Global Pulse

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  • A Hong Kong democracy activist’s long-awaited London reunion may be cut short

    A Hong Kong democracy activist’s long-awaited London reunion may be cut short

    LONDON/HONG KONG – For former Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Wu Chi-wai, the long-awaited embrace of his wife and son in London last week marked the end of more than five years behind bars and the first in-person reunion with his family in years. The emotional meeting, filled with tears of joy after years of separation, has now been cut drastically short, as the ex-opposition leader faces deportation back to Hong Kong as early as this week, far sooner than anyone involved planned.

    Wu, who once led the Democratic Party – Hong Kong’s formerly largest pro-democracy opposition bloc – was among the 47 high-profile activists charged in 2021 in the city’s biggest national security case stemming from the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in 2020, a legislation that effectively dismantled the city’s once-vibrant pro-democracy movement. In 2024, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit subversion over his participation in an unofficial pro-democracy primary election held in 2020, and sentenced to four years and five months in prison. He was granted release last month, and immediately arranged travel to the UK to reunite with his family, who relocated to the country in 2022.

    Anticipating potential complications from his criminal record, Wu coordinated with the British consulate in Hong Kong ahead of his departure to smooth entry. But upon landing in London last Wednesday, UK border officials raised questions about his intentions, including speculation that he planned to pursue long-term residency in the country, Wu told the Associated Press in an interview. After processing, authorities granted Wu entry only on a seven-day immigration bail, meaning he is scheduled to be removed from the UK this coming Wednesday. The unexpected timeline has scrapped months of planned family time the 62-year-old had looked forward to after years of separation.

    Wu, who has denied seeking asylum in the UK and says his only long-term goal is to reunite permanently with his family, says he now fears the immigration black mark will damage his ability to travel to see his loved ones in the future. He is calling on the UK Home Office to reverse the deportation order and grant him an extended stay. “I am very worried about whether I have the ability or a chance to secure re-entrance to the UK to meet with my family again,” Wu said in the interview.

    In a response to reporters on Sunday, a Home Office spokesperson said the department does not typically comment on individual immigration cases, but reaffirmed that the UK government remains “steadfast in supporting Hong Kongers in the UK.” As of Sunday, neither the Home Office nor the airline that changed Wu’s return flight – originally booked for November – had responded to requests for comment on the case.

    Wu’s situation unfolds against a backdrop of mass emigration from Hong Kong in the wake of the national security law’s implementation. Tens of thousands of residents, including many families and young professionals, have left the territory for countries including the UK, which launched a special visa scheme for Hong Kongers in 2021. Official UK government data shows more than 230,000 Hong Kong residents have secured visas through the scheme, which allows holders to live, work, and study in the UK, and apply for permanent settlement after five years. More than 9,800 visa holders have already been granted full permanent residency to date.

    Beijing and Hong Kong government officials have long maintained the national security law was a necessary measure to restore stability to the territory after widespread 2019 pro-democracy protests. But the legislation has led to sweeping political changes that have gutted Hong Kong’s pro-democracy infrastructure: the Legislative Council Wu once served in is now entirely dominated by pro-Beijing loyalists following a 2021 electoral overhaul that restricted opposition participation; dozens of pro-democracy civil society groups, including Wu’s former Democratic Party, have disbanded; and independent pro-democracy media outlets such as the Apple Daily have been forced to shut down, with its founder Jimmy Lai currently serving a 20-year prison term under the same national security law.

    These changes have eroded many of the autonomous freedoms guaranteed to Hong Kong under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, when the territory returned to Chinese rule in 1997. For Wu, who lost both of his parents while he was imprisoned – and was only allowed to attend their funerals for brief, supervised visits – the experience of incarceration has shifted his priorities entirely. He said that when he was locked up, he was only permitted a 10-minute phone call with his wife and son once a month, and mailed letters took roughly a month to travel between Hong Kong and the UK and receive a reply.

    “Even if you can’t bear to let go, you still have to,” Wu said of the disbandment of his former party. “Prison taught me that life is short. If at such a moment you are unable to see your parents off for the last time, the psychological blow is actually significant.” Wu says he has no plans to engage in political activity moving forward, and only wants to rebuild his life with his family. “Start afresh and cherish the time I have to reunite with my family,” he said. “I feel this is my most important task in the near future.”

  • Displaced from wildfires in Spain share their stories of uncertainty and narrow escapes

    Displaced from wildfires in Spain share their stories of uncertainty and narrow escapes

    Across the Iberian Peninsula, out-of-control wildfires have carved a path of destruction through central Spain and southwestern France’s Bordeaux wine region, displacing nearly 340,000 people and leaving thousands of properties reduced to ash. For survivors sheltering in temporary evacuation facilities, the question of what awaits when they return to their hometowns hangs heavy, casting a dark shadow over a nation that just days earlier was gripped by World Cup celebration.

    Seventy-nine-year-old retiree Elvira Menéndez counts herself among the lucky. Her home in Chapinería, a small town west of Madrid, remains standing, unlike hundreds of others consumed by the rapidly spreading flames. But her relief is tempered by concern for neighbors who lost everything: a young family with three children that lives down the street from her son lost their entire home to the blaze. “They have been left with nothing,” Menéndez told the Associated Press from her temporary shelter.

    Menéndez is one of nearly 90,000 people forced to evacuate across three central Spanish provinces after a series of merging blazes created an unprecedented wildfire event. On Friday afternoon, two large wildfires burning in the area surrounding Madrid merged into one fast-growing inferno, which later combined with a third fire already burning in Ávila, north of the capital. The unprecedented scale of the blaze pushed the Spanish government to declare its first national-level fire emergency in history. Flames have since spread further into the southwestern province of Toledo, with a total of 77,000 hectares — an area roughly equivalent to 297 square miles — already scorched across central Spain alone. Across the border in France, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes as wildfires tear through the major Bordeaux wine growing region.

    Evacuated just hours before flames reached her neighborhood, Menéndez was spending her third consecutive night on Sunday at a makeshift shelter set up in a sports complex in Villaviciosa de Odón, a 40-minute drive from her home. She is staying at the shelter alongside her entire family and their pet dog, and says she is clinging to small mercies in an uncertain time: “At least we’re all together.”

    Her anxiety and loss are shared by dozens of other survivors staying at the same shelter. Rocío Domínguez, a 35-year-old unemployed resident who fled with her parents and siblings, escaped with nothing more than the clothes on her back and an emergency kit for her two dogs. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything, everything, everything,” were left behind as she rushed to evacuate, she said. Every item she has now — from her daily clothing to food and basic toiletries — has been donated by aid workers at the shelter. Domínguez still vividly recalls the chaos of the evacuation, describing the scene as apocalyptic: “It was madness with cars going up and down, traffic jams in the village streets as people tried to get out. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash, and you could see all the burned animals.”

    Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia met with displaced survivors on Sunday during a visit to a second evacuation shelter in Villamartín, 45 kilometers west of Madrid, where they heard firsthand accounts of loss and uncertainty. Following the meetings, Queen Letizia told reporters that centering survivors’ experiences was critical: it was important “to hear how they feel and how they recount their hasty departure from their home. How they have felt the sadness they describe, the anguish, the uncertainty, and those questions they leave hanging in the air.”

    The disaster is far from over. Spanish Minister of Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen has warned that more evacuations are likely to be ordered in the coming days as flames continue to spread through dry, warm conditions.

    The wildfire disaster has dramatically shifted the national mood in Spain, just one week after millions of Spaniards filled streets across the country to celebrate the men’s national football team’s second World Cup title, won in a final against Argentina in New Jersey. As the cheers of celebration faded, members of the champion team have stepped up to support displaced fire survivors. Luis de la Fuente, head coach of the World Cup-winning squad, visited evacuees at a sports center in Las Rozas, where the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has its national headquarters. The RFEF has opened the national team’s training facilities, normally used by the newly crowned champions, to house vulnerable evacuated families.

    De la Fuente told public broadcaster TVE that the entire nation is standing with wildfire survivors, echoing the unity the team felt during their World Cup run. “All of Spain is watching over them,” he said. “They have the support of the entire country, the same support we have when we play soccer. It’s exactly the same.”

  • Romania scrambles F-16 jets and downs a suspected Russian drone, the third in 3 days

    Romania scrambles F-16 jets and downs a suspected Russian drone, the third in 3 days

    BUCHAREST, Romania — In a sharp escalation of cross-border security risks stemming from Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Romania, a joint member of NATO and the European Union, downed a suspected Russian drone that entered its national airspace Sunday. This incident marks the third unauthorized Russian drone incursion into Romanian territory in just three days, according to the country’s head of state.

    NATO officials confirmed that two Romanian F-16 fighter jets, operating under the alliance’s integrated operational command and launching from the country’s Fetești airbase, intercepted and destroyed the unmanned aircraft over Romanian territorial waters in the Black Sea’s Sulina-Chilia region at 10:13 a.m. local time, Romanian President Nicusor Dan publicly confirmed.

    President Dan added that forensic analysis of debris from one of the two previously intercepted drones has definitively identified it as an Iranian-made Shahed-type drone, the same model Moscow has widely deployed to strike targets across Ukraine in its full-scale war of aggression. This latest downing brings to four the total number of unauthorized NATO airspace-violating drones that Romania has shot down in coordination with the alliance, according to Colonel Martin O’Donnell, spokesperson for NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

    Prior to this weekend’s string of interceptions, O’Donnell noted, Romanian jets downed an errant drone over Estonia back in May. Currently, Romanian aircrew and aircraft are forward-deployed to Lithuania as part of NATO’s enhanced eastern flank deterrence posture, giving them broad reach to respond to airspace violations across the Baltic and Black Sea regions. “As we continue to prove, NATO is constantly on the watch and prepared to defend itself from any threat,” O’Donnell said in a statement reinforcing the alliance’s collective defense commitment.

    The string of incursions comes as Romania has moved to strengthen its counter-unmanned aerial capabilities, recently acquiring the MEROPS counter-drone system. The platform deploys low-cost, three-foot-long intercept drones to neutralize incoming threats including Shaheds and other common attack drone variants. Romania’s defensive upgrades are part of a broader alliance-wide effort to harden NATO’s 1,000-plus-mile eastern border against growing drone and cruise missile threats spilling over from the war in Ukraine.

    The risk of conflict spillover into NATO territory first gained widespread public attention back in May, when an out-of-control Russian drone launched during a mass attack on Ukrainian infrastructure went astray and crashed into an apartment building in eastern Romania. The strike injured two civilian residents and sparked intense alarm among alliance members over the potential for expanded conflict.

    “It is inadmissible and intolerable that the Russian Federation continues to violate Romanian airspace, which is also NATO and European Union airspace,” President Dan emphasized Sunday. “Such actions are unacceptable and we treat them with all seriousness, together with our allies.”

    The international community quickly rallied to support Romania following the latest incursion. Belgium, another NATO and EU member, called Sunday’s incident a “stark reminder of the ongoing threat Russia’s war poses to European security.” “Belgium stands firmly with Romania after several drones were shot down over its territory in the past days. Romania’s investigation has already confirmed that one of them was a Russian Shahed drone,” said Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot. Prévot also noted that 300 Belgian military personnel are currently deployed to Romania as part of NATO’s eastern flank deterrence force.

    Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Romania and other NATO allies bordering Ukraine have faced a steady stream of stray drone and missile incursions, linked to both Russian and Ukrainian operations. This latest string of incidents underscores the persistent risk that the war could draw NATO into direct conflict with Russia, even as the alliance continues to supply Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid while avoiding direct participation in hostilities. This report includes contributions from McNeil, reporting out of Brussels.

  • A fatal attack on Berlin’s Pride festival leaves locals wondering how their city will recover

    A fatal attack on Berlin’s Pride festival leaves locals wondering how their city will recover

    BERLIN — On a warm July Saturday night, what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of love, equality, and queer identity at Berlin’s annual Pride parade turned into a scene of terror. A vehicle ramming and stabbing attack near the festival’s route left one person dead and multiple others injured, in what German authorities have confirmed is an Islamic extremist-motivated act of violence. As of Sunday, the prime suspect remains at large, prompting a widespread manhunt and public safety warning across the capital.

    Law enforcement has issued an urgent wanted notice for 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. Officials have warned the public not to approach the suspect, noting he is considered armed and extremely dangerous.

    For 34-year-old Ali Darwich, a Berlin-born police officer of Lebanese and Palestinian heritage who identifies as both gay and Muslim, the attack is not just an act of violence against a community — it is a direct assault on every part of who he is, and on everything the city of Berlin claims to represent.

    Choking back tears during an interview at the attack site in Tiergarten Park on Sunday, Darwich reflected: “Born a Muslim, living as a gay man, working as a police officer — this terror attack touches so many aspects of who I am. This was an attack on Berlin itself, on the diversity, tolerance, and commitment to freedom this city has always stood for.”

    Just hours before the attack, Darwich had marched alongside thousands of other Pride attendees, calling for equal rights and raising the alarm about a documented surge in hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people across Germany. “I was wearing my rainbow shirt, carried a banner that asked ‘why are some people afraid of love but not of hate,’ and was heading to an afterparty when friends started flooding my phone to check if I was safe,” he recalled. He immediately canceled his plans and returned home, overwhelmed by grief, but said the full weight of the attack did not hit him until he woke the next morning.

    At the cordoned-off crime scene on Sunday, hundreds of community members gathered for an impromptu vigil, laying flowers, embracing one another, and staring in quiet disbelief at the wrecked van still held by police forensics teams. Darwich, who also builds a following as a positive-focused gay Muslim influencer on social media, left him grappling with layered questions and deep anxiety.

    “I asked myself, why as a police officer did I not run to the scene to help my colleagues? I asked myself as a gay man if we will now have to live with even more fear, on top of the bullying and hatred we already face every day. And I asked myself as a Muslim if our entire community will now be targeted with even more racism,” he explained.

    Darwich’s greatest fear is that the attack will deepen existing polarization across German society, at a time when far-right extremism and anti-minority sentiment are already on the rise. “I’ll be honest, this morning I felt desperate. We cannot seem to root out the hatred some people carry, and it just keeps getting worse and worse,” he said. Yet even amid his grief, he refused to cede ground to extremism, emphasizing that he would not let hate win. “Deep down, I still hope the people of Berlin will come together, that we will support one another, and that out of this horror we can build an even stronger, more inclusive Berlin,” he added.

    Darwich is far from alone in balancing grief with unyielding resolve. Andre Lehmann, a senior leader of LSVD+, Germany’s largest national LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, joined the Sunday vigil and spoke to the impact of the attack on the entire queer community.

    “We are simply stunned by what happened yesterday. This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community,” Lehmann said. “This attack targeted people who took to the streets this weekend to fight for their rights and celebrate diversity. This is a deliberate political act, not just an attack on people celebrating a parade.”

    Lehmann also drew attention to a growing crisis that he says has long been ignored by mainstream German society: “We have seen a tenfold increase in anti-queer hate crime in Germany over just a few years. For years, honestly, nothing was done to address this, and there has been no widespread public outcry to demand change.”

    Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old visitor from the United Kingdom who had traveled to Berlin specifically for the Pride parade, left the event shortly before the attack and returned to the site on Sunday to lay flowers in memory of the victim. Still shaking with emotion, Jump reaffirmed the community’s refusal to be intimidated.

    “They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”

    Across Berlin, the attack has sparked shock and solidarity, with crowds gathering outside the iconic Brandenburg Gate on Sunday to demonstrate support for the LGBTQ+ community and condemn the act of terror, as law enforcement continues its urgent search for the suspect.

  • Exclusive: In a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains shift on Russia’s war

    Exclusive: In a Ukrainian bomb shelter, Laura Loomer explains shift on Russia’s war

    In a striking about-face that has sent ripples through American political circles, far-right commentator and long-time Donald Trump ally Laura Loomer has publicly renounced her years of anti-Ukraine rhetoric, admitting that she was duped by Russian propaganda that shaped her earlier opposition to Kyiv. The polarizing figure, who built her reputation spreading conspiracy theories to a loyal online following, made the admission during an interview with The Associated Press from a Kyiv bomb shelter, as Russian ballistic missiles targeted the capital in an attack that forced the interview to be relocated mid-session.

    Loomer’s journey to Ukraine, which included a trip to the eastern front lines, a sit-down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and meetings with top government and religious leaders, marks one of the most high-profile shifts in the American conservative movement’s stance on the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. After spending years repeating Russian talking points that downplayed Moscow’s aggression and pushed false claims about Ukraine being overrun by neo-Nazis, Loomer now says her on-the-ground observations have completely upended her views.

    The commentator traces her past misinformation to a shift in her media consumption after being banned from major American social media platforms. Banned from mainstream apps, she turned to Telegram, a platform where Russian state-aligned media and propaganda are widely circulated. That shift, she says, allowed Russian operatives to capitalize on her anger over the 2020 U.S. presidential election — an election she still falsely claims was stolen from Trump — to indoctrinate her with anti-Ukraine falsehoods. Her change of heart unfolded gradually, she adds, as she watched prominent conservative podcasters, including Tucker Carlson, adopt anti-Trump rhetoric that she discovered was being amplified by Russian sources to divide American conservatives.

    Ukrainian officials have embraced Loomer’s visit, seeing it as a unique opportunity to win over hearts and minds in the conservative wing of U.S. politics ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy in Washington next week. “It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens,” Zelenskyy’s office wrote in a social media post welcoming Loomer. In addition to her meeting with Zelenskyy, Loomer toured the Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a historic monastic complex targeted in a Russian attack just last month. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna noted Loomer’s outsized influence in U.S. conservative circles, saying she hopes the commentator’s first-hand observations will shift American public opinion ahead of the high-stakes Washington meeting. “I do really hope and I believe that her visit will have a huge impact on relations with the U.S. administration,” Berezhna told the AP.

    Loomer has remained a close and influential informal advisor to Trump despite holding no official role in his campaign or orbit. She says she spoke with Trump by phone immediately after her meeting with Zelenskyy, and Trump has already publicly embraced her new stance, sharing video of her conversation with the Ukrainian leader on his social media platform with the comment “Very good!!!” Loomer occasionally travels with Trump on the 2024 campaign trail, and last year she convinced him to purge multiple members of his National Security Council staff after she raised questions about their loyalty to him during an Oval Office meeting. She expects to meet with Trump personally upon her return to the U.S. from Ukraine.

    The commentator’s reversal has already stirred mixed reactions: while Ukrainian leaders have welcomed the shift, it has sparked confusion and suspicion among some of her former allies in the American right. Loomer has repeatedly pushed back against claims that Ukraine is funding her trip, noting that she risked her life traveling to a war zone to see the conflict first-hand. “If it’s fake, why did I risk my life? I’m in a bomb shelter right now. I barely slept this week,” she said.

    Even as she has reversed her stance on Ukraine, Loomer’s long history of bigotry and conspiracy mongering remains unchanged. Days into her trip, she posted a bigoted comment on social media saying, “One thing I really love about Ukraine is I haven’t seen a single Muslim here. It’s so refreshing.”

    Despite her own history spreading misinformation, Loomer now argues that the spread of Russian propaganda through rogue online platforms and independent podcasters represents a critical national security threat to the U.S. She says the “information war” waged by Moscow is potentially more destructive than any conventional military conflict the U.S. could face, and has called on a future Trump administration to take the threat of foreign influence operations far more seriously than current U.S. leaders have. “They have been able to warp people’s minds to the point where people aren’t even capable of analyzing a subject with common sense anymore because they want to depend on these personalities to give them the opinion that they think they should have,” she said of the podcasters who spread Russian talking points. She added that she is already seeing MAGA movement supporters change their minds after her visit, saying she has received hundreds of messages from followers saying she opened their eyes to Russian disinformation.

    Loomer’s turnaround comes as the U.S. Congress debates new sanctions against Russia and just days before Zelenskyy is set to meet with Trump in the Oval Office, a meeting Loomer says her visit has already helped set up for success for Ukraine. “Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good,” she said.

  • 2 dead in Ukraine from Russian attacks, 4 more in Russian-held area hit by Ukrainian drones

    2 dead in Ukraine from Russian attacks, 4 more in Russian-held area hit by Ukrainian drones

    A new wave of reciprocal military strikes between Russia and Ukraine has left a growing number of civilian casualties, escalating tensions just days after a deadly Russian attack on Kyiv that claimed 10 lives. In the early hours of Sunday, Russian ballistic missiles targeted Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, triggering widespread blasts, blazing fires in residential areas, and leaving three civilians wounded, according to local officials.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that falling missile debris ignited a fire in a multi-story residential tower block located near the city’s historic central district. Debris also sparked secondary blazes at other locations across the capital, damaging private homes, parked vehicles, and public parking structures. Of the three wounded civilians, one required urgent inpatient hospital care, Klitschko added.

    The Sunday strikes align with pre-attack warnings issued by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just two days prior. In his Friday evening address, Zelenskyy noted that Ukrainian intelligence assessments had detected Russian forces preparations for a large-scale missile offensive, with the attack expected to unfold within 48 hours of his warning. The Russian defense ministry has defended the operation, claiming all targeted sites were tied to Ukrainian military drone production operations.

    Beyond Kyiv, Russian attacks hit two other major Ukrainian cities on Sunday, leaving two additional civilians dead and multiple injured, including two children. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city located in the country’s northeast, a drone strike killed one civilian and wounded six others, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov reported. In the southern frontline city of Zaporizhzhia, just 12.5 miles from active combat zones, a Russian glide bomb attack killed one man and wounded six more, Mayor Ivan Fedorov confirmed. Both cities have faced near-constant Russian bombardment in recent months, making civilian safety an ongoing crisis.

    In Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Kremlin-appointed local officials claimed a Ukrainian drone strike in Horlivka killed four civilians. Russian-installed Horlivka Mayor Ivan Prikhodko stated the city came under sustained fire starting Sunday early morning. On the Russian side of the border, the Russian defense ministry reported that its air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 133 Ukrainian drones overnight across Russian territory, the Black Sea, and Crimea — the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia forcibly annexed in 2014 in a move widely unrecognized by the international community.

    The latest round of strikes comes amid a string of successful deep-strike drone operations by Ukraine inside Russian territory, which have slowed Russian military advances in eastern Ukraine and created widespread fuel shortages across Russia, increasing domestic political pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine’s drone campaign has specifically targeted Russian energy infrastructure, aiming to disrupt the flow of fuel and supplies to Russian frontline forces.

    This escalation is the latest in a growing cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that has dimmed hopes for diplomatic negotiations to end Russia’s more than four-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Just this past Friday, a major Russian strike targeting areas near Kyiv killed 10 civilians and wounded more than 100 others, marking one of the deadliest single attacks on the capital in recent months.

    Speaking on Sunday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed that Ukraine’s military position is currently stronger than at any point since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. Following a call with Zelenskyy, Stubb emphasized the critical need for continued military and political support from Ukraine’s international partners to sustain Kyiv’s recent battlefield momentum. Stubb’s public statement on social media platform X explicitly referenced Kyiv’s successful recent drone campaign inside Russia.

  • Water outage at UK’s Gatwick airport leaves toilets out of order and restaurants closed

    Water outage at UK’s Gatwick airport leaves toilets out of order and restaurants closed

    On a Sunday travel day, a sudden power failure at a regional water treatment facility in southeast England triggered cascading disruptions that spilled over into one of the United Kingdom’s busiest international airports, Gatwick, leaving essential facilities nonfunctional and forcing food and beverage outlets to shut their doors.

    The power outage hit SES Water’s Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, which serves communities across Kent and East Sussex. The incident caused a widespread drop in water system pressure, leading to temporary service interruptions for hundreds of domestic customers in the two counties, as well as critical infrastructure connected to the regional network, including Gatwick Airport, located just south of central London.

    Within hours of the outage being reported, Gatwick Airport issued a public apology via the social media platform X to passengers traveling through both of its main terminals, acknowledging the significant inconvenience caused by the loss of water service. Airport officials noted that the facility had arranged to distribute bottled water to mitigate the impact of the outage, but that claim was immediately challenged by passengers on the ground.

    Paul Lee, one of the thousands of passengers passing through Gatwick that day, told reporters that he had received no official announcements about the water shutdown and had not witnessed any bottled water being distributed to travelers. “For people who need to access restrooms, this situation is absolutely unacceptable,” Lee said in an interview with the BBC. “I’m fortunate that my flight is departing soon, so this won’t affect me for long, but for passengers with connections or departures still hours away, this is going to create major problems.”

    Michael Dugher, a former British Member of Parliament, also documented the chaos on social media, noting that with all airport bars and restaurants closed due to the water outage, there was a severe shortage of available seating for waiting passengers. Many travelers were forced to sit directly on the terminal floor to wait out the disruption. Dugher called on Gatwick management to quickly reopen the closed dining and lounge spaces to ease the seating crunch and improve passenger comfort.

    As of Sunday afternoon, SES Water confirmed that crews were working around the clock to restore full power and water pressure to all affected areas, but did not issue an immediate timeline for when service would return to normal.

  • A forced-labor crackdown or an end-run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

    A forced-labor crackdown or an end-run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

    NEW YORK – In a controversial trade move that sidesteps congressional oversight, the Trump administration has rolled out new double-digit tariffs covering imports from more than 60 global economies, invoking a decades-old trade law that grants the executive branch broad authority to penalize nations deemed to engage in unfair, discriminatory trade practices. The new levies, announced in recent days and set to go into effect immediately, were timed to replace a temporary 10% global tariff regime that just expired. That temporary round of tariffs itself was a stopgap put in place after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an earlier broad global tariff plan in February.

    Critics of the new policy argue that the tariffs, framed as a crackdown on forced labor in global supply chains, have little connection to actual enforcement gaps overseas, and are instead simply a mechanism to maintain broad import tariffs after the previous temporary regime lapsed. The tariffs, set at either 10% or 12.5%, are applied to nations the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) claims lack or fail to effectively enforce their own bans on imports produced with forced labor. With the affected countries accounting for 99% of all U.S. imports, widespread pushback from trading partners arrived almost immediately, with many leaders calling the U.S. claims unfounded and arbitrary. Critics note that nations with vastly different forced labor compliance records were assigned the same uniform tariff rate, and that after a four-month investigation, USTR has released almost no detailed information explaining how it set the final tariff levels.

    The new tariffs are enacted under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, the same legal authority former President Trump used during his first term to impose sweeping tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports amid a dispute over Chinese technology acquisition and industrial policy. The Biden administration has continued to use Section 301 powers to address other trade grievances, including what it calls unfair competitive practices in China’s shipbuilding sector.

    Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law, explained that the core appeal of Section 301 for the executive branch is that it allows the creation of permanent tariffs without requiring congressional approval. “That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in,” Appleton said.

    While USTR says it completed a thorough review process, including consultations with all 60 investigated economies, two rounds of public hearings, and collection of more than 2,100 public comments from stakeholders, the agency has declined to share details of its bilateral engagements with affected nations, citing confidentiality rules. Trade experts point out that verifying whether a country has a forced labor import ban on the books is a straightforward process, but proving a nation is failing to enforce that ban is far more complex, and USTR has offered little concrete evidence to back up its findings.

    “There’s not a lot of hard evidence there,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president for general economics and trade policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington-based think tank. “It’s pretty laughable on its face to think that a country like the ones in Europe or in Norway or Switzerland aren’t doing enough to police forced labor.”

    Even for nations that do adopt and enforce the standards Washington is demanding, there is no clear path to have the tariffs lifted, according to Patrick Childress, a partner at international law firm Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official. Childress noted that nations must prove their compliance meets U.S. standards to win relief, a high bar that means no near-term tariff reductions are likely for most affected countries. “This suggests that no short-term path for countrywide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available,” he said.

    Officials from affected nations have uniformly rejected the U.S. allegations. Brazil, which faces the higher 12.5% tariff rate, called the U.S. move “arbitrary and unjustified” in an official statement, accusing the U.S. of manipulating a critical human rights issue to penalize dozens of nations and the European Union. Australia, also assigned the 12.5% rate, pushed back as well. “We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world, Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell told reporters.

    The new tariffs have also sparked backlash from some U.S. domestic industries, thanks to targeted carve-outs that exclude certain nations from the levies. The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), which represents U.S. textile manufacturers, is protesting an exemption that waives the new tariffs for textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, tied to those countries’ purchases of U.S. cotton and textiles. NCTO chief executive Kim Glas noted that the U.S. textile industry has been disproportionately harmed by forced labor competition, and the exemption undermines domestic producers. “No other industry has been more disadvantaged by forced labor than the U.S. textile industry, which employs 453,000 workers and has lost 41 plants over the past two plus years,” Glas said. “We remain strongly concerned that USTR’s textile mechanism will harm the very domestic manufacturers the administration seeks to help.”

    The debate over the new tariffs comes as existing U.S. forced labor import bans have repeatedly failed to block forced labor-produced goods from entering American markets. The U.S. currently has two core pieces of legislation addressing forced labor imports: The 1930 Tariff Act granted U.S. Customs and Border Protection authority to seize suspected shipments, but included a major loophole that allowed imports if domestic production could not meet consumer demand. That loophole was closed by the 2016 Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. The 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act went further, blocking all imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless companies can prove their goods were produced without forced labor.

    Even with these rules on the books, forced labor-produced goods still regularly enter U.S. supply chains. A 2015 Associated Press investigation uncovered widespread slave labor in the Southeast Asian fishing industry, with the caught seafood ending up in U.S. supermarkets and pet food products. A 2020 AP investigation into the global palm oil industry, worth $65 billion worldwide, found systemic labor abuse among a workforce of millions of men, women and children across Asia, with palm oil from these operations entering the supply chains of major global consumer brands including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

    Trade policy experts and business groups say a far more comprehensive approach is needed to effectively combat forced labor in global supply chains, rather than broad, blunt tariffs applied to nearly all U.S. imports. During recent congressional hearings on the new tariffs, Jonathan Gold, vice president of the National Retail Federation, who represented a cross-industry business coalition focused on forced labor policy, said effective enforcement requires clear, measurable standards for nations to meet, paired with U.S. support to help build effective enforcement capacity in developing economies. Kenya Davis, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, echoed that view, noting that an effective ban requires transparency around investigation processes, paired with targeted aid to help nations strengthen their own enforcement regimes.

  • What we know so far about the Berlin Pride ramming attack

    What we know so far about the Berlin Pride ramming attack

    On Saturday night, a devastating violent attack targeted the annual Christopher Street Day Pride celebration in Berlin, leaving one woman dead and 16 other attendees injured. The assault began when a driver deliberately steered a white vehicle into crowds gathered in Tiergarten Park, a sprawling green space adjacent to the iconic Brandenburg Gate where hundreds of thousands of people had assembled for the LGBTQ+ flagship event. Multiple witnesses also reported stabbings during the incident, adding to the chaos that unfolded shortly after 22:00 local time.

    Emergency response teams quickly moved in to secure the area, and event organizers immediately ordered a full evacuation of the park. Large event screens displayed the urgent evacuation notice to guide thousands of attendees away from the danger zone, and the entire celebration was formally canceled within minutes of the first emergency call to police.

    Roughly three hours after the attack, Berlin law enforcement confirmed the fatality and injury toll in an official statement. Not long after that confirmation, investigators located the suspect’s vehicle, which had crashed into a tree and was abandoned within the park boundaries. By 03:30 local time on Sunday, police announced via social media platform X that they had identified a person of interest linked to Islamist extremist circles. As of the latest updates, no arrest has been made, and investigators have not yet formally confirmed a definitive motive for the attack.

    Authorities have named the primary suspect as 21-year-old Abdul B., withholding his full surname in compliance with German privacy regulations that restrict the public naming of suspects before formal conviction. Police confirmed the suspect has known connections to Islamist extremist communities, and warned that he is believed to be armed and considered extremely dangerous. At the time of the attack, he was described as wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and white trousers. Investigators have also not ruled out the possibility of additional accomplices, noting that one or more people may have fled the suspect vehicle after the crash, expanding the scope of the investigation.

    The manhunt has grown into one of the largest recent law enforcement operations in the German capital, with search boundaries extended across the entire city. Thousands of police officers, including additional reinforcements drawn from neighboring German states, have been deployed to track down the suspect. Berlin Police have issued a public appeal for any witnesses or community members with relevant information to contact authorities immediately, while stressing that members of the public must not approach the suspect under any circumstances.

    The attack occurred along Ahornsteig, a tree-lined path that cuts across the forested sections of Tiergarten Park, along the final route of the annual Christopher Street Day parade. The parade, which draws hundreds of thousands of participants and spectators annually, had wound through central Berlin before moving through the park past the Victory Column monument, en route to its endpoint near the Brandenburg Gate.

  • Watch: At the scene of Berlin Pride attack as manhunt continues

    Watch: At the scene of Berlin Pride attack as manhunt continues

    Authorities in Germany have launched an extensive manhunt for a 21-year-old man identified as the prime suspect in an incident that unfolded at the Berlin Pride celebration, leaving event attendees and local residents on edge as search operations continue. Eyewitness footage captured the immediate aftermath of the incident at the annual LGBTQ+ gathering, which draws hundreds of thousands of participants and visitors to the German capital each year. Law enforcement officials confirmed that they have successfully named the person of interest in connection with the attack, but as of the latest update, the suspect remains at large. Search teams, including specialized tactical units and local police patrols, have been deployed across Berlin and surrounding regions to locate the individual, with authorities urging members of the public to remain vigilant and report any potential sightings that could aid the investigation. The incident has disrupted what is typically a joyous, inclusive celebration of LGBTQ+ rights, prompting increased security measures at public gatherings across the city in the wake of the attack. Local officials have emphasized their commitment to bringing the suspect to justice while reassuring the community that every possible resource is being dedicated to the ongoing search effort.