DEARBORN, Michigan — Of the thousands of delegates expected to gather Monday at the Democratic National Convention, only 36 will belong to the “uncommitted” movement sparked by dissatisfaction with U.S. President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

But that small core has an outsized influence.

Anger over U.S. backing for Israel’s offensive in Gaza could generate unwelcome images for convention organizers, with raucous protests expected outside and potentially inside the Chicago arena where Vice President Kamala Harris will accept the nomination Thursday.

Top Democrats have spent weeks meeting with “uncommitted” voters and their allies — including a previously unreported sit-down between Harris and the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan — in an effort to respond to criticism in key swing states such as Michigan, which has a significant Arab American population.

Months of meetings and phone calls between pro-Palestinian activists and the Harris campaign have fallen into an effective impasse. The activists want Harris to endorse an arms embargo to Israel and a permanent cease-fire. Harris has supported Biden’s negotiations for a cease-fire but rejected an arms embargo.

Rima Mohammad, one of Michigan’s two “uncommitted” delegates, said she sees the convention as a chance to share their movement’s concerns with the party leadership.

“It is a way for protesters outside to be able to share their frustration with the party,” she said.

Harris meets key Arab American mayor

Questions remain about the leverage “uncommitted” voters hold now that Biden has stepped aside and Harris has taken his place. Democrats have seen a significant surge in enthusiasm for Harris’ campaign, and concerns about voter apathy in key areas, such as Detroit’s large Black population, appear to have diminished.

But Harris and her team have still made communication with Arab American leaders a priority.

During a campaign trip to Michigan last week, Harris met with Abdullah Hammoud, the 34-year-old mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb that has the largest number of Arab Americans of any city in the United States. The meeting was disclosed by a person who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The person familiar with the meeting did not provide specific details but said the focus was on Harris’ potential policy, if elected, on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hammoud declined to comment.

“Vice President Harris supports the deals currently on the table for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and for the release of hostages,” her campaign said in a statement. “She will continue to meet with leaders from Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities, as she has throughout her vice presidency.”

Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez on Thursday held separate one-on-one meetings with leaders in the Arab American community and “uncommitted” movement in metro Detroit.

“They are listening, and we are talking,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, who met with Chavez Rodriguez. “But none of us can garner votes in the community without public statements from Harris. She doesn’t need us; she can win over votes by saying and doing the right thing.”

According to Siblani, Chavez Rodriguez agreed that “the killing has to stop.” In response, Siblani said he pressed: “How? There is no plan.”

Lavora Barnes, the Democratic chair in Michigan, said the party would “continue working toward our goal of coming together to defeat Donald Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”

“We are committed to continuing these conversations with community leaders, activists and organizations because we want to ensure that everyone in the Michigan Democratic Party has a seat at the table,” Barnes said in a statement.

No agreement on an arms embargo

Some on the Democratic Party’s left have called for including a moratorium on the use of U.S.-made weapons by Israel in the platform of policy goals that will be approved during next week’s convention. But such language isn’t included in a draft platform party officials released earlier this summer, and it’s unlikely that those close to Harris’ campaign would endorse including it.

The Uncommitted National Movement has also requested a speaking slot at the convention for a doctor who has worked on the frontlines in Gaza, along with a leader of the movement. And they have asked for a meeting with Harris “to discuss updating the Gaza policy in hopes of stopping the flow of unconditional weapons and bombs” to Israel, said Abbas Alawieh, another “uncommitted” delegate from Michigan and one of the founders of the movement.

Before a Harris rally just outside Detroit last week, Alawieh and Layla Elabed, co-founders of the movement, briefly met with the vice president. They requested a formal meeting with Harris and urged her to support an embargo on weapons shipments to Israel. According to them, Harris seemed open to the idea of meeting.

However, shortly after news of the meeting became public, Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, reaffirmed that she does not support an arms embargo. Alawieh mentioned Wednesday that the group has not received any further response from Harris’ team or the DNC regarding their requests ahead of the convention.

“I hope she doesn’t miss the opportunity to unite the party,” said Alawieh.

Trump campaign continues its outreach

Elsewhere in metro Detroit this week, Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter and now a leader in his Arab American outreach, was holding meetings with various community groups. Boulos has come to Michigan often for the outreach, along with Arab Americans for Trump chair Bishara Bahbah.

According to Bahbah, their pitch highlights the situation in Gaza under Biden’s administration and a promise from Trump’s team to give the community a seat at the table if he wins.

“We have been told by the Trump circle, which is not part of the campaign, that in return for our votes, there would be a seat at the table and a voice to be heard,” said Bahbah.

But any apparent political opportunity for Trump in the Arab American community or the “uncommitted” movement may be limited by his past remarks and policies.

Many Arabs remain offended by Trump’s ban, while in office, on immigration from several majority Muslim countries, as well as remarks they consider insulting. Trump also has criticized Biden for not being a strong enough supporter of Israel.

Speaking to an audience of Jewish supporters Thursday, Trump painted the protesters expected in Chicago as antisemitic and invoked an Arabic term that is sometimes used by Muslims to mean war or struggle.

“There will be no jihad coming to America under Trump,” he said.

But Bahbah acknowledges that his and Boulos’ strategy isn’t necessarily aimed at converting voters to support Trump — but to stop them from voting for Harris.

“If I can’t convince people to vote for Trump, having them sit at home is better,” said Bahbah.
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Helsinki, Finland — Western officials and analysts are suspicious of Beijing’s admission this week that a Chinese container ship damaged the Balticconnector — a vital Baltic Sea gas pipeline linking Estonia and Finland — in October.

The South China Morning Post reported August 12 that the Chinese government notified Finland and Estonia 10 months after the incident that it was caused by a Hong Kong-registered ship called Newnew Polar Bear, but blamed a storm for what it called the accident.

In an interview August 13 with Estonia’s public radio, ERR, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said he was skeptical of China’s claim that a storm caused the incident.

“Personally, I find it very difficult to understand how a ship’s captain could fail to notice for such a long time that its anchor had been dragging along the seabed, but it is up to the prosecutor’s office to complete the investigation,” he said.

Markku Mylly, the former director of the European Maritime Safety Agency, told local media in Helsinki there were no storms in the Gulf of Finland at the time. The Finnish newspaper Iltalehti consulted data from the Finland Meteorological Institute and confirmed that Mylly’s memory was correct.

Pevkur told ERR that Estonia would not give up claims against China for compensation.

The Baltic Sea oil and gas pipeline, which was built with EU assistance, was commissioned in 2019 at a total cost of around $331 million, to wean Finland and the three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — off their dependence on Russia for natural gas.

The pipeline was the source of almost all of Estonia’s natural gas supply after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine sparked European restrictions on the import of Russian gas.  After the damage, Estonia had to temporarily rely on Latvia for natural gas.

The pipeline was reopened for commercial operations in April after repairs that cost about $38 million, a senior vice president at Gasgrid Finland told The Associated Press. A few telecoms cables were also damaged in the incident.

Finnish and Estonian investigative agencies recovered the ship’s 6-ton anchor from the sea floor near the damaged pipeline after the incident and tracked it to the ship, which they tried to contact; it refused to respond.

The damage occurred at a time of heightened tension between Europe and Russia over sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, and critics suspected it was a deliberate act of sabotage by Russia or its ally China.

After the damage to the pipeline, the Newnew Polar Bear first sailed to St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk in Russia and later docked in China’s port of Tianjin. 

Eoin Micheal McNamara, a global security expert at the Finland Institute of International Affairs, told VOA that Finnish people doubt Beijing’s claim that the ship’s damage to the pipeline was an accident.

“Undersea infrastructure elsewhere in the wider Nordic-Baltic region has also been damaged by ‘manmade activity’ in recent years. There was the Nord Stream sabotage in 2022 and the severing of a data cable between Norway and its Arctic island of Svalbard before that,” McNamara said. “As geopolitical tensions rise, more targeted sabotage is being expected.”

German media reported this week that investigators asked Poland to arrest a Ukrainian diving instructor for allegedly being part of a team that blew up the Baltic Sea’s Nord Stream gas pipelines, which supplied Russian gas to Europe. Russia blamed Britain, Ukraine and the United States for the sabotage, which they denied.

McNamara said there are suspicions that Russia was involved in the damage to the Balticconnector pipeline. “Plausible deniability is a key tenet for hybrid interference. There are suspicions that use of a Hong Kong-registered vessel was a tactic to gain this plausible deniability,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last year dismissed the idea that Russia could have been behind an attack on the pipeline as “rubbish.”

Estonia and Finland are still jointly investigating the ship, which China’s NewNew Shipping Company owns.

The Estonian prosecutor’s office, which oversees the investigation, said under international law, China’s statement acknowledging the ship caused the damage as an “accident” cannot be used as evidence in a criminal investigation because China has not invited Estonian criminal investigators to participate in Beijing’s own investigation.

VOA contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry about the matter but was referred to the Chinese shipping departments.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian at a news briefing on August 13 said, “China is advancing the investigation in accordance with the facts and the law and is in close communication with relevant countries. It is hoped that all parties will continue to promote the investigation in a professional, objective and cooperative manner, and jointly ensure that the incident is handled in a sound manner.”

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told VOA in an email, “We are constantly cooperating with China and exchanging information regarding this matter, but we will not go into details because the investigation is still ongoing.”

The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, or NBI, which is investigating the case, told VOA that the Finnish and Estonian authorities have been cooperating with the Chinese authorities on the matter. The NBI said it will publish the findings with the Estonian side as early as this fall.

“Based on the evidence collected and information analyzed during the investigation, it can be stated that the course of events is considered clear and there are sufficient reasons to suspect that the container vessel Newnew Polar Bear is linked to the damages. The cause for the damages seems to be the anchor and anchor chain [struck] the mentioned vessel.”

The NBI added, “It must be stated that the investigation is still ongoing and final conclusions, what was behind these incidents (technical failure — negligence, poor seamanship — deliberate act), can be made only after all necessary investigative measures have been finalized, and this will still take some time.”

VOA’s Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report. Some information was provided by Reuters.
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LONDON — A fire broke out Saturday at Somerset House, a large arts venue on the River Thames in central London.

Smoke billowed from the building and flames could be seen coming from the roof as firefighters on tall ladders showered it with water.

The cause of the fire was not yet known, the London Fire Brigade said. Fifteen engines and about 100 firefighters were deployed.

Somerset House said all staff and the public were safe and the site was closed. The venue had been scheduled to host a breakdancing event.

The neoclassical building, which is nearly 250 years old, houses the Courtauld Gallery that features works by Van Gogh, Manet and Cezanne.
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TOKYO — Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is finalizing plans to visit the United States in late September for the U.N. General Assembly and a possible meeting with President Joe Biden, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday.

The visit may take place for several days starting on September 22, the report said, citing multiple government sources it did not identify.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry, in response to a request for comment from Reuters, said “nothing has been decided yet.”

Kishida on Wednesday dropped out of the leadership race for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, meaning he will step down as prime minister when his term as party leader ends in late September.

The date of the LDP election is not yet set. It could be as early as September 20, in which case Kishida would likely address the General Assembly after Japan’s parliament, where the LDP has a majority, has chosen his replacement as prime minister, according to Yomiuri.

Some in the Japanese government think it best if Kishida’s successor does not develop close ties with Biden, who is scheduled to leave office in January, the newspaper said.

Biden, who dropped out of November’s U.S. presidential election, was replaced as the Democratic Party nominee last month by Vice President Kamala Harris. She faces the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
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MOSCOW — Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Ukraine used Western rockets, likely U.S.-made HIMARS, to destroy a bridge over the Seym River in the Kursk region, killing volunteers trying to evacuate civilians.

“For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said late Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

“As a result of the attack on the bridge over the Seym River in the Glushkovo district, it was completely destroyed, and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed,” she said.

There was no indication of how many volunteers were killed in Friday’s attack.

Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Kyiv’s forces had advanced between 1 and 3 kilometers (up to 1.8 miles) in some areas in the Kursk region on Friday, 11 days since beginning an incursion into the western Russian territory.

Kyiv claimed to have taken control of 82 settlements over 1,150 square kilometers (444 square miles) in the region since August 6.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, cited by the Interfax news agency, said on Saturday that Russian forces repelled several Ukrainian attacks in the Kursk region, but it did not report recapturing any territory.

It said Ukrainian forces had unsuccessfully attempted to advance towards the villages of Kauchuk and Alekseyevskiy, which lie roughly halfway between the Ukrainian border and the Kursk nuclear power plant.

In a separate statement, the ministry accused Ukraine of planning to attack the plant in a false flag operation.

Reuters could not independently verify either side’s battlefield accounts.

Russia has accused the West of supporting and encouraging Ukraine’s first ground offensive on Russian territory and said that Kyiv’s “terrorist invasion” would not change the course of the war.

The U.S. HIMARS rockets provided to Ukraine have a range of up to about 80 kilometers (50 miles).

The United States, which has said it cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the war he launched in February 2022, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of U.S. weaponry, according to officials in Washington.
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Stockholm — Health authorities warned Friday that Europe must be ready for more cases of a deadly strain of mpox that has killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The World Health Organization urged pharmaceutical firms to ramp up vaccine production and China said it would screen travelers for the disease after the first cases of the more deadly strain to be recorded outside Africa were announced in Sweden and Pakistan.

France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said his country was on the “highest alert” and would implement “new recommendations” for travelers to risk areas.

Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by animals but can also spread human-to-human through close physical contact.

It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

The WHO on Wednesday declared the rapid spread of the new Clade 1b strain an international public health emergency — the agency’s highest alert.

This follows the spread of the more deadly mpox from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to other African countries.

“We do need the manufacturers to really scale up so that we’ve got access to many, many more vaccines,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters.

The WHO is asking countries with vaccine stockpiles to donate them to countries with outbreaks.

Harris said mpox was “particularly dangerous for those with a weak immune system, so people who maybe have HIV or are malnourished,” and was also dangerous for small children.

The United States has said it will donate 50,000 doses of an mpox vaccine to DRC and Attal said France would also send vaccines to risk countries.

Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said Thursday it would be ready to make up to 10 million doses of its mpox vaccine by 2025 but that it needed contracts to start production.

The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the overall risk in Europe was “low.” But it warned that “effective surveillance, laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation and contact tracing capacities will be vital to detecting cases.”

“Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases,” ECDC director Pamela Rendi-Wagner said in a statement.

Hundreds killed in DRC

The virus has swept across DRC, killing 548 people so far this year, the government said Thursday.

Nigeria has recorded 39 mpox cases this year, but no deaths, according to its health authorities. Previously unaffected countries such as Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have reported outbreaks, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sweden’s Public Health Agency announced Thursday it had registered a case of Clade 1b.

The patient was infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1,” epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in a statement.

The mpox strain in the Pakistan case was not immediately known, the country’s health ministry said in a statement.

It said the patient, a 34-year-old man, had “come from a Gulf country.”

China announced it would begin screening people and goods entering the country for mpox over the next six months.

People arriving from countries where outbreaks have occurred, who have been in contact with mpox cases or display symptoms should “declare to customs when entering the country,” China’s customs administration said.

Vehicles, containers and items from areas with mpox cases should be sanitized, it added in a statement.

Vaccination drive

Mpox has two subtypes: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.

A worldwide outbreak beginning in 2022 involving the Clade 2b subclade caused some 140 deaths out of about 90,000 cases, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

France reported 107 cases of the milder mpox variant between January 1 and June 30 this year.

The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said the Sweden case was “a clear reflection of the interconnectedness of our world.”

But it added: “Travel restrictions and border closures don’t work and should be avoided.”
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kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine’s air defenses shot down all 14 Russian drones fired in an overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday. The air force said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that the Shahed drones were downed over six Ukrainian regions in the south and center of the country.

Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry said Ukraine had used Western rockets, likely U.S.-made HIMARS, to destroy a bridge over the Seym river in the Kursk region, killing volunteers trying to evacuate civilians.

“For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, said late Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

“As a result of the attack on the bridge over the Seym River in the Glushkovo district, it was completely destroyed, and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed.”

Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that Kyiv’s forces were advancing between 1 and 3 kilometers in some areas in the Kursk region, 11 days since beginning an incursion into Russia. Kyiv has claimed to have taken control of 82 settlements over an area of 1,150 square kilometers in the region since August 6.

Reuters could not independently verify either side’s battlefield accounts.

Russia has accused the West of supporting and encouraging Ukraine’s first ground offensive on Russian territory and said Kyiv’s “terrorist invasion” would not change the course of the war.

The United States, which has said it cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the war he launched in February 2022, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of U.S. weaponry, officials in Washington said. 
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LOS ANGELES — As wildfires scorched swaths of land in the wine country of Sonoma County in 2020, sending ash flying and choking the air with smoke, Maria Salinas harvested grapes.

Her saliva turned black from inhaling the toxins, until one day she had so much trouble breathing she was rushed to the emergency room. When she felt better, she went right back to work as the fires raged on.

“What forces us to work is necessity,” Salinas said. “We always expose ourselves to danger out of necessity, whether by fire or disaster, when the weather changes, when it’s hot or cold.”

As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world, a new study shows that farmworkers are paying a heavy price by being exposed to high levels of air pollution. And in Sonoma County, the focus of the work, researchers found that a program aimed at determining when it was safe to work during wildfires did not adequately protect farmworkers.

They recommended a series of steps to safeguard the workers’ health, including air quality monitors at work sites, stricter requirements for employers, emergency plans and trainings in various languages, post-exposure health screenings and hazard pay.

Farmworkers are “experiencing first and hardest what the rest of us are just starting to understand,” Max Bell Alper, executive director of the labor coalition North Bay Jobs with Justice, said Wednesday during a webinar devoted to the research, published in July in the journal GeoHealth. “And I think in many ways that’s analogous to what’s happening all over the country. What we are experiencing in California is now happening everywhere.”

Farmworkers face immense pressure to work in dangerous conditions. Many are poor and don’t get paid unless they work. Others who are in the country illegally are more vulnerable because of limited English proficiency, lack of benefits, discrimination and exploitation. These realities make it harder for them to advocate for better working conditions and basic rights.

Researchers examined data from the 2020 Glass and LNU Lightning Complex fires in northern California’s Sonoma County, a region famous for its wine. During those blazes, many farmworkers kept working, often in evacuation zones deemed unsafe for the general population. Because smoke and ash can contaminate grapes, growers were under increasing pressure to get workers into fields.

The researchers looked at air quality data from a single AirNow monitor, operated by the Environmental Protection Agency and used to alert the public to unsafe levels, and 359 monitors from PurpleAir, which offers sensors that people can install in their homes or businesses.

From July 31 to November 6, 2020, the AirNow sensor recorded 21 days of air pollution the EPA considers unhealthy for sensitive groups and 13 days of poor air quality unhealthy for everyone. The PurpleAir monitors found 27 days of air the EPA deems unhealthy for sensitive groups and 16 days of air toxic to everyone.

And on several occasions, the smoke was worse at night. That’s an important detail because some employers asked farmworkers to work at night due in part to cooler temperatures and less concentrated smoke, said Michael Méndez, one of the researchers and an assistant professor at University of California-Irvine.

“Hundreds of farmworkers were exposed to the toxic air quality of wildfire smoke, and that could have detrimental impact to their health,” he said. “There wasn’t any post-exposure monitoring of these farmworkers.”

The researchers also examined the county’s Agricultural Pass program, which allows farmworkers and others in agriculture into mandatory evacuation areas to conduct essential activities like water or harvest crops. They found that the approval process lacked clear standards or established protocols, and that requirements of the application were little enforced. In some cases, for example, applications did not include the number of workers in worksites and didn’t have detailed worksite locations.

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of public health sciences at the University of California-Davis who was not part of the study, said symptoms of inhaling wildfire smoke — eye irritation, coughing, sneezing and difficulty breathing — can start within just a few minutes of exposure to smoke with fine particulate matter.

Exposure to those tiny particles, which can go deep into the lungs and bloodstream, has been shown to increase the risk of numerous health conditions such as heart and lung disease, asthma and low birth weight. Its effects are compounded when extreme heat is also present. Another recent study found that inhaling tiny particulates from wildfire smoke can increase the risk of dementia.

Anayeli Guzmán, who like Salinas worked to harvest grapes during the Sonoma County fires, remembers feeling fatigue and burning in her eyes and throat from the smoke and ash. But she never went to the doctor for a post-exposure health checkup.

“We don’t have that option,” Guzmán, who has no health coverage, said in an interview. “If I go get a checkup, I’d lose a day of work or would be left to pay a medical bill.”

In the webinar, Guzman said it was “sad that vineyard owners are only worried about the grapes” that may be tainted by smoke, and not about how smoke affects workers.

A farmworker health survey report released in 2021 by the University of California-Merced and the National Agricultural Workers Survey found that fewer than 1 in 5 farmworkers have employer-based health coverage.

Hertz-Picciotto said farmworkers are essential workers because the nation’s food supply depends on them.

“From a moral point of view and a health point of view, it’s really reprehensible that the situation has gotten bad and things have not been put in place to protect farmworkers, and this paper should be really important in trying to bring that to light with real recommendations,” she said.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday kept on hold in roughly half the country new regulations about sex discrimination in education, rejecting a Biden administration request.

The court voted 5-4, with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the three liberal justices in dissent.

At issue were protections for pregnant students and students who are parents, and the procedures schools must use in responding to sexual misconduct complaints.

The most noteworthy of the new regulations, involving protections for transgender students, were not part of the administration’s plea to the high court. They remain blocked in 25 states and hundreds of individual colleges and schools across the country because of lower court-orders.

The cases will continue in those courts.

The rules took effect elsewhere in U.S. schools and colleges on August 1.

The rights of transgender people — and especially young trans people — have become a major political battleground in recent years as trans visibility has increased. Most Republican-controlled states have banned gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, and several have adopted policies limiting which school bathrooms trans people can use and barring trans girls from some sports competitions.

In April, President Joe Biden’s administration sought to settle some of the contention with a regulation to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ+ students under Title IX, the 1972 law against sex discrimination in schools that receive federal money. The rule was two years in the making and drew 240,000 responses — a record for the Education Department.

The rule declares that it’s unlawful discrimination to treat transgender students differently from their classmates, including by restricting bathroom access. It does not explicitly address sports participation, a particularly contentious topic.

Title IX enforcement remains highly unsettled. In a series of rulings, federal courts have declared that the rule cannot be enforced in most of the Republican states that sued while the litigation continues.

In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court majority wrote that it was declining to question the lower-court rulings that concluded that “the new definition of sex discrimination is intertwined with and affects many other provisions of the new rule.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the lower-court orders are too broad in that they “bar the government from enforcing the entire rule — including provisions that bear no apparent relationship to respondents’ alleged injuries.”
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NEWARK, New jersey — New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy tapped his former chief of staff Friday to temporarily replace convicted U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and said he would appoint whoever wins the post in November as soon as election results were certified.

Democratic Representative Andy Kim and Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw are competing in the race. Murphy said that he spoke to both about his plans.

“I expressed to them that this approach will allow the democratically chosen winner of this year’s election to embark on the smallest possible transition into office,” Murphy said at a news conference.

Former chief of staff George Helmy promised during Friday’s announcement to resign after the election.

Helmy’s appointment underscored Murphy’s decision to not appoint Kim, who is in a strong position in the November election. Kim and first lady Tammy Murphy were locked in a primary struggle for the Senate seat earlier this year before Tammy Murphy dropped out, citing the prospects for a negative, divisive campaign.

The stakes in the Senate election are high, with Democrats holding on to a narrow majority. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Democratic-leaning New Jersey in over five decades.

Helmy’s appointment won’t take effect until after Menendez’s resignation on August 20. The governor said he picked Helmy because he understands the role after serving as an aide to New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker and former New Jersey U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg.

Murphy also praised Helmy’s work as his top aide, and the two embraced briefly after Helmy spoke.

Helmy, 44, served as Murphy’s chief of staff from 2019 until 2023 and currently serves as an executive at one of the state’s largest health care providers, RWJBarnabas Health. He previously served as Booker’s state director in the Senate. The son of Egyptian parents who immigrated to New Jersey, Helmy attended public schools in New Jersey and then Rutgers University.

“New Jersey deserves its full voice and representation in the whole of the United States Senate,” he said.

Menendez, 70, used his influence to meddle in three different state and federal criminal investigations to protect the businessmen, prosecutors said. They said he helped one bribe-paying friend get a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund and another keep a contract to provide religious certification for meat bound for Egypt.

He was also convicted of taking actions that benefited Egypt’s government in exchange for bribes, including providing details on personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators regarding lifting a hold on military aid to Egypt. FBI agents found stacks of gold bars and $480,000 hidden in Menendez’s house.

Menendez denied all the allegations.

“I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country,” he said after his conviction.

Menendez said in a letter to Murphy last month that he was planning to appeal the conviction but would step down on August 20, just over a month after the jury’s verdict.
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washington — John Lansing, who served as chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, died Wednesday at his lakeside home in Wisconsin at the age of 67. His cause of death was not immediately announced.

Lansing became the chief of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, known as USAGM, in 2015. The USAGM is the parent organization that oversees outlets including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

In a written statement, USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett called Lansing “a relentless advocate for press freedom, journalist safety, and connecting people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

While CEO of USAGM, Lansing created a committee made up of the heads of each of the agency’s networks “so we could regularly talk through the state of the world together,” Bennett said.

“John did a lot to modernize this agency,” said Bennett. “From adopting a digital-first content strategy, to enhancing internet freedom initiatives, to renaming the agency USAGM from BBG — his vision was transformative.” 

While leading USAGM, Lansing stood up for press freedom.

“Despite some very dark moments, we have not been silenced,” he said on World Press Freedom Day in 2019. “We will continue to report the truth. We will continue to find new ways to get independent reporting and programming to global audiences who rely on it.”

Under Lansing’s leadership, USAGM networks increased their global weekly audience by more than 100 million. He also expanded the agency’s use of platforms ranging from encrypted live broadcasting to shortwave radio in order to push content into countries that jam or ban American programming.

While Lansing led USAGM, the agency in 2017 launched Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.

Left ‘indelible positive impact’ at NPR

Lansing stepped down from his role at USAGM in 2019. After leaving USAGM, he joined National Public Radio, where he served as chief executive until stepping down early this year.

In a statement, Lansing’s successor at NPR, CEO Katherine Maher, lauded how he understood the importance of NPR’s role in supporting American democracy.

“John had a tremendous impact on NPR’s workplace culture and led the organization through some of its most difficult times,” Maher said in the statement. “His commitment to improving NPR’s audience and staff diversity has left an indelible positive impact.”

Maher said Lansing “inspired those around him with his integrity and compassion, and his loss will be felt deeply by our staff and across the public radio system.”

Lansing led NPR throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which began just months into his start at the news outlet. During his tenure at NPR, the outlet won more than 90 awards for its reporting, including its first Pulitzer in 2021.

Career included leading Scripps

Lansing started in journalism when he was 17 years old at a local television station in Kentucky. Later in his career, he served for nine years as president of the Scripps Networks, which oversees stations such as the Food Network and the Travel Channel.

He also served as CEO of Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, a marketing association comprised of 90 of the top U.S. and Canadian cable companies and television programmers.

Lansing is survived by his wife Jean, and their four children, Alex, Jackson, Nicholas and Jennifer.
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ISTANBUL — Firefighters were tackling blazes across Turkey on Friday as dry, hot and windy weather conditions led to a series of fires, including one that threatened World War I memorials and graves at the Gallipoli battle site.

At the peninsula where an Allied landing was beaten back by Ottoman troops in a yearlong campaign in 1915, the flames reached Canterbury Cemetery, where soldiers from New Zealand are interred.

Images of the site in northwest Turkey showed soot-blackened gravestones in a scorched garden looking out over the Aegean Sea.

The fire was brought under control by Friday. Officials said it was started by a spark from electricity lines that spread through forested areas.

Elsewhere, however, the continuous work of emergency crews stretched over days and nights.

On the west coast, a fire threatened houses on the outskirts of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, where a blaze broke out in woods Thursday night. Residents fled their homes as ash fell around them.

“The fire in the Dogancay region unfortunately reached residential areas due to the wind. We want our citizens living in the region to evacuate their homes as soon as possible,” District Mayor Irfan Onal posted on social media.

In Manisa Province, a fire was burning for the third day in Gordes, a rural wooded district in Turkey’s northwest. Nearly 80 homes were evacuated and most buildings in the village of Karayakup suffered severe fire damage, the Demiroren News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, in nearby Bolu, firefighters were working for a second day to put out a blaze.

Turkey has mobilized dozens of aircraft, hundreds of vehicles and thousands of personnel to fight the fires. Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli warned of a heightened risk of wildfires over the weekend due to low humidity, high winds and high temperatures.

“Our intervention capability and capacity is limited to a certain point,” he told journalists. “It is not possible to emerge victorious from this struggle without the support of our citizens. Therefore, I request high-level sensitivity especially in these three days.”

The General Directorate of Forestry warned people not to light fires outside for the next 10 days due to the current weather conditions across western Turkey, warning of a 70% greater risk of wildfires.

Earlier this week, firefighters in neighboring Greece fought a fire that burned an area almost twice the size of Manhattan. The fire north of Athens gutted scores of homes before it was contained Tuesday. One person was killed.

In June, a fire spread through settlements in southeast Turkey, killing 11 people and leaving dozens of others requiring medical treatment.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday designated a national monument at the site of the 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, a seminal moment in the United States’ long and difficult history with racial violence targeting Black people. 

Biden was joined in the Oval Office by lawmakers as well as civil rights and community leaders as he signed the proclamation establishing the monument on 1.57 acres of federal land. The monument is intended to be a solemn reminder of the two-day riot sparked by mobs of white residents tearing through Illinois’ capital city under the pretext of meting out judgment against two Black men — one jailed on a sexual assault charge involving a white woman, and the other jailed in the separate murder of a white man. 

The Democratic president’s effort to establish the monument comes as he looks to burnish his legacy in his final months in office. Biden is also looking to help Vice President Kamala Harris contrast herself with former President Donald Trump, who is aiming to cut into Democrats’ historic edge with Black voters. 

“We can’t let these things fade,” Biden said before signing the proclamation. He added, “I know this may not seem significant to most Americans, but it’s of great significance. … It can happen again if we don’t take care of and fight for our democracy.” 

The issue of racial violence continues to reverberate throughout the country. The monument designation was announced less than six weeks after the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by a white sheriff’s deputy in her Springfield home after she called 911 for help. 

Biden said he saw the establishment of the Springfield monument as an opportunity to recognize a significant moment of the Black community’s resilience. The event helped spur the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Still, Biden, who has repeatedly criticized Trump for sowing racial discord and failing to speak out against white supremacy, expressed concern in his Oval Office remarks that the country is at a moment where he continues “worrying about people wanting to erase history.” 

The 1908 riot was a chilling episode that started just blocks from where Abraham Lincoln had once lived. 

After authorities secretly moved the prisoners from the jail and sent them to another lockup about 60 miles away, the mob took out their anger on the city’s Black population. 

Two Black men, Scott Burton and William Donnegan, were lynched, dozens of Black-owned and Jewish-owned businesses were looted and vandalized, and several Black-owned homes were damaged or destroyed. At least eight white people were also killed in the violence, and more than 100 were injured, mostly by members of the state’s militia or one another, according to news articles from that period. 

The National Guard was called in to restore order. White rioters were charged but later acquitted for their roles in the lynching and destruction. 

Fed-up civil rights leaders met in New York and chose the centennial of Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12, 1909, to form the NAACP, whose original board included scholar W.E.B. Du Bois. 

The National Park Service in 2018 completed a reconnaissance survey of sites associated with the Springfield riot and a special resource study in 2023 that found the sites met the criteria for inclusion in the National Park System. 

“Good things can come out of bad things as long as you don’t forget what happened,” said Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who was on hand for the signing. 

Over the course of his presidency, Biden has signed into law legislation codifying lynching as a federal hate crime, established Juneteenth as a federal holiday, and signed a proclamation establishing a national monument across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi honoring Emmett Till, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. 

The 14-year-old Emmett was tortured and killed in 1955 after he had been accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. His mother, Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket at the funeral to show the world how her son had been brutalized. Jet magazine’s decision to publish photos of his mutilated body helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement. 
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Washington — As the trial into the murder of a Las Vegas investigative journalist got underway this week, defense attorney Robert Draskovich argued in court that “killing a journalist does not kill a story.”

The statement came on the opening day of the trial against Robert Telles. The 47-year-old former Clark County public administrator is accused of murder with a deadly weapon against a victim aged 60 or older.

The victim is Jeff German, a 69-year-old reporter at The Las Vegas Review-Journal, who was found stabbed to death outside his suburban Las Vegas, Nevada, home on September 3, 2022.

Telles has pleaded not guilty.

German had reported on alleged mismanagement in Telles’ office. When Telles later lost a reelection bid in 2022, he posted a letter online in which he attacked the Review-Journal for its coverage.

In court on Wednesday, prosecutors outlined what they have previously said is “overwhelming” evidence against Telles, including that the former public administrator had downloaded images of German’s house onto his work computer and had done research on German’s car. Prosecutors have also previously said that DNA matching that of Telles was found beneath German’s fingernails and on his hands.

“In the end, this case isn’t about politics. It’s not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It’s not about who’s a good boss or who’s a good supervisor or favoritism at work,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly said. “It’s just about murder.”

As part of the defense’s argument, Telles’ attorney said that his client did not have a motive to kill German because “killing a journalist does not kill a story.”

Multiple press freedom experts told VOA that line of reasoning stood out to them as shocking — including because it’s factually incorrect, they said.

“That’s absurd. It’s a little preposterous,” Kirstin McCudden, vice president of editorial for Freedom of the Press Foundation, told VOA. “Killing a journalist kills stories. It kills stories every day, all over the world, and it certainly has a chilling effect on any journalist who wants to hold powerful people to account.”

Other press freedom experts agreed.

“It makes no sense. Very often the death of a journalist is the death of a story. No one knows what additional reporting Jeff German could have done if he were still alive,” Clayton Weimers, the head of the U.S. bureau of Reporters Without Borders, told VOA in an email.

In the first week of the trial, three of German’s neighbors testified, including the man who first found German’s body. Other witnesses included detectives, a medical examiner and former associates of the defendant.

Based on surveillance footage, former Metropolitan Police Department homicide detective Cliff Mogg testified that he believed Telles’ vehicle, a maroon Yukon Denali, “was the one used in the commission of Jeffrey German’s murder.”

After German’s killing, police publicized images of the suspect walking on a sidewalk near the reporter’s home and the Denali car driving away.

Real estate agent Zackary Schilling, who helped sell homes through the public administrator’s office and first met Telles in 2020, testified that he recognized the suspect’s walk, his shoes and the vehicle.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner asked, “Who was the person you were thinking of?”

“I was thinking of Mr. Telles,” Schilling said. When asked about the suspect’s shoes, Schilling said, “They’re the cheap Nikes he always wore.”

Schilling also testified that he knew about the stories German had written about Telles and that he saw images published in the media of the suspect’s vehicle.

“It just came down my spine,” Schilling said. “I was like holy crap. I didn’t want to believe it, but the facts are the facts. That was Rob Telles’ car.”

The case is the first in U.S. history in which an elected official is accused of murdering an American journalist.

“Understanding that this is believed to be a crime about the work that he was doing is incredibly chilling and scary for journalists,” said McCudden, who is based in New York.

Journalist killings are rare in the United States. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, in New York, 17 journalists and media workers have been killed in the U.S. since the watchdog started keeping records in 1992. Of those, the CPJ has said it believes 15 cases — including German’s — were in relation to the journalist’s work.

And while impunity is high globally — journalist murders go unpunished in nearly 80% of cases around the world, according to the CPJ — pending a verdict in the German case, no journalist murder in the United States that has gone entirely unpunished since the group started keeping track.

Accountability in these cases is especially important because it sends the message that targeting journalists is unacceptable, according to Katherine Jacobsen, the U.S. and Canada program coordinator at the CPJ. Attacks against journalists can also have a chilling effect on other reporters, she said.

“Because of that public face that many journalists have, killing them does have a ripple effect throughout the community,” she told VOA.
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BEIJING — BMW was recalling more than 1.3 million vehicles in China that might have Takata airbag inflators following a similar recall in the United States last month, officials said Friday.

The recall covers nearly 600,000 vehicles made in China between 2005 and 2017 and more than 750,000 imported vehicles made between 2003 and 2018, the Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation said.

It includes a wide range of models, from series 1 to series 6 cars and the X1, X3, X4, X5 and X6 SUVs.

A small number of vehicles in the recall may have Takata inflators if the owner changed the steering wheel, the Chinese regulatory body said. The inflator can explode when the airbag deploys, sending fragments into the car and injuring the occupants, it said.

Takata airbag inflators have been blamed for the deaths of at least 35 people since 2009 in the United States, Malaysia and Australia.

U.S. regulators said last month that BMW would recall more than 390,000 vehicles because the original steering wheel may have been replaced with a sport or M-sport steering wheel equipped with a Takata inflator.

Ford and Mazda warned the owners of more than 475,000 vehicles in the U.S. earlier this week not to drive them because they have Takata airbag inflators. The vehicles were built between 2003 and 2015.

Stellantis, following a fatal explosion in the U.S. last year, urged the owners of some 2003 Dodge Ram pickups to stop driving them if their air bag inflators had not been replaced.

The Chinese regulator said that BMW owners can visit a dealer to have their steering wheel checked or upload a photo of their steering wheel and their vehicle identification number to get an answer in two weeks. BMW will replace the driver’s side airbag free of charge in affected vehicles.
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ANKARA, TURKEY — A fistfight broke out in Turkey’s parliament on Friday when an opposition deputy was attacked after calling for his colleague Can Atalay, jailed on charges of organizing antigovernment protests but since elected a member of parliament, to be admitted to the assembly.

Video footage showed MPs for the ruling AKP party rushing in to punch Ahmet Sik at the lectern and dozens more joining a melee, some trying to hold others back. Blood spattered the white steps of the speaker’s podium.

Atalay was sentenced to 18 years in 2022 after being accused of trying to overthrow the government by allegedly organizing the nationwide Gezi Park protests in 2013 with philanthropist Osman Kavala, also now jailed, and six others. All deny the charges.

Despite his imprisonment, Atalay was elected to parliament in May last year to represent the Workers’ Party of Turkey, or TIP. Parliament stripped him of his seat, but on August 1 the Constitutional Court declared his exclusion null and void.

“We’re not surprised that you call Can Atalay a terrorist, just as you do everyone who does not side with you,” Sik told AKP lawmakers in a speech. “But the biggest terrorists are the ones sitting in these seats.”

The deputy parliament speaker declared a 45-minute recess after the fistfight.

The TIP also called for Atalay’s release from prison.

Brawls are not unheard-of in Turkish parliament. In June, AKP lawmakers scuffled with pro-Kurdish DEM Party MPs over the detention and replacement of a DEM Party mayor in southeast Turkey for alleged militant links.
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NEW YORK — As students return to colleges across the United States, administrators are bracing for a resurgence in activism against the war in Gaza, and some schools are adopting rules to limit the kind of protests that swept campuses last spring. 

While the summer break provided a respite in student demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war, it also gave both student protesters and higher education officials a chance to regroup and strategize for the fall semester. 

The stakes remain high. At Columbia University, President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday after coming under heavy scrutiny for her handling of the demonstrations at the campus in New York City, where the wave of pro-Palestinian tent encampments began last spring. 

Some of the new rules imposed by universities include banning encampments, limiting the duration of demonstrations, allowing protests only in designated spaces and restricting campus access to those with university identification. Critics say some of the measures will curtail free speech. 

The American Association of University Professors issued a statement Wednesday condemning “overly restrictive policies” that could discourage free expression. Many of the new policies require protesters to register well in advance and strictly limit the locations where gatherings can be held, as well as setting new limits on the use of amplified sound and signage.

“Our colleges and universities should encourage, not suppress, open and vigorous dialogue and debate even on the most deeply held beliefs,” said the statement, adding that many policies were imposed without faculty input. 

The University of Pennsylvania has outlined new “temporary guidelines” for student protests that include bans on encampments, overnight demonstrations, and the use of bullhorns and speakers until after 5 p.m. on class days. Penn also requires that posters and banners be removed within two weeks of going up. The university says it remains committed to freedom of speech and lawful assembly. 

At Indiana University, protests after 11 p.m. are forbidden under a new “expressive activities policy” that took effect August 1. The policy says “camping” and erecting any type of shelter are prohibited on campus, and signs cannot be displayed on university property without prior approval. 

The University of South Florida now requires approval for tents, canopies, banners, signs and amplifiers. The school’s “speech, expression and assembly” rules stipulate that no “activity,” including protests or demonstrations, is allowed after 5 p.m. on weekdays or during weekends and not allowed at all during the last two weeks of a semester. 

A draft document obtained over the summer by the student newspaper at Harvard University showed the college was considering prohibitions on overnight camping, chalk messages and unapproved signs. 

“I think right now we are seeing a resurgence of repression on campuses that we haven’t seen since the late 1960s,” said Risa Lieberwitz, a Cornell University professor of labor and employment law who serves as general counsel for the AAUP. 

Universities say they encourage free speech as long as it doesn’t interfere with learning, and they insist they are simply updating existing rules for demonstrations to protect campus safety. 

Tensions have run high on college campuses since the October 7 Hamas terror attack in southern Israel killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. 

Many student protesters in the U.S. vow to continue their activism, which has been fueled by Gaza’s rising death toll, which surpassed 40,000 on Thursday, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. 

About 50 Columbia students still face discipline over last spring’s demonstrations after a mediation process that began earlier in the summer stalled, according to Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator working on behalf of Columbia student protesters. He blamed the impasse on Columbia administrators. 

“The university loves to appear that they’re in dialogue with the students. But these are all fake steps meant to assure the donor community and their political class,” said Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. 

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. 

The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan was roiled earlier this year by student demonstrations, culminating in scenes of police officers with zip ties and riot shields storming a building occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters. 

Similar protests swept college campuses nationwide, with many leading to violent clashes with police and more than 3,000 arrests. Many of the students who were arrested during police crackdowns have had their charges dismissed, but some are still waiting to learn what prosecutors decide. Many have faced fallout in their academic careers, including suspensions, withheld diplomas and other forms of discipline. 

Shafik was among the university leaders who were called for questioning before Congress. She was heavily criticized by Republicans who accused her of not doing enough to combat concerns about antisemitism on the Columbia campus. 

She announced her resignation in an emailed letter to the university community just weeks before the start of classes on September 3. The university on Monday began restricting campus access to people with Columbia IDs and registered guests, saying it wanted to curb “potential disruptions” as the new semester draws near. 

“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in the community,” Shafik wrote in her letter. “Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.” 

Pro-Palestinian protesters first set up tent encampments on Columbia’s campus during Shafik’s congressional testimony in mid-April, when she denounced antisemitism but faced criticism for how she responded to faculty and students accused of bias. 

The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, only for the students to return and inspire a wave of similar protests at campuses across the country as students called for schools to cut financial ties with Israel and companies supporting the war. 

The campus was mostly quiet this summer, but a conservative news outlet in June published images of what it said were text messages exchanged by administrators while attending a May 31 panel discussion titled “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future.” 

The officials were removed from their posts, with Shafik saying in a July 8 letter to the school community that the messages were unprofessional and “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.” 

Other prominent Ivy League leaders have stepped down in recent months, largely because of their response to the volatile protests on campus. 

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December after less than two years on the job. She faced pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy. 

And in January, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned amid plagiarism accusations and similar criticism over her testimony before Congress. 

 
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine shot down all five Russia-launched drones during an overnight attack, the country’s air force said Friday.

Russian forces also used three ballistic Iskander-M missiles during the attack, according to the air force’s statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia used three Shahed-type drones and two drones of an unidentified type for the attack, it said.

Reuters previously reported that Russia turned to using cheaply made drones in some of its attacks on Ukraine to try to identify air defenses and act as decoys.

The governors of Kyiv and Kirovohrad regions reported no damage or casualties following the attack.

Air defense worked in the capital Kyiv overnight with no damage reported by the city’s authorities.

On Thursday, the military turned on the air alerts four times to notify the city’s residents about possible attacks.

The air alert has come on over 1,200 times in Kyiv since the start of the full-scale invasion, authorities said on Friday.
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