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Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

berlin — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union leaders denounced Saturday a recent spate of attacks on politicians in Germany, including one that sent a member of the European Parliament to the hospital with serious injuries.  Matthias Ecke, 41, a member of Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), was hit and kicked Friday by a group of four people while putting up posters in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, police said. An SPD source said his injuries would require an operation.  Shortly before, what appeared to be the same group attacked a 28-year-old campaigner for the Greens, who was also putting up posters, police said, although his injuries were not as severe.  "Democracy is threatened by this kind of thing," Scholz told a convention of European socialists in Berlin.  The attacks exemplify increased violence in Germany in recent years, often from the far-right, targeting especially leftist politicians. The BfV domestic intelligence agency says far-right extremism is the biggest threat to German democracy.  Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer, a conservative, said such aggression and attempts at intimidation recalled the darkest era of German history, a reference to Nazi rule.  The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, a former German conservative minister, and the Italian head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, both condemned the attack on Ecke.  "The culprits must be brought to account," von der Leyen said on X.  German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser vowed "tough action and further protective measures" in response to the attacks.  Far-right support  The heads of the SPD in Saxony, Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, issued a statement in which they blamed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the rise in violence.  "These people and their supporters bear responsibility for what is happening in this country," they said.  The AfD did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The party says it is the victim of a campaign by the media and political establishment.  The AfD has seen a surge in support in the past year take it to second place in opinion polls nationwide. It is particularly strong in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where surveys suggest it could come first in regional elections in September.  Nationwide, the number of attacks on politicians of parties represented in parliament has doubled since 2019, according to government figures published in January.  Greens party politicians face the most aggression, according to the data, with attacks on them rising sevenfold since 2019 to 1,219 last year. AfD politicians suffered 478 attacks and the SPD was third with 420.  Theresa Ertel, a Greens candidate in municipal elections in Thuringia this month, said she knew of party members who no longer wanted to stand because of the aggressive political atmosphere.  The Greens in her region had agreed that information stands should always have at least three staff for extra safety. 

JUNA, South Sudan — Following an appeal from the United Nations, South Sudan removed recently imposed taxes and fees that had triggered suspension of U.N. food airdrops. Thousands of people in the country depend on aid from the outside.  The U.N. earlier this week urged South Sudanese authorities to remove the new taxes, introduced in February. The measures applied to charges for electronic cargo tracking, security escort fees and fuel.  In its announcement Friday, the government said it was keeping charges on services rendered by firms contracted by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.  "These companies are profiting ... (and) are subjected to applicable tax," Finance Minister Awow Daniel Chuang said.  There was no immediate comment from the U.N. on when the airdrops could resume.  Earlier, the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Agency said the pausing of airdrops had deprived 60,000 people who live in areas inaccessible by road of desperately needed food in March, and that their number is expected to rise to 135,000 by the end of May.  The U.N. said the new measures would have increased the mission's monthly operational costs to $339,000. The U.N. food air drops feed over 16,300 people every month.  At the United Nations in New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the taxes and charges would also impact the nearly 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, "which is reviewing all of its activities, including patrols, the construction of police stations, schools and health care centers, as well as educational support."  An estimated 9 million people out of 12.5 million people in South Sudan need protection and humanitarian assistance, according to the U.N. The country also has seen an increase in the number of people fleeing the war in neighboring Sudan between the rival military and paramilitary forces, further complicating humanitarian assistance to those affected by the internal conflict. 

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sao paulo, brazil — The death toll from rains in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 57, local authorities said Saturday afternoon, while dozens still have not been accounted for.  Rio Grande do Sul's civil defense authority said 67 people were still missing and more than 32,000 had been displaced as storms have affected nearly two thirds of the 497 cities in the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina.  Floods destroyed roads and bridges in several regions of the state. The storm also triggered landslides and the partial collapse of a dam at a small hydroelectric power plant. A second dam in the city of Bento Goncalves is also at risk of collapsing, authorities said.  In Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, the Guaíba River broke its banks, flooding streets.  Porto Alegre's international airport has suspended all flights for an indefinite period.  Rain is expected in the northern and northeastern regions of the state in the next 36 hours, but the volume of precipitation has been declining, and should be well below the peak seen earlier in the week, according to the state meteorology authority.  Still, "river water levels should stay high for some days," Governor Eduardo Leite said Saturday in a live video on his social media, adding it is difficult to determine for how long.  Rio Grande do Sul is at a geographical meeting point between tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a weather pattern with periods of intense rain and others of drought.  Local scientists believe the pattern has been intensifying due to climate change.  Heavy rains had already hit Rio Grande do Sul last September, as an extratropical cyclone caused floods that killed more than 50 people.  That came after more than two years of a persistent drought due to the La Nina phenomenon, with only scarce showers. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

ISLAMABAD — An Afghan diplomat in India, who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and said she was the only woman in the country's diplomatic service, has resigned after reports emerged of her being detained for allegedly smuggling gold. Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X on Saturday after Indian media reported last week that she was briefly detained at the city’s airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai. According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity. In a statement, Wardak made no mention of her reported detention or gold smuggling allegations but said, “I am deeply sorry that as the only woman present in Afghanistan’s diplomatic apparatus, instead of receiving constructive support to maintain this position, I faced waves of organized attacks aimed at destroying me.” “Over the past year, I have encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation not only directed towards myself but also towards ... close family and extended relatives,” she said. Wardak said the attacks have “severely impacted my ability to effectively operate in my role and have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society.” The Taliban Foreign Ministry did not immediately return calls for comment on Wardak’s resignation. It wasn't immediately possible to confirm whether she was the country's only female diplomat. She was appointed consul-general of Afghanistan in Mumbai during the former government and was the first Afghan female diplomat to collaborate with the Taliban. The Taliban — who took over Afghanistan in 2021 during the final weeks of U.S. and NATO withdrawal from the country — have barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed despite initial promises of a more moderate rule. They are also restricting women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, and arresting those who don’t comply with the Taliban’s interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.

LONDON — London Mayor Sadiq Khan has a lot of cleaning up to do. Khan, who made history Saturday by becoming the city's first mayor elected to a third term, has pledged to make the River Thames swimmable. It wasn't a top campaign issue, but it's an audacious goal considering the waterway was declared biologically dead not long before his birth in the city in 1970 and flows as an open sewer of sorts when heavy rains overwhelm London's ancient plumbing system. Taming the Thames would not be Khan’s first swim upstream. His narrative is built around overcoming the odds. As he frequently points out, he is the son of a bus driver and a seamstress from Pakistan. He grew up in a three-bedroom public housing apartment with seven siblings in South London. He attended a rough school and went on to study law. He was a human rights lawyer before he was elected to Parliament in 2005 as a member of the center-left Labor Party, representing the area where he grew up. In 2016, he became the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital, overcoming an opponent whose mayoral campaign was “at least somewhat Islamophobic,” said Patrick Diamond, a public policy professor at Queen Mary University of London. “It was seen as an affirmation of him in terms of his status as a leading Muslim politician, but also as an affirmation of London in terms of its diversity, its liberalism, its cosmopolitanism,” Diamond said. “That was significant in a country which doesn’t historically have a very strong track record for having diversity in its senior politicians.” Khan has faced subtle and overt discrimination throughout his career due to his ethnicity and religion. Some of the sharpest barbs have come from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has feuded with him since Khan assailed Trump's campaign pledge in 2015 to ban Muslims from entering the United States. During a campaign rally Wednesday in Wisconsin, Trump said London and Paris were “no longer recognizable” after they “opened their doors to jihad.” Khan, who has referred to Trump as the “poster boy for racists,” responded by saying Thursday's election was a chance to "choose hope over fear and unity over division.” “One of the things that he does incredibly well, and I would defy anyone to disagree with this, is representing London’s different and diverse communities,” said Jack Brown, a lecturer in London studies at King's College London. “He hasn’t got absolutely everything right, but he is kind of a bringer together of different communities.” Khan, who was ahead of the national Labor Party in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, has taken a lot of flak for large pro-Palestinian marches in the city since the Israel-Hamas war. But he's also known for speaking out against antisemitism and for building bridges with Jewish leaders, Brown said. Despite his success at the polls, Khan is not an incredibly popular mayor. He’s been blamed for a lot of problems, many of which are beyond his control. The mayor of London doesn’t have the authority of mayors in Paris or New York because power is shared with the city’s 32 boroughs and the financial district. Khan has a 20-billion-pound ($25 billion) budget that primarily goes toward transport, policing and working with councils and developers to achieve his affordable housing targets that he has fallen far short of meeting. Borough councils are responsible for schools, rubbish collection, social services and public housing. His time in office has been overshadowed by crises: first the U.K.'s break from the European Union, which weakened London's thriving financial services industry, and then the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a cost-of-living crisis. He has touted measures he put in place such as freezing rail and bus fares and providing free meals for all primary school pupils among his biggest achievements. Khan has deflected much criticism by blaming his difficulties on a Conservative government that has impeded his plans. He said a projected win by Labor in a national election later this year would change his fortunes. “For too long we’ve had a government that appears to be anti-London, that thinks the way to level up our country, to make it more equal, is make London poorer,” Khan told The Associated Press. But Diamond said a Labor government will face the same fiscal problems as the current administration and is unlikely to suddenly make Khan's life easier. “You can’t always play the party politics card,” Diamond said. “The general sense in London is that Sadiq Khan does that too often. Or you can blame the Conservative government once or twice, but if it’s your only message, I think people maybe get a little bit tired and switch off to some extent.” Khan has been criticized by opponents for a rise in crime — particularly incidents involving knives. He has responded by pledging more support for programs that work with youths to prevent crime while blaming government funding cuts. In the outer suburbs, Khan has come under fire for expanding the city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone that fines drivers of more-polluting older cars 12.50 pounds (about $16) a day. Although the policy was introduced in central London in 2015 by his predecessor, Boris Johnson, it has widely been attributed to Khan because of its unpopular expansion, although it only applies to a small fraction of vehicles. His main opponent, Susan Hall, a London Assembly member, vowed to “stop the war on motorists” and scrap the program on her first day in office if elected. Khan, who has made cleaning up London's air pollution a personal mission since he developed asthma as an adult, considers those efforts among his biggest wins. Making the Thames swimmable in the next decade would expand his mission from clean air to clean water. Brown said that might be a more tangible achievement — given that air pollution is often invisible — but it's probably not something that won over a lot of voters.

HOUSTON, TEXAS — High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water. A flood watch remained in effect through Sunday afternoon as forecasters predicted additional rainfall Saturday night, bringing another 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 7.6 centimeters) of water to the soaked region and the likelihood of major flooding. Friday's fierce storms forced numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes. Officials redoubled urgent instructions for residents in low-lying areas to evacuate, warning the worst was still to come. “This threat is ongoing, and it’s going to get worse. It is not your typical river flood,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the nation’s third-largest county. She described the predicted surge of water as “catastrophic." Schools in the path of the flooding canceled classes and roads jammed as authorities closed highways taking on water. For weeks, drenching rains in Texas and parts of Louisiana have filled reservoirs and saturated the ground. Floodwaters partially submerged cars and roads this week across parts of southeastern Texas, north of Houston, where high waters reached the roofs of some homes. More than 21 inches (53.34 centimeters) of rain fell during the five-day period that ended Friday in Liberty County near the city of Splendora, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Houston, according to the National Weather Service. In the rural community of Shepherd, Gilroy Fernandes said he and his spouse had about an hour to evacuate after a mandatory order. Their home is on stilts near the Trinity River, and they felt relief when the water began to recede on Thursday. Then the danger grew while they slept. “Next thing you know, overnight they started releasing more water from the dam at Livingston. And so that caused the level of the river to shoot up by almost five or six feet overnight,” Fernandes said. Neighbors who left an hour later got stuck in traffic because of flooding. The Harris County Joint Information Center told KPRC-TV that 196 people and 108 animals have been rescued by emergency response agencies in Harris County. Elsewhere, in neighboring Montgomery County, Judge Mark Keough said there had been more high-water rescues than he was able to count. “We estimate we’ve had a couple hundred rescues from homes, from houses, from vehicles,” Keough said. In Polk County, located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northeast of Houston, officials have done over 100 water rescues in the past few days, said Polk County Emergency Management Coordinator Courtney Comstock. She said homes below Lake Livingston Dam and along the Trinity River have flooded. “It’ll be when things subside before we can do our damage assessment,” Comstock said. Authorities in Houston had not reported any deaths or injuries. The city of more than 2 million people is one of the most flood-prone metro areas in the country and has long experience dealing with devastating weather. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dumped historic rainfall on the area, flooding thousands of homes and resulting in more than 60,000 rescues by government rescue personnel across Harris County. Of particular concern was an area along the San Jacinto River in the northeastern part of Harris County, which was expected to continue rising as more rain falls and officials release extra water from an already full reservoir. Judge Hidalgo on Thursday issued a mandatory evacuation order for those living along portions of the river. Most of Houston’s city limits were not heavily affected by the weather, except for the northeastern neighborhood of Kingwood. Officials said the area had about four months of rain in about a week’s time. Houston Mayor John Whitmire said rising flood waters from the San Jacinto River were expected to affect Kingwood late Friday and Saturday. Shelters have opened across the region, including nine by the American Red Cross. The weather service reported the river was nearly 74 feet (22.56) meters late Saturday morning after reaching nearly 77.7 feet (23.7 meters). The rapidly changing forecast said the river is expected to fall to near the flood stage of 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) by Thursday. The greater Houston area covers about 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) — a slightly bigger footprint than the state of New Jersey. It is crisscrossed by about 1,700 miles (2,736 kilometers) of channels, creeks and bayous that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 feet (80 kilometers) to the southeast from downtown. The city's system of bayous and reservoirs was built to drain heavy rains. But engineering initially designed nearly 100 years ago has struggled to keep up with the city’s growth and bigger storms.

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Sulaimaniyah, Iraq — Floods caused by torrential rainstorms have killed four hikers in the Sulaimaniyah region of northern Iraq, local officials told AFP.  "Four members of a hiking team drowned because of heavy rains and flooding in Awaspi village" in the Qaradah district, local official Rouf Kamal said.  Civil defense spokesperson Aram Ali confirmed the toll and said eight other hikers survived the incident south of Sulaimaniyah on Friday, the autonomous Kurdistan region's second city.  He said a weather warning was issued Thursday, with hikers particularly urged to avoid mountainous areas.  Heavier than usual rainfall has caused flooding in several parts of Iraq, especially the north, and some roads in Kurdistan region capital Arbil were blocked.  Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land.  But Ammer al-Jabiri, spokesperson for the weather service in Iraq, where the rainy season is generally from December to March, said precipitation in 2024 was "better than last year." 

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has recorded its wettest April since 1961, with more than double the usual rainfall for the month, the national weather center said. The country experienced days of extreme weather in April that killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts said Pakistan witnessed heavier rains because of climate change. Last month’s rainfall for Pakistan was a 164% increase from the usual level for April, according to a report published Friday by Pakistan’s national weather center. The intense downpours affected the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern Baluchistan provinces the most. Devastating summer floods in 2022 killed at least 1,700 people, destroyed millions of homes, wiped out swaths of farmland and caused billions of dollars in economic losses in a matter of months. At one point, a third of the country was underwater. Pakistani leaders and many scientists worldwide blamed climate change for the unusually early and heavy monsoon rains.

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Washington — The United States, boosted by allies and the private sector, is delivering for Pacific islands even if Washington alone cannot match China's growing footprint, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday.  Blinken spoke after lawmakers in the Solomon Islands, whose warming security relationship with China has sparked alarm in the United States and Australia, choose another Beijing-friendly prime minister.   "China covers a lot of ground in the Pacific Islands, maybe more ground than we can cover ourselves," Blinken told the McCain Institute's Sedona Forum in Arizona.  But he said that by partnering with like-minded Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and India, "we cover a lot of ground."  "You're seeing that play out in our ability to help deliver some of the things that people in those countries want," Blinken said.  "It is often more effective to say to a country — we're not asking you to choose, we want to give you a better choice."  He pointed to an initiative — announced at a summit last year between U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — in which Google is building trans-Pacific cables to improve internet connectivity in South Pacific countries.  The high-speed cables are an alternative to those on offer from China, whose tech companies have been increasingly active in the South Pacific.  Tensions have eased between the United States and China, with Blinken last month visiting Beijing for the second time in less than a year, but the Biden administration has declared China to be the top long-term rival to U.S. global leadership.  

PARIS — France's world-leading cosmetics sector is counting on talks between Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron next week to help minimize the impact on French companies of tough new Chinese import rules requiring the sharing of formulas and manufacturing know-how.  President Xi's first visit to Europe in five years comes amid a backdrop of tense trade relations, with the European Union threatening China's electric vehicle and green energy industries with tariffs.  But progress toward an agreement between France and China on the regulation of cosmetics, including lipstick and fragrances, could be a bright spot in discussions in Paris next week.  President Macron's office said ahead of the meeting that cosmetics would be a topic of "great attention," and that they sought to "find a solution that also protects the interests of our companies."  France is the world's leading cosmetics exporter, shipping nearly 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) worth of makeup and skin care products to China last year, second in importance only to aerospace products.  New Chinese safety rules due to come into effect next year threaten that trade.  From May 2025, cosmetics exporters will be required to share detailed information on their manufacturing processes with Beijing and receive Chinese inspectors in their factories, a measure that raises concerns about losing control of intellectual property.  Under a plan proposed in talks between the two sides in the past year, French authorities would take responsibility for assuring the safety of some of its exports without the need for Chinese inspections.  France would grant some similar measures to China, but it was not clear what areas those would cover.  "This reciprocity will assure the highest standards of safety to Chinese consumers," said Emmanuel Guichard, secretary general of France's cosmetics industry association FEBEA, adding that the plan could be formalized during talks between Xi and Macron.  FEBEA's members include L'Oreal, LVMH and Coty.  Under the agreement, France's consumer and anti-fraud watchdog DGCCRF would ensure the safety of a number of French manufacturers that qualify for "white list" status.  The agency said in a report issued Friday on its recent activities that it held its first meeting on certification of French cosmetics for export to China with China's National Medical Products Administration, or NMPA, in December.  The Elysee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  The DGCCRF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NMPA could not be reached for comment on a holiday weekend. Sunday is Labor Day in China, recognized as a national holiday. 

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities said Friday they recovered three bodies in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. The state prosecutor's office did not say whether the bodies were those of the three foreigners but said the bodies were discovered during the search for the missing men. It also announced that three people who were being questioned in the case of the missing men had been arrested and charged. “Three bodies were found south of the city of Ensenada, and they were recovered in coordination with other authorities during a specialized operation because they were found in a zone of difficult access,” the office said in a statement. “This was done as part of the search for two Australians and one American reported missing,” the office said. The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomás was near the remote seaside area where the missing men's tents and truck were found Thursday. The men — identified by family members as brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad — went missing Saturday. They did not show up at their planned accommodations over the weekend. The U.S. State Department said: “We are aware of those reports [of bodies] and are closely monitoring the situation. At this time, we have no further comment.” Baja California prosecutors had said Thursday that they were questioning three people in the case. On Friday, the office said the three had been arrested and charged with a crime equivalent to kidnapping. It was unclear if they might face more charges. Maria Elena Andrade Ramirez, the chief state prosecutor, said evidence found along with the abandoned tents was linked to the three people being questioned about the missing foreigners. “A working team [of investigators] is at the site where they were last seen, where tents and other evidence was found that could be linked to these three people we have under investigation,” Andrade Ramirez said Thursday. “There is a lot of important information that we can’t make public.” While drug cartels are active in the area, she said, “all lines of investigation are open at this time. We cannot rule anything out until we find them.” On Wednesday, the missing Australians’ mother, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page an appeal for help in finding her sons. Robinson said Callum and Jake had not been heard from since April 27. They had booked accommodations in the nearby city of Rosarito. Robinson said one of her sons, Callum, was diabetic. She also mentioned that the American who was with them was named Jack Carter Rhoad, but the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City did not immediately confirm that. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in Baja, but it gave no further details. Andrade Ramirez said her office was in contact with Australian and U.S. officials. But she suggested the time that had passed might make it harder to find the missing trio. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the last few days that they were reported missing. So, that meant that important hours or time was lost,” she said.

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LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY — Twenty horses stampeding toward the first turn in a battle for position. A screaming crowd of 150,000 and maybe some showers that dampen the Churchill Downs dirt strip. It's the 150th Kentucky Derby. Beyond a couple early wagering favorites, it's a wide-open race. Post time is 6:57 p.m. Saturday. The forecast calls for 27 Celsius (81 Fahrenheit) with a 60% chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms. That kind of weather could benefit six horses that have won in the mud or slop before, including early favorites Fierceness and Sierra Leone. The others with experience on messy surfaces are Dornoch, Just a Touch, Mystik Dan and Society Man. The Derby will answer the perennial question of which 3-year-old can best handle running 1¼ miles in front of the biggest crowd they will ever see and hear. Fierceness and jockey John Velazquez will break from the No. 17 post, which has never produced a derby winner. The costliest colt in the 20-horse field is Sierra Leone at $2.3 million. “A lot of times you buy an expensive horse like that, and they can't run,” said Peter Brandt, one of the six owners. “We've very, very lucky he's made it this far. We're looking forward to this race but also looking forward to the future of taking care of this horse.” Conversely, Larry Demeritte shelled out just $11,000 to buy Saratoga West. The 74-year-old Bahamas native has won 180 races and nearly $5 million in purse money since he started training in 1984. Demeritte is just the second Black trainer since 1951 to saddle a horse for the derby. “This is truly amazing how we got to this position with this horse,” he said. The Derby winner earns $3.1 million from the record purse of $5 million. For the second straight year, Japan has two entries: Forever Young and T O Password. The country has never won the race. This year's race is one for the ages, too. D. Wayne Lukas, the 88-year-old trainer with four derby wins, saddles Just Steel. Frankie Dettori, the famed Italian jockey, is back to ride Society Man at age 53 after a 24-year absence. Trainer Todd Pletcher, who saddles Fierceness, is in the derby for the 24th year and it never gets old. He's won it twice. “If anything, it just becomes more nerve-wracking,” he said.