For years, Chinese officials have referred to the Tiananmen massacre as “political turmoil” and have attempted to make the violence of June 4, 1989, disappear.

Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred people to more than 10,000, though there has never been an official tally released. Thousands more were injured by troops who charged the student-led pro-democracy demonstration that began massing in Beijing’s vast open space in mid-April.

Against that backdrop, Tiananmen: A New Musical weaves a love story between two students in a production that opened Wednesday at the Phoenix Theatre Company in Arizona. Its world premiere will be Friday night.  

Wu’er Kaixi, who was one of the protest leaders and who now lives in Taiwan where he is a pro-democracy activist, served as a creative consultant.  

It is the latest in a subset of musicals that tackle serious issues. Cabaret addresses homophobia, antisemitism and the rise of Nazi Germany. Dear Evan Hansen grapples with suicide and bullying.  

It took three years to produce Tiananmen. Beijing’s growing willingness to track down its critics and exert pressure on them left many who auditioned wary of accepting roles that jeopardize family or business interests in China.  

The show’s musical director, theater veteran Darren Lee, told VOA Mandarin that before accepting the job, he had a career first: calling his parents to see if there were relatives still in China who would be endangered.

His family’s “most studious aunt” with the best “memory and connection to where we’ve all come from” greenlit Lee’s participation. The show’s original Chinese American director left the show because of “potential for retribution against his family in China if he were involved in telling this story,” Lee told Phoenix magazine.  

Lee said one of the core messages of the Tiananmen play is to explore the impact of this “long arm of fear” on people.  

“I’m an American-born Chinese person. I may share DNA with people in China, but I don’t have direct relatives that would be pressured in any way. So, I don’t have that same sense of — I guess it’s fear,” he said.

Producer Jason Rose said others involved in the show opted out due to concerns about family or business interests in China. Others used stage names or were credited as “Anonymous.”

Rose told VOA Mandarin he respected those decisions, but the show kept moving ahead despite possible pressure from Beijing.

“That’s what drew me to this show,” he said. “It is provocative. It is important. It is a celebration of bravery by these artists. … That is American art at its best, and to allow another country to dictate what’s going to be on the American stage — I’m sorry, that’s where I’ll hold up my hand and say, ‘Let’s go try and do this.’”

And while Kaixi hopes audiences will feel the students’ courage and the atmosphere of hope that permeated Tiananmen Square, he wants people to realize that the rulers of today’s China are no different from those who “decided to shoot and kill people” in 1989.

That view is reflected in a scene described by Rose in an opinion piece Sept. 15 in the Arizona Capitol Times. China’s leader in 1989, Deng Xiaoping, walking through the carnage left by the government’s attack, delivers a monologue: “People will forget what happened here. People will forget what we did here. Westerners will. China will. Because you will want smartphones. Because Beijing will want skyscrapers. Twenty-thousand dying will bring 20 years of stability. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And at the edge of memory, who defines the truth? Me.”

VOA Mandarin sought comment from the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco but did not receive a response.

Ellie Wang, who stars opposite Kennedy Kanagawa in Tiananmen, told Playbill, “This production is not just a celebration of art and storytelling but a powerful reminder of the importance of courage, resilience, and the universal desire for freedom.” 

Wen Baoling, a Hong Konger who lives in San Francisco, traveled to Phoenix to attend a preview of the show, which has a book by Scott Elmegreen, with music and lyrics by Drew Fornarola.

“I really wanted to support this team of very brave people who made this show about the Tiananmen massacre,” she said. “The Chinese regime tries to put a lot of pressure on people, even outside of China. So, we can’t really let the censorship — this complete erasure of history — we can’t let the Chinese regime extend that censorship outside of China and into the U.S.”

Audience member Jerry Vineyard told VOA Mandarin he had followed the Tiananmen protests when they began. He said the musical “brought up a lot of memories for me … because I remember I was in high school, I was 17, when all this happened. And I felt a lot of hope when I saw that started to happen. And then it just seemed like it was all dashed and crushed. And then … they mentioned in the play, the [Berlin] Wall came down shortly after. So, [Tiananmen] kind of got brushed away in history.”

Kaixi said the students’ pro-democracy movement of 1989 remains “unfinished business.”

“I hope everyone will remember this history, respect this history, and eulogize this history. This generation of young people, with their dedication and their bravery, can achieve the results we wanted,” he said.
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The Kansas police chief who led a widely condemned raid on a small-town newspaper resigned earlier this week after body cam footage revealed him rifling through files about himself. But with the newspaper still struggling to operate nearly two months after the raid, the publisher and lawyer say the resignation is too little, too late.

Gideon Cody, the former police chief of Marion, Kansas, led the raid of the Marion County Record newspaper in August in a move that was denounced by news outlets and press freedom groups as a clear violation of the First Amendment.

After being suspended from his position last week by the town’s mayor, Cody resigned Monday evening.

But the resignation isn’t something to praise, the Record’s lawyer, Bernie Rhodes, told VOA, adding that the paper is still planning to take legal action.

“We should not be celebrating this whatsoever. We should be glad that his gun and badge have been taken away from him. But the city did nothing to convince me that they’re taking appropriate action,” Rhodes said. “The city took no action.

“I don’t understand why it took two months for someone to take Chief Cody’s gun and badge. He is clearly unfit for duty. And this should have happened a long time ago,” he said.

The paper’s owner and publisher, Eric Meyer, agreed.

“He should have been suspended immediately,” he said.

Meyer blames the stress of the raid for the death of his mother, Joan, the newspaper’s co-owner, who died of cardiac arrest a day after the raid.

Marion police did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. Marion Mayor David Mayfield also did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

The raid’s dramatic fallout has taken a toll on the newspaper’s operations, Meyer told VOA on Thursday.

“I keep saying we’re one head cold away from not being able to publish our newspaper. We’re right on that edge,” he said. “It’s a very big struggle to get the paper out each week.”

Although the Record has gotten thousands of new subscriptions since the raid, the newspaper’s staff are now working a “ridiculous number of hours,” Meyer said, acknowledging that the pace is not sustainable.

The Record has not yet taken any legal action, but a former Record reporter has done so in her personal capacity.

On Wednesday, Cody responded to a lawsuit filed in August against him by Deb Gruver, who said she suffered lasting emotional and physical injury when Cody took her cellphone from her hand during the raid.

Gruver recently resigned from the Record, citing worsening mental health since the raid. She declined to comment about recent developments in the case but spoke to VOA in August about the paranoia she said she has experienced in the incident’s aftermath.

“I don’t feel really that safe anymore here,” she told VOA in the paper’s newsroom. “I don’t feel safe in Marion. I’m not sure I ever did, really, but I certainly don’t now.

“They violated our rights, and I won’t ever be the same,” Gruver said then.

In his response this week, Cody denied most of the allegations concerning his actions related to the raid.

“Defendant Cody did not act alone, nor did he orchestrate a complex conspiracy of other law enforcement officers to carry out illegal or malicious plans against Plaintiff Gruver,” reads Cody’s response to the federal lawsuit.

The raid on the weekly newspaper has come to symbolize the yearslong plight of local news in the United States.

Rhodes, the lawyer, said the Record is waiting until the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, or KBI, completes its inquiry into the incident and releases its report before the paper takes legal action.

Melissa Underwood, KBI’s communications director, told VOA the “case is wrapping up,” but she did not know an exact timeline.

Despite the many all-nighters spent working on the paper since the raid, Meyer said he has somehow managed to maintain an optimistic outlook.

“You can look at Marion, Kansas, as the place where there’s a bunch of corruption going on,” he said. “Or you can look at Marion, Kansas, as the place where there was a bunch of corruption going on, and we caught it, whereas they might not have caught it in other places.”
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The United States is casting doubt on China’s willingness to launch a blockade of Taiwan as part of any effort by Beijing to take the island by force.

China’s military has staged multiple drills, most recently this past April, which state media described as efforts to simulate a possible blockade. But a top Pentagon official said Thursday that any attempt by China to carry out a blockade in real life could backfire badly.

“The cost for Beijing looks very high, and the risk looks very, very high,” Ely Ratner, the Defense Department’s assistant secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told an audience in Washington.

“What happens the very minute that the PRC starts mounting a blockade against Taiwan? The global economy falls through the floor,” he said. “There will be no one immune from the economic pain that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] would place on the world.”

Ratner said the devastating economic impact of a blockade would also likely rally the international community around Taipei and against Beijing.

He also warned that despite China’s military advances, the Pentagon does not assess that Beijing has the capability of completely sealing off the island.

“We think that Taiwan would still have options on its own and with the international community to deliver the kind of industrial supplies and raw materials, food and energy it would need to sustain its society,” Ratner said, which would likely put the Chinese military in a difficult position.

“Ultimately, it would be up to Beijing to decide whether it wanted to start attacking commercial vessels to sustain a blockade,” he said. “The risk of escalation is extremely high.”

Ratner is not alone in questioning China’s appetite for a military conflict.

The director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said late Wednesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now dragging into its 18th month, may be giving Chinese President Xi Jinping reason to pause.

“If he is watching Ukraine carefully, he will realize how hard that is,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier said during an event outside Washington. “He’s probably thinking about his [own] general officer corps and all of his services [and] thinking, ‘Do these guys have the grit and the know-how and the resilience to be able to do this?’

“Their last war was in 1979 with Vietnam,” he said. “That didn’t go as well as they wanted it to. And so, there are probably some doubts in their mind right now.”

The comments from Berrier and Rater come as the Pentagon is preparing to release its annual China Military Power report.

Last year’s report warned China had doubled its nuclear weapons arsenal to more than 400 warheads and was on pace to field about 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035.

The 2022 report also warned of China’s increasing number of “unsafe and unprofessional” encounters with the U.S. military and its allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific region.

The Defense Department’s Ratner said Thursday the United States is continuing to watch China’s nuclear build-up carefully.

“We are concerned about the lack of transparency,” he said, adding it is one of the reasons the Pentagon continues to push Beijing for open lines of communication between high-level U.S. and Chinese military officials.

“We are not where we need to be and not where we should be,” Ratner said, adding that high-level communication between top Pentagon officials and their counterparts in Beijing “have been largely turned off over the last year.”

Top Chinese officials have stated publicly that they seek a peaceful solution to the question of Taiwan, but that China will not “flinch from provocations.”

U.S. military and intelligence officials assess that China’s military has been ordered to be ready to take Taiwan by force, perhaps as early as 2025, but that the Chinese government and Xi Jinping have not made a decision on whether to order an invasion.

The United States has a “One China” policy, which acknowledges that Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of China. The U.S., however, considers Taiwan’s status unsettled and sends military aid to the self-governed island to help it defend itself.
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All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

Money may not buy happiness, but a new analysis of the happiest and unhappiest U.S. states suggests the lack of cash can contribute to a person’s misery.

“The thing about money and happiness is that being increasingly and increasingly wealthy doesn’t make you more and more happy, but experiencing poverty definitely can make you unhappy,” says Miriam Liss, professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

That’s because basic needs of shelter, food, clothing, safety, health care and transportation are hard to meet when people aren’t financially secure, she adds.

In order to assess levels of happiness in all 50 states, personal finance company WalletHub looked at three key factors: emotional and physical well-being, work environment, and community and environment. Utah, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey were the happiest states, according to WalletHub’s analysis.

Liss thinks it makes sense that Utah emerged as the happiest state, where about 60% of its population identify as Mormon.

“I’m not surprised by that, because I do think there is an association between religious affiliation and happiness,” Liss says. “And that’s largely because of the community and the connection that people experience if you feel nurtured and loved by your community.”

WalletHub identifies the unhappiest states as Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.

“It’s not surprising to me. These are poor states,” Liss says. She adds that in order to be happy, a person must have a sense of autonomy, feel competent and have strong and meaningful relationships with others.

“You need enough money to be secure and able to meet both those basic human needs of housing and safety,” Liss says. “But also the psychological needs of the time to build relationships, the ability to engage in work that’s meaningful — and not what you hate just to pay the bills — and the ability to have some autonomy and flexibility over how you spend your day.”

The analysis found that only half of Americans feel “very satisfied” with their personal lives. Liss says there’s a genetic component to happiness that people can’t change, but that much of happiness – about 40 percent – is influenced by engaging in what she calls “intentional” activities.

“Really paying attention and enjoying when we eat, when we’re in a beautiful location, enhances mindfulness,” she says. “Practicing gratitude is a really powerful, intentional activity that has some really strong effects. … Community connection and kindness kind of go hand in hand, lots of volunteering, performing acts of service, getting involved in the community. Those are all things that can increase your happiness.”

Moving to one of the happiest states won’t automatically make you happy, she says, unless your most critical needs are met.

“Live somewhere where you can afford your lifestyle, because if you can’t, that really limits your autonomy,” Liss says. “You also want to live in a place where you have a meaningful job which allows you to feel competence and ability. … But I also think it’s really important to live somewhere where you can develop true and meaningful connections and relationships with other people.”
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After a summer of record-smashing heat, warming somehow got even worse in September as Earth set a new mark for how far above normal temperatures were, the European climate agency reported Thursday.

Last month’s average temperature was 0.93 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average for September. That’s the warmest margin above average for a month in 83 years of records kept by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“It’s just mind-blowing really,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo. “Never seen anything like that in any month in our records.”

While July and August had hotter raw temperatures because they are warmer months on the calendar, September had what scientists call the biggest anomaly, or departure from normal. Temperature anomalies are crucial pieces of data in a warming world.

“This is not a fancy weather statistic,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said in an email. “It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”

Copernicus calculated that the average temperature for September was 16.38 degrees Celsius, which broke the old record set in September 2020 by a whopping half-degree Celsius. That’s a huge margin in climate records.

The hot temperatures stretched across the globe, but they were chiefly driven by persistent and unusual warmth in the world’s oceans, which didn’t cool off as much in September as normal and have been record hot since spring, said Buontempo.

Earth is on track for its hottest year on record, about 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, according to Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’ deputy director.

This past September was 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer than the mid-1800s, Copernicus reported. The world agreed in 2015 to try to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius warming since pre-industrial times.

The global threshold goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is for long-term temperature averages, not a single month or year. But scientists still expressed grave concern at the records being set.

“What we’re seeing right now is the backdrop of rapid global warming at a pace that the Earth has not seen in eons coupled with El Nino, natural climate cycle” that’s a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide, said U.S. climate scientist Jessica Moerman, who is also president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. “This double whammy together is where things get dangerous.”

Though El Nino is playing a part, climate change has a bigger footprint in this warmth, Buontempo said.

“There really is no end in sight given new oil and gas reserves are still being opened for exploitation,” Otto said. “If you have more record hot events, there is no respite for humans and nature, no time to recover.”

Buontempo said El Nino is likely to get warmer and cause even higher temperatures next year.

“This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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With U.S. funding for Ukraine at risk because of congressional turmoil, President Joe Biden says he will be delivering a “major speech” to persuade the American people to continue supporting Ukrainians in their defense against Russia’s invasion.

“I’m going to make the argument that it’s overwhelmingly in the interest of the United States of America that Ukraine succeeds,” Biden said Wednesday as he faced questions from reporters.

The remark followed Tuesday’s dramatic ousting of Republican Kevin McCarthy from his role as House speaker, just days after Congress omitted provisions for further Ukraine funding from a last-minute deal to prevent a government shutdown.

While a new deal to fund government operations must be negotiated by mid-November, Biden indicated he would seek alternative routes to ensure the flow of aid.

“We can support Ukraine in the next tranche that we need,” he said. “And there is another means by which we may be able to find funding for that. But I’m not going to do that now.”

Funds remaining

The Pentagon warned that without action from Congress, funding could run out in a matter of months, with only $5.4 billion remaining under the Presidential Drawdown Authority funds and $1.6 billion left of the $25.9 billion provided by Congress to replenish U.S. military stocks that have been flowing to Ukraine.

“It does worry me, but I know there are a majority of members of the House and Senate in both parties who have said that they support funding Ukraine,” said Biden.

A lapse in funding will affect not only the situation on Ukraine’s battlefields as it grinds through its counteroffensive and heads into the challenging winter months, but it also could embolden Moscow, said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow focusing on foreign policy at the Hudson Institute.

“They see the writing on the wall, and they’re very hopeful that this continued chaos stays in the United States and that there’s isn’t any funding for Ukraine,” he told VOA. “Only Russia stands to benefit here.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to provide further details on the president’s speech but acknowledged that a growing share of the American public is questioning whether to continue sending historic sums of money to help the Ukrainian people.

“We have seen the polling,” she said in response to VOA’s question during Wednesday’s briefing. “We also believe that it is fundamentally important to our own national security, as well as supporting the great people of Ukraine, to continue.”

Twenty months since Moscow’s invasion, public support for U.S. military assistance is waning, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said they supported sending additional arms and supplies to Kyiv, compared with 72% in July 2022. The drop was sharpest among Republicans, followed by independents, while Democratic support remained largely unchanged.

Amid eroding support, Biden needs to better explain to the American people that their vital interests are at stake, said former Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who is now senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The message should be that Putin’s aims directly threaten American interests, Herbst told VOA. “Because if he wins in Ukraine, he will be provoking and maybe committing direct aggression against our NATO allies, which will require greater American defense expenditures and the use of American troops.”

Since the war began, the Biden administration and Congress have directed more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, which includes humanitarian, financial and military support, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German policy institute.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Monday that he remained confident that U.S. support had not wavered, calling the decision by Congress to not put aside funds for Ukraine an “individual case.”

McCarthy’s successor

A new House speaker who opposes funding could quash a proposal before it even comes to a vote, so a deal regarding Ukraine may depend on who succeeds McCarthy. The speaker was ousted Tuesday when a motion to do so from fellow Republican Matt Gaetz was supported by eight Republicans and 208 Democrats.

On Wednesday, Jim Jordan became the first to publicly declare his intention to run for speaker. Other names have been floated, including Steve Scalise, the Number 2 House Republican who has long been favored to take over as speaker after McCarthy, and Kevin Hern, chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest Republican caucus in the House.

The group Defending Democracy Together ranked lawmakers from A to F on the strength of their past support for Ukraine aid, with A signifying the strongest support. Jordan and Hern were rated as F, while Scalise was rated as B.

House Republicans plan to meet next Tuesday for a first round of internal party voting.

Unsettling for allies

The disarray in Washington is unsettling for Europeans, who have been told for a long time that most Republicans support Ukraine and a shift is unlikely, said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“This raises again questions of reliability and predictability of the U.S.,” she told VOA.

European support is also eroding. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently threatened to veto European Union aid for Ukraine, while Robert Fico, a former prime minister who campaigned on a pro-Russian message, recently won Slovakia’s parliamentary elections.

Those forces in Europe trying to capitalize on dissatisfaction and pro-Russian views will certainly take the situation in Washington as a confirmation that a shift in approach is needed, Fix noted. “Something along the lines of, ‘If the U.S. lacks support, why should our citizens continue to pay for Ukraine?’”

As anxiety over U.S. commitment grows among Europeans, Biden convened a call this week with more than a dozen allies and partners to assure them he is committed to military assistance to Ukraine for as long as it takes, according to the White House.

VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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NATO’s most senior military official has warned that European ammunition stocks are running short – as the West continues to send large amounts of military aid to Ukraine to fend off invading Russian forces. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Federal judges are considering an appeal from a Native American group seeking to block a copper mine from being dug on land sacred to the Western Apache in the southwestern state of Arizona. From Arizona, Levi Stallings has our story
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Residents from fire-stricken Lahaina Tuesday delivered a petition asking Hawaii Gov. Josh Green to delay plans to reopen a portion of West Maui to tourism starting this weekend, saying the grieving community is not ready to welcome back visitors. 

The petition signed by 3,517 people from West Maui zip codes comes amid a fierce and anguished debate over when travelers should return to the region home to the historic town of Lahaina that was destroyed in the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.  

At least 98 people died in the Aug. 8 blaze and more than a dozen are missing. The first phase of the plan to reopen Maui to tourists begins Sunday, the two-month anniversary of the disaster.

Though many residents say they are not ready, others say they need tourism so they can work in hotels and restaurants to earn a living.

“We are not mentally nor emotionally ready to welcome and serve our visitors. Not yet,” restaurant bartender Pa‘ele Kiakona said at a news conference before several dozen people delivered the petition. “Our grief is still fresh and our losses too profound.”

Tamara Paltin, who represents Lahaina on the Maui County Council, said two months may seem like a long time, but she noted Lahaina residents didn’t have reliable cellphone service or internet for the first month after the fire and have been coping with uncertain housing. She said many people, including herself, can’t sleep through the night.

Paltin urged the governor to decide on when to reopen after consulting residents in an “open and transparent way.”

Several dozen people dressed in red T-shirts went to Green’s koa wood-paneled executive chambers to deliver the signatures in person. Green was not in his office, so his director of constituent services, Bonnelley Pa’uulu, accepted the box on his behalf. Altogether, 14,000 people signed the petition as of midday Tuesday.

Green told the Hawaii News Now interview program “Spotlight Now” shortly afterward that he was “utterly sympathetic” to people’s suffering. But he said more than 8,000 people have lost their jobs due to the fire and getting people back to work was part of recovering.

“It’s my job as governor to support them, to be thoughtful about all people and to make sure Maui survives, because people will otherwise go bankrupt and have to leave the island, have to move out of Maui,” he said. “Local people — these are middle-class people that lived in Lahaina — will have to leave if they don’t have jobs.”

Maui, which is famous around the world for its beaches and waterfalls, is among the most tourism-dependent islands in Hawaii. 

The number of visitors plummeted 70% after the fire when Green and tourism officials discouraged “non-essential travel” to the island. University of Hawaii economists estimate unemployment will top 10% on Maui, compared to 2.5% in July. The resulting economic downturn is expected to depress state tax revenues.

A few weeks after the fire, the tourism industry began urging travelers to respectfully visit parts of Maui unaffected by the blaze, like Wailea and Makena. Then last month Green announced that West Maui — a long expanse of coastline encompassing Lahaina and hotels and condos to its north — would reopen to tourists on Oct. 8.

Maui Mayor Richard Bissen last week narrowed the geographic scope of this plan, saying that only the northernmost section of West Maui — a 5-kilometer stretch including the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua — would resume taking tourists. The rest of the region, where most of Lahaina’s evacuees are staying, would reopen at a later, unspecified date.

The first phase to be reopened under the mayor’s plan — from Kapalua to the Kahana Villa — is 11 to 16 kilometers and a 15- to 20-minute drive north of the area that burned. Bissen said second and third phases, both covering zones closer to the burned parts of Lahaina, would reopen after officials assess earlier phases. 

Green said only one or two hotels would reopen on Sunday, calling it a “gentle start.”

Restaurant bartender Kiakona said he’s among those not ready to go back to work. He said he doesn’t want to constantly be asked if he lost his home and to have “somebody consistently reminding you of the disaster that you just went through.”

Green said people who aren’t ready to go back to work won’t need to. He said they would continue to receive benefits and housing. 

“But what I say to them is think of your neighbor or think of the business next door to you,” Green said. “Or think of the impact of having only, say, 40% of the travelers that we normally have to Maui.” 

The governor said a lack of tourism would make it harder for the state to rebuild the elementary school that burned in the fire and provide residents with healthcare coverage.

Charles Nahale, a musician who lost all his gigs singing and playing the ukulele and guitar for tourists, recounted recently seeing tourists at a restaurant a few miles from the burn zone. They appeared oblivious and unsympathetic to those around them, he said. 

“This is not a normal tourist destination like it was prior to the fire,” he said by telephone from Lahaina. “You shouldn’t be there expecting people to serve you your mai tais and your food.

Nahale said grieving was more critical to him than getting back to work.  

“What is more important to me is that these thousands, including me, have the time to heal,” he said. “What’s more important to me is that we have the time to be normal again.”
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For the first time in U.S. history, a speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives — who is second in the presidential line of succession — has been removed from office. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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The U.S. Justice Department announced a sweeping crackdown on the global fentanyl network, charging eight Chinese chemical companies and 12 of their employees in connection with the deadly opioid crisis ravaging the United States.   

In eight separate indictments unsealed in Florida, federal prosecutors accused the companies and their employees of producing fentanyl and methamphetamine, distributing synthetic opioids, and supplying precursor chemicals for the illicit drug.     

“We know that the global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Washington.    

“The United States government is focused on breaking apart every link in that chain, getting fentanyl out of our communities, and bringing those who put it there to justice,” he said.     

This is the second time the U.S. Justice Department has charged Chinese companies and their employees for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States.  

In June, four Chinese chemical manufacturing companies and eight executives and employees were indicted for illegally trafficking chemicals used to make fentanyl. Two of the defendants were arrested.   

Deadly drug threat

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can kill with a dose as tiny as a few grains of salt, is wreaking havoc on the nation.  

More than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses from February 2022 to January 2023, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Most of these deaths involved fentanyl or its analogues, which are chemically similar but often more lethal.   

Today, fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, making it the deadliest drug threat the U.S. has ever faced, according to law enforcement officials.   

Attack on supply chain

The fentanyl crisis is fueled by a global supply chain that extends from China, where the chemicals are produced, to Mexico, where cartels mix the drug and smuggle it across the border into the United States.   

The DEA says it is attacking every aspect of this global supply chain, targeting the producers, traffickers and distributors of fentanyl.  

“These eight cases are the result of DEA’s efforts to attack the fentanyl supply chain where it starts — in China,” Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram said at the news conference.    

In addition to fentanyl precursors and analogues, Chinese firms are exporting dangerous additives — xylazine and nitazenes — into the U.S. and Mexico, she said.   

“DEA will not stop until we defeat this threat,” Milgram said.  

The cases announced on Tuesday span two Florida districts, where the defendants allegedly shipped the drug and its precursors.     

In the Middle District of Florida, five Chinese companies and eight nationals face charges of illegally importing fentanyl and fentanyl-related chemicals into the United States.  

Prosecutors say the defendants openly advertised their ability to evade U.S. customs and deliver fentanyl to Florida and elsewhere in the United States.   

In the Southern District of Florida, three Chinese companies and four officers and employees face charges of trafficking fentanyl and synthetic opioids, importing precursor chemicals, defrauding the U.S. postal service, and making and using counterfeit postage.   
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U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar has returned to work after a Monday night carjacking in which three masked men held him at gunpoint in Washington, D.C.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday, the Texas Democrat said that he was unscathed and made light of the situation. “[The police] recovered the car. They recovered everything. But what really got me upset is [the suspects] took my sushi.”

Cueller said that although the men wore masks and knit caps, he could tell that they were young. An eyewitness who alerted a nearby U.S. Capitol Police agent described the suspects as probably around the age of 16. “[They] swarmed [Cuellar’s] vehicle, pointed firearms in his face and demanded the keys to the car.”

“I looked at one with a gun, another with a gun, and I felt one behind me,” Cuellar said. “They said they wanted my car, and I said, ‘Sure.’ You got to keep calm under those situations, and they took off.”

Cuellar handed his keys to the men, who were dressed in black. No one was injured.

United States Capitol Police officers canvassed the area and recovered the congressman’s stolen phone. The Metropolitan Police Department later found Cuellar’s Toyota Crossover at another location.

Cuellar’s chief of staff, Jacob Hochberg, said in a statement on Monday evening that Cuellar “is working with local law enforcement.”

On Tuesday, Cuellar praised the police response and said that his “message is very simple: You’ve got to support law enforcement.”

In a Tuesday meeting with fellow House Democrats, Representative Brad Schneider of Illinois said colleagues told Cuellar they are glad he is safe.

“It could have been so much worse,” Schneider said. “We just pray for him.”

Monday’s carjacking was the second violent crime against a congressperson in Washington this year. In February, Representative Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, was attacked in her apartment complex. She escaped with only bruises.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
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