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A welding operation sparked a huge fire in February at a water park that was under construction at one of Sweden’s biggest amusement centers, causing the death of one person, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

"When welding the water slide, a fire started which then spread to the rest of the building. The fire spread quickly and caused great destruction," the Goteborgs-Posten newspaper said, quoting a police report.

The blaze destroyed a large part of the Oceana water park that was scheduled to open this summer in Goteborg, Sweden’s second-largest city. 

FIRE BREAKS OUT AT WATER PARK UNDER CONSTRUCTION AT POPULAR SWEDISH THEME PARK

Officers were only able to enter the site days later and found a dead person there.

The fire at the popular Liseberg amusement complex spread over several water slides and the pool area of the water park.

A nearby hotel and office facilities had to be evacuated. Sixteen were slightly injured.

Huge throngs of protesters blocked streets in the capital of Georgia and milled angrily outside the parliament building after lawmakers on Tuesday approved a "foreign influence" bill that critics call a Russian-style threat to free speech and the country’s aspirations to join the European Union.

Soon after the 84-30 vote, a crowd of protesters in front of parliament tried to break metal barriers near the building. At least 13 people were arrested and Georgian news reports showed one with severe cuts and bruises on his head.

The protests expanded after nightfall, with thousands of demonstrators marching to Heroes Square about two kilometers from the parliament and blocking off the streets that converge on the square.

GEORGIA POLICE ARREST DOZENS PROTESTING 'RUSSIAN LAW'

The bill requires media and nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofit groups to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

The government says the bill is needed to stem what it deems as harmful foreign actors trying to destabilize politics in the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million people.

The opposition has denounced the bill as "the Russian law" because Moscow uses similar legislation to crack down on independent news media, nonprofits and activists critical of the Kremlin.

European Council President Charles Michel said Tuesday that if Georgians "want to join the EU, they have to respect the fundamental principles of the rule of law and the democratic principles."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. was "deeply troubled" by the legislation, which she said "runs counter to democratic values and would move Georgia further away from the values of the European Union. And let’s not forget also NATO."

Enacting the law "will compel us to fundamentally reassess our relationship with Georgia," she added.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Affairs James O'Brien met Tuesday with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and told journalists that "if the law goes forward out of conformity with EU norms, and there’s undermining of democracy here and there’s violence against peaceful protesters, then we will see restrictions coming from the United States."

The bill is nearly identical to one that the governing Georgian Dream party was pressured to withdraw last year after street protests. Renewed demonstrations have rocked Georgia for weeks, with demonstrators scuffling with police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with the governing party, has vowed to veto the bill, but Georgian Dream has a majority sufficient to override it. Zourabichvili has 14 days to act.

Over the weekend, thousands poured into the streets of the capital, Tbilisi.

Inside parliament, the debate was interrupted by a brawl. Georgian Dream lawmaker Dimitry Samkharadze was seen charging toward Levan Khabeishvili, head of the main opposition party United National Movement, after he accused Samkharadze of organizing mobs to beat up opposition supporters.

In a speech Tuesday, Georgian Dream lawmaker Archil Talakvadze accused "the radical and anti-national political opposition united by political vendetta" of using the protests for their own political purpose and "hoping for events to take a radical turn."

Ana Tsitlidze of the United National Movement said the protests showed how unified Georgia was "in fighting for its European future."

Another prominent opposition figure, Giorgi Vashadze, asserted that the Georgian Dream party "is completely outside the constitution, outside the law, and they are betraying our country’s European future."

A fire early at a marina in northwestern Croatia early Wednesday destroyed 22 boats and caused huge damage but no injuries.

An investigation was underway to determine what caused the fire at the marina in Medulin, a small town on the Istrian peninsula that's popular with tourists in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea.

Photos showed boats in the marina burning in a raging blaze. Local media said some owners jumped into the sea to escape as firefighters rushed to separate the boats still untouched by the fire.

CROATIA'S CONSERVATIVE PLENKOVIC APPOINTED PM-DESIGNATE FOR THIRD TERM IN A ROW

The fire was brought under control. Authorities said they put up barriers in the sea to stop any environmental damage.

Croatia is a top European tourism destination and a favorite spot for sailing.

It all started with nifty leg movements, strong steps backwards and forwards, paced to Brazilian funk music. Then it adopted moves from break dancing, samba, capoeira, frevo — whatever was around.

The passinho, a dance style created in the 2000s by kids in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, was declared in March to be an "intangible cultural heritage" by legislators in the state of Rio, bringing recognition to a cultural expression born in the sprawling working-class neighborhoods.

The creators of passinho were young kids with plenty of flexibility — and no joint problems. They started trying out new moves at home and then showing them off at funk parties in their communities and, crucially, sharing them on the internet.

PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE EXPERIENCE NIGERIAN DANCING, FASHION WHILE VISITING CHARITIES

In the early days of social media, youngsters uploaded videos of their latest feats to Orkut and YouTube, and the style started spreading to other favelas. A competitive scene was born, and youths copied and learned from the best dancers, leading them to innovate further and strive to stay on top.

"Passinho in my life is the basis of everything I have," dancer and choreographer Walcir de Oliveira, 23, said in an interview. "It's where I manage to earn my livelihood, and I can show people my joy and blow off steam, you understand? It's where I feel happy, good."

Brazilian producer Julio Ludemir helped capture this spirit and discover talents by organizing "passinho battles" in the early 2010s. At these events, youths took turns showing off their steps before a jury that selected the winners.

The "Out of Doors" festival at New York’s Lincoln Center staged one such duel in 2014, giving a U.S. audience a taste of the vigorous steps. Passinho breached the borders of favelas and disconnected from funk parties that are often associated with crime. Dancers started appearing on mainstream TV and earned the spotlight during the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Ludemir describes the style as an expression of Brazilian "antropofagia," the modernist concept of cannibalizing elements from other cultures in order to produce something new.

"Passinho is a dance that absorbs references from all dances. It’s a crossing of the cultural influences absorbed by kids from the periphery as they were connecting with the world through social media in internet cafes," he said.

Dancing also became a means for youths to move seamlessly between communities controlled by rival drug gangs. It offered you men from favelas a new way out, besides falling into a life of crime or the all-too-common pipe dream of becoming a soccer star.

Passinho was declared state heritage by Rio’s legislative assembly through a law proposed by Rio state legislator Veronica Lima. It passed unanimously and was sanctioned March 7. In a statement, Lima said it was important to help "decriminalize funk and artistic expressions of youths" from favelas.

Ludemir says the heritage recognition is sure to consolidate the first generation of passinho dancers as an inspiration for favelas youths.

Among them are Pablo Henrique Goncalves, a dancer known as Pablinho Fantástico, who won a passinho battle back in 2014 and later created a boy group called OZCrias, with four dancers born and raised like him in Rocinha, Rio’s largest favela. The group earns money performing in festivals, events, theaters and TV shows, and they welcomed the heritage recognition.

Another dance group is Passinho Carioca in the Penha complex of favelas on the other side of the city. One of its directors, Nayara Costa, said in an interview that she came from a family where everyone got into drug trafficking. Passinho saved her from that fate, and now she uses it to help youngsters — plus teach anyone else interested in learning.

"Today I give classes to people who are in their sixties; passinho is for everyone," said Costa, 23. "Passinho, in the same way that it changed my life, is still going to change the lives of others."

Thailand’s prime minister on Wednesday offered his condolences to the family of a young activist who died in detention after a monthslong hunger strike, amid a public debate on the country’s justice system.

Netiporn "Bung" Sanesangkhom, 28, died on Tuesday after suffering cardiac arrest while she was being detained at Bangkok’s Central Women’s Correctional Institution on charges that included defaming the monarchy. She had been on a hunger strike to protest the revocation of her bail in January.

Her death has prompted calls for reviewing a judicial process that allows people accused of politically-motivated, nonviolent offenses to be held for extended periods ahead of trial.

MASSIVE CHEMICAL STORAGE TANK IN THAILAND CATCHES FIRE, 1 DEAD, 4 INJURED

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told reporters that Netiporn’s death was a loss that no one wanted, and said he has ordered the Justice Ministry to investigate.

Officials from the Corrections Department said during a press conference on Wednesday that while Netiporn appeared fatigued following her prolonged hunger strike, she had been well and there was no sign that she would develop such critical conditions, and that they had done everything to try to save her life.

They also said the activist had already resumed eating, but refused to take other supplements that could help her body take nutrients better after fasting for so long. They declined to speculate on the possible cause of death until the autopsy results are released.

An autopsy was carried out on Wednesday morning and the initial results are expected on Thursday, said Netiporn’s lawyer Kritsadang Nutcharat. But Kritsadang told reporters that he doesn’t believe the Corrections Department's version of events.

"She died in your arms. If she had been well, she wouldn’t have died," he said, adding that the public should focus on the fact that Netiporn died while being detained, not whether she had been eating.

Netiporn was a member of the activist group Thaluwang, loosely translated as "breaking through the palace." Its members are known for aggressive campaigns demanding reform of the monarchy and abolition of the law that makes it illegal to defame members of the royal family.

Until recent years, criticism of Thailand's monarchy was taboo, and insulting or defaming key royal family members remains punishable by up to 15 years in prison under a law usually referred to as Article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code.

But student-led pro-democracy protests began to challenge that taboo in 2020, openly criticizing the monarchy. That led to vigorous prosecutions under what was previously a little-used law. Critics say the law is often wielded as a tool to quash political dissent.

Netiporn was one of more than 270 activists, many university students, charged under the royal defamation law following those protests. Their supporters say that the authorities have violated their rights by holding them in prolonged pretrial detention and denying their release on bail.

She was originally detained in May 2022, and released on bail in August 2022 after a previous hunger strike. She was rearrested in January for breaking the terms of her bail by participating in a political rally in 2023.

Netiporn was facing several charges stemming from political activities, including two charges of defaming the monarchy. Both involved conducting polls in public spaces in 2022 to ask people’s opinions about the royal family, according to the group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said they had requested bail 45 times for 27 political prisoners from January to April. None of those requests were granted, it said.

Another activist who is facing lese mejeste charges and had been detained several times, Panusaya "Rung" Sitthijirawattanakul, expressed disappointment in Srettha’s government, which took office in August following an election that ended nearly a decade of military rule.

"Before the election, they said that after they became a government they would ask the court to release political prisoners, and they would amend Article 112," she said during a candlelight vigil for Netiporn on Tuesday night, "None of that ever came true."

When asked about growing calls for young political detainees to be released, Prime Minister Srettha said "I believe the Justice Minister has heard these calls. It is under consideration and there will be discussions regarding all processes of justice. Everyone must be treated fairly."

The U.N.’s human rights office in Southeast Asia, in a Tuesday post on the social network X, said it was "deeply disturbed" by Netiporn’s death and called for a transparent investigation. It also emphasized that freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are fundamental rights.

Kritsadang, the lawyer, also called for the prime minister to take serious action on problems in the system of justice before making an official visit to France and Italy this week, noting the government’s bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council’s for the 2025-2027 term.

Netiporn’s funeral service will be held at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok from Thursday to Sunday, the Thaluwang group said.

Singapore’s deputy leader Lawrence Wong is set to be sworn in Wednesday as the nation’s fourth prime minister in a carefully planned political succession designed to ensure continuity and stability in the Asian financial hub.

A U.S.-trained economist, Wong, 51, succeeds Lee Hsien Loong, 72, who stepped down after two decades at the helm. Lee’s resignation marked the end of a family dynasty led by his father Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s charismatic first leader who built the colonial trading outpost into a business-friendly, affluent country during 31 years in office.

Wong, a civil servant turned politician, came to prominence while coordinating Singapore’s successful fight against COVID-19. But he wasn’t the first choice for the top job.

SINGAPORE PM TO STEP DOWN AFTER 2 DECADES, HANDING POWER TO HIS DEPUTY

Heng Swee Keat, a former central bank chief and education minister, was the anointed successor but he withdrew his nomination in 2021. Wong was then picked by the ruling People’s Action Party in 2022 to fill the vacuum and quickly promoted to deputy prime minister.

"I will certainly strive to be a leader who is strong, kind and decisive. And I will do my best to build a Singapore where everyone can realize their full potential," Wong said on social media earlier this month.

Wong's ascension to the top has been meticulously crafted by the PAP — one of the world’s longest-serving political parties and known for its clean and effective governance — and will not change the dynamics in the tiny nation of some 6 million people.

Wong has retained the Cabinet and held onto his finance portfolio as he prepares for his first big test in general elections due by 2025 but widely expected to be called this year. Before taking office, he promoted Trade Minister Gan Kim Yong as one of two deputy premiers. The other deputy is Heng.

SINGAPORE'S OUTGOING PM TO STAY ON AS SENIOR MINISTER, HIS SUCCESSOR SAYS

Lee will stay on as a senior minister, a path taken by all former premiers.

While victory in the election is assured, Wong must clinch a stronger win after the PAP suffered a setback in 2020 polls over voters' rising discontent with the government.

Singapore under Lee's rule flourished into one of the world’s wealthiest nations, but it also became one of the most expensive cities to live in. The PAP has also been criticized for tight government control and a government-knows-best stance, media censorship and the use of oppressive laws against dissidents.

Issues like widening income disparity, increasingly unaffordable housing, overcrowding caused by immigration and restrictions on free speech are often used as fodder by the opposition and have loosened the PAP's grip on power.

"One-party dominance in Singapore is weakening but the challenge for the PAP leadership is to slow down the process," said Eugene Tan, a law professor at Singapore Management University.

Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia political expert, said Lee "will be remembered for steering Singapore quietly and successfully through turbulent waters from the 2008-2009 financial crisis and COVID-19. He helped to build resilience in Singapore. ... (But) Singapore has become a more complex society, with more open demands, making the task of governing (for Wong) more challenging."

Wong was born seven years after Singapore separated from Malaysia and gained independence in 1965. His father was a migrant from China and his mother was a teacher. Unlike many senior PAP leaders, he didn't have a privileged background. Observers have said this could help him connect better with the common citizen.

Wong earned a scholarship to study in the U.S., later obtaining a masters' degree in economics from the University of Michigan and another masters' degree in public administration from Harvard University. He spent years in public service including as a principal private secretary to Lee before entering politics in 2011. He has handled the defense, education, communications, culture, community and youth portfolios.

Like Lee, Wong is active on social media. Married with no children, he doesn't reveal much about his private life but has offered glimpses into his interests in music and dogs, and he is a fan of tennis star Roger Federer. He often posts videos of himself playing guitar.

Wong has launched a Forward Singapore plan to let Singaporeans have a say in how to develop a more balanced, vibrant and inclusive agenda for the next generation. Wong often speaks in a flat tone and may not appear charismatic, but he is widely seen as a reliable and accessible leader.

"We can expect his leadership to be more consultative ... one that will emphasize the team concept wherein his key lieutenants will be prominent," said law professor Tan.

Tan said Wong's immediate priorities will be to address issues including the rising cost of living, housing affordability and job security. "Bread-and-butter issues remain vital even for a prosperous country, partly because of Singapore’s innate vulnerabilities," he said.

In foreign policy, Tan said Wong needs to navigate the "Sino-American power rivalry in which Southeast Asia has become a proxy theater of the contest." Singapore, like some of its neighbors, has stayed neutral but it may be forced later to choose sides on a variety of issues, he said.

Russia claims its military shot down 10 U.S.-supplied missiles on Wednesday as the United States’ top diplomat is in Ukraine shoring up America’s support for the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses detected 10 ATACMS missiles that were allegedly targeting Crimea early Wednesday and shot them down over the Black Sea, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv.

Sevastopol Gov. Mikhail Razvozhayev confirmed the missiles were shot down near the Belbek air base, saying some of the missile fragments fell into residential areas. They caused no casualties, according to Razvozhayev.

Ukraine has launched a series of drone and missile attacks on various targets across Russia, including oil refineries and fuel depots, over recent months amid its attempt to fend off its larger neighbor.

BLINKEN MAKES UNANNOUNCED DIPLOMATIC TRIP TO UKRAINE AFTER CONGRESS APPROVES $60B IN MILITARY AID

Blinken, who arrived Tuesday, visited Ukraine on an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure the country amid its war with Russia.

In a statement released after Blinken's arrival, the State Department said the diplomat was scheduled to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Following Blinken’s meeting with Zelenskyy, the State Department said the two "discussed recent battlefield updates and the importance of newly-arrived U.S. security assistance to helping repel Russian attacks."

"They also discussed long-term security arrangements and ongoing work to ensure Ukraine can thrive economically. Secretary Blinken reiterated the United States’ enduring support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and our commitment to Ukraine’s recovery," the statement added.

Ukraine's attacks this week come as Russian troops continue a massive offensive in northeast Ukraine that began last week, the most significant border incursion since the invasion began.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who won re-election earlier this month, continues his invasion of Ukraine that started in Feb. 2022, despite international pressure to end it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

JOHANNESBURG - With two West African countries in the sprawling Sahel region leaning heavily toward Moscow, telling U.S. forces battling Islamist terror activity to get out and letting Russian mercenary forces in, leading GOP Senators have struck out against the Biden administration’s foreign policy, with one calling it a "disaster."

"President Biden’s foreign policy has been a disaster on every continent, and Africa is no exception," Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital.

The senator continued, "While the Russians and Chinese are working overtime to oust the U.S. from a region that will soon be home to a quarter of the earth’s population, the Biden Administration continues to fumble the ball and weaken our nation’s strategic interests with our African partners."

Scott added, "It’s crystal clear that the outcome of the November election will have massive consequences, not only on whether Americans continue putting up with Bidenomics and the rising costs of getting gas and groceries, but on our nation’s diminishing global standing as well."

US TO PULL TROOPS FROM CHAD AND NIGER AS THE AFRICAN NATIONS QUESTION ITS COUNTERTERRORISM ROLE

Niger’s military junta has told 1,000 U.S. military service members and contractors to leave town – while permitting Russian Wagner mercenaries to move onto the same airbase housing American personnel. Some of the 100 U.S. service members in Chad have also been told to get out. 

Particularly in West Africa, Russia is gaining influence, often claimed at America’s expense.

The head of the U.S. Africa Command, Marine Corps Gen. Michael E. Langley, stated recently that terrorism is shattering African lives and plants "the seeds of violent extremism and Russian exploitation across entire regions of the continent."

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho., told Fox News Digital, "The U.S. isn't fighting for influence in Africa, but despite its efforts, Russia isn't winning over most Africans." Risch, ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added, "Simplifying the current situation in this way gives too much credit to Russia and other bad actors who are exploiting economic, political, and security challenges for their own gain. Despite this administration's soaring rhetoric about its successes in Africa, the continent is not a top foreign policy focus – the administration's actions, budgets, and policies demonstrate that."

He continued, "The U.S. has the power to swiftly reverse the current trend of African nations favoring anti-Western views. By taking stronger policy actions in partnership with the African people, we can make a significant and immediate impact, and reverse these trends."

"America has now effectively been pushed out of Chad, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, making more room for Russia and China," Senate Minority Leader Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told the Senate on May 2.  "The administration behaves more like an ostrich than a superpower for two years."

RUSSIA AND US JOCKEY FOR SUPPORT ACROSS AFRICA

Looking at the 54 countries which make up the African continent, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital "Secretary Blinken has been clear about the United States’ commitment to deepen and expand our partnerships between the United States and African countries, institutions, and people.  The United States' strategy towards Africa is based on the belief that democracy and good governance, development, and stability are inter-linked. Together with our regional partners, we are committed to working with African countries to promote democracy, foster sustainable development, combat terrorism, and enhance security." 

"We remain concerned by the increase in violence and worsening humanitarian trends across the Sahel region. The only long-term solution to the scourge of terrorism is delivering good governance based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, and promotion of social cohesion. Overreliance on military-only approaches to instability and insufficient efforts to protect civilians from human rights abuses and violations, will only further entrench structural drivers of instability."

Washington has declared publicly that it will pull forces out of Niger, but the 1,000 personnel are still there, with a State Department spokesperson telling Fox News Digital last week that officials "are engaged in frank discussions with the authorities in Niger." 

During Tuesday's State Department briefing, spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters that in discussions with Niger's new government (CNSP), "We have not been able to come to an understanding that would allow the United States to maintain its military presence in Niger, and we’re currently working with the CNSP to withdraw U.S. forces in an orderly and responsible fashion." 

The U.S. troops are being used as "pawns" by Washington, in order to try and get military and medivac overflight permission in Niger, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., claimed in statements provided by his office to Fox News Digital. "Today, more than a thousand personnel have not been sufficiently resupplied since March following the coup."

CHAD'S MILITARY LEADER WINS DISPUTED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Gaetz continued, "Biden has two choices: resupply our troops or bring them home ASAP. The notion that we are allowing third world thugs - who we trained - to dictate terms on the well-being of American troops is a furtherance of the Biden foreign policy disgrace." 

Controversy is also next door in Chad, with the military junta there saying they want the U.S. military out of their country. Washington has had around 100 personnel fighting terrorism stationed there. Some were pulled out during last week’s presidential elections, but sources suggest this withdrawal is "temporary."

Enter the Kremlin. Niger has, in contrast, welcomed up to 100 military personnel thought to be mercenaries from the Wagner group to set up shop for operations out of a hangar on the same airbase 101 housing U.S. personnel. 

The potential departure of U.S. forces from Niger and Chad is "a win for Putin," said Rebekah Koffler, strategic military intelligence analyst and Foreign Affairs Consultant for Fox News Digital. "Any military hardware that’s left will be picked up by the Russians who are always on the hunt for U.S. weapons dropped on the battlefield or abandoned at military bases. Those combat systems will be acquired, inspected, and either reverse engineered or countermeasures will be built within Russian weapons systems to mitigate the effectiveness of U.S. arms."

"The United States clearly faces challenges in maintaining its position in West Africa," Gustavo de Carvalho, senior researcher for African Governance and Diplomacy at the South African Institute of International Affairs, told Fox News Digital. "But it is somehow a chicken and an egg dilemma. Are Russia and China actively working to replace the West, or is the West losing influence while China and Russia fill the gap?

"In the West African case," de Carvalho added. "I believe this is more a case of the West losing influence and Russia filling a specific security demand gap. The relationship between Western countries and Sahelian governments became so fractured recently that Russia took advantage of the void left behind."

Koffler said Russia’s strategic goals are clear. "To expand its footprint in Africa, in order to outcompete the U.S. there, reduce the US/Western influence and to compete with China. It’s part of Putin’s vision of a ‘multipolar world.’" 

The Kremlin, Koffler added, has a "clever" diplomatic goal too, with it trying to get more African countries to vote in support of Russia at the U.N. "Africa has a big voting block within the United Nations," Koffler said. "So Moscow wants to predispose those governments towards Russia’s policy agenda, so they can vote in Russia’s interests, not Western interests. Many African countries already feel that their voices in international organizations are not heard. And Russia capitalizes on those anti-Western sentiments."

JIHADIST AND NUCLEAR THREAT AS AFRICAN COUNTRY TELLS US TO LEAVE AMID RUSSIAN AND IRANIAN GAINS

De Carvalho agreed that Africa is becoming higher on the agenda of priorities for Russian foreign policy. "They have so far been able to exploit years of reduced interest in Africa by Western Countries, including the U.S., benefiting from the fact that Western narratives and motivations are increasingly seen with distrust."

Enter China. Koffler declared this week, "From the economic standpoint, the U.S. is not losing the battle for Africa to Russia, but it is losing it to China." Koffler claimed China, with its belt and road trade initiative, has $254 billion worth of trade with Africa annually, whereas the U.S. has $64 billion, and Russia only $18 billion.

De Carvalho stressed that China’s aims are not military, but "it is essential to note that China’s presence does not necessarily equate to dominance. China tends to be more interested in securing financial benefits and market access, rather than using its influence as a direct tool for Western containment."

De Carvalho pointed out that he believes Washington needs to change its focus – not what it sees, but how it sees it. He said, "If the U.S. wants to increase its influence, it needs to approach Africa on its own merits, not solely as a means to counter the role of China and Russia. Africa has a long history of being used as a proxy in global disputes, and a narrative that reinforces that is indeed counterproductive. And that’s a challenge the U.S. needs to address."

"To address its own declining position, the US Administration should focus on building more genuine partnerships with African nations, prioritizing investments, economic development, security cooperation, and addressing shared challenges such as climate change and public health. They should engage with African countries as partners, not vehicles or proxies. But for that to happen, it would require a change in the narrative, approaches and action, making the continent a direct focus, not a terrain for geopolitical disputes."

The U.S. military has completed the construction of a hulking metal pier that is expected to be jabbed into a beach in northern Gaza in the coming days, officials said.

Completing the massive makeshift structure — approximately 1,500-ft long or the length of five U.S. football fields — is the first step in the Biden administration's two-month-long, $320 million gamble to open a sea route to get humanitarian aid through the eastern Mediterranean and into Gaza, where Israel continues to wage war with the Hamas terror group.

The construction of the new floating pier and causeway is risky for President Biden and the Pentagon as aid delivery teams face unknown dangers and uncertainties as they attempt to work around the challenges of getting aid into Gaza through the Rafah border.

"In the coming days, you can expect to see this effort underway. And we are confident that we will be able to, working with our NGO partners, ensure that aid can be delivered," Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Tuesday, noting humanitarian groups were ready for the first shipments through the new U.S. maritime route.

REPUBLICAN SAYS BIDEN HAS 'STRENGTHENED' HAMAS BY WITHHOLDING AID FROM ISRAEL: 'COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT'

The administration’s effort to open the additional sea route comes as the intensifying war between Israel and Hamas has neared the land crossings in Rafah.

Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization, described the sea route as "a solution for a problem that doesn't exist" because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid, he said.

Paul suggested the amount of aid that is allowed to be delivered into Gaza is dependent on Israeli officials allowing it. Some officials have expressed concerns the aid could fall into the hands of Hamas, the very terrorists that Israel is seeking to eliminate from the Palestinian territory.

UN REVISES GAZA DEATH TOLL, ALMOST 50% LESS WOMEN AND CHILDREN KILLED THAN PREVIOUSLY REPORTED

"Like all of the land crossings, it comes down to the consent of the government of Israel," Paul said. "If Israel is comfortable with allowing the maritime corridor to function ... then it will work in a limited way. And if they don't, it won't. Which is why it's a very, very expensive alternative."

Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Tuesday that the country had enabled the entrance of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza and would continue to do so.

Falk accused Hamas of disrupting aid distribution by hijacking and attacking convoys.

The Israeli military said in a statement Tuesday that it will keep acting in line with international law to distribute aid to Gaza. It also has previously said there are no limits on aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to Biden to allow in more aid and safeguard those workers.

Anastasia Moran, an associate director for the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian group, said truckloads of aid entering Gaza increased by 13% last month.

The Israel-Hamas war has been particularly lethal to Palestinian civilians residing in Gaza with Palestinian health officials estimating more than 35,000 have been killed. Israeli officials estimate the number of deceased civilians is approximately 16,000 civilians. A U.N report from May 8 found the number of women and children killed so far in the war to be just under 13,000.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Hundreds of residents in four neighborhoods in the southern end of Canada’s oil sand hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta, were ordered to evacuate with a wildfire threatening the community, authorities said Tuesday.

The Rural Municipality of Wood Buffalo said residents in Beacon Hill, Abasand, Prairie Creek and Grayling Terrace needed to leave by 4 p.m.

CANADA BATTLES WORST-EVER WILDFIRE SEASON, AS NORTH AMERICA ENGULFED IN SMOKE

An emergency evacuation warning remained in place for the rest of Fort McMurray and surrounding areas.

The rural municipality said the residents in the four neighborhoods were being ordered out to clear room for crews to fight the fire, which had moved to within 13 kilometers (8 miles) of the city.

Fort McMurray has a population of about 68,000, and a wildfire there in 2016 destroyed 2,400 homes and forced more than 80,000 people to flee.

"It’s very important for me to know that this fire activity is very different than the 2016 Horse River wildfire. We have an abundance of resources and we are well positioned to respond to this situation," Regional Fire Chief Jody Butz said.

Suzy Gerendi, who runs the dessert shop in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, said she was already packed up when the evacuation order came down. Gerendi lived in Beacon Hill when fire overtook it in 2016.

She immediately began the drive towards Edmonton, Alberta with her three dogs.

"It’s very, very dark and orange," Gerendi said. "It brings up some memories and it’s not a good feeling."

Residents were also dealing with heavy smoke and ash.

"It’s dark. The smoke is everywhere," said resident Else Hoko.

Hoko picked up her two sons from school in Abasand after receiving the evacuation order. She had also fled in 2016.

"I’m so stressed," she said, adding that she’s praying for rain.

The Beacon Hill and Abasand neighborhoods saw serious losses in 2016.

The current fire has grown to about 110 square kilometers (42.5 square miles) and remains out of control.

Josee St. Onge, an Alberta Wildfire information officer, said wind is pushing the fire toward the community.

She said crews have been pulled from the fire line for safety reasons, and air tankers and helicopters continue to drop water and retardant on the "active edges."

"Unfortunately, these are not favorable winds for us, and the fire will continue to advance towards the town until we see a wind shift," she said.

In the northeast of the neighboring province of British Columbia, areas subject to mandatory evacuation increased, with the latest order Monday for Doig River First Nation and the Peace River Regional District as a fire threatened nearby.

Forecasts on Tuesday called for wind that could blow a growing wildfire closer to Fort Nelson. Emergency workers had been phoning as many of the estimated 50 residents still in town and urging them to go.

The British Columbia Wildfire Service said the blaze had grown to 84 square kilometers (32 miles). On Monday, it was about 53 square kilometers (21 miles) in size. A photo by the service shows the billowing blaze spreading in a vast wooded area.

The community of about 4,700 and the neighboring Fort Nelson First Nation have been under an evacuation order since Friday.

Northern Rockies Regional Municipality Mayor Rob Fraser said one drawback of the evacuation is the challenge for essential staff, including firefighters, to find food.

"This is really going to be weather dependent, and so far the weather has been holding with us," Fraser said of the wildfire in a video posted to Facebook.

In 2023, Canada experienced a record number of wildfires that caused choking smoke in parts of the U.S. and forced more than 235,000 Canadians to evacuate their communities. At least four firefighters died.

Several wildfires are burning across western Canada.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree appointing a new government, including replacement of the defense minister with a former deputy prime minister who is an economics expert with no military background.

When Putin was inaugurated for a new six-year term on May 7, the government submitted its resignation in line with Russian law. Putin reappointed Mikhail Mishustin as prime minister three days later, which was quickly approved by the lower house of parliament.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM PUTIN AS RUSSIAN STRONGMAN BEGINS NEW SIX-YEAR TERM

On Sunday, he signed a decree moving Sergei Shoigu from his post as defense minister to head of the national security council. Putin also nominated deputy prime minister Andrei Belousov to take Shoigu's place.

Putin also proposed names for some Cabinet members to return to their posts and Mishustin submitted names for several new ministers, all of which were approved by the parliament.

Shoigu has been widely seen as a key figure in Putin’s decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine. Russia had expected the operation to quickly overwhelm Ukraine’s much smaller and less-equipped army and for Ukrainians to broadly welcome Russian troops.

Instead, the conflict galvanized Ukraine to mount an intense defense, dealing the Russian army humiliating blows, including the retreat from an attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and a counteroffensive that drove Moscow’s forces out of the Kharkiv region.

Shoigu also was shadowed by the arrest last month of deputy defense minister Timur Ivanov on charges of accepting huge bribes.

The decree by Putin largely retains the previous Cabinet, but names new energy, sports, transport, industry and agriculture ministers.

Argentina’s monthly inflation rate eased sharply to a single-digit rate in April for the first time in half a year, data released Tuesday showed, a closely watched indicator that bolsters President Javier Milei’s severe austerity program aimed at fixing the country’s troubled economy.

Prices rose at a rate of 8.8% last month, the Argentine government statistics agency reported, down from a monthly rate of 11% in March and well below a peak of 25% last December, when Milei became president with a mission to combat Argentina’s dizzying inflation, among the highest in the world.

ARGENTINA WILL GET NEXT INSTALLMENT OF BAILOUT AS IMF PRAISES MILEI'S AUSTERITY POLICIES

"Inflation is being pulverized," Manuel Adorni, the presidential spokesperson, posted on social media platform X after the announcement. "Its death certificate is being signed."

Although praised by the International Monetary Fund and cheered by market watchers, Milei’s cost-cutting and deregulation campaign has, at least in the short term, squeezed families whose money has plummeted in value while the cost of nearly everything has skyrocketed. Annual inflation, the statistics agency reported Tuesday, climbed slightly to 289.4%.

"People are in pain," said 23-year-old Augustin Perez, a supermarket worker in the suburbs of Buenos Aires who said his rent had soared by 90% since Milei deregulated the real estate market and his electricity bill had nearly tripled since the government slashed subsidies. "They say things are getting better, but how? I don’t understand."

Milei’s social media feed in recent weeks has become a stream of good economic news: Argentine bonds posting some of the best gains among emerging markets, officials celebrating its first quarterly surplus since 2008 and the IMF announcing Monday it would release another $800 million loan — a symbolic vote of confidence in Milei’s overhaul.

"The important thing is to score goals now," Milei said at an event Tuesday honoring former President Carlos Menem, a divisive figure whose success driving hyperinflation down to single digits through free-market policies Milei repeatedly references. "We are beating inflation."

Even so, some experts warn that falling inflation isn’t necessarily an economic victory — rather the symptom of a painful recession. The IMF expects Argentina’s gross domestic product to shrink by 2.8% this year.

"You’ve had a massive collapse in private spending, which explains why consumption has dropped dramatically and why inflation is also falling," said Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies emerging markets. "People are worse off than they were before. That leads them to spend less."

Signs of an economic slowdown are everywhere in Buenos Aires — the lines snaking outside discounted groceries, the empty seats in the city’s typically booming restaurants, the growing strikes and protests.

At an open-air market in the capital's Liniers neighborhood, Lidia Pacheco makes a beeline for the garbage dump. Several times a week, the 45-year-old mother of four rummages through the pungent pile to salvage the tomatoes with the least mold.

"This place saves me," Pacheco said. Sky-high prices have forced her to stick to worn-out clothes and shoes and change her diet to the point of giving up yerba mate, Argentina’s ubiquitous national drink brewed from bitter leaves. "Whatever I earn from selling clothes goes to eating," she said.

Argentina's retail sales in the first quarter of 2024 fell nearly 20% compared to the year before, a clip comparable to that of the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. The consumption of beef — an Argentine classic — dropped to its lowest level in three decades this quarter, the government reported, prompting panicked editorials about a crisis in Argentina's national psyche.

"Now I buy pork and chicken instead," said Leonardo Buono, 51-year-old hospital worker. "It’s an intense shock, this economic adjustment."

Milei, a self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalist" and former TV personality, warned his policies would hurt at first.

He campaigned brandishing a chainsaw to symbolize all the cutting he would do to Argentina’s bloated state, a dramatic change from successive left-leaning Peronist governments that ran vast budget deficits financed by printing money.

Promising the pain would pay off, he slashed spending on everything from construction and cultural centers to education and energy subsidies, from soup kitchens and social programs to pensions and public companies. He has also devalued the Argentine peso by 54%, helping close the chasm between the peso’s official and black-market exchange rates but also fueling inflation.

Inflation in the first four months of 2024 surged by 65%, the government statistics agency reported Tuesday. Prices in shops and restaurants have reached levels similar to those in the U.S. and Europe.

But Argentine wages have remained stagnant or declined, with the monthly minimum wage for regulated workers just $264 as of this month, with workers in the informal economy often paid less.

Today that sum can buy scarcely more than a few nice meals at Don Julio, a famous Buenos Aires steakhouse. Nearly 60% of the country’s 46 million people now live in poverty, a 20-year high, according to a study in January by Argentina’s Catholic University.

Even as discontent appears to rise, the president’s approval ratings have remained high, around 50%, according to a survey this month by Argentine consulting firm Circuitos — possibly a result of Milei’s success blaming his predecessors for the crisis.

"It’s not his fault, it’s the Peronists who ruined the country, and Milei is trying to do his best," said Rainer Silva, a Venezuelan taxi driver who fled his own country’s economic collapse for Argentina five years ago. "He’s like Trump, everyone’s against him."

Argentina’s powerful trade unions and leftist political parties have pushed back against Milei with weekly street protests, but haven’t managed to galvanize a broad swath of society.

That could change — last week, a massive protest against budget cuts to public universities visibly hit a nerve, drawing hundreds of thousands of people.

"The current situation is completely unsustainable," said de Bolle, the economy expert.

A court on Tuesday convicted one of the best-known figures in the far-right Alternative for Germany party of knowingly using a Nazi slogan in a speech and ordered him to pay a fine.

The verdict in Björn Höcke’s trial comes months before a regional election in the eastern state of Thuringia in which he plans to run for the governor’s job.

FAR-RIGHT GERMAN POLITICIAN CHARGED WITH SECOND COUNT OF USING NAZI SLOGAN

The state court in the eastern city of Halle convicted Höcke of using symbols of a former Nazi organization. It imposed a fine totaling about $14,000.

The charge can carry a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Prosecutors had sought a six-month suspended sentence, while defense lawyers argued for acquittal.

The case centered on a speech in Merseburg in May 2021 in which Höcke used the phrase "Everything for Germany!" Prosecutors contended he was aware of its origin as a slogan of the Nazis’ SA stormtroopers, but Höcke has argued that it is an "everyday saying."

Court spokesperson Adina Kessler-Jensch said judges were convinced that Höcke was aware the formulation was a banned SA slogan.

Presiding Judge Jan Stengel told Höcke that "you are an articulate, intelligent man who knows what he is saying," German news agency dpa reported.

The former history teacher testified at the trial that he is "completely innocent" and described himself as a "law-abiding citizen."

The 52-year-old Höcke is an influential figure on the hard right of Alternative for Germany, or AfD.

He has led the AfD’s regional branch in Thuringia since 2013, the year the party was founded, and is due to lead its campaign in a state election set for Sept. 1.

He once called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a "monument of shame" and called for Germany to perform a "180-degree turn" in how it remembers its past. A party tribunal in 2018 rejected a bid to have him expelled.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen argued in Tuesday’s closing arguments that Höcke had used Nazi vocabulary "strategically and systematically" in the past, dpa reported.

Höcke accused prosecutors of not looking for exonerating circumstances and argued that freedom of opinion is limited in Germany.

It’s questionable whether the conviction in the trial, which opened in mid-April, will have any significant political effect on Höcke’s ambitions. It won’t have any direct legal effect on his candidacy.

AfD is particularly strong in Germany’s formerly communist east, where Thuringia is located. It’s unlikely that any other party will agree to work with Höcke and put him in the governor’s office, but AfD’s strength has made forming governing coalitions in the region very complicated.

The Thuringia branch of AfD is one of three that the domestic intelligence agency has under official surveillance as a "proven right-wing extremist" group.

On Monday, a court ruled in a separate case that the agency was justified in putting the whole party under observation for suspected extremism. AfD has portrayed the designation as a political attempt to discredit the party and said it will seek to appeal.

The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday put sanctions on a Russian citizen and three Russia-based companies it said were trying to evade U.S. sanctions in a scheme that could have unfrozen more than $1.5 billion belonging to Russian metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

Deripaska, who himself was placed under U.S. sanctions in April 2018, branched out into metals trading as the Soviet Union crumbled, making a fortune by buying up stakes in aluminum factories. Forbes ranked his fortune this year at $2.8 billion.

The Treasury said that in June 2023 Deripaska coordinated with Russian citizens Dmitrii Beloglazov, the owner of Russia-based financial services firm Obshchestvo S Ogranichennoi Otvetstvennostiu Titul (Titul), on a planned transaction to sell Deripaska's frozen shares in a European company.

TOP RUSSIAN DEFENSE OFFICIAL ARRESTED ON BRIBERY CHARGES AMID KREMLIN SHAKE-UP

Within weeks of this, Russia-based financial services firm Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Iliadis was set up as a subsidiary of Titul. In early 2024, Iliadis acquired Russia-based investment holding company International Company Joint Stock Company Rasperia Trading Limited (Rasperia), which holds Deripaska's frozen shares.

The Treasury said sanctions were imposed on Beloglazov, Titul, and Iliadis on Tuesday for operating or having operated in Russia's financial services sector. It said Rasperia was sanctioned for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act on behalf of Iliadis.

Nobel laureate Alice Munro, the Canadian literary giant who became one of the world’s most esteemed contemporary authors and one of history's most honored short story writers, has died at age 92.

A spokesperson for publisher Penguin Random House Canada said Munro, winner of the Nobel literary prize in 2013, died Monday at home in Port Hope, Ontario. Munro had been in frail health for years and often spoke of retirement, a decision that proved final after the author's 2012 collection, "Dear Life."

Often ranked with Anton Chekhov, John Cheever and a handful of other short story writers, Munro achieved stature rare for an art form traditionally placed beneath the novel. She was the first lifelong Canadian to win the Nobel and the first recipient cited exclusively for short fiction. Echoing the judgment of so many before, the Swedish academy pronounced her a "master of the contemporary short story" who could "accommodate the entire epic complexity of the novel in just a few short pages."

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Munro, little known beyond Canada until her late 30s, also became one of the few short story writers to enjoy ongoing commercial success. Sales in North America alone exceeded 1 million copies and the Nobel announcement raised "Dear Life" to the high end of The New York Times' bestseller list for paperback fiction. Other popular books included "Too Much Happiness," "The View from Castle Rock" and "The Love of a Good Woman."

Over a half century of writing, Munro perfected one of the greatest tricks of any art form: illuminating the universal through the particular, creating stories set around Canada that appealed to readers far away. She produced no single definitive work, but dozens of classics that were showcases of wisdom, technique and talent — her inspired plot twists and artful shifts of time and perspective; her subtle, sometimes cutting humor; her summation of lives in broad dimension and fine detail; her insights into people across age or background, her genius for sketching a character, like the adulterous woman introduced as "short, cushiony, dark-eyed, effusive. A stranger to irony."

Her best known fiction included "The Beggar's Maid," a courtship between an insecure young woman and an officious rich boy who becomes her husband; "Corrie," in which a wealthy young woman has an affair with an architect "equipped with a wife and young family"; and "The Moons of Jupiter," about a middle-aged writer who visits her ailing father in a Toronto hospital and shares memories of different parts of their lives.

"I think any life can be interesting," Munro said during a 2013 post-prize interview for the Nobel Foundation. "I think any surroundings can be interesting."

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Disliking Munro, as a writer or as a person, seemed almost heretical. The wide and welcoming smile captured in her author photographs was complemented by a down-to-earth manner and eyes of acute alertness, fitting for a woman who seemed to pull stories out of the air the way songwriters discovered melodies. She was admired without apparent envy, placed by the likes of Jonathan Franzen, John Updike and Cynthia Ozick at the very top of the pantheon. Munro's daughter, Sheila Munro, wrote a memoir in which she confided that "so unassailable is the truth of her fiction that sometimes I even feel as though I'm living inside an Alice Munro story." Fellow Canadian author Margaret Atwood called her a pioneer for women, and for Canadians.

"Back in the 1950s and 60s, when Munro began, there was a feeling that not only female writers but Canadians were thought to be both trespassing and transgressing," Atwood wrote in a 2013 tribute published in the Guardian after Munro won the Nobel. "The road to the Nobel wasn't an easy one for Munro: the odds that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero."

Although not overtly political, Munro witnessed and participated in the cultural revolution of the 1960s and '70s and permitted her characters to do the same. She was a farmer's daughter who married young, then left her husband in the 1970s and took to "wearing miniskirts and prancing around," as she recalled during a 2003 interview with The Associated Press. Many of her stories contrasted the generation of Munro's parents with the more open-ended lives of their children, departing from the years when housewives daydreamed "between the walls that the husband was paying for."

Moviegoers would become familiar with "The Bear Came Over the Mountain," the improbably seamless tale of a married woman with memory loss who has an affair with a fellow nursing home patient, a story further complicated by her husband's many past infidelities. "The Bear" was adapted by director Sarah Polley into the feature film "Away from Her," which brought an Academy Award nomination for Julie Christie. In 2014, Kristen Wiig starred in "Hateship, Loveship," an adaptation of the story "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage," in which a housekeeper leaves her job and travels to a distant rural town to meet up with a man she believes is in love with her — unaware the romantic letters she has received were concocted by his daughter and a friend.

Even before the Nobel, Munro received honors from around the English-language world, including Britain's Man Booker International Prize and the National Book Critics Circle award in the U.S., where the American Academy of Arts and Letters voted her in as an honorary member. In Canada, she was a three-time winner of the Governor General's Award and a two-time winner of the Giller Prize.

Munro was a short story writer by choice, and, apparently, by design. Judith Jones, an editor at Alfred A. Knopf who worked with Updike and Anne Tyler, did not want to publish "Lives of Girls & Women," her only novel, writing in an internal memo that "there's no question the lady can write but it's also clear she is primarily a short story writer."

Munro would acknowledge that she didn't think like a novelist.

"I have all these disconnected realities in my own life, and I see them in other people's lives," she told the AP. "That was one of the problems, why I couldn't write novels. I never saw things hanging together too well."

Alice Ann Laidlaw was born in Wingham, Ontario, in 1931, and spent much of her childhood there, a time and place she often used in her fiction, including the four autobiographical pieces that concluded "Dear Life." Her father was a fox farmer, her mother a teacher and the family’s fortunes shifted between middle class and working poor, giving the future author a special sensitivity to money and class. Young Alice was often absorbed in literature, starting with the first time she was read Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Little Mermaid." She was a compulsive inventor of stories and the "sort of child who reads walking upstairs and props a book in front of her when she does the dishes."

A top student in high school, she received a scholarship to study at the University of Western Ontario, majoring in journalism as a "cover-up" for her pursuit of literature. She was still an undergraduate when she sold a story about a lonely teacher, "The Dimensions of a Shadow," to CBC Radio. She was also publishing work in her school’s literary journal.

One fellow student read "Dimensions" and wrote to the then-Laidlaw, telling her the story reminded him of Chekhov. The student, Gerald Fremlin, would become her second husband. Another fellow student, James Munro, was her first husband. They married in 1951, when she was only 20, and had four children, one of whom died soon after birth.

Settling with her family in Vancouver, Alice Munro wrote between trips to school, housework and helping her husband at the bookstore that they co-owned and would turn up in some of her stories. She wrote one book in the laundry room of her house, her typewriter placed near the washer and dryer. Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers and other writers from the American South inspired her, through their sense of place and their understanding of the strange and absurd.

Isolated from the literary center of Toronto, she did manage to get published in several literary magazines and to attract the attention of an editor at Ryerson Press (later bought out by McGraw Hill). Her debut collection, "Dance of the Happy Shades," was released in 1968 with a first printing of just under 2,700 copies. A year later it won the Governor’s General Award and made Munro a national celebrity — and curiosity. "Literary Fame Catches City Mother Unprepared," read one newspaper headline.

"When the book first came they sent me a half dozen copies. I put them in the closet. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t tell my husband they had come, because I couldn’t bear it. I was afraid it was terrible," Munro told the AP. "And one night, he was away, and I forced myself to sit down and read it all the way through, and I didn’t think it was too bad. And I felt I could acknowledge it and it would be OK."

By the early ’70s, she had left her husband, later observing that she was not "prepared to be a submissive wife." Her changing life was best illustrated by her response to the annual Canadian census. For years, she had written down her occupation as "housewife." In 1971, she switched to "writer."

Over the next 40 years, her reputation and readership only grew, with many of her stories first appearing in The New Yorker. Her prose style was straightforward, her tone matter of fact, but her plots revealed unending disruption and disappointments: broken marriages, violent deaths, madness and dreams unfulfilled, or never even attempted. "Canadian Gothic" was one way she described the community of her childhood, a world she returned to when, in middle age, she and her second husband relocated to nearby Clinton.

"Shame and embarrassment are driving forces for Munro’s characters," Atwood wrote, "just as perfectionism in the writing has been a driving force for her: getting it down, getting it right, but also the impossibility of that."

She had the kind of curiosity that would have made her an ideal companion on a long train ride, imagining the lives of the other passengers. Munro wrote the story "Friend of My Youth," in which a man has an affair with his fiancee’s sister and ends up living with both women, after an acquaintance told her about some neighbors who belonged to a religion that forbade card games. The author wanted to know more — about the religion, about the neighbors.

Even as a child, Munro had regarded the world as an adventure and mystery and herself as an observer, walking around Wingham and taking in the homes as if she were a tourist. In "The Peace of Utrecht," an autobiographical story written in the late 1960s, a woman discovers an old high school notebook and remembers a dance she once attended with an intensity that would envelop her whole existence.

"And now an experience which seemed not at all memorable at the time," Munro wrote, "had been transformed into something curiously meaningful for me, and complete; it took in more than the girls dancing and the single street, it spread over the whole town, its rudimentary pattern of streets and its bare trees and muddy yards just free of the snow, over the dirt roads where the lights of cars appeared, jolting toward the town, under an immense pale wash of sky."

The hunt is underway for a Sumatran tiger believed to have attacked a man in western Indonesia, killing him.

The victim was identified by CBS News as being 26 years old. He was found dead at a plantation in the Riau province on Sumatra island on Thursday afternoon with a missing right hand and bite wounds on his neck.

Local authorities received a notification from two workers that their friend was screaming, and that, when they searched for him, all they saw were tiger tracks, CBS reported.

"Our team has left this morning (to search for the tiger). Based on the report, the area is within the tiger habitat," local conservation agency head Genman Suhefti Hasibuan told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Saturday.

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AFP reported there are about several hundred wild tigers left on the western island of Sumatra due to being targeted by poachers and deforestation of their habitat for oil palm plantations. 

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Sumatran tigers are carnivorous mammals whose life span in the wild is about 15 years, according to National Geographic. They can be as large as eight feet, and weigh as much as 260 pounds. 

Last week's tiger attack is one of three fatal incidents in the past five months, according to CBS News. A Siberian tiger reportedly attacked a dog and killed its owner in Russia in December. Last month, a man was killed by tigers at a zoo in Pakistan.

Four farmers in Indonesia's Aceh province were attacked by tigers in two separate incidents back in February, CBS reported.

The Georgian parliament on Tuesday approved in the third and final reading a divisive bill that sparked weeks of mass protests, with critics seeing it as a threat to democratic freedoms and the country’s aspirations to join the European Union.

The bill requires media and nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofits to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

The government says the bill is necessary to stem what it deems as harmful foreign influence over the country’s politics and to prevent unspecified foreign actors from trying to destabilize it.

GEORGIA POLICE ARREST DOZENS PROTESTING 'RUSSIAN LAW'

The opposition has denounced the bill as "the Russian law," because Moscow uses similar legislation to crack down on independent news media, nonprofits and activists critical of the Kremlin.

Mass protests against the law in recent weeks have swept the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million.

European Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday spoke of Georgia in Copenhagen, at a conference on democracy, and said that "if they want to join the EU, they have to respect the fundamental principles of the rule of law and the democratic principles."

The bill is nearly identical to one that the governing Georgian Dream party was pressured to withdraw last year after street protests. Renewed demonstrations have rocked Georgia for weeks, with demonstrators scuffling with police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with the governing party, has vowed to veto the law, but Georgian Dream has a majority sufficient to override a presidential veto.

As the lawmakers began debating the bill on Tuesday, a large crowd of demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament to protest once again, with a heavy presence of riot police at the site. Over the weekend, thousands poured into the streets of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, and many stayed in front of the parliament until Monday morning.

Inside the parliament, the debate was interrupted by a brawl. Georgian Dream MP Dimitry Samkharadze was seen charging toward Levan Khabeishvili, the chairman of main opposition party United National Movement, after Khabeishvili accused him of organizing mobs to beat up opposition supporters.

In recent days, several protesters and opposition members have been beaten up. The opposition linked the incidents to the protests.

Another Georgian Dream lawmaker, Archil Talakvadze, accused in his speech on Tuesday "the radical and anti-national political opposition united by political vendetta" of using the protests for their own political purpose and "hoping for events to take a radical turn."

"But nothing and nobody can stop the development of our country," Talakvadze said.

Ana Tsitlidze, a member of the United National Movement, said the protests showed how unified Georgia was "in fighting for its European future," adding that "today, saying no to the Russian law equals saying no to the Russian regime."

After the debate, 84 lawmakers out of 116 attending Tuesday's session voted in favor of the law, and 30 voted against. It will now be sent to Zourabichvili, the president, and she has 14 days to either veto or approve it.

Armed assailants killed two French prison officers and seriously wounded three others in an attack on a convoy in Normandy on Tuesday and an inmate escaped, officials said. A search was underway.

The convoy was transporting prisoner Mohamed Amra to Évreux jail after a court hearing in Rouen when it was ambushed on the A154 freeway, which has been closed.

"All means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilized," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin posted on social platform X.

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French President Emmanuel Macron in a post on X called the attack "a shock for all of us."

Authorities worked to secure the area in northwestern France and apprehend the assailants. It was not clear how many were involved.

Amra was detained at the Val de Reuil prison center near Rouen following his recent sentencing for burglary. He was also under investigation for a kidnapping and homicide case in Marseille, according to public prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

French media reported that Amra was nicknamed "La Mouche" (The Fly).

Beccuau announced an investigation into the attack, considered a case of organized crime and murder, and said two of the wounded officers were in critical condition.

The investigation will also address organized escape attempts, possession of military-grade weapons and conspiracy to commit a crime.

A missile fired by a drone struck a house in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border before dawn Tuesday, killing at least four villagers, including children, police said.

The strike happened in South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police chief Hidayat Ullah said. 

He said it was not immediately clear who fired the missile and officers were investigating. The Pakistan army evicted Pakistani Taliban insurgents from the region years ago, but they have been regrouping there.

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Those killed in the missile strike were civilians with no known links to the insurgents. Villagers put their bodies on a road near a military camp and protested the killings and demanded information about who was responsible.

Most of the previous drone strikes in the area were carried out by the United States or the Pakistan army.

There was no immediate comment from the government or the military about the strike. The Pakistani Taliban, officially known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. It has been emboldened by the Afghan Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.

Top envoys from the U.S. and China huddled in closed-door talks in Geneva on Tuesday to lay out their national approaches to the promise and perils of emerging artificial intelligence technology.

The talks, which Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreed to launch in last 2023, are meant to open up bilateral dialogue between the world’s two biggest economies — and increasingly, geopolitical rivals — on a fast-moving technology that already has consequences for trade, lifestyles, culture, politics, national security and defense and much more.

U.S. technology experts say the meeting — led on the American side by high-level White House and State Department officials — could offer a glimpse into Beijing’s thinking about AI amid a generally tight-lipped Chinese approach to the technology.

STATE DEPARTMENT WANTS CHINA, RUSSIA TO DECLARE THAT AI WON'T CONTROL NUCLEAR WEAPONS, ONLY HUMANS

Co-founder Jason Glassberg of Casaba Security in Redmond, Washington, an expert on new and emerging threats posed by AI, handicapped the meeting as a get-to-know-you that will likely yield few concrete results, but get the two sides talking.

"What’s most important right now is that both sides realize they each have a lot to lose if AI becomes weaponized or abused," Glassberg said in an e-mail. "All parties involved are equally at risk. Right now, one of the biggest areas of risk is with deepfakes, particularly for use in disinformation campaigns."

"This is just as big of a risk for the PRC as it is for the U.S. government," he added, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

It was not immediately clear why the meeting was taking place in Geneva, though the internationally-minded Swiss city bills itself as a hub of diplomacy and U.N. and international institutions.

The Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union — a U.N. agency currently headed by American Doreen Bodgan-Martin and previously run by China’s Houlin Zhao — is set to host its annual "AI for Good" conference in the city later this month.

The meeting is the first under an intergovernmental dialogue on AI agreed upon during a multi-faceted meeting between Xi and Biden in San Francisco six months ago.

The U.S. government has sought to set some guardrails around the technology while fostering its growth, seeking a possible boon for economic output and jobs.

Western experts have suggested that China’s government, meanwhile, has in part kept a lid on AI applications because of its real or potential applications for military and surveillance activities under the ruling Communist Party.

U.S. officials suggested they would lay out ways to mitigate possible risks from the technology by creating voluntary commitments with the sector’s leading companies and requiring safety tests of AI products.