By EMMA BURROWS and JAMEY KEATEN

GENEVA (AP) — Delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were in Geneva on Tuesday for another round of U.S.-brokered peace talks, a week before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

However, expectations for any breakthroughs in Geneva were low, with neither side apparently ready to budge from its positions on key territorial issues and future security guarantees, despite the United States setting a June deadline for a settlement.

Related Articles

US plans to deploy more missile launchers to the Philippines despite China’s alarm

Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir launches in 22 languages, turning horror into hope for survivors

Iran temporarily closing Strait of Hormuz for live fire drills as new talks with US start

Today in History: February 17, Danica Patrick wins Daytona 500 pole

Cuban drivers face monthslong wait for gasoline in a government app designed to reduce lines

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government’s delegation was in Switzerland and Russian state news agency Tass said the Russian delegation had also arrived. Talks, to be held over two days, were expected to start later in the day.

Discussions on the future of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory are expected to be particularly tough as U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, sit down with the delegations. That’s according to a person familiar with the talks who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Russa is still insisting that Ukraine cede control of its eastern Donbas region.

Also in Geneva will be American, Russian and Ukrainian military chiefs, who will discuss how a ceasefire monitoring might work after any peace deal, and what’s needed to implement it, the person said.

During previous talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, military leaders looked at how a demilitarized zone could be arranged and how everyone’s militaries could talk to one another, the person added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cautioned against expecting developments on the first day of talks as they were set to continue on Wednesday. Moscow has provided few details of previous talks.

Ukraine’s short-handed army is locked in a war of attrition with Russia’s bigger forces along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (750-mile) front line. Ukrainian civilians are enduring Russian aerial barrages that repeatedly knock out power and destroy homes.

The future of the almost 20% of Ukrainian land that Russia occupies or still covets is a central question in the talks, as are Kyiv’s demands for postwar security guarantees with a U.S. backstop to deter Moscow from invading again.

Trump described the Geneva meeting as “big talks.”

“Ukraine better come to the table fast,” he told reporters late Monday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida.

It wasn’t immediately clear what Trump was referring to in his comment about Ukraine, which has committed to and taken part in negotiations in the hope of ending Russia’s devastating onslaught.

Complex talks as the war presses on

The Russian delegation is headed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adviser Vladimir Medinsky, who headed Moscow’s team of negotiators in the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in March 2022 and has forcefully pushed Putin’s war goals. Medinsky has written several history books that claim to expose Western plots against Russia and berate Ukraine.

The commander of the U.S. military — and NATO forces — in Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and Secretary of the U.S. Army Dan Driscoll will attend the meeting in Geneva on behalf of the U.S. military and meet with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Col. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for the U.S. commander said.

Overnight, Russia used almost 400 long-range drones and 29 missiles of various types to strike 12 regions of Ukraine, injuring nine people, including children, according to the Ukrainian president.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire in private houses following a Russian air attack in Sumy region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Zelenskyy said tens of thousands of residents were left without heating and running water in the southern port city of Odesa.

Zelenskyy said Moscow should be “held accountable” for the relentless attacks, which he said undermine the U.S. push for peace.

“The more this evil comes from Russia, the harder it will be for everyone to reach any agreements with them. Partners must understand this. First and foremost, this concerns the United States,” the Ukrainian leader said on social media late Monday.

“We agreed to all realistic proposals from the United States, starting with the proposal for an unconditional and long-term ceasefire,” Zelenskyy noted.

The talks in Geneva took place as U.S. officials also held indirect talks with Iran in the Swiss city.

Burrows reported from London. Associated Press writer Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

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

By JAMEY KEATEN and STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN

GENEVA (AP) — The U.S. and Iran held their second round of talks about Iran’s nuclear program on Tuesday in Geneva as Iran said it will close the Strait of Hormuz for several hours for live fire military exercises and the United States ramps up its military forces in the region.

As the talks began, Iranian media announced that Iran had fired live missiles toward the Strait of Hormuz, and said it will close the Strait for several hours for “safety and maritime concerns.”

This is the first time that Iran has closed parts of the Strait, an essential international waterway, since the U.S. began threatening Iran with military action. Iran on Monday announced a maritime military exercise in waterways that are crucial international trade routes through which 20% of the world’s oil passes. Iran previously held a live fire drill in the Strait of Hormuz several weeks ago but did not announce closures.

Related Articles

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after King, has died at 84

Today in History: February 17, Danica Patrick wins Daytona 500 pole

Trump administration ordered to restore George Washington slavery exhibit it removed in Philadelphia

Opening statements held in the trial of a Georgia high school shooting suspect’s father

Al Pacino, Jamie Lee Curtis and others pay tribute to Robert Duvall, who died at age 95

The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said missiles launched inside Iran and along its coast had struck their targets in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian state TV later reported that the latest round of talks had ended after almost three hours.

Another round of indirect talks

Iranian state TV reported Tuesday that the negotiations with the U.S. will be indirect and will focus only on Iran’s nuclear program, not domestic policies including its bloody crackdown on protesters last month.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program. Iran has said it would respond with an attack of its own. Trump has also threatened Iran over its deadly crackdown on recent nationwide protests.

The first round of talks Feb. 6 were held in Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, and were indirect. Similarly to the last round of talks, the Iranians appeared to be meeting with Omani mediators separately from the Americans on Tuesday.

Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were traveling for the new round of talks.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the talks for Iran, met with the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency Monday in Geneva.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote on X. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”

Talking to reporters Monday night aboard Air Force One on his way to Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump said he planned to be involved in the talks, at least indirectly. “I think they want to make a deal. I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal,” he said.

The U.S. is also hosting talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday, days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the all-out Russian invasion of its neighbor.

Iran fires missiles into Strait of Hormuz in drill

Iran announced that the Revolutionary Guard started a drill early Monday morning in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, which are crucial international shipping routes. It was the second time in recent weeks that Iran has held a live fire drill in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stepped up his warnings to the U.S. over its buildup of military forces in the Middle East.

“Of course a warship is a dangerous apparatus, but more dangerous than the warship is the weapon that can sink the warship into the depths of the sea,” Khamanei said, Iranian state TV reported.

He also warned the U.S. that “forcing the result of talks in advance is a wrong and foolish job.”

US increases military presence

Last week, Trump said the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was being sent from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to join other warships and military assets the U.S. has built up in the region.

The Ford, whose new deployment was first reported by The New York Times, will join the USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying guided-missile destroyers, which have been in the region for over two weeks. U.S. forces already have shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Lincoln on the same day last week that Iran tried to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

Gulf Arab nations have warned any attack could spiral into another regional conflict in a Mideast still reeling from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

The Trump administration is seeking a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program and ensure it does not develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it is not pursuing weapons and has so far resisted demands that it halt uranium enrichment or hand over its supply of uranium.

The U.S. and Iran were in the middle of months of meetings when Israel’s launch of a 12-day war against Iran back in June instantly halted the talks. The U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during that war, likely destroying many of the centrifuges that spun uranium to near weapons-grade purity. Israel’s attacks decimated Iran’s air defenses and targeted its ballistic missile arsenal as well.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Before the June war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

Iran marks 40 days since deadliest part of protest crackdowns

Iran is marking 40 days, the traditional Muslim mourning period, since one of the deadliest days in the crackdown on protests that swept the country last month. Activists say at least 7,015 people have been killed, many in a bloody crackdown overnight between Jan. 8 and 9.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which offered the latest figures, has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran and relies on a network of activists in the country to verify deaths.

The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll, given authorities have disrupted internet access and international calls in Iran.

Iran’s state news agency said the government would hold a memorial marking 40 days at the Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran, and blamed the demonstrations on “violent actions by armed groups allegedly directed by foreign intelligence agencies.”

Liechtenstein reported from Vienna. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/

No, St. Paul’s drive-through eateries and pharmacies aren’t going away anytime soon, but a compromise proposal before the St. Paul City Council this month would further regulate them. The compromise comes more than a year after a proposed ban on new drive-throughs was put on hold.

The Capital City’s many drive-throughs have been the subject of discussion and consternation for years, with the issue coming to a head between about 2017 and 2022 when a notorious Starbucks drive-through off Snelling Avenue was blamed for heavy traffic backups into Marshall Avenue’s driving and bicycle lanes alike.

Former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch was hit by a vehicle in 2019 as she walked past the Starbucks drive-through exit lane, fracturing her left wrist in the incident.

“Snarshall,” as the intersection became known by some, resulted in Starbucks eliminating the drive-through entirely following years of failed traffic management efforts and heavy pressure from the city. A Taco Bell north of Snelling and University avenues has drawn its share of issues over litter, traffic and late-night noise.

Zoning study

The St. Paul Planning Commission initiated a zoning study around drive-throughs in March 2024, and after more than a year of hearings and staff review, a proposal that would have banned future drive-throughs was put on hold by the city council in November 2024.

Among other demands, pedestrian advocates had called for the city to require drive-through eateries to open their doors to sit-down customers, instead of reverting to a drive-through-only business model, as some do at night.

Business advocates had argued at the time that given the city’s difficulties in bouncing back from the pandemic, limiting business opportunities was the wrong strategy toward improving St. Paul’s tax base. Several restaurateurs told the city that during pandemic lockdowns, drive-through business was the only thing that kept them afloat.

The public council hearing, which was left open in November 2024, will effectively resume on Wednesday.

“A drive-through ban is off the table,” said City Council Member Saura Jost, in a written statement on Monday. “We’re raising the bar to improve quality of life with a focus on pedestrian safety. We aim to attract the development that we want to see and to avoid another Snarshall Starbucks.”

Given substantial changes to the drive-through proposal, the hearing likely will continue on Feb. 25, and a final council vote is possible that week or thereafter.

New rules around stacking, walk-up windows

Instead of banning drive-throughs, the ordinance amendment to be considered by the council this month spells out the required number of off-street “stacking” spaces in queuing lanes (six for banks and pharmacies, 12 for fast-food, 14 for coffee shops) and emphasizes that “in no event are vehicles permitted to stack into public sidewalks, trails, bicycle lanes, alleys or streets.”

All stacked and waiting cars would have to be contained on the property, and additional stacking beyond the minimums could be required by a zoning administrator following site plan review by city staff.

Discussions over the past two years or more have roped in members of the advocacy group Sustain St. Paul, which favors greater real estate density, sustainable land-use and pedestrian improvements, the city’s Business Review Council, the St. Paul Area Chamber and individual restaurateurs.

“This has been quite a dizzying and convoluted journey that’s been punted a couple of times, but I think it’s going to land in a pretty good place,” said Luke Hanson, co-chair of Sustain St. Paul, on Monday. “There’s a lot of competing interests that the city is trying to balance here.”

Some business advocates are still not fully on board. Compared to the 2024 proposal, “it’s more workable, but we still have concerns about it,” said John Perlich, a vice president of government affairs with the St. Paul Area Chamber, in an interview Monday.

“At a time when we need to strengthen our local economy, policy decisions should make it easier, not harder, for a business to invest and grow,” Perlich said. “The city should be doing everything that is possible to encourage business development and expansion, and this proposal still moves us away from that goal.”

A 2024 count found 77 drive-throughs in operation throughout St. Paul, and the rule changes proposed at the time would convert 17 of them into “non-conforming uses.” While they’d be allowed to remain in operation under grandfathering rights, business owners noted that non-conforming properties have a tougher time finding financing for improvements.

Critics have argued that drive-throughs are an impediment to disabled pedestrians and parents with children, who are forced to navigate between cars when drive-through traffic blocks pedestrian access. On the other hand, advocates on both sides of the issue have said individuals with mobility challenges are the very customers who would have the most trouble accessing food in a hurry if a drive-through went away.

“One of the perspectives we bring to this is the amount of tax revenues per acre that drive-throughs generate compared to other, more intense land-uses (such as apartment buildings), especially in a moment where everyone is feeling the pain of property taxes in St. Paul,” said Hanson, who acknowledged the city was working hard to promote public safety, support small businesses and improve pedestrian access. “I think drive-throughs are bad land use, they’re not great for access and walkability, but people with mobility issues really rely on them.”

What the new measure calls for

In addition to new rules around stacking, drive-throughs would be required to offer some level of pedestrian access, but not at all hours. In other words, drive-throughs could continue to operate into the night, long after their on-site dining areas close to the public. The thinking there is that requiring lightly-staffed eateries to keep doors open toward bar close could expose fast food workers to public safety concerns, and rather than take on that liability, many chains would simply prefer to shutter the location entirely or relocate outside the city.

Under the new changes, walk-up windows would not be required, but they are further defined in the proposal, which says walk-ups may not be situated in a way that interrupts pedestrian flow on sidewalks. A drive-through window would not be allowed to double as a walk-up.

For bank, pharmacy and credit unions, drive-through lanes and service windows would have to be located to the side or rear of buildings and at least 60 feet from a residentially-zoned property, unless that property sits across a major arterial street, or it’s somehow buffered by the building the drive-through is attached to. An exception would be if the residential units are situated in the same building.

If the drive-through is for food and beverages, the distance requirement increases to 120 feet.

Drive-through lanes would not be allowed within 300 feet of a light rail, streetcar or bus rapid transit station, or a planned station associated with a fully funded or federally-approved transit project.

In T3-T4 “traditional neighborhood” districts that blend retail and housing, the drive-through service windows must be part of a building that is at least four stories in height and 40,000 square feet in floor area.

Related Articles

MN Legislature: Bonding requests from east metro counties, cities

St. Paul City Council: Hotels should tell ICE they’re not welcome

Letters: Don’t mistake TIF subsidies for real growth in St. Paul

St. Paul: Lake Phalen event seeks to shine light over ICE

A St. Paul to Kansas City passenger train? St. Paul City Council urges a go

Mehmet Oz is not an economist, but he occasionally plays one on TV. Speaking recently at a televised forum on mental health, the medical doctor and administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed an idea for how to boost the U.S. economy: Americans should just work longer. Adding a year of work would generate $3 trillion, he said, enough to “remove the (national) debt.”

Oz was careful not to suggest raising Social Security’s full retirement age, a longtime Republican policy now verboten in the populist era of the party. Mitt Romney favored raising it to 68 in his 2012 campaign for president, but by the 2024 campaign, Nikki Haley was excoriated for suggesting any increase at all. Oz simply encouraged Americans to work longer, instead of declaring that they must, and noted the health, tax and economic benefits for the country.

To the extent that this softer touch signifies the end of the retirement-age debate, it’s welcome. Social Security could be updated to reflect both the changes in life expectancy and the benefits of working longer, but raising the full retirement age — which is currently between 66 and 67 for most Americans currently working —  is a poor way to do it.

To state the obvious, it’s a good thing that Americans are living longer. Over its 90-year history, the Social Security program has transformed retirement so that every American can look forward to a period of independent living after working. That period is longer with each generation.

Before Social Security, more than three-quarters of men over age 65 were working, in large part because just 5% of workers had a pension, despite life expectancy being just 61 years. Translation: Many Americans worked until they died. Now we not only live longer, but many of us can stop working in our older years. This is the luxury that Social Security purchased for all of us.

Yet this success has long been greeted with the tsking of fiscal conservatives, who have argued that an increase in life expectancy should be accompanied by an increase in the retirement age. It’s only fair, they say, and it’ll keep the system solvent.

It’s an argument with only selective empirical support. Social Security’s actuarial tables have shown for a century, for example, that women will live four years longer than men. Yet no one would suggest that women’s retirement age should be four years higher, or that a gap between white and Black Americans’ life expectancy should result in separate retirement ages by race. Or, when life expectancy fell in the pandemic, there were no calls from the “only fair” camp to lower the retirement age in response.

This gives the game away: Calls to increase the Social Security retirement age are driven less by logic than by a desire to cut benefits.

And it would most certainly be a benefit cut. Social Security can be claimed between the ages of 62 and 70. Claiming before age 67 results in a permanent penalty — a smaller monthly benefit for that person’s lifetime. Claiming after age 67 brings a similarly structured permanent bonus. Move 67 up to 68, or even 70, and there will be more penalties and fewer bonuses.

The debate over the retirement age also ignores the issue of fairness, which has less to do with life expectancy and more to do with work history. Consider two 18-year-olds, one who starts working immediately after high school and one who does not enter the workforce for 10 more years, after college and a graduate degree. From this perspective, the penalty/bonus system is particularly egregious. If the high-school graduate stops working at 62, they will be penalized after having worked 44 years; if the more educated one stops working at 67, they will be rewarded after having worked only 39 years.

There is a fix: Move to a flexible retirement age based on length of work history. This would result in higher benefits for the working class, who would no longer be penalized for claiming Social Security in their early 60s, and smaller bonuses for the educated elite, who would be expected not to claim benefits until their late 60s and early 70s, rather than be rewarded for it. Given that these two groups have as much as a four-year gap in life expectancy — and an even larger gap in retirement savings — it’s fair on that front, too.

A move to a flexible system has challenges: how should someone’s “work history” incorporate periods of unemployment, time spent caregiving, working during school, or midlife education, to name a few. But is it better to have a simple design with unfair implications, or a more complex system that improves fairness? Changing the unfair part requires also changing the simple part.

The debate over Social Security is dominated by its shrinking trust fund, which is expected to be depleted in seven years. No question, that problem needs to be addressed, though it may be less difficult than most politicians think. Whatever the solution, we should not lose sight of the larger purpose of the program: In the US, work earns the promise of lifetime economic security. Congress needs to do more than just keep Social Security solvent. It needs make sure the program keeps its promise to all working Americans.

Kathryn Anne Edwards is a labor economist, independent policy consultant and co-host of the Optimist Economy podcast.

Related Articles

Mary Ellen Klas: AI has turned Bernie and DeSantis into unlikely allies

Ken Silverstein: When liberty shows cracks

Jonathan Zimmerman: Epstein files reveal affirmative action for the rich and powerful

Letters: The pillars of my civic faith — the Constitution and voting — are under fire

David M. Drucker: How Trump squandered his most potent political asset