A shooting at a Tennessee grocery store left one person dead and 12 others injured Thursday afternoon, and the shooter was subsequently found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at the store east of Memphis, authorities said.

Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane said the shooting broke out at a Kroger store in his suburban community about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Memphis. He said 13 people in all were shot and 12 of them were taken to hospitals, some with very serious injuries.

He said a police SWAT team and other officers went aisle to aisle in the store to find people who had sought cover or were in hiding, removing them to safety.

“We found people hiding in freezers, in locked offices. They were doing what they had been trained to do: run, hide, fight,” the chief said.

The identities of the shooter and the victims were not immediately released.

Lane said it was a sad day for his department as he spoke at a news conference after the shooting near the scene.

“I’ve been involved in this for 34 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he told reporters.

He added investigators were working to sort out what happened, adding, “It’s going to take a little bit before we know what happened.”
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Chinese officials are bracing for a potential financial crisis as giant real estate conglomerate China Evergrande Group appears to be unable to make good on bond payments due on Thursday. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the central government has instructed local officials across the country to begin “getting ready for the possible storm,” if the firm is unable to come to an agreement with creditors. Evergrande is currently carrying a staggering load of more than $300 billion in debts and other liabilities. 

The central government in China is concerned about civil unrest because of both the size and the nature of Evergrande. The company has more than 800 construction projects spread across every province in the country, employing thousands of Chinese workers and engaging with an untold number of suppliers.

Many of the projects are housing units for which individual buyers paid large sums of money in advance. In some cases, construction has already been halted because the company has been unable to pay suppliers.

In addition to angry homeowners, the company is facing complaints from individual investors who have placed money in the company’s publicly traded shares. Since July of 2020, the company’s share price has plummeted by 91%, to about 34 cents a share today. 

Actual default may be postponed 

Evergrande had two major bond payments due Thursday. One, denominated in U.S. dollars, was for $83.5 million. The agreement with creditors gives the company a 30-day grace period before it is officially considered to be in default. However, failure to make payment on the due date will be seen as a very bad sign by the financial markets. 

The second bond payment was denominated in Chinese renminbi, and the company announced Wednesday that the debt had been “resolved through off-exchange negotiations” — though what exactly that means and how much the company actually paid is not clear. 

In addition to its real estate holdings, Evergrande has a wide array of subsidiaries, including an electric vehicle manufacturer, a soccer team, two theme parks, and a life insurance company, among other things. The company has been trying to sell off some of those assets to help pay its debts, but so far it does not appear to have been successful in raising enough cash to satisfy its creditors. 

The company’s chairman, Hui Ka Yan, has been striving to instill confidence in the company. In a memo to employees this week, he praised the company’s workforce as “an invincible army that is loyal and bears hardship without complaint.”

Hui added, “I firmly believe that Evergrande people’s spirit of never admitting defeat, and becoming stronger when the going gets tough, is our source of strength in overcoming all difficulties!” He promised that the company would emerge from its “darkest hour.” 

Government intervention possible 

Signals from the Chinese government about its intentions toward Evergrande have been mixed. In recent weeks, the government has not suggested that it intends to help the company. On Wednesday, the government issued a vaguely worded statement urging the company to “avoid near-term default” on its dollar-denominated bonds. 

Many experts believe the Chinese government will step in if it appears that Evergrande is facing collapse — deeming it too big to fail. However, that does not mean that all stakeholders in the company will be made whole. Most likely to be hurt are those holding the company’s U.S. dollar-denominated debt, who will face a “haircut” — meaning that they will be forced to accept payments of less than they are owed by the massive company. 

“It’s unlikely that the Chinese government will allow chaos to ensue,” said Doug Barry, a spokesman for the U.S.-China Business Council. “They have plenty of money to cover the losses, though foreign bond holders may receive a sizable haircut.” 

Major restructuring possible 

Experts expect that the Chinese government eventually will organize a major restructuring of the company. That would involve selling off large parts of Evergrande to other Chinese companies — probably state-owned firms. Those transactions would likely be facilitated by funding from state-owned banks. 

The goal, experts say, would be to avoid the collapse of housing projects that the company has already sold to Chinese buyers, and the related loss of construction jobs and related economic activity that would entail. 

“The government may help in restructuring Evergrande with shareholders and bondholders taking a big hit,” said Robert Dekle, a professor of economics at the University of Southern California. “This is overall good for China, reducing over-borrowing and moral hazard in the future.” 

A positive change 

Although a restructuring of Evergrande would be painful — especially for its investors — it could have important positive implications for the future of the Chinese economy. The country is currently dotted with thousands of “zombie” companies that have been kept solvent only by continued infusions of cash from state-owned banks. By refusing to bail out Evergrande’s bondholders and investors, the Chinese government may be signaling that in the future, companies will be expected to stand — or fall — on their own. 

“Longer term, China needs to get its financial house in order, especially throwing light on the shadow economy where even more debt bombs and zombie companies may lurk,” said Barry, of the U.S.-China Business Council. “Odds are good that the government will get on top of things without serious damage to the domestic or global economy. It’s a sobering reminder of the role China plays and the need for more transparency and fewer shadows and casino activities.” 

Global contagion seen as unlikely 

Evergrande’s troubles have caused investors in other high-yield Chinese debt to become cautious, demanding much higher interest rates to compensate for the perception of increased risk. 

However, experts believe that the fallout from the company’s troubles will have limited impact outside of China.

“Apparently there are other Chinese property developers in trouble,” said Dekle, the USC economist. “But the fact that Chinese authorities have allowed the firm to reach near bankruptcy suggests that the fallout will be self contained.” 

Voice of America Mandarin Service reporter Mo Yu contributed to this story. 

 
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The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are facing what may be the most politically fraught moment since they took unified control of Washington in January.

Lawmakers are battling to avoid a potential government shutdown and a default on the national debt at the same time that Democratic infighting is endangering two pieces of legislation meant to further the party’s key priorities.

The stakes, for both the U.S. economy and President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, could scarcely be higher.

A combination of a few missteps or delays in passing a budget resolution and raising the amount of money that the Treasury Department is allowed to borrow could have catastrophic economic impacts on the United States and the world economy. An estimate by Moody’s Analytics found that the worst-case scenario, in which the U.S. defaults on its debts, could result in a loss of 6 million jobs and destruction of as much as $15 trillion in household wealth.

If House Democrats are unable to muster the votes to pass a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that has been approved by the Senate and a $3.5 trillion bill that would lock in spending on social services, climate change mitigation and other party priorities, they will face voters in 2022 with little to show for two years of Democratic control of Washington.

Likely outcomes unclear

For sure, there are few experts in Washington who expect the battle over the budget and debt limit to actually end in a government default. Lawmakers have gone down this path many times, and have always pulled back at the last minute.

On the spending bills so important to the Biden administration, expectations are not so clear. Wednesday afternoon, Biden brought Democratic lawmakers to the White House to try to hammer out an agreement.

“This is where the rubber meets the road — when it comes to how he can get them together,” said Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. “Can he be the same dealmaker that united progressives and centrists throughout the [presidential] campaign? He has to do that same thing now in the White House.”

Budget problems

The most immediate problem facing lawmakers is that the federal government will lose the authority to spend money on many of its key functions unless a new budget resolution is passed before a September 30 deadline.

The federal government has shut down before, but never in the midst of a pandemic, and it is unclear just how damaging a significant halt in federal operations would be to the country’s public health response to the coronavirus.

Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night passed a “continuing resolution” that would allow the government to continue operating until December, giving lawmakers time to pass separate budget bills for different parts of the government.

However, Republicans in the Senate are expected to block that bill by denying Democrats the 60 votes they will need to end debate. The reason is that Democrats have attached it to legislative language that would waive enforcement of the debt ceiling until December 2022.

Debt ceiling

Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have said that they will not supply any votes to raise the debt ceiling — even votes to cut off debate so that Democrats can pass the bill on their own.

McConnell has publicly said that the debt limit must be raised and that the government must not be allowed to default. However, he is demanding that the Democrats take full responsibility for making that happen — historically a politically onerous task — by using a budget reconciliation bill, which is immune to the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold.

Democrats are refusing to use budget reconciliation for the debt limit because they believe Republicans should share responsibility for raising the debt limit, which will help pay for measures adopted and signed when Republicans had united control of Washington just a few years ago.

Battle lines firm

On Wednesday, six former Treasury secretaries wrote a letter to congressional leaders warning them that legislative brinkmanship might push the country into default, even accidentally, with dire consequences.

“Even a short-lived default could threaten economic growth,” they wrote. “It creates the risk of roiling markets, and of sapping economic confidence, and it would prevent Americans from receiving vital services. It would be very damaging to undermine trust in the full faith and credit of the United States, and this damage would be hard to repair.”

On Tuesday night, McConnell said he had introduced a continuing resolution of his own that would fund the government through December, but that “removes the debt limit language [which waives enforcement until December 2022] that Democrats have known since July will not receive bipartisan support from Senate Republicans.”

On Wednesday morning, however, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said it would be the House bill, not McConnell’s, that he brings to a vote in the Senate.

“That’s the bill that will be on the floor,” he said. “Those who will vote yes will vote to avoid default, to avoid a government shutdown. Those who vote no will be saying, ‘We’re OK with default and we’re OK with the government shutdown.’ To say, ‘Do it another way,’ that doesn’t cut it. This is what’s on the floor.”

Democratic squabbling

At the same time that lawmakers are trying to navigate around a government shutdown and potential default, Democratic leaders are working to avoid a derailment of the Biden administration’s domestic policy agenda.

Early in his term, Biden had insisted that Democrats in Congress find a way to compromise with Republicans on an infrastructure bill. As a result, the Senate passed a bipartisan $1.5 trillion bill funding infrastructure basics like roads, highways and bridges. That allowed Biden to claim that he had kept his campaign promise to work across the aisle.

However, the Senate bill left out an enormous number of provisions that Democrats wanted and on which Biden had campaigned, including increased social spending, funding to fight climate change and more.

As a result, progressive members of the House of Representatives announced that they would not support the $1.5 trillion Senate bill until the House and Senate both passed a separate $3.5 trillion package that contained all of the Democrats’ other priorities — something they expected to accomplish by using a budget reconciliation bill to bypass the filibuster.

Centrist Dems revolt

In both the Senate and the House, more centrist members objected to both the progressives’ tactics and their demands. House centrists demanded and received assurances from Democratic leaders that the $1.5 trillion bill would get a vote no later than September 27.

Months ago, it seemed at least possible that the larger $3.5 trillion bill could be passed by that date. However, in the Senate, Democratic lawmakers Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said that they would not support the larger bill, blocking progress.

Now, without the $3.5 trillion bill in hand, Democratic progressives are threatening to withhold support for the $1.5 trillion bill, raising the possibility that the Biden administration could be left with neither.

Losing bills ‘deadly for Biden’

Some experts are still expecting that the Democrats will find some sort of agreement, if only because the alternative is so bad.

“My assumption all along has been that Democrats know losing these bills is deadly for Biden, and for them,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“My sense of it is that in the end, reluctantly, they’ll find something to agree on, because the alternative is so disagreeable,” he said. “The compromise may not be tasty, but the alternative is poisonous.”
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The southeastern U.S. state of Florida says parents or legal guardians can decide whether or not to quarantine their children if they have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

Dr. Joseph Lapado, the state’s newly appointed surgeon general, signed new guidelines Thursday that will allow students to continue attending in-person classes “without restrictions or disparate treatment” as long as they have no symptoms of the virus. The parent or legal guardian can decide to keep their child at home for seven days from the date of last contact with someone who tested positive.

The new guidelines replace a previous one that mandated students enter quarantine for at least four days after being exposed to someone who had tested positive. It does maintain the previous rule that students who test positive either quarantine for 10 days, test negative for the disease and remain free of symptoms or show a doctor’s note giving them permission before returning to school.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis defended the new guidelines during a press conference Wednesday.

“Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging for their educational achievement,” DeSantis said.

“It’s also disruptive for families,” he added, saying the state would follow a “symptoms-based approach.”

The new guidelines run counter to recommendations issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for unvaccinated people to isolate for 14 days if they have been within 2 meters of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

The new guidelines also prompted a judge to dismiss a court challenge brought by five local school districts against the state’s ban on local school districts to impose mandatory face masks. The DeSantis administration has withheld funding to school districts and withheld salaries of local superintendents and school board members who went against the governor’s order banning such mandates.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.

 
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This week, Pfizer released promising news in the effort to end the coronavirus pandemic, saying its COVID-19 vaccine works for young children. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more on this development.
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The top U.S. military officers from the United States and Russia held six hours of talks in Helsinki, Finland, on Wednesday, the first face-to-face meeting between them since 2019, as both nations adjust to the U.S. pullout and Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. 

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, do not typically disclose the details of their discussions, and statements from both sides were minimal. 

A U.S. military statement, which included details on the length of the meeting but not the agenda, said the talks were aimed at “risk reduction and operational de-confliction.” 

Russia’s RIA news agency reported that the talks were aimed at discussions on risk mitigation. 

The United States and Russia often have competing military interests around the world, including in countries such as Syria, where U.S. and Russian forces have operated in close proximity. How Washington and Moscow navigate next steps in Afghanistan remains to be seen. 

The U.S. military is under pressure from Congress to shore up a counterterrorism strategy to address risks from Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover in August. 

President Joe Biden’s administration has said it would rely on “over-the-horizon” operations that could strike groups such as al-Qaida or Islamic State in Afghanistan if they threaten the United States. 

But, with no troops on the ground, the extent of Washington’s ability to detect and halt plots is unclear. After 20 years of war, U.S. military officials also have a dim view of the Taliban and note its ties to al-Qaida. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow needs to work with the Taliban government and that world powers should consider unfreezing Afghanistan’s assets. 

 
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The United States and its European allies are navigating the diplomatic disturbance following an enhanced trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS (Australia, the UK, and the U.S.) that triggered what French officials described as a “crisis of trust” between Paris and Washington.

Under the new security pact, Australia will receive at least eight nuclear-powered submarines, to be built in Australia using American technology. The agreement came as Australia pulled out of an earlier deal with France for diesel-electric submarines, angering Paris. France recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and to Australia. 

Some experts said that while European officials acknowledged that AUKUS was announced primarily with an eye on China, part of the French reaction was driven by domestic political calculation, as France has a sizeable defense industry, and President Emmanuel Macron’s government needs to show it is fighting for the industry.

Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.

“The Secretary welcomed the recent release of the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and reiterated the United States’ intention to work closely with the EU and other partners to support a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the State Department said in a statement.

The meeting followed a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Macron in which the two leaders decided to “open a process of in-depth consultations” to ensure “confidence.”

Macron decided the French ambassador will return to Washington next week. Biden reaffirmed the strategic importance of French and European engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.

“I am sure that we are going to talk about the recent issues in which we can build a stronger confidence among us following the conversation that had been taking place this morning between President Biden and President Macron. I’m sure we’ll be working together,” Borrell said. 

Blinken said he looked forward to “a lot to talk about the work we’re doing together, quite literally, around the world, to include, of course, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific and Europe and beyond.” 

After EU foreign ministers met Monday in New York, Borrell expressed “solidarity” with France, saying the tension between Washington and Paris “was not a bilateral issue” but affected all Europeans. The EU foreign policy chief also called for “more cooperation, more coordination, less fragmentation” in the transatlantic alliance.

A senior State Department official said Tuesday in a phone briefing that EU partners have not only been sharing concerns with the U.S. following the AUKUS deal but have also been interested in continuing and broadening “the dialogue that we have started intensively on China” and collaboration on issues regarding the Indo-Pacific region.

“The AUKUS deal was primarily about China,” said Christopher Skaluba, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “Some of the (French) reaction is driven by domestic political calculation regarding anti-American sentiment that has a long tradition in France, especially given the industrial angle, which hurts President Emmanuel Macron with a key constituency,” Skaluba wrote in commentary published by the Atlantic Council.

“Letting France cool down and keeping dialogue in direct bilateral channels — when France is ready for it — should be the priority,” added Skaluba. 

Others, including Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia and the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the anger from France was partly sparked by a bad “surprise” as the Biden administration was seen making a bold announcement to catch China off guard.

Green said during a Wednesday press call that the AUKUS announcement came as the EU was rolling out its new Indo-Pacific strategy.

“The French, in their anger and retaliations for losing this sub deal and being embarrassed by the surprise announcement of AUKUS, have started arguing that they’re going to pursue a new approach to Asia with India and Indonesia and others that’s less militaristic.” 

Last week, the EU released its inaugural Indo-Pacific strategy in which the Europeans are said to be more aware of challenges ranging from growing Chinese assertiveness to the weakening of democratic principles. 

“We consider that this approach is very much about confrontation with China,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday at a press conference in New York, referring to the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy and the AUKUS security deal. But Le Drian expressed dismay with the U.S. over AUKUS and what he described as a “breach of trust between partners.” 

Also Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “the U.K. and France have an important and indestructible relationship” and that there will be discussions about “how to make the AUKUS pact work so that it is not exclusionary, it is not divisive.” 

“It really doesn’t have to be that way,” Johnson added. “This is just a way of the U.K., the U.S. and Australia sharing certain technologies.”

While a separate bilateral meeting between Blinken and Le Drian was not planned for Wednesday, both will attend a virtual Group of 20 foreign ministerial meeting, as well as a ministerial among five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, during which both men will “have a chance to exchange views on a number of things,” the State Department said. 

VOA’s Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.

 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed to meet in person next month in Europe after a Wednesday phone call in which they sought to ease tensions over a high-profile submarine deal. 

A White House statement after the phone call suggested regret over the handling of the deal, in which the United States and Britain will sell at least eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. That prompted Canberra to abandon a $66 billion, 2016 contract to purchase 12 conventional diesel-electric subs from French majority state-owned Naval Group. 

“The two leaders agreed that the situation would have benefited from open consultations among allies on matters of strategic interest to France and our European partners,” the White House statement said. 

“President Biden conveyed his ongoing commitment in that regard,” it said. 

The two presidents will meet at the end of October, with both scheduled to attend the Group of 20 summit in Rome at that time. 

“The two leaders have decided to open a process of in-depth consultations, aimed at creating the conditions for ensuring confidence and proposing concrete measures toward common objectives,” the White House said. The statement did not elaborate. 

Macron called France’s ambassador to Washington, Philippe Etienne, back to Paris after the Australian submarine deal was announced. But the White House said Macron has decided that Etienne would return next week and “then start intensive work with senior U.S. officials.” 

France was upset by the loss of the Australian submarine deal, but French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed deeper concern over what he characterized as “deceit” by one of its oldest allies. 

Le Drian told reporters at the United Nations this week that the United States went behind France’s back and hid the new deal for months. 

Australia has sought to augment its naval weaponry to counter China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region. 

“President Biden reaffirms the strategic importance of French and European engagement in the Indo-Pacific region,” the White House statement said. “The United States also recognizes the importance of a stronger and more capable European defense, that contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and is complementary to NATO.” 

 
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