A record-breaking number of Americans, close to 50 million, are expected to travel on Independence Day this year, which is 4% more than the same time last year. While many travelers fly to their destination, most are driving even if they have to cover a long distance. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Americans are willing to spend hours in the car and drive hundreds of kilometers to visit family or reach a getaway destination. …

A super tanker believed to be breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Iranian crude oil to war-ravaged Syria has been detained in Gibraltar.  In a statement, authorities on the British overseas territory at the tip of Spain said the port and law enforcement agencies, assisted by the Royal Marines, boarded the Grace 1 early Thursday. It added that the vessel was believed to be headed to the Baniyas Refinery in Syria, which is a government-owned facility under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad and subject to the EU’s Syrian Sanctions Regime.  Syrian sanctions The EU, and others, has imposed sanctions on Assad’s regime over its continued crackdown against civilians. They currently target 270 people and 70 entities.  The Gibraltar authorities didn’t confirm the origin of the ship’s cargo, but Lloyd’s List, a publication specialized in maritime affairs, reported this week that the Panama-flagged large carrier was laden with Iranian oil. Experts were said to have concluded that it carried oil from Iran because the tanker was not sending geographic information while in Iranian waters. According to a United Nations list, the ship is owned by the Singapore-based Grace Tankers Ltd.  According to the data firm Refinitv, …

Taliban and U.S. negotiators are scrambling to rewrite a draft agreement that will outline the withdrawal of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan and a verifiable Taliban guarantee to fight terrorism ahead of an all-Afghan peace conference Sunday. Officials familiar with the talks, but not authorized to speak about them, say negotiations went late into the night Wednesday and were to resume again Thursday, the sixth day of direct talks between the insurgents and U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, told The Associated Press Thursday that “the talks are continuing and they will continue tomorrow as well. We have made some progress.” Previously he said that a draft agreement was being rewritten to include agreed-upon clauses. On Thursday he said the two sides had broadened their discussion, without elaborating. Troop withdrawal timing Until now the two sides had been divided on the withdrawal timetable, with the United States seeking more time. Taliban officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier said the U.S. was seeking up to 18 months to complete a troop withdrawal even as U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this week that a withdrawal had quietly begun …

U.S. federal courts and states that challenged the Trump administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the country’s 2020 census are asking for clarity after the Departments of Justice and Commerce suddenly reversed what had been an acceptance of finalizing the questionnaire without inquiring about citizenship status. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s reasoning for including the citizenship question did not meet standards for a clear explanation of why it should be asked during the count of people in the United States that takes place every 10 years. The matter seemed further settled Tuesday when the DOJ and Commerce Department made public statements and comments in legal cases that the process of printing the census was going forward without a citizenship question in order to meet deadlines for carrying out the count on time. The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross speaks at the 11th Trade Winds …

The United Nations says at least 55 people were killed and more than 130 injured in the Tuesday night airstrike on a detention center holding illegal migrants in Libya’s capital.  VOA’s Heather Murdock is on the scene in Tripoli and files this report. …

An Australian student was released Thursday after a week in detention in North Korea and flew to Beijing, where he described his condition to reporters as “very good.” Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced to Parliament that Alek Sigley, 29, had been released hours earlier following intervention from Swedish diplomats Wednesday. Sigley looked relaxed when he arrived at Beijing airport. He did not respond to reporters’ questions about what had happened in Pyongyang. “I’m OK, I’m OK, I’m good. I’m very good,” Sigley said. His father, Gary Sigley, said his son would soon be reunited with his Japanese wife Yuka Morinaga in Tokyo. “He’s fine. He’s in very good spirits. He’s been treated well,” the father told reporters in his hometown of Perth. Swedish diplomats had raised Sigley with North Korean authorities in Pyongyang where Australia does not have an embassy. “Alex is safe and well. Swedish authorities advised the Australian government that they met with senior officials from the DPRK yesterday and raised the issue of Alex’s disappearance on Australia’s behalf,” Morrison said, using the official name for North Korea. Morrison thanked Swedish authorities for “their invaluable assistance in securing Alek’s prompt release.” “This outcome demonstrates the value of …

Editor’s note: A look at the veracity of claims by political figures WASHINGTON — In his Fourth of July remarks, President Donald Trump will be celebrating the armed forces and showcasing what he’s done for them. But in recent days, he has falsified his record on military matters on several fronts. He’s claimed, for example, that he came up with the “genius idea” of giving veterans private health care so they don’t have to wait for Veterans Affairs appointments, only to find out that others had thought of it but failed to get it done. President Barack Obama signed the law getting it done in 2014. Trump also made the flatly false statement that he won troops their first raise in a decade, suggested he’s made progress reducing veteran suicides that is not backed up by the numbers, and contradicted the record in claiming that North Korea is cooperating on the return of the remains of U.S. troops. A look at his statements on military matters and personnel, some of which may be heard from the stage Thursday or in tweets: FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump take a selfie with U.S. troops at Ramstein Air …

A tornado swept through the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning Wednesday, killing six and injuring 190, the state broadcaster said, amid a series of “extreme” weather events that government forecasters have linked to climate change. The tornado damaged nearly 3,600 homes and affected more than 9,900 residents in Kaiyuan, a city of around a half-million people, according to China Central Television. Footage posted by CCTV on its official Weibo account shows dozens of flattened buildings in an economic development zone in Kaiyuan. A tornado in northeast China has reportedly killed six people and injured at least 190. https://t.co/IWsCJ57j49pic.twitter.com/F6HovboTwH — ABC News (@ABC) July 4, 2019 China’s Global Times newspaper said that tornadoes were rarely seen in the area. The country’s weather bureau Tuesday said climate change could cause more extreme weather events, following floods, drought and extreme high temperatures in some regions this year. It said rainfall had broken records in some areas and that as many as 40 weather stations had this year registered their hottest temperatures ever. The northern Chinese province of Hebei issued an extreme heat “red alert” Thursday, with temperatures set to soar beyond 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in its major cities and putting the area’s …

President Donald Trump is suggesting the United States start manipulating its currency to match the “big currency manipulation game” he accuses China and Europe of playing. “We should match or continue being the dummies who sit back and politely watch as other countries continue to play their games as they have for many years!” Trump tweeted Wednesday. Countries that manipulate currency sell their own currency and buy foreign money, intending to artificially drive down the value of their own money. The intention is to make their exports cheaper and more competitive on the world market, giving their products an unfair advantage. Trump constantly accused China of such action during his 2016 presidential campaign. But since Trump took office, the Treasury Department has found that no country can be labeled a currency manipulator. Eight countries are on the manipulator watch list, including China, Germany, Ireland and Italy.   …

Pakistani counterterrorism officials have registered 23 cases related to terrorism financing against more than a dozen people, including Hafiz Saeed, a central figure in the Mumbai attacks of 2008 that killed more than 170 people. Counter Terror Department (CTD) Punjab said in a statement the individuals were using various charities and trusts to raise funds to finance terrorism. Saeed and the other individuals are said to be from the leadership of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), which are all organizations banned by the U.N. The U.N. sanctions committee considers the three groups, founded by Saeed, to be aliases of one another, with the latter two formed to bypass a ban Pakistan imposed on LeT in 2002. Saeed has been sanctioned by both the United Nations and the U.S. for his role in the Mumbai attacks. The crackdown is seen as a response to the pressure the country is facing from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international terrorism financing watchdog that last year placed Pakistan on its “gray list” of countries. Such countries, the FATF warns, lack adequate controls over money laundering and terrorism. Supporters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chant slogans during a protest in Karachi, Pakistan, June 27, …

At least 26 people died after a lobster-fishing boat capsized off the Atlantic coast of Honduras during poor weather conditions, an armed forces spokesman said Wednesday, in one of the country’s worst accidents at sea. Forty-seven people were rescued after the accident near Puerto Lempira, said Jose Domingo Meza, the armed forces spokesman. Various boats have gathered off the Honduran coast for lobster-fishing season, which began this month and runs through February. Another fishing boat capsized earlier in the day in the same region because of the poor weather, but all 49 people onboard were rescued, Meza said. Honduras lobster exports generated $46 million in 2018, according to official data, and were sent mostly to the United States.   …

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with Pope Francis on Thursday, a day before Ukraine’s Catholic leaders meet at the Vatican to discuss the crisis in their country, and amid speculation that the visit could be a prelude to the first trip by a pope to Russia. Putin, who has met Francis twice before, is due to arrive at the Vatican in the early afternoon at the start of a lightning visit to Italy that will also include talks with Italian leaders. Ukraine, which remains a difficult issue in relations between the Vatican and Russia, is expected to be a main topic of discussions in the official papal library in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. When they last met in 2015, the pope urged Putin to make a “sincere and great effort” to achieve peace in Ukraine and help bring an end to fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist rebels in the East. On Friday, leaders of Ukraine’s Catholic Church and Vatican officials begin two days of meetings to discuss various problems in their country, a former Soviet republic. Church’s independence Ukraine’s religious world was made tense last year when the country’s Orthodox Church, which for centuries effectively …

An appeals court on Wednesday upheld a freeze on Pentagon money to build a border wall with Mexico, casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s ability to make good on a signature campaign promise before the 2020 election.    A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed with a lower-court ruling that prevented the government from tapping Defense Department counterdrug money to build high-priority sections of wall in Arizona and New Mexico.    The decision is a setback for Trump’s ambitious plans. He ended a 35-day government shutdown in February after Congress gave him far less than he wanted. He then declared a national emergency that the White House said would free billions of dollars from the Pentagon.    The case may still be considered, but the administration cannot build during the legal challenge.     A freeze imposed by U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of Oakland in May prevented work on two Pentagon-funded wall contracts — one spanning 46 miles (74 kilometers) in New Mexico and another covering 5 miles (8 kilometers) in Yuma, Ariz.      While the order applied only to those first-in-line projects, Gilliam made clear that he felt …

This article originated in FILE – An employee walks past oil tanks at a Sinopec refinery in Wuhan, Hubei province April 25, 2012. In further reports published since Tuesday, oil tanker monitoring groups said a second Iranian tanker completed a delivery of 2 million barrels of oil to Chinese state-owned producer Sinopec in recent days. FILE – China, India Imports of Iranian Crude Oil, March 2018 vs 2019 Beijing has criticized the U.S. for implementing a unilateral ban on Iranian oil exports, but has not declared any purchases of crude from Iran since the ban took effect in May. In April, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said China’s economic ties with Tehran were “reasonable and legitimate.” US sanctions The U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iranian oil last November and granted China and seven other governments waivers to keep importing a limited amount of crude from Iran until May. China previously had been Iran’s biggest oil customer. In a Wednesday phone call with VOA Persian, Katherine Bauer, a former senior U.S. policy adviser for Iran in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said it appears that China is continuing to import a limited amount of Iranian crude as …

The bombing in Libya’s capital that killed at least 44 people, with some reports saying as many as 55, and injured more than 130 on Tuesday night may amount to a war crime, according to a United Nations envoy in Tripoli. Outside the suburban Tripoli detention center early Wednesday, survivors watched investigators pick through the rubble after a long night outside with barely any food and water. “We just want peace,” said one Somali woman, taking cover under a tree as investigators searched for bodies well into the afternoon. “We went from Somalia to Yemen, then to Sudan and then came here. This is just like Somalia.” At the morgue in the Libyan capital, bodies were wrapped and prepared for forensic examination while injured people in the hospital were treated, some barely conscious. Bags with bodies of migrants who died after an air strike hit a detention center for mainly African migrants in Tajoura are seen in Tripoli Central Hospital, Libya, July 3, 2019. Survivors said the attack occurred about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and that they had regularly heard drones hovering over the detention compound in recent weeks. “At the beginning we heard faraway clashes, then we heard this strong bomb,” said …

North Korea’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States on Wednesday of being “more and more hell-bent on hostile acts” against Pyongyang, despite President Donald Trump’s desire for talks between the two countries.  In a statement, the mission said it was responding to a U.S. accusation that Pyongyang had breached a cap on refined petroleum imports, as well as to a letter that it said was sent on June 29 by the United States, France, Germany and Britain to all U.N. member states urging them to implement sanctions against North Korea.  “What can’t be overlooked is the fact that this joint letter game was carried out by the permanent mission of the United States to the U.N. under instruction of the State Department, on the very same day when President Trump proposed for the summit meeting,” the statement said.  Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea on Sunday when he met leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. The pair agreed to resume stalled talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.  The North Korean U.N. mission said the June 29 letter to U.N. member states “speaks to the reality that the United States is practically more and more hell-bent on the hostile acts against …

A federal judge temporarily blocked an Ohio law Wednesday that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, allowing clinics to continue to provide the procedure as a legal faceoff continues.    The ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett halts enforcement of the so-called heartbeat law that opponents argued would effectively ban the procedure. That’s because a fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant.    Barrett said Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics represented by the American Civil Liberties Union that sued to stop the law “are certain to succeed on the merits of their claim that [the law] is unconstitutional on its face.”    Barrett joined the court in 2006 after being nominated by Republican President George W. Bush.    Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill into law in April, after predecessor John Kasich, a fellow Republican, twice vetoed it.      Ohio is among a dozen states that have considered similar legislation this year, as abortion opponents have pursued a national anti-abortion strategy to try to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.    Freda Levenson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, said …

New York state’s attorney general asked a judge Wednesday to help resolve conflicting accounts by President Donald Trump and his administration as to whether they still want a citizenship question added to the 2020 census. Attorney General Letitia James asked U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for a hearing over the statements after the U.S. Supreme Court last week decided the question can’t immediately be added. James cited a Wednesday Trump tweet in which the president said news reports saying the Department of Commerce was dropping its quest to add the citizenship question were “FAKE!” She also cited a statement by the commerce secretary saying the Census Bureau was printing the questionnaires without the question. In a court order, the judge said the Justice Department lawyers who defended the case before him last year must respond to James’ request for court intervention later Wednesday and include “a statement of Defendants’ position and intentions.” Furman and two other judges in California and Maryland have concluded that the question was improperly added to the census last year by the Commerce Department without adequate consideration. The administration had said the question was being added to aid in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, which …

A Navy SEAL who was acquitted of killing a wounded Islamic State captive but convicted of posing with the corpse was sentenced by a military jury Wednesday to a reduction in rank and four months of confinement. A judge, however, credited Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher with enough time already spent in custody to ensure he won’t be locked up. Gallagher turned to his wife, shook his head and pretended to unpin his “anchors” — the insignia of a chief — and fling them across the courtroom. He then smiled and hugged her. The sentencing came after Gallagher addressed the jury that had acquitted him Tuesday of murder, attempted murder and other counts stemming from an incident during a 2017 deployment to Iraq.    “I put a black eye on the two communities that I love — the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy — specifically the SEAL community” he said. He said he tried to lead by example but didn’t always succeed. “I’ve made mistakes throughout my 20-year career — tactical, ethical, moral — I’m not perfect but I’ve always bounced back from my mistakes. I’m ready to bounce back from this” he said. The jury reduced Gallagher’s …

Scientists, government officials and conservationists are calling for a swift response to protect North Atlantic right whales after a half-dozen died in the past month. All six of the dead endangered species have been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Canada. At least three appear to have died after being hit by ships. There are only a little more than 400 of the endangered species left.    The deaths have led scientists to sound the alarm about a potentially catastrophic loss to the population. Some say the whales are traveling in different areas than usual because of food availability. That change has apparently brought whales outside of protected zones and left them vulnerable.   …

Hundreds of New York City police officers honored a former detective who fought until his final days for the extension of health benefits for 9/11 first responders. The funeral ceremony for Detective Luis Alvarez, 53, is being held at Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria, New York. Alvarez died Saturday in a hospice center after a three-year battle with colorectal cancer. He attributed his illness to the three months he spent digging through rubble at the World Trade Center’s twin towers after the terrorist attack. Image from video shows Retired NYPD Detective and 9/11 Responder Luis Alvarez speaking during a House Judiciary Committee hearing to consider permanent authorization of the Victim Compensation Fund, Capitol Hill, Washington, June 11, 2019. In June, a frail Alvarez appeared before the House Judiciary Committee with former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart to request the extension of the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which has been largely depleted. “I did not want to be anywhere else but ground zero when I was there,” Alvarez said at the hearing. “Now the 9/11 illnesses have taken many of us, and we are all worried about our children, our spouses and our families and what happens if we are …

A rare bombing in the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed Kashmir region has killed at least five soldiers and injured another. A military statement said the deadly blast occurred a few kilometers from the Line of Control (LoC) that separates Pakistani and Indian portions of the divided Himalayan territory. It noted that authorities were in the process of ascertaining the nature of the blast. “The incident is evident of state sponsored terrorism by India violating a bilateral cease-fire agreement and international rules,” the Pakistani army alleged in its statement. It did not elaborate further. There was no immediate reaction from New Delhi to the allegations made by Islamabad. Pakistani and Indian militaries routinely accuse each other of launching “unprovoked” cross-border attacks in violation of a 2002 mutual Kashmir cease-fire agreement. The skirmishes have killed scores of people on both sides, including civilians, almost rendering the cease-fire deal ineffective. In February, the two rival countries came close to a war over a deadly suicide car bombing in Indian Kashmir that killed more than 40 security personnel. New Delhi blamed a Pakistan-based militant group for plotting the attack. It carried out what it said were retaliatory airstrikes deep inside Pakistani territory on …

President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill suspending Russia’s participation in a pivotal nuclear arms treaty. Putin’s decree released on Wednesday formalizes Russia’s departure from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with the United States following Washington’s withdrawal from the pact. The U.S. gave notice of its intention to withdraw from the INF in February, setting the stage for it to terminate in six months unless Moscow returns to compliance. Russia has denied any breaches, and accused the U.S. of violating the pact. Moscow followed Washington’s example in February, also suspending its obligations under the treaty. Putin has warned the U.S. against deploying new missiles in Europe, saying that Russia will retaliate by fielding new fast weapons that will take just as little time to reach their targets.   …

Humanitarian groups that have operated rescue ships in the Mediterranean are disputing the Italian interior minister’s narrative that their presence encourages smugglers to send migrants on boats from Libya.    The spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in Italy, Marco Bertotto, said at a news conference on Wednesday that only one out of every six smugglers’ boats that departed Libya during the first six months of the year was met by a humanitarian rescue ship.    Bertotto said “this should put a tombstone on the fantastical and false narrative of the attraction effect created by the NGOs.” He says there have been 20 standoffs between private aid ships carrying rescued migrants and European governments that refused to provide immediate safe harbor since Italy’s populist government took office last year.    Bertotto says the stalemates involved 2,500 people kept at sea for a total of 165 days.  …