- Monday, 29 December 2025
AP
Trump Org. CFO expected to plead guilty in NY tax case
Donald Trump’s longtime finance chief is expected to plead guilty as soon as Thursday in a tax evasion case that is the only criminal prosecution to arise from a long-running investigation into the former president’s company, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
New Zealand river’s personhood status offers hope to Māori
The Whanganui River is surging into the ocean, fattened from days of winter rain and yellowed from the earth and clay that has collapsed into its sides. Logs and debris hurtle past as dusk looms.
Rushdie off ventilator and talking, day after attack
“The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie was taken off a ventilator and able to talk Saturday, a day after he was stabbed as he prepared to give a lecture in upstate New York.
WHO plans to rename monkeypox over stigmatization concerns
The World Health Organization has said that it’s holding an open forum to rename the disease monkeypox after some critics raised concerns the name could be derogatory or have racist connotations.
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Poland investigates ‘ecological catastrophe’ of fish die-off
Poland has deployed soldiers to help clean up the Oder River, which runs along the border with Germany, after 10 tons of dead fish surfaced from the waterway in what one official described as an “ecological catastrophe.”
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As Spider-Man turns 60, fans reflect on diverse appeal
There are legions of fans of Spider-Man, who this month marks 60 years in the vast, imaginative world of comic books, movies and merch. Among those fans are devotees like Hoover, a professional Spider-Man cosplayer and model who doesn’t resemble the longtime “canon” presentation of the character. However, in the cinematic and comic universes, a Black Spider-Man is now a reality.
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Ukraine says 9 Russian warplanes destroyed in Crimea blasts
Ukraine said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea that appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack, which would represent a significant escalation in the war.
North Korea claims disputed victory over virus, blames Seoul
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared victory over COVID-19 and ordered preventive measures eased just three months after acknowledging an outbreak, claiming the country’s widely disputed success would be recognized as a global health miracle.
Kenyans waiting for results of close presidential election
Kenyans are waiting for the results of a close but calm presidential election in which the turnout was lower than usual.
‘We’re back, baby’: New bill boosts US climate credibility
After a moment when hopes dimmed that the United States could become an international leader on climate change, legislation that Congress is poised to approve could rejuvenate the country’s reputation and bolster its efforts to push other nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more quickly.
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Russian disinformation spreading in new ways despite bans
After Russia invaded Ukraine last February, the European Union moved to block RT and Sputnik, two of the Kremlin’s top channels for spreading propaganda and misinformation about the war.
Trump says FBI conducted search at his Mar-a-Lago estate
The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to his Florida
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As summer wanes, water crisis looms for east Ukrainian city
By JUSTIN SPIKESLOVIANSK, Ukraine, Aug 8 : The echo of artillery shells thundering in the distance mingles with the din of people gathered around Sloviansk’s public water pumps, piercing the uneasy quiet that smothers the nearly deserted streets of this eastern Ukrainian city.The members of Sloviansk’s dwindling population only emerge — a few minutes at a time — to fill up at the pumps that have been the city’s only water source for more than two months. Fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces near the key city in the Donetsk region has damaged vital infrastructure that has cut residents off from gas and water for months.The water flows for now, but fears grow that come winter the city only seven miles (12 kilometers) from Russian-occupied territory could face a humanitarian crisis once the pipes begin to freeze over.“The water infrastructure was destroyed by the constant battles,” said Lyubov Mahlii, a 76-year-old widow who gathers 20 liters (around five gallons) of water twice a day from a public tank near her apartment, dragging the plastic bottles up four flights of stairs on her own.“When there are bombings and sirens, we keep carrying it,” she said on Sunday. “It’s a great risk for us, but what can we do?”Only a fifth of the city’s pre-invasion population of 100,000 remains. With heavy fighting raging only miles away as Russian forces continue their push on Donetsk — part of the industrial Donbas region where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian troops since 2014 — residents defy the shelling to make do with the only water source left. And local officials believe things will only get worse once the cold sets in.Locals fill their bottles with hand pumps or from plastic tanks at one of five public wells before hauling them home in bicycle baskets, wheeled carts, and even children’s strollers.Speaking from her tidy kitchen after one such trip, Mahlii said she boils some water for at least 15 minutes to make sure it’s safe for consumption. The remainder is used for bathing, washing clothes and dishes, watering plants, and taking care of a stray dog named Chapa.Following the death of her husband, Nikolai, from diabetes four years ago, Mahlii shares her Soviet government-provided apartment with two bright yellow canaries and an assortment of houseplants.The water she had gathered filled the plastic tubs and buckets stacked on every flat surface in her small bathroom, while empty plastic bottles lined the walls in her hallway. A meat and vegetable soup was cooking on an electric burner for lunch.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a mandatory evacuation order to all residents of the Donetsk region at the end of July, saying remaining would cost lives. But despite that and the terror that accompanies the shriek of falling rockets near the city, with no money to relocate and nowhere to go, Mahlii plans to stay in Sloviansk — no matter what.“I don’t want to leave my apartment because someone else might occupy it,” she said. “I don’t want to leave. I will die here.”Another Sloviansk resident, Ninel Kyslovska, 75, gathered water from a tank at a park on Sunday for marinating cucumbers in the sun that afternoon. She said the scarcity had upended all aspects of her life.“Without water, you won’t get anywhere. I have to carry 60, 80, 100 liters of water a day and it’s still not enough,” she said. “Bread and water are sacred and they just took it from people. Such actions must be punished, maybe not by us, but hopefully by God’s judgment.”Filling her bottles, Kyslovska said she sometimes avoids bathing to save herself a trip to the park and often washes her clothing in a nearby lake.She blamed the local government for the lack of running water, complaining that nearby Kramatorsk — just six miles (10 kilometers) to the south — still had water flowing from its taps.But Oleksandr Goncharenko, the head of Kramatorsk’s military administration, said even that comparative luxury was threatened by winter when the temperature drops to -20 C (-4 F).“All these wells and pumps will freeze,” Goncharenko said, adding that places like Sloviansk and Kramatorsk — which also has no gas — had become “hostages of destroyed infrastructure.”Goncharenko said Kramatorsk would drain municipal pipes that run into unheated structures to prevent them from freezing and bursting, and that he was “99% certain” that gas wouldn’t be restored before winter. Electricity cuts and the lack of heating could also see the fire risk soar as people try to heat and light their homes by other means, he added. Ukrainian officials are still trying to convince the Donetsk region’s remaining residents to evacuate as the war’s front line threatens to move westward and the inhospitable winter looms.Officials in Kramatorsk plan to build more public wells to supply the remaining population, but Goncharenko warned the water quality couldn’t be guaranteed. Such water would likely be sourced from deep underground, he said, which would be too high in calcium and unfit for drinking.Mahli hasn’t made plans for what she’ll do once cold weather arrives, but after 47 years in her Sloviansk apartment, she will face whatever comes from her home.“We are surviving!” she said. “We are surviving by any means.”
Cease-fire between Palestinians, Israel takes effect in Gaza
A cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants took effect late Sunday in a bid to end nearly three days of violence that killed dozens of Palestinians and disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis.
17 missing, 121 hurt, 1 dead in fire at Cuban oil facility
A fire set off by a lightning strike at an oil storage facility raged uncontrolled in the Cuban city of Matanzas, where four explosions and flames injured 121 people and left 17 firefighters missing. Cuban authorities said an unidentified body had been found late Saturday.
