By BARRY HATTON and KATIE MARIE DAVIES, Associated Press

The second Oval Office meeting in six months between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went off smoothly Monday, in sharp contrast to their disastrous encounter in February.

European leaders joined the discussions in a show of transatlantic unity, and both they and Zelenskyy repeatedly thanked Trump for his efforts to end Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine.

“I don’t want to hide the fact that I wasn’t sure it would go this way,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in Washington. “But my expectations were not just met, they were exceeded.”

Zelenskyy said Tuesday: “We have taken an important step towards ending this war and ensuring security for Ukraine and all of Europe.”

But despite the guarded optimism and friendly banter among the leaders, there was little concrete progress on the main obstacles to ending the war — and that deadlock likely favors Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces continue to make steady, if slow progress on the ground in Ukraine.

“Putin cannot get enough champagne or whatever he’s drinking,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, a former foreign minister of Lithuania, said of Monday’s meeting.

As NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told The Ingraham Angle on Fox News: “All the details have to be hammered out.”

Here is a look at the issues that must be resolved:

Security guarantees for Ukraine

To agree to a peace deal with Russia, Ukraine wants assurances that it can deter any future attacks by the Kremlin’s forces.

That means, Zelenskyy says, a strong Ukrainian army that is provided with weapons and training by Western partners.

It could potentially also mean offering Ukraine a guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate, which sees an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack on all. How that would work is not clear.

Additionally, Kyiv’s European allies are looking to set up a force that could backstop any peace agreement in Ukraine.

A coalition of 30 countries, including European nations, Japan and Australia, have signed up to support the initiative, although the role that the U.S. might play in such a force is unclear.

European leaders, fearing Moscow’s territorial ambitions won’t stop in Ukraine, are keen to lock America’s military might into the plan.

Trump said he’ll help provide protection but stopped short of committing American troops to the effort, instead promising U.S. “coordination.”

Russia has repeatedly rejected the idea of such a force, saying that it will not accept NATO troops in Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron co-chaired an online meeting Tuesday of the coalition countries.

Once officials have discussed proposals in more detail, Rutte said, a virtual meeting will take place with Trump and European leaders.

Agreeing on a ceasefire

Ukraine and its European supporters have repeatedly called for a ceasefire while peace talks are held.

Putin has balked at that prospect. With his forces inching forward in Ukraine, he has little incentive to freeze their movement.

Ahead of his meeting with the Russian leader last week, Trump threatened Russia with “severe consequences” if it didn’t accept a ceasefire. Afterward, he dropped that demand and said it was best to focus on a comprehensive peace deal — as Putin has pushed for.

Trump said in Monday’s Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy that a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was “unnecessary.” But after his closed-door meeting with European leaders and Zelenskyy, Trump told reporters that “all of us would obviously prefer the immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace.”

Where Trump ultimately falls on that issue is important because it could affect how much Ukrainian land Russia has seized by the time the two sides get around to hammering out how much it could keep.

Occupied Ukrainian territory

Zelenskyy and European leaders said that Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up the Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the most intense fighting but that Russian forces have failed to capture completely.

Moscow’s forces also hold Crimea as well as parts of six other regions — all adding up to about one-fifth of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy has long noted the Ukrainian Constitution prohibits breaking up his country. He has also suggested the demand for territory would serve as a springboard for future invasion.

Rutte said the possibility of Ukraine ceding occupied territory to Russia in return for peace wasn’t discussed in Monday’s talks. That is an issue for Zelenskyy and Putin to consider together, he said to Fox News.

A Putin-Zelenskyy meeting

Zelenskyy has repeatedly suggested sitting down with Putin, even challenging the Russian leader to meet him as part of direct peace talks between the two sides in Turkey in May. Putin snubbed that offer, saying that significant progress on an agreement would have to be made before the pair met in person.

On Monday, Trump appeared to back Zelenskyy’s plan. “I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump said in a social media post.

He said he would join the two leaders afterward.

But when discussing a phone call held after the meeting between Trump and the Russian leader, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov gave no indication that either a bilateral or a trilateral meeting with Ukraine had been agreed.

European leaders know that Putin doesn’t want to meet Zelenskyy and that he won’t allow Western troops in Ukraine — but they’re expressing optimism that these things could happen in the hopes of forcing Putin to be the one to say no to Trump, according to Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“Europeans hype up expectations to create a reality in which Putin disappoints,” he wrote on X.

Associated Press writers Sam McNeil in Brussels and Emma Burrows in London contributed.

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. special envoy to Lebanon said Monday that his team would discuss the long-term cessation of hostilities with Israel, after Beirut endorsed a U.S.-backed plan for the Hezbollah militant group to disarm.

Tom Barrack, following a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, also said Washington would seek an economic proposal for post-war reconstruction in the country, after months of shuttle diplomacy between the U.S. and Lebanon.

Barrack is also set to meet with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Speaker Nabih Berri, who often negotiates on behalf of Hezbollah with Washington.

“I think the Lebanese government has done their part. They’ve taken the first step,” said Barrack, who is also the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. “Now what we need is for Israel to comply with that equal handshake.”

Lebanon’s decision last week to support a plan to disarm Hezbollah angered the Iran-backed group and its allies, who believe Israel’s military should first withdraw from the five hilltops it has occupied in southern Lebanon since the end of its 14-month war with Hezbollah last November and stop launching almost daily airstrikes in the country.

Naim Kassem, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, has vowed to fight efforts to disarm the group, sowing fears of civil unrest in the country.

Barrack warned Hezbollah that it will have “missed an opportunity” if it doesn’t back the calls for it to disarm.

Aoun and Salam both want to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups, and have demanded Israel halt its attacks and withdraw from the country.

Aoun said he wants to increase funding for Lebanon’s cash-strapped military to bolster its capacity. He also wants to raise money from international donors to help rebuild the country.

The World Bank estimates that Hezbollah and Israel’s monthslong war in late 2024 cost $11.1 billion in damages and economic losses as larges swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon were battered. The country has also faced a crippling economic crisis since 2019.

By JOSH BOAK and SAMYA KULLAB, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine’s future could hinge on a hastily assembled meeting Monday at the White House as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy brings with him an extraordinary cadre of European leaders to show U.S. President Donald Trump a united front against Russia.

The European political heavy-hitters were left out of Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday, and they’re looking to safeguard Ukraine and the continent from any widening aggression from Moscow.

By arriving as a group, they hope to avoid any debacles like Zelenskyy’s February meeting in the Oval Office, where Trump chastised him for not showing enough gratitude for American military aid. The meeting also is a test of America’s relationship with its closest allies after the European Union and the United Kingdom accepted Trump’s tariff hikes partly because they wanted his support on Ukraine.

Monday’s showing is a sign of the progress and the possible distress coming out of the Alaska meeting as many of Europe’s leaders descend on Washington with the explicit goal of protecting Ukraine’s interests, a rare and sweeping show of diplomatic force.

“It’s important that America agrees to work with Europe to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, and therefore for all of Europe,” Zelenskyy said on X.

The night before the meeting, however, Trump seemed to put the onus on Zelenskyy to agree to concessions and suggested Ukraine couldn’t regain Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, setting off an armed conflict that led to its broader 2022 invasion.

“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump wrote on social media. “Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!”

Zelenskyy appeared to respond with his own post, saying, “We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably.” He went on to say that “peace must be lasting,” not as it was after Russia seized Crimea and part of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine eight years ago, and “Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack.”

The sitdown in Alaska yielded the possible contours for stopping the war in Ukraine, though it was unclear whether the terms discussed would ultimately be acceptable to Zelenskyy or Putin.

Upon arrival in Washington, Zelenskyy said in another social media post: “We all equally want to end this war quickly and reliably.” He expressed hope that together with the U.S. and European countries Ukraine will be able to force Russia to “true peace.”

European heavyweights in Washington

Planning to join Zelenskyy in America’s capital are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

On the table for discussion are possible NATO-like security guarantees Ukraine would need for any peace with Russia to be durable. Putin opposes Ukraine joining NATO outright, yet Trump’s team claims the Russian leader is open to allies agreeing to defend Ukraine if it comes under attack.

Trump briefed Zelenskyy and European allies shortly after the Putin meeting, and details from the discussions emerged in a scattershot way that seemed to rankle the Republican U.S. president, who had chosen not to outline any terms when appearing afterward with Putin.

“BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA,” Trump posted online Sunday. The president also bemoaned media coverage of his summit with Putin, saying on Truth Social: “I had a great meeting in Alaska.”

Following the Alaska summit, Trump declared a ceasefire was unnecessary for peace talks to proceed, a shift to a position favored by Putin.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday a ceasefire was still possible but “the best way to end this conflict is through a full peace deal.”

‘A very big move’

European officials confirmed Trump told them Putin is still seeking control of the entire Donbas region, even though Ukraine controls a meaningful share of it.

And Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the U.S. and its allies could offer Ukraine a NATO-like commitment to defend the country if it came under attack as the possible security guarantee.

“How that’s constructed, what we call it, how it’s built, what guarantees are built into it that are enforceable, that’s what we’ll be talking about over the next few days with our partners who are coming in from overseas,” Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Rubio said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” such a commitment “would be a very big move” by Trump. He expects the delegations will “spend six, seven hours talking about these things, maybe more, and try to get to a point where we have something more concrete.”

Monday’s meeting will likely be very tough for Zelenskyy, an official close to the ongoing talks said. That official spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak openly about thinking within Ukraine and between allies.

Zelenskyy needs to prevent a scenario in which he gets blamed for blocking peace talks by rejecting Putin’s maximalist demand on the Donbas, the official said. It’s a demand Zelenskyy has said many times he’ll never accept because it’s unconstitutional and could create a launching pad for future Russian attacks.

If confronted with pressure to accept Putin’s demands, Zelenskyy would likely have to revert to a skill he has demonstrated time and again: diplomatic tact. Ukrainian leadership is seeking a trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump and Putin to discuss sensitive matters, including territorial issues.

Trump’s ambition to end the war

After enduring a public tirade by Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February, Zelenskyy worked to repair relations with the U.S.

Constant diplomatic communication and a 15-minute meeting at the Vatican in April on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral helped turn the tide. Trump appeared at the time to be swayed by Zelenskyy’s conditions for peace.

But Trump says he cares primarily about ending the war, an ambition that led him after his meeting with Putin to discard the need for a ceasefire.

European allies also have worked with Trump, reaching a deal in July for NATO allies to buy weapons from the U.S. for Ukraine.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Macron stressed the importance of building up Ukraine’s military and the need to show Putin that Europe interprets his moves as a threat to other nations.

“If we are weak with Russia today, we’ll be preparing the conflicts of tomorrow and they will impact the Ukrainians and — make no mistake — they can impact us, too,” Macron said.

Russia continues attacks on Ukraine

In the meantime, the Russian forces continued pounding Ukraine with missiles and drones.

A Russian drone strike late Sunday on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, killed seven civilians. The strike also injured 20 people, authorities said.

Russian aerial attacks also targeted the northeastern Sumy region and the southern Odesa region.

In Zaporizhzhia, a city in the southeast, 17 people were injured in an attack Monday, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.

Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched four Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 140 Shahed and decoy drones across Ukraine overnight, of which 88 drones were intercepted or jammed.

Kullab reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press writers John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed.

By BARRY HATTON, Associated Press

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House on Monday to discuss how to end Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine.

Months of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting haven’t made headway, but the stakes have risen since Trump met with with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. After that summit, Trump abandoned the requirement of reaching a ceasefire in order to hold further talks and aligned with Putin’s position that negotiations should focus on a long-term settlement instead.

The presence of several European leaders at the talks in Washington shows how central the conflict — and any settlement — is to wider security questions on the continent.

They are looking to safeguard Ukraine and Europe more broadly from any further aggression from Moscow — but also are providing a show of support for Zelenskyy after his last visit to the White House led to an angry confrontation. The American and Ukrainian leaders are scheduled to first meet privately, without the Europeans.

Here’s what to know about the Washington meeting.

The talks could be a pivotal moment in the war

After meeting Putin in Alaska, Trump is making a big push for a breakthrough.

A lot of issues need to be resolved, however, and the two sides have previously established red lines that are incompatible, including questions of whether Ukraine will cede any land to Russia, the future of Ukraine’s army and whether the country will have any guarantee against further Russian aggression.

In a post on social media Sunday night, Trump appeared to shift the burden for ending the war to Zelenskyy, whose country was invaded in February 2022.

“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” he wrote.

A comprehensive peace deal could still be a long way off.

Putin wants the Donbas

As a condition for peace, the Russian leader wants Kyiv to give up the Donbas, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the most intense fighting but that Russian forces have failed to capture completely.

In his Sunday night post, Trump wrote that Zelenskyy should also accept Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

As part of a deal, Putin has said the United States and its European allies can provide Ukraine with a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense pledge, according to a senior U.S. official.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff called that a “game-changing” step though he offered few details on how it would work.

Ukraine has long pressed for some kind of guarantee that would prevent Russia from invading again.

Ukraine won’t surrender land to Russia

Zelenskyy has rejected Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the Donbas region, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, since the Ukrainian Constitution forbids giving up territory or trading land. That also means he can’t cede Crimea either.

Instead, freezing the front line — which snakes roughly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from northeastern to southeastern Ukraine — seems to be the most the Ukrainian people might accept.

Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Europe’s security is also at stake in the talks

European leaders see Ukraine’s fight as a bulwark against any Kremlin ambitions to threaten other countries in eastern Europe and beyond.

French President Emmanuel Macron described Ukraine as an “outpost of our collective defense if Russia wanted to advance again.”

“If we are weak with Russia today, we’ll be preparing the conflicts of tomorrow and they will impact the Ukrainians and — make no mistake — they can impact us, too.” Macron said Sunday.

The European political heavyweights expected in Washington are Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Civilians are killed as the fighting continues

Ukraine has in recent months been losing more territory against Russia’s bigger army, and Moscow’s forces breached Ukrainian lines in a series of minor infiltrations in the Donetsk region ahead of the Alaska summit. But there is no sign of a looming, major Russian breakthrough on the front line.

Both sides have also kept up their daily long-range strikes behind the front line.

A Russian drone strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killed six people late Sunday, including an 18-month-old and a 16-year-old, according to regional head Oleh Syniehubov. The attack on the northeastern city injured 20 others, including six children, he said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday reported intercepting 23 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the annexed Crimean peninsula overnight.

By MARK THIESSEN and GENE JOHNSON

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, it will be the latest chapter in the 49th state’s long history with Russia — and with international tensions.

Siberian fur traders arrived from across the Bering Sea in the first part of the 18th century, and the imprint of Russian settlement in Alaska remains. The oldest building in Anchorage is a Russian Orthodox church, and many Alaska Natives have Russian surnames.

The nations are so close — Alaska’s Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait is less than 3 miles from Russia’s Big Diomede — that former Gov. Sarah Palin was right during the 2008 presidential race when she said, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska,” though the comment prompted jokes that that was the extent of her foreign policy experience.

Alaska has been U.S. territory since 1867, and it has since been the location of the only World War II battle on North American soil, a focus of Cold War tensions and the site of occasional meetings between U.S. and world leaders.

Here’s a look at Alaska’s history with Russia and on the international stage:

Russian trappers and Seward’s Folly

The fur traders established hubs in Sitka and on Kodiak Island. The Russian population in Alaska never surpassed about 400 permanent settlers, according to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. State Department.

Russian settlers brutally coerced Alaska Natives to harvest sea otters and other marine mammals for their pelts, said Ian Hartman, a University of Alaska Anchorage history professor.

“It was a relationship that the Russians made clear quite early on was not really about kind of a longer-term pattern of settlement, but it was much more about a short-term pattern of extraction,” Hartman said.

Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox missionaries baptized an estimated 18,000 Alaska Natives.

By 1867 the otters had been hunted nearly to extinction and Russia was broke from the Crimean War. Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the U.S. for the low price of $7.2 million — knowing Russia couldn’t defend its interests in Alaska if the U.S. or Great Britain tried to seize it.

Skeptics referred to the purchase as “Seward’s Folly,” after U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward. That changed when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896.

World War II and the Cold War

The U.S. realized Alaska’s strategic importance in the 20th century. During World War II the island of Attu — the westernmost in the Aleutian chain and closer to Russia than to mainland North America — was captured by Japanese forces. The effort to reclaim it in 1943 became known as the war’s “forgotten battle.”

During the Cold War, military leaders worried Soviets might attack via Alaska, flying planes over the North Pole to drop nuclear weapons. They built a chain of radar systems connected to an anti-aircraft missile system.

Friday’s summit will be at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. The base was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and it still hosts key aircraft squadrons that intercept Russian aircraft when they fly into U.S. airspace.

The military constructed much of the infrastructure in Alaska, including roads and some communities, and its experience building on permafrost later informed the private companies that would drill for oil and construct the trans-Alaska pipeline.

Last year the Pentagon said the U.S. must invest more to upgrade sensors, communications and space-based technologies in the Arctic to keep pace with China and Russia, and it sent about 130 soldiers to a desolate Aleutian island amid an increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching U.S. territory.

Past visits by dignitaries

Putin will be the first Russian leader to visit, but other prominent figures have come before him.

Japanese Emperor Hirohito stopped in Anchorage before heading to Europe in 1971 to meet President Richard Nixon, and in 1984 thousands turned out to see President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II meet at the airport in Fairbanks.

President Barack Obama visited in 2015, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot north of the Arctic Circle, on a trip to highlight the dangers of climate change.

Gov. Bill Walker welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at the airport in Anchorage in 2017 and then took him on a short tour of the state’s largest city.

Four years later Anchorage was the setting for a less cordial meeting as top U.S. and Chinese officials held two days of contentious talks in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office two months earlier.

Critics say Alaska is a poor choice for the summit

Sentiment toward Russia in Alaska has cooled since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to suspend its three-decade-long sister city relationship with Magadan, Russia, and the Juneau Assembly sent its sister city of Vladivostok a letter expressing concern.

The group Stand Up Alaska has organized rallies against Putin on Thursday and Friday.

Dimitry Shein, who ran unsuccessfully for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House in 2018, fled from the Soviet Union to Anchorage with his mother in the early 1990s.

Russia and the U.S. “are just starting to look more and more alike,” he said.

Many observers have suggested that holding the summit in Alaska sends a bad symbolic message.

“It’s easy to imagine Putin making the argument during his meetings with Trump that, ‘Well, look, territories can change hands,’” said Nigel Gould-Davies, former British Ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. “’We gave you Alaska. Why can’t Ukraine give us a part of its territory?’”

The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Vladivostok.

Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Emma Burrows in London contributed.

Today is Saturday, Aug. 9, the 221st day of 2025. There are 144 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress dropped a nuclear device over Nagasaki; the bombing and subsequent radiation poisoning killed an estimated 74,000 people.

Also on this date:

In 1173, construction began on the campanile of Pisa Cathedral—better known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” which described Thoreau’s experiences while living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, was first published.

In 1936, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.

In 1969, actor Sharon Tate and four other people were found murdered at Tate’s Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his followers were later convicted of the crime.

In 1974, Gerald Ford took the oath of office to become US president after Richard Nixon’s resignation; in a speech following, Ford declared that “our long national nightmare is over.”

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.

In 2014, Michael Brown Jr., a Black 18-year-old, was shot to death by a police officer following an altercation in Ferguson, Missouri; Brown’s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, helping fuel a national “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Cousy is 97.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Rod Laver is 87.
• Jazz musician Jack DeJohnette is 83.
• Comedian-director David Steinberg is 83.
• Actor Sam Elliott is 81.
• Singer Barbara Mason is 78.
• College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player John Cappelletti is 73.
• College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player Doug Williams is 70.
• Actor Melanie Griffith is 68.
• Actor Amanda Bearse is 67.
• Rapper Kurtis Blow is 66.
• Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas is 65.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Brett Hull is 61.
• TV host Hoda Kotb (KAHT’-bee) is 61.
• Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is 58.
• Actor Gillian Anderson is 57.
• Actor Eric Bana is 57.
• Producer-director McG (aka Joseph McGinty Nichol) is 57.
• NHL player-turned-coach Rod Brind’Amour is 55.
• Actor Thomas Lennon is 55.
• Actor Nikki Schieler Ziering is 54.
• Latin rock singer Juanes is 53.
• Actor Liz Vassey is 53.
• Actor Kevin McKidd is 52.
• Actor Jessica Capshaw is 49.
• Actor Ashley Johnson is 42.
• Actor Anna Kendrick is 40.

By DASHA LITVINOVA

Bilateral meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterparts were a regular occurrence early in his tenure.

But as tensions mounted between Moscow and the West following the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and allegations of meddling with the 2016 U.S. elections, those became increasingly less frequent, and their tone appeared less friendly.

Here’s what to know about past meetings between Russian and U.S. presidents:

Putin and Joe Biden

Putin and Joe Biden met only once while holding the presidency –- in Geneva in June 2021.

Russia was amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, where large swaths of land in the east had long been occupied by Moscow-backed forces; Washington repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks. The Kremlin was intensifying its domestic crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his release.

Putin and Biden talked for three hours, but no breakthroughs came out of the meeting. The two exchanged expressions of mutual respect, but firmly restated their starkly different views on all of the above.

They spoke again via videoconference in December 2021 as tensions heightened over Ukraine. Biden threatened sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine, and Putin demanded guarantees that Kyiv wouldn’t join NATO –- something Washington and its allies said was a nonstarter.

Another phone call between the two came in February 2022, less than two weeks before the full-scale invasion. Then the high-level contacts stopped cold, with no publicly disclosed conversations between Putin and Biden since the invasion.

Putin and Donald Trump

Putin met Trump met six times during the American’s first term -– at and on the sidelines of G20 and APEC gatherings — but most famously in Helsinki in July 2018. That’s where Trump stood next to Putin and appeared to accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and openly questioned the firm finding by his own intelligence agencies.

His remarks were a stark illustration of Trump’s willingness to upend decades of U.S. foreign policy and rattle Western allies in service of his political concerns.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Putin and Barack Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama met with Putin nine times, and there were 12 more meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. Putin became prime minister in a move that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential term limits and run again in 2012.

Obama traveled to Russia twice — once to meet Medvedev in 2009 and again for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin also traveled to the U.S.

Under Medvedev, Moscow and Washington talked of “resetting” Russia-U.S. relations post-Cold War and worked on arms control treaties. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton famously presented a big “reset” button to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in 2009. One problem: instead of “reset” in Russian, they used another word meaning “overload.”

After Putin returned to office in 2012, tensions rose between the two countries. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian domestic affairs, saying it fomented anti-government protests that rocked Moscow just as Putin sought reelection. The authorities cracked down on dissent and civil society, drawing international condemnation.

Obama canceled his visit to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower.

In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the lowest point since the Cold War.

The Kremlin’s 2015 military intervention in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad further complicated ties. Putin and Obama last met in China in September 2016, on the sidelines of a G20 summit, and held talks focused on Ukraine and Syria.

Putin and George W. Bush

Putin and George W. Bush met 28 times during Bush’s two terms. They hosted each other for talks and informal meetings in Russia and the U.S., met regularly on the sidelines of international summits and forums, and boasted of improving ties between onetime rivals.

After the first meeting with Putin in 2001, Bush said he “looked the man in the eye” and “found him very straightforward and trustworthy,” getting “a sense of his soul.”

In 2002, they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty -– a nuclear arms pact that significantly reduced both countries’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.

Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attack, offering his condolences and support, and welcomed the U.S. military deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for action in Afghanistan.

He has called Bush “a decent person and a good friend,” adding that good relations with him helped find a way out of “the most acute and conflict situations.”

Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau contributed.

By DASHA LITVINOVA and BARRY HATTON, Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he hopes to meet next week with U.S. President Donald Trump, possibly in the United Arab Emirates. The news came on the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to show progress toward ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov had said earlier a summit could possibly take place next week at a venue that has been decided “in principle.”

Ushakov brushed aside the possibility of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the summit, something the White House had said Trump was ready to consider. Putin has spurned Zelenskyy’s previous offers of a meeting to clinch a breakthrough.

“We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive,” Ushakov said, adding that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s suggestion of a meeting including Ukraine’s leader “was not specifically discussed.”

Putin made the announcement in the Kremlin after his meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE.

There was no immediate comment Thursday from the White House and it was unclear how the announcement of the meeting would affect Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to stop the killing or face heavy economic sanctions.

Asked who initiated the meeting, Putin said that didn’t matter and “both sides expressed an interest.”

Speaking of the possible involvement of Zelenskyy in future talks, Putin said he has mentioned several times that he wasn’t against it, adding: “It’s a possibility, but certain conditions need to be created” for it to happen.

Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund who met with Witkoff on Wednesday, said a Trump-Putin meeting would allow Moscow to “clearly convey its position,” and he hoped a summit would include discussions on mutually beneficial economic issues, including joint investments in areas such as rare earth elements.

The meeting would be the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, when former President Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva. It would be a significant milestone toward Trump’s effort to end the war, although there’s no guarantee it would stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.

Next week is the target date for a summit, Ushakov said, while noting that such events take time to organize and no date is confirmed. The possible venue will be announced “a little later,” he said.

Months of U.S.-led efforts have yielded no progress on stopping Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. The war has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides as well as more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.

Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling for time in peace negotiations to allow Russian forces time to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin previously has offered no concessions and will only accept a settlement on his terms.

A meeting between Putin and Trump on the war would be a departure from the Biden administration’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” — a key demand from Kyiv.

At the start of his second term, Trump was conciliatory toward Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration, and even echoed some of his talking points on the war. But he recently has expressed increasing exasperation with Putin, criticizing the Kremlin leader for his unyielding stance on U.S.-led peace efforts, and has threatened Moscow with new sanctions.

Zelenskyy seeks European involvement

Zelenskyy said he planned calls with European leaders Thursday to discuss the latest developments amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.

European countries must also be involved in finding a solution to the war on their own continent, he said on Telegram.

“Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side. It is time to end the war,” he added.

A ceasefire and long-term security guarantees are priorities in potential negotiation with Russia, he said on social media.

Securing a truce, deciding a format for a summit and providing assurances for Ukraine’s future protection from invasion — a consideration that must involve the U.S. and Europe — are crucial aspects to address, Zelenskyy said.

He noted that Russian strikes on civilians haven’t eased off despite Trump publicly urging Putin to relent.

A Russian attack Wednesday in the central Dnipro region killed four people and injured eight others, he said.

Poll shows support for continuing the fight waning in Ukraine

A new Gallup poll published Thursday found that Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia’s invasion.

The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory. Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups.

The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10% of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 due to lack of access.

Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia’s relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops on both sides have died, Russia’s bigger army is slowly capturing more land.

In the new Gallup survey, conducted in early July, about seven in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible. Zelenskyy last month renewed his offer to meet with Putin, but his overture was rebuffed.

Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it’s “very” or “somewhat” likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about seven in 10 think it’s “somewhat” or “very” unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year.

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux contributed from Washington.

Today is Thursday, Aug. 7, the 219th day of 2025. There are 146 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 7, 1974, French highwire artist Philippe Petit performed an unapproved tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, over 1,300 feet above the ground; the event was chronicled in the Academy Award-winning documentary “Man on Wire.”

Also on this date:

In 1789, the U.S. Department of War was established by Congress.

In 1942, U.S. and other allied forces landed at Guadalcanal, marking the start of the first major allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II.

In 1960, Cote d’Ivoire gained independence from France.

In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad powers in dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.

In 1971, the Apollo 15 moon mission ended successfully as its command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared the Love Canal environmental disaster in Niagara Falls, N.Y. a federal health emergency; it would later top the initial list of Superfund cleanup sites.

In 1989, a plane carrying U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland, D-Texas, and 15 others disappeared over Ethiopia. (The wreckage of the plane was found six days later; there were no survivors.)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq.

In 1998, terrorist bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

In 2007, San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756 to break Hank Aaron’s storied record with one out in the fifth inning of a game against the Washington Nationals, who won, 8-6.

In 2012, to avoid a possible death penalty, Jared Lee Loughner agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison, accepting that he went on a deadly shooting rampage at an Arizona political gathering in 2011 that left six people dead and 13 injured, including U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

In 2015, Colorado theater shooter James Holmes was spared the death penalty in favor of life in prison after a jury in Centennial failed to agree on whether he should be executed for his attack on a packed movie premiere that left 12 people dead.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Singer Lana Cantrell is 82.
• Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is 81.
• Actor John Glover is 81.
• Actor David Rasche is 81.
• Former diplomat, talk show host and activist Alan Keyes is 75.
• Country singer Rodney Crowell is 75.
• Actor Caroline Aaron is 73.
• Comedian Alexei Sayle is 73.
• Actor Wayne Knight is 70.
• Rock singer Bruce Dickinson is 67.
• Actor David Duchovny is 65.
• Actor Delane Matthews is 64.
• Actor Harold Perrineau is 62.
• Jazz musician Marcus Roberts is 62.
• Country singer Raul Malo is 60.
• Actor David Mann is 59.
• Actor Charlotte Lewis is 58.
• Actor Sydney Penny is 54.
• Actor Greg Serano is 53.
• Actor Michael Shannon is 51.
• Actor Charlize Theron is 50.
• Rock musician Barry Kerch is 49.
• Actor Eric Johnson is 46.
• Actor Randy Wayne is 44.
• Actor-writer Brit Marling is 43.
• NHL center Sidney Crosby is 38.
• MLB All-Star Mike Trout is 34.
• Actor Liam James is 29.

One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Russia’s Far East early Wednesday, causing tsunami waves to wash ashore in Japan and Alaska and calls for people around the Pacific to be on alert or move to higher ground.

The 8.8 magnitude temblor set off warnings in Hawaii, North and Central America and Pacific islands south toward New Zealand, with officials warning that the potential tsunami danger may last for more than a day.

Here’s a glance at some of the most powerful earthquakes recorded previously, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

1. Biobío, Chile

A 9.5 magnitude earthquake struck in a central region of Chile in 1960. Known as the Valdivia earthquake or Great Chilean earthquake, the largest ever recorded temblor resulted in more than 1,600 deaths in the country and beyond, most of which were caused by resulting large tsunami. Thousands of people were injured.

2. Alaska

In 1964, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake jolted the Alaska’s Prince William Sound, lasting for almost 5 minutes. More than 130 people were killed in the largest recorded earthquake in the U.S. and subsequent tsunami. There were huge landslides and towering waves that caused severe flooding. The event was followed by thousands of aftershocks for weeks after the initial quake.

3. Sumatra, Indonesia

A 9.1 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated Southeast and South Asia and East Africa in 2004, killing 230,000 people. Indonesia alone recorded more than 167,000 deaths as entire communities were wiped out.

4. Tohoku, Japan

A magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan in 2011, triggering a towering tsunami that smashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant. It knocked out power and cooling systems and triggered meltdowns in three reactors. More than 18,000 people were killed in the quake and tsunami, some of whom have never been recovered.

5. Kamchatka, Russia

In 1952, a magnitude 9.0 quake caused significant damage but no reported deaths despite a tsunami that hit Hawaii with 9.1-meter (30-foot) waves.

6. Biobío, Chile

A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit central Chile in 2010, shaking the capital for a minute and half and setting off a tsunami. More than 500 people were killed in the disaster.

7. Esmeraldas, Ecuador

In 1906, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami killed about 1,500 people. Its effects were felt for miles along the Central American coast and as far as San Francisco and Japan.

8. Alaska

In 1965, a magnitude 8.7 quake struck Alaska’s Rat Islands, causing an 11-meter (35-foot) -high tsunami. There was some relatively minor damage, including cracks in buildings and an asphalt runway.

9. Tibet

At least 780 people were killed when a magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck in 1950. Dozens of villages were destroyed, including at least one that slid into a river. There were also major landslides that jammed the Subansiri River in India. When the water eventually broke through, it resulted in a deadly 7-meter (23-foot) wave.

10. Sumatra, Indonesia

In 2012, a powerful 8.6 magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of northern Sumatra in Indonesia. Though the quake caused little damage, it increased pressure on a fault that was the source of the devastating 2004 tsunami.

Tsunami warnings fading after one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. Here’s what to know

By DANICA KIRKA and AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) — One of this century’s most powerful earthquakes struck off the coast of Russia and generated tsunami warnings and advisories for a broad section of the Pacific, including Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast and as far south as New Zealand. Warnings are being downgraded in most areas, though advisories remain in place as more aftershocks are possible. Chile upgraded its tsunami warning to the highest level for most of its 4,000-mile Pacific coastline.

The quake registered a magnitude of 8.8 and was centered off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It struck early Wednesday local time, which was still Tuesday in the U.S.

Here’s what to know:

What a tsunami is

Tsunamis are waves triggered by earthquakes, underwater volcanic eruptions and submarine landslides. After an underwater earthquake, the seafloor rises and drops, which lifts water up and down. The energy from this transfers to waves.

Many people think of tsunamis as one wave. But they are typically multiple waves that rush ashore like a fast-rising tide.

“Tsunamis cross the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour — as fast as a jet airplane — in deep water,” said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska. “But when they get close to the shore, they slow down and start to pile up.”

It could take minutes for waves to hit land next to the site of a major quake. It could take hours for tsunamis to cross the Pacific Ocean. The speed of tsunami waves also depends on ocean depth. They travel faster over deep water and slow down in shallow water.

People were urged to stay away from coastlines until any wave surges passed in places as far away as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Federated States of Micronesia and Solomon Islands.

Some tsunamis are small and don’t cause damage. Others can cause massive destruction. In 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia caused waves that leveled remote villages, ports and tourist resorts along the Indian Ocean across Southeast and South Asia. Some 230,000 people died. A 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami ravaged parts of Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, killing about 20,000 people and triggering a nuclear meltdown.

The power of this quake

The 8.8-magnitude quake was among the four strongest earthquakes this century, according to the USGS.

It was also the sixth-biggest quake ever recorded, said Simon Boxall, a principal teaching fellow at the University of Southampton’s Physical Oceanography Research Center.

The regional branch of Russia’s Emergency Ministry on Kamchatka warned that scientists expect aftershocks at magnitudes of up to 7.5.

The earthquake occurred along the Pacific Ring of Fire, the ring of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where more than 80% of the world’s largest quakes occur. Several tectonic plates meet there. The ring gets its name from the volcanoes that surround it.

While not all earthquakes lead to tsunamis, this one generated a series of them spreading outward from the epicenter off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

“It’s a bit like throwing a very, very large rock into the sea and then watching the waves propagate away from that rock, that splash,’’ Boxall said. “And so that’s what’s happened in this case. And that’s why this particular one has generated a tsunami. It’s not huge. It’s not one that’s going to cause mass devastation. But it will cause coastal flooding and it will cause damage, and it does put lives at risk if people don’t move to high ground.’’

The effects of this earthquake so far

A tsunami height of 10 to 13 feet was recorded in Kamchatka, while tsunami waves about 2 to 5 feet high reached San Francisco early Wednesday, officials said. Other areas have seen smaller waves.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said initial reports showed there had been no safety impact on nuclear power plants along Japan’s Pacific coast. Damage and evacuations were reported in the Russian regions nearest the quake’s epicenter, and officials declared a state of emergency in several areas. Several people were injured, but none gravely, and no major damage has been reported.

Additional aftershocks are possible, putting the entire Pacific Rim on tsunami watch. A tsunami warning remained in effect for parts of the northern California coast.

Much of the Pacific coast of North America, spanning from British Columbia in Canada to down the U.S. West Coast and into Mexico was under a tsunami advisory.

How tsunami warnings are issued

In Hawaii, emergency authorities blast alerts to people’s cellphones, on TV and radio and sound a network of sirens. In Alaska, some communities have sirens, and information is available on weather radio or public radio broadcasts.

In the U.S., the National Weather Service has different levels of alerts:

• A warning means a tsunami that may cause widespread flooding is expected or occurring. Evacuation is recommended and people should move to high ground or inland.
• An advisory means a tsunami with potential for strong currents or dangerous waves is expected or occurring and people should stay out of the water and away from beaches and waterways.
• A watch means that a tsunami is possible and to be prepared.

Kirka reported from London.

Some facts about the strongest earthquakes ever recorded

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO and DAVID CRARY

MONTREAL (AP) — Throughout his new term, starting with his inaugural address, President Donald Trump has said he was “saved by God” to make America great again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney rarely evokes religion in public; his victory speech in April never used the word God. “Canada forever. Vive le Canada,” he ended.

As Canada and the U.S. now skirmish over Trump’s tariff threats and occasional bullying, the leaders’ rhetoric reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a far more subdued role in the public sphere in Canada than in its southern neighbor.

Trump posed in front of a vandalized Episcopal parish house gripping a Bible. He invites pastors to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, says the best way to understand his own world view is to read the Bible.

Such high-level religion-themed displays would be unlikely and almost certainly unpopular in Canada, where Carney — like his recent predecessors — generally avoids public discussion of his faith. (He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights.)

There are broader differences as well. The rate of regular church attendance in Canada is far lower than in the U.S. Evangelical Christians have nowhere near the political clout in Canada that they have south of the border. There is no major campaign in Canada to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or to enact sweeping abortion bans.

Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Ottawa, has written about the contrasting religious landscapes of the U.S. and Canada, exploring the rise of American evangelist Billy Graham to become a confidant of numerous U.S. presidents.

Christianity, Kee said, has not permeated modern Canadian politics to that extent.

“We have a political leadership that keeps its religion quiet,” Kee said. “To make that kind of declaration in Canada is to create an us/them situation. There’s no easy way to keep everybody happy, so people keep it quiet.”

A dramatic loss of Catholic power in Quebec

The mostly French-speaking province of Quebec provides a distinctive example of Canada’s tilt toward secularism. The Catholic Church was Quebec’s dominant force through most of its history, with sweeping influence over schools, health care and politics.

That changed dramatically in the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control of education and health care as part of a broader campaign to reduce the church’s power. The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec’s Catholics plummeted from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest.

Among religiously devout Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some are candid about feeling marginalized in a largely secular country.

“I feel isolated because our traditional Christian views are seen as old-fashioned or not moving with the times,” said Mégane Arès-Dubé, 22, after she and her husband attended a service at a conservative Reformed Baptist church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles (nearly 50 kilometers) north of Montreal.

“Contrary to the U.S., where Christians are more represented in elected officials, Christians are really not represented in Canada,” she added. “I pray that Canada wakes up.”

The church’s senior pastor, Pascal Denault, has mixed feelings about the Quiet Revolution’s legacy.

“For many aspects of it, that was good,” he said. “Before that, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that controlled many things in the province, so we didn’t have religious freedom.”

Nonetheless, Denault wishes for a more positive public view of religion in Canada.

“Sometimes, secularism becomes a religion in itself, and it wants to shut up any religious speech in the public sphere,” he said. “What we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it’s more a positive force to encourage.”

Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president.

“We tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,” he said. “But Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.”

Trump’s religion-related tactics — such as posing with the Bible in his hands — wouldn’t go over well with Canadians, Denault said.

“They’d see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,” Denault said. “I don’t think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.”

Repurposed church buildings abound in Montreal

In the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the skyline is dotted with crosses atop steeples, but many of those churches are unused or repurposed.

For decades, factory and port workers worshipped at Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today it’s a restaurant that serves affordable meals daily for more than 600 residents.

The manager of Le Chic Resto Pop, Marc-Andre Simard, grew up Catholic and now, like many of his staff, identifies as religiously unaffiliated. But he still tries to honor some core values of Catholicism at the nonprofit restaurant, which retains the church’s original wooden doors and even its confessional booths.

“There’s still space to be together, to have some sort of communion, but it’s around food, not around faith.” Simard said during a lunch break, sitting near what used to be the altar of the former church.

Simard says the extent to which the Catholic Church controlled so much of public life in Quebec should serve as a cautionary tale for the U.S.

“We went through what the United States are going through right now,” he said.

Elsewhere in Montreal, a building that once housed a Catholic convent now often accommodates meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association.

The group’s co-founder, Michel Virard, said French Canadians “know firsthand what it was to have a clergy nosing in their affairs.”

Now, Virard says, “There is no ‘excluding religious voice’ in Canada, merely attempts at excluding clergy from manipulating the state power levers and using taxpayers’ money to promote a particular religious viewpoint.”

History reveals why role of religion is so different in U.S. and Canada

Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion’s role in public life?

According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church.

In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England — eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada — was powerful elsewhere.

Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the “disestablishment” of religion in the U.S. “made religious life all the more dynamic.”

“This is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,” he said.

“In the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,” he said. “More recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. … Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.”

There’s been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada’s secularization produced “precipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.”

Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that even when Canadian politicians do opt for faith-based outreach, they often take a multicultural approach — for example, visiting Sikh, Hindu and Jewish houses of worship, as well as Christian churches.

Trump’s talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said.

“Canada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,” she said. “The concern that Canadians have, when we look at what’s happening in America, is that we don’t want that to happen here. “

Crary, who reported from New York, was the AP’s Canada bureau chief from 1995-99.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia announced it will reduce restrictions on U.S. beef imports in a move U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration claimed as a major victory over “non-scientific trade barriers.”

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said Thursday that relaxing the restrictions designed to keep Australia free of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, would not compromise biosecurity.

“Australia stands for open and free trade — our cattle industry has significantly benefited from this,” Collins said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins responded to Australia’s annoucement by congratulating Trump on a “major trade breakthrough that gives greater access to U.S. beef producers selling to Australia.”

She issued a statemeant under the leadline: Make Agriculture Great Again Trade Wins.

“American farmers and ranchers produce the safest, healthiest beef in the world. It’s absurd that non-scientific trade barriers prevented our beef from being sold to consumers in Australia for the last 20 years,” Rollins said.

“Gone are the days of putting American farmers on the sidelines. This is yet another example of the kind of market access the President negotiates to bring America into a new golden age of prosperity, with American agriculture leading the way,” she added.

Australia has allowed imports of beef grown in the United States since 2019. But Australia has not allowed imports from the U.S. of beef sourced from Canada or Mexico because of the disease risk.

But the U.S. has recently introduced additional movement controls that identify and trace all cattle from Mexico and Canada to their farms of origin.

US cattle import controls satisfy Australian authorities

Australian authorities were “satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the U.S. effectively manage biosecurity risks,” Collins said.

The timing of the new, reduced restrictions has not been finalized.

Trump attacked Australian import restrictions on U.S. beef when he announced in April that tariffs of at least 10% would be placed on Australian imports, with steel and aluminum facing a 50% tariff.

“Australia bans — and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything — but they ban American beef,” Trump told reporters then.

“Yet we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone. They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and, you know, I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now,” Trump added.

Lawmaker fears appeasing Trump endangers Australian cattle industry

Opposition lawmaker David Littleproud suspected the government was endangering Australia’s cattle industry to appease Trump.

“I want to see the science and it should be predicated on science. I’m suspicious of the speed at which this has been done,” Littleproud told reporters.

“We need to give confidence to the industry, but also to you (the public): this is not just about animal welfare, this is about human welfare, this is about BSE potentially coming into this country and having a human impact, so I think it’s important the government’s very transparent about the science and I don’t think it’s even beyond the question to have an independent panel review that science to give confidence to everybody,” he added.

Around 70% of Australian beef is exported. Producers fear that export market would vanish overnight if diseases including mad cow or foot-and-mouth disease infected Australian cattle.

Will Evans, chief executive of Cattle Australia who represents more than 52,000 grass-fed beef producers across the nation, said he was confident the agriculture department had taken a cautious approach toward U.S. imports.

“The department’s undertaken a technical scientific assessment and we have to put faith in them. They’ve made this assessment themselves. They’ve said: ‘We’ve looked at this, we’ve looked at the best science, this is a decision that we feel comfortable with,’” Evans said.

“When you have a $75 billion (Australian $50 billion) industry relying on them not making this mistake, I’m sure they’ve been very cautious in their decision-making,” he added.

US beef prices rise because of drought and a domestic cattle shortage

Beef prices have been rising in the U.S. due to factors that include drought and shrinking domestic herd numbers.

The average price of a pound of ground beef in the U.S. rose to $6.12 in June, up nearly 12% from a year ago, according to U.S. government data. The average price of all uncooked beef steaks rose 8% to $11.49 per pound.

Australian demand for U.S. beef is likely to remain low for reasons including a relatively weak Australian dollar.

Australia’s opposition to any U.S. tariffs will be high on the agenda when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese secures his first face-to-face meeting with Trump.

Albanese and Trump were to hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit in Canada last month, but the U.S. president left early.

Albanese expects the pair will meet this year, although no date has been announced.

The two countries have had a bilateral free trade deal for 20 years and the U.S. has maintained a trade surplus with Australia for decades.

PARIS (AP) — With the support of international partners and the mobilization of $115 million, the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO recently helped rebuild the Iraqi city of Mosul after it was devastated by the Islamic State group.

The restoration of the historic city’s iconic Al-Nouri Mosque and Al-Hadba Minaret was just one of many programs run by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which is in the spotlight because the United States is leaving it once again.

The decision to pull U.S. funding and participation from UNESCO will deal a blow to its work preserving cultural heritage around the world. President Donald Trump exited the agency during his first term, accusing it of promoting anti-Israel speech. The Biden administration had rejoined UNESCO in 2023 after citing concerns that China was filling the gap left by the U.S. in UNESCO policymaking.

Beyond the diplomatic disputes, here’s a look at the work that UNESCO does:

World Heritage Sites

UNESCO names World Heritage sites, including landmarks like the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty, and gives them special protection under its World Heritage Sites program.

Its World Heritage Committee each year designates sites considered “of outstanding value to humanity” and intervenes when sites are in danger of destruction or damage. The program provides countries with technical assistance and professional training to preserve the sites.

It now also includes “intangible” heritage such as folk songs and traditional dances, crafts and cooking in its lists. A World Heritage site designation is coveted and seen as a boost to tourism.

Holocaust Education

Like the rest of the U.N., UNESCO was created in response to the horrors of World War II, and particularly Nazi crimes. Amid concerns that the agency’s Arab members have used UNESCO to pass anti-Israel resolutions, UNESCO has worked in recent years on Holocaust awareness projects. That includes educational materials and organizing visits to former Nazi concentration camps.

Empowering Girls

UNESCO works to improve literacy, with a special focus on girls in countries hit by war or disasters who get little or no schooling though programs such as the Malala Fund for Girls’ Right to Education. In Tanzania, for instance, over 2,500 girls benefited from the creation of safe spaces in 40 secondary schools, The agency provides teacher training and materials and encourages programs for girls to pursue careers in science.

Climate Change

One of the agency’s goals is coordinating climate knowledge and improving international education about how global warming occurs and affects people around the world. Over 30 UNESCO programs are designed to help its members adapt to climate change and favor sustainable development.

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

UNESCO adopted in 2021 what it calls “the first and only global standard-setting instrument on the ethics of artificial intelligence.” Applying to all 194 member states, the recommendation emphasizes the protection of human rights and dignity, grounded in principles like transparency, fairness, and human oversight of AI systems.

Operating without the U.S.

UNESCO director general Audrey Azoulay said the U.S. decision to leave was expected and that the agency has prepared for it. While the U.S. had previously provided a notable share of the agency’s budget, UNESCO has diversified its funding sources.

“Thanks to the efforts made by the organization since 2018, the decreasing trend in the financial contribution of the US has been offset, so that it now represents 8% of the organization’s total budget compared with 40% for some United Nations entities,” Azoulay said.

She added that the agency’s overall budget has increased and that it has the steady support of “a large number of member states and private contributors.”

Today is Wednesday, July 23, the 204th day of 2025. There are 161 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 23, 1967, the first of five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation with local residents, escalating into violence that spread into other parts of the city and resulting in 43 deaths.

Also on this date:

In 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first car, a Model A, for $850.

In 1958, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II named the first four women to peerage in the House of Lords.

In 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed when a helicopter crashed on top of them during filming of a Vietnam War scene for “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” (Director John Landis and four associates were later acquitted of manslaughter charges.)

In 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel while flying from Montreal to Edmonton; the pilots were able to glide the jetliner to a safe emergency landing in Gimli, Manitoba. (The near-disaster occurred because the fuel had been erroneously measured in pounds instead of kilograms at a time when Canada was converting to the metric system.)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush announced his choice of Judge David Souter of New Hampshire to succeed the retiring Justice William J. Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the U.S. women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.

In 1997, the search for Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, an apparent suicide.

In 1999, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope and Eileen Collins became the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.

In 2003, Massachusetts’ attorney general issued a report saying clergy members and others in the Boston Archdiocese had probably sexually abused more than 1,000 people over a period of six decades.

In 2006, Tiger Woods became the first player since Tom Watson in 1982-83 to win consecutive British Open titles.

In 2011, singer Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her London home from accidental alcohol poisoning.

In 2012, Penn State’s football program was all but leveled by penalties for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal as the NCAA imposed an unprecedented $60 million fine, a four-year ban from postseason play and a cut in the number of football scholarships it could award.

In 2019, Boris Johnson won the contest to lead Britain’s governing Conservative Party, putting him in line to become the country’s prime minister the following day.

In 2021, Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team, known as the Indians since 1915, announced that it would get a new name, the Guardians, at the end of the 2021 season; the change came amid a push for institutions and teams to drop logos and names that were considered racist.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 89.
• Actor Ronny Cox is 87.
• Rock singer David Essex is 78.
• Actor Woody Harrelson is 64.
• Rock musician Martin Gore (Depeche Mode) is 64.
• Actor & director Eriq Lasalle is 63.
• Rock musician Slash is 60.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Gary Payton is 57.
• Model-actor Stephanie Seymour is 57.
• Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia is 56.
• Actor Charisma Carpenter is 55.
• Country singer Alison Krauss is 54.
• R&B singer Dalvin DeGrate (Jodeci) is 54.
• Actor-comedian Marlon Wayans is 53.
• Actor Kathryn Hahn is 52.
• Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is 52.
• Actor Stephanie March is 51.
• R&B singer Michelle Williams is 46.
• Actor Paul Wesley is 43.
• Actor Daniel Radcliffe is 36.

Today is Saturday, July 19, the 200th day of 2025. There are 165 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 19, 1848, the first “Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of Woman” convened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

Also on this date:

In 1812, during the War of 1812, the First Battle of Sackets Harbor in Lake Ontario resulted in an American victory as U.S. naval forces repelled a British attack.

In 1969, Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the moon.

In 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked in orbit for two days separated.

In 1979, the Nicaraguan capital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country.

In 1980, the Moscow Summer Olympics began, minus dozens of nations that were boycotting the games because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.

In 1989, 111 people were killed when United Air Lines Flight 232, a DC-10 which sustained the uncontained failure of its tail engine and the loss of hydraulic systems, crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 185 other people survived.

In 1990, baseball’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, was sentenced in Cincinnati to five months in prison for tax evasion.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced a policy allowing gays to serve in the military under a compromise dubbed “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue.”

In 2006, prosecutors reported that Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked or otherwise tortured scores of Black suspects from the 1970s to the early 1990s to try to extract confessions from them.

In 2005, President George W. Bush announced his choice of federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. (Roberts ended up succeeding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in Sept. 2005; Samuel Alito followed O’Connor.)

In 2013, in a rare and public reflection on race, President Barack Obama called on the nation to do some soul searching over the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his shooter, George Zimmerman, saying the slain Black teenager “could have been me 35 years ago.”

In 2018, a duck boat packed with tourists capsized and sank in high winds on a lake in the tourist town of Branson, Missouri, killing 17 people.

In 2021, Paul Allard Hodgkins, a Florida man who breached the U.S. Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, carrying a Trump campaign flag, received an eight-month prison term in the first resolution of a felony case arising from the U.S. Capitol insurrection. (In 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the riot.)

In 2022, Britain shattered its record for the highest temperature ever registered amid a heat wave that seared swaths of Europe.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Civil rights activist and educator Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball’s Jackie Robinson, is 103.
• Blues singer-musician Little Freddie King is 85.
• Singer-musician Alan Gorrie (Average White Band) is 79.
• International Tennis Hall of Famer Ilie Nastase is 79.
• Rock musician Brian May (Queen) is 78.
• Rock musician Bernie Leadon is 78.
• Movie director Abel Ferrara is 74.
• Movie director Atom Egoyan is 65.
• Actor Campbell Scott is 64.
• Actor Anthony Edwards is 63.
• Ukrainian politician and former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is 54.
• Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is 49.
• TV chef Marcela Valladolid is 47.
• Actor Trai Byers (TV: “Empire”) is 42.

Today is Tuesday, July 15, the 196th day of 2024. There are 169 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 15, 1799, the Rosetta Stone, a key to deciphering ancient Egyptian scripts, was found at Fort Julien in the Nile Delta during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.

Also on this date:

In 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was abolished more than 350 years after its creation.

In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.

In 1913, Democrat Augustus Bacon of Georgia became the first person elected to the U.S. Senate under the terms of the recently ratified 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for popular election of senators.

In 1916, The Boeing Company, originally known as Pacific Aero Products Co., was founded in Seattle.

In 1975, three American astronauts blasted off aboard an Apollo spaceship hours after two Soviet cosmonauts were launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a mission that included a linkup of the two ships in orbit.

In 1976, a 36-hour kidnap ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver as they were abducted near Chowchilla, California, by three gunmen and imprisoned in an underground cell. (The captives escaped unharmed; the kidnappers were caught.)

In 1996, MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable and the internet.

In 1997, fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50, was shot dead outside his Miami Beach home; suspected gunman Andrew Phillip Cunanan (koo-NAN’-an), 27, was found dead eight days later, a suicide. (Investigators believed Cunanan killed four other people before Versace in a cross-country rampage that began the previous March.)

In 2002, John Walker Lindh, an American who’d fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to two felonies in a deal sparing him life in prison.

In 2006, Twitter (now known as X) was launched to the public.

In 2019, avowed white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. was sentenced by a state court to life in prison plus 419 years for killing one and injuring dozens when he deliberately drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (The previous month, Fields received a life sentence on 29 federal hate crime charges.)

In 2020, George Floyd’s family filed a lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis and the four police officers charged in his death, alleging the officers violated Floyd’s rights when they restrained him and that the city allowed a culture of excessive force, racism and impunity to flourish in its police force. (The city would agree to pay $27 million to settle the lawsuit in March 2021.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Patrick Wayne is 86.
• R&B singer Millie Jackson is 81.
• Singer Linda Ronstadt is 79.
• Author Richard Russo is 76.
• Musician Trevon Horn is 76.
• Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, is 75.
• Former professional wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura is 74.
• Actor Terry O’Quinn (TV: “Lost”) is 73.
• Rock drummer Marky Ramone is 73.
• Rock musician Joe Satriani is 69.
• Model Kim Alexis is 65.
• Actor Willie Aames is 65.
• Actor-director Forest Whitaker is 64.
• Actor Brigitte Nielsen is 62.
• Rock drummer Jason Bonham is 59.
• TV personality Adam Savage (TV” “MythBusters”) is 58.
• Actor-comedian Eddie Griffin is 57.
• Actor-screenwriter Jim Rash (TV: “Community”) is 53.
• Actor Scott Foley is 53.
• Actor Brian Austin Green is 52.
• Singer Buju Banton is 52.
• Actor Diane Kruger is 49.
• Actor Lana Parrilla (LAH’-nuh pa-REE’-uh) is 48.
• Actor Travis Fimmel is 46.
• Actor-singer Tristan “Mack” Wilds is 36.
• Actor Iain Armitage (TV: “Young Sheldon”) is 17.

By FARNOUSH AMIRI

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it is issuing sanctions against an independent investigator tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, the latest effort by the United States to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza.

The State Department’s decision to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, follows an unsuccessful U.S. pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post. It also comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington this week to meet with President Donald Trump and other officials about the war in Gaza and more.

It’s unclear what the practical impact the sanctions will have and whether the independent investigator will be able to travel to the U.S. with diplomatic paperwork.

Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the U.S., which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation.

The U.S. had not previously addressed concerns with Albanese head-on because it has not participated in either of the two Human Rights Council sessions this year, including the summer session that ended Tuesday. This is because the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. earlier this year.

Albanese has urged countries to pressure Israel

In recent weeks, Albanese has issued a series of letters urging other countries to pressure Israel, including through sanctions, to end its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

She has also been a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, for allegations of war crimes. She most recently issued a report naming several large U.S. companies as among those aiding what she described as Israel’s occupation and war on Gaza.

“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”

Albanese’s July 1 report focuses on Western defense companies that have provided weapons used by Israel’s military as well as manufacturers of earth-moving equipment that have bulldozed Palestinian homes and property.

It cites activities by companies in the shipping, real estate, technology, banking and finance and online travel industries, as well as academia.

“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many,” her report said.

A request for comment from the U.N.’s top human rights body was not immediately returned.

Israel strongly refutes Albanese’s allegations

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the 47-member Human Rights Council is based, called Albanese’s report “legally groundless, defamatory, and a flagrant abuse of her office” and having “whitewashed Hamas atrocities.”

Outside experts, such as Albanese, do not represent the United Nations and have no formal authority. However, they report to the council as a means of monitoring countries’ human rights records.

Albanese has faced criticism from pro-Israel officials and groups in the U.S. and in the Middle East. The U.S. mission to the U.N. issued a scathing statement last week, calling for her removal for “a years-long pattern of virulent anti-Semitism and unrelenting anti-Israel bias.”

The statement said Albanese’s allegations of Israel committing genocide or apartheid are “false and offensive.”

Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, celebrated the U.S. action, saying in a statement Wednesday that Albanese’s “relentless and biased campaign against Israel and the United States has long crossed the line from human rights advocacy into political warfare.”

Trump administration’s campaign to quiet criticism of Israel

It is a culmination of a nearly six-month campaign by the Trump administration to quell criticism of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza. Earlier this year, the administration began arresting and trying to deport faculty and students of U.S. universities who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and other political activities.

The war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led fighters stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and European Union.

Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, it is nearly impossible for the critically wounded to get the care they need, doctors and aid workers say.

“We must stop this genocide, whose short-term goal is completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, while also profiteering from the killing machine devised to perform it,” Albanese said in a recent post on X. “No one is safe until everyone is safe.”

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Today is Saturday, July 5, the 186th day of 2024. There are 179 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell by scientists at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, was born.

Also on this date:

In 1687, Isaac Newton first published his Principia Mathematica, a three-volume work setting out his mathematical principles of natural philosophy.

In 1811, Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.

In 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York.

In 1865, the Secret Service Division of the U.S. Treasury Department was founded in Washington, D.C., with the mission of suppressing counterfeit currency.

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act.

In 1937, Hormel introduced a canned meat product called Spam; more than 9 billion cans have been sold since.

In 1940, during World War II, Britain and the Vichy government in France broke off diplomatic relations.

In 1943, the Battle of Kursk began during World War II; in the weeks that followed, the Soviets were able to repeatedly repel the Germans, who eventually withdrew in defeat.

In 1946, the modern bikini, designed by Frenchman Louis Reard, was first modeled in Paris.

In 1947, Larry Doby made his debut with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first Black player in the American League three months after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the National League.

In 1954, Elvis Presley recorded his first single, “That’s All Right,” at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon certified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the minimum voting age from 21 to 18.

In 1975, Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating Jimmy Connors.

In 1977, Pakistan’s army, led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, seized power from President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZUL’-fih-kahr ah-LEE’ BOO’-toh).

In 1980, Bjorn Borg became the first male player to win five consecutive Wimbledon singles titles.

In 1994, Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos as an online marketplace for books.

In 2011, a jury in Orlando, Florida, found Casey Anthony, 25, not guilty of murder, manslaughter and child abuse in the 2008 disappearance and death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

In 2013, Pope Francis cleared two of the 20th Century’s most influential popes to become saints in the Roman Catholic church, approving a miracle needed to canonize Pope John Paul II and waiving Vatican rules to honor Pope John XXIII.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Julie Nixon Eisenhower is 77.
• Rock star Huey Lewis is 75.
• Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Rich “Goose” Gossage is 74.
• NFL Hall of Fame receiver James Lofton is 69.
• Cartoonist Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) is 67.
• Singer-songwriter Marc Cohn is 66.
• Actor Edie Falco is 62.
• Actor Jillian Armenante is 61.
• Actor Kathryn Erbe (er-BEE’) is 60.
• Actor Michael Stuhlbarg (STOOL’-bahrg) is 57.
• Rapper RZA (RIH’-zuh) is 56.
• Author Gary Shteyngart is 53.
• R&B singer Joe is 52.
• Rapper Royce da 5’9” is 48.
• International Tennis Hall of Famer Amelie Mauresmo is 46.
• Actor Ryan Hansen is 44.
• Country musician Dave Haywood (Lady A) is 43.
• Actor Danay Garcia is 41.
• Retired soccer player Megan Rapinoe is 40.
• Actor Jason Dolley is 34.
• Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani is 31.