A union leader freed from prison vows to continue a strike against Cambodia's's biggest casino

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A union leader freed from prison Monday after serving time for her part in a strike against Cambodia’s biggest casino has vowed to continue the labor action until justice is done.

Chhim Sithar was sentenced in May 2023 to two years' imprisonment for incitement to commit a felony, including time served before her conviction, in connection with the strike against the NagaWorld casino, the longest such labor action in the country's history.

She had been leading a strike of hundreds of workers that began in December 2021 to protest mass layoffs and alleged union-busting at the casino in the capital, Phnom Penh, and was arrested and charged after a January 2022 demonstration of dismissed employees who were demanding to be rehired.

NagaWorld in late 2021 had fired 373 employees during financial struggles related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to The Associated Press at her home shortly after her release, Chhim Sithar vowed to continue leading the strike.

"About our advocacy fighting for union rights at NagaWorld, we will continue holding strike action until we get a solution. That’s the position we have determined since the first strike,” Chhim Sithar said, sitting on the floor surrounded by relatives.

“Unfortunately, as of today, after nearly three years, our workers have still not gotten justice. Therefore, as long as there’s no justice, our struggle continues,” she said.

Speaking later at a news conference at a hall used for union meetings, the 36-year-old said her time in prison did not discourage her, despite overcrowding and limited access to food and basic needs.

“No one wants to be in prison and I can say that we were afraid,” she said. “But I want to make a comparison ... Which one is the scarier? For me, the scare of losing the rights to a union, the scare of losing the right to unionize, is more scary than putting me in jail.”

After Chhim Sithar’s arrest, some dismissed workers continued to hold regular protests, appealing for her release and to get their jobs back. However, the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training announced in December 2022 that more than 200 others had accepted compensation under the labor law and dropped their demands.

“Despite relentless efforts by authorities to suppress the strike — including sexual harassment, physical assaults, and judicial harassment — the LRSU strike continues in Phnom Penh,” the Cambodian human rights organization LICADHO noted Monday.

NagaWorld is owned by a company controlled by the family of late Malaysian billionaire Chen Lip Keong. The company received its casino license in 1994 and the property is a huge integrated hotel-casino entertainment complex.

Chhim Sithar had a message for the international community, thanking unions and other supporters for their solidarity and urging them to continue to call attention to her union's cause at meetings of the U.N.'s International Labor Organization and other forums.

"We do not yet get justice, so please continue support and we hope that the government and the company will recognize the union rights and the worker rights at the workplace,” she said.

Previous labor union actions in Cambodia were usually at factories in outlying areas or in industrial estates in other provinces. The protest by the NagaWorld workers in the capital was unusually high-profile and drew police action that was sometimes violent.

Last year, the U.S. State Department named Chhim Sithar among 10 recipients of its annual Human Rights Defender Award. She was described by the then-U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia W. Patrick Murphy as “a courageous and tenacious labor union leader who peacefully advocates for the rights of Cambodian workers.”

Cambodia’s government has long been accused of using the judicial system to persecute critics and political opponents. Prime Minister Hun Manet succeeded his father last year after Hun Sen ruled for four decades, but there have been few signs of political liberalization.

Chhim Sithar, right, a union leader being freed from prison after serving time for her part in a strike against the country’s biggest casino, speaks to her supporters at a club on the outskirts of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Chhim Sithar, a union leader being freed from prison after serving time for her part in a strike against the country’s biggest casino, speaks to her supporters at a club on the outskirts of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Chhim Sithar, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld, gestures as she meets her supporters in a club at the outskirts of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after the union leader was freed from prison on Monday after serving time for her part in a strike against the country's biggest casino. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Chhim Sithar, second from right, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld, sits near her mother, center, as she meets her staff members in her sister's home at the outskirts of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after the prominent union leader freed from prison on Monday after serving time for her part in a strike against the country’s biggest casino. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Chhim Sithar, second from right, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld, meets with her mother, center, and her staff members in her sister's home at the outskirts of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after the prominent union leader freed from prison on Monday after serving time for her part in a strike against the country’s biggest casino. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Chhim Sithar, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld, smiles as she meets her staff members in her sister's home at the outskirts of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after the prominent union leader freed from prison on Monday after serving time for her part in a strike against the country’s biggest casino. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Donald Trump is taking his message Wednesday to a somewhat unlikely place: suburban New York.

The Republican presidential nominee and former president is heading to Uniondale, on Long Island, an area that could be key to his party maintaining control of the House. His party is trying to protect 18 Republicans in Democratic-heavy congressional districts Joe Biden carried in 2020.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th Annual Leadership Conference in Washington and has trips planned later in the week to Michigan and Wisconsin.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

The House rejected Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal on Wednesday that would have linked temporary funding for the federal government with a mandate that states require proof of citizenship when people register to vote. The vote failed by a vote of 220-202.

Next steps on government funding are uncertain. Lawmakers are not close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that will fund federal agencies during the next fiscal year, so they’ll need to approve a stopgap measure to prevent a partial shutdown when that budget year begins Oct. 1.

Requiring new voters to provide proof of citizenship has become a leading election-year priority for Republicans raising the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S., even though it’s already illegal to do so and research has shown that such voting is rare.

Iranian hackers sought to interest President Joe Biden’s campaign in information stolen from rival Donald Trump’s campaign, sending unsolicited emails to people connected to the Democratic president in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election, the FBI and other federal agencies said Wednesday.

There’s no evidence that any of the recipients responded, officials said, preventing the hacked information from surfacing in the final months of the closely contested election.

The hackers sent emails in late June and early July to people who were associated with Biden’s campaign before he dropped out. The emails “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” according to a U.S. government statement.

The announcement is the latest effort to call out what officials say is Iran’s brazen, ongoing work to interfere in the 2024 election, including a hack-and-leak campaign that the FBI and other federal agencies linked last month to Tehran. The Justice Department has been preparing charges in that breach, The Associated Press has reported.

Read more here.

A new sense of tension hung over the leadup to a Trump rally in Uniondale, New York, following the second apparent assassination attempt on the former president in as many months. Earlier Wednesday, a false report that explosives had been found in a car near the arena during a security sweep circulated online, amplified in some cases by Trump surrogate Elon Musk.

But the recent incidents didn’t scare off Eileen and Bill Deighan, a couple from nearby Yonkers.

“I know some people are scared to come, but I’m not,” said Eileen Deighan, 63, a nurse, who said that she trusted the men and women working security at the venue, even if she harbors some suspicions about higher-ups.

She said she was inspired by Trump’s decision to keep on campaigning given the threats.

“The fact that he didn’t give up, he’s willing to fight for our country, how could you not support that?’ she asked. “That will that he has – doesn’t give up. It’s very contagious.”

She was also there in honor of the couple’s daughter, a nurse, who died last year at the age of 25 and had been a huge Trump supporter.

Eileen Deighan said she knows her daughter is with her.

“Trump,” she said, “has angels, too.”

Bill Deighan, 64, an accountant, was sporting a shirt with Trump’s mugshot and the words “NEVER SURRENDER!” He said he was “absolutely not” scared to come to his second Trump rally, and said if Trump could be here, so could he.

While he’s been a supporter since the former president first came down the escalator in 2015, he said his support has only grown more intense since a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally in July and following Trump’s legal woes.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was asked about the Federal Reserve's decision to cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point.

“I guess it shows the economy is very bad to cut it by that much, assuming they’re not just playing politics. The economy would be very bad or they’re playing politics. One or the other, but it was a big cut,” Trump said on Wednesday in New York City while stopping at a Bitcoin bar.

While at a separate event, Trump's running mate JD Vance said the half-point rate cut was “nothing compared to what American families have been dealing with.”

Trump also called the Teamsters’ decision not to endorse either him or Vice President Kamal Harris “a great honor.”

“It’s a great honor. They’re not going to endorse the Democrats. That’s a big thing. And this is the first time in, I guess, 50-60, years that that’s happened. Democrats automatically have the Teamsters,” Trump said.

He cited the Teamsters' internal polling of members showed he had an advantage over Harris and said he worked with Teamsters members while working in New York City real estate.

A federal judge in Michigan has rejected Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request to remove his name from the state ballot.

Kennedy turned to federal court after striking out with the Michigan Supreme Court. His lawyer argued, among other things, that Kennedy’s First Amendment rights were being violated by having his name listed as the Natural Law Party’s candidate when he has publicly said he’s dropping out and supporting former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy’s “interest in unilaterally withdrawing and having his name removed from the ballot is outweighed by the state’s interest in maintaining the integrity of the ballot,” U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood said.

“If allowed to withdraw, the Natural Law Party will have no candidate on the ticket, no opportunity to replace (Kennedy), and risk losing access to the ballot in the next general election,” the judge said.

Michigan election officials said 90% of ballots have already been printed. Creating new ballots in Wayne, the state’s largest county, just to erase Kennedy’s name would cost $500,000, state attorneys said.

Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance opened up his remarks in Raleigh, North Carolina, by railing against Vice President Kamala Harris’ lack of media appearances.

Vance called her a “dangerous San Francisco liberal” who was pretending to be moderate. He also suggested the lack of interviews meant she would be unable to sit among other world leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in meetings.

“I happen to believe if you want to be the American people’s president, you ought not to be afraid of friendly American media,” Vance said.

Tuesday, Harris sat for an extended, nearly hour-long interview with reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists.

The latter half of his speech focused on economic issues, such as the cost of housing, energy prices and grocery costs. He connected the cost of housing to Democratic policies and illegal immigration — which garnered boos from the crowd. Deportations and building a wall on the U.S-Mexico border to stifle illegal immigration are among Trump’s priorities in office, he said.

He added that he had a message for drug cartels and people in the country illegally.

“Pack your bags, because you’re going home,” Vance said.

Vance mentioned Springfield, Ohio, during his speech, saying he spoke with residents who wouldn’t drive in certain parts of the city because illegal immigrants have made it “unsafe to be on the roads.”

He had a similar message for Harris, saying voters in November need to “send Kamala Harris packing.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to Georgia on Friday to speak about abortion rights following a report that a 20-year-old woman died after medical care was delayed amid complications from a medication abortion, according to a report by ProPublica.

The Harris campaign has worked to highlight the growing consequences of the fall of Roe, including that in some states, women are suffering worse medical care. Harris lays the blame squarely on Republican nominee Donald Trump, who appointed three of the conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

A solid majority of Americans oppose a federal abortion ban as a rising number support access to abortions for any reason, according to a June poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined Wednesday to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for president, saying neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.

“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”

Harris met Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump also met with a panel of Teamsters and even invited O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention, where the union leader railed against corporate greed.

The Teamsters on Wednesday said internal polling of its members showed Trump with an advantage over Harris.

The Teamsters’ choice to not endorse comes weeks ahead of the Nov. 5 election, far later than other large unions such as the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers that have chosen to back Harris.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has criticized Donald Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally.

The Republican former president has pledge to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history if he’s reelected in November. He's provided no detail on how he’d handle it.

Harris questioned Trump’s intentions Wednesday during a speech in Washington to Hispanic members of Congress. She asked whether her rival would need to rely on “massive raids” and “massive detention camps” to achieve his deportation goal.

Trump was expected to appear in Uniondale on New York’s Long Island later Wednesday.

The National Treasury Employees Union endorsed Kamala Harris for president Wednesday.

“When it comes to treating federal employees with respect, valuing their service and investing in their work, Kamala Harris is the clear choice,” said National President Doreen Greenwald. “She shares our values and our commitment to making sure that the federal government works for all Americans. She has been a strong advocate for the issues that matter most to federal employees: fair pay, paid family leave, adequate agency funding and staffing, and robust collective bargaining rights.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has vowed to fire tens of thousands of federal workers if elected. In 2020, Trump issued an executive order called “Schedule F” that would have stripped them of job protections.

Donald Trump and Polish President Andrzej Duda are scheduled to attend the same event this Sunday in Pennsylvania, a battleground state in this year’s presidential election, as Trump seeks to tap into the Polish-American vote.

A meeting between the two at a Polish-American shrine hasn't yet been confirmed, but seemed possible given their friendly ties in the past — and the fact that Duda’s office said it expected a meeting if Trump were to attend.

Pennsylvania has one of the largest Polish-American populations in the county, and both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris want their support. During the recent presidential debate in Philadelphia, Harris appealed to Polish Americans by casting Trump as a threat to the security of Poland and Europe more widely because of his opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Trump won the state in 2016 but Democratic President Joe Biden won in 2020.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder says someone who may have been training a bomb detecting dog prompted false reports of explosives being found near former President Donald Trump’s rally on New York's Long Island.

“There is a person who is being questioned who may have been training a bomb detection dog near the site," Ryder said. "The individual with the bomb dog falsely reported explosives being found and that individual is currently being detained by the police.”

Nassau County officials say social media reports that explosives were found in a car near former President Donald Trump’s New York rally on Long Island just days after the second apparent assassination attempt on him are false.

Christopher Boyle, spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, and Lt. Scott Skrynecki, spokesperson for the Nassau County Police Department, both said Wednesday morning that the reports are unfounded.

“No. Ridiculous. Zero validity,” Boyle said.

“False,” Skrynecki said in a text.

The officials said they would be releasing an official statement later.

Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, posted overnight that “Trump must win” to save the country.

“Unless Trump is elected, America will fall to tyranny,” he wrote to his nearly 200 million followers. He was replying to a post that argued the former president is the only candidate fighting an impending American dictatorship.

The post falls into a recent pattern for Musk, who endorsed Trump in July. He frequently jumps into the political fray with inflammatory commentary during tense moments. He also has repeatedly shared misinformation about elections to his massive audience on X.

Musk’s critics and several election officials have condemned his actions as irresponsible, but the 53-year-old billionaire and many conservatives vehemently disagree. They sharply criticize Democrats for suggesting that speech should be moderated or criminalized and blame the assassination attempts against Trump on the left’s rhetoric.

Representatives for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris ′ transition teams met for the first time at the White House, the Biden administration announced Wednesday, as the outgoing administration plans to smooth the handoff to whomever wins in November.

Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients hosted a meeting Tuesday of the White House Transition Coordinating Committee — the government’s senior-most transition planning group — and for the first time this year included Harris and Trump aides. The meeting and invitation to both parties’ representatives are required under the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that the designated candidate representatives serve in an advisory capacity.

A 22-year-old woman who became an abortion rights advocate after she was raped by her stepfather as a child tells her story in a new campaign ad for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Hadley Duvall says in voiceover that she’s never slept a full night in her life — her stepfather first started abusing her when she was five years old, and impregnated her when she was 12. As she speaks, images of Duvall as a child flash on the screen. The soundtrack of the ad is a song by Billie Eilish, who endorsed the vice president Tuesday.

“I just remember thinking I have to get out of my skin. I can’t be me right now. Like, this can’t be it,” Duvall says. “I didn’t know what to do. I was a child. I didn’t know what it meant to be pregnant, at all. But I had options.”

The ad is part of a continued push by the Harris campaign to highlight the growing consequences of the fall of Roe, including that some states have abortion restrictions with no exceptions for rape or incest. Women in some states are suffering increasingly perilous medical care and the first reported instance of a woman dying from delayed reproductive care surfaced this week.

Voters in northern New Jersey are set to settle a special U.S. House election to fill the seat that opened when Rep. Donald Payne Jr. died earlier this year.

Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver and Republican Carmen Bucco are competing for the seat in the heavily Democratic and majority-Black 10th Congressional District. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy set the special election under state law after Payne died in April. He had served on the House for more than two decades.

Wednesday’s election determines who serves out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends Jan. 3, 2025. The regular election process held in parallel will determine who fills the seat after that. McIver and Bucco are also on the ballot for the full term in the seat, along with third-party candidates.

People line up to hear Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Mich., Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waving before boarding Air Force Two, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)