By GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Cousins Tanisha Tucker Lohse and Maria Francisco set off from their desert camp around dawn on most early summer days, in search of ripe fruit from the towering saguaro cactus, an icon of the Southwest that is crucial to the Tohono O’odham Nation’s spirituality.

One plucks the small, thorn-covered fruits called “bahidaj” with a 10-foot-long (3-meter-long) stick made with a saguaro rib as the other catches them in a bucket. The harvest ritual is sacred to the O’odham, who have lived for thousands of years in what are now U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and it’s enjoying a renaissance as many seek to protect their traditional way of life.

The fruit collected in late June is central to annual summer rain ceremonies, which mark the New Year. The laborious, weekslong harvest process also reinforces crucial connections to the Creator, the natural environment and fellow O’odham across generations.

“I feel like I’m surrounded by all the people that were here before us, all the ancestors,” Francisco said in a desert wash lined with saguaros, flowering creosote bushes and spiny cholla cacti. “We talk about them constantly when we’re out here.”

Foremost for the cousins’ extended family is “Grandma Juana.” In the 1960s, elder Juanita Ahil campaigned to preserve their access to the harvesting camp in the foothills west of Tucson after the land became part of Saguaro National Park. Tucker Lohse’s late mother, Stella Tucker, carried on the harvesting tradition that’s now organized by the two cousins.

“I’m taking on a big responsibility, a big legacy,” said Tucker Lohse, who brought her 4-year-old daughter along this year. “My mom knows we’re still here.”

The saguaro and its spiritual story

Saguaros are the iconic plant of the Sonoran Desert, a land straddling the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, that’s surprisingly lush even though it receives less than 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain yearly and summer temperatures routinely soar above 100 (38 degrees Celsius).

The treelike cacti start to produce fruit at 30 years old, then sprout their trademark arms around 75 and live up to 200 years. Most of the fruit is near the top, which can be more than four times the average person’s height, so the fruit of the tallest can be beyond their reach.

They’re an essential shelter and food source for desert creatures from mice to wrens, which is why harvesters — traces of whose camps date back to the 1500s — never pick them clean, Tucker Lohse said.

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“We don’t look at land and animals as a resource — we create a relationship,” she said, echoing perspectives shared by Indigenous people across North and South America.

For the O’odham, the saguaros, or “ha:sañ” in their language, provide far more than food, tools and shelter material — they’re family.

“Ha:sañ to us are like people, and we respect them that way,” said Silas Garcia, Francisco’s partner. He started harvesting as a child with his aunt on the O’odham reservation, which is one of the largest in the United States.

Garcia said there is a specific creation story about the saguaros — though like many stories sacred to Native Americans, it cannot be told in summer — and their spiritual presence makes the harvest central to the O’odham.

“It’s being reconnected to the desert, to who I am, to where our stories talk about where we come from as a people,” Garcia said as he built a mesquite wood fire to boil the sugary fruit pulp into syrup.

From saguaro fruit to New Year’s wine

Starting in May, O’odham families check the saguaro buds. The fruit is usually ripe by mid-June, opening a one-to-four week harvesting window until the fruit is spoiled by the first summer monsoons.

After picking the first fruit, harvesters praise the Creator, believed to reside in a nearby mountain peak, the Baboquivari, that has been the site of many rescues of migrants who tried to evade U.S. border authorities.

Then they bless themselves with some of the pulp, often making a cross-like sign over their foreheads and hearts — for some, a reference to Christian beliefs many O’odham also embrace. They taste it and thank the saguaro for providing for them.

When it’s cut open — using the saguaro’s dried-up flower as a knife and leaving the pods by the saguaro for animals — the fruit is the color of a ripe watermelon. It changes shades from fuchsia to blood red as it’s processed at camp.

After the pulp is boiled for about an hour, it’s strained to remove any debris, fiber and seeds. The latter two are collected into patties that, after being dried in the relentless sun, make natural pectin for saguaro jam. Then the juice is cooked again, reducing it to a syrup, and its flowery, caramel-like smell pervades the camp.

Since the syrup is one-tenth the quantity of the harvested fruit pulp, it takes a pair of harvesters about 10 hours in the desert to get enough to make 64 ounces (1.9 liters) of syrup.

Finally, a bit of syrup is mixed with water and left to ferment to make wine for Nawait I’i. That’s the dayslong ceremony in which O’odham pray together to their Creator to keep sending the monsoon rains that make it possible to plant traditional crops like beans, squash and corn.

The resurgence of traditional ways of life

For many Native Americans, losing access to land, natural cycles of agriculture and the local foods that sustained them for centuries has meant spiking rates of diabetes, alcoholism and other diseases that disproportionately plague their communities.

Too many elders lost their lives this way, putting at risk their language and traditions and more of their land.

“I watched them slowly pass away and no one took over,” Tucker Lohse said. That’s why she, Francisco and others push to teach youth about saguaro harvesting and other practices.

“I’m really proud Maria has picked it up,” said Francisco’s mother, Josephine Ramon, adding that she’s relearning some traditions she was taught as a child from her daughter.

Ramon said she regrets not teaching the language to younger family members who lived off the reservation, as about one third of the nation’s 30,000 members do.

City living also distances many from heirloom crops, which the Indigenous-run San Xavier Co-op Farm just south of Tucson is trying to regenerate, said one of its managers, Amy Juan, who harvests near the cousins’ camp.

“With everything we do, there’s a teaching of some sort,” added Garcia, who said he’s encouraged by programs on the reservation and beyond that help youth connect to their ancestral culture.

Francine Larson Segundo, who also harvests nearby, said her grandparents taught her about planting and caring for the saguaro.

“They’re people, and they are our people, and when we’re gone, one will take our place,” she said after picking the fruit for nearly two hours. “Anybody that’s younger than me, I have a responsibility to teach as much as I can.”

Francisco’s aunt Helen Ramon, widely known as “Grandma Helen,” stopped by. She’s especially adamant about instilling in youth the need to treat the natural environment with the same respect due to fellow beings.

“They need to carry on our traditions,” she said. “We can’t lose our ways of being Native.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By SAMYA KULLAB and YEHOR KONOVALOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An emboldened Russia has ramped up military offensives on two fronts in Ukraine, scattering Kyiv’s precious reserve troops and threatening to expand the fighting to a new Ukrainian region as each side seeks an advantage before the fighting season wanes in the autumn.

Moscow aims to maximize its territorial gains before seriously considering a full ceasefire, analysts and military commanders said. Ukraine wants to slow the Russian advance for as long as possible and extract heavy losses.

Kremlin forces are steadily gaining ground in the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, the capture of which would hand them a major battlefield victory and bring them closer to acquiring the entire Donetsk region. The fighting there has also brought combat to the border of the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time.

In an effort to prevent Moscow from bolstering those positions in the east, Ukrainian forces are trying to pin down some of Russia’s best and most battle-hardened troops hundreds of kilometers away, in the northeast Sumy region.

“The best-case scenario for Ukraine,” said Russian-British military historian Sergey Radchenko, “is that they’re able to stall or stop the Russian advance” in the Ukrainian industrial heartland known as Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Then Ukraine could “use that as the basis for a ceasefire agreement.”

“There’s a better chance for Russia to come to some kind of terms with Ukraine” in the fall when the Russians “see the extent of their offensive,” Radchenko added.

While the battles rage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is waiting to learn whether the Trump administration will support tougher sanctions against Russia and back a European idea to establish a “reassurance force” to deter Moscow.

A setback came with the U.S. decision Tuesday to halt some weapons shipments to Ukraine out of concern over America’s own depleted stockpiles.

Ukraine faces relentless assaults in Sumy

In the Sumy region, Ukrainian forces face a constant barrage of aerial glide bombs, drones and relentless assaults by small groups of Russian infantrymen. They endure the attacks to prevent Russian forces from being moved to other battlegrounds in the eastern Donetsk region.

Ukrainian forces intensified their own attacks in Sumy in April and even conducted a small offensive into Russia’s neighboring Kursk region to prevent up to 60,000 battle-hardened Russian forces from being moved to reinforce positions in the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Ukraine’s top army commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said last week.

If those troops had been moved, they could have increased the tempo of Russian attacks across the front line and stretched Ukrainian forces thin.

The strategy did not come without criticism. Commanders who were ordered to execute it complained that it resulted in unnecessary loss of life.

Russian forces have penetrated up to 7 kilometers (4 miles) into the northern Sumy region from different directions along the border.

Ukrainian forces are determined to keep them there to avoid freeing up Russian forces to fight in the east. So far they have succeeded, locking up to 10,000 Russian troops in the Glushkovsky district of the Kursk region alone, where Ukraine maintains a small presence after being mostly forced out by Russian and North Korean troops earlier in the year.

Russia seeks maximum gains in Donetsk

The war’s largest battle is being waged in Donetsk as Russia inches toward its stated goal of capturing all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Unable to tackle the strategically significant logistical hub of Pokrovsk directly, Russian forces are attempting to encircle the city, a maneuver that requires encroaching on the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Bringing the war to a sixth Ukrainian region would be detrimental for Ukrainian morale and give Russia more leverage in negotiations if its forces manage to carve out a foothold there.

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Sabotage groups have crossed the border, only to be eliminated by Ukrainian forces.

But in time, commanders fear that Russia will advance as Ukraine continues to grapple with severe shortages.

Lack of soldiers and supplies across the 1,200-kilometer (745-mile) front line mean that Ukrainian forces must concentrate on holding their positions and conserving resources rather than advancing, said Oleksii Makhrinskyi, deputy commander of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion.

Commanders describe battles so intense under drone-saturated skies that rotating forces in and out of position has become a deadly operation. Ukrainian forces remain in combat positions for several weeks at a time or more, relying on supplies carried in by drones.

The Russians’ goal “is just to enter Dnipropetrovsk region, to have a good position politically if the presidents negotiate peace,” said Andrii Nazerenko, a commander of the 72nd Brigade, a drone unit in eastern Ukraine, referring to potential talks between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“They’re really close to getting what they want,” he said.

All eyes on Trump’s next move

Zelenskyy hopes U.S. President Donald Trump will move away from his administration’s past ambivalence toward Ukraine and signal his intention to continue American support, a move that could also alter Moscow’s calculations.

The two presidents met last week on the sidelines of a NATO summit and discussed a possible weapons package, including Patriot missile systems that Ukraine intends to purchase with European support.

The U.S. Defense Department announcement now calls that into question although it did not specify which weapons were being held back when it disclosed the Pentagon review of American weapons stockpiles Tuesday. The halt of any weapons from the U.S. would be a blow to Ukraine as it struggles to confront Russia’s daily aerial barrages.

Zelenskyy also hopes Trump will punish Russia by imposing harsher sanctions on its energy and banking sectors, which bankroll the Kremlin’s war effort.

Europe and the U.S. have imposed successive sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion in 2022, but Zelenskyy says those measures have not been enough to pierce Moscow’s war machine. He has proposed a $30 per barrel price cap on Russian oil.

EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan said Europe needs to maintain the sanctions pressure while also “holding out the prospect that if Russia behaves correctly, we could have some kind of ceasefire and some kind of sense of negotiation, but for the moment Russia doesn’t seem to want that.”

Kyiv’s closest European allies are also awaiting a sign from Trump that he will support a plan to deploy foreign troops in Ukraine to guard against future Russian aggression after a ceasefire agreement. That is likely the best security guarantee Ukraine can hope for in lieu of NATO membership.

Meanwhile on the battlefield, Russian forces appear increasingly confident.

Nazerenko noticed a shift in the morale of advancing Russian infantrymen in recent months. Instead of running away while being assailed by Ukrainian drones, they keep pushing forward.

Nazerenko could not help but ask a Russian prisoner: “You know you will die. Why go?”

Because, the Russian soldier replied: “We will win.”

Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Republicans in Congress rushed forward with a massive tax and spending cut bill, a North Carolina renewable energy executive wrote to his 190 employees with a warning: Deep cuts to clean energy tax credits were going to hurt.

“(The changes) would almost certainly include the loss of jobs on our team,” wrote Will Etheridge, CEO of Southern Energy Management in Raleigh. “I’m telling you that because you deserve transparency and the truth — even if that truth is uncomfortable.”

The bill now in the House takes an ax to clean energy incentives, including killing a 30% tax credit for rooftop residential solar by the end of the year that the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act had extended into the next decade. Trump has called the clean energy tax credits in the climate law part of a “green new scam” that improperly shifts taxpayer subsidies to help the “globalist climate agenda” and energy sources like wind and solar.

Businesses and analysts say the GOP-backed bill will likely reverse the sector’s growth and eliminate jobs.

“The residential solar industry is going to be absolutely creamed by this,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a business group that advocates for pro-environment policies.

President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” takes aim at renewables broadly, including phasing out tax credits enjoyed by utility-scale solar and wind. But cutting the residential solar credit will happen sooner.

Companies have announced more than $20 billion in clean-energy investments in North Carolina in recent years. Etheridge, whose company installs solar panels and helps ensure buildings are energy efficient, was among many in the sector to lobby Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina for changes in the bill.

Tillis ultimately was one of three Republicans to vote against the measure, but in a sign of Trump’s power over legislators to pass it, Tillis said he wouldn’t seek reelection after Trump said he’d likely support a primary challenger.

Now, Etheridge says losing the tax credit will likely mean laying off 50 to 55 of his workers. He called the elimination of residential tax credits a “bait and switch.”

“I made a decision from being an employee to taking out a loan from my grandmother to buy into my business and put my house on the line” in part because of the stability of the tax credits, he said. He said he’ll scramble now to figure out ways to diversify his business.

“If you require a money-spigot from Washington to make your business viable, it probably shouldn’t have been in business in the first place,” said Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

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Michel said he doubted many clean energy companies would go out of business, but “I think that they will be right sized for the market and that the people that are employed with them will find better jobs and more stable jobs in industries that are actually viable and don’t require billions of dollars of federal subsidies.”

Even ahead of debate over the bill, experts at E2 said in May that $14 billion in clean energy investments across the country had been postponed or cancelled this year.

The bill the Senate passed Tuesday removes a tax on some wind and solar projects that was proposed in a previous version and gives utility-scale projects some time to begin construction before phasing out those tax credits.

Karl Stupka, president of Raleigh-based NC Solar Now that employs about 100 people, said the Senate’s bill eased the impact on commercial projects “while destroying the residential portion of the tax credits.” Roughly 85% of his business is residential work.

“They took it away from every average American normal person and gave it to the wealthier business owners,” he said.

Stupka said if the bill becomes law, companies will rush to finish as many solar jobs as they can before the credit ends. He expected to lay off half his employees, with “trickle-down” job losses elsewhere.

“It would cause a pretty severe shock wave,” he said.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By PAUL WISEMAN and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with Vietnam Wednesday that would allow U.S. goods to enter the country duty-free.

Vietnamese exports to the United States, by contrast, would face a 20% levy.

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On his Truth Social platform, Trump declared the pact “a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries.”

In April, Trump announced a 46% tax on Vietnamese imports — one of his so-called reciprocal tariffs targeting dozens of countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. Trump promptly suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to allow for negotiations like the one with Vietnam. The pause expires Tuesday, but so far the Trump administration has reached a trade agreement with only one of those countries — the United Kingdom. (Trump has also reached a “framework” agreement with China in a separate trade dispute.)

“Vietnam has been very keen to get out from under this,” said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. ”This is forcing a smaller country to eat it, basically. We can do that. It’s the big countries that everybody’s keeping their eyes on.” She doubts that Trump will be able to impose such a lopsided agreement on big trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.

The United States last year ran a $122 billion trade deficit with Vietnam. That was the third-biggest U.S. trade gap — the difference between the goods and services it buys from other countries and those it sells them — behind the ones with China and Mexico.

In addition to the 20% tariffs, Trump said the U.S. would impose a 40% tax on “transshipping” — goods from another country that stop in Vietnam on their way to the United States. Washington complains that Chinese goods have been dodging higher U.S. tariffs by transiting through Vietnam.

A February study in the Harvard Business Review found that there was “much less rerouting than previously believed.”

In May, Vietnam approved a $1.5 billion project by the Trump Organization and a local partner to build a massive golf resort complex near Hanoi, covering an area roughly the size of 336 football fields.

Vietnam was a beneficiary of American efforts to counter China’s influence. Companies looking to diversify their supply chains away from China flocked to Vietnam.

In 2023, it became the only country to host both President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on state visits. That year, the U.S. upgraded Vietnam to its highest diplomatic status—comprehensive strategic partner—placing it on par with China and Russia.

Aniruddha Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.