# Libya says production has resumed at its largest oilfield after more than 2-week hiatus
By **SAMY MAGDY**
January 21, 2024. 9:10 AM EST

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**CAIRO (AP)** - Libya's state-owned oil company resumed production at the country's largest oilfield Sunday, ending a more than two-week hiatus after protesters blocked the facility over fuel shortages.

The National Oil Corp. said in a terse statement that it lifted the force majeure at the Sharara oil field in the country's south and resumed full production. It didn't provide further details. Force majeure is a legal maneuver that releases a company from its contractual obligations because of extraordinary circumstances.

The company had activated the maneuver on Jan. 7 after protesters from the desert town of Ubari, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) south of the capital, Tripoli, shut down the field to protest fuel shortages.

Over the past two weeks the company's chief, Farhat Bengdara, and military officials from eastern Libya have been negotiating with the protest leaders, Fezzan Group.

Barzingi al-Zarrouk, the protesters' spokesman, announced that they have suspended their protest after they reached agreement with the company.

He said the agreement was brokered by the self-styled Libyan National Army, which is commanded by powerful military general Khalifa Hifter. Hifter's forces control Libya's east and much of the south.

The protesters have reportedly called for rehabilitating infrastructure and repairing roads in the southwestern region of Fezzan, one of the historic three provinces of Libya. They previously closed the field for two days in July.

Libya's light crude has long featured in the country's yearslong civil conflict, with rival militias and foreign powers jostling for control of Africa's largest oil reserves.

Libya has been in turmoil since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The North African nation has for most of the past decade been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.


# 6-legged spaniel undergoes surgery to remove extra limbs and adjusts to life on 4 paws
January 20, 2024. 5:36 PM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - A spaniel born with six legs that was found abandoned in a supermarket parking lot is now like other dogs after having her extra limbs surgically removed.

Ariel, who was named for "The Little Mermaid" character because the additional appendage with two paws on the end looked like a flipper, ran through the grass outside a veterinary hospital Saturday as she adjusted to life on four legs.

"She is doing brilliantly," said Vicki Black, director of the Langford Vets Small Animal Referral Hospital, where she was operated on Thursday.

The dog, who had multiple birth defects, was found in the center of Pembroke, Wales, in September. Greenacres Rescue took her in and raised funds for her surgery.

Black said the hospital, which is part of the University of Bristol, had never seen a six-legged dog or performed such an operation.

"Ariel was a complicated little dog," Black said. "We are a center committed to career-long learning and are proud to innovate and treat pets like Ariel."

The extra legs extended from the right hindquarter and appeared to be of no use, dangling beside her wagging tail, as she walked a bit awkwardly in a video shot before the operation.

On Saturday as she was discharged, she took to the lawn outside the hospital with the determination of a bird dog, nose to the ground and pulling on her leash. Just like any other dog.


# Air pollution and politics pose cross-border challenges in South Asia
By **RIAZAT BUTT**
January 20, 2024. 10:02 PM EST

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**LAHORE, Pakistan (AP)** - The air smells burnt in Lahore, a city in Pakistan's east that used to be famous for its gardens but has become infamous for its terrible air quality.

Toxic smog has sickened tens of thousands of people in recent months. Flights have been canceled. Artificial rain was deployed last December to battle smog, a national first. Nothing seems to be working.

Lahore is in an airshed, an area where pollutants from industry, transportation and other human activities get trapped because of local weather and topography so they cannot disperse easily. Airsheds also contribute to cross-border pollution. Under certain wind conditions, 30% of pollution in the Indian capital New Delhi can come from Pakistan's Punjab province, where Lahore is the capital. There are six major airsheds in South Asia, home to many of the world's worst polluted cities.

Experts are calling for greater cross-border cooperation among countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and India to address air pollution together rather than working in silos on a city-by-city basis. But it's a tall order when political relations in the region are fraught.

Ties between India and Pakistan are broken. Their interactions are riddled with animosity and suspicion. They have fought three wars, built up their armies and developed nuclear weapons. Travel restrictions and hostile bureaucracies largely keep people from crossing the border for leisure, study and work, although the countries make exceptions for religious pilgrimages.

"There's a recognition among the technical and scientific community that air pollution doesn't need a visa to travel across borders," said Pakistani analyst Abid Suleri, from the nonprofit Sustainable Development Policy Institute. The culprits and problems are the same on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, he said, so it makes no sense for one province to implement measures if a neighboring province across the border isn't adopting the same practices.

Regional and international forums offer opportunities for candid discussions about air pollution, even if governments aren't working together directly or publicly, Suleri said, adding that countries should treat air pollution as a year-round problem, rather than a seasonal one arriving with cold weather.

"Airshed management needs a regional plan," he said. "But 2024 is an election year in India and Pakistan, and government-to-government cooperation hasn't reached that level."

Pakistan is weeks away from voting in national parliamentary elections. So far, only the former foreign minister and political party leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has pledged heavy investment in climate adaptability, following record-breaking floods that killed more than 1,700 people.

In India, air pollution doesn't figure as a core issue that people would vote on, said Bhargav Krishna, a fellow at the New Delhi-based Sustainable Futures Collaborative think-tank. But the experience or impact of climate change could make people think about how they vote.

Krishna said that regional elections sometimes see air pollution-related promises. "It was a feature of every party's election manifesto in the New Delhi elections in 2020," he noted.

According to the World Bank, a regional airshed management policy would involve countries agreeing to set common air quality targets and measures that everyone can implement, meeting regularly to share their experiences and, if possible, setting common air quality standards.

The global body said almost 93% of Pakistanis are exposed to severe pollution levels. In India, it's 96% of the population. More than 1.5 billion people are exposed to high concentrations of air pollution in these two countries alone. It estimates around 220,000 deaths a year in Pakistan's Punjab can be attributed to causes related to bad air.

Gray haze hangs pall-like over Punjab's homes, mosques, schools, streets and farmland. There are 6.7 million vehicles on Lahore's roads every day. Construction, emissions and waste are rife. There is scant visibility at major intersections after dark. Smog shrouds landmarks like the Mughal-era Badshahi Mosque.

The shopping website Daraz has reported a spike in searches for air purifiers and face masks since last October, especially in Punjab.

Pulmonologist Dr. Khawar Abbas Chaudhry laments the deterioration of Lahore, which he describes as a "once beautiful" city. The hospital where he works is part of the Bill Gates-backed Evercare Group that has hospitals in the region, including India and Bangladesh, and in East Africa.

Chaudhry says he has seen a 100% increase of patients sickened with respiratory illnesses this winter. He attributes this rise to air pollution.

There are forums within Evercare to discuss issues like air pollution, and he and colleagues, including those from India, talk about smog's health impact. But this dialogue is only happening within one institution.

"Countries, governments, departments need to be involved," said Chaudhry. "They need to meet regularly. Ultimately, people need to reach out and that could put some pressure on movers and shakers on both sides of the border."

Pratima Singh, a senior research scientist at Bengaluru-based Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, has researched air pollution in India for over a decade.

She said South Asian countries could emulate the European Union model of collaboration to deal with pollution challenges, formalize new policies and share data and best practices.

After India launched its National Clean Air Programme in 2019, authorities quickly found it was crucial for cities to understand what was happening in surrounding areas -- and the boundary kept expanding. "Everyone started realizing that airshed management is essential if we want to actually solve the problem," Singh said.

The director of Punjab's Environment Protection Department, Syed Naseem Ur Rehman Shah, is proud of local achievements to fight air pollution. Emissions from industry and brick kilns are under control, farmers can soon buy subsidized machinery to end the menace of crop stubble burning, and there is a drive toward getting electric three-wheeled tuk-tuks, motorbikes and buses on the roads, he said.

Although things are getting better, Shah said it will take time.

He has gone to India to discuss climate change and said a regional body, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, provides opportunities for countries to talk about air pollution. But he acknowledges the absence of formal cooperation at a ministerial level with India.

A screen in a monitoring room, called the Smog Cell, showed Pakistan's Air Quality Index to be higher than China's that day. Shah said the province only exceeds World Health Organization-recommended levels for PM2.5 - fine particulate matter that can be inhaled. Everything else about the air quality is within parameters, he said.

His assessment is of little consolation to Pakistani poet and former ambassador Ata ul Haq Qasmi, who is in Evercare for respiratory issues exacerbated by air pollution. "If my friends aren't in hospital, they should be," he said. "You only have to step outside for it (the smog) to grab you."


# Japan becomes the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon
By **MARI YAMAGUCHI**
January 19, 2024. 11:57 PM EST

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**TOKYO (AP)** - Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the moon when one of its spacecrafts without astronauts successfully made a soft landing on the lunar surface early Saturday.

However, space officials said they needed more time to analyze whether the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, achieved its mission priority of making a pinpoint landing. They also said the craft's solar panel had failed to generate power, which could shorten its activity on the moon.

Space officials believe that the SLIM's small rovers were launched as planned and that data was being transmitted back to Earth, said Hitoshi Kuninaka, head of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, a unit of Japan's space agency.

But he said that SLIM's solar battery wasn't generating power and that it had only a few more hours of battery life. He said the priority was for the craft to gather as much data about its landing and the moon as possible on the remaining battery.

Japan follows the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India in reaching the moon.

Kuninaka said he believes that Japan's space program at least achieved "minimum" success.

SLIM landed on the moon at about 12:20 a.m. Tokyo time Saturday (1520 GMT Friday).

There was a tense wait for news after the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's mission control initially said that SLIM was on the lunar surface, but that it was still "checking its status." No further details were given until a news conference nearly two hours later.

For the mission to be considered fully successful, space officials needed to confirm whether SLIM made a pinpoint landing. Kuninaka said that while more time was needed, he personally thought it was most likely achieved, based on his observation of data showing the spacecraft's movement until the landing and its ability to transmit signals after landing. He said the solar panel is possibly not in the planned angle, but there is still hope.

Despite the solar panel issue, "it's delightful news," Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, pledging the government's continuing backing for the endeavors toward new challenges.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson also lauded SLIM's landing with an X message, congratulating Japan "on being the historic 5th country to land successfully on the Moon! We value our partnership in the cosmos and continued collaboration" in the U.S.-led multinational Artemis Moon exploration.

SLIM, which was aiming to hit a very small target, is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle. It was using "pinpoint landing" technology that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.

While most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 kilometers (six miles) wide, SLIM was aiming at a target of just 100 meters (330 feet).

A landing of such precision would be a world's first, and would be crucial technology for a sustainable, long-term and accurate space probe system, said Hiroshi Yamakawa, president of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

Japan needs the technology to secure its place and contribute in international space projects, Yamakawa said.

The project was the fruit of two decades of work on precision technology by JAXA.

SLIM, nicknamed "the Moon Sniper," started its descent at midnight Saturday, and within 15 minutes it was down to about 10 kilometers (six miles) above the lunar surface, according to the space agency, which is known as JAXA.

At an altitude of five kilometers (three miles), the lander was in a vertical descent mode, then at 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface, SLIM was supposed to make a parallel movement to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.

The spacecraft was testing technology to allow moon missions to land "where we want to, rather than where it is easy to land," JAXA has said. The spacecraft also was supposed to seek clues about the origin of the moon, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.

The SLIM, equipped with a pad each on its five legs to cushion impact, was aiming to land near the Shioli crater, near a region covered in volcanic rock.

The closely watched mission came only 10 days after a moon mission by a U.S. private company failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak hours after the launch.

SLIM was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September. It initially orbited Earth and entered lunar orbit on Dec. 25.

Japan hopes to regain confidence for its space technology after a number of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its debut launch in March.

JAXA has a track record with difficult landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900-meter-long (3,000-foot-long) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were returned to Earth.

A successful pinpoint landing by SLIM, especially on the moon, would raise Japan's profile in the global space technology race.

Takeshi Tsuchiya, aeronautics professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, said it was important to confirm the accuracy of landing on a targeted area.

"It is necessary to show the world that Japan has the appropriate technology in order to be able to properly assert Japan's position in lunar development," he said. The moon is important from the perspective of explorations of resources, and it can also be used as a base to go to other planets, like Mars, he said.

Experts say Japan needs to demonstrate its consistency in the precision landing technology to be competitive.

SLIM was carrying two small autonomous probes - lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2, which officials say were believed to have been released just before landing.

LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is tasked with recording SLIM's landing. LEV-2, is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.


# Private US lander destroyed during reentry after failed mission to moon, company says
By **MARCIA DUNN**
January 19, 2024. 2:52 PM EST

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**CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)** - A U.S. company's failed moonshot ended with a fiery plunge over the South Pacific, officials confirmed Friday.

Astrobotic Technology said contact and then tracking was lost as its lunar lander reentered Earth's atmosphere Thursday, 10 days after launching from Florida. It received confirmation Friday from U.S. Space Command that the spacecraft broke apart during its final moments, CEO John Thornton said.

A fuel leak shortly after liftoff had nixed any chance of a moon touchdown.

"What a wild adventure we were just on," Thornton said. "Certainly not the outcome we were hoping for and certainly challenging right up front."

After consulting with NASA and other government experts, Astrobotic took steps to destroy its crippled lander in order to protect other spacecraft. Flight controllers at the company's Pittsburgh headquarters briefly fired the engines, getting the lander in the right location for reentry despite little fuel.

Thornton said an investigation board will be convened to determine what went wrong. Engineers suspect a stuck valve in the propellant system caused a tank to rupture.

"We were coming from the highest high of the perfect launch and came down to a lowest low" when the tank burst a few hours after liftoff, he told reporters.

The 6-foot-tall (1.9-meter-tall) lander, named after the Peregrine falcon, made it all the way out to the moon's orbit, more than 240,000 miles (390,000 kilometers) away, before doing a U-turn and hurtling back toward Earth.

It was the first U.S. lunar lander in more than a half-century. The next one is set to blast off next month, built and operated by Houston's Intuitive Machines. NASA paid millions of dollars to the two companies to fly its experiments to the moon, part of an effort to commercialize lunar deliveries ahead of astronauts' arrival.

Right before Friday's U.S. news conference, a lunar lander from Japan touched down on the moon, but it was unable to generate crucial solar power. The U.S., Russia, China and India have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon and only the U.S. has landed astronauts.

Astrobotic's lander carried a variety of experiments - including five from NASA - as well as ashes and DNA from 70 space enthusiasts, including "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. Flight controllers were able to turn on some experiments and collect data,

The company is already is working on an even bigger lunar lander that will carry NASA's Viper rover to the moon in a year.


# Stabbing in Austin leaves one person dead and two injured
January 21, 2024. 3:02 PM EST

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A man suspected of stabbing three people - one fatally - at a residence in north Austin is under arrest, police said Sunday.

Interim Police Chief Robin Henderson of the Austin Police Department said police heard screaming from inside the residence when they arrived and forced their way inside.

Once inside, they saw a man with a knife holding a female who had been stabbed. They opened fire shortly after. The suspect was struck and injured.

"Due to the exigency of the situation, to preserve life and prevent further harm to the individuals inside, the officers made the decision to force entry through the front door of the residence," Henderson said during a news conference Sunday. "The female who had been held by the suspect was escorted outside of the residence by the officers."

Three children were inside the residence but were unharmed, Henderson said.

Officers found the body of a woman with stab wounds in one of the bedrooms.

Henderson said the relationship among the people involved is not yet known.

The officers who discharged their firearms were placed on administrative duties as per policy.


# 'Burn, beetle, burn': Hundreds of people torch an effigy of destructive bug in South Dakota town
January 21, 2024. 2:53 PM EST

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**RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP)** - In what's become an annual winter tradition, hundreds of people carrying torches set fire to a giant wooden beetle effigy in Custer, South Dakota, to raise awareness of the destructive impact of the mountain pine beetle on forest land in the Black Hills.

Custer firefighters prepared and lighted the torches for residents to carry in a march to the pyre Saturday night in the 11th Burning Beetle fest, the Rapid City Journal reported.

People set the tall beetle effigy on fire amid drum beats and chants of "Burn, beetle, burn." Firefighters kept watch, warning participants not to throw the torches, even as some people launched the burning sticks into pine trees piled at the base of the beetle. Fireworks dazzled overhead.

The event, which includes a talent show and "bug crawl," supports the local arts.

The U.S. Forest Service calls the mountain pine beetle "the most aggressive, persistent, and destructive bark beetle in the western United States and Canada." The Black Hills have experienced several outbreaks of the beetle since the 1890s, the most recent being from 1996-2016, affecting 703 square miles (1820 square kilometers), according to the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.


# Reformed mobster went after 'one last score' when he stole Judy Garland's ruby slippers from 'Oz'
By **JOSH FUNK**
January 21, 2024. 12:02 AM EST

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The aging reformed mobster who has admitted stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in "The Wizard of Oz" gave into the temptation of "one last score" after an old mob associate led him to believe the famous shoes must be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value.

Terry Jon Martin's defense attorney finally revealed the 76-year-old's motive for the 2005 theft from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor's hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in a new memo filed ahead of his Jan. 29 sentencing in Duluth, Minnesota.

The FBI recovered the shoes in 2018 when someone else tried to claim an insurance reward on them, but Martin wasn't charged with stealing them until last year.

Martin pleaded guilty in October to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum door and display case to take the slippers. He had hoped to harvest real rubies from the shoes and sell them. But a fence, a person who deals in stolen goods, informed him the rubies were glass and Martin got rid of the slippers less than two days after he took them, he said.

Defense attorney Dane DeKrey said in his memo that an unidentified former mob associate tempted Martin to steal the shoes, even though he hadn't committed a crime in nearly 10 years after his last prison stint.

"At first, Terry declined the invitation to participate in the heist. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a 'final score' kept him up at night," DeKrey wrote. "After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft."

DeKrey and prosecutors are recommending the judge sentence Martin to time served because he is physically incapable of presenting a threat to society. Martin is in hospice care with a life expectancy of less than six months. He needs oxygen at all times because of his chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and was in a wheelchair at his most recent court appearance. Even if he were sentenced to prison, his poor health might be grounds for a compassionate release.

Martin had no idea about the cultural significance of the ruby slippers and had never seen the movie. Instead, DeKrey said he was just looking for one last big score, and the "old Terry" with a lifelong history of crimes like burglary and receiving stolen property beat out the "new Terry" who seemed to "finally put his demons to rest" after being released from prison in 1996 and became "a contributing member of society."

DeKrey urged the judge to consider the major events of Martin's life when deciding whether a lenient sentence is appropriate.

Martin suffered under a cruel stepmother who mistreated him and his three brothers so badly for several years that he left home at the age of 16 and began drinking and stealing.

While on parole from prison, Martin's girlfriend became pregnant with twins, but he missed their birth after his parole was revoked. Right after his girlfriend brought the 1-month-old twins to prison to meet him, they died after a train struck her vehicle.

"This was truly the turning point in Terry's life - his villain origin story - and the reason he not only went down his dark path but accelerated towards it," DeKrey wrote. "His son said it best: 'the twins' death made (my dad) just give up on life; he decided on a life of crime.'"

Martin's lawyer also said the judge should consider that Martin had not committed any other crimes in nearly a decade before stealing the slippers nor in the years since then. DeKrey said Martin didn't even try to claim a slice of the insurance reward money when some of his former associates tried to collect.

Garland wore several pairs of ruby slippers during filming of the classic 1939 musical, but only four authentic pairs are known to remain. The stolen slippers were insured for $1 million, but federal prosecutors put the current market value at about $3.5 million.

The FBI said a man approached the insurer in 2017 and claimed he could help recover them but demanded more than the $200,000 reward being offered. The slippers were recovered during an FBI sting in Minneapolis. The FBI has never disclosed how it tracked down the slippers, which remain in the agency's custody.

The slippers were on loan to the museum from Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw when Martin stole them. Three other pairs worn by Garland in the movie are held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum of American History and a private collector.

Several rewards were offered over the years in hopes of figuring out who stole the slippers, which were key props in the film. Garland's character, Dorothy, has to click the heels of the slippers three times and repeat, "There's no place like home," to return to Kansas.

Garland was born Frances Gumm in 1922. She lived in Grand Rapids, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Minneapolis, until she was 4, when her family moved to Los Angeles. She died in 1969.

The Judy Garland Museum, located in the house where she lived, says it has the world's largest collection of Garland and Wizard of Oz memorabilia.


# A century after Lenin's death, the USSR's founder seems to be an afterthought in modern Russia
By **JIM HEINTZ**
January 21, 2024. 1:01 AM EST

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Not long after the 1924 death of the founder of the Soviet Union, a popular poet soothed and thrilled the grieving country with these words: "Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live."

A century later, the once-omnipresent image of Vladimir Lenin is largely an afterthought in modern Russia, despite those famous lines by revolutionary writer Vladimir Mayakovsky.

The Red Square mausoleum where his embalmed corpse lies in an open sarcophagus is no longer a near-mandatory pilgrimage but a site of macabre kitsch, open only 15 hours a week. It draws far fewer visitors than the Moscow Zoo.

The goateed face with its intense glare that once seemed unavoidable still stares out from statues, but many of those have been the targets of pranksters and vandals. The one at St. Petersburg's Finland Station commemorating his return from exile was hit by a bomb that left a huge hole in his posterior. Many streets and localities that bore his name have been rechristened.

The ideology that Lenin championed and spread over a vast territory is something of a sideshow in modern Russia. The Communist Party, although the largest opposition grouping in parliament, holds only 16% of the seats, overwhelmed by President Vladimir Putin's political power-base, United Russia.

Lenin "turned out to be completely superfluous and unnecessary in modern Russia," historian Konstantin Morozov of the Russian Academy of Sciences told the AP.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov talks as if Lenin still was in charge: "100 years since the day when his big and kind heart stopped, the second century of Lenin's immortality begins," he said.

Putin himself appears inclined to keep Lenin at arm's length, even aiming some darts at him.

In a speech three days before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin dismissed its sovereign status as an illegitimate holdover from Lenin's era, when it was a separate republic within the Soviet Union.

"As a result of Bolshevik policy, Soviet Ukraine arose, which even today can with good reason be called 'Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's Ukraine.' He is the author and the architect," Putin said.

In a speech a year earlier, Putin said that allowing Ukraine and other republics the nominal right to secede had planted "the most dangerous time bomb."

Whatever objections to those policies, Putin also is clearly aware of the emotional hold that Lenin retains for many Russians, and he does not support initiatives that arise periodically to remove the body from the mausoleum.

"I believe it should be left as it is, at least for as long as there are those, and there are quite a few people, who link their lives, their fates as well as certain achievements ... of the Soviet era with that," he said in 2019.

Such links may persist for decades. A 2022 opinion survey by state-run polling agency VTsIOM found that 29% of Russians believed Lenin's influence would fade so much that in 50 years he would be remembered only by historians. But that response was only 10 percentage points lower than one to the same question a decade earlier, suggesting Lenin remains important.

Lenin's hold on Russia's heart is still strong enough that three years ago, the Union of Russian Architects succumbed to a public outcry and canceled a competition soliciting suggestions for how the Red Square mausoleum could be repurposed. That competition did not even specifically call for the removal of Lenin's body.

Lenin died on Jan. 21, 1924, at age 53, severely weakened by three strokes. His widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, wanted him to be buried in a conventional grave.

Lenin's close associates had feared his death for months. Artist Yuri Annenkov, summoned to do his portrait at the dacha where he was convalescing, said he had "the helpless, twisted, infantile smile of a man who had fallen into childhood."

Amid those concerns, Josef Stalin told a Politburo meeting of a proposal by "some comrades" to preserve Lenin's body for centuries, according to a history by Russian news agency Tass. The idea offended Leon Trotsky, Lenin's closest lieutenant, who likened it to the holy relics displayed by the Russian Orthodox Church - a staunch opponent of the Bolsheviks- that had "nothing in common with the science of Marxism."

But Stalin, once a divinity school student, understood the value of the secular analogue to a saint.

The weather may have tipped the scales. Temperatures were reportedly as low as minus 30 C (minus 22 F) when Lenin's body was displayed during a wake in Moscow, stalling decomposition and inspiring authorities to hastily build a small wooden mausoleum in Red Square and make further efforts to preserve the body.

A later version, a more modernist take on ancient stepped pyramids clad in somber deep red stone, opened in 1930. By that time, Trotsky had been forced into exile and Stalin was in full control, bolstered by a determination to portray himself as absolutely loyal to Lenin's ideals.

In the end, the cult of "Lenin After Lenin" may have worked against the Soviet Union rather than strengthening it by enforcing a rigid mindset, in the view of some historians.

"In many ways the tragedy of the USSR lay in the fact that all subsequent generations of leaders tried to rely on certain 'testaments of Lenin,'" Vladimir Rudakov, editor of the journal Istorik, wrote in this month's issue.

The Mayakovsky poem that proclaimed Lenin's immortality was "a parting word, or a spell, or a curse," Rudakov said.

About 450,000 people file past Lenin's corpse per year, according to Tass, about a third of the number of Moscow Zoo visitors and a sharp contrast from the Soviet era when seemingly endless lines shuffled across Red Square.

The honor guards whose goose-stepping rotations fascinated visitors were removed from outside the mausoleum three decades ago. At the annual military parade through Red Square, the structure is blocked from view by a tribune where dignitaries watch the festivities.

Lenin is still there - just harder to see.


# Ron DeSantis ends his struggling presidential bid before New Hampshire and endorses Donald Trump
By **STEVE PEOPLES**
January 21, 2024. 3:18 PM EST

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**WASHINGTON (AP)** - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign Sunday on the eve of the New Hampshire primary and endorsed Donald Trump, ending a White House bid that failed to meet expectations that he would emerge as a serious challenger to the former president.

"It's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance," he said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary comes Tuesday.

The ambitious big-state governor entered the 2024 presidential contest with major advantages in his quest to take on Trump, and early primary polls suggested DeSantis was in a strong position to do just that. He and his allies amassed a political fortune well in excess of $100 million, and he boasted a significant legislative record on issues important to many conservatives, like abortion and the teaching of race and gender issues in schools.

Such advantages did not survive the reality of presidential politics in 2024. From a high-profile announcement that was plagued by technical glitches to constant upheavals to his staff and campaign strategy, DeSantis struggled to find his footing in the primary. He lost the Iowa caucuses - which he had vowed to win - by 30 percentage points to Trump.

And now, DeSantis' political future is in question after suspending his presidential bid after just one voting contest. The 45-year-old is term limited as Florida governor.


# Nikki Haley questions Trump's mental fitness after he appears to confuse her for Nancy Pelosi
By **MEG KINNARD**
January 20, 2024. 8:41 PM EST

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**COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)** - Nikki Haley on Saturday questioned whether Donald Trump is mentally capable of serving as president again after he repeatedly seemed to confuse her with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a campaign speech.

As she campaigned in Keene, New Hampshire, Haley referenced Trump's speech the night before, in which he mistakenly asserted that Haley was in charge of Capitol security on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building seeking to stop the certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump first said that Haley turned down security offered by his administration on Jan. 6 and then again mentioned Haley, adding, "They destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it."

Trump, 77, has accused Pelosi of turning down security he says his administration offered, but a special House committee empaneled to probe the attack found no evidence to support that claim.

"They're saying he got confused, that he was talking about something else, he's talking about Nancy Pelosi," Haley said on Saturday.

"He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario. The concern I have is - I'm not saying anything derogatory - but when you're dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can't have someone else that we question whether they're mentally fit to do this," Haley said. "We can't."

Speaking at a Bloomberg News forum on Saturday in Manchester, Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney referenced Haley's remarks and said Trump "made a pretty apparent gaffe last night."

"It's a distinction without a difference. It's Nikki and Nancy," Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said to reporters Saturday night. "What's the difference?"

At his rally Saturday night in Manchester, Trump said that he took a cognitive test and "aced it."

"I'll let you know when I go bad. I really think I'll be able to tell you," he added. "I feel my mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago. Is that possible?"

Trump, who won Monday's Iowa caucuses and is the current GOP front-runner, picked Haley to serve as his United Nations ambassador and has ramped up his criticism of her campaign as the year's votes have gotten underway.

On Saturday, he stumped in New Hampshire with a robust complement of backers from Haley's home state of South Carolina, including Gov. Henry McMaster and several U.S. House members. A day earlier, Sen. Tim Scott - who ended his own 2024 bid in November and was appointed to the Senate by Haley in 2012 - endorsed Trump over Haley in a rousing call-and-response speech of his own in New Hampshire.

Since entering the GOP race nearly a year ago, Haley, 52, has advocated for "mental competency tests" for older politicians, a swipe at the ages of both Trump and Biden.


# Can Trump be stopped? That and more key questions heading into the New Hampshire primary
By **STEVE PEOPLES**
January 21, 2024. 12:55 PM EST

---

**CONCORD, N.H. (AP)** - Donald Trump's effort to march to the Republican presidential nomination faces perhaps its greatest challenge on Tuesday when voters in New Hampshire hold the first-in-the-nation primary.

The former president enters the contest emboldened by his record-setting performance in last week's Iowa caucuses. But New Hampshire has a more moderate political tradition and primary rules that allow unaffiliated voters to participate in the race. Trump-backed MAGA candidates have struggled here in recent years.

Nikki Haley is hoping to capitalize on those vulnerabilities. The former U.N. ambassador is the only candidate left in the GOP primary aiming to defeat Trump outright. After a disappointing finish in Iowa, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is effectively surrendering new Hampshire and focusing on South Carolina's Feb. 24 primary.

A Haley victory would usher in a more competitive phase of a primary that Trump has so far dominated. A Trump win, however, could create a sense of inevitability around the prospect that he could become the GOP nominee for the third consecutive time.

Don't forget that Democrats have a primary, too. President Joe Biden is not on the ballot, having made South Carolina the first formal stop on the Democratic primary calendar. But New Hampshire is sticking to tradition and hosting its own Democratic primary anyway.

Here's what we're watching for on Tuesday:

## CAN TRUMP BE STOPPED?
If Trump's rivals can't beat him in New Hampshire, they may not be able to stop him anywhere else.

Tuesday's election has essentially become a one-on-one fight between Trump and Haley, which is exactly what Trump's Republican critics have been clamoring for. Haley appears competitive and enjoys support among moderate voters and independents. She's also earned the backing of popular New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

Still, Trump remains the favorite.

Sensing a knock-out blow, the former president has called in his growing army of prominent supporters in recent days to help demonstrate his strength. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Trump's former opponent, endorsed Trump at a New Hampshire rally over the weekend. New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance stumped for Trump on Saturday before an appearance from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster.

A significant number of New Hampshire Republicans insist they will never support Trump. And without a competitive Democratic primary in the way, many left-leaning unaffiliated voters could decide to support Haley. But that doesn't change the fact that Republican primary elections are typically decided by Republicans, and Trump's grip on the base appears stronger than ever.

Still, New Hampshire loves a comeback story (just ask Bill Clinton), so we wouldn't rule anything out.

## IT'S ALL ABOUT TURNOUT
More than any issue or shortcoming, Trump's fate may be tied most to who actually shows up to vote on Tuesday.

Iowa saw one of its lowest turnouts in recent history in last week's caucuses. Low turnout elections typically favor the candidate with the strongest support among the party's base. And in 2024, that's Trump.

But Haley's team has been trying to expand the New Hampshire electorate by appealing to less-ideological moderate Republicans and left-leaning independents.

New Hampshire law allows unaffiliated voters to participate in either party's nomination contest. Democrats are not allowed to vote in the GOP primary, although voters had an opportunity to change their registration back in October.

Haley needs a large turnout to have a chance on Tuesday. And that's exactly what state officials are expecting.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David M. Scanlan predicted that 322,000 voters would participate in the Republican primary, which would be a record high. On the Democratic side, he's expecting just 88,000 given that there's virtually no competition.

To defeat Trump, Haley probably needs more than a record-high turnout overall - she needs to bring out unaffiliated voters in record numbers, too. Trump's team is skeptical. And history is not on her side.

## DISAPPEARING DESANTIS
It will be hard to ignore DeSantis' decline once all the votes are counted on Tuesday.

The Florida governor visited the state for the first time in June as a front-runner in the 2024 primary. Seven months later, he's been forced to surrender New Hampshire before a single vote is cast because of his dismal numbers here following his 30-point drubbing in Iowa.

DeSantis actually spent the weekend campaigning in South Carolina, which hosts its primary election in five weeks, to try to distance himself from what's expected to be an ugly finish here.

We're curious whether DeSantis' departure actually ends up helping Trump, given that most of DeSantis' supporters had positive views of the former president.

It's also worth wondering if Tuesday marks the final primary election day for DeSantis as a 2024 candidate. During a brief appearance in New Hampshire last week before he sped to South Carolina, he said he would only continue to stay in the race if there was a path to victory.

If he's embarrassed again on Tuesday, his shrinking path may disappear altogether.

## HOW MUCH DOES ELECTABILITY REALLY MATTER?
Publicly and privately, Democratic leaders have repeatedly acknowledged that they fear Haley much more than Trump in a prospective general election matchup against Biden. We're about to find out whether Republican primary voters agree.

Haley has spent months telling voters that, without Trump's chaos and political baggage, she would be better positioned to defeat Biden in November. That argument didn't help her much in Iowa, where she finished just behind DeSantis.

She's betting that voters in swing-state New Hampshire will place more value on her longer-term political appeal. Sununu, New Hampshire's popular GOP governor, has been at Haley's side for weeks reminding voters of Trump's dismal record in national elections ever since he entered the White House.

It's unclear if the message has resonated.

If it doesn't, it'll be because Trump has effectively convinced Republican voters that he - not Haley - is the most electable general election candidate. That's a risky bet, given his extraordinary legal problems, the stunning attack he inspired on the U.S. Capitol and his demonstrated record of alienating suburban voters in successive elections.

Biden's unpopularity is no doubt muddying the issue.

Still, New Hampshire voters have an opportunity to cast a strategic vote Tuesday based on the one issue that seems to matter more than all else in today's politics: the ability to beat the other side.

## A PRESIDENTIAL EMBARRASSMENT?
It may not be the headline, but New Hampshire Democrats are voting for their presidential nominee on Tuesday as well. And as much as Biden's team wants you to think they don't care about the outcome, they're paying attention.

Biden won't be on New Hampshire ballot, of course.

He's avoiding New Hampshire altogether after pushing the Democratic National Committee to break tradition and award the nation's opening primary to South Carolina, a much more diverse state that's set to vote on Feb. 3. Furious about Biden's decision, the "Live Free or Die" state ignored the president's wishes and will host its own unsanctioned Democratic primary anyway.

There are several lesser known Democrats on the ballot, including Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and progressive activist Maryanne Williamson. Eager to demonstrate Biden's strength despite his absence, the president's allies in the state have been encouraging voters to write in Biden's name.

The outcome will have no bearing on the number of delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination. But an underwhelming finish, even in a write-in campaign, would represent an unwanted embarrassment as Biden tries to improve his political standing heading into the fall campaign.


# In small-town Wisconsin, looking for the roots of the modern American conspiracy theory
By **TIM SULLIVAN**
January 21, 2024. 7:12 AM EST

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**APPLETON, Wis. (AP)** - The decades fall away as you open the front doors.

It's the late 1950s in the cramped little offices - or maybe the pre-hippie 1960s. It's a place where army-style buzz cuts are still in fashion, communism remains the primary enemy and the decor is dominated by American flags and portraits of once-famous Cold Warriors.

At the John Birch Society, they've been waging war for more than 60 years against what they're sure is a vast, diabolical conspiracy. As they tell it, it's a plot with tentacles that reach from 19th-century railroad magnates to the Biden White House, from the Federal Reserve to COVID vaccines.

Long before QAnon, Pizzagate and the modern crop of politicians who will happily repeat apocalyptic talking points, there was Birch. And outside these cramped small-town offices is a national political landscape that the Society helped shape.

"We have a bad reputation. You know: 'You guys are insane,'" says Wayne Morrow, a Society vice president. He is standing in the group's warehouse amid 10-foot (3-meter) shelves of Birch literature waiting to be distributed.

"But all the things that we wrote about are coming to pass."

Back when the Cold War loomed and TV was still mostly in black and white, the John Birch Society mattered. There were dinners at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and meetings with powerful politicians. There was a headquarters on each coast, a chain of bookstores, hundreds of local chapters, radio shows, summer camps for members' children.

Well-funded and well-organized, they sent forth fevered warnings about a secret communist plot to take over America. It made them heroes to broad swaths of conservatives, even as they became a punchline to a generation of comedians.

"They created this alternative political tradition," says Matthew Dallek, a historian at George Washington University and author of "Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right." He says it forged a right-wing culture that fell, at first, well outside mainstream Republican politics.

Conspiracy theories have a long history in the United States, going back at least to 1800, when secret forces were said to be backing Thomas Jefferson's presidential bid. It was a time when such talk moved slowly, spread through sermons, letters and tavern visits.

No more. Fueled by social media and the rise of celebrity conspiracists, the last two decades have seen ever-increasing numbers of Americans lose faith in everything from government institutions to journalism. And year after year, ideas once relegated to fringe newsletters, little-known websites and the occasional AM radio station pushed their way into the mainstream.

Today, outlandish conspiracy theories are quoted by more than a few U.S. senators, and millions of Americans believe the COVID pandemic was orchestrated by powerful elites. Prominent cable news commentators speak darkly of government agents seizing citizens off the streets.

But the John Birch Society itself is largely forgotten, relegated to a pair of squat buildings along a busy commercial street in small-town Wisconsin.

So why even take note of it today? Because many of its ideas - from anger at a mysterious, powerful elite to fears that America's main enemy was hidden within the country, biding its time - percolated into pockets of American culture over the last half-century. Those who came later simply out-Birched the Birchers. Says Dallek: "Their successors were politically savvier and took Birch ideas and updated them for contemporary politics."

The result has been a new political terrain. What was once at the edges had worked its way toward the heart of the discourse.

To some, the fringe has gone all the way to the White House. In the Society's offices, they'll tell you that Donald Trump would never have been elected if they hadn't paved the way.

"The bulk of Trump's campaign was Birch," Art Thompson, a retired Society CEO who remains one of its most prominent voices, says proudly. "All he did was bring it out into the open."

There's some truth in that, even if Thompson is overstating things.

The Society had spent decades calling for a populist president who would preach patriotism, oppose immigration, pull out of international treaties and root out the forces trying to undermine America. Trump may not have realized it, but when he warned about a "Deep State" - a supposed cabal of bureaucrats that secretly controls U.S. policy - he was repeating a longtime Birch talking point.

A savvy reality TV star, Trump capitalized on a conservative political landscape that had been shaped by decades of right-wing talk radio, fears about America's seismic cultural shifts and the explosive online spread of misinformation.

While the Birch Society echoes in that mix, tracing those echoes is impossible. It's hard to draw neat historical lines in American politics. Was the Society a prime mover, or a bit player? In a nation fragmented by social media and offshoot groups by the dozens, there's just no way to be sure. What is certain, though, is this:

"The conspiratorial fringe is now the conspiratorial mainstream," says Paul Matzko, a historian and research fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. "Right-wing conspiracism has simply outgrown the John Birch Society."

Their beliefs skip along the surface of the truth, with facts and rumors and outright fantasies banging together into a complex mythology. "The great conspiracy" is what Birch Society founder Robert Welch called it in "The Blue Book," the collection of his writings and speeches still treated as near-mystical scripture in the Society's corridors.

Welch, a wealthy candy company executive, formed the Society in the late 1950s, naming it for an American missionary and U.S. Army intelligence officer killed in 1945 by communist Chinese forces. Welch viewed Birch as the first casualty of the Cold War. Communist agents, he said, were everywhere in America.

Welch shot to prominence, and infamy, when he claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hero general of World War II, was a "dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." Also under Kremlin control, Welch asserted: the secretary of state, the head of the CIA, and Eisenhower's younger brother Milton.

Subtlety has never been a strong Birch tradition. Over the decades, the Birch conspiracy grew to encompass the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, public education, the United Nations, the civil rights movement, The Rockefeller Foundation, the space program, the COVID pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and climate-change activism. In short, things the Birchers don't like.

The plot's leaders - "insiders," in Society lexicon - range from railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt to former President George H.W. Bush and Bill Gates, whose vaccine advocacy is, they say, part of a plan to control the global population. While his main focus was always communism, Welch eventually came to believe that the conspiracy's roots twisted far back into history, to the Illuminati, an 18th-century Bavarian secret society.

By the 1980s, the Society was well into its decline. Welch died in 1985 and the society's reins passed to a series of successors. There were internal revolts. While its aura has waned, it is still a force among some conservatives - its videos are popular in parts of right-wing America, and its offices include a sophisticated basement TV studio for internet news reports. Its members speak at right-wing conferences and work booths at the occasional county fair.

Scholars say its ranks are far reduced from the 1960s and early 1970s, when membership estimates ranged from 50,000 to 100,000. "Membership is something that has been closely guarded since day one," says Bill Hahn, who became CEO in 2020. He will only say the organization "continues to be a growing operation."

Today, the Society frames itself as almost conventional. Almost.

"We have succeeded in attracting mainstream people," says Steve Bonta, a top editor for the Society's New American magazine. The group has toned down the rhetoric and is a little more careful these days about throwing around accusations of conspiracies. But members still believe in them fiercely.

"As Mr. Welch came out with on Day One: There is a conspiracy," Hahn says. "It's no different today than it was back in December 1958."

It can feel that way. Ask about the conspiracy's goal, and things swerve into unexpected territory. The sharp rhetoric re-emerges and, once again, the decades seem to fall away.

"They really want to cut back on the population of the Earth. That is their intent," Thompson says.

But why?

"Well, that's a good question, isn't it?" he responds. "It makes no sense. But that's the way they think."


# Lauren Boebert switched districts in a bid to stay in Congress. Winning over voters won't be easy
By **JESSE BEDAYN**
January 21, 2024. 11:37 AM EST

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**LAST CHANCE, Colo. (AP)** - Fleeing a tough reelection bid in the district where she lives, Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is moving from the mountains to the plains, in the hopes of finding conservative pastures green enough to salvage her place in Congress.

To win, she'll have to convince a new swath of voters that her brand of white-hot, far-right political activism - built on divisive one-liners and partisan ferocity in the U.S. House - is more needed in Washington than the home-grown Republicans she now faces in the primary.

While Boebert's new district voted for President Donald Trump by a nearly 20 percentage point margin in 2020, more than double the margin in her old district, and some Republican voters are already admirers, others are greeting her with hands-on-hips skepticism.

"She feels she is a better candidate than the ones that we have," said Robin Varhelman, seated behind a desk at the cattle auction she owns in Brush. "She's gonna have to explain to people why."

Varhelman, flanked by the massive head of a bull named Big Red she used to rope, with a cap reading "USA Trump" hanging from its right ear, said she wasn't sure if Boebert made the switch for the good of the state or her own survival.

After Boebert eked out a victory by just 546 votes in 2022, her home district moved from Republican-leaning to a toss-up for 2024 - threatening the GOP's already threadbare control of the U.S. House.

The narrow margin in Congress leaves both major parties fighting fiercely for every available seat in 2024. Boebert's move to the new district, where she'll have to take on at least nine other Republicans for her party's nomination, probably gives the GOP a better chance to win both.

That's part of her reason for switching, she said in a phone interview, but she gave another reason for jumping into a race that's already considered safely Republican: "There is need for my voice in Congress."

After attacking the Democrat who nearly upset her in 2022 as the beneficiary of outside money, Boebert has become the outsider and will have to live down the "carpetbagger" label that her new opponents are already lobbing her way.

Boebert's abdication came after a video surfaced last year of the congresswoman vaping and groping with a date in a Denver theater, which rattled even devoted supporters as she barreled toward an election rematch against Adam Frisch. The Democrat she nearly lost to in 2022 had received triple her campaign donations in this year's race, benefiting tangibly from her disruptive profile, which grated on donors far beyond state and district borders.

"I can read the tea leaves," Boebert said. "I don't want the left to have a chance to buy the seat from us, and their only argument is me."

Number crunchers, political experts and the National Republican Campaign Committee generally agree that Boebert's exodus will give Republicans a better chance to retain that district - though newly elected NRCC Chair Rep. Richard Hudson said the organization had no hand in the decision.

Frisch said he's "taking a bit of a victory lap" after Boebert's retreat, and is plugging ahead with the same bipartisan platform, buoyed by at least $7.7 million in his campaign coffers. Frisch is expected to face Jeff Hurd - a mild-mannered conservative in the old GOP tradition, who said his goal is "making local headlines, not national headlines."

In Boebert's new district, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed her candidacy, and the NRCC is treating her as an incumbent. Less happy with the switch is Republican state Rep. Richard Holtorf, now one of her opponents.

"By Lauren Boebert district shopping and becoming a carpetbagger so she can keep her office in D.C., she has now become part of the swamp," he said.

Whether Boebert will join the ranks of American politicians who have relocated and won remains unclear.

That road is littered with many who "could never quite convince voters that they were in this for something other than their own ambition," said Christopher Galdieri, a politics professor at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, who wrote a book on American politicians who've picked up and moved races.

Boebert does have some things working in her favor - she's not leaving Colorado, she's a known conservative gladiator on national issues such as immigration and reducing the national debt, and she's a dedicated acolyte for Trump, whose popularity among rural Republicans remains high.

Rancher Dawn Whitney, who attended one of Varhelman's recent auctions, said Boebert's flag-bearing for conservative, Christian and agrarian values is already enough to earn her vote.

"Ranchers and farmers are pretty much the same everywhere," said Whitney, her calloused hands busy at a word search puzzle as the auctioneer chanted.

"As long as she is country related, I think she'll be fine," said Whitney, who cited a well-worn reason voters cling to Boebert: Rural residents often feel their political power slipping and see an outspoken champion in Boebert.

"She don't back down," she said.

Still, Boebert is joining a race that is practically guaranteed to elect a Republican anyway, said Galdieri. In effect, that means she's pushing aside "homegrown options" to run in a safer district.

"Voters notice that," he said.

While some voters - even if they chafed at Boebert's style - weren't as miffed that she changed districts, the June Republican primary is where her opponents can do the most damage. Along with Holtorf, she'll face Mike Lynch, minority leader in Colorado's House of Representatives.

"I was a fan of Lauren Boebert when she first got there," he said. "And then I think, for lack of a better term, she drank the Kool-Aid and became what she was fighting."

Boebert's retort is unwavering.

"If there's anyone who takes on the swamp, it's me," she said. "I'm the only candidate in this race who's actually done the work."

Nodding to part of the challenge ahead, she added, "I'm excited to meet people and learn more about the nitty gritty local issues."

While a segment of the new district's voters is in a more urban center south of Denver, the region stretches across Colorado's prairie east of the Rocky Mountains - where some folks' great-grandparents ate dinner beneath tablecloths during the Dust Bowl. A half-century ago, grandparents wrestled their calves out of blistering winter chills, just as their descendants were doing this week, and as their own children will do as long as things hold steady.

Though Boebert might be escaping tough electoral odds, voters in the new district hold tight to the traditional values borne from that history - the same values that Boebert stepped on in the groping episode at a musical production of "Beetlejuice" in Denver.

That embarrassment was memorable enough to transcend district lines.

"I don't really care either way what she does, but she's definitely got to get some sh- together, getting thrown out of a theater," said Mark Moorman, a Republican who bid at auction on a bull the size and weight of a small car.

Before she switched districts, Boebert had apologized up and down Colorado's 3rd district as part of her last-ditch strategy against Frisch. She'd undertaken a local press tour and grassroots boot camps geared to emphasize her work on local issues.

Now, on new turf, "that's totally out the window," said Seth Masket, director of the Center on American Politics in Denver. "She's the national politics candidate. That is her weakness; that is her strength. She kind of has no choice."

It's the difference between Republican voter Debbie Spear - "She's going to have the same target on her back wherever she goes, here, there, Texas. We don't need that, what is she going to bring more than the candidates we have?" - and the passerby at a ranching store nearby, who shouted out: "The girl from Rifle? Hell, yeah."


# Alabama plans to carry out first nitrogen gas execution. How will it work and what are the risks?
By **KIM CHANDLER**
January 21, 2024. 9:11 AM EST

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**MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP)** - Alabama is preparing to use a new method of execution: nitrogen gas.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, who survived the state's previous attempt to put him to death by lethal injection in 2022, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday by nitrogen hypoxia. If carried out, it would the first new method of execution since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

The state maintains that nitrogen gas will cause unconsciousness quickly but critics have likened the never-used method of execution to human experimentation.

## WHAT IS NITROGEN HYPOXIA?
Nitrogen hypoxia execution would cause death by forcing the inmate to breathe pure nitrogen, depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.

## HAS IT EVER BEEN USED?
No state has used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence. In 2018, Alabama became the third state - along with Oklahoma and Mississippi - to authorize the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.

Some states are looking for new ways to execute inmates because the drugs used in lethal injections, the most common execution method in the United States, are increasingly difficult to find.

## HOW IS IT SUPPOSED TO WORK?
Nitrogen, a colorless, odorless gas, makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when breathed with proper levels of oxygen.

The theory behind nitrogen hypoxia is that changing the composition of the air to 100% nitrogen will cause Smith to lose consciousness and then die from lack of oxygen.

Much of what is recorded in medical journals about death from nitrogen exposure comes from industrial accidents - where nitrogen leaks or mix-ups have killed workers - and suicide attempts.

## WHAT DOES THE STATE PLAN TO DO?
After Smith is strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber, the state said in a court filing that it will place a "NIOSH-approved Type-C full facepiece supplied air respirator" - a type of mask typically used in industrial settings to deliver life-preserving oxygen - over Smith's face.

The warden will then read the death warrant and ask Smith if he has any last words before activating "the nitrogen hypoxia system" from another room. The nitrogen gas will be administered for at least 15 minutes or "five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer," according to the state protocol.

The state heavily redacted sections of the protocol related to the storage and testing of the gas system.

The Alabama attorney general's office told a federal judge that the nitrogen gas will "cause unconsciousness within seconds, and cause death within minutes."

## WHAT ARE THE CRITICISMS?
Smith's attorneys say the state is seeking to make him the "test subject" for a novel execution method.

They have argued that the mask the state plans to use is not air tight and oxygen seeping in could subject him to a prolonged execution, possibly leaving him in a vegetative state instead of killing him. A doctor testified on behalf of Smith that the low-oxygen environment could cause nausea, leaving Smith to choke to death on his own vomit.

Experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month cautioned that, in their view, the execution method would violate the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

The American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia can be an acceptable method of euthanasia under certain conditions for pigs but not for other mammals because it creates an "anoxic environment that is distressing for some species."

## IS THIS THE SAME AS THE GAS CHAMBER?
Not exactly. Some states previously used hydrogen cyanide gas, a lethal gas, for executions. The last prisoner to be executed in a U.S. gas chamber was Walter LaGrand, the second of two German brothers sentenced to death for killing a bank manager in 1982 in southern Arizona. It took LaGrand 18 minutes to die in 1999.

## WHO IS THE INMATE?
Smith was one of two men convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire of a preacher's wife. Prosecutors said Smith and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect insurance money.

Alabama attempted to execute Smith in 2022 by lethal injection. He was strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber being prepared for lethal injection, but the state called off the lethal injection when execution team members had difficulty connecting the second of two required intravenous lines to Smith's veins. Smith was strapped to the gurney for nearly four hours, according to his lawyers, as he waited to see if the execution would go forward.

## ARE THERE LEGAL CHALLENGES?
The question of whether the execution can proceed will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Friday in Smith's request to block the execution. After the court rules, either side could appeal.

Smith has argued that the state's proposed procedures violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He has also argued that Alabama violated his due process rights by scheduling the execution when he has pending appeals and that the face mask will interfere with is ability to pray.

In a separate case, Smith is arguing it would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment for the state to make a second attempt to execute him after he already survived one execution attempt. Lawyers for Smith on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution to consider that question.

## WHAT IS POTENTIALLY AT STAKE?
Lethal injection is the most commonly used execution method in the United States, but death penalty states have struggled at times to obtain the needed drugs or encountered other problems in connecting intravenous lines.

If the Alabama execution goes forward, other states may seek to start to using nitrogen gas.

If the execution is blocked by the court or botched, it could halt or slow the pursuit of nitrogen gas as an alternative execution method.


# Texas man pleads guilty to kidnapping teen whose 'Help Me!' sign led to Southern California rescue
January 21, 2024. 11:41 AM EST

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**LOS ANGELES (AP)** - A Texas man has pleaded guilty to kidnapping a 13-year-old girl who was rescued in Southern California when a passerby saw her hold up a "Help Me!" sign in a parked car.

A statement Friday from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California said Steven Robert Sablan, 62, of Cleburne, Texas, admitted in a plea agreement that he sexually assaulted the victim while driving her from Texas to California.

The girl was rescued July 9 in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, after a passerby called 911 to report seeing her hold up the piece of paper with the handwritten desperate plea for help.

Sablan, who has been in federal custody since July 2023, pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, prosecutors said.

His attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Nadine Hettle, declined to comment Saturday.

In July, Sablan was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

An FBI agent wrote in an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint that the girl was walking down a street in San Antonio on July 6 when Sablan drove up, raised a black handgun and told her, "If you don't get in the car with me, I am going to hurt you."

A sentencing hearing was set for Oct. 25. Sablan will face a mandatory minimum of 20 years in federal prison and a maximum sentence of life.


# Strike kills Hezbollah official in Lebanon, amid apparent Israeli shift to targeted killings
By **MOHAMMED ZAATARI** and **ABBY SEWELL**
January 21, 2024. 1:01 PM EST

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**SIDON, Lebanon (AP)** - An Israeli airstrike hit two vehicles near a Lebanese army checkpoint in south Lebanon on Sunday, killing a Hezbollah member and wounding several other people, including civilians, Lebanese state media and health officials reported.

The strike appeared to be part of a shift in Israeli strategy toward targeted killings in Lebanon after more than three months of near-daily clashes with Hezbollah militants on the border against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah announced that one of its members, identified as Fadel Shaar, had been killed in the strike in the town of Kafra. Local civil defense and hospital officials said seven people were wounded, including two women, one of whom was in critical condition.

Video from the scene showed a passenger sedan in flames next to a small truck stopped in the middle of the road.

The Israeli military did not comment on the strike.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah forces have engaged in near-daily clashes with Israeli troops along the border.

While the clashes had previously been limited mainly to a narrow strip within a few kilometers (miles) from the border, Israel in recent weeks appears to have moved to a strategy of targeted killings of figures from Hezbollah and allied groups, sometimes hitting in areas relatively far from the border, as was the case in Sunday's strike.

On Saturday, another strike near the Lebanese port city of Tyre killed two people in a car - one of them a Hezbollah commander - and two people in a nearby orchard. The commander, Ali Hudruj, was buried Sunday in south Lebanon. The other occupant of the car, tech sector businessman Mohammad Baqir Diab, was identified as a civilian and was buried in Beirut on Sunday.

On Jan. 2, a presumed Israeli airstrike killed a top Hamas official, Saleh Arouri, in a suburb of Beirut, the first such strike in Lebanon's capital since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brutal one-month war in 2006.

Speaking at Hudruj's funeral Sunday, Hezbollah Member of Parliament Hussein Jeshi said Israel had "resorted to the method of assassinating some members of the resistance" to compensate for being unable to reach a military victory against Hamas after more than 100 days of war in Gaza.

The Lebanese militant group said in a statement later Sunday that it had launched an attack against the town of Avivim in northern Israel in retaliation for a civilian woman killed in the Israeli strike in Kafra and for other "attacks that targeted Lebanese villages and civilians."

It later modified the statement to remove the reference to the civilian death after hospital officials and family members said the woman was still alive.

Israel did not comment on the strike in Kafra but announced it had struck Hezbollah targets in several locations in Lebanon on Sunday. It later said that an anti-tank missile had hit a house in Avivim and no injuries were reported.

With dangers of a regional conflict flaring on multiple fronts, officials from the United States and Europe have engaged in a flurry of shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between Israel and Lebanon, attempting to head off an escalation of the conflict into a full-on war on the Lebanese front.


# At least 27 people are reported killed in an attack on Donetsk in Russian-occupied Ukraine
January 21, 2024. 2:51 PM EST

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**KYIV, Ukraine (AP)** - Moscow-installed officials said Ukrainian shelling killed at least 27 people and wounded 25 on Sunday at a market on the outskirts of Donetsk, a Russian-occupied city in the eastern part of the country.

Among the injured in the suburb of Tekstilshchik were two children, said Denis Pushilin, the local leader.

Ukrainian officials in Kyiv did not comment on the incident, and the claims could not be independently verified by The Associated Press. Both sides have increasingly relied on longer-range attacks this winter amid largely unchanged positions on the 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line in the nearly 2-year-old war.

The artillery shells that hit the area had been fired from the area of Kurakhove and Krasnohorivka to the west, Pushilin said, adding that emergency services responded to the scene.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including today's shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine," according to a U.N. spokesperson, adding that all such attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Donetsk is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russia annexed illegally in 2022, months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.

Russia's Foreign Ministry also blamed Ukraine and described the strike as a "terrorist attack."

Also on Sunday, a fire broke out at a chemical transport terminal at Russia's Ust-Luga port following two explosions, regional officials said. Local media said the Baltic Sea port, 165 kilometers (about 100 miles) southwest of St. Petersburg, had been attacked by Ukrainian drones, causing a gas tank to explode.

The blaze was at a site run by Russia's second-largest natural gas producer, Novatek.

In a statement to Russian media outlet RBC, the company blamed the fire on an "external influence," saying operations at the port were paused.

Yuri Zapalatsky, the head of the Kingisepp district on the Gulf of Finland where the port is located, said there were no casualties but the area was on high alert.

News outlet Fontanka reported that two drones had been detected flying toward St. Petersburg on Sunday morning, but were redirected toward the Kingisepp district. AP could not independently verify the reports.

Russia's Defense Ministry did not report any drone activity in the Kingisepp area in its daily briefing. It said that four Ukrainian drones had been downed in Russia's Smolensk region, and that two more were shot down in the Oryol and Tula regions.

Russian officials previously confirmed a Ukrainian drone had been downed on the outskirts of St. Petersburg on Thursday.

In fighting on the front line, Russia's Defense Ministry said Moscow's forces had taken control of the village of Krokhmalne in Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Ukrainian forces confirmed the settlement had been occupied, but described its capture as temporary.

Ukrainian Ground Forces Command spokesman Volodymyr Fityo said Kyiv's troops had been pulled back to reserve positions from the village, which had a population of about 45 people before the start of the war.

"That's five houses, probably," he was quoted as saying by Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske. "Our main goal is to save the lives of Ukraine's defenders."

Recent Russian attacks have tried to find gaps in Ukraine's defenses by using large numbers of missiles and drones in an apparent effort to saturate air defense systems.

The massive barrages - more than 500 drones and missiles were fired between Dec. 29 and Jan. 2, according to officials in Kyiv - are also using up Ukraine's weapons stockpiles.


# Dirty rat! Culprit fills in Chicago neighborhood landmark known as the 'rat hole'
January 20, 2024. 3:14 PM EST

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**CHICAGO (AP)** - You dirty rat!

In a city infamous for its gangster past, some culprit filled in a Northside Chicago neighborhood landmark affectionately called by residents the "rat hole."

The indentation in the pavement on West Roscoe Street resembles the outline of a rat, claws tail and all. It was reported Friday on social media that the "rat hole" had been filled with a substance resembling white plaster.

Transportation and Streets and Sanitation officials told the Chicago Tribune that the city was not behind the fill-in - which one day may find itself part of Windy City tongue-in-cheek lore like Al Capone's vault and a coil of bronze faux feces on a fountain intended to remind people to pick up their dog poop.

Neighbors gathered Friday afternoon using a brush and water to scrub the shallow hole in the sidewalk clean, restoring it to its "ratfull" place among the city's iconic - if not strange - attractions.

Tributes, including plastic flowers, a prayer candle, small toys, a pack of cigarettes and coins adorn what may have been the final resting place of "Lil Stucky" or "Chimley," names given by some in the neighborhood to the creature that once lay there spreadeagled.

"Overall, people just appreciate that our wonderful block is getting attention - even if it's to look at a rat hole," Jeff VanDam told the Chicago Sun-Times for a story Friday. "It's a small, quirky feature of a neighborhood where we get used to it, we care about it, and we want to protect it."

Chicago resident Winslow Dumaine learned about the "rat hole" from a friend and posted a photo earlier this month of it on X, formerly known as Twitter. The photo drew more than 5 million views, he said.

People living nearby said the imprint had been there for nearly two decades and was made by a squirrel, according to Dumaine.

"I think at the end of the day, the rat hole is a silly thing, but the thing that made it so viral was the fact that thousands and thousands of people were in on a big, sweet, heartfelt joke," Dumaine told the Tribune.

"Chicago prides itself on all of the things that make Chicago difficult, and no matter how much Chicago hates rats, they love rats," he added. "It's a part of our culture."


# Zelenskyy calls Trump's rhetoric about Ukraine's war with Russia 'very dangerous'
By **THE ASSOCIATED PRESS**
January 20, 2024. 5:29 PM EST

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was worried at the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House, branding Trump's claim that he could stop Ukraine's war with Russia in 24 hours as "very dangerous."

In an interview with the U.K.'s Channel 4 News that aired Friday, Zelenskyy invited the former president and front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination to visit Kyiv, but only if Trump delivers on his promise.

"Donald Trump, I invite you to Ukraine, to Kyiv. If you can stop the war during 24 hours, I think it will be enough to come," Zelenskyy said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not respond to a message seeking comment Saturday.

The Ukrainian leader also shared his concern about the U.S. taking unilateral action that failed to consider Ukraine's perspective, noting the dearth of details around Trump's "peace plan."

Zelenskyy described the former president's rhetoric as "very dangerous" and appeared apprehensive that Trump's idea of a negotiated solution might involve Ukraine making major concessions to Russia.

"(Trump) is going to make decisions on his own, without ... I'm not even talking about Russia, but without both sides, without us," Zelenskyy said. "If he says this publicly, that's a little scary. I've seen a lot, a lot of victims, but that's really making me a bit stressed."

He added: "Because even if his idea (for ending the war) - that no one has heard yet - doesn't work for us, for our people, he will do anything to implement his idea anyway. And this worries me a little."

Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is well-positioned to negotiate an end to the war that has raged for almost two years, saying he has a good relationship with both Russian and Ukrainian leaders. Throughout his political career, he has frequently lavished praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin, including after Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

At a campaign rally in Georgia just days after Russian tanks moved into Ukraine, Trump described Putin as a "smart" political player and expressed admiration for Russia's swift takeover of a vast, "great piece of land" at the cost of what he suggested were relatively minor sanctions.

The U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump when he was president, alleging he pressured Zelenskyy to pursue a politically motivated probe that might hurt Joe Biden's chance to win the 2020 presidential election while withholding $400 million in military aid that Congress approved to help Ukraine confront Russian-backed separatists in the country's east.

The Senate acquitted Trump of the impeachment charges.

Elsewhere, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog on Saturday warned that mines had been re-planted around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, just months after a team of international inspectors reported on their removal.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi cautioned that the presence of mines in the plant's buffer zone, between its internal and external fences, is "inconsistent" with the agency's safety standards, according to a readout published on the organization's website. The readout added that an IAEA team dispatched to monitor the plant's safety had previously identified mines in the same location, but that these were removed last November.

The head of Ukraine's state nuclear company on Saturday described the alleged planting of mines as "another crime" by Russian forces that have occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant since the early weeks of the war.

In a Telegram update, Petro Kotin of Energoatom said that the situation at the plant "will remain fragile and dangerous as long as the Russians remain there."

The IAEA has repeatedly expressed concern that the war could cause a potential radiation leak from the facility, which is one of world's 10 biggest nuclear power stations. The plant's six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Also on Saturday, Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian town of Huliaipole, wounding a local resident as he stood in his yard, local Gov. Yuriy Malashko wrote on Telegram.

Earlier that day, regional Ukrainian officials reported that one civilian was killed and three more suffered wounds as Russian forces on Friday and overnight shelled the southern Kherson region.

In southern Russia, close to the Ukrainian border, an exploding drone slammed into a gas pipeline on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported on Telegram. Gladkov said Ukraine was responsible for the attack, and added that no one was hurt.


# An explosive case of police violence in the Paris suburbs ends with the conviction of 3 officers
January 20, 2024. 10:04 AM EST

**PARIS (AP)** - A French court convicted three police officers of "voluntary violence" towards a youth worker in a Paris suburb who suffered serious injuries to his rectum after being assaulted with a police baton during an identity check seven years ago.

All three officers received suspended prison sentences. The officer who used the baton to strike Théo Luhaka was given a suspended sentence of 12 months, while the other two present on the scene got three months each.

Luhaka, a youth worker of African descent who was 22 years old at the time, filed a lawsuit accusing the officers of assaulting him during an identity check in February 2017 in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a working-class suburb northeast of Paris with a large immigrant population.

Rights defenders have long complained of French police abusing their powers during identity checks on people of color.

The court in the town of Bobigny, about 9 kilometers (5 miles) north-east of the French capital, dropped the charge of a "permanent infirmity" in its decision on Friday. A charge of rape was dropped earlier.

Despite the light sentences, the verdict brought a sense of closure for Luhaka, the French press reported his lawyers as saying.

"It's a decision ... that we take as a victory," said Antoine Vey, Luhaka's lawyer, according to the daily Le Monde. Luhaka did not speak, but had said earlier that he would be relieved if the police were convicted.

The lawyer for Marc-Antoine Castelain, the officer who received the 12-month sentence, also welcomed the verdict.

"The first impression of our client is the immense relief that, for the first time, in the eyes of France, it has been established that ... he is not a criminal," Le Monde quoted Thibault de Montbrial as saying, adding that the court had set the record straight about his actions at the time.

Widespread anger erupted after a video surfaced online apparently showing Luhaka's arrest on Feb. 2, 2017. The incident was followed by a week of protests in suburbs around Paris, many degenerating into violence.

Rioting has accompanied police ID checks gone awry in the past. Most recently, the shooting death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old youth with Algerian roots, during a police ID check last June touched off days of rioting around France. The motorcycle police officer who fired into the stopped car driven by the young man has been charged with voluntary homicide but was released from detention during the investigation.

In the case of Théo Luhaka, Le Monde reported that Castelain, the officer who used the "telescopic baton," was also banned from carrying a weapon or patrolling the streets for five years. The other two officers received similar bans for two years.

All three denied wrong-doing and said their reaction was justified because the young man was in "rebellion."


# Russia will consider property confiscations for those convicted of discrediting the army
By **THE ASSOCIATED PRESS**
January 20, 2024. 11:28 AM EST

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Russia's parliament will consider a law allowing for the confiscation of money, valuables, and other property from those deemed to spread "deliberately false information" about Moscow's military actions, a senior lawmaker said Saturday.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, wrote in a Telegram update that the measure would apply to those publicly inciting "extremist activities" or calling for the introduction of sanctions against Russia, as well as those "discrediting" the armed forces, a criminal offense under a law adopted as part of Moscow's crackdown on dissent after it sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

"Everyone who tries to destroy Russia, betrays it, must suffer the deserved punishment and compensate for the damage inflicted on the country, at the cost of their property," Volodin said. He added that under the law, those found guilty of "discrediting" the army also face being stripped of any honorary titles.

Volodin said the bill would be brought to the Duma, Russia's lower parliamentary chamber, on Monday.

The existing law against "discrediting" the Russian military, which covers offenses such as "justifying terrorism" and spreading "fake news" about the armed forces, is regularly used to silence critics of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Multiple activists, bloggers and ordinary Russians have received long jail terms.

Russian state media reported last month that one of the country's bestselling novelists, known under the pen name Boris Akunin, had been charged under the law and added to the Russian register of "extremists and terrorists." Another popular writer, Dmitry Glukhovsky, was handed an eight-year jail term in absentia after a Moscow court found him guilty in August of deliberately spreading false information about Russia's armed forces.

In November, a court in St. Petersburg jailed Sasha Skochilenko, an artist and musician, for seven years for swapping supermarket price tags with antiwar messages. The month before, Russian blogger Aleksandr Nozdrinov received a 8.5-year term for posting photos of destroyed buildings in Kyiv, along with a caption implying that Russian troops were responsible.


# Two British warships collided in a Middle East port. No one was injured but damage was sustained
January 20, 2024. 5:30 PM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - Two British warships collided in a harbor in Bahrain, causing damage to the vessels but no injuries, the Royal Navy said.

The HMS Chiddingfold appeared to reverse into the HMS Bangor as it was at a dock, according to video posted on social media.

"Why this happened is still to be established," said Rear Admiral Edward Ahlgren. "We train our people to the highest standards and rigorously enforce machinery safety standards, but unfortunately incidents of this nature can still happen."

Ahlgren said an investigation is under way into what went wrong.

The two minehunters have been based in the Middle East to help protect merchant vessels.

The British military last week joined the U.S. in bombing more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, whose relentless attacks on cargo vessels and warships in the Red Sea have disrupted global shipping.


# Storm Isha's rain and wind are expected to batter parts of the UK and Ireland
January 21, 2024. 12:38 PM EST

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LONDON (AP) - Britain and Ireland braced Sunday as Storm Isha unleashed rain and potentially deadly winds that were expected to batter a wide swath of land and disrupt travel into the start of the work week.

The Met Office, the national weather service, issued an unusual blanket wind warning for nearly all of the U.K. Its prediction that gusts could reach 90 miles per hour (145 kilometers per hour) was realized in midafternoon in the mountainous Snowdonia region of Wales.

"There's the potential for danger-to-life and damaging winds potentially leading to some power cuts in places. Some large waves around coastal regions could bring some debris onto roads and trees could come down," meteorologist Tom Morgan said.

Parts of the U.K. have been hammered since fall by a series of gusty and wet storms that have toppled trees, knocked out power and led to flooding along river valleys. Isha is the ninth named storm since September.

The railway operator for Scotland halted train service Sunday night and into Monday's rush hour. Network Rail, which owns the railway infrastructure in England, Scotland and Wales, said it was placing speed limits on most lines to prevent engines from running into fallen trees and other debris, and trains would be affected into the morning commute.

In the west of Ireland, counties Donegal, Galway and Mayo were warned of extremely strong and possibly destructive gusts from Sunday afternoon into the morning. People were told to stay away from the coast.


# A British politician calling for a cease-fire in Gaza gets heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters
January 20, 2024. 2:02 PM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - A British politician who was making a speech calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip was interrupted Saturday by pro-Palestinian protesters.

David Lammy, a member of Parliament from the center-left opposition Labour party, was briefly rushed backstage when a woman began shouting and walked up to the microphone where he had been standing and unfurled a Palestinian flag.

"When will you condemn the genocide? How many more children need to die?" demonstrators shouted.

After protesters were escorted away, Lammy was heckled by others from the audience as he resumed his speech.

"We all want to see a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza," he said. "I want change through power, not through protest."

The Labour party, which is out of government but widely expected to return to power in an election later this year, has been divided over the war.

Its leader, Keir Starmer, was criticized for refusing to call for a cease-fire early in the conflict and called for humanitarian pauses instead. He has called for a sustainable cease-fire more recently.

The Free Palestine Coalition said its activists had infiltrated the foreign policy conference put on by the Fabian Society, a socialist organization, at London's Guildhall.

"It is difficult to see how Lammy is upholding any commitment to human rights or international law as we enter into the 106th day of Israel's unrelenting assault on Gaza," the group said.

Israel launched its war against Hamas after the militant group's unprecedented Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel and saw about 250 others taken hostage. Health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza say Israel's offensive has killed nearly 25,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.


# Former Sinn Fein leader Adams faces a lawsuit in London over bombings during the 'Troubles'
By **BRIAN MELLEY**
January 19, 2024. 2:02 PM EST

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**LONDON (AP)** - Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams faces a lawsuit by three people who were wounded in bombings attributed to the Irish Republican Army that date back more than 50 years, a judge said Friday.

Adams can be sued as an individual but not as a representative of the IRA, Justice Michael Soole ruled. The judge also threw out a claim against the IRA, saying the group could not be sued because it was not a legal entity.

Adams is one of the most influential figures of Northern Ireland's decades of conflict and led the IRA-linked party Sinn Fein between 1983 and 2018. He has always denied being an IRA member, though former colleagues have said he was one of its leaders.

The three claimants are seeking to prove Adams was responsible for bombings in England during "the Troubles," referring to three decades of violence involving Irish republican and British loyalist militants and U.K. soldiers. Some 3,600 people were killed - most in Northern Ireland, though the IRA also set off bombs in England.

The three claimants are John Clark, a victim of the 1973 Old Bailey courthouse bombing in London, Jonathan Ganesh, a 1996 London Docklands bombing victim, and Barry Laycock, a victim of the 1996 Arndale shopping center bombing in Manchester. They allege Adams was a leading member of the IRA during those events and was on its decision-making Army Council.

Adams "acted together with others" to "bomb the British mainland" and was "directly responsible" for decisions to place devices in 1973 and 1996, they said in court.

If they prevail, they are seeking only 1 pound ($1.27) "for vindicatory purposes."

The case is likely to be the one of the final court efforts by victims of the Troubles to seek any type of justice in court after the controversial Legacy and Reconciliation Act set a cut off last May to file lawsuits.

Attorneys for the victims said this case - filed in 2022 - was the last to make it.

The judge ruled that Adams cannot recover his lawyers' fees if he wins at trial, though he'd be on the hook for paying the victims' legal costs if he loses.

Adams had challenged that protection to claimants in personal injury cases. The bombing victims had said the move was an effort to bully them into dropping the case.

"This is an unequivocal victory for all victims and survivors of IRA terrorism," attorney Matthew Jury said. "Adams and his legal team's apparent attempt to intimidate them into withdrawing their claims has rightly failed and their case will continue."

Seamus Collins, a lawyer for Adams, told the BBC that they would address the legal costs in court next week.