Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Category: Nation & World

  • Wildfires in France drive 250,000 people from their homes and creep toward wine city of Bordeaux

    Wildfires in France drive 250,000 people from their homes and creep toward wine city of Bordeaux

    LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — A raging wildfire in southwest France forced the evacuation of 55,000 people overnight Sunday, bringing the total forced out of their homes to a staggering 220,000 in one region alone, as flames crept ever closer to the wine region city of Bordeaux. Neighboring Spain oversaw its own fire evacuations on the country’s east coast.

    Shifting and gusting winds, as well as arid conditions, complicated massive efforts to limit the spread of the monster blaze burning out of control since midweek in France’s Gironde region, where Bordeaux is located. Authorities issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities southwest of the historic city.

    “The situation remains very unfavorable,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said after what he described as “another difficult night” for fire crews battling round the clock against the blaze that has burned an area four times the size of Paris.

    “The fire became extremely virulent again and unpredictable, generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area,” Nunez posted on X.

    “It became calmer by the end of the night,” the minister added.

    Pope calls for prayers for victims of the ‘devastating wildfires’

    At the end of his Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Leo XIV referenced “the devastating wildfires” in France and Spain and said: “I express my solidarity and invite everyone to pray for those affected and for the work of the rescue workers.”

    An estimated 162 square miles had burned in Gironde, the region’s prefecture said, much of it forests and scrubland made tinder-dry by successive heat waves. That is seven times the area of Manhattan island and four times the size of Paris.

    Firefighters raced in trucks to fight flare-ups and planes dropping water and retardants rotated in the smoke-filled air. Farmers delivered water in tanks to fire crews so they could fight the flames without interruption.

    “This allows firefighters to focus on the fire,” said Theo Hernandez, a wine grower. “It’s very strong, very virulent, it’s spreading everywhere.”

    The number of firefighters mobilized grew to 2,500, backed by 18 planes and helicopters, including from other European nations. Soldiers have also been called in. A giant A400M military cargo aircraft dropped plumes of ochre-colored retardant.

    The Gironde prefecture said 75 firefighters were treated for injuries. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed.

    Blaze has created firestorms

    In a first for France, the blaze alarmingly developed into a self-feeding firestorm on several occasions, most recently on Saturday night, generating lightning bolts that can start new flare-ups, authorities said.

    “It’s like being confronted by a hurricane,” said Gironde fire chief Marc Vermeulen.

    Forecast high temperatures starting Tuesday could complicate the firefighting, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said.

    Evacuees won’t be allowed back to their towns and villages until the blaze is brought under control, she warned. She urged holiday makers not to come to the region, which has popular Atlantic beaches and some of France’s largest woodlands.

    Fire creeps toward Bordeaux but the city isn’t evacuating

    Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave described the blaze as being “at the gates of the metropolitan area,” about 9 miles away at its closest point.

    But Cazenave said an evacuation of Bordeaux is not on the cards for now. The city is home to 268,000 people.

    Bordeaux turned an exhibition center into an emergency shelter, providing cots and food for thousands of evacuees, including hundreds of older people evacuated from care homes.

    A second fire burning farther south in the Landes region has also forced the evacuation of 36,000 people, driving the total number of displaced people in southwest France to more than 250,000.

    Fire crews have also been battling a blaze in the Var region of southern France on the Mediterranean. Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated there.

    Tens of thousands of people also forced out of their homes in Spain

    In Spain, wildfires burned out of control around Madrid. Evacuations were also carried out Sunday in the Valencia region. A man was killed Saturday in a wildfire in Manises, a Valencia suburb, marking Spain’s first recorded death in the latest fires.

    “We still have some difficult hours ahead,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Sunday, but the night was “very positive in terms of bringing the flames under control.”

    A total of 76,000 people have been evacuated in Spain while 30,000 others have been confined to their homes, the government said.

    Evacuees fretted about what they’ll find when they’re allowed to return.

    “It looked like the apocalypse. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash,” said Rocío Domínguez, who evacuated with her dog, Simba, from Chapinería, west of Madrid.

    “We don’t know when we get to the town, if we’ll have half the house burned down or we’ll have it intact or we won’t have a house,” she said. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything.”

  • UNESCO adds France’s D-Day beaches, Greece’s Mount Olympus. U.S. Okefenokee Swamp to World Heritage List

    UNESCO adds France’s D-Day beaches, Greece’s Mount Olympus. U.S. Okefenokee Swamp to World Heritage List

    SEOUL, South Korea — World War II’s D-Day landing beaches in northern France and the iconic Mount Olympus in Greece were among the sites added to the World Heritage List on Sunday at a U.N. committee meeting in South Korea reviewing dozens of nominations.

    The UNESCO committee, which meets in Busan through Wednesday, also inscribed the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara and South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations and the country’s first addition to the World Heritage List.

    Last week, the committee added Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp to the list. The Okefenokee Swamp is regarded as one of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystems, encompassing a vast network of wetlands that supports exceptional biodiversity and serves as the source of two major rivers. Its largely undisturbed peat beds preserve a 5,000-year record of environmental change, making the swamp both a globally significant natural habitat and a valuable source of information on long-term environmental change, according to a UNESCO description.

    The French designation covers the five Normandy landing beaches — Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold, and Juno — where more than 150,000 Allied troops came ashore on June 6, 1944, along with the Pointe du Hoc assault site, all central to the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

    The International Council on Monuments and Sites, which evaluates submissions to the heritage committee, said the sites contain extensive remnants, from German fortifications and bomb-scarred landscapes to Allied harbor structures and sunken vessels, marking an “event widely perceived as having enabled the return of freedom and heralded a lasting peace on the European continent.”

    ICOMOS also called for stronger monitoring and preservation efforts on the sites, citing potential threats posed by tourism, climate change, and rising sea levels, and the development of wind farms near the areas.

    Ahlem Gharbi, France’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, said the Normandy landings marked a turning point from global conflict toward a postwar order built on peace and security, and that the designation of the sites carries added significance at a time of escalating international crises and wars.

    “It’s probably the greatest amphibious landing there’s ever been. It ought to be remembered for that alone,” historian David Edgerton said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.

    The World Heritage inscription of Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the 12 Olympian gods, rewarded a 12-year effort by Greece to secure recognition for its tallest mountain as a mixed cultural and natural heritage site. Rising 9,573 feet from a base near sea level, the mountain was believed to be the throne of Zeus, king of the gods, while also harboring rich biodiversity.

    Evangelos Geroliolios, mayor of Dion-Olympus, a municipality at the foot of the mountain, said in a recent interview with the AP that inclusion on the World Heritage List “places greater obligations on our part to protect this environment,” citing the potential impact of increased tourism.

    “We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to safeguarding Mount Olympus for the benefit of present and future generations,” said Georgios Koumoutsakos, Greece’s delegate to UNESCO. “As Greek mythology wisely reminds us, it is always best to remain on good terms with gods.”

    The designated Japanese locations in the western prefecture of Nara cover 19 archaeological sites from the 6th to 8th century capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara, where Japan established its first centralized state modeled after Chinese systems. The sites preserve the largely buried remains of royal palaces, government offices, Buddhist temples, and tombs from capitals that influenced the later capitals of Nara and Kyoto.

    Japanese Vice Culture Minister Shigeki Kobayashi thanked the committee for inscribing the Asuka-Fujiwara sites and said Japan reaffirms its commitment to “transmitting this valuable property to the future generations.” Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a Nara native, wrote on X that she hopes the World Heritage designation will boost tourism to the site.

    Yoshiyuki Aihara, a Nara University archaeology professor, told AP the sites are significant because they show how Japan’s ancient state was formed through influences from China and the Korean Peninsula.

    “If you dig underneath these rice paddies about 1 meter, you start finding a stretch of ruins in this area, though that’s not easy for ordinary visitors to understand,” said Aihara, who is continuing excavation work at the site.

    South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo site encompasses vast wetlands, flood plains, and savannas shaped by seasonal rainfall and flood dynamics, with an estimated 6 million white-eared kob, tiang, and Mongalla gazelles moving across the landscape in response to changing environmental conditions.

    It also provides habitat for elephants, lions, cheetahs, and other wildlife while supporting various ethnic communities that have lived by herding, farming, and fishing for centuries, according to UNESCO.

  • As Trump boosts nuclear power, regulators seek to eliminate a longstanding radiation safety practice

    As Trump boosts nuclear power, regulators seek to eliminate a longstanding radiation safety practice

    The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to eliminate a foundational safety principle that has for 50 years minimized the radiation people in the United States are exposed to and that has been adopted around the world.

    Currently, facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals, or academic institutions that use radioactive materials must ensure radiation exposures are kept “as low as reasonably achievable” — the ALARA principle. The NRC proposal would abandon that philosophy while keeping a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure.

    The two standards have worked together in radiation safety. Dose limits set the maximum amount of radiation the public and radiation workers can be exposed to, while ALARA kept radiation exposure as low as practical under those limits. Research shows radiation exposure increases a person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose increases.

    The dose limits are not changing. But the NRC, which regulates civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials, now wants to replace ALARA with a “graded approach” that includes several actions facilities must take depending on the potential dose of radiation to workers. More rigorous radiation protection measures would be required when approaching dose limits to ensure they aren’t exceeded.

    This comes as President Donald Trump attempts to quadruple domestic nuclear energy production because of surging electricity demand amid a data center and artificial intelligence boom. Reforming the NRC is one way Trump is trying to speed up nuclear reactor development. He instructed the federal agency in an executive order last year to “adopt science-based radiation limits.”

    The Energy Department, which oversees national energy policies, has already stopped using ALARA. The NRC expects to finalize its radiation protection regulations in the coming months.

    NRC Chairperson Ho Nieh said the commission is not lowering the bar on safety.

    “We’re just removing the ambiguity,” he said in a call with reporters. “But the standard for exposure to workers and the public, those are not changing. We’re just putting in place greater clarification.”

    Nieh doesn’t expect major changes within the nation’s existing fleet of large, traditional reactors. But companies designing and building new, smaller reactors could move faster with a clearer picture of the radiation protection requirements, he said.

    Without ALARA, could radiation doses creep closer to the limits?

    The NRC said radiation exposure limits are set well below levels associated with health effects, and it expects remaining standards and industry practices to keep radiation doses far below the limits. There’s incentive to do so — it’s more expensive and time-consuming to work in areas with higher radiation because access must be restricted and more surveys are required.

    The nuclear industry’s trade association agrees with the NRC.

    “We will always continue to look at what can we do to reduce the dose to workers, and maintain our doses to the off-site public as low as possible,” said Doug True, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “It’s not like we’re just going to throw open the doors and let everything run up to the limits.”

    ALARA created a “moving target” for regulation, said Justin Friedman, a nuclear energy consultant who previously spent three decades at the U.S. Department of State. Getting rid of the rule would allow NRC scientists to make more rational decisions about appropriate levels of manageable risk, he added.

    Some experts question the wisdom of eliminating ALARA

    Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, cautions that some parts of the NRC proposal could raise permissible radiation doses in certain cases, while still staying below the cap. Lyman highlighted a proposed revision to radionuclide emissions standards, in particular.

    Radiation exposure to the general public is limited to 100 millirem per year. A typical dose of radiation from a chest X-ray is 10 millirem.

    The NRC wants to increase its radionuclide emissions standards from a conservative 10 millirem per year dose to 25 millirem per year, based on a hypothetical person living in a house at the property line for a nuclear plant.

    The NRC says actual doses to the public would remain far lower because, in reality, people live farther from nuclear sites and benefit from dispersion in air and water.

    The NRC should improve, rather than eliminate, ALARA, Lyman said, to protect the public and workers. ALARA has become a political target because some people mistakenly believe radiation exposures have to be as low as possible no matter the cost, Lyman said. In reality, it allows tradeoffs.

    Katy Huff, a former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in some cases, the requirement may be challenging to regulate. Additional clarity would improve the regulatory environment without harming the public, added Huff, a professor and department chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    However, Huff said, she thought the NRC was going to clarify what reasonable means in ALARA without scrapping it. She said she’s open to being convinced the graded approach will be just as effective.

    Radiation protection expert says proposal is a mixed bag

    The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, chartered by Congress to provide independent scientific guidance, has not formally weighed in yet. Council president Kathryn Higley said she personally likes some things in the 180-page document and thinks others are problematic.

    The NRC should look at the whole picture for managing risk, she said. For instance, if a worker at a nuclear power plant were to enter an area where airborne radioactive materials are present, in keeping with ALARA, they might wear full personal protective equipment with respirators, said Higley, professor emeritus at Oregon State University. That makes them move more slowly, potentially subjecting them to heat stress that could hurt them more than a low dose of radioactivity, she said.

    A concern with the proposal, Higley said, is that it maintains the current occupational dose limit for adult radiation workers at 5 rem, or 5,000 millirem, per year. With ALARA in place, the average dose to workers has been well below that cap.

    The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends an occupational dose of 2 rem per year on average. The NRC previously found it wasn’t justified to match that, because workers were exposed to less than that and changing regulations is costly.

    Higley said the U.S. may need to align with the international community if ALARA is going away.

  • 2 mosques in the West Bank are set on fire during a deadly surge in settler violence

    2 mosques in the West Bank are set on fire during a deadly surge in settler violence

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Two mosques in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were set on fire overnight in an apparent Israeli settler attack, officials said Sunday, after a spate of deadly violence that killed four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers.

    Palestinians and the Israeli opposition accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government of turning a blind eye to attacks by settlers against Palestinians, which threaten to ignite widespread violence across the territory.

    Israeli soldiers and police fanned out across the West Bank after the attack, closing off major roads and blocking access to a hospital where it said two militants were hiding. Israel also arrested more than 70 Palestinians over the weekend as they attempted to contain the escalating violence.

    Israel’s military says it condemns such incidents

    The mosques, in the villages of Qusra and Kour in the northern West Bank, suffered extensive damage in the fires.

    In Qusra, the attackers spray-painted “revenge Benayahu,” referring to one of the Israeli soldiers killed on Friday, and “the land of Israel is redeemed with blood.” The soldier lived in a nearby settlement.

    Ahmed Abu Mahmoud, 64, who lives next to the Qusra mosque, said he heard noises at 3 a.m. and discovered the mosque had been set on fire. The fire was too large for him to fight on his own, so he called for help.

    “The military arrived here, saw with their own eyes, and then left,” Mahmoud said.

    Security footage in Kour obtained by the Associated Press showed three people dressed in civilian clothes setting off a large explosion in the entrance of the mosque in the middle of the night.

    On Sunday, residents held prayers despite damage to the entrance.

    Israel’s military said it was working with police to investigate the mosque attack.

    “The security forces strongly condemn incidents of this kind, including harm to religious sites, and will continue to act decisively to maintain security and public order in the area,” it said.

    The Israeli army often announces investigations into violence against Palestinians but rarely makes arrests or prosecutes settlers involved in violence.

    The military also reported it had sealed the homes of two Palestinian militants suspected of killing the soldiers in preparation for their demolition. Israel often demolishes the homes of attackers, claiming it deters future attacks.

    On Sunday, Netanyahu said troops entered villages across the West Bank to seize weapons and make arrests. “We are also prepared to operate on a broader scale against the terrorist nests,” he said.

    The exact circumstances of Friday’s deadly incidents remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials said they were sparked after a group of settlers entered the village of Tell and were confronted by residents who were fearful of an attack.

    According to the Israeli military, one of the Palestinians took one of the settlers’ weapons and fired on the group, killing Benayahu Mellet, 32, a security guard from a nearby settlement.

    Palestinians and human rights groups have increasingly documented armed Israeli settlers entering villages in the area. Livestock theft, arson, and the defacement of mosques are routinely reported.

    Leaders appeal for peace and pressure on Israel

    Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy urged U.S. President Donald Trump to restrain “the Israeli government’s extremist ambitions,” including its implementation of a “de facto annexation in the West Bank.”

    He called on Trump to confront Netanyahu ahead of their meeting in the United States this week.

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent letters to Arab and other allies, including the European Union, urging them to pressure Israel to stop settler violence in the West Bank, which he described as a systemic Israeli policy and a dangerous escalation, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The Palestinian Authority is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people.

    Pope Leo XIV appealed for peace in the Middle East at the end of his weekly Sunday prayer, saying, “I am following with apprehension the persistence and escalation of violence in the Holy Land, of which recently many civilians in the West Bank and Gaza have also been victims.”

    He appealed for a “return to negotiating a just political solution.”

    According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 87 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank this year, including 21 by Israeli settlers. Three Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinian militants in 2026, including the two soldiers on Friday.

    More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future independent state. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlements be illegal and obstacles to peace.

    Israel approves immunity for an international force in Gaza

    Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday took a step toward the deployment of an international stabilization force in Gaza, approving granting it immunity under Israeli law, a political source told the AP.

    Israel will also decide which countries will send forces and that the prime minister, defense minister, and foreign minister will approve them.

    So far, the international force is expected to have 200 members from different countries, including Uganda and Morocco, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision made in a closed-door meeting.

    Israeli forces control well over half of Gaza’s territory, which was largely destroyed in two years of war that followed the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A fragile ceasefire began in October, but next steps in its implementation — including reconstruction — have been largely stalled over the issue of Hamas’ disarmament. Israel maintains its forces won’t withdraw until Hamas is disarmed.

    Last week, the U.S.-created Board of Peace meant to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction said it was working on a pilot governance and humanitarian zone in southern Gaza that would be secured by the international force.

  • Raúl Castro is absent as Cuba celebrates the anniversary of a key revolutionary attack

    Raúl Castro is absent as Cuba celebrates the anniversary of a key revolutionary attack

    HAVANA — Cuba held a traditional rally on Sunday to commemorate one of the revolution’s most important anniversaries but former President Raúl Castro was conspicuously absent.

    It was the first time in at least 30 years that Castro, 95, did not attend the event, and no explanation was given. President Miguel Díaz-Canel read a congratulatory message from Castro to his compatriots at the rally, held in the eastern city of Pinar del Río.

    The annual event commemorates the July 26, 1953, assault led by brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in Cuba’s eastern region. The military action against former dictator Fulgencio Batista failed, but it marked the beginning of the revolutionary struggle that culminated on Jan. 1, 1959.

    Raúl Castro’s last public appearances were in June, during an event to establish the Ministry of the Interior, and on May 1 to celebrate Labor Day.

    He no longer holds any formal positions, but his symbolic presence is strong, and he was recently identified as one of the negotiators in talks with the United States following the imposition of a U.S. energy embargo.

    Facing a crowd of hundreds of people waving Cuban flags early Sunday, Díaz-Canel rejected a report that the U.S. State Department published last week that accused Cuba of running a leftist espionage and influence network against the United States and Latin America for decades.

    “Every day they issue a threat against the revolution, and every week they announce a new punishment for Cuban companies and officials,” the president said.

    In May, Castro was charged in a U.S. indictment with murder and other crimes for his alleged role in the downing of two civilian aircraft operated by Miami-based exiles in 1996 off the coast of the Caribbean island.

    The accusations were widely rejected by Cuba’s government.

    Cuba is going through one of the worst periods in its historically tense relationship with the United States.

    U.S. President Donald Trump has said he hopes to “take over” the island after his January attack on Venezuela — a key ally of Cuba for decades — and his imposition of an oil embargo that has practically paralyzed the Caribbean nation, pressuring it to change its economic and political model.

    “Cuba is the victim of a coldly calculated genocide,” Díaz-Canel said during his speech, in which he accused the Trump administration of imposing a policy of “maximum pressure” and intensified “economic strangulation.”

    Daily blackouts are lasting more than 20 hours, workdays have been reduced, industrial production halted, and shortages of water and medicine are hitting an island already undergoing a severe crisis in the past five years given previous sanctions imposed by the U.S. and an internal financial reform that sparked inflation.

    Meanwhile, hotel chains including Spain’s Meliá, payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, and airlines such as Air Canada and Air France have left the island as its economic and financial crises deepen.

  • In a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains shift on Russia’s war

    In a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains shift on Russia’s war

    KYIV, Ukraine — Laura Loomer became infamous for spreading conspiracy theories online. Now, as she travels across Ukraine to see the damage inflicted by Russia in its yearslong war, she wants to admit that she fell for some falsehoods herself.

    A close ally of President Donald Trump, Loomer has completely reversed her longtime criticism of Ukraine and is urging fellow conservatives to be wary of Moscow’s propaganda, which she blames for duping large swaths of the American right.

    “You don’t need to listen to a podcaster and let them influence your opinion about a country. You can look at those facts yourself,” she told the Associated Press in Kyiv shortly after returning from a trip close to the front line in Ukraine’s east. The interview was supposed to take place in Loomer’s hotel, but it had to be moved to the building’s underground bomb shelter as the city faced another ballistic missile attack.

    Loomer has remained influential with Trump despite not having an official role, and she said they spoke over the phone after she sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She also said that she expects to meet with Trump after returning from her trip.

    Loomer’s turnaround on Ukraine has been welcomed by the country’s leaders, whose relationships with Trump have been strained at times. But it has also stirred confusion, surprise, and suspicion in the United States. She continues to insist that Ukraine is not paying for her travels.

    As Trump and Zelensky prepare to meet on Tuesday in Washington, Loomer said it’s clear that her trip has already made a difference, refocusing attention on the war as Congress debates new sanctions intended to punish Russia.

    “It’s looking good for Ukraine, right?” she said. ”Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good.”

    Loomer says she was ‘bamboozled’ to oppose Ukraine

    Loomer had spent years minimizing the war and amplifying Russian propaganda until she made a dramatic reversal this week.

    “I’ve come to realize I was bamboozled by Russian propaganda and I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine. I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis,” Loomer told Zelensky as she interviewed him for her show on Rumble, an online video platform.

    Loomer blamed her indoctrination on getting banned by American social media platforms, leading her to try Telegram, where Russian media is widely shared.

    “The Russians,” she added, “are very good at capitalizing on people’s rage. And I was very angry,” she said, recounting her feelings about the 2020 election, which she falsely maintains was stolen from Trump despite all evidence to the contrary.

    She said her change in perspective had been gradual as she started to see podcasters like Tucker Carlson “turn on President Trump” while having their rhetoric amplified by Russian sources.

    Loomer, who casts herself as an independent journalist, told the AP she believed her reversal was already changing minds within Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

    “Oh, 100%,” she said. “I’ve received messages all day from different people and media and politics and people just who follow me online who said, ’Wow, I didn’t realize how much we’ve been lied to.’ ‘Wow you really opened my eyes.’”

    Loomer was welcomed with open arms

    Ukrainian officials seemed to recognize the opportunity of winning over an ardent Trump ally with a large online following. In addition to her interview with Zelensky, Loomer had audiences with top Ukrainian officials and the country’s chief rabbi.

    “It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens,” Zelensky’s office wrote on social media.

    Loomer also got a tour of Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a monastic complex that came under Russian attack last month.

    “Laura is very powerful and she’s very authoritative in the U.S., so I hope that everything she has seen by her own eyes will help her to spread the truth when she is back at the U.S.,” Tetyana Berezhna, the deputy prime minister and Ukrainian minister of culture told the AP. “I do really hope and I believe that her visit will have a huge impact on relations with the U.S. administration.”

    While some have tried to downplay Loomer’s influence with the president, he has often followed her advice. She occasionally traveled with him during the 2024 campaign, and last year he purged his National Security Council staff after she raised concerns about their loyalty in an Oval Office meeting.

    Trump appears to be tracking Loomer’s trip, sharing video of her conversation with Zelensky on social media.

    “Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening.

    The conspiracist denounces conspiracy theories

    Loomer has a long history of spreading conspiracy theories. She once shared a video that called 9/11 an “inside job” and amplified a lie about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio, which Trump went on to repeat during a presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

    Although Loomer may have changed her mind about Russia’s invasion, her bigoted views have not budged.

    “One thing I really love about Ukraine is I haven’t seen a single Muslim here,” she posted on Saturday. “It’s so refreshing.”

    But in the interview, she bemoaned how influential podcasters can spread misinformation.

    “They have been able to warp people’s minds to the point where people aren’t even capable of analyzing a subject with common sense anymore because they want to depend on these personalities to give them the opinion that they think they should have,” she said, calling the situation “a major national security threat.”

    She said she thinks that “information war” has “the potential to be more destructive than any kinetic war that our country may ever face” and called on the Trump administration to take the threat of Russian propaganda, foreign interference, and influence operations more seriously.

    “I think that some of our leaders are being influenced by propaganda,” she said.

    The White House has routinely downplayed the role of Moscow’s influence, especially because Trump has long chaffed at investigations showing that Russia worked to boost his 2016 candidacy.

    Loomer has said repeatedly that Ukraine did not finance her trip and insisted she had traveled in her own capacity.

    “I can guarantee you I wasn’t paid by anybody. I certainly wasn’t paid by the government of Ukraine to come here,” she said.

    “If it’s fake, why did I risk my life? I’m in a bomb shelter right now. I barely slept this week,” she said.

  • A forced-labor crackdown or an end run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

    A forced-labor crackdown or an end run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

    NEW YORK — The Trump administration has imposed double-digit tariffs on more than 60 countries, using a legal justification that permits the president to levy import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable,” or “discriminatory” trade practices.

    The new tariffs announced in recent days take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expired, and critics say they are less about cracking down on forced labor than they are a way to replace those tariffs. The expired tariffs were themselves a temporary replacement for worldwide tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February.

    The tariffs were levied on countries that the U.S. says either don’t have or don’t effectively enforce a forced-labor import ban. The affected countries, which account for 99% of U.S. imports, were quick to protest, calling the Trump administration’s claims unfounded and arbitrary, as nations with vastly different records on forced labor received the same tariff level. The U.S. spent four months investigating but gave few details on how it arrived at the tariff rates, which are either 10% or 12.5%.

    Sidestepping Congress

    The tariffs were levied under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 on countries that the U.S. determined had failed “to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.”

    During President Donald Trump ‘s first term, he cited Section 301 to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports amid a dispute over the sharp-elbowed tactics Beijing was using to challenge America’s technological dominance. The U.S. is also using 301 powers to counter what it calls unfair Chinese practices in the shipbuilding industry.

    “The 301s allow a permanent tariff without going to Congress to settle the dispute,” said Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law. “That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in.”

    Little evidence that countries failed to enforce import bans

    The office of the United States Trade Representative said it consulted with all 60 economies under investigation and held two rounds of public hearings, elicited more than 2,100 public comments, and had “engagement” with its trading partners about what they were doing to combat forced labor bans.

    It didn’t detail its talks with the countries, saying those were confidential. Experts say it is fairly straightforward to investigate whether a country has a ban or not, but it is difficult to determine the government’s exact rationale for each country’s failure to enforce import bans.

    “There’s not a lot of hard evidence there,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president for general economics and trade policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “It’s pretty laughable on its face to think that a country like the ones in Europe or in Norway or Switzerland aren’t doing enough to police forced labor.”

    And even if countries do enact and enforce the forced-labor import bans the U.S. wants, they would still need to prove that they’re enforcing them to Washington’s satisfaction before the tariffs would be removed, said lawyer Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official.

    “This suggests that no short-term path for countrywide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available,” he said.

    Countries and industries reject the forced labor argument

    Many countries have pushed back against the Trump administration’s findings.

    Brazil, which faces a 12.5% forced-labor tariff, called the U.S. move “arbitrary and unjustified.” The U.S. “chose to manipulate an issue of great importance to human rights and the struggles of workers worldwide in order to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices,” it said in a statement.

    Australia also questioned the justification for its 12.5% tariff.

    “We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world, Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Trade Minister Don Farrell told reporters in Adelaide.

    Carve-outs have riled some industries. The National Council of Textile Organizations, which describes itself as the voice of the American textile industry, protested a mechanism that exempts the Section 301 tariffs for textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia based on those countries’ imports of U.S. cotton and textiles.

    “No other industry has been more disadvantaged by forced labor than the U.S. textile industry, which employs 453,000 workers and has lost 41 plants over the past two plus years,” NCTO chief executive Kim Glas said in a statement. “We remain strongly concerned that USTR’s textile mechanism will harm the very domestic manufacturers the administration seeks to help.”

    U.S. forced-labor bans don’t always work

    The U.S. has two major pieces of legislation related to forced-labor import bans. The Tariff Act of 1930 gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labor was suspected and to block further imports. But it had a big carve-out: If there was “consumptive demand,” meaning there wasn’t sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act that took effect in 2016 eliminated that loophole.

    In 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was passed. It blocks imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove the items were made without forced labor.

    But goods made with forced labor can still make it into the U.S. In 2015, an Associated Press investigation found that slave labor was used in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia. The seafood they caught made its way to supermarkets and pet food providers across the U.S.

    An investigation by the Associated Press in 2020 into the $65 billion palm oil industry found labor abuses among an invisible workforce consisting of millions of men, women, and children in Asia. The fruit they harvested made its way into the supply chains of major companies, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle, and Procter & Gamble.

    Calls for a more comprehensive approach to combat forced labor

    During hearings on the tariffs this month, National Retail Federation vice president Jonathan Gold, who was representing the business coalition the Joint Association Forced Labor Working Group at the hearing, said that in order for the import bans to work, they would have to be much more extensive.

    He said there need to be “clear, measurable benchmarks” tied to tariffs for countries to hit, and that the U.S. should help countries build enforcement programs.

    Kenya Davis, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, said an effective ban needs a “comprehensive approach” that provides transparency about what the investigations consisted of, along with programs that provide countries aid in enforcing bans.

  • Netanyahu accuses Mamdani of ‘fomenting hate’ and calls ICC war-crimes charges ‘bogus’

    Netanyahu accuses Mamdani of ‘fomenting hate’ and calls ICC war-crimes charges ‘bogus’

    WASHINGTON — Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” by calling the prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly.

    Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said last week that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world’s top war-crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.

    “He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”

    The prime minister has become an increasingly polarizing figure over Israel’s war in Gaza, which was ignited by the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Israel also joined the U.S. in starting the war against Iran on Feb. 28 before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.

    Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed the International Criminal Court’s war crimes charges against him as “bogus.” He pointed to sexual misconduct allegations against the ICC’s top prosecutor, who was removed from that post on Friday, and said the warrant was an attempt to divert attention.

    The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

    Bipartisan U.S. support for Israel at risk, Netanyahu says

    Netanyahu said he was concerned that once-bipartisan political support for Israel in the U.S. is at risk, particularly as progressive and far-left Democrats aligned with the Mamdani wing of the party splinter.

    He also warned against rising antisemitism in the U.S. and other Western countries, saying that when he talks to people in New York City, home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world, “Jews feel very uncomfortable.”

    “And I think it’s wrong. The whole thing is wrong,” he said.

    Throughout his mayoral election campaign last year, Mamdani said he would seek to order the city’s police to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant over Netanyahu’s role in the war in Gaza.

    But Mamdani acknowledged last week that his city did not have the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu and called on federal authorities to step in.

    “I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large,” he said in a video message.

    He told New Yorkers that he understood their frustration and that expressions of protest are something the city would “always respect.”

    the Hague-based court has accused Netanyahu, his former defense minister, and the late leader of Hamas of crimes against humanity. The Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry says over 73,000 people have been killed in Israel’s offensive — roughly half of them women and children. Some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the initial Hamas attack on Israel.

    Trump has assured Netanyahu he won’t be arrested

    President Donald Trump told Netanyahu in a social media post last week that he “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

    Netanyahu is expected in Washington this week to meet with Trump and attend funeral services for the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

    Graham, a leading defense hawk and strong supporter of Israel, died suddenly two weeks ago of a likely torn aorta. The prime minster called him an “extraordinary American patriot.”

  • Airstrikes have paused and talks are pressing forward. But can the US and Iran take the off-ramp?

    Airstrikes have paused and talks are pressing forward. But can the US and Iran take the off-ramp?

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has paused its airstrikes on Iran after nearly two weeks of intensifying bombing, while diplomatic efforts have pushed forward to try to avert a return to all-out war.

    But it remains to be seen whether the U.S. and Iran are at an inflection point in a mercurial conflict that will reach the five-month point Tuesday. President Donald Trump both has threatened more strikes and said talks are pressing on, all while brushing off concerns that rising gas prices tied to the fighting could hurt Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

    Adding to the uncertainty is the impact of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned visit with Trump this week in Washington. Israel, which launched the war alongside the U.S. on Feb. 28, has been notably absent from the renewed American attacks over Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows.

    “The Iranians understand that perhaps it could get worse because Israel could come into the conflict,” said Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. On the other hand, Israel’s lack of involvement so far “may signal to the Iranians that we’re looking to limit the conflict.”

    Singh, who was senior Middle East director on the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, said he was hesitant to read too much into the lull in fighting.

    “If it turns into a multiday pause, that’ll be something significant,” he said. “But it’s hard to know. Is it an operational pause? Is it a pause to allow for some kind of behind-the-scenes diplomacy?”

    Mediators keep pressing their diplomatic efforts

    A regional official involved in the mediation efforts said that concerted diplomacy was underway and that a pause in U.S. strikes and Iranian counterstrikes on neighboring countries hosting American forces was a “positive signal that helps their efforts to de-escalate.”

    The official said that both the U.S. and Iran want to return to the interim ceasefire deal and that a compromise, which is being negotiated now, centers around having Iran run vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz with fewer restrictions on ships. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed that Iran and Oman had held several rounds of technical talks about the strait in Iran over the weekend. He said that while the Omani delegation left Tehran on Saturday afternoon, talks had made progress and were continuing.

    Iran put a chokehold on the narrow Persian Gulf waterway when the war began by firing on tankers and freighters. In turn, oil prices have soared during the conflict, which has been unpopular with many Americans, and could leave some Republican lawmakers vulnerable in November.

    Following the signing of an interim ceasefire deal in June, a battle for control over the strait has erupted. Iran demanded that ships use a route near its coastline and said it can potentially charge fees. Ships were increasingly navigating a southern route along the coast of Oman under a U.S. overwatch operation when Iran attacked some vessels.

    The U.S. renewed attacks on Iran’s coastal defenses, aiming to blunt Tehran’s ability to strike ships in the strait. The Trump administration then expanded its targets, hitting bridges and infrastructure in the south and striking deeper into the center of Iran.

    Singh said the strikes appear to be an attempt to push Iran back to the negotiating table. Now, he said, “the question would be: What kind of messages, if any, is the Iranian regime sending through diplomatic channels? Have those messages changed? Do they seem more eager to return to talks?”

    Among the challenges the U.S. faces is the fractured leadership in Iran, with different factions vying for control, Singh said, something that Trump administration officials have also pointed to. The people in charge in Iran may worry that compromising with the U.S. will be seen as weakness and could loosen their grip on power.

    Whatever the case, both the U.S. and Iran need the strait to reopen for their own economic reasons.

    “But they have very different conceptions of under what conditions, under whose control,” Singh said. “So we have to get to some kind of stable equilibrium on those questions before you’re going to see a longer period of quiet. I think this effort to negotiate with words and also to negotiate with force is going to continue until we reach that equilibrium.”

    Trump issues threats but also talks up diplomacy

    Despite the lull in fighting, tensions are high in the region.

    Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Saturday that they fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi airstrikes on the strategic Red Sea city of Hodeida. The Iran-backed rebels say they have closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which has become even more vital for Saudi oil exports since the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz.

    The U.S. military also is enforcing its naval blockade of Iranian ports, saying it disabled a Mozambique-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman on Friday after the vessel tried to violate the blockade and ignored warnings.

    Trump also has kept up the threats against Iran even as he spotlighted diplomacy. Asked about his exit strategy Friday, Trump said there are two ways.

    “You can just keep doing exactly what we’re doing and take them apart piece by piece. We could do it in a more rapid fashion, which we might do,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Or we can negotiate with them, which we’re also doing right now.”

    While Trump said he doesn’t think Iran is “ready yet” to make a deal, he also asserted that “I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason.”

    Trump met Friday with top national security aides to discuss the situation with Iran and whether the administration should maintain the current course or escalate military attacks, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. No U.S. strikes occurred overnight in Iran after 13 consecutive nights.

    Trump insisted Friday that he was “not in a hurry” to wrap things up because of the approaching elections, in which voters, angry about high food and gasoline prices, could vote his Republican Party out of control of Congress.

    “Despite what everyone says about the election, I’m not in a hurry,” he said. “We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”

  • As U.S. pauses attacks on Iran for a second day, Tehran pauses too

    As U.S. pauses attacks on Iran for a second day, Tehran pauses too

    CAIRO — The United States and Iran paused their attacks for a second straight day Sunday, as efforts continued to bring them back to negotiations on an interim ceasefire deal largely undermined by recent exchanges of fire.

    It was not clear why the U.S. has paused after targeting Iranian coastal areas and infrastructure in a nearly two-week escalation sparked by Iran’s firing at ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon did not respond to questions.

    U.S. President Donald Trump is “giving talks some space. He’s giving it a little bit of room,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News. “We’ve had both Oman and Iran, and a number of our other negotiators, engaged at every level, from the most senior levels all the way down to the technical level over the past few weeks, and particularly in the past few days.”

    Waltz dismissed the idea that the U.S. stockpile of interceptors crucial in defending against Iranian attacks is running low, but experts have questioned how long both the U.S. and Iran can afford to keep up attacks.

    Since the U.S. has halted attacks for the past two nights, Iran has as well, its army spokesperson told Iran’s state TV on Sunday. Tehran in recent days has counterattacked against countries in the region hosting U.S. military forces, killing at least three service members at a base in Jordan and one in Iraq.

    Official calls the pause a ‘positive signal’

    The 60-day period that began when the interim deal was signed by both countries in mid-June is now well into its second half, and major issues that were meant to be negotiated — notably Iran’s nuclear program at the heart of tensions — remain set aside as mediators try to keep both sides talking.

    A regional official involved in mediation efforts said diplomacy was underway and that a pause in U.S. and Iranian strikes was a “positive signal that helps their efforts to de-escalate.”

    The official said both countries want to return to the interim ceasefire deal and that a compromise being negotiated centers on having Iran run vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz with fewer restrictions on ships. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Shipping traffic on strait is at 3-week low

    Concerns continued about shipping on the strait and now on another crucial waterway in the region, the Bab al-Mandeb strait to the Red Sea. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last week threatened a blockade of Saudi shipping there.

    Global energy supplies and the economy remain in the balance as gasoline prices have risen again.

    Commercial shipping traffic on the Strait of Hormuz was at a three-week low, a maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that no new attacks had been confirmed in the past 72 hours. It said traffic remained steady through the Bab el-Mandeb.

    Iran on Sunday said it continued to speak with Oman about managing the safe passage of ships on the Strait of Hormuz, which passes between the countries. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said talks had made progress and continued.

    Baghaei also said the strait’s status remained unchanged. Tehran has asserted that the interim deal with the U.S. allows it to manage shipping on the waterway for now, and it has objected to U.S. efforts to support a route through the strait that passes close to Oman instead. The strait was considered an international waterway before the war.

    The U.S. military on Saturday said its recently reimposed naval blockade against Iran continued, with a dozen commercial ships redirected, two disabled, and two boarded. U.S. forces “remain highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready,” it added.

    Netanyahu says he ‘fully’ backs Trump’s efforts

    Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States and meet with Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office has said. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before they launched the war on Iran that killed senior leaders including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    The Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired at Israel two days after the war began, and Israel responded with airstrikes and ground forces in southern Lebanon. Since then, the U.S. has supported landmark direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to try to calm that front and find a way to disarm Hezbollah.

    Netanyahu on Sunday told Fox News he “fully” backs Trump’s efforts to weaken Iran and press it to end its nuclear program, adding: “If he can do so without returning to intense military fighting, that’s fine. Why not?”

    The prime minister indicated he would not present new information to “our good friend” Trump and instead would listen to “what he has in mind, because I think in many ways, it’s his decision.”

    But Netanyahu warned that if Iran again attacks Israel, directly or with armed proxies, “it will make a terrible mistake.”