By ILLIA NOVIKOV and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine can win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the U.S. leader’s call on Kyiv to make concessions.

Trump offered his position in a social media posting soon after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump in part wrote, “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met President Donald Trump on Tuesday at the United Nations headquarters in New York as he seeks additional U.S. help in defending his country from Russia’s onslaught of missiles, drones and bombs.

The two presidents, who have had strained ties in previous sitdowns, greeted each other warmly on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders.

“We have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up,” Trump told Zelenskyy, who replied that he had “good news” from the battlefield.

“We will speak of how to finish the war and security guarantees,” Zelenskyy said, thanking the U.S. leader for the meeting and for his “personal efforts to stop this war.”

As the fighting rages on, Trump said the “biggest progress” toward ending the conflict “is that the Russian economy is terrible right now.” Zelenskyy said Ukraine agreed with Trump’s call for European nations to further halt imports of Russian oil and natural gas.

Trump says the war was ‘supposed to be a quick little skirmish’

In his speech to the General Assembly earlier Tuesday, Trump said the war in Ukraine was making Russia “look bad” because it was “supposed to be a quick little skirmish.”

“It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country,” he said. “The only question now is how many lives will be needlessly lost on both sides.”

With his troops under strain on the front line after more than three years of fighting Russia’s bigger invading army, Zelenskyy was meeting world leaders in New York and was due to speak at a special U.N. Security Council session on Ukraine.

Peace efforts set in motion by Trump since he returned to office in January appear to have stalled. Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a White House meeting with Zelenskyy and key European leaders took place more than a month ago, but the war has continued unabated.

Following those meetings, Trump announced that he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But Putin hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelenskyy and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.

Push for sanctions and cutting off Russian oil

European leaders as well as American lawmakers, including some Republican allies of Trump, have urged the president to dial up stronger sanctions on Russia. Trump, meanwhile, has pressed Europe to stop buying Russian oil, the engine feeding Putin’s war machine.

Trump said a “very strong round of powerful tariffs” would “stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly.” He repeated his calls for Europe to “step it up” and stop buying Russian oil.

Related Articles

Iran’s supreme leader rejects direct talks with US over his country’s nuclear program

Germany hopes to attract tens of thousands more military recruits as NATO strengthens its defenses

Secret Service dismantles telecom threat around UN capable of crippling cell service in NYC

More experts see genocide in Israel’s wartime conduct in Gaza

UN chief warns world leaders of ‘an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering’

Before meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump held talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said Europe would be imposing more sanctions and tariffs on Russia and that the bloc would be further reducing its imports of Russian energy.

European leaders have supported Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts, with some alarmed by the possibility that the war could spread beyond Ukraine as they are facing what they have called Russian provocations.

NATO allies will hold formal consultations at Estonia’s request on Tuesday, after the Baltic country said that three Russian fighter jets entered its airspace last week without authorization.

Trump said he would back NATO countries that choose to shoot down intruding Russian planes but said direct U.S. involvement would depend on the circumstances.

New strikes in Ukraine as toll of war grows

Meanwhile, the full-scale war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, continues to take a heavy toll on Ukrainian civilians.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said this month that Ukrainian civilian casualties increased by 40% in the first eight months of this year compared with 2024, as Russia escalated its long-range missile and localized drone strikes.

Also, a U.N. Human Rights Office report released Tuesday described the dire situation of thousands of civilians detained by Russia in areas of Ukraine it has captured.

“Russian authorities have subjected Ukrainian civilian detainees in occupied territory to torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, in a widespread and systematic manner,” the report said.

Russian aircraft dropped five glide bombs on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing a man, regional head Ivan Fedorov said Tuesday. In the Odesa region of southern Ukraine, Russian ballistic missiles struck the town center of Tatarbunary, killing a woman, regional head Oleh Kiper said.

Overall, Russian forces launched three Iskander ballistic missiles and 115 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. It said 103 drones were intercepted or jammed, but 12 drones and three missiles reached their targets at six locations.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said more than 40 Ukrainian drones flying toward the Russian capital were shot down between Monday evening and midday Tuesday.

Flights were temporarily halted overnight in and out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, causing delays and cancellations, because of the attack.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported Tuesday that it intercepted 69 Ukrainian drones over a number of Russian regions and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN, AP Science Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur from Argentina with powerful claws, feasting on an ancient crocodile bone.

The new find was possibly 23 feet (7 meters) long and hailed from a mysterious group of dinosaurs called megaraptorans. They prowled across what’s now South America, Australia and parts of Asia, splitting off into different species over millions of years.

Megaraptorans were known for their stretched-out skulls and “huge and very powerful claws,” said Lucio Ibiricu with the Patagonian Institute of Geology and Paleontology, who was part of the discovery team.

But it’s not yet clear how these creatures hunted and where they fall on the evolutionary timeline — mainly because the fossils recovered so far were incomplete.

In a new study, researchers said they uncovered part of a skull as well as arm, leg and tail bones from the Lago Colhué Huapi rock formation in Patagonia. They noticed unique features in the bones that made them realize this could be a new species.

This latest member of the megaraptoran clan named Joaquinraptor casali “fills a major gap by providing one of the most complete skeletons yet,” Federico Agnolin with the Argentine Museum of Natural Science Bernardino Rivadavia said in an email. Agnolin was not involved with the research, which was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The creature likely lived between 66 and 70 million years ago — close to the time dinosaurs went extinct — and was at least 19 years old when it died, though scientists don’t know what killed it.

Related Articles

Day and night get equal billing Monday as fall equinox arrives. Here’s what to know

Australia approves world-first vaccine to save koalas from chlamydia

Well-preserved Amazon rainforest on Indigenous lands can protect people from diseases, study finds

New findings by NASA Mars rover provide strongest hints yet of potential signs of ancient life

Scientists are baffled by a powerful and long-lasting gamma ray explosion outside our galaxy

The front leg bone pressed against its jaws — belonging to an ancient relative of crocodiles — could yield some clues to its diet and whether it was the top predator on the humid prehistoric flood plains.

Ibiricu named the new dinosaur in memory of his son Joaquin. While Joaquin was very young and hadn’t yet developed a fascination with dinosaurs, Ibiricu still thinks he would have appreciated being named after one.

“All children love dinosaurs so he would probably be a fan too,” he said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By RONALD BLUM

NEW YORK (AP) — Robot umpires are coming to the big leagues in 2026 after Major League Baseball’s 11-man competition committee on Tuesday approved use of the Automated Ball/Strike System.

ABS will be introduced in the form of a challenge system in which the human umpire makes each call, which can be appealed to the computer. Robot umpires have been tested in the minor leagues since 2019, with recent testing done at Triple-A since 2022, MLB spring training this year and at this summer’s All-Star Game in Atlanta.

Here’s what to know about MLB’s robot umps.

How does the Automated Ball-Strike System work?

Stadiums are outfitted with cameras that track each pitch and judge whether it crossed home plate within the strike zone. In early testing, umpires wore ear buds and would hear “ball” or “strike,” then relay that to players and fans with traditional hand signals.

The challenge system adds a wrinkle. Human umps call every pitch, but each team has the ability to challenge two calls per game. Teams that burn their challenges get one additional challenge in each extra inning. A team retains its challenge if successful, similar to the regulations for big league teams with video reviews, which were first used for home run calls in August 2008 and widely expanded to many calls for the 2014 season.

Only a batter, pitcher or catcher may challenge a call, signaling with the tap of a helmet or cap; and assistance from the dugout is not allowed. A challenge must be made within 2 seconds, and the graphic of the pitch and strike zone is shown on the scoreboard and broadcast feed. The umpire then announces the updated count.

MLB estimates the process averages 17 seconds.

What is the technology?

A Hawk-Eye pose-tracking system of cameras tracks pitches and whether they are within a strike zone based on the height of each batter, who is measured without shoes before a team’s first test game. MLB estimated the calibration process at less than one minute for each player.

While the strike zone actually called by big league umpires tends to be oval in shape, the ABS strike zone is a rectangle, as in the rule book.

Developing a consensus on what a computer strike zone should be has been an issue.

So what is the MLB strike zone?

MLB has changed the shape of the ABS strike zone several times.

It started with a 19-inch width in 2022, then dropped it to 17 inches — matching the width of home plate. Narrowing the strike zone led to an increase in walks and only small changes in strikeout rates.

The top of the strike zone was 51% of a batter’s height in 2022 and 2023, then raised to 53.5% in 2024 after pitchers complained. The bottom of the strike zone has been 27% since 2022 after initially being set at 28%. A batter’s stance is not taken into account.

ABS makes the ball/strike decision at the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. The contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube and a strike is a pitch that crosses any part. Big league umpires call roughly 94% of pitches correctly, according to UmpScorecards.

Where has ABS been tested?

ABS, which utilizes Hawk-Eye cameras, has been tested in the minor leagues since 2019. The independent Atlantic League trialed the system at its 2019 All-Star Game and MLB installed the technology for that’s year Arizona Fall League of top prospects. The ABS was tried at eight of nine ballparks of the Low-A Southeast League in 2021, then moved up to Triple-A in 2022.

At Triple-A at the start of the 2023 season, half the games used the robots for ball/strike calls and half had a human making decisions subject to appeals by teams to the ABS.

MLB switched Triple-A to an all-challenge system on June 26, 2024, then used the challenge system this year at 13 spring training ballparks hosting 19 teams for a total of 288 exhibition games. Teams won 52.2% of their ball/strike challenges (617 of 1,182) challenges.

At this year’s MLB All-Star Game, four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna’s calls were successful.

How successful are teams at challenging?

Success rate have hovered around 50% in the minors. At Triple-A this season, the success rate dropped to 49.5% from 50.6%. Defenses — usually catchers — have been more successful, winning 53.7% of challenges compared to 45% by batters. Challenges increased to 4.2 from 3.9 per game through Sunday.

in 2024 at Triple-A, just 1.6% of first pitches were challenges, but the figure increased to 3.9% for two-strike pitches, 5.2% for three-ball pitches and 8.2% for full counts.

Challenge percentages were higher later in the game. While 1.9% of pitches were challenged in the first three innings, 2.5% were challenged from the fourth through the sixth, 2.8% in the seventh and eighth and 3.6% in the ninth.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

By SHAWN CHEN and JULIE WALKER

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Secret Service has found and is quietly dismantling a massive network of “SIM farms” across the New York area just as world leaders gather for meetings at the United Nations.

Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s New York field office, said agents found multiple sites filled with servers and stacked SIM cards, of which more than 100,000 cards were already active. Though the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made, he described it as a well-funded, highly organized enterprise and possibly run by nation-state actors — perpetrators from particular countries.

Officials also warned of the havoc the network could have caused if left intact. McCool compared the potential impact to the cellular blackouts that followed the Sept. 11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing, when networks collapsed under strain.

So what are these SIM farms and what are they capable of?

What the tech does

SIM farms are hardware devices that can hold numerous SIM cards from different mobile operators. These devices then exploit voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology to send and receive bulk messages or calls.

While initially developed for legitimate purposes, such as low cost international calling, the technology has become a cornerstone of organized fraud targeting mass audiences — phishing texts and scam calls.

“Scams have become so sophisticated now. Phishing emails, texts, spoofing caller ID, all of this technology gives scammers that edge,” said Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center.

In this case, the devices were concentrated within 35 miles of the U.N. building. The investigation is ongoing, but McCool said forensic analysis currently believe the system could have been used to send encrypted messages to organized crime groups, cartels and terrorist organizations.

How these farms pose a threat to telecom networks

Anthony J. Ferrante, the global head of the cybersecurity practice at FTI, an international consulting firm, said the photos show a very sophisticated and established SIM farm that could be used for any number of nefarious activities, including the potential to overwhelm cellular networks with millions of calls in just a few minutes.

Related Articles

‘Nightmare bacteria’ cases are increasing in the US

Missouri woman gets more than 4 years in prison for trying to sell off Elvis Presley’s Graceland

Alaska’s Fat Bear Week kicks off with online voting to crown the most oversized ursine

Defense tells judge Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has served enough time behind bars

Jimmy Kimmel is set to return to his late-night show after ABC lifts suspension

“So if you can imagine that type of magnitude on cellular networks, it would just overwhelm them and cause them to shut down,” Ferrante said in an interview. He also notes that it’s possible the system could be used for surveillance operations, given its proximity to the United Nations, “potentially that equipment could be used to either intercept communications, eavesdrop on communications, or actually, clone devices, as well.”

Ferrante, who previously served in key security positions at the White House and the FBI, says he’s awaiting the results of the investigation before drawing any conclusions about the nature of the setup, but he emphasizes that the scale of the operation shows how simple tools can pose real risks to critical infrastructure.

“The masterminds could have set this up a long time ago and be operating from thousands of miles away,” he said. “It’s a stark reminder of how deeply interconnected our world has become, where local vulnerabilities can be exploited globally.”