--:-- Michelle Martin: Missiles fell on a military academy in Ukraine. Russia intensified attacks on Ukrainian cities, including strikes on residential areas, as the government reshapes itself for a lengthening war.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Michelle Martin, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. Israel's prime minister is facing increasingly pointed criticism over Gaza, both outside Israel and in, as protests there continue for a third day.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Rivals accused Benjamin Netanyahu of prioritizing his political survival over Israel's security. Is he losing his grip on power?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Also, a longtime aide to New York State's governor is accused of secretly working for China. I'm furious and I'm outraged and absolutely shocked at how brazen her behavior was. It was a betrayal of trust.
--:-- Michelle Martin: How deep does China's influence go? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. This message comes from NPR sponsor Adobe. Introducing the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio, now with AI-powered PDF spaces.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Need to turn 100 pages of market research into five insights with a click? Templates for a sales proposal that'll close that deal? Or an AI specialist to tailor the tone of your market report? You can do all that with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Ukrainians received two reminders that they are far from the end of the war. Their president is reshaping his government for the next phase of the conflict, and Russia sent waves of missiles into the country, including some that landed on a military academy.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR's Joanna Kakisis is covering this story from Kiev, Ukraine. Joanna, what is this military academy?
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: So, Steve, it's called the Military Communications Institute, and it's in the city of Poltava in sort of the central eastern part of the country. Cadets there learn about digital innovation to help with drone and electronic warfare.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And we spoke to Denise Kleop. He's in charge of a local rapid response team in Poltava. And he said the explosions at this academy were so intense that he felt them almost two miles away.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: And when he arrived to the scene, he says he saw the worst tragedy he's witnessed in the war. He's saying, I have never seen so many dead bodies in one place and so mutilated. In some cases, I couldn't make out that this was a human being lying there.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He said the injured were so dazed and that the missiles came so fast that there wasn't time to shelter.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: Wow. I want to try to get this in perspective, Joanna, because from this distance from the United States, we may lose track a little bit. Is this happening all the time to some degree that missiles are constantly raining on the country?
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: Yes, it's a daily occurrence in Ukraine. There are strikes every day, but this last stretch, last couple of days has been especially bad.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Last night, a university in the northeastern city of Sumy was hit. And early this morning, Russia launched guided missiles and drones all over Ukraine.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: A missile hit a residential building near a train station in Lviv, which is on the far west on the border with Poland. And officials there say at least seven people have died and more than a dozen are injured.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So how is Ukraine's government responding to these attacks?
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: So Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, repeated something he said a lot, that the way to respond is for the White House to finally allow Ukraine to use these long weapons from the U to strike at military targets deep into Russia.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He saying Russian strikes will become absolutely impossible if Ukraine has the ability to destroy launch sites, military airfields and logistics hubs. And he's insisting that this will end the war sooner.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: The White House, though, is saying these strikes could actually escalate the war.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, the concern is, of course, that at some point Russia brings in nuclear weapons. But Haven't we already crossed this line because Ukraine has literally invaded a portion of Russia in recent weeks?
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: Yeah, Ukraine's offensive into Russia's Korsk region shocked everyone, including the Ukrainians themselves.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Ukrainian troops now occupy part of that region, and Zelensky seemed to hope that it could force Russia to the negotiating table. But after the attacks of the last couple of days, that doesn't seem to be happening.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: What is happening, of course, is that Zelensky is reshaping the government. What is he doing?
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: So he announced last night that he wanted to restructure state institutions. And shortly thereafter, all these letters of resignations from his cabinet started pouring in.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And this morning, Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuleba, he's one of the most prominent cabinet ministers, he also offered to resign.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: If parliament accepts these resignations, it's going to be the biggest shakeup since the war began. And it comes at such a precarious time because as Ukraine pushes forward with that offensive in Russia, it's also losing land to Russia in the east. Trying to reorganize for whatever may come next.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Joanna, thanks so much.
--:-- Joanna Kakisis: You're welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's NPR's Joanna Kakissis.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Israelis are growing even louder in demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a ceasefire with Hamas.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Days of protests have followed the news that Hamas killed six hostages, just as Israeli troops were approaching the part of Gaza where they were.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Now, the Prime Minister's critics do blame Hamas for the killings, but they accused Netanyahu of blocking a deal that could have brought the hostages home.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now the critics include one of Israel's leading political figures who was allied with the prime minister until recently.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Hadil El-Shalchi is in Tel Aviv and covering this story.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, that political leader is Benny Gantz, who's a former general and a veteran Israeli politician. What's he saying?
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Yeah, well, last night Gantz came out fighting. He demanded Netanyahu make a deal or quit.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Gantz is the leader of the centrist National Unity Party, and he was part of Israel's emergency war cabinet that was formed after October 7th.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But then he quit in June protesting Netanyahu's handling of the war.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Last night, he said Netanyahu should, quote, hand over the keys and go home.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Netanyahu has lost his way. He sees himself as the state, and that's dangerous, Gantz said.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, Gantz actually doesn't have enough influence to sway Netanyahu. I mean, Netanyahu's own defense minister has tried to get the prime minister to accept a deal, and he refuses to.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: But Gantz's voice yesterday does add to the ever-growing pressure from inside Israel and, frankly, the world, for Netanyahu to just accept a deal and eventually end the war in Gaza.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I want to work through the different viewpoints on what Netanyahu is doing. His critics contend that he's being obstinate for self-preservation, that his far-right coalition doesn't want the deal and they would unseat him, or that if the shooting were to stop, there would have to be an election that he would lose.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Those are the theories against him. But I want to understand the way the prime minister describes his situation.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The outlines of a deal are Israelis stop their assault Hamas releases hostages What does Netanyahu say is wrong with that deal?
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Well, you know the thing is we don't know all the details of the ceasefire proposal that's on the table right now.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But we do know that a major sticking point is the presence of Israeli troops on a strip of land called the Philadelphia Quarter on the Gaza-Egypt border.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Netanyahu is opposed to withdrawing Israeli troops from it. He says that Hamas could smuggle weapons through the tunnels under it and rebuild its military capabilities or even smuggle hostages the other way into Egypt.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And Hamas wants the Israeli military to withdraw completely from the area, which actually is something that Netanyahu's own defense minister is ready to do and says it could be done relatively safely.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Another one of the points of opposition between Netanyahu and some of his fellow Israelis.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I want to ask about another news item. Just after these hostages were killed, including an American, the American Justice Department issued indictments against Hamas leaders.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: What's going on there?
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Right. So the Department of Justice announced last night that they were unsealing indictments of six Hamas leaders, including the group's head, Yahya Senwar.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He's believed to be somewhere in a tunnel under Gaza, you know, directing operations.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: And the charges say that they carried out attacks that killed Americans, including Hirsch Goldberg, Poland.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He was one of the hostages whose death sparked the mass protests in Israel in the past couple of days.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: And, you know, this is a largely symbolic move. Three of those Hamas leaders named are already dead.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Although I suppose others are alive and Israeli airstrikes continue and other kinds of strikes continue on Gaza, correct?
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Yeah, so in Gaza, the death toll mounts. Latest figures after nearly 11 months of war is more than 40,800, according to health officials in Gaza.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Evacuation orders continue displacing Palestinians numerous times to ever-shrinking so-called humanitarian zones, which are really just squalid and not all that safe.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: And also Israel's largest military operation in the West Bank in almost two years continues.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Israeli troops have encircled a number of urban refugee camps like Janine saying they want to root out militants.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: Their Palestinian officials say 33 Palestinians have been killed so far in those raids, dozens of arrests, and Israel says militants have killed three Israeli police officers.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay. NPR's Adil Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Thanks so much.
--:-- Hadil El-Shalchi: You're welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, an aide to New York State's Democratic governor is accused of working secretly for China's government.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The U.S. Justice Department alleges that she was taking payments from China's Communist Party.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Linda's son and her husband, Chris Hu, pleaded not guilty late yesterday at a Brooklyn courthouse.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And NPR's Brian Mann is following all of this.
--:-- Brian Mann: Good morning, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, what does the indictment say?
--:-- Brian Mann: Yeah, it says that Linda Sun, who is an important player in New York politics and government for more than a decade, worked in secret for China as early as 2016, failing to register as an agent of a foreign government.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What the FBI says is that one of her missions, Steve, was to quietly use her influence to block New York officials from having contact with representatives of Taiwan.
--:-- Brian Mann: China, of course, has worked for decades to isolate Taiwan diplomatically.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Sun also allegedly rewrote official pronouncements issued by former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and current Governor Kathy Hochul, shaping those announcements to be more pro-China.
--:-- Brian Mann: Okay, so working for different word choices by a New York state governor, what did China allegedly pay for that?
--:-- Brian Mann: According to the indictment, Beijing officials funneled millions of dollars in cash into businesses owned by Linda Sun's husband, Chris Hu, money the couple allegedly disguised in part by laundering it through luxury real estate.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The FBI also says one Chinese government official showed gratitude to the family by having a chef in the Chinese consulate in New York repeatedly send Nanjing-style salted duck.
--:-- Brian Mann: These payments and gifts allegedly continued for years.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And again, to be clear, Sonnenhu have pleaded not guilty to these charges.
--:-- Brian Mann: They're free on bond this morning with court-ordered restrictions on their travel.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so a little bit of duck, a few million dollars. What does Governor Kathy Hochul say about these allegations against one of her own aides?
--:-- Brian Mann: Hochul says her team first identified misconduct by Sun last year and quickly fired her, reporting her alleged activity to law enforcement.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Hochul spoke last night to NPR member station WNYC.
--:-- Brian Mann: I'm furious and I'm outraged and absolutely shocked at how brazen her behavior was. It was a betrayal of trust.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The scope of what she was capable of doing is shocking.
--:-- Brian Mann: Linda Sun also worked as a top aide to Grace Meng when Meng was in the New York State Assembly.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: She's now a member of Congress from New York.
--:-- Brian Mann: Through much of that time, again, Steve, the FBI says she was actually working for China.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: OK, so I'm trying to think this through, Brian. These are allegations about an aide to the governor of one state.
--:-- Brian Mann: I mean, a big and important state, but one American state.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It makes me think that there must be, if these allegations were true, there must be a very widespread Chinese influence campaign in the United States.
--:-- Brian Mann: The FBI has been warning about this kind of activity for years, urging government officials, state and federal to be vigilant.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I spoke with Casey Michel, who's an expert on foreign lobbying in the U.S.
--:-- Brian Mann: He says there is evidence of influence networks funded by China that operate underground.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We have seen, though, other suspicious, other shady, other potentially unregistered, potentially criminal Chinese-related foreign lobbying networks.
--:-- Brian Mann: Last month, in a separate case, Steve, another New York resident, Xu Jun Wang, was convicted on federal charges.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He worked as a spy on China's behalf.
--:-- Brian Mann: Prosecutors say Wang could be sentenced up to 25 years behind bars if they're found guilty.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Linda Sun and Chris Hu also face serious prison time.
--:-- Brian Mann: Are there other countries that are also trying to influence officials across the United States?
--:-- Brian Mann: Yeah, absolutely, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: U.S. officials say other governments are using similar criminal tactics.
--:-- Brian Mann: In July, NPR reported a former CIA analyst had been arrested for allegedly working as an undeclared agent for the South Korea government, maintaining secret ties in that case to South Korean intelligence officials for more than a decade.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And then last month, former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey resigned.
--:-- Brian Mann: He, of course, was convicted of taking bribes from Egyptian officials in exchange for secretly working on Egypt's behalf in Washington.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The Justice Department describes these latest arrests in New York as another sign they're working aggressively to root out foreign agents and their schemes.
--:-- Brian Mann: Thanks for the reminder of the gold bars, Brian.
--:-- Brian Mann: Appreciate it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's NPR's Brian Mann.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that's Up First for this Wednesday, September 4th.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Your next listen is Consider This from NPR.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson is sharing the story of her life in her new memoir, Lovely One.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Hear how the first black woman to sit in the Supreme Court was lifted up by her family.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Listen to Consider This from NPR.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today's Up First was edited by Carrie Kahn, Rebecca Rossman, Luis Clemens, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Jan Johnson.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Lindsay Totty.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Join us tomorrow.
