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FORT PIERCE, Florida — An attorney for Donald Trump told a federal judge on Monday that the criminal prosecution against the former president on charges he mishandled classified documents was unlawfully funded, as they made another attempt to get the charges thrown out of court.  Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the funding mechanism for their office has been upheld in past cases, as they sought to work through a thicket of legal challenges that have delayed the trial indefinitely.  Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally held on to sensitive national security papers after leaving office in 2021 and that he obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. The criminal case is one of four Trump has been facing as he seeks to unseat Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 5 election.  Cannon, a Trump appointee, set hearings on Friday and Monday in her Florida courtroom for Trump's lawyers to argue several motions making claims similar to those that have been rejected in other cases. On Friday, Trump attorneys urged her to find U.S. special counsel Jack Smith has too much independence - even though Trump has repeatedly blasted him as a puppet of Biden.  On Monday, Trump lawyer Emil Bove said the U.S. Justice Department should not be allowed to use a fund Congress set aside in the 1970s for independent politically sensitive investigations to pay for the documents probe.  "More oversight from Congress is required for the extraordinary things that are going on in these prosecutions," Bove said. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives have called for defunding Smith's office.  Special counsels have been appointed in Democratic- and Republican-led administrations alike to ensure an attorney can independently investigate and, if warranted, prosecute a case without any appearance of political influence.  U.S. prosecutor James Pearce told Cannon that the funding had been upheld in previous court cases that challenged other special prosecutors - including David Weiss, who recently won a criminal conviction of Biden's son, Hunter Biden.  Pearce said the Justice Department would fund Smith's office out of its regular budget if Cannon ruled that it cannot rely on the 1970s law.  Cannon has allowed a flurry of motions by Trump's legal team and has ruled in favor of the Republican presidential candidate on previous requests. It is unlikely the case will reach a jury before Trump and Biden face voters in the election.  Gag order request  Smith's team was due to ask Cannon later on Monday to bar Trump from making statements that pose a threat to law enforcement while he awaits trial.  Trump falsely claimed that a routine FBI use-of-force policy in effect during a 2022 search of his Florida resort authorized agents to attempt an assassination.  Prosecutors called the claim "deceptive and inflammatory" in a court filing and said it subjected agents to "unjustified and unacceptable risks."  Trump's lawyers say a gag order  would violate Trump's free-speech rights in the heat of the presidential campaign. They also argue that prosecutors have not presented evidence of threats against the FBI.  Cannon previously denied the request on procedural grounds after she ruled that prosecutors had not adequately consulted with Trump's lawyers before filing it.  Trump faces gag orders limiting his public statements in another federal case, also overseen by Smith, accusing him of attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, and a case in New York that led to his conviction in May for falsifying business records.  Trump has verbally attacked prosecutors, judges and witnesses in legal cases against him, contending that the U.S. justice system is being used to undermine his campaign.  Trump's criticism of the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago social club intensified last month after the bureau's use-of-force policy was made public as part of a tranche of records related to the FBI operation.  The policy stipulated that the FBI could not use lethal force unless an agent or other person was at serious risk of death or serious injury. Trump was not present at the club at the time of the search.  Trump's baseless claim about an attempted assassination was included in campaign fundraising emails and was echoed by his allies in Congress. 

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BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit Monday to block Louisiana's new law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, a measure they contend is unconstitutional.  Plaintiffs in the suit include parents of Louisiana public schoolchildren, represented by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.  "This display sends a message to my children and other students that people of some religious denominations are superior to others," said the Rev. Jeff Simms, a Presbyterian pastor who is a plaintiff in the suit and father of three children in Louisiana public schools. "This is religious favoritism."  Under the legislation signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry last week, all public K-12 classrooms and state-funded universities will be required to display a poster-sized version of the Ten Commandments in "large, easily readable font" next year.  Opponents argue that the law is a violation of separation of church and state and that the display will isolate students, especially those who are not Christian. Proponents say the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance. In the language of the law, the Ten Commandments are "foundational documents of our state and national government."  Plaintiff Joshua Herlands has two young children in New Orleans public schools who, like their father, are Jewish. There are multiple versions of the Ten Commandments, and Herlands said the specific version mandated for classroom walls does not align with the version from his faith. He worries the display will send a troubling message to his kids and others that "they may be lesser in the eyes of the government."  "Politicians have absolutely no business forcing their religious beliefs on my kids or any kids, or attempting to indoctrinate them with what they think is the right version of a particular piece of religious text," Herlands said.  The lawsuit filed Monday seeks a court declaration that the new law, referred to in the lawsuit as HB 71, violates First Amendment clauses forbidding government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious liberty. It also seeks an order prohibiting the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.  "The state's main interest in passing H.B. 71 was to impose religious beliefs on public-school children, regardless of the harm to students and families," the lawsuit says. "The law's primary sponsor and author, Representative Dodie Horton, proclaimed during debate over the bill that it 'seeks to have a display of God's law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong.'"  Defendants include state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, members of the state education board and some local school boards.  Landry and Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill support the new law, and Murrill has said she is looking forward to defending it. She issued a statement saying she couldn't comment directly on the lawsuit because she had not yet seen it.  "It seems the ACLU only selectively cares about the First Amendment — it doesn't care when the Biden administration censors speech or arrests pro-life protesters, but apparently it will fight to prevent posters that discuss our own legal history," Murrill said in the emailed statement.  The Ten Commandments have long been at the center of lawsuits across the nation.  In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can "make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The high court found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.  In a more recent ruling, the Supreme Court held in 2005 that such displays in a pair of Kentucky courthouses violated the Constitution. At the same time, the court upheld a Ten Commandments marker on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol in Austin. Those were 5-4 decisions, but the court's makeup has changed, with a 6-3 conservative majority now.  Other states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah, have attempted to pass requirements that the schools display the Ten Commandments. However, with threats of legal battles, none has the mandate in place except for Louisiana.  The posters in Louisiana, which will be paired with a four-paragraph "context statement" describing how the Ten Commandments "were a prominent part of public education for almost three centuries," must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025.  The controversial law comes during a new era of conservative leadership in Louisiana under Landry, who replaced two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January. The GOP holds a supermajority in the Legislature, and Republicans hold every statewide elected position, paving the way for lawmakers to push through a conservative agenda.  The case was allotted to U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, nominated to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama.

NEW YORK — Car dealerships in North America continue to wrestle with major disruptions that started last week with cyberattacks on a software company used widely in the auto retail sales sector.  CDK Global, a company that provides software for thousands of auto dealers in the U.S. and Canada, was hit by back-to-back cyberattacks Wednesday. That led to an outage that has continued to impact operations.  For prospective car buyers, that has meant delays at dealerships or vehicle orders written up by hand. There's no immediate end in sight, with CDK saying it expects the restoration process to take "several days" to complete.  On Monday, Group 1 Automotive Inc., a $4 billion automotive retailer, said that it continued to use "alternative processes" to sell cars to its customers. Lithia Motors and AutoNation, two other dealership chains, also disclosed that they implemented workarounds to keep their operations going.  Here is what you need to know.  What is CDK Global?  CDK Global is a major player in the auto sales industry. The company, based just outside of Chicago in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, provides software technology to dealers that helps with day-to-day operations — like facilitating vehicle sales, financing, insurance and repairs.  CDK serves more than 15,000 retail locations across North America, according to the company.  What happened last week?  CDK experienced back-to-back cyberattacks on Wednesday. The company shut down all of its systems out of an abundance of caution, spokesperson Lisa Finney said last week.  "We have begun the restoration process," Finney said in an update over the weekend — noting that the company had launched an investigation into the "cyber incident" with third-party experts and notified law enforcement.  "Based on the information we have at this time, we anticipate that the process will take several days to complete, and in the interim we are continuing to actively engage with our customers and provide them with alternate ways to conduct business," she added.  In messages to its customers, the company has also warned of "bad actors" posing as members or affiliates of CDK to try to obtain system access by contacting customers. It urged them to be cautious of any attempted phishing.  The incident bore all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack, in which targets are asked to pay a ransom to access encrypted files. But CDK declined to comment directly — neither confirming or denying if it had received a ransom demand.  Are impacted dealerships still selling cars?  Several major auto companies — including Stellantis, Ford and BMW — confirmed to The Associated Press last week that the CDK outage had impacted some of their dealers, but that sales operations continue.  In light of the ongoing situation, a spokesperson for Stellantis said Friday that many dealerships had switched to manual processes to serve customers. That includes writing up orders by hand.  A Ford spokesperson added that the outage may cause "some delays and inconveniences at some dealers and for some customers." However, many Ford and Lincoln customers are still getting sales and service support through alternative routes being used at dealerships.  Group 1 Automotive Inc., which owns 202 automotive dealerships, 264 franchises, and 42 collision centers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, said Monday that the incident has disrupted its business applications and processes in its U.S. operations that rely on CDK's dealers' systems. The company said that it took measures to protect and isolate its systems from CDK's platform.  All Group 1 U.S. dealerships will continue to conduct business using alternative processes until CDK's dealers' systems are available, the company said Monday. Group 1's dealerships in the U.K. don't use CDK's dealers' systems and are not impacted by the incident.  In regulatory filings, Lithia Motors and AutoNation disclosed that last week's incident at CDK had disrupted their operations as well.  Lithia said it activated cyber incident response procedures, which included "severing business service connections between the company's systems and CDK's." AutoNation said it also took steps to protect its systems and data — adding that all of its locations remain open "albeit with lower productivity," as many are served manually or through alternative processes.  With many details of the cyberattacks still unclear, customer privacy is also at top of mind — especially with little known about what information may have been compromised this week.  In a statement last week, Mike Stanton, president and CEO of the National Automobile Dealers Association, said "dealers are very committed to protecting their customer information" and were seeking updates from CDK to determine the scope of impact "so they can respond appropriately."  Cybersecurity experts have stressed that consumers connected to CDK (or a CDK-affilated dealership) should assume that their data may have been breached. Those impacted should monitor their credit — or even consider freezing their credit as an added layer of defense — and be wary of any suspicious phishing messages.

Russian missile attacks hit Ukraine's major cities, causing death, injury and infrastructure damage. The first EU portion of frozen Russian assets are expected to be delivered to Ukraine Monday. At least 20 people were killed, including civilians and police officers, when gunmen opened fire at two Orthodox churches, two synagogues, and a police station in separate attacks in Russia's North Caucasus region of Dagestan. EU leaders approve more sanctions against Russia. A Ukrainian teenager seeking safety through in music in the U.S. city of Chicago.

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washington — The number of Americans studying in China has dropped dramatically in recent years from around 11,000 in 2019 to 800 this year, and the slump is so bad that some China scholars worry the United States could lose a generation of "China experts" as a result. David Moser, an American who has lived and worked in China for more than three decades and is the former academic director of China Educational Tours (CET) in Beijing, said that “I haven’t seen an American student in years.” CET, which was launched in 1982, is a Washington-based organization that recruits American students for short-term language and culture studies in China. Moser said that his position as academic director recently went away and that the organization continues to struggle to get more students to return to China. CET once carried out short-term study-abroad programs in several cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin and Hangzhou. Now, the program is only available in Beijing and Shanghai. Harbin's page on the website shows that programs are "suspended until spring 2025." "We have already lost a very crucial generation who would need to be continuing right now in China with studies or whatever,” Moser said, “so that 10 years from now, they would already be ... very experienced China hands [experts].” During the 2011-12 school year, the number of American students in China was around 15,000. Since then, with Xi Jinping’s rise as China’s leader and growing frictions between the two countries, the number has declined, dropping dramatically after the pandemic to about 200 at its lowest point. Loss of understanding Moser said the lack of talented people who understand China is undoubtedly a huge loss for the United States. "You really need people who understand the two academic systems, the two college systems, and the way these things work in order to not make a huge mistake,” he said. Compared with China, however, CET's projects in Taiwan are in full swing.   Moser said CET started its first summer study abroad program at National Taiwan University in 2022, which attracted more than 120 American students. He said a program was set up in Taiwan because too few American students wanted to go to China.  He said he believed that starting around 2008, when Beijing held its first Olympics, China’s pollution and human rights violations turned some American students away, and that the trend has not reversed.  China's strict lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic was also a crucial turning point. At that time, many foreigners, including American students, left China. After the Chinese government suddenly lifted the lockdown at the end of 2022, most foreigners did not immediately return.  China's increasingly aggressive posture on the international stage under Xi, and its hostile propaganda against the West at home, is likely to have prevented foreign talents from visiting China for cultural and business exchanges.   A revised counterespionage law that took effect on July 1, 2023, has also made many Americans hesitant to travel to China, let alone study there.  As U.S.-China relations deteriorate, official academic exchanges have also been coldly received. Former U.S. President Donald Trump suspended all Fulbright exchange programs to China and Hong Kong in July 2020.   After the counterespionage law negatively affected China, the Chinese government sought to extend goodwill at the level of people-to-people exchanges. Xi announced during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in San Francisco in November 2023, "In order to expand exchanges between the people of China and the United States, especially the younger generation, China is willing to invite 50,000 American young people to come to China for exchanges and studies in the next five years." High school students visit  In January 2024, more than 20 students from Muscatine High School in Iowa visited Beijing, Hebei and Shanghai. In March, 24 students from Lincoln High School and Steilacoom High School in Washington state also boarded a plane from San Francisco to Beijing.  Wenzhou University and Kean University in New Jersey signed an agreement to jointly establish Wenzhou-Kean University in May 2006. At the time, Xi was the party secretary of Zhejiang, home province of Wenzhou, and he attended the signing ceremony in 2006. In a letter to Kean's president on June 7, Xi encouraged universities in the two countries to strengthen exchanges and cooperation. However, three days later,  four American teachers who were giving short-term courses at Beihua University in Jilin, China, were stabbed by a Chinese man. Chinese officials quickly deleted the relevant content on social media, and a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson called the incident an "accident" that would not affect relations between the two countries.   Meghan Burke, a former sociology professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, said that although the attack on American teachers was a shocking and unexpected incident, she still hoped that it would not affect Americans' confidence in studying and traveling in China.  "I think it's always been there, but I think with the pandemic, there was some really racially loaded misinformation and fears that I wouldn't be surprised if that came into play in some students' and some families' decisions about where they were willing to go abroad," she said.   Asked about the 800 American students in China today, Burke said that was a big regret for the United States.   "Language is key to understanding culture. So, any limitations on learning Mandarin or other Chinese languages only hold back our ability to have a broader and more complex intercultural understanding and international perspective that I think benefits everyone who is involved in those conversations," Burke said.  In contrast, 300,000 Chinese students are studying in the United States.   "Asymmetry is bad for China, but it's much worse for the United States because asymmetry is in one direction, which is towards us,” Moser said. “The Chinese have very good knowledge of the U.S., of its culture, of its government, everything." Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

As in many countries, job seekers in Ukraine who are in their 50s and 60s have a harder time than younger workers. One organization is trying to change that by taking advantage of Ukraine’s wartime labor shortage. For VOA, Lesia Bakalets reports from Kyiv. VOA footage by Vladyslav Smilianets.

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WASHINGTON — Media watchdogs are appealing to the Supreme Court of the Philippines to drop a long-standing cyber libel case against Nobel Peace laureate and journalist Maria Ressa.  Ressa, who founded the news website Rappler, and one of her colleagues, Reynaldo Santos Jr., are appealing a conviction for cyber libel. Charges were first filed in the case in 2017 and relate to an investigative story first published in 2012.  “If Ressa's conviction is not set aside, she could be jailed for up to seven years, and that remains unthinkable," Julie Posetti, of the International Center for Journalists, or ICFJ, told VOA via email.  The ICFJ, along with the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, collaborated on an amicus brief filed earlier in June. In it, the media watchdogs argue that the case breaches the international obligations of the Philippines. They also say the case betrays the press freedom legacy the court has reaffirmed for more than a century. The brief adds that both the case against Ressa and Santos Jr. and the country’s criminal defamation laws go against legal best practice and international law.  That in turn affects the ability of media to act as a public watchdog, the brief says.  “The prospect of facing criminal liability for allegedly misreporting facts — or worse yet, being punished for accurate reporting — will have a profound chilling effect, discouraging journalists from wading into the sensitive topics that often are the subjects of greatest public concern,” the brief states. The cyber libel conviction is one of nearly two dozen legal cases filed against Ressa and Rappler in what media analysts say is retaliatory action by the government.  At one point, the award-winning journalist was facing a combined prison sentence of more than 100 years.  The Philippine government has previously denied the cases are in retaliation for Rappler’s investigative journalism. Several of the cases have since been dismissed or seen Ressa acquitted. But the journalist still faces a prison term in the libel case. "The conviction of Maria Ressa and her former Rappler colleague on a criminal cyber libel charge about a 12-year-old piece of investigative reporting must be urgently overturned in the interests of justice,” Posetti told VOA.   "We urge the court to carefully consider the expert legal opinions submitted in the case, which is in its final stage of appeal."  Press freedom organizations say that the case risks undermining the public’s right to access information and takes away freedom of expression.   The Supreme Court has already accepted amicus briefs in Ressa’s case from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.  

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Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defense Minister is in Washington for a series of meetings with U.S. officials as talks on a ceasefire in Gaza have stalled and as tension with Hezbollah is on the rise. Also in Israel, the families of some of the hostages held by Hamas have released video showing their loved ones being taken. A synagogue and multiple churches have been badly damaged in attacks in Dagestan, in southern Russia and the offices of a prominent Jewish member of Australia’s parliament has also been vandalized. We’ll get an update from Kyiv and a look at the deadly fire in South Korea.

TV personality Rachael Ray is a U.S.-based chef, author and celebrity. But Ukrainians know her better thanks to her charity work to help the war-torn country. Omelyan Oshchudlyak reports. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych.

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Paris, France — The U.N.'s cultural organization said Monday it recommended adding Stonehenge, the renowned prehistoric site in England, to its world heritage list of sites in danger, in what would be seen as an embarrassment for London.   The site has been in the U.N. organization's sights because of British government plans to construct a controversial road tunnel near the world heritage site in southwestern England.   In a written decision seen by AFP, the World Heritage Committee recommended that Stonehenge be added to the U.N. list of world heritage sites in danger "with a view to mobilising international support."   The decision will have to be voted upon by the member states of the World Heritage Committee at a meeting in New Delhi in July.   One diplomat told AFP that the decision will likely be approved.    Stonehenge has had UNESCO world heritage status since 1986.  Placement on the U.N. body's world heritage list of endangered sites is seen as a dishonor by some countries.   Last July the British government approved the construction of a controversial road tunnel near Stonehenge despite efforts by campaigners to halt the £1.7 billion ($2.2 billion) project.   The diplomat pointed out that London had decided to approve the project "despite repeated warnings from the World Heritage Committee since 2017."   The planned tunnel is intended to ease congestion on an existing main road to southwest England that gets especially busy during the peak holiday periods.    Experts have warned of "permanent, irreversible harm" to the area.   Druids have held protests against the tunnel at a site they consider sacred and where they celebrate the summer and winter solstice — the longest and shortest days of the year.   Built in stages between around 3,000 and 2,300 B.C.E., Stonehenge is one of the world's most important prehistoric megalithic monuments in terms of its size, sophisticated layout and architectural precision.   UNESCO runs a list of sites with World Heritage status around the world, a prestigious title that countries compete to bestow on their most famous natural and man-made locations.   A listing can help boost tourism — but it comes with obligations to protect the site.   The port city of Liverpool in northwest England lost its World Heritage status for its docks in 2021 after UNESCO experts concluded that new real estate developments in the city had taken too much of a toll on its historical fabric.