Hurricane Dorian has weakened to a Category 1 storm, after generating tornadoes and flooding roads in North and South Carolina.

Early Friday, Dorian made landfall over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina before moving out into the Atlantic ocean on its trek up the U.S. east coast with maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour.

In its most recent bulletin, the National Hurricane Center said, “The center of Dorian will move near or over the coast of North Carolina during the next few hours.”  NHC added, “The center should move to the southeast of extreme southeastern New England tonight and Saturday morning, and then across Nova Scotia late Saturday or Saturday night.”

The NHC expects Dorian to produce a life-threatening storm surge and dangerous winds along parts of the North Carolina and Virginia coasts. Flash flooding across eastern South and North Carolina and southeastern Virginia was expected to become more widespread Friday morning.

Bahamas recovery

Elsewhere, thousands of people in the Bahamas have begun the long and painful struggle to rebuild their lives following the onslaught of the hurricane, which was an extremely powerful Category 5 storm upon its arrival several days ago.

International search and rescue teams are spreading out across Abaco and Grand Bahama islands looking for survivors.

Late Thursday, the death toll in the Bahamas had risen to 30.

Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis told CNN Thursday he believes the final number of people killed “will be staggering.”

The French news agency reported teams of people in masks and white protective suits were seen placing corpses enclosed in green body bags onto a flatbed truck.

Homes have been transformed into matchsticks.

“It’s hell everywhere,” said Brian Harvey, a Canadian who was on his sailboat when Dorian hit.

International assistance

The U.S. Coast Guard and British Royal Navy have ships docked off the islands and the United Nations is sending eight tons of ready-to-eat meals and satellite communications equipment.

The Royal Caribbean and Walt Disney cruise lines, which usually carry tourists to Bahamian resorts, are instead using ships to deliver food, water, flashlights and other vital aid.

Hampton University, a historically black college in Virginia, has offered free classes and room and board to students from the University of the Bahamas for the current fall semester.

After the fall semester, any students who remain will be charged the regular rates.

Mexico says the number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has fallen by 56 percent since an agreement with U.S. officials three months ago to reduce the flow.
 
Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard declared the measures a success Friday. He also said the deployment of the National Guard has generated few complaints about human rights violations. The guardsmen operate highway checkpoints along major migratory routes through the country.
 
Ebrard is scheduled to meet with U.S. officials in Washington Tuesday to review the results of the effort, which followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose crippling tariffs on all Mexican imports.
 
Mexico has also been accepting a higher number of migrants who forced to wait in Mexico after requesting asylum in the U.S.

New York Attorney General Letitia James says a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general is investigating Facebook for alleged antitrust issues.

The Democrat said Friday the probe will look into whether Facebook’s actions endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices or increased the price of advertising.

Facebook had no immediate comment.

James said she is leading a coalition that includes the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and the District of Columbia.
 
The U.S. Justice Department announced in July that it was opening a sweeping antitrust investigation of Big Tech, though it did not name any specific companies. It said it was investigating whether online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers.
 
The House Judiciary Committee is also conducting an antitrust probe into Facebook, Amazon and Apple.

The near extinct masked dance of Lakhon Khol was on display recently, thousands of miles from its birthplace in Cambodia. A group of devoted amateurs brought the ancient dance to the Washington metropolitan. VOA’S Chetra Chap reports.

Ghana is famous for its cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate. It supplies about 20 percent of the world’s market. This year, the government announced plans to raise cocoa incomes, but cocoa bean farms are being destroyed, with or without the farmers’ consent, as their landlords end their leases early, opting for other crops, development or mining. Stacey Knott reports for VOA from the Eastern Region of Ghana.
 

Hurricane Dorian left parts of the Bahamas underwater and in total ruin.  First-responders and disaster-relief organizations are mobilizing to deliver aid and assist in search and rescue operations in the Caribbean nation, where at least 30 deaths have been recorded. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi spoke with relief personnel and has this report.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Chief Executive John Lansing said he will be leaving his post at the end of the month.

Lansing, a veteran government broadcast and cable television executive, was named four years ago by U.S. President Barack Obama to be the first chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio and Television Martí, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

Lansing made his mark at the agency early on by championing a free press.

“Despite some very dark moments, we have not been silenced. We will continue to report the truth. We will continue to find new ways to get independent reporting and programming to global audiences who rely on it,” he said this year on World Press Freedom Day.

USAGM board Chairman Kenneth Weinstein said in a statement, “John has put USAGM on solid footing to advance our mission to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. … The Board is very grateful for, and deeply impressed by, the results achieved during his tenure.”

Lansing has boosted the networks’ global weekly audience by more than 100 million and expanded the agency’s use of platforms from encrypted live broadcasting to shortwave radio to push content into countries that jam or ban American programming.

Under his watch, the agency also created Current Time, a network broadcasting news, features and documentaries for Russian speakers in 2017. Polygraph and Faktograph are websites aimed at combating a stream of disinformation by Russia state-controlled media. A new Persian-language service, VOA365, also started broadcasting earlier this year.

In a statement released late Thursday, Lansing said he would be starting a new position at chief executive at National Public Radio, a publicly funded nonprofit membership media organization based in Washington.

Lansing acknowledged challenges ahead for the agency with countries such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran trying to control information and spread their influence throughout the world.

“Please keep abiding by the highest standards of professional journalism. Please keep fighting for press freedom. Please keep telling the truth. The world needs you now more than ever,” he concluded in his statement to employees.

Weinstein said in his statement, “It is the Board’s top priority to find the best individual to run USAGM upon John’s departure.”

FLORENCE, Ala. — Jimmy Johnson, a founder of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and guitarist with the famed studio musicians “The Swampers,” has died.

He was 76. His family announced in a Facebook post that he died Thursday.

As a studio musician, recording engineer and record producer, Johnson played a role in iconic hits by Percy Sledge, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd and others.

Musician Jason Isbell posted on Twitter, writing “The mighty Jimmy Johnson has passed. A lot of my favorite music wouldn’t exist without him.”

‘Phenomenal music guy’

Bassist and business partner David Hood said Johnson was a “friend who became a brother” and an inspiration to him and countless others in the music business.

“Jimmy was just an all-around phenomenal music guy,” Hood said.

Johnson began work as a professional guitar player at an early age and became a studio musician with Fame Studio. He later helped found the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, which became a recording destination for well-known artists.

According to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Johnson’s “distinctive guitar fills” can be heard on the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, The Staple Singers and others. Johnson also was renowned as a recording engineer working the controls of Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” and the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses” and other hits.

Hearing what others didn’t

Hood said in the studio that Johnson could hear things that others didn’t.

“When he first signed Lynyrd Skynyrd, nobody thought anybody would want to hear that,” Hood said of the long-haired group. “But he believed in them, fought for them and never gave up on them.” The group immortalized the Swampers with a reference on “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Johnson always remained humble, Hood said, recalling how Johnson’s mother would host home-cooked dinners for “all these rock ‘n’ roll people” in their small home in Sheffield.

Johnson’s son, Jay Johnson, wrote on Facebook: “He is gone. Playing music with the angels now.”

The owners of the dive boat where 34 people perished in a fire off Southern California filed a lawsuit Thursday to head off potentially costly litigation, a move condemned by some observers as disrespectful to the families of the dead. 
 
Truth Aquatics Inc., which owned the Conception, filed the action in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under a pre-Civil War provision of maritime law that allows it to limit its liability. 
  
Investigators are still searching for what caused the blaze that wrecked the boat, which remains upside down at the bottom of the sea near the Channel Islands. 
  
The time-tested legal maneuver has been successfully employed by owners of the Titanic and countless other crafts — some as small as personal watercraft — and was widely anticipated by maritime law experts. Still, the fact it was filed just three days after the deadly inferno Monday surprised legal observers. 

Limited time to act
 
Families of the deceased, who are not named in the complaint, will be served with notice that they have a limited time to challenge the company’s effort to clear itself of negligence or limit its liability to the value of the remains of the boat, which is a total loss. 
  
“They’re forcing these people to bring their claims and bring them now,” said attorney Charles Naylor, who represents victims in maritime law cases. “They have six months to do this. They could let these people bury their kids. This is shocking.” 
 
Professor Martin J. Davies, the maritime law director at Tulane University, said the cases always follow accidents at sea and always look bad, but they are usually initiated by insurance companies to limit losses. 
  
“It seems like a pretty heartless thing to do, but that’s what always happens. They’re just protecting their position,” Davies said. “It produces very unpleasant results in dramatic cases like this one. … The optics are awful.” 
 
The U.S. law dates to 1851, but it has its origins in 18th-century England, Davies said. It was designed to encourage the shipping business. Every country with a shipping industry has something similar on its books. 
  
In order to prevail, the company and owners Glen and Dana Fritzler must show they were not at fault in the disaster. 
 
They asserted in the lawsuit that they “used reasonable care to make the Conception seaworthy, and she was, at all relevant times, tight, staunch and strong, fully and properly manned, equipped and supplied and in all respects seaworthy and fit for the service in which she was engaged.” 
 

Even if the captain or crew are found at fault, the Fritzlers and their insurance company could avoid paying a dime under the law, experts said. 
 
All of those who died were in a bunkroom below the main deck. Officials have said the 33 passengers and one crew member had no ability to escape the flames. 
  
Crew members told investigators they made several attempts to rescue the people who were trapped before abandoning ship, the National Transportation Safety Board said. None of the survivors has spoken publicly. 
 
The court filing not only seeks to protect the boat owners from legal exposure but also will require any lawsuits to be filed in the same federal court. 
  
A judge will hold a non-jury trial to see whether the company can successfully show it wasn’t at fault. If that’s the case, any claimants would be entitled only to the value of the remains of the ship, which the suit said is a total loss with zero value. 

Legal measure’s history
 
There’s a long history of ship owners successfully asserting this protection. The case involving the White Star Line, the owners of the Titanic, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that a foreign owner could assert protection of the Limitation Act, attorney James Mercante said. 
 
In that case, plaintiffs eventually withdrew their lawsuits and filed them in England, where the company was based. British law, even though it also limited damages, provided a bigger payout than the value of the remaining lifeboats. 
 
While the law can shield owners from damages, over 90% of cases where injury and death are involved are settled before trial, Mercante said. 
 
Attorney A. Barry Cappello, who is in discussions with another firm to represent family members of the Conception victims in court, said there’s a strong case to show negligence in the boat fire and that good lawyers can find a way around the admiralty law in federal court. 
  
“The law is so antiquated and so skewed in favor of the ship owners that damages for wrongful-death-type cases is very limited unless one can prove exceptions,” Cappello said. 
 
Cappello recently prevailed in a case in which a company that rented a paddleboard to a man who drowned in Santa Barbara Harbor had asserted the liability protection. A judge ruled the admiralty law didn’t extend to such crafts, though the company has appealed. 
 
Davies said from what he’s heard of the disaster, there’s a realistic prospect the owner might prevail if the boat was properly equipped and the cause of the fire remains mysterious. 
  
If the owner loses, there’s the potential of unlimited liability. 
  
“That’s why the fight is always about limitation, because if you’ve got unlimited liability, well … 30 dead people is a whole lot of money,” Davies said. 

Three children born to Nigerian Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria were handed over to the Nigerian government, Syrian Kurdish officials said Thursday.

The orphaned children, aged 4, 6 and 8, were handed over to a Nigerian government representative in the city of Qamishli in northeast Syria.

“We have been in talks with Nigerian officials about these cases,” said Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the SDF-led administration in northeast Syria, who met with a Nigerian official on Thursday.

“They finally decided to come here and take these parentless children,” he told VOA.

This is the first time that an African country has taken back children of Africans who have traveled to Syria to join the terror group, the Kurdish official said.

Omar declined to give information about the number of Nigerians held in northeast Syria, but there are many Nigerians in custody who joined the IS terror group in recent years.

Children and women only

Musa Habib Marika, a representative of Nigeria’s government, said his country is also considering other cases.

“We have asked for a list of Nigerians who are held in camps and prisons to look into their cases,” Marika said during a press conference with Kurdish officials in Qamishli.

But Omar said that Nigeria and other countries can only repatriate children and women of IS fighters.  

U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared victory over IS in March 2019 after pushing out the group from its last stronghold in eastern Syria.

SDF officials say they are holding more than 1,200 IS militants from nearly 50 countries.

There are also about 20,000 women and 50,000 children of IS fighters who have been settled in an overcrowded camp in northeast Syria, the same sources said.

Kurdish officials say they couldn’t bear the responsibility of dealing with IS fighters alone and that a special international tribunal should be established for crimes they have committed in Syria.

“We can’t try these individuals on our own, so the international community needs to step up its efforts to help us address this international problem,” Kurdish official Omar said.

He added that some Western countries have expressed support for establishing such a court for IS foreign fighters.  

IS in Nigeria

On Thursday, IS claimed that its fighters killed 10 Nigerian soldiers and injured several others in an attack on a military base in Borno state. It is the third attack in the area over the last week.

IS said in a statement online that fighters from its West Africa Province (ISWAP) affiliate carried out the attack Wednesday, capturing six military vehicles, weapons and ammunition.

Nigerian officials have not yet commented on the attack.

ISWAP is a splinter of the Boko Haram terrorist group that pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015.

According the International Crisis Group, ISWAP has 3,500 to 5,000 fighters across Nigeria. The group has reportedly been engaged in deadly attacks against Nigerian military personnel and civilians.

While it is unclear how many Nigerian nationals have joined IS in Syria and Iraq, experts say their potential return could be a challenge for Nigeria since it “is in the midst of a major struggle with Boko Haran and ISWAP.”

“The return of hardened Nigerian fighters, even if they’re fairly small in number, is going to raise all kinds of important policy questions,” said John Campbell, a senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

He noted that ISWAP drives a degree of prestige among Islamist radicals in Nigeria for its association with IS.  

ISWAP “is expanding its influence and the territory it occupies, and even in some areas providing government services, so it’s a real threat to the Nigerian state,” Campbell, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, told VOA.

The stories are haunting: A young woman beaten by her partner before being set on fire in front of her 7-year-old daughter. A photo of a smiling scientist whose body is stuffed into a suitcase that is dumped into a river. 
 
These are just two examples in France of so-called femicides — women killed by their partners or family members. The country’s 101st case this year happened Sunday, when a 92-year-old woman was beaten to death by her husband. 
 
Now, the government is declaring war on domestic violence, announcing measures this week ranging from planned legislation to allow electronic tagging of suspected perpetrators to designation of millions of dollars to build more emergency shelters for victims. 
 
“For centuries, women have been buried under our indifference, our denial, our incapacity to face this horror,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said at a summit in Paris kicking off weeks of national consultations on the subject. 
 
With an average of one woman killed every three days, France has a femicide rate that is among Europe’s highest, according to available data from the Eurostat statistical agency. But domestic violence remains widespread across the region, activists say, and other governments have yet to sound the alarm.  

A European issue 
 
“One in three women over [age] 15 experiences physical or sexual violence in her life,” said Irene Rosales, policy and campaigns officer for the Brussels-based European Women’s Lobby, which represents more than 2,000 NGOs across the European Union. “This is a European issue, and it has to be addressed at a European level.” 
 
In a number of countries, data on femicides are spotty or nonexistent, she said, suggesting governments are not treating the phenomenon with the seriousness it deserves. The region also lacks comparable benchmarks to track progress, Rosales added. 
 
Moreover, roughly half a dozen EU countries have yet to ratify the Istanbul Convention, a key international treaty to combat violence against women. 
 
“They’re stuck in negotiations on ratifying it,” said Rosales, “which shows there’s no political will to implement and be serious about it.” 
 
European Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said some EU countries have been slow to ratify the treaty because of “misunderstandings and misconceptions” that need to be worked on. But he said Europe’s executive arm has prioritized raising awareness about domestic violence, earmarking millions of dollars for the cause in recent years. 
 
“There has been progress,” he said. 
 
Bright spots 
 
Activists also point to bright spots. Spain — which has recorded more than 1,000 femicides in two decades — is training hundreds of judges on gender violence. Other countries, including Belgium and Sweden, have embedded consent-based definitions of rape in their legal codes. Even so, Sweden and several other Nordic countries have legal loopholes making it difficult to report and punish sex crimes, according to an April Amnesty International report. 

In France, the government’s new campaign against domestic violence has drawn kudos from some quarters. Family members of victims praised Philippe this week for putting words to unspeakable crimes. But others are disappointed at the modest funding announced to date. 
 
“We came, we saw and we were super disappointed,” said feminist Caroline de Haas, who attended the government summit. “We expected unprecedented mobilization against women-based violence. Major overarching policies. And especially, we expected financing — and that’s not the case.” 
 
Activists like Rosales also hope for more action from Brussels. Incoming European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s onetime family minister, has proposed adding violence against women to a list of EU crimes. 
 
“That’s something we are really going to follow and try to make a reality,” Rosales said, “and hold her accountable.” 

Villagers near Meiganga, a town in northern Cameroon, are protesting against Chinese gold miners for allegedly ruining their land. The villagers say they are poorer than before the Chinese arrived, with their farms and forests now destroyed.  

Area cattle ranchers and farmers say that if nothing is done to save them from Chinese miners, famine may strike their locality soon. 

Their spokesman, rancher Mamoudu Poro, 54, says the miners destroy farms and do not bother to cover holes and trenches they dig on roads and ranches before leaving. He says they want the Chinese to build the roads they destroyed and fill the trenches they dug, give them electricity and at least a school and a market before leaving. 

Until 2014, Meiganga and surrounding villages cultivated maize, beans and groundnuts and produced cattle for markets in Cameroon, Nigeria and the Central African Republic. 
 
Then, 300 new mining sites producing gold, zinc, nickel and other materials were discovered in the region.  Among the explorers were Chinese companies. 
 
More than a hundred of the companies’ miners work in and around Meiganga. They use tractors and equipment that clean stones and sift soil, allowing them to detect gold faster than locals who use manual tools.  Locals are paid about $2 per day to work at the Chinese mining sites. 
 
Cameroon’s minister of mines, Gabriel Dodo Ndoke, says the complaints of the villagers are legitimate. He says he has asked the companies to respect the terms of their contract with the government.  

Ndoke says the population suffers as a result of environmental degradation and does not benefit as expected because their mineral resources are exploited in a disorganized manner. He says he has given instructions to all exploitation companies to make sure they respect environmental laws and stop destroying farms and cattle ranches, which for now are the only sources of earnings for the people of the area. 
 
Officials with the China Mining Company in Meiganga declined to be interviewed about the allegations.  However, company official Hu Long said the firm has assisted communities by providing aid to hospitals and building or refurbishing schools when solicited.  He says the company also employs about 100 youths.  

This is not the first time Cameroonian villagers have protested against alleged exploitation by the Chinese.  In 2016, residents of eastern Cameroon had conflicts with small-scale Chinese gold miners who had been there for six years. The local miners said the Chinese had taken away their livelihoods and were not living up to promises to develop the area. 
 
Cameroon has not officially announced how much it gains from the mining business but says it contributes a significant amount to the country’s gross domestic product. 

Britain’s Princess Charlotte had plenty of support on her first day of school she was accompanied by older brother Prince George and her parents, Prince William and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge.

William said Friday their 4-year-old daughter was “very excited” on her first day at Thomas’s Battersea in London.

Charlotte seemed a bit hesitant as she entered the schoolyard for the first time holding the hand of her mother.

Six-year-old George has already been at the school for two years.

William told one of the head teachers: “First day. She’s very excited.”

Spain’s Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences says that Pedro Almodovar’s latest drama “Pain and Glory,” which was inspired by his own life story, will represent the country in the competition for this year’s Oscars.

The film starring Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz will compete with other global entries for a nomination as Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. The Spanish Academy’s selection was announced Thursday.

“Pain and Glory” received broad acclaim at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in France, where Banderas won the Best Actor award for his portrayal of a film director in his decline who flirts with drugs and has to confront his own past.

In June, Almodovar won a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival.

A privately run prison in Mississippi says it has a new five-year contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Natchez Democrat reported that the Adams County Correctional Center, operated by CoreCivic, says the contract will add 50 jobs, and provide the county with about 50 cents per inmate per day, which could boost county revenue by $400,000 a year.

Some of the people arrested in immigration raids at Mississippi chicken processing plants last month are being held in the prison outside Natchez.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons had said in May that it would not renew its contract for the 2,232-bed prison. Without a contract, more than 390 jobs were at risk of being lost.

“Ultimately, we were able to retain one of our largest employers as well as one of our largest taxpayers,” said Chandler Russ, who runs the Natchez Inc. economic development agency. “It is a huge win for us.”

Russ said the new contract calls for about 425 CoreCivic employees — 35 more jobs than were called for in the previous contract with the Bureau of Prisons. ICE also will create 25 to 30 new positions locally. Previously, the Bureau of Prisons had two to four employees, Russ said.

Russ said that the prison pays roughly $2 million in taxes annually, including revenue for the school district.

Before Tuesday’s announcement, the prison was holding 600 adult ICE detainees under an amended contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons that expired Friday, the CoreCivic news release said.

CoreCivic said it anticipates ICE will soon begin using additional space at the facility under the new contract.
 

Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive Carrie Lam may hope the withdrawal of a hated extradition bill will help the semi-autonomous Chinese city move forward from three months of major protests.

But if the initial reaction from activists, scholars and other Hong Kong residents is any indication, the protests may not go away any time soon, with protester demands having long ago expanded to include broader democratic reforms.

Lam on Wednesday announced the formal withdrawal of the extradition bill, a move she said was intended to “fully allay public concerns” after having earlier only suspended the proposal. But while the withdrawal essentially amounts to an admission that the extradition bill was a mistake, it seems few in Hong Kong see the move as a major concession.

“I haven’t heard anyone say they will stop protesting because of the withdrawal,” said Wilson Leung, who helped found the Hong Kong-based Progressive Lawyers Group. “Because a lot of the anger is now over police brutality and overreach.”

Months of protests, strikes

Since early June, Hong Kong has seen mass peaceful protests, widespread strikes, and occasional smaller groups of protesters who have clashed with police and attacked government symbols. The immediate cause of the protests was the extradition proposal. The legislation, if passed, would have allowed some criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial.

Hong Kongers feared the bill would expose them to China’s politicized court system, where a trial virtually always results in a conviction.

But the protests underscored broader concerns about encroaching Communist Party influence in Hong Kong ahead of 2047, when a deal between China and Britain, Hong Kong’s former colonial power, is set to expire. Many feel Beijing’s “One Country, Two Systems” model, which allowed Hong Kong freedom of speech and the rule of law, has already hopelessly eroded.

By failing to make any major concessions at the outset, and instead responding violently to the protests, Hong Kong and Beijing authorities helped ensure the movement expanded and took on loftier goals, analysts say.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has risen to second place in public opinion polls and is attracting large crowds as she campaigns for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in the 2020 election. VOA’s Brian Padden reports, even if Warren does not win the nomination, her detailed economic proposals could long-resonate in the presidential contest as a progressive blueprint for change likely to excite some voters while possibly alienating others.
 

Nearly three months of protests have rocked Hong Kong amid a harsh police crackdown, widespread arrests, and fears of suppression by Beijing.  On Wednesday, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam announced plans to withdraw a controversial extradition bill that sparked the unrest, but pro-democracy activists are pressing for more. Mike O’Sullivan reports on how the current demonstrations are the latest in a long history of protest in the Chinese semi-autonomous region.
 

Tempers flared in Haiti’s parliament Tuesday as lawmakers resorted to pushing and shoving each other and swearing to vent frustrations over an act of vandalism that stunned the nation in the early hours of the morning. VOA’s Sandra Lemaire, Renan Toussaint and Matiado Vilme have more.

Bangkok ranked first in 2018 for the fourth straight year as the city with the most international visitors, according to an annual report by Mastercard released Wednesday. 
 
With almost 23 million international visitors last year, the Thai capital outpaced both Paris and London, which were second and third with just over 19 million visitors each.  
 
Other top cities in order were Dubai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Istanbul, Tokyo and Antalya, Turkey. 
 
The report pointed to broad increases in international travel, with the total number of international visits up 76 percent since 2009. 
 
Nine of the top 10 cities saw increases in 2018 compared with the prior year. London was the exception, with a drop of 4 percent. 
 
Dubai topped the list as far as consumption, with travelers spending an average of $553 per day and visitors spending a total of nearly $31 billion. Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and Bangkok were second and third as far as spending. 
 
Established in 2011, the Global Destination Cities ranks 200 cities based on visitor arrivals and cross-border spending.