Oregon’s first-in-the-nation law that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs in favor of an emphasis on addiction treatment is facing strong headwinds in the progressive state after an explosion of public drug use fueled by the proliferation of fentanyl and a surge in deaths from opioids, including those of children.

“The inability for people to live their day-to-day life without encountering open-air drug use is so pressing on urban folks’ minds,” said John Horvick, vice president of polling firm DHM Research. “That has very much changed people’s perspective about what they think Measure 110 is.”

When the law was approved by 58% of Oregon voters three years ago, supporters championed Measure 110 as a revolutionary approach that would transform addiction by minimizing penalties for drug use and investing instead in recovery.

But even top Democratic lawmakers who backed the law, which will likely dominate the upcoming legislative session, say they’re now open to revisiting it after the biggest increase in synthetic opioid deaths among states that have reported their numbers.

The cycle of addiction and homelessness spurred by fentanyl is most visible in Portland, where it’s not unusual to see people using it in broad daylight on busy city streets.

“Everything’s on the table,” said Democratic state Sen. Kate Lieber, co-chair of a new joint legislative committee created to tackle addiction. “We have got to do something to make sure that we have safer streets and that we’re saving lives.”

Measure 110 directed the state’s cannabis tax revenue toward drug addiction treatment services while decriminalizing the possession of so-called “personal use” amounts of illicit drugs. Possession of under a gram of heroin, for example, is only subject to a ticket and a maximum fine of $100.

Those caught with small amounts of drugs can have the citation dismissed by calling a 24-hour hotline to complete an addiction screening within 45 days, but those who don’t do a screening are not penalized for failing to pay the fine. In the first year after the law took effect in February 2021, only 1% of people who received citations for possession sought help via the hotline, state auditors found.

Critics of the law say this doesn’t create an incentive to seek treatment.

Republican lawmakers have urged Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek to call a special session to address the issue before the Legislature reconvenes in February. They have proposed harsher sanctions for possession and other drug-related offenses, such as mandatory treatment and easing restrictions on placing people under the influence on holds in facilities such as hospitals if they pose a danger to themselves or others.

“Treatment should be a requirement, not a suggestion,” a group of Republican state representatives said in a letter to Kotek.

Law enforcement officials who have testified before the new legislative committee on addiction have proposed reestablishing drug possession as a class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to a year in jail or a $6,250 fine.

“We don’t believe a return to incarceration is the answer, but restoring a (class A) misdemeanor for possession with diversion opportunities is critically important,” Jason Edmiston, chief of police in the small, rural city of Hermiston in northeast Oregon, told the committee.

However, data shows decades of criminalizing possession hasn’t deterred people from using drugs. In 2022, nearly 25 million Americans, roughly 8% of the population, reported using illicit drugs other than marijuana in the previous year, according to the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Some lawmakers have suggested focusing on criminalizing public drug use rather than possession. Alex Kreit, assistant professor of law at Northern Kentucky University and director of its Center on Addiction Law and Policy, said such an approach could help curb visible drug use on city streets but wouldn’t address what’s largely seen as the root cause: homelessness.

“There are states that don’t have decriminalization that have these same difficult problems with public health and public order and just quality-of-life issues related to large-scale homeless populations in downtown areas,” he said, mentioning California as an example.

Backers of Oregon’s approach say decriminalization isn’t necessarily to blame, as many other states with stricter drug laws have also reported increases in fentanyl deaths.

But estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show, among the states reporting data, Oregon had the highest increase in synthetic opioid overdose fatalities when comparing 2019 and the 12-month period ending June 30, a 13-fold surge from 84 deaths to more than 1,100.

Among the next highest was neighboring Washington state, which saw its estimated synthetic opioid overdose deaths increase seven-fold when comparing those same time periods, CDC data shows.

Nationally, overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl roughly doubled over that time span. Roughly two-thirds of all deadly overdoses in the U.S. in the 12 months ending June 30 involved synthetic opioids, federal data shows.

Supporters of Oregon’s law say it was confronted by a perfect storm of broader forces, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a mental health workforce shortage and the fentanyl crisis, which didn’t reach fever pitch until after the law took effect in early 2021.

A group of Oregon lawmakers recently traveled to Portugal, which decriminalized the personal possession of drugs in 2001, to learn more about its policy. State Rep. Lily Morgan, the only Republican legislator on the trip, said Portugal’s approach was interesting but couldn’t necessarily be applied to Oregon.

“The biggest glaring difference is they’re still not dealing with fentanyl and meth,” she said, noting the country also has universal health care.

Despite public perception, the law has made some progress by directing $265 million dollars of cannabis tax revenue toward standing up the state’s new addiction treatment infrastructure.

The law also created what are known as Behavioral Health Resource Networks in every county, which provide care regardless of the ability to pay. The networks have ensured about 7,000 people entered treatment from January to March of this year, doubling from nearly 3,500 people from July through September 2022, state data shows.

The law’s funding also has been key for providers of mental health and addiction services because it has “created a sustainable, predictable funding home for services that never had that before,” said Heather Jefferis, executive director of Oregon Council for Behavioral Health, which represents such providers.

Horvick, the pollster, said public support for expanding treatment remains high despite pushback against the law.

“It would be a mistake to overturn 110 right now because I think that would make us go backwards,” Lieber, the Democratic state senator, said. “Just repealing it will not solve our problem. Even if we didn’t have 110, we would still be having significant issues.” 
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Divers descending into azure waters far off the Texas coast dip below a horizon dotted with oil and gas platforms into an otherworldly landscape of undersea mountains crusted with yellow, orange and pink coral as far as the eye can see. 

Some of the world’s healthiest coral reefs can be found in the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the Texas coast. Sheltered in a deep, cool habitat far from shore, the reefs in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary boast a stunning amount of coral coverage. But scientists say that like all reefs, they are fragile, and their location will only offer protection for so long in the face of a warming climate. 

“To see that much coral in one place is really magnificent — an experience that most people don’t get on reefs in this day and age,” said Michelle Johnston, the acting superintendent and research coordinator for the federally protected area. 

The sanctuary had some moderate bleaching this year but nothing like the devastation that hit other reefs during the summer’s record-breaking heat. Still, Johnston said that’s among her top concerns for the sanctuary’s future. Waters that get too warm cause corals to expel their colorful algae and turn white. They can survive if temperatures fall but they are left more vulnerable to disease and may eventually die. 

Mass bleaching in many parts of world

Florida’s coral reef — the world’s third largest — experienced an unprecedented and potentially deadly level of bleaching over the summer. Derek Manzello, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch, said that so far this year, at least 35 countries and territories across five oceans and seas have experienced mass coral bleaching. He said it’s too early to know how much of Florida’s reefs will recover since coral may die as much as a year or two after the bleaching. 

Manzello said climate models suggest that all the world’s coral will be suffering severe bleaching every year beginning around 2040. 

“If you have severe bleaching events every year, the prognosis is not good because that basically means the corals aren’t going to have a chance to recover,” he said. 

Sanctuary officials say even in the occasional years when Flower Garden Banks has experienced more serious bleaching than this year, it has bounced back quickly thanks to its overall health and depth, and it’s already recovering this year. 

A report expected in the coming months will look at the sanctuary’s vulnerability to the projected effects of climate change. 

Color like a blooming garden

The Flower Garden Banks stands out for its amount of coral cover — an average of over 50% across some areas of the sanctuary — compared with around 10% cover in the Caribbean and Northwest Atlantic region, Manzello said. Its corals are also about 60 feet (18 meters) below the surface and surrounded by even deeper waters, compared with many reefs where corals are in shallower water just offshore. 

In the early 1900s, fishermen told of peering into the Gulf’s waters and seeing a colorful display that reminded them of a blooming garden, but it was such an unusual spot so far from shore that scientists making the initial dives in the 1960s were surprised to find thriving coral reefs. 

The corals in the Flower Garden Banks were able to flourish so far from shore because of mountain-like formations called salt domes, which lifted the corals high enough to catch the light, Johnston said. 

Divers travel from around the world to see the reefs at Flower Garden Banks, where colorful fish, manta rays, sharks and sea turtles waft through and worms that look like Christmas trees pop in and out of corals. 

Andy Lewis, a Houston attorney, said he knew from his first trip to the sanctuary about a decade ago that it was “going to have to be part of my life.” Lewis became a divemaster and is now president of Texas Caribbean Charters, which takes about 1,000 people a year out on diving trips there, with about half making a return trip.  

“It’s just a real adventure,” said Lewis, who also serves on the sanctuary’s advisory board. “I love getting on the boat.” 

That boat leaves from a spot near Galveston, where currents from Mississippi River drop sediment that turns the water near shore a murky brown. By the time the boat motors out to the sanctuary, the water is clear and blue. 

“You drop down and you are on top of live coral as far as you can see,” Lewis said. 

The Flower Garden Banks is one of 15 national marine sanctuaries and two national marine monuments protected by the NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, and the only one in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The sanctuary is made up of 17 separate banks that cover 160 square miles (414 square kilometers). When it was designated in 1992, the sanctuary had two banks. Its largest and most recent expansion of 14 banks came in 2021, a process that included input from the advisory committee, which includes representatives from industries that rely on the Gulf, from oil and gas to recreation to fishing. 

Johnston said that one way to help the reefs stay healthy is to reduce stresses. That includes making sure mooring buoys offer boats a place to tie up so their anchors don’t damage reefs, and removing invasive species that could cause the number of fish to decline. 

Manzello said efforts like those are being done in hopes that greenhouse gas emissions also will be cut globally. 

“We need all of these things happening in concert to really shepherd coral reefs through the next 20, 30, 40 years,” Manzello said. 

Coral reefs support about a fourth of all marine species at some point in their life cycle.  

“Because coral reefs are declining all over the globe, when we find ones that are healthy, we want to keep them that way,” said Kelly Drinnen, education and outreach specialist for the Flower Garden Banks. “And they kind of serve as the repositories for what could help restore some other reef potentially in the future.” 
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Advertisers are fleeing social media platform X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with billionaire owner Elon Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

IBM said this week that it stopped advertising on X after a report said its ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis — a fresh setback as the platform, formerly known as Twitter, tries to win back big brands and their ad dollars, X’s main source of revenue.

The liberal advocacy group Media Matters said in a report Thursday that ads from Apple, Oracle, NBCUniversal’s Bravo network and Comcast also were placed next to antisemitic material on X.

“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” the company said in a statement.

Apple, Oracle, NBCUniversal and Comcast didn’t respond immediately to requests seeking comment on their next steps.

The European Union’s executive branch said separately Friday it is pausing advertising on X and other social media platforms, in part because of a surge in hate speech. Later in the day, Disney, Lionsgate and Paramount Global also said they were suspending or pausing advertising on X.

Musk sparked outcry this week with his own tweets responding to a user who accused Jews of hating white people and professing indifference to antisemitism. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted in a reply Wednesday.

Musk has faced accusations of tolerating antisemitic messages on the platform since purchasing it last year, and the content on X has gained increased scrutiny since the war between Israel and Hamas began.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said Friday in response to Musk’s tweet.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said X’s “point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.”

“I think that’s something we can and should all agree on,” she tweeted Thursday.

Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal executive, was hired by Musk to rebuild ties with advertisers who fled after he took over, concerned that his easing of content restrictions was allowing hateful and toxic speech to flourish and that would harm their brands.

“When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop,” Yaccarino said.

Media Matters and Anti-Defamation League

The accounts that Media Matters found posting antisemitic material will no longer be monetizable and the specific posts will be labeled “sensitive media,” according to a statement from X. Still, Musk decried Media Matters as “an evil organization.”

The head of the Anti-Defamation League also hit back at Musk’s tweets this week, in the latest clash between the prominent Jewish civil-rights organization and the billionaire businessman.

“At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said on X.

Musk also tweeted this week that he was “deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.”

The group has previously accused Musk of allowing antisemitism and hate speech to spread on the platform and amplifying the messages of neo-Nazis and white supremacists who want to ban the ADL.

European Commission steps back

The European Commission, meanwhile, said it’s putting all its social media ad efforts on hold because of an “alarming increase in disinformation and hate speech” on platforms in recent weeks.

The commission, the 27-nation EU’s executive arm, said it is advising its services to “refrain from advertising at this stage on social media platforms where such content is present,” adding that the freeze doesn’t affect its official accounts on X.

The EU has taken a tough stance with new rules to clean up social media platforms, and last month it made a formal request to X for information about its handling of hate speech, misinformation and violent terrorist content related to the Israel-Hamas war.

TikTok troubles

X isn’t alone in dealing with problematic content since the conflict.

On Thursday, TikTok removed the hashtag #lettertoamerica after users on the app posted sympathetic videos about Osama bin Laden’s 2002 letter justifying the terrorist attacks against Americans on 9/11 and criticizing U.S. support for Israel. The Guardian news outlet, which published the transcript of the letter that was being shared, took it down and replaced it with a statement that directed readers to a news article from 2002 that it said provided more context.

The videos garnered widespread attention among X users critical of TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. TikTok said the letter was not a trend on its platform and blamed an X post by journalist Yashar Ali and media coverage for drawing more engagement to the hashtag.

The short-form video app has faced criticism from Republicans and others who say the platform has been failing to protect Jewish users from harassment and pushing pro-Palestinian content to viewers.

TikTok has aggressively pushed back, saying it’s been taking down antisemitic content and doesn’t manipulate its algorithm to take sides. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed earlier this week that Beijing will crack down on companies in China that produce precursor chemicals for fentanyl, an agreement that Biden said would “save lives.”

In exchange, the Biden administration agreed to lift sanctions on China’s Physical Evidence Identification Center of the Ministry of Public Security and the National Drug Laboratory. In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce sanctioned the lab for allegedly participating in human rights violations against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

China, which is the source of most fentanyl precursors used in the U.S., argued that U.S. export controls have “severely affected” China’s inspection and testing of fentanyl-related substances and impaired its “goodwill to help the U.S. in drug control,” according to the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the United States.

Although a cooperative effort to curb the supply of fentanyl brought some results over the years, enthusiasm dampened as tensions grew between China and the U.S. On Aug. 5, 2022 — after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, a self-governing island Beijing considers its own — China officially announced the suspension of anti-drug cooperation with the U.S.

Here is some background to the Biden-Xi deal.

What is fentanyl?

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It is a prescription drug in the United States used for treating severe pain.

Illegally manufactured fentanyl “is often added to other drugs because of its extreme potency, which makes drugs cheaper, more powerful, more addictive, and more dangerous,” according to the CDC.

Fentanyl sold on the black market is often mixed with heroin and/or cocaine to increase a user’s sense of euphoria, according to the CDC.

Why does the United States care about the fentanyl issue?

Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 49, according to U.S. Department of Justice data.

What does the fentanyl problem in the United States have to do with China?

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service: “Prior to 2019, China was the primary source of U.S.-bound illicit fentanyl, fentanyl-related substances, and production equipment.” It said Chinese traffickers supplied fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances to the U.S. via international mail and express consignment operations.

Xi promised then-U.S. President Donald Trump to tighten regulation of fentanyl and related substances when the two met in 2018 on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was seen as a move taken by China to ease trade disputes.

China then passed new laws that took effect on May 1, 2019, to put all fentanyl-related substances under national control.

In July 2022 testimony, a senior adviser to the Office of National Drug Control Policy stated that as a result, “the direct shipment of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances from China to the United States went down to almost zero.”

What role does China play?

After China regulated fentanyl-related substances, Mexican transnational criminal organizations became the main operators in the production and distribution of illegal fentanyl in the U.S., according to data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“The cartels are buying precursor chemicals in the People’s Republic of China (PRC); transporting the precursor chemicals from the PRC to Mexico; using the precursor chemicals to mass produce fentanyl; pressing the fentanyl into fake prescription pills; and using cars, trucks, and other routes to transport the drugs from Mexico into the United States for distribution,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of DEA, at a Senate hearing in February.

Why does the US accuse China of lax cooperation?

Certain precursors used in the production of fentanyl are internationally classified as unscheduled chemicals and legal to produce in China and export. Beijing argues that it cannot restrict the export of precursors that are not illegal.

The U.S. has repeatedly called on China to adopt a “know-your-customer” approach such as identifying and verifying customer identities to ensure that these chemicals are not sold to likely drug traffickers and to alert authorities about such buyers.

However, in an interview with Newsweek in September 2022, Qin Gang, the then-Chinese ambassador to the U.S., said that approach “goes far beyond the obligations of countries under the United Nations Convention on Drug Control.”
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The U.S. flu season is under way, with at least seven states reporting high levels of illnesses and cases rising in other parts of the country, health officials say.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted new flu data Friday, showing very high activity last week in Louisiana, and high activity in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina. It was also high in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory where health officials declared an influenza epidemic earlier this month.

“We’re off to the races,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert.

Traditionally, the winter flu season ramps up in December or January. But it took off in October last year, and is making a November entrance this year.

Flu activity was moderate but rising in New York City, Arkansas, California, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. And while flu activity has been high in Alaska for weeks, the state did not report data last week, so it wasn’t part of the latest count.

Tracking during flu season relies in part on reports of people with flu-like symptoms who go to doctor’s offices or hospitals; many people with the flu are not tested, so their infections aren’t lab-confirmed. COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses can sometimes muddy the picture.

Alicia Budd, who leads the CDC’s flu surveillance team, said several indicators are showing “continued increases” in flu.

There are different kinds of flu viruses, and the version that’s been spreading the most so far this year usually leads to a lesser amount of hospitalizations and deaths in the elderly — the group on whom flu tends to take the largest toll.

So far this fall, the CDC estimates at least 780,000 flu illnesses, at least 8,000 hospitalizations and at least 490 flu-related deaths — including at least one child.

Budd said that it’s not yet clear exactly how effective the current flu vaccines are, but the shots are well-matched to the flu strains that are showing up. In the U.S., about 35% of U.S. adults and 33% of children have been vaccinated against flu, current CDC data indicates. That’s down compared to last year in both categories.

Flu vaccination rates are better than rates for the other two main respiratory viruses — COVID-19 and RSV. About 14% of adults and 5% of children have gotten the currently recommended COVID-19 shot, and about 13.5% of adults 60 and older have gotten one of the RSV shots that became available earlier this year.
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Former U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia, the Carter Center announced Friday.

The center said the 96-year-old is at home with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, now 99. The Carter family said through the statement that they are “grateful for the outpouring of love and support.”

The family announced earlier this year that the former first lady is suffering from dementia. The former president entered hospice care at home in February.

They have been married for more than 77 years, through his rise from their Georgia farm to his election to the presidency in 1976. After his 1980 defeat, the couple established the Carter Center in Atlanta as a global center to advocate human rights, democracy and public health.

“The best thing I ever had happen in my life was when she said she’d marry me,” Jimmy Carter said, long after leaving the Oval Office.

The couple’s grandson, Jason Carter, described his grandmother in a recent interview as the former president’s “partner No. 1, 2 and 3,” and the former first couple themselves both agreed that she has been the more aggressive political personality of their long pairing.

Nicknamed ‘the Steel Magnolia’

In Washington, the political press of the late 1970s dubbed Rosalynn Carter “the Steel Magnolia,” reflecting the quiet grace stereotypical of the era’s Southern political wives and a tough core that made her a force on her husband’s behalf and in her own right.

“She knew what she wanted to accomplish,” said Kathy Cade, a White House adviser to Rosalynn Carter.

Expanding the role of first lady, she worked in her own office in the East Wing, with her own staff, on her own initiatives. She also huddled with the president’s advisers and sat in on top-level meetings, raising eyebrows in Washington power circles.

“She didn’t say anything in Cabinet meetings, but she wanted to be fully informed so she could give her husband good advice,” said Carter biographer Jonathan Alter.

Alter considers Rosalynn Carter’s only peers as influential first ladies to be Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton, although he said the Carters’ partnership was more seamless, because it lacked the infidelity and personal drama of the Roosevelts and Clintons.

The bond also involved friendly rivalry and humor: “I never knew I’d be married to somebody that old,” he wisecracked when Rosalynn was 91.

They often raced to finish writing their next book or best the other in tennis, skiing or any other pursuit.

‘Uncanny political instincts’

Rosalynn Carter was at the center of Carter’s political campaigns, starting with his first state Senate race in 1962.

“In the beginning, I wrote letters to people. He would go out and then I would write letters to them,” she told The Associated Press. “But then it developed into a full-time job for me, working to help him get elected.”

She first campaigned solo during his 1966 bid for governor. She was initially nervous but warmed to the role and ultimately demonstrated what White House adviser Stuart Eizenstat called “uncanny political instincts.”

In the White House, it was Rosalynn Carter who urged her husband to think more about the 1980 election as he set priorities and talk through how decisions might play in the media.

When Jimmy Carter stayed in Washington to work every angle to free the American hostages in Iran, the first lady hit his reelection campaign trail.

“I had the best time,” she told the AP. “I campaigned solid every day the last time we ran.”

Pushed for mental health care

Rosalynn Carter’s signature policy issue — improving treatment and removing societal stigma about mental health — traced back to her husband’s Georgia campaigns.

Voters “would stand patiently” waiting to tell of their family struggles, she once wrote. After hearing one overnight mill worker’s story of caring for her afflicted child, Rosalynn Carter decided to take the issue to the candidate. She showed up at her husband’s rally that day, unannounced, and stood in line to shake his hand like everyone else.

“I want to know what you are going to do about mental health when you are governor,” she asked him. She recounted his reply: “We’re going to have the best mental health system in the country, and I’m going to put you in charge of it.”
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The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on six people affiliated with the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataeb Hezbollah, which is accused of being behind a spate of recent attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

Included in the sanctions are the militia’s foreign affairs chief, a member of its governing council, its military commander and a media spokesperson. The sanctions block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.

A spate of drone attacks hit U.S. bases in Iraq as recently as Friday, as regional tensions have flared up following the bloody war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Two U.S. defense officials confirmed three additional attacks on U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Syria on Friday, bringing the total number of attacks on U.S. and coalition military facilities in Iraq and Syria to at least 60.

The three bases attacked as of Friday by one-way drones were Al Harir air base in Irbil, with no casualties reported but an infrastructure damage assessment ongoing; Al Asad air base in Iraq with no injuries or infrastructure damage; and Tall Baydar, Syria, with minor injuries to one service member who was able to return to duty, one of the defense officials said.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have threatened to attack U.S. facilities there because of American support for Israel.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Kataeb Hezbollah is supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. The State Department has previously designated it as a terrorist organization.

Brian E. Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the U.S. is “fully committed to security and stability in the Middle East and are steadfast in our efforts to disrupt these destabilizing activities.”

At least 11,470 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors — have been killed since the war in Gaza began, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities, who do not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people are reported missing.

About 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mostly during the initial attack, and around 240 were taken captive by militants.
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President Joe Biden signed a temporary spending bill late Thursday, a day before a potential government shutdown, pushing a fight with congressional Republicans over the federal budget into the new year, as wartime aid for Ukraine and Israel remains stalled.

The measure passed the House and Senate by wide bipartisan margins this week, ensuring the government remains open until after the holiday season, and potentially giving lawmakers more time to sort out their considerable differences over government spending levels for the current budget year. Biden signed the bill Thursday in San Francisco, where he was hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

The spending package keeps government funding at current levels for roughly two more months while a long-term package is negotiated. It splits the deadlines for passing full-year appropriations bills into two dates: January 19 for some federal agencies and February 2 for others, creating two dates when there will be a risk of a partial government shutdown.

The two-step approach was championed by new House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, and was not favored by many in the Senate, although all but one Democrat and 10 Republicans supported it because it ensured the government would not shut down for now.

Johnson has vowed that he will not support any further stopgap funding measures, known as continuing resolutions. He portrayed the temporary funding bill as setting the ground for a spending “fight” with the Senate next year.

The spending bill does not include the White House’s nearly $106 billion request for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine. Nor does it provide humanitarian funding for Palestinians and other supplemental requests, including money for border security. Lawmakers are likely to turn their attention more fully to that request after the Thanksgiving holiday in hopes of negotiating a deal.
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U.S. President Joe Biden Thursday hailed a new economic agreement among 14 Asia Pacific countries aimed at countering China’s regional economic dominance, saying the deal leaders signed at a summit of regional economies – which is not a formal trade agreement – will address key issues such as future semiconductor shortages by improving supply chain resilience.

The goal of the new pact, said the 14 leaders in a joint statement, is to “promote workers’ rights, increase our capacity to prevent and respond to supply chain disruptions, strengthen our collaboration on the transition to clean economies, and combat corruption and improve the efficiency of tax administration.”

Biden, speaking Thursday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, acknowledged that negotiators failed to reach consensus on a key pillar of last year’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

“We still have more work to do, but we’ve made substantial progress,” he said. “In record time we’ve reached consensus on three of the pillars of the IPEF.” The IPEF has four pillars, summarized as trade, supply chains, clean energy and infrastructure, and tax and anti-corruption.

Biden also announced a program to work with startup businesses to raise capital. That effort is based on the U.S. Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is seen as the U.S. answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

In highlighting the plan, Biden also emphasized the importance of the U.S. private sector.

“You’ve heard every one of my colleagues say one time or another that this can’t be done without trillions of dollars of private sector investment to get hold of this and get hold of it quickly to give them confidence to make those investments,” Biden said. “That’s going to create a pipeline of projects in partner countries and then match private sector financing with these projects, and it’s going to give those private sector investors confidence that their investment will be made according to the highest standards. Government investment is not enough. We need to mobilize private investment.”

Critics say the new economic agreement lacks market access provisions.

“For a country like us, we have to have at least market access,” Indonesian CEO Anindya Bakrie told VOA on the sidelines of the summit.

Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said most Southeast Asian states are “tepid” about the deal.

The bottom line, he said, is, “It’s not a trade deal, and the U.S. is not offering any market access in IPEF. And the Southeast Asian states can contrast that with actual trade deals that have been passed in Asia over the last seven years, including major, major trade deals that involve China, South Korea, Japan, and other big economies, as well as ASEAN being in the middle of that.”

However, he said, “they’re not going to say to the United States coming in with IPEF over the last couple of years, we reject this. They’re cordial and they do want a greater U.S. security presence.”

Siobhan Das, executive director of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, took a rosier view.

“I actually believe it’s been successful already,” she said. “You’ve had 14 nations talking to each other for the last 18 months – how can that not be a success?”

Zack Cooper, a specialist in U.S. strategy in Asia at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA on Thursday, as the 14 leaders smiled and posed for a photo, that “everyone agrees that the Indo Pacific economic framework is probably the best the Biden administration is going to do for now.”

“But it certainly doesn’t mean that they’re happy with IPEF or that they’re going to be satisfied with the version of IPEF they’re getting at APEC, which does not include trade,” he said. “And so it’s probably better than nothing.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping made clear before they met outside of San Francisco on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that they would not issue a joint statement.

But a comparison of their positions in written statements issued separately after the leaders met on Wednesday highlights continuing differences in four contentious areas.

Taiwan

China claims the self-governing island of Taiwan as its territory. The U.S. maintains a “robust” relationship with Taiwan and sells defense equipment to its military.

The Chinese statement specifically mentioned Biden’s promise of last November when he met Xi on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, not to support Taiwan’s independence.

This position is not included in the White House statement.

The Chinese statement said that Xi reiterated the principle of the Taiwan issue during the meeting and pointed out that “the Taiwan question has always been the most important and sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations. China attaches great importance to the relevant positive statements made by the U.S. during the Bali meeting.”

Xi asked Biden to not support Taiwan independence, “stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification.”

Xi said that “China will eventually be reunified.”

Biden did not directly respond to Xi’s request to stop arming Taiwan in his statement. Instead, he reiterated his opposition to any party independently changing the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

Biden emphasized that the U.S. one-China policy has not changed and has been consistent across decades and administrations.

Biden said in the statement, “The United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, that we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, and that the world has an interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

The U.S. one-China policy recognizes the Chinese government as the only Chinese government but does not endorse Beijing’s view of Taiwan as a breakaway province.

Biden also called on China to restrain its military activities around the Taiwan Strait.

Ukraine and Israel

After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the U.S. repeatedly called on China to mediate. Ukraine and Israel have publicly sought China’s support.

The U.S. statement said that the two leaders exchanged views on the two conflicts. Biden reiterated that the U.S., with global allies and partners, will continue to support Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression. On the Israel-Hamas conflict, Biden reiterated U.S. support for Israel’s right to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of all countries using their influence to prevent escalation and expansion of the conflict.

The Chinese statement did not mention Ukraine or Israel. Last year in Bali, Xi stated that China was highly concerned about the situation in Ukraine.

Trade and the economy

Xi expressed dissatisfaction with U.S. containment of China’s chip development, while Biden was concerned about China’s “unfair trade policies, non-market economic practices and punitive actions against U.S. firms.”  He said that the U.S. would not set excessive restrictions on trade and investment.

According to the Chinese statement, Xi said that the U.S. continues to impose restrictions on China regarding export controls, investment reviews and unilateral sanctions. He said that China drives development through innovation and that suppressing China’s science and technology would curb China’s high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to growth.

He called on the U.S. to face up to China’s concerns, lift unilateral sanctions, and provide a non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies.

The Chinese statement also quoted Biden as saying, “The U.S. and China are economically interdependent. The U.S. is happy to see China develop and prosper. It does not seek to suppress and contain China’s development, nor does it seek to decouple from China.”

Biden emphasized that the United States will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine U.S. national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment.

Human rights

Many dissidents living in the U.S., including those from Hong Kong, Tibet and the Uyghur community, gathered in San Francisco during Xi’s first visit to the U.S. in seven years to protest the Chinese government’s suppression of human rights.

According to the U.S. statement, Biden underscored the universality of human rights and the responsibility of all nations to respect their international human rights commitments. He raised concerns regarding PRC human rights abuses, including in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.

He said that resolving the cases of some U.S. citizens who are wrongfully detained or subject to exit bans in China remains a priority for him.

China’s statement did not mention these human rights issues. 
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China’s leader Xi Jinping was all smiles as he landed in San Francisco, California, where he has since held talks with U.S. President Joe Biden and is attending the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit.  

Back home, though, China finds itself a nation shaken by a series of high-profile events spread out over a tumultuous year, the most recent being the sudden death of former premier Li Keqiang less than three weeks ago. 

Under Xi’s leadership, and particularly over the past year, China has struggled with a range of challenges: from a slowing economy, soaring youth unemployment, and public frustration with his policies to the high-profile ousting of key government officials he appointed. Analysts say those challenges and the public reaction have triggered growing distrust and waning approval for Xi. 

Sudden death 

Late last month, news of the sudden death of former Premier Li Keqiang was the latest event to seize the public’s attention and concern.  

“Li Keqiang’s death shook people more than previous incidents that involved the disappearance of Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Defense Minister Li Shangfu,” said Xia Ming, a political science professor at City University of New York. 

“Li is viewed by ordinary Chinese as someone who was one of them, sympathetic to them, his sudden death and rushed cremation invoked a strong sense of injustice,” he said.  

Despite efforts by authorities to keep reaction to Li’s passing under control, there has been an outpouring of response from the public both online and offline. Thousands lined up to place flowers outside the hospital where he died in Shanghai and in his hometown in central Anhui Province.

Some put signs up with some of Li Keqiang’s best-known remarks on the back of their cars. Authorities moved quickly to stamp out any discussion about Li Keqiang, including speculation that Xi had a hand in Li’s death. Some who spoke out in public, shouting “we all know how Li Keqiang died,” were immediately arrested.

As news of Li’s death spread online, so did messages “too bad it’s not you,” seen by many as a public condemnation of Xi.  

Under Xi, Party members are expected to swear “absolute loyalty,” and anyone who’s not “absolutely loyal” is deemed absolutely disloyal, Xia said. 

Xia added that a highly irregular incident in which former party leader Hu Jintao was abruptly escorted off stage during party meetings in March was also something that rang alarm bells in China. 

Within months of the incident with Hu, China’s foreign minister and defense minister disappeared from public view and were both later stripped of their titles, without any explanation. Sudden changes involving other top military commanders also signaled instability at top levels of government. 

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has launched a massive anti-corruption campaign that analysts say has been used to target not only misuse of government funds but Xi’s political rivals as well. 

The scale of intra-party strife and potential challenges to Xi can be seen in the staggering number of officials being “investigated and dealt with” in the so-called anti-corruption campaign since Xi took office, analysts say. 

And while the government has listed the total number of those investigated at more than 4 million by 2021, “each one of these people have family members and friends, so the true number of those impacted is staggering,” Xia pointed out. 

Rhetoric and reality 

Orville Schell is vice president of the Asia Society and heads the society’s U.S.-China Relations Center. He notices a slight change of tone from Beijing. 

“Lately there are some signs that suggest [Xi]’s a little bit worried about overreach and being a little too aggressive,” Schell told VOA in an interview Tuesday. “He’s realizing this with the economy in trouble, it’s important to pull back a little and try to act a little less hostile towards global market players that have bought goods from China and supported China’s economic prosperity.” 

“We have to realize it’s largely rhetoric,” he added, that is, a reaction to the realization, as he put it, that “China is in a rather delicate position economically.” 

The longtime China watcher who first went to China in the 1970s when Mao Zedong was still alive, warns that rhetoric aside, the intrinsic character and characteristics of an autocratic regime that China currently is, remain unchanged and dangerous. 

While China is still shaken by the sudden death of Li Keqiang and the world appeared taken aback by what had befallen Hu Jintao, Qin Gang, Li Shangfu, and others, Schell reminds that “this is nothing new.”   

“We saw this under Stalin, we’ve seen it under every autocrat. This is the way it works. This is the system. Autocrats cannot tolerate competition,” he said.

“I think when you disappear cabinet secretaries, it shows that you’re insecure, and you feel that the only way to survive is greater control,” Schell told VOA. “I am surprised by the nakedness of [Xi]’s autocracy, that he can just make people vanish.”  

Economic long COVID 

The economic downturn China is going through also dampens Xi’s popularity. And the condition China finds itself in has everything to do with its politics, analysts say. 

“China’s brutal domestic handling of the pandemic saw the country endure unpredictable lockdowns and arbitrary enforcement of different rules and standards,” noted one essay published in October by the European Council on Foreign Relations research group. 

“This seems to have led many Chinese households to anticipate more hard times ahead rather than spend the savings they set aside during the pandemic, in contrast to their counterparts in the West,” the author, Alicja Bachulska, wrote. The result, she added, “is ‘economic long covid,’ on a scale unlike anything seen elsewhere.” 

In addition, “With China’s ‘responsible power’ claims long gone, many foreign investors are unwilling to look twice,” Bachulska wrote. 

Many analysts have said that one key reason Xi is turning on the charm in San Francisco is because he is trying to lure foreign investors back to China. 

During Commerce Secretary Gina Raimando’s visit to Beijing in August, she said U.S. companies have complained to her that China is “uninvestable because it’s become too risky.” 

In September, foreign exchange outflows from China rose to $75 billion, according to data from Goldman Sachs. The biggest outflow since 2016.   

To make matters worse, a November 15 report put out by Sinolytics, a German thinktank focused on China, says for the first time since 1998, China saw a negative growth of foreign direct investment; that is, for the first time in 25 years, foreign investors pulled more money out of China than the amount they poured in. 

Brain drain, emigration 

And it is not just the economy that is souring. Since Xi came to power, the annual number of its citizens emigrating has risen dramatically. The United Nations predicts that China will lose 310,000 people through emigration this year, after losing more than 311,000 in 2022. That is more than double  the 120,000 who left in 2012. 

Since 2012, more than 730,000 Chinese citizens have sought asylum overseas, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

According to The Associated Press, Panamanian authorities say that in the first nine months of the year, 15,567 Chinese citizens crossed the Darien Gap as they tried to try reach the United States. 
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With Israel under increasing pressure due to a steadily rising death toll in Gaza and images of Palestinian suffering flooding social media, the United States turned to a familiar page in its foreign policy playbook: it declassified and released some intelligence.

Both the White House and Pentagon on Tuesday announced the U.S. had information backing Israeli claims that Hamas — long designated by Washington as a terrorist organization — was using Gaza’s Shifa Hospital to direct operations against Israel.

“We have information that confirms that Hamas is using that particular hospital for a command-and-control node,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters traveling with President Joe Biden on Air Force One.

“They have weapons stored there and are prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against the facility,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told Pentagon reporters, adding the Shifa Hospital was just one of several used by Hamas and its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, “to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages.”

The tactic of releasing such information — known in the White House as a strategic downgrade — has increasingly become a go-to tool for the Biden administration when it needs to shape global public opinion.

It’s most famous and first applications came during the run-up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when the White House quickly declassified and shared evidence of Russia’s military build-up with allies and with the public, galvanizing support for Kyiv.

The White House also turned to strategic downgrades to push back against China’s claims about its errant spy balloon which traversed much of the continental U.S. earlier this year and, more quietly, to defuse a potential crisis Mali sparked by mercenaries with Russia’s Wagner Group.

And now, Israel.

“We felt it was important for the world to know exactly how Hamas has chosen to embed themselves in the civilian population and use civilians, including those at hospitals, as human shields,” a senior U.S. official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the decision-making process.

The selection of Shifa Hospital, in particular “as a location to base military operations from,” the official said, was “in violation of the laws of war.”

The announcements from the White House and the Pentagon were met with almost immediate skepticism on social media platforms, with accounts accusing the U.S. of lying to cover for Israel or of basing its assessments entirely on Israel’s own claims.

Hamas, too, rejected the accusations from Washington.

“We strongly condemn and reject the claims,” Hamas said in a statement on its Telegram channel late Tuesday. “These statements give a green light to the Israeli occupation to commit further brutal massacres.”

Hours later, Israeli forces launched what Israel described as “a precise and targeted operation” aimed at Hamas fighters in Shifa.

The U.S. official told VOA the timing of the Israeli action, following the statements from the White House and Pentagon, was coincidental.

“The downgrade had nothing to do with any operational timing or any decision making by the Israeli Defense Forces [sic],” the official said. “We do not want to see airstrikes or firefights at hospitals, and we believe that patients and civilians must be protected.”

Other U.S. officials, likewise, pushed back against accusations that Washington’s intelligence assessment was based on Israeli intelligence, saying it was based on information collected by multiple U.S. agencies.

The Wall Street Journal Wednesday reported that the U.S. assessment Hamas was using Shifa as a base for operations came partly from intercepted communications of fighters inside the hospital compound.

Former intelligence officials and analysts who spoke to VOA said they expected the U.S. assessment was likely based on both intercepted communications, known as signals intelligence or SIGINT, and human sources.

“The obvious way that you would know something like that would be because you knew that a credible Hamas source had confirmed it, and that could be because you had human intelligence to that effect, or it could be that you had some kind of intercept to that effect,” a former Western counterterrorism official told VOA, requesting anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence gathering.

And the U.S. has been in position to intercept Hamas communications. The Pentagon, earlier this month, confirmed it started flying unarmed drones over Gaza on October 7 to help with hostage recovery efforts in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks.

Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA chief of staff and former senior director of the White House Situation Room, told VOA the U.S. also has the ability to use satellite reconnaissance and cyber capabilities to help pinpoint how Hamas is directing its operations.

“The NSC [National Security Council] and the Pentagon spoke with some certitude,” he said. “[That] suggests to me some pretty rock-solid evidence derived from U.S. collection or independently verifiable Israeli collection.”

Israel, late Wednesday, began releasing images and other evidence from its operation in Shifa that it said proves Israeli and U.S. assessments that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command center — showing so-called Hamas “grab and go” bags, with assault rifles, ammunition, grenades and uniforms, as well as other weaponry and equipment.

Like the U.S. announcement, the Israeli claims were met with skepticism by some social media accounts, some accusing Israel of planting the evidence.

But some of the former intelligence officials who spoke with VOA said the Israeli evidence should not be dismissed.

“The IDF video showing weapons recovered at Shifa is certainly significant, as this does demonstrate Hamas utilization of the hospital, which is technically a war crime,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA operations officer who worked extensively in the Middle East.

“That said, given the U.S. and Israeli claims that the hospital contained a major command and control node for Hamas, it’s probably going to take additional evidence, such as video of the actual tunnels under the hospital, to buttress the intelligence claims and assuage some of the international concerns,” he added.

Still, Polymeropoulos and other former officials believe the U.S. decision to declassify the intelligence on Hamas’ use of hospitals will pay off, even if it takes time.

“This is clearly designed to give the Israelis some breathing room,” Polymeropoulos said.

“The audience is both global, because of the international outrage, but also domestic,” he said, noting the Biden administration has faced increasing criticism in the U.S. for its unwavering support of the Israeli campaign.

The former Western counterterrorism official also said the U.S. decision to back up the Israeli claims with independent U.S. intelligence may also serve to buy Israel more time with Arab and Muslim governments, whose patience may be wearing thin.

“This is perhaps just about the moment in the conflict where people are starting to wobble,” the official said. “Declassifying that information clearly helps to tell the story of why the Israelis are having to respond in the way that they have.”
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