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Mina, Saudi Arabia — Pilgrims performed Sunday the last major ritual of the hajj, the "stoning of the devil", in western Saudi Arabia, as Muslims the world over celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday. Beginning at dawn, the 1.8 million Muslims undertaking the pilgrimage this year threw seven stones at each of three concrete walls symbolizing the devil in the Mina valley, located outside Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. The ritual commemorates Abraham's stoning of the devil at the three spots where it is said Satan tried to dissuade him from obeying God's order to sacrifice his son. The stoning ritual has been witness to multiple stampedes over the years, most recently in 2015 when up to 2,300 worshippers were killed in the worst hajj disaster. The site has been revamped since then to streamline the movement of the large crowds. Roads leading to the concrete walls were nevertheless packed early Sunday, with some pilgrims visibly struggling under the morning sun.  Some sat on the side of the road to rest and drink water, while others stretched out on the ground, apparently exhausted. On Saturday, temperatures reached 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Arafat, where pilgrims performed hours of outdoor prayers. One treatment center in the area recorded 225 cases of heat stress and fatigue, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. That figure was not comprehensive. Last year more than 10,000 cases of heat-related illnesses were documented during the hajj, 10 percent of which were heat stroke, a health ministry spokesman told AFP. "It was very, very hot," Rohy Daiseca, a 60-year-old Gambian living in the United States, told AFP on Saturday night as pilgrims collected stones to throw. "Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), I put a lot of water on my head and it was OK." Worshippers have tried to take the grueling conditions in stride, seizing what for many is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to pray at Islam's holiest shrines. "I am so happy that I can't describe my feelings," said Amal Mahrouss, a 55-year-old woman from Egypt. "This place shows us that we are all equal, that there are no differences between Muslims around the world." One of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj must be performed at least once by all Muslims with the means. This year's figure of 1.8 million pilgrims is similar to last year's, and Saudi authorities said on Saturday that 1.6 million of them came from abroad. Feast of the sacrifice The stoning ritual coincides with Eid al-Adha, or the feast of the sacrifice, which honors Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son before God offered a sheep instead. Worshippers typically slaughter a sheep and offer part of the meat to the needy. This year's hajj and Eid al-Adha holiday have been clouded by the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  "We don't feel the Eid holiday because our brothers in Gaza are oppressed under the (Israeli) occupation," said Najem Nawwar, a 43-year-old Egyptian pilgrim. King Salman invited 2,000 Palestinians to the hajj at his own expense including relatives of Gazans who have sought refuge elsewhere. But Saudi authorities have warned no political slogans would be tolerated during the pilgrimage. That has not stopped many worshippers from voicing solidarity with Palestinians. "We pray for them... and for the liberation of Palestine, so that we have two holidays instead of one," said Wadih Ali Khalifah, a 32-year-old Saudi pilgrim. In a message to hajj pilgrims on Saturday, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "the ironclad resistance of Palestine and the patient, oppressed people of Gaza... must be fully supported in every way."

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.

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.

MOSCOW — Security forces stormed a detention center in southern Russia on Sunday, killing inmates who had taken two members of staff hostage, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Sunday. The hostages at the pretrial detention center in Rostov-on-Don were uninjured, said RIA Novosti, citing Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service. It said that the hostage-takers had been "liquidated," with other local news outlets reporting that at least some of the prisoners had been killed. Earlier, state news agency Tass, citing unnamed sources in law enforcement, had said that six hostage-takers were in the central courtyard of the Rostov region's Detention Center No. 1, armed with a penknife, a rubber baton and a fire ax. The prisoners include men accused of links to the Islamic State group, it said. IS have carried out a number of attacks on Russian soil in recent years, including most recently in March when gunmen opened fire on a crowd at a concert hall in suburban Moscow, killing 145 people.

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NAIROBI, Kenya — Piles of firewood surrounded Jane Muthoni in her kitchen made of iron sheets. The roof, walls and wooden pillars were covered in soot. As she blew on the flame for tea, the 65-year-old was engulfed in smoke. "I've used firewood all my life," she said. "Sometimes I usually cough from inhaling the smoke, and my eyes itch, but there's nothing I can do about it. I don't have money to even buy charcoal." She was unaware of the lasting toll on her health. But experts are. Respiratory diseases have been the most prevalent diseases in Kenya for the past several years and are on the rise, according to government authorities, with 19.6 million reported cases last year. Burning biomass such as firewood is the largest contributor to those diseases, said Evans Amukoye, a scientist with the Kenya Medical Research Institute's respiratory diseases research center. "One can have itchy eyes, coughs while inhaling the smoke, and for serious cases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, you find that you cannot walk as your lungs have become tight," Amukoye said. The disease is caused by indoor or outdoor air pollution or smoking. Data from Kenya's health ministry shows that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is responsible for 1.7% of deaths in the country. People in low-income areas are diagnosed with respiratory diseases later in life compared to middle-class people in urban areas with better awareness and access to health care, Amukoye said. Families in informal neighborhoods and rural areas are the most affected as most people rely on firewood or fossil fuels for cooking. Women hunched over a smoking fire at stalls for tea or snacks is a common sight in the capital, Nairobi, and beyond. The government's 2022 Demographic and Health Survey showed a high dependence on traditional fuels for cooking in Kenya. The number of households relying on biomass like firewood increased from 4.7 million to 6.7 million between 2020 and 2022. Economist Abraham Muriu said he believes the increase in Kenyans using firewood is a result of economic shocks caused by reduced incomes during the COVID pandemic and ongoing high inflation. "Firewood is readily available and the most accessible fossil fuel, especially in rural areas," Muriu said. He said more Kenyans in urban areas have likely resorted to using firewood or charcoal, too, as prices and taxes rise. Blackened sacks of charcoal are openly on sale at some Nairobi intersections, and the hunt for firewood across the country is constant. Mercy Letting, 33, a businesswoman in Nairobi's Kasarani neighborhood was using charcoal to make meals for customers in the first six months after opening her restaurant early last year. With time, it affected her health. "I am asthmatic, so whenever I used charcoal to cook the smoke would always trigger an attack, forcing me to spend part of my daily earnings on medication. This happened five times," she said. She found it expensive, spending 4,500 Kenyan shillings ($33) per month to buy a sack of charcoal. "I eventually had to buy an 'eco-friendly' cooker, which has been great for my health and good for business." It requires less charcoal. Letting also bought an induction burner, which she said is faster in cooking and more efficient as she spends only 50 Kenyan shillings ($0.38) per day on electricity. Although companies pursue "clean cooking" options, high prices remain an obstacle to many Kenyans. "If we want to deliver a truly clean and efficient solution to users across Africa, it needs to be affordable for them," said Chris McKinney, the chief commercial officer at BURN Manufacturing, which describes itself as a "modern cookstove" company based on the outskirts of Nairobi. "This has been the key barrier to scaling for us," he said.

ALGIERS, Algeria — France has twice rejected visa applications from Nabil Tabarout, a 29-year-old web developer from Algeria who hopes this year to visit his sister there. He's among the many people navigating the often-arduous visa process throughout Africa, which faces higher visa rejection rates than anywhere else in the world when it comes to visiting Europe's Schengen Area. Appointments are often difficult to secure. Applicants often must prove a minimum bank balance, substantiate the purpose of their visit and prove they plan to return home. "That's how it is. Every pleasure deserves pain," said Tabarout, who has succeeded just once in obtaining a French visa. Though much of Europe's debate about migration centers on people who arrive without authorization, many more people choose to come by legal means. It's painful, then, to discover that following the rules often fails. The disproportionate rejection rates — 10% higher in Africa than the global average — hinder trade, business and educational partnerships at the expense of African economies, according to an April study from U.K.-based migration consultancy firm Henley & Partners. The study called the practices discriminatory and urged Schengen countries to reform them. Nowhere are applicants more rejected than in Algeria, where more than 392,000 applicants were rejected in 2022. The 45.8% rejection rate is followed by a 45.2% rejection rate in Guinea-Bissau and 45.1% in Nigeria. Only one in 25 applicants living in the United States were rejected. While the study found that applicants from poorer countries experienced higher rejections in general, it noted that applicants from Turkey and India experienced fewer rejection than applicants from the majority of African countries. The reasons for that anti-Africa bias could be political, according to the study's author, Mehari Taddele Maru of the European University Institute's Migration Policy Center. Visa rejections are used as a political tool by European governments, including France, to negotiate the deportation of those who migrate to Europe without proper authorization. North African governments have refused to provide consular documents for their citizens facing deportation. In an interview, Maru said Algeria has continent-high rejection rates because its number of applicants outpaces those from other African countries for geographic, economic and historical reasons. Many Algerians apply for visas in France, where they speak the language and may have family ties. And North Africa's proximity to Europe means flights are short and cheap compared to flights from sub-Saharan Africa, leading more people to apply, he said. Beyond rejection rates, the difficulty of applying is also a policy choice by European governments, Maru said. "When we talk about increasing barriers for potential applicants, it's not only the rate of rejections, it's also the restrictions to apply." That means the challenges can be local too. For Algerians like Tabarout, VFS Global is a new player in the visa application process. The subcontractor was hired by French consular authorities after years of criticism about the previous system being dominated by a so-called "visa mafia." Applicants previously faced challenges securing time slots, which are quickly reserved by third-party brokers and then resold to the public — similar to how scalpers have dominated concert platforms. Rumors swirled about intricate computer programs connecting to appointment platforms and gobbling up slots within moments. "They're a bunch of swindlers who've been at it for years, making fortunes on the backs of poor citizens by making them pay dearly to make an appointment to apply for a visa," asserted Ali Challali, who recently helped his daughter submit a French student visa application. Under the previous system, applicants told The Associated Press they had to pay 15,000 to 120,000 Algerian dinars (103 to 825 euros) just to get an appointment. In Algeria, many decide to pursue opportunities in France after not finding adequate economic opportunities at home or seek residency after going to French universities on student visas. According to a 2023 report from France's Directorate General for Foreign Nationals, 78% of Algerian students "say they have no intention of returning to Algeria" upon finishing their studies. The visa issue has historically been a cause of political tensions between the countries. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is scheduled to visit France later this year. "Everything that can contribute to increasing trade between France, Europe and Algeria must be facilitated in both directions," French Ambassador Stephane Ramotet said at a recent economic conference in Algiers. "Algerians who want to go to France to develop a business must be able to benefit from all the facilities, particularly visas."

chicago, illinois — Vacationing in Chicago this week from Europe, Jelle den Burger and Nirusa Naguleswaran grabbed a bite at the Dog House Grill: a classic Italian beef sandwich for him, grilled cheese for her.  Both think the way their genders lined up with their food choices was no coincidence. Women, said Naguleswaran, are simply more likely to ditch meat, and to care about how their diet affects the environment and other people.  "I don't want to put it in the wrong way, that male people feel attacked," said Naguleswaran, of Netherlands, laughing. She said she used to love eating meat, but giving it up for climate reasons was more important to her. "We just have it in our nature to care about others."  Now, scientists can say more confidently than ever that gender and meat-eating preferences are linked. A paper out in Nature Scientific Reports this week shows that the difference is nearly universal across cultures — and that it's even more pronounced in countries that are more developed.  Researchers already knew men in some countries ate more meat than women did. And they knew that people in wealthier countries ate more meat overall. But the latest findings suggest that when men and women have the social and financial freedom to make choices about their diets, they diverge from each other even more, with men eating more meat and women eating less.  That's important because about 20% of planet-warming global greenhouse gas emissions come from animal-based food products, according to earlier research from the University of Illinois. The researchers behind the new report think their findings could fine-tune efforts to persuade people to eat less meat and dairy.  "Anything that one could do to reduce meat consumption in men would have a greater impact, on average, than among women," said Christopher Hopwood, a professor of psychology at the University of Zurich and one of the authors of the paper. The work drew on surveys funded by Mercy for Animals, a nonprofit dedicated to ending animal agriculture. Hopwood said he is not affiliated with the organization and is not an advocate.  Researchers ask what thousands eat The researchers asked over 28,000 people in 23 countries on four continents how much of various types of food they ate every day, then calculated the average land animal consumption by gender identity in each country. They used the United Nations Human Development Index, which measures health, education and standard of living, to rank how "developed" each country was, and also looked at the Global Gender Gap Index, a scale of gender equality published by the World Economic Forum.  They found that, with three exceptions — China, India and Indonesia — gender differences in meat consumption were higher in countries with higher development and gender equality scores.  The large number and cultural diversity of people surveyed is "a real strength of this," said Daniel Rosenfeld, a social psychologist at UCLA who studies eating behavior and moral psychology and was not involved in the study.  The study did not answer the question of why men tend to eat more meat, but scientists have some theories. One is that evolutionarily, women may have been hormonally hardwired to avoid meat that could possibly have been contaminated, affecting pregnancy, whereas men may have sought out meat proteins given their history as hunters in some societies.  But even the idea of men as hunters is intertwined with culture, Rosenfeld said. That's a good example of another theory, which is that societal norms shape gender identity from an early age and thus how people decide to fill their plates.  'I'm going to eat more' Rosenfeld, who said he stopped eating meat about 10 years ago, said his own experience hanging out in college "as a guy hanging out with other guy friends" illustrated the cultural pressure for men to eat meat. "If they're all eating meats and I decide not to," he said, "it can disrupt the natural flow of social situations."  The same cultural factors that shape gender influence how people respond to new information, said Carolyn Semmler, a professor of psychology at the University of Adelaide in Australia who also studies meat eating and social factors such as gender. Semmler was not involved in this study. In some of her past work, she's studied cognitive dissonance around eating meat.  In those cases, she said, women presented with information about poor animal welfare in the livestock industry were more likely to say they would reduce their meat consumption. But men tended to go the other direction, she said.  "One participant said to me, 'I think you guys are trying to get me to eat less meat, so I'm going to eat more,'" she said.  Semmler said meat can be important to masculine identity, noting for example the popular notion of men at the grill. And she said presenting eating less meat as a moral cause can be a sensitive issue. Still, she said, people should be aware of how their food choices affect the planet.  But she and Hopwood acknowledged how difficult it is to change behavior.  "Men are a tough nut to crack," Hopwood said.  Jose Lopez, another diner at the Dog House Grill, said he thought men should eat less meat but said that in general he has observed otherwise.  "We're carnivores," he said. "Men eat like savages." 

des moines, iowa — As the U.S. dairy industry confronts a bird flu outbreak, with cases reported at dozens of farms and the disease spreading to people, the egg industry could serve as an example of how to slow the disease but also shows how difficult it can be to eradicate the virus. There have been earlier bird flu outbreaks in the U.S., but the current one started in February 2022 and has forced the slaughter of nearly 100 million chickens and turkeys. Hot spots still occur, but their frequency has dropped in part because of biosecurity efforts at farms and a coordinated approach between companies and agricultural officials, experts say. Dairy farmers could try to implement similar safeguards, but the vast differences between the animals and the industries limit what lessons can be learned and applied. How can a 1,500-pound cow and a 5-pound chicken have the same illness?It's commonly called bird flu because the disease is largely spread by wild birds that can survive infections. Many mammals have caught the illness, too, including sea lions and skunks. Effects differ greatly Animals can be infected by eating an infected bird or by being exposed to environments where the virus is present. That said, there are big differences in how cows and chickens have fared after getting infected. Bird flu is typically fatal to chickens and turkeys within days of an infection, leading to immediate mass killings of birds. That's not true for cows. Dairies in several states have reported having to kill infected animals because symptoms continued to linger and their milk production didn't recover, but that's not the norm, said Russ Daly, an extension veterinarian at South Dakota State University. He said it appears that bird flu isn't usually fatal to cows but that an infected animal can be more vulnerable to other ailments typically founds in dairies, such as bacterial pneumonia and udder infections. What has the egg industry done to protect chickens? Egg operators have become clean freaks. To prevent disease from spreading, egg producers require workers to shower and change into clean clothes before they enter a barn and shower again when they leave. They also frequently wash trucks and spray tires with solutions to kill off virus remnants. Many egg operations even use lasers and install special fencing to discourage wild birds from stopping by for a visit. "Gone is the day of the scarecrow," said Emily Metz, president of the American Egg Board. Without these efforts, the current outbreak would be much worse, said Jada Thompson, a University of Arkansas agriculture business professor. Still, maintaining such vigilance is difficult, even if the cost of allowing disease into an operation is so high, she said. Chickens raised for meat, known as broilers, also have been infected with bird flu but such cases are less common. In part, that's because broiler chickens are killed when they're only 6 to 8 weeks old, so they have less time to get infected. Some safeguards apply Can the same be done to protect cows and dairy workers? Yes and no. Dairies can certainly reduce the spread of disease by limiting access to barns, so people and equipment don't bring in the virus from elsewhere. Workers could also wear eye protection, aprons and gloves to try to protect themselves, but there's no way around it: Big animals are messy. "The parlor is a warm, humid place with lots of liquid flying around, whether it's urine, feces, water, because they're spraying off areas. Cows might kick off a milk machine, so you get milk splatter," said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Laboratory. Dairies also don't have time or staff to disinfect milking equipment between animals, so equipment could become contaminated. Pasteurization kills bacteria and viruses in milk, making it safe for people to drink. Poulsen said the dairy industry could follow a path laid by the poultry and pork industries and establish more formal, better funded research organizations so it could respond more quickly to problems like bird flu — or avoid them altogether. The dairy industry also could tamp down disease spread by limiting the movement of lactating cows between states, Poulsen said. Are there new efforts to fight the virus? The U.S. Department of Agriculture will soon begin testing a vaccine that could be given to calves, offering the animals protection and also reducing the chance of worker illnesses. The egg industry also is hopeful researchers can develop vaccines for poultry that could be quick, inexpensive and effective. Workers can't give shots to the millions of hens that might need a vaccine, but industry officials hope a vaccine could be distributed in the water the birds drink, in the pellets they eat or even before birds hatch from their eggs. Efforts to develop vaccines have become even more important now that the disease has spread to dairy cows and even a few people, Thompson said. "Part of what is being developed right now is: What way can we vaccinate them that is cost-effective and disease-resistant?" Thompson said.

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — An oil spill caused by a dredger boat hitting a stationary cargo tanker has blackened part of Singapore's southern coastline, including the popular resort island of Sentosa, and sparked concerns it may threaten marine wildlife as a cleanup operation was under way Sunday. The Netherlands-flagged dredger Vox Maxima struck the Singaporean fuel supply ship Marine Honor on Friday. It damaged the cargo tank on Marine Honor, which leaked oil into the sea. Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority said in a statement late Saturday the oil leak from the vessel had been contained, and that the oil that escaped from the damaged tanker had been treated with dispersants. But due to the tidal current, it said the treated oil had landed along shorelines including at Sentosa and other southern islands, a nature reserve and a public beach park. Sentosa, which attracts millions of visitors annually, houses one of Singapore's two casinos, golf courses and Southeast Asia's only Universal Studios theme park. Part of the beachfront at the public park and at the nature reserve have been closed to facilitate clean-up efforts, it said. The Sentosa beach will remain open to the public but sea activities and swimming are prohibited. On Sunday, workers in orange suit were seen scooping up sand in a clean-up operation at an empty beach in Sentosa. Black water washed up on the oil-stained shore. Authorities have deployed 18 crafts for the clean-up efforts and laid close to 1,500 meters of container booms, temporary floating barriers to trap the oil spill. "More will be laid over the next few days to prevent further spread of oil onto the shore, and facilitate the recovery of the trapped oil off the affected shorelines and lagoons to prevent them from going back to sea," the statement said. Conservationists and biologists are monitoring the full extent of the damage on marine and wildlife. Local conservation group Marine Stewards reportedly said there were photos of dead fish, otters and kingfishers covered in oil slick. Group founder Sue Ye told Singapore Straits Times that oil spills smother and suffocate fish, birds and marine animals that have to go to the surface for air, such as turtles and dolphins.

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PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kansas — David Titterington had a sense of what his childhood friend would ask him when she led him into a photo booth at a mutual friend's wedding roughly a decade ago. As the countdown for the second photo ticked, Jen Wilson popped the question: Will you be my sperm donor? "Of course I said yes," Titterington said. "I mean, who would have guessed that, being a gay man, I would have this opportunity to have biological children and also be part of their lives?" On Father's Day, which is Sunday, Kansas residents Jen and Whitney Wilson will pack up their three children — ages 9, 7 and 3 — and head to picnic at Titterington's Missouri house to celebrate the man who helped make their family possible. Like other LGBTQ+ couples, they and their sperm donor have created their own traditions around Father's Day. "We just have decided to celebrate him," said Jen Wilson, who works as the executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Modern Family Alliance. For LGBTQ+ people, single-parent households, other nontraditional families or those with strained family relationships, Father's Day and Mother's Day can be painful and confusing. Events featuring those holidays at school can make some children feel isolated. Jen Wilson said many schools are working toward being more inclusive, such as turning events like "Donuts with Dads" to "Donuts with Grown-Ups." "There are families who don't have a David, who can't really point to, like, this is what it means to be a dad or have a father figure. So I consider us really lucky," Whitney Wilson said. She later added: "I think we're really lucky in that we have lots of people in our life to point to. Not just David ... grandpas and uncles and all kinds of people who are also fathers." Between 2 million and 3.3 million children under age 18 have an LGBTQ+ parent, according to the group Family Equality. Such families are growing more visible in recent years, said Cathy Renna, the communications director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. Most Pride events now include family-friendly activities, like climbing walls, she said. "Now we see families of all kinds and shapes and sizes, and that's really important. It's important not just for us," Renna said. "It's also important for kids to understand, you know, that families do come in many different, configurations and that families are about love." When it comes to Father's Day, Jen Wilson said: "People focus so much on just their own father instead of highlighting the fact that there are a lot of really great fathers in the world in lots of different communities and just celebrating them for stepping up and ... being the great dads that they are." Jen Wilson and Titterington have been friends since childhood. When Jen Wilson and her wife began planning for a family, Titterington tossed out the idea of being a sperm donor, and he was overjoyed when the couple later made the ask official. Titterington sees his role in the kids' lives as more akin to a godfather than a father. He and his husband go to school events and birthday parties, and Titterington said they see themselves as "coaching them from the sidelines." He said he is partial to the title "blood father," but the Wilsons said the children more often refer to him as their "bio dad" or "donor dad." "I am their father, but I'm not really their parent," Titterington said. "Because Jennifer and Whitney are the two parents, and they're doing an amazing job." Even with David, the idea that the children don't have a dad can be hard for them, Whitney Wilson said, but it isn't "something that keeps anybody in our house up at night." "There are a lot of people that would love the opportunity to tell our children how terrible it is that they don't have a father figure in their life," Jen Wilson said. "We know that's not true." For Titterington, fatherhood is the weight of the Wilsons' firstborn falling asleep on his chest, gifts of scribbled artwork that can never be thrown away, and cleaning up after a toddler in potty training. But after a tiring weekend slumber party, he can send the children home to their mothers. "There's so many ways to be a father," Titterington said. "We get to celebrate all kinds of fathers on Father's Day."

HELSINKI — The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than eight decades later. The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when it was downed just days before Moscow annexed the Baltic states. All nine people on board the plane were killed, including the two-member Finnish crew and the seven passengers — an American diplomat, two French, two Germans, a Swede and a dual Estonian-Finnish national. A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero, which is now Finnair. It was found off the tiny island of Keri near Estonia's capital, Tallinn, at a depth of around 70 meters. "Basically, we started from scratch. We took a whole different approach to the search," Kaido Peremees, spokesman for the Estonian diving and underwater survey company Tuukritoode OU, explained the group's success in finding the plane's remains. The downing of the civilian plane, named Kaleva, en route from Tallinn to Helsinki happened on June 14, 1940 — just three months after Finland had signed a peace treaty with Moscow following the 1939-40 Winter War. The news about the fate of the plane was met with disbelief and anger by authorities in Helsinki who were informed that it was shot down by two Soviet DB-3 bombers 10 minutes after taking off from Tallinn's Ulemiste airport. "It was unique that a passenger plane was shot down during peacetime on a normal scheduled flight," said Finnish aviation historian Carl-Fredrik Geust, who has investigated Kaleva's case since the 1980s. Finland officially kept silent for years about the details of the aircraft's destruction, saying publicly only that a "mysterious crash" had taken place over the Baltic Sea, because it didn't want to provoke Moscow. Though well documented by books, research and television documentaries, the 84-year-old mystery has intrigued Finns. The case is an essential part of the Nordic country's complex World War II history and sheds light into its troubled ties with Moscow. But perhaps more importantly, the downing of the plane happened at a critical time just days before Josef Stalin's Soviet Union was preparing to annex the three Baltic states, sealing the fate of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for the next half-century before they eventually regained independence in 1991. Moscow occupied Estonia on June 17, 1940, and Kaleva's doomed journey was the last flight out of Tallinn, though Soviets had already started enforcing a tight transport embargo around the Estonian capital. American diplomat Henry W. Antheil Jr., who is now considered one of the first U.S. casualties of World War II, was aboard the plane when it went down. The 27-year-old Antheil, the younger brother of the acclaimed composer and pianist George Antheil, was on a rushed government mission evacuating sensitive diplomatic pouches from U.S. missions in Tallinn and Riga, Latvia, as it had become clear that Moscow was preparing to swallow up the small Baltic nations. An Associated Press wire item dated June 15, 1940, noted that "Henry W. Antheil Jr. of Trenton, N. J., attached to the United States Legation in Helsinki, was killed in the mysterious explosion of a Finnish airliner yesterday." In the U.S. media, Antheil's death was overshadowed by much bigger news from Europe at the time: the Nazi occupation of Paris. The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn has thoroughly documented and researched the case over the years. Embassy spokesperson Mike Snyder told the AP that "news of the possible location of the wreck of the Kaleva passenger plane is of great interest to the United States, especially since one of the first U.S. casualties of the Second World War, Diplomat Henry Antheil, occurred as a result of the plane being downed." Earlier this month, the U.S. ambassador in Estonia, George P. Kent, shared a post on X that included photos of Antheil, Kaleva and a memorial plaque by the American Foreign Service Association in Washington with Antheil's name engraved in it. Kaleva was carrying 227 kilograms of diplomatic post, including Antheil's pouches and material from two French diplomatic couriers — identified as Paul Longuet and Frederic Marty. Estonian fishermen and the lighthouse operator on Keri told Finnish media decades after the downing of the plane that a Soviet submarine surfaced close to Kaleva's crash site and retrieved floating debris, including document pouches, that had been collected by fishermen from the site. This has led to conspiracy theories regarding the contents of the pouches and Moscow's decision to shoot down the plane. It still remains unclear why precisely the Soviet Union decided to down a civilian Finnish passenger plane during peacetime. "Lots of speculation on the plane's cargo has been heard over the years," Geust said. "What was the plane transporting? Many suggest Moscow wanted to prevent sensitive material and documents from exiting Estonia." But he said that it could have simply been "a mistake" by the Soviet bomber pilots. Various attempts to find Kaleva have been recorded since Estonia regained independence more than three decades ago. However, none of them have been successful. Not even the U.S. Navy's oceanographic survey vessel Pathfinder could locate remains of the plane in a 2008 search around the Keri island in a venture commissioned by the Estonian government from the Pentagon. "The wreckage is in pieces and the seabed is quite challenging with rock formations, valleys and hills. It's very easy to miss" small parts and debris from the aircraft, Peremees said. "Techniques have, of course, evolved a lot over the time. As always, you can have good technology but be out of luck." New video taken by underwater robots from Peremees' company show clear images of the three-engine Junkers' landing gear, one of the motors and parts of the wings. Peremees and his group are "absolutely" convinced the parts belong to Kaleva because of the distinctive and recognizable design of the German-made Junkers Ju 52, one of the most popular European passenger and wartime transport planes in the 1930s and early 1940s. The plane was operated by the predecessor of the Finnish national airline Finnair. Jaakko Schildt, chief operations officer of Finnair, described Kaleva's downing as "a tragic and profoundly sad event for the young airline" that Finnair, then named Aero, was in 1940. "Finding the wreckage of Kaleva in a way brings closure to this, even though it does not bring back the lives of our customers and crew that were lost," Schildt said. "The interest towards locating Kaleva in the Baltic Sea speaks of the importance this tragic event has in the aviation history of our region." Peremees said his company would now focus on creating 3D images of Kaleva's debris and discuss with Estonian authorities about the possibility of raising some of the items and, if found, the plane's cargo and human remains. Snyder from the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn said that Washington is closely monitoring the diving group's efforts. "We are following the investigation of the site and will be happy to discuss with our Finnish and Estonian (NATO) allies any developments resulting from recovery efforts," Snyder said. A stone memorial set up in the early 1990s to the victims of the Kaleva crash is located on Keri, and Helsinki's old preserved Malmi airport terminal building, where Kaleva was supposed to arrive, has a memorial plaque set up in 2020 with the names of the victims.

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JERUSALEM — The Israeli military on Sunday announced a "tactical pause" in its offensive in the southern Gaza Strip to allow the deliveries of increased quantities of humanitarian aid. The army said the pause would begin in the Rafah area at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT, 1 a.m. Eastern) and remain in effect until 7 p.m. (1600 GMT, noon Eastern). It said the pauses would take place every day until further notice. The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, to deliver supplies to other parts of Gaza, the military said. It said the pause was being coordinated with the U.N. and international aid agencies. The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May. Israel's eight-month military offensive against the Hamas militant group has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the U.N. reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. The international community has urged Israel to do more to ease the crunch. From May 6 until June 6, the U.N. received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed. The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets. COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination. A spokesperson for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the U.N.'s fault that its cargo stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have "fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed," especially a lack of trucks. The U.N. denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for U.N. trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel's border. It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers' safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza's roads. The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing. It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they move along the highway.

HONOLULU — Ki'inaniokalani Kahoʻohanohano longed for a deeper connection to her Native Hawaiian ancestors and culture as she prepared to give birth to her first child at home on the north shore of Maui in 2003. But generations of colonialist suppression had eroded many Hawaiian traditions, and it was hard to find information on how the islands' Indigenous people honored pregnancy or childbirth. Nor could she find a Native Hawaiian midwife. That experience led Kahoʻohanohano — now a mother of five — to become a Native Hawaiian midwife herself, a role in which she spent years helping to deliver as many as three babies a month, receiving them in a traditional cloth made of woven bark and uttering sacred, tremorous chants as she welcomed them into the world. Her quest to preserve tradition also led her into a downtown Honolulu courtroom this week, where she and others are seeking to block a state law that they say endangers their ability to continue serving pregnant women who hope for such customary Native Hawaiian births. "To be able to have our babies in the places and in the ways of our kupuna, our ancestors, is very vital," she testified. "To me, the point of what we do is to be able to return birth home to these places." Lawmakers enacted a midwife licensure law in 2019, finding that the "improper practice of midwifery poses a significant risk of harm to the mother or newborn, and may result in death." Violations are punishable by up to a year in jail, plus thousands of dollars in criminal and civil fines. The measure requires anyone who provides "assessment, monitoring, and care" during pregnancy, labor, childbirth and during the postpartum period to be licensed. The women's lawsuit says that would include a wide range of people, including midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, and even family and friends of the new mother. Until last summer, the law provided an exception for "birth attendants," which allowed Kahoʻohanohano to continue practicing Native Hawaiian birth customs. With that exception now expired, however, she and others face the licensing requirements — which, they say, include costly programs only available out of state or online that don't align with Hawaiian culture and beliefs. In 2022, the average cost of an accredited midwifery program was $6,200 to $6,900 a year, according to court documents filed by the state. Attorneys for the state argued in a court filing that the law "undoubtedly serves a compelling interest in protecting pregnant persons from receiving ill-advice from untrained individuals." State Deputy Attorney General Isaac Ickes told Judge Shirley Kawamura that the law doesn't outlaw Native Hawaiian midwifery or homebirths, but that requiring a license reduces the risks of harm or death. The dispute is the latest in a long history of debate about how and whether Hawaii should regulate the practice of traditional healing arts that dates to well before the islands became the 50th state in 1959. Those arts were banished or severely restricted for much of the 20th century, but the Hawaiian Indigenous rights movement of the 1970s renewed interest in the customary ways. Hawaii eventually adopted a system where councils versed in Native Hawaiian healing certify traditional practitioners, though those suing say their efforts to form such a council for midwifery have failed. Practicing midwifery without a license, meanwhile, was banned until 1998 — when, lawmakers say, they inadvertently decriminalized it when they altered the regulation of nurse-midwives, something the 2019 law sought to remedy. Among the nine plaintiffs are women who seek traditional births and argue that the new licensing requirement violates their right of privacy and reproductive autonomy under Hawaii's Constitution. They are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. "For pregnant people whose own family may no longer hold the knowledge of the ceremonial and sacred aspects of birth, a midwife trained in Native Hawaiian traditional and customary birthing practices can be an invaluable, culturally informed health care provider," the lawsuit states. When Kahoʻohanohano was unable to find a Native Hawaiian midwife to attend the birth of her first child, she turned instead to a Native American one, who was open to incorporating traditional Hawaiian aspects that Kahoʻohanohano gleaned from her elders. She surrounded herself with Hawaiian cultural practitioners focusing on pule, or prayer, and lomilomi, a traditional massage with physical and spiritual elements. It all helped ease her three days of labor, she said. And then, "two pushes and pau" — done — the boy was born. The births of her five children in various Maui communities, Kahoʻohanohano said, were her "greatest teachers" in herself becoming one of the very few midwives who know about Native Hawaiian birthing practices. She is believed to be the first person in a century to give birth on her husband's ancestral lands in Kahakuloa, a remote west Maui valley of mostly Native Hawaiians, where her daughter was born in 2015. The community is at least 40 minutes along winding roads to the island's only hospital. Kahoʻohanohano testified about helping low-risk pregnant women and identifying instances where she transferred someone to receive care at the hospital but said she's never experienced any emergency situations. Among the other plaintiffs are midwives she has helped train and women she has aided through birth. Makalani Franco-Francis testified that she learned about customary birth practices from Kahoʻohanohano, including how to receive a newborn in kapa, or traditional cloth, and cultural protocols for a placenta, including taking it to the ocean or burying it to connect a newborn to its ancestral lands. The law has halted her education, Franco-Francis said. She testified that she's not interested in resuming her midwifery education through out-of-state or online programs. "It's not in alignment with our cultural practices, and it's also a financial obligation," she said. The judge heard testimony through the week. It's not clear how soon a ruling might come.