By ELENA BECATOROS

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — For six hours every day after school, Nahideh works in a cemetery, collecting water from a nearby shrine to sell to mourners visiting loved ones’ graves. She dreams of becoming a doctor — but knows it is a futile dream.

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When the next school year starts, she will be enrolling in a madrassa, a religious school, to learn about the Quran and Islam — and little else.

“I prefer to go to school, but I can’t, so I will go to a madrassa,” she said, dark brown eyes peering out from beneath her tightly wrapped black headscarf. “If I could go to school then I could learn and become a doctor. But I can’t.”

At the age of 13, Nahideh is in the last grade of primary school, the limit of education allowed for girls in Afghanistan. The country’s Taliban government banned girls from secondary school and university three years ago — the only country in the world to do so. The ban is part of myriad restrictions on women and girls, dictating everything from what they can wear to where they can go and who they can go with.

With no option for higher education, many girls and women are turning to madrassas instead.

The only learning allowed

“Since the schools are closed to girls, they see this as an opportunity,” said Zahid-ur-Rehman Sahibi, director of the Tasnim Nasrat Islamic Sciences Educational Center in Kabul. “So, they come here to stay engaged in learning and studying religious sciences.”

The center’s roughly 400 students range in ages from about 3 to 60, and 90% are female. They study the Quran, Islamic jurisprudence, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, and Arabic, the language of the Quran.

A teacher gives a religious studies lesson to girls at a religious education center in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Most Afghans, Sahibi noted, are religious. “Even before the schools were closed, many used to attend madrassas,” he said. “But after the closure of schools, the interest has increased significantly, because the doors of the madrassas remain open to them.”

No recent official figures are available on the number of girls enrolled in madrassas, but officials say the popularity of religious schools overall has been growing. Last September, Deputy Minister of Education Karamatullah Akhundzada said at least 1 million students had enrolled in madrassas over the past year alone, bringing the total to over 3 million.

Studying the Quran

Sheltered from the heat of an early summer’s day in a basement room at the Tasnim Nasrat center, Sahibi’s students knelt at small plastic tables on the carpeted floor, their pencils tracing lines of Arabic script in their Qurans. All 10 young women wore black niqabs, the all-encompassing garment that includes a veil, leaving only the eyes visible.

Afghan girls attend a religious studies class at an religious education center in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

“It is very good for girls and women to study at a madrassa, because … the Quran is the word of Allah, and we are Muslims,” said 25-year-old Faiza, who had enrolled at the center five months earlier. “Therefore, it is our duty to know what is in the book that Allah has revealed to us, to understand its interpretation and translation.”

Given a choice, she would have studied medicine. While she knows that is now impossible, she still harbors hope that if she shows she is a pious student dedicated to her religion, she will be eventually allowed to. The medical profession is one of the very few still open to women in Afghanistan.

“When my family sees that I am learning Quranic sciences and that I am practicing all the teachings of the Quran in my life, and they are assured of this, they will definitely allow me to continue my studies,” she said.

Her teacher said he’d prefer if women were not strictly limited to religious studies.

“In my opinion, it is very important for a sister or a woman to learn both religious sciences and other subjects, because modern knowledge is also an important part of society,” Sahibi said. “Islam also recommends that modern sciences should be learned because they are necessary, and religious sciences are important alongside them. Both should be learned simultaneously.”

A controversial ban

The female secondary and higher education ban has been controversial in Afghanistan, even within the ranks of the Taliban itself. In a rare sign of open dissent, Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Abbas Stanikzai said in a public speech in January that there was no justification for denying education to girls and women.

His remarks were reportedly not well tolerated by the Taliban leadership; Stanikzai is now officially on leave and is believed to have left the country. But they were a clear indication that many in Afghanistan recognize the long-term impact of denying education to girls.

Afghan girls attend a religious studies class at a religious school in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

“If this ban persists until 2030, over four million girls will have been deprived of their right to education beyond primary school,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement at the start of Afghanistan’s new school year in March. “The consequences for these girls — and for Afghanistan — are catastrophic. The ban negatively impacts the health system, the economy, and the future of the nation.”

The importance of religious education

For some in this deeply conservative society, the teachings of Islam are hard to overstate.

“Learning the Holy Quran is the foundation of all other sciences, whether it’s medicine, engineering, or other fields of knowledge,” said Mullah Mohammed Jan Mukhtar, 35, who runs a boys’ madrassa north of Kabul. “If someone first learns the Quran, they will then be able to learn these other sciences much better.”

Nahideh, 13, left, an Afghan girl, stands with her friend as they wait for customers to buy water at a cemetery in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

His madrassa first opened five years ago with 35 students. Now it has 160 boys aged 5-21, half of whom are boarders. Beyond religious studies, it offers a limited number of other classes such as English and math. There is also an affiliated girls’ madrassa, which currently has 90 students, he said.

“In my opinion, there should be more madrassas for women,” said Mukhtar, who has been a mullah for 14 years. He stressed the importance of religious education for women. “When they are aware of religious verdicts, they better understand the rights of their husbands, in-laws and other family members.”

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 MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Two-time Grammy Award-winning musician Chuck Mangione, who achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-flavored single “Feels So Good” and later became a voice actor on the animated TV comedy “King of the Hill,” has died. He was 84.

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Mangione died at his home in Rochester, New York, on Tuesday in his sleep, said his attorney, Peter S. Matorin of Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP. The musician had been retired since 2015.

Perhaps his biggest hit — “Feels So Good” — is a staple on most smooth-jazz radio stations and has been called one of the most recognized melodies since “Michelle” by the Beatles. It hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the top of the Billboard adult contemporary chart.

“It identified for a lot of people a song with an artist, even though I had a pretty strong base audience that kept us out there touring as often as we wanted to, that song just topped out there and took it to a whole other level,” Mangione told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2008.

He followed that hit with “Give It All You Got,” commissioned for the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, and he performed it at the closing ceremony.

Mangione, a flugelhorn and trumpet player and jazz composer, released more than 30 albums during a career in which he built a sizable following after recording several albums, doing all the writing.

He won his first Grammy Award in 1977 for his album “Bellavia,” which was named in honor of his mother. Another album, “Friends and Love,” was also Grammy-nominated, and he earned a best original score Golden Globe nomination and a second Grammy for the movie “The Children of Sanchez.”

FILE – Flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione rehearses the national anthem before a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees, Oct. 24, 2009, in New York. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, file)

Mangione introduced himself to a new audience when he appeared on the first several seasons of “King of the Hill,” appearing as a commercial spokesman for Mega Lo Mart, where “shopping feels so good.”

Mangione, brother of jazz pianist Gap Mangione, with whom he partnered in The Jazz Brothers, started his career as a bebop jazz musician heavily inspired by Dizzy Gillespie.

“He also was one of the first musicians I saw who had a rapport with the audience by just telling the audience what he was going to play and who was in his band,” Mangione told the Post-Gazette.

Mangione earned a bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music — where he would eventually return as director of the school’s jazz ensemble — and left home to play with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

FILE – New York Yankees Pitcher Dock Ellis, right, has a little fun with a Chuck Mangione’s horn before a game with the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium, April 19, 1977, in New York. (AP Photo/Ray Stubblebine, file)

He donated his signature brown felt hat and the score of his Grammy-winning single “Feels So Good,” as well as albums, songbooks and other ephemera from his long and illustrious career to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in 2009.

By JUSTIN SPIKE

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s populist prime minister has spent years building a close political relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump and aligning himself with the MAGA movement.

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But despite Viktor Orbán’s success in gaining favor with the culturally conservative and nationalist wing of Trump’s administration, his country is poised to be among those hard hit by Trump’s tariffs against the European Union.

Trump earlier this month announced he would levy tariffs of 30% against Mexico and the EU beginning Aug. 1 — a move that could cause massive upheaval between the United States and the 27-member EU, of which Hungary is a member.

As a small, export-oriented economy with major automobile, pharmaceutical and wine industries — some of the main categories of products Europe exports to the U.S. — Hungary will be particularly vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs.

The duties “would put the Hungarian economy in a very, very difficult situation, because then the entire possibility for Hungary to export to America would be essentially eliminated,” Péter Virovácz, chief analyst at ING Hungary, told The Associated Press.

‘Not the best way to make money’

Hungary’s largest trading partners are other EU countries like Germany, Italy and Romania, as well as China, but many Hungarian companies export their goods across the Atlantic. Outgoing trade to the United States represents around 15% of all Hungarian exports to countries outside the EU.

One such enterprise, a Budapest-based company specializing in Hungarian wine, said it will likely cease doing business in the U.S. altogether if the 30% duty is levied on its products.

“If it’s really going to be 30%, then there is no more shipment … We might just call it a day at the end of the year,” said Gábor Bánfalvi, co-owner of Taste Hungary.

Bánfalvi’s company has been shipping around 10,000 bottles of premium Hungarian wine per year to the U.S. for about half a decade. With a base in Washington D.C., it exports a range of red and white wines to clients in numerous U.S. states including specialty wine shops and bars.

Until now, “it’s been a thin profit margin, but it’s been fine because we want Hungarian wine to be available” to U.S. consumers, Bánfalvi said.

“Then came 2025,” he said.

When Trump began imposing tariffs on EU exports earlier this year, the cost of Taste Hungary’s shipments tripled, Bánfalvi said — price hikes he had to build into the sticker price of the wine. The imposition of 30% tariffs would make exporting “unsustainable.”

“You just start to think, why are we doing this? Is it really worth it? It’s just not the best way to make money,” he said.

In total, the value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services in 2024 amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion.)

Doubts that political ties could soften the blow

Hungary’s government, a vocal proponent of Trump’s “patriotic” foreign policy prioritizing national interests, has acknowledged that the tariffs would present a challenge. But, careful not to criticize the Trump administration, it has instead blamed the EU, a frequent target of Orbán’s scorn, for failing to reach a comprehensive trade agreement with Washington.

Confident that his right-wing populist policies would help win him favor with Trump’s administration, Orbán said in an interview in April that while tariffs “will be a disadvantage,” his government was negotiating “other economic agreements and issues that will offset them.”

But Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, expressed doubt that political affinities could play a meaningful role in mitigating damage to Hungary’s economy caused by Trump’s trade policy.

“The unquestionably good bilateral relations simply cannot compensate for the trade conflicts between the EU and the U.S., and as a consequence, Hungary will suffer the tariffs the same way that the EU will,” Krekó said. “Mutual nationalisms cannot be coordinated in a way that it is going to be a win-win situation.”

Car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals

Virovácz, the economist, pointed out that Hungary is home to numerous automobile factories for major automakers like Audi and Mercedes. The manufacturing of cars and motor vehicle parts represents an “overwhelming majority” of the country’s total exports, he said.

FILE – Robotic arms operate in a welding hall of the Suzuki manufacturing plant in Esztergom, northern Hungary, Oct. 19, 2022. (Zsolt Szigetvary/MTI via AP, File)

Pharmaceuticals make up an even larger share of Hungarian exports to the United States — an industry on which Trump this month threatened to impose 200% tariffs. That “will essentially kill European and thus Hungarian exports to America,” Virovácz said.

“It’s impossible for tariffs to be levied on EU products but not on Hungarian ones,” he said. “A theoretical option is that Trump could somehow compensate Hungary because he’s on good terms with the Hungarian political leadership, but if that only starts happening now, it’s way too late.”

Krekó, the political analyst, said Trump’s administration “gives practically nothing for free. If Hungary … cannot fulfill the interests of the U.S., then I think Hungary is not going to receive gifts.”

“Hungary just doesn’t have the cards, to use Trump’s terminology,” he added.

By SAM McNEIL and KEN MORITSUGU

BEIJING (AP) — China and the European Union have issued a joint call to action on climate change during an otherwise tense bilateral summit in Beijing on Thursday riven with major disagreements over trade and the war in Ukraine.

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The two economic juggernauts issued a joint statement on climate change, urging more emission cuts and greater use of green technology and affirming their support for the Paris Climate Agreement as well as calling for strong action at the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

“In the fluid and turbulent international situation today, it is crucial that all countries, notably the major economies, maintain policy continuity and stability and step up efforts to address climate change,” the joint statement said.

Their climate agreement was a silver lining on a stormy day where European leaders demanded a more balanced relationship with China in talks with President Xi Jinping.

They highlighted trade in their opening remarks, calling for concrete progress to address Europe’s yawning trade deficit with China.

“As our cooperation has deepened, so have the imbalances,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “We have reached an inflection point. Rebalancing our bilateral relation is essential. Because to be sustainable, relations need to be mutually beneficial.”

Little movement expected

Expectations were low ahead of the talks, initially supposed to last two days but scaled back to one. They come amid financial uncertainty around the world, wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the threat of U.S. tariffs. Neither the EU nor China is likely to budge on key issues.

European Council President António Costa called on China to use its influence over Russia to bring an end to the war in Ukraine — a long-running plea from European leaders that is likely to fall again on deaf ears.

Xi called for deeper cooperation between China and Europe to provide stability in an increasingly complex world. Both sides should set aside differences and seek common ground, he said, a phrase he often uses in relationships like the one with the EU.

China is willing to strengthen coordination on climate and make greater contributions to addressing climate change, he said, but he pushed back against EU restrictions on Chinese exports.

“We hope the EU will keep its trade and investment markets open, refrain from using restrictive economic and trade tools and provide a good business environment for Chinese companies to invest and develop in Europe,” he said, according to a readout posted online by state broadcaster CCTV.

US tariff threats weigh on EU-China cooperation

Besides trade and the Ukraine war, von der Leyen and Costa were expected to raise concerns about Chinese cyberattacks and espionage, its restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals and its human rights record in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The EU, meanwhile, has concerns about a looming trade battle with the United States.

“Europe is being very careful not to antagonize President Trump even further by looking maybe too close to China, so all of that doesn’t make this summit easier,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist of the European Policy Center. “It will be very hard to achieve something concrete.”

China’s stance has hardened on the EU, despite a few olive branches, like the suspension of sanctions on European lawmakers who criticized Beijing’s human rights record in Xinjiang province, where it is accused of a widespread campaign of repression against the Uyghurs.

The summit ended with almost no movement on the major issues of trade, electric vehicles, or Russia, said Noah Barkin, an analyst at the Rhodium Group think tank. Rather, frustration from the EU was glaringly obvious “after years in which its concerns have been largely ignored by Beijing.”

He said the Europeans will likely use more “trade defense tools in the months ahead, including a debate over expanding safeguards and new cases under the bloc’s foreign subsidies regulation.”

Trade disputes range from rare earths to EVs

Like the U.S., the 27-nation EU bloc runs a massive trade deficit with China — around 300 billion euros ($350 billion) last year. It relies heavily on China for critical minerals and the magnets made from them for cars and appliances. When China curtailed the export of those products in response to Trump’s tariffs, European automakers cried foul.

China agreed during the summit to to start “an upgraded export supply mechanism” to fast-track exports of critical minerals, von der Leyen said. Details of the arrangement were not immediately made public. Barkin said he doubted the mechanism would be “a miracle solution for what may become a go-to coercion tool for Beijing in the years ahead.”

The EU has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to support its carmakers by balancing out Beijing’s heavy auto subsidies. China would like those tariffs revoked.

The rapid growth in China’s market share in Europe has sparked concern that Chinese cars will eventually threaten the EU’s ability to produce its own green technology to combat climate change. Business groups and unions also fear that the jobs of 2.5 million auto industry workers could be put in jeopardy, as well those of 10.3 million more people whose employment depends indirectly on EV production.

China has launched investigations into European pork and dairy products, and placed tariffs on French cognac and armagnac. It has criticized new EU regulations of medical equipment sales and fears upcoming legislation that could further target Chinese industries, said Alicia García-Herrero, a China analyst at the Bruegel think tank.

The EU has leverage because China needs to sell goods to the bloc, García-Herrero said. “The EU remains China’s largest export market, so China has every intention to keep it this way, especially given the pressure coming from the U.S.,” she said.

China bristles at EU sanctions over Russia’s war against Ukraine. The latest package included two Chinese banks that the EU accused of links to Russia’s war industry.

China’s Commerce Ministry protested the listing and vowed to respond with “necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and financial institutions.”

The EU looks beyond Beijing and Washington

Buffeted between a combative Washington and a hardline Beijing, the EU has more publicly sought new alliances elsewhere, inking a trade pact with Indonesia and drafting trade deals with South America and Mexico.

Costa and von der Leyen visited Tokyo the day before their meetings in Beijing, launching an alliance with Japan to boost economic cooperation, defend free trade and counter unfair trade practices.

“Both Europe and Japan see a world around us where protectionist instincts grow, weaknesses get weaponized, and every dependency exploited,” von der Leyen said. So it is normal that two like-minded partners come together to make each other stronger.”

McNeil reported from Brussels. Mark Carlson in Brussels and Olivia Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.