A dramatic operation to save the lives of more than 100 pilot whales ended in partial success on Thursday after wildlife officials managed to return most of the stranded animals to sea.

Rescue teams rushed to the beach located in the coastal town of Dunsborough, south of Perth, to tend to the whales.

It was an “overwhelming sight,” said Ian Wiese, Chair of Geographe Marine Research group, who was involved in the rescue operation on Thursday.

In total, 130 whales were returned to sea after a total of 160 were beached, according to the department of Parks and Wildlife Service Western Australia (DPAW). However at least 28 whales died.

Whale pods can beach themselves again even after being saved. As a result spotter planes in the area are continuing to watch and see if the released animals will return to shore. “So far, they have remained off the beach,” Weise said.

“My initial reaction seeing hundreds of whales all bunched (together) on the beach was just completely and utterly overwhelming. It was really, really chaotic,” he added.

“However, the final result was good news – as often with these events, it is only possible to save a few.”

The mystery behind whale strandings

Animal behaviorists and marine scientists have previously said that survival rates for beached whales is low, and the animals “can only survive for around six hours on land before they start to deteriorate.”

Groups of locals and wildlife officials worked together to hold the animals upright and “keep their blowholes clear,” Wiese said.

Also present were wildlife officials from the DPAW, as well as experienced veterinarians, trying to save as many whales as possible.

Like other whale species, pilot whales are highly sociable often looking out for each other especially if a member of the pod falls sick or is injured.

“The remaining whales will play this amazing supportive role,” Wiese said.

“When they’re out at sea, in deep waters, there’s nothing that can disturb that care process but if an injured whale ends up near shore, there will be a lot of hazards (for the pod) that come along and will get in the way… echolocation doesn’t work properly and before you know it, you’ve got a whole family (stranded).”

He pointed to a “newly-born calf” he had spotted among the stranded group.

“It was this little baby that still had creases down its body and its umbilical attached,” Wiese said. “That may or may not have been a factor of why these animals got to the point of stranding.”

Last year more than 50 pilot whales died in a mass stranding event in Scotland. The same month wildlife officials in Western Australia said they had to make a heart-breaking decision to euthanize dozens of stranded long-finned pilot whales after a frantic rescue effort to refloat them failed to yield results.

The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a highly anticipated suite of rules to cut hazardous, planet-warming pollution generated by power plants in one of its most significant environment and climate actions to-date.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules will compel coal and new natural gas power plants to either cut or capture 90% of their climate pollution by 2032. The rules are expected to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from the sector by 75% compared to its peak in 2005.

The agency also announced tougher rules for the neurotoxin mercury emitted from their smokestacks and will require safer disposal of toxic wastewater and coal ash, which are byproducts of making electricity.

“By finalizing these standards on the same day, we are ensuring that the power sector has the information needed to prepare for the future with confidence,” EPA administrator Michael S. Regan told reporters. “These are the folks who keep the lights on and power our country forward. At the same time, the power sector is also a major contributor to the pollution that drives climate change and threatens public health.”

Along with the rollout of several other major rules in recent months, Thursday’s actions are more signs President Joe Biden is trying to cement his climate legacy ahead of the 2024 election and is vying for the votes of climate-conscious young people in November. His Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, spent his presidency rolling back more than 100 environmental and climate rules, including the power plant rules Biden strengthened Thursday.

The EPA estimated the power plant rules will prevent nearly 1.4 billion metric tons of planet-warming pollution from entering the atmosphere through the year 2047 – equivalent to taking 330 million gas cars off the road for a year.

After a significant court challenge to Obama-era rules prevailed at the Supreme Court in 2022, the new regulations give power generators options to choose how they meet pollution requirements. And the EPA announced in February it would delay its rule-making process for carbon emissions from existing gas plants, which had initially been covered under the agency’s proposal last year.

A senior administration official said the EPA was “really confident” it had “carefully crafted” the final rules within the confines of the law. But some industry stakeholders said it was just the opposite.

“The path outlined by the EPA today is unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable,” National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson said in a statement, arguing the actions disregard recent Supreme Court rulings.

“There will be lawsuits,” he said.

What’s in the climate rules

Biden has made combatting the climate crisis a bigger priority than any other president in history, presiding over the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the nation’s largest-ever climate investment. But while the IRA contained billions in clean energy tax subsidies – a boatload of carrots for power companies to clean up their pollution – the EPA rules serve as a stick.

EPA’s pollution rules are less restrictive than the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was challenged and struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022.

Under the rules, utilities can retrofit existing coal or new gas-fired power plants with equipment to capture and store carbon pollution – the method the EPA recommends as the “best system of emissions reduction,” because it is proven and cost-effective.

Companies could also choose to retire fossil fuel plants and shift to less expensive and cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar.

“If they choose to retire a plant instead of retrofitting it, that’s their choice,” Doniger said. “There’ll be a lot of charges that EPA is mandating this and mandating that, but this has been designed to follow the Supreme Court’s guidance.”

The EPA also strengthened the final rules from its original proposal, moving up the retirement deadline for existing coal plants that refuse to outfit with carbon capture, and covering more new natural gas plants than it had originally proposed.

Some power generators are unconvinced carbon capture will be the best method to meet the EPA’s requirements. The trade group for utilities, Edison Electric Institute, said in a statement it was concerned about the lack of existing pipes and wells to transport and store the captured carbon. The technology “is not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment, nor is there sufficient time to permit, finance, and build the CCS infrastructure needed for compliance by 2032,” EEI president and CEO Dan Brouillette said in a statement.

Harmful mercury and coal ash

The EPA also finalized its strongest-ever standards to cut mercury pollution and harmful particulate matter from coal-fired power plants, including from lignite coal plants, by up to 70%. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, meaning it is poisonous to the human body and can irreversibly damage the nervous system, kidneys, liver, lungs, digestive system and immune system.

Mercury released from power plants may hurt public health in two major ways. If people breathe in the vapor, which is odorless and colorless, it can hurt their lungs, brain and kidneys and can get into their bloodstream. Mercury vapor from coal plants can also travel long distances and fall to the ground in the form of rain, snow and sleet, contaminating land and water and poisoning fish.

In addition to the new standards, power plants will have to install continuous monitoring systems looking for emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants like arsenic, chromium, cobalt, nickel.

“This is a really important step,” said Paul Billings, national senior vice president for public policy with the American Lung Association, calling the pollutants “really bad for human health.”

In addition, EPA’s rules regulate three types of wastewater generated at coal-fired power plants and address water stored in coal ash ponds – reducing this form of pollution by close to 600 million pounds per year.

Finally, EPA is closing loopholes for toxic coal ash – making sure power plants must safely dispose of coal ash previously dumped at unregulated landfills.

“Any one of [these rules] individually is a monumental achievement,” said Holly Bender, senior director for energy campaigns at the Sierra Club. “Collectively, these rules send a very strong signal to the electric power industry that it is no longer okay to contribute to these significant public health harms.”

Russia on Wednesday vetoed a United Nations resolution that proposed a ban on the use of nuclear weapons in outer space amid US intelligence-backed concerns that Moscow is trying to develop a nuclear device capable of destroying satellites.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia described the UN draft as a “dirty spectacle” and a “cynical ploy” prepared by the resolution’s backers, the US and Japan.

Before the vote, senior US officials claimed Russia might be hiding something should it veto the text.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield echoed those claims in her speech after the vote on Wednesday.

“And so today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them?” she asked.

“What could you possibly be hiding? It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”

The US ambassador also condemned China’s abstention, saying Beijing “has shown that it would rather defend Russia as its junior partner, than safeguard the global nonproliferation regime.”

The Council voted against resolution amendments tabled by Russia and China.

Thomas-Greenfield said Wednesday’s vote “marks a real missed opportunity to rebuild much-needed trust in existing arms control obligations.”

A US and Japan-drafted resolution had received cross-regional support from more than 60 member states.

It intended to strengthen and uphold the global non-proliferation regime, including in outer space, and reaffirm the shared goal of maintaining outer space for peaceful purposes.

It also called on UN member states not to develop nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction designed to be placed in Earth’s orbit.

Nuclear threat

The potential threat of nuclear weapons in space has been amplified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has triggered Europe’s most significant land conflict since World War II and sent relations between the US and Russia – the world’s two largest nuclear armed states – to new lows.

The White House’s comments on the prospect of a Russian nuclear space weapon have deepened those concerns.

Experts say this kind of weapon could have the potential to wipe out mega constellations of small satellites, like SpaceX’s Starlink, which has been successfully used by Ukraine to counter Russian troops.

This would almost certainly be “a last-ditch weapon” for Russia, the US official and other sources said — because it would do the same damage to whatever Russian satellites were also in the area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that Moscow is ready to use nuclear weapons if there is a threat to the existence of the Russian state but “there has never been such a need.”

He also told officials that space projects, including the setup of a nuclear power unit in space, should be a priority and receive proper financing.

Last year, Putin deployed tactical nuclear weapons to neighboring ally Belarus, and former Russian president and deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said strategic nuclear weapons could be used to defend territories incorporated into Russia from Ukraine.

As the US prepares to transfer significant military aid to Ukraine following the Senate passing funding legislation worth $61 billion, reports from eastern Ukraine continue to highlight Kyiv’s sliding fortunes on the battlefield.

The village of Ocheretyne remains a clear focus for Russian forces, with DeepState – a Ukrainian monitoring group – showing almost daily Russian advances westward along a stretch of high ground.

The terrain is of central importance for Ukraine’s defensive line along this part of the front and has been a main target for Russian forces since they captured the industrial town of Avdiivka – about 16 kilometers (10 miles) away – in February.

Biden signs $95.3 billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed the Ukraine aid bill into law on Wednesday after it passed with wide bipartisan support in the Senate, so “we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”

Ukraine has said for months it urgently needs vital munitions, including air defense and artillery ammunition.

Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines have spoken of being badly outgunned by Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said the ratio was 10 to one in Russia’s favor.

Russia advancing on strategic eastern town

The latest frontline mapping from DeepState shows the center of Ocheretyne, including the railway station, in Russian hands, with Ukraine also losing ground in the neighboring village of Novobakhmutivka, immediately to the south.

A Ukrainian military blogger, Bohdan Myroshnykov, wrote, “In Novobakhmutivka, the enemy made progress in the village, advancing up to 400 meters in depth. Previously, they controlled only the south-eastern part of the village, but now they control almost 3/4 of the village.”

Taking a straight line south, the next two villages – Berdychi and Semenivka – are also seeing Russian troops try to push forward, reports suggest.

DeepState says an effort to advance further west along the ridge line from Ocheretyne was prevented by a successful Ukrainian counterattack by the 100th brigade but makes clear that Ukraine’s armed forces need US military aid to arrive in country as soon as possible.

“The forces are not equal, the [Russian] b******s outnumber the [Ukrainian] defence forces in infantry. This is not to mention the [aerial guided bombs] KABs, artillery and equipment,” the monitoring site says.

Meanwhile, around Chasiv Yar, about 40 kilometers to the north, both Ukrainian and Russian reports suggest Ukraine has succeeded in stopping Russian advances, at least for the moment.

“In the Chasiv Yar direction, the offensive of the Russian forces ‘stalled’ on the eastern outskirts,” a Russian military blogger, Wargonzo, reports, though fierce fighting continues, the site adds.

Ukraine’s DeepState appears to concur, highlighting successes for Kyiv’s forces in the nearby village of Ivanivske, while also pointing to continued Russian build-up in the city of Bakhmut, just a few kilometers to the east.

“[Ukraine’s] 92nd Brigade managed to regain control over some positions south of Ivanivske. The enemy is mainly conducting infantry attacks; no significant changes have been recorded. The enemy continues to gather up reserves of personnel and equipment for temporary deployment in Bakhmut,” the site says.

Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has said he believes Vladimir Putin has ordered the capture of Chasiv Yar by May 9, the day Russia celebrates its victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Argentina is seeking the arrest of Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi for allegedly being one of the perpetrators of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in the capital Buenos Aires.

The Argentine Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that, at its request, Interpol had issued a red notice for Vahidi’s arrest over the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA). The red notice says Vahidi is wanted by Argentina for alleged aggravated murder and damages.

Argentina’s request comes two weeks after a federal court determined that Hezbollah was responsible for the attack and that it had acted with directives and financing from the government of Iran.

The 1994 attack – the worst in Argentina’s history – killed 85 people and injured about 300.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani called the ruling a “clumsy measure devoid of any legal and judicial basis” and an ”attempt to create another deviation in the course of the inquiry to discover the truth.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed Argentina’s request on X.

“Thank you to President (Javier) Milei and Foreign Minister Diana Mondino for the request to issue an order for his arrest for the attack against the Jewish community,” he wrote.

“A request that strengthens the Jewish communities and the families of the victims and sends a clear message: the free world is determined to stop the Iranian terrorist regime and (its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei,” he added.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Ancient DNA is spilling more secrets about the Avars, a fearsome people who built a mysterious empire that ruled much of Central and Eastern Europe for 250 years from the mid-sixth century.

Primarily known from the accounts of adversaries, the Avars confounded the Byzantines with formidable horseback warriors who appeared suddenly on their doorstep. The enigmatic nomads came en masse from the Mongolian steppe in what was one of the biggest and fastest long-haul migrations in ancient history.

With opulent graves but no written records, the empire and its people have remained largely in the shadows of history until recently. But a landmark April 2022 study involving ancient DNA taken from the graves of the Avar elite shed light on the empire’s far-flung origins.

Now, a new study analyzing the remains of 424 people buried in four cemeteries unearthed in Hungary has revealed details about Avar family and social life and how the newcomers interacted with the population of their adopted homeland.

“What surprised me most was the simple fact that these people in the cemeteries are so interconnected,” said Zsófia Rácz, a researcher at Eötvös Loránd University’s Institute of Archaeological Sciences in Budapest, Hungary. Rácz was a study coauthor of the latest report.

The researchers were able to build detailed family trees or pedigrees, the largest of which spanned nine generations across 2 ½ centuries. The team discovered that around 300 of the individuals had a close relative buried in the same cemetery.

The analysis showed that men stayed in their community after marriage, while women married outside their original community — a pattern known as patrilocality.

“For all the mothers, we don’t find the parents. The parents aren’t at the site. While all the males are the descendants of the founders,” said Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone, lead author of the study that appeared Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Study of mitochondrial DNA, which reveals the female line, showed a high variability, suggesting that the women who married into the Avar groups were from different places, according to Gnecchi-Ruscone, a postdoctoral researcher of archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. They still shared a “steppe” genetic ancestry, indicating that they were probably not conquered local people.

Multiple partners in patriarchal clans

What’s more, the study found, it was relatively common for both men and women in Avar society to have children with multiple partners.

In the case of men, researchers found two partners in 10 cases, three partners in four cases and four partners in one case. Having multiple wives may have been relatively common in the general population as well as the elite, the study authors wrote.

The team also uncovered multiple cases of closely related male individuals having offspring with the same female partner: three pairs of fathers and sons, two pairs of full brothers, and one sibling of paternal half brothers and an uncle and nephew.

Similar “levirate unions” that took place after the death of the woman’s husband existed in other Eurasian steppe societies, according to the study, and suggests that the Avars, who abandoned their nomadic way of life based on herding and became more settled shortly after arriving in Europe, clung to some aspects of their former way of life.

Lara Cassidy, a geneticist and assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin who was not involved in the new research, said the authors had “deftly unravelled” the organizing principles of this medieval society, providing “compelling evidence for a rigid patrilineal system, in which children belong to their father’s family and ancestry is traced from father to son.”

Writing in a commentary published alongside the research, she largely agreed with the authors’ explanation for multiple reproductive partners.

“Polygamy (having multiple marriage partners), serial monogamous marriages and extramarital relations are all possible explanations,” she said.

“However, two cases of men with multiple older female partners, all middle-aged at death, makes a good argument for polygyny (having multiple wives). By contrast, most of the cases of women with multiple partners were apparent levirate unions, in which a widow would marry the son or brother of the deceased. This is a common custom in pastoralists … both providing for widows and obliging them to fulfil marriage contracts that are conditional on them bearing male heirs.”

Tight-knit family groups

Gnecchi-Ruscone said the biological continuity in the tight-knit population the researchers studied was striking, especially given that there was no sign of interbreeding between close blood relatives — a phenomenon known as consanguinity.

“Even more distant interbreeding like (between) cousins or second cousins, it leaves traces genetically. And we see absolutely no consanguinity in these individuals,” he said.

“This really tells us that they knew who their biological relatives were, and they traced their biological relatives over the generations.”

It wasn’t possible to understand the gender power dynamics of the community through the study of ancient DNA alone, Gnecchi-Ruscone said.

Burials of men were more likely to include high-status grave goods such as horses, saddles and harnesses, Rácz said. However, women likely played a role in promoting social cohesion linking individual communities.

Cassidy said that the oral history of female-line genealogy may have been important for the Avars, ensuring that daughters did not take husbands from among their mothers’ or grandmothers’ kin.

Avar graves — around 100,000 have been excavated so far — form an important part of Europe’s archaeological heritage.

The Avars were once part of what the Chinese called the Rouran khaganate or confederation of tribes, which the Turks defeated in 550, forcing the Avars to flee westward.

Traveling more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) in a few years from Mongolia to the Caucasus, according to the 2022 study published in the journal Cell that pinpointed the group’s Asian ancestry, the Avars set up a base in what’s now Hungary and came close to crushing Constantinople, the center of the Byzantine Empire.

Some historians credit the Avars with bringing the stirrup to Europe — a transformative technology that made mounted warfare possible and was subsequently widely adopted across the continent.

The study was a “fruitful interweaving of genetics, history, and archaeology,” according to Bryan Miller, an assistant professor of Central Asian art and archaeology at the University of Michigan, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Many previous studies have purported to sweep across the entirety of Eurasia with a wide population, relying on one individual per community or a handful of individuals to represent an entire culture or society,” he said via email.

“Instead, this study shows how only a data set with far greater resolution, with fuller investigations of whole communities, can provide the kinds of definitive or nuanced narratives that the earlier big data studies attempted to provide.”

Ukraine is tightening pressure on men of call-up age living abroad by temporarily suspending consular services, amid a wider overhaul of the country’s mobilization rules aimed at beefing up its defenses against Russia’s invasion.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced the suspension in a post on social media Tuesday, saying that it was needed to “restore fair attitudes” toward conscription.

“Under the circumstances of Russia’s full-scale aggression, the main priority is to protect our homeland from destruction,” Kuleba said, adding that staying abroad “does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the homeland.”

“A man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work this way. Our country is at war,” Kuleba said.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released additional details about the measure on Wednesday, saying in a statement that the suspension would affect men aged 18 to 60, who are temporarily abroad, except if they are applying for identity cards to return to Ukraine.

“The decision to suspend the process of providing consular services to the category of Ukrainian citizens specified by law is a temporary step due to the need to resolve issues related to the military registration of citizens of mobilisation age who are abroad,” the ministry said.

The mechanism for updating and verifying military registration data “is currently being determined,” it said.

The measure has already sparked criticism by some members of the Ukrainian parliament, who have called it semi-legal and have said representatives of the Foreign Ministry should be summoned to provide explanations.

As part of the ministry’s measure, all applications for consular services submitted before April 23, when the measure took effect, will be considered and processed by consular offices in full, including passport applications for travel abroad.

Only new applications from military age men will not be accepted temporarily, “as the term for consideration of such applications may exceed the time remaining before the law enters into force,” the ministry said.

The process of accepting and processing applications for consular actions will continue after the mobilization law enters into force on May 18 this year.

After updating their military registration data at recruitment centers in Ukraine, male citizens aged 18 to 60 with valid military registration documents will have full access to consular services, the ministry said.

The temporary suspension won’t affect the provision of consular assistance in case of emergencies with Ukrainian citizens abroad, it added.

According to the latest estimates by the Ukrainian non-governmental research body Centre for Economic Strategy, as of the end of January 2024, about 4.9 million Ukrainians are living abroad because of the war. The overwhelming majority of refugees are women and children.

Mobilization rules overhauled

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the new law on April 16, after the draft version was amended more than 4,000 times by lawmakers – a measure of how politically difficult crafting the legislation was.

Among the new law’s stipulations are that all men between 18 and 60 register with Ukraine’s military and carry their registration documents on them at all times, so that the recruitment processes can be more efficient and more transparent, the government says.

One of the aspects of the law that has divided opinions is that it does not contain provisions for demobilizing soldiers who have spent long periods fighting, which has prompted outrage by family members.

After the law passed, dozens of wives and relatives of servicemen gathered outside Ukraine’s parliament to protest and demand that mobilization deadlines be included.

The new law is aimed at boosting the pool of men available to fight for Ukraine and streamline registration.

Late last year, the leader of Zelensky’s Servant of the People faction in parliament said the military was looking for an extra half million servicemen and women.

But Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsyki said recently any increase in numbers would likely be significantly lower.

Yulia Kesaieva and Svitlana Vlasova contributed to this report

The British army has recovered several horses after they broke free from the prestigious Household Cavalry and bolted through London on Wednesday morning.

A number of people and horses are currently being treated for injuries incurred during the incident, though further details about their conditions are unavailable.

“A number of personnel and horses have been injured and are receiving the appropriate medical attention.”

The London Ambulance Service told the PA Media news agency that four people had been taken to the hospital.

Earlier in the morning, the City of London Police – the force that oversees London’s financial district – reported the events on social media.

In a statement posted on X, it said: “At around 8.40am, we were called about horses that had became loose and were travelling through the City.

“Our officers have contained two horses on the Highway near Limehouse. We’re waiting for an Army horse box to collect the horses and transport them to veterinary care.”

Less than an hour after that was posted, colleagues at neighboring Westminster Police posted an update to say that “all of the horses have been accounted for” and that they were “continuing to liaise with the Army.”

Startling footage has emerged on social media showing two horses – one apparently covered with blood – running through Aldwych in central London.

According to PA, a Mercedes taxi that was waiting outside the Clermont Hotel on Buckingham Palace Road had its windows smashed by the spooked horses, while one of the animals shattered the windscreen of a double-decker tour bus.

The Household Cavalry acts as the King’s official bodyguard and take part in ceremonial duties. It is based at Hyde Park barracks, a short distance from Buckingham Palace.

US President Joe Biden’s apparent suggestion his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals during World War II has sparked uproar in Papua New Guinea, casting a shadow on US relations with the Pacific nation and meeting a firm response from its leader.

In contentious remarks made last week following a visit to a war memorial, Biden twice hinted that the US was unable to recover his uncle Ambrose Finnegan’s remains after his plane crashed near the island of New Guinea during the war “because there used to be a lot of cannibals” in the region.

In a statement from his office Monday, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape conceded that Biden may have misspoken, but he pushed back against the characterization of cannibalism in the Pacific Island nation, which encompasses the eastern half of New Guinea and more than 600 nearby islands.

“President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such,” Marape said.

While cannibalism was documented among remote tribes in the region in the mid-20th century, Papua New Guinea has struggled to shed stereotypes in more recent decades, and Biden’s comments were met with criticism inside the country.

“PNG shouldn’t be seen as cannibals because of our past history. We are part of the modern civilization,” said one comment on social platform X.

“What utter rubbish is he on about?” asked another X user in PNG’s capital Port Moresby.

In a Facebook post, PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko warned that Biden’s “uninformed remarks” could undermine relations between the countries, which had deepened in recent years as Washington vies for influence with Beijing in the strategically important Pacific.

“These apparent untrue remarks by the sitting President is a low point in our bilateral relations,” Tkatchenko said.

Missing soldiers

Tens of thousands of soldiers, including about 7,000 Americans, were killed on New Guinea during heavy fighting between the imperial Japanese army and Allied forces in World War II, according to the Australian War Memorial. Many remains have never been recovered.

In his statement Monday, Marape called on the United States to help find the remains of those killed during the conflict.

“World War II was not the doing of my people; however, they were needlessly dragged into a conflict that was not their doing,” Marape said.

“I urge President Biden to get the White House to look into cleaning up these remains of WWII so the truth about missing servicemen like Ambrose Finnegan can be put to rest.”

On Wednesday, the US Embassy in PNG addressed Biden’s comments, saying the United States “respects the people and culture of Papua New Guinea and remains committed to furthering respectful relations between our democracies.”

“President Biden highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honoring our sacred commitment to equip those we send to war,” the embassy said in a statement.

“U.S. Embassy Port Moresby and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency are dedicated to locating and recovering WWII remains in Papua New Guinea.”

What Biden said

Biden made the controversial remarks on April 17 following his visit to a war memorial in Pennsylvania.

“He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals in New Guinea at the time. They never recovered his body,” he said of his uncle.

Biden blamed cannibalism more directly in a speech later that day, claiming Finnegan “got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be — there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.”

The president’s account of his uncle’s death differs from that published by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting agency, which says Finnegan’s plane, an A-20 Havoc headed to New Guinea on a courier flight, was “forced to ditch in the ocean” off the coast of the island “for unknown reasons.”

Biden’s comments came nearly a year after he canceled what would have been the first trip to PNG by a sitting US president, due to debt ceiling negotiations at home.

When asked about the remarks, the White House did not repeat Biden’s assertions about cannibals or his uncle’s plane being shot down.

A Russian deputy defense minister has been charged with taking a bribe, in Russia’s highest-profile corruption scandal since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

Timur Ivanov is suspected of accepting a bribe of 1 million rubles (at least $10,800), Russian state media TASS reported.

He appeared in a Moscow court Wednesday, dressed in full military garb as he stood in a glass cage, and was accused of receiving a bribe as part of an organized group while performing contracted work for the Defense Ministry. If convicted, he faces 15 years in prison.

Ivanov, who has been in his post since 2016, is seen as a senior architect of Russia’s war in Ukraine and a close ally of Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

The unexpected arrest of an ally of Shoigu may again put pressure on the defense minister, who has been criticized for his handling of the invasion of Ukraine – most forcefully by the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the months before his death last year. Despite setbacks, Shoigu has been kept in his post by Putin.

Ivanov’s responsibilities have included the reconstruction of Mairupol, a city in southern Ukraine reduced to ruin by Russian forces in a months-long siege at the outset of the war. The minister has frequently been seen cutting ribbons on various construction projects in the city – as Russia attempts to put a Potemkin facade on the city it destroyed.

His lavish lifestyle has earned him a reputation inside Russia and, with it, the scrutiny of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF). Maria Pevchikh, chair of the foundation, said Ivanov had “one of the most lucrative jobs that one can have” in Russia’s Defense Ministry, and claimed the invasion of Ukraine has made him far richer.

Ivanov was sanctioned by the European Union and United States after Russia invaded Ukraine.

But his ex-wife, Svetlana Maniovich, has continued to live a life of European opulence: yachting on the Mediterranean, skiing in the Alps and living in Paris.

In an investigation last year, the ACF assembled a picture of a woman who has seemingly escaped all scrutiny for Ivanov’s role in Ukraine, and the extreme profits he is alleged to have reaped. Drawing on a trove of 8,000 leaked emails, the investigation claimed that Maniovich spent more than $100,000 in a top Paris jewlry store on the famed Place Vendrome in March 2022, while the siege of Mariupol was tightening.