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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Powerful winds and rain approached Texas Sunday morning as Beryl was expected to turn back from a tropical storm into a hurricane overnight and pound a long stretch of coast with heavy downpours, howling gusts and dangerous storm surge. A long stretch of Texas' shoreline was under a hurricane warning as Beryl's outer bands were forecast to begin lashing the coast Sunday. Landfall was expected early Monday and officials in several coastal counties issued voluntary evacuation orders while urging tourists along the beach for the Fourth of the July holiday to leave. The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean earlier in the week. The storm has tipped doors, windows and roofs off homes with devastating winds and storm surge fueled by the Atlantic's record warmth. "We're seeing the outer bands of Beryl approach the Texas coast now and the weather should be going downhill especially this afternoon and evening," Eric Blake, a senior hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, said Sunday morning. "People should definitely be in their safe space by nightfall and we're expecting the hurricane to make landfall somewhere in the middle Texas coast overnight." Texas officials warned people along the entire coastline to prepare for possible flooding, heavy rain and wind. The hurricane warning extended from Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, to Sargent, south of Houston. In Corpus Christi, officials asked visitors to cut their trips short and return home early if possible. Residents were advised to secure homes by boarding up windows if necessary and using sandbags to guard against possible flooding. Traffic has been nonstop for the past three days at an Ace Hardware in the city as customers buy tarps, rope, duct tape, sandbags and generators, employee Elizabeth Landry said Saturday. "They're just worried about the wind, the rain," she said. "They're wanting to prepare just in case." Ben Koutsoumbaris, general manager of Island Market on Corpus Christi's Padre Island, said there has been "definitely a lot of buzz about the incoming storm," with customers stocking up on food and drinks, particularly meat and beer. The White House said Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent emergency responders, search-and-rescue teams, bottled water, and other resources along the coast. Some coastal cities called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas that are prone to flooding, banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks. In Refugio County, north of Corpus Christi, officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for its 6,700 residents. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling in Taiwan, issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 121 counties. "Beryl is a determined storm, and incoming winds and potential flooding will pose a serious threat to Texans who are in Beryl's path at landfall and as it makes its way across the state for the following 24 hours," Patrick said Saturday in a statement. Beryl earlier this week battered Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, toppling trees but causing no injuries or deaths before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula. Before hitting Mexico, Beryl wrought destruction in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. Three people were reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica.

Islamabad — Taliban security forces in Afghanistan claimed Sunday that they had killed a key Islamic State commander in an eastern province bordering Pakistan.    An official Taliban media outlet reported that counter-terrorism forces in Nangarhar had raided a hideout of Islamic State Khorasan, also known as IS-K, an Afghan-based affiliate of the transnational extremist group.    The Al-Mersaad outlet said that Sunday’s action had resulted in the killing of “Zakirullah … known as Abu Sher” and identified him as IS Khorasan’s military leader for the border province’s Achin district.     The media report said “Taliban special forces” had concluded the operation in the Mohmand Dara district.     It was not possible to verify Al-Mersaad’s claims from independent sources, nor have Taliban government officials commented on the operation in a province where IS Khorasan launched its extremist activities in Afghanistan and the region at large in 2015, with Achin as its headquarters.     The Taliban returned to power in 2021 when all the United States-led NATO forces withdrew from the country after almost 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war. U.S. forces regularly conducted operations against IS Khorasan and killed several of its key leaders.     The extremist group intensified suicide bombings and other attacks against security forces and members of the Afghan Shiite community after the Taliban takeover. The violence has killed hundreds of people, including prominent Taliban leaders and religious scholars.     Taliban authorities say their sustained military actions against IS Khorasan hideouts have significantly degraded its ability to pose a threat to Afghanistan and beyond.      De facto Afghan authorities have accused Pakistan and Tajikistan of “training and nurturing” IS Khorasan operatives on their respective soils.     Both neighbors of Afghanistan have dismissed the accusation as frivolous and, in turn, blame the de facto rulers in Kabul for failing to prevent transnational terrorist groups from using their territory to threaten regional stability.     A quarterly U.S. Department of Defense report made public in late May noted that Afghanistan-based IS Khorasan had “demonstrated increased transnational terrorism capabilities through large-scale, multiple casualty attacks” in the region.     The report cited a January suicide bombing in neighboring Iran’s Kerman city of a memorial for a top Iranian military commander that killed at least 100 mourners. It added that IS Khorasan gunmen stormed a concert venue near Moscow in March, killing at least 140 people in what was described as the worst terrorist attack in Russia in 20 years.    In March, General Michael Kurilla, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, testified to Congress on the growing terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan, warning that Islamic State affiliates “retain the capability and the will” to attack the United States and its allies in Europe in as little as six months.    The U.S. quarterly report stated that despite pledging to deny terrorist groups a sanctuary in Afghanistan, the Taliban “continued to privately provide shelter to al-Qaeda senior leaders while publicly denying that al-Qaeda uses its territory to pose threats to outside countries.”     In a January report, the United Nations Security Council said that IS Khorasan “has continued to pose a major threat in Afghanistan and the region despite losses in territory, casualties, and high attrition among senior and mid-tier leadership figures.” 

KATHMANDU — Heavy rains triggered landslides and flash floods killing at least 11 people in the last 36 hours in Nepal and blocking key highways and roads, officials said Sunday. Eight people were missing, either washed away by floods or buried in landslides, while 12 others were injured and being treated in hospitals, police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki said. “Rescue workers are trying to clear the landslides and open the roads,” Karki told Reuters, adding heavy equipment was being used to clear debris. In southeastern Nepal, the Koshi River, which causes deadly floods in the eastern Indian state of Bihar almost every year, was flowing above the danger level, a district official said. “The flow of Koshi is rising and we have asked residents to remain alert about possible floods,” Bed Raj Phuyal, a senior official of Sunsari district where the river flows, told Reuters.  He said at 0900 hours (0315 hours GMT) water flow in Koshi River was 369,000 cusecs per second, more than double its normal flow of 150,000 cusecs. Cusec is the measurement of the flow of water and one cusec is equal to one cubic foot per second.  Authorities said all 56 sluice gates of the Koshi Barrage had been opened to drain out water compared with about 10-12 during a normal situation. Authorities said the flows of Narayani, Rapti and Mahakali rivers in the west were also rising. In hill-ringed Kathmandu, several rivers have overflown their banks, flooded roads and inundated many houses. Local media showed people wading through waist-deep water or residents using buckets to empty their houses. At least 50 people across Nepal have died in landslides, floods and lightning strikes since mid-June when annual monsoon rains started.  Hundreds of people die every year in landslides and flash floods that are common in mostly mountainous Nepal during the monsoon season which normally starts in mid-June and continues through mid-September. In the northeastern Indian state of Assam, floods have killed dozens and displaced thousands of people in the past few days. 

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New Delhi — Two soldiers and six suspected militants were killed in two separate gun battles in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said Sunday.  Kashmir police inspector general Vidhi Kumar Birdi told AFP that authorities in the disputed territory had "carried out two different operations" in villages in the Kulgam district.   Birdi said two members of the security forces had been killed, with clashes continuing in Modergram and Frisal Chinnigam villages.  "We have retrieved the bodies of two terrorists from Modergram, and four others from Frisal Chinnigam," said Birdi.    This is the latest incident in an uptick of attacks in the disputed territory.   India and Pakistan both claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in full and have fought three wars for control of the Himalayan region.  Rebel groups have waged an insurgency since 1989, demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.  The conflict has killed tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels.  In June, nine Indian Hindu pilgrims were killed and dozens wounded when a gunman opened fire on a bus carrying them from a shrine in the southern Reasi area.   It was one of the deadliest attacks in years and the first on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir since 2017, when gunmen killed seven people in another ambush on a bus. 

TEHRAN — Iranian naval destroyer has sunk while it was being repaired in a port near the Strait of Hormuz, state media reported Sunday.    State-run IRNA news agency reported that the Sahand destroyer, being repaired at a wharf lost its balance due to water infiltration into the tanks.    The agency added that due to the low depth in the waters, it is possible to bring back the destroyer to balance.    It also reported that injured people were transferred to hospital. It did not elaborate.    Sahand, named after a mountain in northern Iran, took six years to build and launched into the Persian Gulf in December 2018. The 1,300-ton vessel was equipped with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft batteries and sophisticated radar and radar-evading capabilities.    In January 2018, a naval destroyer, Damavand, sank in the Caspian Sea after crashing into a breakwater.  

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New Delhi — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head to Russia on Monday for a two-day visit to shore up relations at a time that Moscow has deepened ties with New Delhi’s archrival, China. New Delhi analysts say the summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin set for Tuesday will help counter perceptions of a drift in ties with its longtime ally as India builds a closer partnership with the United States. “India’s goal is to emphasize that India-Russia relations are important and to ensure that Putin’s growing relations with China will not affect ties with New Delhi,” Chintamani Mahapatra, founder of the Kalinga Institute of Indo Pacific Studies told VOA. “That is why it is extremely important to continue the dialogue with Russia at the highest level,” he added. The summit will be the first since Russia invaded Ukraine, an issue on which New Delhi has maintained a neutral stance; It has neither condemned the war nor joined Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.    Although Indian and Russian leaders have held annual summits since 2000, none have been held since Putin visited New Delhi in 2021.   Calling the summit “something waiting to happen,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stressed the two countries’ “strong history of working together.” The focus of Modi’s first visit to Russia in five years will be reinforcing a time-tested relationship, analysts say. “I don’t think this will set the course for a future-oriented or path breaking partnership with a lot of new initiatives and deliverables,” Sreeram Chaulia, dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs told VOA. “Rather,” he said, “it is to sustain the relationship, maintain the existing links we have and ensure how to keep our defense and energy cooperation on track.” Despite diversifying its purchases of military hardware in recent years, India remains reliant on Russian arms – about one-third of India’s defense imports come from Moscow, down from two-thirds five years ago. Concerns have been growing though, since the Ukraine invasion began, about Russia’s ability to supply spare parts and ammunition. Meanwhile,  bilateral energy trade has boomed as India increases purchases of cheap Russian oil in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion. However, while Moscow’s total exports to India are $65 billion, Indian exports are only about $4 billion, causing concern in New Delhi. "Trade remains imbalanced, which is a matter of priority in our discussions with the Russian side," Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told reporters while announcing Modi's visit on Friday.  He said India wants to promote exports across various sectors, including farm products, technology, pharmaceuticals and services to lower the deficit. For Putin, the visit will be important in underscoring that he has not been isolated by Western sanctions, according to analysts.   Some ot them have pointed to the optics of his meeting with Modi, which takes place even as a NATO summit focused on security concerns in Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region gets underway in Washington on Tuesday.  Russia is expecting a "very important and full-fledged visit" by Prime Minister Modi, “which is so crucial for Russian-Indian relations,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Saturday by Russia’s Tass news agency. Analysts in New Delhi said Modi’s visit is unlikely to raise concerns in Washington, with which India has been deepening its security partnership amid mutual concerns about China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. So far India has managed to walk a fine line between the United States and Russia, according to Mahapatra. The United States has "some concerns" over India's engagement with Russia in military and technology matters, but Washington has confidence and trust in New Delhi to advance the U.S.-Indian partnership in key areas, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said at a virtual briefing on June 26 before the India-Moscow summit was announced. Analysts in New Delhi say that while India has substantially strengthened its U.S. ties, its hostile neighborhood makes Russia important in its geostrategic calculations. A four-year military standoff between India and China along their disputed borders that shows no signs of ending remains a worry for New Delhi. “It is important for India that in the event of any India-China conflict, Russia will not side with China,” Mahapatra said. “That will only happen if Russia thinks India is an important country in their geopolitical calculations.” However, it will be challenging for India to counterbalance China due to Russia’s huge dependence on Beijing in the wake of its isolation by Western countries. During a Putin’s May visit to China, the two countries pledged to intensify their partnership, which has burgeoned since the Ukraine war began. “We are conscious that for Russia, China will remain its dominant ally, but India wants to make sure that it does not become completely predominant,” according to Chaulia.  “We don’t want Russia to become a junior partner of China because then we will be surrounded by adversaries in the whole Eurasian region. So it is in our interest to make Russia stable in whatever way we can.” After Moscow, Modi will go to Austria, the first visit by an Indian prime minister in over four decades.

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.

JUNEAU, Alaska — Each year, a crush of tourists arrives in Alaska's capital city on cruise ships to see wonders like the fast-diminishing Mendenhall Glacier. Now, long-simmering tensions over Juneau's tourism boom are coming to a head over a new voter initiative aimed at giving residents a respite from the influx. A measure that would ban cruise ships with 250 or more passengers from docking in Juneau on Saturdays qualified for the Oct. 1 municipal ballot, setting the stage for a debate about how much tourism is too much in a city that is experiencing first-hand the impacts of climate change. The measure would also ban ships on July 4, a day when locals flock to a downtown parade. The “ship-free Saturdays” initiative that qualified last week will go to voters unless the local Assembly enacts a similar measure by Aug. 15, which is seen as unlikely. Juneau, accessible only by water or air, is home to the Mendenhall Glacier, a major draw for the cruise passengers who arrive on multi-story ships towering over parts of the modest downtown skyline. Many residents of this city of about 32,000 have concerns about increased traffic, congested trails and the frequent buzz of sight-seeing helicopters transporting visitors to the Mendenhall and other glaciers. Deborah Craig, who has lived in Juneau for decades, supports ship-free Saturdays. Craig, who lives across the channel from where the ships dock, often hears their early-morning fog horns and broadcast announcements made to passengers that are audible across the water. The current “overwhelming" number of visitors diminishes what residents love so much about Juneau, she said. “It’s about preserving the lifestyle that keeps us in Juneau, which is about clean air, clean water, pristine environment and easy access to trails, easy access to water sports and nature," she said of the initiative. “There’s this perception that some people are not welcoming of tourists, and that’s not the case at all," Craig said. “It’s about volume. It’s about too much — too many in a short period of time overwhelming a small community.” The current cruise season runs from early April to late October. Opponents of the initiative say limiting dockings will hurt local businesses that rely heavily on tourism and could invite lawsuits. A voter-approved limit on cruise passenger numbers in Bar Harbor, Maine, another community with a significant tourism economy, was challenged in federal court. Laura McDonnell, a business leader who owns Caribou Crossings, a gift shop in Juneau’s downtown tourist core, said she makes 98% of her annual revenue during the summer season. Tourism is about all the "local businesses that rely on cruise passengers and our place in the community,” said McDonnell, who is involved in Protect Juneau’s Future, which opposes the initiative. Some schools recently closed due to factors including declining enrollment, while the regional economy faces challenges, she said. “I think that as a community, we really need to look at what’s at stake for our economy," she said. “We are not in a position to be shrinking our economy.” The cruise industry accounted for $375 million in direct spending in Juneau in 2023, most of that attributable to spending by passengers, according to a report prepared for the city by McKinley Research Group LLC. After a two-year pandemic lull, cruise passenger numbers rose sharply in Juneau, hitting a record of more than 1.6 million in 2023. Under this year's schedule, Sept. 21 will be the first day since early May with no large ships in town. The tourism debate is polarizing, and the city has been trying to find a middle ground, said Alexandra Pierce, Juneau's visitor industry director. But she noted there also needs to be a regional solution. If the Juneau initiative passes, it will impact other, smaller communities in southeast Alaska because the ships, generally on trips originating in Seattle or Vancouver, Canada, will have to go somewhere if they can’t dock in Juneau on Saturdays, she said. Some residents in Sitka, south of Juneau, are in the early stages of trying to limit cruise visitation to that small, island community, which is near a volcano. Juneau and major cruise lines, including Carnival Corp., Disney Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Group, agreed to a limit of five large ships a day, which took effect this year. They more recently signed a pact, set to take effect in 2026, seeking a daily limit of 16,000 cruise passengers Sundays through Fridays and 12,000 on Saturdays. Pierce said the overall goal is to keep total cruise passenger visitation around 1.6 million, and to even out daily numbers of visitors that can spike to about 18,000 on the busiest days and feel “a bit suffocating." Juneau traditionally has been the most popular cruise port in the state. A number of projects around Juneau are expected to help make existing cruise numbers feel less impactful. Those include plans for a gondola at the city-owned ski area and increased visitor capacity at the Mendenhall Glacier recreation area, she said. Renée Limoge Reeve, vice president of government and community relations for the trade group Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, said the agreements signed with the city were the first of their kind in Alaska. The best strategy is “ongoing, direct dialogue with local communities" and working together in a way that also provides a predictable source of income for local businesses, she said. Protect Juneau's Future, led by local business leaders, said the success of the ballot measure would mean a loss of sales tax revenue and millions of dollars in direct spending by cruise passengers. The group was confident voters would reject the measure, its steering committee said in a statement. Karla Hart, a sponsor of the initiative and frequent critic of the cruise industry, said the threat of litigation has kept communities from taking steps to limit cruise numbers in the past. She was heartened by legal wins this year in the ongoing fight over the measure passed in Bar Harbor, a popular destination near Maine's Acadia National Park. She believes the Juneau initiative will pass.

Kyiv — A village in western Russia's border region was evacuated Sunday following a series of explosions after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone set fire to a nearby warehouse, local officials said. Social media footage appeared to show rising clouds of black smoke in the Voronezh region while loud explosions could be heard in succession. Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said that falling wreckage triggered the "detonation of explosive objects." No casualties were reported, but residents of a nearby village in the Podgorensky district were evacuated, he said. Roads were also closed with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene. Russia's Ministry of Defense did not address the strike in their morning briefing, but said that air defense systems had destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region. Authorities in Russia's Krasnodar province on Saturday said a fire at an oil depot had also been caused by falling drone debris. Russia's emergency services said the blaze was extinguished Sunday morning.  The strikes come after a Ukrainian military spokesperson told The Associated Press Thursday that Kyiv's troops had retreated from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in Ukraine's Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a monthlong Russian assault. Russian forces have for months tried to grind out gains in Ukraine's industrial east, in an apparent attempt to lock its defenders into a war of attrition. In a joint investigation published Friday, independent Russian news outlets Meduza and Mediazona reported that Moscow's forces were losing between 200 and 250 soldiers in Ukraine each day. Military analysts say Chasiv Yar's fall could also compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and put nearby cities in jeopardy, bringing Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.  Russia sent overnight into Sunday two ballistic missiles and 13 Shahed drones, Ukrainian air force officials said. All were shot down but the officials did not elaborate on the impact of the missiles. Elsewhere in Ukraine, 14 people died after a bus collided with a cargo vehicle, leaving a single survivor, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Saturday evening. The victims included a 6-year-old child.

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.

Vatican City — Pope Francis decried the state of democracy and warned against "populists" during a short visit to Trieste in Italy's northeast on Sunday ahead of a 12-day trip to Asia -- the longest of his papacy. "Democracy is not in good health in the world today," Francis said during a speech at the city's convention center to close a national Catholic event. Without naming any countries, the pope warned against "ideological temptations and populists" on the day that France holds the second round of a snap parliamentary vote that looks set to see the far-right National Rally party take the largest share of the vote. "Ideologies are seductive. Some people compare them to the Pied Piper of Hamelin: they seduce but lead you to deny yourself," he said in reference to the German fairytale. Ahead of last month's European parliament elections, bishops in several countries also warned about the rise of populism and nationalism, with far-right parties already holding the reins to power in Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands. Francis also urged people to "move away from polarizations that impoverish" and hit out at "self-referential power." After Venice in April and Verona in May, the half-day trip to Trieste, a city of 200,000 inhabitants on the Adriatic Sea that borders Slovenia, marked the third one within Italy this year for the 87-year-old pontiff, who has suffered increasing health problems in recent years. Since travelling to the French city of Marseille in September 2023, the Argentine Jesuit has limited himself to domestic travel. But he plans to spend nearly two weeks in Asia in September visiting Indonesia, Singapore and the islands of Papua New Guinea and East Timor. He arrived in Trieste shortly before 9 a.m. and was due to meet with various groups from the religious and academic spheres, along with migrants and the disabled. The papal visit is due to conclude with a Mass in the city's main public square before he departs for the Vatican in the early afternoon. 

CAIRO — Hamas is waiting for a response from Israel on its cease-fire proposal, two officials from the militant Islamist group said on Sunday, five days after it accepted a key part of a U.S. plan aimed at ending the 9-month-old war in Gaza. "We have left our response with the mediators and are waiting to hear the occupation's response," one of the two Hamas officials told Reuters, asking not to be named. The three-phase plan for the Palestinian enclave was put forward at the end of May by U.S. President Joe Biden and is being mediated by Qatar and Egypt. It aims to end the war and free around 120 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas. Another Palestinian official, with knowledge of the cease-fire deliberations, said Israel was in talks with the Qataris. "They have discussed with them Hamas' response and they promised to give them Israel's response within days," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that negotiations would continue this week but has not given any detailed timeline. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent cease-fire before it would sign an agreement. Instead, it said it would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, a Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday on condition of anonymity because the talks are private. A Palestinian official close to the peace efforts has said the proposal could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel and would end the war. CIA Director William Burns will travel to Qatar this week for negotiations, a source familiar with the matter said. The conflict was triggered nine months ago on October 7 when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages in the worst assault in Israel's history, according to official Israeli figures. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military onslaught, according to Gaza health officials, and the coastal enclave has largely been reduced to rubble. The U.N. agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, called the situation increasingly tragic, saying in a post on X, "families continue to face forced displacement, massive destruction and constant fear. Essential supplies are lacking, the heat is unbearable, diseases are spreading." Protests in Israel Protesters took to the streets across Israel on Sunday to pressure the government to reach an accord to bring back hostages still being held in Gaza. They blocked rush-hour traffic at major intersections across the country, picketed politicians’ houses and briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the way. Meanwhile, fighting continued to rage across Gaza, and north Israel came under rocket attack from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Air raid sirens sent residents of 24 Israeli towns running for shelter. One person was seriously wounded, police said. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at an army base. In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in separate Israeli military strikes on Sunday. An Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Zawayda, in central Gaza, killed at least six people and wounded several others, while six others were killed in an air strike on a house in western Gaza, the health officials said. Tanks deepened their raids in central and northern areas of Rafah on the southern border with Egypt. Health officials there said they had recovered three bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the eastern part of the city. The Israeli military said on Sunday its forces had killed 30 Palestinian gunmen in Rafah during close combat and air strikes in the past day. In Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, the military said its forces killed several Palestinian gunmen, and located weapons and explosives. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces in several locations across the Gaza Strip with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs. 

TOKYO — Voters in Tokyo cast ballots Sunday to decide whether to reelect conservative Yuriko Koike as governor of Japan's influential capital for a third four-year term. The vote was also seen as a test for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's governing party, which supports the incumbent, the first woman to lead the Tokyo city government. Tokyo, a city of 13.5 million people with outsized political and cultural power and a budget equaling some nations, is one of Japan's most influential political posts. A record 55 candidates challenged Koike, and one of the top contenders was also a woman — a liberal-leaning former parliament member who uses only her first name, Renho, and was backed by opposition parties. A win by Koike would be a relief for Kishida's conservative governing party, which she has long been affiliated with. Kishida's Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, unofficially backed her campaign. Renho, running as an independent but supported by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, slammed Koike's connection with Kishida's party, which has been hit by a widespread slush fund scandal. A victory for Renho would be a major setback for Kishida's chances in the governing party's leadership vote in September. While the two high-profile women garnered national attention, Shinji Ishimaru, a former mayor of Akitakata town in Hiroshima, was seen to have gained popularity among young voters. The main issues in the campaign included measures for the economy, disaster resilience for Tokyo and low birth numbers. When Japan's national fertility rate fell to a record low 1.2 babies per woman last year, Tokyo's 0.99 rate was the lowest for the country. Koike's policies focused on providing subsidies for married parents expecting babies and those raising children. Renho called for increased support for young people to address their concerns about jobs and financial stability, arguing that would help improve prospects for marrying and having families. Another focus of attention was a controversial redevelopment of Tokyo's beloved park area, Jingu Gaien, which Koike approved but later faced criticism over its lack of transparency and suspected environmental impact. Koike, a stylish and media savvy former TV newscaster, was first elected to parliament in 1992 at age 40. She served in a number of key Cabinet posts, including environment and defense ministers, as part of the long-reigning Liberal Democratic Party. Renho, known for voicing sharp questions in parliament, was born to a Japanese mother and Taiwanese father and doesn't use her family name. A former model and newscaster, she was elected to parliament in 2004 and served as administrative reform minister in the government led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan.

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.