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washington — Millions of Turkish citizens will head to the polls Sunday to elect mayors and local administrators for their cities and districts. The elections come less than a year after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured his term for another five years last May. "Now we have 2024 ahead of us,” Erdogan said in his victory speech, adding, “Are you ready to win both Uskudar [a district in Istanbul where Erdogan’s personal residence is] and Istanbul in the local elections in 2024?” Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) aims to win back key cities, including Turkey’s largest, Istanbul, and its capital, Ankara, which it lost to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 2019 through its alliance with the nationalist IYI Party. Istanbul race Winning Istanbul and Ankara, two cities that account for a quarter of Turkey’s population, gave the CHP a key position in power for the past five years. Some analysts observe that the Istanbul race will be one of the main contested races. “This election largely revolves around Istanbul. In the presidential elections, [opposition alliance candidate] Kemal Kilicdaroglu received more votes than Erdogan in both rounds in Istanbul,” political scientist Ismet Akca told VOA. Istanbul, with its 15 million population, is symbolically important for political parties. An old saying in Turkish politics - “Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey” - was used by Erdogan a couple of times. Early in his career Erdogan was the city’s mayor, from 1994 to 1998. The current Istanbul mayor and CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu was considered one of the possible vice presidents if the opposition alliance had won the May 2023 parliamentary and presidential elections. However, after Erdogan’s victory in May 2023, the opposition alliance, headed by CHP and IYI, collapsed. The two parties are running their own candidates in the local elections. Also, new political parties, including the center-right DEVA, the far-right Victory Party and the Islamist New Welfare Party, have emerged over the past five years, and they will compete in the Istanbul race with their own candidates. In the 2019 election, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP, which is using a new name, DEM Party) did not announce a candidate and supported the opposition alliance’s Imamoglu. However, this year, the DEM Party has campaigned for prominent Kurdish politician Meral Danis Bestas, its candidate for Istanbul. Erdogan’s AKP selected Murat Kurum, 47, former minister of environment and urbanization, who was one of the leading figures in the government’s response to the February 2023 earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in southeastern Turkey. Main opposition CHP has Imamoglu, 52, seeking a second term. Already one of the most prominent figures in Turkey’s opposition, he is expected to run for president in 2028 if he wins. With the lack of a broader alliance and Kurdish votes, Imamoglu is facing a tough race against Kurum, as Erdogan and his Cabinet officials are quite active in his campaign. Erdogan’s ‘last election’ During a meeting of the Turkish Youth Foundation on March 8, Erdogan, 70, asked for support in the local elections, saying, “This is a final for me; under the mandate given by the law, this is my last election.” “The eyes of the entire Islamic world are on Turkey. What will happen in Turkey? What result will the AKP get in these elections?” the president continued. Erdogan came to power in 2002 and served as prime minister until 2014, when he became the first president elected by the public. He was re-elected in June 2018 and May 2023. The Turkish constitution, which was last amended in 2017, enables the president to serve only two terms of five years. However, according to Article 116, if the parliament decides to repeat the elections during the president’s second term, the president may run for election again. Erdogan hinted in November 2023 that his party aimed to work on a new constitution. Political scientist Akca thinks Erdogan’s statement was meant to consolidate his party’s voters. “Erdogan does not want to lose this election to Imamoglu for the second time. The latest elections reveal that the lower classes and young people dissatisfied with the AKP are looking for other options,” Akca told VOA. Many of those voters have shifted allegiance from AKP to the Islamist New Welfare Party. “The president is trying to overcome this problem with his emphasis on the Islamist cause and his speech with a high emotional tone.” Gonul Tol, director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, said Erdogan is involved “as if he were the one on the ballot box.” “So he is intervening in the electoral process so often and attacking the incumbent, CHP Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, almost on a daily basis. It sounds like this is turning into a referendum on Erdogan, which I personally believe is a bad strategy,” Tol said Thursday in a webinar. Kurdish votes   Several prominent Kurdish politicians, including Ahmet Turk, Leyla Zana and the imprisoned former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas, have recently named Erdogan as one of the vital actors in the solution to the conflict with the Kurds. “Our door is closed to terrorists and those who play a political game under the guidance of a terrorist organization,” Erdogan said Wednesday while campaigning in Diyarbakir. Some analysts think that Erdogan ended the possibility of a peace process. “Considering Erdogan’s speech, I do not expect anything like a new compromise, negotiation or a meeting between DEM Party and Erdogan,” Reha Ruhavioglu, director of the Diyarbakir-based Kurdish Studies Center, told VOA. The Turkish government says the DEM Party has links with the PKK, which the United States, European Union and Ankara have designated as a terrorist group. The party denies this allegation. In 2019, the then-HDP won 65 municipalities, but later, the mayors of at least 48 municipalities were sacked over terror accusations and placed under the control of government-appointed trustees. This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service. VOA Turkish’s Hilmi Hacaloglu and Mahmut Bozarslan contributed from Istanbul and Diyarbakir.

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MASSAPEQUA PARK, New York — Donald Trump attended Thursday's wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty and called for "law and order" as part of his attempt to show a contrast with President Joe Biden and focus on crime as part of his third White House campaign. The visitation for Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday, was held in suburban Massapequa on Long Island. Police said the 31-year-old Diller was shot below his bulletproof vest while approaching an illegally parked car in Queens. Diller, who was married and had a 1-year-old son, was rushed to a hospital, where he died. The visit by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came as Biden was also in New York for a previously scheduled fundraiser with former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump has accused Biden of lacking toughness, and his campaign sought to contrast his visit with Biden's fundraiser. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in a post on X, noted Trump's visit and said, "Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors." White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the president has spoken with New York City's mayor, but she said she didn't have any "private communications to share" when asked if Biden had spoken to the family of the officer who was killed. Jean-Pierre said the administration's hearts go out to the officer's family. Speaking aboard Air Force One, she said Biden has supported law enforcement throughout his entire career and took a dig at Trump's record. "Violent crime surged under the previous administration," Jean-Pierre said. "The Biden-[Vice President Kamala] Harris administration have done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime." After visiting in the funeral home with Diller's family, Trump spoke outside to news reporters with about a dozen local police officers, half in patrol uniforms, half in tactical gear, forming as a backdrop behind him. "We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently. This is not working. This is happening too often," Trump said. He did not elaborate. Mixed views on law enforcement Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, has called for shoplifters to be shot immediately, and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he's also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign's interactions with Russia. He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten. Massapequa and the surrounding South Shore towns have long been a popular destination for city police officers and firefighters looking to set down roots on Long Island. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York, this area is a heavily Republican part of Long Island that Trump won in the 2020 presidential election. On Thursday, prosecutors in Queens charged Diller’s alleged shooter, Guy Rivera, with first degree murder and other charges. Rivera, who was shot in the back when Diller's partner returned fire, was arraigned from his hospital bed. Rivera's lawyers at Legal Aid declined to comment, according to spokesman Redmond Haskins. Biden has pledged that the federal government will work more closely with police to combat gun violence and crack down on illegal guns. New FBI statistics released earlier this month showed that overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. The FBI data found murders dropped 13% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, and violent crime overall was down 6%. The FBI's report was in line with the findings of the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, which found that homicides were down an average of 10% from the year before in a survey of 32 cities, though it found violent crime still remained higher than before the coronavirus pandemic in many cities.

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washington — House Republicans on Thursday invited President Joe Biden to testify before Congress as part of their impeachment inquiry into him and his family's business affairs.  Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Democratic president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to "explain, under oath," what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses.  "In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House's obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so," the Kentucky Republican wrote.  While it is highly unlikely that Biden would agree to appear before lawmakers in such a setting, Comer pointed to previous examples of presidents' testifying before Congress.  "As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford's testimony before the subcommittee on criminal justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974," Comer wrote.  The invitation comes as the monthslong inquiry into Biden is all but winding down as Republicans face the stark reality that it lacks the political appetite from within the conference to go forward with an actual impeachment. Nonetheless, leaders of the effort, including Comer, are facing growing political pressure to deliver something after months of work investigating the Biden family and its  international business transactions.  The White House has repeatedly called the inquiry baseless, telling Republicans to "move on" and focus on "real issues" Americans want addressed.  "This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment," spokesman Ian Sams said in a social media post last week. "Call it a day, pal."  The committee has asserted that the Bidens traded on the family name, an alleged influence-peddling scheme in which Republicans are trying to link a handful of phone calls or dinner meetings between Joe Biden, when he was vice president or out of office, and his son Hunter Biden and Hunter's business associates.  But despite dedicating countless resources over the past year, interviewing dozens of witnesses, including Hunter and the president's brother James, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence that shows Joe Biden was directly involved in or benefited from his family's businesses while in public office.  Democrats have remained unified against the inquiry, with Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on Oversight, calling for his GOP counterpart to end the investigation absent any credible evidence.  "The GOP impeachment inquiry has been a circus," Oversight Democrats wrote on the social media platform X. "Time to fold up the tent."  Seeking testimony from the president could ultimately be the inquiry's final act.   Late last year, Republicans leading the investigation had privately discussed holding a vote on articles of impeachment in the new year, but growing criticism from within their party forced a shift in strategy. Now, Comer is eyeing potential criminal referrals of the family to the Justice Department, a move that will be largely symbolic and unlikely to be taken up by the department. 

new york — A fundraiser for President Joe Biden on Thursday in New York City that also stars Barack Obama and Bill Clinton is raising a whopping $25 million, setting a record for the biggest haul for a political event, his campaign said.  The eye-popping amount was a major show of Democratic support for Biden at a time of persistently low poll numbers. The president will test the power of the campaign cash as he faces off with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has already proved with his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton that he didn't need to raise the most money to seize the presidency.  The Radio City Music Hall event will be a gilded exclamation mark on a recent burst of presidential campaign travel. Biden has visited several political battlegrounds in the three weeks since his State of the Union address served as a rallying cry for his reelection bid. The event also brings together more than three decades of Democratic leadership.  Obama hitched a ride from Washington to New York aboard Air Force One with Biden. They waved as they descended the plane's steps at John F. Kennedy International Airport and got into the motorcade for the ride into Manhattan. Clinton was expected to meet them at the event.  Colbert, musical performers The hourslong fundraiser has different tiers of access depending on donors' generosity. The centerpiece is an onstage conversation with the three presidents, moderated by late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. There's also a lineup of musical performers — Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo and Lea Michele — that will be hosted by actress Mindy Kaling. Thousands are expected, and tickets are as low as $225.  More money gets donors more intimate time with the presidents. A photo with all three is $100,000. A donation of $250,000 earns donors access to one reception, and $500,000 gets them into an even more exclusive gathering.  "But the party doesn't stop there," according to the campaign. First lady Jill Biden and DJ D-Nice are hosting an after-party at Radio City Music Hall with 500 guests.  Obama and Clinton are helping Biden expand his already significant cash advantage over Trump. Biden had $155 million in cash on hand through the end of February, compared with $37 million for Trump and his Save America political action committee.  The $25 million tally for the New York City event includes money from supporters who handed over cash in the weeks before the fundraiser for a chance to attend. It's raising $5 million more than Trump raised during February.  "This historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we've built," said campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg. "Unlike our opponent, every dollar we're raising is going to reach the voters who will decide this election — communicating the president's historic record, his vision for the future and laying plain the stakes of this election."  Trump's campaign is expecting to bring in $33 million at a big fundraiser next week in Palm Beach, Florida, according to a person familiar with the details who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm a number first reported by the Financial Times.  Trump has kept a low profile in recent weeks, partially because of courtroom appearances for various legal cases, the bills for which he's paying with funds from donors. He was in the New York area on Thursday, attending the Long Island wake of a New York City police officer who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Queens.  His next political rally is scheduled for Tuesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Some Republican leaders have become concerned that his campaign doesn't have the infrastructure ready for a general election battle with Biden.  Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley issued a statement suggesting that Biden doesn't support law enforcement or safety.  "The contrast in leadership couldn't be clearer," Whatley said. "On the same day President Trump attended the wake of slain New York Police Department officer Jonathan Diller, Joe Biden wines and dines with celebrities at a fundraiser with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton."  'Polar opposite' The facts, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, show that violent crime rose during Trump's tenure while Biden's administration has "done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime."  Leon Panetta, who served in top positions under Clinton and Obama, described the fundraiser as an important moment for Biden's campaign.  "What it does, first and foremost, is to broaden and reinforce the support of all Democrats," he said.  Panetta said Clinton and Obama, both known as effective political communicators, could help Biden develop a better pitch for his reelection.  "I can't think of two people who would be better at putting together that kind of message," he said.  Obama's attendance Thursday is a reminder of his role in boosting Biden's reelection. A joint fundraiser with Biden and Obama raised nearly $3 million in December. And people who served in the Obama administration are also raising money for Biden, scheduling their own event on April 11.  "Consider what you'll donate this cycle and do it now," said an email sent to a network of people. "Early money is far more valuable to the campaign."

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.

For most pregnant women in the slums of Nairobi, ultrasound services are an unaffordable luxury. Now, a Kenyan health care business is using portable, low-cost ultrasound systems to give expectant mothers a chance to see their babies and detect any health problems before the delivery day. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Videographer: Jimmy Makhulo

tehran, iran — Nine people were killed Thursday in a car crash in northeastern Iran, the worst single accident since the start of the Persian new year holiday, state media reported. Police said 585 people have died on the roads since the start of the March 19-April 1 holiday season, during which many Iranians travel to visit family. Thursday's incident occurred in Semnan province, east of Tehran. Two vehicles crashed and caught fire, the IRNA state news agency reported, quoting emergency services. IRNA said the death toll for the holiday season last year was 1,217. The high number of deaths has been blamed on the poor condition of parts of the road network, careless driving and the low quality of the vehicles. A police official in 2022 accused local car makers of delivering "unsafe" vehicles to the public while charging them the same price as foreign companies. Several overseas car firms left Iran in 2018 after the U.S. reimposed sanctions over the country's nuclear program. 

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.

lincoln, nebraska — Malcolm X has garnered the recognition many have sought for his contributions to the civil rights movement in the conservative Midwest state where he was born, after years of being rejected as too controversial to be honored. The Nebraska Legislature on Thursday passed a bill to recognize the civil rights icon every May 19, the day Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925. The legislation falls short of declaring the day a state holiday, which was introduced in a bill by Omaha Senator Terrell McKinney — one of two Black members of the Nebraska Legislature. McKinney's bill failed to gain traction mainly because of objections to the projected cost of more than $500,000 a year to declare a state holiday. That cost comes from holiday pay for state workers. Instead, McKinney added an amendment to a bill that declares October 17 as Missing Persons Day. The amendment recognizes May 19 as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Malcolm X Day, to allow Nebraska schools to hold exercises to recognize the civil rights icon. The day of recognition comes in the same year that a ceremony will be held in May to observe Malcolm X's induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. During that ceremony, a bronze bust created by Lincoln artist Nathan Murray will be unveiled and displayed among the busts of other inductees in the halls of the Nebraska State Capitol. "Malcolm X is one of the most fundamentally misunderstood people in American history," McKinney said last year during a committee hearing on his bill. "And perhaps the stigma around him would be extinguished if his achievements and contributions were recognized." Malcolm X was selected last year as the newest inductee into the Nebraska Hall of Fame, making him the state's first Black honoree. His selection came 15 years after being rejected as too controversial. Born the son of a Baptist preacher, Malcolm Little was still a baby when he and his family left for Milwaukee after threats from the Ku Klux Klan. At 20, he was convicted of burglary in Boston and sentenced to nearly seven years in prison, where he converted to Islam and later changed his name. He emerged as a fiery Nation of Islam minister with a message that Black people should cast off white oppression "by any means necessary," before later splitting from the Nation of Islam and renouncing racial separatism. He was assassinated in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom by gunmen who opened fire during a speaking engagement. The firebrand was first nominated for Nebraska's Hall of Fame in 2004 but was passed over by a commission made up solely of white men who instead selected a mid-1900s U.S. senator who made a name for himself with his campaign to remove gay men from government posts in the 1940s and 1950s. The pick of Senator Kenneth Wherry was later nixed because of an open-meetings violation. Malcolm X was passed over again in 2007 for little-known botanist Charles Bessey.

A space launch aborted only to find success days later. Plus, Japan makes a push into private spaceflight, and NASA really wants you to see the solar eclipse — but safety first. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.

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Islamabad — Pakistan’s government announced Thursday that it will set up a special commission to investigate allegations the military-run spy agency has been subjecting federal judges to intimidation, torture and other abuses to secure favorable judicial rulings in political cases. The charges were listed in a letter written by six of eight members of the Islamabad High Court and sent this week to the Supreme Judicial Council, which governs Pakistan’s judiciary under the leadership of the country’s chief justice, Qazi Faez Isa. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told a news conference that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will discuss the letter at a Cabinet meeting on Friday before formally appointing a commission of inquiry to investigate the accusations. Tarar said that Sharif made the decision after a Thursday meeting with Chief Justice Isa at the Supreme Court in Islamabad. “This [letter] is an extremely grave matter, and it should be dealt with very seriously,” the minister stated. Dated March 25, the letter accused the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of meddling in judicial proceedings "to seek a certain outcome." An army general runs the spy agency, which is notorious for allegedly orchestrating the making or breaking of elected governments at the behest of Pakistan's powerful military. "We believe it is imperative to inquire into and determine whether there exists a continuing policy on part of the executive branch of the state, implemented by intelligence operatives who report to the executive branch, to intimidate judges, under threat of coercion or blackmail, to engineer judicial outcomes in politically consequential matters," the judges wrote. The document highlighted several instances of attempted coercion and intimidation by ISI officers "to influence the outcome of cases related to jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. In one of the cases, ISI operatives intimidated “friends and relatives” of two judges who had refused to hear a state-instituted case against Khan for lacking merit. "One of the judges had to be admitted to a hospital due to high blood pressure caused by stress," the letter said. It recounted the abduction of a "brother-in-law" of the Islamabad high court judge by alleged ISI operatives. It added that the abductee "was administered electric shocks" and "tortured into making false allegations" on camera against the judge. Khan, the cricket hero-turned-prime minister, was ousted from power in April 2021 through an opposition parliamentary vote of no-confidence. Khan denounced the move as orchestrated by the military, allegations the institution rejected. The military ruled Pakistan for more than three decades through coups against elected governments since the country gained independence in 1947. Former prime ministers, including Khan and Sharif’s elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, have publicly accused army generals of interference in national politics in violation of the constitution. "We want it to be thoroughly investigated because we had also been its victim," said Tarar, a senior member of Shehbaz Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League, or PML-N, party. Khan’s opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party swiftly rejected the government-proposed commission and demanded that the Supreme Court take up the matter. “Senior judges incriminating officials working under the government of spying on their private life to pivot away for getting court decisions against former Prime Minister Imran Khan or any other politician, is actually a charge sheet against the government itself,” a PTI statement said. “Therefore, the formation of an inquiry commission by the incumbent government is nothing but a deflection to avoid a contentious situation,” it said. The Pakistani military denies it interferes in national politics, but its former chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, acknowledged in a nationally televised speech just days before his retirement in November 2022 that his institution had been meddling in politics for the past 70 years. In the lead-up to Pakistan's parliamentary elections last month, the military was constantly accused of influencing judicial proceedings and cracking down on Khan's party to keep him in jail over controversial convictions. Eventually, the 71-year-old politician was barred from running in the February 8 vote, and PTI candidates were restricted from winning the majority despite representing the most popular party, according to public surveys. Khan has been in jail since last August and faces close to 200 lawsuits and prosecutions, ranging from terrorism, sedition, and corruption to murder. He rejects the charges as politically motivated, saying the Pakistani military has orchestrated them to punish him for directly challenging its largely unquestioned powers.

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.