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International pressure is building on Israel to hold back in responding to Iran’s attacks, but many Israelis are calling on the government to retaliate forcefully. For VOA from Jerusalem, Linda Gradstein reports on the intensifying debate. Camera: Ricardo Marquina

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.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemns Iran's attacks on Israel and said his country, like Israel needs help from its allies to fend off threats from the air. The latest from Anna Chernikova in Kyiv on what the U.N. nuclear watchdog is saying about the safety of the Russian occupied nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine over two years ago, divisions have arisen between congressional Democrats and Republicans over sending military aid to Kyiv. VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti explains how the two presidential frontrunners differ on how to handle the Russian war in Ukraine. How citizens India say they were duped by Russia into fighting on Ukraine’s front lines.

santa fe, new mexico — A movie weapons supervisor was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film "Rust," during a hearing Monday in which tearful family members and friends gave testimonials that included calls for justice and a punishment that would instill greater accountability for safety on film sets. Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March by a jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and has been held for more than a month at a county jail on the outskirts of Santa Fe. Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of "Rust" where it was expressly prohibited and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols. Gutierrez-Reed was unsuccessful in her plea for a lesser sentencing, telling the judge she was not the monster that people have made her out to be and that she had tried to do her best on the set despite not having "proper time, resources and staffing." Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for "Rust," was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He is scheduled for trial in July at a courthouse in Santa Fe. The sentence against Gutierrez-Reed was delivered by New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Summer, who is overseeing proceedings against Baldwin. The judge said anything less than the maximum sentence would not be appropriate given that Gutierrez-Reed's recklessness amounted to a serious violent offense. "You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone," the judge told Gutierrez-Reed. "You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother."   Gutierrez-Reed teared up as Hutchins' agent, Craig Mizrahi, spoke about the cinematographer's creativity and described her as a rising star in Hollywood. He said it was a chain of events that led to Hutchins' death and that had the armorer been doing her job, that chain would have been broken. Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred read a statement by Hutchins' mother, Olga Solovey, who said her life had been split in two and that time didn't heal, rather it only prolonged her pain and suffering. A video of a tearful Solovey, who lives in Ukraine, also was played for the court. "It's the hardest thing to lose a child. There's no words to describe," Solovey said in her native language. Defense attorneys for Gutierrez-Reed requested leniency in sentencing — including a possible conditional discharge that would avoid further jail time and leave an adjudication of guilt off her record if certain conditions are met. Gutierrez-Reed was acquitted at trial of allegations she tampered with evidence in the "Rust" investigation. She also has pleaded not guilty to a separate felony charge that she allegedly carried a gun into a bar in Santa Fe where firearms are prohibited. Defense attorneys have highlighted Gutierrez-Reed's relatively young age "and the devastating effect a felony will have on her life going forward." They said the 26-year-old will forever be affected negatively by intense publicity associated with her prosecution in parallel with an A-list actor, and has suffered from anxiety, fear and depression as a result. Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey urged the judge to impose the maximum prison sentence and designate Gutierrez-Reed as a "serious violent offender" to limit her eligibility for a sentence reduction later, describing the defendant's behavior on the set of "Rust" as exceptionally reckless. Defense attorneys argued Monday that Gutierrez-Reed was remorseful and had breakdowns over Hutchins' death. They also pointed to systemic problems that led to the shooting. "Rust" assistant director and safety coordinator Dave Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and completed a sentence of six months unsupervised probation. "Rust" props master Sarah Zachry, who shared some responsibilities over firearms on the set of "Rust," signed an agreement with prosecutors to avoid prosecution in return with her cooperation.

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.

BOSTON — Sisay Lemma scorched the first half of the Boston Marathon course on Monday, setting a record pace to build a lead of more than half of a mile.  Then the weather heated up, and the 34-year-old Ethiopian slowed down.  After running alone for most of the morning, Lemma held on down Boylston Street to finish in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 17 seconds — the 10th fastest time in the race's 128-year history. Lemma dropped to the pavement and rolled onto his back, smiling, after crossing the finish line.  "Until halfway through I was running very hard and very good. But after that it was getting harder and harder," said Lemma, who failed to finish twice and came in 30th in three previous Boston attempts. "Several times I've dropped out of the race before. But today I won, so I've redeemed myself."    Hellen Obiri defended her title, outkicking Sharon Lokedi on Boylston Street to finish in 2:27:37 and win by eight seconds; two-time Boston champion Edna Kiplagat completed the Kenyan sweep, finishing another 36 seconds back.  Obiri also won New York last fall and is among the favorites for the Paris Olympics. She is the sixth woman to win back-to-back in Boston and the first since Catherine "the Great" Ndereba won four in six years from 2000 to '05.  "Defending the title was not easy. Since Boston started, it's only six women. So I said, 'Can I be one of them? If you want to be one of them, you have to work extra hard,'" she said. "And I'm so happy because I'm now one of them. I'm now in the history books in Boston."  Lemma, the 2021 London champion, arrived in Boston with the fastest time in the field — just the fourth person ever to break 2:02:00 when he won in Valencia last year. And he showed it on the course Monday, separating himself from the pack in Ashland and opening a lead of more than half of a mile.  Lemma ran the first half in 1:00:19 — 99 seconds faster than Geoffrey Mutai's course record pace in 2011, when his 2:03:02 was the fastest marathon in history. Fellow Ethiopian Mohamed Esa closed the gap through the last few miles, finishing second by 41 seconds; two-time defending champion Evans Chebet was third.  Each winner collected a gilded olive wreath and $150,000 from a total prize purse that topped $1 million for the first time.  On a day when sunshine and temperatures rising into the mid-60s left the runners reaching for water — to drink, and to dump over their heads — Obiri ran with an unusually large lead pack of 15 through Brookline before breaking away in the final few miles.    Emma Bates of Boulder, Colorado, finished 12th — her second straight year as the top American. Again, she found herself leading the race through the 30-kilometer mark, slapping hands as she ran past the Wellesley College students chanting her name before fading on the way out of Heartbreak Hill.  "I thought last year was crazy loud, but this year surpassed that completely," Bates said. "It was such a nice day for the spectators. Not so nice for the runners; it was pretty hot."  CJ Albertson of Fresno, California, was the top American man in seventh, his second top-10 finish.  Switzerland's Marcel Hug righted himself after crashing into a barrier when he took a turn too fast and still coasted to a course record in the men's wheelchair race. It was his seventh Boston win and his 14th straight major marathon victory.  Hug already had a four-minute lead about 18 miles in when he reached the landmark firehouse turn in Newton, where the course heads onto Commonwealth Avenue on its way to Heartbreak Hill. He spilled into the fence, flipping sideways onto his left wheel, but quickly restored himself.  "It was my fault," Hug said. "I had too much weight, too much pressure from above to my steering, so I couldn't steer."    Hug finished in 1:15:33, winning by 5:04 and breaking his previous course record by 1:33. Britain's Eden Rainbow-Cooper, 22, won the women's wheelchair race in 1:35:11 for her first major marathon victory; she is the third-youngest woman to win the Boston wheelchair race.  The otherwise sleepy New England town of Hopkinton celebrated its 100th anniversary as the starting line for the world's oldest and most prestigious marathon, sending off a field of 17 former champions and nearly 30,000 other runners on its way. Near the finish on Boylston Street 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) away, officials observed the anniversary of the 2013 bombing that killed three and wounded hundreds more.  Sunny skies and minimal wind greeted the runners, with temperatures in the 40s as they gathered in Hopkinton rising to 69 as the stragglers crossed the finish line in the afternoon. As the field went through Natick, the fourth of eight cities and towns on the route, athletes splashed water on themselves to cool off.  "We couldn't ask for a better day," former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, the grand marshal, said before climbing into an electric car that would carry him along the course. "The city of Boston always comes out to support, no matter the event. The weather is perfection, the energy is popping."    The festivities began around 6 a.m., when race director Dave McGillivray sent about 30 Massachusetts National Guard members off. Lt. Col. Paula Reichert Karsten, one of the marchers, said she wanted to be part of a "quintessential Massachusetts event."  The start line was painted to say "100 years in Hopkinton," commemorating the 1924 move from Ashland to Hopkinton to conform to the official Olympic Marathon distance. The announcer welcomed the gathering crowds to the "sleepy little town of Hopkinton, 364 days of the year."  "In Hopkinton, it's probably the coolest thing about the town," said Maggie Agosto, a 16-year-old resident who went to the start line with a friend to watch the race.  The annual race on Patriots' Day, the state holiday that commemorates the start of the Revolutionary War, also fell on One Boston Day, when the city remembers the victims of the 2013 finish line bombings. Before the race, bagpipes accompanied Gov. Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and members of the victims' families as they laid a pair of wreaths at the sites of the explosions.

Zimbabwe, with its rich deposits of lithium, is pinning its hopes for economic recovery on mining and processing the mineral, which is a key component in batteries for electric vehicles. Zimbabwe has Africa's largest lithium reserves and is the world's sixth-largest lithium producer and supplier. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Kamativi, about 700 kilometers from the capital Harare, where investors have poured millions of dollars into their lithium venture.

Thousands of immigrant workers with pending work permit renewals, and their employers, breathed a sigh of relief last week. On April 8, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a temporary rule that automatically extends the validity period of their work permits for up to 540 days, or about a year and a half. This […]

The post USCIS Re-Issues Temporary Rule to Extend Work Permits for 800,000 Immigrant Workers appeared first on Immigration Impact.

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

Washington — A Vietnamese writer and journalist serving a nine-year prison sentence for her work has been recognized with an international literary award. The rights group PEN America has announced that Pham Doan Trang will receive its 2024 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. The honor is bestowed each year to a writer imprisoned for his or her work. Trang is known in Vietnam for her blog and books about civil liberties. She started a blog in 2006 as a way to create space for independent debate. Since then, the writer has started online magazines, opened a publishing house, and authored books on politics, human rights, and the Vietnamese legal system. Her books include Non-Violent Resistance, Politics for the Common People, A Handbook for Freedom Fighters, and Politics of a Police State. The writing brought Trang to the attention of Vietnamese authorities. Her books have been confiscated and people who buy or own copies risk charges of spreading anti-state propaganda, according to PEN. In 2020, Vietnam arrested Trang on accusations of spreading “anti-state propaganda,” and in a one-day trial in 2021, a court sentenced her to nine years in prison. The writer is serving her sentence in a remote prison 900 miles from her hometown, which means family can visit only occasionally. “Trang has galvanized the Vietnamese people through her writings on democracy, human rights, environmental degradation, and women’s empowerment. The Vietnamese government has persecuted and jailed Trang in an effort to still her voice,” Suzanne Nossel, the head of PEN America, said in a statement. “She has sacrificed her health and freedom in the pursuit of justice. Despite the government’s crackdown on dissent and activism, her powerful words continue to inspire people across Vietnam and throughout the world.” PEN America has said that Trang’s imprisonment contradicts international human rights law and violates her right to free expression. Neither Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor its embassy in Washington responded to VOA’s comment inquiries. Trang is one of 19 journalists imprisoned for their work in Vietnam, making the country one of the leading jailers of media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. One of Trang’s lawyers will receive the award on behalf of the writer at a gala in New York in May, along with a friend of the writer, says PEN. The lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, said that Trang, “completely deserves all the honors” that are recognizing her work and the sacrifice she has made to speak up. “As a defense lawyer for Trang, I understand her commitment to fighting for universal values, along with the very high price she had to make tradeoffs: her health, her youth, her freedom,” Manh told VOA. The lawyer, who fled Vietnam for the U.S. because of harassment related to his legal work, added, “She completely deserves all the honors.” The award sends a message to the Vietnamese government that “the suppression of people's freedom is not welcomed, and is even condemned everywhere,” said Manh. Trang’s friend Quynh-Vi Tran will also travel to New York for the award ceremony. “PEN America had given these awards to people that they believe are writers who inspire and who use their writings to inspire others to do better things in society,” Tran, who lives in Taiwan, told VOA. Tran, who is co-founder and executive director of Legal Initiatives for Vietnam, expressed thanks to PEN for “advocating for Trang's freedom” and raising awareness of the challenges to free expression in Vietnam. “Vietnam should understand and should follow the legal standard of human rights in the world. Because Vietnam is a member of the Human Rights Council, they cannot say they have a different definition for human rights than the rest of the world. Right?” Tran said. PEN America has called for Trang’s release from prison and the repeal of the law under which Trang is imprisoned, among other laws that infringe on free expression. Previous PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write winners include Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi and Ukrainian freelance journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko. This article originated in VOA’s Vietnamese Service.

Iran attacks Israel with drones and missiles, the vast majority of which are intercepted. A look at Iranian motives and Israeli reaction to the latest developments as fears of an escalating conflict grow. Plus the latest from Kyiv and the 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of the Chibok Girls.

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.

Moscow — A U.S. citizen arrested on drug charges in Moscow amid soaring Russia-U.S. tensions over Ukraine appeared in court on Monday. Robert Woodland Romanov is facing charges of trafficking large amounts of illegal drugs as part of an organized group — a criminal offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He was remanded into custody in January, and the trial began in the Ostankino District Court in late March. A new court hearing is scheduled for next week. In January, the U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of the recent detention of a U.S. citizen and noted that it "has no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas," but refrained from further comment, citing privacy considerations. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a similar statement at the time. Russian media noted that the name of the accused matches that of a U.S. citizen interviewed by the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2020. In the interview, the man said that he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991 and was adopted by an American couple when he was two. He said that he traveled to Russia to find his Russian mother and eventually met her in a TV show in Moscow. The man told Komsomolskaya Pravda that he liked living in Russia and decided to move there. The newspaper reported that he settled in the town of Dolgoprudny just outside Moscow and was working as an English teacher at a local school. Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between Moscow and Washington sink to Cold War lows. Washington accuses Moscow of targeting its citizens and using them as political bargaining chips, but Russian officials insist they all broke the law. Some have been exchanged for Russians held in the U.S., while for others, the prospects of being released in a swap are less clear.

Nairobi, Kenya — Today marks one year since the war between Sudan’s army and its paramilitary wing, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), began. The war has created widespread hunger, as fields lay uncultivated and aid agencies struggle to reach millions of Sudanese displaced from their homes. Despite the challenges, some farmers are getting support from a British aid organization.  On April 15, 2023, Sudanese awakened to the sound of gunfire, shelling, and the roar of military aircraft as the Sudanese army and the RSF began fighting for control of the capital, Khartoum. The fighting made it difficult for humanitarian aid organizations to distribute food, and hard for farmers in the conflict zones to plant crops.  The spreading clashes killed thousands and displaced millions from their homes. Practical Action, a U.K.-based aid group, is working with farmers in states not affected by the war to produce food, fight hunger and improve their economic conditions.   The organization is supporting at least 200,000 farmers and families. Muna Eltahir, the country director of Practical Action Sudan, says her organization is focused on easing food insecurity.       “We have a project in Al-Gedaref and Kassala,” she said. “We have another project in the Blue Nile to support small farmers in increasing their production and productivity through the provision of seed seedlings and some knowledge for the farmers. And this is also successful and can bridge some gaps, but at a very limited scale because we are one of the very, very few organizations working on sustaining agriculture and farmers rather than distribution of relief.”   According to the United Nations, more than 18 million Sudanese are food insecure, with most trapped in areas of active fighting. The conflict has disrupted agricultural production, damaging infrastructure and farmers' livelihoods.  Jalal Babiker, leader of the Elekhia Farmers Association, told VOA that farmers in his area have increased production and are cultivating more land.  He said using about 50 feddan of land — equal to about 50 acres — farmers cultivate a variety of crops including potatoes, grapefruit, lemons, bananas, and various vegetables. This year, in collaboration with Practical Action, he said, the farmers embarked on a potato cultivation project in Kassala state, planting approximately 24 feddan across three designated areas. Residents of Kassala state previously depended on El Gezira and Khartoum for their potatoes and other produce, but the conflict has disrupted the supply chain, and the region is forced to be self-sufficient. Babiker said the goal in planting potatoes in Kassala state is to improve the business situation of small farmers — planting potatoes to offer farmers cheap potatoes and seedlings and to create employment opportunities for the youth in the region. Babiker is optimistic about the future of agriculture in his country. However, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned Monday of an escalation of the conflict as more armed groups join the fighting. Eltahir worries that Sudan’s war will hinder her work with farmers. "My nightmare is the conflict will expand to the safe areas where we have our activities,” she said. “Then they will loot the harvest, or they will destroy the cultivated land. And then that would be a real disaster. And everything is expected because, like yesterday, they attacked Al-Gedaref." Calls from the U.N. and international agencies — urging the warring parties to cease hostilities — so far, have been ignored.