Voice of America’s immigration news

Sao Paulo — Hundreds of thousands of people took over central Sao Paulo Sunday for the city's annual Pride parade, many dazzling in green and yellow as part of a campaign to "reclaim" Brazil's flag colors appropriated by the political right.   A massive rainbow flag covered the facade of the Sao Paulo Art Museum to welcome revelers in a festive atmosphere of pumping music and extravagant costumes, with banners proclaiming: "All forms of loving, all forms of being."  For Eugenio dos Santos, one of those decked out in yellow and green, participating in the event — one of the world's biggest — is "fighting for visibility, against violence, saying that we exist and are citizens with all the rights and duties" that entails. Almost 20 million Brazilians, some 10% of the population, identify as LGBTQ, according to the Brazilian ABGLT association. Parade participants called for their issues to be taken up by candidates for municipal elections in October. It came just days after far-right and evangelical parties in Congress managed to pass a ban on using public money for promoting or funding measures that oppose "traditional family" values, such as abortion or gender-change surgery for minors. Organizers of this year's event had called for participants to dress in yellow and green as a form of protest against far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters, who had usurped the national colors during his rule.  Homophobic crimes are punishable under Brazilian law since 2019, but aggressions against gay and transsexual people are registered daily. Rights groups say 145 trans people were killed in the country in 2023.

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.

AKTUN TUYUL CAVE SYSTEM, Mexico — Rays of sunlight slice through pools of crystal water as clusters of fish cast shadows on the limestone below. Arching over the emerald basin are walls of stalactites dripping down the cavern ceiling, which opens to a dense jungle. These glowing sinkhole lakes — known as cenotes — are a part of one of Mexico's natural wonders: A fragile system of an estimated 10,000 subterranean caverns, rivers and lakes that wind almost surreptitiously beneath Mexico's southern Yucatan peninsula. Now, construction of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's crown jewel project — the Maya Train — is rapidly destroying part of that hidden underground world, already under threat by development and mass tourism. As the caverns are thrust into the spotlight in the lead-up to the country's presidential elections, scientists and environmentalists warn that the train will mean long-term environmental ruin. Deep in the jungle, the roar of heavy machinery cuts through the cave's gentle "drip, drip, drip." Just a few meters above, construction of the train line is in full swing. The caverns rumble as government workers use massive metal drills that bore into limestone, embedding an estimated 15,000 steel pillars into the caverns. Engineer Guillermo D’Christy looks upon the once immaculate cave, now coated with a layer of concrete and broken stalactites, icicle-shaped rock formations normally hanging from the roof of the cave. A mix of grief and anger is painted upon the face of D’Christy, who has long studied the waters running through the caves. "Pouring concrete into a cavern, directly into the aquifer, without any concern or care," D’Christy said. "That's total ecocide." A tourism boon, but at what cost? For nearly 1,460 kilometers, (1,000 miles) the high-speed Maya Train will wind its way around Mexico's southern Yucatan Peninsula. When it's completed, it'll connect tourist hubs like Cancun and Playa del Carmen to dense jungle, remote communities and archaeological sites, drawing development and money into long-neglected rural swathes of the country. The more than $30 billion train is among the keystone projects of Mexico's outgoing President López Obrador, who has spent his six years in office portraying himself as a champion of the country's long-forgotten poor. "The Maya Train will be our legacy of development for the southeast of Mexico," the president wrote in a post on the social platform X last year. With Mexico holding elections on Sunday, the future of the train, and López Obrador's legacy, is uncertain. Both leading candidates to replace him have made promises for a green agenda, but also supported the economic promises the train brings. At issue is the path the train takes. It was originally planned to run along the region's highway in more urban areas. But after waves of complaints by hotel owners, the government moved one of the final sections of the line deeper into the jungle, atop the most important cave system in the country. It's plowed down millions of trees, a chunk of the largest tropical forest in the Americas after the Amazon. The caves contain one of the biggest aquifers in Mexico and act as the region's main water source, crucial at a time when the nation faces a deepening water crisis. In 2022, archaeologists also discovered some of the oldest human remains in North America within the caverns. The area was once a reef nestled beneath the Caribbean Sea but changing sea levels pushed Mexico's southern peninsula out of the ocean as a mass of limestone. Water sculpted the porous stone into caves over millions of years. It produced the open-face freshwater caverns, "cenotes," and underground rivers that are in equal parts awe-inspiring and delicate, explained Emiliano Monroy-Ríos, a geologist at Northwestern University studying the region. "These ecosystems are very, very fragile," Monroy-Ríos said. "They are building upon a land that is like Gruyere cheese, full of caves and cavities of different sizes and at different depths." López Obrador promised his government would prevent damage to the Great Mayan Aquifer by elevating the sections of the train on thousands of hefty steel pillars buried deep into the ground. But the populist leader was met with an uproar in late January when environmentalists and scientists posted videos showing government drills carving tunnels into the tops of caverns, implanting rows of 2-meter-wide (6-foot-wide) steel pillars. López Obrador responded angrily to the videos, calling them "staged" by his political enemies. "These pseudo-environmentalists are liars," López Obrador said in a news briefing. "Don't watch those videos because they're specialists in staging." Associated Press journalists traveled to construction sites along the Maya Train route where López Obrador denied causing any environmental damage. What they saw directly contradicted the president's claims. Documenting destruction D’Christy treks through dense rainforest and clicks on his headlight as he climbs into a split in a rock. The engineer and hydrological expert has spent 25 years roving the intricate cave system, tracking the quality of the waters. Like many of the people studying the mysteries of the ancient cave system, his once tame job was inadvertently turned turbulent with the rise of the train project. Today, he wanders into a small section of the caverns known as Aktun Tuyul, less than an hour from the tourist city of Playa del Carmen. As the 58-year-old Mexican walks past layers of stalactites and steel pillars burrowing into the rock formations, the cave's darkness is broken by wagon wheel-sized holes drilled into the roof of the cave, where even more pillars will be implanted. D’Christy wades through waist-deep water, now turned a murky brown by corroded metal from the pillars and pushes his body through a narrow passage in the rock. Sitting next to one of more than a dozen pillars embedded into this cavern, he pulls out a series of syringes and bottles, taking a sample of the water next to the metal. "It clearly has a color characteristic of iron contamination," he said, holding up a syringe of foggy yellow water. "We're going to take a sample." D’Christy pours the water into a glass vial, mixing it with a chemical that turns it a deep blue, indicating the water contains traces of iron from the poles. Next to other pillars, he presses his ear to the metal, listening to globs of concrete pour into the hollow tube. Across the cave system, stalactites broken off by vibrations from train construction litter the ground like rubble following an earthquake. In other caverns, the concrete filling the pillars has spilled out to coat the limestone ground. While the long-term environmental consequences of the construction are unknown, what is certain is that it is transforming the entire ecosystem, said geologist Monroy-Ríos. "Just by drilling, before you even put in the pillars, you are killing an entire ecosystem that was in those caves" he said. "Why? Because now light is coming in, the gases within have changed, and there are very sensitive species that live in total darkness. They have already killed hundreds of millions" of organisms. But the geologist's greatest concern continues to be that the morphing limestone upon which the train is built and caves underneath the pillars could cause a collapse of the line. Scientists have long warned of the risks of building on soluble rock like limestone. Already, sections of highway in the Yucatan have warped or caved in, and the Maya Train has been marred by a series of accidents, including a March train derailment, which government officials blamed on a loose clamp set by contractors. Further damage to the limestone could lead to another accident that could be deadly. If a cargo train derailed, it could cause an oil spill that could permanently devastate the aquifer, Monroy-Ríos said. 'It will benefit us all' Not everyone is opposed to the train running through the remote communities. Some see an unprecedented economic opportunity, a chance to help poor families earn money. Maria Norma de los Angeles and her family have long lived off a modest flow of tourists in their community of Jacinto Pat, tucked in a stretch of jungle in the southern coastal state, Quintana Roo. They offer temazcal baths, traditional Mayan steam rooms meant to purify and relax the body, and charge visiting foreigners to swim in a nearby cenote. The family, like many along the train's path, was originally opposed to the project because they worried it would destroy the cenotes drawing tourists. But their feelings about the train began to change when government officials contracted local people to build the track, De los Angeles said. They also promised to bring communities electricity, a sewage system and running water, and agreed to pay more for the land the train would pass over. "It has its pros and its cons," De los Angeles said as her family gathered to kill a pig to eat for her father's birthday. "But there will be a moment when we see an economic spillover … I know that it will benefit us all." That's the mentality of many Mexicans toward both the train and López Obrador. Many are willing to overlook the controversies of the populist and his train, in favor of his charisma and the strong economy seen during his presidency. The 70-year-old leader has connected with Mexico's long-invisible working class in a way few leaders have in recent history. López Obrador's government has raised the minimum wage and provided cash handouts to older Mexicans and students. The government says more than 5 million people have been pulled out of poverty while López Obrador was president. Luruama de la Cruz, a California resident whose family comes from the local town of Leona Vicario, said she bought her father tickets to the train for his birthday because it was a dream of his. "A dream made reality," De la Cruz says as she rode the train and took a video on her phone, meandering past passengers wearing "Maya Train" T-shirts and watching an interview between López Obrador and Russian state media. "Whenever you build something, something else is destroyed," she said, adding that family members worked on train construction. "This is for the good of the people." A rush to build the track López Obrador has fast-tracked construction of the train to try to keep promises to complete it before June elections, something that has appeared all but impossible. The moves he's made have only deepened his ongoing clashes with the country's judiciary, further fueling criticisms that his government is undermining democratic institutions. In a violation of Mexican law, the government didn't carry out a comprehensive study to assess the potential environmental impacts before starting construction. That's led to blindly plowing into caverns with no clue what's being damaged, scientists and independent lawyers say. "Our president has little respect for the law. He's in a sort of tug of war for power and he does what he wants," said Claudia Aguilar, a lawyer at Mexico's Free School of Law. When a judge ordered construction of the line be suspended until an adequate report of how the train would affect the caves was carried out, López Obrador ignored the ruling, and the work continued. At the same time, much of the project has been cloaked in secrecy as López Obrador has charged Mexico's military with construction and blocked the release of information in the name of "national security." While Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional, López Obrador disregarded that ruling, too, saying it was to protect his project from "corrupt" critics. When the AP requested an interview with leadership of the Maya Train project, spokesperson Mariana Galicia said they were "ordered that we cannot give interviews" but could respond to questions sent over email to "better control" the information shared. They did not respond to questions sent by email. 'Swimming in poop' Meanwhile, thousands of passengers are already riding sections of the train that have been built. The atmosphere above is far-removed from the conflicts playing out around the caverns. Hotels and clubs host raves and even music festivals in some of the cenotes, with one club boasting it "takes the relaxation and wellness experience to another level. Let yourself be enveloped by this sacred, timeless place." Luxurious beach hotels and booming clubs packed with drunk, khaki-clad tourists dominate the coastal tourist city of Playa del Carmen. Once a Mayan settlement, the city is among many in the Yucatan Peninsula that in recent decades have been converted into a party hub for vacationing foreigners. In the caves below, biologist Roberto Rojo paddles through a sea of trash. Under the arching cavern roof, Rojo and a group of volunteers push a green kayak through a cenote, filling bulking bags of glass beer bottles, plastic tubes, metal grating, plastic Coca-Cola bottles, rotten wooden planks and even a printer. "You don't even want to know what many of those things are," Rojo said. It's a fate Rojo and many others worry may await hundreds of cenotes, caves and underground lakes and rivers along the new Maya Train line. "It's not just the train, but everything the train brings with it – urban developments, hotel developments," said water expert D’Christy. "Rather than solving a problem, they're coming in and making a big problem worse." Millions of tourists a year flock to the region, affecting the entire underground as the industry guzzles water and sewage seeps through the earth and into the caves, killing fish and other wildlife. In 2022, authorities found that the water of more than a dozen of the caverns near the tourist city of Tulum was tainted with E. Coli bacteria. Last year, the environmental organization Va Por La Tierra estimated that approximately 95% of the cenotes in Yucatan state — where the Maya Train cuts through — were already contaminated due to the lack of a sufficient sewage system. Scuba diving master Bernardette Carrión even told the AP that tourists admiring the splendor of the caves "are swimming in poop." The underground system is connected to the sea, so waste trickles out to the ocean, where scientists say it feeds seaweed-like algae piling up on Caribbean coastlines, spurring on a slate of other environmental and health hazards. Rojo and other volunteers created the organization known as "Urban Cenotes" in Playa del Carmen to clean the water system, cave by cave. "We're trying to return the dignity that these spaces have had for thousands of years, that are now being turned into landfills, sewers and drains," Rojo said. But it's an uphill battle for the hundreds of volunteers, and something they worry will become impossible as pollution expands into rural areas with the Maya Train, deepening ongoing pollution caused by pig farms and massive soy plantations. Looking forward, they're uncertain about what will come as June elections ended Sunday night, with López Obrador leaving office in the coming months. The leader will likely be replaced by either race front-runner and ally Claudia Sheinbaum or rival ex-Senator Xóchitl Gálvez. Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist who leads the race by a comfortable margin, has portrayed herself as a champion for the environment, but has supported López Obrador's fossil-fuel agenda and made few remarks about the environmental damage the train has wrought. Little more than a week before Sunday’s presidential election, Sheinbaum said she was meeting with leaders of neighboring Guatemala and Belize in talks to extend the Maya Train to Central America. Gálvez, a López Obrador opponent, has taken advantage of the controversy to tear into her adversaries, calling the train's damage "irreversible" and a "consequence of the negligence of the government because they didn't do any environmental impact studies." Months earlier, though, she said she would also continue with plans to extend the train. Meanwhile, groups like Rojo's do everything they can to salvage an ecosystem that took millennia to form. They worry they might not have all that much time left. "I'm not going to sit quietly and wait for the government to solve things," Rojo said. "The people who live in the Yucatan peninsula are on the verge of a water crisis."

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.

McALLEN, TEXAS — At least two Texas border mayors are headed to Washington on Tuesday when President Joe Biden is expected to announce an executive order that will mark his latest and most aggressive plan to curtail the number of migrants allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. Brownsville Mayor John Cowen and Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza both confirmed they were invited by the White House for an immigration announcement on Tuesday. Cowen told the Associated Press that he plans to attend, while Garza said he would have more details on Monday about his plans. Notably, the Democratic mayor of Eagle Pass, the Texas-Mexico border town where the number of migrants led to a state-federal clash over border security, had not received an invitation as of Sunday. The mayor from McAllen said he was invited but could not attend because of a prior commitment. A White House spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment on other mayors who were invited to the announcement. The AP reported last week that the White House was finalizing an executive order that could shut off asylum requests and automatically deny entrance to migrants once the number of people encountered by U.S. border officials exceeded a new daily threshold. The unilateral action is expected even as the number of border crossings at the southern U.S. border has declined since December, due in large part to Mexico's escalated enforcement efforts. But Biden wants to head off any potential spike in crossings that could occur later in the year, as the fall election draws closer, when the weather cools and numbers tend to rise. Immigration remains a concern for voters ahead of the November elections, with Republicans eager to punish Biden electorally over the issue. Democrats have responded that Republicans, at the behest of Donald Trump, killed a bipartisan border deal in Congress that would have led to the toughest legislative restrictions on asylum in years.  

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.

Johannesburg — The Electoral Commission of South Africa Sunday night announced official results that marked the start of a new era in the country’s politics.  Official results from Wednesday’s historic election showed the governing African National Congress, ANC, had lost its absolute majority for the first time. The ANC won 159 seats in the 400-member National Assembly -- about 40% of the vote -- a huge drop of 71 seats since winning 57% of the ballot in the last elections in 2019. The chairman of the Electoral Commission, Mosotho Moepya, acknowledged the election had been fiercely contested. "These elections were undoubtedly the most difficult and the most hotly contested," he said.However, he added that they were free and fair and represented “the collective voice of the nation.” While the ANC still received the largest number of seats by far, it will now have to enter a coalition with opposition parties. The business-friendly Democratic Alliance, or DA, took the second-largest share of the vote, with 87 seats. It was followed with 58 seats for uMkhonto we Sizwe, or MK, a newly formed party led by former President Jacob Zuma. The radical left, Economic Freedom Fighters party, overtaken by upstart MK, came in fourth, with 39 seats. Smaller parties took the remaining seats. Analysts say corruption, high unemployment and general failure to do more to improve the lives of poor Black South Africans was why many South Africans turned on the ANC, 30 years after it brought about the end of apartheid. After Sunday’s announcement, President Cyril Ramaphosa took to the podium to accept the results. “Our people have spoken whether we like it or not .... Through their votes they have demonstrated clearly and plainly that our democracy is strong, that our democracy is robust, and it is enduring." Zuma’s MK said the day before the results announcement that it doesn’t accept the results and wants a recount. Zuma intimated violence could ensue if it didn’t get its way. However, Defense Minister Thandi Modise told VOA at the results ceremony that she was not worried.\ “Well, we have not necessarily taken extra measures…. We have begged all political parties to be calm…. We hope that there will not be any necessity for any of us in the security sector to come in and interfere,” she said. The ANC now has 14 days in which to form a coalition government, so negotiations with the other parties will be getting underway.

New York — Marchers chanted for the release of hostages in Gaza on Sunday at a New York City parade for Israel that drew thousands of people under heightened security. The parade was held almost eight months after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Dubbed “Celebrate Israel,” the annual parade's normally exuberant atmosphere was markedly toned down this year. People chanted “Bring them home now!” and waved Israeli flags as they marched up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for what this year was called “Israel Day on Fifth.” Crowds of spectators and hundreds of police officers lined the route, and steel barricades were installed along the sidewalk. One sign read: “From the river to the sea, Hamas will cease to be.” “Especially this year, after Oct. 7, it’s especially important to have this show of unity,” said Rena Orman, a Bronx native who took part in the parade as part of Mothers Against College Antisemitism. “Everybody wants [the] hostages back. Everyone wants this to end. No one is cheering for this. Everyone wants peace.” Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said earlier this week that the event would focus on solidarity, strength and resilience. “This is not a mood of confetti and music,” Treyger said. “This is more of a mood of unwavering, ironclad solidarity with hostages to bring them home, and also our unwavering love and pride in our Jewish identity.” The parade, in its 59th year, kicked off late Sunday morning with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams among the elected officials attending. “I think it’s important — especially with what’s going on in the Middle East, in Israel with the war going on — to show our support and to show that the hostages aren’t forgotten and the country itself is not forgotten,” said participant Michael Garber of New Jersey. New York Police Department officials employed measures typically used for high-profile events such as New Year's Eve and July 4. That included drones, K-9 units, bike patrols, fencing and barriers and designated entry points for spectators along the parade route. Backpacks, large bags and coolers were prohibited, and spectators had to pass through metal detectors. Police did not report any parade-related arrests by late Sunday afternoon. The parade represents the first large-scale Jewish event in the city since the war started, although there have been roughly 2,800 protests in the city, with about 1,300 of them related to the conflict, the Democrat said. Over 36,430 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s offensive, according to the Hamas-run, Gaza Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths, accusing it of operating from dense residential areas.

Atlanta, Georgia — Hilbert Margol says he didn't look on himself as a hero when his U.S. Army artillery unit fought its way across Europe during World War II. But he will be feted in France as one of 60 American veterans of that conflict traveling to Normandy to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. “I know my brother and I never looked at it as we were any kind of heroes, nothing like that,” Margol said recently of himself and his twin brother Howard, who served with him. “It was just our time. That we were asked to serve. And we did.” The 100-year-old Margol, who lives in suburban Atlanta, is among the dwindling band of veterans of the conflict leaving Atlanta on Sunday on a chartered flight for Deauville, Normandy. The veterans will take part in parades, school visits and ceremonies — including the official June 6 commemoration of the landings by soldiers from across the United States, Britain, Canada and other Allied nations on five beaches. Margol didn't land at D-Day, but the Jacksonville, Florida, native was among those that liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp on April 29, 1945. The trip also includes high school and college students selected to escort the veterans and learn about their experiences. Charter flights also took veterans from Atlanta to France in 2022 and 2023. Andy Negra of Helen, Georgia, came ashore with the 6th Armored Division at Utah Beach on July 18, 1944, about six weeks after D-Day. It’s his second trip back to France after also taking part in last year's flight. “Well to me, we fought for freedom, and we fought for peace, and we fought for a good life,” Negra, a native of Avella, Pennsylvania, said in a recent interview. The trip is being organized by Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, the Best Defense Foundation and the North American branch of French tire maker Michelin. “It is our privilege to celebrate and honor these heroes by flying them directly to Normandy and recognizing their incredible sacrifices and contributions to the world,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement.

Guatemala City, Guatemala — Guatemalan police on Sunday transferred more than 200 gang members from a prison where they operated a call center for criminal purposes, raised chickens and looked out on a crocodile-filled lake.   Some 400 police were involved in the operation to move 225 members of the Barrio 18 gang out of the prison nicknamed "El Infiernito" or Little Hell, where they enjoyed access to such luxuries as TV sets and fridges, even raising chickens, officials said.  "The prison once again belongs to the country," Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez announced on X.  He vowed the facility would be stripped down and rebuilt as a "real maximum-security prison," vowing: "These are prisons, NOT holidays."  Images of the facility released by officials showed the inmates even had air conditioning at the prison in Escuintla, some 70 kilometers south of the capital.  In a previous search, police had disabled a makeshift "call center" from where the gangsters had committed extortion and ordered crimes to be committed.  The minister blamed "previous governments" for "handing over control of prisons to criminals."  The operation came just days after new President Bernardo Arevalo said some areas of Guatemala City were being held "prisoner" by gangs, as the UN called for a stop to the recruitment of minors by criminal groups.  The Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs are fighting in Guatemala over control for territory where they extort money from companies and individuals -- killing those who refuse, according to authorities.  Criminal violence claimed 4,361 lives in the country in 2023 -- a rate of 25 per 100,000 inhabitants -- half of them attributed to gang fighting and drug trafficking.

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.

San Francisco — California firefighters expected to gain ground Sunday on a wind-driven wildfire that scorched thousands of acres some 97 kilometers east of San Francisco, burned down a home and forced residents to flee the area near the central California city of Tracy. The fire erupted Saturday afternoon in the grassy hills managed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the country's key centers for nuclear weapons science and technology. The cause was under investigation. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the research center was not under immediate threat from the blaze, dubbed the Corral Fire, which had devoured some 52 square kilometers by Sunday afternoon and was 30% contained. Thousands of people in the area, including parts of the city of Tracy with a population of 100,000, were ordered to leave for evacuation centers. CalFire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira said Sunday afternoon the fire “burned right up the homes” in the area and destroyed one house. With calmer winds and milder weather Sunday, Silveira said he didn't expect the fire to grow. Two firefighters suffered minor to moderate burns Saturday and were expected to make a full recovery, Silveira said. The wildfire presented no threat to any laboratory facilities or operations and had moved away from the site, Lawrence Livermore spokesperson Paul Rhien said in a statement to The Associated Press early Sunday. “As a precaution, we have activated our emergency operations center to monitor the situation through the weekend,” Rhien said. Photos showed a wall of flames moving over the parched landscape as dark smoke billowed into the sky. The wildfire also forced the closure of two major highways, including an interstate that connects the San Francisco Bay Area to San Joaquin County in central California, but they had reopened by Sunday afternoon. The San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services issued an evacuation order for areas west of the California Aqueduct, south of Corral Hollow Creek, west to Alameda County and south to Stanislaus County. A temporary evacuation point was established at Larch Clover Community Center in Tracy. The order was still in place as of early Sunday afternoon. Sunday’s high temperature for Tracy was expected to reach 29 degrees Celsius, with no rain in the forecast, but hotter conditions are on their way. The National Weather Service said “dangerously hot conditions” with highs of 39.4 C to 42.2 C were expected later in the week for the San Joaquin Valley, an area that encompasses Tracy. Wind gusts of up to 72 kph lashed the region Saturday night, according to meteorologist Idamis Shoemaker of the weather service in Sacramento.

Colombo, Sri Lanka — The Maldives government will ban Israelis from the Indian Ocean archipelago, known for luxury resorts, as public anger in the predominantly Muslim nation rises over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The president's office said Sunday that the Cabinet decided to change laws to prevent Israeli passport holders from entering the country and to establish a subcommittee to oversee the process. It said President Mohamed Muizu will appoint a special envoy to assess the Palestinian needs and to launch a fundraising campaign. Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in response that the Foreign Ministry recommends Israelis avoid any travel to the Maldives, including those with foreign passports, and those currently there to consider leaving. The recommendation, the Israeli ministry said, includes Israelis with dual citizenship. The ministry said in a statement, "For Israeli citizens already in the country, it is recommended to consider leaving, because if they find themselves in distress for any reason, it will be difficult for us to assist." Nearly 11,000 Israelis visited Maldives last year, which was 0.6% of the total tourist arrivals.

Tbilisi, Georgia — Thousands of Georgians gathered Sunday in the capital Tbilisi for a charity concert aimed at raising funds for those arrested during weeks of protests against a controversial "foreign influence" law.  On Tuesday, Georgia's parliament adopted the divisive law, overcoming a presidential veto on the bill which critics say mirrors Russian legislation used by Moscow to silence dissent.  Brussels and Washington have warned the move will derail the Black Sea nation from its path to European Union membership.  It has sparked nearly two months of daily protests that saw police use tear gas and water cannon to disperse rallies, beating and arresting demonstrators.  On Sunday evening, thousands of people gathered in Tbilisi's central Republic square for an outdoor concert by Georgian bands and singers.  Organizers said it was aimed at "collecting donations for demonstrators arrested during the protests."  Many at the concert voiced anger at the ruling Georgian Dream party, which faces mounting accusations of leading Georgia away from its Western trajectory and back to Russia's orbit.  "They have locked up some of us, but we will prevail -- Georgian Dream is counting its last months in power," said 38-year-old graphic engineer Nico Ladaria.  "They have passed the Russian-style law against the will of the Georgian people and despite clear warnings that it kills Georgia's EU membership prospects," he told AFP. The law forces NGOs and media organizations receiving at least a fifth of their funding from abroad to register as "organizations pursuing the interests of a foreign power."  Georgian Dream insists it is committed to Georgia's European aspirations and says the law will ensure "transparency" concerning Western-funded groups which it says undermine the country's sovereignty.  Georgian activists, independent journalists and opposition politicians accuse the government of a concerted campaign of violence and threats.  Tensions have risen ahead of October's parliamentary elections, seen as a key democratic test.  Georgia's EU bid is enshrined in the country's constitution and supported -- according to opinion polls -- by more than 80% of population.

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.

Tehran, Iran — Tehran summoned Sweden's temporary charge d'affaires over "baseless & spiteful accusations," the foreign ministry said Sunday, after Stockholm's intelligence agency said Iran was "using criminal networks" inside the Scandinavian country to attack Israel and its interests.    The Swedish diplomat was summoned by the assistant of the foreign ministry's general directorate for Western Europe, the ministry posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.   Iran's embassy in Stockholm had already denied accusations Friday that Tehran was recruiting criminal gang members as proxies to commit "acts of violence" against Israeli interests in Sweden.    That came in reply to Sweden's intelligence agency saying the day prior that Iran was "using criminal networks in Sweden to carry out acts of violence against other states, groups or people in Sweden that it considers a threat."   The service, commonly known as SAPO, said these were particularly aimed at "Israeli and Jewish interests, targets and operations in Sweden."   Shortly before SAPO's announcement, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter cited documents from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency as saying the heads of two Swedish gangs had been recruited by the Iranian regime.   “Iran has previously used violence in other countries in Europe in a bid to silence critical voices and perceived threats against its regime," SAPO said.   The diplomatic spat comes two weeks after nighttime gunfire was reported outside the Israel Embassy in Stockholm, and three months after police found a live grenade lying on the grounds of the Israeli compound.   "Sweden will not be a platform where state actors use criminal networks to promote their own interests," Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Thursday in remarks emailed to AFP. The Iranian Embassy on Friday rejected the accusations. "Unfortunately, some Swedish media have quoted the false and baseless claims of media and institutions affiliated with this brutal regime (Israel) and published false and fabricated reports against the Islamic Republic of Iran," the embassy said in a statement. The embassy said it "expects the Swedish media not to trust the claims and reports published by the Israeli regime" and to work for "an end to the crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine." Tensions have flared between Israel and Iran since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7.

Belgrade, Serbia — Tensions soared during Serbia's municipal elections Sunday in key cities and towns as ruling populists sought to cement their already vast hold on power in the Balkan country that is a candidate nation for European Union membership. Incidents and irregularities were reported in the capital Belgrade and in the northern city of Novi Sad where opposition groups said the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, organized election centers during Sunday's balloting. Election observers from the nongovernment Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability filed several criminal complaints over suspected organized voting, vote-buying and violations of vote secrecy, as well as the presence of unauthorized persons at polling stations. The election in Belgrade was a rerun vote following reports of widespread irregularities last December that triggered political tensions and accusations that President Aleksandar Vucic's SNS rigged the vote. Populists have denied the accusations. Also up for grabs Sunday were more than 80 municipal councils and city halls in two other key cities — the northern Novi Sad and Nis in the south. Skirmishes were reported at a Novi Sad fair complex when opposition members tried to enter the hall packed with SNS activists and police moved in to stop them. The N1 regional television station reported that ruling party activists later brought out boxes with unidentified content through a back exit and left. Police said in a statement they were attacked in Novi Sad but "there have been no serious incidents" so far on the election day. Opposition officials said "call centers" were involved in bribing voters to cast their ballots in favor of the ruling party. The existence of a similar SNS-run center was reported in a Belgrade sports hall while in a downtown area in the capital city opposition activists tried to enter a restaurant where they said ruling party activists were camped. The SNS party said their activists' activities were in accordance with the law. Senior official Ana Brnabic, who is a former prime minister and current parliament speaker, said on the X social media platform that the party organized "call centers" to contact supporters and urge them to turn out to vote. "So what," said Brnabic. "We have a party with strong infrastructure and well-organized. What is the problem." The ruling populists in December were accused by the opposition and foreign observers of busing in voters from other areas in Serbia and from neighboring Bosnia, which they have denied. Similar reports were published by the opposition supporters on social media Sunday. Vucic is formally seeking to have his troubled nation join the EU but has steadily drifted away from pro-EU democracy values while nurturing close ties with Russia and China. The populists have presented themselves as the only political force capable of running the country and keeping it safe at a time of global turmoil. Pro-Western opposition groups have accused Vucic of crime links, rampant corruption and a crackdown on democracy. But a wide alliance that was behind big anti-government street protests last year has splintered and turned against each other, fueling apathy among Serbia's 6.5 million voters. Vucic's governing party is seen as the favorite on Sunday. It has for more than a decade controlled all levels of power in Serbia, so if the opposition manages to wrestle away at least some of the local councils, not to mention in big cities, it would be a significant shift. The opposition groups split over whether to take part in the ballot or press on with demands for free and fair elections. Those running in Belgrade campaign under the slogan: "We choose to fight!" International election observers have said that the December election, which also included a parliamentary vote, was held in "unjust conditions," in part because of the president's involvement and systemic advantages for the ruling party. A report by an office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the ballot was "marred by harsh rhetoric, bias in the media, pressure on public sector employees and misuse of public resources." Local election observers have said that not much has changed for the Sunday vote despite a set of recommendations listed by international observers after the December balloting.

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.