NEW YORK — When Damien Carchipulla started his first school year in New York City in September, the first grader’s family was living in a Manhattan hotel for migrant families.

In the 10 months since, the family of four from Ecuador has moved shelters three times under a policy Mayor Eric Adams imposed in the fall that limits the number of days migrants can stay in a single place. Every 60 days they must give up their shelter beds and reapply for housing or leave the system.

With a fourth move expected in a matter of weeks, Damien’s mother Kimberly Carchipulla hopes the family isn’t pulled too far from the 6-year-old’s school in Harlem this summer. Her son is set to attend a summer program starting in July.

“A lot has changed because new laws were put in place,” Carchipulla said in Spanish while picking up Damien after school one day. “They get stressed. They get upset. Every 60 days, it’s a new home.”

The New York City school year ended Wednesday, but for thousands of migrant families the shuffle from shelter to shelter continues. With it come the concerns about how they’ll navigate their children’s education needs, both this summer and into the next school year.

“These families were already coming in with a great deal of trauma, which was impacting their children’s attendance at school and their ability to engage once they’re there,” said Sarah Jonas, a vice president at Children’s Aid, a nonprofit that provides mentoring, health services and after-school programs at city schools. “With that added burden of the 60-day rule, we’ve seen even more disruption for our families getting these eviction notices and all of the anxiety that comes with that.”

Like the Carchipullas, most families chose to stick with the same school through the year, even if they were reassigned to shelters in a different part of the city. The tradeoff for many was longer and more complex commutes, leading to children who were exhausted before the school day even started. Absenteeism spiked too, as parents struggled to get their children to school on time.

Carchipulla, who is 23, counts her family among the lucky ones: the three moves they made during the school year were all to other midtown Manhattan hotels, so her son’s daily commute remained relatively the same.

For the grandchildren of Rosie Arias, the moves were more disruptive.

The 55-year-old from Ecuador said her daughter arrived in January with her 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. They were immediately placed in a shelter and enrolled in a local school where Spanish was widely spoken.

But when their 60 days ran out, they had to move to another shelter and transfer to another school, Arias said. Then when the family secured their own apartment in Brooklyn, the children had to switch schools again, this time to a smaller one where few people spoke Spanish.

“As a grandmother, I’m worried. The children don’t want to go to school. They’re not adjusting because of the language and because they don’t have friends.,” Arias said in Spanish. “They cry.”

School officials didn’t have a final tally for how many migrant students were affected by the shelter time limits.

As of the first week of May, 44% of migrant students had remained in the same shelter and same school since February 14, according to Tamara Mair, a senior director with Project Open Arms, the district’s program supporting asylum seekers and other new students in temporary housing.

Another 40% of migrant students moved shelters but remained enrolled at the same school, while 4% moved both schools and shelters, she said. Roughly 10% left the school system entirely, with the “vast majority” of those dropping out because they left the city.

District officials will be keeping tabs on migrant families in the shelters through the summer, Mair said.

“The one thing we want to remain constant for our kids is school,” she said. “But we also want to support our families with their choices, because the families have the right to remain in their school, or they may choose to go to a new school closer to their new residence.”

Adams, a Democrat, instituted shelter limits to encourage migrant families to leave the city’s emergency shelter system, which includes huge tent shelters and converted hotels that have swollen with thousands of newcomers to the U.S.

Over the summer, more needs to be done to prepare newly arriving families for the next school year, immigrant advocates say.

That includes better outreach to migrant parents and more investment in translation services, said Liza Schwartzwald, a director at the New York Immigration Coalition.

Schools also need more specialists to assess and help get migrant students up to grade level in their studies, said Natasha Quiroga, director of education policy at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs.

Damien Carchipulla’s mother remains optimistic about her son’s future.

Eventually, she said, the family hopes to save up enough money for their own place, perhaps in Queens, where her husband recently found steady work.

“He is learning more and more every day,” Kim Carchipulla said of her son. “Even if he misses school, his teacher tells me, he catches up quickly.”
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THESSALONIKI, Greece — About 15,000 people attended the annual EuroPride parade Saturday, police said, in support of the LGBTQ+ community in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki amid a heavy police presence.

The parade, whose motto is “Persevere, Progress, Prosper,” was staged on the ninth and last day of a series of events across the city. It was to be followed later Saturday by a concert and a series of parties.

“This participation from across Europe sends a message,” parade participant Michalis Filippidis told the Associated Press. “It is very, very good. We are all united like a fist and, despite many things happening, we are all here to fight for our rights.”

Participants marched through the city center, ending up at the city’s waterfront, at the statue of Alexander the Great, the most famous ruler of the ancient Greek Kingdom of Macedonia. The nearby White Tower, once part of the city’s fortifications but now a standalone monument, emblematic of the city, was dressed in the colors of the rainbow.

There was a heavy police presence to prevent counterdemonstrations. In the end, police said, 15 people were detained for shouting obscenities at parade participants and, in one case, trying to throw eggs at them. Police prevented them from getting too close to parade participants.

Some Greek participants in the parade chanted at the counterdemonstrators: “For every racist and homophobe, there is a place in Thermaikos,” the gulf on whose shores the city is built.

A 34-year-old man who had called for an anti-gay demonstration, despite the police’s ban on such an action, was arrested and will appear in court Monday on charges of inciting disobedience and disturbing the peace. He was visited in prison by the head of Niki, an ultra-religious political party, one of three far-right parties that elected representatives to the European Parliament in elections earlier in June.

Nationalism and religious fervor are more pronounced in Thessaloniki and other northern Greek areas than the rest of the country. The far right’s strong showing in elections was in part due to passage earlier in the year of a law legalizing same-sex marriage. The law, strongly backed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was opposed by nearly a third of the lawmakers from his conservative New Democracy party, and was backed by much of the left opposition, except for the Communists, who voted against it.

The EuroPride parade had strong official backing. The city was a co-sponsor and several foreign ambassadors attended.

“I am proud to be here … for EuroPride 2024,” said U.S. Ambassador to Greece George Tsunis. “This is about human dignity, this is about acceptance, this is about love, this is about equality. And, frankly, we need more love, more acceptance, more kindness in this world.”

“I am here to show our support for diversity and equality for all. You are who you are, and you can love who you love,” said Dutch Ambassador to Greece Susanna Terstal.

“I welcome the ambassadors … and all the participants to Thessaloniki, a multicolored, friendly city that considers human rights non-negotiable,” said Mayor Stelios Angeloudis.

Next year’s EuroPride will take place in Lisbon. 
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ESSEN, Germany — Leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany on Saturday reported a surge in membership and vowed to build on the party’s success in the European Parliament election, as they target wins in three state votes in the east this year.

The AfD jumped to second place in nationwide polls last year amid frustration with infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, worries over sluggish growth in Europe’s largest economy, and concerns over the impact of the war in Ukraine.

While a string of scandals and anti-extremism protests has dampened the AfD’s support in recent months, the nationalist, Eurosceptic party nonetheless came second with 15.9% in the European vote this month, ahead of the three parties in Scholz’s coalition.

AfD membership had grown by 60% to 46,881 members since January 2023, co-chief Tino Chrupalla told nearly 600 delegates at a party convention in the western city of Essen. Some 22,000 people had joined while 4,000 had left.

“Despite all the harassment you have to endure as a member of the AfD, this is an absolutely sensational figure,” Chrupalla told the convention.

The figure is still a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of members boasted by the “big tent” parties in Germany, Scholz’s Social Democrats and the opposition conservatives.

The congress was held despite resistance from city authorities — marked by the rainbow and EU flags flying on flagpoles outside the convention center — and protesters who sought to prevent AfD delegates from making it there.

Two riot police officers who had been escorting a politician were seriously injured after protesters kicked them in the head after they fell to the ground and had to be hospitalized, police reported. A further seven officers were also injured.

‘We are here to stay’

“Melt the AfD snowball before it becomes an avalanche” and “AfD = Despiser of mankind” read some of the signs that protesters carried at an anti-AfD march through the city.

The interior ministry estimated some 20,000 people participated in the demonstration, state broadcaster ZDF said.

The party congress will run until Sunday, the same day neighboring France holds the first round of a snap parliamentary election that could bring the far right to power.

“We will not be intimidated,” said co-chief Alice Weidel. “We are here, and we are here to stay.”

The AfD is on track to come first in elections in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September, according to polls, which will likely further complicate governance there as other parties refuse to form a coalition with it.

In discussing the party’s policy platform, Weidel said AfD’s future allies in the European Parliament should oppose the disbursal of taxpayer money to the “debt states” of Europe — a reference to countries such as Italy and Greece — and the idea that Ukraine belongs to the European Union, after it opened membership talks this week.

The AfD is on course to form a new political group in the European Parliament — a move which would require 23 MEPs from at least seven EU countries — after being expelled from the Identity and Democracy grouping last month, Weidel said. 
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helsinki — Estonia’s ruling center-right Reform Party has chosen Climate Minister Kristen Michal to replace outgoing leader Kaja Kallas as prime minister of the Baltic country Saturday. 

The unanimous decision to nominate Michal was made following a closed-door meeting by the party’s governing board, only two days after the European Union tapped Kallas to become the bloc’s new foreign policy chief. 

Kallas, Estonia’s first female prime minister since January 2021, currently heads a three-party coalition government. Under her leadership, the Reform Party won overwhelmingly the March 2023 general election. 

She has proposed an extraordinary party meeting to elect her replacement as a party chairman on July 14, with Michal expected to take over after his main rival Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Hanno Pevkur bowed out Friday. 

Michal’s nomination for Estonia’s top job will then have to be approved by President Alar Karis and the 101-seat Riigikogu, or Parliament, where the coalition holds a comfortable majority. 

He has been serving as the minister for climate affairs since April last year. 

Estonia under Kallas’ rule has been one of Europe’s most vocal backers of Ukraine following the Russian invasion that started in February 2022. 

“The people of Estonia need assurance that our home and land are protected and that the country is well-run,” Michal said in a press statement following the party meeting, adding that national security would remain a key issue for the new Cabinet in the country of 1.3 million that neighbors Russia. 

The 48-year-old Michal, a former economics and justice minister, also vowed to improve the country’s economic competitiveness as prime minister. He also hinted that the current 4-year government program the coalition had already agreed on would likely be revised under his leadership. 

The climate minister is a seasoned politician who has been active among the ranks of the Reform Party, Estonia’s key political establishment, since the late 1990s. Apart from Cabinet posts, Michal has served as Reform’s party secretary, a member of Tallinn City Council and an adviser to ex-prime minister Siim Kallas, Reform’s co-founder and Kaja Kallas’ father. 

He is known for a long and acclaimed political career focused on Estonia’s internal affairs but lacks international experience — almost the complete opposite of Kaja Kallas who has excelled on international arenas with her foreign experience but was clearly out of her comfort zone in domestic politics, leading to a major dip in her popularity among Estonians. 

Kallas acknowledged Michal’s strong domestic political experience as an asset. He is “much stronger in political tactics than I’ve ever been,” she told news portal Delfi on Saturday. 

The Reform Party said that Kallas will represent Estonia as a prime minister at the NATO summit in Washington in July. 
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WASHINGTON — U.S., European and Arab mediators are pressing to keep stepped-up cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants from spiraling into a wider Middle East war that the world has feared for months.

Hopes are lagging for a cease-fire anytime soon in Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza that would calm attacks by Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied militias. With that in mind, American and European officials are delivering warnings to Hezbollah, which is far stronger than Hamas but seen as overconfident, about taking on the military might of Israel, current and former diplomats say.

They are warning that the group should not count on the United States or anyone else being able to hold off Israeli leaders if they decide to execute battle-ready plans for an offensive into Lebanon. And Hezbollah should not count on its fighters’ ability to handle whatever would come next.

On both sides of the Lebanese border, escalating strikes between Israel and Hezbollah, one of the region’s best-armed fighting forces, appeared at least to level off this past week. While daily strikes still pound the border area, the slight shift offered hope of easing immediate fears, which had prompted the U.S. to send an amphibious assault ship with a Marine expeditionary force to join other warships in the area in hopes of deterring a wider conflict.

It’s not clear whether Israel or Hezbollah has decided to ratchet down attacks to avoid triggering an Israeli invasion into Lebanon, said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat in the Middle East. Despite this past week’s plateauing of hostilities, “it certainly seems the Israelis are still … arranging themselves in the expectation that there will be some kind of conflict … an entirely different magnitude of conflict,” he said. 

The message being delivered to Hezbollah is “don’t think that you’re as capable as you think you are,” he said.

Beginning the day after Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah has launched rockets into northern Israel and vowed to continue until a cease-fire takes hold. Israel has hit back, with the violence forcing tens of thousands of civilians from the border in both countries. Attacks intensified this month after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and Hezbollah responded with some of its biggest missile barrages.

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths used the word “apocalyptic” to describe a war that could result. Israel and Hezbollah, the dominant force in politically fractured Lebanon, have the power to cause heavy casualties.

“Such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said as he met recently with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East.”

Gallant, in response, said, “We are working closely together to achieve an agreement, but we must also discuss readiness on every possible scenario.”

Analysts expect other Iran-allied militias in the region would respond far more forcefully than they have for Hamas, and some experts warn of ideologically motivated militants streaming into the region to join in. Europeans fear destabilizing refugee flows.

While Iran, which is preoccupied with a political transition at home, shows no sign of wanting a war now, it sees Hezbollah as its strategically vital partner in the region — much more so than Hamas — and could be drawn in.

“Obviously if it does look like things are going seriously south for the Israelis, the U.S. will intervene,” Feierstein said. “I don’t think that they would see any alternative to that.”

While the United States helped Israel knock down a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones in April, it likely would not do as well assisting Israel’s defense against any broader Hezbollah attacks, said General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is harder to fend off the shorter-range rockets that Hezbollah fires routinely across the border, he said.

The Israeli army is stretched after a nearly nine-month war in Gaza, and Hezbollah holds an estimated arsenal of some 150,000 rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel. Israeli leaders, meanwhile, have pledged to unleash Gaza-like scenes of devastation on Lebanon if a full-blown war erupts.

White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s point person on Israel-Hezbollah tensions, has not been successful so far in getting the two sides to dial back the attacks.

The French, who have ties as Lebanon’s former colonial power, and other Europeans also are mediating, along with the Qataris and Egyptians.

White House officials have blamed Hezbollah for escalating tensions and said it backs Israel’s right to defend itself. The Biden administration also has told the Israelis that opening a second front is not in their interest. That was a point hammered home to Gallant during his latest talks in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin, CIA Director William Burns, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Hochstein and others.

“We’re going to continue to help Israel defend itself; that’s not going to change,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said. “But as for a hypothetical — specifically with respect to the northern border line … again, we want to see no second front opened, and we want to see if we can’t resolve the tensions out there through diplomatic processes.”

White House officials, however, are not discounting the real possibility that a second front in the Mideast conflict could open.

In conversations with Israeli and Lebanese officials and other regional stakeholders, there is agreement that “a major escalation is not in anybody’s interest,” a senior Biden administration official said.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about White House deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity, bristled at the “purported logic” of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah arguing that Israel would see an end to Hezbollah attacks by reaching a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza.

But the official also acknowledged that an elusive cease-fire deal in Gaza would go a long way in quieting tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.
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JERUSALEM — Humanitarian workers have started moving tons of aid that piled up at a United States-built pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the besieged territory, the United Nations said Saturday, an important step as the U.S. considers whether to resume pier operations after yet another pause due to heavy seas.

It was not clear when the aid might reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where experts have warned of the high risk of famine as the war between Israel and Hamas militants is in its ninth month. This is the first time trucks have moved aid from the pier since the U.N.’s World Food Program suspended operations there due to security concerns on June 9.

Millions of pounds of aid have piled up. In just the last week, more than 4.5 million kilograms (10 million pounds) were moved ashore, according to the U.S. military.

A WFP spokesperson, Abeer Etefa, told The Associated Press this is a one-time operation until the beach is cleared of the aid and is being done to avoid spoilage.

Further U.N. operations at the pier depend on U.N. security assessments, Etefa said.

The U.N. is investigating whether the pier was used in an Israeli military operation last month to rescue three hostages.

If WFP trucks successfully bring the aid to warehouses inside Gaza, that could affect the U.S. military’s decision whether to reinstall the pier, which was removed due to weather Friday. U.S. officials said they were considering not reinstalling the pier because of the possibility that the aid would not be picked up.

Even if the U.N. decides to keep transporting aid from the pier into Gaza, lawlessness around humanitarian convoys will be a further challenge to distribution. The convoys have come under attack in Gaza. While most aid deliveries come by land, restrictions around border crossings and on what items can enter Gaza have further hurt a population that was already dependent on humanitarian aid before the war.

The June 9 pause at the pier came after the Israeli military used a nearby area to fly out hostages after their rescue in a raid that killed more than 270 Palestinians, prompting a U.N. review over concerns that aid workers’ safety and neutrality may have been compromised.

Battles continue

More than 37,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war since it began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll. The ministry said the bodies of 40 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.

At least two people were killed and six injured, including a child, in a strike in Bureij camp in central Gaza.

The October 7 Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and another 250 people were taken hostage.

Israeli forces have been battling Palestinian militants in an eastern part of Gaza City over the last week. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes, according to the U.N.

“It’s like the first weeks of the invasion,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Masry, said of the intensity of the fighting. “Many people were killed. Many houses were destroyed. They strike anything moving.”

The Israeli military acknowledged an operation against Hamas fighters in Shijaiyah and Saturday noted “close-quarters combat.”

Elsewhere, thousands of Palestinians who remained in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah fled Friday for Muwasi, a crowded coastal tent camp designated by the Israeli army as a safe zone. Some told the AP they evacuated because Israeli gunfire and missiles had come close to where they were sheltering.

Over 1.3 million Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel’s incursion into the city in early May, while aid groups warn there are no safe places to go.

With the heat in Gaza reaching over 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheit), many displaced people have found tents unbearable. The territory has been without electricity since Israel cut off power as part of the war, and Israel also stopped pumping drinking water to the enclave.

“Death is better than it, it is a grave,” said Barawi Bakroun, who was displaced from Gaza City, as others fanned themselves with pieces of cardboard.
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Despite the war, schools across Ukraine are celebrating the end of the academic year. Some of them have a military air to them. About 7,000 Ukrainian teenagers are studying in more than 20 military academies around the country. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. Videographer: Yuriy Dankevych.
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Who will U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump pick to be his vice presidential running mate? With the Republican National Convention approaching next month, Trump has been mum about his choice, but several contenders have emerged. VOA’s Tina Trinh tells us each of those prospective running mates brings an opportunity to expand Trump’s base of support.
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BELGRADE, Serbia — An attacker with a crossbow wounded a Serbian police officer guarding the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade on Saturday, Serbia’s interior ministry said. The officer responded by fatally shooting the assailant.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement that the attacker shot a bolt at the officer, hitting him in the neck. He said the officer than “used a weapon in self-defense to shoot the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries.”

The policeman was conscious when he was transported to Belgrade’s main emergency hospital, where an operation to remove the bolt from his neck will be performed, it said.The identity of the attacker is still being determined.

“All the circumstances of the attack and possible motives are being investigated,” Dacic said.

Serbia has maintained close relations with Israel amid its armed intervention in Gaza.
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MOSCOW — A Ukrainian drone attack on a house in a Russian border village killed five people, including two children, the regional governor said Saturday.

The drone hit a house in the village of Gorodishche, a tiny village in Russia’s Kursk region, just a few meters from the border with Ukraine.

“To our great grief, five people were killed … including two small children. Another two members of the family are in a serious condition,” Kursk governor Alexei Smirnov said in a post on Telegram.

The attack was with a “copter”-style drone, he added, a small device that can be fitted to carry grenades or other explosives that are dropped over targets.

Both sides have used drones, including larger self-detonating craft with ranges of up to hundreds of kilometers, extensively throughout the conflict which began in February 2022.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russian territory this year, targeting both energy sites that it says fuel Russia’s military, as well as towns and villages just across the border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a major new land offensive on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region last month in what he said was an operation to create a “buffer zone” and push Ukrainian forces back to protect Russia’s border Belgorod region from shelling.

The Kursk region, where Saturday’s attack occurred, lies further north, across from Ukraine’s Sumy region, which Kyiv controls. 
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Washington — American forces destroyed seven drones and a control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the past 24 hours, the U.S. military said Friday.

The strikes were carried out because the drones and the vehicle “presented an imminent threat to U.S. coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media platform X.

The Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023 in attacks they say are in solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

On Friday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for attacks on four vessels, including a “direct hit” on the Delonix tanker in the Red Sea after an operation involving a number of ballistic missiles.

However, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said five missiles were fired on Friday in “close proximity” to this vessel, which it said reported no damage. 

The Delonix was located around 277 kilometers northwest of the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida when it was attacked, according to UKMTO, which is run by Britain’s Royal Navy.

The Houthis also claimed attacks on the Waler oil tanker and Johannes Maersk container ship in the Mediterranean Sea and the Ioannis bulk carrier in the Red Sea.

The United States in December announced a maritime security initiative to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks, which have forced commercial vessels to divert from the route that normally carries 12% of global trade.

CENTCOM said its strike on Friday was carried out “to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure.”

“This continued malign and reckless behavior by the Iranian-backed Houthis threatens regional stability and endangers the lives of mariners across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”

The attacks have sent insurance costs spiraling for vessels transiting the Red Sea and prompted many shipping firms to take the far longer passage around the southern tip of Africa instead. 
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NEW YORK — It’s not just a book.

Back in the 1450s, when the Bible became the first major work printed in Europe with moveable metal type, Johannes Gutenberg was a man with a plan.

The German inventor decided to make the most of his new technology — the movable-type printing press — by producing an unprecedented version of the scripture for wealthy customers who could interpret Latin: leaders of the Catholic Church.

Though he planned on printing 150 Bibles, increasing demand motivated him to produce 30 extra copies, which led to a total of 180. Currently known as the “Gutenberg Bibles,” around 48 complete copies are preserved.

None is known to be kept in private hands. Among those in the United States, a paper Bible can be seen at the Morgan Library & Museum, in New York City. Two more copies in vellum lie in the underground vaults, next to 120,000 other books.

Why should anyone — religiously observant or not — feel compelled to see a Gutenberg Bible up close? Here’s a look at how its printing influenced the history of books and the religious landscape. And what a 500-year-old volume can still reveal.

What is a Gutenberg Bible?

The term refers to each of the two-volume Bibles printed in Gutenberg’s workshop around 1454.

Before that, all existing Bibles were copied by hand. The process could take up to a year, said John McQuillen, associate curator at the Morgan Library. In contrast, it is believed that Gutenberg completed his work in about six months.

Each Gutenberg Bible has nearly 1,300 pages and weighs around 60 pounds. It’s written in Latin and printed in double columns, with 42 lines per page.

Most were printed on paper. A few others on animal skin.

When a Bible came off the press, only the black letters were printed. Hand decorations and bindings were added later, depending on each buyer’s taste and budget.

Some ornamentations were added in Germany. Others in France, Belgium or Spain.

Therefore, each Gutenberg Bible is unique, McQuillen said.

Why were these Bibles a turning point?

Gutenberg’s invention produced a massive multiplication of complete copies of biblical texts.

The first impact was among scholars and learned priests who had easier access than ever before, said Richard Rex, professor of Reformation History from the University of Cambridge.

“This massive multiplication even led to the wider adoption of the term ‘Bible’ (Biblia) to describe the book,” Rex said. “Medieval authors and others do speak sometimes of ‘the Bible’, but more commonly of ‘scripture.'”

Psychologically, Rex said, the appearance of the printed text — its regularity, precision and uniformity — contributed to a tendency to resolve theological arguments by reference to the biblical text alone.

Later on, the printing of Bibles in vernacular languages — especially from Luther’s Bible (early 1520s) and Tyndale’s New Testament (mid 1520s) onwards — affected the way that ordinary parishioners related to religion and the clergy.

The limits of literacy still meant that access to the Bible was far from universal. Gradually, though, religious leaders stopped being its main interpreters.

“The phenomenon of lay people questioning or interpreting the biblical text became more common from the 1520s onwards,” Rex said. “Although the early Protestant Reformers, such as Luther, emphasized that they did not seek to create an interpretative ‘free for all,’ this was probably the predictable consequence of their appeal to ‘scripture alone.'”

More than a book

Three times per year, a curator from the Morgan Library turns the page of the Gutenberg Bible on display. It’s leaves not only tell a tale of scripture, but of those who possessed it.

A few years ago, by studying its handmade initials, McQuillen was the one to figure out the origin of its decoration: a German monastery that no longer exists.

Similarly, in the 2000s, a Japanese researcher found little marks on the surface of the Old Testament’s paper copy. Her findings revealed that those leaves were used by Gutenberg’s successors for their own edition, printed in 1462.

“For as many times as the Gutenberg Bible have been looked at, it seems like every time a researcher comes in, something new can be discovered,” McQuillen said.

“This book has existed for 500 years. Who are the people that have touched it? How can we talk about these personal histories in addition to the greater idea of what printing technology means on a European or global scale?” he said.

Among the thousands of Bibles that J. P. Morgan acquired, owners made various annotations. Individual names, birth dates, details that reflect a personal story.

“A Bible is now sort of a book on the shelf,” McQuillen said. “But at one point, this was a very personal object.”

“In a museum setting, they become art and a little bit distanced, but we try to break that distance down.”
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new york — Roughly 48 million TV viewers tuned in to watch Thursday’s U.S. presidential debate between Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump, according to preliminary Nielsen data.

The number suggests the final audience will be about one-third less than the 73 million people who watched the candidates’ first face-off in 2020, and among the three lowest-rated first presidential debates since 1976.

The relatively low number compared with past debates in recent election cycles could be indicative of low voter enthusiasm for both candidates. It does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline.

Media experts were looking to see how a new format by host CNN would play out, and whether it would provide a template for future debates. The restrictions of that format, which included the option for CNN to mute the candidates’ microphones, imposed some discipline on the candidates and should be emulated by other networks, three media experts said.

CNN, which held the exclusive rights to present the debate, allowed candidates two minutes for each answer and one minute for rebuttals, and muted their microphones if they exceeded those limits. The studio did not have an audience, and moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did not fact-check the candidates in real time.

CNN defended itself against the criticism from some media commentators that the absence of real-time fact-checking allowed both candidates to spread false claims.

“The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.
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new york — The United States and its allies warned Friday that expanding military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is dangerous, illegal and a growing threat to the wider international community.

“Last week, Russian and DPRK leaders signed a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,’ paving the way for further deepening their military cooperation,” Robert Wood, U.S. deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters, surrounded by representatives of nearly 50 like-minded countries.

“We are deeply concerned about the security implications of the advancement of this cooperation for Europe, the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”

DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Wood spoke ahead of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by the United States, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea to discuss North Korea’s transfer of arms and munitions to Russia, which are helping drive the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine. Such transfers would violate a U.N. arms embargo on North Korea.

“Before February 2022, it was hard to imagine that the war in Ukraine would pose such a direct threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean Ambassador Joonkook Hwang told council members. “But now we are facing a new reality.”

He said South Korea’s national defense ministry has assessed that since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in Russia in September, Pyongyang has shipped at least 10,000 containers to Russia that can hold a total of as many as 5 million artillery shells. His government has also determined that 122-millimeter artillery shells made in North Korea were included in the weapons Russia has used against Ukraine.

In return for the weapons, North Korea is seeking trade and military assistance from Russia, which would violate U.N. sanctions. It is also benefiting from Russia’s political protection in the Security Council.

“All these developments can bring about a shift in the global security landscape, and the potential long-term effects are dangerously uncertain,” Hwang said, adding that Seoul would “resolutely respond” to any threats to its security in a “prudent and measured” way.

U.N. sanctions experts detailed prohibited transfers of military equipment and munitions from North Korea to Russia in a report in February — which Moscow denied. Russia then used its Security Council veto to shut down the 14-year-old monitoring panel in April.

Russia’s envoy again dismissed accusations it is getting weapons from North Korea at Friday’s meeting.

“This is completely false,” Vassily Nebenzia told the council, adding that the two countries’ cooperation “is exclusively constructive and legitimate in nature.”

Nebenzia dismissed the panel of experts’ findings as controlled and directed by the West.

“The panel of experts have been following those orders given them and turning in the direction they were told to turn,” he said.

North Korea’s envoy defended Pyongyang and Moscow’s treaty, saying relations between the two countries “are completely peace-loving and defensive in nature.”

“Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to be concerned about development of their bilateral relations, unless they have intention to undertake a military invasion of the DPRK and Russian Federation,” Ambassador Song Kim said.

China, which has traditionally been North Korea’s closest ally, expressed concern about heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“China calls on parties concerned to be rational and pragmatic and to find joint efforts to find a solution,” Deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang said.

Washington’s envoy urged Beijing to use its influence with both Pyongyang and Moscow to persuade them to cease their “increasingly dangerous cooperation.”

“So I appeal to my Chinese colleague to understand that if indeed the situation on the Korean Peninsula continues on the trajectory it’s going, the United States and its allies will have to take steps to defend their security,” Wood said.
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Kyiv, Ukraine — Lacking sufficient anti-aircraft systems to repel Russia’s unrelenting attacks, Ukraine is pushing its European allies to establish a no-fly zone in the west of the country by deploying air defense systems in neighboring Poland and Romania, officials told AFP.

Kyiv would like to create a safe space in western Ukraine where industry, energy infrastructure and civilians can be protected against the massive destruction unleashed by Russian strikes in recent months.

“I don’t understand why NATO doesn’t deploy Patriot systems along the Polish border,” said lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko, referring to U.S.-manufactured air defense systems.

“After all, Russian missiles have already entered Polish and Romanian airspace. This would protect the borders of Poland and Romania, and this would create a safe zone in the west and south of Ukraine,” he added.

That request was mirrored by several Ukrainian civilian and military officials who spoke to AFP in Kyiv during a trip organized last week by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and local think tank New Europe Center.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba opened the debate in May, saying there was “no legal, security or moral argument that stands in the way of our partners shooting down Russian missiles over the territory of Ukraine from their territory.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spent months pushing for more air defenses from his Western partners, but fresh supplies have only trickled in.

Recent victories for Kyiv include Romania’s promise of a Patriot missile defense system, and the United States has said it will prioritize sales of anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine for the next 16 months to allow it to replenish its stocks.

But time is running out for Ukraine, which has seen half its national electricity production capacity destroyed in recent months.

Every week, Russian missiles and drones strike the energy network, causing daily power outages that affect almost the entire population.

Critical energy situation

Russia focused on shelling Ukraine’s energy distribution networks during the winter of 2022-23, but has recently been destroying energy production facilities, which are much more costly and take years to repair or rebuild.

Moscow is also targeting the country’s energy reserves.

A European diplomatic source says Russian determination was underlined when it struck a facility storing gas 3 kilometers underground in the west of Ukraine.

“In the energy sector, the situation is really hard,” said a senior Ukrainian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding he fears it will deteriorate further as winter approaches.

The official said talks were “in progress” with Western allies on a no-fly zone over western Ukraine using Patriot systems in Poland or Romania, “but that is not a simple decision.”

Western countries have been highly cautious about any moves that could lead to direct clashes with Russian forces and drag them into a wider war, which “makes this process slow and silent,” the official said.

But the subject could be discussed at the next NATO summit in Washington in early July, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna.

“We are doing everything we can to mobilize enough air defense elements to allow us to continue to be functional throughout the war,” she told AFP.

Kyiv does not expect any progress towards joining NATO, however, with Washington and Berlin still strongly opposed for fear of further antagonizing Russia.

“The chances of getting an invitation are close to zero,” said a Ukrainian diplomatic source.

But he said that Ukraine’s allies felt a “sense of guilt” about this, which plays into Kyiv’s hands.

That “puts pressure on our allies,” he said, to make “other strong decisions as alternatives.”
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brussels — European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to nominate Ursula von der Leyen of Germany for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive body.

At a summit in Brussels, the bloc’s 27 national leaders also picked former Portuguese Premier Antonio Costa as the future chair of their European Council meetings and selected Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as the next EU foreign policy chief.

The leadership package represents continuity for the 27-member bloc, with centrist pro-EU factions keeping hold of top posts despite a far-right surge in elections to the European Parliament earlier this month.

The deal was announced by the current European Council president, Charles Michel, on social media.

The trio won broad backing from leaders, but diplomats said right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni abstained from the vote on von der Leyen and voted against Costa and Kallas.

Von der Leyen’s nomination still needs approval from the European Parliament in a secret ballot – widely seen as a trickier proposition than her endorsement by EU leaders.

At the summit, the EU also signed a security agreement with Ukraine, debated how to bolster EU defenses against Russia and agreed on the bloc’s strategic priorities for the next five years.

The security deal underlines EU support for Kyiv fighting off Moscow’s invasion for a third year, despite gains by the far-right in European elections, uncertainty created by French snap elections and the U.S. presidential vote in November.

The agreement lays out the EU’s commitments to help Ukraine in nine areas of security policy, including arms deliveries, military training, defense industry cooperation and demining.

“These commitments will help Ukraine defend itself, resist destabilization and deter future acts of aggression – more concrete proof of the EU’s unshakable resolve to support Ukraine for the long haul,” Michel said.

The leaders will reiterate their pledge to support Ukraine as long as it takes, saying that “Russia must not prevail” and that Ukraine must get back the land annexed by Moscow.

Defense debate

The war in Ukraine laid bare the EU’s lack of preparedness for a conflict as the bloc struggles to supply Kyiv with enough weapons against Russia, prompting calls for more EU coordination of defense systems and investment in defense industries.

Diplomats said von der Leyen told the summit that between 1999 and 2021, the EU increased military spending by 20%, China by 600% and Russia by 300%, even before Moscow’s massive rise in military spending after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

According to diplomats, von der Leyen told leaders the EU needed to invest 500 billion euros ($535.30 billion) in defense over the next 10 years. Financing options included national contributions, dedicated revenue streams — called the EU’s own resources — and joint borrowing, von der Leyen said.

Investment in defense is part of the EU’s “strategic agenda” that the leaders aimed to agree on before dinner on Thursday — a document that tells EU institutions what European governments want them to focus on during their 2024-29 term.

Apart from defense, the agenda calls for a more competitive EU to withstand economic pressure from China and the United States and for preparing the bloc for enlargement that would include Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans.
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