Italian archaeologists have uncovered the fossilized remains of nine Neanderthals in a cave near Rome, shedding new light on how the Italian peninsula was populated and under what environmental conditions.The Italian Culture Ministry announced the discovery Saturday, saying it had confirmed that the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo was “one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals.” A Neanderthal skull was discovered in the cave in 1939.The fossilized bones include skulls, skull fragments, two teeth and other bone fragments. The oldest remains date from between 100,000 and 90,000 years ago, while the other eight Neanderthals are believed to date from 50,000 to 68,000 years ago, the Culture Ministry said in a statement.The excavations, begun in 2019, involved a part of the cave that hadn’t yet been explored, including a lake first noted by the anthropologist Alberto Carlo Blanc, who is credited with the 1939 Neanderthal skull discovery.Culture Minister Dario Franceschini called the finding “an extraordinary discovery that will be the talk of the world.”Anthropologist Mauro Rubini said the large number of remains suggested a significant population of Neanderthals, “the first human society of which we can speak.”Archaeologists said the cave had perfectly preserved the environment of 50,000 years ago. They noted that fossilized animal remains found in the cave — elephant, rhinoceros and giant deer, among others — shed light on the flora and fauna of the area and its climactic history.
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The European Union cemented its support for Pfizer-BioNTech and its novel COVID-19 vaccine technology Saturday by agreeing to a massive contract extension for a potential 1.8 billion doses through 2023.EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that her office “has just approved a contract for a guaranteed 900 million doses” with the same amount of doses as a future option.The new contract, which has the unanimous backing of the EU member states, will entail not only the production of the vaccines, but also making sure that all the essential components should be sourced from the EU.The European Commission currently has a portfolio of 2.6 billion doses from half a dozen companies. “Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow,” von der Leyen said in a Twitter message.Pfizer-BioNTech had an initial contract of 600 million doses with the EU.Saturday’s announcement also underscores the confidence the EU has shown in the technology used for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is different from that behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.The active ingredient in the Pfizer-BioNTech shot is messenger RNA, or mRNA, which contains the instructions for human cells to construct a harmless piece of the coronavirus called the spike protein. The human immune system recognizes the spike protein as foreign, allowing it to mount a response against the virus upon infection.The announcement of the huge contract extension comes as the European Union is looking for ways to meet the challenges of necessary booster shots, possible new variants and a drive to vaccinate children and teenagers.America’s Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have already said that they would provide the EU with an extra 50 million doses in the 2nd quarter of this year, making up for faltering deliveries of AstraZeneca.In contrast to the oft-criticized Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca, von der Leyen has said that Pfizer-BioNTech is a reliable partner that delivers on its commitments.Two weeks ago, the EU launched legal proceedings against AstraZeneca for failing to respect the terms of its contract with the 27-nation bloc.The AstraZeneca vaccine had been central to Europe’s immunization campaign, and a linchpin in the global strategy to get vaccines to poorer countries. But the slow pace of deliveries has frustrated the Europeans and they have held the company responsible for partly delaying their vaccine rollout.So far, von der Leyen said, the EU has made some 200 million doses available to its 450 million citizens while almost as many have been exported from the bloc.
 
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The fight to make the French language kinder to women took steps forward, and back, this week.
 
Warning that the well-being of France and its future are at stake, the government banned the use in schools of a method increasingly used by some French speakers to make the language more inclusive by feminizing some words.  
 
Specifically, the education minister’s decree targets what is arguably the most contested and politicized letter in the French language — “e.” Simply put, “e” is the language’s feminine letter, used in feminine nouns and their adjectives and, sometimes, when conjugating verbs.
 
But proponents of women’s rights are also increasingly adding “e” to words that normally wouldn’t have included that letter, in a conscious — and divisive — effort to make women more visible.
 
Take the generic French word for leaders — “dirigeants” — for example. For some, that masculine spelling suggests that they are generally men and makes women leaders invisible, because it lacks a feminine “e” toward the end. For proponents of inclusive writing, a more gender-equal spelling is “dirigeant·es,” inserting the extra “e,” preceded by a middle dot, to make clear that leaders can be of both sexes.  
 
Likewise, they might write “les élu·es” — instead of the generic masculine “élus” — for the holders of elected office, again to highlight that women are elected, too. Or they might use “les idiot·es,” instead of the usual generic masculine “les idiots,” to acknowledge that stupidity isn’t the exclusive preserve of men.  
 
Proponents and opponents sometimes split down political lines. France’s conservative Republicans party uses “ élus”; the left-wing France Unbowed tends toward ”élu · es.”
“It’s a fight to make women visible in the language,” said Laurence Rossignol, a Socialist senator who uses the feminizing extra “·e.”  
 
Speaking in a telephone interview, she said its opponents “are the same activists who were against marriage for people of the same sex, medically assisted reproduction, and longer abortion windows. … It’s the new banner under which reactionaries are gathering.”  
 
But for the government of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, the use of ”·e” threatens the very fabric of France. Speaking in a Senate debate on the issue on Thursday, a deputy education minister said inclusive writing “is a danger for our country” and will “sound the death knell for the use of French in the world.”  
 
By challenging traditional norms of French usage, inclusive writing makes the language harder to learn, penalizing pupils with learning difficulties, the minister, Nathalie Elimas, argued.
 
“It dislocates words, breaks them into two,” she said. “With the spread of inclusive writing, the English language — already quasi-hegemonic across the world — would certainly and perhaps forever defeat the French language.”  
 
Arguments over gender-inclusive language are raging elsewhere in Europe, too.
A fault-line among German speakers has been how to make nouns reflect both genders. The German word for athletes, for example, could be written as “Sportlerinnen” to show that it includes both men and women, as opposed to the more usual, generic masculine “Sportler.” For critics, the addition of the feminine “innen” at the end — sometimes with the help of an asterisk, capital letter or underscore — is plain ugly.  
 
Italy has seen sporadic debate over neutralizing gendered titles for public officials, or making them feminine when they normally would remain masculine, such as “ministra” instead of “ministro” for women Cabinet members. Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi prefers to be called “sindaca” rather than “sindaco.”  
 
Inclusive language has also been a long battle for feminists and, more recently, of LGTBQ+ groups in Spain, although there is no consensus on how to make progress. Politics also play into the issue there. Members of the far-right Vox party have insisted on sticking with the traditional “presidente” when referring to Spain’s four deputy prime ministers, all of them women, rather than opting for the more progressive “presidenta,” even though the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language has accepted usage of that feminine noun.
 
The French Education Ministry circular that banished the “·e” formula from schools did, however, accept other more inclusive changes in language that highlight women.
 
They include systematically feminizing job titles for women — like “présidente,” instead of “président,” or ambassadrice” rather than “ambassadeur” for women ambassadors. It also encouraged the simultaneous use of both masculine and feminine forms to emphasize that roles are filled by both sexes. So a job posting in a school, for example, should say that it will go to “le candidat ou la candidate” — man or woman — who is best qualified to fill it.
 
Raphael Haddad, the author of a French-language guide on inclusive writing, said that section of the ministry circular represented progress for the cause of women in French.
 
“It’s a huge step forward, disguised as a ban,” he said. “What’s happening to the France language is the same thing that happened in the United States, with ‘chairman’ replaced by ‘chairperson,’ (and) ‘’fireman’ by ‘firefighter.’”  
 
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The European Commission called on the United States and other major COVID-19 vaccine producers Friday to export what they make, as the European Union does, rather than talk about waiving intellectual property (IP) rights to the shots.Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference on the sidelines of a summit of EU leaders that discussions about the waiver would not produce a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the short and medium term.”We should be open to lead this discussion. But when we lead this discussion, there needs to be a 360-degree view on it because we need vaccines now for the whole world,” she said.”The European Union is the only continental or democratic region of this world that is exporting at large scale,” von der Leyen said.She said about 50% of European-produced coronavirus vaccine is exported to almost 90 countries, including those in the World Health Organization-backed COVAX program, whose aim is to supply vaccines to mainly poor countries.”And we invite all those who engage in the debate of a waiver for IP rights also to join us to commit to be willing to export a large share of what is being produced in that region,” she said.Only higher production, removing export barriers and the sharing of already-ordered vaccines could immediately help fight the pandemic quickly, she said.”So what is necessary in the short term and the medium term: First of all, vaccine sharing. Secondly, export of vaccines that are being produced. And the third is investment in the increasing of the capacity to manufacture vaccines,” she said.Von der Leyen said the European Union had started its vaccine sharing mechanism, citing delivery of 615,000 doses to the Western Balkans as an example.
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The top diplomats from the United States, China and Russia urged strengthened global cooperation Friday, recognizing the need to tackle growing global challenges and an unprecedented pandemic but sparring over their different worldviews and who’s to blame for threats to multilateralism.The high-level U.N. Security Council meeting marked the first joint appearance, albeit virtually, by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Wang Yi of China. Wang chaired the session as this month’s council president.Despite major differences, especially on human rights and democracy, all three said they were ready to cooperate with all countries to address international challenges — from addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change to ending conflicts and helping people in need.Blinken said the post-World War II commitment by nations to work together to prevent conflict, alleviate suffering and defend human rights is in serious jeopardy,'' pointing to resurgent nationalism, rising repression and deepening rivalries.“Now, some question whether multilateral cooperation is still possible,'' he told the council.The United States believes it is not only possible, it is imperative.”Cooperation called vitalBlinken said no single country — no matter how powerful — can address the challenges alone'' and that's why the U.S. will work through multilateral institutions to stop COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis, stem the spread and use of nuclear weapons, deliver lifesaving humanitarian aid and manage conflicts.We will also work with any country on these issues — including those with whom we have serious differences,” he said. At the same time, we will continue to push back forcefully when we see countries undermine the international order, pretend that the rules we've all agreed to don't exist, or simply violate them at will.''Blinken called for all countries to meet their commitments under the U.N. Charter, treaties, Security Council resolutions, international humanitarian law, the World Trade Organization and other global organizations.The U.S. isn't seeking to uphold thisrules-based order to keep other nations down,” he said, pointing out that the international order the United States helped to create and defend has enabled the rise of some of our fiercest competitors.''Blinken stressed thathuman rights and dignity must stay at the core of the international order.”Governments that insist what they do within their own borders is their own business don’t have a blank check to enslave, torture, disappear, ethnically cleanse their people, or violate their human rights in any other way,'' he said. This was an apparent reference to China's treatment of the Uyghur minority, as well as other countries, including Myanmar's actions against Rohingya Muslims.Border, territorial questionsBlinken also said countries don't respect a founding U.N. principle of equality of all nations when theypurport to redraw the borders of another” country, threaten force to resolve territorial disputes, claim entitlement to a sphere of influence or target another country with disinformation, undermine elections and go after journalists or dissidents.While he didn’t name any countries, that appeared aimed especially at China’s actions in the South China Sea and Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, its attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election and its arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and journalists.China’s Wang and Russia’s Lavrov both stressed the importance of maintaining the United Nations as the center of multilateralism, which Blinken did not.FILE – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech in Beijing, Feb. 22, 2021.Wang recalled the declaration adopted last September by world leaders commemorating the 75th anniversary of the United Nations that multilateralism is not an option but a necessity."He called the U.N.the banner of multilateralism” and said, We stand ready to work with all parties to bring multilateralism and the U.N. forward ... and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.''No 'bullying or hegemony'He said the more complex global issues are, the greater the need for cooperation on the basis of equality among all countries,not zero-sum games.””No country should expect others to lose,” the Chinese minister said. Rather, countries must work together to ensure that all come out as winners to achieve security and prosperity for all.''Wang also called forequity and justice, not bullying or hegemony,” stressing that international law must apply to all and there should be no room for exceptionalism or double standards.'' And he warned thatsplitting the world along ideological lines conflicts with the spirit of multilateralism and is a regression of history.”FILE – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a news conference in Moscow, April 16, 2021.Russia’s Lavrov was more specific in targeting the U.S. and other Western nations.He said the architecture of global governance created at the end of World War II is being sorely tested.''Unfortunately, not all of our partners are guided by the imperative of working honestly to establish genuine multilateral cooperation,” he said.Unable to advance their unilateral or bloc priorities within the U.N.,'' Lavrov said,leading Western countries are now trying to roll back the process of establishing a multipolar, polycentric world and trying to restrain the course of history.”Western rulesHe accused Western nations of developing their own rules, imposing them on everyone else, and taking actions circumventing the United Nations that he called harmful.''Lavrov pointed to U.S. President Joe Biden's call for a summit of democracies, warning thatcreating a new special-interest club on an openly ideologized basis could further exacerbate international tension and draw dividing lines in a world that needs a unifying agenda now more than ever.”He also pointed to the French-German Alliance for Multilateralism, saying it should be considered within the U.N., not outside it. And he said the West has established “narrow partnerships” on issues such as cyberspace, humanitarian law, freedom of information and democracy that are already discussed at the U.N. or its agencies.
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Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) made early gains Friday as the first returns from the nation’s parliamentary election were reported. While full results are not expected until Saturday, and Sturgeon cautioned the results remained too close to call, at last count the SNP had won at least 32 seats in the 129-seat parliament, “devolved” from the British parliament in 1999. If the early trend continues, and the pro-independence party holds on to power, it could have an impact on all of Britain. If the SNP retains power, and there is a pro-independence majority, the party could seek to hold another referendum on independence by the end of 2023, setting up a potential legal showdown with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who says he will refuse any such vote. Speaking to supporters after she was reelected to her own seat, Sturgeon said she was cautious at this early stage but was “feeling extremely happy and extremely confident that we are on track in the SNP for a fourth consecutive election victory and to have the ability to form a government again.” Scotland has been part of Britain for 314 years. The last independence referendum failed 55% to 45%. But the movement saw a resurgence since Britain’s departure from the European Union, a move overwhelmingly opposed in Scotland. Sturgeon’s high marks for handling the COVID-19 pandemic and the unpopularity of Johnson’s Conservative British government bolstered support for the independence movement. The SNP needs to gain at least four more seats to win an overall majority of 65 but could rely on the backing of the pro-independence Green Party, which took five seats in 2016, to pursue a second referendum. Polls suggest, at this point, the results of a second referendum would be too tight to call. And, despite the early success, the parliamentary elections are also likely to be close, as polls indicated an increase in support for opposition pro-union parties in some areas. 
 
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday the U.S. and Mexico must collaborate to reduce immigration from Mexico by attacking violence and corruption in Central America.
 
The vice president made her appeal during virtual immigration talks with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.  
 
Harris told Lopez Obrador it was in the best interests of both countries to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, all located in a Central American region known as the Northern Triangle.“Together we must fight violence, we must fight corruption and impunity,” Harris said after the meeting. “It is in our country’s mutual interest to provide immediate relief to the Northern Triangle and to address the root causes of migration.”Harris spokesperson Symone Sanders said in a statement after the meeting the two leaders agreed to “establish a strategic partnership” to address economic underdevelopment and other factors that cause migration from the Northern Triangle.“Through this joint initiative, the United States and Mexico will leverage their expertise and resources to tackle a range of challenges, including lack of employment, limited market access, and deforestation and regional instability caused by climate change,” the statement said.U.S. President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with leading the White House effort to curb immigration at the U.S. southern border, through which more than 20,000 unaccompanied children entered the U.S. since January.
 
President Lopez Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference shortly before Friday’s meeting he supports safer migration and that he had a specific proposal to discuss with Harris.
 
Lopez Obrador touted a tree-planting jobs program in Central America that he said could help participants get work visas in the U.S. He first mentioned the proposal at a Washington climate summit last month, to the surprise of some in attendance.Following Friday’s meeting, Lopez Obrador said, “It is in our best interests based on our political, historical and friendship relations. Sometimes there have been differences among us. However, we have a common border that is over 3,000 kilometers long, and we need to understand one another.“And we will help. That is what I can say,” Lopez Obrador added. “As of now, you can count on us.”Harris said on Wednesday she would visit Mexico and Guatemala on June 7-8 to search for solutions to the immigration challenge, her first foreign trip as vice president.
 
Prior to the meeting, Lopez Obrador also told reporters that his government sent a diplomatic letter asking the U.S. to explain funding for an anti-corruption organization that has criticized his government.
 
Lopez Obrador accused Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, a group that investigates political corruption, of trying to undermine his government. He described funding for the group from the U.S. Agency for International Development as “promoting a form of coup.”
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A decision to change cars to in order get closer to a station exit may have saved Erik Bravo, a 34-year-old financial adviser who survived the collapse of an elevated line in Mexico City’s subway system that killed 25 people and injured around 80.  
Bravo said Thursday that he and two colleagues from work were accustomed to taking the Number 12 line home from their jobs. His two friends got off late Monday, as usual, at their stops.
 
Alone, Bravo decided to put on his headphones and use the time before his stop at the Olivos station to walk forward through a couple of subway cars, to be closer to the exit at the end of the platform when he arrived.  
The move likely kept him from disaster.
“You realize that, in some way, you got a second chance, because that could have been you,” Bravo said.  
As his car pulled next to the platform, he felt the train jerk, as if pulled from behind, and shudder to a stop as smoke filled the cabin. A male passenger shouted for people to lie on the floor for safety.
“People were desperate, they tried to break the glass, they wanted to open the windows to escape,” Bravo recalled.  
The automatic doors wouldn’t open, but a police officer told them that a door was open farther back.
Bravo walked toward the back not knowing the last two cars of the subway train had fallen into the rubble of the collapsed elevated rail bed.
In one of the last cars still standing on the track, two people lay unconscious on the floor. A little girl was crying. “I saw a man with his two little girls,” Bravo said, but he doesn’t know what happened to them.
Stunned, he walked home.
“When I got home … we began to look at everything that was coming out on the internet,” Bravo said. “It was a shock, I had been there. We began to see that people had died, people were missing, wounded, and here I was, unhurt, still here.”
Authorities say the collapse occurred after a steel beam that held up the elevated line broke. Investigators are now trying to figure out how and why.  
The line, the subway’s newest, stretches far into the city’s south side. Like many of the system’ s dozen subway lines, it runs underground through more central areas of the city of 9 million people but is on elevated concrete structures on the outskirts.
Allegations of poor design and construction on the Number 12 line emerged soon after it was inaugurated in 2012, and the line had to be partly closed in 2014 so tracks could be repaired.
The city’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake in 2017 revealed some structural defects that experts say should have resulted in a total closure and complete inspection of the line. Instead, authorities applied some patchwork fixes and re-opened it.
While Bravo knew there were cracks and defects, it never occurred to him that it might collapse.
“Yes, you knew there were defects, but not that kind of defect that would cause what happened to occur,” he said.  
Most think the tragedy was preventable.
“They could have avoided this, if the government had paid attention to the services they provide us,” said another regular passenger on the line, Ana María Luna. “But they didn’t pay attention to all the reports” of defects, she said.  
Even with the subway, Luna had to travel for hours to get to her job as a security guard. Since the disaster, her commute has stretched to three hours.
The collapse has temporarily closed the subway line, leaving thousands of residents on the south side dependent on bus service. People waited in long lines to board buses Thursday.
“Politicians don’t care if they do things right or not,” said Victor Luna, who was trying to get to his job as a watchman.
María Isabel Fuentes, a domestic worker, said the subway’s defects had long worried her. “Ever since it opened, it was scary,” she said.  
Because it serves low-income neighborhoods, the line seldom seemed a priority, she said. “We’re the same ones who always pay.”  
Bravo has kept busy since his near miss, fixing up an old motorcycle he owns so he can get to work now that the line is out of service. His nights have been sleepless, though, as he reflects on what might have been.
“In some way, I feel thankful grateful to someone, something up there, that for some reason decided it wasn’t my time,” Bravo said.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ruling Conservatives appeared on course Friday to pull off a historic election victory against the country’s main opposition Labour Party, making deep inroads into Labour’s traditional heartlands in northern England after 48 million Britons voted Thursday for devolved, regional and town governments.   
 
Early results painted a gloomy electoral picture for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party — which lost a parliamentary by-election in the northern town of Hartlepool to the Conservatives for the first time in the constituency’s 57-year history.  
 
As ballots continued to be tallied in England, Scotland and Wales following so-called Super Thursday polls, there was little to cheer Labour supporters elsewhere.
 
The election results could have profound implications for the future of the United Kingdom, if Scottish nationalists win an overall majority in Scotland’s devolved Parliament, but the results north of the border won’t be fully known until Sunday. The leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, has said she would see a big win as a mandate to hold a second independence referendum.  Scotland rejected independence in a 2014 referendum.
 
The focus in the early tallying of votes Friday was on the results from across England. The coronavirus pandemic delayed some of last year’s scheduled contests for local governments, making this year’s voting the largest test of public opinion outside a general election in nearly half a century, analysts say.
 
Early results show Conservatives scoring wins across England’s northeast and Midlands, traditional Labour territory and known for years as the party’s Red Wall. In the 2019 parliamentary election Johnson’s Conservatives punched a hole in the wall, and the results so far from Super Thursday suggest that electoral accomplishment was no fluke or one-off success fueled by Brexit, favored many of Labour’s working-class northern supporters.
 
Conservatives were gleeful as the results started to trickle through Friday. Conservative lawmaker Robert Halfon noted his party had seized control of the council in Harlow in southern England “for only the second time in the history of our town.”People queue at the entrance of a polling station in London, May 6, 2021. Millions of people across Britain cast ballots Thursday, in local elections, the biggest set of votes since the 2019 general election.Starmer will likely come under mounting pressure from within his own fractious party if the pattern of Labour losses continues as the tallying unfolds in coming days. Analysts had warned before he vote that Super Thursday would amount to a huge test for Starmer, who has tried to shift the party back toward the political center. He has set as his key task attracting back lost Labour supporters, who deserted the party in droves when the leftist Jeremy Corbyn, who Starmer replaced, was leader.
 
Starmer was already facing a backlash Friday from left-wing luminaries in his party for the disappointing early results. They say he has failed to connect with traditional working-class Labour voters, coming across as a “metropolitan technocrat” out of touch with their everyday concerns. Before entering politics Starmer was the country’s director of public prosecutions.  
 
Low personal ratings and rebellious lawmakers have bedeviled Starmer’s leadership.
 
“He’s now got about a year to demonstrate that he can turn things around,” said one senior Labour lawmaker, “otherwise the party will increasingly start to look for someone else.”
 
Some commentators suggest Starmer will be replaced before the next election.
 
“While talk of an imminent leadership challenge currently belongs on the fringes of the Labour Party, the possibility that he could be replaced before the next general election is a matter of open discussion on the Opposition benches,” according to newspaper columnist Gordon Rayner.  
 
Jim McMahon, the party’s transport spokesman and a Starmer loyalist, placed the blame for Labour’s losses on Brexit, telling The Daily Telegraph newspaper that the election was “always going to be difficult.” He said Labour had failed to persuade traditional party voters who fled Labour over its opposition to Brexit to return to the fold.  
 
“This was a Brexit aftershock,” McMahon said.   
 
The Conservative candidate who won the Hartlepool contest, Jill Mortimer, said her victory wasn’t just due to Brexit, though.  
 
“Labour has taken people for granted too long. People have had enough and now through this result, the people have spoken and made it clear — it is time for change,” she said.  
 
It is only the third time since the 1960s that a governing party has won a parliamentary by-election. Hartlepool was one of Britain’s strongest Brexit-supporting constituencies, with 70% to leave in 2016.
 
A senior Labour official said, “Keir has said he will take responsibility for these results — and he will take responsibility for fixing it and changing the Labour Party for the better.”  
 
However, a backbench Labour lawmaker told local media, “Not all of our shadow cabinet are as proactive as they should be. They’re not as combative as they should be. It can’t just be down to Keir to show that the Labour Party has changed.”
 
Johnson had just as much to prove as Starmer in the election. He has faced weeks of sleaze allegations relating to the awarding of government contracts and refurbishment of his residence at 10 Downing Street, but despite that appeared to be riding high in approval ratings, thanks largely to the country’s successful vaccine rollout.
 
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On a visit to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reassured leaders there that the United States will support Kyiv against what he termed “reckless and aggressive” Russian actions but stopped short of announcing increased military aid. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Police targeting drug traffickers raided a slum in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, and at least one officer and two dozen others died after being shot, authorities said.  The civil police’s press office confirmed the death of the officer and 24 alleged criminals in a message to The Associated Press.  A police helicopter flew low over the Jacarezinho favela as heavily armed men fled police by leaping from roof to roof, according to images shown on local television.  One woman told The Associated Press she saw police kill a badly wounded man, whom she described as helpless and unarmed, whom they found after he had fled into her house. Felipe Curi, a detective in Rio’s civil police, denied there had been any executions. “There were no suspects killed. They were all traffickers or criminals who tried to take the lives of our police officers, and there was no other alternative,” he said during a press conference. Police had to struggle to enter the favela because of concrete barriers built by the criminals, according to the detective. Shooting spread throughout the community. During the operation, several people Curi described as criminals invaded neighboring houses, trying to hide. Six were arrested, he said.  The police also seized 16 pistols, six rifles, a submachine gun, 12 grenades and a shotgun. Service on a subway line was suspended “due to intense shooting in the region,” according to a statement from the company that operates it. Earlier, two subway passengers were injured when a stray bullet shattered the glass of one car. Jacarezinho, one of the city’s most populous favelas, with some 40,000 residents, is dominated by the Comando Vermelho, one of Brazil’s leading criminal organizations. The police consider Jacarezinho to be one of the group’s headquarters. Thursday’s operation was aimed at investigating the recruitment of teenagers to hijack trains and commit other crimes, police said in a statement.  A group of about 50 residents in Jacarezinho poured into a narrow street on Thursday afternoon to follow members of the state legislature’s human rights commission as it conducted an inspection. They shouted “justice” while clapping their hands, and some raised their right fist into the air. Human Rights Watch Brazil said in a statement that the public prosecutor must immediately investigate possible police abuses. The police statement said the criminal gang has a “warlike structure of soldiers equipped with rifles, grenades, bulletproof vests, pistols, camouflaged clothing and other military accessories.” The Candido Mendes University’s Public Safety Observatory said that at least 12 police operations in Rio state this year have resulted in three or more deaths. Observatory director Silvia Ramos said Thursday’s raid was among the deadliest in the city’s recent history. Many of them appear to violate a ruling by Brazil’s Supreme Court last year that ordered the police to suspend operations during the pandemic, restricting them to “absolutely exceptional” situations. The Supreme Court declined to comment when asked by The Associated Press if Thursday’s operation would qualify. Rio police killed an average of more than five people a day during the first quarter of 2021, the most lethal start of a year since the state government began regularly releasing such data more than two decades ago, according to the Observatory. 
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The European Union announced Thursday that it would neither finance the organization of the referendum scheduled for June 27 in Haiti nor send observers for this election, deeming the process insufficiently transparent and democratic in a country plagued by insecurity and political instability.”The conditions for financial and technical support for the organization of the elections are absolutely not met at this stage, so we have refused to contribute to this process as it is,” said the ambassador of the European Union to Haiti, Sylvie Tabesse.”We consider that the process does not give all the guarantees of transparency and democracy that we would be entitled to expect, therefore … if the [Haitian] government asked us, we are not considering to respond positively for an observation mission,” added the diplomat during a meeting with several journalists in the Haitian capital.Since January 2020, President Jovenel Moise has governed by decrees and without checks and balances because of the lack of elections in recent years.FILE – Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 15, 2019.The president has drawn up a busy electoral calendar for 2021. In addition to the presidential, legislative and local elections in the fall, he wants to submit to a popular vote a project for a new constitution.Last week, the United States renewed its call for the organization of elections in Haiti while affirming its opposition to a constitutional change.Despite these reservations from the international community, the Haitian government refuses to give up its project.”A referendum is an act of sovereignty. It mainly concerns Haitians: It is they who decide whether or not they want a referendum to change the constitution,” Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph said Tuesday.The organization of this election stirs criticism even in Moise’s camp because the chosen procedure does not seem to respect the provisions of the current constitution.Written in 1987, after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, the text currently in force declares that “any popular consultation aimed at modifying the constitution by referendum is formally prohibited.”The grip of gangs in the country has worsened in recent months, allowing an upsurge in kidnappings for ransom in Port-au-Prince and in the provinces.
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Britain sent two warships to the English Channel on Thursday amid a dispute with France about fishing rights. French fishermen say they are being illegally prevented from fishing the waters around the British island of Jersey. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Facebook has taken down a network of hundreds of fake accounts and pages targeting people in Ukraine and linked to individuals previously sanctioned by the United States for efforts to interfere in U.S. elections, the company said Thursday.Facebook said the network managed a long-running deceptive campaign across multiple social media platforms and other websites, posing as independent news outlets and promoting favorable content about Ukrainian politicians, including activity that was likely for hire. The company said it started its probe after a tip from the FBI.Facebook attributed the activity to individuals and entities sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, including politician Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian lawmaker who was blacklisted by the U.S. government in September over accusations he tried to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election won by President Joe Biden. Facebook said it removed Derkach’s accounts in October 2020.Derkach told Reuters he would comment on Facebook’s investigation on Friday. Facebook also attributed the network to political consultants associated with Ukrainian politicians Oleh Kulinich and Volodymyr Groysman, Ukraine’s former prime minister. Kulinich did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Groysman could not immediately be reached for comment.Facebook said that as well as promoting these politicians, the network also pushed positive material about actors across the political spectrum, likely as a paid service. It said the activity it investigated began around 2015, was solely focused on Ukraine, and posted anti-Russia content.”You can really think of these operators as would-be influence mercenaries, renting out inauthentic online support in Ukrainian political circles,” Ben Nimmo, Facebook’s global influence operations threat intelligence lead, said on a call with reporters.Facebook’s investigation team said Ukraine, which has been among the top sources of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that it removes from the site, is home to an increasing number of influence operations selling services.Facebook said it removed 363 pages, which were followed by about 2.37 million accounts, and 477 accounts from this network for violating its rules. The network also spent about $496,000 in Facebook and Instagram ads, Facebook said.
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At least 25 people, including a police officer, were killed in a shootout on Thursday during an operation against drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro’s Jacarezinho slum, police said. Suspects tried to escape across rooftops as police entered the slum in armored vehicles and helicopters flew overhead, television images showed. The intense firefight kept residents in their homes. Three policemen were hit and one died of a head wound in the hospital, police said. Bullets fired during the shootout struck a light rail coach and two passengers were hurt by shattered glass from the broken window, the fire brigade said. Policemen take position during an operation against drug dealers in Jacarezinho slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 6, 2021.It was the deadliest single police operation in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which has suffered for decades from drug violence in its poor neighborhoods known as favelas. “This is the largest number of deaths in a police operation in Rio, surpassing 19 at Complexo do Alemão slum in 2007, except we did not lose one of ours in that action,” police chief Ronaldo Oliveira told Reuters. Police said that among the dead in Jacarezinho were leaders of the drug trafficking gang that dominated life in the slum. At least 10 suspects were arrested, they said. Besides drug trafficking, the gang robbed trucks of their cargo and had hijacked commuter trains earlier this year to steal from passengers. 
 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the world’s economic powers Thursday not to shy away from serious investments in combating climate change.
 
Merkel hosted the 2021 Petersburg Climate Dialogue, an online conference designed to drive international action on global warming and encourage nations and their leaders to focus on the U.N. Climate Change Conference later this year in Glasgow, Scotland.
 
In her comments, Merkel said she realized the COVID-19 pandemic has “torn insane budget holes” for the world’s industrialized countries. But she said they should not compensate for that by spending less on development aid and climate protection.
 
Johnson echoed that theme, saying the world’s wealthiest nations must meet their commitments to a $100 billion fund meant to help developing nations deal with climate change. He said it is up to wealthy countries to take action, as it is the developing world that feels the worst effects from the warming climate.  
 
Johnson said he will use the meeting with the leading industrial nations hosted by Britain next month to promote the U.N.-backed climate goals.  
 
All G-7 countries have now set targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero emissions — taking out as much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as are put in — by 2050 at the latest.   
 
Scientists say faster cuts are needed to prevent warming that leads to increased drought, rising sea levels and other potentially disastrous effects.
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The Netflix series “Zero,” which premiered globally last month, is the first Italian TV production to feature a predominantly Black cast, a bright spot in an otherwise bleak Italian television landscape where the persistent use of racist language and imagery is sparking new protests.  
Even as “Zero” creates a breakthrough in Italian TV history, on private networks, comedy teams are asserting their right to use racial slurs and make slanty-eye gestures as satire. The main state broadcaster RAI is under fire for attempting to censor an Italian rapper’s remarks highlighting homophobia in a right-wing political party. And under outside pressure, RAI is advising against — but not outright banning — the use of blackface in variety skits.  
With cultural tensions heightened, the protagonists of “Zero” hope the series — which focuses on second-generation Black Italians and is based on a novel by the son of Angolan immigrants — will help accelerate public acceptance that Italy has become a multicultural nation.  
“I always say that Italy is a country tied to traditions, more than racist,” said Antonio Dikele Distefano, who co-wrote the series and whose six novels, including the one on which “Zero” was based, focus on the lives of the children of immigrants to Italy.  
“I am convinced that through these things — writing novels, the possibility of making a series — things can change,” he said.
“Zero” is a radical departure because it provides role models for young Black Italians who have not seen themselves reflected in the culture, and because it creates a window to changes in Italian society that swaths of the majority population have not acknowledged.  
Activists fighting racism in Italian television underline the fact that it was developed by Netflix, based in the United States and with a commitment to spend $100 million to improve diversity, and not by Italian public or private television.  
“As a Black Italian, I never saw myself represented in Italian television. Or rather, I saw examples of how Black women were hyper-sexualized,” said Sara Lemlem, an activist and journalist who is part of a group of second-generation Italians protesting racist tropes on Italian TV. “There was never a Black woman in a role of an everyday woman: a Black student, a Black nurse, a Black teacher. I never saw myself represented in the country in which I was born and raised.”
“Zero,” which premiered on April 21, landed immediately among the top 10 shows streaming on Netflix in Italy.  
Perhaps even more telling of its impact: The lead actor, Giuseppe Dave Seke, was mobbed not even a week later by Italian schoolchildren clamoring for autographs as he gave an interview in the Milan neighborhood where the series is set. Seke, a 25-year-old who grew up in Padova to parents from Congo, is not a household name in Italy. “Zero” was his first foray into acting.
“If you ask these children who is in front of them, they will never tell you: the first Black Italian actor. They will tell you, ‘a superhero,’ or they will tell you, ‘Dave’,” Dikele Distefano said, watching the scene in awe.  
In the series, Zero is the nickname of a Black Italian pizza bike deliveryman who discovers he has a superpower that allows him to become invisible. He uses it to help his friends in a mixed-race Milan neighborhood.  
It’s a direct play on the notion of invisibility that was behind the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in Italian squares last summer following George Floyd’s murder in the United States. Black Italians rallied for changes in the country’s citizenship law and to be recognized as part of a society where they too often feel marginalized.  
“When a young person doesn’t feel seen, he feels a bit invisible,” Seke said. “Hopefully this series can help those people who felt like me or like Antonio. … There can be many people who have not found someone similar to themselves, and live still with this distress.”
The protest movement has shifted from targeting Italian fashion, where racist gaffes have highlighted the lack of Black creative workers, to Italian television, where a movement dubbing itself CambieRAI held protests last month demanding that Italian state and private TV stop using racist language and blackface in skits.  
CambieRAI plays upon the name of Italian state TV, RAI, and the Italian language command “you will change.” The movement, bringing together second-generation Italians from a range of associations, also wants RAI — which is funded by mandatory annual fees on anyone owning a TV in Italy — to set up an advisory council on diversity and inclusion.
Last week RAI last responded to an earlier request by other, longer-established groups asking that it stop broadcasting shows using blackface, citing skits where performers darkened their skin to impersonate singers like Beyonce or Ghali, an Italian rapper of Tunisian descent.  
“We said we were sorry, and we made a formal commitment to inform all of our editors to ask that they don’t use blackface anymore,” Giovanni Parapini, RAI’s director for social causes, told The Associated Press. He said that was as far as they could go due to editorial freedom.  
The associations said they viewed the commitment as positive, even if it fell short of a sought-for ban, since RAI at least recognized that the use of blackface was a problem.
Parapini, however, said the public network did not accept the criticism of the CambieRAI group “because that would mean that RAI in all these years did nothing for integration.”
He noted that the network had never been called out by regulators and listed programming that included minorities, from a Gambia-born sportscaster known as Idris in the 1990s to plans for a televised festival in July featuring second-generation Italians.  
Dikele Distefano said for him the goal is not to banish racist language, calling it “a lost battle.” He sees his art as an agent for change.  
He is working on a film now where he aims to have a 70% second-generation Italian cast and crew. “Zero” has already helped create positions in the industry for a Black hairstylist, a Black screenwriter and a director of Arab and Italian origin, he noted.
“The battle is to live in a place where we all have the same opportunity, where there are more writers who are Black, Asian, South American, where there is the possibility to tell the stories from the point of view of those who live it,” he said. 
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday the European Union (EU) is willing to discuss a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, one day after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration indicated it would support it.
 
In a virtual speech, the head of the EU executive branch said the EU is “ready to discuss any proposals that addresses the crisis in an effective and pragmatic manner.”  
 
In a statement Wednesday, United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the decision, saying “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”
 
Waiving vaccine patents was among Biden’s campaign promises, and he had been under pressure to follow through.  
 
In her speech, Von der Leyen said the pandemic was a global health crisis “and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.”
 
The European Union, Britain, Switzerland and some other European countries — many of them home to large pharmaceutical companies — have opposed the waiver. They argue it would undermine incentives for companies that have produced vaccines in record time to do so in a future pandemic.  
 
South Africa and India made the initial vaccine waiver proposal at the World Trade Organization in October, gathering support from many developing countries that say it is a vital step to make vaccines more widely available.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Ukraine for meetings Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “This will be an important opportunity to discuss continued Russian aggression and to underscore the need for maintaining both the pace of and focus on reforms with our Ukrainian partners,” Blinken tweeted after arriving in Kyiv. Late last month, senior U.S. and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea.  Blinken is expected to restate that the United States will not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, and to call for its return to Ukraine.  He will also call on Russia to uphold its commitments under the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas. The State Department said Blinken will also encourage institutional reforms in Ukraine, which the State Department called “key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future.”  Blinken will likely underscore the importance of U.S. economic support for Ukraine.     “Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine more than $4.6 billion in total assistance, including security and non-security assistance,” according to the State Department. 
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A jury in Rome on Wednesday convicted two American friends in the 2019 slaying of a police officer in a tragic unraveling of a small-time drug deal gone bad, sentencing them to life in prison. The jury deliberated more than 12 hours before delivering the verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, handing them Italy’s stiffest sentence. Elder and Natale-Hjorth were indicted on charges of homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause. They were found guilty of all counts.  The slain officer’s widow, who held a photo of her dead husband while waiting for the verdict, sobbed and hugged his brother, Paolo. The defendants were led immediately out of the courtroom after the verdicts had been read. As Elder was being walked out, his father, Ethan Elder, called out, “Finnegan, I love you.” Prosecutors alleged that Elder stabbed Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times with a knife that he brought with him on his trip to Europe from California and that Natale-Hjorth helped him hide the knife in their hotel room.  The July 26, 2019, killing of the officer from the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps shocked Italy. Cerciello Rega, 35, was mourned as a national hero. His widow, brother and partner were in the courtroom as the jury went into deliberations.  The two Californians were allowed out of steel-barred defendant cages inside the courtroom to sit with their lawyers before the case went to the jury, which consisted of the presiding judge, Marina Finiti, a second judge and six civilian jurors. “I’m stressed,” Elder said to one of his lawyers. Just before the brief court appearance, Elder took a crucifix he wears on a chain around his neck and kissed it. He also turned to his co-defendant, Natale-Hjorth, and held out the crucifix toward him through a glass partition, motioning heavenward.  Elder was joined in the courtroom by his parents. He and his father crossed their fingers toward each other for good luck after the jury went to deliberate. Natale-Hjorth was greeted by his Italian uncle, who lives in Italy.Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, center, is escorted by police officers during the trial for the slaying of an Italian plainclothes police officer, in Rome, May 5, 2021.Cerciello Rega had recently returned from a honeymoon when he was assigned, along with a plainclothes police partner, officer Andrea Varriale, to follow up on a reported extortion attempt.  Prosecution’s case Prosecutors contend the young Americans concocted a plot involving a stolen bag and cellphone after their failed attempt to buy cocaine with 80 euros ($96) in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district. Natale-Hjorth and Elder testified they had paid for the cocaine but didn’t receive it. Both defendants contended they acted in self-defense.  During the trial, which began on Feb. 26, 2020, the Americans told the court they thought that Cerciello Rega and Varriale were thugs or mobsters out to assault them on a dark deserted street. The officers wore casual summer clothes and not uniforms, and the defendants insisted the officers never showed police badges.  Under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder, even without materially doing the slaying. Prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta has demanded life imprisonment for both defendants.  Varriale, who suffered a back injury in a scuffle with Natale-Hjorth while his partner was grappling with Elder, testified that the officers did identify themselves as Carabinieri. At the time of the slaying, Elder was 19 and traveling through Europe without his family, while Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was spending the summer vacation with his Italian grandparents, who live near Rome. Former schoolmates from the San Francisco Bay area, the two had met up in Rome for what was supposed to be couple of days of sightseeing and nights out.  Prosecutors alleged that Elder thrust a 7-inch (18-centimeter) military-style attack knife repeatedly into Cerciello Rega, who bled profusely, like a “fountain,” Varriale had testified, and died shortly after in hospital.  Elder told the court that during the scuffle, the heavyset Cerciello Rega was on top of him on the ground, and Elder feared that he was being strangled. Elder said he pulled out the knife and stabbed him to avoid being killed, and when the officer didn’t immediately let him go, he stabbed again. After the stabbing, the Americans ran to their hotel room, where, according to Natale-Hjorth, Elder cleaned the knife and then asked him to hide it. Natale-Hjorth testified that he hid the knife behind a ceiling panel in their room, where police discovered it hours later. The drug deal The defendants had told the court that several hours before the stabbing, they attempted to buy cocaine in the Trastevere district. With the intervention of a go-between, they paid a dealer, but instead of cocaine, they received an aspirinlike tablet.  Before Natale-Hjorth could confront the dealer, a separate Carabinieri patrol in the neighborhood intervened, and all scattered. The Americans snatched the go-between’s knapsack in reprisal and used a cellphone inside to set up a meeting with the goal of exchanging the bag and the phone for the cash they had lost in the bad drug deal.  Meanwhile, Cerciello Rega, wearing a T-shirt and long shorts, and Varriale, in a polo shirt and jeans, headed out to follow up on what was described as a small-scale extortion attempt. They didn’t carry their service pistols.  From practically its start, the trial largely boiled down to the word of Varriale against that of the young American visitors. The victim’s widow, Rosa Maria Esilio, would sit in the front row, often clutching a photo of her husband. Photos of the newlyweds, with Cerciello Rega in his dress uniform after their wedding, were widely displayed in Italian media after the slaying. As the trial neared its end, one of Elder’s defense lawyers, Renato Borzone, argued in court that deep-set psychiatric problems, including a constant fear of being attacked, figured in the fatal stabbing. Borzone told the court his client saw a world filled with enemies due to psychiatric problems and that something “short-circuited” when Elder was confronted by the officer. 
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President Joe Biden has offered condolences and pledged U.S. assistance following the collapse of a rail overpass in Mexico City that left at least 24 dead.”We send our deepest condolences to all those who lost a loved one and offer our best wishes for the recovery of all those who were injured. As neighbors and partners, our nations are closely linked, and the United States is ready to assist Mexico as it rebuilds from this tragedy,” said Biden in a statement released Wednesday by the White House.More than 60 people were injured and at least 24 died when the Mexico City subway train overpass collapsed Monday night onto a busy road, with hanging carriages crushing cars below it.The accident occurred on Line 12 near the Olivos station in the southeast of the city about 10:30 p.m. local time.Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said at the scene that a “support beam gave way” just as the train passed over it.Sheinbaum confirmed Tuesday that federal justice experts would be assisting the city with an investigation to “discover exactly what happened and what the causes” were.”We need experts from federal justice as well as an external and unbiased team to conduct the investigation and all the reports that need to be done and get to the truth,” she said.She added that a “Norwegian company will be in charge of the external investigation.”Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his regular news conference Tuesday that the investigation should be done quickly and that nothing would be hidden from the Mexican people.The Metro 12 line that runs over the now-collapsed overpass was built almost a decade ago.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Kyiv, Ukraine, where on Thursday he’s scheduled to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba.
 
According to a State Department news release, Blinken will “underscore unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”
 
“The United States is deeply concerned about Russia’s ongoing aggressive actions and rhetoric targeting Ukraine, including the increased Russian troop presence in occupied Crimea and around Ukraine’s borders,” the news release said.
 
It added that the U.S. “continues to monitor the situation closely.”
 
Late last month, senior American and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea.
 
Blinken is expected to restate that the U.S will not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. He was expected to call for its return to Ukraine.
 
He will also call on Russia to uphold its commitments under the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas.
 
The State Department said Blinken will also encourage institutional reforms in Ukraine, which the State Department called “key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future.”
 
Blinken will likely underscore the importance of American economic support for Ukraine.
 
“Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine more than $4.6 billion in total assistance, including security and non-security assistance,” according to the State Department.
 
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