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In the letter, Sandy Smith said an individual had come forward to the family claiming to have witnessed Stephen being beaten to death with a baseball bat

Prince of Wales thanks soldiers for ‘defending our freedoms

A man who was once Donald Trump’s legal adviser may be the one responsible for sparking a historic presidential prosecution, John Bowden writes

Grand jury investigating Trump’s role in hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election could return an indictment on Wednesday

Man barricaded himself inside apartment in luxury CitySpire building in Manhattan

Scottie Morries, 14, has been missing for almost a week after investigators believe ran away from his home in Eaton, Indiana. As the search shows no signs of a breakthrough, questions are mounting over the chilling shirt he was wearing. Andrea Blanco reports

Despite his being head of the world’s most popular app, the enigmatic CEO’s Wikipedia page is just six sentences long

A cancellation could delay a vote to indict Donald Trump in connection with an investigation into hush money payments to Stormy Daniels

Despite what Trump’s MAGA allies say, the Florida governor likely has little authority to stop the former president’s extradition from their mutual home state. Eric Garcia and Andrew Feinberg write

Former president expects to be arrested this week. Mystery remains over how such an arrest could be carried out

A DIVER has revealed the terrifying moment he was swallowed whole by a great white shark as it tried to eat him alive.

Eric Nerhus, from Eden, Australia, is one of very few who have been inside the jaws of the fearsome predator and survived to tell the tale.

Eric was scouring reefs for abalone – a type of edible sea snail – at Cape Howe on New South Wales’ rugged southern coastline in January, 2007.

But as he was diving, a great white shark charged him – swallowing his head and torso whole.

The veteran waterman then found himself inside the belly of the 10ft beast.

More than 77 jagged teeth sunk into his body as its jaws clamped shut.

The monstrous creature then tried to swallow him, crushing his head and chest, which were only protected by his heavy diving gear.

Inside, it was pitch black as Eric looked down the back of its throat with his arm dangling in front.

As its teeth gnashed into his flesh and started to thrash him around, Eric was now in the fight of his life – a horrific ordeal that he will never forget.

An incident report obtained by The Sun Online from the Global Shark Accident File can now reveal the horrific details that ensued.

It all began around 9am when Eric began his 26ft descent to the sea floor and started bagging the highly sought after mollusc.

He was 41 at the time and was working as a professional abalone diver.

Weather reports on the day forecasted rough conditions – fierce enough to deter most seasoned divers from taking the plunge.

In the weeks prior, there had also been some white pointer sightings in the area due to unusually cold waters.

However, it was a spot Eric had dived on 100 times before.

And that morning his 16-year-old son, Mark, was his trusted deckhand.

Eric said: “When you are a diver and you’re in that domain you’ve got that inkling in the back of your mind wondering if a shark will show up.

“A bob of seals or big fish shoot past you… you think ‘ok I wonder what’s chasing them’

“That’s when the hair on the back of your neck will stand up.”

Abalone divers can spend up to eight hours below the surface using lead weight vests to control their buoyancy.

They are usually hooked up to a machine on the boat that feeds them oxygen through a hose that’s connected to an industry-grade mask.

Despite that day’s murky water, Eric was in his element, casually making his way around submerged boulders.

He was in the tranquillity of the deep blue Tasman Sea and the only thing he could hear was the hum of his air regulator.

He took a reassuring upwards glance at the hull of his boat and continued on with the task at hand.

Next minute, everything went black.

Eric came to the vice-like pressure of his torso being crushed between two trucks colliding.

Eric said: “One minute it was day light, the next second everything went black.

“Inside the jaws it was just dark, I couldn’t see anything because I was looking down the back of his throat.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Remarkably, Eric was still alive.

The shark’s first bite was absorbed by his diving mask and air regulator, which split and broke his nose instantly.

Angered that its prey had not relented, the monster took a wider chomp pushing the man further down its pharynx.

This time, the brunt of the bite was taken by his lead-weight vest.

And at least 14 sharp jagged teeth had now sunk in and had a grip of him.

Eric said: “I started to get shaken horizontally with a really hard threshing motion.

“I thought ‘is this the end, is this what is like to die’.

“I was actually being eaten alive.”

Amid the horror, his survivalist instinct kicked in and he felt around for its eye socket and proceeded to gouge it.

Suddenly the clamp of the jaws released.

Eric said: “I started to wriggle out backwards and I wasn’t sure if I was going to get out or not.

“Just as I thought I was getting free, the bottom jaw closed and I felt the teeth sink into the back of my head and into my skull.

“I twisted its eye as hard as I could and the shark reacted again and let go.”

Eric managed to escape and quickly put the regulator back in his mouth to get some oxygen.

The terror, however, was not over.

According to Aidan Martin, a shark scientist, one of the hunting strategies of a white shark is to make an initial, crippling bite on a prey animal, then retreat until it bleeds out and becomes and easier meal.

The man was now hovering above the sea floor, blood spewing out of his lacerations and was being tightly circled by the shark with its black, glassy five inch eye traced on him.

Eric said: “The big round black eye was staring straight into my face with not one hint of fear of any boat, any human, or any other animal in the sea.

“It was the scariest site I have ever seen.”

The veteran waterman calmed himself and had to make the daring decision to swim for the boat.

He spread his arms and legs in an attempt to alert the shark that he was not a seal.

Eric slowly made his way to the top with the shark still circling, brushing his flippers with its tank-like body.

He broke the surface and his son desperately pulled him aboard.

Emergency crews were reached and he was flown to Wollongong hospital by a Snowy Hydro rescue helicopter.

He required 75 surgical sutures to stitch him back up but the tough Aussie had survived.

The fear, however, was too much to ever return to the water.

Eric said: “I am glad I am still around.

“Sometimes you get a break in life… I’m a working man that just wanted to survive very, very badly, at all costs.

“I have no animosity towards the shark because I realise it obviously mistook me for its natural prey, which possibly would be a seal.

“When you think about it, this was probably a one in ten million chance of escape.”

For his pal John Smythe, who has been diving for more than 50 years, it was the most epic tale of survival he had come across.

He told The Sun Online: “I’ve been hassled by makos, stalked by wobbies, crawled under rocks to hide from big whites… but Eric’s escape was incredible.”

The recollection comes as Australia experiences a surge in shark attacks.

The occurrence of unprovoked shark bites has increased globally for more than 30 years but Australia has been identified as a “hotspot”.

Those claims were backed up by a study that was published last year called: Increased shark bite survivability revealed by two centuries of Australian records.

While bull shark survivability increased over time between 1807 and 2018 – survivability decreased for both tiger and white sharks.

Especially when the person was doing an in water activity, such as swimming or diving.

Just a month ago, 16-year-old Stella Berry was mauled to death by a shark.

It was Western Australia’s first fatal shark attack in the Swan River for 100 years.

As of March 2023, there have been seven shark attacks in the country, three of which have been fatal.

And by October last year, seven people had already been killed by sharks.

It was a spike that had not been seen in the country for 86 years.

The highest annual figure on record was in 1929, with nine deaths.

However, the probability of shark-human interaction is extremely low and the likelihood of a bite being fatal is even lower.

ANDREW Tate has been behind bars in a detention centre since being arrested as part of a sex trafficking investigation.

Here, we look at the latest on the situation regarding Tate and his brother Tristan, and how much longer they could be held for.

Andrew and Tristan will spend another 30 days in custody following a hearing on March 30, 2023.

Under Romanian law, people can only be held in a detention centre for six months.

The latest vote meant that they would spend a fourth month behind bars.

The judge decided to detain both Tate brothers and their personal assistants Georgiana Naghel and Luana Radu on December 29, 2022.

Andrew Tate has remained an active presence on social media despite his incarceration.

The Romanian authorities seized many of the brothers assets from their compound following their arrest.

Andrew, Tristan and his two associates are being held on suspicion of sex trafficking.

Romanian authorities have since said that, having identified six alleged victims, that their pair had subjected them to “acts of physical violence and mental coercion” as well as “sexual exploitation”.

They are alleged to have recruited and exploited women by coercing them into “forced labour… and pornographic acts with a view to producing and disseminating such material” online to “obtain substantial financial benefits”.

Tate, who previously claimed to be a “trillionaire” was in fact living in a property he did not own in surroundings much different to the image he portrays online.

Andrew and Tristan look set to remain in custody for the foreseeable, after a successful appeal from Romanian authorities on March 22, 2023, which meant they would spend a fourth month in jail.

The investigation into the charges alleged against the pair will continue during this time.

There is no set date for the release of the brothers, and based on the extensions to their terms inside, it may be a while before they could be freed.

A POLICE officer has been shot during a raid on “Citizens of the Reich” German coup plotters who support Prince Heinrich XIII.

Tactical police stormed multiple homes across eight federal states in Germany as part of an investigation into the Reichsbürger group.

It is the second swoop on the extremists – who believe post-Second World War Germany is illegitimate – in recent months.

During the operation on Wednesday morning, officers raided a home in Reutlingen, in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg.

One police officer was shot and wounded at the property. He suffered minor injuries, according to reports.

One person was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder at the scene, a spokesperson for the Attorney General said.

The Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe has now taken over the investigation into the shooter, they added.

According to Zeit Online, the suspect was waiting in the living room with a large-caliber gun. Reports claim he had a permit to own weapons.

Justice minister Marco Buschmann wrote in a tweet: “This shows how dangerous the missions are.

“It is the duty of the authorities to disarm Reichsbürger.”

The raids, which also took place in Switzerland, targeted five people who were suspected of belonging to a terrorist organisation.

Authorities also searched the homes of another 14 people, who were not suspects in the case.

German broadcaster ARD claimed some of these included police officers and soldiers from southern Bavaria, northern Lower Saxony and eastern Saxony.

No further arrests were made, German prosecutors said.

Cops reportedly raided 22 properties throughout Germany, including in the capital, Berlin, and in Singen.

A property near Göttingen, Lower Saxony, was also targeted as part of the raid.

Since last year more than 50 suspects linked to Prince Heinrich XIII have been under investigation – while 24 have been locked up.

Police foiled a plot by the Reichsbürger group to overthrow the government in December.

Prince Heinrich XIII was allegedly the mastermind behind the scheme, alongside a former paratrooper commander, known only as Rüdiger v. P.

He is also alleged to have reached out to Russian officials for their help to storm the German parliament building, the Reichstag.

Members of the Reichsbürger movement planned to stage a violent coup to install the aristocrat, 71, as leader and restore the Second Reich.

The Second Reich was the German Empire which ruled from 1871 before being defeated by the British and their allies in World War 1.

Germany’s defeat saw the Kaiser abdicate and the monarchy collapse – leaving a weakened state known as the Weimar Republic.

The republic was eventually overtaken by Adolf Hitler, leading to World War 2.

Federal Prosecutor’s Office officials said the plotters wanted to overthrow the state order in Germany and replace it with their own.

Members of the Reichsbürger movement fail to recognise the political legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was formed in wake of the war.

Instead, they believe that it was forced upon the nation by the allies.

The radicals are only prepared to accept the German Reich as the official sovereign, governing authority of Germany.

The group is estimated to be around 23,000-strong, with 1,000 of the members armed.

They have been involved in numerous shoot-outs with the police, which resulted in the death of a police officer in Bavaria in 2016.

Heinrich – an entrepreneur who worked in property, wine and the arts – was arrested at his office in Frankfurt in early December.

His family had already distanced themselves from him in the “clearest possible terms” after he publically met with far-right politicians in August last year.

It is reported he left the family 14 years ago – and he was described by the House of Reuss as a “confused old man”.

The Reichsbürger group is alleged to have tried to recruit members from the German police and state defence force, the Bundeswehr, as well as calling on Russian officials for help.

Mad tyrant Vladimir Putin is known to be seeking to destabilise Western governments, especially Germany, amid the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s embassy in Germany denied any involvement in plot, saying they didn’t work with “terrorist groups”.

In January this year, a retired teacher dubbed “the terror granny” was arrested over an alleged treason plot to overthrow the government.

The pensioner, 75, is accused of being the ringleader of a far-right terrorist cell that hoped to kidnap a public official as part of a similar warped plan to bring reinstate the Second Reich.

The woman, named only as Elisabeth R. due to German privacy laws, is accused of planning to spark a bloody civil war and topple the federal government.

US nuclear B-52 bombers were flanked by NATO fighters in V-formation during a massive show of strength to Vladimir Putin.

The warning to the tyrant comes after his jets intercepted a pair of the bombers over the Baltic earlier this week – the first encounter between the sides since Russia brought down a US drone.

Fighter jets from Italy, Spain and Romania can be seen in a V-formation in the video, which appears to have been taken from one of the B-52s and released by NATO today.

“Get a cockpit view of the US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers working with NATO Allies during a recent mission over Europe,” said the alliance.

“The B-52s are training with Allied Air Forces during their BTF (Bomber Task Force) mission strengthening our Euro-Atlantic partnership.”

On display are Italian Typhoons, Spanish F-18s and Romanian F-16s.

The spectacular footage comes as Russia warned Britain over plans to potentially arm Ukraine with tank shells containing depleted uranium.

Moscow is fuming over the plan – with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov decrying it as “genocide” and another warning of a “nuclear collision”.

Britain has accused the Russians of “deliberately trying to disinform” over a “standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities”.

On Tuesday Russia’s defence ministry said its radar detected two targets which were identified as US Air Force B-52H bombers, the state-owned TASS news agency reported.

Footage taken from the Su-35 shows it flying beside one of two massive B-52s while Russian Tu-95 Bear nuclear bombers were seen taking off in a tit-for-tat show of strength.

Before the B-52s were intercepted by Vladimir Putin’s planes, a photo shows them being escorted by Polish F-16 jets over the Baltic Sea.

The ministry said a Su-35 fighter jet took to the air in order to prevent a border violation.

After that “the foreign military aircraft moved away from the Russian Federation state border, the Russian fighter returned to its base airfield”.

The Su-35’s flight was strictly in line with international rules of the use of airspace during Monday’s incident, added the ministry.

“No violation of the state border of the Russian Federation was permitted,” it said.

At the same time, Putin ordered up two of his own Tu-95MS – the world’s only propeller-powered strategic bombers – with Su-30SM and Su-35S warplanes providing fighter support in eastern Russia.

The move saw Putin flexing his nuclear muscles as it was announced that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is making a surprise trip today to Ukraine.

“Two Tu-95MS strategic missile-carrying bombers of long-range aviation performed a scheduled flight in the airspace over the neutral waters of the Sea of Japan,” said the Russian defence ministry.

“The flight lasted over seven hours.”

The United States has a number of military bases on Japan, including ones just across the Sea of Japan from Russia.

The Russians didn’t reveal where the Su-35s flew from but some are known to be based in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic.

During a clash last week a Russian Su-27 jet struck the propeller of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone – forcing it to crash into the sea.

The drone was taken down while flying near Russian-occupied Crimea and the Ukraine frontline.

The B-52 Stratofortress is a US Air Force's heavy bomber which has been in use since the mid-1950s.

One of the reasons why the plane – which has a 150ft wingspan – is still in use is its staggering flying range of 9,000 miles.

And then there’s the awe inspiring payload capability.

In fact its enormous size means they can carry more than 30 tonnes of bombs.

The hulking bomber can also be fitted with large numbers of nuclear-able cruise missiles and precision air-to-surface rockets.

B-52s were synonymous with the bombing of North Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s during the Cold War.

Its destructive capability was also demonstrated in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars where they were used to demolish caves and underground facilities.

The majority of the 76-strong fleet are based at Barksdale in Louisiana and Minot in North Dakota.

The planes also fly missions from bases outside the US, including the UK and Spain.

Prior to the collision, which happened at 7am local time, two Su-27s had “dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9” in a “reckless” and “unprofessional” manner, the US military said.

Footage of the moment was released by the US European Command.

It shows one of the Russian fighter jets zooming towards the drone before flying above it – dumping fuel on it.

Horrified US military personnel in Germany watched a live feed from the drone as the Russian jets repeatedly flew around it, dumping fuel to damage cameras and sensors.

Senior US officials have been worried for months that some sort of incident over the Black Sea could lead to miscommunication and confrontation.

The Russians said the drone manoeuvred sharply and crashed into water after its fighter jets were scrambled to intercept it near Crimea.

Moscow denied its warplanes came into contact with the drone and insisted they didn’t fire their weapons to shoot down the drone, which would have been an act of war.

The area has seen intense NATO military activity and is close to the frontlines of the Ukraine war.

The Russians reportedly said they won the race to retrieve the drone from the 3,000ft under the Black Sea.

The bringing down of the drone is part of Russia’s increasingly dangerous pattern of behaviour that experts fear could spark a wider conflict.

US researchers at the RAND Corporation have compiled a report detailing hundreds of such incidents in recent years which they describe as “coercive signalling”.

This is designed to send a message to the US and other NATO planes and ships through “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct – with Russian aircrafts increasingly armed.

RUSSIA has fired a new warning at Britain over plans to potentially arm Ukraine with tank shells containing depleted uranium.

Moscow is fuming over the plan – with one of Vladimir Putin’s officials decrying it as “genocide” and another warning of a “nuclear collision”.

“This is a step towards a further escalation, and a serious one at that,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

He added that the use of such ammunition would “sharply reduce” Ukraine’s ability to “produce high-quality, uncontaminated food”.

It came after Putin vowed Russia would be “forced to react” to any such moves by the UK.

And meanwhile nuclear capable bombers have been active over Europe, with incredible footage showing a B-52 flanked by six Nato fighter jets.

Britain has accused the Russians of “deliberately trying to disinform” over a “standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities”.

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu also fired a warning at the UK.

“Only one thing can be said here: there are not so many steps, another step has been passed, and there are fewer and fewer of them,” said Shoigu.

When asked whether this meant that the world was closer to a nuclear collision, he replied: “It was not by chance that I told you about steps.

“There are fewer and fewer.”

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also hit back – accusing the UK of “genocide”.

“The use of ammunition with depleted uranium is a manifestation of genocide of the population against which it is used and the people who use them,” she said.

Zakharova went on: “This is another British provocation, which aims to bring the situation around Ukraine to a new round of aggression, conflict and confrontation, to give a qualitatively different dimension.”

Moscow has been reacting to a written response by a UK defence minister, Annabel Goldie, who was asked whether “any of the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine contains depleted uranium”.

She responded on Monday by saying that “we will be providing ammunition including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium”.

Depleted uranium is a by-product of the nuclear enriching process used to make nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. It is around 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium.

Its heaviness lends itself for use in armour piercing rounds as it helps them easily penetrate steel.

The United Nations Environment Program has described it as a “chemically and radiologically toxic heavy metal”.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly rubbished the criticism from Russia.

Cleverly told reporters at an event in London that Russia was the only country talking about nuclear issues.

“There is no nuclear escalation,” he said. “The only country in the world that is talking about nuclear issues is Russia. There is no threat to Russia, this is purely about helping Ukraine defend itself”

“It’s worth making sure everyone understands that just because the word uranium is in the title of depleted uranium munitions, they are not nuclear munitions, they are purely conventional munitions.”

Britain has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades and does not consider those rounds as having a nuclear capability.

Russia is known to also use ammunition containing depleted ammunition.

Kyiv continues to call for Western support to help them defeat Putin, who has so far lost more than 150,000 soldiers.

Vlad foolishly believed his forces would be welcomed into Ukraine as liberators when he invaded last February.

But instead the initial attack ended in a disaster which saw his forces devastated and thrown back to Russia.

Putin’s future is now believed to be tied to the success or failure of his war in Ukraine – with an arrest warrant being issued for him over war crimes.

And meanwhile, today Ukraine’s hero president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the frontline in Bakhmut.

Ukrainian forces have held out for about eight months in the city despite taking heavy casualties in one of the bloodiest battles since Russia’s full-scale invasion 13 months ago.

Video footage posted on social media showed Zelenskiy, dressed in a dark sweatshirt and military khaki trousers.

He was seen handing out awards to exhausted-looking soldiers in combat gear in what appeared to be a large warehouse.

“I am honoured to be here today to give awards to our heroes. To shake hands and thank them for protecting the sovereignty of our country,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

“Your fate is so difficult, yet so historic. To defend our land and to return everything to Ukraine for our children,” he said.

“I bow low before all the heroes, your close comrades you have lost in the east, and in general throughout this war.”

Zelensky has portrayed “Fortress Bakhmut” as a symbol of defiance which is bleeding the Russian military dry.

The brutal battle has been raging with street-by-street fighting and sometimes hand-to-hand combat in makeshift trenches.

The battlefield has been described as a “meat grinder” by commanders on both sides

Putin visited the frontline as well over weekend in a tightly stage managed trip to Mariupol.

It was such a strange and unusual visit that Ukrainian officials seized on it – accusing Putin of using a “body double”.

A BRITISH teenager has been killed by an avalanche while on a ski tour in Switzerland.

The 18-year-old man was found dead after he was swept away by the avalanche in Meiringen, Bern on Tuesday evening.

Rescue teams are currently searching for a second person who was caught up in the disaster.

The 18-year-old Brit was living in Bern, police said.

According to reports, cops received a report at 4.25pm that “an avalanche had fallen near the Gstelliwang and two ski tourers had been buried”. 

The Gstelliwang is a ski slope on the Wellhorn mountain in the Bernese Alps.

It’s understood the 18-year-old and the missing skier had split from the rest of their group when the avalanche hit.

The search for the second person was stopped at around 7.30pm last night and resumed at first light this morning.

Swiss Alpine Rescue, helicopters, mountain specialists and cops have joined the desperate search effort, Berner Oberlander reports.

RESCUERS are desperately searching for survivors among the rubble of a Ukrainian high school after a Russian drone strike left three dead.

Another seven were wounded in the horror attack on the dormitory in the city of Rzhyshchiv near Kyiv in the early hours of the morning.

The first explosions rang out at around 3am, as Vladimir Putin reportedly launched 21 kamikaze drones in a mammoth air attack.

An 11-year-old was among the victims, rescue services announced.

It comes just days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President over his alleged involvement in the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Two dormitories and an educational facility bore the brunt of Russia‘s latest bombardment in the Kyiv region, “partially destroying” the structures.

The State Emergency Service announced a series of drones slammed into the school in an update on the Telegram messaging app.

It read: “Three people died, two people were injured and one person was rescued. Four people are probably under the rubble.”

The military administration of Kyiv later confirmed the numbers.

Authorities were forced to evacuate hundreds of people in the dead of night as the blasts rocked the region – just hours after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida departed Ukraine after his surprise visit.

The leader toured the capital and paid tribute to fallen soldiers, saying he was “outraged by the cruelty”.

The strike on the school, situated around 50 miles south of Kyiv, destroyed two floors of student residences and a study building.

A fire quickly broke out as a result, which engulfed more than 3,200 square feet of the building.

Chilling images published by the emergency services show the ominous glow of the blaze looming over one of the surviving structures.

Another showed how the school had been reduced to piles of rubble as the inferno continued to rage.

Firefighters battled to douse the flames and eventually extinguished them shortly before 7am local time.

A search and rescue operation then immediately followed, with teams pictured rummaging through the rubble for victims.

Officials said 20 people were taken to hospital, while another five currently remain unaccounted for, according to Ukrinform.

Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, slammed Russia in wake of the deadly drone attack on the school.

“We see that the enemy once again attacked the civilian infrastructure, innocent people were killed, including the ambulance driver who came to save citizens,” he said.

“This is another shameful war crime of the occupier.

“Significant casualties can be avoided in case of timely response for air raid and shelter signals, so don’t neglect safety, it saves lives.”

Ukraine claims to have shot down 16 out of 21 drones that were hurtled towards the nation in the early hours of Wednesday.

Reports suggest they were dealing with an onslaught of Iran-made self-destroying Shahed-136 UAVS, also known as Heran 2.

They were developed as suicide crafts that could loiter above targets before attacking them and have recently been hammering Ukrainian cities.

The drones, which are guided by satellite navigation, come equipped with an explosive warhead and can fly at a range of up to 2,500km at 185km/h.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a tweet: “Over 20 Iranian murderous drones, plus missiles, numerous shelling incidents, and that’s just in one last night of Russian terror against Ukraine.”

Residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia and the island of Khortytsia were also targeted by S-300 missiles, forcing people to hide in basements.

The city’s acting mayor, Anatoly Kurte, said at least 18 people – including two children – were injured in the strikes.

Chilling footage captured the moment a Russian rocket blasted into an apartment block, as onlookers are seen frantically running for cover.

The explosion quickly decimated a chunk of the building before the flames began to spread as thick black smoke billowed into the sky.

Another clip showed a number of buildings on fire, with entire flats being completely charred within moments of the attack.

Terrified residents were seen gathered on the ground below, helplessly surveying their homes as they went up in smoke.

Zelensky said of the footage: “Right now, a Russian missile hit a multi-storey building. Russia shells the city with brutal cruelty.

“This should not become ‘just an ordinary day’ in Ukraine, or anywhere else in Europe or the world. 

“We need more unity and decisiveness of the world in order to quickly defeat Russian terror and protect lives.”

The Ukrainian leader suggested Russia is still refusing to consider a ceasefire after nearly 13 months of war.

He added: ” Every time someone tries to hear the word ‘peace’ in Moscow, another order is given there for such criminal strikes.”

His words came just hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping had left Russia after a landmark meeting with Putin.

The leaders discussed the the “no-limits friendship” between their countries during the two-day visit.

Xi barely mentioned Putin’s shambolic invasion of Ukraine – but insisted China had an “impartial position”.

Xi said he signed an agreement with Putin – bringing their ties into a “new era” of cooperation and “deepening” their partnership.

Their first meeting was followed by a luxurious meal ahead of peace talks about Ukraine.

Beijing has proposed a 12-point peace plan to end the Ukraine war that would see ceasefire on both sides – but would mean a territorial loss for Ukraine.

Putin praised Xi for a peace plan he proposed last month, and blamed Kyiv and the West for rejecting it.

But the West sees the peace plan as a ploy to buy the Russian dictator time to regroup his troops and cement his grip on occupied land.

In a chilling threat to the West as he left Moscow, Xi told Putin: “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years.

“And we are driving this change together.”

Footage shows how a Russian fighter jet intercepted a pair of US nuclear bombers after Putin ordered his own planes into the sky.

Video from the Su-35 shows it flying beside one of two massive B-52s while Russian Tu-95 Bear nuclear bombers were seen taking off in a show of force from the Russian tyrant.

The encounter between the US and Russian planes was the first between the sides since the drone clash.

Before the B-52s were intercepted by Vladimir Putin’s planes, a photo shows them being escorted by Polish F-16 jets over the Baltic Sea.

DAVID Koresh, the delusional leader of The Branch cult, brainwashed his victims into believing the apocalypse was about to destroy earth.

His “teachings” and “church” ultimately led to the massacre of 76 cult members, including 25 children and two pregnant women and four ATF agents.

David Koresh claimed to be Christ and to have knowledge of the seven seals of the apocalypseRex Features

David Koresh was born on August 17, 1959, in Houston, Texas, to Bonnie Clark.

His real name was Vernon Howell, before changing it to copy Old Testament kings, and claiming to be God’s prophet.

Bonnie was a 14-year-old single mother and Koresh never met his dad, Bobby Wayne Howell – who abandoned his mum for another teenage girl.

It is reported Bonnie started living with a violent alcoholic following the split and eventually left Koresh in the care of her mother Earline Clark.

He was just four-years-old when Bonnie ran away with her boyfriend, and seven when she returned.

Koresh had a difficult childhood and was bullied at school due to his dyslexia.

Fellow students reportedly nicknamed him “Mr Retardo” and he ended up dropping out of Garland High School in his junior year.

In his 20s he became a born-again Christian and joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church after allegedly getting an underage girl pregnant.

But this transition was short lived when he was exiled after claiming God wanted him to marry the leader’s daughter.

Koresh turned to the Seventh-day Adventist Church splinter group the Branch Davidians and moved into their remote rural compound in Waco, Texas.

It is claimed by David Thibodeau in his book A Place Called Waco, that Koresh had begun a sexual relationship with the widow of the former sect leader.

After this, he claimed God had chosen him to father a child by her – the Chosen One.

Soon he began claiming he was a prophet – the so-called “lamb” and Son of God who was the only one who could unlock the Book of Revelation’s Seven Seals.

Koresh had extensive knowledge of the Bible, which he had memorised large sections of, and became leader of the group in 1987.

Koresh, who regarded himself as an angel and God’s agent, collected followers from around the world, including Britain.

And despite annulling followers’ marriages, he said that God had ordered him to have as many wives as he wanted and that he could have sex with whomever he wished to.

Koresh claimed to be Christ and to have knowledge of the seven seals of the apocalypse.

He was depicted in the media as having total control over his followers, 30 of whom were British, and hailed from London, Nottingham and Manchester.

David Koresh and many of his followers died in the Waco blaze on April 19, 1993Getty - Contributor

Reports differ on the exact number of people who died at the Waco Siege, but 76 Davidians, including 25 children and two pregnant women are thought to have perished.

Twenty-four of the victims were British.

Only nine Davidians escaped the fire.

The 51-day standoff between the religious sect and the American Government began in early 1993.

On February 28, 1993, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) tried to carry out search and arrest warrants for Koresh.

They suspected he was in possession of illegal firearms and explosives, and asked for help from FBI agents.

Government officials estimated there was a stockpile of nearly 250 weapons inside the compound, which was believed to house more than 100 men, women and children. There was a year’s supply of food rations.

However, the raid descended into a gun battle, which resulted in four ATF agents being killed, 20 agents being wounded and an unknown number of Davidians killed and injured.

Koresh was among those wounded, but he and the majority of his followers refused to leave the compound.

On March 1, 1993, FBI agents took control of the 77-acre complex, and a 51-day siege followed the initial bungled operation.

On April 19, with Koresh still refusing to surrender despite ongoing negotiations, and pressure tactics, the siege ended after FBI agents carried out a tank and tear gas assault to force the Branch Davidians to leave the compound.

By midday, after a few hours of being under gas attack, several fires started inside the compound.

Koresh, 33, reportedly died of a gunshot wound during the fire.

THIS is the shocking moment a young TV presenter collapsed in the studio during a live broadcast.

Elianis Garrido, 35, was co-hosting Colombian TV show Lo Sé Todo when she suddenly fell to the floor.

In the clip, the model and actress can be seen fidgeting on her stool as she sat alongside co-presenter Ariel Osorio.

She became visibly uncomfortable, before turning away from the cameras with her hands around her mouth.

Moments later she toppled off her chair as crew members rushed onto the set to come to her aid on March 16.

Osorio looked around and then leapt to his feet, calling for the channel to cut to an ad break as he checked on his stricken co-star.

The crew then picked Garrido up and moved her to another part of the set, while one kind helper fanned her to keep her cool.

The presenter was taken away for treatment and Osorio informed viewers that she had suffered from “respiratory problems”.

He addressed Garrido’s mother directly, saying: “Everything is fine, Eli is perfect.

“She is finishing up some security protocols and she is fine, don’t worry.

“She will call you soon, we will tell you what is happening with Eli.”

Several days later, Garrido herself posted to her social media, thanking her 6.2million Instagram followers for their support.

She said: “Thank you all for your messages.”

Local media have reported that she is making a good recovery.

A CHILLING TikTok shows a 12-year-old schoolgirl laughing with her ‘killer’ before she was lured to her death.

The video shows the murdered girl giggling with her classmate who has been accused of stabbing her to death.

Luise F, from Freudenberg, Germany, was knifed 32 times in the brutal attack before her body was left in the woods.

The 12-year-old tragically died from a loss of blood from multiple stab wounds following the incident.

Police carried out interviews with two of Luise’s schoolmates from Esther Bejarano secondary school, who claimed they were her “best friends”.

The two girls, aged 12 and 13, initially denied any involvement in the grisly murder.

But even though they both confessed to the stabbing when Luises’ body was discovered, the motives behind the sickening attack remain a mystery, according to prosecutors.

The 13-year-old girl posted a video to TikTok just hours before the body was found – where Luise was seen laughing with the accused friend.

Both girls were wearing face masks in the video which indicates the video was originally filmed during Covid.

The police have not been able to share much information on the case given the age of the girls involved but it has been reported that Luise was being bullied in school and that she and the two suspects had fallen out over a boy.

The 13-year-old’s dad was also reported to have helped search for missing Luise on March 11.

Due to German laws, the accused girls will not face a criminal trial as the age of criminal responsibility in the country is 14.

This has caused major backlash from other classmates and members of the public and has resulted in the girls being relocated from their family homes.

A civil court could decide that the suspects must pay compensation to Luise’s family if they are found to know that “they were doing something harmful”.

The girls would then be expected to start making repayments as soon as they have jobs.

These repayments could reportedly last as long as 30 years and would be taken straight from their salaries.

But following the news that the suspects will not face criminal trial, German politicians have reassured the public that the heinous crime will not go unpuished.

Germany’s justice minister Marco Buschmann told German media that the suspects should face charges despite their ages.

He said: “Such serious crimes cannot remain without consequences.

“Children are the age of 14 are not prosecuted. However, our legal system already has the means to react to serious acts of violence by children under the age of 14.”

Both families of the accused girls have also been told that their daughters may need brand new identities following the alleged murder.

Luise lived in a two-storey house with her grandparents, parents and two siblings before she was horrifically killed.

Her parents had raised the alarm after she visited a friend and didn’t returned home.

No weapon has been found as of yet, and the victim showed no signs of sexual assault.

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Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo unveiled tight new proposed restrictions on semiconductor manufacturers doing business in China.

Republicans in Congress launched an investigation of New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg as a grand jury mulled charges for Donald Trump's Stormy Daniels payoff.

Crowds of former President Trump's supporters were sparse at protest rallies in New York and West Los Angeles.

Once solidly Republican, the West has become political bedrock for Democrats. No state has changed as emphatically in the last two decades as Colorado.

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Ariadna López was found murdered on the side of a road in Mexico, one of thousands of women murdered every year in the country. But her death outraged the country like never before.

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As we observe the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War, which claimed more than 4,600 American lives and countless Iraqis, we must make an honest assessment of the war. The war cost the U.S. trillions, upended Middle East stability, and ultimately benefited Iran’s aggressive and expansionist agenda by capturing much of the political and military institutions in Baghdad and Damascus. Despite its tremendous cost, the war weakened America’s geostrategic position and damaged our national credibility.

What can be learned from this calamity? As authors of the U.S. government’s definitive study on the Iraq War, two somewhat conflicting central points stand out. First, the war should never have occurred. Second, once the war began, it should not have been abandoned without leaving behind a stable Iraq, even if that meant staying for years.

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Invading Iraq in 2003 was strategic folly and one of the worst foreign policy decisions in the history of the Republic. Tainted and inaccurate intelligence provided justification for disarming Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Pretending that Iraq could be the hearth for democracy in the Middle East or that it was abetting Al Qaeda terrorists were similar delusions. But the decision to invade defied an even larger truth, one that was clear even before the war. Iraq provided a physical and practical buffer to Iran, a country that few disputed had an active weapons of mass destruction program in 2003 and which has consistently demonstrated the intent to use such a capability alongside its terrorist objectives.

Iran, which regularly calls for the destruction of the U.S. and actively supports our enemies, was the larger and clearer threat to our interests both then and now. Regime change in Iraq destroyed a status quo that, by extension, benefitted the U.S. In essence, Iraq’s geostrategic position in 2003 helped regional security by focusing Iran’s attention and resources next door. In addition to this geopolitical damage, the preemptive invasion, conducted without U.N. Security Council authorization and on the basis of dubious intelligence, squandered our international standing and goodwill, which was abundant in the wake of 9/11.

Read More: There Were Many Ways to Die in Baghdad

Once the invasion occurred and Iraq’s security forces evaporated those same considerations should have driven U.S. policy to restore the country’s stability, vis-à-vis Iran. The region represents a vital strategic interest for the U.S., as does blocking the expansion of Iranian influence. Unfortunately, the U.S. chose to ignore this reality and when politically expedient, withdrew from Iraq and hoped for the best. Beyond the error of the initial invasion, withdrawing was nearly as significant a strategic error, placing Iraq’s future into the hands of a corrupt and sectarian Prime Minister who was intent to establish Shia domination and Iranian alignment. While Iraq’s condition had improved significantly since 2003, sufficient signs existed in 2011 that progress was fragile. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s sectarianism and authoritarianism, toxic components that would lead to further destruction of Iraq, had been on full display and reported to Washington. Iraq, shattered by decades of war, sanctions, and corruption, needed longer to heal and needed American help to prevent an Iranian takeover.

Although we had decided that we were done with Iraq and all its associated challenges, Iraq wasn’t done with us. American strategic myopia enabled Maliki’s government to kill or disenfranchise Sunnis and financially isolate the Kurds, paving the way for the rise of ISIS and a return of U.S. forces. We are still in Iraq today, and still without a status of forces agreement that was used for political cover to end our military presence in 2011. But today’s Iraq looks very different. Iranian-backed militias, on the Iraqi payroll, now outnumber the Iraqi Army. The Ministry of Defense now includes officers and generals who are designated terrorists. Iranian aligned militias have captured state resources through political representation in Parliament and by controlling key posts in lucrative ministries. Iran’s influence now waxes in an uninterrupted arc from Tehran to the Mediterranean, traipsing across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Retaining U.S. forces in Iraq would have been a difficult decision for a war weary America. But a residual force that was closely tied to key political objectives and aimed at reducing Iranian influence could have prevented the treacherous strategic situation we face today: Iraq as a broken and devastated nation, serving as a base and transit point for Iranian forces. Luckily, the U.S. retains some tools to steer Iraq to a more constructive and stable future. The U.S. can impose high economic costs on the Iraqi military and government to remove Iran-backed terrorists from its payroll, withhold U.S. banknote transfers that inexplicably continue despite their laundering by Iran, and remove sanctions waivers so Iraq can free itself from an artificial energy dependence on Iran. And perhaps most importantly, the U.S. must militarily deter Iran so that it retracts rather than expands its regional aggression. Only these measures are likely to reverse the tailspin of Iraq’s perilous future, a future that we set in motion twenty years ago.

With King Charles’ coronation just weeks away, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seem to be caught in a royal mess.

It’s been a tense few months since the couple aired some of the royal family’s dirty laundry in their Netflix docuseries and in Harry’s autobiography Spare, and lost national and global favor in the process, according to multiple polls. Naturally, much of the world is keen to see if the couple awkwardly reunites with their family for Charles’ historic event on May 6. But it looks like the couple will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
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A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess confirmed on March 5 they had been invited to the historic event via email, but they did not comment on whether they would be attending.

During the coronation, Charles will be crowned alongside Camilla, Queen Consort, at Westminster Abbey in front of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other British politicians, heads of state, and royals from around the globe. The weekend will also feature a concert with a currently sparse lineup on May 7, and Brits will observe May 8 as a public holiday.

While Harry and Meghan weigh up the pros and cons of attending, here are all the reasons that might sway their decision.

The most obvious draw for Harry and Meghan to attend the coronation is because it sends a message to the world that they retain a sense of duty to the royal family and can be called on to respectfully participate in major events. Their royal connection is also what has led to most of their recent projects so it would also be a business savvy move. For King Charles, it sends a message of unity to the world.

Kinsey Schofield, a royal commentator from the U.S., describes this as a “win-win” reason to attend and for Charles to welcome them. “The King doesn’t have the stain of an absent child in the history books and Harry maintains that royal connection that has proven to be so lucrative for him in the states,” she tells TIME.

Prince Harry has always had a close relationship with the York sisters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who featured in Harry’s Netflix documentary in December. The cameo showed Eugenie and Harry enjoying a bike ride. The duke is also close to his cousin Zara Tindall, who chose him to be the godfather to her youngest child Lena Elizabeth in 2019.

Read More: Here Are All the People Who Said No to Performing at King Charles’ Coronation

While the world watches a lot of royal drama play out it is important to remember that the couple still have relationships with other family members who may welcome them and want to be around them.

“The scale of interest in the coronation worldwide is such that they simply could not possibly overshadow such a huge event which has so much significance for Britain and the Commonwealth,” says Richard Fitzwilliams, a long-standing royal expert.

The last coronation—Queen Elizabeth II’s on June 2, 1953—was the first major world event to be broadcast internationally on television.

While there is interest in Harry and Meghan’s attendance, viewers will have a lot to keep up with on the day. The public’s attention will likely turn to other guests, quirky British traditions, and the luxurious pomp and circumstance of the event. As such, the couple should be able to play their small part in the same way they did during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations last June that marked 70 years on the throne.

The Sussex children—Archie and Lilibet-Diana—have been awarded their prince and princess titles that they became entitled to when their grandfather ascended the throne in September.

All three of the Prince of Wales’s children are expected to take part in the King’s coronation procession, which will exclusively feature working royals, the Times of London reported. But the Sussex children have yet to be invited to the coronation, according to the report, most likely because they are too young.

With Harry and Meghan’s children formally using their prince and princess titles as of March, it may be in the couple’s interest to attend the coronation and keep their royal connections alive for their children’s future.

While acknowledging that there are royal family members who have great relationships with Harry and Meghan, there are those who don’t. In Schofield’s estimation, the couple will be “iced out” by many if they do attend. “We will likely not see them engaging with the most prominent senior royals, especially the individuals that took hits in Spare,” she says.

“They would sit a few rows back, be spotted in the windows of the palace during the processions, and likely not invited to all of the celebratory events,” Schofield adds.

Harry is locked in a deep feud with his brother and heir apparent Prince William.

Fitzwilliams predicts a similar outcome, and expects that any conversation that does take place will be small talk. “No one in the royal family will trust them and say anything substantial to them for fear of it being leaked,” he says.

Read More: Monarchies Across Europe Have ‘Slimmed Down.’ Why Hasn’t the British Royal Family Done the Same?

The couple’s Netflix series, and especially Harry’s memoir, leveled criticism at select members of the family, as well as the royal institution as a whole. The couple has repeatedly accused “The Firm” of racism that drove them away.

With this in mind, some may call the couple hypocritical for wanting any part in an establishment they have been major critics of. When asked about this, Schofield says it can be viewed two ways: “There are critics that will say [they are hypocritical], yes. However, the same critics might accuse him of being a coward if he doesn’t attend,” she says. “Harry is in a very difficult position.”

There may be a temptation for Harry and Meghan to view the coronation as an opportunity to reconcile with members of the royal family, but the timing makes that difficult.

When asked in an ITV interview to promote his memoir in January, Harry said: “There’s a lot that can happen between now and then. But you know, the door is always open. The ball is in their court.” He added: “There is a lot to be discussed and I really hope that they are willing to sit down and talk about it.”

But the reality is that a coronation likely won’t be the time or place for these types of conversations because the family is focused on the pressure of hosting a major diplomatic event. “There will be no scheduled reconciliation as this event is not about them,” Schofield says. “King Charles has waited his entire life for this moment. He will want to avoid any and all drama.”

Rising out of Copenhagen’s harbor, visible only as a line of rocks peeking through the blue-gray waves, is one of Europe’s most controversial climate projects. Lynetteholm, a one square mile artificial island, is being built to shield the low-lying Danish capital from storm surges, which are intensifying as sea levels rise. Politicians approved the project in 2021, promising a world-leading bounty of benefits, from flood protection, to new housing, to cash for other city upgrades.

But ever since then, climate activists, scientists, and city residents have been on a mission to stop Lynetteholm. (It’s pronounced something like “Lunetta-holm.”) They say authorities are ignoring the damage Denmark’s largest ever construction project could do to the local environment, and the carbon pollution it will create. Now, a new front in that battle is opening up—thanks to some very specific geography.
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Lynetteholm is being built in the Øresund, a relatively narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, via the North Sea. Earlier this month, a group of independent scientists advising Denmark’s government warned that the island’s construction has already blocked one of three undersea trenches through which Atlantic salt water flows into the Baltic. Unless that is reversed and the project scaled back, the scientists say, Lynetteholm could end up desalinating the sea—which Denmark shares with eight other countries—with unknown ecological consequences. On Wednesday, the Danish Climate Movement, an association of campaign groups, filed for an injunction against Lynetteholm, asking a court to halt construction until the desalination concerns have been resolved.

Not everyone agrees that Lynetteholm poses such a threat. An earlier assessment carried out by the Danish Hydraulic Institute found that the effect on the Baltic would be minor. By&Havn, the publicly owned development company building Lynetteholm, says the matter has already been resolved to the satisfaction of Sweden, Denmark’s closest neighbor.

But climate activists hope the salinity issue could derail the project. If granted, the injunction would buy time for another lawsuit over Lynetteholm to work its way through the courts, says Frederik Sandby, the Danish Climate Movement’s general secretary. The group sued the Transport Ministry, which shares responsibility for Lynetteholm with Copenhagen’s city government, in 2021, arguing that the project was rushed through without properly accounting for its environmental impact or Denmark’s climate goals.

Lynetteholm is part of a global trend in land reclamation that is unnerving environmentalists. According to a study published in February by a group of international researchers, between 2000 and 2020 coastal cities filled in wetlands and shallow seas to create more than 625,000 acres of new land and ports around the world. That’s around 43 new Manhattans.

Land reclamation is increasingly touted as a climate solution. In the Maldives, the government is championing an island-building campaign to replace the land it is losing to fast-rising seas. In Nigeria, the finishing touches are now being made to Eko Atlantic, a 10 square-mile reclaimed neighborhood shielding Lagos from erosion. Former Lagos state governor, now Nigeria’s president-elect, boasts that the project “tamed the Atlantic Ocean.”

But scientists warn that such projects are speeding ahead without weighing the risks of meddling in fragile coastal ecosystems. People living near reclaimed land schemes have reported grave unintended consequences, not only for marine life—as is the fear in Copenhagen—but also for the livelihoods of fishermen, and patterns of coastal erosion, which can get worse at nearby places that are not protected by the new islands’ well-resourced engineers.

Critics claim it is profit, rather than climate concern, that is driving the current frenzy of island-building. While humans, including the Danes, have always raised land from the seas for settlement and defensive purposes, the February study identifies growing demand for “luxury” waterfront real estate as “the catalyst” for a new “urban transformation” unfolding on the world’s coasts. Lynetteholm is expected to get approval for the construction of 35,000 homes by 2070, and the island’s opponents say it was the opportunity to sell those high-value plots to developers that convinced politicians to back the island over less controversial flood measures. “The Lynetteholm project is bizarre yet typical of the current age in which [land reclamation projects are legitimized as climate solutions],” says Sarah Moser, an associate professor in the geography department at McGill University. “Massive real estate schemes get to claim hero status.”

The Lynetteholm case is a crucial junction for the land reclamation trend, says Sandby, the climate activist. “The world is at this moment of figuring out if artificial islands are sustainable or not.” Denmark and Copnhagen, he points out, are often held up as climate leaders because of their extremely ambitious emissions targets. “If we do these things, and it’s looked upon as beneficial, as part of the way Denmark builds sustainably, then that’s a huge mistake.”

No one disputes that Copenhagen needs to do something to prepare for rising seas. The city sits on two fairly flat islands, one of them just a few feet above sea level, and is surrounded by water on three sides. The last really severe storm surge to affect Copenhagen was way back in 1872, when winds over the Baltic pushed a wall of water inland over the city, destroying thousands of homes. Such an event will become increasingly likely over the next few decades. Officials say the height of the average surge will quadruple to 1.3 feet by 2050, and a “massive rise” in the number of storm-triggered floods is expected around 2070. Before Lynetteholm, Copenhagen was planning a more traditional set of dikes in front of its harbor—the solution climate activists still prefer.

But Lynetteholm will work better than a dike, says Anne Skovbro, the CEO of developer By&Havn. Firstly, it’s adaptable. If sea levels rise faster than expected over the next few decades, the wide expanse of soil can easily be beefed up to sit taller. Second, it won’t disrupt Copenhagen’s view of the water. Third, it will use up waste. Some 80 million metric tons of debris generated by other construction sites in Copenhagen over the next thirty years will be poured into the already-built stone perimeter in the Øresund to create the island.

And Lynetteholm should, if all goes well, be self-financing, with payments for construction waste disposal covering the cost of Copenhagen’s flood protection. So far, officials have only approved the island-building phase of the project. But it is widely expected to get authorization to build 35,000 homes by 2070, in which case the proceeds of land sales would also create cash for the government—helping to fund other infrastructure projects. “It’s the only solution for climate adaptation where the taxpayer doesn’t have to pay,” Skovbro says.

But opposition has been unrelenting. Environmental lawyers have condemned the environmental impact report used by politicians in their decision-making process on the project. The document only factors in the island itself, not the homes, subway, and highway that may one day sit on top, but which have not yet been officially approved. One lawyer dubbed the report “a freehand drawing” for its lack of detail. Urban planners, meanwhile, say the planned highway, sold as a way to relieve congestion in the rest of the city, will induce more demand for cars, and therefore more traffic, in the long run.

Climate activists point to the project’s carbon footprint: between 2023 and 2055, Lynetteholm will generate 242,920 metric tons of CO2, per By&Havn’s predictions. To be fair, that’s only the amount generated by about 48,000 Danes—or 0.7% of the population—in a single year. But Sandby argues that the project is an unnecessary use of the world’s carbon budget, and doesn’t align with the urgency with which Denmark claims to view emissions reduction: “In the situation that we’re in with the climate crisis, we cannot afford to build in such a way.”

Over the last two years, residents have also staged several street protests over feared disruption to bike-centric Copenhagen by hundreds of heavy trucks carrying debris to the harbor each day. (By&Havn claims that there will be no increase in traffic, as Copenhagen’s construction debris is typically already transported to an existing depot in the harbor area.) Lynetteholm’s plans to dispose of contaminated waste released from the seafloor by construction have also fueled concern. Last year, amid public backlash, politicians were forced to convene an expert panel to advise the Transport Ministry on that issue.

That brings us to the latest dispute: the Kongedybet trench (‘The King’s Deep’, in English.) Stiig Markager, a member of the expert panel and a professor of marine ecosystems at Denmark’s Aarhus University, says the trench plays an important role in delivering salt into the Baltic sea. Because salt water is heavier than the Baltic’s brackish water, it flows south through the deep trench, while brackish water flows above it into the North Sea. Lynetteholm’s stone perimeter has now cut off that exchange. “The blockage could potentially have a significant impact on the environment in the Baltic Sea,” Markager says.

By&Havn says the desalination issue has already been looked at by two organizations, the Danish Hydraulic Institute, and Deltares, a Dutch research company, who agreed that it would likely reduce the amount of salt water flowing into the Baltic by 0.25% each year.

While that may not sound like much, Markager argues that those previous assessments were “very superficial,” modeling the blockage’s impact on the trench only in comparison to a single year, 2018; a “scientifically sound” model would need to consider flow patterns over decades at the very least. The compound effect, he says, would drastically reduce salinity in the Baltic over the next century. That would endanger fish and plants in the Baltic that have adapted to the sheltered sea’s unique semi-salty water, and fuel toxic algae blooms. A coalition of seventeen European conservation organizations raised similar concerns last year.

Markager says construction should be paused to further investigate what will happen to the Baltic. Or, he says, the peninsula could simply be scaled back by around a third, so that it wouldn’t block the trench.

Skovbro says Lynetteholm’s environmental critics are refusing to look at the positive sides of the project. Using the construction waste in Copenhagen will mean fewer trucks burning fuel to transfer it elsewhere in Copenhagen, for example, and By&Havn has established a partnership with Danish car manufacturers to help drive the creation of electric trucks big enough to transport the materials.

“The reality is that we need to protect Copenhagen from flooding, and a lot of the issues that people are worried about will be issues no matter how we do it,” she says. “We have quite a high level of environmental standards in general.” In that sense, she adds, the project could serve as an “example” to other land reclamation projects around the world.

That’s exactly what Sandby is afraid of. The Climate Movement wants to use its campaign against Lynettehold to set a precedent that will weigh on politicians mulling future carbon intensive infrastructure in Denmark, and governments considering artificial island projects around the world.

Whoever you agree with, the conflict on our coasts is likely just getting started. Skovbro points out that almost every part of Denmark, not to mention the rest of the world’s low-lying countries, will likely need to launch serious flood protection programs in the coming years. They will face similar dilemmas as Copenhagen. “We are just the first big project doing it here,” she says. “A lot of these projects will have challenges, because it is very difficult to balance all of this.”

China approved its first messenger RNA vaccine for Covid-19, clearing a shot from a local drugmaker that harnesses the powerful technology months after the world’s most-populous nation abandoned pandemic curbs.

The mRNA vaccine, developed by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. and which targets the omicron variant, has been approved for emergency use, according to a statement from the company Wednesday to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Shares extended intraday gains to 7.7% before quickly paring most of that advance to trade 2.6% higher as of 1:15 pm in Hong Kong.

CSPC said the shot demonstrated an efficacy of between 70.2% and 85.3% up to four weeks following its use as a booster in a clinical trial involving 4,000 participants, though it’s not clear what the rates refer to. The company said the vaccine can be stored at 2C to 8C, but didn’t say for how long.
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The approval comes years after mRNA vaccines became commonplace across the rest of the world, and over three months after China became the last country to abandon strict Covid measures, resulting in a massive infection wave that may have caused at least hundreds of thousands of deaths, according to expert estimates.

Read More: mRNA Technology Could Upend the Drug Industry

Low immunization rates for many high-risk elderly people and the waning protection of shots made with traditional inactivated technology potentially made China’s wave deadlier. Not having an mRNA vaccine was long considered a major lacuna for Beijing. The regulatory blessing for CSPC’s shot plugs that gap, while reinforcing the country’s reliance solely on homegrown vaccines to immunize its 1.4 billion population.

The Chinese government hasn’t approved the mRNA shot co-developed by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc., despite of a slew of data and applications filed by local partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. It instead depended on inactivated vaccines developed by local state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm and the private firm Sinovac Biotech Ltd. for most of the pandemic.

The timing of the approval follows China’s post-Covid Zero case surge subsiding and many people have been granted a layer of natural immunity from their recent infection. The country’s abrupt pandemic pivot last year took many residents by surprise as officials had done little to boost inoculation rates, expand hospital capacity or secure adequate supplies of antivirals.

Instead, the virus was left to run rampant through a population with little previous exposure, overwhelming hospitals and crematoriums. Officially, just tens of thousands of people have died from Covid since the pandemic pivot in early December but experts say that’s likely an underestimate given the scale of the outbreak. Researchers in Hong Kong estimated in mid-December that almost 1 million people in China could die from Covid.

–With assistance from Jinshan Hong and Abhishek Vishnoi.

KYIV, Ukraine — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a surprise visit to Ukraine early Tuesday, hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in neighboring Russia for a three-day visit. The dueling summits come as the longtime rivals are on diplomatic offensives.

Kishida will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital.

He will “show respect to the courage and patience of the Ukrainian people who are standing up to defend their homeland under President Zelenskyy’s leadership, and show solidarity and unwavering support for Ukraine as head of Japan and chairman of G-7,” during his visit to Ukraine, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in announcing his trip to Kyiv.
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At the talks, Kishida will show his “absolute rejection of Russia’s one-sided change to the status quo by invasion and force, and to affirm his commitment to defend the rules-based international order,” the ministry’s statement said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warmly welcomed Xi to the Kremlin on a visit both nations describe as an opportunity to deepen their “no-limits friendship.”

Read More: Xi Jinping’s Visit to Russia Isn’t Really About Bringing Peace to Ukraine

Japanese public television channel NTV showed Kishida riding a train from Poland heading to Kyiv. His surprise trip to Ukraine comes just hours after he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, and the week after a breakthrough summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yoel.

In New Delhi, Kishida called for developing and Global South countries to raise their voices to defend the rules-based international order and help stop Russia’s war.

Japan, which has territorial disputes over islands with both China and Russia, is particularly concerned about the close relationship between Beijing and Moscow, which have conducted joint military exercises near Japan’s coasts.

Kishida, who is to chair the Group of Seven summit in May, is the only G-7 leader who hasn’t visited Ukraine and was under pressure to do so at home. U.S. President Joe Biden took a similar route to visit Kyiv last month, just before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Due to limitations of Japan’s pacifist constitution, his trip was arranged secretly. Kishida is Japan’s first postwar leader to enter a war zone. Kishida, invited by Zelenskyy in January to visit Kyiv, was also asked before his trip to India about a rumor of his possible trip at the end of March, denied it and said nothing concrete has been decided.

Japan has joined the United States and European nations in sanctioning Russia over its invasion and providing humanitarian and economic support for Ukraine.

Japan was quick to react because it fears the possible impact of a war in East Asia, where China’s military has grown increasingly assertive and has escalated tensions around self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that Beijing’s contacts with Russia will help to bring about peace. “President Putin said that Russia appreciates China’s consistent position of upholding fairness, objectivity and balance on major international issues,” he said. “Russia has carefully studied China’s position paper on the political settlement of the Ukrainian issue, and is open to peace talks.”

Read More: Why China, Russia’s Biggest Backer, Now Says It Wants to Broker Peace in Ukraine

Asked about Kishida’s trip to Kyiv, he added, “We hope Japan could do more things to deescalate the situation instead of the opposite.”

Kishida is expected to offer continuing support for Ukraine when he meets with Zelenskyy.

Television footage on NTV showed Kishida getting on a train from the Polish station of Przemysl near the border with Ukraine, with a number of officials.

Due to its pacifist principles, Japan’s support for Ukraine has also been limited to non-combative military equipment such as helmets, bulletproof vests and drones, and humanitarian supplies including generators.

Japan has contributed more than $7 billion to Ukraine, and accepted more than 2,000 displaced Ukrainians and helped them with housing assistance and support for jobs and education, a rare move in a country that is known for its strict immigration policy.

—AP reporter Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.