighth visit to the region since Hamas militants staged a terror attack in Israel on October 7, triggering the latest flare-up in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the top U.S. diplomat will visit Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Qatar and meet with their senior leaders. 

Blinken’s visit comes after Biden laid out a fresh cease-fire plan to end the 8-month-long war and at a time when tensions between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have escalated in recent days, with both sides signaling a readiness for a bigger confrontation. 

“The Secretary will discuss how the ceasefire proposal would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians,” the State Department said in a statement. “He will underscore that it would alleviate suffering in Gaza, enable a massive surge in humanitarian assistance and allow Palestinians to return to their neighborhoods.” 

Talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and others to arrange a cease-fire between Israel and the militant Hamas movement in the Gaza war have repeatedly stalled, with each side blaming the other for the lack of progress. 

The cease-fire, the State Department said, would also unlock the possibility of achieving calm along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and set conditions for further integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors. 

“The Secretary will also continue to reiterate the need to prevent the conflict from escalating further,” it added. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel was prepared for strong action in the north. He warned in December that Beirut would be turned “into Gaza” if Hezbollah started an all-out war. 

The Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas-led Palestinian fighters attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people, and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. 

Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has left the territory in ruins, led to widespread starvation, and killed more than 36,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. 

While in Jordan, Blinken will attend a conference on humanitarian response to Gaza, the department said. 
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«Атаки в Харківській області спричинили 53 відсотки загальних жертв серед цивільного населення в травні»
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Згодом голова руху Сергій Зайцев повідомив, що в Єговцева був «конфлікт із шанувальником його дружини»
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Immigrants make up almost 14% of US population
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«За наявними даними, щомісяця незаконна діяльність зловмисників на чолі з ексдепутаткою приносила «прибуток» у майже 100 тисяч американських доларів»
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Wars in the Middle East and Europe — and the U.S. rivalry with China — will remain key issues to U.S. diplomats no matter who wins the November presidential elections. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at the foreign policy priorities of the two candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
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За даними голови ОВА, від початку 2024 року на підконтрольну Україні територію вдалося повернути 108 дітей із Херсонської області
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PARIS — U.S. President Joe Biden will meet Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Friday with a package of $225 million in weapons on the sidelines of D-Day anniversary events.

It will be their first face-to-face talks since Zelenskyy visited Washington in December, when the two wrestled with Republican opposition to more Ukraine aid. They will meet again next week at a G7 summit in Italy, as rich nations discuss using Russian assets frozen after the Ukraine invasion to provide $50 billion for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy told Reuters last month that Western countries are taking too long to make decisions about aid.

Biden in remarks in Normandy, France, on Thursday drew a link between the World War Two battle against tyranny and Ukraine’s war with Russia, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “dictator.”

The $225 million in new weaponry includes artillery rounds and air defense interceptors, among other items, sources said.

Ukraine has struggled to defend the Kharkiv region after an offensive launched by Moscow on May 10 has overrun some villages.

Biden last week shifted his position and decided Ukraine could launch U.S.-supplied weapons at military targets inside Russia that are supporting the Kharkiv offensive.

The United States is trying to catch up with Ukraine’s weaponry needs, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said in Washington on Thursday.

“If there were two things that we could provide an infinite number of to the Ukrainians to try to turn the tide in this war, it would be artillery munitions and air defense interceptors,” but the U.S. lacked supply, Finer told a forum by the Center for a New American Security.

Outside the physical battlefield, the Russia-Ukraine war is “also a competition that takes place in our factories, the factories in Europe, the factories in Ukraine,” he said.

Reaching consensus on the frozen assets has been complicated, Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, told the same group.

“We’re waist-deep in the sausage-making of trying to strike a deal,” said Singh, who said he was heading back to Italy on Friday to continue the negotiations.
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While marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, during World War II, U.S. President Joe Biden says global challenges are still present and urged unity in resisting Russian aggression today. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Omaha Beach, Normandy.
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