VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn contributed to this report. An Iranian supertanker caught in a diplomatic standoff off the coast of the British overseas territory Gibraltar remained in port Friday despite a court ruling that it can be released.  It is not clear when the Iranian supertanker Grace 1, which is at the center of the standoff between Iran and the West, will be able to set sail.  A lawyer for the ship’s captain told the Associated Press on Friday that the ship’s Indian captain no longer wanted to maintain command of the vessel. The Supreme Court in Gibraltar ruled Thursday that the tanker could be released from detention, shortly after the United States had launched a new, last-minute legal bid to hold it. A delay of the vessel’s departure could give the United States another opportunity to mount further legal action to again try to prevent the tanker from leaving Gibraltar. A view of the Grace 1 supertanker is seen backdropped by Gibraltar’s Rock, as it stands at anchor in the British territory of Gibraltar, Aug. 15, 2019. The Grace 1 had been carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil when Gibraltar police and British Special Forces seized it on July 4. It was believed …

NEW YORK – An autopsy has determined that financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, died of suicide by hanging, New York’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said Friday.  Epstein, 66, was found dead Saturday in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan, triggering investigations into the circumstances of his death.  The well-connected money manager was arrested July 6 and pleaded not guilty to federal charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls as young as 14.  “We are sending the determination out very shortly. It is suicide by hanging,” Office of Chief Medical Examiner spokeswoman Aja Worthy-Davis told Reuters.  The autopsy showed that Epstein’s neck had been broken in several places, two law enforcement sources said Thursday.  The federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the MCC, has said there had not been an inmate suicide there since 2006.  Epstein had been on suicide watch at the jail but was taken off prior to his death, a source who was not authorized to speak on the matter said previously. At the MCC, two jail guards are required to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes, but that procedure was not followed, the source added.  Separately, a team at the jail …

Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.  United States: New regulation penalizes green card applicants over public benefit use. The Trump administration this week moved to further limit who can obtain U.S. residency based on which public benefits they use, even if they are legally entitled to them.  — VOA Immigration Reporter Aline Barros breaks down which benefits might put someone’s immigration status at risk, and why the government is doing this. Immigrant rights advocates call the new regulation “xenophobic and classist.”  Bangladesh: U.N. moves forward on ensuring Rohingya are no longer undocumented Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh are getting identity documents — some for the first time — that the United Nations claims are “fraud-proof.” Roughly half a million of the estimated 900,000 people living in the Cox’s Bazar camp have the new registration cards, which show the country of origin as Myanmar. Such documentation serves multiple purposes, including ensuring access to benefits, and the right of refugees to return …

Thirty years ago, the Iron Curtain dividing Europe lifted.   Next week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to Hungary to commemorate the anniversary of a peace protest on the border with Austria that helped pave the way for the mass flight of East German citizens to the West. The Berlin Wall was torn down three months later, and 1989 went down as an era-changing year that ended the three-decade-long Soviet occupation of the countries of Central Europe. The commemoration on Aug. 19 will include an ecumenical service in the Lutheran church of Sopron, and is to be held near where 600 East Germans plowed through the border gates to enter the West. Hungarian authorities had announced the border would be opened symbolically later for three hours, but the crowd was too impatient to wait for freedom — and in no mood to receive it as a gift from increasingly superannuated Communist bosses.  FILE – An East German refugee shows off a newly acquired West German passport just before crossing the Hungarian border into Austria, Sept. 10, 1989. Three years later, political scientist Francis Fukuyama published his triumphalist book The End of History and the Last Man, celebrating the ascendency of …

Police in Portland, Oregon, are mobilizing in preparation for Saturday when far-right protesters are expected to come face-to-face with local anti-fascist counter-demonstrators.  Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined leaders of the city’s religious, police and business groups to warn groups “who plan on using Portland on August 17th as a platform to spread your hate.”  Those groups are “not welcome here,” he said.  He said all of Portland’s nearly 1,000 police officers will be on duty Saturday and will be helped by the Oregon State Police and the FBI.  Saturday’s rally is organized by a member of the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Expected to join them are the American Guard, Three Percenters, Oathkeepers and Daily Stormers. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Guard is a “white nationalist group,” Three Percenters and Oathkeepers are “extremist” anti-government militias, and the Daily Stormers are “neo-Nazis.” Countering the right-wingers is Portland’s Rose City Antifa, an anti-fascist group that has called on its members to take to the streets in an opposing rally.  FILE – Antifa counter-protesters, rallying against right-wing group Patriot Prayer, light a smoke grenade in Portland, Oregon, Sept. …

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong are calling for support from Western nations.  As Mike O’Sullivan reports from Hong Kong, demonstrators took to the streets again on Friday, as several student leaders described what they called anonymous attempts at intimidation. …

Zimbabweans defied a police ban Friday and held demonstrations to protest the country’s deteriorating economy. Despite the High Court ban on planned protests, members of the Movement for Democratic Change took to the streets and clashed with police. Some of the injured accused police of derailing protests, which they said were meant to persuade President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to breathe life into Zimbabwe’s moribund economy. With tears on her cheeks, 32-year-old Tafadzwa Bvuta said her degree had not helped her get anything for her three children.  “They beat us up,” she said of the police. “What have we done? All these security forces are supposed to protect us all — not just one person. Where will we go and survive? Shall we kill our kids since we are struggling to take care of them?” Make Nyashanu, 27, said he would continue protesting because he is miserable about being unemployed. He said police were indiscriminately beating demonstrators — even elderly ones and people not protesting. “Is this democracy?” he asked, adding that it was a peaceful demonstration but police were causing chaos. The opposition said it will hold another protest Monday in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, and will go to …

The government of Greenland is dismissing the idea that the island is for sale, following media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump has been discussing interest to purchase the Danish territory with White House advisors. But this is not the first time the U.S. has considered to purchase the massive ice-covered island. William Henry Seward, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State in the 1860s proposed both the purchase of Greenland and Iceland when he was negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Russia. FILE – President Donald Trump speaks to the media before leaving the White House in Washington. Greenland details Greenland is an autonomous Danish territory, located between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The island territory is politically and culturally associated with Europe but the majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors began migrating from the Canadian mainland in the 13th century. Greenland became Danish in 1814, and was fully integrated in the Danish state in 1953. Greenland’s location makes it absolutely vital to the defense of North America and the Trump administration should increase its focus on building relations, writes Luke Coffey of the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. “Greenland does not receive …

Hundreds of Google employees are calling on the company to pledge it won’t work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s the latest in a year full of political and social pushback from the tech giant’s workforce. A group of employees called Googlers for Human Rights posted a public petition urging the company not to bid on a cloud computing contract for CBP, the federal agency that oversees law enforcement for the country’s borders. Bids for the contract were due Aug. 1. It is not clear if Google expressed interest. The company did not return a request for comment. More than 800 Google employees had signed the petition by Friday morning. Citing a “system of abuse” and “malign neglect” by the agencies, the petition demands that Google not provide any technical services to CBP, ICE or the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which provides services for refugees, until the agencies “stop engaging in human rights abuses.” “In working with CBP, ICE, or ORR, Google would be trading its integrity for a bit of profit, and joining a shameful lineage,” the organizers wrote. They cited federal actions that have separated migrant children from parents and set …

Actresses America Ferrera and Eva Longoria are leading a group of more than 150 writers, artists and leaders who have written a public “letter of solidarity” to U.S. Latinos after the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, and an immigration raid in Mississippi.    The letter, published Friday in The New York Times and in a handful of Spanish-language newspapers, says the signers stand with U.S. Latinos who may feel “terrified, heartbroken and defeated by the barrage of attacks,” citing the shooting in El Paso, which targeted Hispanics, and another shooting in Gilroy, California. The two attacks killed nearly two dozen Latinos.    A huge immigration raid of Mississippi poultry plants this month that rounded up 680 mostly Latino workers, leaving behind crying children searching for their detained parents, also has unnerved some Hispanics. “We have been smeared by political rhetoric and murdered in violent hate crimes. We have been separated from our families and have watched our children caged,” the letter said. “But, we will not be broken. We will not be silenced.” ‘Indignities and cruelty’ The letter says such “indignities and cruelty” won’t diminish the contributions Latinos have made to the U.S., and it urged Hispanics to keep …

President Donald Trump says he’s still considering whether to sign commutation papers freeing former Illinois governor and one-time “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant Rod Blagojevich from federal prison in Colorado. Trump told reporters Thursday before leaving from Morristown, New Jersey, that he “floated” the prospect of commutation “to see where the Democrats stood, where the Republicans stood.” Republican Congressman Darin LaHood of Illinois told WLS-TV on Thursday that he told Trump a commutation wouldn’t send the right message. The office of Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois also said Trump called Durbin last week to discuss Blagojevich’s sentence and Durbin didn’t take a position on a possible commutation. Trump previously told reporters he believed the seven years the Democrat Blagojevich has served on a 14-year sentence for corruption was enough. …

Nine Chinese and eight Ukrainian seamen were abducted Thursday when two merchant vessels came under attack in Cameroonian waters in the Gulf of Guinea, sources said Friday. “Seventeen Chinese and Ukrainians were kidnapped … (of whom) nine (are) Chinese who were abducted on one of the ships,” an official in the port of Douala told AFP. A security official, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the account. The abduction was reported Thursday by sources in the Cameroonian navy and the country’s port service, who said their number and nationalities were unknown. …

Joe Darby, a South Carolina pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, pondered a sensitive question that he knew was on the mind of his congregation. Would black voters be able to reconcile their conservative religious doctrine with voting for a gay candidate for president? “It’s a heavy lift in the black church,” says Darby, who is also a Charleston-area NAACP leader. “Just as nobody who is racist likes to say, ‘I’m a racist,’ nobody who is homophobic in the black community likes to say, ‘I’m homophobic.’” In South Carolina, the first state with a predominantly African American electorate, part of the dialogue focuses on a conflict between a cultural openness for same-sex marriage and the deeply held religious convictions that could impede support for the 2020 race’s only gay candidate — Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The historically diverse field of Democratic presidential hopefuls is overflowing with options. But it is also forcing conversations about the roles — if any — that gender, race and, for the first time, sexuality should play in voters’ decisions. Black voters comprise more than 60% of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate. But an overwhelming majority of African Americans — 79%, according …

Israel will allow U.S. lawmaker Rashida Tlaib to visit her family in the occupied West Bank on humanitarian grounds, the interior ministry said Friday, after barring an official visit under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he would not allow Tlaib and congresswoman Ilhan Omar, both Democrats, to make a planned trip to Israel. Tlaib and Omar have voiced support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement over Israel’s policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Under Israeli law, BDS backers can be denied entry to Israel. However, Netanyahu said that if Tlaib submitted a request to visit family on humanitarian grounds, Israel would consider it as long as she promised not to promote a boycott against Israel. Tlaib sent a letter to Israel’s Ministry of Interior Thursday requesting permission “to visit relatives, and specifically my grandmother, who is in her 90s,” adding that it “could be my last opportunity to see her.” “I will respect any restrictions and will not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit,” Tlaib wrote in the request, which was circulated by the Ynet website Ynet and other Israeli media. Israel’s interior ministry said …

Australia is offering vulnerable South Pacific nations $340 million to help them deal with the effects of climate change. The announcement came ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to Tuvalu for the Pacific Islands Forum this week, where Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels was a dominant issue. Australia wants to help its Pacific neighbors invest in renewable energy and make their roads, hospitals and schools able to withstand extreme weather events. But Morrison met resistance in Tuvalu at a meeting of Pacific leaders. They have been urging Australia to phase out the use of coal that generates most of its electricity and generates billions of dollars in export earnings. Australia’s Scott Morrison arrived at a meeting of Pacific island leaders in Tuvalu, Aug. 14, 2019, with Canberra’s regional leadership in question amid intense scrutiny of his government’s climate change policies. Questions about aid That appears unlikely, and Australia recently approved a huge new coal mine in the state of Queensland to be run by an Indian company, Adani. Island nations fear that fossil fuels are endangering their way of life as global temperatures increase and the seas rise. Some low-lying communities have already been inundated, and there …

Zimbabwe’s deteriorating economy is forcing many families to put their children to work to put food on the table. Child rights activists say an increasing number of children are selling things on the street to supplement family income. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare for VOA.   …

In Sudan, women are well-represented in the workforce. They are not lacking in any public spaces. And over the past few months, they have made up half, if not more, of the protest crowds making demands of their new transitional government. Women were an integral part of protests that led to the ouster of longtime president Omar al-Bashir, as well as in demonstrations after his fall. However, many female leaders now say they feel they have been locked out of political agreements and do not expect to be named to any positions in the Regional Council. Many feminists have been pushing to negotiate a 50% quota for women in government. Others have argued that 40% would be a more reasonable demand, as the current rate is 30%. But even the 40% has not been met. A young woman protests for more transparency outside the SPA headquarters (E. Sarai/VOA) “Our ambition was to have 50% representation in the government, or at least 40%, but this didn’t happen,” Haifa’a Farouq, a feminist and representative of the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA), told VOA. Farouq is in a unique position; though she works with and for the SPA, she has also taken part in …

Scary folk tales and urban legends have always captivated people’s imaginations, especially those of the young. Now, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” a collection of short stories for children by author Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell has been adapted by Oscar-winning producer Guillermo Del Toro and director André Øvredal. During its opening weekend, the movie grossed more than $20 million, proving again that teen horror flicks are a lucrative genre. Penelope Poulou has more. …

Women were an integral part of protests that led to the ouster of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and in demonstrations after his downfall. But many leaders now say they feel they have been locked out of political agreements and do not expect to be named to any positions in the regional council. In Khartoum, Esha Sarai and Naba Mohiedeen speak with female politicians and feminists who are pushing for more representation.   …

The Trump administration is under renewed fire from environmentalists following its move earlier this week to weaken the Endangered Species Act. At the same time, more than two dozen states and cities as well as a coalition of health and environmental groups are suing the administration over its rollback of the Clean Power Plan, one of President Barack Obama’s signature regulations to reduce the nation’s carbon emissions. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more. …

With the Philadelphia shooting suspect behind bars, U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday engaged in a blame game with city authorities. The president said the suspect, who has a criminal record, should not have been on the street. A U.S. attorney appointed by Trump blamed Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for the shooting that left six officers wounded. But as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, the incident has helped put pressure on the administration to tackle long-avoided gun legislature.   …

For most of his life as a Samburu warrior, Lesaiton Lengoloni thought nothing of hunting giraffes, the graceful giants so common a feature of the Kenyan plains where he roamed. “There was no particular pride in killing a giraffe, not like a lion. … (But) a single giraffe could feed the village for more than a week,” the community elder told AFP, leaning on a walking stick and gazing out to the broad plateau of Laikipia. But fewer amble across his path these days: In Kenya, as across Africa, populations of the world’s tallest mammals are quietly, yet sharply, in decline. Population down sharply Giraffe numbers across the continent fell 40 percent between 1985 and 2015, to just less than 100,000 animals, according to the best figures available to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But unlike the clarion calls sounded over the catastrophic collapse of elephant, lion and rhino populations, less attention was paid to the giraffe’s private crisis. “The giraffe is a big animal, and you can see it pretty easily in parks and reserves. This may have created a false impression that the species was doing well,” said Julian Fennessy, co-chair of the IUCN’s specialist …

Tie-dyed pilgrims and white-haired Woodstock festival veterans converged at the generation-defining site to celebrate its 50th anniversary, while Arlo Guthrie came back to sing — what else? — “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is hosting a series of events Thursday through Sunday at the bucolic 1969 concert site, 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of New York City. Guthrie, an original Woodstock performer, played an evening set atop the famous hill, but said he also wanted to play at least one song near where the 1969 stage was located. Picking up a guitar, he sang the Bob Dylan classic for a group of reporters gathered on the grass under the wilting afternoon sun. “It was a great time,” Guthrie told reporters, his long white hair flowing from a straw hat. “For me, the Woodstock festival was a celebratory end of an era. It was not the beginning of anything. It was the end of something, and it was an end of a very turbulent time that was also very wonderful.” People hold hands in a circle around a large, illuminated peace sign on the original site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in …

North Korea has launched a fresh round of projectiles toward the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s military reported, Pyongyang’s latest apparent outburst of anger at continued U.S.-South Korean military drills. The North fired two projectiles Friday from Gangwon province in the northeast part of North Korea, according to a statement from Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The statement gave no other details, but said South Korea’s military is on alert for additional launches. North Korea has conducted six launches in about the past three weeks. Combined with a series of aggressive statements toward South Korea, the launches mark a return to a more provocative stance for North Korea, which has refused to hold talks with Seoul or Washington.  Though it isn’t clear what North Korea launched Friday, the North’s other recent tests involved short-range ballistic missiles that appear designed to evade U.S.-South Korean missile defenses. People watch a TV news program reporting about North Korea’s firing projectiles with a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 16, 2019. North Korea is banned from any ballistic missile activity under United Nations Security Council resolutions. But U.S. President …