Today’s American men are working less during their prime years than they did in the 1960s, with the biggest drop in employment among less-educated men.

In 1969, 96% of men between the ages of 25 and 54 participated in the labor force. By 2015, that rate had fallen to under 89%.

The

When the grand vacation homes of Newport Beach were empty on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, Molly Munger decided it was time for the U.S. to consider taxing wealth.
 
 As her family’s boat moved through the harbor a few years ago, Munger, whose father is a billionaire investor, saw that many of her neighbors’ houses were sitting dark and vacant. She knew why: The owners now controlled enough money to holiday at one of their several other luxury homes. It didn’t sit right, she said.
 
“It’s just too much to watch that happen at the top and see what is happening at the bottom,” said Munger, 71, a California civil rights lawyer whose father, Charlie, built his fortune as vice chairman of Warren Buffett’s firm Berkshire Hathaway. “Isn’t it a waste when beautiful homes on the beach are empty for most of the summer?”
 
Munger is now among a handful of billionaires and multimillionaires making a renewed push for the government to raise their taxes and siphon away some of their holdings. As Democratic presidential candidates debate a new tax on wealth rather than on incomes, this group of uber-rich people is urging them on.
 
 “I believe in free markets. I’m the daughter of a capitalist. But not Darwin-like free, unregulated and red in tooth and claw,” Munger said.
 
The chief argument from these tycoons, financiers and scions is that the government could spend their money more effectively than they could on their own by improving schools, upgrading infrastructure and protecting the environment. It challenges a long-standing belief among many politicians and economists that lower taxes on corporations and investment incomes are the most efficient way to deliver growth and spread wealth down the income ladder.
 
The idea also is a direct challenge to the reputed billionaire in the White House, Donald Trump, who once backed a wealth tax but in 2017 enacted a dramatic tax cut that favored the rich.
 
Twenty people, including one who remained anonymous, signed on to a letter this summer essentially asking to be taxed more. The group included financier George Soros, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and heiress Abigail Disney, and others often involved in liberal causes. Bill Gates, the world’s second richest person, didn’t sign it but has since said he “wouldn’t be against a wealth tax” on a net worth that roughly exceeds $100 billion.
 
While Democrats have long pushed for higher taxes on the top income tiers, the current debate goes further — whether to impose annual taxes on what people own, not just on what they earn.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has endorsed a wealth tax on holdings above $50 million that could potentially raise as much as $2.75 trillion over 10 years. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ tax would start at $32 million. At last week’s presidential debate, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, expressed openness to levying a wealth tax, while Tom Steyer argued for higher taxes on his own $1.6 billion fortune.
 
There were some detractors: Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang argues wealth taxes in other nations have failed to raise enough revenues.
 
Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized the Warren and Sanders plans as “demonizing wealth” and argued instead for focusing on income taxes and raising the rates charged on earnings from investments.
 
Biden’s view is backed by many in the economic establishment, even those who say they support using the tax code to counter income inequality.
 
Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and Harvard University president, argues a wealth tax is essentially unworkable. The richest Americans would find ways to avoid it, making it difficult to implement and unlikely to break the hold on politics by powerful companies and rich donors, he said Friday at a panel on wealth taxes at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Summers estimates that changes to the income tax could raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years from the top earners, but he doubts that a wealth tax would curb the influence of the richest Americans.
 
But the economists who developed the idea dispute the notion that tax avoidance is an unbreakable law of nature. Wealthier Americans paid taxes in the past when tax avoidance was viewed as freeloading, said Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley whose work has drawn attention to the wealth tax as a fix for worsening inequality.
 
“The tax system reflects the values of society,” he said.
 
The top 1% of Americans hold nearly 40% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 50% of Americans effectively control none of it, according to the World Inequality Database, an index Saez helped develop. Many in the wealthiest sliver of that top 1% pay lower rates than most Americans because of how their income gets taxed, according to his calculations.
 
Ian Simmons is among the well-off declaring they’re ready to pay more.
 
Simmons runs an investment fund called the Blue Haven Initiative with his wife, Liesel Pritzker Simmons. The 43-year-old joined the effort to recruit other moneyed families to support a wealth tax in the June letter.
 
The idea of taxing a relatively steady base of trillions of dollars felt consistent to Simmons with what he first learned at the Harvard University introductory economics class taught by Martin Feldstein, who was President Ronald Reagan’s economic adviser.
 
“This is really a conservative position about increasing the stability of the economy in the long term and having an efficient source of taxation,” he said.
 
Simmons’ family money came in part from mail order retailer Montgomery Ward, which opened in 1872, an innovation aided by the U.S. Postal Service. The Hyatt hotel chain that helped form his wife’s family fortune was aided by the government’s construction of the interstate highway system.
 
That’s part of the reason he supports a wealth tax — because his family’s fortune stems in part from government programs, echoing Warren’s key argument for her tax plan.
 
 When Simmons called the retired real estate developer Robert Bowditch this year to endorse the idea, the 80-year-old did the math on what it would mean for his own lifestyle. He figured it would cut into some of his charitable giving, but the returns would be much greater because the public would be able to decide in a democratic fashion on how the money would be spent.
 
 “Charitable giving by itself simply cannot provide enough money to support public goods and services, such as public education, roads and bridges, clean air,” Bowditch said. “It has to be done by taxes.”
 
Rich people have had limited success as advocates for tax hikes. In 2011, billionaire Buffett’s declaration that he paid a lower tax rate than his employees spawned President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise rates on people making more than $1 million. The so-called “Buffett rule” fizzled in Congress.
 
 In 1999, when Trump was mulling a presidential bid for the Reform Party, he proposed a one-time tax of 14.25% on fortunes above $10 million, saying at the time that it could eliminate the national debt.
 
 “It’s a win-win for the American people,” Trump said then. Asked if the president still supports the idea, the White House did not respond.

The presidents of Turkey and Russia met in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi on Tuesday, hours before a five-day cease-fire between Turkish troops and Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria was set to expire.
 
The talks between Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are likely to be crucial in determining arrangements along the Syrian-Turkish border, where Ankara demands a long “safe zone” cleared of Kurdish fighters.

As all the other parties jockey for control along the border, the United States was stumbling from one problem to another getting its troops out of Syria in an abrupt withdrawal ordered by President Trump. Iraq’s military said Tuesday that American forces leaving Syria did not have permission to stay in Iraq, seemingly contradicting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper who said a day earlier the forces would remain to help fight the Islamic State group.
 
After the Iraqi statement, Esper said he would speak to the Iraqi defense minister Wednesday and underlined that the U.S. has no plans to keep the troops in Iraq “interminably” and intends to “eventually get them home.”

It seemed another instance of the U.S. scrambling to set its policy after Trump surprised many by ordering Americans out. The U.S. pullout opened the door to Turkey to launch its offensive against Kurdish fighters on Oct. 9; after a storm of criticism, Washington moved to broker the cease-fire that came into effect Thursday night. Amid fears the Islamic State group could exploit the withdrawal to recapture oil fields now in Kurdish hands, the U.S. is considering keeping some troops in Syria to help the Kurds protect them.
 
Meanwhile, Russia has stepped into the void to strengthen its role as a power broker in Syria. Seeking protection after being abandoned by the Americans, the Kurds turned to the Syrian government and its main ally, Russia. The Syrian army has advanced into parts of the area, and Russia deployed its troops in some areas to act as a buffer force.

Russia has powerful sway on all sides. Turkey has suggested it wants Russia to persuade the Syrian government to cede it control over a major chunk of territory in the northeast. The Kurds are hoping Russia can keep Turkey out and help preserve some of the autonomy they carved out for themselves during Syria’s civil war.
 
Syrian President Bashar Assad has vowed to reunite all the territory under Damascus’ rule. On Tuesday, Assad  called Erdogan “a thief” and said he was ready to support any “popular resistance” against Turkey’s invasion.
 
“We are in the middle of a battle and the right thing to do is to rally efforts to lessen the damages from the invasion and to expel the invader sooner or later,” he told troops during a visit to the northwestern province of Idlib.

The immediate question was the fate of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire, which was to run out at 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) Tuesday evening.

Erdogan said 1,300 Syrian Kurdish fighters had yet to vacate a stretch of the border as required under the deal. He said 800 fighters had left so far. The Kurdish-led force has said it will carry out the pullout.

If it doesn’t, Erdogan warned Tuesday, “our offensive will continue from where it left off, with a much greater determination.”

“There is no place for the (Kurdish fighters) in Syria’s future. We hope that with Russia’s cooperation, we will rid the region of separatist terror,” he said.

Under the accord, the Kurdish fighters are to vacate a stretch of territory roughly 120 kilometers (75 miles) wide and 30 kilometers (20 miles) deep between the Syrian border towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn.

But that leaves the situation in the rest of the northeastern border unclear. Currently, other than the few places where Syrian troops have deployed, they are solely in the hands of the Kurdish-led fighters _ a situation Ankara has repeatedly said it cannot tolerate. Turkey considers the fighters terrorists, because of their links to Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey.

Turkey wants to control a “safe zone” extending more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) along the border, from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border. There, it plans to resettle about 2 million of the roughly 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey.

Russia sent a new signal to Turkey about the need to negotiate directly with Assad. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that only Damascus could authorize the Turkish troop presence on the Syrian territory.
 
Assad gave a symbolic show of Damascus’ goal of regaining the border, visiting troops in northwestern Idlib province, where his forces are battling rebels. Idlib is adjacent to an enclave along the border that Turkey captured several years ago in another incursion. Turkey also has observation points inside Idlib, negotiated with Russia, to monitor a cease-fire there between the government and opposition fighters and jihadi groups.
 
Assad called Erdogan “a thief, he stole the factories and the wheat and the oil in cooperation with Daesh (the Islamic State group) and now is stealing the land.”
He said his government had offered a clemency to Kurdish fighters _ whom it considers separatists _ to “ensure that everyone is ready to resist the aggression” and fight the Turkish assault.

Syrian state media reported Tuesday that government forces entered new areas in Hassakeh province at the far eastern end of the border, under the arrangement with the Kurds.

Turkey’s incursion into Syria has led to an international outcry, which has in turn enraged Erdogan, who has accused his NATO allies of not standing by Turkey.

European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday condemned the incursion and called on Turkey, which is a candidate for EU membership, to pull out troops.

“No one is fooled by the so-called cease-fire,” Tusk told EU lawmakers. Any course other than a Turkish withdrawal “means unacceptable suffering, a victory for Daesh (the Islamic State group), and a serious threat to European security,” he said.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer proposed the establishment of an internationally controlled security zone in Syria, “with the inclusion of Turkey and Russia.”

President Donald Trump injected racial overtones into the House impeachment inquiry Tuesday by comparing the Democratic-led investigation into his handling of U.S. policy toward Ukraine to a “lynching.” The highest-ranking African American in Congress warned Trump about making the comparison.

Lynchings, or hangings, historically were mostly used by whites against black men and mostly in the South beginning in the late 19th century amid rising racial tensions in the U.S. By comparing the impeachment process to a lynching, Trump is also likening Democrats to a lynch mob.

Under pressure over impeachment, blowback over his Syria policy and other issues, the Republican president tweeted Tuesday: “So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights.

“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!”

House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., criticized Trump’s word choices.

“That is one word no president ought to apply to himself,” Clyburn said on CNN after the president’s tweet was read to him. “That is a word that we ought to be very, very careful about using.”

Trump has a habit of trying to portray himself as the victim.

His tweet came a day after he lashed at critics of his decision – since rescinded – to schedule a major international economic summit for 2020 at one of his Florida golf properties. He lamented at one point during remarks Monday about “you people with this phony emoluments clause.”

The emoluments clause is in the Constitution and bans presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments.

A whistleblower’s complaint that Trump was attempting to use his office for personal political gain during a July 25 phone conversation with Ukraine’s president led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to open the impeachment inquiry.

Trump insists he did nothing wrong. He characterizes the conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “perfect” and argues that sore-loser Democrats are still trying to overturn the 2016 election that put him in the White House.

Whites used lynchings as a way to resolve anger toward blacks across the South, where people were blaming their financial problems on newly freed slaves that lived around them, according to the NAACP.

A veteran U.S. diplomat is set to appear before lawmakers Tuesday in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry of allegations that President Donald Trump held up military aid to Ukraine unless it opened an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

William Taylor, the top official at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, will testify behind closed doors about a series of text messages with other officials expressing concerns about the White House’s actions. Taylor wrote that it was “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper, who has worked on Russia and Ukraine policy at the Pentagon, is scheduled to testify in Wednesday.

The Democratic-led inquiry was set off when an intelligence whistleblower expressed concern to the inspector general about Trump’s July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which he appeared to urge Zelenskiy to open an investigation into the former vice president, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.  

Trump has alleged that Biden threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Ukraine unless an earlier corruption probe into a gas company that employed his son Hunter was stopped.

No evidence of wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden has surfaced. But reaching out to a foreign government to dig up dirt on a rival is considered to be interference in a presidential election and an impeachable offense.

Trump has insisted there was no “quid pro quo” involved in his call to Zelenskiy, describing the conversation as “perfect” and accusing the Democratic-led House of a witch hunt.

But that assertion was bungled just last week by Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff. Mulvaney admitted to reporters that Trump froze $400 million in aid to Kyiv because of the president’s concerns over corruption in Ukraine and suspicions it was involved in the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee e-mails in 2016.

Mulvaney defiantly said there will always be political influence over foreign policy and told people to “get over it.” He later issued a statement attempting to clarify his comments.

After Trump urged Republican lawmakers to “get tougher and fight” the probe Monday, they appeared to respond by introducing a resolution censuring California Democrat Adam Schiff, who is leading the inquiry as chairman of the Intelligence Committee.  The resolution failed by a vote of 218-185.  

Kenya’s reputation as a producer of world-class marathon runners was further boosted this month when Kenyans Eliud Kipchoge and Brigid Kosgei broke world records on the same weekend.  Running is a big thing for the East African nation, where regular competitions give Kenyans a chance to prepare for greater glory. Mohammed Yusuf has more from Nairobi.

Thousands of satellites orbit the Earth for a multitude of purposes. Some circle the planet to check on the health of the swirling blue orb below.  Reaching the perfect place to collect that information can mean an arduous and frigid journey back on Earth.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi bundles-up tight for this story from the Arctic Circle.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan said Monday that it “behooves” the U.S. Supreme Court to realize in these polarized times that there’s a danger of the public seeing it as just a political institution — and to strive to counter that perception.

Speaking at the University of Minnesota, Kagan said the high court’s legitimacy depends on public trust and confidence since nobody elected the justices.

“We have to be seen as doing law, which is distinct from politics or public policy, and to be doing it in a good faith way, trying to find the right answers,” she said.

Kagan acknowledged that the justices can be “pretty divided” on how to interpret the Constitution. But she said the view that politics guides their decisions is an oversimplification. The justices decide most of their cases unanimously or by lopsided margins, she said.

The justice didn’t mention a Marquette University Law School poll released earlier Monday in which 64% of respondents said they believe the law, rather than politics, mostly motivates the high court’s decisions. But the findings dovetailed with her remarks.

“It behooves us on the court to realize that this is a danger and make sure it isn’t so,” she said.

Kagan, 59, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 and is a member of the court’s liberal wing, said she believes none of the justices decide cases for partisan political reasons, but they do have different legal philosophies and approaches to constitutional issues.

Sometimes there’s no way to decide some cases without the results seeming political, she said, “but I think especially in these polarized times, I think we have an obligation to make sure that that happens only when we truly, truly can’t help it.”

Gerrymandering case

Kagan said she took the unusual step, for her, of reading part of her dissent from the bench in a gerrymandering case this summer because it was such an important issue and that she strongly disagreed with the 5-4 decision.

The conservative majority ruled that partisan gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts was none of its business. The decision freed state officials from federal court challenges to their plans to reshape districts to help their parties.

“I thought that the court had gotten it deeply wrong,” she said.
 
Kagan appeared as part of a lecture series sponsored by the University of Minnesota Law School that, in past years, has brought Justices John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to campus.
 

U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil goes on trial in New York Tuesday on charges it lied to investors about financial cost of fighting global warming.

The lawsuit, filed by the New York state attorney general, contends Exxon deliberately underestimated the cost to the company if governments implement action to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

The lawsuit says the Exxon wanted to avoid having to publically devalue the company’s assets which could have cost it billions of dollars.

It also alleges Exxon’s top executives, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, knew they were misleading investors.

“If companies like Exxon accurately account for the necessary degree of regulation to prevent even more dangerous global warming from happening, it will make less and less sense to continue to invest in developing fossil fuel projects,” Colombia University expert in climate change law Michael Burger says.

Exxon denies any wrongdoing and calls the attorney general’s case “misleading” and a deliberate misrepresentation.

“We tell investors through regular disclosures how the company accounts for risks associated with climate change. We are confident in the facts and look forward to seeing our company exonerated in court,” an Exxon spokesman says.  

Iran says it has given the U.S. a list of detained Iranians whom it wants to be freed in a prisoner swap, drawing a vague public response from U.S. officials who have sought to discuss the issue with Tehran.

Speaking to reporters Monday in Tehran, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Iran had provided the names of the detained Iranians to the U.S. and was ready to do a trade. He did not specify who was on the list or how it was handed to Washington, with whom Tehran has no formal ties.

But Mousavi said the Iranian government believes about 20 Iranians have been detained by the U.S. on what it considers to be “baseless” charges of circumventing U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. He singled out one of them, Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani, as a cause for concern due to ill health.

U.S. authorities arrested Soleimani, a stem cell researcher, in October 2018 upon his arrival at a Chicago airport. He was charged with trying to export biological materials to Iran in violation of the sanctions.

Asked by VOA Persian to confirm whether it has received Iran’s list for a proposed prisoner swap, a State Department spokesperson declined to comment specifically and only restated U.S. policy, saying: “The recovery of hostages held by the Islamic Republic of Iran is a top priority for the U.S. government.”

Iran has been detaining at least four Americans for security-related offenses that their relatives and supporters have dismissed as trumped-up charges. The detainees include former U.S. soldier Michael R. White, Chinese-American Princeton University researcher Xiyue Wang, and Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his elderly father Mohammad Bagher Namazi.

A fifth American, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, went missing in Iran 12 years ago and his family has said they believe he remains in detention there, a contention denied by Tehran.

Previously, Reuters quoted a

Facebook on Monday said it will apply lessons learned from America’s 2016 election to prevent manipulation of its platforms in the 2020 presidential contest.

In a press release, Facebook said it is working to combat “Inauthentic Behavior” on its applications — a phenomenon widely documented in 2016 that has continued in years since.

Facebook defines inauthentic behavior as “using deceptive behaviors to conceal the identity of the organization behind a campaign, make the organization or its activity appear more popular or trustworthy than it is, or evade (Facebook’s) enforcement efforts.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of creating fake accounts on Facebook and other platforms to spread falsehoods and divisive messaging that pitted U.S. voters against each other.

The social media giant will start requiring pages and advertisements to show their “Confirmed Page Owner.” Pages with large U.S. audiences will need to add their owners first.

The press release shared that Facebook had taken down four pages and groups on Facebook and Instagram that were linked to government-sponsored inauthentic behavior the morning of the press release. Three of them were linked to Iran, and one was in Russia.

As part of its policy, Facebook said it will label media outlets that are wholly or partially under their government’s editorial control as state-controlled media.

The company also pledged to remove misinformation from its newsfeeds. Elsewhere on the platform, pop-up messages will warn users of content that had been rated false or partly false by independent fact-checkers.

Fact-checkers are not trusted by all Americans. According to a survey by Pew Research Center, 69% of Democrats say fact-checking efforts by news outlets and other organizations “deal fairly with all sides.” But only 28% of Republicans concur.

Facebook said it has taken down 50 networks that were engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” many of which were operating ahead of major elections.

A major pharmaceutical company and three of the biggest drug distributors in the U.S. have reached a $260 million settlement with two counties in Ohio to avoid a trial over their role in the deadly opioid addiction crisis gripping America.

The deal, struck Monday, came just hours before the opening arguments in a court in Cleveland, Ohio. The case has been viewed as a harbinger for similar lawsuits filed by more than  2,700 local and state governments across the country in hopes of recouping damages from the crisis.

Drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen will pay $215 million in reparations. Israeli drug manufacturer Teva will pay $20 million in cash and also contribute $25 million worth of Suboxone, used to treat opioid addiction.

“People can’t lose sight of the fact that the counties got a very good deal for themselves, but we also set an important national benchmark for the others,” said Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer for Cuyahoga County.

Cuyahoga and Summit counties had brought the lawsuit that accused the four companies of fueling a nationwide opioid crisis.

According to U.S. government data, opioids have led to some 400,000 overdose deaths between 1997 and 2017.

Lawyers say the settlement will provide local governments with the finances needed to establish opioid-recovery programs.

Attempts to reach a nationwide settlement broke down last week after cities and counties suing the drug companies rejected an offer of $48 billion in cash, treatment drugs and services.

Hundreds of protesters are defying an emergency decree to confront police in Chile’s capital, continuing disturbances that have left at least 11 dead and led the president to say the country is “at war.”

Police used tear gas and streams of water to break up protests on one of Santiago’s main streets Monday.

Meanwhile, many people lined up before supermarkets that had reopened. Many were still closed after a weekend that saw scores of stores looted or burned.

Only one of the city’s six subway lines was operating because rioters had burned or damaged many of the stations.

President Sebastian Pinera said Sunday that the country is “at war with a powerful, relentless enemy that respects nothing or anyone and is willing to use violence and crime without any limits.”
 

The Duke and the Duchess of Sussex said in a joint interview with ITV news filmed during their tour in Africa earlier this month and aired Sunday, that they would not let British tabloids destroy their life.

Prince Harry told ITV that most of what is published in the British tabloids is not true, adding “I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mum.” Harry said the memory of Princess Diana’s death was “still incredibly raw every single day and that is not me being paranoid…”

The former U.S. television star Meghan Markle said that while her friends were happy for her when she met Harry, her British friends warned her not to marry Harry “because the British tabloids will destroy your life.”

Speaking of how she can cope with such intense scrutiny, Meghan replied: “In all honesty I have said for a long time to H – that is what I call him – it’s not enough to just survive something, that’s not the point of life. You have got to thrive.”

Earlier this month the couple sued British tabloid The Mail on Sunday for invasion of privacy, claiming it illegally published a letter she wrote to her father.

At the time, Harry said the treatment of Meghan was reminiscent of the tabloid’s approach to his mother.

India’s rural areas are feeling the pinch as the country’s once booming automobile sector struggles with it worst downturn in two decades and an estimated 350,000 workers employed in auto plants and ancillary industries lose jobs. Anjana Pasricha visited a village near the booming business and auto hub of Gurugram district in Haryana state to find out why plummeting automobile sales are affecting rural areas whose fortunes rose along with the auto industry

The U.S. is considering keeping some troops near oil fields in northeastern Syria to protect them from being captured by Islamic State militants, Defense chief Mark Esper said Monday.

A convoy of more than 100 vehicles with U.S. troops crossed into Iraq  from Syria on Monday, part of the broader withdrawal from northern Syria ordered by President Donald Trump. But Esper said that some American forces were still patrolling near the oil fields alongside Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Pentagon leader said no long-term decision has been made “with regard to numbers or anything like that” and no plan presented to Trump. On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter, “We have secured the oil.”

Esper said, “We presently have troops in a couple of cities that [are] located right near that area. The purpose is to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS [Islamic State] and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities.”

Trump’s troop withdrawal has angered Kurds in northern Syria, where Kurdish fighters have fought alongside U.S. forces against Islamic State terrorists. But Trump said the U.S. had no stake in Turkey’s offensive against the Kurdish fighters, which Ankara considers as allies with Kurdish separatists fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for the last three decades.

The U.S. last week brokered a five-day cease-fire with Turkey in the region to give the Kurdish fighters a chance to move away from the border where Turkey wants to impose a 32-kilometer-wide “safe zone.”

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated Monday that his offensive against the Kurdish fighters would resume if they have not pulled back from the Turkish border by the time the pause in the conflict ends Tuesday night.

With Trump’s withdrawal of most U.S. troops, Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has stepped into the vacuum in northern Syria. Even though Turkey is a NATO ally of the U.S., Erdogan is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to plot their strategy in Syria.

Erdogan, without elaborating, told a forum in Istanbul on Monday, “We will take up this process with Mr. Putin and after that we will take the necessary steps” in northeastern Syria.

As U.S. armored vehicles drove out of Syria through the Kurdish-dominated northeastern city of Qamishli on Monday, residents hurled potatoes at the Americans, shouting in English, “No America,” and “America liar.”

Near the town of Tal Tamr, protesters late Sunday raised banners against departing U.S. troops. One man blocked the path of a U.S. van with a poster reading: “Thanks for U.S. people, but Trump betrayed us.”

Trump has said the troop withdrawal was necessary for the U.S. to “end endless wars” in the Middle East. The Pentagon is moving its Syrian contingent of more than 700 U.S. troops to Iraq, not sending them “home” as Trump had tweeted they would be. Esper said the troops would help defend Iraq and could still conduct antiterrorist raids in Syria on Islamic State insurgents.   

The U.S. currently has about 5,000 troops in Iraq under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington. The U.S. had pulled out in 2011 when combat operations ended there, but went back in three years later when Islamic State took over large parts of the country before later losing what it had gained.

While the Kurdish withdrawal from the border region is occurring, both Kurdish and Turkish leaders accused each other of violating the cease-fire with scattered attacks.

The Kurds said Turkey had shelled one village at dawn Monday and contended that the U.S. had not forced Ankara to adhere to the terms of the cease-fire. Turkey accused the Kurds of 30 live-fire violations during the four days of the purported pause in hostilities, including an attack that killed one Turkish soldier.

Egypt has unveiled the contents of 30 ancient wooden coffins recently discovered in Luxor in what officials call the country’s largest archaeological find in more than a century. Officials say the 3,000-year-old coffins shown to the media Saturday are just a small part of what is yet to come as the archeological excavations resume after years of decline. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

As Ukraine and Russia discuss resuming peace talks, thousands of families remain torn apart by conflict. In rebel-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, hundreds of people have been detained and accused of spying — with widespread evidence of torture and killings. Henry Ridgwell met the family of one man who was seized by rebel forces, who described the pain of separation, and the horror of witnessing his suffering from afar.

In African slums, boxing clubs are seen as a good way to keep young men off the streets, let them take out their frustrations through sport rather than crime, and provide a way out of poverty. In Uganda, though, one woman has stepped into the ring to not only win medals on the continent, but also empower young women to stay off the streets and defend themselves.  Halima Athumani reports from Kampala. 

At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday.

The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed.

The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018.

The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, Earnest said he was inspired by the deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 51 people in March.

The ADL also counted three additional 2019 cases in which individuals were arrested for targeting Jews but weren’t deemed to be white supremacists. Two were motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, the organization said.

The ADL said its Center on Extremism provided “critical intelligence” to law enforcement in at least three of the 12 cases it counted.

Last December, authorities in Monroe, Washington, arrested a white supremacist after the ADL notified law enforcement about suspicions he threatened on Facebook to kill Jews in a synagogue. The ADL said it also helped authorities in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, identify a white supremacist accused of using aliases to post threatening messages, including a digital image of himself pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of praying Jewish men.

In August, an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force arrested a Las Vegas man accused of plotting to firebomb a synagogue or other targets, including a bar catering to LGTBQ customers and the ADL’s Las Vegas office. The ADL said it warned law enforcement officials about the man’s online threats.

“We cannot and will not rest easy knowing the threat posed by white supremacists and other extremists against the Jewish community is clear and present,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.

The ADL said it counted at least 30 additional incidents in which people with an “unknown ideology” targeted Jewish institutions with acts of arson, vandalism or propaganda distribution that the group deemed to be anti-Semitic or “generally hateful,” but not explicitly white supremacist.

“These incidents include the shooting of an elderly man outside a synagogue in Miami, fires set at multiple Jewish institutions in New York and Massachusetts, Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogue windows in Chicago, damaged menorahs in Georgia and New Jersey, as well as a wide range of anti-Semitic graffiti,” an ADL report said.