Since the spring 2022, Dell Loy Hansen has spent over $70 million to build homes for internally displaced Ukrainians. The U.S. philanthropist says he has been to Ukraine four times and is just getting started. Anna Kosstutschenko met him in the Kyiv region and has more in this report.
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Josef Newgarden repeats as Indy 500 winner
INDIANAPOLIS — Josef Newgarden put his cheating scandal behind him to become the first back-to-back winner of the Indianapolis 500 since Helio Castroneves 22 years ago and give Roger Penske a record-extending 20th win in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
The Tennessean passed Pato O’Ward on the final lap of Sunday’s rain-delayed race to become the first driver to win consecutive 500s since Castroneves did it for Penske in 2001 and 2002. And just like last year, Newgarden stopped his Chevrolet-powered car on the track and climbed through a hole in the fence to celebrate with fans in the grandstands.
“I love this crowd. I’ve got to always go in the crowd if we win here, I am always doing that,” Newgarden said.
O’Ward slumped his head over his steering wheel in bitter disappointment. He was trying to become the first Mexican in 108 runnings to win the Indy 500.
It looked as if he had been crying when he finally removed his helmet. He finished sixth in his Indy 500 debut, then fourth and then second in 2022 when he was accused of not being aggressive enough to race Marcus Ericsson for the win.
He refused to back down last year and wound up crashing as he raced for the win. As O’Ward bided his time in the closing laps — he and Newgarden traded the lead several times — he waited to make the winning pass on the final lap.
Newgarden got it right back two turns later.
“It is hard to put it into words — we went back, we went forward, we went back, some people were driving like maniacs,” O’Ward said. “We had so many near-race enders. Just so close again. … I put that car through things I never thought it was going to be able to do. It is always a heartbreak when you’re so close, especially when it’s not the first time and you don’t know how many opportunities you have.”
The win was an incredible bounceback for Newgarden, who last month had his March season-opening victory disqualified because Team Penske had illegal push-to-pass software on its cars. Newgarden used the additional horsepower three times in the win and it took IndyCar nearly six weeks to discover the Penske manipulation.
Roger Penske, who owns the race team, IndyCar, the Indy 500 and the speedway, suspended four crew members, including Team President Tim Cindric. The Cindric suspension was a massive blow for Newgarden as Cindric is considered the best strategist in the series.
Newgarden was thrilled to have the win and put the push-to-pass scandal behind him.
“Absolutely, they can say what they want, I don’t even care anymore,” he said.
The start of the race was delayed four hours by rain and it ruined NASCAR star Kyle Larson’s chance to run “The Double.” The delay in Indy made him miss the start of the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Although Larson was decent most of the day, two rookie mistakes led to an 18th-place finish. He was on a helicopter headed to a plane for North Carolina within minutes of the race ending.
“I’m proud to have finished but disappointed in myself,” said Larson, who has a two-year deal with Arrow McLaren and Hendrick Motorsports for Indy and could return in 2025.
Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing finished third as the highest-finishing Honda driver and was followed by Alexander Rossi, O’Ward’s teammate at Arrow McLaren Racing. Chevrolet took three of the top four spots.
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North Korea plans to launch satellite by June 4, report says
Seoul, South Korea — North Korea has notified Japan of plans to launch a satellite by June 4, Japanese media reported Monday citing the coast guard, after Seoul said Pyongyang was preparing to put another military spy satellite into orbit.
The Japanese coast guard said the eight-day launch window began at midnight Sunday into Monday, with North Korea’s notice designating three maritime danger zones near the Korean peninsula and the Philippines island of Luzon where the satellite-carrying rocket’s debris might fall, according to the Kyodo news agency.
Officials from the United States, Japan and South Korea agreed in a phone call to urge Kim Jong Un’s regime to suspend the plan, as any launch using ballistic missile technology would violate U.N. resolutions, Kyodo reported.
Nuclear-armed North Korea launched its first reconnaissance satellite last November in a move that drew international condemnation, with the United States calling it a “brazen violation” of U.N. sanctions.
Experts say that spy satellites could improve Pyongyang’s intelligence-gathering capabilities, particularly over fierce rival South Korea, and provide crucial data in any military conflict.
Seoul said Friday that South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities were “closely monitoring and tracking” presumed preparations for the launch of another military reconnaissance satellite.
The suspected preparations were detected in North Korea’s Tongchang-ri county, Seoul said, which is home to the isolated country’s Sohae Satellite Launching Ground. It was also where the North staged three satellite launches last year, with only the final one being successful.
Seoul has said the North received technical help from Russia for that satellite launch, in return for sending Moscow weapons for use in the war in Ukraine.
The warning from the North comes as Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo’s top leaders are due to meet in South Korea on Monday for their first summit in nearly five years, though differing political stances mean a discussion on North Korea is not expected to be on the table.
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123 people killed in fighting in Sudan’s el-Fasher, aid group says
Cairo — More than two weeks of fighting between Sudan’s military and a notorious paramilitary group over a major city in the western Darfur region killed at least 123 people, an international aid group said Sunday.
The fighting in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, also wounded more than 930 people in the same period, Doctors without Borders said.
“This is a sign of the violent intensity of the fighting,” the group said. “We urge the warring parties to do more to protect civilians.”
Clashes between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated earlier this month in the city, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.
El-Fasher has become the center of the conflict between the military and the RSF, which is aided by Arab militias commonly known as Janjaweed. The city is the last stronghold still held by the military in the sprawling Darfur region.
Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.
The conflict killed more than 14,000 people and wounded thousands more amid reports of widespread sexual violence and other atrocities that rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It also pushed the country’s population to the brink of famine. The U.N. food agency warned the warring parties earlier this month that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.
The RSF has built up forces in recent months seeking to wrest control of el-Fasher. Along with its Arab militia allies, the RSF besieged the city and launched a major attack on its southern and eastern parts earlier this month.
The clashes renewed Thursday in the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people in the Salam neighborhood in the city’s northern part, as well as its southern western parts, the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration reported.
On Saturday, a shell hit the house of a Doctors Without Borders aid worker close to the city’s main market, killing the worker, the charity said.
The U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan Clementine Nkweta-Salami blasted the “tragic” killing. The aid worker was not identified.
Nkweta-Salami urged warring parties to stop fighting in the city where “hundreds of thousands of women, men, and children in North Darfur are once again caught in the crossfire of war.”
“A human tragedy of epic proportions is on the horizon, but it can, and must, be prevented,” she said.
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Taiwan president extends goodwill after China drills, US lawmakers arrive
Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan President Lai Ching-te extended goodwill toward and offered cooperation with China on Sunday following two days of Chinese war games near the island, as a group of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Taipei.
China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out the military drills Thursday and Friday, calling them “punishment” after Lai’s inauguration speech on Monday which Beijing called another push for the island’s formal independence.
China has repeatedly lambasted Lai as a “separatist.” Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. He has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.
Speaking at a meeting of his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the southern city of Tainan, Lai called on China to “share the heavy responsibility of regional stability with Taiwan,” according to comments provided by his party.
Lai, who won election in January, said he also “looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation with China via exchanges and cooperation, creating mutual benefit and moving towards a position of peace and common prosperity.”
He thanked the United States and other countries for their expressions of concern about the Chinese exercises.
“The international community will not accept any country creating waves in the Taiwan Strait and affecting regional stability,” Lai added.
The first group of U.S. lawmakers to visit Taiwan since Lai took office arrived on the island Sunday for a four-day visit, led by Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
McCaul, joined by a bipartisan group of five other lawmakers, will meet Lai on Monday morning to “exchange views on peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” Taiwan’s presidential office said.
“Taiwan is a thriving democracy. The U.S. will continue to stand by our steadfast partner and work to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait,” McCaul said in a statement.
Taiwan’s government has condemned China’s war games.
Over the past four years, China has staged regular military activities around Taiwan as it seeks to pressure the island’s government.
On Sunday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said the garrison on Erdan islet, part of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands that sit next to China’s Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, had discovered a “crude” cardboard box containing paper with political slogans on it, written in the simplified Chinese characters used in China.
The ministry said the box was suspected of being dropped by a drone outside the line of sight, adding, “It is a typical cognitive operation trick.”
In 2022, Taiwan shot down a drone off Kinmen after complaining of days of harassment.
China’s defense ministry did not answer calls outside of office hours.
China’s military has kept up a barrage of propaganda videos and animations directed at Taiwan since the exercises began.
Its Eastern Theater Command, which ran the drills, showed a video Sunday of rockets firing in what it referred to in English as “cross-strait lethality.”
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Georgian PM, president trade criticism over media freedom law
Tbilisi, Georgia — The president and prime minister of Georgia on Sunday lashed out at each other at a ceremony marking the country’s independence day as strong tensions persist over a law that critics say will obstruct media freedom and damage Georgia’s bid to join the European Union.
The measure would require media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “carrying out the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their budget from abroad. Opponents denounce it as “the Russian law” because of similar regulations there.
Large protests have repeatedly been held in the capital Tbilisi as the measure made its way through parliament. After the legislature passed the bill, President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed it on May 18, but the Georgian Dream party of Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and its backers have enough votes in parliament to override the veto.
“As the specter of Russia looms over us, partnership and rapprochement with Europe are the true path to preserving and strengthening our independence and peace. Those who sabotage and undermine this path trample upon and damage the peaceful and secure future of our country, hindering the path towards becoming a full member of the free and democratic world,” Zourabichvili said at the ceremony celebrating the 106th anniversary of Georgia’s declaration of independence from Russia.
At the same ceremony, Kobakhidze lauded Georgia’s development and sharply criticized Zourabichvili.
“It was the unity and reasonable steps of the people and their elected government that gave us the opportunity to maintain peace in the country for the past two years despite existential threats and multiple betrayals, including the betrayal of the president of Georgia,” he said.
In the evening, thousands of opponents of the measure marched along one of the main avenues of the capital. Some previous demonstrations against the law have brought clashes between protesters and police.
The European Union’s foreign policy arm has said “the adoption of this law negatively impacts Georgia’s progress on the EU path.” Critics say it may have been driven by Russia to thwart Georgia’s chances of further integrating with the West.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Thursday that travel bans would be imposed on Georgian officials “who are responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia” and “it remains our hope that Georgia’s leaders will reconsider the draft law and take steps to move forward with their nation’s democratic and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”
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Lithuania’s Nauseda calls victory in presidential election
Vilnius, Lithuania — Lithuania’s Gitanas Nauseda announced his reelection in a presidential ballot on Sunday, following a campaign dominated by security concerns in the European Union and NATO member next door to Russia.
The Baltic nation of 2.8 million people has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Like other countries in the region, it worries it could be Moscow’s next target.
Ballots from nearly 90% of polling stations showed Nauseda, 60, winning roughly three quarters of the vote, followed by Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, 49, from the ruling center-right Homeland Union party.
If confirmed by final results, Nauseda’s backing in his bid for a second term will be highest in the country since it split from the Soviet Union in 1991.
A former senior economist with Swedish banking group SEB who is not affiliated with any party, Nauseda won the first round of the election on May 12 with 44% of the votes, short of the 50% he needed for an outright victory.
Just over half of Lithuanians believe a Russian attack is possible or even very likely, according to a ELTA/Baltijos Tyrimai poll conducted between February and March. Russia has regularly dismissed concerns that it might attack a NATO member.
Nauseda told jubilant supporters in the capital Vilnius that he will continue working on the country’s defense capabilities.
“Lithuanian independence and freedom is like a fragile vessel which we need to cherish and keep from cracking,” he said.
Both Nauseda and Simonyte support increasing defense spending to at least 3% of Lithuania’s gross domestic product, from the 2.75% planned for this year.
But Nauseda, who is a social conservative, has clashed with Simonyte on other issues, including whether to give a legal recognition to same-sex civil partnerships, which Nauseda opposes.
He has said it would make such unions too similar to marriage, which Lithuania’s constitution only allows between a man and a woman.
Simonyte, a former finance minister and a fiscal hawk, said on Thursday that if she won, “the direction for the country – pro-European, pro-Western – would not change.”
“But I would like quicker progress, more openness and understanding, larger tolerance to people who are different from us,” she said.
Lithuania’s president has a semi-executive role, which includes heading the armed forces, chairing the supreme defense and national security policy body and representing the country at EU and NATO summits.
The president sets foreign and security policy in tandem with the government, can veto laws and has a say in the appointment of key officials such as judges, the chief prosecutor, the chief of defense and the head of the central bank.
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Putin arrives in Uzbekistan on 3rd foreign trip of his new term
Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Sunday in the capital of Uzbekistan where he is to hold talks with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev that are expected to focus on deepening the countries’ relations.
Putin laid a wreath at a monument to Uzbekistan’s independence in Tashkent and held what the Kremlin said were informal talks with Mirziyoyev. The formal meeting of the presidents is to take place Monday.
The visit is Putin’s third foreign trip since being inaugurated for a fifth term in May. He first went to China, where he expressed appreciation for China’s proposals for talks to end the conflict in Ukraine, and later to Belarus where Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons.
Ahead of the Uzbekistan trip, Putin and Mirziyoyev discussed an array of bilateral cooperation issues, including trade and economic relations, the Kremlin said.
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Libertarians boo, cheer Trump; Biden encourages graduating cadets to defend freedom
Former President Donald Trump faced sharp skepticism on his presidential bid when addressing Libertarians on Saturday. President Joe Biden’s weekend remarks focused on encouraging graduating cadets to “be the guardians of American democracy.” VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details.
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South Africa’s main opposition party rallies support as it concludes election campaign
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s main opposition party Democratic Alliance on Sunday made its final appeal to South Africans to help it unseat the ruling African National Congress as it concluded its campaign ahead of elections this week.
The Democratic Alliance is the biggest opposition party in South Africa and has gathered some smaller opposition parties to form a pact known as the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa, which will see a group of political parties combine their votes to challenge the ruling ANC after the elections.
Sunday’s rally coincided with that of the smaller opposition Inkatha Freedom Party, which has the populous KwaZulu Natal province as its stronghold and has committed to work with the main opposition.
Recent polls and analysts have suggested the ANC could receive less than 50% of the national vote. The Democratic Alliance is under pressure after its support declined in the last national elections and a number of its former leaders left the party to form new political parties that will be competing in the polls.
Its leaders and supporters came out in the thousands Sunday in Benoni, east of Johannesburg, where its blue colored flags and party memorabilia decorated a small stadium in the town.
“Make no mistake, if DA voters stay at home, or they split the vote among many small parties on the ballot, then our country’s next chapter could be even uglier than the past,” said party leader John Steenhuisen.
“If we sit back and allow a coalition between the ANC, the [Economic Freedom Fighters] and the [uMkhonto weSizwe], aided by the sell-outs in the Patriotic Alliance, then our tomorrow will be far, far worse than yesterday. It will be doomsday for South Africa,” he said to loud applause.
A coalition between the DA and other parties including the Patriotic Alliance in the Johannesburg council after the 2021 local government elections collapsed, handing power back to an ANC-led coalition and resulting in political animosity between the two parties.
Steenhuisen has repeatedly accused the ruling ANC and the leftist opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters of planning to go into coalition after the elections.
Speaking ahead of its final rally in the city of Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Velenkosini Hlabisa said their main objective was to see the current government removed.
“The IFP is campaigning to remove the ANC from power and become part of the government at a policy making level and also cut the ANC to below 50% at national level.
“We are calling on people to take action and vote IFP to remove the government that has failed them,” said Hlabisa.
He said most negotiations would take place after the results were in. Hlabisa highlighted unemployment, poverty, crime and the country’s electricity crisis as some of the major problems South Africans are facing.
“We all know the crisis we are facing, we all know the depth of the struggle in South Africa and the daily trauma so many people endure. What the country needs to hear is that there is a way out,” he said.
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Thousands rally in Armenia against Azerbaijan land transfer
Yerevan — Thousands of Armenians staged an anti-government protest on Sunday, demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation over territorial concessions to arch foe neighbor Azerbaijan.
Protests erupted in the Caucasus nation last month after the government agreed to hand over to Baku territory it had controlled since the 1990s.
The ceded area is strategically important for landlocked Armenia because it controls sections of a vital highway to Georgia.
Armenian residents of nearby settlements say the move cuts them off from the rest of the country and accuse Pashinyan of giving away territory without getting anything in return.
On Friday, in a key step toward normalizing ties between the rivals — who fought two wars over then-disputed Nagorno Karabakh region — Yerevan returned to Azerbaijan four border villages it seized decades ago.
An AFP reporter said several thousand people flooded Yerevan’s central Republic Square in a fresh protest spearheaded by charismatic archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a church leader from the Tavush region, where villages were handed over to Azerbaijan.
“Our people want to change the bitter reality which was imposed on us,” Galstanyan told the crowd, adding that fixing the volatile border with Azerbaijan “must only be carried out after a peace treaty is signed” with Baku.
One of the demonstrators, 67-year-old Artur Sargsyan, said: “We demand an immediate resignation of Nikol [Pashinyan].”
“I had fought in two wars with Azerbaijan and will not let him give away our lands.”
Pashinyan defended the territorial concessions as aimed at securing peace with Baku. But they sparked weeks of protests and demonstrators blocked major roads in an attempt to force him to change course.
In a televised statement on Friday evening, he said resolving border disputes with Azerbaijan “is a sole guarantee for the very existence of the Armenian republic within its internationally recognized and legitimate frontier.”
Galstanyan is seeking to launch an impeachment process against Pashinyan, a former journalist who was propelled to power in the wake of peaceful street protests he led in 2018.
The archbishop said on Sunday that he would renounce his clerical office to run for prime ministerial post, and called for snap parliamentary elections.
“My spiritual service is above all possible posts, but I am ready to sacrifice it for the sake of change in this country,” he told the cheering crowd.
He then called on protesters to march toward Pashinyan’s residence.
Opposition parties would require the support of at least one independent or ruling party MP to launch the impeachment process and success would then hinge on at least 18 lawmakers from Pashinyan’s own party voting to unseat the leader.
Last year, Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh in a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists who had held sway over the mountainous enclave for three decades.
The region’s entire Armenian population — more than 100,000 people — fled to Armenia in the aftermath.
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Macron begins first state visit to Germany by a French president in 24 years
Berlin — President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Germany Sunday for the first state visit by a French head of state in 24 years, a three-day trip meant to underline the strong ties between the European Union’s traditional leading powers.
The visit was originally meant to take place last July but was postponed at the last minute due to rioting in France following the killing of a 17-year-old by police.
While Macron is a frequent visitor to Germany as Paris and Berlin try to coordinate their positions on EU and foreign policy, this is the first state visit with full pomp since Jacques Chirac came in 2000. Macron and his wife, Brigitte, are being hosted by Germany’s largely ceremonial president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The visit comes as Germany celebrates the 75th anniversary of its post-World War II constitution.
Steinmeier is holding a state banquet for Macron at his Bellevue palace in Berlin on Sunday evening before the two presidents travel on Monday to the eastern city of Dresden, where Macron will make a speech, and on Tuesday to Muenster in western Germany. The state visit will be followed later Tuesday by a meeting between Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and ministers from both countries at a government guest house outside Berlin.
Germany and France, which have the EU’s biggest economies, have long been viewed as the motor of European integration though there have often been differences in policy and emphasis between the two neighbors on a range of matters.
That was evident earlier this year in different positions on whether Western countries should rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine. Both nations are strong backers of Kyiv.
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At least 5 dead in Texas after severe weather sweeps across Texas and Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA CITY — Powerful storms across Texas and Oklahoma obliterated homes and struck a highway travel center where drivers had rushed to take shelter, leaving thousands of people without power and a wide trail of damage Sunday. A sheriff said at least five people were dead in one rural community in Texas and many more were injured.
The destructive storms began Saturday night and included a tornado that overturned heavy recreational vehicles and shut down an interstate near Dallas. Officials said multiple people were transported to hospitals by ambulance and helicopter in the Texas county of Denton but did not immediately know the full extent of injuries.
In neighboring Cooke County, Sheriff Ray Sappington told The Associated Press that the five dead included three family members who were found in one home near Valley View, a rural community near the border with Oklahoma.
“We do have five confirmed [dead], but sadly, we think that that number is probably going to go up,” Sappington said. “There’s nothing left of this house. It’s just a trail of debris left. The devastation is pretty severe.”
Forecasters had issued tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of both states, as some heat records were broken during the day in South Texas and residents received triple-digit temperature warnings over the long holiday weekend.
A tornado crossed into northern Denton County in Texas late Saturday and overturned tractor-trailer trucks, stopping traffic on Interstate 35, Denton County Community Relations Director Dawn Cobb said in a statement.
The tornado was confirmed near Valley View, moving east at 64 kph, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for northern Denton County, Cobb said.
The storm damaged homes, overturned motorhomes and knocked down power lines and trees throughout the area including points in Sanger, Pilot Point, Ray Roberts Lake and Isle du Bois State Park, Cobb said.
People who suffered injuries in the storm were transported to area hospitals by ground and air ambulances, but the number of injuries in the county was not immediately known, Cobb said, while a shelter was opened in Sanger.
The fire department in the city of Denton, about 59.5 kilometers north of Forth Worth, Texas, posted on X that emergency personnel were responding to a marina “for multiple victims, some reported trapped.”
The Claremore, Oklahoma, police announced on social media that the city about 28 miles (45 kilometers) east of Tulsa was “shut down” as a result of storm damage including downed power lines and trees and inaccessible roads.
Earlier Saturday night, the National Weather Service’s office in Norman, Oklahoma, said via the social platform X that the warning was for northern Noble and far southern Kay counties, an area located to the north of Oklahoma City. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” it said.
A following post at 10:05 p.m. said storms had exited the area but warned of a storm moving across north Texas that could affect portions of south central Oklahoma.
At 10:24 p.m., the weather service office in Fort Worth posted a message warning residents in Era and Valley View they were in the direct path of a possible tornado and to immediately seek shelter. The Forth Worth office continued to post notices and shelter warnings tracking the movement of the storm through midnight and separately issued a severe thunderstorm warning with “golf ball sized hail” possible.
The weather service office in Tulsa, Oklahoma, warned on X of a dangerous storm moving across the northeast part of the state through 2 a.m. and issued severe thunderstorm notices for communities including Hugo, Boswell, Fort Towson, Grainola, Foraker and Herd.
Excessive heat, especially for May, was the danger in South Texas, where the heat index was forecast to approach 49 degrees Celsius in some spots during the weekend. Actual temperatures will be lower, although still in triple-digit territory, but the humidity will make it feel that much hotter.
The region is on the north end of a heat dome stretching from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.
Sunday looks like the hottest day with record highs for late May forecast for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.
Brownsville and Harlingen near the Texas-Mexico border already set new records Saturday for the May 25 calendar date — 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) and 38 degrees Celsius, respectively — according to the weather service.
April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world.
April saw the United States’ second-highest number of tornadoes on record. So far for 2024, the country is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman.
Iowa was hit hard last week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield. And other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.
The storm system causing the severe weather was expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay the Indianapolis 500 auto race Sunday in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.
The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.
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South Korea, China agree to launch diplomatic and security dialogue
SEOUL/TOKYO — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Chinese Premier Li Qiang agreed on Sunday to launch a diplomatic and security dialogue and resume talks on a free trade agreement, Yoon’s office said.
Yoon and Li held talks a day ahead of a summit with their Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida, their first three-way talks in more than four years.
Yoon told Li the two countries should work together not only to promote shared interests based on mutual respect, but also on regional and global issues to tackle common challenges, citing the Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas conflict and global economic uncertainties.
“Just as Korea and China have overcome various difficulties together over the past 30 years and contributed to each other’s development and growth, I hope to continue to strengthen bilateral cooperation even in the face of today’s global complex crises,” Yoon said at the start of the meeting, according to his office.
Li told Yoon their countries should oppose turning economic and trade issues into political or security issues and should work to maintain stable supply chains, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
In recent years Chinese leaders and diplomats have frequently condemned the U.S. and its allies over export controls targeting its semiconductor industry by calling on these countries to stop “overstretching the concept of national security.”
Since 2021 Chinese companies and state entities have been increasingly cut off from ready access to the world’s most advanced chips, many of them produced by South Korean tech giants like Samsung and SK Hynix.
Li expressed hopes for continuing efforts to “build consensus and resolve differences” through “equal dialogue and sincere communications.”
At a separate meeting with Kishida, Yoon lauded progress on diplomatic, economic and cultural exchanges with Japan, and they agreed to foster deeper ties next year when the two countries celebrate the 60th anniversary of normalizing relations, Yoon’s office said.
Practical cooperation
The three neighbors had agreed to hold a summit every year starting in 2008 to boost regional cooperation, but bilateral feuds and the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the initiative. Their last trilateral summit was in late 2019.
Yoon, Li and Kishida will adopt a joint statement on six areas including the economy and trade, science and technology, people-to-people exchanges and health and the aging population, Seoul officials said.
Kishida also plans to meet Li separately on Sunday, NHK reported, citing the Japanese government, and, according to the broadcast, is expected to raise a Chinese ban of Japanese seafood imports and Taiwan, among other topics.
Speaking with reporters before departing for Seoul, Kishida said he would seek “open and frank” discussions and hoped to foster future-oriented practical cooperation by revitalizing the trilateral process.
At the talks with Li, Kishida said he would like to “firmly confirm the direction of the mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests and constructive and stable Japan-China relations”.
The summit comes as South Korea and Japan have been working to mend ties frayed by historical disputes while deepening a trilateral security partnership with the United States amid intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry.
China has previously warned that U.S. efforts to further elevate relations with South Korea and Japan could fan regional tension and confrontation.
Seoul and Tokyo have warned against any attempts to forcibly change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, while Beijing on Tuesday criticized a decision by South Korean and Japanese lawmakers to attend Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s inauguration.
The summit might not bring a major breakthrough on sensitive issues but could make progress in areas of practical cooperation like people-to-people exchanges and consular matters, officials and diplomats said.
your ad hereRussian attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv kills 12, injures dozens
KHARKIV, Ukraine — A Russian strike on a crowded DIY hardware store in Kharkiv killed 12 people and wounded dozens more, Ukrainian prosecutors said on Sunday morning, the death toll rising as the country’s second-largest city reeled from two attacks a day earlier.
Two guided bombs hit the Epicentr DIY hypermarket in a residential area of the city on Saturday afternoon, Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on national television.
The strikes caused a massive fire which sent a column of thick, black smoke billowing hundreds of meters into the air.
Forty-three people were injured, the local prosecutors’ office said, adding that 10 of the 12 dead had still not been identified.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said about 120 people had been in the hardware store when the bombs struck.
“The attack targeted the shopping center, where there were many people – this is clearly terrorism,” Terekhov said.
In a post on the Telegram app, Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 16 people were still missing after the strike.
The past week has seen an uptick in strikes on the city after Russian troops stormed across the border, opening a new front north of the city.
Russia has bombarded Kharkiv, which lies less than 30 kilometers from its border, throughout the war, having reached its outskirts in a failed bid to capture it in 2022.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a plea to Ukraine’s Western allies to help boost air defenses to keep the country’s cities safe. French President Emmanuel Macron, writing on social media platform X, denounced the attack on the store as “unacceptable.”
A separate early evening missile strike hit a residential building in the center of the city of 1.3 million. The number of people wounded by that strike had climbed to 25 by Sunday morning.
The missile left a crater several meters deep in the pavement at the foot of the building, which also housed a post office, a beauty salon and a cafe.
Emergency workers ushered away residents of nearby apartment buildings. Some of the injured had blood on their faces.
Just over the border, in Russia’s Belgorod region, the regional governor said four residents died in Ukrainian attacks on Saturday.
Firefighters battle blaze
Andriy Kudinov, director of the suburban shopping center, told local media the hardware store was full of shoppers buying items for their summer cottages.
It took 16 hours to fully extinguish the fire at the center, which had raged over an area of 13,000 square meters, Interior Minister Klymenko said.
Rescuers, medics and journalists occasionally had to rush away from the scene of both strikes on the city and take cover on the ground, fearing another strike, as has occurred during several recent Russian attacks.
Dmytro Syrotenko, a 26-year-old employee of the DIY center, described panicked scenes.
“I was at my workplace. I heard the first hit and … with my colleague, we fell to the ground. There was the second hit and we were covered with debris. Then we started to crawl to the higher ground,” said Syrotenko, who had a large gash on his face.
Syrotenko told Reuters he was taken to safety by a rescue worker who helped him, several colleagues, and shoppers.
Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, denounced the strike as “yet another example of Russian madness. There is no other way to describe it.”
“When we tell world leaders that Ukraine needs sufficient air defenses, when we say we need real decisive measures to enable us to protect our people, so that Russian terrorists cannot even approach our border, we are talking about not allowing strikes like this to happen,” he said.
Writing later on Telegram, Zelenskyy noted air raid alerts had been in effect in Kharkiv for more than 12 hours and 200 emergency workers and 400 policemen remained at the scene dealing with the aftermath of the attacks.
Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but thousands have been killed and injured during its 27-month invasion of Ukraine.
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UN migration agency estimates more than 670 killed in Papua New Guinea landslide
MELBOURNE, Australia — The International Organization for Migration on Sunday increased its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea to more than 670.
Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migration agency’s mission in the South Pacific island nation, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by Friday’s landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes.
“They are estimating that more than 670 people [are] under the soil at the moment,” Aktoprak told The Associated Press.
Local officials had initially put the death toll on Friday at 100 or more. Only five bodies and a leg of a sixth victim had been recovered by Sunday.
Emergency responders in Papua New Guinea were moving survivors to safer ground on Sunday as tons of unstable earth and tribal warfare, which is rife in the country’s Highlands, threatened the rescue effort.
Crews have given up hope of finding survivors under earth and rubble 6-8 meters deep, Aktoprak said.
“People are coming to terms with this so there is a serious level of grieving and mourning,” he said.
Government authorities were establishing evacuation centers on safer ground on either side of the massive swath of debris that covers an area the size of three to four football fields and has cut the main highway through the province.
“Working across the debris is very dangerous and the land is still sliding,” Aktoprak said.
Beside the blocked highway, convoys that have transported food, water and other essential supplies since Saturday to the devastated village 60 kilometers from the provincial capital, Wabag, have faced risks related to tribal fighting in Tambitanis village, about halfway along the route. Papua New Guinea soldiers were providing security for the convoys.
Eight locals were killed in a clash between two rival clans on Saturday in a longstanding dispute unrelated to the landslide. Around 30 homes and five retail businesses were burned down in the fighting, local officials said.
Aktoprak said he did not expect tribal combatants would target the convoys but noted that opportunistic criminals might take advantage of the mayhem to do so.
“This could basically end up in carjacking or robbery,” Aktoprak said. “There is not only concern for the safety and security of the personnel, but also the goods because they may use this chaos as a means to steal.”
Longtime tribal warfare has cast doubt on the official estimate that almost 4,000 people were living in the village when a side of Mount Mungalo fell away.
Justine McMahon, country director of the humanitarian agency CARE International, said moving survivors to “more stable ground” was an immediate priority along with providing them with food, water and shelter. The military was leading those efforts.
The numbers of injured and missing were still being assessed on Sunday. Seven people including a child had received medical treatment by Saturday, but officials had no details on their conditions.
Medical facilities were buried along with houses, several small businesses, a guest house, school and gas station, officials said.
McMahon said there were other health facilities in the region, the provincial government was sending health workers and the World Health Organization was mobilizing staff.
“There will be some support, but it’s such a spread-out area that I think it will be quite a challenging situation,” McMahon said. “The scale of this disaster is quite immense.”
While Papua New Guinea is in the tropics, the village is 2,000 meters above sea level where temperatures are substantially cooler.
Papua New Guinea Defense Minister Billy Joseph and the government’s National Disaster Center director Laso Mana were flying from Port Moresby by helicopter to Wabag on Sunday to gain a firsthand perspective of what is needed.
Aktoprak expected the government would decide by Tuesday whether it would officially request more international help.
The United States and Australia, a near neighbor and Papua New Guinea’s most generous provider of foreign aid, are among governments that have publicly stated their readiness to do more to help responders.
Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation with 800 languages and 10 million people who are mostly subsistence farmers.
Marape has said disaster officials, the Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways were assisting with relief and recovery efforts.
Social media footage posted by villager Ninga Role showed people clambering over rocks, uprooted trees and mounds of dirt searching for survivors. Women could be heard weeping in the background.
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Average US vehicle age hits record of 12.6 years
detroit — Cars, trucks and SUVs in the U.S. keep getting older, hitting a record average age of 12.6 years in 2024 as people hang on to their vehicles largely because new ones cost so much.
S&P Global Mobility, which tracks state vehicle registration data nationwide, said Wednesday that the average vehicle age grew about two months from last year’s record.
But the growth in average age is starting to slow as new vehicle sales start to recover from pandemic-related shortages of parts, including computer chips. The average increased by three months in 2023.
Still, with an average U.S. new-vehicle selling price of just over $45,000 last month, many can’t afford to buy new — even though prices are down more than $2,000 from the peak in December of 2022, according to J.D. Power.
“It’s prohibitively high for a lot of households now,” said Todd Campau, aftermarket leader for S&P Global Mobility. “So I think consumers are being painted into the corner of having to keep the vehicle on the road longer.”
Other factors include people waiting to see if they want to buy an electric vehicle or go with a gas-electric hybrid or a gasoline vehicle. Many, he said, are worried about the charging network being built up so they can travel without worrying about running out of battery power. Also, he said, vehicles are made better these days and simply are lasting a long time.
New vehicle sales in the U.S. are starting to return to pre-pandemic levels, with prices and interest rates the big influencing factors rather than illness and supply-chain problems, Campau said. He said he expects sales to hit around 16 million this year, up from 15.6 million last year and 13.9 million in 2022.
As more new vehicles are sold and replace aging vehicles in the nation’s fleet of 286 million passenger vehicles, the average age should stop growing and stabilize, Campau said. And unlike immediately after the pandemic, more lower-cost vehicles are being sold, which likely will bring down the average price, he said.
People keeping vehicles longer is good news for the local auto repair shop. About 70% of vehicles on the road are six or more years old, he said, beyond manufacturer warranties.
Those who are able to keep their rides for multiple years usually get the oil changed regularly and follow manufacturer maintenance schedules, Campau noted.
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US independent booksellers continued to expand in 2023
NEW YORK — Three years ago, Erin Decker was a middle school librarian in Kissimmee, Florida, increasingly frustrated by the state’s book bans and worried that she couldn’t make a difference remaining in her job.
So, she and fellow librarian Tania Galiñanes thought of a way to fight back.
“We just put our heads together and decided a bookstore would help make sure students could get to books that were being pulled from shelves,” says Decker, whose White Rose Books & More opened last fall in Kissimmee. The store is named for a resistance group in Nazi Germany and features a section — ringed by yellow “caution” tape — dedicated to such banned works as Maia Kabobe’s Gender Queer, Jonathan Evison’s Lawn Boy and John Green’s Looking for Alaska.
White Rose Books is part of the ever-expanding and diversifying world of independent bookstores. Even as industry sales were slow in 2023, membership in the American Booksellers Association continued its years-long revival. It now stands at 2,433, more than 200 over the previous year and nearly double since 2016. Around 190 more stores are in the process of opening over the next two years, according to the ABA.
“Our numbers are really strong, and we have a solid, diverse pipeline of new stores to come,” says Allison Hill, the book association’s CEO. She cites a range of reasons for people opening stores, from opposing bans to championing diversity to pursuing new careers after the pandemic.
“Some are opening to give back to their community. And some still just love books,” she said during a phone interview this week.
Recent members include everyone from the romance-oriented That’s What She Read in Mount Ayr, Iowa; to Seven Stories in Shawnee, Kansas, managed by 15-year-old Halley Vincent; to more than 20 Black-owned shops.
In Pasadena, California, Octavia’s Bookshelf is named for the late Black science fiction author Octavia Butler and bills itself as “a space to find community, enjoy a cup of coffee, read, relax, find unique and specially curated products from artisans from around the world and in our neighborhood.” Leah Johnson, author of the prize-winning young adult novel You Should See Me In a Crown, was troubled by the surge in book bans and by what she saw as a shortage of outlets for diverse voices. Last year, she founded Loudmouth Books, one of several independent sellers to open in Indianapolis.
“I’m not a person who dreamed of opening a bookstore. I didn’t want to be anybody’s boss,” Johnson says. “But I saw a need and I had to fill it.”
Most of the new businesses are traditional “brick and mortar” retailers. But a “bookstore” can also mean a “pop-up” business like Loc’d & Lit, which has a mission to bring “the joy of reading to the Bronx,” the New York City borough that had been viewed by the industry as a “desert” for its scarcity of bookstores. Other new stores are online only, among them the Be More Literature Children’s Bookshop and the used books seller Liberation Is Lit. Nick Pavlidis, a publisher, ghost writer and trainer of ghost writers, launched the online Beantown Books in 2023 and has since opened a small physical store in suburban Boston.
“My goal is to move into a larger space and create a friendly place for authors to host events,” he says, adding that he’d like to eventually own several stores.
Independent bookselling has never been dependably profitable, and Hill notes various concerns — rising costs, dwindling aid from the pandemic and the ongoing force of Amazon.com, which remains the industry’s dominate retailer even after the e-book market stalled a decade ago. Last month, the booksellers association filed a motion with the Federal Trade Commission, seeking to join the antitrust suit against Amazon that the FTC announced in 2023. The motion states in part that Amazon is able to offer prices “that ABA members cannot match except by forgoing a sustainable margin, or incurring a loss.”
Just opening a store requires initiative and a willingness to take risks. Decker says that she and Galiñanes had to use retirement money because lenders wouldn’t provide credit until they were actually in business. The owner of Octavia’s Bookshelf, Nikki High, is a former communications director for Trader Joe’s who relied on crowdfunding and her own savings to get her store started.
“Even with tons of planning, and asking questions and running numbers, it’s been very difficult,” High says. “I don’t know that I could have prepared myself for what a shrewd business person you have to be to making a living out of this.”
High cites a variety of challenges and adjustments — convincing customers they don’t have to order items from Amazon.com, supplementing sales by offering tote bags and journals and other non-book items. Knowing which books to stock has also proved an education.
“I would read a book and think it’s the best thing ever and order a bunch of copies, and everybody else is like, ‘No, I don’t want that book,'” she explains. “And when we started, I wanted to be everything for everybody. We had a ton of different categories. But I found out that short stories and poetry almost never sell for us. People want general fiction, bestsellers, children’s books. Classics sell very well, books by James Baldwin and Toni Morrison and bell hooks and June Jordan.”
“It’s incredibly important to listen to your customers.”
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Energy conference delegates push to make clean cooking accessible to all
NAIROBI, Kenya — Participants at a global conference on how to reduce the world’s energy use called for universal access to clean cooking through government incentives and subsidies to unlock more private sector funds.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency’s ninth annual conference on energy efficiency, held Tuesday and Wednesday in Nairobi, brought together ministers, CEOs and thought leaders from around the world to discuss how to speed up progress on energy efficiency, which experts say can drastically reduce planet-warming emissions. How to deliver affordable clean cooking, which involves using electricity, solar and other solutions instead of more polluting fuels like charcoal, wood and kerosene, was on the agenda.
“There are many practical barriers to energy efficiency, and of course the barrier of the need for investment up front,” said Brian Motherway, head of IEA’s office of energy efficiency and inclusive transitions. “The key to unlocking efficiency is in the hands of governments. Strong, coordinated policies by governments will unlock finance and enable business and consumers to take the actions required to lower their bills.”
This year’s conference focused on accelerating progress toward doubling energy efficiency by 2030 as agreed upon by governments at the COP28 climate change conference in 2023.
Rashid Abdallah, executive director of the Africa Energy Commission, said at a panel discussion on Tuesday that “clean cooking should be part of any energy policy” or socioeconomic development plan.
Globally, around 2.3 billion people cook using solid biomass fuel – such as wood and charcoal – and kerosene. In Asia, 1.2 billion people lack access to clean cooking facilities, and in Africa, more than 900 million people use biomass as their primary energy source. These energy sources release harmful toxic fumes and smoke that lead to illnesses and deaths and contribute to climate change.
There’s also evidence that household air pollution from cooking with dirty fuels can lead to diabetes and adverse pregnancy outcomes such as stillbirth and low birth weight, said Matt Shupler, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “There are many known health effects,” he said.
Cleaner alternatives include electric and ethanol cookers that emit fewer pollutants.
High prices are an obstacle to making clean, green and affordable cooking available to all, but positive trends are emerging in the sector, with investment in clean cooking enterprises surging to an all-time high of $215 million in 2022 and the number of clean cooking enterprises with revenue exceeding $1 million growing to 11 that same year, according to a report by the Clean Cooking Alliance.
Despite this progress, a huge capital gap remains in achieving universal access to clean cooking by 2030. IEA estimates that $8 billion will be needed annually as investment in clean cooking stoves, equipment and infrastructure to meet the goal.
One of the countries that have significantly scaled up affordable, high-quality, clean cooking is Indonesia. In 2007 the government started implementing a program to transition its primary cooking fuel from kerosene to liquefied petroleum gas. The proportion of the population with access to clean cooking doubled from 40% in 2010 to 80% in 2018. Regulation and incentives have been key to the program’s success, said Dadan Kusdiana, secretary-general of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
“What we do is to provide the energy with affordability,” he said at a panel discussion on Tuesday. “They need this kind of energy, but they can’t afford it at the commercial price.”
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South Africa election: How Mandela’s once-revered ANC lost its way
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — For years, the African National Congress rose above politics in South Africa. It was a movement dedicated to freeing Black people from the oppression of white minority rule and to the lofty principle of democracy, equality and a better life for all South Africans.
It was widely revered as a force for good under Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for his opposition to the apartheid system of racial segregation.
But 30 years after the ANC transformed from a liberation organization to a political party in government at the end of apartheid in 1994, it faces growing dissatisfaction from South Africans who feel it has failed to live up to its promises.
South Africans will vote on May 29 in a national election that could be the biggest rejection yet of the ANC, which has governed one of Africa’s most important countries largely unchallenged since it led the fight to bring down apartheid.
Now, the ANC is for many a byword for graft and failed government. Here’s how the famous party lost its way:
Broken promises
While the end of apartheid gave every South African the right to vote and other basic freedoms, the challenge for the ANC was to convert that into a better life, especially for the Black majority who had been systematically repressed.
That has been difficult for the ANC government to sustain after some early success in raising living standards in its first 10 years in power. South Africa sits today with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, is still ranked as one of the most unequal countries, and its widespread poverty — which still disproportionately affects Black people — spurs most of the criticism of the ANC’s three decades in charge.
The ANC has often pointed to the difficulties in reversing nearly a half-century of racist laws under apartheid and hundreds of years of European colonialism before that, which kept millions in poverty. It maintains that South Africa is a better country than it was under apartheid and that is undoubtedly true.
But the most pressing problems for many South Africans in 2024 boil down to a failure of basic government services, with communities across the nation regularly protesting against the lack of electricity in their neighborhoods, broken or nonexistent water and sewage systems, garbage piling up on streets, and a shortage of proper housing that leaves millions living in shacks.
Corruption
While around half of South Africa’s population of 62 million live under the poverty line, according to the World Bank, ANC officials have been implicated in enriching themselves in a succession of corruption scandals.
Corruption is alleged to have been especially bad under former President Jacob Zuma, who was accused of allowing a decade of rampant graft to play out before he stepped down in disgrace in 2018.
There were countless stories of wrongdoing, with politicians receiving bribes in return for influence or lucrative state contracts as a culture of graft pervaded all levels of government. South Africans heard how senior ANC figures allegedly received money to buy expensive suits, throw lavish parties or renovate their homes.
The disappearance of $15 million designated for the removal of harmful asbestos from the houses of poor people was one of many cases that enraged the country. President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to clean up the ANC when he succeeded Zuma, but he was involved in his own scandal and survived an impeachment vote.
The ANC’s reputation hasn’t recovered.
Infighting
The ANC has been hampered by infighting since Mandela stepped down as president in 1999 after one term and handed over to a younger generation.
His successor, Thabo Mbeki, was forced out as Zuma undermined his position as the head of the ANC. The party turned on Zuma, who is disqualified from running in next week’s election, when the corruption allegations became overwhelming.
Ramaphosa has spent his first term as president since 2019 battling a part of the party still loyal to Zuma. In its early days, the ANC celebrated that it was a “broad church” of people dedicated to freedom and democracy. It now has factions much like any other political party, affecting its ability to solve South Africa’s problems.
The future
From a dominant position when it once commanded 70% of the vote, the ANC has seen people gradually desert it, especially among a new generation of South Africans who don’t remember apartheid.
The election is widely expected to be a landmark moment for the country’s post-apartheid democracy as recent polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50%, suggesting it might lose its parliamentary majority for the first time.
The ANC is still expected to be the biggest party but dropping below 50% would lead to it having to govern alongside others in a coalition.
That would be the biggest political shift in South Africa since the ANC ascended into the government and a humbling moment for a party Zuma once said would rule “until Jesus comes back.”
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