London — Atom bomb epic “Oppenheimer” won seven prizes, including best picture, director and actor, at the 77th British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, cementing its front-runner status for the Oscars next month.

Gothic fantasia “Poor Things” took five prizes and Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” won three.

Christopher Nolan won his first best director BAFTA for “Oppenheimer,” and Cillian Murphy won the best actor prize for playing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Murphy said he was grateful to play such a “colossally knotty, complex character.”

Emma Stone was named best actress for playing the wild and spirited Bella Baxter in “Poor Things,” a steampunk-style visual extravaganza that won prizes for visual effects, production design, costume design, and makeup and hair.

“Oppenheimer” had a field-leading 13 nominations, but missed out on the record of nine trophies, set in 1971 by “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

It won the best film race against “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Holdovers.” “Oppenheimer” also won trophies for editing, cinematography and musical score, as well as the best supporting actor prize for Robert Downey Jr.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph was named best supporting actress for playing a boarding school cook in “The Holdovers” and said she felt a “responsibility I don’t take lightly” to tell the stories of underrepresented people like her character Mary.

“Oppenheimer” faced stiff competition in what was widely considered a vintage year for cinema and an awards season energized by the end of actors’ and writers’ strikes that shut down Hollywood for months.

” The Zone of Interest” — a British-produced film shot in Poland with a largely German cast — was named both best British film and best film not in English — a first — and also took the prize for its sound, which has been described as the real star of the film.

Jonathan Glazer’s unsettling drama takes place in a family home just outside the walls of the Auschwitz death camp, whose horrors are heard and hinted at, rather than seen.

“Walls aren’t new from before or since the Holocaust, and it seems stark right now that we should care about innocent people being killed in Gaza or Yemen or Mariupol or Israel,” producer James Wilson said. “Thank you for recognizing a film that asks us to think in those spaces.”

Ukraine war documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” produced by The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” won the prize for best documentary.

“This is not about us,” said filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who captured the harrowing reality of life in the besieged city with an AP team. “This is about Ukraine, about the people of Mariupol.”

Chernov said the story of the city and its fall into Russian occupation “is a symbol of struggle and a symbol of faith. Thank you for empowering our voice and let’s just keep fighting.”

The awards ceremony, hosted by “Doctor Who” star David Tennant — who entered wearing a kilt and sequined top while carrying a dog named Bark Ruffalo — was a glitzy, British-accented appetizer for Hollywood’s Academy Awards, closely watched for hints about who might win at the Oscars on March 10.

The prize for original screenplay, went to French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” The film about a woman on trial over the death of her husband was written by director Justine Triet and her partner, Arthur Harari.

“It’s a fiction, and we are reasonably fine,” Triet joked.

Cord Jefferson won the adapted screenplay prize for the satirical “American Fiction,” about the struggles of an African-American novelist

Jefferson said he hoped the success of the movie “maybe changes the minds of the people who are in charge of greenlighting films and TV shows, allows them to be less risk-averse.”

Historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” had nine nominations for the awards, officially called the EE BAFTA Film Awards, but went home empty-handed.

There also was disappointment for Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” which had seven nominations but won no awards. Neither did grief-flecked love story “All of Us Strangers” with six nominations, and barbed class-war dramedy “Saltburn,” with five.

” Barbie,” one half of 2023’s “Barbenheimer” box office juggernaut and the year’s top-grossing film, also went home empty-handed from five nominations. “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig failed to get a directing nomination for either the BAFTAs or the Oscars, in what was seen by many as a major snub.

Britain’s film academy introduced changes to increase the awards’ diversity in 2020, when no women were nominated as best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting performer categories were white. However, Triet was the only woman among this year’s six best-director nominees.

The Rising Star award, the only category decided by public vote, went to Mia McKenna-Bruce, star of “How to Have Sex.”

Before the ceremony, nominees, including Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo Edebiri all walked the red carpet at London’s Royal Festival Hall, along with presenters Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett, Idirs Elba and David Beckham.

Guest of honor was Prince William, in his role as president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He arrived without his wife, Kate, who is recovering from abdominal surgery last month.

The ceremony included musical performances by “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, singing “Time After Time,” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singing her 2001 hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which shot back up the charts after featuring in “Saltburn.”

Film curator June Givanni, founder of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive, was honored for outstanding British contribution to cinema, while actress Samantha Morton received the academy’s highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.

Morton, who grew up in foster care and children’s homes, said that “representation matters.”

“The stories we tell, they have the power to change people’s lives,” she said. “Film changed my life, it transformed me, and it led me here today.

“I dedicate this award to every child in care, or who has been in care and who didn’t survive.”
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BUDAPEST — A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators made an official visit to Hungary’s capital Sunday and called on the nationalist government to immediately approve Sweden’s request to join NATO. 

Hungary is the only one of NATO’s 31 existing members not to have ratified Sweden’s bid. The Hungarian government faces mounting pressure to act after delaying the move for more than 18 months since admitting a new country to the military alliance requires unanimous approval. 

The visiting senators announced they would submit a joint resolution to Congress condemning alleged democratic backsliding in Hungary and urging the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to lift its block on Sweden’s trans-Atlantic integration. 

“With accession, Hungary and your prime minister will be doing a great service to freedom-loving nations worldwide,” Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said during a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. 

The resolution, first reported early Sunday by The Associated Press, was authored by Tillis and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat. Joining them in the delegation to Budapest was Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. 

Earlier this month, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raised the prospect of imposing sanctions on Hungary for its conduct, and called Orbán “the least reliable member of NATO.” 

In the resolution, obtained by the AP, the senators note “the important role Hungary can have in European and trans-Atlantic security,” but point out its failure to keep earlier promises not to be the last NATO ally to sign off on Sweden’s membership. 

Hungary, the resolution says, “has not joined all other NATO member states in approving the accession of Sweden to NATO, failing to fulfill a commitment not to be last to approve such accession and jeopardizing trans-Atlantic security at a key moment for peace and stability in Europe.” 

Orbán, a staunch nationalist who has led Hungary since 2010, has said that he favors making Sweden part of NATO but that lawmakers in his party remained unconvinced because of “blatant lies” from Swedish politicians on the state of Hungary’s democracy. 

But in a state of the nation speech in Budapest on Saturday, Orbán indicated that Hungary’s legislature might soon relent. 

“It’s good news that our dispute with Sweden is nearing a conclusion,” he said. “We are moving toward ratifying Sweden’s accession to NATO at the beginning of the spring session of Parliament.” 

On Sunday, Shaheen said it was “disappointing” that no members of the Hungarian government had accepted invitations to meet the delegation, but that she was “hopeful and optimistic” that Sweden’s accession would be submitted for ratification on Feb. 26 when Hungarian lawmakers reconvene. 

Murphy said Orbán’s government’s refusal to meet was “strange and concerning,” but that the onus was on the long-serving leader to push forward a vote. 

“We are wise enough about politics here to know that if Prime Minister Orbán wants this to happen, then the parliament can move forward,” he said. 

The senators’ resolution criticizes Orbán’s increasingly warm relations with Russia and China, and notes that while Hungary has opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees fleeing Moscow’s invasion, it has also “resisted and diluted European Union sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation.” 

Orbán, widely considered to be the Kremlin’s closest EU ally, has long been criticized for flouting the bloc’s standards on democracy and the rule of law. The EU has withheld billions in funding from Budapest over alleged breaches of its rules. 

Hungary’s government has also adopted an increasingly adversarial stance toward the administration of President Joe Biden, accusing the U.S. of attempting to influence Hungarian public life. 

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said Friday that he welcomed the senators’ visit but that it was “not worth trying to exert pressure on us, because we are a sovereign country.” 

“We are glad they are coming here because they can see for themselves that everything they read about Hungary in the liberal American media is a blatant lie,” Szijjártó said. 
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Istanbul — Authorities in Turkey detained Sunday the director of the company managing a gold mine where a massive landslide in the country’s east left nine workers missing, local media said.

A huge landslide engulfed Tuesday the Anagold Madencilik company’s Copler mine in the town of Ilic in Turkey’s mountainous Erzincan province, trapping the workers under tons of rubble, and becoming a potential environmental disaster. The landslide involved a mound of soil extracted from the mine, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya previously said.

Cengiz Demirci, Turkey director and senior vice president of operations at the Denver-based SSR Mining Inc., Anagold’s parent company, was detained Sunday morning. Earlier this week, authorities also detained eight other Copler mine employees as part of the investigation into the disaster, six of whom were formally arrested.

Hundreds of search and rescue personnel are still looking for the workers who have been missing for six days so far.

Turkey’s Environment Ministry announced Saturday it was canceling Anagold’s environmental permit and license.

Experts warned the landslide could be an environmental hazard as the soil was laced with dangerous substances, including cyanide, used in gold extraction. They said it may affect the nearby Euphrates River which stretches across Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The ministry had closed down a stream leading to the river to prevent water pollution.

In 2020, the same mine was shut down following a cyanide leak into the Euphrates, roughly 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) away. It reopened two years later after the company was fined and a cleanup operation completed.

Shares at SSR Mining plummeted over 50% in the wake of Tuesday’s disaster.

Turkey has a poor mine safety record.

In 2022, an explosion at the Amasra coal mine on the Black Sea coast killed 41 workers. The country’s worst mining disaster took place in 2014 at a coal mine in the municipality of Soma, in western Turkey, where 301 people were killed.
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Los Angeles — Samantha Sumiko Pinedo and her grandparents file into a dimly lit enclosure at the Japanese American National Museum and approach a massive book splayed open to reveal columns of names. Pinedo is hoping the list includes her great-grandparents, who were detained in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II. 

“For a lot of people, it feels like so long ago because it was World War II. But I grew up with my Bompa (great-grandpa), who was in the internment camps,” Pinedo says.

A docent at the museum in Los Angeles gently flips to the middle of the book — called the Ireichō — and locates Kaneo Sakatani near the center of a page. This was Pinedo’s great-grandfather, and his family can now honor him.

On Feb. 19, 1942, following the attack by Imperial Japan on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry to WWII, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry who were considered potentially dangerous. 

From the extreme heat of the Gila River center in Arizona, to the biting winters of Heart Mountain in Wyoming, Japanese Americans were forced into hastily built barracks, with no insulation or privacy, and surrounded by barbed wire. They shared bathrooms and mess halls, and families of up to eight were squeezed into 20-by-25 foot (6-by-7.5 meter) rooms. Armed U.S. soldiers in guard towers ensured nobody tried to flee.

When the 75 holding facilities on U.S. soil closed in 1946, the government published Final Accountability Rosters listing the name, sex, date of birth and marital status of the Japanese Americans held at the 10 largest facilities. There was no clear consensus of who or how many had been detained nationwide.

Duncan Ryūken Williams, the director of the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California, knew those rosters were incomplete and riddled with errors, so he and a team of researchers took on the mammoth task of identifying all the detainees and honoring them with a three-part monument called “Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration.”

“We wanted to repair that moment in American history by thinking of the fact that this is a group of people, Japanese Americans, that was targeted by the government. As long as you had one drop of Japanese blood in you, the government told you you didn’t belong,” Williams said.

The Irei project was inspired by stone Buddhist monuments called Ireitōs that were built by detainees at camps in Manzanar, California, and Amache, Colorado, to memorialize and console the spirits of internees who died.

The first part of the Irei monument is the Ireichō, the sacred book listing 125,284 verified names of Japanese American detainees.

“We felt like we needed to bring dignity and personhood and individuality back to all these people,” Williams said. “The best way we thought we could do that was to give them their names back.”

The second element, the Ireizō, is a website set to launch on Monday, the Day of Remembrance, which visitors can use to search for additional information about detainees. Ireihi is the final part: A collection of light installations at incarceration sites and the Japanese American National Museum.

Williams and his team spent more than three years reaching out to camp survivors and their relatives, correcting misspelled names and data errors and filling in the gaps. They analyzed records in the National Archives of detainee transfers, as well as Enemy Alien identification cards and directories created by detainees.

“We feel fairly confident that we’re at least 99% accurate with that list,” Williams said.

The team recorded every name in order of age, from the oldest person who entered the camps to the last baby born there.

Williams, who is a Buddhist priest, invited leaders from different faiths, Native American tribes and social justice groups to attend a ceremony introducing the Ireichō to the museum.

Crowds of people gathered in the Little Tokyo neighborhood to watch camp survivors and descendants of detainees file into the museum, one by one, holding wooden pillars, called sobata, bearing the names of each of the camps. At the end of the procession, the massive, weighty book of names was carried inside by multiple faith leaders. Williams read Buddhist scripture and led chants to honor the detainees.

Those sobata now line the walls of the serene enclosure where the Ireichō will remain until Dec. 1. Each bears the name — in English and Japanese — of the camp it represents. Suspended from each post is a jar containing soil from the named site.

Visitors are encouraged to look for their loved ones in the Ireichō and leave a mark under their names using a Japanese stamp called a hanko.

The first people to stamp it were some of the last surviving camp detainees.

So far, 40,000 visitors have made their mark. For Williams, that interaction is essential.

“To honor each person by placing a stamp in the book means that you are changing the monument every day,” Williams said.

Sharon Matsuura, who visited the Ireichō to commemorate her parents and husband who were incarcerated in Camp Amache, says the monument has an important role to play in raising awareness, especially for young people who may not know about this harsh chapter in America’s story.

“It was a very shameful part of history that the young men and women were good enough to fight and die for the country, but they had to live in terrible conditions and camps,” Matsuura says. “We want people to realize these things happened.”

Many survivors remain silent about what they endured, not wanting to relive it, Matsuura says.

Pinedo watches as her grandmother, Bernice Yoshi Pinedo, carefully stamps a blue dot beneath her father’s name. The family stands back in silence, taking in the moment, yellow light casting shadows from the jars of soil on the walls.

Kaneo Sakatani was only 14 when he was detained in Tule Lake, in far northern California.

“It’s sad,” Bernice says. “But I feel very proud that my parents’ names were in there.” 
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In the U.S. state of Texas, people are making clones of their beloved pets so the genetically identical animal can live after their pet dies. From the Texas capital, Austin, VOA’s Deana Mitchell has our story.
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WHITEFISH POINT, Mich. — Shipwreck hunters have discovered a merchant ship that sank in Lake Superior in 1940, taking its captain with it, during a storm off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society and shipwreck researcher Dan Fountain announced Monday the discovery of the 74-meter bulk carrier Arlington in about 200 meters of water some 60 kilometers north of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.

The Arlington left Port Arthur, Ontario, on April 30, 1940, fully loaded with wheat and headed to Owen Sound, Ontario, under the command of Captain Frederick “Tatey Bug” Burke, a veteran of the Great Lakes.

But as the Arlington and a larger freighter, the Collingwood, made their way across Lake Superior they encountered dense fog and then a storm after nightfall that battered both ships. The Arlington began to take on water.

The ship’s first mate ordered the Arlington onto a course to hug the Canadian North Shore, which would have provided some cover from wind and waves, but Burke countermanded and ordered his ship back onto a course across the open lake, the discoverers said.

Early on May 1, 1940, the Arlington began to sink, and the ship’s chief engineer sounded the alarm. The crew, “out of fear for their lives, and without orders from Captain Burke,” began to abandon ship, they said in a statement.

All crew made it safely to the Collingwood except for Burke, who went down with the Arlington. Reports indicate he was last seen near its pilothouse, waving at the Collingwood, minutes before his ship vanished into the lake.

The shipwreck society said in the statement that “no one will ever know the answer” as to why Burke acted as he did before his ship was lost.

“It’s exciting to solve just one more of Lake Superior’s many mysteries, finding Arlington so far out in the lake,” Fountain said in a statement. “I hope this final chapter in her story can provide some measure of closure to the family of Captain Burke.”

The Arlington was discovered thanks to Fountain, a resident of Negaunee, Michigan, who has been conducting remote sensing in Lake Superior in search of shipwrecks for about a decade, said Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society.

Fountain approached the group with “a potential target” near the northern tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, and the Arlington was discovered last year. Lynn said.

“These targets don’t always amount to anything … but this time it absolutely was a shipwreck. A wreck with an interesting, and perhaps mysterious story,” he said in the statement. “Had Dan not reached out to us, we might never have located the Arlington.”
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The Hague, Netherlands — The U.N.’s top court will from Monday hold hearings on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967, with an unprecedented 52 countries expected to give evidence.

Nations including the United States, Russia, and China will address judges in a weeklong session at the Peace Palace in The Hague, seat of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In December 2022, the U.N. General Assembly asked the ICJ for a nonbinding “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

While any ICJ opinion would be non-binding, it comes amid mounting international legal pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza sparked by the brutal October 7 Hamas attacks.

The hearings are separate from a high-profile case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel is committing genocidal acts during the current Gaza offensive.

The ICJ ruled in that case in January that Israel must do everything in its power to prevent genocide and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire.

On Friday, it rejected South Africa’s bid to impose additional measures on Israel but reiterated the need to carry out the ruling in full.

‘Prolonged occupation’

The General Assembly has asked the ICJ to consider two questions.

Firstly, the court should examine the legal consequences of what the U.N. called “the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

This relates to the “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967” and “measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

In June 1967, Israel crushed some of its Arab neighbors in a six-day war, seizing the West Bank including east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

Israel then began to settle the 70,000 square kilometers of seized Arab territory. The U.N. later declared the occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. Cairo regained Sinai under its 1979 peace deal with Israel.

The ICJ has also been asked to look into the consequences of what it described as Israel’s “adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”

Secondly, the ICJ should advise on how Israel’s actions “affect the legal status of the occupation” and what are the consequences for the UN and other countries.

The court will rule “urgently” on the affair, probably by the end of the year.

‘Despicable’

The ICJ rules in disputes between states and its judgments are binding although it has little means to enforce them.

However, in this case, the opinion it issues will be non-binding.

In the court’s own words: “The requesting organ, agency or organization remains free to give effect to the opinion by any means open to it, or not to do so.”

But most advisory opinions are in fact acted upon.

The ICJ has previously issued advisory opinions on the legality of Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and apartheid South Africa’s occupation of Namibia.

It also handed down an opinion in 2004 declaring that parts of the wall erected by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory were illegal and should be torn down.

Israel is not participating in the hearings and reacted angrily to the 2022 U.N. request, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “despicable” and “disgraceful.”

The week after the U.N. resolution, Israel announced a series of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority to make it “pay the price” for pushing for it.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that while advisory opinions are nonbinding, “they can carry great moral and legal authority” and can eventually be inscribed in international law.

The hearings should “highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” said Clive Baldwin, HRW senior legal adviser.
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WAYCROSS, Ga. — Two young citizen-soldiers who became close friends after enlisting in the Army Reserve were remembered at funerals in southeast Georgia on Saturday, nearly three weeks after they died in a drone attack while deployed to the Middle East.

A service for 24-year-old Sgt. Kennedy Sanders was held in the packed 1,200-seat auditorium of Ware County Middle School in Waycross.

Fellow soldiers recalled Sanders’ courage, her loving personality, and her willingness to volunteer for tasks few wanted to do, including learning to operate earth-moving equipment to help build roads and shelters, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“Behind her smile was a fierce determination,” Col. Jeffrey Dulgarian said during the service, adding that she “tackled her responsibility with vigor and skill.”

Sanders’ former basketball coach, Mandy Lingenfelter, remembered Sanders as a point guard for Ware County High’s Lady Gators.

“It was hard for me to yell at her,” Lingenfelter said, “because she was always smiling. … She had pure joy. She put Jesus first, others second and herself last.”

A similar welcome marked the final homecoming for Sgt. Breonna Moffett, 23, in Savannah. Moffett’s funeral at a Baptist church was scheduled for the same time Saturday as Sanders’ service 161 kilometers away. Moffett’s family requested that media not be present.

The soldiers were among three members of their Army Reserve unit who died January 28 in a drone strike on a U.S. base in Jordan near the Syrian border. Also killed was Staff Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, who was buried Tuesday following a church service in Carrollton. 

The military awarded all three soldiers promotions in rank after their deaths. They were assigned to the 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade, based at Fort Moore in west Georgia. 

According to the Army Reserve, Moffett and Sanders both enlisted in 2019 as construction engineers who use bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear roads and construction sites. 

By the time they deployed to the Middle East last year, the two had become close friends. Moffett’s mother, Francine Moffett, said that whenever the family would call her daughter, they typically would hear from Sanders too. 

When she wasn’t serving in uniform, Moffett worked in Savannah for United Cerebral Palsy of Georgia, helping teach cooking and other skills to people with disabilities. She joined the Army Reserve after graduating from Windsor Forest High School, where she had been a drum major and JROTC cadet. She was killed just days after her 23rd birthday. 

Sanders came from Waycross on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp and worked at a local pharmacy. The former high school athlete helped coach children’s basketball and soccer teams in her spare time. Her mother, Oneida Oliver-Sanders, said the last time they spoke, her daughter talked of wanting to buy a motorcycle when she came home. 

The deaths of the three Georgia reservists were the first U.S. fatalities blamed on Iran-backed militia groups after months of intensified attacks on American forces in the region since the Israel-Hamas war began in October. 

More than 40 troops were also injured in the drone attack at Tower 22, a secretive U.S. military desert outpost that enables U.S. forces to infiltrate and quietly leave Syria. 

 
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beijing — China’s foreign ministry declined to comment Saturday on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, describing it as “Russia’s internal affair.” 

“This is Russia’s internal affair. I will not comment,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in response to a question from AFP. 

Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent critic, died Friday in an Arctic prison, Russian officials said, a month before an election poised to extend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power. 

Navalny’s death after three years in detention and a poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin deprives Russia’s opposition of its figurehead at a time of intense repression and Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine. 

Beijing and Moscow are staunch allies and have strengthened their relationship even as Western countries have turned their backs on Russia over its military invasion of neighboring Ukraine. 

Both sides also have made much of the personal relationship between the two leaders, and China’s President Xi Jinping has referred to his Russian counterpart Putin as his “good friend.” 

Dissidents and some Western leaders placed the blame squarely on Putin and his government for the 47-year-old’s death, which followed months of deteriorating health in harsh detention conditions. 
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paris — A new artificial intelligence tool that promises to create short videos from simple text commands has raised concerns along with questions from artists and media professionals. 

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and image generator DALL-E, said Thursday it was testing a text-to-video model called “Sora” that can allow users to create realistic videos with simple prompts. 

The San Francisco-based startup says Sora can “generate complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details of the subject and background,” but admits it still has limitations, such as possibly “mixing up left and right.” 

Here are early reactions from industries that could be affected by the new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool:   

Examples of Sora-created clips on OpenAI’s website range widely in style and subject, from seemingly real drone footage above a crowded market to an animated bunny-like creature bouncing through a forest. 

Thomas Bellenger, founder and art director of Cutback Productions, has been carefully watching the evolution of generative AI image generation.   

“There were those who felt that it was an unstoppable groundswell that was progressing at an astonishing rate, and those who just didn’t want to see it,” said Bellenger, whose France-based company has created large scale visual effects for such touring musicians as Stromae and Justice. 

He said the development of generative AI has “created a lot of debate internally” at the company and “a lot of sometimes visceral reactions.” 

Bellenger noted that Sora has yet to be released, so its capabilities have yet to be tested by the public. 

“What is certain is that no one expected such a technological leap forward in just a few weeks,” Bellenger said. “It’s unheard of.” 

He said whatever the future holds, they’ll “find ways to create differently.” 

Mixed reaction among creators

Video game creators are equally likely to be impacted by the new invention, with reaction among the sector divided between those open to embracing a new tool and those fearing it might replace them. 

French video game giant Ubisoft hailed the OpenAI announcement as a “quantum leap forward” with the potential to let players and development teams express their imaginations. 

“We’ve been exploring this potential for a long time,” a Ubisoft spokesperson told AFP. 

Alain Puget, chief of Nantes-based studio Alkemi, said he won’t replace any artists with AI tools, which “only reproduce things done by humans.” 

Nevertheless, Puget noted, this “visually impressive” tool could be used by small studios to produce more professionally rendered images. 

While video “cut scenes” that play out occasionally to advance game storylines are different from player-controlled action, Puget expects tools like Sora to eventually be able to replace “the way we do things.”   

‘A terrifying leap’

Basile Simon, a former journalist and current Stanford University researcher, thinks there has been “a terrifying leap forward in the last year” when it comes to generative AI allowing realistic-looking fabrications to be rapidly produced. 

He dreads the idea of how such tools will be abused during elections and fears the public will “no longer know what to believe”. 

Julien Pain of French TV channel France Info’s fact-checking program “Vrai ou Faux” (True or False) says he’s also worried about abuse of AI tools. 

“Until now, it was easy enough to spot fake images, for example by noticing the repetitive faces in the background,” Pain said. “What this new software does seems to be on another level.” 

While OpenAI and U.S. tech titans may promote safety tools, such as industry-wide watermarks that reveal AI-created imagery, “what about tomorrow’s competitors in China and Russia?” he posited. 

The Fred & Farid agency, which has collaborated with the Longchamp and Budweiser brands and where a studio dedicated to AI was opened in early January, anticipates that “80 percent of brand content will be generated by artificial intelligence.” 

“Creative genius” will no longer be limited by production skills thanks to generative AI tools, one enthusiast contended.   

Stephanie Laporte, chief executive and founder of the OTTA advertising and influencer agency, believes the technology will “force the industry to evolve.” 

She also anticipates ad companies with lean budgets will resort to AI tools to save money on workers. 

A possible exception, she believes, is the luxury segment, where brands are “very sensitive to authenticity” and “will probably use AI sparingly.” 
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sterling, virginia — One firefighter was killed, and nine others were injured when an explosion in a Washington, D.C., suburb Friday leveled a home where they were investigating a gas leak. Two other people were also injured. 

The firefighters were called to the home in Sterling, Virginia, by a report of a gas smell shortly after 7:30 p.m. and a fiery explosion took place about 30 minutes later, fire officials said. 

The blast and fire occurred while firefighters were inside the building, James Williams, assistant chief of operations for Loudon County Fire and Rescue, said at a news conference. 

“Soon after arrival, with firefighters inside, the house did explode,” Williams said. 

One firefighter was killed, while nine firefighters and two others were taken to hospitals with injuries ranging from limited to severe, Williams said. 

“We have all firefighters out of the building. The fire will continue to smolder,” Williams said. He described damage to the home as “total devastation.” 

“There’s a debris field well into the street and into the neighboring homes,” he said. 

Williams said the cause of the fire was under investigation. 

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Sterling Volunteer Fire Company said its crews had responded to a report of a gas leak before the blast. 

A neighbor, John Padgett, told ABC7 News that he had smelled gas while walking his dog earlier. The blast shook his home, he said. 

“It looked like an inferno,” and insulation from the burning home fell like ash, he added. “It was horrific; it looked like something out of a war zone.” 

Sterling is about 22 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of Washington, D.C. 
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MUNICH — Top diplomats from the U.S. and China on Friday held a “candid and constructive” discussion on issues vexing their strained relations over Taiwan, the situation in the South China Sea, Russia’s war against Ukraine and synthetic opioids, the State Department said. 

The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference marked the latest and highest-level meeting between the two sides since U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks late last year in California. 

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken emphasized the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait and expanding on nascent counternarcotics efforts. Blinken also raised concerns about China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base that Washington sees as helping Moscow’s military operations against Ukraine. 

“The two sides had a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition in the relationship,” Miller said. 

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wang called on the U.S. to remove sanctions against Chinese companies and individuals. 

Wang emphasized that Washington’s policy of “de-risking” economically from Beijing “has become ‘de-Sinicizing,’ ‘building a tall fence’ and ‘de-coupling from China’” and “will come back to bite the U.S. itself,” according to a ministry readout Saturday morning. 

He also called on the U.S. to stop searches of Chinese nationals. Recently, Chinese state media published reports of Chinese citizens being searched at the U.S. border. 

In one prominent case, a group of students led by their professor, Xie Tao from Beijing Foreign Studies University, were interrogated for three hours upon arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, according to Xinhua. Xie is the dean of the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at the University. 

Wang affirmed that cooperation to combat the spread of fentanyl was going “positively” and would continue, as well as the agreement to keep military-to-military communications. Both sides also discussed the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine. 

Blinken “reiterated that the United States will stand up for our interests and values and those of our allies and partners,” Miller said, adding that the current situations in the Middle East and with North Korea had also been topics of conversation. 

“Both sides recognized the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and (China) across a range of strategic issues, including consultations and high-level meetings in key areas in the coming months,” he said. 
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A ruling was delivered Friday in the New York civil fraud trial involving Donald Trump. The decision marks a major setback for the former president, whose legal battles have continued to unfold since he left office. Aron Ranen has the story from New York City.
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EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — President Joe Biden on Friday surveyed the federal cleanup in East Palestine, Ohio, more than a year after an explosive fire from a derailed train carrying hazardous chemicals, and saw up close the lingering hostility from victims still angry that he waited so long to visit.

The White House has said Biden was waiting for the right moment to visit. The mayor invited him.

Addressing residents, Biden said he wanted them to understand “that we’re not going home, no matter what, until this job is done, and it’s not done yet,” speaking of the federal government. He did not explain why it took more than a year for him to visit, nor did he address the community’s collective hurt.

He praised what he said were “Herculean efforts” by the federal, state and local governments to clean up after the derailment and fire and, announced federal grants from the National Institutes of Health to study the short- and long-term effects of what happened and blamed the derailment on greed by the railroad company, Norfolk Southern.

The derailment didn’t have to happen, Biden said.

“While there are acts of God, this was an act of greed that was 100% preventable,” Biden said after local officials briefed him on the cleanup and took him to the site of the derailment. “Let me say it again, an act of greed that was 100% preventable.”

Connor Spielmaker, a spokesperson for Norfolk Southern, responded without addressing Biden’s claims of corporate greed. Spielmaker said the company promised to fix things in East Palestine and “we’re keeping our promises.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said last spring in its preliminary report that the derailment was likely caused by an overheating bearing on one of the railcars.

In his remarks, Biden also stressed that the federal government is holding Norfolk Southern accountable. He called on Congress to pass legislation sponsored by Ohio’s two U.S. senators that would require stronger protective measures for trains carrying hazardous material.

He also asked Congress to make sure that no one will have to pay federal taxes on any compensation they receive from Norfolk Southern.

Signs of the community’s still-hurt feelings were evident. Some people shouted profanity as Biden’s motorcade whisked him into town from an earlier stop in Darlington Township, Pennsylvania, where he greeted local officials and first responders. Others held derogatory signs, including one that named the president’s late son, Beau, who died of brain cancer.

Biden arrived at the derailment site and saw what resembled a construction site. Rigs, trucks, generators and covered metal tanks resembling above-ground swimming pools dotted the landscape. Local officials, including the mayor, briefed the president.

Mayor Trent Conaway, who does not support Biden, addressed the president, saying: “Your long-awaited visit to our village today allows us to focus on the things we agree with. Acknowledging this disaster should never have happened. Address the long-term health concerns and the economic growth of the village, and ensure this never happens again to another community.”

As Biden visited, between 50 and 75 people held a counter-rally in support of former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump won nearly 72% of the vote in Ohio’s Columbiana County, which includes East Palestine. He visited soon after the derailment.

Mike Young, the rally’s coordinator, described the grass-roots event as “anti-Biden.” He said he delivered water to the community after the disaster and said the president should have been an immediate presence on the ground.

“The sentiment from residents has been: ‘Where were you a year ago?’” Young said. “Too little, too late. And now Biden shows up at election time.”

Misti Allison, who lives with her family about a mile away from the derailment site, said she was really glad that Biden kept his promise to visit, especially one year in. The family evacuated the night after the accident and returned a week later. She said she worries about their exposure to the chemicals.

“Nobody asked for this to happen and we need to know that the federal government has our backs,” Allison said.

The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in an intense cleanup and says the community’s air, water and soil are now safe.

The agency removed more than 176,000 tons of hazardous waste. More than 49 million gallons of water, rainfall and snowmelt were removed or treated. The federal agency is also collecting 2,500 samples to ensure that the cleanup has succeeded.

Norfolk Southern said it has spent more than $1.1 billion in its response to the derailment. Since the fire began on February 3, 2023, and caused hazardous chemicals to mix, the company says it has invested $103.2 million in the community, including $21 million distributed to residents. 
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pentagon — The United States carried out a cyberattack earlier this month against two Iranian military ships as part of its multipronged response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by Iran-backed proxies, VOA has confirmed. 

A U.S. official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because of operational sensitivities, said the MV Behshad was one of the targeted ships The Iranian military ship was collecting intelligence on vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A source with knowledge of the cyberattack said an Iranian frigate was also targeted.

The U.S. official said the cyberattack on the MV Behshad was to inhibit its ability to share targeting information with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been firing missiles into international shipping lanes.

Earlier this month, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned of potential “unseen” retaliatory efforts “to send a very clear message that when American forces are attacked, when Americans are killed, we will respond, and we will respond forcefully.”

Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder declined to comment to VOA about the attack, which an official said occurred more than a week ago.

NBC News first reported the attack on the Iranian spy ship on Thursday but did not report the cyberattack on the Iranian frigate.

U.S. officials do not typically disclose covert operations, including cyberattacks.

In addition to the cyberattacks, the U.S. this month struck Iranian-backed proxies in seven locations across Syria and Iraq on February 2.

A day later, U.S. and allied forces struck dozens of Houthi targets at 13 locations in militant-controlled areas of Yemen.

A U.S. drone strike on February 7 in Baghdad killed a Kataib Hezbollah commander who the U.S. said was “responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region.”

There has not been an attack on U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria or Jordan since February 4, according to the Pentagon.

U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan were attacked by Iran-backed militants more than 160 times since mid-October, shortly after Hamas’ assault on Israel. Most of the attacks caused few to no injuries or damages, but an attack in late January at the Tower 22 base in Jordan killed three American service members and wounded dozens of others.

Iranian-backed Houthi militants, however, have continued with their series of attacks targeting international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. 

The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. According to a U.S. defense official, the Houthis have attacked or threatened commercial vessels 48 times since mid-November.

The U.S. has carried out self-defense strikes against Houthi drones and missiles that have been fired into international shipping lanes or that were poised to conduct attacks. The U.S. and its partners also carried out attacks in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen last month, which they said took out key weapons used in the Houthis’ targeting of international ships.
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BERLIN/VILNIUS, Lithuania — Hundreds of protesters, many of them Russian emigres, gathered in cities across Europe and beyond on Friday to express their outrage over the death of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.

Often gathering outside Russian embassies, they chanted slogans critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they blamed for the activist’s death, holding up signs calling him a “killer” and demanding accountability.

Putin’s most formidable domestic opponent, Navalny fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk at the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade sentence, prison authorities said.

In Berlin, a crowd of 500 to 600 people, according to police estimates, gathered on the city’s Unter den Linden boulevard, chanting in a mixture of Russian, German and English.

Some chanted “Putin to the Hague,” referring to the international criminal court investigating possible war crimes committed in Ukraine. Police used barriers to close off the road between the Russian embassy and the crowd.

“Alexey Navalny is the leader of the Russian opposition and we always kept hope in his name,” said a Russian man draped in a blue and white anti-war flag, giving his name only as Ilia.

In Lithuania, formerly run from Moscow but now a member of NATO and the European Union and home to a sizable community of emigres, protesters placed flowers and candles by a portrait of Navalny.

“He was always with us, so it is all surreal,” said Lyusya Shtein, 26, a Pussy Riot activist who has lived in Vilnius since leaving Russia in 2022. “None of us yet understand what happened.”

In Russia itself, prosecutors warned Russians against participating in any mass protest in Moscow. Police watched as some Russians came to lay roses and carnations at a monument to victims of Soviet repression in the shadow of the former KGB headquarters.

Rights group OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia, said that more than 100 people had been detained at rallies in memory of Navalny. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Groups also gathered in Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Sofia, Geneva and The Hague, among others.

More than 100 protesters stood outside Russia’s London embassy, holding placards that called Putin a war criminal, while in Lisbon hundreds held a silent vigil. Pavel Elizarov, a 28-year-old Russian living in Portugal, said Navalny had been “a symbol of freedom and hope.”

Near the Russian embassy in Paris, where around 100 protesters gathered, Natalia Morozov said Navalny had also been a symbol of hope for her.

“It’s hard for me to express my emotions, because I’m really shaken,” said Morozov. “Now we no longer have hope for the beautiful Russia of the future.”

Navalny’s death, if confirmed, leaves the scattered groups that oppose Putin without a figurehead, and no obvious candidate to marshal any discontent over his demise into mass protests.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, was in Munich on Friday, where a vigil also took place. She told the Munich Security Conference she could not be sure her husband was dead because “Putin and his government … lie incessantly” but said that if confirmed she wanted them to know “they will bear responsibility.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, at a vigil outside the Russian consulate in New York City, Violetta Soboleva said she had volunteered for Navalny’s presidential campaign in 2017.

“I really believed that he’s the one and he can lead Russia to a better future,” said Soboleva, a Russian studying for her doctorate in New York. “And now we’ve lost this future forever.”
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state department — The United States has reinstated sanctions on Yemen’s Houthi rebels effective Friday, following their continued attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, endangering maritime security. 

The Houthis were first designated as a terror group three years ago and subsequently delisted due to humanitarian concerns. The relisting follows repeated demands from the U.S. and other countries for the Houthis to stop firing on commercial shipping. 

Those demands have been ignored, and attacks have continued despite a series of airstrikes by the U.S. and Britain aimed at taking out radar systems and launch sites used in the attacks. 

Earlier on Friday, a missile was launched from Yemen, hitting the port side of the India-bound Panamanian-flagged M/T Pollux, which was transporting crude oil. The extent of the damage is presently unclear, but the M/T Pollux is continuing its journey south under its own power. 

Houthi leaders have declared that the group will persist in its attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians, as long as Israel continues what the group termed its crimes against them. 

A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department noted that on January 17, Washington announced its intention to relist the Houthis as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, or SDGT, after 30 days, giving the Iran-backed rebels “the opportunity to scale down their attacks” and “to minimize de-risking across the industry.” 

The spokesperson also accused Iran of aiding the Houthis in destabilizing the region. 

“Iran has been deeply involved in planning the operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea. This is consistent with Iran’s long-term materiel support and encouragement of the Houthis’ destabilizing actions in the region. Houthi forces have employed various Iranian-origin missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles against military and civilian targets throughout the region,” the spokesperson said. 

U.S. officials said they have made concerted efforts to mitigate the impact of this designation on the Yemeni people. Washington has actively engaged the shipping industry, financial institutions, banks and humanitarian aid organizations to ensure comprehensive understanding of the broad exemptions associated with this designation. 

In the waning hours of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in January 2021, the Houthis were designated as both an SDGT and a foreign terrorist organization, or FTO.  

In February 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delisted the Houthis as both a foreign terrorist organization and as specially designated global terrorists.  

This action was taken as the Biden administration aimed to facilitate a diplomatic resolution to the long-running civil war between the internationally recognized government of Yemen, based in the southern port city of Aden, and the Houthis, whose capital is Sanaa.  

Additionally, the delisting aimed to make it easier to deliver food and humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen. 

The two designations carry distinct penalties. Being named as a specially designated global terrorist empowers the U.S. Treasury Department to disrupt terrorists’ access to funds within the United States and across the international financial system.  

On the other hand, designation as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department prohibits anyone from providing the group with “material support,” including fighting for the group, or providing financial assistance or training. 

Members of foreign terrorist organizations who are not U.S. citizens are typically banned from entering the United States, except where there is a rare and high-level decision otherwise. The Houthis have not been relisted as an FTO at this time. 

U.S. defense officials said the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels and naval vessels since mid-November, impacting citizens, cargo and vessels from more than 50 countries.  
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