Tourists in central Athens huddled under mist machines, and zoo animals in Madrid were fed fruit popsicles and chunks of frozen food, as southern Europeans braced for a heat wave Thursday, with a warning of severe conditions coming from the European Union’s space agency.Emergency measures – including staffing changes, cellphone alerts, and intensified forest fire patrols – were readied or put into effect in several countries as temperatures in parts of Mediterranean Europe were set to reach 45 degrees Celsius (113F) Friday and into the weekend.<h2>Working hours were changed</h2>In Athens and other Greek cities, working hours were changed for the public sector and many businesses to avoid the midday heat, while air-conditioned areas were opened to the public.-"It’s like being in Africa,” 24-year-old tourist Balint Jolan, from Hungary, told the AP. “It’s not that much hotter than it is currently at home, but yes, it is difficult.”The high-pressure system, which crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa has been named Cerberus, after the three-headed dog in ancient Greek mythology who guarded the gates to the underworld. It is being tracked by the European Space Agency.- Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heat wave, with temperatures expected to climb to 48 degrees Celsius on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe - the agency said Thursday.<h2>High temperature</h2>In the Arctic, a record high temperature of 28.8 degrees Celsius (83.8 degrees F) was measured at Slettness Fyr on the northern tip of the Norway, Norwegian meteorologists said Thursday. This tops a previous record from July 1964 when the thermometer reached 27.6 degrees Celsius (81.7 degrees F).The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization on Monday said global temperatures recorded in early July were among the hottest on record.

In Athens and other Greek cities, working hours were changed for the public sector and many businesses to avoid the midday heat

A heat wave named Cerberus has southern Europe in its jaws, and it's only going to get worse

The bodies of dozens of people allegedly killed by Sudanese paramilitary forces and an allied militia have been uncovered in a mass grave in West Darfur, the United Nations said Thursday.According to “credible information" obtained by the U.N. Human Rights Office, at least 87 people — some of them from the ethnic African Masalit tribe — were killed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and an affiliated Arab militia. Their bodies were dumped in a one-meter (around three-foot) grave just outside the West Darfur city of Geneina, the agency said.<h2>Open fighting</h2>Sudan has been rocked by violence since mid-April when tensions between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into open fighting.Darfur has been one of the epicenters of the 12-week conflict, morphing into an arena of ethnic violence with the paramilitary troops and allied Arab militias attacking the Masalit and other African ethnic groups.The first 37 bodies were buried in the shallow grave on June 20, the U.N. agency said in a statement from Geneva. The next day, another 50 bodies were dumped at the same site. Seven women and seven children were among those buried.RSF and Arab militia forced local residents to bury the bodies, the U.N. agency said. The killings took place between June 13 and June 21 in the Al-Madaress and Al-Jamarek districts of the city, following the violence that erupted in the aftermath of the assassination of West Darfur’s governor, it added.<h2>Unclear circumstances</h2>The governor, Khamis Abdalla Abkar, had accused the RSF and allied militias of attacking local communities across Geneina in an interview with Saudi-owned television station, Al-Hadath. Hours later he was abducted and killed under circumstances that remain unclear.Over the past two months, the paramilitary and their allies rampaged through West Darfur, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, rights groups say. Just over 238,000 people have crossed the border into neighboring Chad, according to recent figures from the International Organization for Migration. Amid the pillaging, entire towns and villages in the province of West Darfur have been burned to the ground and looted.<h2>Summary executions</h2>News of the mass grave comes just days after Human Rights Watch called for the International Criminal Court to investigate atrocities in Darfur. In highlighting its call, it pointed to the “summary executions” of at least 28 Masalit tribesmen at the hands of RSF and allied Arab militias in the town of Misterei, also in West Darfur province.The New York-based rights group said that several thousand members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and their allies rampaged through Misterei on May 28 armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, before slaughtering its Masalit male inhabitants. A total of 97 people were killed in the attack, it said.Darfur had been the scene of genocidal war in the early 2000s, when ethnic Africans rebelled, accusing the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum of discrimination. Former dictator Omar al-Bashir’s government was accused of retaliating by arming local nomadic Arab tribes, known as Janjaweed, who targeted civilians.

Their bodies were dumped in a one-meter (around three-foot) grave just outside the West Darfur city of Geneina, the agency said

Mass grave with at least 87 bodies found in Sudan's volatile Darfur region, United Nations says

United Nations: Mass grave with at least 87 bodies found in Sudan's volatile Darfur region

Russian lawmakers on Thursday approved a toughened version of a bill that outlaws gender transitioning procedures, with added clauses that annul marriages in which one person has “changed gender” and bar transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents.The bill received swift, unanimous approval of Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, in its key second reading, and lawmakers scheduled the third and final reading for Friday. There is little doubt that the bill, a crippling blow to Russia's oppressed LGBTQ+ community, will be adopted amid the Kremlin's crusade to protect what it views as the country's “traditional values.”The bill bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.<h2>Russia's Family Code</h2>New clauses added to the bill also amend Russia's Family Code by listing gender change as a reason to annul a marriage and adding those “who had changed gender” to a list of people who can't become foster or adoptive parents.Lawmakers portray the measure as protecting Russia from “the Western anti-family ideology,” with some describing gender transitioning as “pure satanism.”It has rattled the country's transgender community and has drawn criticism not only from LGBTQ+ rights advocates but from the medical community as well.<h2>The crackdown on LGBTQ+ people</h2>Lyubov Vinogradova, executive director of Russia's Independent Psychiatric Association, called the bill “misanthropic” in an interview with The Associated Press. Gender transitioning procedures “shouldn't be banned entirely, because there are people for whom it is the only way to ... to exist normally and find peace with themselves,” Vinogradova said.The crackdown on LGBTQ+ people started a decade ago, when President Vladimir Putin first proclaimed a focus on “traditional family values,” a move ardently supported — and fueled, to a certain extent — by the Russian Orthodox Church.In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, Putin pushed through a constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage.<h2>West’s “degrading” influence</h2>But the authorities ramped up their rhetoric about protecting the country from what it called the West’s “degrading” influence after sending troops into Ukraine last year, in what rights advocates saw as an attempt to legitimize the war.Lawmakers moved last year to ban “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among adults. That initiative was quickly rubber-stamped, and by December 2022, any positive or even neutral representation of LGBTQ+ people in movies, literature or media was outlawed.The bill to severely restrict trans rights came a few months after that.

The bill bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents 

Russian lawmakers move to further restrict transgender rights in a new legislation

Schools and colleges were closed after record monsoon rains led to massive waterlogging, road caves-in, collapsed homes and gridlocked traffic in large parts of northern India this week, killing more than 100 people, officials said Thursday.At least 88 people died and more than 100 were injured in the worst hit-mountainous Himachal Pradesh state where cars, buses, bridges and houses were swept away by swirling flood waters, a state government statement said. The region is nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of New Delhi.Twelve people have died of rain-related incidents since Wednesday in Uttar Pradesh state, said Shishir Singh, a state government spokesman.Nine of them drowned, two died after being struck by lightning and one was killed by a snake bite, Singh said.One person died in New Delhi and four were killed in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir, officials said.<h2>Great damage</h2>Authorities used helicopters to rescue nearly 300 people, mostly tourists, who were stranded in the Chandertal area in Himachal Pradesh state since Saturday. They included seven sick people who were airlifted on Tuesday, the government said.Nearly 170 houses have collapsed and another 600 were partially damaged by heavy rains and landslides in the state, the state emergency operation center said.In New Delhi, residential areas close to the Jamuna River were flooded, submerging roads, cars and homes, leading to the evacuation of thousands of people from low-lying areas.<h2>Blockade</h2>Dozens of cars were blocked by sheets of water, throwing the movement of vehicles into disarray during the morning rush hour in New Delhi on Thursday.The water level of the Jamuna River flowing through the Indian capital topped a 40-year record and reached 207.71 meters (681.5 feet) on Wednesday evening, according to a statement by the office of New Delhi’s top elected official, Arvind Kejriwal.Authorities have moved nearly 30,000 people to relief camps and also converted some schools into relief camps in the badly hit areas, the statement said. Hundreds of people with their livestock also have taken shelter under overhead road bridges in the eastern parts of the Indian capital.Rajesh Singh, a factory owner, was stuck with his motorbike for hours with floodwater blocking both sides of the road near the river bank. “I have never seen anything like this in the past 22 years.”<h2>Abnormally high levels of water</h2>- New Delhi hasn’t seen a lot of rain in the past two days, but the river level has risen due to abnormally high levels of water discharge from Hathni Kund barrage in neighboring Haryana state - Kejriwal said.India’s weather agency has forecast more heavy rains in northern parts in the coming days. It said monsoon rains across the country have already brought about 2% more rainfall than normal.India regularly witnesses severe floods during the monsoon season, which runs between June and September and brings most of South Asia’s annual rainfall. The rains are crucial for rain-fed crops planted during the season but often cause extensive damage.Scientists say monsoons are becoming more erratic because of climate change and global warming, leading to frequent landslides and flash floods in India’s Himalayan north.

At least 88 people died and more than 100 were injured in the worst hit-mountainous Himachal Pradesh state

Peope wade through a flooded street in New Delhi, India

Record monsoon rains have killed more than 100 people in northern India this week

Turkey made a surprise pledge to drop its opposition to Sweden joining NATO, paving the way for the Nordic country to become a member of the Western military alliance.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Turkey had agreed to support Sweden’s NATO bid – by putting the issue to a vote in Parliament -- in return for deeper cooperation on security issues and a promise from Sweden to revive Turkey’s quest for EU membership.The agreement, which Stoltenberg heralded after talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, also says the two countries will step up trade and investment with each other.Hungary, the only other NATO holdout on Sweden, is expected to drop its opposition, too. Hungary’s foreign minister said Tuesday that his country’s ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership was now just a “technical matter.”Erdogan has been uncharacteristically quiet since the agreement was publicized, declining to comment on the reasons for his apparent change of heart.It remains to be seen how quickly the issue will be taken up by Turkey’s Parliament.Here are key factors, and possible incentives, that Turkey is considering as it weighs Sweden’s entry into NATO.<h2>Turkey is concerned</h2>Erdogan's opposition to Swedish membership in NATO had focused heavily on his belief that the Nordic country has been too lenient toward elements of the Turkish and Kurdish diasporas that Turkey views as security threats — namely, people associated with militant Kurdish groups and others connected to a 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan.An agreement signed between Turkey, Sweden and Finland last year set out to tackle some of these concerns, and Sweden recently tightened its anti-terrorism laws, making support for an extremist organization punishable by up to eight years’ imprisonment.Sweden says it has cracked down on the activities of people connected to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a 39-year insurgency in Turkey. And under the agreement outlined Monday, Sweden said it would also work against the Syrian wing of the PKK, known as the YPG.A related issue for Erdogan has been anti-Turkey and anti-Islam protests held in Stockholm, some of which involved the burning of the Quran.Although condemned by the Swedish government, the demonstrations drew strong reaction from Turkey. The Turkish government has criticized Sweden — which has strong free-speech protections — for “allowing” public displays of anti-Muslim sentiment.But how Sweden deals with Kurdish militant groups has always been way more important for Turkey than the protests, said Cigdem Ustun, secretary general of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul.Ustum described Turkey’s statements over the Quran-burnings as “a tool in the negotiations.” adding that “for Turkey it was mainly about terrorist organizations.”<h2>F-16 Fighter jets</h2>Erdogan's promise to Stoltenberg to reverse course on Sweden’s NATO membership may also have been linked to Turkey's efforts to upgrade its fleet of F-16 fighter jets.Turkey has asked the U.S. for approval to buy 40 new F-16s, as well as kits to upgrade its existing fleet. The request was backed by the White House but ran into opposition in Congress. Both U.S. and Turkish officials have insisted that any such deal would not be linked to Sweden’s NATO membership.But within hours of Erdogan apparently dropping his veto on Sweden, President Joe Biden signaled that the U.S. intended to proceed with the F-16 sale in consultation with Congress. In a statement welcoming Erdogan's agreement to bring Sweden's NATO bid before Parliament, Biden said he will work with Turkey “on enhancing defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area."The biggest critic of any deal for F-16s, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J, appeared to soften his stance, saying “there may be a way forward.” Menendez has opposed any F-16 deal because of the potential threat to Turkey's neighbor Greece.The F-16s “have been an important part of the negotiations although there’s no formal link," said Ustun. "It’s obvious there’s been some progress in that regard.”<h2>EU Member</h2>Early on Monday, Erdogan made a surprise warning that he would block Sweden’s attempt to become a NATO ally unless European members of the military organization “pave the way” for Turkey to join the world’s biggest trading bloc.It was the first time that Erdogan had linked the two countries’ aspirations in this way.Following his remarks, European officials rebuffed any link between Sweden’s NATO membership and Turkey's 36-year bid to join the EU.- You cannot link the two processes - European Commission spokesperson Dana Spinant said.Stoltenberg reiterated the point, saying that Turkey’s relationship with the EU was “not an issue for NATO, it’s an issue for the European Union.” But, he told reporters that “what Sweden agreed today as an EU member was to support actively the efforts to reinvigorate Turkey’s EU accession process.”Sweden also said it would seek improved customs arrangements and take steps to implement visa-free European travel for Turkish citizens.Still, few expect any accelerated movement on Turkey's EU membership talks, which stalled in 2018 because of the country's democratic backsliding and poor record on human rights.<h2>Turkey’s show</h2>Some see Turkey’s show of support for Sweden as a sign that Erdogan is readjusting foreign policy to become closer to the West – and more distant from longtime ally Russia -- following his election victory in May.Turkey has significant trade, tourism and energy ties to Russia, and has maintained close relations with both Moscow and Kyiv during the Ukraine war. For example, Turkey has not joined U.S. and European sanctions against Russia, and it helped arrange a deal to allow exports of Ukrainian grain to avert a global food crisis.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said Turkey’s acceptance of Sweden in NATO was not a surprise. Asked if Russia was worried about Turkey edging closer to the West, Peskov said “we intend to develop our dialogue, our relations with Turkey where it benefits us and benefits them.”The show of support for Sweden, however, follows several other recent Turkish decisions that could be viewed as snubs to Moscow.Last week, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Erdogan backed calls for Ukraine’s NATO membership and agreed to return Ukrainian commanders who were supposed to remain in Turkey as part of a deal to end a siege in the city of Mariupol last year.Timothy Ash, an economist specializing in Turkey at London’s BlueBay Asset Management, said Erdogan was looking to bolster relations with the West in order to stave off Turkey’s severe economic problems. He also linked Erdogan’s decision to last month’s coup attempt in Russia, which he said made Putin appear weak.

Key factors, and possible incentives, that Turkey is considering as it weighs Sweden’s entry into NATO

Turkey's pledge of support for Sweden's NATO entry

Turkey's pledge of support for Sweden's NATO entry is tied to goals on security and EU membership

Beachgoers rushed out of the water after spotting a fin ominously emerging above the waves at a Spanish beach.Locals and tourists were seen running up and down the sand to alert swimmers as they feared a shark was about to launch an attack.The mystery sea creature stalked the shore of the beach in La Antilla, a small resort town in the municipality of Lepe in southwest Spain.Panicked sun worshippers were seen looking on in horror in dramatic footage as the animal approached on Tuesday.Its fearsome fin hovered above the shallow waters while it splashed around just metres away from swimmers and youngsters on paddle boards.The creature loitered for just over a minute as a crowd of people gathered on the beach before it headed back out to sea.

But its explosive appearance inevitably caused a stir among locals who were desperate to find out what it was.Most people assumed it was a shark due to the huge spike in sightings off the Spanish coast throughout the year.Local police described the surprise guest on the shoreline as a Cuvier's beaked whale, the world’s deepest-diving mammal.They encouraged residents to "stay calm" and put the shark rumours to bed in a social media post last night.

Panicked beachgoers were seen looking on in horror

Dramatic moment terrified tourists flee ‘shark’ at Spanish beach as fin cuts through water

Beach panic: Dramatic moment terrified tourists flee "shark" at Spanish beach 

A car ramming attack Monday near a popular Jerusalem market wounded five people and the driver was shot and killed, Israeli police said, as the country was set to memorialize its fallen soldiers. The statement said the driver of the car was shot and killed at the scene near the bustling, open-air Mahane Yehuda market. A 70-year-old man was in serious condition, police said. It was the latest bloodshed in a yearlong wave of near-daily violence that has gripped the region.The Magen David Adom medical service said five injured people in Jerusalem were transferred from the scene of the car ramming to a hospital. Israeli media identified the attacker as Hatem Nejima, 39, a married father of five from east Jerusalem, who may have suffered from mental illness.<h2>The police statement</h2>Police said the attacker “deliberately hit several pedestrians, some of whom were crossing the road,” and attempted to drive backwards before a bystander shot and killed him. The police statement said the attacker's medical background was being investigated.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking elsewhere in Jerusalem, said the attack was an effort to “murder” Israelis.The violence came as Israel was set to mark its Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of militant attacks, beginning at sundown Monday, followed by its 75th Independence Day the following evening.Israel was set to close off the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to all Palestinians wishing to leave except for humanitarian cases, a closure expected to continue until late Wednesday. Israel regularly tightens its restrictions on movement out of the West Bank and Gaza during holidays in what it says is a security precaution.Hours earlier, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, Israeli forces operating in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank killed a Palestinian man. The ministry identified the man as Suleiman Ayesh Awaid, 20, and said he was fatally shot in the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp. The camp has repeatedly been the scene of fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinians in recent months.The Israeli military said it was operating in the area when two suspects were spotted fleeing. Soldiers opened fire and struck at least one of the suspects.Violence between Israel and the Palestinians has spiked over the last year, after a bout of Palestinian attacks prompted Israel to launch near-nightly arrest raids into West Bank cities, villages and towns.Israel says its raids are essential to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks, but violence has shown no sign of abating. The Palestinians say the raids entrench Israel’s 56-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for a future independent state.Bloodshed has only intensified since the start of this year. So far this year, 95 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to a tally by The Associated Press, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups. During that time, 19 people were killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.<h2>The holy month Ramadan</h2>Tensions have been particularly high over the last month, as Muslims marked the holy month of Ramadan, which this year coincided with the Jewish holiday of Passover. Earlier this month, an Israeli police raid on Muslim worshippers at a sensitive Jerusalem holy site touched off rocket salvos from militants in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Syria, which Israel responded to with air strikes.Also earlier this month, Palestinian gunmen killed three British-Israeli women — a mother and two of her daughters — as they were driving in their car in the West Bank. In a separate incident, an Italian tourist was killed and five others were wounded when a Palestinian-Israeli's car careened onto a bike path near the beach in Tel Aviv in what authorities described as a suspected attack.

The Magen David Adom medical service said five injured people in Jerusalem were transferred

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking elsewhere in Jerusalem, said the attack was an effort to “murder” Israelis

Police say 5 wounded in ramming attack near Jerusalem market

Strong storms with tornadoes and hail killed at least two people in the central U.S., injuring others, destroying homes and leaving thousands without power. More severe storms were predicted for Thursday night. The National Weather Service began issuing tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings Wednesday evening in Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa, with forecasters warning people to find shelter.Central Oklahoma saw tornadoes, including one that raced through the communities of Shawnee and Cole.At least two people were killed in the small town of Cole in McClain County, about 25 miles (41 kilometers) south of Oklahoma City, authorities said. There also were injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to some requiring hospitalization, although the numbers weren't immediately clear as hundreds of people fanned out in search operations.“It is reasonable to expect possibly more based on the damage that we’ve seen,” McClain County Deputy Sheriff Scott Gibbons said on NBC’s “Today Show” of the potential for additional deaths to be confirmed.Power lines also were torn down, trees toppled, and homes and other buildings badly damaged or destroyed. Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee and an airport were damaged before the tornado moved away and weakened.“We do not have a number of homes or businesses damaged, but we do know that significant damage occurred,” Benny Fulkerson, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said in a statement late Wednesday.At the peak of the severe weather, more than 23,000 customers were without electricity throughout Oklahoma, according to PowerOutage.us.KFOR-TV reported that residents south of Oklahoma City said they were trapped in their underground shelters, mailboxes were blown away, and emergency crews used GPS to find addresses, according to the McClain County sheriff.Two people in the town of Cole rode out the storm in a manhole and were not hurt, the television station reported.An additional round of tornado-producing storms was expected Thursday night, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.“Very large hail is likely, and significant severe wind gusts along with a few tornadoes will be possible” in northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and parts of Missouri and Nebraska, according to the center.The area currently at greatest risk includes about 3 1/2 million people and the cities of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Norman and Edmond, Oklahoma, and Omaha, Nebraska.Storms this spring have spawned tornadoes in the South, Midwest and Northeast, killing dozens of people.An April 1 storm produced tornadoes that killed at least 32 people from Arkansas to Delaware, and days later a tornado left five dead in Missouri. At least 26 died in Mississippi and Alabama when tornadoes during late March storm carved a path of destruction through the Deep South.

The National Weather Service began issuing tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings Wednesday evening in Oklahoma

Tornadoes kill 2 in central US; new storms possible Thursday

Former President Donald Trump has emerged largely unscathed politically from his New York indictment. But a new poll suggests that investigations in Georgia and Washington could prove more problematic. Only 4 in 10 U.S. adults believe Trump acted illegally in New York, where he has been charged in connection with hush money payments made to women who alleged sexual encounters, according to the new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. More — about half — believe he broke the law in Georgia, where he is under investigation for interfering in the 2020 election vote count.The poll finds about half feel similarly about his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and his handling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, which are both under investigation by the Justice Department.The findings suggest potential future charges in those cases against Trump may resonate more deeply with the American public than his alleged cover-up of payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels and other women at the height of the 2016 campaign — charges that nearly 6 in 10 adults believe were politically motivated. While the case drew intense media coverage and made Trump the first former president in U.S. history to be charged criminally, legal experts have long argued that the other investigations pose far more serious potential risk.The Georgia case, in particular, concerns even some longtime Trump supporters.“I just feel like he kind of got himself involved in something that he shouldn’t have. I don’t know if it's necessarily illegal, but just let the votes be the votes," said Stephanie Trinidad, a Republican who lives in Dracut, Massachusetts, and voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.The poll offers further evidence that Trump has faced limited political fallout from the indictment, which instead proved a massive fundraising boon. His campaign has raised more than $15 million since news of the indictment broke — much from new donors — and he has rolled out a list of new endorsements.While the poll finds only 30% of Americans, including 55% of Republicans, say they want Trump to run for president again in 2024, those numbers have changed little since an AP-NORC poll conducted in January. Trump's favorability has also held constant: 34% of U.S. adults overall and 68% of Republicans say they have a favorable opinion of him, similar to three months ago.Still, Trump, who remains the undisputed front-runner for the Republican nomination, would face substantial headwinds if he wins the Republican nomination. About half of Americans — 53% — say they will definitely not support him in the general election if he emerges as the GOP nominee, according to the poll.When it comes to the New York case, the poll found 41% say Trump did something illegal. Thirty-three percent say they believe he did something unethical but not illegal. Only a small minority — 14% — say he did nothing wrong.A majority of Americans – 57% — say Trump’s indictment in the case was justified, the poll shows, but just as many say they believe the charges were politically motivated.They include Gino Lentine, a loyal Trump supporter from Akron, Ohio, who said he doesn't “give two hoots” about the case.“If you’re going to lock up every guy in the world — and every girl — who cheated on their spouse and paid them off, you’re going to have to lock up the whole country," said Lentine, 57.“In my book, he’s innocent — well, maybe guilty, but who cares?" he said. "Who cares if he spent $100,000? Nobody cares. It's costing me $100,000 to put gas in my car. Come on."The poll's New York findings represents a rosier picture for Trump than in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally meddled in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. The foreperson of a special grand jury convened to hear evidence in the case said the panel recommended that Willis indict over a dozen people, including possibly Trump, who was recorded asking state election officials to “find 11,780 votes” to help him win. It is now up to Willis to decide whether to pursue charges.But already in the Georgia case, the poll finds 53% say they think Trump broke the law. Twelve percent say he did something they consider unethical but not illegal, while 17% said he did nothing wrong.Trinidad, 36, said she sees the flurry of investigations Trump faces as a politically motivated distraction aimed at keeping him from winning the White House again. But when it comes to the Georgia case, she said, “I just feel it is a little bit different.""Once you start getting into our voting system and counts, then I start to get a little wary because that’s literally our right as an American citizen. So once you start to fiddle with that, it sort of becomes a little bit more of an issue for me, personally," she said, adding that she hasn't thought much yet about whom she plans to support in 2024.In the federal cases, about half of Americans — 47% — believe Trump acted illegally in his handling of classified documents, while 49% say he broke the law in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. About 2 in 10 say they think he did something unethical but not illegal in those cases, and close to that many say they think he did nothing wrong.The poll makes clear that Americans' views of the investigations are deeply partisan. In the Georgia case, 86% of Democrats but just 22% of Republicans say they think Trump did something illegal. In the New York case, 68% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans say they think he broke the law.Meanwhile, 9 in 10 Democrats but only a quarter of Republicans say they think the indictment in the New York case was justified. Nearly 9 in 10 Republicans — but only about a third of Democrats — say they think the charges were politically motivated.That includes Nicole Sawyer, a registered independent from Middletown, Pennsylvania, who typically backs Democrats and praises President Joe Biden. While she believes Trump has done “a lot of immoral things” that are worth investigating, she also sees the probes as driven by politics.“I think people are sort of just throwing stuff at him, anything they can," said Sawyer, 45, who views the investigations as a distraction from more important issues, like Social Security and health care. Those issues, she said, are "kind of being overshadowed with all this drama with Trump."Still, Sawyer said that if Trump is found guilty, “he doesn’t deserve to be our president."“I think that kids should be able to look up to the president of America and not have a whole bunch of drama overshadowing the real things that need to be taken care of," she said.

The poll finds about half feel similarly about his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

Former President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday, April 4, 2023

More peril for Trump in pending probes than NY: AP-NORC poll

Syed Mohammad Munir Abidi says India is a changed country, one he doesn’t recognize anymore. It’s a country, the 68-year-old says, where Muslims are ignored, where rising attacks against them are encouraged, and where an emboldened Hindu majoritarian government is seizing its chance to put the minority community in its place.Swami Ram Das thinks otherwise, echoing a belief system central to Hindu nationalism.The 48-year-old Hindu priest says India is on a quest to redeem its religious past and that the country is fundamentally a Hindu nation where minorities, especially Muslims, must subscribe to Hindu primacy.Abidi and Das are two ordinary citizens living in one city in a country of more than 1.4 billion people that is on the cusp of becoming the world’s most populated nation. Together they embody the opposing sides of a deeply entrenched religious divide that presents India with one of its biggest challenges: to safeguard freedoms for its Muslim minority at a time when a rising tide of Hindu nationalism is eroding the country’s secular underpinnings.India will have an estimated 1.4286 billion people against China’s 1.4257 billion by mid-2023, according to United Nations projections. It is home to some 200 million Muslims who make up the predominantly Hindu country’s largest minority group. They are scattered across almost every part of India, where a systemic anti-Muslim fury has descended since Prime Minister Narendra Modi first assumed power in 2014.Though India’s communal fractures date back to its bloody partition in 1947, most Indians trace the roots of the latest religious fault lines to a small temple city in northern India, where the Hindu nationalist movement was galvanized in 1992 after Hindu mobs demolished a historic mosque to make way for a temple.Since then, the city of Ayodhya has, in many ways, become a religious microcosm of India, where a diverse, multicultural past has gradually been overrun by ruptured relationships between Hindus and Muslims.It’s also a city Abidi and Das call home.They have meandered through its narrow, winding streets overrun by temple monkeys and Hindu monks who ask passersby for alms in exchange for blessings. They have walked past its brimming bazaars where miniature idols of Ram are sold to pilgrims visiting from India’s vast hinterlands. They have begun their mornings with calls for prayers spilling out of mosque loudspeakers and Vedic hymns chant in the temples.Beyond these shared experiences lie stark differences.For Das, a broad-shouldered man with a stout frame, Ayodhya is the birthplace of Ram, Hinduism’s most revered deity. The city also hosts one of Hinduism’s most sacred sites — Ram’s grand temple — which will open to pilgrims next year. It is imperative that the city clings to its Hindu character, Das says.“Our forefathers have fought for this temple and sacrificed lives for it. Today their dream is getting fulfilled,” he says, circled by a group of devotees.The temple is being constructed where the 16th-century Babri mosque was demolished by Hindu hardliners who claim Muslim rulers built it at the exact spot where Ram was born. When it was razed on Dec. 6, 1992, Das was there, watching a frenzied Hindu mob climb its rounded domes and tear it down with pickaxes and crowbars.“There was so much excitement to destroy that disgraced structure that no one cared about the falling debris,” he recounts, prompting his disciples to chant “Jai Sri Ram,” or “Hail Lord Ram,” a slogan that has become a battle cry for Hindu nationalists.The 30-year campaign to build the temple saw subsequent religious violence and a bitter legal battle over the site that Hindus won in 2019. Muslims were given alternate land on the city outskirts to build a new mosque. A year later, Modi attended the temple’s groundbreaking ceremony.For Abidi, a tall man in clothes that hang off his frame, it marked a sad chapter for India’s Muslims.“The hearts of Muslims are broken. No Muslim opposes the construction of Ram temple, but such unilateral changes are impacting India’s culture,” he says, arguing the former mosque was essential to the city’s Muslim identity.As for his city, it has already gone through major changes.For decades Ayodhya city was part of Uttar Pradesh state’s Faizabad district. But in 2018, authorities changed the entire district’s name from Faizabad to Ayodhya, a move that reflected the Modi government’s pattern of replacing prominent Muslim geographic names with Hindu ones.For Abidi it indicates a worrying trend: “To erase everything that remotely reflects Muslim culture.”Today, Ayodhya is taken over by frenetic construction of hotels, bringing in tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims. Construction workers are busy making way for wider highways. All that is expected to boost the city’s economy. But at what cost, Abidi reckons.“The relationship Hindus and Muslims used to share is barely visible anymore,” he says.India’s religious fault lines have become pronounced under Modi. Scores of Muslims have been lynched by Hindu mobs over allegations of eating beef or smuggling cow, an animal considered holy to Hindus. Muslim businesses have been boycotted, their localities have been bulldozed and places of worship set on fire. Sometimes open calls have been made for their genocide.Critics say Modi’s conspicuous silence over such attacks has emboldened some of his most extreme supporters and enabled more hate speech against Muslims.Muslims have been falsely accused of manipulating Hindu women into marriages and producing more children to establish domination. The government data shows otherwise: India’s religious composition has been largely stable since 1947 and the fertility rate of Muslims has declined from 4.4 in 1992 to 2.3 in 2020.“It is never going to be possible if you look at the data. We should forget and ignore this rhetoric,” says Poonam Muttreja, director at the Population Foundation of India.Muslims also have the lowest literacy among all major Indian religious communities. They have faced discrimination in employment and housing and hold a little less than 5% of seats in the parliament, their lowest share ever.For Abidi, all this represents a grim future, one where India’s secular character lives only in people’s memories.“Every Muslim in today’s India finds himself unsafe,” he says.Das disagrees, arguing that Muslims are still free to pray and practice their religion. “But we will correct the mistakes made by your ancestors.”Das is referring to the Mughals who ruled India before the British made it their colony.Scorn for Mughal rulers, who are not ancestors of Indian Muslims and only shared a similar faith, is distinctive to India’s Hindu nationalists, who claim Mughals destroyed Hindu culture. It has prompted Hindu nationalists to seek ownership of hundreds of historic mosques they say are built over demolished temples.In Ayodhya, longtime Muslim locals have made compromises to avoid tension with Hindu neighbors.Last year when the Muharram procession overlapped with a Hindu festival, Muslim leaders changed the timing of their march to avoid confrontation. This year, Muslims in the city had to forgo selling and consumption of meat during another Hindu festival that coincided with the beginning days of Ramadan.In such an atmosphere, Abidi says, only religious tolerance can stop India’s communal fractures from worsening.“India will only survive if we mend hearts and not break them,” he says.

It’s a country, the 68-year-old says, where Muslims are ignored, where rising attacks against them are encouraged

1 city, 2 people — and India’s widening religious divide

Wyllow Elizabeth started making bars of soap when she found that her skin was sensitive to many store-bought ones. She made soaps for her own use, and only ventured into her local farmers' markets, in Nova Scotia, Canada, to sell the extras. Demand there was so strong, however, that she switched approaches, and now just keeps the “extras” and undersize bars for herself.Elizabeth uses oils like olive, coconut, castor and hemp, as well as shea butter. “The hemp oil makes a lovely lather, and doesn’t build up on hair,” she says.Hers are among many new bars that look, feel and smell different than traditional, mass-produced soaps. In supermarkets, beauty stores or at farmer’s markets, you’ll see an array of bar soaps that are, or have the look and feel of, the handmade, with natural and unusual ingredients.They might be infused with bits of tangy orange. Sea kelp. Lilac. Or even volcanic ash. Everything from carrots to coffee to clay are used to color the bars, and added scents are derived from plants, herbs and essential oils.Although bar soap lost a lot of shelf space in recent decades to liquid soap, many people are rediscovering its virtues.For one thing, it doesn't come in a plastic bottle. When a bar of soap is used up, it’s well and truly GONE. It's often wrapped in paper, and takes less energy to ship than liquids. Compared to its liquid counterpart, it travels through airport security without a fuss.“Fortunately, hotels never fell out of love with the bar soap,” says Andrew Goetz, who together with partner Matthew Malin founded the personal-care brand Malin and Goetz in New York. Their soaps can now be found in restaurants, hotels, salons and fitness centers around the world; Goetz says their Dark Rum and Lime bars are especially popular.John and Linda Meyer, founders of Wary Meyers, are married interior designers in Maine who created their own line of glycerin soaps, candles and modernist jewelry to echo their aesthetic.“We thought the bar of soap was something that could use a refresh – colored stripes, gradients, speckles – so we treated it like a little design object,” says Linda Meyer.One of their playful soaps is the “Virgo Cluster.”“We were inspired by those clear rubber balls with glitter inside that everybody had as kids. But instead of glitter, we embed the bars with pieces of multicolored striped soap.” she says.If you’ve ever rubbed the leaf of a tomato plant, you’ll know how fresh the scent is. That was the inspiration for Wary Meyers’ Italian Tomato Leaf bar. The red, green and white colors were “inspired by Gucci, the Italian flag, and of course tomatoes,” Meyer says.They have a Pink Champagne soap bar made to look like the fizzy drink sitting in a flute, and some combos that sound good enough to eat: cucumber and cilantro, or grapefruit and clementine.Icelandic company Kalastyle’s Hallo bars are derived from unusual ingredients like Arctic birch, moss and volcanic ash. The creamy-hued, round bars are smoky and herbaceous.Popular bars in Wyllow Elizabeth's lineup include Mint Ripple, with cocoa powder and peppermint essential oil.And when a friend found his grandfather’s old shaving cup, Elizabeth started experimenting until she found a formula for a toast-colored shaving bar that smells like bay spice.She has her trusted playbook of ingredients now, but there’s still room for surprises.“For instance, I use yellow dock plants in my Lemongrass Summer soap for their soothing properties. I thought they’d make yellow soap, but they came out rosy pink!," she says. "Another surprise was when I used lemon peel powder in my Under the Sun soap – it starts out bright yellow, but as it cures it becomes a beautiful creamy color.”Along with the pleasure she gets from soap crafting, Elizabeth loves naming the finished products, and engages her customers at markets in the process.“I share the scents and colors, and they enter a contest to name the soap," she says.“My favorite winner was a girl about 9 years old. She named the Lime Squeeze soap, and was so excited to win her very own bar of it; a simple prize.”Lime Squeeze became the signature scent for Elizabeth’s line of “toy surprise” soaps. As each bar is used, a small treasure is revealed — a wee farm animal, a marble, a tiny Pegasus.There's a version for grownups too. Elizabeth's Gems soaps might hold a carnelian, an amethyst or a piece of rose quartz. Good clean fun, in bar form.

Demand there was so strong, however, that she switched approaches, and now just keeps the “extras” and undersize bars for herself

Raising the bar: Soap gets a refresh (no bottle needed)

A federal watchdog is investigating whether the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under chief Anne Milgram improperly awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to hire her past associates, people familiar with the probe told The Associated Press. Among the contract spending under scrutiny by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is $4.7 million for “strategic planning and communication” to hire people Milgram knew from her days as New Jersey’s attorney general and as a New York University law professor – at costs far exceeding pay for government officials.At least a dozen people have been hired under such contracts, including some in Milgram’s inner circle handling intelligence, data analytics, community outreach and public relations — work often requiring security clearances and traditionally done by DEA’s own 9,000-person workforce.Also under scrutiny is $1.4 million to a Washington law firm for a recent review of the DEA’s scandal-plagued foreign operations that was widely criticized for giving short shrift to agent misconduct and how to prevent it. That review was co-authored by Boyd Johnson, former right-hand man to one of Milgram’s closest friends, Preet Bharara, when he was U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. Bharara himself landed at the firm, WilmerHale, even as the review was being conducted.“Some of these deals look very swampy,” said Scott Amey, general counsel of the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, noting that federal contracting is not intended to bypass the government hiring process and should be conducted with no preferential treatment and avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Contractors are also prohibited from performing “inherently governmental functions” such as directing federal employees.“Contracts should never be awarded based on who you know,” Amey said.<h2>WIDENING INQUIRY</h2>Details of the widening inquiry, which began several months ago in response to employee complaints, came from several people interviewed by the Inspector General’s office who discussed the ongoing probe and provided contracting documents on the condition of anonymity. If misconduct is found, the Inspector General can recommend anything from administrative sanctions to criminal prosecution.The probe comes as the DEA is struggling with repeated revelations of agent misconduct that have rocked the federal narcotics agency and a fentanyl crisis claiming more than 100,000 overdose deaths a year that Milgram has called the “deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced.”The DEA declined to make Milgram available for an interview or to discuss the investigation and specific contracts, instead releasing a statement.“DEA has acted with urgency to set a new vision, target the global criminal networks responsible for hundreds of thousands of American deaths, raise public awareness about how just one pill can kill, and promote and recruit hundreds of highly talented people,” it said. “These changes have been made through an extensive and multi-part process, and we are committed to ensuring that DEA is working relentlessly to protect the national security, safety, and health of the American people.”Anthony Coley, a former Justice Department spokesman who has known Milgram for 15 years, said the investigation may stem from employees who aren’t happy with such organizational change and are seeking ways to “push back or undermine it, even if the underlying allegations aren’t true.”“But that’s what inspectors general are for,” he said, “to call balls and strikes.”<h2>MANDATE TO CLEAN HOUSE</h2>With a tough New Jersey bravado and data-driven “Moneyball” approach to the war on drugs, the 52-year-old Milgram came to the DEA nearly two years ago with a mandate to clean house.But the Biden appointee quickly ruffled feathers by pushing out several career DEA officials she viewed as part of a cliquish culture that allowed misconduct to flourish. Instead, she favored the counsel of newly installed attorneys and data crunchers who work with her in an isolated part of the 12th floor of DEA headquarters known as “the bubble.”Milgram has also made a point to show zero tolerance for sexual misconduct and racism in the ranks, warning agents they may now be fired for certain first offenses — a departure from previous administrations.One of her first actions was ordering an external review of the DEA’s sprawling foreign operations, which spans 69 countries. It came in the wake of the high-profile arrest of José Irizarry, a disgraced agent now serving a 12-year federal prison sentence after confessing to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels and skimming millions from asset seizures and informants to fund an international joyride of fine dining, parties and prostitutes.<h2>‘STUNNINGLY VAGUE’</h2>But those selected to carry out the review raised eyebrows. One, John “Jack” Lawn, is a DEA legend but the 87-year-old’s insights date from his tenure leading the agency in the 1980s. After leaving government, Lawn headed the Century Council, a beverage industry group, which funded research into campus alcohol abuse that was conducted by Milgram’s mother, a Rutgers University expert in the field.Lawn’s co-author, Boyd Johnson, worked as a prosecutor on international drug cases before becoming a partner at WilmerHale. Both Johnson and Milgram have close ties to Bharara, who after being fired as U.S. attorney by President Donald Trump joined the NYU faculty alongside Milgram and together hosted the legal issues podcast “Cafe Insider.” Last year — as the foreign operations review was being conducted — Bharara joined WilmerHale. And this year, DEA hired away from the firm Milgram's former NYU research assistant to become her deputy chief of staff.Competitive bidding rules for the review were sidestepped by the DEA’s argument of “unusual and compelling urgency,” saying the “threat of illicit foreign drugs to the health and safety of the American public has never been greater.”But instead of the projected six months to get the review out, it took nearly three times that long.“It’s a complete waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Matthew Donahue, who led DEA’s foreign operations until he butted heads with Milgram and was transferred to Colombia, a demotion that prompted him to retire.Donahue said he and several other DEA overseas veterans were never interviewed as part of the review, which scarcely mentioned Irizarry or other scandals, and borrowed heavily from publicly available audits and DEA operating manuals.“It’s something that could’ve been written in three days,” he said.Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime voice against government waste and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ripped WilmerHale’s review as “stunningly vague” and recently sent Johnson a letter requesting a range of records, background on his relationship with Milgram and asking whether she or anyone else at DEA requested edits of the report.“Though DEA originally billed this report as a ‘comprehensive review’ of DEA’s foreign operations strategy, the report glosses over or ignores serious shortcomings at the agency and spends much of its 49 pages quoting from publicly available documents that one could have pulled off a web site,” Grassley wrote in the letter last week.Neither Lawn, Johnson, Bharara nor WilmerHale responded to requests for comment.NEW JERSEY TIES Another no-bid contract under scrutiny went to Jose Cordero, a longtime New York City police official whose ties to Milgram go back to 2007 when as attorney general she named him New Jersey’s first statewide director of gangs, guns and violent crime.Together they overhauled the police department in Camden — then under state control due to soaring crime and corruption — by crunching crime stats and intelligence data in real time to deploy resources as needed. The approach won national praise as the homicide rate in what was then the country’s most dangerous city was slashed by nearly half.“We have a lot of culture to change,” Milgram said in a 2014 TED talk on applying statistics to crime fighting. "But the great news about all of it is that we know it works.”Less than three weeks after taking the top job at DEA, Milgram awarded Cordero what has become a nearly $400,000 contract to conduct data analysis of crime stats.But Donahue said Cordero’s expertise in urban policing has less value to the DEA, which processes a flood of intelligence from foreign and domestic wiretaps, as well as informants, to dismantle cross-border criminal networks.Cordero didn’t respond to requests for comment.<h2>THE CLEARING</h2>Several of the hires in question joined DEA through The Clearing, a Washington-based federal contractor that provides outsourced administrative services to the DEA and other federal agencies.The Clearing’s $4.7 million in billings to the DEA for “strategic planning and communication consulting services” over the past two years have accounted for 30% of its federal contracts during that period, records show.Among those from The Clearing under scrutiny is Lena Hackett, a former Democratic congressional staffer and founder of Community Solutions, an Indianapolis consulting firm focused on public health and criminal justice. Milgram described her as her main partner in a policing reform project she established in Indianapolis while teaching at NYU.Internal records show Hackett regularly briefs field offices, prepares policy statements and memos for Milgram and meets with families affected by the fentanyl crisis. For her services, the DEA budgeted $257 an hour — more than triple the hourly rate earned by the agency’s top civil servants, including the head of community outreach.Another brought in through The Clearing is Julia Pacetti, a New York City publicist who has led media campaigns for prominent public figures and authors.According to documents, Pacetti’s firm JMP/Verdant collected $11,500 a month plus expenses to write news releases, handle interview requests and arrange news conferences— work some DEA employees viewed as redundant given the agency’s existing staff of public relations employees.Several recent DEA news releases – including those announcing fentanyl busts as part of the agency’s “One Pill Can Kill” enforcement surge – came not from the DEA’s official email account but from “Julia Pacetti-Verdant.”Neither The Clearing, Hackett nor Pacetti responded to requests for comment.“This looks terrible to taxpayers,” said Don Fox, former acting director and general counsel of the Office of Government Ethics. “The appearance is awful.” ___ AP Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report from New York.

Also under scrutiny is $1.4 million to a Washington law firm for a recent review of the DEA’s scandal-plagued foreign operations

DEA chief faces probe into 'swampy' hires, no-bid contracts

Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday his country has received the U.S-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile systems it has long craved and which Kyiv hopes will help shield it from Russian airstrikes during the war. “Today, our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure because Patriot air defense systems have arrived in Ukraine,” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a tweet.Ukrainian officials have previously said the arrival of Patriot systems, which Washington agreed to send last October, would be a major boost and a milestone in the war against Moscow’s full-scale invasion. It's the latest contribution from Kyiv's Western allies, who have also pledged tanks, artillery and some types of fighter jets as Ukraine gears up for an expected counteroffensive.China, on the other hand, insists it won’t help arm Russia, one of its key allies, and on Wednesday denied recent reports that Chinese drones have been found on Ukraine battlefields.Beijing maintains strict control over the export of drones in keeping with international standards preventing them from being used for nonpeaceful purposes, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement.China, which has repeatedly criticized the U.S. and other countries’ support for Ukraine as “adding fuel to the fire” of the war, has an “objective and fair stance” and seeks peace, the statement insisted.The Patriot can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles. Russia has used that weaponry to bombard Ukraine, including residential areas and civilian infrastructure, especially the power supply over the winter.Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said late Tuesday that delivery of the system would be a landmark event, allowing Ukrainians to knock out Russian targets at a greater distance.Reznikov thanked the people of the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, without saying how many systems had been delivered nor when.Germany’s federal government website on Tuesday listed a Patriot system as among the military items delivered within the past week to Ukraine, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock confirmed that to lawmakers in Berlin on Wednesday.Baerbock also said Germany has delivered the second of four medium-range IRIS-T air defense systems that it pledged last year.Reznikov said he had first asked for Patriot systems when he visited the U.S. in August 2021, five months before the full-scale invasion by the Kremlin’s forces and seven years after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. He described possessing the system as “a dream” but said he was told in the U.S. at the time that it was “impossible.”Ukrainian personnel have been trained on the Patriot battery, which can need as many as 90 troops to operate and maintain it.“Our air defenders have mastered (the Patriot systems) as far as they could. And our partners have kept their word,” Reznikov wrote.Experts have cautioned that the system’s effectiveness is limited, and it may not be a game changer in the war, even though it will add to Ukraine’s arsenal against its bigger enemy.The Patriot was first deployed by the U.S. in the 1980s. The system costs approximately $4 million per round and the launchers cost about $10 million each, analysts say. At such a cost, it’s not advantageous to use the Patriot to shoot down the far smaller and cheaper Iranian drones that Russia has been buying and using in Ukraine.Kyiv officials have reported daily civilian, but not military, casualties from Russian bombardment.At least four civilians were killed and 27 others were injured in Ukraine on Tuesday and overnight, the press office of Ukraine’s defense ministry reported.A 50-year-old man and 44-year-old woman were killed in a Russian airstrike on a border town in the northeastern Kharkiv region, its Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in televised remarks.Russian forces launched 12 rocket, artillery, mortar, tank and drone attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, its Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said, killing one civilian at a market in the center of Kherson, the region’s namesake capital, and a nearby school.A woman was killed and another was wounded in northern Ukraine after Russian forces shelled the border village of Richki from multiple rocket launchers, the local military administration said.Russian forces also fired nighttime exploding drones at Ukraine’s southern Odesa region.

Today, our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure because Patriot air defense systems have arrived in Ukraine

US-made Patriot guided missile systems arrive in Ukraine

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday harshly criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, widening the rift between the two men as they prepare to battle over the Republican nomination in next year's election. “President Trump was wrong," Pence said during remarks at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner attended by politicians and journalists. "I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”Pence's remarks were the sharpest condemnation yet from the once-loyal lieutenant who has often shied away from confronting his former boss. Trump has already declared his candidacy. Pence has not, but he's been laying the groundwork to run.In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, Trump pressured Pence to overturn President Joe Biden's election victory as he presided over the ceremonial certification of the results. Pence refused, and when rioters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to “hang Mike Pence.”The House committee that investigated the attack said in its final report that “the President of the United States had riled up a mob that hunted his own Vice President."With his remarks, Pence solidified his place in a broader debate within the Republican Party over how to view the attack. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, for example, recently provided Tucker Carlson with an archive of security camera footage from Jan. 6, which the Fox News host has used to downplay the day's events and promote conspiracy theories.“Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace," Pence said in his Gridiron Dinner remarks. "And it mocks decency to portray it any other way.”Trump, meanwhile, has continued to spread lies about his election loss. He's even spoken in support of the rioters and said he would consider pardoning them if he was reelected.Speeches at the Gridiron Dinner are usually humorous affairs, where politicians poke fun at each other, and Pence did plenty of that as well.He joked that Trump's ego was so fragile, he wanted his vice president to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” — one of the lines is “did you ever know that you’re my hero?” — during their weekly lunches.He took another shot at Trump over classified documents.“I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president's Bible," Pence said. “Which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.”Even before the dinner was over, Pence was facing criticism for his jokes about Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, the first openly gay Cabinet member in U.S. history.Pence mentioned that, despite travel problems that were plaguing Americans, Buttigieg took "maternity leave” after he and his husband adopted newborn twins.“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets post-partum depression,” Pence said.&nbsp;

Pence's remarks were the sharpest condemnation yet from the once-loyal lieutenant 

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a Coolidge and the American Project luncheon in the Madison Building of the Library of Congress

Pence says Trump 'endangered my family' on Jan. 6

The White House is giving U.S. federal agencies 30 days to delete popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices amid growing concerns about security. Canada announced a similar ban. Congress, the White House itself and more than half of U.S. states had already banned TikTok amid concerns that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favoring China. U.S. armed forces have prohibited the app on military devices, and the European Union's executive branch has temporarily banned TikTok from employee phones.More than two-thirds of American teens use TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by critics who say the Chinese government could access user data such as browsing history and location.China says the bans reveal Washington’s own insecurities and are an abuse of state power.Here's what to know:<h2>What are the concerns about TikTok?&nbsp;</h2>Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China’s authoritarian government.There are also concerns that the company is sending masses of user data to China, in breach of stringent European privacy rules.Additionally, there’s been concern about TikTok’s content and whether it harms teenagers’ mental health.<h2>Who has pushed for TikTok restrictions?</h2>In 2020, then-President Donald Trump and his administration sought to ban dealings with TikTok’s owner, force it to sell off its U.S. assets and remove it from app stores. Courts blocked Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok, and President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s orders after taking office but ordered an in-depth study of the issue. A planned sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets was shelved.In Congress, concern about the app has been bipartisan. Congress passed the “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” in December as part of a sweeping government funding package. The legislation does allow for TikTok use in certain cases, including for national security, law enforcement and research purposes.House Republicans are expected to move forward Tuesday with a bill that would give Biden the power to ban TikTok nationwide. The legislation, proposed by Rep. Mike McCaul, looks to circumvent the challenges the administration would face in court if it moved forward with sanctions against the social media company.<h2>What does TikTok say?</h2>TikTok has questioned the bans, saying it has not been given an opportunity to answer questions and governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.Responding to the U.S. announcement, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said Monday: “The ban of TikTok on federal devices passed in December without any deliberation, and unfortunately that approach has served as a blueprint for other world governments. These bans are little more than political theater.”

More than two-thirds of American teens use TikTok

Why TikTok is being banned for some government employees

Over the past three months, hundreds of young girls attending different schools in Iran have become overpowered by what are believed to be noxious fumes wafting into their classrooms, with some ending up weakened on hospital beds. Officials in Iran's theocracy initially dismissed these incidents, but now describe them as intentional attacks involving some 30 schools identified in local media reports, with some speculating they could be aimed at trying to close schools for girls in this country of over 80 million people.The reported attacks come at a sensitive time for Iran, which already has faced months of protests after the September death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the country's morality police.The authorities have not named suspects, but the attacks have raised fears that other girls could be poisoned apparently just for seeking an education — something that's never been challenged before in the over 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran itself also has been calling on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to have girls and women return to school.The first cases emerged in late November in Qom, some 125 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran. There, in a heartland of Shiite theologians and pilgrims, students at the Noor Yazdanshahr Conservatory fell ill in November. They then fell ill again in December.Other cases followed, with children complaining about headaches, heart palpitations, feeling lethargic or otherwise unable to move. Some described smelling tangerines, chlorine or cleaning agents.At first, authorities didn't link the cases. It's winter in Iran, where temperatures often drop below freezing at night. Many schools are heated by natural gas, leading to speculation it could be carbon monoxide poisoning affecting the girls. The country's education minister initially dismissed the reports as “rumors."But the schools affected at first only taught young women, fueling suspicion it wasn't accidental. At least one case followed in Tehran, with others in Qom and Boroujerd. At least one boys' school has been targeted as well.Slowly, officials began taking the claims seriously. Iran's prosecutor-general ordered an investigation, saying "there are possibilities of deliberate criminal acts.” Iran's Intelligence Ministry reportedly investigated as well.On Sunday, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency filed multiple stories with officials acknowledging the scope of the crisis.“After several poisonings of students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” IRNA quoted Younes Panahi, a deputy health minister, as saying.A Health Ministry spokesman, Pedram Pakaieen, said the poisoning didn't come from a virus or a microbe. Neither elaborated further.Ali Reza Monadi, a national parliament member who sits on its education committee, described the poisonings as “intentional.”The ”existence of the devil's will to prevent girls from education is a serious danger and it is considered a very bad news," he said, according to IRNA. “We have to try to find roots” of this.Already, parents have pulled their students from classes, in effect shuttering some schools in Qom in recent weeks, according to a report by Shargh, a reformist news website based in Tehran. On Tuesday, another suspected attack reportedly occurred targeting a girls' school in Pardis on the eastern outskirts of Tehran.The poisonings come as getting verifiable information out of Iran remains difficult given the crackdown on all dissent stemming from the protests and internet slowdowns put in place by the government. At least 95 journalists have been arrested by authorities since the start of the protests, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.Overall, the security force crackdown has killed at least 530 people and seen 19,700 others detained, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran.Attacks on women have happened in the past in Iran, most recently with a wave of acid attacks in 2014 around Isfahan, at the time believed to have been carried out by hard-liners targeting women for how they dressed. But even in the chaos surrounding the Islamic Revolution, no one targeted schoolgirls for attending classes.Jamileh Kadivar, a prominent former reformist lawmaker and journalist, wrote in Tehran's Ettelaat newspaper that as many as 400 students have fallen ill in the poisonings.She warned “subversive opposition” groups could be behind the attacks. However, she also raised the possibility of “domestic extremists" who “aim to replace the Islamic Republic with a caliphate or a Taliban-type Islamic emirate.”She cited a supposed communique from a group calling itself Fidayeen Velayat that purportedly said, “the study of girls is considered haram" and threatened to "spread the poisoning of girls throughout Iran” if girls' schools remain open.Iranian officials have not acknowledged any group called Fidayeen Velayat, which roughly translates to English as “Devotees of the Guardianship.” However, Kadivar's mention of the threat in print comes as she remain influential within Iranian politics and has ties to its theocratic ruling class. The head of Ettelaat newspaper also is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Another prominent reformist politician, Azar Mansouri, also linked the suspected poisoning attacks to hard-line groups, referencing the Isfahan acid attacks.“We said the acid attacks were organized. You said: ‘You are disturbing public opinion!’" Mansouri wrote online. “If operatives of the attacks were identified and punished then, today a group of reactionaries would not have ganged up on our innocent girls in the schools.”Activists also worry this could be a disturbing new trend in the country.“This is a very fundamentalist thinking surfacing in society,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. “We have no idea how widespread this group is but the fact they have been able to carry it out with such impunity is so troubling.”

Other cases followed, with children complaining about headaches, heart palpitations, feeling lethargic or otherwise unable to move

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World

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United Nations: Mass grave with at least 87 bodies found in Sudan's volatile Darfur region

Russian lawmakers move to further restrict transgender rights in a new legislation

Record monsoon rains have killed more than 100 people in northern India this week

Turkey's pledge of support for Sweden's NATO entry is tied to goals on security and EU membership

Beach panic: Dramatic moment terrified tourists flee "shark" at Spanish beach

Police say 5 wounded in ramming attack near Jerusalem market

Tornadoes kill 2 in central US; new storms possible Thursday

More peril for Trump in pending probes than NY: AP-NORC poll

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Suspected schoolgirl poisoning attacks rattle a shaken Iran