Biden Pushes For Foreign Aid, Russia Detains U.S. Journalist, Voter Fraud Prevention
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President biden ence says supporting israel and ukraine is vital for america's national security.

We like ro s, and tyrants like putin win.

But will congress agree?

I mean, Martina, that Michelle l. Martin and this is up first from npr news. Russia has detained a second american journalist.

Also, kashima has been charged with fAiling to register as a warn agent. SHE works radio free europe radio liberty, which is funded by the U. S. government. They've called for immediate release, will hear what she's .

being charged with and why our republican LED states leaving a bipartisan group that aims to prevent voter flood N P R S. Miles parks has been looking into the issue, and the effort by rightful and groups to recreate the tool stay with us will give you the news. Need to start your day.

A presidential address from the oval office delivered in prime time is a rare event, and because of that Carries added .

weight that had happened last night, president, but delivered only the second such address of his presidency, explaining what amErica has its because israel and ukraine defend themselves.

You know, history is taught us that when terrorists don't pay a Price for their terror, when dictators don't pay a Price for the aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.

Today, but will formally ask congress to fund ongoing support to both countries.

And our senior White house correspondent, tama h, is now to tell us more about a good morning time. Good morning.

So tell us.

just start by telling us why. President, but I decided to give this speech now. And what he was trying to accomplish with IT.

He is just back from israel, and he wanted to a update people on his experience there until americans. Why should they should care about these conflicts happening in far away lands? And this comes at a critical time. Israel is rapping up for what could be a lengthy military campaign to take out homos emotions are raw and in congress, support for israel is strong. But the warned, ukraine has been going on for nearly two years and fatigue has set in. Biden has been struggling for a months to get congress to pass an aid package for ukraine and the funding to keep sending the weapons is now running out, so the president sought to link israel and ukraine together. In people's minds.

a mom food represent different threats, but they share this in common. They both want to completely animated neighboring democracy, completely animated.

Republicans are more uniformly in favor of supporting israel than democrats are. Meanwhile, democrats are more in favor of of supporting crane then republicans. And the reasons are multifold. But what about is saying here is that both of these countries need the united states, and it's an america's interest for them to succeed, so that countries like china and iran don't. As the president .

seemed to make a point to talk about anti semitism and islamophobia, would you just say more about why that was important as part of the speech?

What what's happening in the middle? Ast has stored up a lot of pain and distrust, and Frankly, like some real ugly ss here at home. And biden talked about a six year old palestinian american boy in lino I, who was murdered in what is being charged as a hate crime.

His name was why dea y. Dea, a proud american.

And after the speech, biden called and spoke with members of his family.

I want to go back to the military assistance that biden wants to supply to ukraine and now israel. What kind of support is biden talking about?

But the main thing in both cases is supplying weapons. And biden main argument last night that giving weapons to these almost isn't pure charity. IT allows the us.

To update its stockpile and supports jobs in defense manufacturer in states like arizona, pennsylvania, ohio and texas. And abandon was clear that american troops are not fighting these these wars. This is an investment, he said, to avoid the us. Getting drawn into a wider conflict.

And we said that the president plans to ask congress for a new funding package. How much money are we're talking about here?

The numbers are going to be large, binton said. The assistance for israel he's requesting is unprecedented. And the reason the White house is going big is because IT is increasingly becoming clear that they may not get another bite at the apple in the next year. That's because of the political instability in the house of representatives, the ongoing lack of a speaker and the rising top opposition to government spending, especially overseas, and the fact that next year is an election year which makes everything just that much more messy.

That's npr senior one house car respond at tam a kid. Tom, thank you so much.

You're welcome.

The russian government has detained an american citizen who worked for the U. S. Government funded radio free europe.

Radio liberty state department spokesman matt Miller says U. S. Government has not yet officially been notified about the arrest appears .

to be another case of of the russian government harassing U. S. Citizen, which is why we need to have a level for travel warning and encourage all the us. Citizens not to travel to russia .

for any reason. Also, kashiwa is now the second american journalist in russian custody, while street journal reporter evan gersh kovach has been jailed more than six months while he awaits trial on espino h charges charges the journal as .

Philip reeve s is in riga and neighbors lava and is following this line test case. We've called him to ask him ipad, good morning. Fill up. Good morning. So tell us more about this latest journalists to be detained.

What SHE is an editor with radio free europe, radio liberty, which is funded by congress and and whose mission is to promote democratic values and and a free press, particularly areas where these are threatened. She's a dual citizen of the U. S.

And russia. She's also a mom with the husband and two kids. SHE lives in proud in the check republic. Her employee ers say that SHE covers ethnic minorities in the russian republics of bashkir stan and targets an, and in fact, he was in tartarean capital city, cosine, when he was detained.

So what do the russian authorities accuse her of doing?

Well, her employers say that he traveled to russia in may because of a family emergency, and they said, but when SHE tried to leave soon after that, SHE was stopped at the airport and accused of fAiling to register her us. passport. Her passports were confiscated, and she'd been waiting for that issue to be resolved.

And now the russians have the on this other charge that are fAiling to register as a foreign agent. Now this is under a law which the authorities can label organizations and individuals as foreign agents if they receive funding from overseas and are engaged in political activity. Here in latvia, there are hundreds of independent russian journalists who moved here since the invasion of ukraine because they can't Operate safely or freely in russia. I've spoken to a number of them, and they said many of them have been labelled foreign agents. And they say this law is at all that ara uses increasingly to intimidate its critics and silence for free medium civil society.

And and what about have we heard from radio liberty, radio free europe? Have they responded to this event yet?

indeed. I mean, her employee ers are calling for her to be released immediately and to be allowed to go home. That same call is coming from the committee to protect journalist is expressing deep concern, IT says.

These criminal charges are, is, and more proof that rushes determined to stifle independent reporting. In fact, this alarm dismay over this coming from many quarters. And obviously.

you know, Britney grant, the basketball star, is not a journals. But there is certainly echoes of that here. If this journalist is convicted, what could happen to her?

Well, this charge Carry a variety of different potential penalties, the maximum of which is a prison sentence of five years. Russia has been accused of detained americans to use them as bargaining chips to exchange for russians jailed in the united states. You mentioned the case of britain. I grinner SHE was released in a december after a president biden negotiated a prisoner salt swap with lama putin. Obviously, commissioners, employers and family will be hoping things don't reach that stage.

That's npr. Phillip reefs in riga. Feel thanks. You're welcome.

A far right campaign is pushing states to pull out of a tool that catches voter fraud, and now those states are scrambling for new ways to do the same work.

Earlier this year, M P R investigated how misinformation was driving republican LED states to withdraw from a byword san group known as the electronic registration information center.

or eric P R. Voting correspondent miles parks LED than investigation. And he's been following efforts on the right to essentially recreate eric.

And he's here with us now in the studio to tell us more about good morning miles. Hey, good morning. okay.

So nine states have now withdrawn from this eric group. Would you just start by explaining what IT is and why? Why is important?

sure. So eric is a unique partnership that allows state governments to share government data, all effort to catch voter fraud and keep list up today. Keeping voting this up today makes voting easier for people. That also increases election security. So earlier this year, lies about the system started going viral and conservative media leading to this pressure on republican election officials to pull their state out. But the thing is, these states still want to be able to find, when somebody votes in more than one state, they still want to be able to use postal service information, for instance, to know some changed addresses. Josh animals, who is a former republic and county clerk in utah, told me that that's LED to the sort of mad ash to recreate what error was provided to the states.

These states have decided that instead of using a wheel, they're instead going to invent a spiral device that will allow them to easily transport items from a to b.

But IT is important to note that eric took years and millions of dollars to develop.

So, you know, Daniel sounds sceptical. This effort we create, IT, is actually possible. What do about this effort?

So rather than a single hub for all of this data, what we're seeing is a bunch of individual partnership to share this this data one to one. A number of public ican secretary have announced these sort of partnership partnerships in recent weeks, but with a couple key differences to erik. The biggest one, experts say, is that when you look at these agreements, the states don't actually seem to be sharing enough data to create reliable reports.

So can you say more about that? If sharing voting data, why can't they share what they were giving this eric problem? yes.

So what makes eric special is also what makes a kind of complicated IT gets data not just from a state voting official, but also from a state dmv, which experts say is really important to be able to say with more certainty, that of john smith, for instance, who votes in arizona is the same john Smith as somebody who votes in connect kate. But these new partnerships that have just been announced do not involve that dmv information that's really hard to illegally get and share. I talked about that with Michael morse, who is professor, the university of pennsylvania.

who studies voting. I can see a case in which the state by state agreements that don't involve the sharing of confidential information can be more accurate and IT can be. In other words.

these states are recreating a portion of area just with less data and less reliable information.

Of course, people, the right one, who been most vocal about their concerns about alleged voter ford, but now you're reporting also found that that some of these rights in groups are trying to get into list maintenance, right? yes.

So conservative activists are essentially trying to market their own fraud finding software to states and local government. There's no indication at this point that states are taking up in these offers that are contracting with these sorts of groups. But what we're seeing is the same people who were pressuring state officials to leave eric are now pushing their own products for these states to try to do list maintenance. Potentially, these products could also be used by citizens to make public records request and generally just push this idea that elections are fragile in the U. S.

That is entire smiles park miles.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that's up first for friday, october twenty of I Michelle Martin .

and I mean Martina. Up first is produced by monster corona and kt cline. Our editors berta rampton Peter Y N H J mib. Our technical director is called strange and our director is lenzing tody. Our executive producer is eric I A.

And don't forget up first air on saturday too. And you should asking and Scott Simon have the news. You can get that here in this feed or wherever you get your podcast.