By CLAUDIA CIOBANU, Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk pledged Thursday to push ahead with a “great modernization program” for his country’s military, a day after Russian drones crossed into Poland and amplified international tensions around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including what the Kremlin’s future territorial ambitions might be.

European officials described Wednesday’s incursion, which occurred during a wave of recent unrelenting Russian strikes on Ukraine, as a deliberate provocation, forcing the NATO alliance to confront a potential threat in its airspace for the first time.

It deepened longstanding fears that the three-year war between Poland’s neighbors could precipitate a wider conflict. U.S.-led efforts to steer Moscow and Kyiv toward a peace settlement have so far failed to get traction.

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The Polish Air Navigation Agency announced Thursday morning that Poland was introducing air traffic restrictions in the eastern part of the country. It said the step was taken at the request of the Polish army for national security reasons but did not elaborate.

Poland said some of the drones that entered its airspace Wednesday came from Belarus, where Russian and local troops have begun gathering for war games scheduled to start Friday. Poland is closing its border with Belarus at midnight Thursday, a planned move also associated with the military exercises.

Underscoring the global repercussions of the war, China on Thursday urged Poland to keep open a section of the Belarus border for a China-EU freight track that crosses it. The rail line is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to boost trade with other countries.

Tusk addressed Polish troops at an air base in the central city of Lask, praising their quick action and that of NATO allied forces from the Netherlands that responded to the multiple Russian drone incursions.

The response also brought questions, however, about the wisdom of using advanced fighter jets to shoot down relatively cheap drones.

Poland expects to receive its first F-35 fighter jets from the United States next year, he said. It will be the first delivery of some of the 32 aircraft expected by 2030 as part of a support package finalized five years ago, Tusk said.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki also visited a military air base Thursday, striking a defiant tone in a statement that said Poland “doesn’t get scared by Russian drones.”

Nawrocki described the incursion as “an attempt to test our abilities, the ability to react.” He was visiting a base in Poznan-Krzesiny, in western Poland.

The Kremlin said it had nothing to add to a Wednesday statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry, which insisted that Russian forces had not targeted Poland and that it was open to discuss the incident with Polish officials.

It also dismissed talk of the incursion being a provocation. “The statements we hear from Warsaw: well, they’re nothing new. This rhetoric is typical of almost all European capitals,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, concluded that Putin is testing Europe’s resolve as it endeavors to address the threat from Moscow while the United States demands it shoulder more of the financial burden.

“Inconsistency between words and deeds seem to have eroded Europe’s credibility in Russia’s eyes,” it said in an analysis published Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered an ambiguous initial response to Russia’s drone incursion. “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Trump posted on social media.

Trump told Nawrocki, the Polish president, in the White House last week that the U.S. will maintain a robust military presence.

Several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.

“Russia’s war is escalating, not ending,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday. “What (Russian President Vladimir) Putin wants to do is to test us. What happened in Poland is a game changer,” she said, adding that it should result in stronger sanctions.

Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale in Poland or anywhere else in NATO territory.

Russian drone attacks on civilian areas are daily occurrences in Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has successfully developed drones to combat the attacks, called interceptors. The war has spurred fast-track development of high-tech drone technology.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal and his British counterpart John Healey signed an agreement for the United Kingdom to produce Ukrainian interceptor drones, Shmyhal said Thursday on Telegram, as other countries strive to modernize their militaries.

The Ukrainian air force said Thursday its forces intercepted 62 out of 66 Russian strike and decoy drones in the country’s airspace overnight.

In the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, Russian drones and debris from those intercepted damaged an educational facility, apartment blocks and the landmark Holy Resurrection Cathedral, regional head Oleh Hryhorov wrote in Telegram.

Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England contributed to this report.

By JON GAMBRELL, ABDEL KAREEM HANA and WAFAA SHURAFA, Associated Press

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Qatar’s prime minister said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “killed any hope” of releasing hostages still held in the Gaza Strip after Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.

The comments from Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, ahead of appearing at the United Nations on Thursday, underscored the wider anger among Gulf Arab countries over Israel’s strike that killed at least six people.

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“I was meeting one of the hostages’ families the morning of the attack,” Sheikh Mohammed told CNN in an interview aired late Wednesday. “They are counting on this (ceasefire) mediation. They have no other hope for that.”

Sheikh Mohammed added: “I think that what Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages.”

His remarks came as thousands of Palestinians continued to flee Gaza City ahead of Israel’s impending offensive there. The numbers leaving the city have grown in recent days, though many have refused because they say they no longer have the strength or money to relocate.

The Israeli military’s plans for the next phases of its operation in what it calls Hamas’ last remaining stronghold are aimed at taking over the largest Palestinian city that’s already devastated from earlier raids and experiencing famine.

The plans have drawn widespread condemnation and add to Israel’s already unprecedented global isolation, which intensified further this week following the strike on Qatar.

Qatar’s diplomatic push

The attack on the territory of a U.S. ally alarmed countries in the Mideast and beyond. It also marked a dramatic escalation in the region and risked upending talks aimed at ending the war and freeing hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

Sheikh Mohammed was expected to attend a U.N. Security Council meeting later Thursday, part of a diplomatic push by Qatar after the strike, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was set to visit Doha to underscore Pakistan’s support for Qatar’s security and sovereignty.

Qatar also said it was organizing an Arab-Islamic summit next week in Doha to discuss the attack.

Hamas said Tuesday that its top leaders survived the strike but that five lower-level members were killed, including the son of Khalil al-Hayya — Hamas’ leader for Gaza and its top negotiator — as well as three bodyguards and the head of al-Hayya’s office.

Hamas, which has sometimes only confirmed the assassination of its leaders months later, offered no immediate proof that al-Hayya and other senior figures had survived.

Qatar and Egypt have been key mediators to try and reach a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. Qatar has hosted Hamas’ political leadership for years in Doha, in part over a request by the U.S. to encourage negotiations between the militant group and Israel.

There was no immediate reaction to Sheikh Mohammed’s remarks from Netanyahu, whose government has engaged in wars across the region since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.

However, Netanyahu has continued to defend the strikes and threatened further action against Qatar a day after U.S. President Donald Trump had sought to ease tensions between the U.S. allies, including by assuring the Gulf nation that there would be no more such strikes on its soil.

“I say to Qatar and all nations who harbor terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice,” Netanyahu said. “Because if you don’t, we will.”

In what appeared to be the first move by a Gulf Arab state over the strike, the United Arab Emirates blocked Israeli firms from participating in the Dubai Air Show in November, Israeli media reported. The Israeli Defense Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday that it had received “the notification from the exhibition organizers to the industries.”

The air show’s organizers and authorities in the Emirates did not respond to requests for comment. However, the move would carry significant diplomatic importance, particularly as the UAE only diplomatically recognized Israel five years ago.

Displaced Palestinians forced to live on the streets

An estimated 1 million Palestinians — around half of Gaza’s overall population — live in the area of north Gaza around Gaza City, according to the Israeli military and the United Nations. On Wednesday, dozens of vehicles, motorbikes and donkey carts loaded with belongings lined the city’s coastal road as they tried to leave.

Amal Sobh, displaced from Beit Lahia with 30 relatives — including 13 orphans — said the three-wheel vehicle carrying their belongings broke down and they had no fuel, leaving the family stranded.

After one of her boys came down with a fever, the only food they were able to get was bread that a passerby gave to them.

“I have 13 orphans. The one who is in my lap, his temperature is high like fire,” she told The Associated Press. “I don’t have money to buy medicine for him.”

Meanwhile in Muwasi, an area at the southern end of the strip where Israel has encouraged people to move, displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza struggled to find shelter due to overcrowding and lack of adequate resources. Many have been forced to live on the streets.

Atwah Awad said aid has not reached her or her family.

“I slept in the street tonight. Who would accept that I sleep in the street? No water, no food, no bathrooms.”

More than 64,700 Palestinians killed in the war

The war in Gaza began when Hamas stormed into southern Israel in 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1,200, mostly civilians. Forty-eight hostages are still held inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 64,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not say how many were civilians or combatants but says women and children make up around half the dead.

Two Palestinian boys killed by Israeli troops

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Monday that two Palestinian boys had been shot and killed in Jenin, in the West Bank, by Israeli troops.

Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the deaths. Its troops have been operating in Jenin for months, as they press forward with a major operation there and in refugee camps across the north of the territory they say is to root out militancy.

The operation has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and demolished hundreds of buildings across the northern West Bank.

Hana reported from Wadi Gaza, Gaza Strip, and Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

By PAN PYLAS, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday fired the country’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, over his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said the decision came in the wake of the publication this week of emails Mandelson sent to Epstein in the 2000s, in which he gave his support to the disgraced financier even when he was facing jail for sex offenses.

Doughty said the emails showed that the “depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was “materially different” from what was known when he was appointed ambassador to Washington last year in the wake of the Labour Party’s election victory.

Mandelson, who took up his post in February this year after what the government described as an “extensive” vetting process, has voiced his deep regret over his previous links with Epstein and said he knew nothing about his criminal activities.

“In light of the additional information in the emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador to the United States,” Doughty said.

In particular, he pointed to Mandelson’s suggestion that Epstein’s first conviction in 2008 was “wrongful and should be challenged.”

FILE — This March 28, 2017 photo, provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry, shows Jeffrey Epstein. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File)

On Wednesday, The Sun newspaper published emails that it said showed Mandelson telling Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

“I think the world of you,” Mandelson told him before he began his sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The decision to fire Mandelson comes just a day after Starmer said he had “confidence” in him. It’s the latest blow to the prime minister ahead of a state visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to the U.K. next week, which is likely to be met with protests and some controversy. Last week Starmer also saw his deputy, Angela Rayner, quit over a tax error on a home purchase.

The government said James Roscoe, the U.K. deputy head of mission in Washington, will serve as interim ambassador and oversee Trump’s state visit. Roscoe is a career diplomat and former communications chief to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Starmer’s judgment is being increasingly questioned, particularly over his appointment of Mandelson, who is no stranger to controversy, having twice resigned from former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government in 1998 and 2001.

In the wake of his second resignation from Blair’s government, Mandelson became a European Commissioner when Britain was still in the European Union, before returning to front line British politics in 2008 to serve under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown.

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Mandelson’s trade expertise was considered a major asset in trying to persuade the Trump administration not to slap heavy tariffs on British goods, and seemed to pay off when the countries struck a trade deal in May, though some details of the agreement have yet to be finalized.

He is also a skilled – critics say ruthless – political operator whose mastery of political intrigue brought him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.”

It’s rare for a politician, rather than a career civil servant, to be given a key U.K. ambassadorial post. The center-left former lawmaker was not an obvious emissary to the Trump administration. Mandelson once called Trump a “danger to the world” — words he later said were “ill-judged and wrong.”

The focus on Mandelson over his links to Epstein accentuated this week after the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a 50th birthday album compiled in 2003 for Epstein, who at the time was a wealthy and well-connected financier. In that album, Mandelson called Epstein “my best pal” in a handwritten note.

Other alleged contributors to the album that was compiled by British convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell were Trump himself, former President Bill Clinton and attorney Alan Dershowitz in a “friends” section, and included other letters with sexually provocative language.

Epstein took his own life in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, more than a decade after his conviction.

Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, MARK SHERMAN and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

OREM, Utah (AP) — Authorities searched on Thursday for a sniper who assassinated Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump, with one bullet and then slipped away amid the mayhem resulting from the latest act of political violence to befall America.

Kirk was killed with a gunshot from a distant rooftop at the Utah Valley University campus, where he was speaking on Wednesday, authorities said. Federal, state and local authorities were working what they called “multiple active crime scenes.” As the search stretched into a second day, they provided little information about the shooter’s identity, motive, location or evidence and were reviewing grainy security videos of a mysterious person in dark clothing.

 

 

“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said. “I want to be very clear this is a political assassination.”

Two people were detained Wednesday, but neither was determined to be connected to the shooting and both were released, public safety officials said.

The circumstances of the shooting drew renewed attention to an escalating threat of political violence in the United States that in the last several years has cut across the ideological spectrum. The assassination drew bipartisan condemnation, but a national reckoning over ways to prevent political grievances from manifesting as deadly violence seemed elusive.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong.” A shot rings out, and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators gasp and scream before people start running away.

Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, were set to visit with Kirk’s family on Thursday in Salt Lake City. According to a person familiar with Vance’s plans but not authorized to speak about them publicly, the Vances will visit Utah instead of New York, which had been their planned destination for an outdoor ceremony to commemorate Sept. 11.

Vance posted a lengthy remembrance on X chronicling the origins of their friendship, dating back to initial messages in 2017, through Vance’s run for the Senate and ultimately praying after hearing of the shooting. Through the years, Vance wrote, Kirk checked in and played a pivotal role in setting up the second Trump administration.

“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance wrote. “He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”

Kirk was taking questions about gun violence

Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political youth organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, at the Sorensen Center courtyard on campus. Immediately before the shooting, he was taking questions from an audience member about gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the person asked. Kirk responded, “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Then a shot rang out.

The shooter, who Cox pledged would be held accountable in a state with the death penalty, wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away.

Madison Lattin was watching only a few dozen feet from Kirk’s left when she heard the bullet hit him.

“Blood is falling and dripping down, and you’re just like so scared, not just for him but your own safety,” she said.

She said she saw people drop to the ground in an eerie silence pierced immediately by cries. She ran while others splashed through decorative pools to get away. Some fell and were trampled in the stampede.

When Lattin later learned that Kirk had died, she wept, she said, describing him as a role model who had showed her how to be determined and fight for the truth.

Trump calls Kirk a ‘martyr for truth’

About 3,000 people were in attendance, according to a statement from the Utah Department of Public Safety. The university police department had six officers working the event, along with Kirk’s own security detail, authorities said.

Trump announced Kirk’s death on social media and praised the 31-year-old co-founder and CEO of Turning Point as “Great, and even Legendary.” Later, he released a recorded video from the White House in which he called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom.”

Utah Valley University said the campus was immediately evacuated after the shooting, with officers escorting people to safety. The campus will be closed until Monday.

Meanwhile, armed officers walked around the neighborhood bordering the campus, knocking on doors and asking for any information residents might have on the shooting. Helicopters buzzed overhead.

Wednesday’s event, billed as the first stop on Kirk’s “The American Comeback Tour,” had generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit was sparking controversy. He wrote, “What’s going on in Utah?”

Condemnation from across the political spectrum

The shooting drew swift condemnation across the political aisle as Democratic officials joined Trump, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff and issued a presidential proclamation, and Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the violence.

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“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends,” said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in her Arizona district.

The shooting appeared poised to become part of a spike of political violence that has touched a range of ideologies and representatives of both major political parties. The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade in June to demand Hamas release hostages and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a Pennsylvania campaign rally last year.

Kirk confronted liberals

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then 18, and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success.

But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers.

Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as an aide to Donald Trump Jr. during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences.

Richer and Sherman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver; Michael Biesecker, Brian Slodysko, Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price in Washington; Jesse Bedayn in Orem, Utah; Hallie Golden in Seattle and Meg Kinnard in Chapin, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

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