Taiwan says Chinese military planes have flown into its air defense space six times in a single week and eight times this month, so far.    Although Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense escorts each aircraft away and alerts the public on an island that has long distrusted China, analysts believe leaders in Beijing are warning people as far away as Washington while helping to train their own troops in case of conflict in Asia.   The U.S. government has saddled China with a 2-year-old trade dispute, accused it of ignoring COVID-19 for too long earlier in the year and sailed its navy vessels in Asian waters to check Chinese expansion.  U.S. naval ships have sailed six times so far this year through the strait separating Taiwan from China, an irritant to Beijing. China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and resents other countries for supporting it. The U.S. navy has also carried out four “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea near Taiwan so far in 2020.  “I don’t think we can say it stops at Taiwan and then that’s it,” said Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst with the RAND Corp. research institution in the United States.  “There’s definitely some signaling to the U.S., as well,” he said. “Anything they can do to try to signal to the U.S. that it should not be getting as cozy with Taiwan as it has been over past few years, that’s an important thing.”  China also lacks military experience since its 1970s land war with Vietnam, experts say, and it wants to train for anything new that comes up. On paper China has the world’s third strongest armed forces and has ruffled other Asian countries by placing military infrastructure on disputed islets in the South China Sea. “We should say it this way, that China has multiple goals, multi purposes,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.   The Chinese planes spotted this month had crossed over the outer reaches of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, according to Ministry of National Defense statements in Taipei. Taiwanese air force planes fly alongside each aircraft to make it leave. On Monday the ministry said a Chinese H-6 bomber and a Chengdu J-10 fighter jet had flown through the southwestern part of Taiwan’s airspace.   Chinese officials want Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, to endorse a “One China” policy as condition for further dialogue. Tsai rejects the condition and most Taiwanese have told government surveys they prefer at least today’s degree of autonomy over Beijing’s goal of unification. China has claimed Taiwan as its own since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s.Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen waves after inspecting the military police headquarters in Taipei.Before this month and since Tsai took office in 2016, Chinese aircraft had passed near Taiwan only periodically and seldom crossed into Taiwanese airspace. The two sides lie 160 kilometers apart at their nearest point.   China has accused Washington of trying to stop Chinese expansion at sea. Australia and Japan have sent their own vessels into the South China Sea to remind China the waterway is open internationally. Washington historically sees Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines as Asia Pacific allies against any conflict with China. U.S. senators are working this year on the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, a special budget for $1.4 billion in the plan’s first year for U.S. military activity in Asia and $5.5 billion in its second year. The bill is expected to bolster especially U.S. naval forces in the Western Pacific.   Pressure at home over the COVID-19 outbreak and offshore military moves directed at China are pressuring Chinese President Xi Jinping to show strength, said Huang Chung-ting, assistant research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.  “Xi Jinping’s attitude now is that he can’t fail,” the research fellow said. “He’s got to show he’s still got a lot of means. Whenever the external pressure goes up one point, he’s got to answer by ramping it up two points.”   Taiwan has sent marines to the Pratas Islands, three features it controls in the South China Sea, in light of China’s movements, domestic news media reported this week.  China’s planes have not approached Taiwan’s main island and they probably leave the air defense zone shortly after crossing into it, Huang Kwei-bo said. “We should feel worried, but not over-worried,” he said. 
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Former President Barack Obama helped raise a record-breaking $7.6 million from more than 175,000 individual donors ahead of his first fundraiser for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  “I’m here to say that help is on the way if we do the work,” Obama said during the virtual fundraiser. “Because there’s nobody that I trust more to be able to heal this country and get it back on track than my dear friend Joe Biden.” The small-dollar fundraiser Tuesday offered a fresh test of Obama’s ability to transfer his popularity to Biden, his former vice president who is now seeking the White House on his own. It was a kickoff of what Obama’s team says will likely be a busy schedule heading into the fall, as he looks to help elect not just Biden but Democrats running for House and Senate.  Obama sometimes struggled to lift other Democratic candidates while he was in the White House, notably losing control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. But in the era of President Donald Trump, Democrats believe Obama’s appeal, especially among Black and younger voters, can help boost energy for Biden. “There’s two groups of voters that Biden needs to move,” said Dan Pfeiffer, former White House communications director. “You have the 4 million Obama 2012 voters that sat out in ’16, Obama obviously has cache with them. And you have to persuade some number of voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and either Trump or a third party candidate in 2016, and Obama obviously is very, very high-performing with those as well.” Obama endorsed Biden with a video message in April, but kept an otherwise low profile throughout the primary and largely avoided wading into national politics. In recent weeks, however, he’s reemerged publicly to speak out on policing and the civil unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Some Democrats say that, in the wake of Floyd’s killing, Obama’s voice as an advocate for Biden and a leader for the party is needed.  “Biden doesn’t have the strongest record on criminal justice reform so having Obama there is helpful in reinforcing that issue,” said Ben Tulchin, who polled for progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. “Given what’s going on with criminal justice reform and Black Lives Matter, having the first African American president out there publicly backing Biden is extremely helpful.”In this June 17, 2020, photo, Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks in Darby, Pa.But Obama’s reemergence is not without risks for Biden.  For Trump’s campaign, it offers an opportunity to resurface some of their favorite political attacks — charges that the Obama administration’s policies undermined the American middle class and U.S. interests abroad.  They believe the focus on Obama will help reinvigorate Trump’s base, and remind waffling Trump voters — those considering voting for Biden, or staying home — of their dissatisfaction with the prior administration. And they see a potential opportunity to drive a wedge between Biden and his base by resurfacing issues from the Obama administration — like the high rate of deportations — that riled progressives during the Democratic primary. Trump campaign deputy communications director Ali Pardo said that together, Obama and Biden “put ‘kids in cages’ and failed to stop China from ripping off Americans while overseeing the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression and stagnant wage growth for American workers.” Trump himself has pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about Obama, hoping to taint Biden by association. Still, Democrats say Obama is eager to take Trump on to defend his legacy in a debate over whose policies have better benefited Americans. “Trump’s election just devastated the country and Obama’s legacy,” Tulchin said. “Beating Trump is important for his legacy and important for the country.” Biden’s embrace of Obama during the Democratic primary created some headaches for the former vice president within his own party as well.  Biden was criticized by some opponents as too focused on returning to the status quo of the Obama years at a time when the progressive base of the party was clamoring for significant structural change. But by the end of the primary contest, at least five candidates — including Sanders — aired ads featuring praise from the former president or photos of the candidate alongside him. And both Biden and Sanders have made overtures toward progressives, with Biden embracing some of Sanders’ policies and Obama praising him by name in his endorsement video for Biden. But Stephanie Cutter, who served as Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, said that if Obama’s reemergence into the campaign raises any further debates about the policies of his administration, he’ll be prepared to respond. “There’s nobody better to answer those questions than Obama,” she said. 
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More than 200 friends and family members said goodbye Tuesday to Rayshard Brooks, the African American man shot to death by a white police officer in Atlanta nearly two weeks ago while apparently trying to avoid arrest on a suspicion of drunk driving. Brooks’ funeral was held in Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King preached in the 1950s and ‘60s. “We are here because individuals continue to hide behind badges and trainings and policies and procedures rather than regarding the humanity of others in general and Black lives specifically,” King’s daughter, the Reverend Bernice King, told the mourners.  Brooks’ friends and relatives said they remember him as a family man who loved to tell jokes, dance and help others in his community. A white officer, Garrett Rolfe, has been charged with murder, accused of shooting Brooks in the back and killing him in a Wendy’s restaurant parking lot June 12. A second officer, Devin Brosnan, has been charged with aggravated assault, accused of stepping on the wounded Brooks while he was on the ground.A hearse carying the casket of Rayshard Brooks passes by the area where he was killed near a Wendy’s restaurant on Tuesday, June 23, 2020, in Atlanta. The funeral of Brooks was held today.Police dashboard and body cam videos show Brooks resisting arrest and attempting to escape when the officers tried to handcuff him. Brooks grabbed a taser from one of the officers and ran off, firing it at Rolfe. Rolfe fired two bullets at Brooks’ back. Activists say the shooting is just another example of white police brutality against a Black man. But some law enforcement experts say Rolfe may have been justified in shooting Brooks. Brooks’ death set off protests in Atlanta, and the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned to the ground. Atlanta police say one of the two suspects in the arson attack on the Wendy’s turned herself in Tuesday. A lawyer for Natalie White said she was a close friend of Brooks’ and is innocent of setting the restaurant on fire.  A Brooks family lawyer said he is unaware of any ties between White and Brooks.  Brooks could be heard talking about a woman named Natalie White on the police video, but it is unclear if it is the same person suspected of arson.  
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Before addressing a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump visited a section of border wall in the southwestern U.S. state. Trump tried to credit the new section of wall, which he and several other officials autographed, for stopping both illegal immigration and the coronavirus.  Arizona, however, is among several hot spots in the country for the COVID-19 outbreak. Ahead of Trump’s visit, the Arizona Department of Health on Tuesday reported nearly 3,600 new coronavirus cases. Overall, the state has more than 54,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, and has recorded more than 1,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University research. “Our border has never been more secure,” Trump said. “This is the most powerful and comprehensive border wall structure anywhere in the world.” “Using our emergency public health authorities, we prevented a coronavirus catastrophe on the southern border, shutting down human smuggling and swiftly returning the crossers,” Trump said. “Without these public health measures, the southern border would be a global epicenter of the viral transmission.” Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan joined Trump in Yuma on Tuesday to tour a new section of wall along the border with Mexico at San Luis in Yuma County. The U.S. government says 338 kilometers of construction has been done along the border since January 2017, but it appears that only 4.8 kilometers of it is in places where no barriers previously existed.  “The new wall is in many places twice as tall as where it was before, and many miles were built where nothing but vehicle barriers existed before, which few people would describe as a fence,” David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, told VOA. “Despite the improvements, the new fences are already being breached and climbed, and immigrants are still going around. In fact, in 2019, the government stated the number of people evading detection at the border actually increased.” Roundtable discussionIn Yuma, Trump hosted a roundtable discussion with elected officials and community leaders to discuss border security.  The president was also asked about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program the U.S. Supreme Court prevented Trump from ending last week in a ruling. DACA protects nearly 700,000 people brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and allows them to work. “We’ll work it out with DACA,” Trump said. White House officials said the president plans to resubmit paperwork to end the program. “I think good things are happening with DACA. They resubmit, it will work it out. And the Democrats have been playing with DACA for years, and they haven’t done anything. I’ll get it done.” Trump was asked at the border what he would say to DACA recipients. “Keep your chin up,” he replied. Phoenix speechTrump later flew to Phoenix to deliver a campaign speech at a church to more than 3,000 people, most with the group “Students for Trump.”  The Dream City Church posted a video saying it had installed new “ionization” technology that “kills 99.9 percent of COVID within 10 minutes,” and those attending the event with the president “will be safe and protected.”  There is no scientific evidence that such an air-filtering device can prevent transmission between people in close quarters of respiratory particles containing the coronavirus.  Both Yuma County and the city of Phoenix have mandated the wearing of masks in public.  The event at Dream City Church “was not sanctioned or permitted by the city of Phoenix, as the city does not permit political events. Furthermore, it does not abide by current CDC guidelines during COVID-19,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. “While I do not believe an event of this magnitude can be held safely, particularly as Arizona sees rising COVID cases, the president has decided to continue with this rally.”  Everyone attending the event, “particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask. This includes the president,” said the mayor. [[ https://www.phoenix.gov/newsroom/mayors-office/1359 ]] Trump has faced criticism for hosting last Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the largest indoor event in the country in months amid the pandemic, especially in a state where the number of coronavirus cases has been surging.   About 6,200 of the 19,199 seats in the Bank of Oklahoma Center were filled, according to the Tulsa Fire Department. The Trump reelection campaign claims attendance was about 12,000 people.  
 
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In a stunning decision that could test the legal framework of #MeToo cases, Pennsylvania’s highest court will review the trial decision to let five other accusers testify at Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial in 2018, which ended with the longtime TV star’s conviction. Cosby, 82, has been imprisoned in suburban Philadelphia for nearly two years after a jury convicted him of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home in 2004. He’s serving a three- to 10-year sentence. The Supreme Court has agreed to review two aspects of the case, including the judge’s decision to let prosecutors call the other accusers to testify about long-ago encounters with the actor and comedian. Cosby’s lawyers have long complained the testimony is remote and unreliable.  The court will also consider, as it weighs the scope of the evidence allowed, whether the jury should have heard Cosby’s own deposition testimony about getting quaaludes to give women in the past. Secondly, the court will examine Cosby’s argument that he had an agreement with a former prosecutor that he would never be charged in the case. Cosby has said he relied on the alleged promise before agreeing to give the deposition in trial accuser Andrea Constand’s lawsuit. Those issues have been at the heart of the case since Cosby was charged in December 2015, days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired.  Prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia had reopened the case that year after The Associated Press fought to unseal portions of Cosby’s decade-old deposition in Constand’s sex assault and defamation lawsuit. Cosby paid $3.4 million to settle the lawsuit in 2006. Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged a string of extramarital relationships. He called them consensual, but many of the women say they were drugged and molested. Dozens came forward in the years that followed to accuse Cosby, long beloved as “America’s Dad” because of his hit 1980s sitcom, of sexual misconduct. Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill allowed just one of them to testify at Cosby’s first trial in 2017, which ended with an acquittal. But a year later, after the #MeToo movement exploded in the wake of reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men, the judge allowed five other accusers to testify at the retrial. The jury convicted Cosby on all three felony sex-assault counts. Lawyer Brian W. Perry argued in the appeal that letting other accusers testify in #MeToo cases “flips constitutional jurisprudence on its head, and the ‘presumption of guilt,’ rather than the presumption of innocence, becomes the premise.” However, the judge said he found “striking similarities” in the women’s descriptions of their encounters with Cosby, and said the testimony was therefore permissible to show evidence of a “signature crime.” “In each instance, (he) met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated,” O’Neill wrote in a post-trial opinion. “These chilling similarities rendered (their) testimony admissible.” Spokesman Andrew Wyatt on Tuesday said the decision comes as demonstrators across the nation protest the death of Black people at the hands of police and expose the “corruption that lies within the criminal justice system.” “The false conviction of Bill Cosby is so much bigger than him — it’s about the destruction of ALL Black people and people of color in America,” Wyatt said in a statement. Constand, a former professional basketball player who now does outreach to sex assault victims, asked the appeals court Tuesday to not allow “Cosby’s wealth, fame and fortune to win an escape from his maleficent, malignant and downright criminal past.” Questioned about the encounter with her in the 2006 deposition, Cosby described being on his couch and putting his hand down her pants after giving her three pills he identified as Benadryl. Constand said they made her pass out. “I don’t hear her say anything. And I don’t feel her say anything. And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped,” he said. Legal experts said the appellate review could help clarify when judges should allow “prior bad act” testimony from other accusers in sex crime cases, at least in Pennsylvania, and whether a supposed verbal promise from one prosecutor should bind their successor. “I think that Cosby still has an uphill battle. The good news is the state Supreme Court will look at the appeal,” said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. The AP typically does not name people who say they have been victims of sexual assault without their permission, which Constand has granted.   
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Twitter Inc. said on Tuesday it had placed a warning notice on a tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump for violating its policy against abusive behavior.
 
“There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!” the president’s tweet read.There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020In a tweet, the company said it had hidden Trump’s tweet behind its “public interest” notice because there was a threat of harm against an identifiable group.
 
Anti-racism protesters on Monday declared a Black House Autonomous Zone – referencing a Seattle area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone – near the White House in front of St. John’s Church.
 
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Voters headed to the polls in three U.S. states Tuesday, deciding a too-close-to-call Senate Democratic primary contest in the southern state of Kentucky for a spot to face Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November, and a contentious Democratic primary challenge to longtime Congressman Eliot Engel in New York. In the Kentucky race, polls indicate a tight race between former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who narrowly lost a 2018 bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, and Charles Booker, a 35-year-old state lawmaker.  To combat the fears about the spread of the coronavirus, the state’s biggest city, Louisville, with 600,000 residents, had only one polling place open — at the state fairgrounds. But dozens of voting stations were available at the site, and lines of voters seemed to be moving quickly at midday.  Poll workers wearing face shields assist a voter as he checks in to cast his vote in the Kentucky primary at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky., June 23, 2020.In a bipartisan agreement between a Republican election official and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, all registered Kentucky voters had the option to vote by mail, and many did. More than 883,000 ballots were requested, and more than 452,000 were sent in by Monday afternoon. McGrath was the early favorite and raised $41 million in campaign funds, while earning the endorsement of Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But Booker, who raised less than $4 million, has closed the gap, receiving his own endorsements from key newspapers in the state, as well as national progressive figures, including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Booker, an African American, has struck a chord with voters angered at police treatment of Black Americans. While national attention has focused on the May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody, which has sparked continuing coast-to-coast protests, the focus in Kentucky has been on the March police shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician. Taylor was killed by Louisville police executing a no-knock search warrant for drugs at her apartment. But police had the wrong address, and no drugs were found.  On the campaign trail, Booker has worn a T-shirt saying, “No More No Knocks.” At one stop, he told voters, “I’m traveling Kentucky talking about structural racism, and I’m seeing folks, even 99% white, putting their fists in the air because they know that we can’t let this moment pass.” Tuesday’s winner faces a tough contest against 78-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Kentucky and the Washington power structure. McConnell has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s legislative proposals and his appointment of conservative judges. Moreover, the president is popular in Kentucky, which he won by about 30 percentage points in 2016.  In New YorkIn Tuesday’s other key race, 73-year-old Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is also facing a late challenge from Jamaal Bowman, a 44-year-old middle school principal who has never run for office.Congressman Eliot Engel addresses media after casting votes in primary elections, in the Riverdale section of New York, June 23, 2020.Much like Booker, Bowman, an African American, is advancing more leftist policies, hoping to unseat Engel, who has been in Congress for 16 terms. Engel has the endorsements of key Washington figures, including Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump.   But New York progressives have lined up behind Bowman, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who herself won an upset primary election victory against an entrenched New York congressman in 2018.  Democratic congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman, right, bumps elbows with a voter outside a voting site in Ardsley, N.Y., June 23, 2020.In a normally solid Republican congressional district in western New York state, Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs are vying to finish the last of the two-year term vacated when Republican Chris Collins resigned after pleading guilty to federal insider stock trading charges. No matter who wins, McMurray and Jacobs are likely to face each other again in November for a full two-year House term.  Other racesThere also are party primaries for six congressional seats in Kentucky and another 26 House primaries in New York besides the Engel-Bowman race.  In the mid-Atlantic state of Virginia, there are seven party primaries for House seats, along with a Republican party primary for the Senate nomination to face two-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in the November election.  The three Republicans vying to face Warner are civics teacher Alissa Baldwin, Army intelligence officer Thomas Speciale, and Daniel Gade, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who lost his right leg in a 2004 firefight in Iraq and is currently a professor at American University in Washington. 
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“Defund the Police” has become the slogan shouted out by Black Lives Matter demonstrators over the last few weeks in the U.S. But how or even whether to implement that demand is stirring debate and controversy.  In Camden, New Jersey, the police department was dismantled and re-structured seven years ago to more closely involve the community.  VOA’s Celia Mendoza went to Camden recently and filed this report on the city’s community policing strategy.
Camera: Celia Mendoza  Producer: Cristina Caicedo Smit
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The coronavirus pandemic has some world athletes struggling to stay sharp for next year’s Tokyo Olympics after training facilities were shut down and competitions cancelled.  Ugandan runner Halima Nakaayi, the gold medalist in the 800 meters at the 2019 World Athletics Championships, is doing her best to prepare under the restrictions imposed by COVID-19.  Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.   VIDEOGRAPHER: Francis MukasaPRODUCER: Rod James
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