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  • US infant formula supply is ‘safe,’ FDA says after looking for potential contaminants

    US infant formula supply is ‘safe,’ FDA says after looking for potential contaminants

    U.S. federal health officials announced Wednesday that a landmark safety analysis of commercial infant formula sold across the country has found mostly reassuringly low concentrations of heavy metals, pesticides, and other potentially harmful contaminants. The comprehensive testing was carried out as part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Operation Stork Speed, an initiative the agency describes as the most expansive and rigorous assessment of U.S. infant formula safety ever conducted. Both FDA leaders and independent public health experts have concluded that the current domestic infant formula supply remains safe for consumer use.

    “There is no reason for American parents to avoid any available infant formula on the market right now,” stated Dr. Steven Abrams, a pediatrics professor at the University of Texas at Austin who served as an independent reviewer for the FDA’s findings.

    Between 2023 and 2025, FDA scientists collected and tested more than 300 samples of commercially produced infant formula for a full panel of potential contaminants, including four common heavy metals: lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. The testing also extended to pesticide residues, phthalates (industrial chemicals commonly used in plastic packaging and manufacturing), and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the persistent man-made compounds widely nicknamed “forever chemicals” for their ability to remain in the environment and human body for decades.

    Per the FDA’s final report, all tested contaminants registered either undetectable levels or concentrations far lower than established safety thresholds. Any heavy metals that were detected fell well below the strict exposure limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water. Ninety-nine percent of tested samples showed no trace of pesticide residues at all, and 25 out of the 30 specific PFAS compounds included in the testing panel were not detected in any samples.

    Most independent experts who reviewed the data have backed the FDA’s conclusion that the current supply is safe, noting that trace amounts of some heavy metals can enter the food supply naturally through environmental contamination, rather than as a result of manufacturing flaws. But not all specialists share the full reassuring conclusion: synthetic compounds like phthalates and PFAS do not occur naturally, so even trace detections raise red flags for some clinicians and researchers.

    “These are completely human-made chemicals,” explained Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, a pediatrics professor at UW Medicine and researcher with the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. “The fact that we can detect any of these compounds in infant formula at all is a cause for concern.” Sathyanarayana added that the findings underscore a critical need for expanded ongoing monitoring of contaminants not just in infant formula, but across the entire U.S. food supply.

    Operation Stork Speed was launched by the Trump administration in March 2025, marking the first comprehensive update to U.S. infant formula safety and quality standards in decades. The initiative builds on earlier FDA work that examined heavy metal contamination in a range of infant foods, a public health priority because high early-life exposure to these toxins is linked to long-term impairments in children’s brain development, learning capacity, and behavioral development, Abrams explained.

    Currently, unlike regulatory frameworks in the European Union, Canada, and Australia, the U.S. does not have legally enforceable maximum exposure limits for heavy metals in infant formula. For years, consumer advocacy organizations have pushed the FDA to implement these strict, science-based limits. In 2024, independent consumer organization Consumer Reports published its own analysis of 41 U.S. infant formulas, claiming that many products contained troublingly high levels of heavy metals and other contaminants. However, that study set its own safety threshold for concern far lower than the existing standards used by the European Union, and the high-profile report sparked widespread public anxiety that led many parents to avoid necessary commercial formula use unnecessarily, Abrams noted.

    Abrams himself has called on the FDA to continue regular safety monitoring of infant formula and maintain transparent public reporting of test results. Abbott, one of the largest domestic infant formula manufacturers in the U.S., has also urged the FDA to formalize scientific, enforceable standards for contaminants in the sector.

    “Producing infant formula at scale domestically is a matter of national security for the United States,” Abbott spokesman John Koval said in a prepared email statement. “These latest results confirm that our current domestic supply is safe for American families.”

    This reporting was produced by The Associated Press Health and Science Department, which receives grant support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP maintains full editorial control over all of its independent content.

  • Stranded whale ferried out of German waters in barge

    Stranded whale ferried out of German waters in barge

    After more than five weeks of being stuck in the shallow coastal waters of Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, a young humpback whale nicknamed both “Timmy” and “Hope” has finally begun its journey to the deeper, open waters of the North Sea, carried in a custom water-filled barge towed through international waters. The unprecedented rescue operation has captured the attention of the entire German public, splitting marine experts and conservation groups over the wisdom and potential outcome of the risky mission.

    The whale’s ordeal began in early March, when it likely became tangled in fishing netting before stranding on Timmendorfer Beach in Lübeck Bay on March 23. After initial efforts to dig a channel to coax the animal out to open water failed, the whale slowly moved east along the German coast, eventually settling in a shallow, low-salinity area off the coast of Poel Island, where it remained for 29 days. Over that period, the stranded whale became a national cause célèbre in Germany, with regular updates on its condition dominating local and national news cycles.

    Multiple early attempts to lure the humpback away from the coast ended in failure, leaving rescuers to pursue a controversial, privately funded plan: coax the whale into a specially adapted water-filled barge, then transport it hundreds of kilometers around the Danish coast to the North Sea. The operation is funded by two German entrepreneurs, Karin Walter-Mommert and Walter Gunz, who have poured their resources into giving the whale a second chance. On Tuesday, the team achieved a major milestone when the whale voluntarily swam into the prepared barge, a moment that brought rescue workers to tears.

    “I can’t even say how happy I am,” Walter-Mommert told reporters after the successful boarding, while Gunz added that he had never prayed as intensely as he had during the weeks of the rescue effort. Till Backhaus, environment minister for Germany’s northern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state, who has become the public face of the mission, hailed the operation as a landmark example of collective action. “If everything goes well, it will be in the North Sea in two days,” he told reporters, adding that early monitoring suggested the whale was in stable condition, and even reportedly sang overnight after being secured in the barge. After the barge and its tow vessel Fortuna B exited German territorial waters, it traveled through the Baltic Sea into Danish waters, on a route that will take it around the northern tip of Jutland and through the Skagerrak Strait to its final destination.

    Felix Bohnsack, the mission’s technical and rescue director, praised every partner involved in the operation, from state environmental agencies to the German lifeguard association DLRG, but cautioned that the hardest part of the journey is still ahead. “We are not yet out of the woods,” he warned Wednesday, reflecting on the 24 hours since the whale entered the barge. “The moment Hope swam into the barge was inconceivable; we had tears in our eyes; these are images I will never forget.”

    The operation has faced widespread skepticism from mainstream marine experts and conservation organizations, however. An expert panel from the International Whaling Commission has already distanced itself from the plan, noting that while the effort was well intentioned, the whale appears severely compromised and is unlikely to survive even after being moved to deeper water. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) group has echoed that assessment, warning that the whale has already sustained permanent skin damage from the low-salinity waters of the German Baltic coast. For the rescue to be successful, WDC officials note, the whale’s skin must fully heal and it must quickly learn to hunt for food independently in its new habitat. The German Oceanographic Museum has added that the weakened animal faces a constant risk of drowning during the transport due to its compromised condition.

    A small number of experts have offered a more cautious optimistic take. Marine biologist Fabian Ritter told German press agency DPA that the whale has demonstrated a clear “will to live,” though he cautioned that this type of long-distance barge rescue is completely unprecedented, so no one can accurately predict what long-term effects the process will have on the animal. As the barge continues its northbound journey toward the North Sea, the entire nation of Germany remains closely watching for updates on the whale’s fate.

  • Shot fired after child picks up discarded gun

    Shot fired after child picks up discarded gun

    On a Tuesday afternoon in Dublin’s Ballymun neighborhood, a near-tragedy unfolded just steps away from the local Ballymun Garda Station, highlighting the growing danger of unresolved gang violence plaguing the community. What began as a routine police response to a reported firearm incident turned into a scare that has left local residents and public officials demanding greater safety measures.

    According to official statements from An Garda Síochána, Ireland’s national police service, uniformed unarmed officers responded to emergency calls around 15:00 local time. During their response, officers launched a foot pursuit of two male suspects: one teenage boy and one man in his 20s, with one suspect traveling on an e-scooter. As the chase unfolded near the residential area of Sillogue Gardens, one suspect discarded a loaded firearm in a dense bush before both suspects were taken into custody.

    Shortly after the arrests were completed, an 11-year-old child exploring the area stumbled across the hidden weapon. When the child picked up the gun, the loaded weapon discharged a round. Miraculously, no bystanders or the child were injured in the shooting, but the incident has sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community.

    Local councillor Conor Reddy, representing the People Before Profit party, confirmed that the incident is tied to an ongoing, bitter drugs feud that has sparked an escalating cycle of violence across Ballymun in recent months. He warned that repeated firearm incidents in residential areas are normalizing violent behavior for young people growing up in the neighborhood, a trend he called deeply alarming.

    This event is not an isolated occurrence. Just three days prior, on Sunday, Gardaí from the Drug Unit conducting a routine foot patrol discovered a second loaded handgun hidden in a bush near Coultry Park’s public playground. That weapon was found with a round already in the firing chamber, and it has been sent for ballistic and forensic testing. As of the latest updates, no arrests have been made in that case, though investigators confirm they are following a clear line of inquiry.

    Following Tuesday’s shooting, Gardaí confirmed that the 20s-aged suspect remains in police custody, while the teenage suspect has been released pending a full report to Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions. Law enforcement officials also noted they are providing support services to the family of the 11-year-old child who found the weapon, to help them process the incident.

    Local public officials have united to call for urgent action to address the growing safety crisis. Independent councillor Gavin Pepper has submitted an emergency motion to Dublin City Council, demanding that new closed-circuit CCTV cameras be installed in all local public parks and that full-time park rangers be assigned to conduct regular patrols to deter illegal activity. Fianna Fáil councillor Keith Connolly added that the gun involved in Tuesday’s discharge has not yet been recovered by police, with early reports indicating two young people on bicycles removed the weapon from the scene after it fired. Connolly is calling for high-visibility policing in Ballymun matched to the resource levels already deployed in central Dublin, arguing that residents of suburban neighborhoods deserve the same level of protection as those in the city core.

    Cllr Reddy emphasized that the most disturbing detail of the incident is the young age of people both involved in the feud and affected by it. “For an 11-year-old child to stumble across a loaded gun in their neighborhood is every parent’s worst nightmare,” he said, echoing the concerns of residents across Ballymun who now fear for their children’s safety as the drugs feud continues to escalate.

  • France investigates reappearance of website linked to Pelicot crimes

    France investigates reappearance of website linked to Pelicot crimes

    France’s justice system has launched a formal probe into the unexpected resurgence of a controversial platform tied to one of the country’s most high-profile violent sexual crime cases, renewing urgent calls for stronger regulation of unmoderated anonymous online spaces. The original platform, Coco.gg, first gained infamy during the 2024 trial of Dominique Pelicot, a man convicted of drugging his wife Gisèle Pelicot for more than 10 years, raping her repeatedly, and recruiting more than 50 random strangers via the platform’s chatrooms to join in the attacks. Forty-nine additional men were also convicted of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault against Gisèle Pelicot in the December 2024 ruling, all of whom had connected with Pelicot on the platform.

    Long before the Pelicot case brought national attention to the platform, French law enforcement had linked Coco.gg to a litany of other serious crimes, including widespread child sexual abuse, drug trafficking, and even murder. The site operated with no content moderation whatsoever and required no user registration, allowing anonymous users to access open chatrooms with zero vetting. By the time authorities took the original platform offline in 2024, it had been cited in more than 23,000 official criminal activity reports, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. The platform’s founder, Isaac Steidl, was arrested and charged with multiple offenses including possession and distribution of child pornography in January 2025, and he has formally denied all charges against him.

    But in early April 2025, internet users spotted at least two new platforms with nearly identical design layouts and similar names to the original Coco site operating publicly online. One of the new platforms, Cocoland.cc, released a public statement denying any connection to the original Coco.gg and its founder. As of April 29, Cocoland.cc had been taken offline, but a second Cocoland-branded site remained accessible to users that morning.

    Investigators have now opened an official investigation into the new sites on charges of “disseminating violent, pornographic, or offensive messages accessible to minors”, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to the BBC. Steidl’s legal representative, attorney Julien Zanatta, told Agence France-Presse that his client has “nothing to do” with the newly emerged platforms.

    Local French news outlet BFM TV conducted an on-the-record test of the accessible new platform, finding that journalists could create a pseudonymous profile and access chatrooms in seconds, with no registration requirements or identity verification checks. When a reporter posed as a 13-year-old girl, they were immediately contacted by multiple platform users who continued to send lewd photos and explicit sexual messages even after being told the account holder was underage.

    Sarah El Haïry, France’s High Commissioner for Childhood, condemned the resurgence of the platform, calling it a “collective failure” in the fight against child sexual abuse, one of the most severe forms of violence against minors. “Websites like this exploit every legal and regulatory loophole, they actively seek out prey, and that prey is children,” El Haïry said in a public statement. She added that predators routinely target and approach children via these unmoderated platforms, holding both the site creators and hosting services accountable for enabling the harm. El Haïry also confirmed she has filed separate official complaints against two additional unregulated open chatroom platforms that pose similar risks to minors.

  • Zaragoza goalkeeper Andrada handed 12-match suspension for throwing punch in 2nd-tier game in Spain

    Zaragoza goalkeeper Andrada handed 12-match suspension for throwing punch in 2nd-tier game in Spain

    Two separate high-profile disciplinary incidents in Spanish men’s football have resulted in significant match bans for two professional players, drawing fresh attention to on-pitch conduct rules in the country’s second and top-tier competitions.

    The first incident unfolded in a recent Segunda División fixture between Zaragoza and Huesca, ending in drastic action against Zaragoza’s Argentine starting goalkeeper Esteban Andrada. With just minutes remaining on the clock, Huesca defender Jorge Pulido approached Andrada, prompting the goalkeeper to shove Pulido hard to the turf. Match officials issued Andrada a second yellow card for the aggressive shove, which resulted in an automatic red card and ejection from the game. Rather than leaving the pitch, Andrada pursued Pulido and landed a forceful punch to the defender’s face with his right hand, knocking Pulido to the ground immediately.

    The unprovoked attack sparked a full-scale brawl involving players and coaching staff from both clubs, bringing play to an extended halt. In the chaos of the melee, Huesca backup goalkeeper Dani Jiménez retaliated by punching Andrada, and he was also sent off. Following a disciplinary review, Spanish football authorities handed Andrada a 12-match suspension for the violent punch, plus an additional one-match ban linked to the red card he received prior to the attack. Jiménez received a four-match suspension for his role in the post-punch confrontation. Andrada has since issued a public apology for his outburst, and both clubs have the right to appeal the disciplinary rulings.

    In a separate incident in La Liga, first-division side Rayo Vallecano winger Isi Palazón received a seven-match suspension for unsportsmanlike conduct toward match officials. The suspension stems from an incident during a hotly contested 3-3 draw against Real Sociedad on Sunday. Palazón had already been substituted off the pitch and was on the Rayo bench when a controversial VAR decision altered the course of the game. Reviewing an earlier sequence of play, video officials overturned a correctly disallowed Rayo goal and instead awarded a penalty kick to Real Sociedad. The call enraged Palazón, who launched a harsh, aggressive tirade of complaints against the referee from the bench, resulting in an immediate red card and ejection.

    Disciplinary officials upheld the ejection and ruled Palazón’s conduct unacceptable, issuing the seven-match ban that will rule him out of most of Rayo’s coming fixtures. Both cases highlight the Spanish Football Federation’s ongoing crackdown on violent play and misconduct targeting match officials in domestic professional football.

  • In a remote German village, mail is delivered by boat during warmer months

    In a remote German village, mail is delivered by boat during warmer months

    Tucked 100 kilometers southeast of Berlin, the historic riverside village of Lehde sits within the winding waterways of the Spreewald Forest, a protected UNESCO biosphere reserve where the Spree River splits into hundreds of narrow, shallow canals cutting through lush wetlands and old-growth forest. For 129 consecutive years, this tiny German village has held a singular distinction across the whole country: it is the only community in Germany that receives all its mail delivery by boat, a seasonal tradition that returns every spring as ice thaws and waterways become navigable once more.

    This year, that long-awaited seasonal kickoff fell on a Wednesday in early April, when 55-year-old veteran postal worker Andrea Bunar stepped back onto her bright yellow 9-meter barge after a months-long winter break. For 14 years, Bunar has carried out this unique delivery route, switching between overland car trips in the frozen winter months and waterborne deliveries from April through October. On her first day back on the water, she stood at the stern of her vessel, guiding the shallow-draft barge through narrow channels with a single long oar that handles rowing, steering, and navigation all at once.

    “The start of the season is always special for me,” Bunar shared as she set off, clad in her official postal uniform. “After the long winter break, I enjoy being in the nature and back on the water.” Winter overland delivery is far from ideal in Lehde: rural roads are often slick with ice and snow, forcing much longer travel times than the water route. From spring through mid-autumn, Bunar makes deliveries six days a week, dropping letters and packages into mailboxes that residents have mounted directly along the riverbanks. She also offers on-route postal services, selling stamps to locals along the remote waterway and collecting outgoing mail to bring back to the main postal hub.

    The tradition of boat-borne mail delivery in Lehde dates back to the late 19th century. Before the service launched, villagers only collected their mail once a week, after Sunday church services. As rural-to-urban migration boomed across Germany, demand for more frequent long-distance communication surged, prompting the national postal service to establish regular delivery routes. For Lehde, a village crisscrossed by more waterways than paved roads, a boat delivery route was the only practical solution – turning the community into a tiny, Teutonic counterpart to Venice, built on interconnected canals.

    Today, Bunar covers an 8-kilometer route every week, completing the full circuit in roughly two hours. On average, she delivers around 600 letters and 80 packages each week, a mix that has shifted noticeably in recent years: handwritten and personal letters have declined, while online shopping has led to a sharp jump in package volume. Bunar jokes that her small barge has started to feel like a miniature container ship, having delivered everything from full-sized refrigerators and lawnmowers to electric scooters. On her 2024 opening day, alongside the usual stack of bills and registered correspondence, she delivered a large industrial saw to one local resident.

    For Bunar, this unconventional postal route is far more than just a job – it is a lifelong dream. “This is and has been my dream job all along,” she said with a smile, steering her barge past tree-lined canal banks. “Being on the water is just so relaxing – it slows down life.” The Spreewald biosphere, which protects hundreds of kilometers of waterways and a vast array of native plant and animal species, provides a quiet, scenic backdrop for her daily work, a pace of life that stands in stark contrast to the bustle of Berlin just an hour’s drive away.

  • UK expels Russian diplomat in retaliation for Moscow’s recent expulsion of a British official

    UK expels Russian diplomat in retaliation for Moscow’s recent expulsion of a British official

    LONDON – In a calibrated act of reciprocal retaliation against Moscow’s recent expulsion of a British diplomat and the subsequent public smear campaign against the UK, the United Kingdom announced the expulsion of a Russian diplomat on Wednesday. The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office confirmed it summoned Russia’s ambassador to London to its headquarters to formally deliver notice of the “reciprocal action”, a move that comes as bilateral tensions between Russia and Western nations continue to escalate sharply.

  • Men accused of being approached by Russian contact to attack Starmer-linked assets in London

    Men accused of being approached by Russian contact to attack Starmer-linked assets in London

    LONDON – As a high-stakes legal case got underway in a British court this week, prosecutors laid out detailed allegations that three foreign nationals were paid by an anonymous online contact to carry out a series of coordinated arson attacks targeting properties connected to United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year.

    Opening the trial on Wednesday, lead prosecutor Duncan Atkinson outlined the timeline of the alleged plot, which unfolded across north London over five days in May. The three defendants are identified as 22-year-old Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych, 35-year-old Ukrainian national Petro Pochynok, and 27-year-old Romanian citizen Stanislav Carpiuc. All three have formally denied the charges of conspiracy to commit arson brought against them.

    According to Atkinson’s account to the jury, the string of attacks began in the early hours of May 8, when a Toyota vehicle – previously owned by Starmer – was deliberately set on fire in the Kentish Town neighborhood. Three days later, on May 11, a blaze was ignited at a residential property on Ellington Road, a building managed by a firm where Starmer previously held a position as a director and shareholder. The final attack followed 24 hours later at a second home on Countess Road: a property still owned by Starmer, currently occupied by the prime minister’s sister-in-law.

    Atkinson emphasized that the sequence of targeted blazes was far from a random coincidence. “Three fires in the same area within five days would be pretty unusual. However, three fires all involving property linked to the same person were beyond a coincidence,” he told the court. All three fires were started using matching incendiary materials and set in the dead of night, when the occupants of the targeted properties would certainly be asleep, a detail Atkinson said proves the attackers intended to put lives at risk.

    Both occupied homes had residents who escaped harm after waking to detect smoke and flames, though the encounters were traumatic. On May 11, a top-floor resident of the divided Ellington Road property woke to the smell of smoke around 3 a.m. After opening his front door to find thick smoke filling the communal hallway, he was forced to retreat to the building’s roof to wait for emergency responders, struggling to breathe through the ordeal. The following morning, around 1 a.m. on May 12, Starmer’s sister-in-law heard loud popping bangs before seeing thick smoke pour through her front door and fill the home’s staircase. She also experienced respiratory distress, and her 9-year-old daughter was left severely frightened by the incident, Atkinson confirmed.

    Prosecutors confirm Lavrynovych is identified as the primary offender who set all three fires, while the other two defendants are charged as co-conspirators. Beyond the conspiracy count, Lavrynovych faces two additional charges of damaging property by fire, with intent to endanger life or reckless disregard for potential loss of life. Atkinson told the court that the plot was coordinated through the encrypted messaging platform Telegram, where Lavrynovych was promised payment for the attacks by an anonymous contact operating under the username “El Money,” described as a Russian-speaking contact. Court documents do not include details on the total amount of payment offered, and no fatalities or serious injuries were reported in connection with the blazes.

    Investigators have recovered more than 320 messages exchanged between Lavrynovych and “El Money” dating back to September 2024, but Atkinson instructed the jury that they do not need to determine the ultimate motivation for the alleged attacks, nor do they need to rule on the identity of the anonymous contact who organized the plot. It also does not matter whether the defendants themselves knew the targeted properties were connected to Starmer, Atkinson argued, as that question has no bearing on the conspiracy charges before the court.

  • Defying protocol, Trump relays details of private conversation with King Charles III

    Defying protocol, Trump relays details of private conversation with King Charles III

    LONDON – When King Charles III and Queen Camilla kicked off their high-stakes 2025 state visit to the United States, British officials were bracing for missteps. The trip came as U.S. President Donald Trump openly aired frustration with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the prime minister’s refusal to back American military actions in the ongoing Iran conflict. London’s core hope was that Charles’ warm personal rapport with Trump — a known admirer of the British monarchy — could smooth frayed bilateral ties and repair the growing diplomatic rift between the two allies.

    No one expected a major controversy, but few discounted the risk presented by Trump’s well-documented habit of ditching established diplomatic protocol. That risk became reality on the first night of the visit, during a formal state dinner held in the king and queen’s honor. Speaking to the assembled audience, Trump made an unusual disclosure: during a private closed-door meeting with King Charles earlier that day, he claimed the British monarch had explicitly agreed with his stance that Iran must never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.

    “We’re doing a little Middle East work right now … and we’re doing very well,” Trump told guests. “We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we’re never going to let that opponent ever — Charles agrees with me, even more than I do — we’re never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon.”

    While the core of Trump’s claim aligns with the long-held public position of both the British government and a majority of the British public, the off-the-cuff comment immediately sparked mild consternation among constitutional experts and political commentators across the United Kingdom. Longstanding unwritten constitutional convention holds that private conversations with the reigning monarch are never disclosed publicly. This norm exists for two key reasons: the British sovereign is required to remain strictly neutral and above partisan political debate, and crucially, the monarch has no right to enter public discourse to correct misquotations or clarify misattributed statements.

    Craig Prescott, a leading scholar of constitutional law and royal studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, explained the significance of the breach. “Generally, as a matter of protocol, I think I would expect discussions between heads of state to be sort of behind the scenes, in those closed meetings, for those to be sort of kept private,” he noted. “And, you know, this was something that the U.K. government wanted to avoid.”

    Buckingham Palace moved quickly to defuse tension, releasing a muted statement designed to contextualize Trump’s remarks without explicitly confirming or denying the president’s account. “The King is naturally mindful of his government’s long-standing and well-known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation,” the palace said.

    Crucially, observers across the board have stressed that the incident is far from a major diplomatic crisis. The stance Trump attributed to Charles matches the official UK policy on Iranian nuclear proliferation exactly, eliminating most risk of lasting damage. Multiple analysts have echoed Prescott’s observation that the breach of protocol could have been far more severe. For weeks ahead of the visit, officials had worried that Trump might make more inflammatory comments, or share sensitive private exchanges via social media that would put the king in an truly untenable position.

    In fact, the first political segment of the state visit has been largely marked by success. Before the state dinner, King Charles delivered a widely praised address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, where he celebrated the centuries-long special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom while openly acknowledging ongoing differences on issues ranging from NATO burden-sharing to support for Ukraine and global climate action. The speech drew multiple standing ovations from lawmakers, and even critics have noted it won broad positive reception in Washington.

    Now, the royal visit is shifting to lower-stakes territory as Charles and Camilla travel from Washington D.C. to New York City, where the official itinerary will center on celebrating the city’s creative industries, youth employment initiatives, and cultural exchange rather than high-stakes geopolitics. If Trump’s disclosure of the private conversation is the only controversy to emerge from the visit’s opening political phase, Prescott argues, the trip should still be considered a major win for both King Charles and the British government.

    “If this is the only controversy arising out of this phase of the state visit, I think overall this has been an enormous success for the king and the British government, because the king was able to make some quite pointed remarks in Congress and it hasn’t really yielded any sort of negative reaction from the president,” Prescott said. “In a sense, you get the feeling that the king rather charmed Washington with his speech to Congress and, you know, his very witty speech at the state banquet.”

  • Russia scales back Moscow Victory Day parade, blaming threat from Ukraine

    Russia scales back Moscow Victory Day parade, blaming threat from Ukraine

    For decades, Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade on Red Square has stood as one of the most prominent showcases of national pride and military power, marking the Soviet Union’s 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. This year, however, the iconic event will look drastically different, after the Kremlin formally confirmed it will pare back major elements of the celebration in response to what it calls a rising terrorist threat from Ukraine.

    Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Wednesday that security officials have enacted sweeping precautionary measures to reduce potential risks amid what the Kremlin frames as expanded hostile activity from the Kyiv government. “The Kyiv regime, which is ceding ground daily on the frontlines, has now shifted to full-scale terrorist operations,” Peskov said. He emphasized that despite the cuts, the parade will proceed as scheduled on Red Square, with all steps taken to keep attendees and participants safe.

    The Russian Ministry of Defense clarified the scope of changes in an official statement released Tuesday evening. While representatives from all branches of the Russian armed forces will still take part, and a ceremonial aerial flyover will be held, traditional elements that have been staples of the parade for years will be absent this year. Notably, cadets from the country’s elite Suvorov military schools, Nakhimov naval schools and other military cadet corps will not march, and no heavy military vehicles or armor will roll across Red Square’s cobblestones. National television will instead broadcast footage of Russian service members carrying out their duties in what Moscow officially calls the “special military operation zone” — its formal term for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in early 2022.

    This is not the first time Russia has adjusted its traditional Victory Day format in recent years, but it marks the first time since the 2022 invasion that no armored column will be featured in the central Moscow parade. Putin, who revived the Soviet-era tradition of marching heavy military hardware through Red Square in 2008, has used the annual event to demonstrate Russia’s growing military strength to both domestic audiences and the international community. In 2024, which marked the 80th anniversary of the 1945 victory, Moscow hosted more than 20 global leaders for an elaborate, high-profile celebration that featured a full procession of modern military equipment, including frontline tanks and combat drones.

    Rumors of a scaled-back 2025 parade first circulated on Russian social media earlier this month, when pro-Kremlin military bloggers publicly raised concerns about the risk of long-range Ukrainian air attacks on the large public gathering. “If you have a parade in full swing and then a missile threat is announced, that would be a massive public relations blow even if no strike actually lands,” prominent pro-war blogger Ilya Tumanov told Russian media outlets. Other pro-Kremlin commentators also noted that none of the usual large-scale parade rehearsals, which require widespread road closures across central Moscow, had taken place in the lead-up to the event, matching the formal announcement of cuts.

    In line with stepped-up security measures, a telecommunications source told BBC Russian that enhanced restrictions on mobile connectivity will be enforced across Moscow on May 5, 7 and 9. This follows widespread mobile internet outages in central Moscow back in March, which Russian authorities tied to unspecified security priorities.

    The decision to scale back the parade comes against a backdrop of a clear increase in Ukrainian strikes targeting Russian territory deep behind the front lines, more than three years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion. In recent weeks, Moscow — widely considered Russia’s most heavily defended city — has already faced multiple Ukrainian drone incursions, with Russian military officials consistently stating that most of the drones are intercepted and shot down before they can hit targets.

    Ukraine has significantly ramped up attacks on critical energy infrastructure across Russia in recent weeks, stretching thousands of kilometers from the border. On Wednesday, plumes of smoke were reported near Perm, a major Ural Mountains city roughly 1,500 kilometers from Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian officials confirmed the site was an oil pumping station hit by a drone, while local Russian authorities only described it as an industrial facility incident. That strike came just one day after Russia’s major oil refinery in the Black Sea port of Tuapse was hit for the third time in April. Earlier strikes on the Tuapse refinery triggered a large oil spill into the Black Sea, with local residents reporting “black rain” laced with oily residue that coated residential areas across the city.

    Kyiv has repeatedly stated that all of its strikes deep inside Russia target legitimate military or war-related infrastructure, arguing that these facilities directly enable Moscow to sustain its invasion. Ukraine has not yet issued an official public response to the Kremlin’s latest terrorism accusations, but a senior Ukrainian official last week explicitly ruled out any attack on the Moscow Victory Day parade. Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, noted that the event would draw large crowds of ordinary civilian onlookers, and stressed that “nobody is attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

    For most Russians, the victory over Nazi Germany — referred to domestically as the Great Patriotic War — remains one of the most unifying historical events in the country’s modern history. Many international and domestic analysts broadly agree that Putin has centered this victory as a core national narrative to bind Russian society together, particularly amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and heightened tensions with the West.