World
Farmers in India are hit hard by extreme weather. Some say expanding natural farming is the answer
There's a pungent odor on Ratna Raju's farm that he says is protecting his crops from the unpredictable and extreme weather that's become more frequent with human-caused climate change.
The smell comes from a concoction of cow urine, an unrefined sugar known as jaggery, and other organic materials that act as fertilizers, pesticides and bad weather barriers for his corn, rice, leafy greens and other vegetables on his farm in Guntur in India's southern Andhra Pradesh state. The region is frequently hit by cyclones and extreme heat, and farmers say that so-called natural farming protects their crops because the soil can hold more water, and their more robust roots help the plants withstand strong winds.
Andhra Pradesh has become a positive example of the benefits of natural farming, and advocates say active government support is the primary driver for the state’s success. Experts say these methods should be expanded across India's vast agricultural lands as climate change and decreasing profits have led to multiple farmers' protests this year. But fledgling government support across the country for these methods means most farmers still use chemical pesticides and fertilizers, making them more vulnerable when extreme weather hits. Many farmers are calling for greater federal and state investment to help farms switch to more climate change-proof practices.
For many, the benefits of greater investment in natural farming are already obvious: In December, Cyclone Michaung, a storm moving up to 110 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) brought heavy rainfall across India's southeastern coast, flooding towns and fields. A preliminary assessment conducted a few weeks later found that 600,000 acres of crops were destroyed in Andhra Pradesh state.
On Raju's natural farm, however, where he was growing paddy at the time, “the rainwater on our farms seeped into the ground in one day,” he said. The soil can absorb more water because it's more porous than pesticide-laden soil which is crusty and dry. Planting different kinds of crops throughout the year — as opposed to the more standard single crop farms — also helps keep the soil healthy, he said.
But neighboring farmer Srikanth Kanapala's fields, that rely on chemical pesticides and fertilizers, were flooded for four days after the cyclone. He said seeing Raju's crops hold firm while his failed has made him curious about alternative farming methods.
“I incurred huge losses,” said Kanapala, who estimates he lost up to $600 because of the cyclone, a substantial sum for a small farmer in India. “For the next planting season, I plan to use natural farming methods too.”
Local and federal government initiatives have resulted in an estimated 700,000 farmers shifting to natural farming in the state according to Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, a government-backed not-for-profit launched in 2016 to promote natural farming. The state of Andhra Pradesh hopes to inspire all of its six million farmers to take up natural farming by the end of the decade.
The Indian federal government’s agriculture ministry has spent upwards of $8 million to promote natural farming and says farmers tilling nearly a million acres across the country have shifted to the practice. In March last year, India’s junior minister for agriculture said he hoped at least 25% of farms across India would use organic and natural farming techniques.
But farmers like Meerabi Chunduru, one of the first in the region to switch to natural farming, said more government and political support is needed. Chunduru said she switched to the practice after her husband’s health deteriorated, which she believes is because of prolonged exposure to some harmful pesticides.
While the health effects of various pesticides have not yet been studied in detail, farm workers around the world have long claimed extended exposure has caused health problems. In February, a Philadelphia jury awarded $2.25 billion in damages in a case where a weed killer with Glyphosate — restricted in India since just 2022 — was linked to a resident's blood cancer. In India, 63 farmers died in the western state of Maharashtra in 2017, believed to be linked to a pesticide containing the chemical Diafenthiuron, which is currently banned in the European Union, but not in India.
“Right now, not many politicians are talking about natural farming. There is some support but we need more,” said Chunduru. She called for more subsidies for seeds such as groundnuts, black gram, sorghum, vegetable crops and maize that can help farmers make the switch.
Farmers' rights activists said skepticism about natural farming among political leaders, government bureaucrats and scientists is still pervasive because they still trust the existing farming models that use fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides to achieve maximum productivity. In the short-term, chemical alternatives can be cheaper and more effective, but in the long term they take a toll on the soil's health, meaning larger quantities of chemicals are needed to maintain crops, causing a cycle of greater costs and poorer soil, natural farming advocates say.
“Agroecological initiatives are not getting adequate attention or budgetary outlays,” said Kavitha Kuruganti, an activist who has advocated for sustainable farming practices for nearly three decades. The Indian government spends less than three percent of its total budget on agriculture. It has earmarked nearly $20 billion in fertilizer subsidies this year, but only $55 million has been allocated by the federal government to encourage natural farming. Kuruganti said there are a handful of politicians who support the practice but scaling it up remains a challenge in India.
A lack of national standards and guidelines or a viable supply chain that farmers can sell their produce through is also keeping natural farming relatively niche, said NS Suresh, a research scientist at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, a Bengaluru-based think-tank.
But because the practice helps keep the plants and the soil healthy across various soil types and all kinds of unpredictable weather conditions, it's beneficial for farmers all around India, from its mountains to its coasts, experts say. And the practice of planting different crops year-round means farmers have produce to harvest at any given time, giving an extra boost to their soil and their wallets.
Chunduru, who's been practicing natural farming for four years now, hopes that prioritizing natural farming in the country can have benefits for producers and consumers of crops alike, and other farmers avoid the kind of harms her husband has faced.
“We can provide nutrient-rich food, soil and physical health” to future generations, she said.
Iranian commander renews vow to avenge Syria strike attributed to Israel that killed 2 generals
A top military commander Saturday renewed Iran's promise to retaliate after an airstrike earlier this week widely blamed on Israel destroyed Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing 12 people, including two elite Iranian generals.
Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s joint chief of staff, told mourners gathered for the funeral of Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahdi that Iran will decide when and how to stage an “operation” to take revenge. Zahdi was the highest ranking commander slain in Monday’s attack.
“The time, type, plan of the operation will be decided by us, in a way that makes Israel regret what it did," he said. "This will definitely be done.”
The attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound was a significant escalation in a long-running shadow war between the two archenemies, and Israel has been bracing for an Iranian response.
In all, 12 people were killed in the strike: Seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard members, four Syrians and a Hezbollah militia member.
On Friday, the commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, warned that “our brave men will punish the Zionist regime,” escalating threats against Israel.
Tensions have flared against the backdrop of the six-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and raised renewed fears of a broader regional conflict. The Islamic militant group Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 17 years, is one of Iran’s proxies, along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Both Hezbollah and the Houthis have carried out attacks along the fringes of the Gaza war, with Hezbollah engaging in daily cross-border exchanges with Israel and the Houthis frequently targeting Red Sea shipping.
Bagheri made the comments in Isfahan, Zahedi’s hometown, about 440 kilometers (270 miles) south of the capital Tehran.
Earthquake aftershocks halt the demolition of a leaning building in Taiwan. Death toll rises to 13
The demolition of a building that is leaning precariously after an earthquake in Taiwan was halted on Saturday because of aftershocks that made it lean even more, media reports said.
The red building, about 10 stories tall and inclined over a street in the city of Hualien, has become an iconic image from the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that also buried people under boulders at nearby Taroko National Park, a popular hiking destination about 25 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of Hualien.
The death toll rose to 13 after a third victim was found on the park's Shakadang Trail. Six other people are still missing, including three on the same trail. More than 400 people remained stranded three days after the quake in locations cut off by damage. Most are at a hotel in Taroko park.
Hundreds of aftershocks have struck the area since the Wednesday morning quake off Taiwan's east coast, including a magnitude-5.2 earthquake shortly before noon on Saturday.
Survivors have told harrowing tales of rocks tumbling onto roadways, trapping them in tunnels until rescuers arrived to free them.
The relatively low number of deaths from the powerful quake has been attributed to strict construction standards and widespread public education campaigns on the earthquake-prone island. The quake was the strongest to hit Taiwan since a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in 1999 that killed 2,400 people.
Rescuers were planning to bring in heavy equipment to try to recover two bodies pinned under boulders on the Shakadang Trail. The three dead and three missing on the trail include a family of five. Search and recovery work had been called off Friday afternoon because of aftershocks.
In Hualien, a city official said that experts would discuss how to proceed with the demolition of the leaning building. Offerings were made at a ceremony before the demolition began the previous day.
Israel finds the body of a hostage killed in Gaza, while talks will resume on a cease-fire
Israel's military said Saturday it had recovered the body of a 47-year-old farmer who was held hostage in Gaza, while negotiators prepared for another round of talks Sunday on brokering a cease-fire and securing the release of the remaining hostages, six months into the war.
Israel's army said it found the body of Elad Katzir and believed he was killed in January by militants with Islamic Jihad, one of the groups that entered southern Israel in the Oct. 7 attack, killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Katzir was abducted from Nir Oz, a border community that suffered some of the heaviest losses.
The discovery renewed pressure on Israel's government for a deal to get the remaining hostages freed, and thousands gathered in Tel Aviv to call for a deal as well as early elections. Hostages' families have long feared time is running out. At least 36 hostages have been confirmed dead. About half of the original number have been released.
“He could have been saved if a deal had happened in time," Katzir’s sister Carmit said in a statement. "Our leadership is cowardly and driven by political considerations, and that is why (a deal) did not happen.”
Israelis are divided on the approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. A week ago, tens of thousands of Israelis thronged central Jerusalem in the largest anti-government protest since the war began.
Inside Gaza, the toll of Israel’s offensive is measured in tens of thousands of deaths and more than a million Palestinians displaced.
“We have arrived at a terrible milestone,” the U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement marking six months and noting “the immediate prospect of a shameful man-made famine.” He called the prospect of further escalation in Gaza “unconscionable.”
Cease-fire negotiations will resume Sunday, according to an Egyptian official and Egypt’s state-owned Al Qahera TV. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.
U.S. President Joe Biden has sent CIA Director Bill Burns to Egypt. A Hamas delegation will arrive Sunday to join the talks, the militant group said.
Hamas has insisted on linking a phased end to the war to any agreement releasing hostages. It has said it will agree to release 40 as part of an initial six-week cease-fire deal that would include the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Hamas also seeks the return of displaced people to devastated northern Gaza and more aid.
Israel has offered to allow 2,000 displaced Palestinians — mainly women, children and older people — to the north daily during a six-week cease-fire.
The talks come days after international condemnation of Israeli airstrikes that killed seven humanitarian workers with the World Central Kitchen charity. The Israeli military described it as a tragic error. Aid groups said the mistake is hardly an anomaly. The U.N. says at least 190 aid workers were killed in Gaza through the end of March.
Some Israel allies now consider halting arms sales. Biden warned Netanyahu that future U.S. support for the war depends on swift implementation of new steps to protect civilians and aid workers.
“We need security guarantees for us as humanitarians but also for the people we serve,” said Marika Guderian with the World Food Program, speaking inside Gaza.
The killings halted aid deliveries on a crucial new sea route for aid directly to Gaza as the U.N. and partners warn of “imminent famine” for 1.1 million people, or half the population. The humanitarian group Oxfam says people in northern Gaza are surviving on an average of 245 calories a day.
In Jabaliya, a refugee camp near Gaza City, families scrounged in the rubble for mallow leaves to make a thin broth to break the daily Ramadan fast. “Life has become miserable. They (daughters) tell me, ‘Father, you are feeding us mallow, mallow, mallow every day. We want to eat fish, chicken, canned food. We are craving eggs, or anything,’” said Wael Attar. They shelter in a school as part of the 1.7 million people displaced in Gaza.
Israel has promised to open more border crossings into Gaza and increase the flow of aid. The U.N. says that in March, 85% of trucks with food aid were denied or impeded.
The death toll from the war in Gaza is 33,137, the territory's Health Ministry said. Its toll doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it has said women and children make up the majority of the dead.
The ministry said the bodies of 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours — the lowest daily tally in months.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza, accusing it of operating in residential communities and public areas like hospitals.
The U.N. said it finally gained access to Gaza's largest hospital, Shifa, following a dayslong Israeli raid and found what the head of the World Health Organization called “an empty shell,” with most buildings destroyed. The WHO said numerous shallow graves, and many partially buried bodies, were found just outside the emergency department after the Israeli siege.
The destruction of Shifa and the main hospital in southern Gaza, Nasser, “has broken the backbone of the already ailing health system,” the WHO said.
Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah now holds more than half of the territory's 2.3 million people, and Israel's vow to carry out a ground offensive there has caused weeks of dread and warnings even from Israel's top ally, the United States.
Israel says its strike that killed aid workers was a mistake. Rights groups say it was no anomaly
Two basic mistakes, according to the Israeli military. First, officers overlooked a message detailing the vehicles in the convoy. Second, a spotter saw someone boarding one car, carrying something – possibly a bag – that he thought was a weapon. Officials say the result was the series of Israeli drone strikes that killed seven aid workers on a dark Gaza road.
The Israeli military has described the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy as a tragic error. Its explanation raises the question: If that's the case, how often has Israel made such mistakes in its 6-month-old offensive in Gaza?
Rights groups and aid workers say Monday night’s mistake was hardly an anomaly. They say the wider problem is not violations of the military’s rules of engagement but the rules themselves.
In Israel’s drive to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7 attacks, the rights groups and aid workers say, the military seems to have given itself wide leeway to determine what is a target and how many civilian deaths it allows as “collateral damage.”
More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that it tries to minimize civilian deaths. It blames the large number of civilian casualties on militants and says it's because they operate among the population. Israel says each strike goes through an assessment by legal experts, but it has not made its rules of engagement public.
OTHER STRIKES
In the thousands of strikes Israel has carried out, as well as shelling and shootings in ground operations, it's impossible to know how many times a target has been wrongly identified. Nearly every day, strikes level buildings with Palestinian families inside, killing men, women and children, with no explanation of the target or independent accountability over the proportionality of the strike.
Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said the World Central Kitchen strike drew world attention only because foreigners were killed.
“The thought that this is a unique case, that it’s a rare example — it’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has been following the situation,” she said.
She said a broader investigation is needed into the rules of engagement: “The relevant questions aren’t asked because the investigations only deal with specific cases, rather than the broader policy.”
Israel’s chief military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, acknowledged, “Mistakes were conducted in the last six months.”
“We do everything we can not to harm innocent civilians,” he told reporters. “It is hard because Hamas is going with civilian clothes … Is it a problem, is it complexity for us? Yes. Does that matter? No. We need to do more and more and more to distinguish.”
But the military hasn't specified how it will achieve this.
Brig. Gen. Benny Gal, who was part of the investigation into the World Central Kitchen strikes, was asked whether more questions should be asked before a strike is authorized.
“This was not our standards,” he said. “The standard is more questions, more details, more crossing sources. And this was not the case.”
WHITE FLAGS
Palestinian witnesses have repeatedly reported people, including women and children, being shot and killed or wounded by Israeli troops while carrying white flags. Several videos have surfaced showing Palestinians being fired at or killed while seeming to pose little threat to Israeli forces nearby.
In March, the military acknowledged it shot dead two Palestinians and wounded a third while walking on a Gaza beach. It said troops opened fire after the men allegedly ignored warning shots. It reacted after the news channel Al Jazeera showed footage of one of the men falling to the ground while walking in an open area and then a bulldozer pushing two bodies into the garbage-strewn sand. It said at least two of the three men were waving white flags.
Aid groups have also reported strikes on their personnel.
Medical Aid for Palestine said its residential compound in the southern area of Muwasi – which the military had defined as a safe zone – was hit in January by what the U.N. determined was a 1,000-pound bomb. Several team members were injured and the building damaged, the group said.
The group said the Israeli military gave it multiple explanations – denying involvement, saying it was trying to hit a target nearby and blaming a missile that went astray. “The variety of responses highlights a continued lack of transparency,” the group said.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said a tank shelled a house sheltering its staff and their families in Muwasi in February, killing one staffer's wife and daughter-in-law.
Both groups said they had informed the military repeatedly of their locations and clearly marked the buildings.
Israeli admissions of mistakes are rare.
In December, after a strike killed at least 106 people in the Maghazi camp, the military said buildings near the target were also hit, likely causing “unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians.” It also admitted soldiers mistakenly shot to death three Israeli hostages who were waving white flags after getting out of Hamas captivity in Gaza City.
‘THE PATTERN’
In Israel’s ground assaults, troops are operating in urban environments, searching for Hamas fighters while surrounded by a population hunkering in their homes and in motion, trying to flee or find food and medical care.
Some Israeli politicians and news outlets regularly proclaim there are no innocents in Gaza. And in some videos circulated online, soldiers talk of getting vengeance for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.
In that atmosphere, Palestinians and other critics say, soldiers on the ground appear to have wide liberty in deciding whether to target someone as suspicious. Residents and medical staff in Gaza say they see the result.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a doctor with Medical Aid for Palestinians who just returned from two weeks at a Gaza hospital, said staff regularly treated children and elderly shot by snipers.
“It’s not an anomaly. It’s actually the pattern,” she told journalists in a briefing this week. “I don’t think it’s that children in particular are singled out as targets. The understanding and kind of the conclusion you reach … is that everybody’s a target.”
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army and weapons expert who's done research and security missions in Gaza, said that if there was a breakdown in communication in the case of the World Central Kitchen strike, “for a professional army, this is inexcusable.”
“There seems to be a consistent pattern of utterly reckless behavior,” said Cobb-Smith, who helped investigate the Doctors Without Borders shelling.
Chris Lincoln-Jones, a former British intelligence staff officer who has worked in the defense industry including alongside an Israeli drone manufacturer, said the investigation showed unprofessional actions and poor command and control: "They don’t operate proper battle space management.”
Even if a gunman had been in the car with aid personnel, he said, it wouldn't justify a strike "unless the gunman was actually shooting at someone from the car.”
“No way that a NATO drone pilot would do that. I would expect to be prosecuted for doing that. I would expect to face the possibility of prison.”
Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv kill 6 and wound 11
Russian forces overnight attacked Ukraine with drones and missiles, killing at least six people and wounding 11 more in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, officials said Saturday.
Governor of the Kharkiv region Oleh Syniehubov said missile strikes on the city damaged residential buildings, a gas station, a kindergarten, a cafe, a shop and cars.
Overall, Russia fired 32 Iranian-made Shahed drones and six missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the air force commander. Ukrainian air defense forces shot down three cruise missiles and 28 drones, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk said in a statement. “Russian killers continue to terrorize Ukrainians and attack Kharkiv and other peaceful cities,” he said.
The Russian military has not commented on the strikes, but said that Ukraine on Saturday morning fired Vampire rockets at Russia. All 10 of them were shot down over Russia's border region of Belgorod by air defense systems, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Battles on the ground
On the ground in Ukraine, Russian forces were advancing, and pushing back against them was “difficult,” said Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's armed forces.
Syrksyi said the situation in the Bakhmut area in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region was particularly challenging. He said Russian forces are carrying out offensive operations day and night, using assault groups with the support of armored vehicles, as well as assaults on foot.
Fierce battles are taking place east of the town of Chasiv Yar, which Ukraine still controls and which is located near the occupied city of Bakhmut.
Russian forces are trying to break through defensive lines there, Syrskyi said on the messaging app Telegram, adding that “Chasiv Yar remains under our control, all enemy attempts to break through to the settlement have failed.”
Near Avdiivka, another city in the Donetsk region held by the Russians, the fiercest battles were occurring in Pervomaiskyi and Vodyanyi, according to the official. He also said the situation is tense on the southern and northeastern parts of the front line.
Biden urges Egypt, Qatar leaders to press Hamas to come to agreement for Israeli hostages in Gaza
President Joe Biden on Friday wrote to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, calling on them to press Hamas for a hostage deal with Israel, according to a senior administration official, one day after Biden called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to redouble efforts to reach a cease-fire in the six-month-old war in Gaza.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private letters, said Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will meet Monday with family members of some of the estimated 100 hostages who are believed to still be in Gaza.
The letters to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, come as Biden has deployed CIA Director William Burns to Cairo for talks this weekend about the hostage crisis.
David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, and negotiators from Egypt and Qatar are expected to attend. The Hamas side of the talks is indirect, with proposals relayed through third parties to Hamas leaders sheltering in tunnels beneath Gaza.
Biden tells Netanyahu future US support for Gaza war depends on new steps to protect civilians and aid workers
White House officials say negotiating a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas to facilitate the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel is the only way to put a temporary cease-fire into effect and boost the flow of badly humanitarian aid into the territory.
Biden, in his conversation with Netanyahu, “made clear that everything must be done to secure the release of hostages, including American citizens,” and discussed “the importance of fully empowering Israeli negotiators to reach a deal,” according to the official. The first phase of the proposed deal would secure the release of women and elderly, sick and wounded hostages.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said earlier Friday that Biden underscored the need to get a hostage deal done during the Thursday conversation with Netanyahu that largely focused on Israeli airstrikes that killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen.
“We are coming up on six months — six months that these people have been held hostage. And what we have to consider is just the abhorrent conditions" the hostages are being held in, Kirby said. “They need to be home with their families.”
Biden: Netanyahu 'hurting Israel' by not preventing more civilian deaths in Gaza
Biden had expressed optimism for a temporary cease-fire and a hostage deal during the runup to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but an agreement never materialized.
The White House said in a statement Thursday following Biden's call with Netanyahu that the U.S. president said reaching an “immediate cease-fire” in exchange for hostages was “essential” and urged Israel to reach such an accord “without delay.”
White House officials acknowledge that Biden has become increasingly frustrated with Israel's prosecution of a grinding war that has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.
The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, is among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history. Within two months, researchers say, the offensive already has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.
The White House has maintained its support for Israel amid growing domestic and international wariness with Israel’s prosecution of the war, and repeatedly said that a temporary cease-fire could have already come had Hamas agreed to release the sick, the wounded, the elderly, and young women.
But the pressure on Biden has only mounted since this week’s airstrikes that killed the World Central Kitchen workers.
The Israeli government acknowledged “mistakes” and announced some disciplinary measures against officers involved in ordering the strikes. Israel also approved a series of steps aimed at increasing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including the reopening of a key crossing that was destroyed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the World Central Kitchen incident is part of a broader problem with how the Israeli military is carrying out the war. Nearly 200 humanitarian aid workers have killed since start of the conflict.
“But the essential problem is not who made the mistakes, it is the military strategy and procedures in place that allow for those mistakes to multiply time and time again,” he said. “Fixing those failures requires independent investigations and meaningful and measurable change on the ground.”
Earthquake centered near New York City rattles much of the Northeast
An earthquake shook the densely populated New York City metropolitan area Friday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said, with residents across the Northeast reporting rumbling in a region where people are unaccustomed to feeling the ground move.
The agency reported a quake at 10:23 a.m. with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8, centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, or about 45 miles west of New York City and 50 miles north of Philadelphia. U.S.G.S. figures indicated that the quake might have been felt by more than 42 million people.
New York City’s emergency notification system said in a social media post more than 30 minutes after the quake that it had no reports of damage or injuries in the city. Mayor Eric Adams had been briefed on the quake, his spokesperson Fabien Levy said, adding, “While we do not have any reports of major impacts at this time, we’re still assessing the impact.”
Russia renews big attacks on Ukrainian power grid using better intelligence and new tactics
In midtown Manhattan, the usual cacophony of traffic grew louder as motorists blared their horns on momentarily shuddering streets. Some Brooklyn residents heard a booming sound and their building shaking. In an apartment house in Manhattan’s East Village, a resident from more earthquake-prone California calmed nervous neighbors.
People in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Connecticut and other areas of the Northeast reported shaking. Tremors lasting for several seconds were felt over 200 miles away near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.
In New York City’s Astoria neighborhood, Cassondra Kurtz was giving her 14-year-old Chihuahua, Chiki, a cocoa-butter rubdown for her dry skin. Kurtz was recording the moment on video, as an everyday memory of the dog’s older years, when her apartment started shaking hard enough that a 9-foot (2.7-meter-tall) mirror banged audibly against a wall.
Kurtz assumed at first it was a big truck going by.
“I’m from Jersey, so I’m not used to earthquakes,” she explained later.
The video captured her looking around, perplexed. Chiki, however, “was completely unbothered.”
At a coffee shop in lower Manhattan, customers buzzed over the unexpected earthquake, which rattled dishware and shook the concrete counter. “I noticed the door trembling on its frame,” said India Hays, a barista. “I thought surely there couldn’t be an earthquake here.”
Myanmar's worst violence since the military takeover is intensifying the crisis, the UN says
Solomon Byron was sitting on a park bench in Manhattan’s East Village when he felt an unfamiliar rumble. “I felt this vibration, and I was just like, where is that vibration coming from,” Byron said. “There’s no trains nowhere close by here or anything like that.” Byron said he didn’t realize there had been an earthquake until he got the alert on his cellphone.
The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the earthquake and was “in touch with federal, state, and local officials as we learn more.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X that the quake was felt throughout the state. “My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” Hochul said.
Philadelphia police asked people not to call 911 about seismic activity unless they were reporting an emergency. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said state officials were monitoring the situation. A spokesperson for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont was unaware of any reports of damage in that state.
The shaking stirred memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada. Registering magnitude 5.8, it was the strongest quake to hit the East Coast since World War II. The epicenter was in Virginia.
Rescuers search for people out of contact in Taiwan after strong earthquake
That earthquake left cracks in the Washington Monument, spurred the evacuation of the White House and Capitol and rattled New Yorkers three weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Russia renews big attacks on Ukrainian power grid using better intelligence and new tactics
When the Russian barrage hit the Ukrainian power plant, a worker named Taras was manning the control panel — a crucial task that required him to stay as the air-raid siren blared and his colleagues ran for safety.
After the deafening explosions came a cloud of smoke, then darkness. Fires blazed, and shrapnel pierced the roof of the huge complex, causing debris to rain down on workers. Following protocols, Taras shut down the coal-fired plant, his heart racing.
In the March 22 attack, Russia unleashed more than 60 exploding drones and 90 missiles across Ukraine — the worst assault on the country’s energy infrastructure since the full-scale invasion began in early 2022.
The fusillade reflected Russia's renewed focus on striking Ukrainian energy facilities. The volume and accuracy of recent attacks have alarmed the country's defenders, who say Kremlin forces now have better intelligence and fresh tactics in their campaign to annihilate Ukraine's electrical grid and bring its economy to a halt. Moscow has also apparently learned how to exploit gaps in Ukrainian air defenses.
With more assaults inevitable, officials are scrambling for ways to better defend the country's energy assets.
The March 22 attack — which left 1.9 million people without power, according to analysts — was among the most intense in Russia's springtime air campaign targeting civilian infrastructure.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, lost 80% of its power generation capacity in attacks on March 22 and 29, the company said. Plants were destroyed across the country. Russia targeted transmission networks as well.
The bombardment blacked out large parts of Ukraine — a level of darkness not seen since the first days of the full-scale invasion. The strikes also tested Ukraine’s ability to make quick repairs.
The Associated Press was given access to two DTEK power plants damaged in the March 22 attack on the condition that the names and locations of the facilities and the full names of workers not be mentioned due to security concerns. The AP was not permitted to provide technical details of damage, including the number of missiles that struck each plant or whether the plant could still function.
After previous assaults, power station workers were able to restore service fairly quickly. But that became harder after March 22 because of continuing strikes that prevent rebuilding.
The Kharkiv region, which borders Russia and was the hardest hit, is still enduring power outages weeks later. On Thursday, drones struck the region's Zmiivska power plant, plunging 350,000 people into the dark.
“They are trying to take us back to the 17th century,” said Serhii, a manager in one of the power plants that was attacked.
Maksym Timchenko, the CEO of DTEK, inspected the grounds of one of the two power stations. Gazing up at the titanic complex, his eyes rested on a gaping hole in the building’s scorched facade.
Inside, workers collected debris in wheelbarrows, their faces blackened by floating dust. Cranes removed giant shards of twisted metal and blocks of fallen concrete. In the dark bowels of the plant’s interior, where an intricate network of large pipes connect to industrial boilers, the steel roof was so pockmarked with shrapnel it resembled a starry night sky.
“I’ve never seen in my life this level of destruction in a power station, and unfortunately it happened to us,” Timchenko said.
He estimates that the company can restore half of the damaged units in two to three months. It’s a Sisyphean task: Workers must repair damage over and over again.
This particular plant was targeted late last year, and one unit was destroyed. Timchenko said DTEK planned to repair it by the end of this year.
“But now the same level of destruction has happened to several power units,” he said, bringing the plant and the company’s strategic plans back to square one.
During the agonizing wait for more strikes, Ukrainian officials are discussing how to better protect power generators. One solution may be decentralizing them by creating a network of small facilities that are harder to hit than large plants.
The timing of the attacks perplexed many observers.
Russia usually reserves large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure for the peak winter months, when demand for heat is highest. A spring campaign suggests Russia was behind schedule in unleashing new tactics, said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Kyiv-based Energy Industry Research Center.
“I am absolutely sure that they wanted to do this one month before,” he said.
Russia, as expected, targeted energy infrastructure in the last three months of last year, when temperatures dropped below freezing. But the high-voltage grid was prepared to sustain the attacks, and damaged sites were quickly repaired. In December, Russia accepted that the old tactics were not working.
As the winter months went by, Russia began concocting a new scheme.
“They did a huge intelligence job,” Kharchenko said, pointing to the precise nature of the attacks and the damage done. The Russian military seemed to “know everything about the current status of many energy infrastructure objects," including their defenses.
Once the targets were chosen, Russia swarmed them with missiles at an unprecedented scale. If before they launched three drones and two missiles per target, now they send six missiles and up to 15 drones, he said.
Air-defense systems could not stop everything. "It was too much,” he said.
Before the March 22 attacks, workers operated under the assumption that air defenses would take down 70% of air attacks. The strikes that got through often fell on the periphery of the plant, said Serhii, a plant manager.
"But now the circle is smaller and smaller, reaching our power units and control rooms,” Serhii said.
The result is dire. According to Kharchenko’s figures, Ukraine lost up to 15 percent of its power generation. That means, for now, it cannot cover the demand expected during the peak summer months of July and August.
In the aftermath of the attack on his power station, Taras was traumatized more by the scale of the destruction than the explosions that caused it.
“I wasn’t scared at first, but we got scared when we saw the consequences,” he said.
On the night of March 22, an injured worker was brought into the control room as fires blazed across the complex.
“With one hand, we conducted the shutdown, with the other we bandaged his injured leg,” he said. They left the plant using flashlights to navigate through pitch darkness.
“If the skies were protected, I would feel calmer,” he said. “Power infrastructure is something everything depends on. If there’s no power, nothing works: Plants don’t work. People are left without internet. You won’t even know when the missiles are flying at you.”
Trump says Israel has to get war in Gaza over 'fast' and warns it is 'losing the PR war'
Former President Donald Trump offered a tough message to Israel over its war against Hamas on Thursday, urging the country to: “Get it over with.”
In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said that Israel is “absolutely losing the PR war” and called for a swift resolution to the bloodshed.
“Get it over with and let’s get back to peace and stop killing people. And that’s a very simple statement," Trump said. "They have to get it done. Get it over with and get it over with fast because we have to -- you have to get back to normalcy and peace.”
The presumptive GOP nominee, who has criticized President Joe Biden for being insufficiently supportive of Israel, also appeared to question the tactics of the Israeli military as the civilian death toll in Gaza continues to mount. Since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Israel’s military has battered the territory, killing more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and creating a humanitarian catastrophe.
“I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. You have to have a victory, and it’s taking a long time," Trump said.
He specifically criticized Israel's decision to release footage of its offensive actions. Throughout the war, the Israeli military has released videos of airstrikes and other attacks against what it describes as “terrorist infrastructure.”
“They shouldn’t be releasing tapes like that," he said. “That’s why they’re losing the PR war. They, Israel is absolutely losing the PR war.”
“They’re releasing the most heinous, most horrible tapes of buildings falling down. And people are imagining there’s a lot of people in those buildings, or people in those buildings, and they don’t like it,” he added. "They’re losing the PR war. They’re losing it big. But they’ve got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.”
The comments offered a vivid example of the attention Trump pays to imagery and optics as he measures the cost of war. But they also show the similarities between Trump's and Biden's positions, even as Trump has criticized Biden’s handling of the conflict, going so far as to charge that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and hate “their religion”
Until Thursday, Biden's administration had broadly backed Israeli efforts to try to remove Hamas’ grip over Gaza, even as he called for a short term cease-fire to free hostages and surge humanitarian aid. He had also expressed concern that Israel’s operation was isolating it on the world stage.
That concern has intensified since an Israeli air strike this week killed seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aide workers try to deliver food to Palestinians, adding a new layer of complication to Biden and Netanyahu's increasingly strained relationship.
In a phone call Thursday Biden issued a stark new warning to Israel, telling Netanyahu that future U.S. support for the war depends on new steps to protect civilians and aid workers.
Biden "made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers,” the White House said in a statement. He also told Netanyahu that an “immediate cease-fire is essential” and urged Israel to reach a deal “without delay."
The tougher stance comes as the administration continues to try to dissuade Israel from launching a major offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million civilians are sheltering.
Biden had issued an unusually sharp statement after the aid workers' deaths criticizing Israel for not doing more to protect humanitarian workers and civilians and for refusing to allow more food into the Gaza Strip.
Trump has long labeled himself the most pro-Israel president in the nation’s history and often notes his decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
But Trump has also had a tense relationship with Netanyahu since he left the White House. Though the two were close allies for years, the former president responded with fury after the Israel leader congratulated then-President-elect Biden for winning the 2020 election while Trump was still trying to overturn the results.
In interviews for a book about his Middle East peace efforts, Trump, according to the author, used an expletive to describe Netanyahu, accused him of disloyalty and said he believed the Israeli leader never really wanted to make peace.
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Trump drew rare condemnation from his GOP rivals when he lashed out at Netanyahu, saying Israeli leaders needed to “step up their game” and that Netanyahu “was not prepared” for the deadly incursion that killed some 1,200 people. More than 250 people were also taken hostages.
At the time, Trump said that he supported the country’s efforts to “crush” Hamas.
Trump was also criticized by some in Israel for comments he made to the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom last month calling for a swift end to the war.
“I will say Israel has to be very careful because you are losing a lot of the world. You are losing a lot of support,” he had warned.