The United Nations on Monday clarified that the overall number of fatalities in Gaza tallied by the Ministry of Health in Gaza remains unchanged, at more than 35,000, since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

The clarification comes after the UN humanitarian agency OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) published a report on May 8 with revised data regarding the number of Palestinian casualties in the war. The UN agency in its report reduced the number of women and children believed to have been killed in the war by nearly half.

The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing at the UN that the health ministry in Gaza recently published two separate death tolls – an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) have been documented was published, leading to confusion.

According to Haq, the ministry published a breakdown for 24,686 fully identified deaths out of the total 34,622 fatalities recorded in Gaza as of April 30. The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperson said, citing the Gaza health ministry.

The health authority in Gaza noted that the documentation process of casualties’ full identification details is still ongoing, Haq added.

The total number of dead also does not include the approximately 10,000 people who are still missing and trapped under the rubble, the officials added.

Israel launched its military assault on Gaza on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, killed at least 1,200 people in Israel and abducted more than 250 others. Israel’s months-long siege of the Palestinian enclave has since pulverized large parts of Gaza and drastically diminished critical supplies, exposing the entire population of more than 2.2 million people to the risk of famine.

Both the UN and US officials have previously appraised the figures from the Ministry of Health in Gaza as credible.

People who lived in the Arabian Peninsula thousands of years ago went underground when they wanted to beat the heat. Possibly stopping there as they traveled between oases and pastures, they ducked into vast subterranean tunnels where molten lava had once flowed millions of years earlier, according to a recent study.

Beginning in the Stone Age, Neolithic herders descended into and occupied these vast tunnels, known as lava tubes, archaeologists have discovered. Cooler air underground would have provided a welcome respite from the sun and wind, and for thousands of years, humans sheltered with their livestock in the tunnels. The herders left behind objects and even carved pictures on the rocky walls, researchers reported April 17 in the journal PLOS One.

In the Harrat Khaybar lava field, about 78 miles (125 kilometers) to the north of Medina in Saudi Arabia is a tunnel system called Umm Jirsan, the longest in the region. Scientists haven’t yet confirmed the age of the lava that formed this system, but a 2007 study suggested it was around 3 million years old. Umm Jirsan spans nearly 1 mile (1.5 kilometers), with passages that are up to 39 feet (12 meters) tall and as much as 148 feet (45 meters) wide.

Archaeologists at Umm Jirsan recently found animal bones dating from 400 years to more than 4,000 years ago, and human remains ranging from 150 years to about 6,000 years ago. The research team also found cloth fragments, pieces of carved wood and dozens of stone tools — the first evidence that humans were using the tunnels, starting at least 7,000 years ago.

“From earlier reports we knew that fossils were preserved at the site,” said lead study author Dr. Mathew Stewart, a research fellow at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University in Australia.

This discovery highlights the significance of Umm Jirsan and other tunnels for understanding human dispersal in the region, said Guillaume Charloux, an archaeologist with the French National Centre for Scientific Research. In general, knowledge about ancient climate and humans in northwestern Arabia is limited, “particularly during the transitional phase between the Neolithic and the beginning of the 2nd millennium,” said Charloux, who studies ancient sites in Saudi Arabia but was not involved in the new research.                      .

Around this time, local people were settling around recently formed oases; the appearance of these desert refuges would shape human migration patterns in the region for millennia, he said via email. “The main contribution of this innovative and major research project seems to me to be that it brings to light the long-lasting use — probably ephemeral occupation — of this type of cave, which had remained unstudied, and their enormous potential, particularly for understanding paleoenvironmental contexts.”

‘Green Arabia’

For nearly 15 years, Stewart and his colleagues have been piecing together evidence of ancient human life in Arabia, mostly from sites around lake deposits, Stewart said. Beginning around 400,000 years ago, recurring periods of humidity saturated Arabian deserts with rainfall. During these “Green Arabia” phases, lakes and ponds abounded and the landscape bloomed with lush vegetation, leading to waves of migrating humans who dispersed into southwestern Asia, Stewart and other researchers previously reported in the journal Nature.

But the last Green Arabia phase was around 55,000 years ago, and harsh desert environments aren’t kind to archaeological evidence. While stone tools preserve well in dry deserts, bones and other organic materials are easily degraded and destroyed by erosion and extreme heat and cold, leaving little for researchers to interpret, Stewart noted.

“To that end, in 2019 we decided to investigate underground settings where organics and sediments might be better preserved,” he said.

So the scientists turned their attention to Umm Jirsan. The site had previously been mapped by the Saudi Geological Survey, and a report from 2009 described it as a refuge for wild animals such as foxes, wolves, birds and snakes. Caches of bones in the tunnels included human skull fragments estimated at the time to be about 4,000 years old. But until 2019, the tunnel system hadn’t yet been closely investigated by archaeologists, Stewart said.

“We were able to date the animal bones and sediments, which informed us that people began occupying the cave by 7,000 years ago and perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago,” Stewart said.

Compared with other sites where humans once lived, the amount of archaeological material at Umm Jirsan was “quite scant,” suggesting that people were visiting the tunnels as temporary refuges rather than living there permanently, the study authors reported.

Animal carvings

In another tunnel near Umm Jirsan, the researchers found 16 panels of engraved rock art. The carvings appeared to be herding scenes, with tool-wearing, stick-figure humans standing alongside domesticated animals such as dogs, cattle, goats and sheep. Other carvings showed animals with dramatically arching horns resembling those of an ibex; however, these horned animals could represent a different breed of domesticated goat, according to the study. The carvings’ subjects and their varnish coating hint that they date to a regional period known as the Chalcolithic (around 4500 to 3500 BC), which preceded the rise of the Bronze Age.

“Collectively, the archaeological findings at the site and in the surrounding landscape paint a picture of recurrent use of the Umm Jirsan Lava Tube over millennia,” Stewart said. The site — which lies along a known migratory route for Bronze Age herders — “may have served as a stopping off point, a place of refuge protected from the elements.”

This unprecedented evidence of human occupation in ancient Arabian lava tubes sheds light on how people adapted to live in arid landscapes, and further investigation of Umm Jirsan and other lava tubes promises to add even more details, Stewart added.

“These sites have tremendous potential to fill in some of the gaps in the natural and cultural archives that persist in the Arabian archaeological record.”

Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.

In the bustling world of social media, where everyone strives to be heard, few voices rise above the noise to truly make an impact.

One such voice is that of Ifedayo Agoro, the founder of Diary of a Naija Girl (DANG), a platform that started as a simple Instagram page and has since grown into a thriving community of nearly one million followers across social media sites.

The journey for the Nigerian former oil and gas executive began with a simple idea in 2006 – to share her stories and opinions authentically and without fear or shame.

“I realized the culture of shame had grown so much and I thought to myself, ‘This is not how I grew up… I’m gonna tell my story, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I will not be ashamed,’” Agoro recalled.

Candid conversations

Through candid conversations and shared narratives, members of the DANG community confront taboo topics such as gender-based violence, discrimination, body image, mental health, and reproductive rights.

“What drives the content is the platform’s values; to live our best life, never be suppressed by shame and our experiences, and learn and unlearn everything. Whatever falls under these values is what we put out,” she explained.

Agoro, 40, champions the message of self-worth and autonomy, inspiring women to embrace their individuality and make decisions based on their desires, not societal expectations.

“Women are beginning to understand that they are worthy anyway, with marriage or without it,” she said.

She is often accused of being anti-men and marriage and Agoro was keen to clarify her stance on relationships. “I’m not anti-marriage… I just know that my life is still full without it.

Although she admits the vitriol has lessened considerably. “I would attribute that to not backing down. I’m a person that’s just going to do what I want to do.”

Undeterred by detractors, Agoro continues to amplify women’s voices and create a safe space for women to share without limits.

This ultimately led Agoro to create the #DangAfterHours series, a no-holds-barred discussion on sex and sexuality, a real taboo subject in Nigeria, Agoro says.

“Women in Nigeria are not really able to talk about sex without being labeled promiscuous. I want to talk about sex in a hilarious way, we can learn from it and bond on that topic. The response shows that the conversation needed to happen.”

Creating impact

Over the years, Agoro has used the DANG platform to transform the lives of hundreds of women. A self-described “empath” she finds herself getting involved in the lives of the women who reach her for help and advice, often “bawling her eyes out,” over their triumphs and tribulations, she says.

However, one moment stands out for her.

“A few years ago, there was a lady who was sick in the hospital in Lagos and at the time doctors were on strike. She sent me a message saying ‘I’m losing blood, pregnant and sick. There’s no one to attend to me. Please help me I don’t want to die.’”

Angered, Agoro says she took to her social media and posted about the woman’s predicament.

“After I posted that, the office of the then First Lady reached me and resolved the issue immediately and the lady was attended to quickly and her tests were done. That was the day I realized the power of what we were doing.”

When she started posting her story on Instagram, Agoro initially chose to remain anonymous, to avoid the pressure of public scrutiny.

However, as her platform gained traction, she confronted a pivotal moment when her identity was threatened to be exposed. Rather than succumbing to fear, she decided to reveal herself.

“I initially didn’t see the need to put my face… and when the platform became bigger… I realized that this may not be sustainable. I have ambitions to write a book, to create a company. Then, someone threatened to reveal my identity, so I outed myself and it has been a blessing in disguise, so thank you to the person,’ she joked.

Soon after, she launched her DANG Lifestyle and skincare business which has grown largely through word of mouth through the DANG community, Agoro says.

“We started with candles and went into skincare and we haven’t done any campaign at all but have sold over 400,000 units. I owe the trajectory of the DANG lifestyle to the community. But It’s a business that has to leave our comfort zone in Nigeria. Dang Lifestyle is already in the UK, USA, Ghana, and Kenya and we want to take it to more countries,” she said.

Despite aiming her message squarely at women, Agoro doesn’t discount a future where men would be integrated into the community.

“I now get men commenting and saying to me, ‘We are DANG men too, include us in the conversation.’ We are happy to have them in the conversation. I can see that some of them want to learn and do better. I believe we have to tell them kindly and gracefully what we want or we don’t get the change we want,” she said.

Russia carried out a “massive” missile attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight into Wednesday, according to local authorities, in the biggest aerial onslaught by Russian forces for weeks.

Russia used 76 air attack weapons in the assault, including 55 missiles and 21 drones launched from Russia and Russian controlled areas, according to Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk. At least 59 weapons were destroyed overnight, he added.

The attacks targeted power generation and transmission facilities in Ukraine’s Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia regions, the country’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko posted on Telegram.

“The enemy wants to deprive us of the ability to generate and transmit electricity in sufficient quantities. Saving electricity is a contribution of each of us to the victory,” Halushchenko said.

At least three people were injured, including a woman and a man with multiple limb injuries and shrapnel wounds taken to the hospital in the Kyiv region, and an 8-year-old child in the Kirovohrad region, local authorities said.

Moscow has stepped up efforts to paralyze Ukraine’s energy system in the past month, as Kyiv’s troops struggle to hold positions on key frontlines particularly in the east.

The five-month wait before US Congress approved $61 billion in military aid to Kyiv may have caused lasting damage that will be felt on the frontlines for months to come.

Russian forces have used the “artillery drought” hampering Ukraine’s defenses since December to push forward on the eastern front near Avdiivka, making the largest advance since the early months of the war, and ahead of an anticipated Russian offensive in late May.

The latest Russian attack hit three thermal power plants run by Ukraine’s biggest power company, DTEK. It was the fifth time its infrastructure was targeted in a month and a half. Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator, Ukrenergo, also reported “damage to generation facilities.”

Two critical energy infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region were attacked, one in the Chervonohrad district and another in the Stryi district, regional military official, Maksym Kozytskyi, said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “all necessary services are already working to mitigate the consequences of Russian terror.”

“The entire world must understand who is who. The world must not give a chance to new Nazism,” he added in a post on X.

The attacks come as Ukraine marks the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II on Wednesday.

The Duke of Sussex has returned to the United Kingdom for a ceremony on Wednesday marking a milestone moment for his Invictus Games, but he will not see his father, King Charles III, while back in the country.

Prince Harry arrived on Tuesday afternoon ahead of events and meetings related to the biennial sporting competition he founded a decade ago.

The fifth in line to the British throne will not be catching up with his father during the visit home, however, due to “His Majesty’s full program,” according to his spokesperson.

“The Duke of course is understanding of his father’s diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon,” the spokesperson added.

Buckingham Palace has not commented on the duke’s visit. Harry has had a difficult relationship with his wider family since he and his wife, Meghan, stepped back from royal duties and moved to the United States in 2020.

He is also not expected to meet his brother, Prince William, during the visit.

Harry, 39, does not appear to have been accompanied by the Duchess of Sussex for his visit to the UK. Their son, Prince Archie, turned five on Monday.

The last time the duke was back in his home country was in February on a fleeting visit after his father’s cancer diagnosis was announced.

Charles is continuing with treatment for an undisclosed cancer but he returned to public duties last week after his doctors said they were “very encouraged” by his progress.

The past few months have been a tumultuous period for Britain’s royal family. Harry’s sister-in-law, Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed her own cancer battle in March and has asked for privacy while she undergoes treatment.

The Duke of Sussex will attend a service of thanksgiving at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral later Wednesday celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games and its foundation.

The inaugural Invictus Games, an international sporting competition for wounded veterans and members of the military, was held in London in 2014.

Harry will deliver a reading while actor Damian Lewis will recite a poem.

Following the Invictus celebrations in London, Harry and Meghan will head to Nigeria at the invitation of the Nigerian Defence Headquarters. Nigeria became Africa’s first participant in the games last year.

The next Invictus Games will be held in Vancouver and Whistler in Canada in February 2025. More than 500 competitors from over 20 nations will compete in adaptive sports such as indoor rowing, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball.

Last week, the cities of Birmingham in the UK and Washington, DC in the US were announced as the shortlist to host the event in 2027.

Extraordinary global heat continues its streak. Last month, the world endured the hottest April on record, according to new data from Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service.

It marks 11 consecutive months of unprecedented global temperatures. With that new data point, some scientists warn there is a strong chance 2024 could beat 2023 as the warmest year on record.

Last month was 1.58 degrees Celsius warmer than the average April in the era before industrialization and 0.67 degrees above the average April between 1991 and 2020, Copernicus found.

The impacts have been stark. Swaths of Asia have been grappling with deadly heat: schools were closed for millions of children in Bangladesh, rice fields have shriveled in Vietnam, and people in India battled 110 degree Fahrenheit temperatures to vote in recent elections.

Global ocean heat in April was also record-breaking for the 13th consecutive month. Ocean surface temperatures reached 21.04 degrees, the highest on record for any April, and just a fraction below the overall record set in March, according to Copernicus data.

The impact on marine systems is devastating. A mass coral bleaching event occurred this spring, which scientists said at the time could be the worst on record.

Unprecedented global heat is being driven by the long-term trend of global warming — mainly caused by humans burning fossil fuels — boosted by El Niño, a natural climate pattern that tends to have a warming impact.

El Niño is now weakening, but it’s not surprising the world is still seeing unprecedented heat, said Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at Stripe and research scientist at Berkeley Earth.

The year after El Niño peaks is usually the warmer one. And while heat records are still being set month after month, the margins at which they are being broken are smaller than they were in 2023.

Hausfather estimates a 66% chance that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, and a 99% chance it will be the second hottest. The current best estimate is it will come in at just above 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, he said.

Countries have agreed to restrict global heating to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. While this refers to long-term warming over decades, rather than a single month or year, scientists have said these temporary breaches are a clear and alarming signal of accelerating climate change.

What happens in the next few months will help scientists understand if the unexpectedly high temperatures in 2023 were a temporary phenomenon, “or a sign of something new that might drive faster warming than previously anticipated,” Hausfather said.

“If global temperatures fall out of record territory after the next two months, it will be a comforting sign that the climate is behaving a bit more predictably,” he added.

But, he cautioned, even if this happens, the world is still on track for warming of close to 3 degrees, which would bring catastrophic consequences.

While natural climate cycles like El Niño come and go, “increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.

Earth’s magnetic field plays a key role in making our planet habitable. The protective bubble over the atmosphere shields the planet from solar radiation, winds, cosmic rays and wild swings in temperature.

However, Earth’s magnetic field almost collapsed 591 million years ago, and this change, paradoxically, may have played a pivotal role in the blossoming of complex life, new research has found.

“In general, the field is protective. If we had not had a field early in Earth history water would have been stripped from the planet by the solar wind (a stream of energized particles flowing from the sun toward Earth),” said John Tarduno, a professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester in New York and senior author of the new study.

“But in the Ediacaran, we had a fascinating period in the development of the deep Earth when processes creating the magnetic field … had become so inefficient after billions of years, that the field almost completely collapsed.”

The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on May 2, found that Earth’s magnetic field, which is created by the motion of molten iron in Earth’s outer core, was significantly weaker than its current strength for a period of at least 26 million years. The discovery of the sustained weakening of Earth’s magnetic field also helped resolve an enduring geological mystery about when Earth’s solid inner core formed.

This time frame lines up with a period known as the Ediacaran, when the very first complex animals emerged on the seafloor as the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere and the ocean increased.

These weird animals barely resembled life today — squashy fans, tubes and doughnuts, and discs such as Dickinsonia, which grew up to 4.6 feet (1.4 meters) in size, and the sluglike Kimberella.

Prior to this time, life had been largely single-celled and microscopic. The researchers believe that a weak magnetic field may have led to an increase in oxygen in the atmosphere, allowing early complex life to evolve.

Uncovering the magnetic field’s near collapse

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field is known to fluctuate over time, and crystals preserved in rock contain tiny magnetic particles that lock in a record of the intensity of Earth’s magnetic field.

The first evidence that Earth’s magnetic field weakened significantly during this period came in 2019 from a study of 565 million-year-old rocks in Quebec that suggested the field was 10 times weaker than today at that point.

The latest study collated more geological evidence that indicated the magnetic field weakened dramatically, with information contained in 591 million-year-old rock from a site in southern Brazil suggesting the field was 30 times weaker than today.

The weak magnetic field hadn’t always been that way: The team examined similar rocks from South Africa that dated back more than 2 billion years and found, at that point in time, the Earth’s magnetic field was as strong as it is today.

Unlike now, Tarduno explained, back then the innermost part of Earth was liquid, not solid, influencing the way the magnetic field was generated.

“Over billions of years that process is becoming less and less efficient,” he said.

“And by the time we get to the Ediacaran, the field is on its last legs. It’s almost collapsing. But then fortunately for us it got cool enough that the inner core started to generate (strengthening the magnetic field).”

The emergence of the earliest complex life that would have wafted along the seafloor at this time is associated with a rise in oxygen levels. Some animals can survive at low levels of oxygen, such as sponges and microscopic animals, but larger animals with more complex bodies that move need more oxygen, Tarduno said.

Traditionally, the rise in oxygen during this time has been attributed to photosynthetic organisms such as cyanobacteria, which produced oxygen, allowing it to build up in the water steadily over time, explained study coauthor Shuhai Xiao, a professor of geobiology at Virginia Tech.

However, the new research suggested an alternative, or complementary, hypothesis involving an increased loss of hydrogen to space when the geomagnetic field was weak.

“The magnetosphere shields the Earth from solar wind, thus holding the atmosphere to the Earth. Thus, a weaker magnetosphere means that lighter gases such as hydrogen would be lost from the Earth’s atmosphere,” Xiao added via email.

Tarduno said multiple processes could have been taking place at once.

“We do not challenge that one or more of these processes was happening concurrently. But the weak field may have allowed oxygenation to cross a threshold, aiding animal radiation (evolution),” Tarduno said.

Peter Driscoll, staff scientist at the Earth and Planets Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, said he agreed with the study’s findings on the weakness of Earth’s magnetic field, but the claim that the weak magnetic field could have affected atmospheric oxygen and biological evolution was difficult to assess. He wasn’t involved with the study.

“It is hard for me to evaluate the veracity of this claim because the influence that planetary magnetic fields might have on climate is not very well understood,” he said via email.

Tarduno said that their hypothesis was “solid,” but proving a causative link could take decades of challenging work given how little is known about the animals that lived at this time.

Inner core mystery

The geological analysis also revealed telling details about the innermost part of Earth’s center.

Estimates on when the planet’s inner core may have solidified — when iron first crystallized at the center of the planet — once ranged from 500 million to 2.5 billion years ago.

The research on the intensity of Earth’s magnetic field suggests that the age of Earth’s inner core is on the younger end of that timescale, solidifying after 565 million years ago and allowing Earth’s magnetic shield to bounce back.

“The observations appear to support the claim that the inner core first nucleated soon after this time, pushing the geodynamo (the mechanism that creates the magnetic field) from a weak, unstable state into a strong, stable dipolar field,” Driscoll said.

Tarduno said the recovery of the field strength after the Ediacaran, with the growth of the inner core, was probably important in preventing a drying of water-rich Earth.

As for the bizarre animals of the Ediacaran, they had all disappeared by the following Cambrian Period, when the diversity of life exploded and the branches of the tree of life familiar today formed in a relatively short time.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian forces to rehearse deploying tactical nuclear weapons, as part of military drills to respond to what he called “threats” by the West.

Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly made veiled threats to use tactical nuclear weapons against the West, but Monday marked the first time Russia has publicly announced drills.

“During the exercises, a set of measures will be carried out to practice the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” Russia’s defense ministry said.

Non-strategic, or “tactical,” nuclear weapons can be used in battlefield situations, carrying less power than strategic nuclear weapons, which have the potential to level entire cities.

Russia’s defense ministry said the drills were ordered after “provocative statements and threats” by Western officials against Russia, which Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said had reached “unprecedented levels.”

French President Emmanuel Macron last week reaffirmed that he would not rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, as he warned of the risks Russia poses to European security and other countries near its borders.

“I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out,” Macron told The Economist magazine. “I have a clear strategic objective: Russia cannot win in Ukraine. If Russia wins in Ukraine, there will be no security in Europe. Who can pretend that Russia will stop there?”

And during a visit to Ukraine last week, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Ukraine could use British-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

“In terms of what the Ukrainians do, in our view it is their decision about how to use these weapons. They are defending their country. They were illegally invaded by Putin and they must take those steps,” Cameron told reporters after the United Kingdom pledged continued financial and military support for Ukraine.

The drills announcement also comes shortly after the United States last month passed a long-delayed aid package for Kyiv, which will allow desperately needed military equipment and ammunition to flow to Ukraine as it tries to shore up its frontlines in the face of a renewed Russian onslaughts.

Russian forces last month made further gains in at least three locations along Ukraine’s eastern front, as Moscow tries to press home its manpower and ammunition advantage before the bulk of the US aid arrives in Ukraine.

Russia has tended to raise the nuclear specter when its invasion of Ukraine has hit obstacles or when other countries make new pledges of support for Ukraine. After Ukraine liberated large swathes of its territory in late 2022, Putin conceded that the war is “going to take a while” and warned of the “increasing” threat of nuclear war.

In February last year, Putin announced that Russia would suspend participation in the New START treaty, a key nuclear arms reduction agreement with the United States, the last remaining pact that regulates the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. Putin said Russia would not be the first to test nuclear weapons, but would do so in the event of a US test.

After Macron said in February that sending Western troops to Ukraine could not be ruled out, Putin warned “this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization.”

US President Joe Biden and State Department officials have previously downplayed concerns that Putin could deploy a nuclear weapon, but continue to take the threats seriously.

In response to Russia’s latest announcement, the US said it had seen no change in Russia’s “strategic force posture” following Moscow’s announcement that it would begin tactical nuclear weapons drills, according to Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder.

Ryder said Russia’s announcement is “completely inappropriate,” and “an example of the kind of irresponsible rhetoric that we’ve seen from Russia in the past.”

In Monday’s announcement, Russia’s defense ministry said the military’s General Staff had begun preparations for conducting “exercises in the near future with missile formations of the Southern Military District involving aviation as well as naval forces.”

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry of Belarus said on Telegram it had held a “surprise inspection” of non-strategic nuclear arms carriers. President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the inspection to “test the entire range of activities from planning, preparation, and use of strikes with tactical nuclear weapons,” according to Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin.

Khrenin also said that “a division of the Iskander operational-tactical complex and a squadron of Su-25 aircraft” have been transferred into positions for the drills.

Belarus does not possess its own nuclear weapons. Russia and Belarus signed an agreement to place Moscow’s non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus in May of 2023 and the transfer was completed by October of that year. Lukashenko has previously said that the nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus are for “defensive purposes” only and could be used to “respond to aggression.”

In the seven-decade history of Eurovision, it’s unlikely that a three-word slogan has been repeated so readily by the song contest’s extravagant contestants, tireless organizers or cagey media managers: The world, they insist, can be “United by Music.”

But Malmo, the Swedish city hosting the kitsch cultural phenomenon this year, is increasingly divided by Eurovision.

Saturday’s Eurovision final will be watched by more than 150 million people around the world on TV and around 15,000 fans gathered inside the Malmo Arena. But the concert may be only the second-best attended event in the city that evening; a pro-Palestinian protest, calling for Israel’s removal from the contest, is expecting at least 20,000 attendees, and possibly far more.

The competition – which tries desperately to retain its “apolitical” tag – has become the largest cultural event so far to be rocked by the repercussions of Israel’s war in Gaza. Israel’s military assault has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza since it was launched in response to Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Those protesting or boycotting the song contest claim it is “artwashing” the conflict; others defend Israel’s inclusion, insisting the contest should not be dragged into geopolitics.

Weeks of simmering tension over the question are coming to the fore in Malmo this week, ahead of the contest’s semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday. And they are leading to perhaps the tensest three minutes in the contest’s history, when Israel’s competitor, Eden Golan, performs live.

“We could well see protests in the arena, we could see booing,” Jordan said. “I would imagine the scale of it in Malmo would be bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before.”

An increasingly political song contest

It is difficult to pierce the celebratory bubble that surrounds the competition each year. But even among Eurovision’s media-managed contestants, there are some rumblings of discontent this time.

Founded by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in 1956 as a unity-fostering project between national broadcasters, Eurovision has been rocked and buffeted for decades by the continent’s geopolitical currents. It offers an unrivaled soft power-building platform to member states with poor human rights records, like Azerbaijan and, until two years ago, Russia.

But this year is the most difficult yet for the EBU, which decided against excluding Israel over the country’s war in Gaza, whereas Russia was barred after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago – contrasting stances that led to calls of double standards.

“If we start across the board just deciding that we’re going to exclude people, on the basis of geopolitical situations or terrible things that might be happening in the world, then every year we’re just going to have groups of people calling for someone to be excluded – be it Azerbaijan, be it somebody else,” Curran said.

“We want to try and keep the contest as non-political as we can,” he added. “And that’s hard.”

He may be understating matters. Publicists representing a swathe of Europe’s most eccentric musical artists in Malmo have been especially cautious with their talent, seeking to protect them from questions relating to the protests taking place just a few yards from their hotels.

The EBU was already forced to intervene when Golan’s initial song submission, “October Rain,” was deemed to too closely reference Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel.

Artists are not allowed to make statements either, though some may risk the punishment – a fine for their broadcaster – to do so, as Iceland’s act did in 2019, when they held up Palestinian flags during the contest, which was held in Israel.

“We wouldn’t want them to do that, quite obviously,” Curran said. “That is not something that we want artists to do, and it’s in the rules that they shouldn’t do that, and can’t do that.”

But, for all their efforts, Eurovision bosses will hold their breaths while Golan sings in Saturday’s grand final if, as expected, she progresses from Thursday’s semi-final.

“The real worry would be any threat of violence, particularly towards the singers,” Jordan said. “The worst nightmare could be a stage invasion.” The latter occurred during the United Kingdom’s performance in 2018, when a man snatched the microphone from singer SuRie and screamed a message before being removed.

‘It has divided the city’

As Malmo sought to stage a week’s worth of events and performances to celebrate Eurovision, it encountered a problem: artists kept dropping out, following pressure from pro-Palestinian groups urging a boycott of the contest.

“It has divided the city, in a way,” admitted Karin Karlsson, who is in charge of staging the events in Malmo. “I don’t think we will solve any questions when it comes to the war in Gaza by boycotting,” she said.

In total, she said 20 artists had dropped out of performing in the city. But Karlsson is undeterred. “I sleep well,” she said. “I want to show everybody a vibrant, super diverse city, where we can live side by side but still think differently.”

She hopes that Malmo is on track to fulfilling that goal. “But you never know. It’s uncertain at the moment.”

That has caused tensions with some residents, she said, who want resources and time spent on public services, rather than international spectacles.

The city is also home to large Muslim and Palestinian populations. Weekly pro-Palestinian protests have been held since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October, and the protest during Saturday’s live final could be the biggest since those early weeks.

“We hope to show the EBU that the people of Malmo reject their attempt at artwashing,” said Mohammad Ghannam, who has led the movement to boycott Eurovision as part of Sweden’s Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) group.

And last week, Israel’s National Security Council raised its travel warning to Malmo, urging Israelis planning to attend Eurovision to reconsider whether they need to do so. It cited “tangible concern that terrorists will exploit the protest and the anti-Israel atmosphere to carry out an attack on Israelis,” and described Malmo as a hub for “anti-Israel protests.”

Lara Yosef, a 30-year-old Syrian migrant to Malmo who will be attending Saturday’s demonstration, said that when she walks past Eurovision advertising in her city, “I see blood.”

“I’m hoping that some artists will surprise us and (make) some statements on stage,” Yosef said.

But many more are working to block out what is becoming a near-deafening distraction, joining Eurovision’s organizers in offering delicate comments. “(Our) sympathy is (with) all people who say that war is sh*t,” said Ukrainian contestant Alyona Alyona. “Because who, if not we, can say what is war, and how sh*t it is?”

Rescue efforts were underway after three people were killed and dozens remained trapped after a multi-storey building under construction collapsed in the South African city of George, authorities said.

Twenty-four people were rescued from the site and sent to hospitals, the municipality of George, a coastal city east of Cape Town, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Fifty-one people remained trapped, according to a statement from the municipality of George.

“Seventy-five members of construction crew have been confirmed on site at that time of the incident,” Western Cape premier Alan Winde said earlier.

CCTV footage obtained by Reuters showed a cloud of dust as the building crumbled on Monday afternoon.

“I saw one guy was working and then ‘boom’ and I saw the whole building collapsed… I’m also traumatised. It is very sad,” Theresa Jeyi, a local councillor, told reporters at the scene.

The provincial government said police and rescue teams with sniffer dogs were on site.

Rescue workers on site were trying to recall where they heard calls from people, George Mayor Leon van Wyk told SABC, while rescue equipment was on its way.

“This is going to be a really lengthy exercise and probably going to go right through the night,” he said.