Author: Admin

Leaders from all 32 NATO member nations are set to convene in Ankara, Turkey on Tuesday and Wednesday for a high-stakes alliance summit. The gathering comes as President Donald Trump continues to press European nations to dramatically increase their defense spending, and following months of friction between the U.S. and its European partners over the Iran war and the situation in Greenland.

Trump’s repeated criticism of the alliance, combined with announced withdrawals of American troops from Europe and a six-month review of U.S. military presence on the continent, has created significant uncertainty among alliance members heading into the summit.

What’s on the Agenda?

The Trump administration has been pushing hard for European nations to take on greater responsibility for their own defense and to significantly increase their defense investment. Officials anticipate that leaders will spend considerable time discussing progress toward spending targets, ramping up weapons manufacturing, and how to shift more of the defense burden from the United States to Europe.

Who Will Be in the Room?

In addition to the 32 NATO member nation leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, European Council President Antonio Costa, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are all expected to join NATO leaders for a dinner on Tuesday evening.

What Will Leaders Say About Defense Spending?

European leaders are expected to demonstrate to Trump that they are making good on a commitment made at last year’s summit in The Hague — a pledge to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense and defense-related measures by the year 2035.

According to a draft of the summit declaration reviewed by Reuters, leaders are expected to announce: “In 2025, European Allies and Canada increased their investments in core defence requirements by more than $139bn.”

The declaration is also expected to include this statement: “We are building the future: a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO — a modernised Alliance. European Allies and Canada, working with the United States, are assuming greater responsibility for the Alliance’s defence.”

Support for Ukraine

NATO members are expected to reaffirm their backing for Ukraine and commit to further military assistance. The draft declaration indicates leaders plan to say: “For 2026, Allies pledge €70bn in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine and affirm their sovereign commitments to sustaining at least equivalent levels in 2027.”

A portion of that funding will come from existing bilateral commitments and an EU loan facility providing €60 billion for Ukrainian defense investment and procurement covering 2026 through 2027. The United States is not expected to contribute to that funding pool.

Defense Industry Focus

While last year’s summit centered on agreeing to new spending pledges, this year’s focus is expected to shift toward actually scaling up weapons production and accelerating defense innovation. A defense industry forum will be held in Ankara on Tuesday, where deals worth tens of billions of dollars are anticipated to be announced.

Will Iran Be Discussed?

European officials are worried that the ongoing Iran conflict — and Trump’s frustration with European governments over their handling of it — could cast a shadow over the summit. The expected declaration states that “allies reiterate that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon and call on Iran to fully respect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”

What Does Host Nation Turkey Want?

As the host country, Turkey is expected to use the summit to showcase its growing defense manufacturing capabilities and renew its longstanding push for alliance members to remove all restrictions on defense trade within NATO.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is also expected to seek progress with allies including France and Italy on the potential purchase of SAMP/T missile defense systems and broader defense cooperation agreements.

In one-on-one talks with Trump, Erdogan is expected to highlight the improving relationship between Ankara and Washington while pushing for the removal of U.S. sanctions and restored access to the F-35 fighter jet program.

Other Meetings on the Sidelines

On the margins of the summit, NATO foreign ministers are expected to meet with counterparts from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and to hold a dinner discussion with Ukraine’s foreign minister and European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. NATO defense ministers are also scheduled to hold talks with ministers from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

BEIJING — China’s military launched a missile from a nuclear submarine into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, according to the country’s state-run media, prompting concern and criticism from several nations in the region.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy fired the missile — fitted with a dummy warhead — into international Pacific waters at 12:01 p.m. local time (0401 GMT), the official Xinhua news agency reported. The missile came down in what Xinhua called “designated waters,” though no specific location was provided.

Xinhua characterized the launch as a “routine arrangement” tied to China’s yearly military training schedule, emphasizing that it was not directed at any particular country or target.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed that China had given advance notice of the planned test, but she still labeled the launch as “destabilising” for the broader region.

“Australia has been clear that this proposed test is in the context of a rapid military buildup by China, which is lacking in the transparency and reassurance as to intent that the region expects,” Wong told reporters at a press conference in Suva, the capital of Fiji.

Japan’s government also said it had been notified ahead of the launch and called on China to reconsider. “We expressed our grave concern over the Chinese military’s increased activity,” Tokyo stated. Japanese authorities added that China had separately alerted Japan’s Coast Guard on Sunday about possible falling space debris that could land within Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Japan’s Kyodo news agency later reported, citing a government source, that the missile had landed outside that zone.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters described his country as “deeply concerned” by the test, noting that New Zealand had been informed “within hours” of the launch.

“New Zealand considers this an unwelcome and concerning development. We, like our neighbours in other Pacific countries, have no interest in China using the South Pacific as a testing site for missile capability,” Peters said in a written statement.

China’s most recent intercontinental ballistic missile test before this one took place in 2024 — an uncommon launch that drew international attention to the country’s growing military strength.

BALLOUNEH, Lebanon — Long before she became one of the most celebrated food writers in the Middle East, Anissa Helou never imagined a career in cooking or writing. She stumbled into both worlds almost by chance when she was in her late 30s.

Now 74, Helou has built a devoted following across the region and around the globe, publishing close to a dozen books since the 1990s on the cuisines of the Middle East and beyond. Just last month, she was honored with Britain’s prestigious Guild of Food Writers Lifetime Achievement Award.

Born to a Lebanese mother and a Syrian father, Helou grew up in a Christian household where she spent countless hours watching her mother, grandmother, and paternal aunt work in the kitchen. Those early experiences gave her a deep appreciation for the culinary traditions of both Lebanon and Syria — two countries celebrated throughout the region for their rich and flavorful food.

“I was always fascinated by the kitchen, by their movements (and) by how they put things together, by the chopping,” Helou said of those early mentors. “I love being in the kitchen with them and of course I loved eating.”

Her newest book, “Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland,” had its official launch in late June in Beirut at a ceremony held at Lebanon’s Tourism Ministry. The event drew a crowd that included food critics and restaurant owners.

The book arrives at a difficult moment for Lebanon, which has endured two wars in the past three years involving Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. One section of the book focuses specifically on food traditions in some of the southern Lebanese villages that have suffered the most severe destruction.

During multiple visits to the south — the most recent in October 2023 — Helou found that residents had developed their own distinct takes on traditional dishes. One example is mujadara, a dish built primarily around lentils. While it is commonly prepared with rice elsewhere, southern Lebanese cooks are more likely to use bulgur wheat.

“I discovered more, like, variations and added dishes, rather than something that was a complete revelation,” Helou said.

She has gathered walnuts from a tree growing beside the massive barrier that divides southern Lebanon from northern Israel, and she has spoken with residents who have lost their homes and livelihoods in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict.

One person who left a lasting impression on her was Moussa Ibrahim, from the southern village of Dibbine — an area that has seen intense fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. The violence in 2024 cost Ibrahim his business, which produced mouneh: a traditional Lebanese method of preserving vegetables, fruits, grains, and dairy through techniques such as sun-drying, salting, pickling, and submerging in olive oil.

A world traveler with a wide-ranging palate, Helou said she also has a deep love for Korean and Japanese food in addition to Middle Eastern cuisine.

“Lebanese, Iranian and Moroccan are among the greatest cuisines,” Helou said earlier this month from her late mother’s apartment in the Mount Lebanon town of Ballouneh.

“Lebanese cuisine is kind of a little bit more sophisticated, a lot fresher, more vibrant” than some other Middle Eastern food, she added, while preparing a traditional Lebanese lamb confit known as awarma.

When asked which city in the region produces the finest food, Helou didn’t hesitate — and her answer took her outside Lebanon entirely. She pointed to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Aleppo is known for its centuries-old covered market — which sustained heavy damage during Syria’s civil war that began in March 2011 — and for a complex, layered cuisine shaped by Persian, North African, and Armenian influences.

“I think that Aleppo is undoubtedly the gastronomic capital of the Middle East, regardless of me being Syrian,” she said.

Helou’s work has also been shaped by global events. When the Islamic State group seized large portions of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014 — sparking a wave of deadly attacks and a surge in anti-Islamic sentiment worldwide — she responded by writing a book featuring roughly 300 recipes from Muslim countries.

“I was thinking, one way of presenting Islam and Muslim people positively could be through their foods,” she said.

Helou left Lebanon at 21 and now holds citizenship in Lebanon, Syria, and the United Kingdom. She has spent much of her adult life in Britain and Italy, though she continues to visit Lebanon regularly, cooking alongside locals and learning how they prepare specific dishes.

For years as a young woman, she refused to cook at all — even telling a partner at the time not to count on her for meals.

“I didn’t want to be domesticated. I was like a feminist and so I didn’t cook for a very long time,” she said.

Her attitude shifted after watching a friend cook a meal and seeing the joy it brought her partner. That moment nudged her toward the kitchen.

Her path to food writing began in 1992, when a conversation with a group of Lebanese expatriates sparked the idea of creating a cookbook filled with her mother’s recipes — filling a gap she noticed in Lebanese culinary literature. As luck would have it, a publisher was already searching for someone to write exactly that kind of book.

“That’s how I started, by sheer coincidence,” Helou said.

MALINDI, Kenya (AP) — The walls are concrete, the beams are wood, and the building isn’t finished yet. But 54-year-old Nuru Mohammed is already envisioning the future. As her daughter clears away the last traces of sand, Mohammed directs other women hanging fishing nets along the walls as decoration. Within days, a new beachside restaurant on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast will welcome its first customers — another way to earn a living beyond the sea.

“For us women, this is hope,” says Mohammed, who spent most of her life as one of the rare fisherwomen in Malindi, a town located northeast of the port city of Mombasa. “It will help support many families that have depended on the ocean for decades.”

All along East Africa’s coastline, fishing communities are turning to tourism, ecosystem restoration, and conservation-based enterprises, reshaping their connection to the sea as climate change, overfishing, and deteriorating ocean health put their traditional ways of life at risk.

In Kenya, women are transforming restored mangrove forests into revenue streams through beekeeping and ecotourism. In Tanzania’s Zanzibar archipelago, fishing villages are safeguarding coral reefs through community-managed closures. In Mozambique, sea grass restoration is generating employment while breathing life back into marine habitats. Taken together, these initiatives are redefining what it means to be resilient — not by walking away from the ocean, but by healing it while building lasting livelihoods.

“Communities that depend on the ocean are also its best stewards,” said Andreane Martel, project director for a conservation initiative known as ReSea. “When local people, especially women, lead conservation, they protect biodiversity while creating more resilient and inclusive livelihoods.”

Mohammed said she has had boats stolen and now finds it nearly impossible to compete against large industrial trawlers. A nearby Chinese-owned fish processing facility stands as a stark symbol of how dramatically the industry has changed.

“I can’t compete with that kind of power or scale,” she says.

“It has been tough,” Mohammed says, her eyes on the water. “I fought to remain a fisherwoman. But I think it’s a fight I can no longer win.”

About ten kilometers — roughly six miles — away, where the Sabaki River flows into the Indian Ocean, Beatrice Mwanyiro manages a mangrove nursery and restaurant constructed by ReSea, a 30-member women’s cooperative supported by the Canadian government.

“We have to adapt to the changing times,” Mwanyiro says. “The number of fish coming into the shallow waters are falling every year. Without another source of income, we won’t be able to feed our families.”

Mangroves, coral reefs, sea grass meadows, and nearshore fisheries do far more than provide food. They shield coastlines from storms and lock away enormous quantities of carbon. But rising ocean temperatures, pollution, habitat destruction, and overfishing are putting all of those ecosystems in jeopardy.

Mohamed Somo, a fishing community leader in Lamu — a UNESCO heritage site — says boats that once returned with catches of up to 100 kilograms, or about 220 pounds, of fish now frequently bring back fewer than 30 kilograms, or around 66 pounds.

Kenyan law bars trawlers from operating within 5 nautical miles, or 9 kilometers, of shore, yet fishers say some vessels regularly venture much closer. The problem reaches far beyond Kenya’s waters. According to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing drains an estimated $23 billion from the global economy each year, while endangering marine life and the food security of billions of people who rely on fish as their main source of protein.

“The trawlers fish offshore during the day, but at night they move into the shallow waters where artisanal fishers work,” Somo says. “By morning, there’s very little left for us.”

The mounting pressure on coastal communities has elevated ocean conservation as a political priority, as people fight both for survival and for the protection of the marine economies they depend on.

“Coastal communities are on the frontlines of climate change and declining ocean health, but they are also among the strongest drivers of resilience,” said Jerry Mang’ena, co-founder and executive director of Action for Ocean, a Tanzania-based organization focused on mangrove restoration along the country’s coastline.

“Supporting sustainable livelihoods, from aquaculture and eco-tourism to ecosystem restoration, helps families adapt while reducing pressure on the ocean. If we’re serious about protecting our seas, we must invest in the people who have cared for them for generations.”

At a recent gathering called the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, conservation organizations called on African governments to ratify the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement — also known as the BBNJ Agreement or “High Seas” treaty. The landmark United Nations pact establishes marine protected areas in international waters and provides for the fair sharing of marine resources. It took effect in January, and as of April had been signed by 145 countries and formally ratified by 81.

How negotiations over additional ratifications unfold could significantly affect the lives of fishers like Mohammed as they work to build futures less dependent on increasingly unpredictable catches.

“The BBNJ Agreement gives African governments a historic opportunity to protect the high seas and safeguard the future of our fisheries,” said Aliou Ba, oceans campaign lead at Greenpeace Africa.

“But protecting the ocean also means confronting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing that is stripping African waters of marine life and robbing coastal communities of food and income,” he said. “Governments cannot afford to delay.”

PARIS (AP) — A French appeals court is set to rule Tuesday on whether Marine Le Pen will be allowed to pursue what would be her fourth presidential campaign — and what many believe would be her best shot yet at leading the country. If the court blocks her, she has already been preparing a potential replacement.

That replacement is Jordan Bardella — but he is far from simply a younger version of Le Pen.

Perhaps the most significant difference between the two is one that cannot be changed: Bardella does not carry the Le Pen name. For a substantial portion of French voters, especially those on the political left, that surname carries deeply negative associations. Marine Le Pen inherited both the name and the party from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the organization and was widely despised for his far-right views and repeated legal violations, among them Holocaust denial.

If Tuesday’s court ruling bars Le Pen from next year’s election — the race to succeed two-term President Emmanuel Macron, who is constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term — or if it leads her to step aside in favor of Bardella, French voters will be weighing the two National Rally figures against one another.

Bardella currently serves as president of National Rally, the party Jean-Marie Le Pen originally founded in 1972 under the name National Front. Under Bardella’s leadership, the party has continued pushing its anti-immigration message. He has spoken of a France he describes as being overwhelmed by immigration, particularly from Africa, saying there are “many people who today no longer recognize the France that they loved.”

Where Bardella differs from Le Pen is in his approach to economic issues. He has worked to appeal to business owners and wealthier conservative voters with a more pro-business tone, while Le Pen has traditionally concentrated on cost-of-living concerns and government intervention — themes that tend to resonate with working-class supporters.

Le Pen handed the party’s leadership to Bardella in 2022, after years of working to make the organization more appealing to mainstream voters. That effort included distancing herself from her father — ultimately expelling him from the party — and walking back some of her more controversial policy positions, such as calls for France to exit the European Union and abandon the euro in favor of the old French franc.

The party has operated under the National Rally name since 2018 and became the largest single party in the National Assembly in 2024.

Luc Rouban, a senior researcher at Sciences Po, a Paris school of political sciences, who studies the party, says not carrying the Le Pen name could actually work in Bardella’s favor. “Symbolically, it would signal a break with the legacy of the old National Front, of Jean-Marie Le Pen,” he said.

That legacy has long been a liability for Marine Le Pen. Critics and historians have repeatedly tied her to her father’s associations with those who collaborated with Nazi occupiers during World War II, as well as his hate-speech convictions. Bardella, as the first party leader without the Le Pen name, may not face that same line of attack as effectively.

“Jean-Marie Le Pen’s legacy is a very heavy burden to carry,” Rouban said. “If you move beyond the Le Pen family, you’re entering different territory.”

Le Pen herself, who is 57, has spoken positively about Bardella’s age — he is 30. “We are complementary,” she said in a recent interview. “I have a certain experience, but Jordan has an absolutely incredible dynamism; he has the strength and energy of his youth.”

Bardella also has a stronger presence on social media. His Instagram following is nearly double Le Pen’s, and his 2.3 million TikTok followers surpass her 1.5 million. That digital reach could help him connect with younger voters — a group that has increasingly tuned out national elections. France’s national statistics agency found that only 17% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast ballots consistently in 2022, when Macron defeated Le Pen in the presidential runoff for the second time. That figure is a sharp drop from 31% who voted consistently back in 2002.

Le Pen grew up surrounded by politics. Her father served in the legislature from 1956 to 1962, before she was born in 1968. She joined the National Front as a teenager and, after earning a law degree, first ran as a candidate at age 24 in the 1993 legislative elections.

Bardella, by contrast, has built his political career primarily in the European Parliament. Some analysts argue his comparatively limited experience could make it harder for him to connect with older voters, and that he might struggle under the intense pressure of a first presidential campaign.

However, Victor Mallet, the author of “Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe,” cautions against underestimating him. “A lot of people thought the same thing about Donald Trump,” Mallet said. “They thought, you know, this guy has no experience of government, his policies don’t make any sense, and he was elected twice.”

At least eight Rohingya Muslims — among them several children — were killed and a number of others wounded early Monday morning after intense monsoon rainfall triggered a series of landslides across refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, according to officials.

The camps, located in Cox’s Bazar, are home to more than 1.2 million Rohingya people and make up the largest refugee settlement on the planet. The vast majority of residents fled Myanmar in 2017 following a military crackdown in that neighboring Buddhist-majority nation, where Rohingya are considered outsiders.

Most families in the camps are sheltered in temporary structures built from bamboo and plastic sheeting, perched on steep, treeless hillsides that become extremely dangerous during the yearly monsoon season.

The slides struck four different areas within the camps, collapsing shelters and burying them in mud while residents were still asleep. In a separate but related incident, a Bangladeshi man was also killed and two of his family members were hurt when a section of hillside gave way and crashed into their home in Cox’s Bazar, police reported.

“Eight people have died in landslides caused by heavy rain,” said Tumpa Das, a police official based in Cox’s Bazar.

Das added that ongoing rainfall has raised the likelihood of additional slides, with thousands of refugees still occupying unstable terrain.

Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, the Bangladeshi official responsible for refugee relief and repatriation efforts, said authorities are acting quickly to protect lives. “We’re moving people out of high-risk areas as quickly as possible to prevent any more casualties,” he said.

The tragedy comes at a particularly tense time, as renewed violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State is raising fears that a new wave of Rohingya refugees could attempt to cross into Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authorities have increased their presence along the border after reports emerged of people gathering nearby hoping to enter the country.

Bangladesh’s meteorological agency has predicted continued heavy rainfall in the days ahead, keeping officials on high alert for additional landslides and flash flooding.

Deadly landslides and floods are a recurring threat each monsoon season in the refugee camps, routinely claiming lives and destroying homes, roads, and essential services.

KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine (AP) — From a basement command post in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, drone pilots stare at thermal camera feeds streamed from aircraft flying hundreds of kilometers away over Russian-held territory, patiently waiting for vehicles to appear on the roads that keep enemy forces alive and fighting.

When a target comes into view, the pilots guide their aircraft into a dive, striking deep behind Russian lines to disrupt the flow of fuel, food, ammunition and other critical supplies.

“Our mission is to cut logistics,” said Kat, commander of Ukraine’s K-2 brigade, which operates midrange drones. “Cut off their supply lines, and the infantry on the front line have no food, no ammunition, no night vision, no batteries. Nothing. That’s how we’re wearing them down in every sense.”

Soldiers who spoke with The Associated Press agreed to be identified only by their military call signs rather than their real names, as required by military regulations.

Ukrainian commanders say the sustained strikes on major highways carrying fuel, ammunition and reinforcements have made Russian logistics slower, more expensive and far less predictable. That pressure, they say, has helped slow Russian advances and supported Ukrainian counterattacks, including strikes into illegally annexed Crimea aimed at cutting the peninsula off from the mainland.

Until recently, much of that territory was out of Ukraine’s reach. Short-range front-line drones couldn’t cover the distance, while long-range drones were saved for high-value strategic targets far away. That left a corridor roughly 25 to 200 kilometers (15 to 125 miles) wide where Russian troops and supplies could move with little interference.

Fixed-wing midrange drones outfitted with Starlink satellite communications have begun filling that gap, effectively turning Russia’s logistical rear into a contested zone.

“They’re ensuring that the Russians are constantly pressured along their supply logistics lines and that they are unable to supply certain parts of the front so that the situation may be more controllable,” said Samuel Bendett, a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses.

Bendett noted that Ukraine will need to keep up the pressure while Russia works to develop countermeasures. He expects Moscow to eventually adapt, but said Russia’s larger military allows it to absorb greater losses in the meantime.

“The question is whether Ukraine can keep this pressure up over the next few weeks and months,” he said.

The infrastructure behind Ukraine’s midrange drone campaign blends into the surrounding landscape. Ordinary offices double as command centers. A carpenter’s workshop serves as a drone assembly point. A modest village home becomes a launch site.

The headquarters of K-2, one of Ukraine’s most elite drone units, is housed in an unremarkable workspace littered with coffee mugs, energy drink cans and e-cigarettes. In May alone, the unit launched 800 midrange drones from that room, with 650 successfully hitting their intended targets.

The pilots work in civilian clothes under bright fluorescent lights, eyes locked on computer monitors — looking more like office workers than combatants. But the grids on their screens are target lists and satellite maps. After plotting each flight path, a separate team launches the drones more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) away. Control then shifts to the Kharkiv pilots, who fly the aircraft for up to four hours, reaching more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) behind Russian lines.

Some pilots were forced from their hometowns by Russia’s invasion and now find themselves peering down at familiar streets through a drone’s camera — passing old schools and childhood neighborhoods as they search for hidden Russian troops and weapons caches.

A whiteboard in the unit tracks an ongoing competition among its 10 drone crews. The current record stands at 17 consecutive successful strikes.

Missing a high-value target leaves a mark too. After one such miss, brigade commander Col. Kyrylo Veres got on the line with the crew and asked bluntly: “Are you drunk?”

Some days the camera reveals little more than a fuel truck or a single soldier on a motorcycle. Other days, operators spot more significant targets — a loaded multiple rocket launcher or a gathering of Russian troops.

Among the unit’s top pilots is Pharaon, 20, who says the work feels like a natural extension of the video games he grew up playing.

“When I was a kid, I used to go to computer clubs where we played Counter-Strike over a local network,” he said. “The competition here is pretty much the same. It’s about who can kill more enemy troops or take out the biggest target.”

A major turning point came earlier this year when SpaceX cut off Russian forces’ unauthorized use of Starlink satellite services, disrupting Russian drone operations and communications. That shift gave Ukraine a significant advantage, allowing its upgraded drones to better evade detection, resist jamming and strike with greater accuracy while Russia scrambled to respond.

“The blocking of Starlink for Russian forces was one of the most significant battlefield developments of the year,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program.

Pharaon said the impact on mission success has been dramatic. “What’s changed is that now eight out of every 10 sorties are successful,” he said, noting that just a few months ago the success rate was the reverse.

K-2 operates the Dart, one of the more affordable drones in Ukraine’s growing midrange fleet. Built from polystyrene, wood and 3D-printed components, the Dart is designed primarily to hit Russian logistics convoys. Larger models, such as the Hornet, carry heavier payloads and are used to strike bridges and other infrastructure.

Before each mission, crews inspect batteries, cameras, flight controllers and the Starlink terminal — the most critical piece of equipment keeping the drone connected during flight. The drones are then transported to hidden launch sites near the front, where a soldier with the call sign Buckwheat checks each Starlink connection before the aircraft are catapulted into the air.

“It’s gotten a little quieter now. You can tell the pressure from the enemy has eased,” Buckwheat said.

Russian forces were caught off guard when the campaign ramped up three months ago. Since then, they have begun deploying mobile fire groups and other countermeasures to intercept the drones. But Ukraine’s speed, scale and element of surprise have so far kept it ahead.

Bendett pointed to coordination problems within the Russian military as a key vulnerability. Even if one sector identifies the drone threat, that information may not reach neighboring units in time to intercept the aircraft.

Ukraine’s campaign targets the major highways connecting occupied Mariupol, Berdyansk, Melitopol and the Crimean Peninsula — the primary supply arteries for Russian forces fighting in southern and eastern Ukraine. Commanders say the sustained strikes have pushed Russia onto slower, less efficient resupply routes.

Ukrainian military intelligence says the drones have made portions of the land corridor linking Russia to Crimea too hazardous for normal operations, slowing the movement of fuel, ammunition and reinforcements.

In response, Russia is “significantly increasing the number of their mobile anti-aircraft units and fixed machine-gun positions, and are deploying more interceptor crews near major cities,” Pharaon said. Drone pilots now plan their routes around known enemy positions and can sometimes see the flashes of anti-aircraft fire through their cameras as their aircraft slips past.

Lee said Russia has been testing electronic warfare systems against Starlink since 2024 and has now begun deploying them more broadly. So far, their effectiveness has been limited.

“I think they have some success, but we’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry is returning to the United Kingdom this week, and as usual, his arrival is generating plenty of attention from the British press.

The son of King Charles III is scheduled to attend several charity events beginning Tuesday. But for many royal observers, the bigger story is whether his wife, Meghan, and their two children — Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet — will be joining him, and whether the young royals will finally get some quality time with their grandfather, King Charles.

British tabloids and television news programs have spent the past 10 days buzzing with speculation about the family’s travel plans, but much remains uncertain as Harry works to secure protection for his family after a government committee declined to approve taxpayer-funded security.

“With just days to go until Harry’s first public engagement in the UK on Tuesday … very little is guaranteed at all,” the Times of London reported Saturday. The Telegraph put it more bluntly: “For Archie and Lilibet to meet the king, it’s now or never.”

Harry, who served in the British Army in Afghanistan, organized the trip partly to mark the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games — the Paralympic-style athletic competition he created to inspire and support military veterans recovering from injuries sustained in combat.

Also drawing attention this week is a Tuesday ruling at the High Court in London, where a judge is set to deliver a verdict in Harry’s privacy lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail.

According to reports sourced from off-the-record briefings and unnamed individuals close to the royal family, the decision about whether to bring the children largely depends on whether the British government agrees to extend security coverage to Harry and his family. This has been a recurring issue every time the prince has returned to Britain since he and Meghan relocated to North America six years ago.

British authorities have maintained that Harry is not entitled to automatic protection because he is no longer an active working member of the royal family, and that his security needs will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as they would be for any high-profile celebrity. Harry, however, argues that his children cannot safely travel to Britain without protection, as their royal status continues to make them targets.

The decision on security rests with a government committee called Ravec, which determines who qualifies for state-funded protection.

The outcome could create headaches for the royal family, which has been trying to demonstrate its public value amid months of damaging headlines about the connections between the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Royal commentator Tina Brown weighed in on the situation on X, writing: “In the paranoid atmosphere of waiting for more Andrew shoes to drop, Ravec and the royals themselves are terrified of public blowback if taxpayers are asked to fund protection for the House of Sussex. The issue is not a hill that either the king or the government wants to die on, and who can blame them?”

Early reports suggested that Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, would be making the trip, but those plans appeared to fall apart after the Daily Telegraph reported that Ravec had once again turned down Harry’s request for protection.

The Times of London reported that Harry was described as “distraught” following the decision and told friends he would not allow his children to be “chased by paparazzi” through the streets of London.

By Sunday, it had become apparent that Meghan and the children would not be with Harry when he arrives in London on Monday, though there remained some possibility they could join him at a later point during the visit.

Despite the security dispute, Harry has expressed a desire to repair his relationship with his 77-year-old father, who is currently receiving treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. Harry has also said he wants his children — who first encountered the king during the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022 — to now spend meaningful time with their grandfather while they are old enough to form lasting memories of the experience.

Relations within the royal family have been strained since Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal duties and moved to California to pursue media opportunities outside the constraints of life as working royals.

Things deteriorated further after Harry released a tell-all memoir containing unflattering portrayals of royal family members and serious allegations about the damaging relationship between the monarchy and the British press.

Among the more explosive claims in his book, titled “Spare,” was the accusation that members of the royal family leaked information about one another to journalists in exchange for favorable coverage. Harry was particularly critical of Queen Camilla, alleging she shared private conversations with the media as part of an effort to improve her public image following her long-running affair with Charles while he was heir to the throne.

After losing a legal battle over the security issue last year, Harry expressed hope for a family reconciliation, while also suggesting that the royals had tried to block him from receiving police protection as punishment for stepping away from his royal role.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia and Fiji have officially signed a new bilateral defense agreement, marking the second major diplomatic achievement in less than a year for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in his effort to limit Chinese influence across the South Pacific.

Albanese and Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka put pen to paper on the Ocean of Peace Alliance in Fiji’s capital city of Suva. The two leaders also signed a separate economic agreement called the Vuvale Union, through which Australia has committed to investing more than 1 billion Australian dollars — roughly $693 million U.S. — in Fiji over the next ten years.

The Ocean of Peace Alliance is the first mutual defense treaty Fiji has ever entered into. For Australia, it is the fourth such agreement, coming after a 1951 treaty with the United States and New Zealand, and a bilateral defense pact signed with Papua New Guinea just last year.

Albanese described the weight of the new commitment, telling reporters: “The Ocean of Peace Alliance introduces a mutual defense obligation and there’s no higher obligation than to come to each other’s aid at a time of need.”

Rabuka expressed confidence that China would not react harshly to the newly signed agreements. “I do not expect China to have any severe pushback on either government. And I believe that they will welcome the understanding that is between Australia and Fiji,” he said. He added, “It does not threaten Fiji’s relationship with China nor Australia’s relationship with China.”

The Fijian prime minister described the agreements as being built on three core principles: deeper cooperation on security matters, stronger economic ties, and closer connections between the people of both nations.

“This is a clear affirmation of Australia’s sustained commitment to the stability, resilience and prosperity of the Blue Pacific region at a time of global uncertainty,” Rabuka said. He further noted, “These treaties reflect our shared understanding of the evolving and interconnected challenges that are facing our region.”

Australia has been working since 2022 to reinforce its position as the preferred security partner in the Pacific, following China’s signing of a secretive security agreement with the Solomon Islands that year. That deal sparked concerns about the potential construction of a Chinese naval base in the South Pacific.

Albanese is scheduled to travel to the Solomon Islands on Tuesday to meet with Prime Minister Matthew Wale after both nations agreed to pursue further talks on a security arrangement. Wale indicated during a visit to Australia last month that his new government plans to review the existing deal with Beijing.

On Wednesday, Albanese is set to host Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape and Tongan Prime Minister Fatafehi Fakafānua in the Australian city of Brisbane. That same day, Australia’s defense treaty with Papua New Guinea — its closest neighbor — officially takes effect.

Just last week, Australia and Vanuatu signed a long-anticipated bilateral security and economic agreement known as the Nakamal Agreement. The deal, signed between Albanese and Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat in the Australian capital, explicitly blocks China from establishing a military base on the island nation. The agreement was finalized nine months after Vanuatu rejected an earlier version, citing concerns that it could restrict the country’s ability to draw in infrastructure investment. China voiced concern last week that the Nakamal Agreement may be aimed at Beijing.

MANILA, Philippines — A Philippine senator has been placed under arrest on large-scale plunder allegations, making him the second member of the country’s upper house to be detained in just over a month amid a sweeping corruption investigation.

Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, 71, a lawyer by profession, was taken into custody Monday at the Sandiganbayan, a special court dedicated to anti-corruption cases located in suburban Quezon City. He had arrived at the court alongside his legal team to challenge the charges filed against him and to request a postponement of his arrest.

Speaking to reporters gathered outside the courtroom, Marcoleta addressed the court’s decision to order his detention based on a preliminary review of the case. “Let’s respect that,” he said. He was subsequently escorted away by police. Because plunder is the charge against him, he is not entitled to post bail.

Marcoleta is a member of Iglesia ni Cristo, also known as the Church of Christ. The religious organization staged a three-day demonstration involving more than 15,000 members at a democracy landmark along one of metropolitan Manila’s most heavily traveled roads, protesting both the charges against Marcoleta and his anticipated arrest. The mass gathering caused significant traffic disruptions throughout the area.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called off two scheduled public engagements outside his office on Tuesday, citing concern over the large-scale protest mounted by the religious group, which has a well-established reputation for mobilizing massive demonstrations.

The Office of the Ombudsman, which serves as a specialized anti-corruption prosecutor, announced it filed the plunder charge against Marcoleta last week. According to the office, Marcoleta allegedly received 75 million pesos — equivalent to approximately $1.2 million — described as campaign contributions from three supporters, which he failed to report in his legally required financial disclosure statement.

Earlier last month, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, a political ally of Marcoleta, was also arrested and held on a non-bailable plunder charge. Estrada, 63, is accused of collecting more than 570 million pesos — roughly $9.3 million — in kickback payments tied to a government flood-control project. He has firmly denied those accusations, which stem primarily from allegations made by a former government public works engineer.

Both Marcoleta and Estrada were known supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte. On Monday, the 24-member Senate, sitting in its capacity as an impeachment court, was set to begin the trial of Sara Duterte, who was impeached by a sweeping vote in the House of Representatives back in May. She has denied the charges against her, which include accumulating undeclared wealth and publicly threatening to have the president killed.

A third senator with close ties to the Duterte family, Ronald dela Rosa, has gone into hiding following the issuance of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. The ICC named him as a co-perpetrator alongside the former president in connection with the killings of mostly low-income drug suspects during a violent anti-narcotics campaign carried out under Duterte’s watch. Dela Rosa previously served as the national police chief who initially implemented those crackdowns.

Former President Duterte himself was arrested last year on the ICC’s orders and transported to the Netherlands, where he is scheduled to stand trial on November 30 on charges of crimes against humanity.

Two years ago, a bearded young Russian man sat quietly on a bench in the German city of Hamburg, drawing no particular attention from passersby. But Yury Shekhvatov was not simply enjoying the summer weather — he was bracing himself for news that would change his life.

More than 1,100 miles away in Moscow, a military court was behind closed doors delivering a verdict in the trial of his wife, playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, and theatre director Zhenya Berkovich.

“I took several phones with me, and I sat and waited,” Shekhvatov recalled.

The news arrived through online feeds and messages from friends, and it was exactly what he had feared. The two women, who had been arrested in 2023, each received six-year sentences in a penal colony. The charge: “justifying terrorism” through a play that Petriychuk had written and Berkovich had directed.

At trial, the women argued that their play — “Finist the Bright Falcon,” which portrays Russian women who wed Islamic State fighters — was meant to stand against terrorism, not encourage it. The court was not persuaded.

Human rights advocates described the convictions as a troubling new low in the Russian government’s crackdown on free expression during wartime. The Kremlin offered no response to the case.

On Wednesday, July 8 — the second anniversary of that sentencing — Shekhvatov says he plans to return to that same bench overlooking a canal, sit in silence, and look through old photographs of his wife.

When asked what infuriates him most about the ordeal, he pointed to what he described as the cold indifference of Russia’s judicial system.

“Once you’re caught up in this system, things just roll along on autopilot,” he told Reuters.

“They opened the case, and it just dragged on; the investigator shuffled some papers around, and then the judge sat there putting on an act, pretending to be a rather intelligent man who was well-versed in literature… He went through the motions of looking into everything, yet he knew all along that the verdict would simply be handed down to him.”

Russia’s constitution calls for an independent judiciary insulated from political influence, but human rights organizations say the reality — particularly in high-profile or politically sensitive cases — is very different, with acquittals being extremely rare.

Shekhvatov, who had served as Petriychuk’s theatrical agent, said many people in the arts community publicly rallied behind her, sometimes at considerable personal risk. But he was deeply hurt by others who had worked closely with her and never reached out — not even with a private message of support.

“To me, that is just monstrous — something I will never be able to understand,” he said.

Petriychuk, now 46, is currently held at a penal colony in the Moscow region, where she and other inmates spend six days a week working in a sewing workshop. Her sentence still has three years left to run.

Following her arrest in May 2023, Shekhvatov wrote lengthy letters to her every single day for the first two years. These days, they communicate mainly through brief messages on a prison service app and are permitted to speak by phone a few times each month.

Shekhvatov, 38, said he developed a deliberate approach to supporting his wife emotionally — meeting her wherever she was mentally rather than trying to steer her toward a different mindset.

“From the outside you could see that things would hardly turn out well, but when she had moments of hope I always supported her and said, ‘Yeah, yeah — we’ll fight, absolutely, we’ll do it.’

“And when she was sad, on the other hand, I didn’t try to shift her mindset — like ‘No, let’s be positive, let’s fight…’

“It’s hard to describe how a person feels when they’re in prison… What they really want is total support in the broadest sense — just to be understood and supported.”

He maintains a website, freesveta.org, dedicated to raising awareness about Petriychuk’s case and keeping her play in the public eye. “Finist the Bright Falcon” has now been performed more than 75 times across the globe in 13 different languages.

While working as a massage therapist and health coach to make ends meet, Shekhvatov is also building knowledge of the publishing world with the goal of one day becoming his wife’s literary agent.

“She has always dreamed of writing prose, not just plays… (After her release) it will all happen — global bestsellers,” he said. “I haven’t the slightest doubt, not for a second, that when she gets out and starts writing, it will sell all over the world, get translated and so on. And I’ll make sure it happens.”

PAMPLONA, Spain — Bill Hillmann has been gored by bulls three separate times during Spain’s famous running of the bulls, yet nothing could keep him away from this year’s San Fermin festival.

The reason for the extra buzz this year: it marks 100 years since Ernest Hemingway published the novel that launched him to literary stardom and put the city of Pamplona on the global map.

Hemingway’s 1926 work “The Sun Also Rises” has held readers spellbound for generations with its Jazz Age story of American and British bohemians seeking to fill an inner emptiness through exotic travel, heavy drinking, and the tortured pursuit of unattainable love.

The novel’s enormous success cemented its place as a pillar of American literature, standing alongside F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” It also brought widespread use of the phrase “lost generation” to describe the circle of early 20th-century writers living as expatriates in Paris. Hemingway’s stripped-down writing style permanently reshaped American literature.

Hillmann, who grew up in Chicago, was just 19 years old when Hemingway’s powerful portrayal of the bull-running tradition first grabbed his attention — particularly the scenes of ordinary Spaniards risking injury to sprint through the streets alongside the bulls, guiding them toward the bull ring. This year’s festival gets underway Monday with fireworks over a crowded plaza, and the first of eight bull runs takes place Tuesday.

“It was the first book I ever read,” Hillmann told the Associated Press while standing in Pamplona, looking out over the pen where bulls are held before being released onto the cobblestone route. “I sat there for about six hours, well past midnight, reading the book. And by the time I was done with that book, I was going to be a writer and I was going to be a bull runner.”

Since that night with the book, the now 44-year-old Hillmann has run alongside bulls in Spain hundreds of times — both in Pamplona and at dozens of other bull runs across the country. His passion for Hemingway and Pamplona has never faded, even after one goring nearly took his life.

That deep connection to the novel eventually led Hillmann to earn a doctorate in English. He now teaches “The Sun Also Rises” at East-West University in Chicago and writes about the bull-running tradition.

Hillmann is far from alone. Americans continue to be the largest group of foreign participants in the San Fermin bull runs. In 2022, 16% of all bull runners were American — the highest share among any foreign nationality and four times the number from neighboring France, according to figures from Pamplona’s City Hall.

A Dallas-based tour company called “Running Of The Bulls” has helped thousands of Americans make the trip to San Fermin over the years. Its operator, Bruce Anderson, says Hemingway’s novel turned the festival into a must-do experience for many people. This year, his company is bringing 1,400 attendees to Pamplona, with more than two-thirds coming from the United States.

“There’s a lot of energy, a lot of excitement around just remembering that book and the impact that it’s had,” said Anderson, who has been a Hemingway admirer his whole life. He spoke inside Pamplona’s art deco Café Iruña — a prominent drinking spot in the novel that today features a life-size statue of Hemingway leaning against the bar.

Anderson, who sports a thick white beard, even resembles Hemingway. Local Spaniards frequently call out to him using the writer’s famous nickname: “Papa!”

Hemingway’s presence is woven into the fabric of Pamplona. Hotels and bars display busts of him or post signs noting that he once visited. Outside the city’s bull ring — which also has a statue of the author — a large banner honoring the novel hangs with a quote showing how the festival left Hemingway at a loss for words: “At noon of Sunday, the 6th of July, the fiesta exploded. There is no other way to describe it.”

During his final visits to Pamplona, Hemingway regularly stayed at the Perla Hotel. His suite there still contains furniture from the 1950s, the era of his visits. The room, which looks out over the bull run route, also holds two glass bookcases filled with dozens of copies of “The Sun Also Rises.”

“Hemingway did a lot for Pamplona because he made it known around the world,” said Fernando Hualde, who spent four decades working as a receptionist at the hotel.

Still, Hemingway’s legacy in the city is complicated.

Beyond feminist criticism of his aggressively masculine public image, Hemingway has also faced pushback from animal rights advocates for his celebration of bullfighting. In “The Sun Also Rises,” he devotes far more attention to the courage of bullfighters than to the bull runs themselves.

Animal welfare activist Brook Spurling, speaking during a protest against the San Fermin bullfights, argued that “Hemingway wrote about many, many themes that today would not be accepted into society. He writes about hunting, about war, and we don’t want to be appreciating these themes today.”

Former hotel receptionist Hualde noted that some Pamplona residents resent Hemingway’s early promotion of the festival, blaming it for the overtourism now straining the once-quiet regional city.

Pamplona is home to 200,000 people but welcomes more than a million additional visitors during the festival. While most are Spanish, roughly 15% come from outside the country. Many visitors — especially younger ones — follow Hemingway’s lead when it comes to drinking heavily.

Some locals take quiet pride in places untouched by the Hemingway legend. Literature professor Gabriel Insausti of Pamplona’s University of Navarra recalled visiting a bar that displayed a sign reading, “Hemingway was not here.”

“In general, Hemingway has become a product of a franchise associated with San Fermin festival that has obscured his novel,” Insausti said. “People know who Hemingway is, but they haven’t read his novel.”

Hillmann warned that the large number of inexperienced foreign runners today makes the Pamplona bull runs more hazardous than ever. The last fatality occurred in 2009, but gorings and other injuries happen regularly. Beginners can easily panic and make a wrong move, triggering dangerous pileups or pushing someone into a bull’s path.

In 2014, Hillmann himself was seriously gored after he said a fellow runner’s poor decision left him exposed to a charging bull. Blood was pouring from his leg in such quantities that he believed he was dying.

After yet another goring in 2017, Hillmann spoke to the AP from his hospital bed in Pamplona and made clear he had no intention of stopping. “People think this is just crazy people running. There is real art. If you pay attention, you can see it,” he said at the time.

Hemingway’s granddaughter, actress Mariel Hemingway, remembers being treated “like royalty” when she attended San Fermin in years past. Mariel, who has written and spoken publicly about her grandfather’s mental illness and his suicide in 1961, believes his work will stand the test of time.

She sees his themes as timeless — including his preoccupation with death.

“Identity, love, purpose, and how to rebuild after profound loss … those themes haven’t ever changed. That’s what’s great about my grandfather,” Mariel Hemingway told the AP from her home in Idaho. “I think he captured something that will never go away.”

LONDON (AP) — When temperatures shattered records across Europe this past June, a Welsh school where teacher Mark Morris works was among hundreds across the United Kingdom forced to shut its doors.

With no air conditioning or fans available, and sunlight pouring through windows that barely open — some not at all — Morris said holding his design and technology classes was simply not possible when temperatures in Wales reached a record 35.9 degrees Celsius (96.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

“Even in a normal summer, the heat on those south-facing windows becomes unbearable,” said Morris, who teaches high school students subjects like woodworking and food preparation. “If there’s anything that you need to turn the oven on, you can forget about it. There’s no way anybody could carry on.”

Over 1,000 schools in the U.K. shut down for multiple days or released children early during the late June heat event, which toppled temperature records across the continent. The closures disrupted education and created economic ripple effects as parents with jobs scrambled to arrange childcare.

Experts say the widespread school closures have laid bare just how ill-equipped Britain is to handle what climate scientists now describe as a “new normal” — more frequent and more severe heat waves. Aging public buildings such as schools, hospitals, and care homes are among the hardest hit. Air conditioning is rarely found in these structures, and poor ventilation causes indoor temperatures to become dangerously stifling.

The British government’s own climate advisers noted in a recent report that these buildings were “built for a climate that no longer exists today” — designed to retain heat during cold winters, not to stay cool during extended stretches of extreme warmth.

At schools that remained open during the June heat wave, students and staff turned to low-tech workarounds: small handheld fans, water spray bottles, and cold popsicles replacing hot lunches. Blinds were pulled shut, and some people lay on the floor in the dim light — the coolest spot available. A few even soaked their bare feet in buckets of water.

Even so, with roughly 30 people packed into each classroom, conditions could quickly become a health risk.

“We’ve had members teaching in extremely hot conditions, to the extent that we’ve had reports of members passing out in classrooms while trying to teach,” said Wayne Bates, a health and safety spokesperson with the teachers’ union NASUWT.

Bates’ organization, along with other unions, has long pushed the British government to establish a maximum allowable workplace temperature. He noted that many school buildings constructed between the 1950s and 1970s have far outlived their intended lifespan, and that four out of five schools still have asbestos embedded in their structures — making it difficult to retrofit air conditioning systems.

Dave Woods, a head teacher at Beaconsfield Primary School in west London, pointed out that newer construction is not necessarily better. The newer section of his school, built just about a decade ago, actually performs worse in the heat than the original building constructed in 1908. He said the older structure benefits from high ceilings and thick brick walls that naturally keep it cooler.

“You would have thought in 2017, there would have been more thinking ahead because we already knew about changes to climate, changes to global temperatures,” said Woods, who also serves as vice president of the National Union of Headteachers.

Woods is exploring the possibility of adding air conditioning to portions of the campus, but tight finances are a major obstacle. He said U.K. schools have been chronically underfunded for more than a decade, with government funding slashed during austerity measures in the 2010s and never restored. His school now receives just 7,000 pounds (about $9,348) annually for repairs.

That falls well short of what’s needed, given that outfitting the school with air conditioning could run close to 20,000 pounds (roughly $26,700) — and pressing problems like leaking roofs also demand attention.

“We’re already looking at some longer-term things, like more tree planting to provide shade onto buildings, external screening onto windows or use of solar film to reflect some of the glare,” Woods said. “But nothing’s going to happen extremely quickly.”

The Climate Change Committee, an independent advisory body to the British government, warned in a May report that by 2050, with approximately 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, heat waves in southern England could routinely surpass 40 C (104 F). Without action, the number of days per year when indoor temperatures in thousands of English schools could reach 35 C is projected to rise by 70% compared to current levels, resulting in more lost school days and declining educational outcomes.

The committee recommended starting with low-cost “passive cooling” methods such as window blinds and external shading, but said that schools, care homes, and hospitals most at risk should have air conditioning installed within the next 25 years — ideally using low-carbon systems like heat pumps capable of both heating and cooling.

Richard Millar, the committee’s director of adaptation, stressed that investment must begin now.

“Our key message overall is that the effects being felt now, when we think about heat particularly, this isn’t something that we’ve historically thought about as one of the key hazards from weather or from climate change in the U.K.,” Millar said. “We increasingly need to think about heat as the evidence of the last few weeks shows us. And this is one of areas where we have a gap in terms of a proper plan for how this is led, particularly about the public services side of it.”

“It’s not just a future problem. Those impacts are here,” Millar added. “And we’re not prepared for today’s weather, let alone tomorrow’s.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese found himself issuing a public apology Monday after a crude comment he made about pop icon Kylie Minogue during a comedy podcast sparked backlash from women’s rights groups and opposition lawmakers.

During the interview, host Nikki Osborne posed the question of which of three well-known Australian female celebrities Albanese would marry, date, or “shag” — a vulgar term in Australia used to refer to sexual intercourse.

At first, Albanese tried to sidestep the question, noting that he had recently gotten married. But Osborne pushed further, asking who he would pick if his marriage were to fall apart. Albanese responded, “Kylie, clearly.”

Osborne then followed up: “You’d marry Kylie, and shag her, and date her?” To which Albanese replied, “All of the above.”

The remarks quickly drew condemnation. Senator Sarah Henderson was among the opposition lawmakers who spoke out, calling the comments “disrespectful to women, embarrassing to Australians and demean the office of Prime Minister.”

Albanese wasted no time in releasing a formal apology. “I apologise unequivocally for the comments,” he said in a written statement issued Monday.

A representative for Minogue had not yet responded to media requests for comment at the time of the report.

Australia has a well-known informal political culture, where politicians are regularly asked about topics ranging from sports to pop culture during media appearances.

Iran kicked off a large funeral procession Monday through its capital city of Tehran to honor the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei’s coffin, draped in a flag, along with the coffins of family members who died in an airstrike on February 28 — at the outset of the war launched by Israel and the United States — are being transported on a truck through Tehran’s streets.

The procession is making its way toward Mehrabad International Airport as part of the formal mourning ceremonies.

Iran’s theocratic government is expecting large crowds to turn out across the city, viewing the attendance as a public demonstration of support for the ruling regime.

Iranian state television confirmed the procession had officially gotten underway.

To accommodate the mourning period, authorities have closed off streets, restricted airspace, and brought much of daily life to a halt. The ceremonies are scheduled to wrap up Thursday, when the 86-year-old Khamenei will be laid to rest at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to push forward with diplomatic negotiations with Iran. Those talks are focused on fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz, scaling back Iran’s disputed nuclear program, and achieving a lasting end to the ongoing war. However, negotiations appear to be paused until after the burial takes place.

MANILA — A Philippine anti-graft court moved to arrest a key ally of Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday, issuing a warrant for Senator Rodante Marcoleta on a plunder charge just hours before the Senate convened a high-profile impeachment trial that could shape Duterte’s political future.

Marcoleta had been set to serve as a senator-judge in the impeachment proceedings against Duterte. If two-thirds of the 24-member Senate votes to convict her, Duterte could be disqualified from running in the 2028 elections, in which she is currently considered the leading candidate to succeed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Marcos and Duterte ran together on a joint ticket in 2022, but that partnership has since collapsed into an intense rivalry.

The anti-graft court issued the arrest warrant after the Ombudsman’s office accused Marcoleta of accepting 75 million pesos — roughly $1.2 million — from private donors during his 2025 Senate campaign, an alleged violation of anti-corruption laws. The court also issued a hold departure order, barring the senator from leaving the Philippines.

In a statement released last week, the Ombudsman declared, “A public servant owes no personal debt to any donor that supersedes what they owe the Filipino people.”

News of the impending arrest sparked protests last week, organized by a religious group with 2 million members. The demonstrations snarled traffic throughout the capital, Manila, and forced Marcos to cancel scheduled events outside the presidential palace.

Marcoleta’s office had not issued a response as of Monday. The senator told supporters last week that he was ready to face imprisonment.

The case is not the first of its kind in recent weeks. Last month, Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada was taken into custody on plunder charges amid suspicions that he accepted kickbacks connected to infrastructure projects.

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s government says it is closely watching a growing number of Chinese naval movements as the military exercise season reaches its peak, including joint operations involving Russia, according to a senior Taiwanese security official who spoke Monday.

Taiwan, which operates as a self-governing democracy, is claimed by China as part of its territory. The island strongly rejects that claim and maintains that its own people have the sole right to determine their future. Taiwanese officials say the window of warning time before any potential military attack continues to narrow.

Taiwan National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen addressed reporters at parliament, noting that the period from July through September represents the height of Chinese military drill activity. He said officials are comparing current operations with previous ones to identify any emerging “new patterns.”

Tsai confirmed that four Chinese naval formations are currently active in the Western Pacific.

“Overall, during this seasonal peak for exercises, the mobilisation of Chinese Communist naval and maritime forces has indeed shown an upward trend,” Tsai stated.

China’s defense ministry had not responded to requests for comment at the time of this report.

On Sunday, both China’s defense ministry and Russian state media announced that the two countries’ naval forces would conduct joint exercises in the waters and airspace near the Chinese city of Qingdao this week. Tsai said Taiwanese officials became aware of those planned drills last week and held internal briefings ahead of time.

He also noted that the joint Chinese-Russian operations appear aimed at challenging the “denial and defence strategy” built by the United States and its allies along the First Island Chain — a stretch of territory running from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines, and Borneo.

By Friday, Taiwan was tracking a record number of more than 110 Chinese military and Coast Guard vessels operating along the First Island Chain, according to a post on X by Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, published late Saturday.

This follows a 2023 incident in which Taiwan spotted two Russian warships off its eastern coastline.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles and drones on Ukraine’s capital overnight into Monday, leaving at least three people dead, according to authorities. The assault began just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had publicly warned that a major Russian strike was on the way.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, reported via Telegram that a residential building in the Podilskyi district partially collapsed during the attack. In the Darnytsia district, multiple high-rise buildings sustained damage, and rescuers believed people were trapped beneath the debris.

“These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” Tkachenko wrote.

The strike, which was still ongoing in the early hours of Monday morning, involved multiple waves of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. The sounds of explosions rang out across Kyiv as residents fled to underground metro stations seeking safety.

Monday’s attack follows a deadly combined Russian strike just days earlier that claimed the lives of at least 31 people in the capital. In a late Sunday Telegram post, Zelenskyy again urged Western allies to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense systems, specifically calling for more Patriot missiles. He argued that allowing those supplies to run low only encourages Russia to continue its four-year war against Ukraine.

SEOUL — South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung is calling on government officials to move without delay in getting major chip and artificial intelligence projects off the ground, following a sweeping investment announcement made last week.

Speaking at a government meeting on Monday, Lee stressed that the nation’s ability to lead in advanced industries depends on how quickly it can act. He cautioned that bottlenecks in permitting, land acquisition, and securing reliable power and water supplies could jeopardize South Korea’s position in the global race for technological dominance.

“In this situation, it appears the outcome will be decided by who moves faster and who secures the lead first,” Lee said. “Only speed matters.”

Lee pointed to the Yongin industrial complex as an example of how slow the process can be, noting it took six years from site selection to breaking ground — and that timeline was actually considered relatively quick. He called on officials to shorten environmental reviews and other approval steps wherever possible, and said processes that are typically handled one after another should instead be pursued simultaneously.

The president also directed officials to get ahead of power and water infrastructure needs rather than waiting until projects are underway. He highlighted electricity as a particularly critical concern for chip manufacturing facilities, noting that companies have already expressed worries about reliable baseload power supply despite growth in renewable energy. Lee ordered officials to proactively address those concerns.

Lee also said government representatives and corporate leaders should begin talking about specific locations for the planned facilities.

Last week, South Korea unveiled a plan involving more than $576 billion in investment targeting the chip and AI sectors, with a goal of establishing global leadership and spreading economic growth beyond the Seoul metropolitan area. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are each set to invest 400 trillion won — roughly $260 billion apiece — to construct new chip manufacturing sites in the country’s southwest. An additional 81 trillion won is expected to flow into a chip-packaging cluster in the Chungcheong region.

(Exchange rate: $1 = 1,530.9 won)

SYDNEY — Australia and Fiji have formalized a new mutual defence alliance, signing the agreement on Monday alongside a separate treaty designed to deepen economic and security cooperation between the two Pacific nations.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka described the newly signed agreements as a meaningful upgrade in the relationship between the two countries.

Canada is poised to make a major defense decision Monday, selecting either a German or South Korean firm to construct a fleet of 12 submarines in what would rank among the country’s largest-ever military contracts.

The two companies in the running are Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean. The deal, worth tens of billions of dollars, would deliver 12 conventionally powered submarines to the Canadian navy.

The decision is expected to come before Prime Minister Mark Carney travels to a NATO summit being held in Turkey, as member nations across the alliance continue ramping up their defense budgets.

On Monday, Carney is scheduled to visit a Canadian Armed Forces base in the Atlantic-coast province of Nova Scotia, where he plans to unveil “new measures to make Canada more secure, resilient, and prosperous.”

A spokesperson for the prime minister declined to confirm that the submarine contract announcement would specifically be part of that event. However, Carney stated back in May that a decision would be coming within a matter of weeks.

Canada’s existing submarine fleet — four Victoria class vessels — is barely operational at this point, making the new procurement a pressing priority.

The German-Norwegian consortium ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems has argued that its submarines would strengthen NATO as a whole, pointing out that it has already provided a large share of the alliance’s conventional submarine fleet.

Hanwha Ocean, meanwhile, has launched an aggressive advertising push and emphasized the economic advantages its proposal would bring to Canada. Last month, the South Korean company brought its KSS-III diesel-electric submarine to British Columbia following the vessel’s completion of the South Korean navy’s first-ever crossing of the Pacific Ocean.

Both bidders have stressed that their proposals would create jobs and drive investment within Canada.

Carney’s government has committed to meeting NATO’s elevated defense spending goals, pledging to dedicate 5% of Canada’s gross domestic product to defense by 2035. Canada reached the alliance’s previous benchmark of 2% of GDP this year.

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, launched the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday in what is shaping up to be one of the most politically explosive legal proceedings the country has seen in years — unfolding amid a deep and bitter feud between Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Authorities deployed more than 6,000 police officers, including anti-riot units, around the Senate building as both supporters and opponents of Duterte were expected to gather outside. According to a pretrial plan reviewed by The Associated Press, Duterte or her legal team may appear at the outset of the proceedings, which are scheduled to run for 92 days.

The charges against her include accumulating unexplained wealth, misusing confidential government funds, and publicly threatening to arrange the assassination of Marcos, his wife, and a former House speaker if she were killed as a result of their political conflict. Duterte has denied the allegations.

A guilty verdict could permanently disqualify her from ever holding public office again — a devastating outcome for someone who has publicly declared her intention to run for president in mid-2028, when Marcos is set to complete his six-year term. The two had been running mates in the 2022 elections, combining the political muscle of two of the Philippines’ most powerful dynasties, but their partnership quickly unraveled.

Sara Duterte is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who preceded Marcos in office. The elder Duterte was arrested last year on orders from the International Criminal Court and transported to The Hague, where he remains in detention. He was scheduled to face trial on November 30 over alleged crimes against humanity.

Those charges are rooted in the violent anti-drug campaign Rodrigo Duterte oversaw during his presidency, which left thousands of mostly impoverished suspects dead and drew sharp criticism from Western governments and human rights organizations. While he has denied ordering extrajudicial killings, he repeatedly made public threats against drug suspects while in office.

The vice president has placed the blame for her father’s arrest and transfer to the ICC squarely on President Marcos.

The two political figures also hold starkly different views on foreign policy. Marcos has deepened military cooperation with the United States, the Philippines’ treaty ally, and has taken a firm stance against China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the contested South China Sea. In contrast, Rodrigo Duterte cultivated warm relationships with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin while threatening to distance the Philippines from Washington. Sara Duterte has drawn criticism for failing to speak out against China’s actions — including the use of powerful water cannons — against Filipino military personnel and fishermen in the disputed waters.

Last month, the House of Representatives, where Marcos’ political allies hold a commanding majority, voted by a wide margin to impeach the vice president. The articles of impeachment cited unexplained wealth, misappropriation of confidential government funds, and the public assassination threat.

While Duterte has broadly rejected the charges, she has declined to address them in detail publicly ahead of the trial. Her allies have characterized the impeachment as a politically motivated campaign orchestrated by Marcos and his inner circle to neutralize her and her Senate supporters.

To secure a conviction, at least 16 of the Senate’s 24 members — two-thirds of the chamber — must vote against her.

The trial comes as several senators aligned with the Duterte camp face serious legal troubles of their own. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, who supports the Duterte family, was arrested last month on a nonbailable plunder charge tied to a flood-control project bribery scandal. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Another pro-Duterte senator, Rodante Marcoleta, is facing possible arrest on a nonbailable plunder charge stemming from allegations that he received large campaign contributions and failed to disclose them in his financial disclosures. Marcoleta has denied any irregularities.

A third senator, Ronald dela Rosa, has gone into hiding after the ICC issued an arrest warrant naming him as a co-perpetrator in the killings carried out during the Duterte administration. Dela Rosa previously served as Rodrigo Duterte’s national police chief and was the first to implement the then-president’s deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.

Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv was struck by a Russian missile attack in the early morning hours of Monday, July 6, with local officials reporting that people were left trapped inside a severely damaged building not far from the city center.

Journalists from Reuters on the ground in Kyiv reported hearing multiple explosions both within the city and in surrounding areas. They also witnessed Ukrainian air defense systems working to intercept incoming Russian drones during the attack.

Kyiv’s mayor took to Telegram to inform residents that a residential building had been struck in the historic Podil neighborhood. “People are trapped on the seventh to ninth floors,” the mayor wrote.

The mayor also noted that debris from drones had come down on a second residential building within the same district, as well as in other parts of the city, which is home to approximately 3 million people.

Monday’s attack follows a deadly strike just last Thursday, when Russia unleashed hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles on Kyiv, killing at least 30 people.

LONDON — The United Kingdom took steps Monday to strengthen its rules around foreign political donations, aiming to prevent outside money from shaping British elections in what Housing Minister Steve Reed described as a fight against “dodgy funding.”

The push for reform began last year after the government launched a review into foreign financial meddling in politics, triggered by the jailing of a former Reform UK politician who accepted bribes in exchange for making pro-Russia speeches and statements.

That review concluded that Britain faces an ongoing threat from foreign nations — specifically naming Russia, China, and Iran — attempting to interfere with and weaken the country’s democratic processes. Those findings led directly to the new regulations now taking effect.

The timing is notable, as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is currently under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog. The inquiry centers on whether Farage should have disclosed a £5 million ($6.68 million) donation from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire — money that was given before Farage announced he would run for a seat in parliament.

Britain’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced Monday that going forward, political candidates must declare any donations exceeding £2,230 that were received before they officially became a candidate. They must also demonstrate that any pre-candidacy funding came from legitimate sources.

“By holding overseas donors to tougher standards and requiring candidates to prove where their funding comes from, we are taking world-leading action to protect the integrity of our elections and tackle the threats we face from abroad,” Reed said in a prepared statement.

Additional provisions in the updated rules require individuals who move to the UK from other countries to live there permanently for at least one year before they are permitted to make a political donation of £100,000 or more. Donations from companies will now also be evaluated based on past post-tax profits rather than revenue, a change designed to ensure that only businesses with genuine ties to the UK can contribute.

These latest measures expand on rules announced back in March, which placed a £100,000-per-year cap on donations from British citizens living abroad and banned contributions made in cryptocurrency until a proper regulatory framework is in place.

Reform UK, which has led national opinion polls for more than a year, has maintained that no rules were violated regarding the donation Farage received from crypto investor Christopher Harborne. According to data from the Electoral Commission, Harborne supplied roughly two-thirds of Reform’s total funding last year.

Farage faced additional scrutiny on Sunday when he was referred to parliament’s standards watchdog following a report alleging he failed to disclose certain other benefits.

($1 = 0.7490 pounds)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to reveal which company will be awarded a contract to construct 12 submarines for Canada’s navy when he makes an announcement on Monday, according to a report from the Globe and Mail published Sunday.

The timing of the announcement is significant — Carney is scheduled to travel to Turkey for a NATO leaders’ summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, and sources cited by the Globe and Mail indicate the submarine contract decision will come before his departure.

A request for comment sent to the Prime Minister’s Office had not received a response at the time of reporting.

Two companies are vying for the lucrative naval contract: Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), a joint German-Norwegian venture, and Hanwha Ocean, a shipbuilder based in South Korea.

Canada has been under pressure from the United States to boost its defense spending. The country has already met NATO’s military spending benchmark of 2% of gross domestic product ahead of its original schedule. NATO leaders have collectively agreed to raise defense and security-related spending to 5% of GDP by the year 2035.

In addition to the submarine announcement, Canada is working to gather approximately 10 founding nations for a proposed global defense bank, with plans to unveil that initiative at the upcoming NATO summit.

MANILA — The impeachment trial of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte got underway Monday, a proceeding that analysts say will help define the country’s 2028 presidential race while deepening a bitter divide between two powerful political dynasties that has thrown the Senate into chaos.

The verdict will carry consequences far beyond Duterte’s political future — it will also serve as a test of public faith in the Philippines’ institutions. Experts warn that how the process is perceived matters just as much as the outcome itself.

“If it is seen as politically motivated or lacking credibility, questions may linger regardless of the outcome,” said Ederson Tapia, a public administration professor at the University of Makati.

How long the trial will take remains uncertain. Factors like procedural disputes, witness lists, and evidence presentations will all play a role in determining the pace. For reference, a 2012 impeachment trial involving a former chief justice stretched on for four months. To secure a conviction, at least 16 of the Senate’s 24 members must vote in favor. Opinion polls currently show Duterte as a top contender for the 2028 presidential race, though a guilty verdict could derail those ambitions.

“If the public perceives the process to have been fair, an acquittal could strengthen her position,” Tapia added.

This marks the first-ever impeachment trial of a Philippine vice president. The charges against Duterte include misappropriating government funds, accumulating wealth she cannot explain, and making threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the first lady, and a former House Speaker.

Duterte, whose father is former President Rodrigo Duterte, has denied all allegations and maintains the impeachment is a politically driven attack against her.

Congressman Robert “Ace” Barbers, who serves as spokesperson for the prosecution, dismissed her claims. “That is to be expected,” he said. “We will let the evidence speak for itself.”

Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, stressed that both sides need a full and fair opportunity to make their case. She pointed to the impeachment of then-President Joseph Estrada as a cautionary tale — a Senate vote to block key evidence sparked public fury, brought the trial to a halt, and fueled mass protests that ultimately led to Estrada’s removal from office in January 2001.

“They really have to make sure that both the prosecution and the defence are given enough time and voice … so the public does not perceive the trial as favouring one side,” she said.

Duterte’s attorney, Michael Poa, said the defense team is ready to demonstrate that the charges are “baseless.” He was unable to confirm whether Duterte herself would appear at Monday’s opening session, noting that the summons allowed her to be represented by her legal team.

FROM ALLIES TO ADVERSARIES

Marcos and Duterte — both heirs to two of the Philippines’ most influential political families — ran together on the same ticket in 2022. That partnership has since collapsed into an increasingly hostile feud, a rupture that intensified following Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court in March of last year.

The fallout has spilled directly into the Senate, casting uncertainty over how the trial will play out.

In May, as the Senate was preparing to receive the impeachment complaint from the House of Representatives, Duterte ally Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa suddenly reappeared in the chamber after being absent from public view since November. His vote proved decisive in installing Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate president.

Dela Rosa then remained inside the Senate building before quietly slipping out in the early hours of May 14 — just hours after gunfire and disorder broke out inside the parliament building. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Cayetano had previously served as the running mate of Duterte’s father in the 2016 election. Rodrigo Duterte is currently in The Hague awaiting trial on murder charges stemming from his administration’s “war on drugs.” Dela Rosa, who served as national police chief during much of that crackdown — in which thousands of suspects died — faces similar ICC charges. Both men deny any wrongdoing.

Roughly a month after the Senate leadership clash, a rival bloc of senators secured enough support to elect Senator Sherwin Gatchalian as Senate president.

While the internal power struggle has exposed the Senate’s deep divisions, analysts caution that the leadership battle should not be read as a reliable preview of how individual senators will vote in the actual trial.

“The impeachment process creates a different set of incentives and constitutional responsibilities than leadership contests or coalition politics,” Tapia said.

The trial’s outcome could also shape who becomes the leading presidential candidate from the Marcos camp in 2028, as Marcos himself is constitutionally prohibited from running for a second term.

The Venezuelan information ministry announced Sunday that the combined death toll from two major earthquakes has reached 3,342, with the latest numbers painting a grim picture of the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Beyond the fatalities, officials report that 16,470 people sustained injuries in the disaster, while 17,345 individuals have been left without a place to live.

The updated figures came on the same day that interim President Delcy Rodriguez addressed the nation during ceremonies marking Venezuela’s 215th independence day. During her speech, Rodriguez pushed back against mounting criticism that the government’s response to the earthquakes was too slow and fell short of what was needed.

Rodriguez stated that she moved quickly to send security forces to the affected areas following the quakes. She also announced the establishment of a new military unit that will be dedicated to responding to emergencies and natural disasters going forward.