“I never wanted to be an activist,” Widakuswara said Friday at American University. She and Jessica Jerreat, Press Freedom editor at the VOA, are two of the plaintiffs in the case seeking to keep the VOA’s funding.

On Friday the two spoke about press freedom, censorship, and their ongoing case against the Trump administration at American University as part of the Centennial Speaker Series, hosted by The Eagle. The School of Communication’s Associate Journalism Division Director, Terry Bryant, moderated the discussion. The lawsuit, Widakuswara v. Lake, is awaiting further action from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Royce Lamberth issued an injunction to restore employees and contractors to their positions, which the government is fighting.

The lawsuit is being brought by Widakuswara and six other journalists, as well as Reporters Without Borders, and a group of unions representing federal workers. A second suit by the director of the VOA was filed five days later. Both challenge the authority of the executive to unilaterally fire all the agencies’ workers and contractors without approval of the U.S. Agency for Global Media Board of Directors. The board had been previously disbanded by the president. So far, the courts have issued injunctions, delaying administration actions, stating that the government failed to ‘provide a single sentence of explanation for the colossal changes that have occurred at USAGM since March 15, 2025’.

The US Agency for Global Media is the parent company of not just VOA, but also Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Middle East Broadcasting Network, and the Open Technology Fund. The networks boast a combined reach of 427 million listeners worldwide in 64 languages.

That was in February. Today, the agency has gone from over 3700 articles and almost 2400 broadcast hours per week down to just 108 articles and 7.5 broadcast hours in 4 languages.

Friday’s conversation was a plea for support. As the September 30 deadline approaches, there is no clear answer on what happens next, and the stakes are high. Numerous diplomats and former VOA employees say that the loss of the broadcaster is a win for America’s adversaries. The Trump administration describes the broadcaster as a propaganda arm of the Democratic party.

The VOA is a unique organization within the federal government. It began as a CIA project to project American ideals throughout the world. It was later transferred to the State Department, which is where the Trump administration intends for it to return. The VOA charter, which was established in the 1994 International Broadcasting Act, ensures by law that the organization remains neutral in the context of American politics, and stands immune to coercion by any party or politician. It’s this ‘firewall’ that Widakuswara and Jerreat are trying to uphold.

According to the Trump administration, the VOA has strayed from that mission.

Widakuswara, the former White House Bureau chief for the VOA, pressed the Prime Minister of Ireland in a March 13 press conference about the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. President Trump responded by asking, “Who are you with?” Soon after, VOA advocates say the administration launched a targeted campaign against the agency. Through the combined efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency, the CEO of USAGM, Kathy Lake, VOA’s parent company, and a March 15 Executive Order, the agency has been hollowed out.

In an article released by the White House the following day, titled ‘The Voice of Radical America’, the administration highlighted . The order, the statement said, ensures ‘that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda’.

The agency has faced accusations of bias and pressure from other administrations and news outlets in the past. In 2001, the agency received pushback from the Bush administration over their intent to broadcast a phone call from a known terrorist after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative leaning think tank responsible for ‘Project 2025’, a conservative playbook for Trump’s second term, wrote in 2020 that ‘New leadership is exactly what Voice of America needs’. The article also accused the organization of liberal bias.

During the Biden administration, The National Review made claims of pro-Islamic bias when VOA journalists were instructed not to call Hamas a terrorist group unless quoting statements. In 2022, the agency was also sued by the conservative American Accountability Foundation for what they called, ‘Pro-Islamic bias in its’ Persian reporting’.

Jerreat and Widakuswara rejected accusations of bias in Friday’s conversation.

“Our journalism stands for itself,” Jerreat said. “We know the parameters of our beats, we’re not critical. We’re factual, and try to keep the stronger emotions out of our work.”

Jerreat said images of Tiananmen Square drove her to be a journalist with a focus on press freedom. She believes Trump is exhibiting the same authoritarian tactics she has studied for years. “I have the privilege to stand up and do this for my colleagues who don’t have that space,” she said.

“I don’t think about it,” Widakuswara said, when asked about the future. “I just try to take it one day at a time. I still have to feed my family.”

Instead, she thinks about the employees they are fighting to protect, many of whom may be forced to return to oppressive regimes if they are not able to keep their visas. She also thinks about her son, a high school senior.

“I want my son to live in a democracy. This is me doing my part to defend that,” she said.

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Thirteen years after police shot and killed an 18-year-old in Maine, an independent review board has been tasked by the state attorney general with a new investigation into whether the shooting was justified.

New information released in a July press conference held by the Lincoln County district attorney and local advocates raised questions about the legitimacy of the original investigation into the shooting. Despite some pushback over the summer, the attorney general’s office agreed to revisit the case in October. The review board’s decision is expected within the coming weeks.

Since the state attorney general began reviewing police use of deadly force cases in Maine in 1990, it has never ruled a shooting unjustified. The decision by the board could lead to the first time in Maine history that one of these rulings is reversed.

The Shooting

After hanging out and drinking with his cousin on a Saturday night in 2007, 18-year-old Gregori Jackson of Whitefield, Maine, called a friend for a ride to go buy some cigarettes. Jackson’s friend lived nearby and came over right away. 91ÇŃ×Ó an hour and a half later, the three of them were on their way to the local, 24-hour gas station on Sept. 23.

According , Jackson entered the gas station, bought a pack, and hopped back into the passenger seat of his friend’s 1995 Red Pontiac. He offered his friend $20 for the ride, saying the only other thing he wanted to do before heading home that night was to drive around a bit with the windows down.

At approximately 2:14 a.m., Waldoboro Police Reserve Officer Zachary Curtis turned on his lights and sirens and began pursuing the vehicle. In the police report filed that night, Curtis stated the vehicle did not fully stop at a stop sign and crossed over the centerline of the road five to six times, although he would change his story multiple times later on.

Jackson’s friends would later tell officers that, when they saw the lights behind them, Jackson became visibly worried and said, “oh my God, oh my God, we’re getting pulled over.” He was on bail for a DUI from earlier that year, and one of the provisions forbade him from carrying or using drugs or alcohol.

Curtis stated in the police report that Jackson repeatedly failed to provide his identity, and he smelled a strong scent of alcohol on Jackson. When Jackson finally told Curtis his real name, the officer said he ran a background check on the spot to determine if the 18-year-old was “wanted” by local police.

When Curtis returned to the vehicle, Jackson reportedly admitted that he was aware of his bail provisions. Curtis removed Jackson from the vehicle and informed him he was under arrest. When the officer tried to handcuff Jackson, Jackson pushed off from the car and sprinted into the woods.

The story of what occurred that night from this point forward is told only from the view of Officer Curtis, and remains disputed, but newly released evidence has shed light on a series of facts that put the officer’s story into question.

According to the police report, Curtis chased Jackson into the woods, where Jackson repeatedly attacked him. Curtis said he feared for his life, and he proceeded to shoot Jackson five times at close range.

A postmortem review from the then deputy chief medical examiner, Dr. Marguerite DeWitt, found that Jackson had been shot three times in his left side, once through his spine, and once in the back of the head.

The officer’s use of force was ruled justified by the Maine state attorney general, and the lawsuit from Jackson’s family was dropped in 2010. Curtis was unable to be reached to provide comment for this story. But according to a 2019 interview with the Jackson family’s lawyer, when asked what he would change if things could be done differently, Curtis said while he “can always second guess” decisions made in the moment, there was “no way to know” how the situation would have turned out.

The Evidence

Since the Maine Office of the Attorney General was given the responsibility of investigating police use of deadly force in the state, it has never found an officer-involved shooting unjustified.

But, the current Lincoln County District Attorney Natasha Irving said it should have been clear at the time that this case was different.

“The dead body and the statements of the police officer were not in accord, they were completely contrary,” she said.

Irving became the DA in 2018, running on a restorative justice platform. She was a resident of the town prior to her election, and she said she was “appalled” by the shooting when it occurred.

“My belief at the time … was that this was a cop that shouldn’t have chased that kid into the woods, and he got himself into a bad situation and ended up shooting him in the back, and it shouldn’t have happened,” said Irving. “After reviewing [the case], I did not believe that the way that the officer said it happened was possible.”

Irving said the attorney general’s record of finding cases justified could give bad cops an expectation that they are able to use deadly force without fear of repercussion.

The police report, filed by Curtis, stated that he had been repeatedly physically assaulted by Jackson both with his fists and with logs picked up in the woods. But, when Irving reviewed the case file, she said she found no evidence that Curtis had been injured aside from three small bruises. She also saw in the medical report that Jackson had no bruising or damage on his hands or forearms, typical injuries found when a person has been in a fight.

According to the medical examiner’s report, the first shot that entered Jackson’s body immediately severed his spinal cord. Curtis said Jackson was belligerent and did not appear to be affected by his first shot, but Irving said she finds it “hard to believe” that an individual with severe spinal injury, even drunk, could continue to fight or attempt to flee.

To Irving, the most damning alleged inaccuracy in Curtis’ story is blood patterns at the crime scene. In the police report, Curtis described the moment at which he began shooting Jackson saying Jackson had tackled him to the ground, was on top of him beating him over the head, and was trying to take away his firearm.

“Now, if you examine the body, and you see the pictures, you can see that the first shot that entered Gregori Jackson’s body exited through the center of his chest and caused extensive bleeding, it turned his white shirt completely red,” Irving said. “And Officer Curtis did not have any blood on his uniform except for what was described as a minute splatter on, I believe, his right upper arm on his badge.”

“Minute splatter,” according to Irving, is defined as blood splatter so small it cannot be seen by the naked eye and can only be detected by using a microscope.

The Culture

After reviewing the evidence, Irving said she is confident that revisiting the case, even 13 years later, could easily lead to a homicide conviction. But, this leaves the question: if the case is so clear cut, why was it ruled justified in the first place?

State Representative Jeffrey Evangelos has been fighting to improve police accountability in Maine ever since he learned of Jackson’s death in 2007. Last November, Evangelos helped he’s repeatedly introduced for over a decade that requires independent reviews of all state police shooting investigations.

Evangelos said the bill was inspired by the “cover-up” by the Waldoboro Police Department and the Attorney General’s office in the investigation into Jackson’s death.

“This family needs justice, just like any family would,” Evangelos said. “An unarmed boy took five bullets in the back, and he didn’t do anything.”

Through public records requests, Evangelos submitted years ago on behalf of the Jackson family, he found a letter dated June 1, 2007, addressed to Jamie Wilson, the acting police chief of the Waldoboro Police Department. It showed the state planned to de-certify Officer Curtis prior to the shooting because he was “unfit to serve.” The letter said Curtis had only completed 100 of his 700 required training hours.

However, the letter signed by Maine Criminal Justice Academy Chairman Brian MacMaster, said that because the department was low on officers, the “extenuating circumstances” of the situation were enough to give Officer Curtis an extension until Sept. 30, 2007. Curtis shot and killed Jackson seven days before he was scheduled to be removed from the force.

After an extended leave following the 2007 shooting, Curtis returned to the force only to surrender his law enforcement license in 2009 after he was accused of theft by the department, which he admitted to in the 2019 interview. He then became a dispatcher for Knox County, but was fired and fined $500 after being convicted of tampering with public records in 2013.

“You had not only an inexperienced and unqualified police officer, you had a police officer who has very, very violent tendencies, who should never have been an officer,” Evangelos said. “You [also] had an investigation stymied by massive conflicts of interest.”

Brian MacMaster has been the Maine state attorney general’s chief investigator since 1990. He investigates and makes rulings on all police shootings. Because MacMaster was responsible for Curtis’ continued time on the force and was in charge of the investigation into Curtis’ shooting, Evangelos said he believes MacMaster had a vested interest in ruling the case justified.

“They should have known right then that this one was in trouble,” Evangelos said. “But they just hammered it through like they do every time, 170 to nothing, that’s our score here in Maine.”

Since 2009, police have used deadly force against 69 people. Of them, 55 were armed with either a firearm, a knife or a blunt weapon. Five were thought to be armed but were later determined to be wielding either a pellet gun or another object mistaken for a firearm. Nine were unarmed.

Although laws have changed to require more training and more stringent reviews of police use of deadly force by the state and independent, citizen-run panels, the number of shootings in the last ten years has increased.

After a spike in 2017, where 13 people were shot by police in Maine, the state began an internal investigation into the increase in the use of deadly force. The Task Force to Review Deadly Force Incidents by Police and identified that the majority of individuals shot by police were drunk, mentally ill or both.

The attorney general’s office conducts investigations into these reports that regularly span two or even three years before a final decision is made. But, Jackson’s investigation was completed in only a little over two months.

When District Attorney Irving decided to take Jackson’s case, she found that the medical examiner had never been interviewed during the investigation, which she said is standard practice whenever dealing with a case that isn’t “crystal clear.”

She declined to comment extensively on the handling of the case by the Waldoboro Police Department, but she noted that there was some “fishy stuff” that happened that night. She said some “very, very standard protocols” when handling evidence were violated by the department.

The medical examiner told Irving she had bagged Jackson’s hands, a common practice with homicide cases, had placed shell casings in the body bag and had, as with everybody, zipped the body bag shut and tagged it.

She said “between the removal of the body from the scene and delivery of the body to the medical examiner’s office” the casings were removed, the tag was broken and the bags conserving Jackson’s hands were removed.

“You have the physical evidence versus the testimonial evidence that doesn’t comport, at least from my perspective, you know, why are we covering for a bad cop?” Irving said.

As of October, the Maine attorney general’s office has allowed an independent review board from New Hampshire to examine their original investigation. Their findings are expected to go public in the coming weeks.

MacMaster declined to comment on this story, but he said in an email that the final decision from the independent review of the case is “forthcoming.”

The post Pressure mounts to re-open state investigation into former Maine police officer who shot and killed a teenager first appeared on 91ÇŃ×Ó.

NEW DELHI—Waste Disposal Driver DD Sil spends his days burdened by the often grueling job of transporting garbage from New Delhi’s streets. Before the Coronavirus, all the waste, tossed in bins around the city, looked the same; black plastic bags, bulging with rotten food and discarded cardboard boxes. It was a dirty job, but not a dangerous one. Now Sil wonders about his safety every day. Though by law, citizens are instructed not to toss masks, gloves and other COVID-19 related waste onto the city’s streets, Sil and his colleagues often find masks and gloves in the black bags of garbage they are transporting.

Sil admitted that this potentially hazardous waste ends up in the landfill unsegregated and said that he and other drivers have pleaded with their superiors and fellow citizens alike to stop putting their lives at risk, but to no avail. “We are seriously worried about our well-being,” said Sil.

During this global pandemic, thousands of minimum-wage workers are now forced to choose between feeding their families and risking their lives.

“I live in garbage,” said Sudhir. One of the many workers tasked with picking up and sorting through garbage from the streets of New Delhi, he is not meant to be segregating biomedical waste. However, according to Sudhir, he and his co-workers find a lot of coronavirus related debris such as masks, gloves and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the garbage bins they have to sort through. These workers have no way of knowing if the waste they are dealing with was generated by COVID-19 positive citizens and are defenseless against the dangers it may pose. “We aren’t given any masks, gloves or even shoes to protect ourselves,” said Sudhir.

Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a mask covered in filth and said, “All I have is this dirty mask which will make me even sicker if I wear it. The only time I put it on is when I see the police because if I don’t, I will be fined 500 rupees and I only make 200 rupees a day.” Despite the danger to his life, he has not been paid in months and is now worried about providing for his wife and children.

Sudhir and Sil are but two of the thousands of minimum-wage workers in New Delhi that have been pushed onto the front lines of a global pandemic. Due to the city’s mismanagement of biomedical waste, it is now facing a waste disposal crisis that has troubling implications for its citizens’ health. According to Dr. Sanjeev Singh, the chief medical superintendent at Amrita Hospital, “If biomedical waste is not disposed of properly, it could be extremely infectious and hazardous for the city’s communities.”

As per state regulations, COVID-19 related waste such as masks, gloves and PPE is treated as hazardous biomedical waste. This waste is meant to be recycled by the city’s waste disposal plants before sent to one of New Delhi’s two landfills. The state government has put into place several regulations intended to ensure that this waste disposal procedure is followed at both an industrial and local level.

However, outside the Sat Nagar crematorium in Karol Bagh, New Delhi, lay piles of abandoned PPE and masks. Used by relatives of the deceased and crematorium staff, disposal of this hazardous waste had been left to the crematorium’s minimum-wage workers. They, like Sudhir, have little choice but to do a life-threatening job.

As part of the government’s efforts to tackle the coronavirus’s spread in local communities, special waste disposal trucks have been designated to collect yellow bags of biomedical waste from COVID-19 positive households. These trucks are meant to distinguish the disposal of coronavirus related waste from the generalized disposal system for private residences. However, in addition to placing waste that has come in contact with coronavirus positive individuals in a yellow bag, COVID-19 positive households are told to maintain their pre-pandemic system of waste disposal for uncontaminated waste, leaving black bags outside their homes for general pickup.

Dinesh Raj Bandella, the deputy program manager of the environmental governments’ team at the Center for Science and Environment, said that this disposal system has generated confusion among citizens, resulting in a lack of execution of government regulations. Alongside a team of others from the Center for Science and Environment, Bandella has been researching waste management during the pandemic.

As part of a research project, he visited nine coronavirus positive homes to assess if COVID-19 related waste disposal. He found that instead of segregating the waste, all households were placing most of it in black bags for regular collection. This method of separation failed to meet the state government’s instructions on bio-waste. Bandella said that in his conversations with these families, it became clear that they were uncertain how to segregate the waste they were generating between black and yellow bags, indicating a lapse in communication between the government and its citizens.

According to Bandella, the consequences of improper segregation at the household level are dangerous. “Once the waste reaches the dumpsite, it’s pretty difficult to differentiate between a COVID-19 positive household or general use masks,” Bandella said. Explaining the gravity of the situation, he said that because the waste in these black bags goes to a dumpsite without treatment, “there are a lot of chances that the waste that ends up in a dumpsite might be from COVID-19 positive households.”

DD Sil, a waste disposal truck driver, is all too familiar with the problem Bandella is describing. Though Sil is meant to be carrying general waste directly to the Ghazipur landfill, he and his colleagues often find masks and gloves in the black bags they are transporting. Sil admitted that this waste ends up in the landfill unsegregated and said that he and other drivers have pleaded with their superiors and fellow citizens alike to stop putting their lives at risk, but to no avail. “We are seriously worried about our well-being,” said Sil.

In addition to the improper execution of government regulations, local businesses and households, often fail to comply with regulations at an institutional level. Biomedical waste generated in hospitals, which now includes coronavirus related waste, is meant to be collected from hospitals by one of the city’s two biomedical waste disposal companies, SMS Water Grace and BioSolutions. It is then taken to their facilities to be recycled before it ends up in the city’s ever-growing landfills, much like waste generated at the local level.

However, on July 10, 2020, the city’s two functional biomedical waste disposal plants were at 90% capacity. According to Dr. Ashok K. Agarwal of the International Institute of Health Management Research, these facilities are “now working outside of their capacity,” and under duress because they cannot manage the increased amount of waste generated during the pandemic. “Most of the waste they get is in the form of PPE kits, masks and gloves and they are under a lot of pressure trying to manage it all,” said Dr. Agarwal.

Dr. Singh affirmed Dr. Agarwal’s fears. He said that while biomedical waste disposal has always been an issue for New Delhi, during the pandemic, the two biomedical waste disposal plants currently in use are not adequate to cater to the city’s 88 hospitals. He also said that hospitals do not know if the waste they are sending to these facilities is disposed of properly.

Each hospital management team member is meant to visit the waste disposal plants every month to ensure that government guidelines are being followed. However, in the amid a global pandemic, these visits have been neglected entirely. “We presume they are adhering to norms, but we also know that the total tonnage of biohazardous waste has increased three times over. We don’t know that they have the capacity, but assume that they do,” said Dr. Singh.

He also explained that the issue goes deeper than disposal of this waste at the plants themselves, with complications arising during the transferring the waste from hospitals to biomedical waste facilities. Dr. Singh said that waste disposal costs are incurred based on occupied beds and are typically in the range of six to eight rupees per occupied bed. Recently, however, waste disposal facilities have been increasing their price per bed, leading to a standstill between hospitals and the waste disposal companies. This conflict creates a situation where waste is not disposed of until payment is resolved, instead of every 24 hours as per state regulation.

Additionally, biomedical waste disposal plants are not the sole party responsible for New Delhi’s current waste disposal predicament. Waste meant to be transported directly from hospitals to biomedical waste plants can be found lying on streets outside the hospitals.

At New Delhi’s GB Pant Hospital, doctors and nurses claimed waste management was not an issue. However, lying just outside the hospital were used gloves, masks and other COVID-19 related waste, mixed in with garbage. With hospitals such as GB Pant dumping bags of biomedical waste onto the streets, the institutions in place meant to keep citizens safe are being questioned.

Violations of government directives are visible not just outside hospital walls but also inside them. As per the health and safety guidelines set forth by the New Delhi state government, hospitals are not permitted to leave waste generated in their facilities in publicly accessible areas. Nonetheless, at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, staff rolled out bins of waste from inside the building, only to leave them in open, public areas where many patients bide time as they wait to be treated. These bins, which remained outside the hospital for several hours, are yet another example of defiance of state laws, which, without enforcement, fail to be effective.

In the past nine months, over 129 thousand people have died of COVID-19 in India. As a country, India has counted 8.73 million cases, a number that is continually increasing. As we get deeper into the pandemic, the systems in place responsible for handling the disposal of coronavirus related waste are becoming taxed. This is expanding the risk, especially for minimum-wage workers. With no immediate solution in sight, this issue could very well get worse before it gets better, leaving us to wonder how many pleas such as those of Sil and Sudhir are going unheard.

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