STRASBOURG, France — Europe’s highest human rights court will rule Tuesday on a group of landmark climate change cases aimed at forcing countries to meet international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Court of Human Rights will hand down decisions in a trio of cases brought by a French mayor, six Portuguese youngsters and more than 2,000 members of Senior Women for Climate Protection, who say their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change.

Lawyers for all three are hoping the Strasbourg court will find that national governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

Although activists have had successes with lawsuits in domestic proceedings, this will be the first time an international court has ruled on climate change.

A decision against any of the countries involved could force them to reduce net emissions to zero by 2030. The EU, which doesn’t include Switzerland, currently has a target to be climate-neutral by 2050.

The decisions have “the potential to be a watershed moment in the global fight for a livable future. A victory for any of the three cases would be one of the most significant developments on climate change since the signing of the Paris Agreement,” said Gerry Liston, a lawyer with the Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the Portuguese students.

“The extreme heat waves, the rainfalls, followed by heat waves, it is just choking us with greenhouse effects. And what worries me is the frequency in which they started happening more and more. That’s what really scared me. And, I thought to myself, well, what can I do?” 16-year-old André dos Santos Oliveira told reporters ahead of the decision.

Together with five more young people, Santos Oliveira took Portugal and 32 other nations to court, arguing the failure to stop emissions violated their fundamental rights.

At the other end of the age spectrum, a group of Swiss retirees are also demanding their government do more. Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, say older women’s rights are especially infringed on because they are most affected by the extreme heat that will become more frequent due to global warming.

Earth shattered global annual heat records in 2023, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold, and showed more signs of a feverish planet, Copernicus, a European climate agency, said in January.

In all three cases, lawyers argued that the political and civil protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights are meaningless if the planet is uninhabitable.

The countries facing the legal challenges hope the cases will be dismissed. They say the blame for climate change cannot rest with any individual country.

Switzerland is not alone in being affected by global warming, said Alain Chablais, representative of the country at last year’s hearings. “This problem cannot be solved by Switzerland alone.”

Acknowledging the urgency of the climate crisis, the court fast-tracked all three cases, including a rare move allowing the Portuguese case to bypass domestic legal proceedings.

Judgments from the European Court of Human Rights aren’t legally binding against all 46 of its member states, but they set a legal precedent against which future lawsuits would be judged.
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WASHINGTON — For the 10th consecutive month, Earth in March set a new monthly record for global heat — with both air temperatures and the world’s oceans hitting an all-time high for the month, the European Union climate agency Copernicus said.

March 2024 averaged 14.14 degrees Celsius (57.9 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding the previous record from 2016 by a tenth of a degree, according to Copernicus data. And it was 1.68 degrees C (3 degrees F) warmer than in the late 1800s, the base used for temperatures before the burning of fossil fuels began growing rapidly.

Since last June, the globe has broken heat records each month, with marine heat waves across large areas of the globe’s oceans contributing.

Scientists say the record-breaking heat during this time wasn’t entirely surprising due to a strong El Nino, a climatic condition that warms the central Pacific and changes global weather patterns.

“But its combination with the non-natural marine heat waves made these records so breathtaking,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis.

With El Nino waning, the margins by which global average temperatures are surpassed each month should go down, Francis said.

Climate scientists attribute most of the record heat to human-caused climate change from carbon dioxide and methane emissions produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“The trajectory will not change until concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop rising,” Francis said, “which means we must stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation, and grow our food more sustainably as quickly as possible.”

Until then, expect more broken records, she said.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal to keep warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Copernicus’ temperature data is monthly and uses a slightly different measurement system than the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said March’s record-breaking temperature wasn’t as exceptional as some other months in the past year that broke records by wider margins.

“We’ve had record-breaking months that have been even more unusual,” Burgess said, pointing to February 2024 and September 2023. But the “trajectory is not in the right direction,” she added.

The globe has now experienced 12 months with average monthly temperatures 1.58 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the Paris threshold, according to Copernicus data.

In March, global sea surface temperature averaged 21.07 degrees Celsius (69.93 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest monthly value on record and slightly higher than what was recorded in February.

“We need more ambitious global action to ensure that we can get to net zero as soon as possible,” Burgess said.
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In the United States, the two major political parties have been illustrated by a donkey, symbolizing the Democratic Party, or an elephant, symbolizing the Republican Party. The images are used on campaign-related materials. But why were these two beasts chosen?
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washington — British researchers say Chinese nationalist trolls have been posing as American supporters of former President Donald Trump on X to try to exploit domestic divisions ahead of the U.S. election.

A report released April 1 by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London think tank, says it found four previous Mandarin-tweeting accounts that went silent before re-emerging as American Trump supporter personas tweeting in English.

It linked them to China’s so-called Spamouflage network, which it described as a “long-running and widespread but largely ineffective” campaign to promote pro-Chinese Communist Party narratives.

But Elise Thomas, a senior researcher at the institute and author of the report, said pretending to be Trump supporters is a fresh and more effective tactic.

“They are posing convincingly as Americans, specifically Trump supporters,” she told VOA. “They are getting engagement from what look like real American users. That’s significantly different from what we’ve seen with Spamouflage in the past.”

She pointed out that a traditional Spamouflage tweet might have many likes and retweets, but upon further examination, it’s all from other Spamouflage accounts. Now, they are interacting with predominantly genuine American users.

“What they are doing that is quite different from other Spamouflage accounts is that they are building up authentic audiences using this thing called patriot follow trains, which is basically where people agree to mutually follow one another in order to each build their own follower accounts,” Thomas explained.

Using real viral videos and photos, these accounts seek to amplify divisive issues such as LGBTQ rights, immigration, race, gun control and crime rates.

Some of the accounts mock Biden’s age; others falsely claim that Biden is a pedophile. All seem to be promoting Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again (MAGA),” leading the report to dub this new tactic “MAGAflage.”

One of the X accounts, Ben MAGA 2024, was opened in 2010, but previous posts have been deleted. Since April 18, 2023, the account began to tweet in English with a main theme: Biden is a pedophile and cannot be trusted.

The account tries to build a persona as an American living in Los Angeles. It posted a picture in January with the caption “Good morning! Patriots, I’m 43 years old, and passionately and loyally supporting President Trump!”

In fact, the picture belongs to a travel blog by a Danish man with no indication that he’s a Trump supporter.

This account also retweeted a video from Russian state media Russia Today on February 18, claiming that Biden and the Central Intelligence Agency had sent a neo-Nazi leader to fight in Ukraine.

That post was retweeted by Alex Jones, an American far-right conspiracy theorist and radio show host with 2.2 million followers on X. The post had been viewed nearly 360,000 times as of March 4.

Thomas said by wrapping a topic in a U.S. partisan political frame, they got “a reasonable amount of engagement” from real American users.

This mimics Russia’s playbook during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when U.S. officials say Moscow used information warfare to damage the Clinton campaign, boost Trump’s chances and sow distrust in American democracy, which the Kremlin denies.

The report said some Spamouflage accounts could also be posing as left-wing Biden supporters, though they did not find any.

Twitter has since suspended all the accounts mentioned in the institute’s report.

While just a handful of accounts were identified, the report says there are almost certainly many more, which Thomas worries could have an unseen effect on the U.S. election.

“These [MAGAflage] accounts were very difficult to find. It took quite a lot of time, and I’ve only been able to find a relatively small number of them,” she said. “But because what we know from Spamouflage’s history is that everything it does, it does at massive scale. It would be really out of character for them to be only doing this, if it’s effective, at a small scale. So, that’s my concern, that it may be happening at a significantly larger scale.”

VOA reached out to the Trump and Biden campaigns for comment but did not receive a response as of publication time.

The Spamouflage network was discovered in 2019 by social media analytics firm Graphika and was first used to target Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

Researchers said the network is tied to “individuals associated with Chinese law enforcement,” and has been active across thousands of accounts and more than 50 platforms and forums, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X.

On March 11, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued its annual assessment on the major threats to U.S. interests around the world and warned that China’s government may “attempt to influence the U.S. elections in 2024 at some level because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify U.S. societal divisions.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement sent to VOA that China is “committed to the principle of noninterference” and that claims about Beijing influencing U.S. presidential elections are “completely fabricated.”

Meta in August shut down close to 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups and pages associated with the Spamouflage network.
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U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump says laws against abortion should continue to be made by each state. That position goes against some of his supporters who want a nationwide abortion ban. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, hold very different views on key foreign and domestic issues. Here’s an overview of where each one stands on foreign policy.  

Russia-Ukraine  

Biden endorses sending military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine to aid its fight against Russia, while warning that Western countries cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to achieve victory. To date, the Biden administration has sanctioned Russian individuals and entities and sent $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine since the February 2022 Russian invasion. 

Biden said on March 7, 2024, “Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not. But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers.”  

Trump has said NATO countries are not paying their share of aid to Ukraine and claimed the United States has sent more than other countries. At a February rally, Trump said he told an unnamed NATO member that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to any alliance member that does not meet spending guidelines on defense. In a 2023 speech in New Hampshire, Trump said, “Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled.”  

Throughout his presidency, Trump faced multiple accusations of collusion with Russia and was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 18, 2019, for charges he leveraged U.S. aid to Ukraine in return for damaging information on potential political rival Joe Biden. Trump denied those charges and was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate.  

China 

Biden said on March 7, 2024, “We have the best economy in the world. And since I’ve come to office, our GDP is up, our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point over a decade and we’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices. We’re standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. I’ve revitalized our partnership and alliance in the Pacific. India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Pacific Islands. I made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China, not allowing to trade them there. Frankly, for all this tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that. I want competition with China, not conflict. And we’re in a stronger position to win the conflict of the 21st century against China than anyone else, for that matter, than any time as well.” 

During his presidency, Trump denounced the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party as the most significant foreign policy challenge of this generation. He said China was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and penalized China for ending the “one country, two states” policy in Hong Kong. In a May 2020 speech, Trump said, “The United States wants an open and constructive relationship with China, but achieving that relationship requires us to vigorously defend our national interests.”  

On his campaign website, Trump said, “To protect our country, we need to enact aggressive new restrictions on Chinese ownership of any vital infrastructure in the United States, including energy, technology, telecommunications, farmland, natural resources, medical supplies, and other strategic national assets. We should stop all future Chinese purchases in these essential industries. And we should begin the process of forcing the Chinese to sell any current holdings that put our national security at risk.”  

Israel-Palestinians  

Biden says Israel has a right to go after Hamas but has warned Israel against killing Palestinian civilians. In March, Biden announced the construction of an offshore port to deliver aid to Gaza.  

Biden said in New York on March 9, 2024, “I’m never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line I’m going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them. They don’t have … but there’s red lines that if he crosses and they continue … you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after, there’s other ways to deal, to get to, to deal with the trauma caused by Hamas.”  

Trump released a Middle East peace plan in 2020 calling for a two-state solution that would have given Israel control of a unified Jerusalem and maintained its settlements in the West Bank.  

In an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper on March 25, 2024, Trump said of the current conflict, “What I saw October 7 was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. … You have to finish up your war. To finish it up. You got to get it done. And I am sure you will do that. And we got to get to peace; we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done. And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel.”  

Iran 

Biden spent more than two years attempting to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama administration before declaring it “dead.” Last year, the Biden administration negotiated the release of five American hostages in return for unfreezing billions in Iranian assets.  

Biden said in Washington on March 7, 2024, “Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran. That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. I’ve ordered strikes to degrade the Houthi capability and defend U.S. forces in the region. As commander in chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and our military personnel.” 

Among Trump’s proudest achievements was the withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA. He also authorized the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force — the terrorist branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC — a move he called “the boldest action of his presidency.” 

North Korea 

The Biden administration has repeatedly stated it is open to negotiations with North Korea with no preconditions but has yet to offer any incentives in the form of economic assistance to encourage North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to open talks. Biden has met with regional allies and last year announced a new nuclear deterrence agreement, with South Korea, that would allow the U.S. to dock submarines in South Korean ports.  

During his presidency, Trump pursued “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization” of North Korea but eventually developed a good personal relationship with Jong-Un after multiple meetings. His personal diplomacy did not result in any agreements between the two countries. 

VOA’s Saqib Ui Islam contributed to this report.
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NEW YORK — Actor Jonathan Majors was sentenced to probation and ordered to complete a year-long counseling program but avoided jail time Monday for assaulting his ex-girlfriend in a high-profile case that derailed the once-promising star’s career. 

The 34-year-old star of “Creed III” and other films had faced up to a year behind bars after he was convicted of misdemeanor assault by a Manhattan jury in December. 

Judge Michael Gaffey also ordered Majors to complete an in-person batterer’s intervention program, and continue with his mental health therapy. 

Following the guilty verdict, Majors was immediately dropped by Marvel Studios, which had cast him as Kang the Conqueror, a role envisioned as the main villain in the entertainment empire’s movies and television shows for years to come. 

The conviction stemmed from an altercation last March in which Majors’ then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari accused him of attacking her in the backseat of a chauffeured car, saying he hit her head with his open hand, twisted her arm behind her back and squeezed her middle finger until it fractured. 

During a victim impact statement Monday, Jabbari said the incident left her with extreme emotional and physical pain. 

Majors claimed the 31-year-old British dancer was the aggressor, flying into a jealous rage after reading a text message from another woman on his phone. He maintained he was only trying to regain his phone and get away from Jabbari safely. 

After the sentencing, Majors did not comment as he left the courtroom. 

Majors had hoped his two-week criminal trial would vindicate him and restore his status in Hollywood. In a television interview shortly after his conviction, he said he deserves a second chance. 

“As he eagerly anticipates closing this chapter, he looks forward to redirecting his time and energy fully toward his family and his art,” Majors’ lawyers said in a statement last week after losing their bid to have the conviction tossed out. 

But the 34-year-old California native and Yale University graduate still faces other legal hurdles. Last month, Jabbari filed a civil suit in Manhattan federal court, accusing the actor of assault, battery, defamation and inflicting emotional distress. 

She claims Majors subjected her to escalating incidents of physical and verbal abuse during their relationship, which lasted from 2021 to 2023. 

Majors’ lawyers have declined to respond to the claims, saying only that they are preparing to file counterclaims against Jabbari. 

The actor had his breakthrough role in 2019’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” He also starred in the HBO horror series “Lovecraft Country,” which earned him an Emmy nomination, and as the nemesis to fictional boxing champ Adonis Creed in the blockbuster “Creed III.” 

As for Marvel, a looming question remains whether the studio will recast the role of Kang or pivot in a new direction. 

Majors’ departure was among a recent series of high-profile setbacks for the vaunted superhero factory, which has earned an unprecedented $30 billion worldwide from 33 films.
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Copenhagen, Denmark — Sweden has expelled a Chinese journalist, saying the reporter was a threat to national security, Swedish media reported on Monday.

The journalist, an unnamed, 57-year-old woman, was arrested by the Swedish security service in October and expelled by the government in Stockholm last week, Swedish broadcaster SVT reported. She is banned from returning.

The woman arrived in the Scandinavian country some 20 years ago. She held a residence permit and was married to a Swedish man, with whom she has children, according to the broadcaster.

The woman has had contacts with the Chinese Embassy and with people in Sweden who are connected to the Chinese government, SVT said.

Her lawyer, Leutrim Kadriu, told SVT the woman doesn’t believe she poses a threat to Sweden.

“It is difficult for me to go into exact details given that much is shrouded in secrecy, as this is a national security matter,” Kadriu told the broadcaster.

In neighboring Norway, broadcaster NRK said the journalist had also reported from there, and from other Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

Relations between Stockholm and Beijing have been tense for years.

In 2020, a court in eastern China sentenced Chinese-born Swedish national Gui Minhai to 10 years in prison for selling books that were critical of the ruling Communist Party. He was charged with “illegally providing intelligence overseas.”

China has rebuked Sweden’s demands for Gui’s release.

He first disappeared in 2015, when he was believed to have been abducted by Chinese agents from his seaside home in Thailand.

The case led to an investigation of Sweden’s ambassador to China over a meeting she arranged between Gui’s daughter and two Chinese businessmen whom the daughter said threatened her father. The ambassador, Anna Lindstedt, was eventually cleared.

In 2018, a Swedish court found a man guilty of spying for China by gathering information on Tibetans who had fled to Sweden. Dorjee Gyantsan, a Tibetan who worked for a pro-Tibetan radio station, was found guilty of “gross illegal intelligence activity” and sentenced to 22 months in jail.
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Austin, Texas — Chinese migrants coming across the southern U.S. border say they made the treacherous journey to flee China’s authoritarian rule, to seek the American dream or escape growing political and economic uncertainty at home.

But the challenges do not end after they arrive, and some are deciding to return to China, while others have no choice.

Last April, Xia Yu arrived in the United States after traveling through more than 10 countries over a period of two months. Xia, a Chinese man in his 40s, asked to use a pseudonym so he could speak more freely with VOA Mandarin about his journey.

On his way to the U.S. border, he says, all his property was stolen, and his American dream did not come true: In immigration custody, he failed to pass the “credible fear interview” for asylum-seekers.

2023 surge

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, 52,700 Chinese immigrants arrived at U.S. borders without valid entry visas in fiscal 2023 — more than twice the number of just two years earlier. About half of them entered somewhere along the southern U.S. border where they were apprehended by Border Protection agents and sought asylum.

Individuals who pass the screening and establish that they have a credible reason to fear torture, persecution, or returning to their country, are allowed to stay in the U.S. to pursue their cases in immigration court.

Xia remained in the detention facility in the U.S. for months as he was processed for deportation, eventually landing at Shanghai Pudong Airport last August. Entering Chinese customs, he was fined $71 and had to sign a document admitting his crime of being deported after illegally entering another country. His passport was confiscated, and he was notified that he would be barred from leaving the country for three years.

The public security bureau in his hometown also questioned him about whom he encountered while on U.S. soil.

“They asked me to delete my foreign social media apps and foreign contacts,” he told VOA. “Then they told me not to contact these people because I would be deceived.” 

Xia said he thinks his WeChat account is being monitored to prevent him from inciting others to emigrate illegally. He said spending tens of thousands of dollars without even staying in the U.S. is nothing to brag about, and that he’d rather not mention his experience again.

‘A full life at home’

At 33, Wang Zhongwei from China’s Anhui Province now lives in Los Angeles, where has become a vocal advocate for immigrants since entering the United States in May.

Many Chinese who have crossed the border or are attempting to do so reach out to him for advice. Wang tells VOA Mandarin that while most who make the journey across the border stay, there are those who return because of loneliness, deceit, or family pressure.

Wang’s friend, Liu Ming, from Sichuan Province, came to the United States in the second half of 2023. Liu, 31, first stayed in Los Angeles for a month or two and then moved to New York to find work. After a long wait, he found a job working for a Chinese boss, but the pay wasn’t good.

In January, Liu’s boss refused to pay him, so he had no choice but to call the police. After receiving his salary the following day, Liu immediately went to the airport, messaging Wang: “I’m at the airport now and about to go back to China. I don’t like it here. See you again if destiny has it.”

In March, when Wang contacted him again, he found that Liu had used the self-service kiosk when entering China and wasn’t even interviewed by government staff.

Within months, Liu had returned to a life in China much as he knew it before.

“I am now working in a restaurant in my hometown. I work eight hours and the food is super good,” he told Wang via WhatsApp. “I used to work 12 hours non-stop in a restaurant in the U.S., [where] I was bored and lonely … but I live a full life at home.

At one point, when he got sick in the U.S., he worried about dying in a foreign land. He also complained about not being able to meet women there.

“I don’t regret the trip to the U.S.,” Liu continued, allowing, however, that on getting sick he’d worried about dying in a foreign land, and that he’d found it difficult to meet women.

“What I saw in real life was different from what I saw online,” he concluded. “There are both good and bad things in America.”

Room for regret

Zhang Lin, who is in his 30s and asked to use an alias to protect his privacy, describes himself as a person of double regrets. He first regretted coming to the United States, and now he regrets returning to China.

Crossing the U.S. border, Zhang found a job as a massage therapist in Los Angeles because he had the training. There, he made about $150 a day, a substantial wage for an undocumented immigrant.

But after only a month he returned to China, where he now runs a foot spa in his hometown.

“There were so many things I wasn’t used to in the U.S., and I was lonely,” he said. “I felt very homesick, so I came back impulsively.”

When he went to the U.S., Zhang said, he’d hoped to make a lot of money and make his family the envy of his hometown neighbors.

But now, after returning to China, where he faced a 12-hour interrogation at customs but faced no penalties, he says he regrets his impulsive decision to return.

“Life in my hometown is really hopeless,” Zhang said, adding that he hopes to go to the U.S. illegally again. “When you go out, you realize that the outside world is different. Your mind is opened up.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Paris — French and British troops on Monday swapped roles to take part in the changing of the guard ceremonies outside the palaces of the other country’s head of state, in an unprecedented move to celebrate 120 years since the Entente Cordiale.

Signed in 1904, the Entente Cordiale accord cemented an improvement in relations after the Napoleonic Wars and is seen as the foundation of the two NATO members’ alliance to this day.

“Even after Brexit and with war back in Europe, “this entente cordiale is somehow the cornerstone… that allows us to maintain the bilateral relationship,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a video address on X, formerly Twitter.

“Long live the entente cordiale and long live the Franco-British friendship,” he said, switching to English.

Macron and British ambassador to France Menna Rawlings on Monday morning watched British guards taking part in the changing of the guard outside his Elysee Palace.

French guards were to do the same in London outside Buckingham Palace, the official residence of King Charles III.

At the Elysee, 16 members of the Number 7 Company Coldstream Guards of the UK embassy, wearing their traditional bearskin hats, relieved French counterparts from the first infantry regiment.

The French army choir then sang the two national anthems — God Save the King and La Marseillaise.

‘More to defeat Russia’

British Foreign Minister David Cameron and his French counterpart, Stephane Sejourne, celebrated their countries’ “close friendship” in a joint op-ed published late on Sunday.

They said it was key at a time when NATO is mobilized to ensure Ukraine does not lose its fight to repel the Russian invasion.

“Britain and France, two founding members and Europe’s nuclear powers, have a responsibility in driving the alliance to deal with the challenges before it,” the diplomats wrote in Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper.

“We must do even more to ensure we defeat Russia. The world is watching –- and will judge us if we fail.”

A French presidential official said it was “the first time in the history of the Elysee” that foreign troops had been invited to participate in the military ritual.

At the end of 2023, Macron made the changing of the Republican Guard public again, on the first Tuesday of each month, although the ceremony is much less spectacular than its counterpart outside Buckingham Palace.

Two sections of the 1st and 2nd Infantry Regiment of France’s Republican Guard were to participate in the London ceremony alongside guards from F Company Scots Guards and other British forces, the French presidential official said.

It would be watched by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh — Prince Edward and his wife Sophie — accompanied by the UK chief of the general staff, General Patrick Sanders, and French chief of the army staff Pierre Schill.

The event on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace was to mark the first time a country from outside the Commonwealth — which mostly includes English-speaking former British colonies and possessions — has taken part in the changing of the guard.

Tensions after Brexit

The signing of the Entente Cordiale on April 8, 1904, is widely seen as preparing the way for France and Britain joining forces against Germany in World War I.

While the accord is often used as shorthand to describe the Franco-British relationship, ties have been bedeviled by tensions in recent years, particularly since the United Kingdom left the European Union. 

Migration has been a particular sticking point, with London pressuring Paris to halt the flow of migrants across the Channel.

But a state visit by King Charles last autumn — one of his last big foreign engagements before his cancer diagnosis — was widely seen as a resounding success that showed the fundamental strength of the relationship. 
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Vatican City — The Vatican on Monday declared sex change operations and surrogacy as grave threats to human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that violate God’s plan for human life.

The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.

In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory” or the idea that one’s gender can be changed. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said they must not tinker with that plan or try to “make oneself God.”

“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.

It distinguished between transitioning surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.

The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Pope Francis confidante.

He had cast it as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.

And while rejecting gender theory, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime” making the assertion now part of the Vatican’s doctrinal teaching.

The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”

The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking and forced migration.

In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child. While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican document focuses almost more on the resulting child.

“The child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver,” the document said. “Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life.”

The Vatican published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.

It called gender fluidity a symptom of the “confused concept of freedom” and “momentary desires” that characterize post-modern culture. 

The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repurpose the 1986 language of a previous doctrinal document saying that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”

Francis has made reaching out to LGBTQ+ people a hallmark of his papacy, ministering to trans Catholics and insisting that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.

But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender and reproductive health.

“It needs to be emphasized that biological sex and the sociocultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated,’” the new document said.

The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults. In addition, bills to govern youths’ pronouns, sports teams and bathrooms at school are also under consideration, as well as some books and school curriculums. 
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Preliminary hearings are opening Monday at the United Nations’ top court in a case that seeks an end to German military and other aid to Israel, based on claims that Berlin is enabling acts of genocide and breaches of international humanitarian law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Nicaragua argues that by giving Israel political, financial and military support and by defunding the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide.”

While the case brought by Nicaragua centers on Germany, it indirectly takes aim at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Its toll doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it has said women and children make up the majority of the dead.

Israel strongly denies that its assault amounts to genocidal acts, saying it is acting in self defense. Israeli legal adviser Tal Becker told judges at the court earlier this year that the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”

Germany rejects the case brought by Nicaragua.

“Germany has breached neither the Genocide Convention nor international humanitarian law, and we will set this out in detail before the International Court of Justice,” German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sebastian Fischer told reporters in Berlin on Friday.

Nicaragua has asked the court to hand down preliminary orders known as provisional measures, including that Germany “immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment in so far as this aid may be used in the violation of the Genocide Convention” and international law.

The court will likely take weeks to deliver its preliminary decision, and Nicaragua’s case will probably drag on for years.

Monday’s hearing at the world court comes amid growing calls for allies to stop supplying arms to Israel as its six-month campaign continues to lay waste to Gaza.

The offensive has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population. Food is scarce, the U.N. says famine is approaching and few Palestinians have been able to leave the besieged territory.

The case “will likely further galvanize opposition to any support for Israel,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.

On Friday, the U.N.’s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel. The United States and Germany opposed the resolution.

Also, hundreds of British jurists, including three retired Supreme Court judges, have called on their government to suspend arms sales to Israel after three U.K. citizens were among seven aid workers from the charity World Central Kitchen killed in Israeli strikes. Israel said the attack on the aid workers was a mistake caused by “misidentification.”

Germany has for decades been a staunch supporter of Israel. Days after the October 7 attack by Hamas, Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained why: “Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the state of Israel,” he told lawmakers.

Berlin, however, has gradually shifted its tone as civilian casualties in Gaza have soared, becoming increasingly critical of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and speaking out against a ground offensive in Rafah.

Nicaragua’s government, which has historical links with Palestinian organizations dating back to their support for the 1979 Sandinista revolution, was itself accused earlier this year by U.N.-backed human rights experts of systematic human rights abuses “tantamount to crimes against humanity.” The government of President Daniel Ortega fiercely rejected the allegations.

In January, the International Court of Justice imposed provisional measures ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and acts of genocide in Gaza. The orders came in a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention.

The court last week ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.

 
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is traveling to Wisconsin to announce details of a new plan to ease student loan debt for millions, a trip that comes a week after primary voting in the Midwest battleground highlighted weaknesses for the Democratic president and Donald Trump, his Republican challenger.

Biden is slated to make the announcement Monday in Madison, the state’s liberal capital and home of the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus.

The new federal rule paving the way for student debt relief is not expected to be issued by the time the president speaks, but Biden plans to highlight a plan the Department of Education started working on after the U.S. Supreme Court last year foiled his first attempt to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

Immediately after the court said Biden needed Congress to approve his original plan, the president said the decision was a “mistake” and “wrong” and announced that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona would undertake a new process using his authority under the Higher Education Act to waive or compromise student loan debt in specific cases.

A fresh announcement on student loan relief, an important issue for younger voters, could help energize parts of Biden’s political coalition that have become disillusioned by his job performance. These are people whose support the president will need to defeat Trump in November.

In Wisconsin’s primary elections on April 2, nearly 119,000 Republicans voted for a GOP candidate other than Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee. And more than 48,000 Democratic voters chose “uninstructed” instead of Biden, more than double Biden’s narrow margin of victory in Wisconsin in 2020.

Nearly 15% of Democrats in Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin and Madison, voted “uninstructed.” That is nearly double the statewide total of 8%.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents Madison in Congress, said he was struck that concerns about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza were top of mind among voters at five town halls over the past two weeks in more rural parts of his district.

“I was surprised to see the intensity on the issue of Gaza coming not from a student voice out of Madison, but older voters in more rural parts of the district,” Pocan said.

Pocan said the number of “uninstructed” votes shows the concern in Wisconsin and that Biden needs to address it. He said he planned to talk directly with Biden about it on Monday.

“I just want to make sure he knows that if we’re going to have a problem, that could be the problem in Wisconsin,” Pocan said.

Biden’s new plan would expand federal student loan relief to new yet-targeted categories of borrowers through the Higher Education Act, which administration officials believe puts it on a stronger legal footing than the sweeping proposal that was killed by a 6-3 court majority last year.

The plan is expected to be smaller and more targeted than his original plan, which would have canceled up to $20,000 in loans for more than 40 million borrowers.

The department laid out five categories of borrowers who would be eligible to get some or all of their federal loans canceled. The plan is focused on helping those with the greatest need, including many who might otherwise never repay their loans.

Among those targeted for help are people whose unpaid interest has snowballed beyond the size of the original loan. The proposal would reset their balances back to the initial amount by erasing up to $10,000 or $20,000 in interest, depending on their income.

Borrowers paying down their student loans for decades would get all remaining debt erased under the plan. Loans used for a borrower’s undergraduate education would be canceled if they had been in repayment for at least 20 years. For other types of federal loans, it’s 25 years.

The plan would automatically cancel loans for those who were in for-profit college programs deemed “low-value.” Borrowers would be eligible for cancellation if, while they attended the college, the average federal student loan payment among graduates was too high in relation to their average salary.

Those who are eligible for other types of cancellation but haven’t applied would automatically get relief. It would apply to Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Borrower Defense to Repayment, programs that have been around for years but require infamously difficult paperwork.

Under pressure from advocates, the department also added a category for those facing “hardship.” It would offer cancellation to borrowers considered highly likely to be in default within two years. Additional borrowers would be eligible for relief under a wide-ranging definition of financial hardship.

A series of hearings to craft the rule wrapped up in February, and the draft is now under review. Before it can be finalized, the Education Department will need to issue a formal proposal and open it to a public comment period.

The latest attempt at cancellation joins other targeted initiatives, including those aimed at public service workers and low-income borrowers. Through those efforts, the Biden administration says it has canceled $144 billion in student loans for almost 4 million Americans.

 
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CLEVELAND — Kamilla Cardoso delivered once again for Dawn Staley and South Carolina.

A perfect finish. A dynasty. A team too big for Caitlin Clark and Iowa this time around.

Cardoso had 15 points and a career-high 17 rebounds, and South Carolina completed its perfect season with an 87-75 victory over Clark and the Hawkeyes in the NCAA championship game on Sunday.

With Staley directing a relentless attack from the sideline, the Gamecocks (38-0) became the 10th Division I team to go through a season without a loss. And they accomplished the feat after they lost all five starters from last season’s team that lost to Clark’s squad in the national semifinals.

“When young people lock in and have a belief, and have a trust, and their parents have that same trust, this is what can happen,” Staley said. “They made history. They etched their names in the history books.”

Clark did all she could to lead the Hawkeyes to their first championship. She scored 30 points, including a championship-record 18 in the first quarter. She rewrote the record book at Iowa (34-5), finishing as the career leading scorer in NCAA Division I history with 3,951 points.

She hopes her legacy isn’t defined by falling short in two NCAA championship games, but more by the millions of new fans she helped bring into the game and the countless young girls and boys that she inspired.

“I think the biggest thing is it’s really hard to win these things, I think I know that better than most people by now, to be so close twice really hurts,” Clark said.

As the final buzzer sounded, a stoic Clark walked off the court, through the confetti, and into the tunnel heading to the locker room.

“I personally want to thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport. She carried a heavy load for our sport,” Staley said. “She’s going to lift that league (WNBA) up as well. Caitlin Clark if you’re out there, you’re one of the GOATs of our game. We appreciate you.”

South Carolina has won three titles in the last eight years, including two of the past three, to lay claim to being the latest dynasty in women’s basketball. Staley became the fifth coach to win at least three national championships, joining Geno Auriemma, Pat Summitt, Kim Mulkey and Tara VanDerveer.

The Gamecocks, who have won 109 of their last 112 games, became the first team since UConn in 2016 to go undefeated. South Carolina had a couple scares throughout the season, but always found a way to win.

With most of the team returning next year, Staley’s team is in a good position to keep this run going.

“This team, we’re going to be good. Coach Staley, we have the best coach, what, in the country, in the nation, in the whole wide world?” Raven Johnson said. “It’s no telling what she’s going to add to the pieces that’s already here. I just say be on the lookout.”

Tessa Johnson led South Carolina with 19 points. Cardoso, the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player, also blocked three shots.

“Kamilla Cardoso was not going to let us lose a game in the NCAA Tournament,” Staley said. “She played through an injury, she played like one of the top picks in the WNBA draft, and her teammates did something that no teammates have done for somebody who went to the WNBA in our program. They send her off as a national champion. So this is history for us.”

Led by the 6-foot-7 Cardoso and Ashlyn Watkins, South Carolina enjoyed a 51-29 rebounding advantage. It also finished with 30 second-chance points.

The Gamecocks also showed off their impressive depth. Tessa Johnson helped the team to a 37-0 difference in points by reserves.

South Carolina trailed 46-44 late in the second quarter before going on an 11-0 run spanning halftime to open a 55-46 advantage early in the third quarter. Clark finally ended the run with a layup.

The Hawkeyes closed to 59-55 and had a chance to get even closer, but Hannah Stuelke missed a wide-open layup on a brilliant pass from Clark.

South Carolina responded with the next eight points, including two 3-pointers. The Gamecocks, who were 4 for 20 from behind the 3-point line during last season’s Final Four loss to Iowa, went 8 for 19 from deep against the Hawkeyes in the victory.

Iowa was down 80-75 after a three-point play by Sydney Affolter with 4:12 left. But the Hawkeyes were shut out the rest of the way.

Clark checked out with 20 seconds left when Iowa coach Lisa Bluder subbed in fellow senior Molly Davis, who hadn’t played since she got hurt in the regular-season finale against Ohio State.

Unlike the semifinals, when Clark struggled against UConn’s defense, she got going early against South Carolina. Clark scored 13 straight points, including another logo 3, for Iowa as the Hawkeyes were up 11 early. South Carolina cut it to 22-20 with 1:30 left in the period before Clark scored the final five points, including a 3-pointer over Cardoso.

Clark’s 18 points in the opening quarter set a championship game record, surpassing the 16 that Jasmine Carson of LSU had last year against the Hawkeyes.

The Gamecocks trailed 46-44 in the final minute when Te-Hina PaoPao hit a 3-pointer and Raven Johnson stole the ball from Clark near midcourt and went in for a layup. South Carolina led 49-46 at the half.
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