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Washington — Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.

Lawmakers have struggled to get to this point as the current budget year winds to a close at month’s end. At the urging of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson had linked temporary funding with a mandate that would have compelled states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

But Johnson could not get all Republicans on board even as the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, insisted on that package. Trump said Republican lawmakers should not support a stop-gap measure without the voting requirement, but the bill went down to defeat anyway, with 14 Republicans opposing it.

Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after that, with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president.

In a letter to Republican colleagues, Johnson said the budget measure would be “very narrow, bare-bones” and include “only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”

“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”

Rep. Tom Cole, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, had said on Friday that talks were going well.

“So far, nothing has come up that we can’t deal with,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want that to interfere with the election. So nobody is like, ‘I’ve got to have this or we’re walking.’ It’s just not that way.”

Johnson’s earlier effort had no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate and was opposed by the White House, but it did give the speaker a chance to show Trump and conservatives within his conference that he fought for their request.

The final result — government funding effectively on autopilot — was what many had predicted. With the election just weeks away, few lawmakers in either party had any appetite for the brinksmanship that often leads to a shutdown.

Now a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure over the finish line. Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but some additional money was included to bolster the Secret Service, replenish a disaster relief fund and aid with the presidential transition, among other things.
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U.S. lawmakers from both major political parties have called for cooling the nation’s heated political rhetoric six weeks before the November 5th presidential election. This follows a second apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. And his claims of immigrants eating people’s pets that has an Ohio Haitan community on edge. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Four people have died and more than 20 were wounded in a shooting in a nightlife area in the U.S. state of Alabama, according to police and news reports.

There were multiple people shot in Birmingham, the Birmingham Police Department said in a social media post.

Birmingham Officer Truman Fitzgerald said the shooting, with up to 21 people wounded, happened shortly after 11 p.m., AL.COM reported.

Fitzgerald said there were “dozens of gunshot victims” and at least four had “life-threatening” injuries, AL.COM reported.

Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service pronounced the three victims dead on the scene and a fourth person was pronounced dead at University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, AL.COM reported.

Police said the victims found dead at the scene included two men and a woman, WBMA-TV reported.

Other victims were transported to hospitals in private vehicles, police told WBMA.

The Birmingham police did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking additional information.

The Five Points South area of Birmingham has numerous entertainment venues, restaurants and bars and often is crowded on Saturday nights.

Police said there were no immediate arrests.

“We will do everything we possibly can to make sure we uncover, identify and hunt down whoever is responsible for preying on our people this morning,” Fitzgerald told WBMA. 
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WILMINGTON, DELAWARE/WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday hosted the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at his private home in the U.S. state of Delaware for his final convening of the Quad, a strategic security grouping focused on the Indo-Pacific.

But it was Biden’s comments, unintentionally heard by the press, that illuminated the main topic at this unusually private meeting — and that topic was China.

Biden said his administration reads Beijing’s recent actions, including flexing its territorial muscles, as a “change in tactic, not a change in strategy.”

“We believe [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimize the turbulence in China’s diplomatic relationships, and he’s also looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interests,” Biden told the other three leaders in what he said were prepared remarks.

“China continues to behave aggressively, testing this all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits. It’s true across the scope of our relationship, including in economic and technology issues,” he added.

Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, including territory claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. It also claims territories in the East China Sea contested by Japan and Taiwan. It views democratically governed Taiwan as part of China.

Publicly, Biden’s message was shorter, simpler – “The Quad is here to stay.”

Those six words were also the final sentence of a lengthy joint statement from Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The group issued their nearly 5,700-word missive after a day of meetings so cloistered that the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association called the lack of access “unacceptable.”

In their statement, the quartet announced moves they say will boost cooperation among the four democracies and address concerns beyond their borders in the massive region, home to more than half of the world’s population and two-thirds of its economy. While they used the word “China” sparingly – only three times, and all three times in reference to the South China Sea – they made very clear how their stance differs from Beijing’s.

“As four leading maritime democracies in the Indo-Pacific, we unequivocally stand for the maintenance of peace and stability across this dynamic region, as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity,” they said.

“We strongly oppose any destabilizing or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion. We condemn recent illicit missile launches in the region that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions. We express serious concern over recent dangerous and aggressive actions in the maritime domain. We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated — one where all countries are free from coercion and can exercise their agency to determine their futures.”

China has previously called out the Quad for its thinly veiled criticisms of China, with a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson in July comparing the grouping to “exclusive clubs that undermine trust and cooperation among regional countries.”

Biden spoke briefly to tout the major steps, including one that aims to strengthen maritime security, and that will inevitably affect China’s maritime presence in others’ waters.

“We’re announcing a series of initiatives to deliver real, positive impact for the Indo-Pacific that includes providing new maritime technologies to our regional partners, so they know what’s happening in their waters, launching cooperation between coast guards for the first time, and expanding the Quad fellowship to include students from Southeast Asia,” Biden said.

That includes, the leaders’ statement said, a 2025 joint mission by the four nations’ coast guards. That step is also something that Japanese officials presented as a big summit takeaway when briefing reporters earlier in the day. Earlier in the week, when a top U.S. officials previewed the summit, he said the aim is to counter illegal fishing – adding, tellingly, that the vast majority of illegal fishing vessels are Chinese.

VOA asked the Japanese officials about a point of contention between Washington and Tokyo: Biden’s opposition, on national security grounds, to a proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel. Biden administration officials appeared to play down the matter, noting that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recently extended its review into the deal, pushing any decision past November.

“The president will obviously allow that process to run its course because that’s what’s required from the law, and then we will see what happens,” Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters Saturday.

The American steel company is headquartered in Pennsylvania, an electorally critical state in the fast-approaching U.S. presidential election.

VOA asked the Japanese government to share Toyko’s position on the politically sensitive merger. Japanese officials would not say whether Biden and Kishida even planned to speak on this topic in any of their meetings.

“As a government we refrain from commenting on that,” replied a Foreign Affairs Ministry official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. The official quickly added that Japan is the No. 1 investor in the U.S., and that Tokyo hopes the countries’ cooperation will continue.

Australia’s leader said it matters that the four “like-minded countries,” all democracies, work together.

“We assert the view that national sovereignty is important, that security and stability is something that we strive for, as well as shared prosperity in our region,” Albanese said.

Analysts had predicted China discussion would dominate behind the scenes, but the leaders would refrain from publicly poking Beijing.

“That doesn’t show up in the readouts,” Rafiq Dossani, a longtime Asia scholar, told VOA ahead of the summit.

The four leaders began to meet yearly, in person, under Biden’s presidency. Much of their effort, said analyst Kathryn Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is directed at bread-and-butter governance issues such as health, infrastructure, maritime security and resources, and people-to-people ties.

“This is certainly not a Contain-China club,” she told VOA.

But, said Dossani, who is a senior economist at the Rand research corporation and a professor of policy analysis, there is room for the Quad to evolve.

“The question is as the competition, or the rivalry, between China and the U.S. evolves, how will that at that time affect the deliberations?” he said. “As the Chinese economy recovers and they become more assertive, then you’ll see a different context for the dialogue.”

In the present, though, Biden sees this dialogue among the four leaders as important to his legacy, Paik said.

“It was a central piece to the Indo-Pacific strategy, and elevating the Quad to the leader level has been a significant piece of that strategy,” she said. “Just the fact that the Quad has met annually at the leader level every year of Biden’s administration is quite significant.”

VOA’s Celia Mendoza in Wilmington, Delaware, and Paris Huang and Kim Lewis, in Washington, contributed to this report. 
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SACRAMENTO, California — California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Governor Gavin Newsom signed Friday. 

California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform’s algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children’s access to social media, but those have faced challenges in court. 

The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users’ personal information in ways that could harm children. 

It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impact of social media on the well-being of children. 

“Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.” 

The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between midnight and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children’s accounts to private by default. 

Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their age. Some argue it would threaten online privacy by making platforms collect more information on users. 

The law defines an “addictive feed” as a website or app “in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the user’s device,” with some exceptions. 

The subject garnered renewed attention in June when U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their impacts on young people. Attorneys general in 42 states endorsed the plan in a letter sent to Congress last week. 

State Senator Nancy Skinner, a Democrat representing Berkeley who wrote the California law, said that “social media companies have designed their platforms to addict users, especially our kids.” 

“With the passage of SB 976, the California Legislature has sent a clear message: When social media companies won’t act, it’s our responsibility to protect our kids,” she said in a statement.
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NEW YORK — They may be Tigrinya speakers fleeing the authoritarian Eritrean government’s indefinite military service policy. Or Rohingya people escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar. But refugees navigating resettlement often face a shared hurdle: poor machine translations and a short supply of interpreters knowledgeable in their less-serviced languages.

Tarjimly, a Google-backed nonprofit described as “Uber for translators,” aims to help asylum seekers clear that hurdle. Through a new artificial intelligence partnership, Tarjimly trains outside large language models while allowing its volunteers to respond more urgently to needs for translators. It’s a feedback loop where humans teach the nuances of each language to the machines by sharing data from one-on-one calls and correcting automated translations.

And it’s this uniquely human realm of language that Tarjimly co-founder Atif Javed believes exemplifies the ever-tricky balance between individuals’ ingenuity and technological advancement. He says it’s the needed personal touch that shows why AI’s rapid development shouldn’t generally stoke widespread fears.

Languages popular in the Global South — such as the Dari and Pashto commonly spoken in Afghanistan, home to one of the world’s largest protracted refugee crises — have the worst quality coverage, according to Javed. He feels well positioned to supplement the internet’s English-dominated information troves that train services like Google Translate with his mobile app’s more diverse data sets.

Tarjimly connects refugees with on-demand interpreters, who can communicate during meetings with social workers, immigration officials and doctors, and records the encounters for AI training. To comply with patient privacy protections, Tarjimly anonymizes the conversations on its app. Javed said the nonprofit also has on option for “no record” sessions where none of the data is stored for alternative uses.

Many of its 60,000 volunteers are multilingual refugees themselves who more intimately understand not only their counterpart’s native tongue but also the crisis that brought them there, according to Javed.

Among them is Roza Tesfazion, a 26-year-old Eritrean refugee who works professionally as an interpreter for the United Kingdom’s government. Fluent in Amharic and Tigrinya, she studied English and Swahili to help her immigrant family overcome language barriers when they first moved to Kenya.

Tesfazion said she translates at no cost because she knows “how emotional it is” for the people on the other side of her sessions.

“You have to have that touch of human emotions to it,” she said.

Tarjimly’s founders say their mission’s sensitive nature lends itself to nonprofit status more than a corporate structure. Users arrive in very vulnerable positions, and the nonprofit works with established humanitarian groups including Catholic Charities, the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.

The work requires a level of trust that would have been difficult to earn in a “for-profit, competitive world,” according to Javed. “The underlying engine of our success is the community we’ve built.”

That community, however, also has room for artificial intelligence. A $1.3 million grant from Google.org has enabled a “First Pass” tool that gives an instantly generated translation for human volunteers to revise. A new information hub will open up its language data for partners, including Google, in early 2025.

But refining a more diverse library of languages will require conversational data at a scale much broader than Tarjimly can likely provide on its own, according to Data & Society researcher Ranjit Singh.

Singh, who studies the social implications of automation and inclusive digital solutions, said translation services will always need a “real person in the middle.”

“There is one part of it which is translation and another part of it which is just trying to understand somebody’s life situation,” he said. “Technologies help us do some of this work. But at the same time, it’s also fairly social.”

Tarjimly was inspired by Javed’s time volunteering with Arabic speakers at refugee camps in Greece and Turkey after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and working in Silicon Valley. A Muslim American whose family immigrated to the United States in 2001, Javed said he was reminded of his own childhood translating for his refugee grandmother.

His lived experience is one reason why Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Garcìa Jayaram said her organization awarded $300,000 last year to Tarjimly. That “proximate leadership” helps nonprofits better understand developments like artificial intelligence that “can be both cause for excitement and trepidation,” Jayaram said. The risk-averse philanthropic sector may be slow to catch up with disruptive new technologies, she noted, but shouldn’t ignore their positive applications.

“It’s a great example of how not to get stuck in that bogeyman complex about AI,” she said. “To go to leaders who are closest to those issues and say, ‘How would AI unlock the possibilities and opportunities for your organization?'” 
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UNITED NATIONS — World leaders are set to descend on the United Nations in the coming days to talk about a lengthy list of global challenges. But will they spur significant action on any of them?

“We see out-of-control geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts — not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters at a news conference ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings.

Those three wars are set to dominate the agenda — both in leaders’ speeches before the assembly and at numerous side meetings.

Gaza

Getting to a cease-fire in Gaza is even more urgent now that Israel has turned its attention to its northern border with Lebanon and looks determined to build on a significant blow to Hezbollah militants there.

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance on our part,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told soldiers at the northern Ramat David Airbase on Wednesday. “It is critical that we operate in close cooperation between the [security] organizations, at all levels.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plan to address the General Assembly.

“President Abbas will focus on the plight of his people — he will focus on the genocide campaign that’s taking place, he will warn of the danger of this conflict exploding in the West Bank, and will warn also of the dangers of this conflict not reaching a cease-fire soon, in terms of its implications for the region and regional stability,” Randa Slim, senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told VOA.

In March, a U.N. official said there were reasonable grounds to believe genocide had been committed in Gaza.

Slim continued, “On the other hand, you are going to see the Israeli prime minister reminding people of the terror of October 7, casting the light on the fact that they are in a war of defense, and he is going to reemphasize the priorities of the war … which is the eradication of Hamas.”

In March, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said there were “reasonable grounds” to think Israel has been committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Ukraine

More than 2½ years after Russia invaded Ukraine, peace remains elusive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be in New York calling for international support at a critical time in the war, and as the conflict, in many capitals, has been superseded by the situation in Gaza.

“I think Ukrainian diplomats themselves are a bit worried that their war is going down the agenda,” Richard Gowan, U.N. director at International Crisis Group, told VOA. “But the reality is that the battle between Israel and Hamas has torn the U.N. apart over the last year, and that is going to be the number one focus for a lot of presidents and prime ministers.”

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy will address a high-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine, and the following day he will speak at the General Assembly.

“I think he will emphasize the problem of Russian aggression, and that not only Europe, but the rest of the world, must remain on guard for Russia’s attempt to assert its imperial powers,” William Pomeranz, senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute told VOA. “And that the support of Ukraine is a crucial part of global security at the present time.”

On Thursday, Zelenskyy will head to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be coming to New York, but veteran Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to address the General Assembly on September 28.

Sudan

On the African continent, two rival generals in Sudan have been mired in a brutal 17-month struggle for power that has devastated the country. Violence, famine and disease are stalking the population, and 10 million people have fled their homes in search of safety.

The war’s current epicenter is the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have advanced on the city and the Sudanese Armed Forces inside El Fasher have been trying to repel them.

“The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including more than 700,000 internally displaced persons in and around El Fasher, are at immediate threat,” acting U.N. humanitarian chief Joye Msuya told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, African Union and others have pursued a variety of peace initiatives for months. They have failed to silence the guns, but the U.S. has been successful in opening up some new routes for humanitarian relief into Sudan.

On September 25, ministers will meet to discuss the humanitarian response at a session organized by officials from the U.N., U.S, European Union, African Union, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, is coming to New York. U.N. chief Guterres said he would “express my enormous frustration” to him about the lack of a cease-fire and the start of a serious political process.

Haiti

While it may not grab as many global headlines as Ukraine and Gaza, there is a lot of international solidarity around helping Haiti recover from its latest cycle of insecurity.

The U.N. independent expert on the human rights situation in Haiti wrapped up a visit to the country on Friday and told a news conference that human rights violations are rampant.

“Sexual violence, used as a weapon by gangs to control the population, has drastically increased in recent months,” William O’Neill said. “Gangs have increasingly trafficked children, forcibly recruited them into gangs, and often used them to carry out attacks against public institutions and police operations.”

A multinational security support mission was approved nearly a year ago in the U.N. Security Council to assist Haitian National Police in subduing criminal gangs terrorizing the capital and other regions. After many delays, the first international police contingent from Kenya deployed in June.

There are now about 500 police in total on the ground — 400 from mission leader Kenya and the rest from Jamaica and Belize. Diplomats say they expect other countries will also be deploying.

Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, are co-chairing a side meeting on Monday that will look at both the urgent humanitarian situation and longer-term development issues.

“I think we are all beginning to understand how drastic the damage in Haiti is and how devastating the current attacks by the gangs has proven to be,” Canadian Ambassador Bob Rae told VOA. “We are doing everything we can to mobilize international attention on what we can do to turn that around.”

Hello and goodbye

Several new leaders will make their debut at this year’s gathering, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

“I’m going to be looking for any signal he is going to give about restarting the nuclear negotiation,” MEI’s Slim said of the Iranian leader, noting that his administration has indicated an interest in restarting nuclear talks.

This will be Biden’s final time at the General Assembly podium.

“I think his appearance will create mixed emotions among other leaders,” said Crisis Group’s Gowan. “I think there is still some respect for his engagement with multilateralism, but there is also a lot of regret that he didn’t give the U.N. a greater role in dealing with the war in Gaza.”

Looking to the future

Two years ago, Biden announced that the United States supported expanding the number of permanent members on the 15-nation Security Council.

On September 12, his U.N. envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced that the administration would support two permanent seats for Africa and one for Latin American and Caribbean countries, in addition to India, Japan and Germany — albeit, without veto power. She said Washington is ready to begin text-based negotiations on the expansion.

“It means we’re ready to work with other countries to negotiate language, prepare amendments, and ready this resolution for a vote in the General Assembly and, ultimately, amend the U.N. Charter,” Thomas-Greenfield told an audience last week at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Security Council reform, as it is known, has for decades been a topic of much discussion but no action. U.N. chief Guterres also would like to see the council change. On Sunday, he opens his signature two-day “Summit of the Future,” in which institutional reform will be high on the agenda.

“And one of the questions that is important in relation to the future relates exactly to the role of the P5 [permanent five members] and to the need to have a certain redistribution of power to make things more fair and more effective,” Guterres told reporters.

In the seventh year of his 10-year tenure, Guterres wants to see better multilateral cooperation to resolve current conflicts, fight climate change, and ease global hunger and debt. He is also worried about emerging challenges, including the power of artificial intelligence.

He is hoping for a strong “Pact for the Future” to be adopted by consensus on Sunday. The document, a policy blueprint to address global challenges and drastic reforms to the U.N. and global financial institutions, has been mired in difficult negotiations.

Germany and Namibia have been facilitating the negotiations for months and their leaders will co-chair the summit. The president of the General Assembly, Philemon Yang, has now taken over negotiations to try to get it over the finish line.

Diplomats said 19 countries, including Russia, raised objections on Thursday night to some language in the latest draft, including around human rights, climate action and fossil fuels. With less than 48 hours to go until the summit opens, discussions are getting down to the wire.

“We very much hope that member states will agree in the coming hours on a way forward for the Summit of the Future, and show ambition and show courage and do whatever they can to get these documents over the finish line,” Guterres’ spokesperson said.
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In the U.S. presidential election, Republican candidates have spread false claims that migrants in the Midwest state of Ohio are eating residents’ pet cats and dogs. That has led to security threats and more divisions in an election where immigration is a central campaign theme. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story. Videographer: Obed Lamy
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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson vowed on Thursday to remain in the race despite a CNN report that he posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, saying he won’t be forced out by “salacious tabloid lies.”

Robinson, the sitting lieutenant governor who decisively won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, has been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general.

“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in a video posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “And we know that with your help, we will.”

Robinson referenced in the video a story that he said CNN was running, but he didn’t give details.

“Let me reassure you, the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said. “You know my words. You know my character.”

The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago.

CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”

CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” at women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.

CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.

Media outlets already have reported about a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.

Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina, a state on the U.S. Atlantic coast. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson would hurt former President Donald Trump’s bid to win the battleground state’s 16 electoral votes, and potential other GOP down-ballot candidates.

Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show Stein with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.

Stein and his allies have repeatedly cited a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

The Stein campaign said in a statement after the report that “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”

State law says a gubernatorial nominee could withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins Friday, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday. State Republican leaders could then pick a replacement.

Trump has frequently voiced his support for Robinson, who has been considered a rising star in his party, well-known for his fiery speeches and evocative rhetoric. Ahead of the March primary, Trump at a rally in Greensboro called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking ability.

Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the report. In a statement to the AP, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.”

Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, not mentioning Robinson by name or answering questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington or had been invited to do so.

A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign, Ammar Moussa, said on social media platform X that “Donald Trump has a Mark Robinson problem” and reposted a photo of the two together.

The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.

“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.

Scott Lassiter, a Republican state Senate candidate in a Raleigh-area swing district, did call on Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race.”

Ed Broyhill, a North Carolina member of the Republican National Committee, said he spoke to Robinson Thursday afternoon and still supports him as the nominee. In an interview, Broyhill suggested the online details may have been fabricated.

“It seems like a dirty trick to me,” Broyhill said.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the House GOP’s campaign committee, told reporters the report’s findings were “concerning.” Robinson, he said, has some reassuring to do in the state.

Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy. His four-minute speech to the Greensboro City Council defending gun rights and lamenting the “demonizing” of police officers went viral — and led him to a National Rifle Association board position and popularity among conservative voters.
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PENTAGON — On Sunday, U.S. Africa Command’s Major General Kenneth Ekman was one of the last two U.S. service members to leave Niger as part of America’s military withdrawal, following the country’s July 2023 coup. Per an agreement reached by the U.S. and Niger in May, the only American service members that remain in the country are those securing the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Niamey.

The general, who served as AFRICOM’s director of strategy, plans and programs before focusing solely on West Africa, spent the last few months methodically overseeing the withdrawal of about 1,100 American service members, along with U.S. weapons, drones and equipment that had been staged for years in two U.S. military bases in Niger. The task was completed on time and within the parameters set by the host nation, but the withdrawal has created a massive hole in the United States’ ability to monitor the growing violent extremist threat.

In an exclusive interview at the Pentagon on Thursday, Ekman explained how the new U.S. footprint in West Africa is beginning to take shape to continue fighting a shared threat.

Below are highlights from his discussion with VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, edited for brevity and clarity:

VOA: On what Nigerians should expect in terms of a partnership with the US military:

Major General Kenneth Ekman: I think that remains to be seen. … I think the starting impetus will be reflecting on the 15 years of very mutually beneficial partnership that we had up to this point. We have shed blood together, right? We have pursued their most acute security threats together, and so you can’t erase that history … It would be really helpful if the Nigerians took the first step — they asked us to leave after all — their first step on what that government and the military that serves them would like next in a U.S. security partnership. And then it will be bounded. What I mean by that is, it’s going to take a while for it ever to be what it was on July 25, 2023, which was the day prior to the coup.

There are some obstacles–everything from the request that we withdraw, to our turnover of bases and facilities and equipment, to the fact that coup sanctions, Section 7008 sanctions, have been imposed against the junta. And so all of that combines to limit the “what next.”

We still have shared security objectives. How we will pursue them, either together or apart, as a consequence of the withdrawal remains to be seen, but we wanted to make sure we kept all options on the table.

VOA:  On repercussions concerning military partnerships and training exercises with countries who’ve undergone a coup:

Ekman: There are absolutely repercussions. Because when they’re omitted, they lose everything from the chance to interact in a region that’s becoming increasingly dis-integrated, right, to the chance to practice and practice at a high level within the context or the scenario of the exercise. So it is a net loss, right? It’s a net loss for the region, and it’s a loss for each of those individual countries as they are excluded.

VOA:  On increased U.S. military presence in other West African nations:

Ekman: What you’re talking about is that layer of forces, most of which came from Niger, that we reposition around the Sahel. If our presence in Niger allowed us to go inside out, relative to the Sahelian based VEO (violent extremist organization) threat, we now have to revert to going outside in … Countries like Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ghana, Benin, Chad, our access to them and the degree to which they want to partner with us will influence how we go outside in.

We’re at a different phase with each of those countries. What I mean is, each partner has their own unique security concerns. They also have their own respective tolerance and willingness to abide the presence of U.S. forces. So in some cases, we moved some forces well prior to the Niger coup, because that’s where the threat was going. We were invited early on, and whether it was a small SOF (special operations forces) team or an ISR (intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance) platform, we moved them months ago.  The larger question is, and it’s a policy question, where, and if we establish significant presence of forces, probably on a partner base, serving alongside them, doing everything from command and control to projecting things like ISR and personnel recovery, to sustaining them and to medically treating them. That is something where we’re not there yet, and no agreements have been made.

There are some cases where, for now, we’re definitely not (establishing a significant force presence). So that’s true in Nigeria. We have a very clear message from them … Likewise in Ghana.

The ones where things are still kind of under consideration, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, those were, what we want to do is, within the partners’ needs, support their partner-led, U.S.-enabled counter VEO ops.

VOA: On U.S. military movements, specifically, refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate U.S. aircraft, sending special forces to Ivory Coast and bringing U.S. forces back to Chad:

Ekman: The most lethal violent extremist organization threat in the world resides in West Africa, and it resides in the Sahel. It’s also spreading. The primary direction of travel is to the southwest, so well-prior to the Niger coup we were already working with partners on what they needed with regards to U.S. presence and capabilities. In the Benin case, we started that a while ago. In the Cote d’Ivoire case, it’s been really post-coup (in Niger). So each of them is on their own timeline as we work with them… We did have some forces in Mali and Burkina Faso. We had special forces teams there as well. And given our current relationship, that’s just not something that we can do, and so we had some forces available who needed to move and there were requirements in other countries. The specifics beyond that kind of remain to be seen.

VOA: But the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) case, the (U.S.) special forces were moved from Niger to there?

Ekman: That’s correct.

VOA: OK, and then the airfield (refurbishment) in Benin (to accommodate U.S. aircraft) was started a little prior, but then also worked on during.

Ekman: That’s it.

A consistent request that we receive from all partners is intel sharing, right? And so that’s something that we can offer uniquely… It is a common currency from which everyone benefits.

VOA: That has diminished.

Ekman: The region has become more opaque. Absolutely.

We did remove about 70 U.S. Special Forces personnel (from Chad) at the end of April. That was at their request. They asked us to leave. An election was coming and we obliged. That’s what partners do. Since then, they had a successful election on May 6. And so in the aftermath of that, they’ve started asking us, well, what can we do together?

Our goal is to do something less than we had there before. We had a headquarters there before, but we have reached an agreement on the return of a limited number of special forces personnel. It is a presidential decision. So these are big policy decisions. It was a presidential decision by President Deby, but the decision is made, and now we’re working through the specifics on how we return… His decision was conveyed to us in just recent weeks. Chad is really important because… it’s an outside-in strategy. And the direction of approach from Chad is immensely important. They’ve also been a significant contributor to Sahelian security.

VOA: On the effect that losing Niger has on region counterterrorism efforts:

Ekman: If there was one country that was most important on our ability to address Sahelian VEO problems or the Sahelian VEO challenge, it was Niger. So, for one, of Niger, I talked about it as a strategic setback, (but) the degree to which that setback endures ties to how we reposition and then what our partners want to do with us… That is a snapshot in time. All is not lost.

VOA: On concerns that Niger could fall to violent extremist organizations:

Ekman: Their risks have definitely gone up. Their ability to confront extremist organizations, intel sharing, partnership with our and other allied forces, it’s gotten worse. So they are a capable force… the degree to which they can handle the problem themselves remains to be seen. It is a fact that in Niger, violent extremist attacks have become more lethal. That’s a fact. Since the coup on July 26, 2023. They’ve got fewer resources and fewer partners.

VOA: Have you seen any evidence, or heard anything from your engagements about JNIM starting to collaborate with some of the ISIS elements (in West Africa)?

Ekman: I think that one varies. For what I can talk about in here, some cases they collaborate, some cases they compete, and that often manifest down to the local level.

VOA: On Russia’s military presence in Niger:

Ekman: In the Nigerian case, that presence is actually quite small. The Nigerians signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia related to security cooperation two governments ago. And so they fly Russian equipment. They drive Russian equipment. There’s nothing new there. The Russian trainers who showed up? Didn’t see much of them while we were there. And so, to date, Russian presence in Niger has been quite limited… We caution them of the malign impacts of partnering, particularly with Russian PMCs who have yet to help anybody from a security perspective. And then their methods are abhorrent to us, OK? And so that’s where we, we encourage them to draw the line.

VOA: On whether terrorists in the Sahel now have the capacity to try external operations:

Ekman: Given the lack of access that we have, given the lack of ISR, our ability to gage… the trend in their development of capability and will, it’s become more difficult.

Our access and our partnerships have diminished. It’s a tough operational problem.
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new york — Wall Street romped to records Thursday as jubilation swept markets worldwide one day after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s big cut to interest rates. 

The S&P 500 jumped 1.7% for one of its best days of the year and topped its last all-time high set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped 522 points, or 1.3%, to beat its own record set on Monday, and the Nasdaq composite led the market with a 2.5% spurt. 

The rally was widespread, and Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and Ruth’s Chris, led the way in the S&P 500 with a jump of 8.3%. It said sales trends have been improving since a sharp step down in July, and it announced a delivery partnership with Uber. 

Nvidia, meanwhile, barreled 4% higher and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Lower interest rates weaken criticism by a bit that its shares and those of other influential Big Tech companies look too expensive following the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. 

Wall Street’s gains followed rallies for markets across Europe and Asia after the Federal Reserve delivered the first cut to interest rates in more than four years late on Wednesday. 

It was a momentous move, closing the door on a run where the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the U.S. economy enough to stamp out high inflation. Now that inflation has come down from its peak two summers ago, Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed can focus more on keeping the job market solid and the economy out of a recession. 

Wall Street’s initial reaction to Wednesday’s cut was a yawn, after markets had run up for months on expectations for coming reductions to rates. Stocks ended up edging lower after swinging a few times. 

“Yet we come in today and have a reversal of the reversal,” said Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG. He said he did not anticipate such a big jump for stocks on Thursday. 

Some analysts said the market could be relieved that the Fed’s Powell was able to thread the needle in his press conference and suggest the deeper-than-usual cut was just a recalibration of policy and not an urgent move it had to take to prevent a recession. 

That bolstered hopes the Federal Reserve can successfully walk its tightrope and get inflation down to its 2% target without a recession. So too did a couple reports on the economy released Thursday. One showed fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, another signal that layoffs across the country remain low. 

Lower interest rates help financial markets in two big ways. They ease the brakes off the economy by making it easier for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money. They also give a boost to prices of all kinds of investments, from gold to bonds to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose above $63,000 Thursday, up from about $27,000 a year ago. 

An adage suggests investors should not “fight the Fed” and should instead ride the rising tide when the central bank is cutting interest rates. Wall Street was certainly doing that Thursday. But this economic cycle has thrown out conventional wisdom repeatedly after the COVID-19 pandemic created an instant recession that gave way to the worst inflation in generations. 

Wall Street is worried that inflation could remain tougher to fully subdue than in the past. And while lower rates can help goose the economy, they can also give inflation more fuel. 

The upcoming U.S. presidential election could also keep uncertainty reigning in the market. A fear is that both the Democrats and Republicans could push for policies that add to the U.S. government’s debt, which could keep upward pressure on interest rates regardless of the Fed’s moves. 

Indexes climbed even more across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They rose 2.3% in France, 2.1% in Japan and 2% in Hong Kong. 

The FTSE 100 added 0.9% in London after the Bank of England kept interest rates there on hold. The next big move for a central bank arrives Friday, when the Bank of Japan will announce its latest decision on interest rates. 
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