U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is unveiling a plan Wednesday to try to protect American workers by raising taxes on companies that move jobs overseas. Biden, challenging Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 national election, is delivering details of the plan during a campaign stop in the industrial heartland city of Warren, Michigan.  Traditional working-class Democratic voters embraced Trump in his unexpected win in the Midwestern state in 2016, but Biden is hoping to win them back to help him deny Trump a second term in the White House. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020.Trump is remaining in Washington on Wednesday, but on Thursday will also visit Michigan — considered a must-win political battleground state by both campaigns — and other key electoral states late in the week. On Friday, both Biden and Trump will be in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 2001 al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. A jetliner crashed in a field near Shanksville as passengers tried to overcome hijackers who commandeered the aircraft. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, N.C., Sept. 8, 2020.After suspending his television advertising in the state during the summer, Trump resumed this week with an ad trumpeting what he called the “Great American Comeback,” saying the American economy is on the way back in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Ad trackers say Biden is outspending Trump on the airwaves in Michigan. Trump visited two other battleground states on Tuesday — Florida, where he extended an offshore drilling ban, and North Carolina, where several thousand supporters gathered in an airport hangar to hear him criticize Biden. Few of the people attending the rally adhered to health experts’ advice to wear face masks or remain 6 meters apart.  
 
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America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s suspension of final global trials of its COVID-19 experimental vaccine points to the effectiveness of the safeguards that have been incorporated into the trials.“It’s important to point out that that’s the reason why you have various phases of trials, to determine if, in fact, these candidates are safe,” Fauci said in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”“It’s really one of the safety valves you have on clinical trials such as this.”The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant paused the trials because a volunteer participant became ill after receiving the experimental drug.“It’s unfortunate that it happened, and hopefully they’ll be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial,” Fauci said. “But you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”The company issued a statement Tuesday saying the pause in testing is a “routine action, which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”AstraZeneca developed the vaccine, AZD1222, in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford. The vaccine is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, South Africa and India. AZD1222 is one of three COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage Phase 3 trials in the United States.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
People queue to take a COVID-19 test at a walk-in test facility in Bolton, Britain, Sept. 7, 2020.The pandemic also continues to affect ordinary activities around the globe. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to issue an order Wednesday limiting the number of people taking part in most social gatherings to six, from the current 30.The new limit, would take effect next week, as Britain is enduring a surge of nearly 3,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, the highest daily figure since May.And officials in Los Angeles County, California, have issued an order banning most Halloween activities, traditionally observed on Oct. 31. The banned activities include the traditional door-to-door “trick-or-treating,” when costume-clad children knock on doors to receive candy, and “trunk-or-treating,” a similar activity involving going from car to car. Indoor and outdoor events, including carnivals, festivals and “haunted houses” are also prohibited.Los Angeles County officials said nearly 250,000 coronavirus cases had been recorded there, and 6,036 people died from the disease since the start of the pandemic.
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One New York City Park is getting some non-human help maintaining its green space this week, as a herd of goats has been brought in to help trim the lawn.The managers of Stuyvesant Cove Park on Manhattan’s East River brought in 20 goats to clear invasive weeds and brush that had built up over the summer. Staffing and budget cuts due to the COVID-19 pandemic left the area overgrown.Park service officials say as New York residents turned to parks as safe outlets for socialization and recreation, during the pandemic, they also left excessive trash and trampled plantings in their wake.So, the managers of Stuyvesant Cove turned to a nonprofit group and rented 20 goats, which began chewing their way through the weeds and long grass on Tuesday.  Park manager Candace Thompson says the goats are more efficient and environmentally friendly than hiring a team of gardeners.”These goats, in a matter of three days, are going to take all of this plant matter, eat it, and poop it out as fertilizer that’ll make this garden perfect for growing a bunch of native, edible plants next spring,” she said.The park is a few blocks from the United Nations headquarters and the largest commercial district in the U.S., which makes it an unlikely spot for farm animals.  But city residents who frequent the park have been positive, saying the goats provide a calming respite from the city around them.  After the goats have eaten their fill, Thompson says the space will be rehabilitated for next year’s growing season.
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In his second public — though limited — weekly general audience, Pope Francis Wednesday appealed to people to look out for the health of others as well as themselves during the coronavirus pandemic. The pope removed his face mask as he arrived at the Vatican’s San Damaso courtyard before an audience of about 500 people, compared to the tens of thousands who usually gather at St. Peter’s Square.  While chairs were spaced out in the courtyard, the limited crowd massed along the barriers as Pope Francis passed by, and some lowered their masks to call out to him. He urged the faithful to remain socially distant and not crowd themselves “to avoid the contagion.” During his remarks, Francis said the pandemic is affecting everyone and “we will emerge from it better people if we all seek the common good together.” He lamented, however, what he sees as “the emergence of partisan interests.”  “For example, there are those who want to appropriate possible solutions for themselves, such as [developing] vaccines, and then selling them to others,” the pope remarked.  He said some are taking advantage of the situation to foment divisions and seek economic or political divisions. The pope last week resumed his weekly public audiences after a nearly six-month COVID-19 shutdown, during which he gave his remarks virtually. Elsewhere in Rome Wednesday, several thousand right wing activists gathered from across Italy to protest measures to taken by the Italian government to fight the coronavirus pandemic, such as wearing masks and mandatory vaccination.  The protesters see such measures as violations of their personal liberty.  At least one protester was seen carrying a banner in support of U.S. President Donald Trump. More than 280,000 people have been confirmed to have had COVID-19 in Italy so far, and more than 35,500 people have died, according Johns Hopkins University data.     
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday the United States is deeply concerned about attempts by the government of Belarus to forcibly expel opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova. The top U.S. diplomat said the United States and other countries are considering bringing sanctions in response to recent events in Belarus. “We commend the courage of Ms. Kalesnikava and of the Belarusian people in peacefully asserting their right to pick their leaders in free and fair elections in the face of unjustified violence and repression by the Belarusian authorities, which included brazen beatings of peaceful marchers in broad daylight and hundreds of detentions (on) September 6, as well as increasing reports of abductions,” Pompeo said in a statement. He said the potential sanctions would be aimed at promoting “accountability for those involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus.” Kolesnikova was detained Monday along with two other opposition movement members, Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov, and on Tuesday they were driven to the border between Belarus and Ukraine where Kolesnikova tore up her passport and was held on the Belarusian side.FILE – Maria Kolesnikova, one of Belarus’ opposition leaders, gestures during a rally in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 30, 2020.Rodnenkov and Kravtsov did cross into Ukraine. “She was shouting that she won’t go anywhere,” Rodnenkov said at a news conference in Kyiv. “Sitting in the car, she saw her passport on a front seat and tore it into many small fragments, crumpled them and threw them out of the window. After that, she opened the back door and walked back to the Belarusian border.” A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement expressing his concern about “the repeated use of force against peaceful protesters, as well as reported pressures on opposition civil society activists.” Thousands of people have taken part in five weeks of protests following the August 9 election in which longtime President Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner, but opposition parties, the United States and European Union allege was rigged. More than 7,000 protesters have been arrested, and widespread evidence of abuse and torture has been reported in the month of protests. At least four people are reported to have died during the demonstrations. 
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Wildfires raged unchecked throughout California Wednesday, and gusty winds could drive flames into new ferocity, authorities warned. Diablo winds in the north and Santa Ana winds in the south were forecast into Wednesday at a time when existing wildfires already have grown explosively. On Tuesday, 14 firefighters were forced to deploy emergency shelters as flames overtook them and destroyed the Nacimiento Station, a fire station in the Los Padres National Forest on the state’s central coast, the U.S. Forest Service said. They suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, and three were flown to a hospital in Fresno, where one was in critical condition. In the past two days, helicopters were used to rescue hundreds of people stranded in the burning Sierra National Forest, where the Creek Fire has destroyed 365 buildings, including at least 45 homes, and 5,000 structures were threatened, fire officials said. Flames threatened the foothill community of Auberry between Shaver Lake and Fresno. In Southern California, fires burned in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, and the forecast called for the arrival of the region’s notorious Santa Anas. The hot, dry winds could reach 50 mph at times, forecasters said. People in a half-dozen foothill communities east of Los Angeles were being told to stay alert because of a fire in the Angeles National Forest. “The combination of gusty winds, very dry air, and dry vegetation will create critical fire danger,” the National Weather Service warned. The U.S. Forest Service on Monday decided to close all eight national forests in the southern half of the state and shutter campgrounds statewide. More than 14,000 firefighters are battling fires. Two of the three largest blazes in state history are burning in the San Francisco Bay Area, though they are largely contained after burning three weeks. California has already set a record with nearly 2.3 million acres (930,800 hectares) burned this year – surpassing a record set just two years ago – and the worst part of the wildfire season is just beginning. “It’s extraordinary, the challenge that we’ve faced so far this season,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said. The threat of winds tearing down power lines or hurling debris into them and sparking a wildfire prompted Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, to shut off power to 172,000 customers over the weekend. More outages were expected Wednesday, with power not expected to be completely restored until Wednesday night. To the south, Southern California Edison warned roughly 55,000 customer accounts may lose power while San Diego Gas & Electric said 16,700 customers are at risk of a preemptive outage.  In the Sierra National Forest east of Fresno, dozens of campers and hikers were stranded at the Vermilion Valley Resort after the only road in – a narrow route snaking along a steep cliff – was closed Sunday because of the Creek Fire. Well before dawn Tuesday, the sound of helicopter blades chopping through the air awoke Katelyn Mueller, bringing relief after two anxious nights camping in the smoke.  “It was probably the one time you’re excited to hear a helicopter,” Mueller said. “You could almost feel a sigh of relief seeing it come in.”  The use of military helicopters to rescue a large number of civilians for a second day _ 164 before dawn Tuesday and 214 people from a wooded camping area on Saturday _ is rare, if not unprecedented.  “This is emblematic of how fast that fire was moving, plus the physical geography of that environment with one road in and one road out,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College who has written extensively about wildfires. “Unless you wanted an absolute human disaster, you had to move fast.”  Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in America to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, especially because climate change has made California much drier. A drier California means plants are more flammable. “The frequency of extreme wild fire weather has doubled in California over the past four decades, with the main driver being the effect of rising temperature on dry fuels, meaning that the fuel loads are now frequently at record or near-record levels when ignition occurs and when strong winds blow,” Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said in an email. 
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Tensions increased along the India-China border as both sides accused each other of firing warning shots at their disputed Himalayan boundary, where a military standoff is now in its fifth month.   An Indian army statement denied firing shots and blamed China’s military for “provocative activities” to escalate tensions, while the Chinese foreign ministry said the action is being considered a “serious military provocation.”     Both sides have a longstanding agreement to not use firearms along the border to prevent conflagrations between their troops, who often stand within meters of each other.     The latest face-off occurred along the southern bank of the strategic Pangong Tso Lake, an icy, high altitude lake in Ladakh, where both sides accuse each other of breaching the defacto border known as the “line of actual control.”     The flare-up comes days after the defense ministers of the two countries said they had agreed to work toward defusing tensions along their contested border.      Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday that Indian troops had illegally crossed the line of control and were the first to fire shots.   “Indian troops blatantly fired warning shots at our border patrolling troops, who were there for consultation. Our troops were compelled to take measures to stabilize the situation,” Lijian told a news briefing in Beijing. He did not specify what the measures were. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes a question at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020.The Indian army denied any transgression into Chinese territory or resorting to any “aggressive means, including firing.”   In a statement, it said that Chinese soldiers had tried to surround an Indian military post and had fired a few shots in the air, when the Indian soldiers “dissuaded” them.   Saying that Indian troops had “exercised great restraint,” the Indian statement accused the Chinese side of blatantly violating agreements and carrying out “aggressive maneuvers while engagement at military, diplomatic and political level is in progress.”    Calling it the first incident of firing along the border in 45 years, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao urged India to “discipline its frontline troops.”   That incident took place on the south side of Pangong Tso Lake a week after the Indian army said it had deterred Chinese troops from occupying an area hilltop, which it says is Indian territory.     “The Indian army thinks it has given enough way to the Chinese and they have to recover ground somewhat and what they now occupy, they will keep,” says Bharat Karnad, a security analyst at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “The Indian army is fairly serious that it will simply not budge.”    The military standoff between the two countries began in May after India accused China of intruding across the line of actual control at several points in the high Himalayas. In mid-June, their worst border clash in decades led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers, dealing a serious blow to their decades-long efforts to maintain peace along their undemarcated border.     Since then both sides have held talks at military and diplomatic levels with the aim of disengaging but have failed to make much headway.  The highest level political contact between the two countries took place last Friday when the Indian and Chinese defense ministers met in Moscow on the sidelines of a summit.     After the meeting, New Delhi said in a statement that both sides had agreed that neither side should take action that “could either complicate the situation or escalate matters in the border areas.”  But the situation along their borders continues to be volatile, say analysts. 
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Despite a tweet from President Donald Trump vowing to reverse his own administration’s budget plan to cut government funding for an independent military newspaper, Stars and Stripes employees say they remain worried because the order to defund the news outlet has not yet been rescinded by the Pentagon. “There’s a great deal of anxiety in the staff,” Max Lederer, the publisher of Stars and Stripes since 2007, told VOA Tuesday. “A little less anxiety since Friday, but since it (the funding decision) is still not final, there’s a lot of concern.” The Department of Defense spending plans, released in February, cut out all government funding for the paper for the 2021 fiscal year, which begins on October 1.  On Friday, President Trump tweeted that he planned to reverse the planned Pentagon budget cuts that would have ended the Stars and Stripes publication. “The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!” Trump tweeted.The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020The tweet came mere hours after media outlets reported on the Pentagon’s plans to dissolve the publication. But the president’s tweets alone do not indicate policy or dictate law, and Lederer said the Pentagon is “still discussing” the status of the budget order. The House of Representatives passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2021 on July 31, 2020, which included additional funding for the publication. The Senate did not include funding for the publication in its defense spending bill, but both houses of Congress have resolutions supporting its mission. A Defense Department memo by Defense Media Activity Acting Director Army Col. Paul Haverstick last month instructed the Stars and Stripes publisher to provide a plan of action “no later than September 15” to discontinue Stars and Stripes publications and dissolve the news organization “no later than January 31, 2021.” In the case of a continuing resolution (CR) from Congress, which would prevent a government shutdown and extend funding temporarily, the memo (obtained by VOA) instructed the publisher to plan the “last date for publication of the newspaper” “based on the end of the CR or other circumstances.” A bipartisan group of 11 Democratic and four Republican senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper last week, calling on the Department of Defense to maintain funding for the publication, which has more than 1 million readers.  “The $15.5 million currently allocated for the publication of Stars and Stripes is only a tiny fraction of your Department’s annual budget, and cutting it would have a significantly negative impact on military families and a negligible impact on the Department’s bottom line,” said the letter, signed by the senators. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, also sent a letter opposing the budget cut, citing strong support for Stars and Stripes in Congress. “As a veteran who has served overseas, I know the value that the Stars and Stripes brings to its readers,” Graham wrote.  Stars and Stripes started during the Civil War as a publication for Union troops. Today, it distributes to U.S. service members stationed across the globe, including in war zones. Most recently, the publication shed light the Defense Department’s failure to shut down schools on U.S. military installations in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite Japanese public schools ruling shutdowns as necessary to stop the spread of the coronavirus. “Stars and Stripes tells the military’s story like no other publication can. It was held by GIs in the trenches of World War II and held by special forces members at remote outposts in Syria after being flown in by Osprey in the battle against ISIS,” Tara Copp, a reporter for McClatchy who was the Pentagon correspondent for Stars and Stripes from 2015-2017, told VOA. “It is a rounding error (an inconsequential amount) to DOD, but it is much, much more than that to the men and women and their families who read it,” she added. Copp said that the publication provides the time and resources to look into stories many other outlets do not.  For example, her in-depth investigation into the 2000 Osprey crash at Marana Regional Airport near Tucson, Arizona, for the publication in 2015 led to former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work exonerating the two Marine Corps pilots who had been blamed for the crash. 
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The Union of Journalists in South Sudan is calling on the government to release Jackson Ochaya, a journalist who was detained a week ago after he contacted a rebel group spokesman for a story.A family member who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals told Ochaya’s newspaper, the No. 1 Citizen, that agents of the National Security Service (NSS) are holding Ochaya at their headquarters in Jebel.Ochaya is likely being detained because he contacted the spokesman for the rebel National Salvation Front (NAS) for comment on an article he was writing, according to Oliver Modi, chairperson of the Union of Journalists in South Sudan.Reporter, managing editor questioned On August 31, the NSS summoned Ochaya and the newspaper’s acting managing editor, Stella Kiden, to their headquarters for questioning.“The security just questioned those of the No. 1 newspaper on how they came to write that story and particularly their communication with, of course, the NAS. That’s the cause of everything, but according to the journalist, this is a balancing of a story. According to the principles of journalism, when you are writing a story, the story should not be a one-sided story,” Modi told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Kiden said the NSS released her and Ochaya that evening, then asked Ochaya to return the following day to pick up his identity card.Kiden said Ochaya returned to work at the paper on September 1 but later asked permission to leave so he could meet an uncle who had asked Ochaya to meet him in the Thingpiny residential area. That was the last time she saw him.It is a mystery as to why security agents would release Ochaya on August 31 and detain him the next day, said Modi.’What is the problem.’“The family members found him in the national security office where he was being questioned. So now, the media authority and the Union of Journalists are wondering what is the problem again,” Modi told VOA.The National Security Service has not commented on Ochoya’s detention.The journalists’ union does not have the legal right to visit Ochaya at the detention center except through permission from the South Sudan Media Authority, said Modi.Call for release of reporterModi called on the security operatives to release Ochaya immediately.“I don’t see the reason why they actually called the journalist and his editor; they have talked, they have agreed, they then released this journalist to go and do their work and then after some hours, they then came back and took the journalist. They should not treat journalists like criminals,” Modi said.Under South Sudan’s constitution, a detained person is supposed to appear in a court of law within 24 hours of their detention.No. 1 Citizen management declined to comment in more detail. 
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