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PHILADELPHIA — The SS United States, a historic ship that still holds the transatlantic speed record it set more than 70 years ago, must leave its berth on the Delaware River in Philadelphia by September 12, a federal judge says. The decision issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Anita Brody culminated a years-old rent dispute between the conservancy that oversees the 1,000-foot ocean liner and its landlord, Penn Warehousing. It stemmed from an August 2021 decision by Penn Warehousing to double the ship's daily dockage to $1,700, an increase the conservancy refused to accept. When the conservancy continued to pay its previous rate, set in 2011, Penn Warehousing terminated the lease in March 2022. After much legal wrangling, Brody held a bench trial in January but also encouraged the two sides to reach a settlement instead of leaving it up to her. The judge ultimately ruled that the conservancy's failure to pay the new rate did not amount to a contract breach or entitle Penn Warehousing to damages. But she also ruled that under Pennsylvania contract law, the berthing agreement is terminable at will with reasonable notice, which Penn Warehousing had issued in March 2022. "The judge's decision gives us a very limited window to find a new home for the SS United States and raise the resources necessary to move the ship and keep her safe," Susan Gibbs, conservancy president and granddaughter of the ship's designer, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Besides finding a new home, the conservancy also must obtain funds for insurance, tugs, surveys and dock preparations for a move. "The best hope of everyone involved was that the conservancy could successfully repurpose the ship," said Craig Mills, an attorney for Penn Warehousing. "But after decades of decay and delay, it is time to acknowledge the unavoidable and return Pier 82 to productive commercial service." Christened in 1952, the SS United States was once considered a beacon of American engineering, doubling as a military vessel that could carry thousands of troops. On its maiden voyage in 1952, it shattered the transatlantic speed record in both directions, when it reached an average speed of 36 knots, or just over 41 mph (66 kph), The Associated Press reported from aboard the ship. On that voyage, the ship crossed the Atlantic in three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes, besting the RMS Queen Mary's time by 10 hours. To this day, the SS United States holds the transatlantic speed record for an ocean liner. It became a reserve ship in 1969 and later bounced to various private owners who hoped to redevelop it but eventually found their plans to be too expensive or poorly timed. It has loomed for years on south Philadelphia's Delaware waterfront.

Washington — A record more than 20 NATO member nations are hitting the Western military alliance’s defense spending target this year, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday, as Russia's war in Ukraine has raised the threat of expanding conflict in Europe. The estimated figure is a nearly fourfold increase from 2021 in the number of the 32 NATO members meeting the alliance's defense spending guideline. Only six nations were meeting the goal that year, before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Europeans are doing more for their collective security than just a few years ago,” Stoltenberg said in a speech at the Wilson Center research group before meeting with President Joe Biden later Monday at the White House. NATO members agreed last year to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. The surge in spending reflects the worries about the war in Ukraine. Some countries also are concerned about the possible reelection of former President Donald Trump, who has characterized many NATO allies as freeloading on U.S. military spending and said on the campaign trail that he would not defend NATO members that don’t meet defense spending targets. Stoltenberg's visit is laying the groundwork for what’s expected to be a pivotal summit of NATO leaders in Washington next month. The mutual-defense alliance has grown in strength and size since Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago, with both Sweden and Finland joining. Defense spending by many European countries fell after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to neutralize what was then the prime security threat to the West. But after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, NATO members unanimously agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense within a decade. The full-scale invasion that Putin launched in 2022 spurred European countries newly on the front line of a war in the heart of Europe to put more resources into meeting that target. Much of the focus of the summit is expected to address what NATO and NATO member governments can do for Ukraine as it faces unrelenting air and ground attacks from its more powerful neighbor. They so far have resisted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeals to take his country into the bloc as long as the war is still on. Stoltenberg pointed to efforts to bolster Ukraine in the meantime. That includes NATO streamlining the eventual membership process for Ukraine, and individual NATO nations providing updated arms and training to Ukraine’s military, including the U.S. giving it F-16s and bringing Ukrainian pilots to the U.S. for training on the advanced aircraft. “The idea is to move them so close to membership that when the time comes, when there is consensus, they can become a member straight away,” Stoltenberg said. However Russia’s offensive concludes, only taking Ukraine into the alliance will dissuade Putin from trying again in the future to conquer Ukraine, the NATO chief said. “When the fighting ends, NATO membership” for Ukraine “assures that the war really ends,” he said. The prospect of Ukraine joining NATO has long been anathema to Putin, and it was one of his stated motivations for seizing Crimea. He offered last week to order an immediate cease-fire if Ukraine renounced plans to join the alliance, an offer that was dismissed by Ukraine. A weekend conference held in Switzerland was billed as a first step toward peace and ended with pledges to work toward a resolution but had few concrete deliverables. It was attended largely by Western nations and Russia was not invited. China sat it out and then India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Mexico did not sign the meeting’s final document Sunday. Kyiv’s outgunned and outnumbered forces are battling to hold back the bigger Russian army, which has taken over chunks of territory after pollical squabbles led to delays in delivering U.S. and European military aid. Ukraine has been short of troops, ammunition and air defenses in recent months as the Kremlin’s forces try to cripple the national power supply and punch through the front line in eastern parts of the country.

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In Gaza, families say no matter how many times they run, they cannot find safety. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Istanbul with Nedal Hamdouna, Amjed Tantesh and Enas Tantesh in Khan Younis, Gaza.

One of the chief obstacles for Sudanese refugees trying to build new lives in Uganda is the language barrier. Some of the estimated 40,000 people who arrived in recent months had limited English skills but not enough to hold jobs or move easily through Ugandan society. A women’s empowerment group in central Uganda is trying to change that. Halima Athumani and Mukasa Francis report from Mukono district

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his war cabinet as Israel pauses daytime military operations along one key aid route in Gaza. All this as tensions increase on Israel’s border with Lebanon. A look at the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland and Vladimir Putin’s plans to visit an ally. Iran and Sweden exchange prisoners, but it’s raising eyebrows on social media.

Protests in Turkey are growing over Azerbaijani oil deliveries to Israel. Azerbaijani oil exports have continued to pass through a Turkish port despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent announcement of a trade embargo against Israel because of its offensive in Gaza. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

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Washington — Journalists reporting on the U.S. presidential election are facing significant physical and digital threats, says a media support group. Data released by the International Women’s Media Foundation, or IWMF, found that with just five months to November 5, more than 37% of journalists have been threatened with physical violence and 30% say they were threatened online. The data is taken from a survey of more than 350 local journalists covering politics in eight swing states in the country. Those represented had taken part in newsroom safety workshops that the IWMF provided. The main areas of concern cited in the survey were threats, attacks or arrests at campaign rallies or protests, the survey found. Another issue is digital violence from right-wing extremist groups, said Nadine Hoffman, deputy executive director at IWMF. “Nearly 40 percent of the 350+ journalists we’ve trained in the U.S. this year reported threats of or experiencing physical violence; 30% reported digital threats and attacks; 27% experienced legal threats,” Hoffman told VOA via email. To help newsrooms better prepare for election coverage, the IWMF provided safety training in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. “We have upcoming training planned in Illinois and California. We’ll also be offering safety training at journalism conferences across the country this summer,” said Hoffman. The organization believes that newsroom leaders need to instill a culture of safety to protect their reporters — including freelancers — from a range of threats. “Risk is not one size fits all, and editors need to have open and honest conversations before sending their reporters into the field about how best to mitigate the risk they face,” Hoffman said. “For example, journalists of color, LGBTQI+ reporters, and women may face a greater risk of harassment both online and offline,” she added. Data released by the Pew Research Center in June 2022 found more than a quarter of Black and Asian journalists and around a fifth of Hispanic journalists say they have experienced threats or harassment that centers on their race or ethnicity. “I believe that press freedom depends on a diversity of voices and perspectives, and we need to offer more support to the journalists most at risk of being attacked based on their identities, so they are more likely to stay in the profession,” said Hoffman. A rise in hostility toward the media in recent years led to workshops being offered on journalism safety for reporters inside the U.S. “The journalists face threats all year round, which is why our training is necessary,” said Hoffman. She added that the IWMF is joining with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to include sessions on legal rights for media. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which since 2017 has collected data on arrests, attacks and threats to journalists in the U.S., has documented an increase in threats to the media during elections. “Election season is not the only time when journalists face threats considering the profession but there is an increase in the intensity of threats like physical violence, targeted interference, and online harassment during this time,” said Harlo Holmes, head of digital security at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The foundation oversees the Tracker, which was founded by a coalition of press freedom organizations. “I believe that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, especially when it comes to the safety of journalists,” Holmes added. News crews should have a plan for if a situation escalates or turns violent. And journalists should clean up their online footprints to make sure personal information isn’t easily available to trolls, Holmes said. The IWMF’s Hoffman said newsrooms can better prepare with simple measures like the buddy system for teams, setting up a communications plan, and having crews check in at agreed-upon times with their editors when they’re on a potentially risky assignment like covering a protest or rally. Emphasizing the risk to mental health of journalists, Hoffman further suggests that the newsrooms should take trauma seriously. Covering school shootings, civil unrest or police brutality takes a toll, she said.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Washington — The University of Michigan failed to assess whether protests and other incidents on campus in response to the Israel-Hamas war created a hostile environment for students, staff and faculty, according to the results of an investigation by the U.S. Education Department announced Monday. The department's Office of Civil Rights investigated 75 instances of alleged discrimination and harassment based on shared Jewish ancestry and shared Palestinian or Muslim ancestry. The investigation found that the university's responses did not meet its Title VI requirements to remedy the hostile environment. In one instance, when a Jewish student reported being called out for viewing a graduate student instructor's social media post about pro-Palestinian topics, the university told the student that "formal conflict resolution is not a path forward at this time," because the incident occurred on social media. In another instance, when a student who participated in a pro-Palestinian protest was called a "terrorist," the university said it held "restorative circles" to address the incident but did not take further action. In its resolution agreement, the University of Michigan agreed to administer a climate assessment, implement additional training and revise its policies as necessary. It also agreed to monitoring by the Office of Civil Rights through the end of the 2026 school year, reporting its responses to future incidents of discrimination to the department. It's the first investigation to reach a conclusion among dozens launched by the Education Department since Oct. 7, the day Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel. Complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia have led to inquiries at more than 100 universities and school districts, including Harvard and Yale, community colleges and public schools from Los Angeles to suburban Minneapolis. The complaints vary widely but all accuse schools of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Colleges and schools are required to protect students from discrimination, and when they don't, the Education Department can invoke penalties up to termination of federal money. Protests over the Israel-Hamas war upended the final weeks of the school year at many campuses across the country, with some cancelling graduation ceremonies or moving classes online after Pro-Palestinian protesters set up encampments in campus spaces. The protests have tested schools as they aim to balance free speech rights and the safety of students. The Education Department has issued guidance detailing schools' responsibilities around Title VI, but the results of the agency's investigations could provide a clearer line showing where political speech crosses into harassment. Finding that boundary has been a struggle for colleges as they grapple with rhetoric that has different meaning to different people. Some chants commonly used by pro-Palestinian activists are seen by some as antisemitic. Some of the federal complaints under investigation argue that those phrases should be barred, including "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "intifada revolution." Meanwhile, some complaints say Arab and Muslim students have faced abuses only to be ignored by campus officials. At Harvard, the Education Department is investigating separate complaints, one over alleged antisemitism and the other over alleged Islamophobia. More investigations are expected to be resolved in the coming weeks, but Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said his agency is struggling to keep up with the influx of cases. Republicans have rejected requests to increase money for the Office for Civil Rights in recent years, while the average case load increased to 42 per investigator in 2023. Without more money, that figure could increase to more than 70 cases per investigator, Cardona has said. "We are desperately in need of additional support to make sure we can investigate the cases that we have in front of us," Cardona told members of the House in May. On average, cases take about six to eight months to resolve. The vast majority of the agency's civil rights investigations end with voluntary resolutions. Schools usually promise to resolve any lingering problems and take steps to protect students in the future. While the Education Department investigates, several colleges and school districts have separately been called before Congress to answer allegations of antisemitism. Republicans have held a series of hearings on the issue, grilling leaders accused of tolerating antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignations of some college leaders, including Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard's Claudine Gay, who was also embroiled in accusations of plagiarism.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.