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Russia and Ukraine rang in 2024 by attacking each other, as Ukraine continues its quest to push invading Russian forces out. But much of the drama around this conflict is centered in Washington, where Republicans are reluctant to grant President Joe Biden’s increasingly urgent request for tens of billions in funding for Ukraine. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.

A day after a top Hamas leader was killed in an apparent Israeli drone strike in Beirut, U.S. officials say they are working to contain the spread of the Israel-Hamas conflict while continuing to urge Israel to safeguard Palestinian civilians. VOA's Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.

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.

NEW YORK — Social media has been rife in recent weeks with posts speculating that a judge is about to release a list of clients or co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. There is no such list, and the truth is less scandalous. Previously sealed court documents related to Epstein are being released, but the great majority of those whose names appear in the documents aren't accused of wrongdoing or have been mentioned previously in legal proceedings or news accounts. A small batch of documents was made available publicly on Wednesday. The document release has fueled misinformation. Social media users baselessly claimed that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's name might appear in the documents, spurred by a crack New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made Tuesday on ESPN's "The Pat McAfee Show." Kimmel said in a response on X that he had never met Epstein and that Rodgers' "reckless words put my family in danger." "Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court," Kimmel wrote. Here's what we know about the documents: Who is Jeffrey Epstein? A millionaire known for associating with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and academic stars, Epstein was initially arrested in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 after he was accused of paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. Dozens of other underage girls described similar sexual abuse, but prosecutors ultimately allowed the financier to plead guilty in 2008 to a charge involving a single victim. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program. Some famous acquaintances abandoned Epstein after his conviction, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, but many did not. Epstein continued to mingle with the rich and famous for another decade, often through philanthropic work. Reporting by the Miami Herald renewed interest in the scandal, and federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein in 2019 with sex trafficking. He killed himself in jail while awaiting trial. The U.S. attorney in Manhattan then prosecuted Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for helping recruit his underage victims. She was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison term. What are these records about? The documents being unsealed are part of a lawsuit filed against Maxwell in 2015 by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre. She is one of the dozens of women who sued Epstein saying he had abused them at his homes in Florida, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and New Mexico. Giuffre said the summer she turned 17, she was lured away from a job as a spa attendant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club to become a "masseuse" for Epstein — a job that involved performing sexual acts. Giuffre also claimed she was pressured into having sex with men in Epstein's social orbit, most famously with Britain's Prince Andrew. All of those men said her accounts were fabricated. She settled a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in 2022. Giuffre's lawsuit against Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the Miami Herald went to court to access court papers initially filed under seal, including transcripts of interviews the lawyers did with potential witnesses. About 2,000 pages were unsealed by a court in 2019. Additional documents were released in 2020, 2021 and 2022. What can we expect to see? U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska, who evaluated the documents to decide what should be unsealed, said in her December order that she was ordering the records released because much of the information within them is already public. Some records have been released, either in part or in full, in other court cases. Much of the rest involve topics and people who have been exhaustively covered in nearly two decades' worth of newspaper stories, TV documentaries, interviews, books and testimony at Maxwell's criminal trial. The people named in the records include many of Epstein's accusers, members of his staff who told their stories to tabloid newspapers, people who served as witnesses at Maxwell's trial, people who were mentioned in passing during depositions but aren't accused of anything salacious, and people who investigated Epstein, including prosecutors, a journalist and a detective. There are also names of public figures known to have associated with Epstein over the years but whose relationships with him have been well documented elsewhere, the judge said. Clinton and Trump both factor in the court file, partly because Giuffre was questioned by Maxwell's lawyers about inaccuracies in newspaper stories about her time with Epstein. One story quoted her as saying she had ridden in a helicopter with Clinton and flirted with Trump. Giuffre said neither of those things actually happened. She hasn't accused either former president of wrongdoing. The judge said a handful of names should remain blacked out in the documents because they would identify people who were sexually abused. The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they decide to tell their stories publicly, as Giuffre has done. When will the documents be made public? On Dec. 18, the judge gave the people whose names appear in the records 14 days to appeal, then directed the lawyers to confer, prepare the documents for unsealing and post them on the docket. Two people whose names appear in the records have been given additional time to make arguments to the court as to why their names should stay redacted.

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.

Tel Aviv/Washington, DC — Families of Americans killed and injured in Hamas’ October 7 terror attack in Israel are contemplating a lawsuit against North Korea for indirectly supplying the Palestinian militant group with weapons, according to an Israeli attorney representing the families. Weapons that Hamas used in its surprise attack on Israel were provided by North Korea “knowingly and intentionally,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney and human rights activist who spoke with VOA’s Korean Service in Tel Aviv on December 27. “North Korea knows its weapons go to Iran, and Iran gives the weapons to Hamas,” Darshan-Leitner continued, adding that Pyongyang “never once warned Iran not to send the weapons to Hamas.” This makes North Korea “liable,” she said, explaining that she and her legal associates are considering filing a lawsuit in U.S. court against those countries that supported Hamas, such as Iran and North Korea, on behalf of American victims of the October 7 attack and their families.  More than 30 Americans, many of them dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, were killed in the attack that initiated the latest round of violence between Hamas and Israel. Darshan-Leitner is representing 10 Americans, including family members who lost their loved ones, as well as U.S. citizens who were injured or who incurred property damage in the attack. VOA’s Korean Service contacted the North Korean mission to the U.N. seeking a response to a possible lawsuit against the regime by the American victims of the Hamas attack, but it did not respond.   The attorney said she expects more U.S. victims to join the suit, including hostages seized in October if they return safely. “The burden is on us, the plaintiffs, to prove the case,” Darshan-Leitner said. “We are using experts who know a lot about North Korea, know how North Korean weapons wound up in the hands of Hamas.”   North Korean weapons have been found in Israel and Gaza since the attack on October 7. An Israeli military official said during a media tour in October that about 10% of the Hamas weapons recovered after the attack were made in North Korea. Lieutenant Colonel Idan Sharon-Kettler, deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) enemy equipment collection unit, told VOA’s Korean Service on December 28 in Tzrifin, Israel, that Hamas modified North Korea’s rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to make them more powerful. “We see supplies coming from different countries, among them, North Korea,” said Sharon-Kettler at an IDF facility where recovered weapons were displayed. “The rockets that we find, even the ones that are produced inside Gaza or the ones that are produced in Iran — all of the RPG-7s, for example — are using parts that come from North Korea,” said Sharon-Kettler. He said the rockets were assembled with North Korean rocket engines, which give them capabilities to “penetrate heavy armor” and cause greater damage. Darshan-Leiter said the rockets give Hamas the ability to attack civilians without being inside Israel. “Once Israel built a fence around Gaza, Hamas terrorists can no longer go into Israel and carry out attacks inside,” she said. Before Hamas breached the border fence on October 7, “the only way that Hamas could kill Israeli people is by these rockets.” Normally, foreign states are immune from being sued in a U.S. court under the Foreign Service Immunities Act, unless an exception applies. But if a foreign state is listed as a state-sponsored terrorist group, U.S. citizens can bring a lawsuit against that country. In November 2017, North Korea was redesignated as a state sponsor of terrorism after being taken off the list in 2008. It was first designated in 1988 for blowing up a Korean Airline passenger flight in mid-air the previous year, killing all 115 people aboard. North Korea was sued a number of times over the past several years. The most notable was a suit brought against the regime by the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American student who in 2017 died shortly after returning to the U.S. in a vegetative state following detention in North Korea. A judge from a D.C. federal court ruled in 2018 that Cindy and Fred Warmbier were entitled to $500 million in damages from North Korea. In October, a federal court in New York ordered the New York Mellon Bank to turn over to Cindy and Fred Warmbier approximately $2.2 million in frozen funds originally owned by a sanctioned Russian bank where North Korea’s Air Koryo kept an account. In another case, Americans who were injured and the family members of U.S. citizens killed in an attack at the Lod Airport in 1972 — now Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv — filed a complaint against North Korea in 2022. According to court documents, they are seeking damages from North Korea for its role in sponsoring the attack. The attack killed 26 people and injured 80 and was carried out by three members of the Japanese Red Army who were reportedly recruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The U.S. designated the group as a terrorist organization in 1997 but revoked the designation in 2001 when the group disbanded.

State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the Middle East this week amid intense diplomatic efforts to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and increasing international pressure on Israel to reduce civilian casualties among Palestinians.  Blinken's visit would come as Israel's war with Hamas militants approaches its three-month mark.  Reuters cited a senior U.S. official and reported that Blinken will depart on Thursday for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel. Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, will also travel to Israel to work toward calming tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters Blinken will hold meetings with Turkish officials on Saturday, according to local media.  Senior U.S. officials’ upcoming meetings in the Middle East come at a time when the risk of a broader regional conflict is escalating, despite the collective efforts of Western and regional powers to confine the Israel-Hamas war to the Gaza Strip.  Regional stability  The State Department said the United States remains “incredibly concerned” about the risk of the conflict spreading into other fronts, after the killing Tuesday of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut.  The Israeli army said it was on high alert for attacks by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. This follows a drone strike in Beirut that killed al-Arouri, who was closely associated with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. In a televised speech, Nasrallah said there would be a “response and punishment,” but he did not clearly declare that his forces would escalate attacks against Israel. The U.S. has sent a “very direct message to Hezbollah” and other entities in the region that “now is not the time to think of escalating further” since October 7, according to the State Department. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza shortly after the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants.  “You've seen us take deterrence steps to deliver that message. You've seen us take diplomatic steps to deliver it. We'll continue to deliver it,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a briefing on Wednesday.  The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has also voiced deep concern at any potential for escalation, while urging all parties to exercise restraint.  Earlier this week, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the Israeli strike that resulted in the death of al-Arouri, calling it a "crime" deliberately aimed at dragging Lebanon into a new phase of confrontations.  Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, whose militant allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have also been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.  Humanitarian aid  The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that Gaza is becoming a public health disaster, and recent mass displacement across southern Gaza is fueling disease outbreaks.  More than 400,000 cases of infectious diseases have been reported since October 7, with some 180,000 people suffering from upper respiratory infections. There have also been more than 136,000 cases of diarrhea reported — half among children under the age of 5, according to OCHA.  The U.N. is collaborating with countries to facilitate humanitarian delivery, addressing the critical lack of hygiene and safe drinking water in Gaza.  In Washington, U.S. officials stated their opposition to forcibly removing Palestinians from Gaza. The U.S. is also working on a postwar road map for Palestinian territories.  “Gaza cannot, once again, serve as a launching pad for terrorist attacks against Israel,” Miller told VOA on Wednesday. “What we ultimately want to see is Gaza and the West Bank reunited under Palestinian leadership,” and “certainly there's no role for Hamas in that.”  Hostage release  Meanwhile, intense diplomatic efforts to retrieve the remaining hostages held in Gaza by Hamas militants continue. There are believed to be 129 people still held by Hamas or other militants in Gaza.  Last week, Egypt proposed a plan to end the current military conflict between Israel and Hamas militants, involving a cease-fire, a phased hostage release, and the formation of a Palestinian government of experts to administer the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Details of the plan were reportedly worked out with the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar and presented to Israel, Hamas, the United States and European governments. But the head of Hamas' political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, stated on Tuesday that the hostages will only be released on Hamas' terms.  The State Department said it’s a “top priority” for the U.S. government to bring all hostages home but declined to comment publicly on the negotiations.  Some material for this report came from Reuters.

Mexico City — Mexican authorities have rescued 31 migrants, including women and children, who were kidnapped over the weekend in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, officials announced on Wednesday. Presidential spokesperson Jesus Ramirez confirmed the rescue on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. "They are already in the hands of the authorities and are undergoing the appropriate medical examinations," he added, along with a photo that showed men, women and children, including one holding a stuffed animal. The migrants were "safe and sound," Mexican Interior Minister Luisa Alcalde wrote on X, citing information from the state's governor. Gunmen snatched the migrants on Saturday from a bus on a highway in the municipality of Reynosa, close to Mexico's border with the United States. The bus was destined for Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. Mexican Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said earlier on Wednesday that the kidnapped migrants were from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico. Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina later posted on X that there were six Hondurans among the group, including three teenage girls, whose statements were being taken by Mexican authorities. Colombia's consulate in Mexico City said four Colombian nationals were also part of the group. Asylum-seekers and human rights activists have for months been warning of an escalating kidnapping crisis in the Tamaulipas border region, especially in Reynosa.   The area is the site of an ongoing conflict between two factions of the powerful Gulf Cartel, known as the Metros and the Scorpions, according to a former security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said migrant smuggling and trafficking has become the most lucrative illicit industry in the region. Earlier in the day, Rodriguez said the kidnapping was "unusual" due to the large number of victims, although it's not uncommon for migrants to be pulled off buses and kidnapped in Mexico. Usually, the migrants are forced to beg their relatives to pay ransom money.   She added that authorities were tracking the cellphones of the migrants in efforts to find them. In May last year, 49 migrants, including 11 minors, were released after being kidnapped in the south of Mexico while traveling by bus to the U.S. border.   A record number of migrants traveled across Central America and Mexico in 2023 aiming to reach the United States, fleeing poverty, violence, climate change and conflict.

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

washington — Scientists have found a way to help Alzheimer's drugs seep inside the brain faster — by temporarily breaching its protective shield. The novel experiment was a first attempt in just three patients. But in spots in the brain where the new technology took aim, it enhanced removal of Alzheimer's trademark brain-clogging plaque, researchers reported Wednesday. "Our goal is to give patients a head start," by boosting some new Alzheimer's treatments that take a long time to work, said Dr. Ali Rezai of West Virginia University's Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, who led the study. At issue is what's called the blood-brain barrier, a protective lining in blood vessels that prevents germs and other damaging substances from leaching into the brain from the bloodstream. But it also can block drugs for Alzheimer's, tumors and other neurologic diseases, requiring higher doses for longer periods for enough to reach their target inside the brain. Now scientists are using a technology called focused ultrasound to jiggle temporary openings in that shield. They inject microscopic bubbles into the bloodstream. Next, they beam sound waves through a helmetlike device to a precise brain area. The pulses of energy vibrate the microbubbles, which loosen gaps in the barrier enough for medications to slip in. Prior small studies have found the technology can safely poke tiny holes that seal up in 48 hours. Now Rezai's team has gone a step further — administering an Alzheimer's drug at the same time. Some new Alzheimer's drugs, on the market or in the pipeline, promise to modestly slow worsening of the mind-robbing disease. They're designed to clear away a sticky protein called beta-amyloid that builds up in certain brain regions. But they require IV infusions every few weeks for at least 18 months. "Why not try to clear the plaques within a few months?" Rezai said, his rationale for the proof-of-concept study. 3 patients, 1 drug, 6 months His team gave three patients with mild Alzheimer's monthly doses of one such drug, Aduhelm, for six months. Right after each IV, researchers aimed the focused ultrasound on a specific amyloid-clogged part of each patient's brain, opening the blood brain-barrier so more of that day's dose might enter that spot. PET scans show patients' amyloid levels before and after the six months of medication. There was about 32% greater plaque reduction in spots where the blood-brain barrier was breached compared to the same region on the brain's opposite side, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. This pilot study is elegant but too tiny to draw any conclusions, cautioned Dr. Eliezer Masliah of the National Institute on Aging. Still, "it's very exciting, compelling data," added Masliah, who wasn't involved with the research. "It opens the door for more extensive, larger studies, definitely." More testing on horizon Rezai is about to begin another small test of a similar but better proven drug named Leqembi. Eventually, large studies would be needed to tell if combining focused ultrasound with Alzheimer's drugs makes a real difference for patients. Masliah said it's also important to closely check whether speedier plaque reduction might increase the risk of a rare but worrisome side effect of these new drugs — bleeding and swelling in the brain. Alzheimer's isn't the only target. Other researchers are testing if breaching the blood-brain barrier could allow more chemotherapy to reach brain tumors, and ways to target other diseases.

Denver, Colorado — Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling barring him from the Colorado ballot, setting up a high-stakes showdown over whether a constitutional provision prohibiting those who "engaged in insurrection" will end his political career. Trump appealed a 4-3 ruling in December by the Colorado Supreme Court that marked the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was used to bar a presidential contender from the ballot. The court found that Trump's role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualified him under the clause. The provision has been used so sparingly in American history that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on it. Wednesday's development came a day after Trump's legal team filed an appeal against a ruling by Maine's Democratic Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, that Trump was ineligible to appear on that state's ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state's rulings are on hold until the appeals play out. Trump's critics have filed dozens of lawsuits seeking to disqualify him in multiple states. He lost Colorado by 13 percentage points in 2020 and does not need to win the state to gain either the Republican presidential nomination or the presidency. But the Colorado ruling has the potential to prompt courts or secretaries of state to remove him from the ballot in other, must-win states. None had succeeded until a slim majority of Colorado's seven justices — all appointed by Democratic governors — ruled last month against Trump. Critics warned that it was an overreach and that the court could not simply declare that the Jan. 6 attack was an "insurrection" without a judicial process. "The Colorado Supreme Court decision would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide," Trump's lawyers wrote in their appeal to the nation's highest court, noting that Maine has already followed Colorado's lead. Trump's new appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court also follows one from Colorado's Republican Party. Legal observers expect the high court will take the case because it concerns unsettled constitutional issues that go to the heart of the way the country is governed. All the parties to the case have urged the court to move quickly. Trump's lawyers on Wednesday asked the court to overturn the ruling without even hearing oral arguments. The lawyers representing the Colorado plaintiffs have urged oral arguments but also seek a vastly accelerated schedule, calling for a resolution by next month. Colorado's primary is March 5. Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump in Colorado, said late last month on a legal podcast called "Law, disrupted" that he hopes the nation's highest court hurries once it accepts the case, as he expects it will. "We have a primary coming up on Super Tuesday and we need to know the answer," Grimsley said. The Colorado high court upheld a finding by a district court judge that Jan. 6 was an "insurrection" incited by Trump. It agreed with the petitioners, six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters whose lawsuit was funded by a Washington-based liberal group, that Trump clearly violated the provision. Because of that, the court ruled he is disqualified just as plainly as if he failed to meet the Constitution's minimum age requirement for the presidency of 35 years. In doing so, the state high court reversed a ruling by the lower court judge that said it wasn't clear that Section 3 was meant to apply to the president. That's one of many issues the nation's highest court would consider. Additional ones include whether states such as Colorado can determine who is covered by Section 3, whether congressional action is needed to create a process to bar people from office, whether Jan. 6 met the legal definition of insurrection and whether Trump was simply engaging in First Amendment activity that day or is responsible for the violent attack, which was intended to halt certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Trump held a rally before the Capitol attack, telling his supporters that "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Six of the U.S. Supreme Court's nine justices were appointed by Republicans, and three by Trump himself. The Colorado ruling cited a prior decision by Neil Gorsuch, one of Trump's appointees to the high court, when he was a federal judge in Colorado. That ruling determined that the state had a legitimate interest in removing from the presidential ballot a naturalized U.S. citizen who was ineligible for the office because he was born in Guyana. Section 3, however, has barely been used since the years after the Civil War, when it kept defeated Confederates from returning to their former government positions. The two-sentence clause says that anyone who swore an oath to "support" the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection cannot hold office unless a two-thirds vote of Congress allows it. Legal scholars believe its only application in the 20th century was being cited by Congress in 1919 to block the seating of a socialist who opposed U.S. involvement in World War I and was elected to the House of Representatives. But in 2022, a judge used it to remove a rural New Mexico county commissioner from office after he was convicted of a misdemeanor for entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Liberal groups sued to block Republican Reps. Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection because of their roles on that day. Cawthorn's case became moot when he lost his primary in 2022, and a judge ruled to keep Greene on the ballot. Some conservatives warn that, if Trump is removed, political groups will routinely use Section 3 against opponents in unexpected ways. Biden's administration has noted that the president has no role in the litigation. The issue of whether Trump can be on the ballot is not the only matter related to the former president or Jan. 6 that has reached the high court. The justices last month declined a request from special counsel Jack Smith to swiftly take up and rule on Trump's claims that he is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the presidential election, though the issue could be back before the court soon depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court. And the court has said that it intends to hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump.