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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Majorie Edoi sells food from a stand in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince -- or she used to, until a conflict with armed gangs cut off the city from suppliers, paralyzed trade routes and pushed the Caribbean country to its highest levels of hunger on record. The 30-year-old mother of three now sells food out of one of the many makeshift camps for displaced people set up across the city's schools. But with goods harder to come by, opportunities to provide for her young children are shrinking fast. "We can't buy anything. We can't eat. We can't drink," she said. "I'd like there to be a legitimate government to establish security so we can move around and sell goods, so the children can go to school." Some 5 million people in Haiti, nearly half its population, are struggling to feed themselves due to the conflict, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international benchmark used to assess hunger. Since the 2021 assassination of Haiti's last president, armed gangs have expanded their power and influence, taking over most of the capital and expanding to nearby farmlands. Their land grabs have brought lootings, arson, mass rapes and indiscriminate killings. In June, the first contingent of a long-delayed U.N.-backed force of mostly African troops arrived in Haiti to bolster its under-resourced security services, and Kenyan police began patrolling the capital. Residents have responded with cautious optimism, though it remains unclear when the majority of the force will arrive. For mothers like Edoi and Mirriam Auge, 45, change cannot come fast enough. "We can't do anything -- there's no money, no trade," said Auge, who was forced out of her home three months ago. Since then, she has been sharing a chair to sleep on with her two daughters and five others in a makeshift school-shelter crammed with tents. "We lost everything in our homes," she said. "I cried while everyone was sleeping." Unable to work, the families depend on food rations and hygiene kits brought in by non-governmental organizations, whose delivery drivers brave stray bullets along Port-au-Prince's ever-changing battle lines. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is a major supplier of these meals. Working with farms and kitchens staffed largely by women, it helps deliver food from four central kitchens to the camps. "It's tricky," said WFP Haiti director Jean-Martin Bauer. "There might be a shooting near one of the locations we distribute through, so you might have to cancel and leave people without a meal that day. These are the calls we need to make." WFP has looked to shorten its supply chains, sourcing food such as sorghum grains and callaloo - a leafy green popular in the Caribbean -- from nearby farms rather than risking longer transport by boat or truck via gang-controlled roads and shuttered ports. Nonetheless, Bauer said, the WFP did not have enough food in stock to meet its distribution plan. He pointed to a 2024 U.N.-wide humanitarian fund for Haiti that is over $500 million below target. Rice import In a community action center where WFP meals are prepared, workers dish out rice and vegetables into rows of polystyrene containers that will later be distributed to a school camp. The food crisis has been a long time coming to Haiti's 11 million people. In the 1980s, policies under a U.S. export program followed by trade liberalization encouraged by multilateral lenders saw import tariffs slashed and U.S. rice flood the market, while local producers of the country's staple were pushed out of their jobs. Once a self-sufficient rice producer, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country now imports some 80% of its rice from the richest. Today, farmers in the Artibonite, Haiti's breadbasket, must contend with shootings, theft, racketeering and extortion by armed gangs, U.N. agencies say. They have also reported that Madan Sara, the tradeswomen who traditionally bring fruit and vegetables from farms to markets across the country, are often kidnapped and raped. Soaring costs Rita Losandieu, 53, looks after her two granddaughters, ages 4 and 6, in a small, bare-brick house built on a dusty slope. Her daughter works in the neighboring Dominican Republic -- which built a wall to thwart migration and last year deported over 200,000 Haitians. "To buy something to eat, you need a lot of money. It's very difficult," she said. Her two sons work odd jobs to help make ends meet. For many children in Haiti, there are few options to obtain food. Desperation leads many to join gangs, while girls end up trapped in prostitution. "If you are displaced or your family doesn't have a place to sleep, you may need to join armed groups just to cover your needs," said Save the Children Haiti food adviser Jules Roberto. Soaring food prices have also fueled the crisis. Fresh fish on the island nation sold for 60% more in March than a year ago, according to Haiti's IHSI statistics agency, while cooking oil and rice both soared 50%. "We need to have a security response force but also a robust humanitarian response," Bauer said. "Haiti will never be at peace as long as half its citizens are starving."

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known active termite hills. Some of the mounds near the Buffels River in Namaqualand were estimated by radiocarbon dating to be 34,000 years old, according to the researchers from Stellenbosch University. "We knew they were old, but not that old," said Michele Francis, senior lecturer in the university's department of soil science who led the study. Her paper was published in May. Francis said the mounds existed while saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths roamed other parts of the Earth and large swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They predate some of the earliest cave paintings in Europe. Some fossilized termite mounds have been discovered dating back millions of years. The oldest inhabited mounds before this study were found in Brazil and are around 4,000 years old. They are visible from space. Francis said the Namaqualand mounds are a termite version of an "apartment complex" and the evidence shows they have been consistently inhabited by termite colonies. Termite mounds are a famous feature of the Namaqualand landscape, but no one suspected their age until samples of them were taken to experts in Hungary for radiocarbon dating. "People don't know that these are special, ancient landscapes that are preserved there," Francis said. Some of the biggest mounds — known locally as "heuweltjies," which means little hills in the Afrikaans language — measure around 30 meters across. The termite nests are as deep as 3 meters underground. Researchers needed to carefully excavate parts of the mounds to take samples, and the termites went into "emergency mode" and started filling in the holes, Francis said. The team fully reconstructed the mounds to keep the termites safe from predators like aardvarks. Francis said the project was more than just a fascinating look at ancient structures. It also offered a peek into a prehistoric climate that showed Namaqualand was a much wetter place when the mounds were formed. The southern harvester termites are experts at capturing and storing carbon by collecting twigs and other dead wood and putting it back deep into the soil. That has benefits in offsetting climate change by reducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. It's also good for the soil. Masses of wildflowers bloom on top of the termite mounds in a region that receives little rain. Francis called for more research on termite mounds given the lessons they offer on climate change, sustaining ecosystems and maybe even for improving agricultural practices. "We will do well to study what the termites have done in the mounds. They were thought to be very boring," she said.

Trollstigen, Norway — Far from her home in the tourist hotspot of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Cati Padilla is one of the growing number of travelers escaping heatwaves for cooler holidays in Nordic countries. Countries like Norway and Sweden in northern Europe are now promoting "coolcations" to attract visitors to their temperate climates. Why leave the Canaries in summer? "To escape the heat," said Padilla while on holiday with her friends. "Norway attracted our attention a long time ago because of the green landscape, the mountains and the ice," added the civil servant in her fifties on the so-called "troll path," a serpentine mountain route towards the fjords. In 2023, foreign overnight stays rose by 22% in Norway and 11% in Sweden according to official statistics, mainly driven by the end of COVIS-related restrictions in 2022 and a slump in Scandinavian currencies. But a survey in Germany for tourist organization Visit Sweden also found that two out of five people plan to change their travel habits due to the southern European heat, opting for different seasons or cooler destinations. "Coolcation is not just about the weather," said Susanne Andersson, head of Visit Sweden. "It's about traveling to places where it's a little bit cooler both in the weather but also cooler in the sense of not that many people." For some people, gone are the overcrowded Mediterranean beaches and heatwaves causing forest fires and the partial closure of the Acropolis in the Greek capital in June. Nowadays, many prefer to take a dip in a lake or a fjord, or fill their lungs with fresh air on a mountain hike in relative isolation. Killer summer When British tourist Pam disembarked from a cruise ship on the majestic Geiranger Fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site, she expected to find cool weather. But she found herself in sandals and a T-shirt, rather than the raincoat and woollen clothes she packed. "It's been wonderful," said the resident of Lichfield city in west-central England. "It's still not that hot that you can't walk." "It just does not interest me now to sit on a sunbed, read a book, get up, go and have something to eat and come back to the sunbed. I'd rather visit places, find the history and just look at beautiful places." The frequency and intensity of extreme heat events and the duration of heatwaves have almost certainly increased since 1950 and will continue to do so with global warming, according to UN climate experts. By 2050, half of Europe’s population could face high or very high risk heat stress in summer, with heat-related deaths potentially doubling or tripling with temperature rises of between 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to 3C. "Spain is a no. Greece is a no," said 74-year-old French pensioner Gerard Grollier, as he disembarked from a coach in Geiranger village in western Norway. Why Norway? "The climate is much more pleasant," explained his daughter, Virginie, a financial adviser. "We have not protected our planet, and now that is impacting tourism." Submerged villages The capital of Lapland in northern Finland, Rovaniemi, recorded a 29% jump in overnight stays last year. "You can feel the 'coolcation' here, the trend started years ago but it has increased with the hot summers in southern and central Europe," said Sanna Karkkainen, who promotes tourism in Rovaniemi. The coolcation influx has its issues, including a surge in Airbnb properties and unruly tourists. "Our main concern is to have too many people at the same time," emphasised Jan Ove Tryggestad, former mayor of a Norwegian village where a cruise ship carrying 6,000 passengers and 2,000 crew members had just docked. "It's a small village here. In Hellesylt, there are between 280 to 300 winter inhabitants. Obviously it's a bit of a culture shock when suddenly a small town, by European standards, turns up," he added. "But we adapt."

PAARL, South Africa — Freya, a 6-month-old lion cub rescued from the wildlife trade in Lebanon, poked a curious nose out of her transport crate and sniffed the air. Satisfied, she took her first cautious steps in her new forever home in a sanctuary in South Africa. Freya's relocation to the Drakenstein Lion Park is only a partial success story. She will never live as a lion should in the wild. She has been given lifetime sanctuary at Drakenstein, which has taken in other lions from zoos and circuses in France, Chile, Romania and elsewhere. Some have terrible backstories of abuse, noted on placards at the sanctuary: Ares was blind and neglected when he was rescued. Brutus had been beaten hard enough to break his jaw. But as Freya settles in at Drakenstein, animal welfare groups have again drawn attention to South Africa's contradictory position when it comes to the species that often symbolizes African wildlife. South Africa, with an admirable reputation for conservation and ethical sanctuaries like Drakenstein, also has a thriving captive lion business where the big cats are bred for petting and other encounters but also for killing in "canned hunting" experiences or for the lion bone trade. South Africa has special permission through the endangered plant and animal trade treaty CITES to export lion bones and skeletons, mostly to Southeast Asia to be used in traditional medicines. Canned hunting, where lions are chased down and shot in enclosures with no chance of a fair chase or escape, is also legal. Animal welfare groups have pushed for the business of breeding lions in captivity to end. The South African government announced recently it plans to close down the industry and it's expected to take two to three years if there are no legal challenges. It has been a stain on South Africa's conservation brand, said Audrey Delsink, the Africa wildlife director for Humane Society International, which was involved in Freya's relocation. She said it was important for people to realize that the cute cubs used for petting encounters at some South African parks — but not at Drakenstein — end up being big lions shipped off to be killed. "They've been pulled from their mothers, they've been hand-raised for you to take selfies with and enjoy them, and then eventually the same lions are going to be shot for trophies in a camp from which they cannot escape, and then end up as a bag of bones," Delsink said. There are more than 300 captive lion facilities in South Africa, with more than 7,000 lions. That is double the number of lions in the South African wild. Campaigners against the business say it should be made more clear to visitors that the vast majority of South Africa's lions live in cages in the world's largest captive lion industry. "We cannot pull the wool over tourists' eyes anymore," Delsink said. As for Freya, her rescuers hope that she will eventually bond and live in the same enclosure as young male cub Pi, who they believe is her brother and was brought from Lebanon in April. Pi was illegally trafficked and owned by a man who used him to promote his TikTok account, said Jason Mier, director of Animals Lebanon, which rescued Pi and Freya. Pi often had his mouth taped shut when used for videos or selfies and was locked in a small cage at night. He was kept as a status symbol for his owner "to be able to show off I'm powerful, I have money, look at me," Mier said. Freya and Pi are the latest of nearly two dozen big cats rescued from various situations by Animals Lebanon. Some have come to Drakenstein, which doesn't allow cub petting or any close encounters, but does welcome visitors to see the lions and learn about them. Freya and Pi wouldn't survive if released in the wild, so the sanctuary is the best option for them. Those involved in Pi's rescue said they remember watching the cub experience grass under his paws for the first time at Drakenstein, even if it was in the enclosure he and Freya will likely inhabit for the rest of their lives.

WASHINGTON — Scientists have revealed fossils of a giant salamanderlike beast with sharp fangs that ruled waters before the first dinosaurs arrived. The predator, which was larger than a person, likely used its wide, flat head and front teeth to suck in and chomp unsuspecting prey, researchers said. Its skull was about 60 centimeters (2 feet) long. "It's acting like an aggressive stapler," said Michael Coates, a biologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the work. Fossil remnants of four creatures collected about a decade ago were analyzed, including a partial skull and backbone. The findings on Gaiasia jennyae were published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The creature existed some 40 million years before dinosaurs evolved. Researchers have long examined such ancient predators to uncover the origins of tetrapods: four-legged animals that clambered onto land with fingers instead of fins and evolved to amphibians, birds and mammals including humans. Most early tetrapod fossils hail from hot, prehistoric coal swamps along the equator in what's now North America and Europe. But these latest remnants, dating back to about 280 million years ago, were found in modern-day Namibia, an area in Africa that was once encrusted with glaciers and ice. That means tetrapods may have thrived in colder climates earlier than scientists expected, prompting more questions about how and when they took over the Earth. "The early story of the first tetrapods is much more complex than we thought," said co-author Claudia Marsicano at the University of Buenos Aires, who was part of the research. The creature's name comes from the Gai-As rock formation in Namibia where the fossils were found and for the late paleontologist Jennifer Clack, who studied how tetrapods evolved.

PHOENIX, Arizona — Ron Falk lost his right leg, had extensive skin grafting on the left one and is still recovering a year after collapsing on the searing asphalt outside a Phoenix convenience store where he stopped for a cold soda during a heat wave. Now using a wheelchair, the 62-year-old lost his job and his home. He’s recovering at a medical respite center for patients with no other place to go; there he gets physical therapy and treatment for a bacterial infection in what remains of his right leg, which is too swollen to use the prosthesis he’d hoped would help him walk again. “If you don’t get somewhere to cool down, the heat will affect you,” said Falk, who lost consciousness due to heat stroke. “Then you won’t know what’s happening, like in my case.” Sizzling sidewalks and unshaded playgrounds pose risks for surface burns as air temperatures reach new summertime highs in Southwest U.S. cities such as Phoenix, which just recorded its hottest June on record. The average daytime high was 43 degrees Celsius (109.5 degrees Fahrenheit), without a single 24-hour high below 37.7 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit). Young children, older adults and homeless people are especially at risk for contact burns, which can occur in seconds when skin touches a surface of 82 C (180 F). Since the beginning of June, 50 people have been hospitalized with such burns, and four have died at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, which operates the Southwest’s largest burn center, serving patients from six states, according to its director, Dr. Kevin Foster. About 80% were injured in metro Phoenix. Last year, the center admitted 136 patients for surface burns from June through August, up from 85 during the same period in 2022, Foster said. Fourteen died. One out of five were homeless. “Last year’s record heat wave brought an alarming number of patients with life-threatening burns,” Foster said of a 31-day period with temperatures at or above 43 C (110 F) during Phoenix’s hottest summer. In Las Vegas, which regularly sees summertime highs in the triple digits, 22 people were hospitalized in June alone at the University Medical Center’s Lions Burn Care Center, said spokesperson Scott Kerbs. That's nearly half as many as the 46 hospitalized during all three summer months last year. As in Phoenix, the desert sun punishes Las Vegas for hours every day, frying outdoor surfaces such as asphalt, concrete and metal doors on cars and playground equipment such as swings and monkey bars. Contact with pavement Surface burn victims often include children injured walking barefoot on concrete or touching hot surfaces, adults who collapsed on a sidewalk while intoxicated, and older people who fell on the pavement due to heat stroke or another medical emergency. Some don’t survive. Thermal injuries were among the main or contributing causes of last year’s 645 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix. One victim was an 82-year-old woman with dementia and heart disease admitted to a suburban Phoenix hospital after being found on the scorching pavement on an August day that hit 41.1 C (106 F). With a body temperature of 40.5 C (105 F), the woman was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns on her back and right side, covering 8% of her body. She died three days later. Many surface burn patients also suffered potentially fatal heat stroke. Valleywise hospital’s emergency department recently adopted a new protocol for all heat stroke victims: submerging patients in a bag of slushy ice to quickly bring down body temperature. Recovery for those with skin burns was often lengthy, with patients undergoing multiple skin grafts and other surgeries, followed by months of recovery in skilled nursing or rehabilitation facilities. Bob Woolley, 71, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his hands, arms, leg and torso after he stumbled onto the broiling backyard rock garden at his Phoenix home while wearing only swim trunks and a tank top. “The ordeal was extremely painful; it was almost unbearable,” said Woolley, who was hospitalized at the Valleywise burn center for several months. He said he considers himself “95% recovered” after extensive skin grafts and physical therapy and has resumed some former activities such as swimming and motorcycle riding.   Children among the burned Some burn victims in Phoenix and Las Vegas were children. “In many cases, this involves toddlers walking or crawling onto hot surfaces,” Kerbs said of those hospitalized at the Las Vegas center. Foster said about 20% of the hospitalized and outpatient skin-burn victims seen at the Phoenix center are children. Small children aren’t fully aware of the harm a sizzling metal door handle or a scorching sidewalk can cause. “Because they’re playing, they don’t pay attention,” said urban climatologist Ariane Middel, an assistant professor at Arizona State University who directs the SHaDE Lab, a research team that studies the effects of urban heat. “They may not even notice that it’s hot.” In measuring surface temperatures of playground equipment, the team found that in 37.7-degree C (100 F) weather without shade, a slide can heat up to 71.1 C (160 F), but a covering can bring that down to 43.8 C (111 F). A rubber ground cover can hit as high as 86.6 C (188 F), a handrail can heat up to 48.8 C (120 F) and concrete can reach 55.5 C (132 F). Many metro Phoenix parks have covered picnic tables and plastic fabric stretched over play equipment, keeping metal or plastic surfaces up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. But plenty do not, Middel said. She said cooler wood chips are better underfoot than rubber mats, which were designed to protect kids from head injuries but soak up heat in the broiling sun. Like rubber, artificial turf gets hotter than asphalt. “We need to think about alternative surface types, because most surfaces we use for our infrastructure are heat sponges," Middel said. Pets in danger, too Hot concrete and asphalt also pose burn risks for pets. Veterinarians recommend dogs wear booties to protect their paws during outdoor walks in summer or keeping them on cooler grassy areas. Owners are also advised to make sure their pets drink plenty of water and don’t get overheated. Phoenix bans dogs from the city’s popular hiking trails on days the National Weather Service issues an excessive heat warning. Recovering at Phoenix's Circle the City, a respite care facility he was sent to after being released from Valleywise's burn unit, Falk said he never imagined the Phoenix heat could cause him to collapse on the broiling asphalt in his shorts and T-shirt. Because he wasn't carrying identification or a phone, no one knew where he was for months. He has a long road ahead but still hopes to regain part of his old life, working for a concessionaire for entertainment events. “I kind of went into a downward spiral,” Falk said. “I finally woke up and said, ’Hey, wait, I lost a leg.' But that doesn’t mean you’re useless.”

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paris — Photos of blood-red hands on a Holocaust memorial. Caskets at the Eiffel Tower. A fake French military recruitment drive calling for soldiers in Ukraine, and major French news sites improbably registered in an obscure Pacific territory, population 15,000. All are part of disinformation campaigns orchestrated out of Russia and targeting France, according to French officials and cybersecurity experts in Europe and the United States. France's legislative elections and the Paris Olympics sent them into overdrive. More than a dozen reports issued in the past year point to an intensifying effort from Russia to undermine France, particularly the upcoming Games, and President Emmanuel Macron, who is one of Ukraine's most vocal supporters in Europe. The Russian campaigns sowing anti-French disinformation began online in early summer 2023, but first became tangible in October, when more than 1,000 bots linked to Russia relayed photos of graffitied Stars of David in Paris and its suburbs. A French intelligence report said the Russian intelligence agency FSB ordered the tagging, as well as subsequent vandalism of a memorial to those who helped rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Photos from each event were amplified on social media by fake accounts linked to the Russian disinformation site RRN, according to cybersecurity experts. Russia denies any such campaigns. The French intelligence report says RRN is part of a larger operation orchestrated by Sergei Kiriyenko, a ranking Kremlin official. "You have to see this as an ecosystem," said a French military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal information about the Russian effort. "It's a hybrid strategy." The tags and the vandalism had no direct link to Russia's war in Ukraine, but they provoked a strong reaction from the French political class, with denunciations in the legislature and public debate. Antisemitic attacks are on the rise in France, and the war in Gaza has proven divisive. The Stars of David could be interpreted either as support for Israel or as opposition. The effect was to sow division and unease. French Jews in particular have found themselves unwittingly thrust into the political fray despite, at just 500,000 people, making up a small proportion of the French population. In March, just after Macron discussed the possibility of mobilizing the French military in Ukraine, a fake recruitment drive went up for the French army in Ukraine, spawning a series of posts in Russian- and French-language Telegram channels that got picked up in Russian and Belarusian media, according to a separate French government report seen by The Associated Press. On June 1, caskets appeared outside the Eiffel Tower, bearing the inscription "French soldiers in Ukraine." The larger disinformation efforts show little traction in France, but the Russian audience may have been the real target, officials said, by showing that Russia's war in Ukraine is, as Putin has said, really a war with the West. Among the broader goals, the French military official said, was a long-term and steady effort to sow social discord, erode faith in the media and democratic governments, undermine NATO, and sap Western support for Ukraine. Denigrating the Olympics, from which most Russian athletes are banned, is a bonus, according to French officials monitoring the increasingly strident posts warning of imminent unrest ahead of the Games. On June 9, the French far-right National Rally trounced Macron's party in elections for the European Parliament. The party has historically been close to Russia: One of its leading figures, Marine Le Pen, cultivated ties to Putin for many years and supported Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. And its leading contender for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, has said he opposes sending long-range weapons to Kyiv. In more than 4,400 posts gathered since mid-November by antibot4navalny, a collective that analyzes Russian bot behavior, those targeting audiences in France and Germany predominated. The number of weekly posts ranged from 100 to 200 except for the week of May 5, when it dropped near zero, the data showed. That week, as it happens, was a holiday in Russia. Many of the posts redirect either to RRN or to sites that appear identical to major French media, but with the domain — and content — changed. At least two of the more recent mirrored sites are registered in Wallis and Futuna, a French Pacific territory 10 time zones from Paris. A click on the top of the fake page redirects back to the real news sites themselves to give the impression of authenticity. Other posts redirect to original sites controlled by the campaign itself, dubbed Doppelganger. The redirects shifted focus for the European elections and continued after Macron called the surprise legislative elections with just three weeks to spare. Three-quarters of posts from the week ahead of the June 30 first-round legislative vote that were directed toward a French audience focused on either criticizing Macron or boosting the National Rally, antibot4navalny found in data shared with The Associated Press. One post on a fake site purported to be from Le Point, a current affairs magazine, and the French news agency AFP, criticizing Macron. "Our leaders have no idea how ordinary French people live but are ready to destroy France in the name of aid for Ukraine," read the headline on June 25. Another site falsely claimed to be from Macron's party, offering to pay 100 euros for a vote for him — and linking back to the party's true website. And still another inadvertently left a generative artificial intelligence prompt calling for the rewrite of an article "taking a conservative stance against the liberal policies of the Macron administration," according to findings last week from Insikt Group, the threat research division of the cybersecurity consultancy Recorded Future. "They're scraping automatically, sending the text to the AI and asking the AI to introduce bias or slants into the article and rewrite it," said Clément Briens, an analyst for Recorded Future. Briens said metrics tools embedded within the site are likely intended to prove that the campaigns were money well-spent for "whoever is doing the payouts for these operations." The French government cybersecurity watchdog, Viginum, has published multiple reports since June 2023 singling out Russian efforts to sow divisions in France and elsewhere. That was around the time that pro-Kremlin Telegram feeds started promoting Olympics has Fallen — a full-length fake Netflix film featuring an AI-generated voice resembling Tom Cruise that criticized the International Olympic Committee, according to the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center. Microsoft said this campaign, which it dubbed Storm-1679, is fanning fears of violence at the Games and last fall disseminated digitally generated photos referring, among other things, to the attacks on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. The latest effort, which started just after the first round of the elections on June 30, merges fears of violence related to both the Olympics and the risk of protests after the decisive second round, antibot4navalny found. Viginum released a new report Tuesday detailing the risks ahead for the Games — not for violence but for disinformation. "Digital information manipulation campaigns have become a veritable instrument of destabilization of democracies," Viginum said. "This global event will give untold informational exposure to malevolent foreign actors." The word Russia appears nowhere. Baptiste Robert, a French cybersecurity expert who ran unsuccessfully as an unaffiliated centrist in the legislative elections, called on his government — and especially lawmakers — to prepare for the digital threats to come. "This is a global policy of Russia: They really want to push people into the extremes," he said before the first-round vote. "It's working perfectly right now."

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berlin — Turkish supporters making their way to the European Championship quarterfinal against the Netherlands made the same nationalistic hand gesture that got a Turkey player banned from the match. More did the gesture again in the stadium during Turkey's national anthem before Saturday's game. Berlin police said on X on that the gesture was "massively shown" by the fans on their way to the Olympiastadion and they had therefore stopped their march and asked them to stop making it. Fans were asked to make their own way as individuals to the game – as long as they had a ticket for it. "When a lot of people are doing this gesture, it becomes a political demonstration and a football march is not political demonstration," police spokesperson Valeska Jakubowski told The Associated Press. The fans were making a gesture that is used by Turkish nationalists and associated with the Turkish ultra-nationalist organization Ulku Ocaklari, which is more widely known as the Gray Wolves. Jakubowski acknowledged that showing the gesture is not banned in Germany. She said some arrests were made, "very few," but they were likely for other reasons. Turkey defender Merih Demiral was banned for two games by UEFA on Friday for making the gesture after scoring in Turkey's round-of-16 win over Austria in Leipzig on Tuesday, an incident that led to a diplomatic row between Turkey and Euro 2024 host nation Germany. The ban rules Demiral out of Saturday's quarterfinal, and the semifinal should Turkey progress. The Turkish Football Federation joined Turkish government officials in denouncing the suspension. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan changed plans to visit Azerbaijan to attend Saturday's match. He had defended Demiral, saying on Friday the defender merely expressed his "excitement" after scoring. Demiral and Turkish authorities have defended the sign as an expression of Turkish pride. Critics say it glorifies a right-wing group known for racism and violence against minorities. The Gray Wolves group was founded as the youth wing of Turkey's far-right Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, which is currently in an alliance with Erdogan's ruling party, the Justice and Development Party. In the decades following its founding in the 1960s, the group was accused of involvement in politically motivated violence, mostly against leftist groups. German authorities believe the group has around 12,100 in the country. It is monitored by Germany's federal domestic agency. The group has been banned in France, while Austria has banned the use of the Gray Wolf salute. 

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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, famous for his heavy-handed crackdown on street gangs, threatened to use similar tactics against price gougers. Since 2022, Bukele has rounded up tens of thousands of suspected street gang members — often on little evidence — and filmed them being frog-marched in their underwear though vast new prisons. In a speech late Friday, he threatened to use the same tactics on wholesalers and distributors who he blamed for a recent steep rise in the prices for food items and other basic goods. "I am going to issue a call, like we did to the gangs at the start of 2019," Bukele said, referring to the year he was first elected. "We told them either stop killing people, or don't complain about what happens afterward." "Well, I'm going to issue a message to the importers, distributors and food wholesalers: stop abusing the people of El Salvador, or don't complain about what happens afterward." He said, "We are not playing around" and his threats were not a smokescreen. "I expect the prices to come down by tomorrow or there are going to be problems," he said. Recently reelected with 85% of the vote, Bukele controls Congress and has been granted special emergency powers to fight gangs for more than two years. While his emergency powers probably wouldn't allow Bukele to lock people up for charging too much, he claimed there was evidence that wholesalers or importers had allegedly engaged in tax evasion, bribery and contraband importation, criminal charges that could warrant jail time. The Salvadoran government has said inspectors have found some products had tripled in price, and while fines are a possibility, that probably isn't enough. The government has also announced plans to set up 20 sales points to distribute food "at fair prices." It's all very much in character for Bukele, who once described himself as the "world's coolest dictator." Bukele is also riding a wave of popularity for his frontal attack on powerful gangs that once basically ruled many neighborhoods, extorting protection money from businesses and residents. The crackdown has converted what was once the world's murder capital into one of Latin America's safest countries. The state of emergency originally declared in 2022 and still in effect has been used to round up 78,175 suspected gang members in sweeps that rights groups say are often arbitrary, based on a person's appearance or where they live. The government has had to release about 7,000 people because of a lack of evidence.

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washington — The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on what appears to be a nondescript door and calls cheerfully: "You ready to come out?"  The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open, and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause.  Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the "Martian" habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA's research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet.   They have been growing vegetables, conducting "Marswalks," and operating under what NASA terms "additional stressors," such as communication delays with "Earth," including their families; isolation and confinement.   It's the kind of experience that would make anyone who lived through pandemic lockdowns shudder, but all four were beaming as they reemerged Saturday, their hair slightly more unruly and their emotion apparent.   "Hello. It's actually so wonderful just to be able to say hello to you," Haston, a biologist, said with a laugh.  "I really hope I don't cry standing up here in front of all of you," Jones, an emergency room doctor, said as he took to the microphone, and nearly doing just that several moments later as he spotted his wife in the crowd.   The habitat, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, is a 3D-printed, 160-square-meter facility, complete with bedrooms, a gym, common areas, and a vertical farm for growing food.  An outdoor area, separated by an airlock, is filled with red sand and is where the team donned suits to conduct their "Marswalks," though it is still covered rather than being open air.  "They have spent more than a year in this habitat conducting crucial science, most of it nutrition-based and how that impacts their performance ... as we prepare to send people on to the Red Planet," Steve Koerner told the crowd. Koerner is the deputy director at NASA's Johnson Space Center.  "I'm very appreciative," he added.  This mission is the first of a series of three planned by NASA, grouped under the title CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog.  A yearlong mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm.  Under its Artemis program, America plans to send humans back to the Moon to learn how to live there long-term to help prepare a trip to Mars, sometime towards the end of the 2030s. 

BARINAS, Venezuela — The chant is concise, but meaningful for millions of Venezuelans in 2024: "Freedom!" The calls for "libertad" have been a staple of the opposition's events ahead of the highly anticipated July 28 presidential election. With the official start of campaigns this week, they were deafening during a massive rally Saturday in the western Venezuelan state of Barinas, the home state of the late fiery President Hugo Chávez. Students, state employees, retirees, agriculture workers and business owners were among the thousands gathered in support of Edmundo González Urrutia, the only candidate with a real chance of ending President Nicolás Maduro's quest for a third term. Their chants, collectively, represent long-sought freedom from the 25-year rule of self-described socialist governments. Individually, people are seeking wide-ranging freedoms, including the freedom to post government criticisms on social media without fearing repercussions. "I want economic freedom, freedom of purchasing power, freedom of a living wage," Virginia Linares, 41, said with teary eyes. "We feel locked in, we feel like something is being taken away from us because a salary that is not decent is a salary that overshadows us as people, we do not achieve the things we want, our dreams." Public employees these days earn a monthly minimum wage of about $3.60 plus $130 in bonuses, while private-sector workers make on average $210 a month. Neither is enough for a family to buy a basic basket of goods, which costs about $380. Linares lost her beauty supply store in 2017 in the social, economic and political crisis that has marked the entirety of Maduro's 11-year presidency. Her business is now online only, and her concerns over the country's economic conditions have increased now that her 17-year-old son has finished high school and is thinking about his future. The July 28 election is shaping up to be the biggest challenge that Venezuela's ruling party has faced since Chávez became president in 1999. The party wants to maintain its absolute control for six more years, but its base, even in Barinas, is divided and disenchanted over the crisis. The state had long been a bastion of the late president's movement, Chavismo. His brothers, Argenis Chávez and Adán Chávez, and father, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, all served stints as governor from 1998 to 2021. The opposition ended the Chávezes reign and has since used that victory as motivation for its base. Chávez, elected in 1998, promised to improve the lives of Venezuela's poorest using the country's oil. He expanded social services, including housing and education thanks to the country's oil bonanza, which generated revenues estimated at some $981 billion between 1999 and 2011 as oil prices soared. But corruption, a decline in oil production and economic policies led to a crisis that became evident in 2012. Before Chávez's death of cancer in 2013, he picked Maduro as his successor. Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela have fended off challenges by barring rivals from elections and painting them as out-of-touch elitists in league with foreign powers. This time, their government control led to a court ruling blocking the candidacy of opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, who won the October primary of the Unitary Platform coalition with more than 90% of support. She has thrown her support behind González, a former ambassador who's never held public office. At opposition rallies, including Saturday's, people say they will undoubtedly vote for González but also acknowledge that it is Machado who they see as leader. Venezuela's crisis has motivated more than 7.7 million people to migrate. When González asked the crowd to raise their hand if one of their relatives had migrated, people were quick to react. He promised them to create conditions so that their loved ones can return. Miguel Herrera, a school handyman, is worried that his teenage daughters might end up migrating in a few years if Maduro is reelected. He thinks that just as Barinas ushered the opposition into the governor's office, voters across the country can get González elected later this month. His chants for freedom Saturday were for a change that would give his children the freedom to choose to stay in Venezuela. He also wants his rights to quality health care and other public services to be respected. "I don't want my daughters to go somewhere else, at all," said Herrera, who voted for Maduro in the past two elections. "Politicians made promises and they didn't deliver and people began to wake up until they opened their eyes. We need change."

portland, oregon — Roughly 130 million people were under threat Saturday and into next week from a long-running heat wave that already has broken records with dangerously high temperatures — and is expected to shatter more from East Coast to West Coast, forecasters said. Oppressive heat and humidity could team up to spike temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 degrees Celsius) in parts of the Pacific Northwest, the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, said Jacob Asherman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. In Oregon, records could be broken in cities including Eugene, Portland and Salem, Asherman said. Dozens of other records throughout the U.S. could fall, Asherman added, causing millions to seek relief from the blanket of heat in cooling centers from Bullhead City, Arizona, to Norfolk, Virginia. The National Weather Service said Saturday it was extending the excessive heat warning for much of the Southwest into Friday. "A dangerous and historic heatwave is just getting started across the area, with temperatures expected to peak during the Sunday-Wednesday timeframe," the National Weather Service in Las Vegas, Nevada, said in an updated forecast. Excessive heat will likely continue through Friday, the service said. In sweltering Las Vegas, where the temperature hit 100 F (37.7 C) by 10:30 a.m., Marko Boscovich said the best way to beat the heat is in a seat at a slot machine with a cold beer inside an air-conditioned casino. "But you know, after it hits triple digits it's about all the same to me," said Boscovich, who was visiting from Sparks, Nevada, to see a Dead & Company concert later Saturday night at the Sphere. "Maybe they'll play one of my favorites — 'Cold Rain and Snow.'" Heat records shatter By 10:30 a.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service said the temperature already had risen to 100 F (36.6 C) in Phoenix, which saw a record high of 118 F (47.7 C) for Friday. Meteorologists predict temperatures will be near daily records region-wide through most, if not all, of the coming week with lower desert highs reaching 115 to 120 F (46.1 to 48.8 C). Rare heat advisories had been extended even into the upper elevations, including around Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border. The National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada, warned of "major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains." "How hot are we talking? Well, high temperatures across (western Nevada and northeastern California) won't get below 100 degrees (37.8 C) until next weekend," the service posted online. "And unfortunately, there won't be much relief overnight either." A new heat record for the day was set Friday in California's Death Valley — one of the hottest places on Earth — with the mercury climbing to 127 F (52.8 C). The old mark of 122 F (50 C) was last tied in 2013. Palm Springs, California, hit 124 F (51.1 C) Friday, breaking the city's record of 123 F (50.5 C). More extreme highs are in the near forecast, including 129 F (53.8 degrees C) for Sunday at Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park, and then around 130 (54.4 C) through Wednesday. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 degrees (56.67 C) in Death Valley in July 1913, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C) recorded there in July 2021. Worst yet to come The worst was yet to come across much of the West, with triple-digit temperatures likely higher than average into next week, the National Weather Service said. The Eastern U.S. also was bracing for more hot temperatures. Baltimore and other parts of Maryland were under an excessive heat warning, as heat index values could climb to 110 F (43 C), forecasters said. Heat leads to some deaths In Arizona's Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, there have been at least 13 confirmed heat-related deaths this year, along with more than 160 other suspected heat deaths are still under investigation, according to the county's most recent report. That does not include the death of a 10-year-old boy this week in Phoenix who suffered a "heat-related medical event" while hiking with family at South Mountain Park and Preserve, according to police.

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