Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

Tag: no-latest

  • House Judiciary issues subpoena to force Jack Smith to testify in private

    House Judiciary issues subpoena to force Jack Smith to testify in private

    House Republicans have upped their demands for Jack Smith to testify behind closed doors, issuing a subpoena on Wednesday to the former special counsel that calls on him to meet with members of the House Judiciary Committee and answer questions about his two federal prosecutions of President Donald Trump.

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said in his letter to Smith — which he posted on social media — that Smith would be deposed on Dec. 17. Smith must hand over materials related to the investigations by Dec. 12, he said.

    The demand is the latest in a string from Republican lawmakers aimed at getting Smith to testify privately and hand over materials related to the probes. In October, Jordan wrote Smith requesting that he sit for a private interview with lawmakers about the investigations, though did not issue a subpoena.

    “Due to your service as special counsel, the Committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter,” the letter from Jordan reads.

    Smith repeatedly has said he would sit for an interview with lawmakers in a public setting, but does not want to do it behind closed doors. His supporters have expressed concern that a private interview would be subject to selective leaks by committee members.

    Public testimony, however, could put Republicans and the Trump administration in a tricky position. Smith has said he collected ample evidence showing that Trump committed the alleged crimes for which he was indicted. By calling Smith to testify, Republicans risk giving him a platform to air the evidence he collected against the president and failing to elicit testimony that would portray him as a corrupt prosecutor out to get Republicans.

    The former special counsel has also said that, under long-standing protocol, he needs Justice Department guidance to tell him what he is allowed to testify about and what materials he is allowed to hand over. Smith, who is now a private citizen, says he does not have access to the investigatory materials, which are now in the Justice Department’s possession.

    The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request asking if it had provided Smith with that guidance.

    “Nearly six weeks ago Jack offered to voluntarily appear before the House Judiciary committee in an open hearing to answer any questions lawmakers have about his investigation,” Smith’s attorney, Peter Koski, said in a statement.

    “We are disappointed that offer was rejected, and that the American people will be denied the opportunity to hear directly from Jack on these topics. Jack looks forward to meeting with the committee later this month to discuss his work and clarify the various misconceptions about his investigation.”

    If Smith failed to comply with the subpoena, he could risk prosecution. If a person defies a congressional subpoena, lawmakers could refer that person to the Justice Department for prosecution.

    The back-and-forth over the terms of Smith’s testimony highlights the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with Smith and the large team of agents and prosecutors involved in investigating the president. The administration has fired multiple prosecutors and agents who worked on the cases and has portrayed Smith and his team as corrupt and politicized. The committee has also called some of Smith’s deputies on the special counsel team for testimony.

    Smith oversaw two federal investigations into Trump during the Biden administration. One examined Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified materials after he left office, and the other probed his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

    Neither case made it to trial, and both were dismissed before Trump took office in January. Smith has said that he did nothing wrong and that he followed all investigatory protocols when overseeing the cases.

  • How Share Food Program is Leveling the Playing Field

    How Share Food Program is Leveling the Playing Field

    George Matysik, executive director of Share Food Program, paced behind a standing desk in his North Philadelphia office. In the background, the hunger relief program’s warehouse was visible through a window. “There are two slogans that we have around here. One is that food is a human right, and the other is that hunger is solvable,” he said. “It should not be a political question whether or not to feed the hungry.”

    Founded nearly 40 years ago, Share Food Program provides access to food, education, and advocacy through a partner network of community-based organizations and school districts. A native and current resident of North Philadelphia, Matysik has a long history of service in the area. Here, he talks about his roots in the city, being part of a community, and being called to service.

    Walk me through your career journey from Philabundance to the Philadelphia Parks Alliance and now, Share Food Program. What connects all of these roles for you?

    As a high school student [at Mercy Career and Technical High School], I would come over and volunteer here at Share Food, and that’s where I got to know my predecessor, Steveanna Wynn. When I graduated with a degree to be an electrician, I also graduated with a much deeper understanding of service.

    After graduation, I ended up getting a job at University of Pennsylvania as a janitor. Once I got there, I found out that I could go to school in the evenings … and get my degree in urban studies. I wanted to learn more about how cities work, what nonprofits do in that space, and politics — all of that blending together.

    After a chance meeting while cleaning a professor’s office at 6 a.m., I went to work on a congressional campaign [for Joe Sestak]. I worked for him for a couple years when he was a congressman. From there, I met the then-CEO of Philabundance and I started their government affairs department.

    I was doing that up through 2014 and then went to work at the Philadelphia Parks Alliance until my predecessor here at Share Food (a mentor from my childhood days) announced that, after 31 years, she was going to be retiring. My first [thought] when I found out was, “God bless a sucker that tries to fill her shoes.” But as I thought more about what Share Food Program means to the community, I [felt] invested in making sure it was able to move forward in an important way. [I] ended up reaching out and getting the job.

    How did these experiences shape how you approach food insecurity and your work at Share Food Program?

    I’d say I come at this work with the lens of, “How do we alleviate poverty in our city?” But using food as the gateway to be able to do that. It was so important to me to figure out how we, in the richest country in the history of the world, help relieve the poverty that we have. Not only here in Philadelphia, but across the country.

    Is it easier to bring people to the political table through food?

    Yes, but I would say that it’s bigger than that. It’s about equity and how we can close the gaps between the haves and the have nots. There are so many societal challenges that we deal with — addiction or crime or things like that — where there isn’t one single easy answer. But with our work, it’s actually really easy, and that’s the frustrating part. It’s literally just getting the resources and food to the folks who need it, and that should be an easy thing to do.

    But sadly, we are living in a time where the incredible greed within this country has prevented that from happening. And so we have this widening gulf between the haves and the have nots.

    Food is one of the great uniters of cultures and people. It’s also a gateway to communicate all of the other services we can use to help pull people out of poverty. So with many of the organizations that we provide our food to, it’s not just, “Here’s your bag of food, see you next week.” It’s more like, “Here’s your bag of food, and here’s an array of other services, education, programming.”

    Since you took over in March 2019, Share Food’s staff and cold-storage capacity has grown five-fold. What made that possible?

    It wouldn’t have happened without the foundation that my predecessors built here and within the city. In the time that I’ve been here, it’s really been about engaging the broader Share Food community, whether that’s our volunteers, our board, or our staff, who have been the ones to lead all of this. My goal is to bring some of the resources together so that we can do all of that work, but they’re the ones who really have been able to execute it.

    There have been setbacks along the way. Some of those have been external threats, like the pandemic or what we’re seeing right now with the federal government pulling resources away from aid organizations.

    Talk to me about how the pandemic changed the way Share helped the community.

    The food insecurity rate just exploded in that early part of the pandemic. There were many folks who wouldn’t present as food insecure but felt that way for the first time in their lives because they went to the grocery store and they couldn’t get exactly what they wanted. So many of the folks that we serve live that life every day. The food might be on the shelves, but they can’t afford what’s there.

    We were fortunate here at Share. We’d done a $1.5 million food buy in late February in preparation for the pandemic. So while some folks were going to the grocery store and finding empty shelves, our warehouse was bursting at the seams.

    And we were really able to quickly react to all of the logistical challenges. In normal times we served about 7,000 seniors in senior centers or senior-only high rises, but by March 2020, many of them closed their doors to the public. So we called those seniors at home, and we said, “Hey, what if we got you a home delivery?” We had our volunteers step forward and start delivering groceries. It grew so much in such a short period of time that we eventually brought DoorDash in as a partner. Now our location here at Share Food is the largest single DoorDash distribution location in the country. That really rapid scaling happened with government support.

    How did you see government support evolve?

    Throughout the early part of the shutdown, Washington started to handle the health and economic crisis in a bipartisan way: extending unemployment benefits, additional SNAP benefits, and the child tax credit. It was an inspiring example of what can happen when government and nonprofits work together toward the common goal of helping to close that gap again between the haves and the have nots. You had all of these resources go to the folks who we serve and folks that need it the most. By late 2020 and early 2021, we saw the biggest one-year reduction in poverty since 1964, when Lyndon B. Johnson launched the war on poverty.

    Sadly, just as this bipartisan unity was helping us get to the root of hunger, it was clear that the economic crisis was staying with us. Washington pulled back so many of those resources. By January 2022, we started to see [poverty] pick up again. It was maybe just a percentage or two [increase] in the first month, but now we’ve seen about 120% increase from 2022 to 2025, because many of those resources have been pulled from folks.

    And now on top of that, this year has brought additional cuts to our organization and by extension, the folks we serve. We had about $8.5 million of food and funding eliminated in March from our organization by the USDA under the Trump administration. On top of that, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill pulled additional resources from SNAP benefits, Medicaid, and other programs. And [the] government shutdown [earlier this year] impacted WIC and SNAP. All of those compounding challenges are really what keep us from being able to do the work in the way that we know it needs to be done. And that’s why we rely so heavily on our community, on our donors to step forward to help fill those gaps at a time when the government’s investment in the working class is receding.

    Is there anything you wish people would take away from this collective experience?

    When people are using the working class as a political football, ultimately that means that our fellow humans aren’t getting food. And I do wish that we didn’t look at folks as red voters or blue voters, but as human beings. So many in every political spectrum need basic assistance to put food on their table, to put a roof over their heads.

    What do you find important about living in the community you serve?

    I live within a mile of Share Food. For me, the work that I do here in this neighborhood is all about this community and my home. It matters when one community can come together and show other communities how it can be done.

    Change doesn’t happen in Washington — it comes to Washington: it comes from Selma, it comes from Stonewall, it comes from Ferguson, it comes from small communities that folks might not have even known about until they organized.

    PHILLY QUICK ROUND

    What’s your favorite Philly food splurge, and where do you get it? Georgian Bread up in the Northeast. When I go there, I order everything on the menu.

    Favorite Philly small business? Uncle Bobbie’s is the bookshop that I frequent the most.

    What sports team do you root for? I would say the Sixers are my “live and die.” The Phillies are a very close second.

    What do you wish people knew about the people who call Philly home? I think we get a rap for being a little tough; we are actually, deep down, kindhearted people that care.

    Who’s the greatest Philadelphian of all time? I’m reading a lot about the Reconstruction Era in Philadelphia right now, and Octavius Cato was a young Black man who was an incredible athlete and political organizer who was murdered on Election Day in mid-October 1871 for [his] organizing work.

    Who is your favorite Philadelphia born artist or performer? Ram Squad was my [favorite] hip hop group growing up. They were North Philly, and that was just raw ’90s Philly hip hop, and I loved them.

    What do you do for fun around Philly? I eat a lot of food and then I try to run off the calories.

    Do you have a mental health run recommendation? Forbidden Drive in Wissahickon Trail.

    What is one place in or around Philadelphia you wish everyone would visit at least once? Independence Hall. I’m going to get emotional if I elaborate too much. I think that the two founding documents that were written in Independence Hall are more important now than they ever have been. And I think it is a wonderful opportunity for a reminder for all Americans of what this country truly was founded on.

  • Pentagon watchdog finds Hegseth’s use of Signal posed risk to U.S. personnel, AP sources say

    Pentagon watchdog finds Hegseth’s use of Signal posed risk to U.S. personnel, AP sources say

    The Pentagon’s watchdog found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put U.S. personnel and their mission at risk when he used the Signal messaging app to convey sensitive information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants, two people familiar with the findings said Wednesday.

    Hegseth, however, has the ability to declassify material and the report did not find he did so improperly, according to one of the people familiar with the findings who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the information. That person also said the report concluded that Hegseth violated Pentagon policy by using his personal device for official business and it recommended better training for all Pentagon officials.

    Hegseth declined to sit for an interview with the Pentagon’s inspector general but provided a written statement, that person said. The defense secretary asserted that he was permitted to declassify information as he saw fit and only communicated details he thought would not endanger the mission.

    The findings ramp up the pressure on the former Fox News Channel host after lawmakers had called for the independent inquiry into his use of the commercially available app. Lawmakers also just opened investigations into a news report that a follow-up strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea in September killed survivors after Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everybody.”

    Hegseth defended the strike as emerging in the “fog of war‚” saying he didn’t see any survivors but also “didn’t stick around” for the rest of the mission and that the admiral in charge “made the right call” in ordering the second strike. He also did not admit fault following the revelations that he discussed sensitive military plans on Signal, asserting that the information was unclassified.

    “The Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth and proves what we knew all along — no classified information was shared,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman said in a statement. “This matter is resolved, and the case is closed.”

    Meanwhile, the Pentagon knew there were survivors after a September attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea and the U.S. military still carried out a follow-up strike, according to two people familiar with the matter.

    The rationale for the second strike was that it was needed to sink the vessel, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly. The Trump administration says all 11 people aboard were killed.

    What remains unclear was who ordered the strikes and whether Hegseth was involved, one source said. That will be part of a classified congressional briefing Thursday with the commander that the Trump administration says ordered the second strike, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley.

    The information about the follow-on strike was not presented to lawmakers during a classified briefing in September, in the days after the incident. It was disclosed later, one source said, and the explanation provided by the department has been broadly unsatisfactory to various members of the national security committees in Congress.

    In a rare flex of bipartisan oversight, the Armed Services committees in both the House and Senate swiftly announced investigations into the strikes as lawmakers of both parties raise questions.

    Hegseth is under growing scrutiny over the military strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Legal experts and some lawmakers say a strike that killed survivors would have violated the laws of armed conflict. The Trump administration has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels, even though Congress has not approved any authorization for the use of military force in the region.

    Journalist was added to a chat where sensitive plans were shared

    In at least two separate Signal chats, Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop — before the men and women carrying out those attacks on behalf of the United States were airborne.

    Hegseth’s use of the app came to light when a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to a Signal text chain by then-national security adviser Mike Waltz. It included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and others, brought together to discuss March 15 military operations against the Iran-backed Houthis.

    Hegseth had created another Signal chat with 13 people that included his wife and brother where he shared similar details of the same strike, The Associated Press reported.

    Signal is encrypted but is not authorized for carrying classified information and is not part of the Pentagon’s secure communications network.

    Hegseth previously has said none of the information shared in the chats was classified. Multiple current and former military officials have told the AP there was no way details with that specificity, especially before a strike took place, would have been OK to share on an unsecured device.

    The review was delivered to lawmakers, who were able to review the report in a classified facility at the Capitol. A partially redacted version of the report was expected to be released publicly later this week.

    Hegseth said he viewed the investigation as a partisan exercise and did not trust the inspector general, according to one of the people familiar with the report’s findings. The review had to rely on screenshots of the Signal chat published by the Atlantic because Hegseth could not provide more than a small handful of his Signal messages, the person said.

    When asked about the investigation in August, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters that “we believe that this is a witch hunt and a total sham and being conducted in bad faith.”

    The Pentagon did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.

    Lawmakers had called for inspector general to investigate

    The revelations sparked intense scrutiny, with Democratic lawmakers and a small number of Republicans saying Hegseth posting the information to the Signal chats before the military jets had reached their targets potentially put those pilots’ lives at risk. They said lower-ranking members of the military would have been fired for such a lapse.

    The inspector general opened its investigation into Hegseth at the request of the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

    Some veterans and military families also raised concerns, citing the strict security protocols they must follow to protect sensitive information.

    It all ties back to the campaign against Yemen’s Houthis

    The Houthi rebels had started launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in late 2023 in what their leadership had described as an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Their campaign greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.

    The U.S.-led campaign against the Houthis in 2024 turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy had faced since World War II.

    A ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war had begun in January before falling apart in March. The U.S. then launched a broad assault against the Houthis that ended weeks later when Trump said they pledged to stop attacking ships. The latest Gaza ceasefire began in October.

    Following the disclosure of Hegseth’s Signal chat that included the Atlantic’s editor, the magazine released the entire thread in late March. Hegseth had posted multiple details about an impending strike, using military language and laying out when a “strike window” starts, where a “target terrorist” was located, the time elements around the attack and when various weapons and aircraft would be used in the strike. He mentioned that the U.S. was “currently clean” on operational security.

    Hegseth told Fox News Channel in April that what he shared over Signal was “informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things.”

    During a congressional hearing in June, Hegseth was pressed multiple times by lawmakers over whether he shared classified information and if he should face accountability if he did.

    Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and Marine veteran, asked Hegseth whether he would hold himself accountable if the inspector general found that he placed classified information on Signal.

    Hegseth would not directly say, only noting that he serves “at the pleasure of the president.”

  • D-Day veteran Charles Shay, who saved lives on Omaha Beach, dies at 101 in France

    D-Day veteran Charles Shay, who saved lives on Omaha Beach, dies at 101 in France

    PARIS — Charles Shay, a decorated Native American veteran who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and helped save lives, died on Wednesday. He was 101.

    Shay died at his home in Bretteville-L’Orgueilleuse in France’s Normandy region, his longtime friend and carer Marie-Pascale Legrand said.

    Shay, of the Penobscot tribe and from Indian Island in the U.S. state of Maine, was awarded the Silver Star for repeatedly plunging into the sea and carrying critically wounded soldiers to relative safety, saving them from drowning. He also received France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor, in 2007.

    Shay had been living in France since 2018, not far from the shores of Normandy where nearly 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and other nations landed on D-Day on June 6, 1944. The Battle of Normandy hastened Germany’s defeat, which came less than a year later.

    “He passed away peacefully surrounded by his loved ones,” Legrand told The Associated Press.

    The Charles Shay Memorial group, which honors the memory of about 500 Native Americans who landed on the Normandy beaches, said in a statement posted on Facebook that “our hearts are deeply saddened as we share that our beloved Charles Norman Shay … has returned home to the Creator and the Spirit World.”

    “He was an incredibly loving father, grandfather, father-in-law, and uncle, a hero to many, and an overall amazing human being,” the statement said. “Charles leaves a legacy of love, service, courage, spirit, duty and family that continues to shine brightly.”

    Ready to give his life

    On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.

    Shay survived.

    “I guess I was prepared to give my life if I had to. Fortunately, I did not have to,” Shay said in a 2024 interview with The Associated Press.

    “I had been given a job, and the way I looked at it, it was up to me to complete my job,” he recalled. “I did not have time to worry about my situation of being there and perhaps losing my life. There was no time for this.”

    On that night, exhausted, he eventually fell asleep in a grove above the beach.

    “When I woke up in the morning. It was like I was sleeping in a graveyard because there were dead Americans and Germans surrounding me,” he recalled. “I stayed there for not very long and I continued on my way.”

    Shay then pursued his mission in Normandy for several weeks, rescuing those wounded, before heading with American troops to eastern France and Germany, where he was taken prisoner in March 1945 and liberated a few weeks later.

    Spreading a message of peace

    After World War II, Shay reenlisted in the military because the situation of Native Americans in his home state of Maine was too precarious due to poverty and discrimination.

    Maine would not allow individuals living on Native American reservations to vote until 1954.

    Shay continued to witness history — returning to combat as a medic during the Korean War, participating in U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and later working at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.

    For over 60 years, he did not talk about his WWII experience.

    But he began attending D-Day commemorations in 2007 and in recent years, he has seized many occasions to give his powerful testimony and spread a message of peace.

    During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021, Shay’s lone presence marked commemoration ceremonies as travel restrictions prevented other veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain and other allied countries from making the trip to France

    Sadness at seeing war back in Europe

    For years, Shay used to perform a sage-burning ceremony, in homage to those who died, on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, where the monument bearing his name now stands.

    On June 6, 2022, he handed over the remembrance task to another Native American, Julia Kelly, a Gulf War veteran from the Crow tribe. That was just over three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what was to become the worst war on the continent since 1945

    Shay then expressed his sadness at seeing war back on the continent.

    “Ukraine is a very sad situation. I feel sorry for the people there and I don’t know why this war had to come,” he said. “In 1944, I landed on these beaches and we thought we’d bring peace to the world. But it’s not possible.”

  • Israel receives remains of possible hostage; plans to reopen Gaza crossing into Egypt

    JERUSALEM — Israel received remains of what could be one of the last hostages in Gaza on Wednesday and said it will begin allowing Palestinians to leave the war-torn territory through a border crossing with Egypt.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an attack by militants earlier in the day that wounded four Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza was a violation of the ceasefire and that Israel “will respond accordingly.”

    The remains found by militants in northern Gaza were returned to Israel, where they will be examined by forensics experts. Remains militants handed over on Tuesday did not match either of the last two hostages in Gaza.

    The return of all the hostages taken on the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war is a key element of the first phase of the ceasefire that began in October. In exchange, Israel has been releasing Palestinian prisoners.

    Under the terms of the ceasefire, the long-closed Rafah crossing is to be opened for medical evacuations and travel to and from Gaza. The World Health Organization says there are more than 16,500 sick and wounded people who need to leave Gaza for medical care.

    It was not immediately clear when the border crossing would be opened, however.

    Egypt wants Palestinians to be able to return to Gaza through the crossing and says it would only be opened if movement is allowed both ways. Israel says Palestinians will not be able to return to Gaza through the crossing until the last hostages’ remains are returned from Gaza.

    Once the last hostages’ remains are returned and Israel releases more Palestinian prisoners in exchange, the U.S.-backed ceasefire plan is supposed to advance to the next phases, which call for creating an international stabilization force, forming a technocratic Palestinian government and disarming Hamas.

    Last hostages in Gaza are an Israeli and Thai national

    Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said forensic testing showed that partial remains returned by militants on Tuesday did not match either of the hostages still in Gaza. Palestinian militants later said they had found more remains in northern Gaza and turned them over to the Red Cross, which is acting as an intermediary.

    The two hostage bodies still in Gaza are Israeli Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak. Gvili was an Israeli police officer who helped people escape from the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7 attack and was killed fighting at another location. Sudthisak Rinthalak was an agricultural worker from Thailand who had been employed at Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the hardest-hit communities in the attack.

    A total of 31 workers from Thailand were abducted, the largest group of foreigners to be held in captivity. Most of them were released in the first and second ceasefires. The Thai Foreign Ministry has said in addition to the hostages, 46 Thais have been killed during the war.

    Opening of Rafah crossing complicated by dispute

    The Israeli military body charged with facilitating aid to Gaza, COGAT, said Israel would coordinate with Egypt on the exit of Palestinians, under the supervision of a mission from the European Union.

    Those wishing to leave Gaza will require “Israeli security approval,” COGAT said.

    The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Near-Eastern Affairs, writing on X, cast the opening of the crossing as a measure that would afford “the most vulnerable Gazans” access to better medical care.

    Palestinians who want to leave Gaza will be able to move through Rafah if Egypt agrees to receive them, Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said. But the crossing won’t be open for Palestinians seeking to return to Gaza until all of the hostages in the territory are returned to Israel, she said.

    Citing an unnamed Egyptian official, Egypt’s State Information Service said, if an agreement is reached, the crossing will be opened for travel in both directions in accordance with the ceasefire plan advanced by U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Egypt fears that Palestinians allowed to leave Gaza might not be able to return.

    Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has warned that Israel might prompt an exodus from Gaza as a way to permanently expel people and “eliminate the Palestinian cause” for statehood. More than 100,000 Palestinians that left Gaza after the war started, including those wounded in the conflict, have been living in Egypt, according to Egyptian authorities.

    The Rafah crossing was sealed off in May 2024 when Israel’s military invaded the area. It was briefly opened in February this year as part of a previous ceasefire for the evacuation of sick and wounded Palestinians.

    Fighting in Gaza leads to 1 Palestinian death, several injured Israelis

    In the southern city of Rafah, four Israeli soldiers were injured, one seriously, after being attacked by militants who emerged from an underground tunnel, the Israeli military said. The military called the attack in an area under its control a violation of the ceasefire, and said it responded by returning fire.

    In Gaza City, a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire, a hospital said, marking the latest reported Palestinian fatality in the territory.

    Israeli forces shot the 46-year-old man in the Zeitoun neighborhood, according to the Al-Ahli hospital, which received the body. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The hospital said the man was shot while in the “safe zone,” which, under the terms of the ceasefire, is not controlled by the Israeli military. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 360 Palestinians have been killed across Gaza since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 11.

    Return of Palestinian bodies in flux

    Twenty living hostages and the remains of 26 others have been returned to Israel since the ceasefire began in early October.

    Israel has been releasing 15 Palestinian bodies for the remains of each hostage as part of the ceasefire agreement. The Gaza Health Ministry said the total number of remains received so far is 330. Health officials in Gaza have said they have only been able to identify a fraction of the bodies handed over by Israel, and the process is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits.

    The exchanges have gone ahead even as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating other terms of the deal. Israeli officials have accused Hamas of handing over partial remains in some instances and staging the discovery of bodies in others.

    Hamas has accused Israel of opening fire on civilians and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the territory.

    The ceasefire aims to wind down the war that was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.

    The Gaza Health ministry says the total Palestinian death toll from the war is over 70,100. The ministry does not distinguish between militants and civilians, though it says roughly half of those killed have been women and children. The ministry operates under the Hamas-run government. It is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

  • Republicans brace for tough midterms after Tennessee special election

    Republicans brace for tough midterms after Tennessee special election

    Republicans held onto a reliably conservative U.S. House district in Tennessee’s special election, but only after a late burst of national spending and high-profile campaigning helped them secure a margin less than half of last year’s race.

    Even with that victory, the outcome contributed to a gloomy outlook for the party going into the 2026 midterms that will determine control of Congress. Republicans will need to defend much more vulnerable seats if they have any hope of keeping their House majority, while Democrats are capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s unpopularity and the public’s persistent frustration with the economy.

    “The danger signs are there, and we shouldn’t have had to spend that kind of money to hold that kind of seat,” said Jason Roe, a national Republican strategist working on battleground races next year.

    He said that “Democratic enthusiasm is dramatically higher than Republican enthusiasm.”

    Republican Matt Van Epps, a military veteran and former state general services commissioner, defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn by 9 percentage points on Tuesday for the seat vacated by Republican Mark Green, who retired over the summer. Green had won reelection in 2024 by 21 percentage points.

    Special elections provide a limited window into the mood of voters and take place under far different conditions than regular campaign cycles. But some Republicans are acknowledging the warning signs, especially after Democrats had convincing victories in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere last month.

    Tennessee was the fifth House special election this year, and Democratic candidates have outperformed Kamala Harris’ showing in the 2024 presidential race by an average of 16 percentage points in the same districts.

    “We could have lost this district,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told Fox News after The Associated Press called the race for Van Epps. Cruz said his party must “set out the alarm bells” because next year is “going to be a turnout election and the left will show up.”

    Trump dismisses affordability concerns

    Although inflation has dropped since Democratic President Joe Biden was in office, Behn focused her campaign on the lingering concerns about prices.

    Trump has played down the affordability issue, saying during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that it was “a con job” by his political opponents.

    “There’s this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about, affordability,” he said. ”They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody, they just say it.”

    Roe viewed things differently. He said the Tennessee race had “better be a wake-up call that we’ve got to address the affordability problem, and the president denying that affordability is a political issue is not helpful.”

    Maintaining House control is crucial for Trump, who fears a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House and launched an impeachment inquiry. The Republican president has been leaning on GOP-led states to redraw congressional maps to improve the party’s chances.

    Trump campaigned for Van Epps, boosting him during the primary with an endorsement and participating in two tele-rallies during the general election.

    The Republican National Committee also deployed staffers and partnered with state officials to get voters to the polls. MAGA Inc., the super political action committee that had gone dark since supporting Trump in 2024, reemerged to back Van Epps with about $1.7 million.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) visited the Nashville-area district on Monday.

    “When you’re in a deep red district, sometimes people assume that the Republican, the conservative will win,” he said Tuesday. “And you cannot assume that, because anything can happen.”

    Chip Saltsman, a political strategist and former Tennessee Republican Party chair, said his party had brought in its heaviest hitters simply because there were not other competing contests, not because Republicans feared a loss.

    “It’s the only election going on. Why wouldn’t the speaker come?” he asked. “There was one race, and you would expect everybody to do everything they could.”

    Democrats see promise despite loss

    The House Majority PAC put $1 million behind Behn. After she lost, Democratic national party chair said Behn’s performance was “a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms” in 2026.

    Behn said her campaign had “inspired an entire country.”

    “Let’s keep going,” she urged voters after her loss. “We’re not done. Not now, not ever.”

    Although Democrats were optimistic, the result contributed to some murmuring within the party about the best path forward as it grasps for a path back to power in Washington.

    Among special elections this year, the shift in Behn’s direction was the second smallest, providing an opening for some factions that believe more moderate candidates would fare better.

    “Each time we nominate a far-left candidate in a swing district who declares themselves to be radical and alienates the voters in the middle who deliver majorities, we set back that cause,” said a statement from Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democrat think tank.

    Republicans tried to turn Behn’s own words against her in television ads, such as when she described herself as a “radical” or claimed to be “bullying” immigration agents and state police officers. Also cited were comments Behn made about Nashville years ago, when she said, “I hate this city,” and complained about bachelorette parties.

    Several high-profile progressive leaders, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) had rallied for Behn in the campaign’s final days.

  • DHS launches new immigration sting in New Orleans

    DHS launches new immigration sting in New Orleans

    The Department of Homeland Security announced the start of a new immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans on Wednesday, the latest in a series of sweeps that have resulted in thousands of arrests, legal challenges and protests.

    DHS said it was launching “Operation Catahoula Crunch” to target “criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to sanctuary policies that force local authorities to ignore U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest detainers.”

    The announcement included a list and photos of 10 undocumented immigrants — from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jordan and Vietnam — who the agency said had been arrested for a variety of crimes in New Orleans and later released.

    “Sanctuary policies endanger American communities by releasing illegal criminal aliens and forcing DHS law enforcement to risk their lives to remove criminal illegal aliens that should have never been put back on the streets,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims.”

    Immigration enforcement escalations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and — for a shorter time — Charlotte have generated unrest. Residents have alleged civil rights abuses, and policing experts have questioned the tactics used and the training provided to agents in the rapidly growing U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus.

    While DHS has said the operations are targeted at capturing violent criminals, many undocumented immigrants with no record have also been arrested. In Chicago, the agency said, immigration officers arrested more than 4,000 people in “Operation Midway Blitz,” but officials have publicly identified only about 120 of those arrested as having a criminal arrest or conviction, some for major crimes such as murder and others for nonviolent offenses such as illegally crossing the border.

    In each city, whistleblowing protesters have trailed immigration agents, warning neighborhoods of their presence. In Chicago and Los Angeles especially, immigration agents were limited in their ability to manage large, hostile crowds or protesters as they worked independently of Chicago police officers, who were not permitted to assist in immigration arrests.

    Across New Orleans, residents had anticipated the operation, particularly immigrants. Some businesses had closed while others posted signs saying, “ICE not welcome here.”

    First Grace United Methodist Church posted a sign citing scripture that read, “ICE: Whatsoever you do to the least, you do unto me.”

    “A lot of people are locking their houses because it’s a scary time. We are all anticipating,” said Leticia Casildo, a co-founder of the nonprofit immigrant advocacy group Familias Unidas en Acción who immigrated to the United States from Honduras and who has lived in New Orleans for 20 years.

    New Orleans mutual aid organizations have been watching closely how immigration operations have played out in other cities, and several organizations have collaborated with like-minded entities in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte to learn new strategies to adapt to increased enforcement.

    A spokesperson for the ACLU of Louisiana said the organization had consulted with the ACLU of North Carolina to fine-tune educational materials for individuals eager to document the actions of federal officers.

    Chicago organizers said they believe that a network of “rapid response” civilians who follow Homeland Security agents or respond to arrest scenes with cameras and whistles effectively warned communities of law enforcement’s presence and held agents accountable, to an extent, for violent interactions.

    “What we’ve learned is that even a street witness who is not recording makes these interactions less traumatic and less violent,” said Beth Davis, a press liaison for Indivisible NOLA. “So we need to get eyes on these people.”

    Louisiana residents’ reaction to Homeland Security actions may be complicated by a new state law punishing obstruction of immigration enforcement, said GOP state Sen. John “Jay” Morris, who represents northern Louisiana and wrote the law. While some mutual aid organizations in New Orleans have been directing people to buy whistles similar to those used in other cities, other organizations have not, anticipating immigration agents or local police may class the use of whistles as obstruction.

    “Such a law shouldn’t be necessary, but around the country and even the sheriff in Orleans Parish about a year ago indicated that she would not cooperate with ICE,” Morris said. “I hate that we have to have a law to tell people they have to cooperate with federal officials.”

    The law he wrote makes it a crime to “hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart” federal immigration enforcement, and those in violation could face fines and up to a year in jail. Morris and other state lawmakers also expanded the crime of malfeasance in office, punishable by up to a decade in jail, to include government officials who refuse requests by ICE and prohibited police and judges from releasing anyone who “illegally entered or unlawfully remained” in the U.S. without notifying ICE.

    He said the laws could come into force if New Orleans officials or others attempt to interfere with DHS.

    New Orleans police spokesman Reese Harper said that federal officials had not notified the department about when the operation would start and that police will not be involved.

    “We handle the criminal aspect of the law. Border Patrol and ICE handle civil. So it’s unlawful for us to even touch that,” Harper said. “The only way we would even come in contact with them is if they called for backup, like a life-threatening situation.”

    He said that Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick last month “did meet with both Border Patrol and ICE, but we don’t know much about the operation. We know that they are coming and that’s basically it.”

    New Orleans police have operated under a federal consent decree for the past 13 years that limited their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, including the city’s jail. The Justice Department accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement and included it on a list of 18 immigrant “sanctuary cities.”

    But a federal judge ended the consent decree last month, and Kirkpatrick said she would be a “partner” to the federal agents, although officers will not be conducting immigration arrests or asking people about their immigration status, according to a radio interview with WBOK reported by the Times-Picayune.

    Local and state leaders were split on the prospect of more immigration agents in Louisiana and Mississippi.

    New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, who will begin her term in January as the city’s first Latina and Mexican-born mayor, criticized immigration enforcement tactics during surges in other cities in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

    “It’s one thing if you would have a real strategic approach on going after people … who have criminal felonies or are being accused of some very serious and violent crimes. But that’s not what the public is seeing,” Moreno said. “They’re seeing people who are just trying to survive and do the right thing — and many of them now have American children who are not causing problems in our community — treated like they are violent, violent criminals.”

    The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has refused to honor ICE detainers at the jail for more than a decade, but state officials last month challenged that policy under the new state law.

    A spokesman for the sheriff’s office this week referred questions about the operation to New Orleans police.

    Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) told Fox News on Monday that “we don’t talk about specific operations, but we certainly invite [Border Patrol official] Greg Bovino and [ICE Deputy Director] Madison Sheahan and [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L.] Noem and all of President Trump’s great team that’s trying to make America safe to help make Louisiana safe.”

    “New Orleans is a crime-ridden city that we’ve been trying to keep people safe and something we’ve been working on since I became governor of Louisiana,” he said. “I’m welcoming them to come in. We’re going to take these dangerous criminals off the streets in Louisiana.”

    Asked what he thought of Kirkpatrick saying she can’t enforce immigration law, Landry conceded that “she can’t” and blamed the recently lifted federal consent decree that “decimated the New Orleans police department” and led him to create a French Quarter-based team of state police called “Troop Nola” “to get crime under control in New Orleans.”

    In September, Landry requested a National Guard deployment to New Orleans, citing an alleged increase in violent crime, even though police and city leaders say crime has decreased and federal support isn’t needed.

    Louisiana is a key hub in “Detention Alley,” a region that includes Texas and Mississippi that’s home to most of the country’s largest federal immigration detention centers. Louisiana’s centers house up to 6,000 detainees. The state opened the new “Louisiana Lockup” in September within the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola to hold immigrants whom federal officials consider dangerous. In a news conference, Noem said the prison’s “notorious” reputation — which includes a long, documented history of civil rights abuses — was a factor in choosing the facility to house undocumented immigrants.

    The New Orleans immigration enforcement operation, previously dubbed “Operation Swamp Sweep” in media reports anticipating the action, instead references Catahoula leopard dogs, trained by early Louisiana settlers to hunt wild boar.

  • Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in bribery and conspiracy case

    Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in bribery and conspiracy case

    President Donald Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case on Wednesday, citing what he called a “weaponized” justice system.

    Trump, who has argued that his own legal troubles were a partisan witch hunt, said on social media without presenting evidence that Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were prosecuted because the congressman had been critical of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

    Trump, a Republican, said in a social media post that Cuellar “bravely spoke out against Open Borders” and accused Biden, a Democrat, of going after the congressman and his wife “for speaking the TRUTH.”

    Federal authorities had charged Cuellar and his wife with accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar is accused of agreeing to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.

    Cuellar has said he and his wife are innocent. The couple’s trial had been set to begin next April.

    “Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight,” Trump wrote in his social media post announcing the pardon. “Your nightmare is finally over!”

    Cuellar thanks Trump for the pardon

    Cuellar, who spoke to reporters outside his congressional office on Wednesday, thanked Trump in a brief statement.

    “I think the facts have been clear about this, but I would also say I want to thank God for standing during this very difficult time with my family and I,” he said. ”Now we can get back to work. Nothing has changed. We will continue working hard.”

    Cuellar was asked if he was changing parties and said, “No, like I said, nothing has changed.”

    A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

    The Constitution gives the president broad power to grand pardons for federal crimes. The pardons don’t erase a recipient’s criminal record but can be seen as act of mercy or justice, often in cases that further public welfare.

    Trump’s pardons this year have included a string of unlikely beneficiaries who are boldfaced names and frequently politically aligned with the president. He pardoned dozens of Republicans accused of participating in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. He gave clemency to all of 1,500-plus people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He’s also pardoned a former Republican governor of Connecticut, an ex-GOP congressman and reality TV stars who had been convicted of cheating banks and evading taxes.

    Cuellar’s daughters sought a pardon for him

    In Trump’s social media post, he included a copy of a letter that Cuellar’s two daughters, Christina and Catherine, had sent to him on Nov. 12 asking that he pardon their parents.

    “When you and your family faced your own challenges, we understood that pain in a very human way,” Cuellar’s daughters wrote in their letter. ”We watched from afar through the eyes of daughters who knew what it felt like to see parents under fire.”

    One of Henry Cuellar’s lawyers, Eric Reed, said Wednesday that his legal team made a “pretty substantive presentation” to the Justice Department several months ago seeking dismissal of the charges. He declined to comment on what specifically Cuellar’s legal team discussed with the department but said the arguments made were not political in nature.

    In a statement, Imelda Cuellar’s lawyers said Wednesday they were gratified by Trump’s pardon of their client.

    “She has always maintained her innocence,” the statement said.

    Henry Cuellar still faces an Ethics Committee investigation in the House. It began in May 2024 shortly after his indictment and was reauthorized in July. The committee said it was in contact with the Justice Department about mitigating the risks associated with dual investigations while still meeting its obligations to safeguard the integrity of the House.

    Cuellar, who has served in Congress for more than 20 years, is a moderate Democrat who represents an area on the Texas-Mexico border and has a history of breaking with his party when it comes to immigration and firearms.

    He was among the most vocal critics of the Biden administration’s response to a record number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He also is one of the last Democrats in Congress who opposes abortion rights.

    Cuellar is not the only Democrat Trump has pardoned this year. In February, he pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, five years after he had commuted his sentence in a political corruption case.

    Like in Cuellar’s case, Trump suggested that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, faced federal corruption charges because he made comments critical of Biden’s immigration policies.

    Trump did not pardon Adams, but after Trump took office, the Justice Department moved to drop the case against the mayor, who had begun working with the Republican administration on immigration issues.

    A top Justice Department official, who was also Trump’s defense lawyer in several of his cases, stepped in to seek dismissal in the case.

  • Even a 15-minute walk may help boost your longevity

    Even a 15-minute walk may help boost your longevity

    Walking for at least 10 or 15 minutes at a time might do more for your health and longevity than spreading your steps out into shorter walks throughout the day, a large-scale study suggests.

    The study, published in October, looked at the effects of how people gather their steps each day, as well as how many steps they take and the associations that these patterns of daily activity might have with risks for heart disease and premature death.

    The data showed that middle-aged and older people in the study who grouped some of their steps into walks lasting 15 continuous minutes or more were about half as likely to develop heart disease in the near term as those who rarely walked for that long at one time. The people taking longer walks were also less likely to die during the yearslong study from any cause.

    “With physical activity, we know that the more the better,” said Emmanuel Stamatakis, a professor of physical activity, lifestyle and population health at the University of Sydney in Australia and lead author of the study. “But we haven’t had a very good understanding of the role of the pattern” of that activity.

    The study builds on earlier research, including from Stamatakis’s lab, exploring how to intensify the health benefits of even a little physical activity. But it also raises questions about whether it’s possible to overthink the simple walk.

    Most of us aren’t moving enough

    “This study is about identifying ways to maximize what people get out of their walking,” Stamatakis said.

    Walking may be the most common physical activity for almost everyone. But many of us do little of it. Current physical activity guidelines recommend 150 minutes a week of moderate activity, which would include brisk walking.

    But “75 to 80% of people are insufficiently active,” Stamatakis said, meaning they don’t meet those guidelines. Quite a few rarely exercise at all.

    It should be possible, though, to make even the briefest amounts of movement better for us, Stamatakis and his colleagues have speculated. In past studies, they have shown that picking up the pace of brief daily activities, such as housework, is associated with lower risks for heart disease and early death. The extra intensity seemed to make everyday chores and actions more potent for people’s health.

    But not everyone can or wishes to up the vigor of their vacuuming. Were there other ways to get more health bang from just being in motion, Stamatakis and his colleagues wondered? What about if people’s activities simply lasted a little longer?

    15-minute walks are best

    To find out, the scientists drew records for 33,560 men and women, most of them in their 60s, from the UK Biobank, a massive databank of British health records. All Biobank participants provide extensive medical information when they join, and many wear an activity tracker for a week.

    The scientists looked for participants who said they don’t formally exercise and whose activity trackers showed they typically accumulated fewer than 8,000 steps a day, most of them far fewer. They also had to be free of diagnosed heart disease.

    Using activity tracker data, the scientists divided people into groups, based on whether their longest daily walk lasted five or fewer minutes, 10 minutes, or 15 minutes or more. They also checked death and hospital records for up to about a decade after people wore the trackers. Then the researchers cross-referenced to see who seemed to have had the longest and healthiest lives.

    The results were consistent and clear. The men and women who’d walked for 15 continuous minutes or more had the lowest risks of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems and were more likely than the other groups to still be alive. Similarly, those walking for 10 uninterrupted minutes tended to live longer and with less heart disease than those whose longest walk lasted only five minutes.

    These effects held true even if people were taking about the same number of total steps each day.

    Why? It’s likely that the longer walking bouts “meaningfully activated” and altered people’s cardiovascular and metabolic systems in ways the briefer walks couldn’t, the researchers speculate in the study.

    “This is a very insightful and important epidemiological paper that sheds further light into the importance of being physically active,” said Darren Warburton, an exercise scientist at the University of British Columbia, who has studied the health effects of physical activity. He wasn’t involved in the new study.

    Any activity is better than none

    But the study shows association, not cause and effect, so it can’t prove longer walks necessarily lead to better health outcomes. People who walk longer might also be more interested in healthy eating and other good habits that influence their longevity as much as — or more than — their stepping behavior.

    The effects were most pronounced, too, in people walking the least. The people who took fewer than 5,000 steps most days but grouped some of those steps into longer 10- or 15-minute walks showed relatively larger reductions in their risks for heart disease and early death than people taking closer to 8,000 steps a day who likewise strolled for a quarter hour. In other words, if people rarely walked but sometimes walked longer, they got more out of those longer walks than people who generally walked more.

    So, the true lesson of the study could be, just walk more. But if you can’t or really want to amplify the potential benefits of your daily steps, walk a bit longer sometimes.

    That’s a message the study’s authors embrace. “We have a lot of data from other studies showing that any amount of physical activity is good,” said I-Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a study co-author. So, sure, “if you have a choice and are able to, try to walk for more than 10 minutes at a time,” she said. “But the total amount of activity is what matters more than the pattern in which it’s accumulated.”

  • Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace after talks with U.S. envoys

    Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace after talks with U.S. envoys

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine and its European allies accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.

    The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”

    The remarks reflect the high tensions and gaping gulf between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.

    U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine were productive but work remains, Putin adviser says

    A day earlier, Putin accused the Europeans of sabotaging the U.S.-led peace efforts — and warned that, if provoked, Russia would be ready for war with Europe.

    Since the 2022 invasion, European governments, along with the U.S., have spent billions of dollars to support Kyiv financially and militarily. Under President Donald Trump, however, the U.S. has tempered its support — and instead made a push to end the war.

    Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Tuesday’s talks at the Kremlin between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were “positive” but wouldn’t release any details.

    Follow the money to understand Trump’s plan for peace in Ukraine | Trudy Rubin

    Unclear where peace talks go now

    Where the peace talks go from here depends largely on whether the Trump administration decides to increase the pressure on Russia or on Ukraine to make concessions.

    A U.S. peace proposal that became public last month was criticized for being tilted heavily toward Moscow because it granted some of the Kremlin’s core demands that Kyiv has rejected as nonstarters.

    Many European leaders worry that if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, he will have free rein to threaten their countries, which already have faced incursions from Russian drones and fighter jets, and an alleged widespread sabotage campaign.

    Trump’s push to end the Russia-Ukraine war raises fears of an ‘ugly deal’ for Europe

    The Russian and American sides agreed Tuesday not to disclose the substance of their Kremlin talks, but at least one major hurdle to a settlement remains — the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia partially seized and occupies and claims as its own.

    After the talks, Ushakov told reporters that “so far, a compromise hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which the Kremlin sees “no resolution to the crisis.”

    Ukraine has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has captured.

    Asked whether peace was closer or further away after the talks, Ushakov said: “Not further, that’s for sure.”

    “But there’s still a lot of work to be done, both in Washington and in Moscow,” he said.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday it was “not correct” to say that Putin had rejected the U.S. peace plan. He declined to elaborate on the talks.

    “We’re deliberately not going to add anything,” he said. “It’s understood that the quieter these negotiations are conducted, the more productive they will be.”

    Europeans step up assistance for Ukraine

    Foreign ministers from European NATO countries, meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, showed little patience with Moscow.

    “What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. “It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”

    Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen struck the same note. “So far we haven’t seen any concessions from the side of the aggressor, which is Russia, and I think the best confidence-building measure would be to start with a full ceasefire,” she said.

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners will keep supplying military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.

    “The peace talks are ongoing. That’s good,” Rutte said.

    “But at the same time, we have to make sure that whilst they take place and we are not sure when they will end, that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going, to fight back against the Russians,” he said.

    Canada, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands announced they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars more together to buy U.S. weapons to donate to Ukraine.

    This year, European countries in NATO and Canada began buying U.S. weapons for Ukraine under a financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL.

    The war claims more lives

    Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a grim war of attrition on the battlefield and are using drones and missiles for long-range strikes behind the front line. Many analysts have noted that the slow slog favors Russia’s larger military, especially if disagreements between Europe and the U.S. or among Europeans hampers weapons delivery to Ukraine.

    Russian drones hit the town of Ternivka in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing two people and injuring three more, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko. Two people were in critical condition, he said, after the attack destroyed a house and damaged six more.

    Overall, Russia fired 111 strike and decoy drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said.

    Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed 102 Ukrainian drones overnight.

    Falling drone debris sparked a fire at an oil depot in the Tambov region, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Moscow, Gov. Yegveniy Pervyshov said.