Justice Department prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of former President Donald Trump from a meeting held after he left office in which he talks about holding on to a classified Pentagon document related to a potential attack on Iran, according to media reports.

CNN, which first reported on the tape, said Trump suggested on the recording that he wanted to share information from the document with others but that he knew there were limitations about his ability to declassify records after he left office.

The comments on the recording, made in July 2021 at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, would seem to undercut the former president’s repeated claims that he declassified the documents he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, after leaving office. The recording could also be key for prosecutors looking to prove Trump knew his ability to possess classified documents was limited.

A Trump spokesman said in a statement that the investigation was “meritless” and amounted to “continued interference in the presidential election.”

The recording has been provided to special counsel Jack Smith, whose team of prosecutors has spent months investigating the potential mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and whether Trump or anyone else sought to criminally obstruct the probe. The investigation shows signs of being in its final stages, with prosecutors having interviewed a broad cross-section of witnesses before the grand jury.

A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment. No one has been criminally charged.

The criminal investigation began last year after the National Archives and Records Administration alerted the FBI to the presence of classified documents in 15 boxes of records sent back, belatedly, from Mar-a-Lago by Trump and his representatives.

Investigators initially issued a subpoena for the remaining classified records, but after they received only about three dozen during a June 2022 visit to Mar-a-Lago, returned with a search warrant two months later and recovered about 100 more documents marked as classified.

Smith, the special counsel, is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election — the subject of a similar, ongoing inquiry by prosecutors in Atlanta. New York prosecutors charged Trump earlier this year with falsifying business records.

According to the CNN report, the recording was made during a gathering at Bedminster with aides to Trump and two people who were working on the autobiography of Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

It said Meadows’ autobiography includes a description of what appears to be the same meeting. A lawyer for Meadows declined to comment Wednesday when reached by The Associated Press.

CNN said witnesses including General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been questioned about the episode. A spokesman for Milley declined to comment on reports that he had been interviewed.
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Meta on Wednesday threatened to block all news articles on Facebook and Instagram in California if state lawmakers move forward with a bill that would tax the tech company for news content.

The California Journalism Preservation Act would tax the advertising profits that platforms like Meta and Google make from distributing news articles. About 70% of the money collected would then go to support newsrooms around the state.

Meta has warned it will pull news links from Facebook and Instagram entirely if the bill is passed.

“If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram, rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement on Wednesday.

Katie Harbath, chief executive at the tech policy firm Anchor Change and a former director of public policy at Facebook, said this latest threat from Meta is “following a pattern.”

Meta previously pulled news from Facebook in 2021 in response to an Australian law that forced the platform to pay for news content. Meta reversed the ban a few days later once the government agreed to change elements of the law.

Tech giants are also threatening to pull news content in Canada if a similar measure is enacted there.

“This all feels like it’s sort of the dance that the platforms and regulators and the news organizations go through when these types of bills pop up,” Harbath added.

Media freedom groups see these sorts of threats as a danger to press freedom.

“Meta’s blackmail threats when confronted with the possibility of having to compensate news organizations for using their content have become all too common,” said Vincent Berthier, the head of the tech desk at Reporters Without Borders.

“Being one of the leading platforms means having the responsibility to defend everyone’s right to access information, not having the power to cut off people’s access to journalism if legislators don’t bend to its will,” he told VOA in a statement Thursday.

“Meta should stop trying to blackmail elected leaders and instead focus on showing that the company is compatible with democratic principles,” Berthier added.

Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, previously condemned Meta’s threat to block news content in Canada, saying in a March statement that the ultimatum “directly threatens the survival of Canadian media and, at the same time, access to news and information, one of the pillars of democracy.” 

“It is unacceptable to threaten journalism with banishment,” Berthier said in the statement. “Meta should seek to show that it is able to play a positive role in the fight against disinformation and for access to pluralistic information, rather than trying to influence public policies that might jeopardize its economic interests.”

In a statement Wednesday, the California Broadcasters Association, California News Publishers Association and News/Media Alliance criticized Meta’s latest ultimatum.

“Meta’s threat to take down news is undemocratic and unbecoming,” the statement said. “We have seen this in their playbook before and they have been publicly admonished in other countries for this behavior.”

The California bill is an attempt to support a news industry that has been floundering for years. Between 2008 and 2020, about 30,000 journalism jobs disappeared, according to the Pew Research Center, marking a 26% drop in newsroom employment.

“As news consumption has moved online, community news outlets have been downsized and closing at an alarming rate,” the California bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, said at a hearing on the bill in May.

“Every day, journalism plays an essential role in California and in local communities, and the ability of local news organizations to continue to provide the public with critical information about their communities and enabling publishers to receive fair market value for their content that is used by others will preserve and ensure the sustainability of local and diverse news outlets,” the bill says.

The Australian law generated nearly $150 million for news organizations, Columbia University’s Bill Grueskin found.

But Harbath said she’s skeptical that the California bill will be enough to help the news industry.

“I don’t know that these bills are going to necessarily achieve what people think they’re going to achieve,” she said. “I just don’t know if they’re really going to get as much money as they actually need by doing this.”

It’s important “to think creatively going forward about what these business models should look like,” Harbath added.
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The International Energy Agency says Chinese car manufacturers are emerging as a major force in the global electric car market, with more than 50% of all electric cars on roads worldwide now produced in China. Spain is the second-largest vehicle manufacturer in Europe after Germany and its market has become a target for Chinese automakers. From Barcelona, Alfonso Beato has this report, narrated by Marcus Harton.
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The effort to avoid a U.S. default shifts to the Senate after the House of Representatives approved a measure late Wednesday to suspend the country’s borrowing limit and cap some federal spending. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said they hope to get the bill approved in the Senate in the coming days and send it to President Joe Biden for his signature. 

The U.S. Treasury Department has warned it will run out of money to pay the nation’s bills as early as Monday if the debt limit is not raised. 

The measure passed in the House by a vote of 314-117 despite objections by Republicans who said it did not go far enough in cutting spending and by Democrats who said it cut too much. 

Seventy-one lawmakers from the majority Republican party voted against the bill, as did 46 Democrats. 

 In a statement following Wednesday’s vote, Biden celebrated the agreement as a “bipartisan compromise.” 

“It protects key priorities and accomplishments from the past two years, including historic investments that are creating good jobs across the country. And, it honors my commitment to safeguard Americans’ health care and protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It protects critical programs that millions of hardworking families, students, and veterans count on.” 

McCarthy told reporters that getting the bill passed “wasn’t an easy fight.”  He emphasized the budget savings and criticized Democrats who want to separate the debate about spending from the task of suspending the debt limit. 

“We put the citizens of America first and we didn’t do it by taking the easy way,” McCarthy said. “We didn’t do it by the ways that people did in the past by just lifting it, we decided you had to spend less and we achieved that goal.”

McCarthy said he intends to follow Wednesday’s action with more efforts to cut federal spending. 

The bill now heading to the Senate includes waiving the existing borrowing limit until January 2025 and a two-year budget deal that keeps federal spending flat in 2024 and increases it by 1% in 2025. The measure does not raise taxes, nor will it stop the national debt total from continuing to increase, perhaps by another $3 trillion or more over the next year and a half.      

Other pieces of the legislation include a reduction in the number of new agents hired by the country’s tax collection agency, a requirement that states return $30 billion in unspent coronavirus pandemic assistance to the federal government and extending from 50 to 54 the upper age bracket for those required to work in order to receive food aid.      

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that the reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is not a current focus of the Biden administration. 

Kirby said the United States remains committed to ensuring Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons and that President Joe Biden “still believes that a diplomatic solution to that would be highly preferable.” 

But Kirby said Iran was not negotiating in good faith and has shown “no inclination to move in that direction.” 

The nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. 

The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 due to what then-President Donald Trump said were terms too favorable to Iran. The Iranians reacted by stepping away from their commitments under the deal; employing more advanced centrifuges, enriching uranium to higher levels and keeping larger stockpiles of enriched uranium. 

Kirby said part of the lack of prioritizing the issue at the White House is “domestic strife” in Iran as well as Iran’s role in supporting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. 
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Latest Developments:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanks United States for new $300 million aid package that includes air defense systems and ammunition.
U.S. announces temporary suspension of tariffs on Ukrainian steel has been extended for one year.
U.N. expresses concerns about repeated attacks on health facilities in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials said Thursday a Russian missile attack targeted Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, killing at least three people and injuring 10 others.

The Ukrainian military said it intercepted all 10 short-range missiles fire by Russia.

Kyiv officials said debris from the missiles damaged apartment buildings, a medical clinic and a water pipeline.

Russia carried out frequent aerial attacks on Kyiv in May as Ukraine prepared for an expected counteroffensive to try to take back territory Russian forces have seized since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine early last year.

The governor of western Russia’s Belgorod region said Thursday overnight shelling wounded multiple people in the town of Shebekino.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram the attack damaged several buildings as well. He blamed Ukrainian forces.

NATO support

In Oslo, NATO foreign ministers gathered Thursday to discuss increasing their support for Ukraine as well as Ukraine’s aspirations to join the military alliance.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked that NATO fast-track his country’s acceptance, but NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said last week Ukraine joining NATO is “not on the agenda” while the war continues.

Stoltenberg expressed support for Ukraine becoming a member as he spoke to reporters Thursday in Oslo.

“All allies also agree that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance and all allies agree that it is for the NATO allies and Ukraine to decide when Ukraine becomes a member,” Stoltenberg said.  “It’s not for Moscow to have a veto against NATO enlargement.”

Stoltenberg said the “most urgent and important task now is that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign and independent nation.”

Asked about attacks on Russian soil attributed to Ukraine, Stoltenberg said Ukraine was attacked by Russia and has the right to defend itself.  He said Russian President Vladimir Putin can stop the war at any time, and that those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine must be held accountable.

Thursday’s meeting in Oslo comes ahead of a summit of NATO leaders next month in Lithuania where Stoltenberg said he expects allies will agree on a long-term commitment to support Ukraine. He said Ukraine needs to have the capabilities and strength to defend itself and deter any future attempts by Russia to repeat its invasion.

Stoltenberg had expressed hope that NATO allies would approve Sweden’s bid to join the alliance before the July summit. All existing members must give their approval, and to date only Hungary and Turkey have not.

The NATO chief said Thursday he will soon travel to Ankara to continue discussing the situation with leaders there. Turkey has accused Sweden of not doing enough to crack down on groups that Turkey considers terrorists. Stoltenberg noted that a new anti-terrorism law went into effect Thursday in Sweden and reiterated that he is confident Sweden will become a full NATO member.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Washington strongly condemned the attempted launch of North Korea’s first military spy satellite, a device that Pyongyang says it needs to monitor joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea.

“With each and every one of these launches, whether it fails or succeeds, Kim Jong Un and his scientists and engineers — they learn and they improve and they adapt,” John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said in a Wednesday briefing to reporters.

A statement published in North Korean state media said that during its Tuesday launch, the rocket lost thrust following the separation of its first and second stages. Pyongyang said it will attempt a second launch as soon as possible.

State-run media said the satellite is intended for surveillance of the joint exercises, citing a need to monitor the U.S. and its allies “in real time.”

However, the White House maintains that the failed launch involved technologies directly related to Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, which is banned by United Nations resolutions. Observers also say that the surveillance technology claimed by Pyongyang could potentially identify targets in the event of a war.

The Kim regime likely sees itself in a space race with its southern neighbor, given the demonstrated ability of South Korea’s indigenous Nuri rocket to deliver satellites into orbit, said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

“Whether or not North Korea’s current satellite mission is a success, Pyongyang can be expected to issue political propaganda about its space capabilities, as well as diplomatic rhetoric aimed at driving a wedge between Seoul and Tokyo,” Easley told VOA.

Raised tensions

North Korean officials have accused Seoul and Washington of raising tensions with their scaled-up, joint-military live fire exercises and a multinational naval drill that includes Japan.

Earlier this month, on the sidelines of the Group of Seven advanced democracies’ summit in Hiroshima, Japan, U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged “new coordination in the face of the DPRK’s illicit nuclear and missile threats,” including plans to share real-time data on Pyongyang’s missile launches.

The trilateral cooperation pledge followed the so-called Washington Declaration between the U.S. and South Korea, agreed to in April as Biden hosted Yoon in a state visit. The deal allows for a more muscular U.S. presence in the region and grants Seoul a greater decision-making role in U.S. contingency planning in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack.

Joint exercises

Even before the U.S. formally expanded and strengthened its extended deterrence strategy — a term also known as the American nuclear umbrella — Washington and Seoul had significantly stepped up the frequency and scope of their joint military exercises since August 2022. The drills were postponed under U.S. President Donald Trump following his meeting with Kim in Singapore in 2018.

The last working-level nuclear talks between U.S. and North Korean officials broke off in October 2019.

U.S. officials say they’re open to restart negotiations.

“We’ve been consistent since the beginning of this administration that we’re willing to sit down with the DPRK without preconditions to talk about the denuclearization of the peninsula,” Kirby said Wednesday.

Frank Aum, a senior expert on Northeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the administration needs to take more aggressive steps toward engaging Pyongyang, including by offering unilateral conciliatory gestures that may bring them to the negotiation table.

“If the focus is just on enhancing our own deterrence capabilities, then we’re not going to get anywhere,” Aum told VOA. “Because North Korea can misperceive that as … not just being about deterrence but being offensive, about being geared towards undermining or taking out the North Korean regime.”
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Russia said it was evacuating hundreds of children from villages because of intensifying shelling in the border region of Belgorod, where the situation was deemed alarming by the Kremlin.

More than a year into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is now seeing stepped-up attacks on its soil, including an unprecedented incursion last week in the southern region of Belgorod and a drone attack on Moscow on Tuesday.

Authorities began evacuating children from the border districts of Shebekino and Graivoron, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

Gladkov said the first 300 evacuated children will be taken to Voronezh, a city about 250 kilometers further into Russia. And more than 1,000 more children will be moved to other provinces over the coming days, he added.

A correspondent for state-run agency RIA Novosti near Voronezh said buses had arrived with around 150 people on board.

Gladkov said the situation was growing worse in the village of Shebekino, where he reported more shelling during the day that injured four people but didn’t cause any deaths.

On Tuesday, one person was killed and two others were wounded in a strike on a center for displaced people in the region. Several oil depots have also been hit in recent weeks.

The attacks have come as Kyiv says it is preparing for a major offensive against Moscow’s forces.

“The situation is quite alarming,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said about shelling in the region.

“We have not heard a single word of condemnation from the West so far,” Peskov said.

The Kremlin has accused Ukraine — and its Western backers — of being behind the increasing number of reported attacks.

On Tuesday, the foreign ministry said the West was “pushing the Ukrainian leadership towards increasingly reckless acts” after a drone attack on residential areas in Moscow.

The Russian defense ministry said that eight drones were used in the attack, adding that five of them were downed and three disabled.

At least three buildings were lightly damaged, including two high-rise residential buildings in Moscow’s affluent southwest.

Ukraine, which has seen almost nightly attacks on its capital, denied any “direct involvement.”

The United States said it did not support any attack inside Russia, instead providing Kyiv with equipment and training to reclaim its territory.

AFP journalists went to the regional capital city, which is also called Belgorod, over the weekend.

Residents confessed to a certain amount of worry, but a sense of fatalism prevailed.

“What can we do? We just shout ‘Oh! and ‘Ah!’ What will that change?” said retired teacher, 84-year-old Rimma Malieva.

Most people AFP spoke to said they trusted the authorities to fix the weaknesses laid bare by the latest raid.

Evgeny Sheikin, a 41-year-old builder, still said “it should not have happened.”
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Amid fresh strikes on Kyiv and as Ukraine readies its counteroffensive against Russia, another former Soviet republic is watching closely. In 2008, Georgia waged a brief war against Moscow and pro-Russian separatists, losing its breakaway region of South Ossetia, and another, Abkhazia. Now, as Georgia’s population looks firmly westward, some accuse its government of leaning towards Moscow — risking Georgian hopes to join the European Union. Lisa Bryant reports from the capital Tbilisi and near the border of South Ossetia.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday it was  “unfortunate” that China declined a request for Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu to meet as both attend the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

Speaking alongside Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada during a visit to Tokyo, Austin said he would welcome “any opportunity to engage with leadership” and that he believes defense departments should have open channels of communication.

Austin told reporters that countries with “significant capabilities” should talk to each other in order to manage crises and prevent situations from spiraling out of control.

The lack of a meeting between the U.S. and Chinese defense officials comes at a time of cool relations that has included the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the U.S., tensions about U.S. support for Taiwan, and what the United States called a Chinese fighter jet’s “unnecessarily aggressive” interception of a U.S. Air Force aircraft over the South China Sea this week.

Hamada told reporters that he and Austin agreed to closely cooperate on challenges posed by China and said it is important to keep a frank dialogue with the Chinese.

Hamada also said Japan and the United States would work closely with South Korea in a concerted effort against what he called North Korea’s provocative actions.

His comments came a day after the failure of a North Korea launch of a spy satellite. U.N. Security Council resolutions bar North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.

Austin called North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs “dangerous and destabilizing.” He said the United States will take all necessary measures to secure its homeland and defend its allies.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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