Catholic faithful pay their final respects to Pope Francis as public viewing begins
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Thousands of people began filing through St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their final respects to Pope Francis on Wednesday at the start of three days of public viewing ahead of his funeral.
Throngs of the faithful made their way to the 16th century basilica's main altar where Francis' open wooden casket was perched, as Swiss Guards stood at attention. Over the coming days, tens of thousands of people are expected to pass through, and the Vatican said it may extend the viewer hours even longer due to high turnout. In the first 8 1/2 hours, 19,430 people paid their respects to the pope.
Francis was laid out in red robes, clasping a rosary and wearing a bishop’s miter, the traditional pointed headdress. Mourners waited hours to reach the casket, which was behind a cordon. Some held their cell phones aloft as they neared to snap photos in what has become a modern ritual.
“It gave me chills,” said Ivenes Bianco, as she left. She was in Rome from the southern city of Brindisi for medical care, and came to pay her respects. "He was important to me because he encouraged co-existence. He brought many people together.''
Francis’ casket wasn’t put on an elevated bier — as was the case with past popes — but placed on a ramp, facing the pews. It was in keeping with his wishes for the rituals surrounding a papal funeral to be simplified to reflect his belief that the pope’s role is that of simple pastor, not world leader.
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Trump says Zelenskyy is prolonging war in Ukraine by resisting calls to cede Crimea to Russia
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Ukraine's president, saying Volodymyr Zelenskyy is prolonging the “killing field” after pushing back on ceding Crimea to Russia as part of a potential peace plan.
Zelenskyy on Tuesday ruled out ceding territory to Russia in any deal before talks set for Wednesday in London among U.S., European and Ukrainian officials. “There is nothing to talk about. It is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people,” Zelenskyy said.
During similar talks last week in Paris, U.S. officials presented a proposal that included allowing Russia to keep control of occupied Ukrainian territory as part of a deal, according to a European official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump called Zelenkyy's pushback “very harmful” to talks.
“Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?” he wrote on social media.
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Israeli strike in Gaza kills 23 as Arab mediators seek long-term truce
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An overnight Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed 23 people, as Arab mediators worked on a proposal to end the war with Hamas that would include a five-to-seven-year truce and the release of all remaining hostages, officials said Wednesday.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the strike, which set several tents ablaze, burning people alive. The military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters are embedded in densely populated areas. Another six people were killed in separate strikes, including 5-year-old twin girls.
France, Germany and Britain meanwhile said Israel's seven-week blockade on all imports to Gaza, including food, was “intolerable," in unusually strong criticism from three of the country's closest allies.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to release the hostages in order to “block Israel’s pretexts” for continuing the war. He reiterated his demands that Hamas give up their arms, referring to them as “sons of dogs” in unusually strong language during a speech in the West Bank.
Abbas, who heads the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, has no influence over Hamas but seeks a role in postwar Gaza. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said anyone making such insults has “lost their physical, psychological and mental eligibility for these leadership positions.”
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Rubio says Iran must give up nuclear enrichment in any deal with the US
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview released Wednesday that Iran must give up all nuclear enrichment if it wants to make a deal during talks with the Trump administration and head off the threat of armed conflict.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian energy use and says it does not seek to make weapons-grade uranium to build atomic bombs.
“If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries can have one, and that is they import enriched material,” Rubio said in a podcast interview with journalist Bari Weiss.
But Iran has long refused to give up its ability to enrich uranium. President Donald Trump in his first term pulled the U.S. out of a Obama-era nuclear deal focused on monitoring to ensure Iran did not move toward weapons-grade enrichment.
In the first months of his second term, Trump opened talks that he says will get a tougher agreement on Iran's nuclear program, with a second round of negotiations held Saturday and technical-level talks expected this weekend. Iran wants the easing of sanctions that have damaged its economy and is facing threatened Israeli or U.S. strikes aimed at disabling its nuclear program by force.
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Trump signs executive orders targeting colleges, plus schools' equity efforts
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered sharper scrutiny of America’s colleges and the accreditors that oversee them, part of his escalating campaign to end what he calls " wokeness ” and diversity efforts in education.
In a series of executive actions signed Wednesday, Trump targeted universities that he views as liberal adversaries to his political agenda. One order called for harder enforcement of a federal law requiring colleges to disclose their financial ties with foreign sources, while another called for a shakeup of the accrediting bodies that decide whether colleges can accept federal financial aid awarded to students.
Trump also ordered the Education Department to root out efforts to ensure equity in discipline in the nation's K-12 schools. Previous guidance from Democratic administrations directed schools not to disproportionately punish underrepresented minorities such as Black and Native American students. The administration says equity efforts amount to racial discrimination.
Colleges’ financial ties with foreign sources have long been a concern among Republicans, especially ties with China and other countries with adversarial relationships with the U.S. It became a priority during Trump’s first term and reemerged last week as the White House grasped for leverage in its escalating battle with Harvard University.
The White House said it needed to take action because Harvard and other colleges have routinely violated a federal disclosure law, which has been unevenly enforced since it was passed in the 1980s. Known as Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, the law requires colleges to disclose foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more.
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A dozen states sue the Trump administration to stop tariff policy
NEW YORK (AP) — A dozen states sued the Trump administration in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York on Wednesday to stop its tariff policy, saying it is unlawful and has brought chaos to the American economy.
The lawsuit said the policy put in place by President Donald Trump has been subject to his “whims rather than the sound exercise of lawful authority.”
It challenged Trump’s claim that he could arbitrarily impose tariffs based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The suit asks the court to declare the tariffs to be illegal, and to block government agencies and its officers from enforcing them.
A message sent to the Justice Department for comment was not immediately returned.
The states listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.
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India blames Pakistan for a deadly attack in Kashmir and suspends a key water treaty
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — India blamed Pakistan on Wednesday for a militant attack that killed 26 people in Indian-held Kashmir, downgrading diplomatic ties and suspending a crucial water-sharing treaty that has withstood two wars between the nuclear-armed rivals.
The spray of gunfire at tourists Tuesday in a scenic, mountain-ringed valley was the worst assault in years targeting civilians in the restive region that is claimed by both countries. The unidentified gunmen also wounded 17 other people.
India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, announced the diplomatic moves against Pakistan at a news conference in New Delhi late Wednesday, saying a special cabinet meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided that the attack had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. However, the government provided no evidence of this publicly.
Pakistan said it would respond more fully to India's actions on Thursday, but in the meantime Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad said that India was using “an unfortunate incident of terrorism” as a pretext to jettison a treaty it has long been trying to evade.
India describes militancy in Kashmir as Pakistan-backed terrorism. Pakistan denies this, and many Muslim Kashmiris consider the militants to be part of a home-grown freedom struggle.
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Congo's government and rebels say they are working toward a truce in the east
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Congo's government and a coalition of insurgents in the country's east including the M23 rebels have agreed to work toward a truce following peace talks in Qatar, a joint statement said Wednesday.
The statement was posted online by spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka of the M23 rebels, and confirmed by government spokesman Patrick Muyaya in comments to local media outlets.
The statement said the parties had agreed to “work towards concluding a truce" and that they were reaffirming their commitment to “an immediate end to hostilities." Previous commitments to a ceasefire, announced unilaterally, have not held, and Wednesday's statement was the first such commitment to be announced jointly.
Delegations from Congo’s government and the M23 rebel group met earlier this month in Doha, Qatar’s capital, according to officials from both sides.
The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify if the latest announcement had changed conditions on the ground in Congo's mineral-rich eastern region.
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Musk damaged Tesla's brand in just a few months. Fixing it will likely take longer
NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk has been called a Moonshot Master, the Edison of Our Age and the Architect of the Future, but he's got a big problem at his car company and it's not clear he can fix it: damage to its brand.
Sales have plunged for Tesla amid protests and boycotts over Musk's embrace of far right-wing views. Profits have been sliced by two-thirds so far this year, and rivals from China, Europe and the U.S. are pouncing.
On Tuesday came some relief as Musk announced in an earnings call with investors that he would be scaling back his government cost-cutting job in Washington to a “day or two per week" to focus more on his old job as Tesla's boss.
Investors pushed up Tesla's stock 5% Wednesday, though there are plenty of challenges ahead.
Musk seemed to downplay the role that brand damage played in the drop in first-quarter sales on the investor call. Instead, he emphasized something more fleeting — an upgrade to Tesla's best-selling Model Y that forced a shutdown of factories and pinched both supply and demand.
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China's fast-growing EV makers pursuing varied routes to global expansion
SHANGHAI (AP) — The world’s auto industry is getting a shake-up from Chinese automakers that are quickly expanding across the globe, offering relatively affordable electric vehicles designed to wow car buyers with sleek designs and the latest high-tech interiors.
Companies like BYD, Great Wall, Geely and Chery Automobile are reaching outward as they build the scale they need to survive cut-throat competition in their home market.
These generally are not state-run giants like SAIC, BAIC and Guangzhou Automotive. The founder of Geely started out making refrigerators.
BYD first built up its expertise in battery technology, now its biggest advantage as the world’s largest-selling EV maker. Some others are technology companies allied with automakers to offer autonomous driving.
Here are some of the key players:
The Associated Press
