A federal appeals court on Thursday allowed Texas’ floating barrier on a section of the Rio Grande to stay in place for now, a day after a judge called the buoys a threat to the safety of migrants and relations between the U.S. and Mexico.

The order by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals puts on hold a ruling that would have required Texas to move the wrecking-ball sized buoys on the river by next week.

The barrier is near the Texas border city of Eagle Pass, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has authorized a series of aggressive measures in the name of discouraging migrants from crossing into the U.S.

The stay granted by the New Orleans-based appeals court lets the barrier remain in the water while the legal challenge continues.

The lawsuit was brought by the Justice Department in a rare instance of President Joe Biden’s administration going to court to challenge Texas’ border policies.

On Wednesday, U.S District Judge David Ezra of Austin ordered Texas to move the roughly 305-meter barrier out of the middle of the Rio Grande and to the riverbank, calling it a “threat to human life” and an obstruction on the waterway. The Mexican government has also protested the barrier.

In seeking a swift order to allow the buoys to remain, Texas told the appeals court the buoys reroute migrants to ports of entry and that “no injury from them has been reported.” Last month, a body was found near the buoys, but Texas officials said preliminary information indicated the person drowned before coming near the barriers.

Texas installed the barrier by putting anchors in the riverbed. Eagle Pass is part of a Border Patrol sector that has seen the second-highest number of migrant crossings this fiscal year with about 270,000 encounters, though that is lower than at this time last year.

The Biden administration has said illegal border crossings declined after new immigration rules took effect in May as pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired.
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Two U.S. officials have told VOA that military drone flights from bases in Niger have been “limited” since the July coup, a restriction experts believe is likely hindering the international counterterrorism mission in West Africa.

The officials spoke to VOA this week on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive security issues.

The Pentagon has been hesitant to discuss the specifics of its security and counterterrorism operations other than saying that the U.S. military has suspended “security cooperation” with Niger in light of the political upheaval.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder has conceded to reporters that the situation in Niger “clearly” is “not normal” for the U.S. military, while adding that U.S. force posture in Niger remains unchanged, as the U.S. hopes for a diplomatic solution to the situation.

Niger is the U.S. military’s hub for counterterror intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance in West Africa. The region has been battling several militant groups in the region, including the Islamic State group and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, based in Mali and active in West Africa.

Current and former U.S. officials have raised concerns that the limited intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance will hurt international efforts to help local security forces fight terrorist organizations.

The United States “is barely keeping a lid on this problem, and when you remove that, when you remove all of those enablers that help keep these jihadists from overrunning countries or overrunning regions, then you are giving them an advantage,” said Bill Roggio, a former soldier and editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal, which publishes reporting and analysis of global counterterrorism efforts.

The U.S. military can fly drones out of Niger’s capital, Niamey, and it set up another air base hundreds of kilometers away, in Agadez, to extend the reach of its surveillance and reconnaissance missions in the volatile Lake Chad Basin area of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. The U.S. has flown intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance drone missions out of Agadez since 2019.

Limiting those missions has a “significant effect” on the military’s ability to conduct counterterror operations, according to retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

“It reduces your ability to find targets. It reduces your ability to go to the final stages when you’re going to be able to attack,” he told VOA.

The jihadist threat is twofold, not only can jihadists use these countries as a hub to try to attack the West and Western interests, they also wreak havoc on local populations.

At least 17 Nigerien soldiers were killed in an attack by armed groups near the Malian border last month, according to Niger’s Defense Ministry.

The Islamist threat has been growing in neighboring Mali, which has been run by military leaders since a 2020 coup, despite claims by Mali’s military that Russian Wagner Group mercenaries are turning the tide of their campaign.

Roggio told VOA he worries that the political discord in the region is setting up West Africa as the next place for a country to fall under jihadist control.

“If the U.S. is not able to fly counterterrorism missions from Niger, is Mali the next state to fall after Afghanistan?” Roggio asked.

Air space reopened, U.S. forces repositioning

Earlier this week, a spokesman for Niger’s military leaders said they had decided to reopen the country’s airspace to all commercial flights, ending a closure that had been in place since they took control of the government Aug. 6.

However, a U.S. military official told VOA that the change to commercial flight access had not “normalized” U.S. drone flight frequencies this week.

News of the U.S. military’s drone limitations comes as the Pentagon said it was repositioning some of its troops and military equipment within Niger from a base in Niamey to the Agadez base.

“There’s no perceived threat, in terms of any threat to U.S. troops, and no threat of violence on the ground. This is simply a precautionary measure,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday.

The Agadez base, known as Air Base 201, is controlled by Nigerien forces. As of 2019, the U.S. military had exclusive rights to about 20% of the compound.

There are about 1,100 U.S. military personnel in Niger, according to the Pentagon.

Singh said the repositioning of U.S. forces in Niger was “ongoing right now.” 
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A judge sentenced “That ’70s Show” show star Danny Masterson to 30 years to life in prison Thursday for raping two women, giving them some relief after they spoke in court about the decades of damage he inflicted.

“When you raped me, you stole from me,” said one woman who Masterson was convicted of raping in 2003. “That’s what rape is, a theft of the spirit.

“You are pathetic, disturbed and completely violent,” she said. “The world is better off with you in prison.”

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo handed down the sentence to the 47-year-old Masterson after hearing statements from the women and pleas for fairness from defense attorneys.

The actor, who has been in custody since May, sat in court wearing a suit. Masterson watched the women without visible reaction as they spoke. He maintains his innocence, and his attorneys plan to appeal.

The other woman Masterson was found guilty of raping said he “has not shown an ounce of remorse for the pain he caused.” She told the judge, “I knew he belonged behind bars for the safety of all the women he came into contact with. I am so sorry, and I’m so upset. I wish I’d reported him sooner to the police.”

After an initial jury failed to reach verdicts on three counts of rape in December and a mistrial was declared, prosecutors retried Masterson on all three counts earlier this year.

Masterson waived his right to speak before he was sentenced and had no visible reaction after the judge’s decision, nor did the many family members sitting beside him. His wife, actor Bijou Phillips, was tearful earlier in the hearing.

At his second trial, the jury found Masterson guilty of two of three rape counts on May 31. Both attacks took place in Masterson’s Hollywood-area home in 2003, when he was at the height of his fame on the Fox network sitcom “That ’70s Show.”

They could not reach a verdict on the third count, an allegation that Masterson also raped a longtime girlfriend.

The judge sentenced the actor after rejecting a defense motion for a new trial that was argued earlier Thursday. The sentence was the maximum allowed by law. It means Masterson will be eligible for parole after serving 25½ years but can be held in prison for life.

“I know that you’re sitting here steadfast in your claims of innocence, and thus no doubt feeling victimized by a justice system that has failed you,” Olmedo told Masterson before handing down the sentence. “But Mr. Masterson, you are not the victim here. Your actions 20 years ago took away another person’s voice, and choice. One way or another you will have to come to terms with your prior actions, and their consequences.”

After the hearing, Masterson’s lawyer Shawn Holley said in a statement that “Mr. Masterson did not commit the crimes for which he was convicted.” She said a team of appellate lawyers has identified “a number of significant evidentiary and constitutional issues” with his convictions, which they are confident will be overturned.

Prosecutors alleged that Masterson used his prominence in the Church of Scientology — where all three women were also members at the time — to avoid consequences for decades after the attacks, and the women blamed the church for their hesitancy in going to police about Masterson.

At the sentencing hearing, one of the women, who like Masterson was born into the church, said she was shunned and ostracized for going to authorities in 2004.

“I lost everything. I lost my religion. I lost my ability to contact anyone I’d known or loved my entire life,” she said. “I didn’t exist outside the Scientology world. I had to start my life all over at 29. It seemed the world I knew didn’t want me to live.”

The church said in a statement after the trial that it has “no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of anyone — Scientologists or not — to law enforcement.” It has also denied ever harassing any of the women.

No charges came from the woman’s 2004 police report, but she returned to authorities when she learned they were investigating Masterson again in 2016. The other two women had waited more than 15 years before reporting him to anyone other than church officials.
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China is turning to artificial intelligence to rile up U.S. voters and stoke divisions ahead of the country’s 2024 presidential elections, according to a new report.

Threat analysts at Microsoft warned in a blog post Thursday that Beijing has developed a new artificial intelligence capability that can produce “eye-catching content” more likely to go viral compared to previous Chinese influence operations.

According to Microsoft, the six-month-long effort appears to use AI-generators, which are able to both produce visually stunning imagery and also to improve it over time.

“We have observed China-affiliated actors leveraging AI-generated visual media in a broad campaign that largely focuses on politically divisive topics, such as gun violence, and denigrating U.S. political figures and symbols,” Microsoft said.

“We can expect China to continue to hone this technology over time, though it remains to be seen how and when it will deploy it at scale,” it added.

China on Thursday dismissed Microsoft’s findings.

“In recent years, some western media and think tanks have accused China of using artificial intelligence to create fake social media accounts to spread so-called ‘pro-China’ information,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email. “Such remarks are full of prejudice and malicious speculation against China, which China firmly opposes.”

According to Microsoft, Chinese government-linked actors appear to be disseminating the AI-generated images on social media while posing as U.S. voters from across the political spectrum. The focus has been on issues related to race, economic issues and ideology.

In one case, the Microsoft researchers pointed to an image of the Statue of Liberty altered to show Lady Liberty holding both her traditional torch and also what appears to be a machine gun.

The image is titled, “The Goddess of Violence,” with another line of text warning that democracy and freedom is “being thrown away.”

But the researchers say there are clear signs the image was produced using AI, including the presence of more than five fingers on one of the statue’s hands. 

In any case, the early evidence is that the efforts are working.

“This relatively high-quality visual content has already drawn higher levels of engagement from authentic social media users,” according to a Microsoft report issued along with the blog post.

“Users have more frequently reposted these visuals, despite common indicators of AI-generation,” the report added.

Additionally, the Microsoft report says China is having Chinese state media employees masquerade as “as independent social media influencers.”

These influencers, who appear across most Western social media sites, tend to push out both lifestyle content and also propaganda aimed at localized audiences.

Microsoft reports the influencers have so far built a following of at least 103 million people in 40 languages.
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The U.S. on Wednesday announced it was sending depleted uranium anti-tank rounds to Ukraine, following Britain’s lead in sending the controversial munitions to help Kyiv push through Russian lines in its grueling counteroffensive.

The 120 mm rounds will be used to arm the 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks the U.S. plans to deliver to Ukraine in the fall.

Such armor-piercing rounds were developed by the U.S. during the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks that Ukraine now faces in its counteroffensive.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds retain some radioactive properties, but they can’t generate a nuclear reaction like a nuclear weapon would, RAND nuclear expert and policy researcher Edward Geist said.

When Britain announced in March it was sending Ukraine the depleted uranium rounds, Russia falsely claimed they have nuclear components and warned that their use would open the door to further escalation. In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested the war could escalate to nuclear weapons use.

A look at depleted uranium ammunition:

What is depleted uranium?

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the process to create the rarer, enriched uranium used in nuclear fuel and weapons. Although far less powerful than enriched uranium and incapable of generating a nuclear reaction, depleted uranium is extremely dense — more dense than lead — a quality that makes it highly attractive as a projectile.

“It’s so dense and it’s got so much momentum that it just keeps going through the armor — and it heats it up so much that it catches on fire,” Geist said. 

When fired, a depleted uranium munition becomes “essentially an exotic metal dart fired at an extraordinarily high speed,” RAND senior defense analyst Scott Boston said.

In the 1970s, the U.S. Army began making armor-piercing rounds with depleted uranium and has since added it to composite tank armor to strengthen it. It also has added depleted uranium to the munitions fired by the Air Force’s A-10 close air support attack plane, known as the tank killer. The U.S. military is still developing depleted uranium munitions, notably the M829A4 armor-piercing round for the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank, Boston said.

What has Russia said?

In March, Putin warned that Moscow would “respond accordingly, given that the collective West is starting to use weapons with a ‘nuclear component.'” And Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the munitions were “a step toward accelerating escalation.”

Putin followed up several days later by saying Russia would respond to Britain’s move by stationing tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. Putin and the Belarusian president said in July that Russia had already shipped some of the weapons.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the U.S. decision to supply depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine was “very bad news.”

The U.S. announcement came late Wednesday during a visit to Kyiv by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Pentagon has defended the use of the munitions. The U.S. military “has procured, stored, and used depleted uranium rounds for several decades, since these are a longstanding element of some conventional munitions,” Pentagon spokesman Marine Corps Lt. Col. Garron Garn said in a statement in March in response to a query from The Associated Press.

The rounds have “saved the lives of many service members in combat,” Garn said, adding that “other countries have long possessed depleted uranium rounds as well, including Russia.”

Garn would not discuss whether the M1A1 tanks being readied for Ukraine would contain depleted uranium armor modifications, citing operational security.

Not a bomb but still a risk

While depleted uranium munitions are not considered nuclear weapons, their emission of low levels of radiation has led the U.N. nuclear watchdog to urge caution when handling and warn of the possible dangers of exposure.

The handling of such ammunition “should be kept to a minimum and protective apparel (gloves) should be worn,” the International Atomic Energy Agency cautions, adding that “a public information campaign may, therefore, be required to ensure that people avoid handling the projectiles.

“This should form part of any risk assessment and such precautions should depend on the scope and number of ammunitions used in an area.”

The IAEA notes that depleted uranium is mainly a toxic chemical, as opposed to a radiation hazard. Particles in aerosols can be inhaled or ingested, and while most would be excreted again, some can enter the blood stream and cause kidney damage.

“High concentrations in the kidney can cause damage and, in extreme cases, renal failure,” the IAEA says.

The low-level radioactivity of a depleted uranium round “is a bug, not a feature” of the munition, Geist said, and if the U.S. military could find another material with the same density but without the radioactivity it would likely use that instead.

Depleted uranium munitions, as well as depleted uranium-enhanced armor, were used by U.S. tanks in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq’s T-72 tanks and again in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as in Serbia and in Kosovo.

U.S. troops have questioned whether some of the ailments they now face were caused by inhaling or being exposed to fragments after a munition was fired or their tanks were struck, damaging uranium-enhanced armor.

In a social media post on Telegram, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the U.S. decision to give Ukraine the munitions, writing, “What is this: a lie or stupidity?” She said an increase in cancer has been noted in places where ammunition with depleted uranium was used.
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Economic woes and depreciation of the yuan in China are affecting the lives of some Chinese immigrants thousands of miles away.

Zhai Li of Pasadena, California, has a consumer goods factory in China’s Xi’an, Shaanxi province, with her husband. Zhai and her son moved to Beijing so her son could attend elementary school there. She brought him back to the U.S. for middle school while her husband stayed in Xi’an to take care of the business.

“Usually, my husband sends us money for living expenses from China. We earn money in China and spend it here. I definitely don’t want the yuan to sag because my son’s tutoring fees and living expenses cost a lot every month,” Zhai said.

The Chinese yuan has slid to 7.3 to the U.S. dollar, a 10-month low and almost at the level of the 2008 global financial crisis, causing worry and uncertainty among some new Chinese immigrants living in the U.S.

“The factory at home can barely operate since the pandemic, which has greatly affected our income. I am really worried,” Zhai said.

She said that in the past, if people had a little extra money, they would want to spend it on more expensive things. Since the pandemic, people have run out of money. Many of them buy only what’s needed and not necessarily brand-name items, Zhai said.

“As the Chinese economy continues to deteriorate, the rate will likely exceed eight. Then, the yuan will become worthless like a piece of paper,” said Chinese immigrant Liu Pingfei, owner of a used-car dealership in Monterey Park, a Chinese enclave in the Los Angeles area.

Vicky Li, a businesswoman in Los Angeles, is more fortunate. She has stores in Los Angeles and Guangzhou specializing in dry goods.

“Usually, if business in China is good, I will exchange the yuan for U.S. dollars. If the business in the U.S. is better, I will exchange U.S. dollars for the yuan and then use it to purchase goods,” she said.

The weakness of the yuan “has little impact on me because my transactions are not very large, so it is still OK,” Li added.

Derek C. Tung has worked as a tax lawyer, accountant and financial planner in Los Angeles for 34 years. He works with many Chinese immigrant clients. He said the weak yuan would affect the middle class the most, and he expected the Chinese currency to continue to depreciate, chipping away at the purchasing power of people who depend on the yuan, such as Chinese students studying in the U.S.

“If you are not in the U.S. to invest but to study, and your parents are only working class, civil servants or ordinary workers in the private sector, with an annual income between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan ($13,666-$27,333), the weakness of the yuan will have a great impact on them,” Tung said.

Tung said he expected fewer Chinese to be traveling to the U.S. and buying real estate for investment in the future. However, people will still invest on a smaller scale and purchase primary residences, he said.  

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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