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

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

A daytime Russian missile strike hit the main children's hospital in Kyiv Monday, as well as other cities across Ukraine, killing at least 36 civilians in one of the deadliest airstrikes in months. Deliberate attacks on civilians violates the Geneva Convention. We talk to Matthew Evangelista, professor of history and political science emeritus at Cor nell University. A Russian court sentenced a playwright and a theater director each to six years in prison on Monday for "justifying terrorism," concluding a trial that rights campaigners had said demonstrated Russia's intolerance of artistic freedom

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.

Nairobi, Kenya — Some Kenyan church leaders are calling on President William Ruto to dissolve his Cabinet as protests of his administration continue. Ruto withdrew proposed tax increases that set off the protests, but many Kenyans blame Ruto's Cabinet for the country's debt and economic problems. The National Council of Churches of Kenya, which represents some of the country’s biggest churches and religious organizations, has added its voice to protests, saying Ruto’s administration is marred by bad governance and allegations of corruption. Council of Churches general secretary, Reverend Chris Kinyanjui called for Ruto to fire his ministers.  "The president has himself said that his Cabinet is incompetent," Kinyanjui  said. "Kenyans are saying he has an incompetent Cabinet, and in addition, many members of his Cabinet are also corrupt.” Ruto’s government recently proposed tax increases to offset the country’s debt. The proposals sparked protests which killed at least 40 people and injured more than 380. Ruto withdrew the tax hikes after protesters stormed the parliament buildings, forcing legislators to flee. On Friday, Ruto announced new measures to reduce government expenditures, including merging key ministries and state corporations, banning the purchase of government vehicles for 12 months, and suspending nonessential travel by state and public officers. Kenyan political commentator Dismas Mokua noted that none of Ruto’s Cabinet members have been convicted on corruption charges and told VOA that Ruto will be reluctant to dismiss them. "If the courts have not pronounced one guilty of anything, the probability of President Ruto firing somebody from the Cabinet merely on the account of people demanding he should be fired is almost zero," Mokua said. "But the key consideration here is really the cost of living. If he is able to turn around the economy and ensure the public debt is not a burden on the majority of Kenyans ... then people will settle down and they will wait for 2027."  Some protesters are also demanding the formation of a new, independent electoral commission. Mokua said the demands of the Kenyan protests – which have been dubbed Generation Z protests for the age of their organizers — are far reaching. "The pressure which is going to be applied by Gen Z is not going to be limited to the national government. It will go down to county governments, it will go down to the members of the national assembly and it will go down to churches," Mokua said. The secretary-general of Kenya's ruling United Democratic Alliance, Cleophas Malala, said the party will start a program of government outreach and engagement.  He said political leaders must not come to the people only when they want their votes.  Some experts blame the recent protests on a lack of space for Kenyans to air their grievances, and the government's failure to engage with the public on laws being considered.  The constitution requires citizens' input before a law is passed, something that successive Kenyan administrations have made little effort to obtain.   

President Joe Biden welcomes members of the newly enlarged NATO alliance this week for a summit aimed at planning for Ukraine’s future defense — and, some observers say, “Trump-proofing” it if Biden loses the November poll amid growing doubts over his future. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from the White House.

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.

LIMA, Peru — The preserved body of an American mountaineer — who disappeared 22 years ago while scaling a snowy peak in Peru — has been found after being exposed by climate change-induced ice melt, police said Monday. William Stampfl was reported missing in June 2002, aged 59, when an avalanche buried his climbing party on the mountain Huascaran, which stands more than 6,700 meters (22,000 feet) high. Search and rescue efforts were fruitless. Peruvian police said his remains were finally exposed by ice melt on the Cordillera Blanca range of the Andes. Stampfl's body, as well as his clothes, harness and boots had been well-preserved by the cold, according to images distributed by the police. His passport was found among his possessions in good condition, allowing police to identify the body. The mountains of northeastern Peru, home to snowy peaks such as Huascaran and Cashan, are a favorite with mountaineers from around the world. In May, the body of an Israeli hiker was found there nearly a month after he disappeared. And last month, an experienced Italian mountaineer was found dead after he fell while trying to scale another Andean peak.

death valley, california — A searing heat wave gripped large parts of the United States on Monday, with record daily high temperatures in Oregon suspected to have caused four deaths in the Portland area following a motorcyclist's death in dangerous heat over the weekend in Death Valley, California. More than 146 million people around the U.S. were under heat alerts Monday, especially in the Western states. California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Idaho on Monday were under an excessive heat warning, the National Weather Service’s highest alert, while parts of the East Coast as well as Alabama and Mississippi were under heat advisories. The early U.S. heat wave came as the global temperature in June reached record warmth for the 13th straight month and marked the 12th straight month that the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, the European climate service Copernicus said. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend and are expected to keep doing so into the week. In Oregon’s Multnomah County, home to Portland, the medical examiner is investigating four suspected heat-related deaths recorded Friday, Saturday and Sunday, officials said. Three of the deaths involved county residents who were 64, 75 and 84 years old, county officials said in an email. Heat also was suspected in the death of a 33-year-old man transported to a Portland hospital from outside the county. Portland broke daily record temperatures Friday, Saturday and Sunday and was on track to do so again on Monday with a forecast high of 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9 Celsius), National Weather Service meteorologist Hannah Chandler-Cooley said. High temperatures were expected in Portland through Tuesday evening. “We are looking at the potential for breaking more records,” she said. The temperatures aren’t expected to reach as high as they did during a similar heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, which killed an estimated 600 people across Oregon, Washington and western Canada. But the duration could be problematic because many homes in the region lack air conditioning. Round-the-clock hot weather keeps people from cooling off sufficiently at night, and the issue is compounded in urban areas where concrete and pavement store heat. Heat illness and injury are cumulative and can build over the course of a day or days, officials warn. In San Jose, California, a homeless man died last week from apparent heat-related causes, Mayor Matt Mahan reported on the social platform X, calling it “an avoidable tragedy.” San Jose police said the man's body had no obvious signs of foul play. In eastern California's sizzling desert, a high temperature of 128 F (53.3 C) was recorded Saturday and Sunday at Death Valley National Park, where a visitor, who was not identified, died Saturday from heat exposure. Another person was hospitalized, officials said. They were among six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area in scorching weather, the park said in a statement. The other four were treated at the scene. Emergency medical helicopters were unable to respond because the aircraft cannot generally fly safely over 120 F (48.8 C), officials said. More extreme highs are in the near-term forecast, with a high of around 127 F (52.7 C) expected in Death Valley on Monday, and possibly 130 F (54.4 C) around midweek. The largest national park outside Alaska, Death Valley is considered one of the most extreme environments in the world and is among the hottest during the summer. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021. “While this is a very exciting time to experience potential world-record-setting temperatures in Death Valley, we encourage visitors to choose their activities carefully, avoiding prolonged periods of time outside an air-conditioned vehicle or building when temperatures are this high,” park Superintendent Mike Reynolds said. Across the desert in Nevada, Las Vegas set a record high of 120 F (48.8 C) Sunday and was forecast to hit a record high of 115 F (46.1 C) Monday. The National Weather Service forecast a high of 117 F (47.2 C) in Phoenix. People flocked Monday to the beaches around Lake Tahoe, especially Sand Harbor State Park, where the record high of 92 (33.3) set Sunday smashed the old record of 88 (31.1 ) set in 2014. For the fifth consecutive day, Sand Harbor closed its gates within 90 minutes of opening at 8 a.m. because it had reached capacity. “It’s definitely hotter than we are used to,” Nevada State Parks spokesperson Tyler Kerver said.

pentagon — The Pentagon says it plans to re-anchor a temporary pier to the Gaza coast that the U.S. military built to deliver aid to civilians, after detaching it late last month because of rough seas. “It's tentatively scheduled to be re-anchored this week,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters Monday. The U.S. announced that the floating pier, known as Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS), had been moved to the Israeli port at Ashdod on June 28 to keep it protected from weather damage. At the time, officials said there was a chance that it would not be reattached. More than 8,800 metric tons of aid have been brought into Gaza since pier operations began, according to the U.S. The pier allowed aid to enter Gaza via a sea route from Cyprus, a delivery method that officials deemed a “temporary” fix as land routes to get aid into Gaza stalled, with long backups of vehicles at Israeli inspection points. The arrangement was part of an effort to boost what humanitarian organizations said was a vastly insufficient amount of aid for Palestinian civilians. Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, had prevented the aid from leaving the Gaza beach and making it to civilians in need, but Ryder said the World Food Program had been able to distribute a “significant amount of that aid” to its warehouses in recent days. Once reattached, the pier could be used to deliver additional aid still in Cyprus to the Gaza beach, Ryder told reporters. The late-June pier detachment was not the first time the temporary pier had been taken offline because of rough seas. Following its completion in mid-May, the pier operated for just a few days before it was damaged by stormy weather in late May. That damage stopped operations until June 8. U.S. Central Command again detached the pier in late June to prevent expected rough seas from causing fresh damage to it.

washington — The United States said Monday that it did not expect policy changes from Iran after voters elected reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, and downplayed chances to resume dialogue. "We have no expectation that this election will lead to a fundamental change in Iran's direction or its policies," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters. Miller said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was expected to call the shots in Iran, an adversary of the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution. "Obviously, if the new president had the authority to make steps to curtail Iran's nuclear program, to stop funding terrorism, to stop destabilizing activities in the region, those would be steps that we would welcome," Miller said. "But needless to say, we don't have any expectation that that's what's likely to ensue." Asked if the United States was at least willing to reopen diplomacy with Iran after Pezeshkian's election, Miller said: "We have always said that diplomacy is the most effective way to achieve an effective, sustainable solution with regard to Iran's nuclear program." But at the White House, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, asked if the United States was ready to resume nuclear talks with Iran, said emphatically, "No." "We'll see what this guy wants to get done, but we are not expecting any changes in Iranian behavior," Kirby said. President Joe Biden took office in 2021 with hopes of returning to a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that was negotiated under former President Barack Obama and ended by his successor, Donald Trump, who imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran. But talks, negotiated through the European Union, broke down in part over a dispute about the extent to which the United States would remove sanctions on Iran. Relations have deteriorated further since the October 7 attack on U.S. ally Israel by Hamas, which receives support from Iran.

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.

Italy is trying a new development-focused approach to preventing migrants from trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa. For VOA, Henry Wilkins reports from the Italian island of Lampedusa, where residents are welcoming the measure after thousands arrived there in a single week last year.

london — At first glance, elections in France and Britain were a triumph for leftists and reformers over authoritarians and the right. Even Iran — where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all matters of state — elected Masoud Pezeshkian, a lawmaker long associated with the reformist movement. In France, a leftist coalition beat the far right into third place in legislative elections. The U.K.'s center-left Labour Party swept back to power in a landslide after 14 years of Conservative rule. Iranian voters, offered a limited choice in a circumscribed presidential election, opted for the more moderate of two candidates to replace the late hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi. But with voters in many countries still divided and disillusioned against a backdrop of economic gloom, analysts say the march of the right may only have been slowed, not halted. “This is a crisis delayed, not averted,” said Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman of the outcome in France, where voters repudiated the far-right National Rally — but also turned their ire on centrist President Emmanuel Macron, who called the surprise election. Macron’s centrist grouping ended in second place after Sunday’s second round of voting, ahead of the far-right National Rally. The outcome was a major disappointment for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which led after the first round on June 30. But with no political bloc holding a majority and no easy path to a durable government, it leaves France in turmoil at a time of European and global instability. “It’s not a good situation for France, for Europe or indeed NATO,” said Rahman, Eurasia Group’s managing director on Europe. “France is a G-7 member, a permanent [U.N.] Security Council member. … Anything that weakens Emmanuel Macron, anything that forces him to pay more attention to domestic affairs ... is of course going to subtract from his own influence, and also France’s influence, in the world.” In contrast, Britain’s new government is vowing to re-engage with the world after years that saw the U.K. sidelined and distracted by its exit from the European Union. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a huge majority in Thursday’s election, taking 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, who had governed since 2010, were reduced to 121 seats, the worst result in the party’s 190-year history. Labour will be able to implement its policies, but the picture is more unstable than that majority suggests. Labour’s victory was built on shifting sands: anger at the Conservatives, tactical voting to kick them out and an insurgent party on the right, Reform U.K., that ate into Conservative support. Reform won only five seats but took almost 14% of votes. Its leader, Nigel Farage, says his plan is to take over the role of true opposition to the Labour government from the diminished and demoralized Conservatives before the next election, which must be held by 2029. Europe in general is trying to deal with gradual loss of confidence on the part of the electorate in the government's ability to deal with globalization and the winners and losers that resulted, said Robin Niblett, former director of the Chatham House think-tank. “We’re just in a very, very bumpy period of domestic politics. So, I don’t think it’s the return of the left either,” he said. "We’re in a very unstable and risky period, but one in which I’d say the parties of moderation still have the whip hand if they can be creative.” Meanwhile, Le Pen and her party in France “may bide their time and just wait,” said Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London. “Of course it is a setback for National Rally, but they can say, ‘We were defeated because all the other parties ganged up against us … without that funny tactical voting we would have prevailed,’” he said. “In particular if the situation gets messy, which is a possibility, they will bide their time. And in three years’ time, you’ve got the presidential election and Le Pen would be in a strong position to win.” In Iran, which held a presidential election after a May helicopter crash killed Raisi, two rounds of voting saw the country elect Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker. He has been associated with a movement that aims to change the country’s Shiite theocracy from the inside while seeking better relations with the West – including Iran’s arch enemy, the United States. The first round of Iran’s election saw the lowest turnout since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The theocracy selected the candidates and no internationally recognized monitors watched the vote. Iranians – and international watchers – hoping for major change may be disappointed. Pezeshkian has firmly stated he believes in Khamenei having the final say on all matters of state, and has honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States. Pezeshkian “faces extensive restraints on his authority by Khamenei and his top aides and allies, all of whom are hardline conservatives,” the New York-based Soufan Center said in an analysis Monday. “Khamenei issued a call for unity and continuity after the results were declared, advising the president-elect to continue the path set by Raisi – an indirect warning to Pezeshkian not to push the limits on his authority,” the analysis reads. Underlying elections in many countries is an anti-politics mood in which anger toward incumbent governments remains strong. Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said that around the world, voters hammered by soaring inflation and a cost-of-living squeeze have “expressed a great deal of discontent with the performance of government.” “Ideology is systematically overrated by those whose job it is to explain elections,” he said. “A lot of the time what you see with voting is what Ronald Reagan correctly identified: ‘Are you better off now than you are four years ago?’ If the answer is ‘no,’ do you stop and think through the various ideological aspects of why that might be? No, you don’t. You just kick out whoever is in charge.’’