# Israel faces new calls for truce after killing of hostages raises alarm about its conduct in Gaza
By **WAFAA SHURAFA** and **SAMY MAGDY**
December 17, 2023. 7:21 PM EST

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**DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)** - Israel's government faced calls for a cease-fire from some of its closest European allies on Sunday after a series of shootings, including the mistaken killing of three Israeli hostages, fueled global concerns about the conduct of the 10-week-old war in Gaza.

Israeli protesters are urging their government to renew negotiations with Gaza's Hamas rulers, whom Israel has vowed to destroy. Israel is also expected to face pressure to scale back major combat operations when U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits Monday. Washington is expressing growing unease with civilian casualties even as it provides vital military and diplomatic support.

The war has flattened large parts of northern Gaza, killed thousands of civilians and driven most of the population to the southern part of the besieged territory, where many are in crowded shelters and tent camps. Some 1.9 million Palestinians - about 90% of Gaza's population - have fled their homes.

They survive off a trickle of humanitarian aid. Dozens of desperate Palestinians surrounded aid trucks after they drove in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, forcing some to stop before climbing aboard, pulling down boxes and carrying them off. Other trucks appeared to be guarded by masked people carrying sticks.

Israel said aid passed directly from Israel into Gaza for the first time Sunday, with 79 trucks entering from Kerem Shalom, where around 500 trucks entered daily before the war. Another 120 trucks entered via Rafah along with six trucks carrying fuel or cooking gas, said Wael Abu Omar, Palestinian Crossings Authority spokesman.

Aid workers say it's still far from enough. "You cannot deliver aid under a sky full of airstrikes," a spokesperson with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, Juliette Touma, said on social media, while the agency estimated that more than 60% of Gaza's infrastructure had been destroyed in the war.

Telecom services in Gaza gradually resumed after a four-day communications blackout, the longest of several outages during the war that groups say complicate rescue and delivery efforts.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel "will continue to fight until the end," with the goal of eliminating Hamas, which triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, and captured scores of hostages.

Netanyahu has vowed to bring back the estimated 129 hostages still in captivity. Anger over the mistaken killing of hostages is likely to increase pressure on him to renew Qatar-mediated negotiations with Hamas over swapping more of the remaining captives for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel has been defensively striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson. The group has ramped up attacks against Israel, he added, killing civilians and soldiers and displacing more than 80,000 Israelis from their homes.

"Hezbollah - a proxy of Iran - is dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war that would have devastating consequences for the people of Lebanon," Hagari said in a statement. "This is a war that they do not deserve."

Hagari said Israel will continue to protect its borders "until and unless a diplomatic solution is found and implemented."

## CALLS FOR A NEW CEASE-FIRE
In Israel on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called for an "immediate truce" aimed at releasing more hostages, getting larger amounts of aid into Gaza and moving toward "the beginning of a political solution."

France's Foreign Ministry earlier said an employee was killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Rafah on Wednesday. It condemned the strike, which it said killed several civilians, and demanded clarification from Israeli authorities.

The foreign ministers of the U.K. and Germany, meanwhile, called for a "sustainable" cease-fire, saying too many civilians have been killed.

"Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful co-existence with Palestinians," British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote in the U.K.'s Sunday Times.

The U.S. defense secretary is set to travel to Israel to continue discussions on a timetable for ending the war's most intense phase. Israeli and U.S. officials have spoken of a transition to more targeted strikes aimed at killing Hamas leaders and rescuing hostages, without saying when it would occur.

Hamas has said no more hostages will be released until the war ends, and that in exchange it will demand the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

Hamas released over 100 of more than 240 hostages captured on Oct. 7 in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinian prisoners during a brief cease-fire in November. Nearly all freed on both sides were women and minors. Israel has rescued one hostage.

The Israeli military said Sunday it had discovered a large tunnel in Gaza close to what was once a busy crossing into Israel, raising new questions about how Israeli surveillance missed such conspicuous attack preparations by Hamas.

## SHOOTINGS DRAW SCRUTINY
Military officials said Saturday that the three hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops had tried to signal that they posed no harm. It was Israel's first such acknowledgement of harming hostages in the war.

The hostages, all in their 20s, were killed Friday in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops are engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas. An Israeli military official said the shootings were against the army's rules of engagement and were being investigated at the highest level.

Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields. But Palestinians and rights groups have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of recklessly endangering civilians and firing on those who do not threaten them, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, which has seen a surge of violence since the war began.

A shell struck the pediatric ward of a hospital in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza late Sunday, killing a girl, said Dr. Mohammed Abu Lihia, who works in the emergency department.

Footage shared by Gaza's Health Ministry showed a burst ceiling and wall in the Mubarak Hospital for Children and Maternity in the Nasser Hospital complex with bloodstains near children's cots and cribs on the third floor.

The doctor said he helped three others, two older adults and a child, escape the hospital. A videographer filming for The Associated Press said at least 5 people, including children, were wounded. The Israeli military didn't immediately comment.

Israel continues to strike positions across Khan Younis. Palestinians from the north fled there in the early weeks of the conflict.

Also Sunday, five people were killed and many injured after a reported Israeli airstrike hit near a U.N.-run school in Khan Younis where displaced Palestinians were sheltering. A cameraman with AP counted five bodies delivered to a hospital.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said two Christian women at a church compound in Gaza were killed by Israeli sniper fire.

Pope Francis called Sunday for peace, saying "unarmed civilians are being bombed and shot at, and this has even happened inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists but families, children and sick people with disabilities, nuns."

In discussions Saturday between the Israeli military and representatives of the church community, no one reported a strike on the church or civilians being wounded or killed, the military said. It said a review of its initial investigation had supported that.

The offensive has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Thursday in its last update before the communications blackout. It has said that thousands more casualties are buried under the rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but has said that most of those killed were women and children.

The plight of Palestinian civilians has gotten little attention inside Israel, where many are still deeply traumatized by the Oct. 7 attack and where support for the war remains strong.

Israel's military says 121 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive. It says it has killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.


# Senate border security talks grind on as Trump invokes Nazi-era 'blood' rhetoric against immigrants
By **LISA MASCARO** and **STEPHEN GROVES**
December 17, 2023. 8:20 PM EST

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**WASHINGTON (AP)** - Time slipping, White House and Senate negotiators struggled Sunday to reach a U.S. border security deal that would unlock President Joe Biden's request for billions of dollars worth of military aid for Ukraine and other national security needs before senators leave town for the holiday recess.

The Biden administration, which is becoming more deeply involved in the talks, is facing pressure from all sides over any deal. Negotiators insist they are making progress, but a hoped-for framework did not emerge. Republican leaders signaled that without bill text, an upcoming procedural would likely fail.

The talks come as Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner in 2024, delivered alarming anti-immigrant remarks about "blood" purity over the weekend, echoing Nazi slogans of World War II at a political rally.

"They're poisoning the blood of our country," Trump said about the record numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S. without immediate legal status.

Speaking in the early-voting state of New Hampshire, Trump, drew on words similar to Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kempf" as the former U.S. president berated Biden's team over the flow of migrants. "All over the world they're pouring into our country," Trump said.

Throughout the weekend, senators and top Biden officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have been working intently behind closed doors at the Capitol to strike a border deal, which Republicans in Congress are demanding in exchange for any help for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs. Mayorkas arrived for more talks late Sunday afternoon.

"Everyday we get closer, not farther away," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., as talks wrapped up in the evening.

Their holiday recess postponed, Murphy and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona independent, acknowledged the difficulty of drafting, and securing support, for deeply complicated legislation on an issue that has vexed Congress for years. Ahead of more talks Monday, it is becoming apparent any action is unlikely before year's end.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said senators don't want to be "jammed" by a last-minute compromise reached by negotiators.

"We're not anywhere close to a deal," Graham, whose staff has joined the talks, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Graham predicted the deliberations will go into next year. He was among 15 Republican senators who wrote to GOP leadership urging them to wait until the House returns Jan. 8 to discuss the issue.

Top GOP negotiator Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell also signaled in their own letter Sunday that talks still had a ways to go. Lankford said later that the January timeline was "realistic."

The Biden administration faces an increasingly difficult political situation as global migration is on a historic rise, and many migrants are fleeing persecution or leaving war-torn countries for the United States, with smugglers capitalizing on the situation.

The president is being berated daily by Republicans, led by Trump, as border crossings have risen to levels that make even some in Biden's own Democratic Party concerned.

But the Biden administration, in considering revival of Trump-like policies, is drawing outrage from Democrats and immigrant advocates who say the ideas would gut the U.S. asylum system and spark fears of deportations from immigrants already living in the U.S.

The White House's failure to fully engage Latino lawmakers in the talks until recently, or ensure a seat at the negotiating table, has led to a near revolt from leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

"It's unacceptable," said Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., chair of the Hispanic Caucus, on social media. "We represent border districts & immigrant communities that will be severely impacted by extreme changes to border policy."

Progressives in Congress are also warning the Biden administration off any severe policies that would bar immigrants a legal path to enter the country. "No backroom deal on the border without the involvement of the House, the House Hispanic Caucus, Latino senators is going to pass," said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., on Fox News.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, along with Mayorkas, heard from leading Latino lawmakers during a conference call with the Hispanic Caucus on Saturday afternoon.

The senators and the White House appear to be focused on ways to limit the numbers of migrants who are eligible for asylum at the border, primarily by toughening the requirements to qualify for their cases to go forward.

The talks have also focused removing some migrants who have already been living in the U.S. without full legal status, and on ways to temporarily close the U.S.-Mexico border to some crossings if they hit a certain metric, or threshold. Arrests of migrants have topped 10,000 on some days.

There has also been discussion about limiting existing programs that have allowed groups of arrivals from certain countries to temporarily enter the U.S. while they await proceedings about their claims. Decades ago, those programs welcomed Vietnamese arrivals and others, and have since been opened to Ukrainians, Afghans and a group that includes Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians.

Meanwhile, Biden's massive $110 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other security needs is hanging in the balance.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a dramatic, if disappointing, visit to Washington last week to plead with Congress and the White House for access to U.S. weaponry as his country fights against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion.

Many, but not all, Republicans have soured on helping Ukraine fight Russia, taking their cues from Trump. The former president praised Putin, quoting the Russian leader during Saturday's rally while slamming the multiple investigations against him as politically motivated - including the federal indictment against Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election that resulted in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

Ukraine's ambassador to the United States said Sunday she believes in "Christmas miracles" and won't give up hope.

Of Biden's package, some $61 billion would go toward Ukraine, about half of the money for the U.S. Defense Department to buy and replenish tanks, artillery and other weaponry sent to the war effort.

"All the eyes are on Congress now," the envoy, Oksana Markarova, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"We can just only pray and hope that there will be resolve there, and that the deal that they will be able to reach will allow the fast decisions also on the support to Ukraine," she said.

The House already left for the holiday recess, but Republican Speaker Mike Johnson is being kept aware of the negotiations in the Senate.


# A gloomy mood hangs over Ukraine's soldiers as war with Russia grinds on
By **SAMYA KULLAB**
December 18, 2023. 12:03 AM EST

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**KYIV, Ukraine (AP)** - A gloomy mood hangs over Ukraine's soldiers nearly two years after Russia invaded their country.

Despite a disappointing counteroffensive this summer and signs of wavering financial support from allies, Ukrainian soldiers say they remain fiercely determined to win. But as winter approaches, they worry that Russia is better equipped for battle and are frustrated about being on the defensive again in a grueling war. Some doubt the judgment of their leaders.

Discontent among Ukrainian soldiers - once extremely rare and expressed only in private - is now more common and out in the open.

In the southern city of Kherson, where Ukraine is staging attacks against well-armed Russian troops on the other side of the Dnieper River, soldiers are asking why these difficult amphibious operations were not launched months ago in warmer weather.

"I don't understand," said a commander of the 11th National Guard Brigade's anti-drone unit who is known on the battlefield as Boxer. "Now it's harder and colder."

"It's not just my feeling, many units share it," said Boxer, who spoke on condition that only his battlefield name would be used.

Russia, which illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, controls about one-fifth of Ukraine. After 22 months of war the two countries are essentially in a stalemate along the 1,000 kilometer-long (620 mile-long) front line.

Russian forces aim to push deeper into eastern Ukraine this winter, analysts say, so that Russian President Vladimir Putin can cite this momentum as he campaigns for reelection, an outcome that is all but certain. Emboldened by recent gains on the battlefield, Putin said last week that he remains fully committed to the war and criticized Ukraine for "sacrificing" troops to demonstrate success to Western sponsors.

In the United States, which has already spent some $111 billion defending Ukraine, President Joe Biden is advocating for an additional $50 billion in aid. But Republican lawmakers are balking at more support - just as some lawmakers in Europe are on the fence about providing another $50 billion to Ukraine, after failing to deliver on promised ammunition.

"The reason the Ukrainians are gloomy is that, they now sense, not only have they not done well this year ... they know that the Russians' game is improving," said Richard Barrons, a former British army general. "They see what's happening in Congress, and they see what happened in the EU."

Ukraine may be on the defensive this winter, but its military leaders say they have no intention of letting up the fight.

"If we won't have a single bullet, we will kill them with shovels," said Serhii, a commander in the 59th Brigade that is active in the eastern city of Avdiivka and who spoke on condition that only his first name be used. "Surely, everyone is tired of war, physically and mentally. But imagine if we stop - what happens next?"

## BLEAK MOOD
The fatigue and frustration on the battlefield are mirrored in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, where disagreements among leaders have recently spilled out into the open.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month publicly disputed the assessment by Ukraine's military chief, Valery Zaluzhny, that the war had reached a stalemate. And the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has repeatedly lashed out at Zelenskyy, saying he holds too much power.

Disquiet in the halls of power appears to have filtered down to the military's rank and file, who increasingly have misgivings about inefficiency and faulty decision-making within the bureaucracy they depend on to keep them well-armed for the fight.

In the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, where momentum has slowed since the summertime counteroffensive, drones have become a crucial tool of war. They enable soldiers to keep an eye on - and hold back - Russian forces while they conduct dangerous and painstaking operations to clear minefields and consolidate territorial gains. But fighters there complain that the military has been too slow in training drone operators.

It took seven months to obtain the paperwork needed from multiple government agencies to train 75 men, said Konstantin Denisov, a Ukrainian soldier.

"We wasted time for nothing," he said. Commanders elsewhere complain of not enough troops, or delays in getting drones repaired, disrupting combat missions.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov insists Ukraine has enough soldiers and weaponry to power the next phase of the fight.

"We are capable and able to protect our people and we will be doing it," he told the Associated Press. "We have a plan and we are sticking to that plan."

## DEFENSIVE SHIFT
The limited momentum Ukraine's forces had during their summertime counteroffensive has slowed - from the forests in the northeast, to the urban centers in the east, to the slushy farmland in the south.

With Russia hoping to take the initiative this winter, Ukraine is mainly focused on standing its ground, according to interviews with a half dozen military commanders along the vast front line.

Despite wet, muddy ground that makes it harder to move tanks and other heavy weaponry around, the Russian army has bolstered its forces in the eastern Donetsk region, where it has recently stepped up offensive maneuvers.

"The main goal for the winter is to lose as few people as possible," said Parker, the Ukrainian commander of a mechanized battalion near Bakhmut who asked to go by his battlefield name to speak freely. Bakhmut is a city in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces took after months of heavy fighting.

"We have to be clear," Parker said. "It's not possible in the winter to liberate Donetsk or Bakhmut, because they have too many (fighters)."

Analysts say Ukraine may even be forced to cede patches of previously reclaimed territory this winter, though Russia is likely to pay a heavy price.

"If Russia keeps on attacking, the most likely outcome is that they'll make some very marginal territorial gains, but suffer enormous casualties in doing so," said Ben Barry, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

## DRONES AND MEN
Some Ukrainian commanders across the front line say they lack the fighters and firepower needed to keep Russia's seemingly endless waves of infantrymen at arm's length as they fortify defenses to protect soldiers. That places ever more importance on attack drones - a weapon, they say, that Russia is currently better equipped with.

Indeed, while Ukrainian soldiers have proven to be resourceful and innovative on the battlefield, Moscow has dramatically scaled up its defense industry in the past year, manufacturing armored vehicles and artillery rounds at a pace Ukraine cannot match.

"Yes they're ahead of us in terms of supply," said Boxer, the commander in Kherson, who credited Russian drones with having longer range and more advanced software. "It allows the drone to go up 2,000 meters, avoid jammers," he said, whereas Ukrainian drones "can fly only 500 meters."

This is poses a problem for his troops, who have been limited in their ability to strike Russian targets on the other side of the Dnieper River. To eventually deploy heavy weaponry, such as tanks, Ukraine first needs to push Russian forces back to erect pontoon bridges. Until they get more drones, this won't be possible, said Boxer.

"We wait for weapons we were supposed to receive months ago," he said.

To sustain the fight, Ukraine will also have to mobilize more men.

In the northeastern cities of Kupiansk and Lyman, Russian forces have deployed a large force with the goal of recapturing lost territory.

"They are simply weakening our positions and strongholds, injuring our soldiers, thereby forcing them to leave the battlefield," said Dolphin, a commander in the northeast who would only be quoted using his battlefield name.

Dolphin says he has been unable to sufficiently re-staff. "I can say for my unit, we are prepared 60%," he said.


# Serbia's populists claim a sweeping victory in the country's parliamentary election
By **DUSAN STOJANOVIC**
December 17, 2023. 6:17 PM EST

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**BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)** - Serbia's governing populists claimed a sweeping victory Sunday in the country's parliamentary election, which was marred by reports of major irregularities both during a tense campaign and on voting day.

Acting Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that with half the ballots counted, the governing Serbian Progressive Party's projections showed it won 47% percent of the vote and expected to hold around 130 seats in the 250-member assembly. The main opposition Serbia Against Violence group won around 23%, Brnabic said.

The main contest in the parliamentary and local elections was between President Aleksandar Vucic's Serbian Progressives and the centrist coalition that sought to undermine the populists who have ruled the troubled Balkan state since 2012.

The Serbia Against Violence opposition coalition was expected to mount its biggest challenge for the city council in Belgrade, with analysts saying an opposition victory in the capital would seriously dent Vucic's hardline rule in the country.

Vucic, however, said his party was also leading in the vote in the capital, though he added that post-election coalition negotiations would determine who governs in Belgrade.

"This is an absolute victory which makes me extremely happy," a jubilant Vucic said at his party's headquarters in Belgrade. "We know what we have achieved in the previous period and how tough a period lies ahead."

The main opposition group disputed the election projections from the governing party, claiming there was vote-rigging and saying it would dispute the vote count "by all democratic means."

"People who do not live in Belgrade were brought in buses, vans and cars to vote as if they were citizens of Belgrade," opposition leader Miroslav Aleksic said, also charging that 40,000 identity documents were issued for people who do not live in the capital.

"We will use all available democratic means against the vote rigging in Belgrade and Serbia," he said. "What happened today cannot be something we can accept as the result of a democratic and fair election."

Turnout one hour before the polls closed was around 55%, about the same as during the last election in 2022 when Vucic scored a landslide victory. First official results are expected Monday.

Irregularities were reported by election monitors and independent media. One report alleged ethnic Serbs from neighboring Bosnia gathered to vote at a sports hall in Belgrade that wasn't an official polling station. Another report said a monitoring team was attacked and their car was bashed with baseball bats in a town in northern Serbia.

Observers from the independent Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability expressed "the highest concern" over cases of the organized transfer of illegal voters from other countries to Belgrade, the group said in a statement.

"The concentration of buses, minivans and cars was observed on several spots in Belgrade, transferring voters to polling stations across the city to vote," the group said.

CRTA also reported cases of voters being given money to vote for the governing party and the presence of unauthorized people at polling stations.

Authorities disputed that there was any wrongdoing. Brnabic, the premier, called the accusations "lies that are intended to spread panic."

Several right-wing groups, including pro-Russia parties and Socialists allied with Vucic, ran candidates for parliament and local councils in around 60 cities and towns as well as regional authorities in the northern Vojvodina province.

The election didn't include the presidency, but governing authorities backed by dominant pro-government media ran the campaign as a referendum on Vucic.

Although he wasn't formally on the ballot, the Serbian president campaigned relentlessly for the SNS, which appeared on the ballot under the name "Aleksandar Vucic - Serbia must not stop!"

Serbia Against Violence, a pro-European Union bloc, includes parties that were behind months of street protests this year triggered by two back-to-back mass shootings in May.

The Serbian president toured the country and attended his party's rallies, promising new roads, hospitals, one-off cash bonuses and higher salaries and pensions. Vucic's image was on billboards all over the country, though he had stepped down as SNS party leader.

Serbia, a Balkan country that has maintained warm relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, has been a candidate for European Union membership since 2014, but has faced allegations of steadily eroding democratic freedoms and rules over the past years.

Both Vucic and the SNS denied allegations of campaign abuse and attempted vote-rigging as well as charges that Vucic as president violated the constitution by campaigning for one party.

Vucic called the Dec. 17 early vote only a year and a half after a previous parliamentary and presidential election, although his party holds a comfortable majority in parliament.

Analysts said Vucic is seeking to consolidate power after the two back-to-back shootings triggered months of anti-government protests, and as high inflation and rampant corruption fuel public discontent. Vucic has also faced criticism over his handling of a crisis in Kosovo, a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008, a move that Belgrade doesn't recognize.

His supporters view Vucic as the only leader who can maintain stability and lead the country into a better future.

"I think it's time that Serbia goes forward with full steam," retiree Lazar Mitrovic said after he voted. "That means that it should focus on its youth, on young people, education and of course discipline."


# Chilean voters reject conservative constitution, after defeating leftist charter last year
By **MARÍA VERZA** and **PATRICIA LUNA**
December 17, 2023. 10:47 PM EST

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**SANTIAGO, Chile (AP)** - Voters rejected on Sunday a proposed conservative constitution to replace Chile's dictatorship-era charter, showing both the deep division in the South American country and the inability of political sectors to address people's demands for change made four years ago.

With nearly all votes counted late Sunday, about 55.8% had voted "no" to the new charter, with about 44.2% in favor.

The vote came more than a year after Chileans resoundingly rejected a proposed constitution written by a left-leaning convention and one that many characterized as one of the world's most progressive charters.

The new document, largely written by conservative councilors, was more conservative than the one it had sought to replace, because it would have deepened free-market principles, reduced state intervention and might have limited some women's rights.

The process to write a new constitution began after 2019 street protests, when thousands of people complained about inequality in one of Latin America's most politically stable and economically strongest countries.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Sunday night that his government won't try a third attempt to change the constitution, saying there are other priorities.

He admitted he wasn't able to "channel the hopes of having a new constitution written for everyone." On the contrary, he said, after two referendums, "the country became polarized, it was divided."

Javier Macaya, the leader of the conservative Independent Democratic Union party, recognized the defeat and urged the government not to raise the issue again.

"From a perspective of coherence and respect for democracy, we recognize the results," Macaya said.

Now, the constitution adopted during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet - which was amended over the years - will remain in effect.

That is what former President Michelle Bachelet had hoped for when she voted early Sunday.

"I prefer something bad to something worse," said Bachelet, who campaigned to reject the latest charter proposal.

One of the most controversial articles in the draft said that "the law protects the life of the unborn," with a slight change in wording from the current document that some warned could make abortion fully illegal. Chilean law currently allows abortions for three reasons: rape, an unviable fetus and risk to the life of the mother.

Another article in the proposed document that sparked controversy said prisoners who suffer a terminal illness and aren't deemed to be a danger to society at large can be granted house arrest. Members of the left-wing opposition said the measure could end up benefiting those who have been convicted of crimes against humanity during the Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship.

The charter would have characterized Chile as a social and democratic state that "promotes the progressive development of social rights" through state and private institutions. It was opposed by many local leaders who said it would scrap a tax on houses that are primary residences, a vital source of state revenue that is paid by the wealthiest.

It also would have established new law enforcement institutions and said irregular immigrants should be expelled "as soon as possible."

César Campos, a 70-year-old taxi driver, turned out early to support the new constitution. He viewed it as a vote against the left, whose ideas largely dominated the first, rejected draft.

"Boric wants everybody to be equal," Campos said of the president. "Why should anyone who studies or works their entire life have to share that?"

In 2022, 62% of voters rejected the proposed constitution that would have characterized Chile as a plurinational state, established autonomous Indigenous territories and prioritized the environment and gender parity.

In Santiago, the capital, talk before Sunday's vote often turned to security rather than the proposed charter. State statistics show an uptick in robberies and other violent crimes, a development that tends to benefit conservative forces.

"This whole process has been a waste of government money ... it's a joke," said government employee Johanna Anríquez, who voted against the new constitution, calling "it is very extremist."

"Let's keep the one we have and, please, let's get on with the work of providing public safety," Anríquez said.

There appeared to be little enthusiasm for Sunday's vote. Most citizens are exhausted after 10 elections of various types in less than 2½ years, but voting is compulsory in Chile.

Malen Riveros, 19, a law student at the University of Chile, said the fervor that was ignited by the 2019 street protests has been lost and for her, the choice on Sunday was between the bad or the worse.

"The hopes were lost with the passing of time," Riveros said. "People have already forgotten why we went into the streets."


# Russia and Ukraine launch numerous drone attacks targeting a Russian air base and Black Sea coast
By **KARL RITTER**
December 17, 2023. 12:22 PM EST

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**KYIV, Ukraine (AP)** - Russia and Ukraine reportedly launched mass drone attacks at each other's territories for a second straight day Sunday, one of which apparently targeted a Russian military airport.

At least 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over three regions in southwestern Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a post on the messaging app Telegram.

A Russian air base hosting bomber aircraft used in the war in Ukraine was among the targets, according to a Russian Telegram channel critical of the Kremlin. The channel posted short videos of drones flying over low-rise housing in what it said was the Russian town of Morozovsk, whose air base is home to Russia's 559th Bomber Aviation Regiment.

Vasily Golubev, the governor of Russia's Rostov province, separately reported "mass drone strikes" near Morozovsk and another town farther west, but didn't mention the air base. Golubev said most the drones were shot down and and there were no casualties. He didn't comment on damage.

As of Sunday evening, Kyiv didn't formally acknowledge or claim responsibility for the drone attacks. A major Ukrainian newspaper, Ukrainska Pravda, cited an anonymous source in the security services as saying that Ukraine's army and intelligence services successfully struck the Morozovsk air base, inflicting "significant damage" to military equipment. It wasn't immediately possible to verify this claim.

Also Sunday morning, Ukraine's air force said it shot down 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight by Russian troops in southern and western Ukraine, as well as one X-59 cruise missile launched from the country's occupied south.

A civilian was killed overnight near Odesa, a key port on Ukraine's southern Black Sea coast, after the remnants of a destroyed drone fell on his house, Ukraine's military said.

Stepped-up drone attacks over the past month come as both sides are keen to show they aren't deadlocked as the war approaches the two-year mark. Neither side has gained much ground despite a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June.

Russian shelling on Sunday also killed an 81-year-old man in central Kherson, the southern Ukrainian city that was recaptured by Kyiv's forces last fall, according to the head of its municipal military administration.

Ukrainian and Russian forces exchanged fire outside Terebreno, a Russian village just kilometers (miles) from the Ukrainian border, according to Telegram posts by Gov. Vasily Gladkov. He did not provide details, but insisted Russian authorities had the situation "under control."

According to Baza, a Telegram news channel set up by Russian journalists critical of the Kremlin, fighting between Russian troops and a "Ukrainian diversionary group" began around 11 a.m. near Terebreno, home to some 200 people, forcing residents to hide in shelters.

Ukraine's military security agency, the GUR, said on Sunday evening that Russia-based "armed opponents of the Kremlin regime" were responsible for what it called "armed clashes" near Terebreno. The online statement didn't say whether the GUR or other Ukrainian bodies had any involvement in or prior knowledge of the fighting.

Hours later, a 69-year-old woman was reported killed in a Ukrainian border village in the northern Sumy region, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Terebreno. According to the Ukrainian regional prosecutor's office, the woman died after a Russian shell flew into her home. It wasn't immediately clear whether her death was linked to the reported clashes.

Late on Sunday afternoon, a Ukrainian border force official reported in a video statement that multiple Russian "sabotage and reconnaissance" operatives had crossed into Ukraine's northern Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Andriy Demchenko said that Ukrainian border guards and territorial defense units succeeded in pushing them back into Russia.

While cross-border raids on Russian territory from Ukraine are rare, the Russian military said in May that it had killed more than 70 attackers, describing them as Ukrainian military saboteurs, in a 24-hour battle. Kyiv portrayed the fighting as an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans.

Ukraine's foreign minister, meanwhile, welcomed what he called a sea change in Germany's approach toward Kyiv's European Union membership bid.

In an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper, Dmytro Kuleba said that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has won "sincere and well-deserved admiration" among Ukrainians for his role in the EU's recent decision to open membership talks for Kyiv.

Ukraine has long faced strong opposition in its attempts to join the 27-member bloc from Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has repeatedly spoken of his desire to maintain close ties with Russia.

Scholz said that at an EU summit last week he proposed that Orbán leave the room to enable the summit to launch accession talks with Ukraine, something that the Hungarian leader agreed to do.

"What German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did at the summit to remove the threatened Hungarian veto will go down in history as an act of German leadership in the interests of Europe. The chancellor has this week won a lot of sincere and well-deserved admiration in the hearts of Ukrainians," Kuleba told Bild.

He also voiced hope that Scholz' actions would mark a "broader and irreversible shift" in Berlin's approach towards EU negotiations with Kyiv.

"When I campaigned in Berlin last May to grant Ukraine EU candidate status, my appeals to Germany to take the lead in this process mostly fell on deaf ears. 'Germany doesn't want to lead,' experts and politicians in Berlin told me. I am glad that German political decisions have changed since then," Kuleba said.

The Ukrainian government has long cast EU and NATO membership as key foreign policy goals, and the EU's decision to start accelerated negotiations gave Kyiv a major boost - although it could be years before it's able to join. NATO leaders, meanwhile, haven't set any clear timeline so far for Kyiv's membership bid, even as Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine led another of Russia's neighbors, Finland, to be accepted into the military alliance in April.

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to build up military units near the Russian-Finnish border. The Kremlin leader declared, without giving details, that Helsinki's NATO accession would create "problems" for the Nordic country.

"There were no problems (between Russia and Finland). Now, there will be. Because we will create (a new) military district and concentrate certain military units there," he told Russian state television on Sunday morning.


# Ukrainian drone video provides a grim look at casualties as Russian troops advance toward Avdiivka
By **EVGENIY MALOLETKA**
December 17, 2023. 4:38 AM EST

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**KYIV, Ukraine (AP)** - As Russian forces press forward with an attempt to capture the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, The Associated Press obtained aerial footage that gives an indication of their staggering losses.

A Ukrainian military drone unit near Stepove, a village just north of Avdiivka, where some of the most intense battles have taken place, shot the video this month.

It's an apocalyptic scene: In two separate clips, the bodies of about 150 soldiers - most wearing Russian uniforms - lie scattered along tree lines where they sought cover. The village itself has been reduced to rubble. Rows of trees that used to separate farm fields are burned and disfigured. The fields are pocked by artillery shells and grenades dropped from drones. The drone unit said it's possible that some of the dead were Ukrainians.

The footage was provided to the AP by Ukraine's BUAR unit of the 110th Mechanized Brigade, involved in the fighting in the area. The unit said that the footage was shot on Dec. 6 over two separate treelines between Stepove and nearby railroad tracks and that many of the bodies had been left there for weeks.

The AP verified the location by comparing the video with maps and other drone footage of the same area shot six days later by the 47th Mechanized Brigade.

Russian forces launched an offensive in Avdiivka in October. Though they have made some incremental gains, Western analysts say the push has resulted in thousands of casualties.

Russia launched Europe's biggest war since WWII, invading Ukraine in February 2022.


# Russia's ruling party backs Putin's reelection bid while a pro-peace candidate clears first hurdle
December 17, 2023. 11:47 AM EST

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**MOSCOW (AP)** - Delegates from Russia's ruling party unanimously backed President Vladimir Putin 's bid for reelection at a party conference in Moscow on Sunday, state agencies reported, just a day after the Kremlin leader's supporters formally nominated him to run in the 2024 presidential election as an independent.

A little-known Russian presidential hopeful who calls for peace in Ukraine also inched closer towards formally registering as a candidate, securing a nomination from a group of more than 500 supporters in the Russian capital.

Dmitry Medvedev, United Russia's chairman and a former Russian president and prime minister, called on fellow party members to "mobilize all activists and supporters" in support of Putin before the vote, scheduled for March 15-17, according to reports by Russian state agencies.

In a speech at the conference, Medvedev referred to Putin as "our candidate," and asserted that his reelection for a fifth term as head of state "should be absolutely logical, legitimate and absolutely indisputable."

"We must mobilize all activists, all supporters in order to prevent any disruptions during the election campaign, stop any attempts to influence the course of the campaign from the outside, arrange provocations, disseminate false, harmful information or violate public order," Medvedev said.

Analysts have described Putin's reelection as all but assured, given the tight control he has established over Russia's political system during his 24 years in power. Prominent critics who could challenge him on the ballot are either in jail or living abroad, and most independent media have been banned within Russia.

On Saturday, a group including top officials from the United Russia party, prominent Russian actors, singers, athletes and other public figures formally nominated Putin to run as an independent.

The nomination by a group of at least 500 supporters is mandatory under Russian election law for those not running on a party ticket. Independent candidates also need to gather signatures from at least 300,000 supporters in 40 or more Russian regions.

Hours before United Russia delegates announced their endorsement of Putin on Sunday, a former journalist and mom-of-three from a small town in western Russia cleared the initial hurdle, according to Telegram updates by Sota, a Russian news publication covering the opposition, protests and human rights issues. Yekaterina Duntsova's candidacy was formally backed by a group of 521 supporters at a meeting in Moscow, Sota reported.

A former local legislator who calls for peace in Ukraine and the release of imprisoned Kremlin critics, Duntsova has spoken of being "afraid" following the launch of her bid for the presidency, and fears that Russian authorities might break up the supporters' meeting set to advance it.

According to Sota, electricity briefly went out at the venue where Duntsova's supporters were gathered, and building security initially refused to let some supporters into the venue, but the meeting was otherwise unimpeded.

The Kremlin leader has used different election tactics over the years. He ran as an independent in 2018 and his campaign gathered signatures. In 2012, he ran as a United Russia nominee instead.

At least one party - A Just Russia, which has 27 seats in the 450-seat State Duma - was willing to nominate Putin as its candidate this year. But its leader, Sergei Mironov, was quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti on Saturday as saying that Putin will be running as an independent and will be gathering signatures.

Under constitutional reforms he orchestrated, the 71-year-old Putin is eligible to seek two more six-year terms after his current term expires next year, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036.


# Pope Francis' 87th birthday closes out a big year of efforts to reform the church, cement his legacy
By **NICOLE WINFIELD**
December 17, 2023. 12:35 PM EST

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**ROME (AP)** - Pope Francis turned 87 on Sunday, closing out a year that saw big milestones in his efforts to reform the Catholic Church as well as health scares that raise questions about his future as pope.

Francis celebrated his birthday with cake during a festive audience with children Sunday morning, and there were "Happy Birthday" banners in St. Peter's Square during his weekly noon blessing.

One early present came Saturday, when a Vatican tribunal handed down a mix of guilty verdicts and acquittals in a complicated trial that Francis had supported as evidence of his financial reforms. The biggest-name defendant, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 5½ years in prison.

"It was quite a year for a pope who's obviously thinking about legacy and finishing up," said Christopher Bellitto, professor of history at Kean University in New Jersey.

Only seven popes are known to have been older than Francis at the time of their deaths, according to the online resource Catholic Hierarchy. Francis is fast closing in on one of them, Pope Gregory XII, perhaps best known for having been the most recent pope to resign until Pope Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013.

Gregory was 88½ when he voluntarily stepped down in 1415 in a bid to end the Western Schism, in which there were three rival claimants to the papacy. Francis has said he, too, would consider resigning if his health made him unable to carry on, but more recently he said the job of pope is for life.

Twice this year, however, Francis' less-than-robust respiratory health forced him to cancel big events: In spring, a bout of acute bronchitis landed him in the hospital for three days and made him miss the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum.

More recently, a new case of bronchitis forced him to cancel a planned trip to Dubai to participate in the U.N. climate conference. Francis had part of one lung removed as a young man and seems to be increasingly prone to respiratory problems that make breathing difficult and speaking even more so.

In between those events, he was hospitalized again in June for nine days for surgeons to repair an abdominal hernia and remove scar tissue from previous intestinal surgeries.

The hospitalizations have raised questions about Francis' ability to continue the globetrotting rigors of the modern-day papacy, which is increasingly dependent on the person of the pope, said David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University.

"It's a great improvement from the time when the pope was just a king in his throne surrounded by a royal court," he said. "But with such expectations can any pope govern into his 80s and even 90s and be effective?"

While Francis' health scares punctuated his 87th year, perhaps the biggest milestone of all, and one that is likely to shape the remainder of Francis' pontificate, was Benedict's Dec. 31 death.

Benedict largely stuck to his promise to live "hidden to the world" and allow Francis to govern unimpeded. But his death after 10 years of retirement removed the shadow of a more conservative pope looking over Francis' shoulder from the other side of the Vatican gardens.

His death has seemingly freed up Francis to accelerate his reform agenda and crack down on his right-wing opponents.

For starters, Francis presided over the first stage of his legacy-making meeting on the future of the Catholic Church. The synod aims to make the church more inclusive and reflective of and responsive to the needs of rank-and-file Catholics. The first session ended with "urgent" calls to include women in decision-making roles in the church. The next phase is scheduled for October 2024.

"The effort to change the rigidly top-down nature of governance in Catholicism is the main reform project of the Francis papacy and its success or failure will likely be his chief legacy," said Fordham's Gibson. He said the jury was still out on whether it would succeed, since the transition period is "messy and absolutely exhausting."

"Will the sense of exhaustion overcome the inspiration that invigorates so many?" he asked.

Alongside the synod, Francis this year appointed an unusually progressive theologian as the Vatican's chief doctrine watchdog, and he has already begun setting a very new tone for the church's teachings that could have big effects on the church going forward.

Cardinal Victor Fernandez has issued decrees on everything from how to care for cremated ashes (in a defined and sacred place) to membership in Masonic lodges (forbidden) and whether transgender people can be godparents (they can).

At the same time, Francis has begun hitting back at his conservative critics, for whom Benedict was a point of reference for the past 10 years.

Francis exiled Benedict's longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, to his native Germany after a series of infractions culminating with a tell-all memoir published in the days after Benedict's death that was highly critical of Francis.

Then, he forcibly removed the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Bishop Joseph Strickland, whose social media posts were highly critical of the pope. And most recently, he cut off the former Vatican high court judge, Cardinal Raymond Burke, after he warned that Francis' reform-minded synod risked dividing the faithful.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said the pushback against Burke was less of a "smackdown" and would have little tangible effect, since he has plenty of wealthy backers in the U.S.

But she said it was part of an important year that had as its high point the synod, the conclusion of which will drive Francis at least for another year.

"I think the Pope is thinking about his legacy in a way he hasn't done before. Perhaps that has to do with Benedict's death, maybe it's more a matter of his own mortality becoming more real given his recent illnesses," she said. "The synod is a huge part of that legacy, obviously, and you can see his investment in having it succeed. I'm willing to bet that seeing part 2 of the synod to fruition is a huge motivator for him right now."


# European diplomacy steps up calls for Gaza cease-fire
December 17, 2023. 9:48 AM EST

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**JERUSALEM (AP)** - Some of Israel's closest European allies pressed for a cease-fire in the war with Hamas on Sunday, underscoring growing international unease with the devastating impact of the conflict on Gaza's civilian population.

The concerted push by top European diplomats comes before a visit to Israel on Monday by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is also expected to put pressure on Israeli leaders to end the war's most intense phase and transition to a more targeted strategy against Hamas.

Western allies of Israel have increasingly expressed concern with civilian casualties and the mass displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians - nearly 85% of Gaza's population - though the U.S. has continued to provide vital military and diplomatic support to its close ally.

In a joint article in British newspaper The Sunday Times, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock called for a cease-fire and said "too many civilians have been killed. The Israeli government should do more to discriminate sufficiently between terrorists and civilians, ensuring its campaign targets Hamas leaders and operatives."

"Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians," they said. They said the cease-fire should take place as soon as possible, but also said it must be "sustainable."

At a news conference with her Israeli counterpart in Tel Aviv on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna also pushed for a cease-fire.

"An immediate truce is necessary, allowing progress to be made toward a cease-fire to obtain the release of the hostages, to allow access and the delivery of more humanitarian aid to the suffering civilian population of Gaza, and in fact to move toward a humanitarian cease-fire and the beginning of a political solution," she said.

Britain has previously called for "humanitarian pauses" in the conflict but stopped short of urging an immediate cease-fire. It abstained last week when the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for a cease-fire.

France and Germany both supported the call for a cease-fire at the U.N., and French President Emmanuel Macron said at the beginning of November that Israel couldn't fight terrorism by killing innocent people.

The increase in diplomatic pressure comes as domestic calls are also likely to grow for renewed negotiations with Hamas, following the killing of three Israeli hostages by the military on Friday.

The air and ground war has flattened vast swaths of northern Gaza and driven most of the population to the southern part of the besieged territory, where many are packed into crowded shelters and tent camps. The offensive has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets in all parts of Gaza. It has vowed to continue operations until it dismantles Hamas, which triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, in which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel has also vowed to return the estimated 129 hostages still held in Gaza.

A group of European lawmakers also called for a cease-fire in Gaza following their trip to the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt over the weekend to see how European aid is helping Palestinians in Gaza. The four are centrist members of the European Parliament from Sweden, France, and Ireland.

Abir Al Sahlani of Sweden that said a cease-fire is urgently needed to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

"We found out that no matter how much we are going to send, it doesn't matter, because there is no cease-fire and there is no security as long as there are bombs - Israeli bombs falling on the Palestinian people," Al Sahlani said.

"The only way is political pressure on both sides," she added, urging international players "to pressure, first and foremost, the (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu government and (his) Likud (party) and his right-wing government to stop the bombing of civilians and respect and follow international humanitarian law."


# Finland seeks jailing, probe of Russian man wanted in Ukraine over alleged war crimes in 2014-2015
December 17, 2023. 12:21 PM EST

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**HELSINKI (AP)** - Finnish police on Sunday sought a court order to imprison a Russian man who had been living under an alias in the Nordic country and is accused of committing war crimes against wounded or surrendered soldiers in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.

Yan Petrovsky, who had been living in Finland under the name Voislav Torden, is already in Finnish custody but authorities are asking that he be formally jailed while they conduct an investigation into his alleged crimes against Ukrainian soldiers. A court ruling on his imprisonment is expected on Monday.

Finland's Supreme Court has ruled that Petrovsky cannot be extradited to Ukraine, where he faces an arrest warrant, due to the risk of inhumane prison conditions there. Sunday's decision indicates Finnish authorities plan to investigate and possibly try the Russian in Finland, which has signed treaties allowing it to try international crimes.

Petrovsky is currently on the European Union's sanctions list against Russia for allegedly being a founding member of the far-right group Rusich that is suspected of terrorism crimes in Ukraine and is connected with Russia's mercenary Wagner Group, the Finnish news agency STT reported.

Petrovsky, who earlier resided in Norway, was taken into custody by Finnish authorities after he was caught at Helsinki Airport in July shortly before he was fly to Nice, France together with his family.

Media reports said he managed to enter Finland despite a EU-wide entry ban with the help of a new identity and his wife's student status in the Nordic country.

The National Bureau of Investigation - a unit of the Finnish police - provided the imprisonment request for Petrovsky, aged 36, to the Helsinki District Court on Sunday, STT said.

Citing his Finnish lawyer, STT said Petrovsky has denied all war crimes charges against him.

Finland's National Prosecution Authority on Friday said Petrovsky is suspected of war crimes "committed against wounded or surrendered Ukrainian soldiers during the armed conflict in Ukraine" in 2014-2015 before the start of Moscow's ongoing assault on Ukraine in February 2022.

"The crimes will be investigated by Finnish authorities, because the suspect cannot be extradited to Ukraine, and the case, as an international crime, falls under the jurisdiction of Finland," the Finnish prosecutors said in a statement.


# A candidate for a far-right party is elected as the mayor of an eastern German town
December 17, 2023. 3:27 PM EST

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**BERLIN (AP)** - A candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany was elected Sunday as the mayor of the eastern town of Pirna, marking another milestone for the party.

Official results showed that Tim Lochner - who isn't a member of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, but ran on its ticket - won 38.5% of the vote in a three-way runoff. Candidates for the center-right Christian Democratic Union, Germany's main opposition party, and the conservative Free Voters took 31.4% and 30.1%, respectively.

Lochner's win in Pirna, which has about 40,000 inhabitants and is located between Saxony's state capital, Dresden, and the Czech border, marks the first time that an AfD candidate has been elected as an "Oberbuergermeister," the mayor of a significantly sized town or city.

AfD's first mayor anywhere in Germany was elected in August in the municipality of Raguhn-Jessnitz, in the neighboring eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. That came after the party's first head of a county administration, Robert Sesselmann, was elected in June in Sonneberg county, in another neighboring state, Thuringia.

The successes come before state elections next September in Saxony, Thuringia and a third eastern state, Brandenburg, in which AfD is hoping to emerge as the strongest party for the first time.

Recent national polls have shown the party in second place at 20% or more as discontent with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party government is running high. While it is strongest in the formerly communist east, it also performed well in regional elections in October in the western states of Hesse and Bavaria.

Pirna is located in a constituency that has elected AfD candidates in Germany's last two national elections.


# UK parliamentarian admits lying about lucrative pandemic contracts but says she's done nothing wrong
By **JILL LAWLESS**
December 17, 2023. 8:36 AM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - A member of Britain's House of Lords has acknowledged that she repeatedly lied about her links to a company that was awarded lucrative government contracts to supply protective masks and gowns during the coronavirus pandemic.

Underwear tycoon Michelle Mone said that she had made an "error" in denying connections to the company PPE Medpro, and regretted threatening to sue journalists who alleged she had ties to the firm. Her husband, Doug Barrowman, has acknowledged he led the consortium that owns the company.

"I did make an error in saying to the press that I wasn't involved," Mone said in a BBC interview broadcast Sunday. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wasn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, and I regret and I'm sorry for not saying straight out, 'Yes, I am involved.'"

Mone admitted that she is a beneficiary of her husband's financial trusts, which hold about 60 million pounds ($76 million) in profits from the deal.

But she argued that the couple were being made "scapegoats" in a wider scandal about U.K. government spending during the pandemic.

"We've done one thing, which was lie to the press to say we weren't involved," she said, adding: "I can't see what we've done wrong."

The case has come to symbolize the hundreds of millions of pounds wasted through hastily awarded contracts for protective equipment. The U.K. government has come under heavy criticism for its so-called VIP lanes during the pandemic - where preferential treatment for public contracts was given to companies recommended by politicians.

Mone, founder of the Ultimo lingerie firm, was appointed to Parliament's unelected upper house in 2015 by then Prime Minister David Cameron, who is now the U.K. foreign minister. A year ago, she said that she was taking a leave of absence from Parliament to "clear her name" over the scandal.

She repeatedly denied reports that she used her political connections to recommend PPE Medpro to senior government officials. The newly established firm won contracts worth more than 200 million pounds ($250 million) during the height of the first COVID-19 wave in 2020.

Millions of surgical gowns that it supplied to U.K. hospitals were never used, after officials decided they weren't fit for use, and the government has since issued breach of contract proceedings. The National Crime Agency also is investigating allegations of fraud and bribery.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden defended the so-called VIP lanes - reserved for referrals from lawmakers and senior officials - and insisted there had been "no favors or special treatment" for government cronies.

"With any large allocation of government funds for large-scale procurement, there are going to be issues that arise subsequently," he told the BBC.

"You can see there is civil litigation happening, you can see there is a criminal investigation happening. So, if there is fraud, the government will crack down."


# Ex-Jesuit's religious community in Slovenia ordered to dissolve in one year over widespread abuse
December 17, 2023. 7:37 AM EST

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**ROME (AP)** - The Vatican has decided to shut down a Slovenian-based female religious community founded by a controversial ex-Jesuit artist accused by some women of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuses.

The archdiocese of Ljubljana, Slovenia said in a statement Friday that the Loyola Community would have one year to implement the Oct.20 decree ordering its dissolution. The reason given was because of "serious problems concerning the exercise of authority and the way of living together."

The dissolution of the community was the latest chapter in the saga of the Rev. Marko Rupnik, a once-famous Jesuit artist and preacher whose mosaics decorate churches and basilicas around the world.

He had founded the Loyola Community in the 1980s with a nun. But recently, former members of the community came forward to say he had spiritually, sexually and psychologically abused them. In 2020, he was declared excommunicated by the Vatican for committing one of the gravest crimes in the church's canon law; using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

Pope Francis recently reopened a canonical investigation into their claims, reversing the Vatican's previous decision to shelve the case because the statute of limitations had expired. Earlier this year, the Jesuits kicked him out of the order because he refused to enter into a process of reparations with the victims.


# Church of England blesses same-sex couples for the first time, but they still can't wed in church
By **JILL LAWLESS**
December 17, 2023. 9:35 AM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - Church of England priests offered officially sanctioned blessings of same-sex partnerships for the first time on Sunday, though a ban on church weddings for gay couples remains in place amid deep divisions within global Anglicanism over marriage and sexuality.

In one of the first ceremonies, the Rev. Catherine Bond and the Rev. Jane Pearce had their union blessed at St John the Baptist church, in Felixstowe, eastern England, where both are associate priests.

The couple knelt in front of Canon Andrew Dotchin, who held their heads as he gave "thanks for Catherine and Jane, to the love and friendship they share, and their commitment to one another as they come before you on this day."

The church's national assembly voted in February to allow clergy to bless the unions of same-sex couples who have had civil weddings or partnerships. The words used for the blessings, known as prayers of love and faith, were approved by the church's House of Bishops on Tuesday and used for the first time on Sunday.

The compromise was struck following five years of discussions about the church's position on sexuality. Church leaders offered an apology for the church's failure to welcome LGBTQ people, but also endorsed the doctrine that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Clergy won't be required to perform same-sex blessings if they disagree with them.

The blessings can be used in regular church services. The church's governing body has also drawn up a plan for separate "services of prayer and dedication" for same-sex couples that would resemble weddings, but it has not yet been formally approved.

Public opinion surveys consistently show that a majority of people in England support same-sex marriage, which has been legal since 2013. The church didn't alter its teaching on marriage when the law changed.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said he won't personally bless any same-sex couples because it's his job to unify the world's 85 million Anglicans. Welby is the spiritual leader of both the Church of England and the global Anglican Communion of which it is a member.

Several Anglican bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific said after the February decision that they no longer recognize Welby as their leader.


# Over 60 people have drowned in the capsizing of a migrant vessel off Libya, the UN says
By **SAMY MAGDY**
December 17, 2023. 7:38 AM EST

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**CAIRO (AP)** - A boat carrying dozens of migrants trying to reach Europe capsized off the coast of Libya, leaving more than 60 people dead, including women and children, the U.N. migration agency said.

The shipwreck, which took place overnight between Thursday and Friday, was the latest tragedy in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, a key but dangerous route for migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Thousands have died, according to officials.

The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said in a statement late Saturday that the boat was carrying 86 migrants when strong waves swamped it off the town of Zuwara on Libya's western coast and that 61 migrants drowned, according to survivors.

"The central Mediterranean continues to be one of the world's most dangerous migration routes," the agency wrote on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The European Union's border agency said in a statement Sunday that its plane located the partially deflated rubber boat Thursday evening in Libya's search and rescue zone.

"The people were in severe danger because of adverse weather conditions, with waves reaching heights of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet)," the agency, known as Frontex, said.

Alarm Phone - a hotline for migrants in distress - said in a tweet that some migrants onboard reached out to the volunteer group who in turn alerted authorities including the Libyan coastguard, "who stated that they would not search for them."

A spokesman for the Libyan coast guard was not immediately available for comment.

Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, even though the North African nation has plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

More than 2,250 people died on the central European route this year, according to Flavio Di Giacomo, an IOM spokesperson.

It's "a dramatic figure which demonstrates that unfortunately not enough is being done to save lives at sea," Di Giacomo wrote on X.

According to the IOM's missing migrants project, at least 940 migrants were reported dead and 1,248 missing off Libya between Jan. 1 and Nov. 18.

The project, which tracks migration movements, said about 14,900 migrants, including over 1,000 women and more than 530 children, were intercepted and returned to Libya this year.

In 2022, the project reported 529 dead and 848 missing off Libya. Over 24,600 were intercepted and returned to Libya.

Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country's lengthy borders, which it shares with six nations. The migrants are crowded onto ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats, and set off on risky sea voyages.

Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture - practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to U.N.-commissioned investigators.

The abuse often accompanies attempts to extort money from the families of the imprisoned migrants before allowing them to leave Libya on traffickers' boats to Europe.


# The jungle between Colombia and Panama becomes a highway for migrants from around the world
By **CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN**
December 17, 2023. 9:22 AM EST

**MEXICO CITY (AP)** - Once nearly impenetrable for migrants heading north from Latin America, the jungle between Colombia and Panama this year became a speedy but still treacherous highway for hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.

Driven by economic crises, government repression and violence, migrants from China to Haiti decided to risk three days of deep mud, rushing rivers and bandits. Enterprising locals offered guides and porters, set up campsites and sold supplies to migrants, using color-coded wristbands to track who had paid for what.

Enabled by social media and Colombian organized crime, more than 506,000 migrants - nearly two-thirds Venezuelans - had crossed the Darien jungle by mid-December, double the 248,000 who set a record the previous year. Before last year, the record was barely 30,000 in 2016.

Dana Graber Ladek, the Mexico chief for the United Nation's International Organization for Migration, said migration flows through the region this year were "historic numbers that we have never seen."

It wasn't only in Latin America.

The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean or the Atlantic on small boats to reach Europe this year has surged. More than 250,000 irregular arrivals were registered in 2023, according to the European Commission.

A significant increase from recent years, the number remains well below levels seen in the 2015 refugee crisis, when more than 1 million people landed in Europe, most fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Still, the rise has fed anti-migrant sentiment and laid the groundwork for tougher legislation.

Earlier this month, the British government announced tough new immigration rules aimed at reducing the number of people able to move to the U.K. each year by hundreds of thousands. Authorized immigration to the U.K. set a record in 2022 with nearly 750,000.

A week later, French opposition lawmakers rejected an immigration bill from President Emmanuel Macron without even debating it. It had been intended to make it easier for France to expel foreigners considered undesirable. Far-right politicians alleged the bill would have increased the number of migrants coming to the country, while migrant advocates said it threatened the rights of asylum-seekers.

In Washington, the debate has shifted from efforts early in the year to open new legal pathways largely toward measures to keep migrants out as Republicans try to take advantage of the Biden administration's push for more aid to Ukraine to tighten the U.S. southern border.

The U.S. started the year opening limited spaces to Venezuelans - as well as Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians - in January to enter legally for two years with a sponsor, while expelling those who didn't qualify to Mexico. Their numbers dropped somewhat for a time before climbing again with renewed vigor.

Venezuelan Alexander Mercado had only been back in his country for a month after losing his job in Peru before he and his partner decided to set off for the United States with their infant son.

Venezuela's minimum wage was the equivalent of about $4 a month then, while 2.2 pounds (a kilogram) of beef was about $5, said Angelis Flores, his 28-year-old wife.

"Imagine how someone with a salary of $4 a month survives," she said.

Mercado, 27, and Flores were already on their way when in September the U.S. announced it was granting temporary legal status to more than 470,000 Venezuelans already in the country. Weeks later, the Biden administration said it was resuming deportation flights to the South American nation.

Mercado and Flores hiked the well-trod trail through the jungle, managing to push through in three days. Flores and their son, in particular, got very sick. She believes they were infected by the contaminated water they drank along the way.

"There was a body in the middle of river and the 'zamuros', those black birds, were eating it and picking it apart ... all of that was running in the river," she said.

For Mercado and Flores, the journey accelerated once they left the jungle. In October, Panama and Costa Rica announced a deal to speed migrants across their countries. Panama bused migrants to a center in Costa Rica where they were held until they could buy a bus ticket to Nicaragua.

Nicaragua also seemed to opt for speeding migrants through its territory. Mercado said they crossed on buses in a day.

After discovering that Nicaragua had lax visa requirements, Cubans and Haitians poured into Nicaragua on charter flights, purchasing roundtrip tickets they never intended. Citizens of African nations made circuitous series of connecting flights through Africa, Europe and Latin America to arrive in Managua to start travelling overland toward the United States, avoiding the Darien.

In Honduras, Mercado and Flores were given a pass from authorities allowing them five days to transit the country.

Adam Isacson, an analyst tracking migration at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras grant migrants legal status while they're transiting the countries, which have limited resources, and by letting migrants pass legally the countries make them less vulnerable to extortion from authorities and smugglers.

Then there are Guatemala and Mexico, which Isacson called the "we're-going-to-make-a-show-of-blocking-you countries" attempting to score points with the U.S. government.

For many that has meant spending money to hire smugglers to cross Guatemala and Mexico, or exposing themselves to repeated extortion attempts.

Mercado didn't hire a smuggler and paid the price. It was "very difficult to get through Guatemala," he said. "The police kept taking money."

But that was just a taste of what was to come.

Standing outside a Mexico City shelter with their son on a recent afternoon, Flores recounted all of the countries they had traversed.

"But they don't rob you as much, extort you as much, send you back like when you arrive here to Mexico," she said. "Here the real nightmare starts, because as soon as you enter they start taking a lot of your money."

Mexico's immigration system was thrown into chaos on March 27, when migrants held in a detention center in the border city Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, set mattresses on fire inside their cell in apparent protest. The highly flammable foam mattresses filled the cell with thick smoke in an instant. Guards did not open the cell and 40 migrants died.

The immigration agency's director was among several officials charged with crimes ranging from negligence to homicide. The agency closed 33 of its smaller detention centers while it conducted a review.

Unable to detain many migrants, Mexico instead circulated them around the country, using brief, repeat detentions, each an opportunity for extortion, said Gretchen Kuhner, director of IMUMI, a nongovernmental legal services organization. Advocates called it the "politica de desgaste" or wearing down policy.

Mercado and Flores made it all the way to Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, where they were detained, held for a night in an immigration facility in the border city of Reynosa and then flown the next morning 650 miles (1046 kilometers) south to Villahermosa.

There they were released, but without their cell phones, shoelaces and money. Mercado had to wait for his brother to send $100 so they could start trying to make their way back to Mexico City through an indirect route that required them to travel by truck, motorbike and even horse.

In late November, they had just made it back to Mexico City again. This time Mercado was unequivocal: They would not leave Mexico City until the U.S. government gave them an appointment to request asylum at a border port of entry.

"It is really hard to make it back here again," he said. "If they manage to send me back again I don't know what I would do."


# Teenager Alex Batty returns to Britain after being missing for 6 years and then turning up in France
By **JILL LAWLESS**
December 16, 2023. 5:26 PM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - British teenager Alex Batty flew back to the U.K. on Saturday, six years after he left home on what was meant to be a two-week family vacation in Spain.

Batty never returned from that holiday to his grandmother and guardian in Oldham, near Manchester. Her frantic appeals found no trace of him - until he turned up this week, walking along a road in southern France in the middle of the night.

Assistant Chief Constable Matt Boyle of Greater Manchester Police said Batty had arrived in England on a flight from Toulouse.

He said police "are yet to fully establish the circumstances surrounding his disappearance" and whether there should be a criminal investigation.

Now, 17, Alex told French officials he had been living a nomadic lifestyle in Spain, Morocco and France with his mother and grandfather as part of a "spiritual community." He said the family moved from place to place, grew their own food, meditated and contemplated reincarnation and other esoteric subjects.

When his mother said she wanted to move the family to Finland, Alex decided to leave, French prosecutor Antoine Leroy told reporters on Friday.

He was spotted by a delivery driver walking alone in the rain and dark with a flashlight, a rucksack and his skateboard. The driver, Fabien Accidini, offered him a lift, and Alex told him about his life and how he had walked for four days, traveling by night, through the remote and rugged Pyrenees.

Accidini said the boy told him "that he had been kidnapped by his mother" years ago. He added "that he'd been in France for the past two years in a spiritual community that was a bit strange with his mother who is also a bit strange."

"He'd had enough. He said, 'I am 17. I need a future.' He didn't see a future for him there."

Alex's mother Melanie Batty is wanted by British police in connection with the boy's disappearance. French officials say she may be in Finland, and Alex's grandfather, David Batty, is believed to have died about six months ago.

The tale has generated intense interest in Britain, with a photo of a blond, 11-year-old Alex splashed across newspapers and news websites. The teenager's grandmother, Susan Caruana, appealed for the family to be given time and space.

"I cannot begin to express my relief and happiness that Alex has been found safe and well," she said in a statement issued through British police.

"The main thing is that he's safe, after what would be an overwhelming experience for anyone, not least a child. I would ask that our family are given privacy as we welcome Alex back, so we can make this process as comforting as possible."

Boyle, the British police officer, said detectives would be speaking to Alex "at a pace that feels comfortable to him."

"No matter what, we understand that this may be an overwhelming process," he said. "He may now be six years older than when he went missing, but he is still a young person."


# British man pleads not guilty in alleged $99 million wine fraud conspiracy
December 16, 2023. 4:31 PM EST

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NEW YORK (AP) - A British man pleaded not guilty in a New York courtroom Saturday in connection with an alleged $99 million, Ponzi-like fraud involving high-priced fine wine and duped investors.

Stephen Burton, 58, was extradited Friday to New York from Morocco, where he was arrested in 2022 after using a bogus Zimbabwean passport to enter that country, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace's office said.

Burton was arraigned in Brooklyn federal court on Saturday and pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. He is detained without bail pending his next court hearing on Jan. 22.

"These are all allegations, and we will defend them vigorously," Burton's lawyer, John Wallenstein, said. "We're going to wait for the discovery and examine the evidence very carefully."

Prosecutors said Burton and another British man, James Wellesley, 56, ran a company called Bordeaux Cellars, which they said brokered loans between investors and wealthy wine collectors that were secured by their wine collections. They solicited $99 million in investments from residents of New York and other areas from 2017 to 2019, telling them they would profit from interest on the loans, authorities said.

But prosecutors alleged the operation was a scam. They said the wealthy wine collectors did not exist, no loans were made, and Bordeaux Cellars did not have custody of the wine securing the loans. Instead, officials said, Burton and Wellesley used loan money provided by investors for themselves and to make fraudulent interest payments to other investors.

"With the successful extradition of Burton to the Eastern District of New York, he will now taste justice for the fine wines scheme alleged in the indictment," Peace said in a statement. "This prosecution sends a message to all perpetrators of global fraud that you can run from law enforcement, but not forever."

Wellesley is in the United Kingdom facing extradition proceedings, officials said. It was not immediately clear if he has a lawyer who could respond to the allegations.


# Author receives German prize in scaled-down format after comparing Gaza to Nazi-era ghettos
December 16, 2023. 4:22 PM EST

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**BERLIN (AP)** - The Russian-American writer Masha Gessen received a German literary prize Saturday in a ceremony that was delayed and scaled down in reaction to an article comparing Gaza to Nazi German ghettos.

The comparison in a recent New Yorker article was viewed as controversial in Germany, where government authorities strongly support Israel as a form of remorse and responsibility after Adolf Hitler's Germany murdered up to 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Gessen, who was born Jewish in the Soviet Union, is critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Reaction to the article comes as German society grapples with the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war, with both pro-Palestinian protests and pro-Israel demonstrations taking place in past weeks. German leaders have repeatedly stressed their support for the country's Jews and for Israel as they have denounced antisemitic incidents.

Gessen was originally due to receive the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought on Friday in the city hall of Bremen, in northwest Germany, but the sponsoring organization, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the Senate of the city of Bremen withdrew from the ceremony.

It took place instead in a different location Saturday with about 50 guests crowded into a small event room and with police security, the German news agency dpa reported.

In Gessen's article, titled "In the Shadow of the Holocaust," the author explores German Holocaust memory, arguing that Germany today stifles free and open debate on Israel.

Gessen also is critical of Israel's relationship with Palestinians, writing that Gaza is "like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany."

"The ghetto is being liquidated," the article added.

The ghettos in German-occupied countries during World War II were open-air prisons where Jews were killed, starved and died from diseases. Those who didn't perish there were rounded up and transported to death camps where they were murdered, a process called "liquidation."

The Böll Foundation, affiliated with Germany's Green party, called the comparison "unacceptable." A jury decided in the summer to award Gessen, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the foundation said it wasn't canceling the award itself.

Gessen was not available for comment, a New Yorker spokesperson said, but the writer defended the article in an interview with Politico.

"I think it is possible to be very upset about that comparison," Gessen told Politico. "I also think that in this circumstance, it is morally necessary and politically necessary to make this very, very upsetting comparison."

The award is to honor people who contribute to public political thought in the tradition of Hannah Arendt, the German-born American political theorist who explored totalitarianism.


# In pivotal moment, Notre Dame Cathedral spire gets golden rooster weathervane, a symbol of a phoenix
By **THOMAS ADAMSON**
December 16, 2023. 1:28 PM EST

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**PARIS (AP)** - Notre Dame Cathedral got its rooster back Saturday, in a pivotal moment for the Paris landmark's restoration.

The installation by a crane of a new golden rooster, reimagined as a dramatic phoenix with licking, flamed feathers, goes beyond being just a weathervane atop the cathedral spire. It symbolizes resilience amid destruction after the devastating April 2019 fire - as restoration officials also revealed an anti-fire misting system is being kitted out under the cathedral's roof.

Chief architect Philippe Villeneuve, who designed this new rooster, stated that the original rooster's survival signified a ray of light in the catastrophe.

"That there was hope, that not everything was lost. The beauty of the (old) battered rooster... expressed the cry of the cathedral suffering in flames," Villeneuve said. He described the new work of art, approximately half a meter long and gleaming in the December sun behind Notre Dame Cathedral, as his "phoenix."

Villeneuve elaborated on the new rooster's significance, saying: "Since (the fire) we have worked on this rooster (the) successor, which sees the flame carried to the top of the cathedral as it was before, more than 96 meters from the ground... It is a fire of resurrection."

In lighthearted comments, the architect said that the process of design was so intense he might have to speak to his "therapist" about it.

Before ascending to its perch, the rooster - a French emblem of vigilance and Christ's resurrection - was blessed by Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich in a square behind the monument. The rooster - or "coq" in French - is a emotive national emblem for the French because of the word's semantics - the Latin gallus meaning Gaul and gallus simultaneously meaning rooster.

Ulrich placed sacred relics in a hole inside the rooster's breast, including fragments of Christ's Crown of Thorns and remains of St. Denis and St. Genevieve, infusing the sculpture with religious importance.

The Crown of Thorns, regarded as Notre Dame's most sacred relic, was among the treasures quickly removed after the fire broke out. Brought to Paris by King Louis IX in the 13th century, it is purported to have been pressed onto Christ's head during the crucifixion. A sealed tube was also placed in the sculpture containing a list the names of nearly 2,000 individuals who contributed to the cathedral's reconstruction, underscoring the collective effort behind the works.

Amid the rooster benediction ceremony, Notre Dame's new restoration chief, Philippe Jost, also detailed pioneering measures taken to safeguard the iconic cathedral against future fires - in rare comments to the press.

"We have deployed a range of fire protection devices, some of which are very innovative in a cathedral, including a misting system in the attics, where the oak frame and in the spire are located," Jost said. "And this is a first for a cathedral in France."

French President Emmanuel Macron, who last week visited the site to mark a one-year countdown to its re-opening, announced that the original rooster will be displayed in a new museum at the Hôtel-Dieu. This move, along with plans to invite Pope Francis for the cathedral's reopening next year, highlights Notre Dame's significance in French history and culture.

The rooster's installation, crowning a spire reconstructed from Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's 19th-century design, is a poignant reminder of its medieval origins as a symbol of hope and faith.

Its longstanding association with the French nation since the Renaissance further adds to its historical and cultural significance, marking a new chapter of renewal and hope for Notre Dame and the French people.


# Russia and Ukraine exchange drone attacks after European Union funding stalled
By **KARL RITTER** and **ELISE MORTON**
December 16, 2023. 1:56 PM EST

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**KYIV, Ukraine (AP)** - Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of attempted drone attacks in the past day, just hours after Hungary vetoed 50 billion euros ($54.5 billion) of European Union funding to Ukraine.

Ukraine's air force said Saturday that Ukrainian air defense had shot down 30 out of 31 drones launched overnight against 11 regions of the country.

Russia also said Friday evening that it had thwarted a series of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Russian anti-aircraft units destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones over the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal, and has used it as a staging and supply point during the war.

Earlier, Russia's Defense Ministry said that six drones had been shot down in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine.

In Ukraine's partially occupied southern Kherson region, the Russia-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, reported on Telegram that Russian anti-aircraft units had downed at least 15 aerial targets near the town of Henichesk. Saldo said later Saturday that a Ukrainian missile attack on a village in the Russia-held part of the region had killed two people.

Meanwhile, shelling wounded two people in Ukrainian-held parts of the Kherson region, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said Saturday.

Stepped-up drone attacks over the past month come as both sides are keen to show they aren't deadlocked as the war approaches the two-year mark. Neither side has gained much ground despite a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June, and analysts predict the war will be a long one.

On Friday, EU leaders sought to paper over their inability to boost Ukraine's coffers with a promised 50 billion euros ($54.5 billion) over the next four years, saying the funds will likely arrive next month after some more haggling between the bloc's other 26 leaders and the longtime holdout, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Instead, they wanted Ukraine to revel in getting the nod to start membership talks that could mark a sea change in its fortunes - although the process could last well over a decade and be strewn with obstacles placed by any single member state.

Also on Saturday, Russia returned three Ukrainian children to their families as part of a deal brokered by Qatar, according to the head of Ukraine's presidential office, Andriy Yermak, and Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.

Lubinets voiced hope last week that a coalition of countries formed to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia - the National Coalition of Countries for the Return of Ukrainian Children - will be able to come up with a faster mechanism to repatriate them. More than 19,000 children are still believed to be in Russia or in occupied regions of Ukraine.


# Cambodia welcomes the Metropolitan Museum of Art's plan to return looted antiquities
By **MAYSOON KHAN** and **SOPHENG CHEANG**
December 16, 2023. 12:55 AM EST

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**PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)** - Cambodia has welcomed the announcement that New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will return more than a dozen pieces of ancient artwork to Cambodia and Thailand that were tied to an art dealer and collector accused of running a huge antiquities trafficking network out of Southeast Asia.

This most recent repatriation of artwork comes as many museums in the United States and Europe reckon with collections that contain objects looted from Asia, Africa and other places during centuries of colonialism or in times of upheaval.

Fourteen Khmer sculptures will be returned to Cambodia and two will be returned to Thailand, the Manhattan museum announced Friday, though no specific timeline was given.

"We appreciate this first step in the right direction," said a statement issued by Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. "We look forward to further returns and acknowledgements of the truth regarding our lost national treasures, taken from Cambodia in the time of war and genocide."

Cambodia suffered from war and the brutal rule of the communist Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and 1980s, causing disorder that opened the opportunity for its archaeological treasures to be looted.

The repatriation of the ancient pieces was linked to well-known art dealer Douglas Latchford, who was indicted in 2019 for allegedly orchestrating a multiyear scheme to sell looted Cambodian antiquities on the international art market. Latchford, who died the following year, had denied any involvement in smuggling.

The museum initially cooperated with the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and the New York office of Homeland Security Investigations on the return of 13 sculptures tied to Latchford before determining there were three more that should be repatriated.

"As demonstrated with today's announcement, pieces linked to the investigation of Douglas Latchford continue to reveal themselves," HSI Acting Special Agent in Charge Erin Keegan said in a statement Friday. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art has not only recognized the significance of these 13 Khmer artifacts, which were shamelessly stolen, but has also volunteered to return them, as part of their ongoing cooperation, to their rightful owners: the People of Cambodia."

This isn't the first time the museum has repatriated art linked to Latchford. In 2013, it returned two objects to Cambodia.

The Latchford family also had a load of centuries-old Cambodian jewelry in their possession that they later returned to Cambodia. In February, 77 pieces of jewelry made of gold and other precious metal pieces - including items such as crowns, necklaces and earrings - were returned to their homeland. Other stone and bronze artifacts were returned in September 2021.

Pieces being returned include a bronze sculpture called The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Seated in Royal Ease, made sometime between the late 10th century and early 11th century. Another piece of art, made of stone in the seventh century and named Head of Buddha, will also be returned. Those pieces are part of 10 that can still be viewed in the museum's galleries while arrangements are made for their return.

"These returns contribute to the reconciliation and healing of the Cambodian people who went through decades of civil war and suffered tremendously from the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge genocide, and to a greater strengthening of our relationship with the United States," Cambodia's Minister of Culture and Fine Arts, Phoeurng Sackona, said in her agency's statement.

Research efforts were already underway by the museum to examine the ownership history of its objects, focusing on how ancient art and cultural property changed hands, as well as the provenance of Nazi-looted artwork.