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ATLANTA — A Georgia appeals court on Wednesday agreed to review a lower court ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue to prosecute the election interference case she brought against former President Donald Trump. Trump and some other defendants in the case had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, saying her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals. That intermediate appeals court agreed on Wednesday to take up the case. Once it rules, the losing side could ask the Georgia Supreme Court to consider an appeal. The appeals court's decision to consider the case seems likely to cause a delay in a case and further reduce the possibility that it will get to trial before the November general election, when Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee for president. In his order, McAfee said he planned to continue to address other pretrial motions "regardless of whether the petition is granted ... and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court." But Trump and the others could ask the Court of Appeals to stay the case while the appeal is pending.

We have issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual clarifying when H-3 nonimmigrants may participate in training provided on the property of an academic or vocational institution.

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Three decades ago, the breakup of the country of Yugoslavia led to 10 years of conflict involving Serbian nationals fighting against the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Millions of people were displaced, and hundreds of thousands were killed and wounded. Now veterans of the war in Croatia are helping rehabilitate wounded Ukrainians. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. Camera and edit: Yuriy Dankevych

SKOPJE, North Macedonia — Voters in North Macedonia were casting ballots on Wednesday in a parliamentary election and a presidential runoff dominated by issues including the country's path toward European Union membership, corruption and the economy. The first round of the election for president, a largely ceremonial post, was seen as a barometer for the parliamentary vote. It gave a clear lead to Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, the candidate backed by the center-right opposition, over incumbent Stevo Pendarovski, who is supported by the governing center-left coalition. Siljanovska-Davkova garnered 41.2%, in the first round on April 24, compared to 20.5% for Pendarovski. The two had also squared off in the previous election in 2019, when Pendarovski won with nearly 54% of the vote. Turnout in the runoff must be at least 40% for the result to be valid. In the parliamentary election, more than 1,700 candidates are vying for the 120 seats in the unicameral assembly. There are also three seats reserved for expatriates, but in the previous election in 2020, turnout was too low for them to be filled. The monthlong campaign focused on North Macedonia’s progress toward joining the 27-nation EU, the rule of law, corruption, fighting poverty and tackling the country’s sluggish economy. Skopje voter Atanas Lovacev expressed disappointment with the current government but had low expectations from whoever comes next. “Yes, [I expect changes], because the current government did nothing,” he said. "But I don’t expect anything either from the new government. … They all make promises, but the result is nothing.” Opinion polls ahead of the vote had consistently shown the center-right opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, at the head of a 22-party coalition called “Your Macedonia,” with a double-digit lead over the coalition “For A European Future,” led by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, or SDSM. There are also two coalitions representing ethnic Albanians, who account for a quarter of North Macedonia’s population. They include the European Front, led by the Democratic Union of Integration (DUI), which has been the coalition partner of all governments of the past 20 years. But VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski wants to ally with the VLEN (Worth) four-party coalition, which has positioned itself to the right of DUI. North Macedonia’s path to the EU is being blocked by neighboring Bulgaria, which demands that the constitution be amended to recognize a Bulgarian minority. And while the center-left has agreed to the demand, VMRO-DPMNE has denounced the government's “capitulation [to] Bulgarian dictates.” Just over 3,500 people out of nearly 1.84 million identified themselves as Bulgarians in North Macedonia’s latest census, in 2021. North Macedonia has been a candidate to join the EU since 2005 but was blocked for years by neighboring Greece in a dispute over the country’s name. That was resolved in 2018, but Bulgaria is now the one blocking the process — it has said it will only lift its veto once the constitution is amended. Skopje resident Gordana Gerasimovski said she was disappointed that the country had been waiting for so long to join the EU, but hoped there would now be real progress. "We should have been part of European Union long time ago. This is what we are lacking, but we hope that the time will get us where we want to be for so long," she said. EU membership negotiations with North Macedonia — and fellow-candidate Albania — began in 2022 and the process is expected to take years. Corruption is the other hot-button issue, with a European Commission report last year saying it “remains prevalent in many areas” of North Macedonia. In December, U.S. Ambassador Angela Aggeler said there was “an epidemic of corruption in this country that has affected every sector, every organization, and only by exposing the corrupt actors can we begin to help the country address these issues.” Mickoski has accused the ruling SDSM and DUI of a “corruption pandemic.” Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski has said he is “aware that people are not satisfied” and promised anti-corruption measures. More than 2,300 domestic and international observers were scheduled to monitor the election, according to the State Electoral Commission. Preliminary results were expected early Thursday.

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ISLAMABAD  — A bomb explosion in Afghanistan’s volatile northeastern Badakhshan province Wednesday killed at least three Taliban security personnel and wounded six others. Multiple sources, including residents and area hospital officials, confirmed the casualties. They said that a “sticky improvised explosive device” apparently planted on a motorbike struck a Taliban military convoy in the provincial capital, Faizabad. The Taliban’s Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed the casualties, saying the bomb targeted a unit of security forces that were heading to illegal poppy fields to destroy them. Abdul Mateen Qani said the attack was under investigation. No group claimed responsibility for the bombing in Badakhshan, which has been in the grip of unprecedented violent public protests against Taliban authorities’ poppy eradication campaign. The unrest erupted last Friday and left two protesters dead in clashes with Taliban security forces. Wednesday’s deadly blast came a day after the Taliban’s army chief, Fasihuddin Fitrat, said in a video message that he had addressed complaints of protesting farmers and resolved the unrest. He insisted on receiving public support for poppy eradication. Fitrat arrived in Faizabad from Kabul two days ago as the head of a high-powered delegation to negotiate with the demonstrators' leaders. Ahead of his visit to the province, the Taliban army chief had threatened to militarily “quell the rebellion” if the demonstrations persisted. He reiterated his government’s resolve to eradicate poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and vowed to achieve this goal, come what may. Since regaining control of the country, the Taliban's reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akundzada, has imposed a nationwide ban on poppy cultivation, production, usage, transportation, and trade of illicit drugs. However, deteriorating economic conditions and the absence of alternatives for poppy-growing farmers have been causing unrest in parts of Afghanistan against the ban, which went into effect in April 2022. The United Nations estimates the ban on poppy cultivation rendered some 450,000 people jobless in poverty-stricken Afghanistan and precipitated a $1.3 billion loss in farmers' incomes. Badakhshan and surrounding Afghan provinces are ethnically non-Pashtun regions. The Taliban, who represent the country’s majority Pashtun population, were unable to take control of the northern provinces during their first stint in power in the 1990s. Critics argue that the rare public uprising in Badakhshan highlights the potential obstacles that the Taliban may face in maintaining their authority in Afghanistan, reeling from decades of war and the effects of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts.

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the resulting war in Gaza led to a dramatic increase in antisemitism worldwide in 2023, a new report reveals. In the U.S., the Biden administration recommitted to the security of Israel and the safety of the Jewish community. Natasha Mozgovaya has the story.

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Washington — The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S., a senior administration official said Tuesday.   The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, with the focus of U.S. concern being the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting. More than 1 million civilians are sheltering in Rafah after evacuating other parts of Gaza amid Israel's war on Hamas, which came after the militant group's deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.  The U.S. has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid for Israel. That has only accelerated in the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 in Israel and led to about 250 being taken captive by militants. The pausing of the aid shipment is the most striking manifestation of the growing daylight between Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has called on Israel to do far more to protect the lives of innocent civilians in Gaza.  It also comes as the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war. A decision against Israel would further add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.  Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House. The official said the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.  U.S. officials had declined for days to comment on the halted transfer, word of which came as Biden on Tuesday described U.S. support for Israel as “ironclad, even when we disagree.”  Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to square the arms holdup with Biden's rhetoric in support of Israel, saying only, “Two things could be true.”  Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, most recently in a Monday call with Netanyahu.  Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as “targeted strikes” on the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a critical conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the Gaza-Egypt border.  Privately, concern has mounted inside the White House about what’s unfolding in Rafah, but publicly administration officials have stressed that they did not think the operations had defied Biden’s warnings against a widescale operation in the city.  White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Israel described the operation along the Gaza-Egypt border in eastern Rafah as “an operation of limited scale and duration” aimed at cutting off Hamas arms smuggling, but also said the U.S. would monitor the fighting.   Just last month, Congress passed a $95 billion national security bill that included funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. The package included more than $14 billion in military aid for Israel, though the stalled transfer was not related to that measure.  The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn't pertain to imminent shipments.  The U.S. dropped the 2,000-pound bomb sparingly in its long war against the Islamic State militant group. Israel, by contrast, has used the bomb frequently in the seven-month Gaza war. Experts say the use of the weapon, in part, has helped drive the enormous Palestinian casualty count that the Hamas-run health ministry puts at more than 34,000 dead, though it doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians.  The U.S.-Israel relationship has been close through both Democratic and Republican administrations. But there have been other moments of deep tension since the founding in which U.S. leaders have threatened to hold up aid in attempt to sway Israeli leadership.  President Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel with the threat of sanctions into withdrawing from the Sinai in 1957 in the midst of the Suez Crisis. Ronald Reagan delayed the delivery of F16 fighter jets to Israel at a time of escalating violence in the Middle East. President George H.W. Bush held up $10 billion in loan guarantees to force the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories.

ABUJA, NIGERIA — In Nigeria, soaring inhaler costs pose a significant challenge for asthma patients, especially as the world marked Asthma Day this week. The departure of multinational firms like GSK, coupled with inflation, has driven prices skyward, rendering essential medications unaffordable. As a result, patients are turning to alternative treatments. World Asthma Day 2024 finds Nigeria facing a mounting health crisis with asthma medication costs soaring more than 500% in less than a year.  That has led many like Khalida Jihad, an asthma sufferer for nearly 30 years, to cut down on their medical supplies. "I hardly buy and stock up any more...but I definitely have to have inhaler no matter the cost I definitely have to have it but then what about people who can't afford to have it?" she said. Some, like Rita Joseph, a college student, unable to afford inhalers, turn to untested alternatives. "For four months now, I can't afford inhaler because of the high price so, I now use ginger, garlic, cloves, lemon and other natural ingredients because they are cheaper," she said. Asthma is a chronic lung disease causing breathing difficulties. It affects millions globally, and results in more than 450,000 preventable deaths annually according to the World Health Organization. While Nigeria lacks recent official data, a 2019 survey estimated the country has 13 million asthma sufferers, among the most in Africa. Public health experts like Ejike Orji fear the rising cost of medication could lead to a crisis. "If the drug to manage that is not handy when someone has an acute attack, it leads to loss of life," Orji said. "As one asthma is finishing attack, another one is starting and that is why affordability of those drugs is very important. Good example, Ventolin inhaler is a standard drug people buy, now Ventolin inhaler is not even in the market." Asthma's burden falls heavily on low-income countries. More than 80% of deaths occur there due to lack of awareness, poor management of the disease, and limited healthcare access as disclosed by WHO. Orji emphasizes the need for Nigeria’s government to promote asthma awareness. "One area the government can do something is to increase the public education and community engagement to create comprehensive awareness of what to avoid if you are an asthmatic, what to do to prevent yourself getting into trouble and when you are having an attack, what to do immediately," Orji said.

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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration’s apparent willingness to engage North Korea is causing a rare public rift with one of Washington’s key allies in Asia over how to achieve Pyongyang’s denuclearization. Last week, the two allies, on separate occasions, showed differences about whether to consider “interim steps” toward North Korea’s complete denuclearization. South Korean national security adviser Chang Ho-jin said, “U.S. senior officials confirmed several times that there are no such thing as interim steps” toward denuclearization. He made the remarks in an interview with South Korean media outlet KBS, aired on April 27. A U.S. National Security Council spokesperson confirmed in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on April 30 that “by saying that the United States is willing to consider interim steps, we are making clear that we recognize that building trust with the DPRK and making progress toward denuclearization will take time.” The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is North Korea’s official name. In response to the NSC spokesperson’s comments, a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson told VOA Korean on May 1 that Chang’s remarks “reaffirm that the U.S. will not put aside complete denuclearization while it settles for a stopgap measure limiting [negotiations] to a nuclear freeze in return for sanctions relief.” Taking interim steps toward denuclearization involves reciprocal concessions or corresponding measures that both sides are willing to make to reach that goal. Interim steps toward denuclearization are not a new approach. The approach was tried and failed by the former Clinton and George W. Bush administrations when North Korea was engaged in negotiations with the U.S. In March of this year, senior U.S. officials expressed Washington’s interest in considering “interim steps” amid talks that remained stalled with Pyongyang since October 2019. A State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean in April that it made multiple attempts to communicate with North Korean officials, but that Pyongyang has not shown interest in engaging. Experts said Seoul is concerned that Washington’s mention of interim steps and measures that could be included in those steps, especially threat reduction, could hinder Pyongyang from making a commitment toward complete denuclearization in future negotiations. Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair in Korea Studies at Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies, said, “Seoul prefers not to engage in any diplomatic negotiations without a DPRK commitment to denuclearization and wants to appear resolute.” “Washington has signaled to North Korea that it’s willing to be more flexible when it comes to restarting diplomatic engagement with North Korea. Seoul may not want to give the appearance of that flexibility so is perhaps denying any legitimacy behind an ‘interim steps’ approach,” he added. Seoul has taken a tough stance on North Korea under President Yoon Suk Yeol since he took office two years ago by focusing on deterrence and alignment with Washington and U.S.-led trilateral security cooperation with Japan. Evans Revere, a State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said some critics and officials in Seoul and Tokyo are worried that the U.S. will focus on other goals Washington mentioned such as confidence building and tension reduction rather than on denuclearization. “There is also concern that Washington may be prepared to engage in arms control talks with Pyongyang — a move that would generate deep concern among U.S. allies, in large part because it would effectively accept North Korea’s nuclear arsenal as permanent,” he said. Talks over arms control or “nuclear freeze” that Seoul said it is concerned about or “threat reduction” or “risk reduction” mentioned by U.S. officials in March — which could be included in the interim steps — are considered equivalent to accepting North Korea as a nuclear state and opposed by some officials and analysts. At an event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on March 3, Mira Rapp-Hooper, senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council, said the U.S. will discuss threat reduction with North Korea as it considers interim steps on the "pathway to denuclearization." Also at an event by CSIS on March 18, Jung Pak, a U.S. senior official for North Korea, said Washington wants North Korea to take risk reduction steps and discuss sanctions and confidence-building measures.   Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea chair at CSIS, however, said that Rapp-Hooper's reference to "the formulation of interim measures to reduce the threat on the peninsula" in March "reflects the same pragmatic view that any negotiation has to start at step 1 — whether you call that interim measures or initial denuclearization." "As a former negotiator, I can say that any pragmatic implementation of denuclearization would have to include such steps, which I do not think would represent de facto acceptance of DPRK nuclear status — that is neither Washington, nor Seoul's policy," he said. Cha formerly served as deputy head of delegation for the U.S. at six-party denuclearization talks.

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Sapporo, Japan — Friction between Japan and Russia will likely escalate amidst the burgeoning Ukraine war, with the decades-long land conflicts showing no sign of thawing. The Kremlin recently banned non-Russian vessels from waters near the Kuril Islands – known in Japan as the Northern Territories – currently occupied by Russia but claimed by Japan. Tokyo saw the move as part of a series of Moscow threats after the recent security alliance between the United States and Japan. There will be further retaliation from Moscow against Japan, according to James DJ Brown, professor of political science at Japan’s Temple University. “The Putin regime feels an obligation to retaliate against what it regards as unfriendly actions by Japan,” Brown told VOA News. “Every time Tokyo does something more to assist Ukraine or to strengthen military ties with the United States, Moscow takes some measures to punish Japan.” He said that as Japan is likely to introduce further sanctions to support Kyiv, Moscow’s retaliation is “all but guaranteed.” The retaliatory measures aren’t just targeting Tokyo. A Russian man residing in the Kuril Islands was warned in March by a Russian court over his remarks to Japanese media that the territory had belonged to Japan in the past. Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would visit the Kuril Islands, putting a damper on hopes for negotiations over sovereignty that both countries have attempted for decades. Land disputes run deep Russia and Japan’s competing claims over the four islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido – Japan's second-largest island – date back to at least the 19th century. Near the end of WWII, the then Soviet Union started fully occupying the Kuril Islands. Japan claimed that the Soviet Union incorporated them “without any legal grounds” and refused to sign a peace treaty. Tokyo said about 17,000 Japanese residents were deported from the islands. The Russian public, Brown said, view the Kuril Islands as reward for the sacrifices of the Soviet people during the war. The two countries have held talks off and on for decades to reach an agreement but to no avail.   The conflict eased in 2016, when the two countries agreed on joint economic activities including tourism projects on the islands, as well as visa-free visits for Japanese citizens. Two years later, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed a split of the four islands, returning two islands to Japan, but Putin rejected it. Akihiro Iwashita, professor of the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Japan’s Hokkaido University, called this Putin’s “failed diplomacy” toward Japan that eventually led to Tokyo taking a more hardline approach against Moscow. “If Putin had shown goodwill to Japan, negotiating with Shinzo Abe for the peace treaty, Japan would not have taken a critical position over the Ukraine war,” Iwashita told VOA News. “Remember Japan’s hesitation to sanction Russia after its 2014 aggression against Ukraine? Japan now does not need to restrain its policy towards Russia.” Tensions over the Ukraine war Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow put all peace treaty talks with Japan on hold and suspended the previously agreed economic activities and visa-free visits to the islands for Japanese citizens. This followed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s siding with Ukraine in the war, with Kishida calling the suspension “extremely unjust.” Japan has been providing assistance to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, including supplying Patriot air defense systems last year. Kishida was the first Japanese leader to visit an active war zone, to show solidarity with Ukraine and the U.S. Moscow warned of “grave consequences” for its ties with Tokyo. That did not stop Japan from pledging $4.5 billion in aid to war-torn Ukraine last December, including $1 billion for humanitarian purposes. Japan’s aid to Ukraine has affected residents of Hokkaido. A survey conducted by Hokkaido authorities and the Hokkaido Shimbun last year showed that over half of the respondents near the Russia-Japan border in the north felt a negative effect of the Ukraine war on local life, including reduction in fishing activities and trade, and human contacts. In October last year, Russia banned all seafood imports from Japan, citing Tokyo’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant. “Moscow used the pretense of the threat of radiation from treatment water from the Fukushima plant. In reality, it was an attempt by Moscow to punish Japan for its support for Ukraine,” Brown said. In the survey, many also said they cannot foresee a solution for the northern territories, but a majority said they support Tokyo’s policy against Russia. Both experts said Russia does not currently pose a military threat to Japan. Brown said, “the Russian military is present on the disputed islands, but their role is to defend the Sea of Okhotsk, which is important as a bastion for Russian nuclear submarines. It does not have the capabilities on the islands to launch an amphibious assault on Hokkaido.” Peace treaty negotiations are expected to continue to be frozen for the foreseeable future, despite Kishida’s calls for their resumption in February this year. “Kishida is displaying diplomatic goodwill towards Russia, but with no expectations of it being reciprocated…There is little room to fill the interest gap between the two,” said Iwashita. He added that Russia’s pressure on Japan “will not lead to any results.”