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PARIS — Freshly cooked bread, select cheeses and a broad veggie offer will be among the meals to be offered to athletes and visitors during the 2024 Paris Olympics — including, of course, gourmet dishes created by renowned French chefs. About 40,000 meals are expected to be served each day during the Games to the more than 15,000 athletes from 200 different countries housed at the Olympic village. Visitors, too, will be able to enjoy some specially created snacks at the different venues. French food services company Sodexo Live!, which was selected to oversee the catering at the athletes' village and 14 venues of the Paris Games, said it has created a total of 500 recipes, which will notably be offered at a sit-down eatery for up to 3,500 athletes at the village, meant to be the "world's largest restaurant." "Of course, there will be some classics for athletes, like pasta," said Nathalie Bellon-Szabo, global CEO of Sodexo Live! But the food will have a "very French touch." Athletes will also have access to "grab and go" food stands, including one dedicated exclusively to French cuisine cooked up by chefs. Renowned French chef Amandine Chaignot, who runs a restaurant and a café-bistro in Paris, on Tuesday unveiled one of her recipes based on the iconic croissant. "I wanted the recipe I suggested to be representative of the French terroir, but I wanted athletes to enjoy it at the same time," she told The Associated Press. "It was quite obvious for me to make a croissant that I could twist. So, you have a bit of artichoke puree, a poached egg, a bit of truffle and a bit of cheese. It's both vegetarian and still mouthwatering." Every day, during the July 26-August 11 Games, a top chef — including some awarded with Michelin stars — will cook in front of the athletes at the Olympic Village, "so they'll be able to chat and better understand what French cuisine is about — and to understand a bit of our culture as well," Chaignot said. Daily specials will be accompanied by a wide range of salads, pastas, grilled meat and soups. Cheeses will include top quality camembert, brie and sheep's milk-based Ossau-Iraty from southwestern France. The Olympic Village will also feature a boulangerie producing fresh baguettes and a variety of other breads. "The idea is to offer athletes the chance to grab a piping-hot baguette for breakfast," said baker Tony Doré, who will be working at the Olympic Village's main restaurant. Athletes will even be able to participate in daily bakery trainings, and learn to make their own French baguette, said Doré. In an effort to provide as many options as possible, meals offered will revolve around four cuisines: French, Asian, African and the Caribbean and international food. Paris 2024 organizers have promised to make the Games more sustainable and environment-friendly — and that includes efforts to reduce the use of plastic. To this effect, the main restaurant at the village will use only reusable dishes. Additionally, organizers say all meals will be based on seasonal products and 80% will come from France. Plant-based food will represent 60% of the offer for visitors at the venues, including a "vegetarian hot-dog," said Philipp Würz, head of Food and Beverage for the Paris 2024 Committee. There's "a huge amount of plant-based recipes that will be available for the general public to try, to experience and, hopefully, they will love it," said Würz. The urban park at the Place de la Concorde, in central Paris, will offer visitors 100% vegetarian food — a first in the Games' history. The place will be the stage for Paris 2024's most contemporary sporting disciplines: BMX freestyle, 3x3 basketball, skateboarding and breakdancing.

DUESSELDORF, Germany — Herbert Rubinstein was 5 years old when he and his mother were taken from the Jewish ghetto of Chernivtsi and put on a cramped cattle wagon waiting to take them to their deaths. It was 1941, and Romanians collaborating with Germany's Nazis were rounding up tens of thousands of Jews from his hometown in what is now southwestern Ukraine. "It was nothing but a miracle that we survived," Rubinstein told The Associated Press during a recent interview at his apartment in the western German city of Duesseldorf. The 88-year-old Holocaust survivor is participating in a new digital campaign called #CancelHate. It was launched Thursday by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also referred to as the Claims Conference. It features videos of survivors from around the globe reading Holocaust denial posts from different social media platforms. Each post illustrates how denial and distortion can not only rewrite history but perpetuate antisemitic tropes and spread hate. "I could never have imagined a day when Holocaust survivors would be confronting such a tremendous wave of Holocaust denial and distortion, but sadly, that day is here," said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference. "We all saw what unchecked hatred led to — words of hate and antisemitism led to deportations, gas chambers and crematoria," Schneider added. "Those who read these depraved posts are putting aside their own discomfort and trauma to ensure that current and future generations understand that unchecked hatred has no place in society." The Claims Conference's new digital campaign comes at a time when antisemitic incidents, triggered by Hamas' deadly attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel's ensuing military campaign in Gaza, have increased from Europe to the U.S. and beyond, to levels not seen in decades, according to major Jewish organizations. Hamas and other militants abducted around 250 people in the attack and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians. They are still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of some 30 others. The war has ground on with little end in sight: the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, displaced around 80% of the population and pushed hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of famine. The war has inflamed tensions around the world and triggered pro-Palestinian protests, including at college campuses in the U.S. and elsewhere. Israel and its supporters have branded the protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents. The launch of the Claims Conference campaign also comes days before Yom HaShoah — Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day — on Monday. In one of the videos, Rubinstein reads out a hate post — only to juxtapose it with his personal testimony about his family's suffering during the Holocaust. "'We have all been cheated, lied to, and exploited. The Holocaust did not happen the way it is written in our history books,'" he reads and then says: "That is a lie. The Holocaust happened. Unfortunately, way too many members of my family died in the Holocaust." Rubinstein then continues to talk about his own persecution as a Jewish child during the Holocaust. While forced into the ghetto of Cernisvtsi, his family managed to obtain forged Polish identity documents, which were the only reason he and his mother were taken off the cattle train in 1941. They fled and hid in several eastern European countries until the war ended in 1945. After that, they briefly went back to his hometown, only to find out that his father, who had been forced into the Soviet Red Army during the war, had been killed. They moved on to Amsterdam, where his mother married again, and eventually settled in Duesseldorf. "I lived through the Holocaust. Six million were murdered. Hate and Holocaust denial have returned to our society today. I am very, very sad about this and I am fighting it with all my might," Rubinstein says at the end of the video. "Words matter. Our words are our power. Cancel hate. Stop the hate." Even at his old age, Rubinstein, who calls himself an optimist, says he will continue fighting antisemitism every single day. And he has a message, especially for the young generation of Jews. "Don't panic," Rubinstein says. "The good will win. You just have to do something about it."

MEXICO CITY — If a woman wins Mexico's presidency on June 2, would she rule with gender in mind? The question has been raised by academics, humans rights organizations and activists ahead of the voting that will likely elect Mexico's first female president for the term 2024-30. Out of three candidates, the frontrunner is Claudia Sheinbaum, who has promised to keep President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's legacy on track. Next comes Xóchitl Gálvez, representing several opposition parties, one of which is historically conservative. The triumph of Sheinbaum or Gálvez, however, would not guarantee their support for certain gender-related policies. In a country of more than 98 million Catholics, neither of the two leading candidates has shared specific proposals on abortion. Both have suggested equality and protection measures for women amid a wave of violence and femicide. Here's a look at some of the challenges that Mexico's next president would face regarding abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. What's the current abortion landscape? Twelve of Mexico's 32 states have decriminalized abortion, most of them in the past five years. One more will join them after its legislature complies with a recent court's ruling, demanding a reform in its penal code. A few more states allow abortion if the mother's life is in danger, and it is legal nationwide if the pregnancy is the result of rape. Mexico's Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that national laws prohibiting abortions are unconstitutional and violate women's rights. The ruling, which extended Latin America's trend of widening abortion access, happened a year after the U.S. Supreme Court went in the opposite direction, overturning the 1973 ruling that established a nationwide right to abortion. Although the Mexican ruling orders the removal of abortion from the federal penal code and requires federal health institutions to offer the procedure to anyone who requests it, further state-by-state legal work is pending to remove all penalties. In most of the states where it has been decriminalized, abortion-rights activists say they face persistent challenges in trying to make abortion safe, accessible and government-funded. To address restrictions and bans, dozens of volunteers — known as "acompañantes" — have developed a nationwide network to share information on self-managed medication abortions following guidelines established by the World Health Organization. Could a new government strike down the constitutional right to abortion in Mexico? Whoever wins, the next president would not directly affect abortion legislation, since each state has autonomy over its penal code. However, the president could indeed have an impact as a moral authority among the members of his or her party, said Ninde Molina, lawyer at Abortistas MX, an organization specializing in abortion litigation strategies. "Much of the governors' behavior emulates what the president does," Molina said. She's among the activists who worry that neither Sheinbaum nor Galvez have shared specific proposals addressing abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and the protection of migrants. "Such lukewarm proposals send the message that these are not fundamental rights," Molina said. And though she wouldn't immediately worry about a setback on abortion policy, the scenario would change if López Obrador or Sheinbaum manage to get the approval of a judiciary reform aiming to replace the current judges with new ones elected by popular vote. "The court is also in danger," Molina said. "People may find this (electing the judges) attractive, but they don't realize what it entails." If, for example, an abortion case reaches the Supreme Court and its current composition has changed, then a setback could indeed happen, Molina said. What do the conservatives think? Isaac Alonso, from Viva México Movement, which supported right-wing activist Eduardo Verástegui' s presidential aspirations, thinks that neither Sheinbaum nor Gálvez represent Mexico's conservative interests. In his ranks, he said, no one is in favor of criminalizing women who have abortions. But since they firmly believe that abortion is unjustifiable, they would hope for government policies that encourage births through improvements in the adoption system. Rodrigo Iván Cortés, director of the National Family Front, an anti-abortion group, said the current administration could not be considered an ally. "Before 2018, abortion had only been approved in Mexico City," he said. "It is very relevant to say how the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Arturo Saldívar, had an ideological bias," said Cortés about a judge who currently advises Sheinbaum. Still, he said, despite who wins the elections, his organization will continue "to take care of the first and fundamental of rights: life." What's needed to rule with a feminist perspective? "Just because a woman wins does not guarantee a gender perspective at all," said Pauline Capdevielle, an academic from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "In fact, what we are seeing are strategies by conservative sectors to create a façade of feminism that opposes the feminist tradition." A true change, Capdevielle said, would start by integrating feminists into the government. "It is not about putting women where there were none, but about politicizing these issues and really promoting a transformation." Some feminists have shown support for Sheinbaum, but both she and López Obrador have also received criticism for their lack of empathy towards women who protest against gender violence. Amnesty International and other organizations have denounced excessive use of force against women during International Women's Day protests and say that Mexican women's right to protest has been stigmatized. According to Capdevielle, some of the issues that need to be addressed in Mexico's gender agenda are reproductive justice and women's participation in political processes. "The right to get an abortion must be consolidated," she said. "It is far from being a reality for all women." Comprehensive sexual education, access to contraceptives and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community should be prioritized as well, Capdevielle said. What about LGBTQ+ rights? "The needs of this community are not likely to figure prominently in Mexico's presidential elections," said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. Gay and transgender populations are regularly attacked and killed in Mexico, a nation marked by its "macho" culture and highly religious population. Human rights organization Letra S documented more than 500 homicides of LGBTQ+ people in the last six years, 58 of them in 2023. The latest deaths came in 2024, with the murder of three members of the transgender community. This group, along with migrants, are particularly vulnerable to attacks, Gonzalez Cabrera said. "LGBT migrants continue to suffer abuse from criminal groups and Mexican officials," he said. "Too often, these human rights violations are not effectively investigated or punished." Sheinbaum said in 2023 that, as Mexico City's mayor, she created a special unit for trans people and said that her dream would be to continue fighting on behalf of sexual diversity, but did not go into specifics. As for Gálvez, she showed support for women "from the sexual diversity," but also did not delve into specifics. González Cabrera highlights that since 2022 all Mexican states recognize same-sex marriage, but some LGBTQ+ rights are not yet guaranteed nationwide. "There are 11 states where the legal recognition of gender identity for trans people is not possible through administrative means, despite a Supreme Court's ruling recognizing this right," he said. For there to be an agenda in favor of the LGBTQ+ population, González Cabrera said, a government should approach the communities' organizations to learn about their needs, allocate resources to address violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity, support LGBTQ+ migrants and encourage local governments to align their legislation with the court's rulings on their rights.

KASHAN, Iran — The historic Kashan bazaar in central Iran once sat on a major caravan route, its silk carpets known the world over. But for the weavers trying to sell their rugs under its ancient arches, their world has only unraveled since the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers and wider tensions with the West. Rug exports, which exceeded $2 billion two decades ago, have plummeted to less than $50 million in the last year in the Persian calendar that ended in March, according to government customs figures. With fewer tourists coming and difficulties rising in making international transactions, Iranian rugs are going unsold as some weavers work for as little as $4 a day. "Americans were some of our best customers," said Ali Faez, the owner of one dusty carpet shop at the bazaar. "Rugs are a luxury product and they were eager to buy it and they used to make very good purchases. Unfortunately, this has been cut — and the connection between the two countries for visitors to come and go has gone away." Kashan's rug-weaving industry has been inscribed in UNESCO's list of the world's "intangible cultural heritage." Many of the weavers are women, with the skills needed for the Farsi weaving style passed down from generation to generation, using materials like vine leaves and the skins of pomegranate fruit and walnuts to make the dyes for their threads. A single rug can take months to make. For decades, Western tourists and others would pass through Iran, picking up rugs as gifts and to take back home. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the U.S. increased sanctions on Iran's theocratic government over the U.S. Embassy siege, Tehran's links to militant attacks and other issues. But in 2000, the outgoing administration of former President Bill Clinton lifted a ban on the import of Iranian caviar, rugs and pistachios. "Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood," then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said at the time. "We welcome efforts to make it less dangerous." By 2010, with concerns rising over Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. again banned Iranian-made Persian rugs. But in 2015, Iran struck a nuclear deal with world powers which greatly reduced and drastically lowered the purity of Tehran's stockpile of enriched uranium. The rug trade was allowed once again. Three years later, in 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal. Since then, Iran began enriching uranium at near-weapons-grade levels and has been blamed for a series of attacks at sea and on land, including an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack targeting Israel last month. For the carpet weavers, that's meant their wares were once again banned under U.S. law. "It started when Trump signed that paper," Faez told The Associated Press, referring to the renewed sanctions. "He ruined everything." Abdullah Bahrami, the head of a national syndicate for handwoven rug producers, also blamed the collapse of the industry on the Trump sanctions. He put the value of exports to the U.S. as high as $80 million annually prior to the sanctions. "The whole world used to know Iran by its rugs," Bahrami told the state-run IRNA news agency in March. Making things worse is what carpet sellers see as a drop in tourists to Kashan as well. High-value American and European tourism in Iran has largely stopped, the daily Shargh newspaper warned last year. Ezzatollah Zarghami, Iran's minister of tourism, insisted in April that 6 million tourists visited the country over the last 12 months, though that likely includes religious pilgrims as well as Afghans and Iraqis with less spending money. But even those tourists that do show up face the challenge of Iran's financial system, where no major international credit card works. "I had a Chinese customer the other week. He was struggling to somehow make the payment because he loved the rug and didn't want to let go of it," Faez said. "We have to pay a lot of commission to those who can transfer money and have bank accounts abroad. Sometimes they cancel their orders because they don't have enough cash with them." The collapse of the rial currency has left many Iranians also unable to purchase the handwoven rugs. Wages in the industry are low, leading to a growing number of Afghan migrants working in workshops around Kashan as well. Designer Javad Amorzesh, one of just a few of Kashan's old-school artists, said his orders have fallen from 10 a year to just two. He has laid off staff and now works alone in a cramped space. "Inflation rose every hour. People were hit repeatedly by inflation," he said. "I used to have four to five assistants in a big workshop." Offering a bitter laugh alone in his workshop, he added, "We've been left isolated."

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NAIROBI, KENYA — Torrential rains that caused widespread flooding and landslides across Kenya in recent weeks, killing at least 210 people, are forecast to worsen over the rest of this month, President William Ruto said Friday. The floods have wreaked havoc, destroying homes, roads, bridges and other infrastructure across Kenya, East Africa's largest economy. The death toll exceeds that from floods triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon late last year. "Sadly, we have not seen the last of this perilous period, as the situation is expected to escalate. Meteorological reports paint a dire picture," Ruto said on Kenyan television. "Kenya may face its first-ever cyclone." Cyclone Hidaya is expected to make landfall in Tanzania, Kenya's southern neighbor, on Saturday, bringing with it waves almost eight meters high and 165-kph winds, the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre said. Floods have killed more than 160 people in Tanzania since the beginning of April, Tanzania's government spokesperson Mobhare Matinyi said. "This cyclone, named Hidaya, that could hit anytime now, is predicted to cause torrential rain, strong winds and powerful and dangerous waves," Ruto said. Earlier this week, Ruto ordered those living in landslide-prone areas to leave for safer ground. The government has asked people living near 178 dams and water reservoirs, now close to overflowing, as well as those in informal settlements close to rivers and streams, to evacuate. Ruto said the reopening of all schools for the upcoming term, which was meant to start this week, would be postponed until further notice. The Nairobi government has set up 115 camps to host people displaced by the flooding, and is working closely with donors and humanitarian organizations to provide food and non-food supplies to those affected, he said. Opposition leaders and rights groups have criticized Ruto's administration for its response to the disaster. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch accused authorities of failing to put in place a timely national response plan, despite warnings from the Kenya Meteorological Department a year ago about the likely impact of flooding caused by El Nino. 

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WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argues that a fractured democracy can have destructive effects on the economy — an indirect jab at Donald Trump. Yellen delivered an address Friday in Arizona, using economic data to paint a picture of how disregard for America's democratic processes and institutions can cause economic stagnation for decades. Yellen, taking a rare step toward to the political arena, never mentioned Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, by name in her speech for the McCain Institute's Sedona Forum, but she hinted at the former president's potential impact if he regains the White House. Her remarks serve as a sort of warning for business leaders who may overlook Trump’s disregard for modern democratic norms because they prefer the former president's vision of achieving growth by slashing taxes and stripping away regulations. Yellen acknowledged that democracy "doesn’t seem like typical terrain for a treasury secretary," but she added that "democracy is critical to building and sustaining a strong economy." "The argument made by authoritarians and their defenders that chipping away at democracy is a fair or even necessary trade for economic gains is deeply flawed," she said. "Undercutting democracy undercuts a foundation of sustainable and inclusive growth." She pointed to a study suggesting that democratization increases gross domestic product per capita by around 20% in the long run. Yellen cited the insurrection on January 6, 2021, as a day when democracy came under threat as "rioters, spurred on by a lie, stormed the Capitol." Trump, who made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, has been charged with conspiring to overturn the election, among four criminal cases he is facing. He denies any wrongdoing. And though Yellen didn't specifically cite Trump's comments, he again undermined the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power this week when he refused to commit to accepting this year's presidential results in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Farther from home, Yellen cited other global threats to democracy such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Trump and those associated with him say they want to centralize the government’s powers within the Oval Office, such that he might subject people or companies that cross him to investigations, lawsuits and other penalties. That approach could undermine the rule of law that has enabled America's market-based economy to thrive. In her speech, Yellen pointed to China as a cautionary example and warned that its future growth is "far from certain." She said the absence of some democratic pillars will "continue to pose challenges as China navigates the transition to an advanced economy." Yellen's speech comes when there is speculation that if Trump regains the White House he may put political pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower its benchmark interest rate, which stands at a two-decade high of roughly 5.3%. Fed Chair Jerome Powell this week said gaining confidence to lower rates "will take longer than previously expected." "As chair of the Federal Reserve, I insisted on the Fed’s independence and transparency because I believe it matters for financial stability and economic growth," Yellen said in her speech. "Recent research has been consistent with my belief: It has shown that greater central bank independence is associated with greater price stability, which contributes significantly to long-term growth." A representative from the Trump campaign did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. Other leading economists and academics are challenging the right’s claims to the mantles of economic growth and liberty. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a friend of Yellen’s, last month published a book entitled The Road to Freedom. Stiglitz, in an interview, said Trump has preyed on people’s economic insecurities after decades of inequality and the erosion of the middle class. "The economic state is what creates the fertile field for these demagogues," Stiglitz said. "If they were feeling their incomes were going up rather than down, I don’t think they would find Trump attractive." In a paper released this week, Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said that businesses should be more concerned about the rule of law and democratic values. She argued that there need to be stronger nonpartisan business associations and that CEOs and executives need to be fully aware of how a move away from democracy could hurt their bottom lines. There is "indisputable evidence of the economic costs of democratic decline," she said. "These costs include stagnation, policy instability, cronyism, brain drain, and violence."

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.

Protests related to the Israel-Hamas war have boiled over on college campuses across the United States, some leading to clashes with police and confrontations between student groups. And despite the dangers, student journalists and their news organizations are leading the press coverage. VOA’s Robin Guess has the story. Camera: Keith Lane

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new york — Anti-war demonstrations ceased this week at a small number of U.S. universities after school leaders struck deals with pro-Palestinian protesters, fending off possible disruptions of final exams and graduation ceremonies. The agreements at schools including Brown, Northwestern and Rutgers universities stand out amid the chaotic scenes and 2,400-plus arrests on 46 campuses nationwide since April 17. Tent encampments and building takeovers have disrupted classes at some schools, including Columbia University and the University of California-Los Angeles. Deals included commitments by universities to review their investments in Israel or hear calls to stop doing business with the longtime U.S. ally. Many protester demands have zeroed in on links to the Israeli military as the war grinds on in Gaza. The agreements to even discuss divestment mark a major shift on an issue that has been controversial for years, with opponents of a long-running campaign to boycott Israel saying it veers into antisemitism. But while the colleges have made concessions around amnesty for protesters and funding for Middle Eastern studies, they have made no promises about changing their investments. "I think for some universities, it might be just a delaying tactic" to calm the protests, said Ralph Young, a history professor who studies American dissent at Temple University in Philadelphia. "The end of the semester is happening now. And maybe by the time the next semester begins, there is a cease-fire in Gaza." Some university boards may never vote on divesting from Israel, which can be a complicated process, Young said. And some state schools have said they lack the authority to do so. But Young said dialogue is a better tactic than arrests. Talking "at least gives the protesters the feeling that they're getting somewhere," he said. "Whether they are getting somewhere or not is another question." Israel has called the protests antisemitic; its critics say the country uses such allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters were caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — have called it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war. Administrators at the University of California at Riverside announced an agreement Friday with protesters to close their campus encampment. The deal included the formation of a task force to explore removing Riverside's endowment from the broader UC system's management and investing those funds "in a manner that will be financially and ethically sound for the university with consideration to the companies involved in arms manufacturing and delivery." The announcement marked an apparent split with the policy of the 10-campus UC system, which last week said it opposes "calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel." Demonstrators at Rutgers — where finals were paused because of the protests on its New Brunswick, New Jersey, campus — similarly packed up their tents Thursday afternoon. The state university agreed to establish an Arab Cultural Center and to not retaliate against any students involved in the camp. Protesters at Brown in Rhode Island agreed to dismantle their encampment on Tuesday. School officials said students could present arguments for divesting Brown's endowment from companies contributing to and profiting from the war in Gaza. In addition, Brown President Christina Paxson will ask an advisory committee to make a recommendation on divestment by September 30, which will be put before the school's governing corporation for a vote in October. Northwestern's Deering Meadow in suburban Chicago also fell silent after an agreement Monday. The deal curbed protest activity in return for reestablishing an advisory committee on university investments and other commitments. The arrangement drew dissent from both sides. Some pro-Palestinian protesters condemned it as a failure to stick to their original demands, while some supporters of Israel said it represented cowardly capitulation. Seven of 18 members subsequently resigned from a university committee that advises the administration on addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia and expressions of hatred on campus, saying they couldn't continue to serve "with antisemitism so present at Northwestern in public view for the past week." Michael Simon, the executive director of an organization for Jewish students, Northwestern Hillel, said he resigned after concluding that the committee could not achieve its goals. Faculty at Pomona College in California voted in favor of divesting from companies they said are funding Israel's war in Gaza, a group of faculty and students said Friday. The vote Thursday is not binding on the liberal arts school of nearly 1,800 students east of Los Angeles. But supporters said they hoped it would encourage the board to stop investing in these companies and start disclosing where it makes its investments. Meanwhile, arrests of demonstrators continued elsewhere. About a dozen protesters who refused police orders to leave an encampment at New York University were arrested early Friday, and about 30 more left voluntarily, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said. The school asked city police to intervene, he added. NYPD officers also cleared an encampment at The New School in Greenwich Village at the request of school administrators. No arrests were announced. Another 132 protesters were arrested when police broke up an encampment at the State University of New York at New Paltz starting late Thursday, authorities said. And nine were arrested at the University of Tennessee, including seven students who Chancellor Donde Plowman said would also be sanctioned under the school's code of conduct. The movement began April 17 at Columbia, where student protesters built an encampment to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war. Over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive after October 7, when Hamas militants entered Israel and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.

SAO PAULO — Heavy rains in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul killed 39 people, with 68 more missing, the state civil defense agency said Friday, as record floods devastated cities and forced thousands to leave their homes. It was the fourth such environmental disaster in a year, following floods in July, September and November 2023 that killed 75 people in total. The flooding statewide has surpassed that seen during a historic 1941 deluge, according to the Brazilian Geological Service. In some cities, water levels were at their highest since records began nearly 150 years ago, the agency said. On Thursday, a dam at a hydroelectric plant between the cities of Bento Goncalves and Cotipora partially collapsed and entire cities in the Taquari River valley, like Lajeado and Estrela, were completely overtaken by water. In the town of Feliz, 80 kilometers from the state capital, Porto Alegre, a massively swollen river swept away a bridge that connected it with the neighboring city of Linha Nova. Operators reported electricity, communications and water cuts across the state. More than 24,000 people had to leave their homes, according to the civil defense agency. Without internet, telephone service or electricity, residents struggled to provide updates or information to their relatives living in other states. Helicopters flew continually over the cities while stranded families with children awaited rescue on the rooftops. Isolete Neumann, 58, lives in the city of Lajeado in the Taquari River valley and told The Associated Press she has never before seen what she is seeing now. "People were making barricades in front of hospitals with sand and gravel. It felt like a horror movie," she said by phone. Some people in her region were so desperate, she added, that they threw themselves into the water currents. Neumann's neighborhood wasn't inundated but has no running water and she hasn't showered since Tuesday. She said she's collecting rainwater in a basin so she can cook. A clothing store she owns in the city's central area is flooded, she added. The downpour started Monday and is expected to last at least through Saturday, Marcelo Seluchi, chief meteorologist at the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters, told Brazil's public television network Friday. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva acknowledged the flood victims at a press conference on Friday alongside Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Brasilia. "The first words from Minister Fumio Kishida in the meeting we held were of solidarity with the people of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, who are victims by one of the largest floods we have ever known. Never before in the history of Brazil had there been such a quantity of rain in one single location," Lula said. Weather across South America is affected by the climate phenomenon El Niño, a periodic, naturally occurring event that warms surface waters in the Equatorial Pacific region. In Brazil, El Niño has historically caused droughts in the north and intense rainfall in the south. This year, the impacts of El Niño have been particularly dramatic, with a historic drought in the Amazon. Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently because of human-caused climate change. 

Marking World Press Freedom Day, a media watchdog report on global press freedom paints a discouraging picture of lack of political will to defend a free press. The number of writers jailed reached a five-year high as governments looked to silence critics. Massive protests on college campuses across the U.S. are giving journalism students on-the-job-training.

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.

Washington — On Saturday, March 2, at 2:20 a.m., Serhii Gadarzhi woke up to a drone approaching his apartment building in Odesa, Ukraine. He heard an explosion just outside his windows and rushed to his 2-year-old daughter's bedroom. She was there. He grabbed the child, wrapped her in a blanket and went to check on his wife and their 4-month-old son. "The door was open. There was nothing behind it — just emptiness. My Anichka is gone. My boy Timosha is gone," Gadarzhi relates on the Odesa Baptist YouTube channel. Their bodies were found in the rubble after almost 24 hours of searching. All seven floors had collapsed on top of his wife and the baby sleeping on her chest, Gadarzhi said. That Russian attack with Iranian-made drones killed 12 people, including five children and seven adults. "I want to say to Mr. James Michael Johnson: Dear brother, we have a war going on. A terrible war. And so many believers, brothers and sisters, are being killed. Little children are being killed. Help is very important to us. Especially military help because if there were a missile to shoot down that drone, the drone wouldn't have flown in our house," he says on the video. Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, had for months delayed bringing to the floor of the House a bill providing $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, including ammunition for its air defense systems. The bill was finally approved on April 20 despite resistance from some members of Johnson's own Republican Party. Just three days before the vote, Gadarzhi, a Ukrainian Baptist and son-in-law of a local Baptist pastor, told his story to Johnson in person. Gadarzhi told VOA that the speaker already knew about his family's tragedy. "One can see in his eyes that he was compassionate, that he wanted to support us and his response was very sincere," he said. That meeting followed eight months of behind-the-scenes efforts by Ukrainian Protestants and their allies in the United States to tell Republican members of Congress about the suffering of the faithful at the hands of the Russian forces in the occupied portions of Ukraine. Steven Moore, an Oklahoma native, was behind some of these efforts. He worked as a chief of staff in the House of Representatives to a leading Republican member for seven years, after which he lived in Ukraine for a year. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he was visiting his mother in Tulsa but was back in Ukraine on day five of the full-scale invasion. Moore founded the Ukraine Freedom Project NGO (UFP), which began delivering food and supplies to the front for the residents and Ukraine's armed forces. Through his work, he learned about abuses inflicted on Ukrainian civilians by the Russian occupying forces, but one story struck him. Victor, an Evangelical pastor from Lugansk, was evacuating a group of civilians, including a pregnant woman and a baby, when Russians stopped his car and took him to a basement. "They tortured him for 25 days, including one day when they were torturing him with an electrical Taser. And a Russian Orthodox priest was standing over him, trying to cast demons out of him because he was an Evangelical Christian. It blew my mind," Moore told VOA. He shared this story with a friend, Karl Ahlgren, a fellow Oklahoman and former chief of staff of a Republican congressman. "When the full-scale invasion started, Republicans in particular were pretty supportive of Ukraine, and then their support waned. We had to regroup and figure out what we could do to get the right message out to Republicans," said Ahlgren, who joined UFP as a vice president for public policy. Beginning in September 2023, Moore, Ahlgren and their Chief Operating Officer Anna Shvetsova met with about 100 members of Congress and their staff, telling them about the persecution of Ukrainian Protestants by Russians. UFP conducted a survey that showed 70% of Evangelical Christians who vote Republican are more likely to support Ukraine if they learn about Russia torturing and murdering people of their faith, Moore said. They were surprised to discover that most members of Congress knew nothing about it. "Of the people we met with, there were probably three or four who knew some of the things we were talking about," Ahlgren said. Moore said the group "had video of people talking about being tortured, and we would show these videos to members of Congress, to their staff, and they would tear up." Other organizations, including the advocacy group Razom for Ukraine, joined the effort. "I'm an American Baptist. I was shocked, in particular, that so many Baptist churches in occupied Ukraine have been harassed," said Melinda Haring, a senior adviser for Razom for Ukraine. "More than 26 pastors have been killed since the full-scale war, and 400 Baptist congregations have lost their premises or some of their property." She said that at the meetings with the members of Congress and their staffers, she and her colleagues provided statistics of damage caused by Russia to the Ukrainian Christians, told personal stories and prayed together. Some efforts specifically targeted Johnson, a Southern Baptist from Louisiana. "We sponsored a billboard with Mike Johnson's favorite Bible verse," Haring said. "It's a passage from the Book of Esther. Esther is before her uncle Mordecai, and she's afraid to see the king; if she goes and sees the king without his permission, she can be killed, and Mordecai says, 'You were chosen for a time like this.' "We learned that Mike Johnson believed he was chosen to be the speaker of the House for an important time. So, our billboard had a picture of a destroyed Baptist church in Berdiansk with that Bible quote." Razom placed six of the billboards in Louisiana, including one in front of Johnson's Cypress Baptist Church in Shreveport. Razom, UFP and other organizations cosponsored multiple trips by Ukrainian religious leaders to the United States and helped them to organize meetings with members of Congress. In November, 18 religious leaders and members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations visited the United States. In early February, dozens of representatives of Ukrainian churches attended Ukrainian Week in Washington, organized around the National Prayer Breakfast. Then, four of them met with Johnson. "The meeting with the speaker was very warm, and the conversation was constructive," said Anatoliy Kozachok, the senior bishop of the Ukrainian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith. He said they handed Johnson two letters urging him to support Ukraine, one from all Ukrainian Christians and one from the Protestants. The speaker told them he and his colleagues were working hard to resolve the issue. "We felt united as people with the same values. There was a desire to help and to find a solution to the issue of aid for Ukraine," Kozachok told VOA. Another meeting participant, Valeriy Antonyuk, head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, said the group discussed shared values with Johnson. "We Baptists have always defended everyone's right to practice their faith freely," he told VOA. The Ukrainian church leaders were far from the only ones bringing intense pressure on Johnson to defy much of his own party and allow the aid bill to come to a vote, and only Johnson knows how decisive their efforts were in his final decision. But with Ukrainian forces losing ground and desperately short of ammunition, the bill sailed through Congress on a vote of 311 to 112 and was signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24, clearing the way for the military assistance to begin flowing again.

Kano, Nigeria — Gunmen from criminal gangs killed 25 people when they raided four villages in northwestern Nigeria in reprisals over military offensives on their hideouts, a local security official said Friday. The attacks on Thursday took place in Katsina State, one of the regions in northwest Nigeria hit by armed gangs known locally as bandits who carry out mass kidnappings for ransom and looting raids on villages. Bandit militias stormed the villages of Unguwar Sarki, Gangara, Tafi and Kore in Sabuwa district late on Thursday, opening fire on residents, said Nasiru Babangida, Katsina state internal security commissioner. "Twenty-five people were killed in the attacks on the four communities, 19 of them in Unguwar Sarki village alone," Babangida told local radio. Several residents were injured while others were kidnapped by the criminals, he said. "Most of those killed were vigilantes who came out to confront the bandits." Many communities in northwest Nigeria have formed self-defense vigilante forces to fight off bandits in remote areas with little state presence, and the two sides are locked in a spiral of tit-for-tat killings and reprisals. The bandits raided the villages in response to ongoing military offensives against their camps in the area and in neighboring Kaduna state where they have suffered a large number of casualties, Babangida said. "The attacks were in retaliation for the aerial bombings of their camps in Katsina and Kaduna states that have killed more than 200 of them," he said. The gangs who maintain camps in vast forests straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states have made headlines for mass kidnappings of students from schools in recent years. Bandits have no ideological leaning and are motivated by financial gains but there has been concern from analysts and officials over their increasing alliance with jihadists waging a 15-year armed rebellion in the northeast of Nigeria.