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PORTLAND, Ore. — A dangerous Arctic blast will continue sweeping across the U.S. on Monday and linger through at least midweek, prolonging a bitter cold that set record-low temperatures in parts of the country and threatens to further disrupt daily life, including an NFL playoff game and the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest in Iowa. The National Weather Service said wind chills are expected to push temperatures 34 degrees below zero Celsius from the Northern Rockies to northern Kansas and into Iowa, testing the hardiness of caucus-goers willing to brave the deep chill on Monday. “You can’t sit home,” former President Donald Trump told supporters Sunday. “If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘Darling, I gotta make it.’ Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.” Arctic storms left at least four dead and knocked out electricity to tens of thousands in the Northwest, brought snow to the South and walloped the Northeast with blizzard conditions forcing the postponement of the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Buffalo Bills NFL playoff game hosted in bone-chilling Buffalo, New York. The game was scheduled to be held Monday after being canceled Sunday. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, showing near-whiteout conditions. “Conditions right now in Orchard Park, where the game would have started moments ago,” she wrote early Sunday afternoon. “No visibility and dangerously high winds.” The Bills invited diehard fans to help dig out snow-filled Highmark Stadium, offering $20 an hour for their labor. “We made progress shoveling, but not much at all," said Logan Eschrich, a storm chaser who made his way to Buffalo and pitched in. It remains to be seen if the show will go on Monday afternoon. The weather service expects heavy lake-effect snow to push into upstate New York from Lake Erie, adding to the 30.4 to 60.9 centimeters of snow already blanketing the region. Snow fell at a rate of 5 centimeters per hour. Sub-zero wind chills will grip much of the country, plunging to –45 degrees Celsius in Montana and the Dakotas. "It takes a matter of minutes for frostbite to set in,” the South Dakota Department of Public Safety said in a statement Sunday urging people to stay indoors. Other parts of the country could see temperatures drop 25 to 40 degrees below normal, from the Rockies to the Ohio Valley. As temperatures in Texas plunged, the state’s power grid operator appealed to residents to voluntarily conserve electricity Monday morning due to the cold weather causing “record breaking demand” for energy. A deadly freeze in 2021 left millions of Texans without power but state officials this week expressed confidence about the grid’s reliability as the cold front approached. Freezing rain is expected to pelt parts of the Southern Plains and Southern Appalachians. Even places like Florida won’t be spared from turbulent weather, with forecasts predicting showers and thunderstorms from Monday into Tuesday. In Oregon, more than 120,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, most of them in the Portland metro area, a day after high winds and a mix of snow and ice brought down trees and power lines. Some 100 trees toppled over the weekend in a community just south of Portland, including one that fell on a house and killed a man. Two other people died of suspected hypothermia and a fourth died in a fire that spread from an open-flame stove after a tree fell onto an RV. “Given the extent of the damage and the high level of outage events, restoration efforts will continue into the week and customers are encouraged to plan accordingly,” Portland General Electric said in a statement. The utility said it was watching a second weather pattern that could bring high winds and freezing rain on Tuesday. Widespread power outages affecting tens of thousands were also reported Sunday in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Nebraska, the Omaha Public Power District asked customers to conserve electricity to prevent outages. Airports across the country were impacted. More than half of flights into and out of Buffalo Niagara International Airport were canceled. Scores of flights also were canceled or delayed at Chicago, Denver and Seattle-Tacoma airports.  

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ISLAMABAD — The United Nations has called for increased humanitarian aid to help tens of thousands of children in western Afghanistan who are suffering in life-threatening winter conditions in the aftermath of a string of devastating earthquakes last October. The U.N. Children's Fund, UNICEF, issued the warning Monday, 100 days after repeated earthquakes struck the impoverished country's western Herat and surrounding provinces. The de facto Taliban government and aid agencies estimated the disasters last October killed more than 1,000 people, primarily women and children, and destroyed 21,000 homes, with countless families losing livelihoods, livestock, and crops. "Three months on, the impact of Herat's earthquakes lingers, with many families still living in tents or sleeping in the open despite the biting cold," UNICEF stated. It added that the crippling winter gripping Afghanistan, including the earthquake-affected Herat region, is threatening lives and slowing efforts to rebuild. "Children are still trying to cope with the loss and trauma. Schools and health centers, which children depend upon, are damaged beyond repair or destroyed completely," said Fran Equiza, UNICEF country chief. "As if this was not enough, winter has taken hold, and temperatures hover below freezing. Children and families without homes live in life-threatening conditions at night, with no way to heat their temporary shelters," Equiza said. The UNICEF said that in the 100 days since the initial emergency response, it had converted tented health facilities into more permanent structures in shipping containers and treated thousands of affected people, most of whom were women and children. The agency continues to truck clean water to nearly 19,000 people in Herat and plans to distribute cash assistance to help families cover their basic needs to survive the winter. UNICEF has established dozens of facilities to help several thousand children, half of them girls, continue basic education. "But thousands still need our help. UNICEF is concerned about the survival of 96,000 children affected by the earthquakes if we are not able to provide the services they need to recover," Equiza warned. "We count on continued support to ensure that children not only survive the winter but have a chance to thrive in the months and years to come." The U.N. says at least 23 million people, around half of them children, need humanitarian aid in Afghanistan "due to the residual impacts of a protracted conflict, extreme climate shocks, and the country's severe economic decline.”  The return of the Islamist Taliban to power in August 2021 prompted United States-led Western nations to swiftly halt all development aid to the country and isolate the Afghan banking sector. The punitive actions fueled economic upheavals characterized by high unemployment and a fragile recovery. Additionally, aid workers say the Taliban’s sweeping restrictions on Afghan women's access to education and work in line with their harsh interpretation of Islamic law have undermined humanitarian activities across the country.

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.

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.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — After Texas fenced off a park along the U.S.-Mexico border and began turning away Border Patrol agents, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott explained why at a campaign stop near Houston. “We are not allowing Border Patrol on that property anymore,” Abbott said Friday, drawing applause from supporters while endorsing a state legislator running for reelection. He relayed frustration over migrants illegally entering the U.S. through the border city of Eagle Pass and federal agents loading them onto buses. “We said, ‘We’ve had it. We’re not going to let this happen anymore,’” Abbott said. Later that night, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said three migrants, including two children, drowned near the park after Texas officials “physically barred” Border Patrol agents from entering. Mexican authorities pulled the bodies, each of them wearing jackets, from the water on the other side of the Rio Grande. The weekend deaths intensified tensions between Texas and the Biden administration.  They also unleashed a new round of criticism from Democrats over Abbott's aggressive actions to curb illegal crossings, accusing the measures of putting migrants at risk. U.S. authorities described the drownings as underscoring the need for Border Patrol agents to have access to the area around Shelby Park, which Texas closed off earlier this week. “U.S. Border Patrol must have access to the border to enforce our laws,” White House spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement. On Sunday evening, the Texas Military Department released a statement disputing the U.S. government's accounts, calling it “wholly inaccurate” that state personnel prevented Border Patrol from saving drowning migrants. “At the time that Border Patrol requested access, the drownings had occurred, Mexican authorities were recovering the bodies, and Border Patrol expressed these facts to the TMD personnel on site,” the department said. The Biden administration stuck to its initial account Sunday, saying in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that Texas denied Border Patrol agents access before they knew the migrants died. In a direct contradiction of Texas' version of events, Homeland Security said agents at the time knew only that migrants were attempting to cross the river. “Texas has demonstrated that even in the most exigent circumstances, it will not allow Border Patrol agents access to the border to conduct law enforcement and emergency response activities,” wrote Jonathan E. Meyer, Homeland Security's general counsel. Meyer threatened legal action if Texas doesn't restore access by the end of Wednesday. The park lies in a major corridor for migrants entering illegally from Mexico and is at the center of Abbott’s aggressive attempts to stop them, known as Operation Lone Star. Migrants are periodically swept away to their deaths by the current of the Rio Grande. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who represents a Texas border district, acknowledged Sunday that state officials investigated the distress call and searched for the migrants. “However, the bottom line is that Border Patrol was barred from entering Shelby Park,” Cuellar said in a statement. Texas officials said Border Patrol agents had requested access to find other migrants who were presumed to have been with those who died. Two were apprehended by state military personnel, including one who was transferred to medics with “hypothermic conditions.” The statement did not say whether Border Patrol agents were allowed in the park. Over the summer, thousands of people were crossing illegally into the U.S. through Eagle Pass. The numbers subsided but again rose in December when thousands of migrants overwhelmed federal resources. But a sharp decrease was noted at the start of January after Mexico stepped up immigration enforcement. The 20-hectare park is owned by the city, but it is used by the state Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department to patrol border crossings. Earlier this week, Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas questioned why the state closed the park now, since daily apprehensions in the region have fallen in recent weeks. He said the state gave city officials no warning and offered no timetable on when the park would reopen. On Friday, the Justice Department told the U.S. Supreme Court that Texas had taken control of Shelby Park and was not letting Border Patrol agents enter. Texas acknowledged seizing the city park but told the court the federal government had mischaracterized its actions and that it was trying to resolve any disputes over access. Texas has come under recurring scrutiny over efforts to curb border crossings. Abbott has sent more than 100,000 migrants on buses to Democratic-led cities, even as frigid conditions set in during the winter. He also has strung up razor wire on the border and installed buoy barriers on the Rio Grande. Melissa R. Cigarroa, a city council member in Laredo and member of the No Border Wall Coalition, was among those who attended a vigil Saturday at Shelby Park to mark the deaths of migrants who have died along the Rio Grande. She said attendees passed through a gate with armed National Guard members and that they could see law enforcement officers and vehicles gathered near the river. She said that scene, coupled with the reason for the ceremony, left her thinking about “just how little people’s lives matter in these decisions.” “People are dying, and we know now that deterrents mean nothing,” she said.  

WASHINGTON — Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress Sunday unveiled a short-term spending bill that would avert a partial government shutdown and keep federal agencies operating into March. The agreement aims to avert short-term chaos and buy more time to craft the complex spending legislation that funds government activity. Government agencies that oversee transportation, housing, and other services are due to run out of funding by midnight on Friday and would have to scale back activity if new funding is not signed into law. The Democratic-led Senate and Republican-controlled House of Representatives have been at odds over spending levels for months. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer agreed on the measure with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. The legislation could run into difficulty in the House, where a faction of conservative Republicans have used disruptive tactics to press for lower spending levels. Republicans control the chamber with a narrow 219-213 majority, leaving Johnson with little room for error. Some Republicans insist that any spending bills must also clamp down on the U.S.-Mexico border. Current funding is due to expire this week for federal programs involving transportation, housing, agriculture, energy, veterans and military construction. Funding for other parts of the government, including defense, will continue through Feb. 2. The new spending bill would extend the deadline to March 1 for the first group and March 8 for the second. Schumer, the top Democrat in Congress, and Johnson, the top Republican, have agreed on a $1.59 trillion total for those bills. That would give lawmakers more time to negotiate and pass the detailed spending legislation they should have passed before the start of the government's fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2023. The legislation covers roughly one-third of U.S. government spending, which amounted to $6.1 trillion in the last fiscal year. The remaining two-thirds includes retirement and health benefits which do not need to be approved annually by Congress, as well as interest payments. Johnson spent much of last week in meetings with hardliners and other segments of his Republican conference, raising speculation that he could seek to revise his agreement with Schumer. But the speaker ultimately stood by the deal. The federal government came close to a partial shutdown last autumn, when hardline Republicans ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy for reaching a bipartisan stopgap spending deal with Schumer.

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.

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.

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.

Taiwan has picked their next president in an election that has huge implications in one of the most volatile regions of the world. The U.S. presidential election gets underway.  And the new king and queen of Denmark first met in an Australian bar.

WASHINGTON — The year ahead will be "very tough" for fiscal policy — especially for countries holding elections — the IMF chief told AFP before departing for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "This is going to be a very tough year, because fiscal policy has to rebuild buffers and deal with the debt that was accumulated in many countries," International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview in Washington. "About 80 countries are going to have elections, and we know what happens with pressure on spending during election cycles," she continued. Billions of people in dozens of countries around the world are due to go to the polls this year, from India to the United States, putting pressure on governments to either raise spending or cut taxes to win popular support. The IMF is due to publish updated economic forecasts later this month which will show the global economy is broadly "on track" to meet its previous forecasts, according to Georgieva. The global economy is "poised for a soft landing," she said, adding: "Monetary policy is doing a good job, inflation is going down, but the job is not quite done." "So we are in this trickiest place of not easing too fast or too slow," she said.    In the U.S., the Federal Reserve recently held interest rates at a 22-year high and penciled in as many as three interest rate cuts this year, while the European Central Bank has also stopped hiking interest rates.     These steps have led traders to become more optimistic about the possibility of a loosening of monetary policy in the months ahead, which can act to boost economic growth.     The concern at the IMF, Georgieva said, is that governments around the world spend big this year and undermine the progress made in the fight against high inflation.    "If monetary policy tightens and fiscal policy expands, going against the objective of bringing inflation down, we might be for a longer ride," she added.  

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.

MEXICO CITY — Nicaragua's government said Sunday it released a prominent Catholic bishop and 18 other clergy members imprisoned in a crackdown by President Daniel Ortega and handed them over to Vatican authorities. Bishop Rolando Álvarez and the other clergy were jailed more than a year ago, in most cases, as part of a crackdown on the opposition and Catholic church by Ortega. He had accused them of supporting massive 2018 civic protests that he claimed were a plot to overthrow him. The government said in a press statement the releases were part of negotiations with the Vatican aimed at "making possible their trip to the Vatican." In the past, imprisoned priests have been quickly flown to Rome. Ortega's government said those released Sunday also included Bishop Isidoro Mora. Ortega sent 222 prisoners to the United States in February in a deal brokered by the U.S. government and later stripped those prisoners of their citizenship. Bishop Álvarez has remained in prison for more than a year after being convicted of conspiracy and receiving a 26-year prison sentence. One of the country's most outspoken clergy members, he had refused to get on the February flight to the U.S. without being able to consult with other bishops. In October, Nicaragua released a dozen Catholic priests jailed on a variety of charges and sent them to Rome following an agreement with the Vatican. Since repressing popular protests in 2018 that called for his resignation, Ortega's government has systematically silenced opposing voices and zeroed in on the church, including confiscating the prestigious Jesuit-run University of Central America in August. Nicaragua's Congress, dominated by Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front, has ordered the closure of more than 3,000 nongovernmental organizations, including Mother Teresa's charity.

WASHINGTON — U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia boil down to stability and sovereignty, according to Washington's top diplomat in Kazakhstan, an oil-rich republic sharing long borders with Russia and China.  With an eye on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, a fellow former Soviet republic, the countries in the region have adopted a hedging strategy, maintaining deep links to Moscow while also bolstering relations with the West. U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Daniel Rosenblum told the Caspian Policy Center gathering on Jan. 4, that the main goal of U.S. policy for Central Asia is to ensure that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan “stand on their own, be fully sovereign and independent countries that can make their own choices about who to associate with, who to trade with, who to have relations with — without undue external pressure.”  Rosenblum pointed to the so-called C5+1 group, including the United States and the five republics, underlining its “value in acting as a group, integrating with one another, cooperating — that makes each of them stronger individually.”  A second focus for Washington is border security and counterterrorism, a third is boosting trade and investment, and a fourth is promoting human rights and the rule of law, he said. Economic and political aspects Kazakhstan is America’s top business partner in Central Asia, with $3 billion in bilateral trade in 2022 and an estimated 15% increase last year, plus $5 billion direct investment in 2023. Despite holding regular talks on human rights, Rosenblum said Washington and Astana “do not see eye-to-eye” on the lack of meaningful political competition and the continuous arrests of critical voices. The New York-based Human Rights Watch sites enduring concerns. "Two years after large-scale anti-government protests rocked Kazakhstan in January 2022, few officials have been held accountable for their part in [the] disproportionate use of force against protesters, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees," HRW stated in its annual report issued this week. “When I arrived in November 2022, there were seven names on the list [of political prisoners], which had been going down steadily. And now there are 23, which is not a good trend,” Rosenblum said. Akbota Karibayeva, a Ph.D. candidate at the George Washington University, agreed with Rosenblum, stressing that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s transformation package branded as the "New Kazakhstan" has not yet had major effects. “In the 'New Kazakhstan,’ we continue to see a familiar cycle of detaining activists for expressing their opinions and repeatedly denying registration to opposition movements. The space for dissenting voices has barely expanded, if at all,” Karibayeva told VOA.  Asserting that Astana is complying with sanctions against Russia, Rosenblum pointed to the U.S., EU and U.K. comprised list of 45 categories of goods. “Those 45, our experts say, are less than 2% of Kazakhstan's exports to Russia. Even if they weren't controlling it at all, it would not constitute more than 2%,” he said. Rosenblum defended Kazakhstan, which has a 7,644-kilometer border with Russia. “Since the sanctions were first imposed back in 2022, Kazakhstan's record, I’d argue, is a good one, both in terms of their ability to prevent sanctions evasion and also making sure that they're complying with all the sanctions when it comes to their domestic companies, relationships with Russian companies, Russian banks, and so on,” he said. Kazakhstan last month removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups.  “They gave us advance notice that they were doing this, which is in the spirit of the partnership of no surprises,” Rosenblum said. “Kazakhstan has made clear that it will not recognize the Taliban government, and that remains its position until there's an international consensus and certain benchmarks are made. And this doesn't change that. They've also made clear that they prioritize developing some level of economic relations with Afghanistan, even with the Taliban regime in charge there.” Kazakhstan vs. Uzbekistan Before his current assignment, Rosenblum served as ambassador to Uzbekistan, whose leadership has also promised reforms.  “When I arrived in Tashkent [in 2019], it was already a couple of years into the reform process. … Things were slowing down,” he said. In Rosenblum's view, Uzbekistan's initial steps toward change were dramatic, despite the backslidings many observe now, specifically the systemic challenges, testing President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s commitment and his regime’s willingness to transition from an ingrained authoritarian government to a democratic one.  Kazakhstan, he said, has cycled through reform phases producing limited advances, "as opposed to what was really like a sea change, kind of a watershed in Uzbekistan, where suddenly the closed system was opened up.”  Since 2022, following the January civil unrest that left at least 227 dead, Kazakhstan changed its constitution, held presidential and parliamentary elections that Tokayev coined as “democratic” despite the lack of opposition. He has vowed to leave office in 2029, at the end of his seven-year presidential term.  Tokayev pledged to decentralize power and strengthen local governance, moves that Rosenblum said are still unfolding. “The jury is still out. We have to give some time to see,” he said. China, Russia, Iran  One issue Washington and Astana disagree on is China’s treatment of Uyghurs, atrocities that the U.S. considers a genocide and crimes against humanity. Yet Rosenblum sees some daylight there. “There are some Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs who are able to cross the border. They don't necessarily receive refugee status, but they've essentially taken refuge in Kazakhstan, which has lived up to its international obligations of nonrefoulement,” he said, referring to the principle that asylum-seekers should not be returned to countries where they face serious threat to life or freedom.  “They do not send people back to China,” he said.  Kazakhstan’s trade with China recently surpassed $30 billion, which is 10 times more than its trade with the United States, which Rosenblum said he does not find surprising “since they are close neighbors.” “Kazakhs are sort of bullish on economic relations with China. They are not as exposed or as vulnerable, arguably, as other Central Asian countries because they haven't taken on nearly as much Chinese debt,” he said. Kazakhstan will continue to diversify its political and economic partnerships, Rosenblum predicted, despite China’s growing influence and the country’s continuing dependence on Russia for energy. Russian nationalists’ frequent calls to annex Kazakhstan are viewed alarmingly in Astana, Rosenblum said, but he added, “I don't feel like there's a sense of any imminent danger or threat to the northern border of Kazakhstan.” As part of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union, Kazakhstan recently signed a free trade deal with Iran. Rosenblum said Astana consults with Washington on this issue as well.  “The Kazakh government by now has learned what’s sanctionable and what isn't,” he said. Kazakhstan, a regional leader? While Rosenblum praised Kazakhstan as a “consistent pusher” for regional unity and connectivity, Karibayeva argued that to become a real catalyst for change in Central Asia, her country must lead by example. “Symbolic gestures and high-level engagements among Central Asian countries and with the United States are important signals of commitment. But it is now essential to progress beyond discussions and focus on implementation at every level of cooperation,” she told VOA.  

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.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Washington for a “March for Gaza” rally as the Israel-Hamas war reached 100 days. The march was part of a global day of protests demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. Saqib Ul Islam has more.