By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that a proposed European armed force for possible deployment in Ukraine in tandem with an eventual peace deal could “respond” to a Russian attack if Moscow launched one.

Macron spoke in the evening after talks with Ukraine’s president and ahead of a summit in Paris of some 30 nations on Thursday that will discuss the proposed force for Ukraine.

“If there was again a generalized aggression against Ukrainian soil, these armies would be under attack and then it’s our usual framework of engagement,” Macron said. “Our soldiers, when they are engaged and deployed, are there to react and respond to the decisions of the commander in chief and, if they are in a conflict situation, to respond to it.”

Macron. has been driving coalition-building efforts for a Ukraine force with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. it is still far from clear exactly what kind of aid they are preparing that could contribute toward their goal of making any ceasefire with Russia lasting.

Macron is expecting 31 delegations around the table Thursday morning at the presidential Elysee Palace. That’s more than Macron gathered for a first meeting in Paris in February — evidence that the coalition to help Ukraine, possibly with boots on the ground, is gathering steam, according to the presidential office.

The big elephant in the room will be the country that’s missing: the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has shown no public enthusiasm for the coalition’s discussions about potentially sending troops into Ukraine after an eventual ceasefire to help make peace stick. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has dismissed the idea of a European deployment or even the need for it.

“It’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic,” he said in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

That’s not the view in Europe. The shared premise upon which the coalition is being built is that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine — starting with the illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and culminating in the 2022 full-scale invasion that unleashed all-out war — shows that he cannot be trusted.

They believe that any peace deal will need to be backed up by security guarantees for Ukraine, to deter Putin from launching another attempt to seize it.

New Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved held an important, private meeting with young point guard Isaac Asuma and his parents on Tuesday. This was in addition to his very public news conference held in front of hundreds on U’s practice court at noon, with many more streaming online.

With the Asumas, Medved made it clear one of his first orders of business is that he wants the Cherry, Minn., product to remain at Minnesota for his sophomore season.

“He’s got an incredibly bright future,” Medved told the Pioneer Press on Wednesday morning. “I think he is our kind of guy. I think he has the same values that I share and I think it would be a great match.”

Asuma shared his decision Wednesday afternoon: He’s staying at the U. “Minnesota is home,” he posted on social media. “Can’t wait to get started building for next season!”

Asuma, who was present for Medved’s introduction Tuesday, showed promise during his freshman season, averaging 5.6 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 24.7 minutes last season. Like most freshmen, his first season was up and down. Big games, followed by some lackluster outings. Sometimes back to back, including 18 points and one turnover in 40 minutes in the home loss to Ohio State, followed by zero points and three turnovers in 14 minutes in the road defeat at Wisconsin.

But it appears clear the 6-foot-3 guard has the right ingredients — including an aptitude to be a top defender in the Big Ten Conference.

Medved thought the meeting “went really, really well. I know it’s clear to Isaac how I feel about him and I want him to really be a part of this and think we can do great things.”

Asuma was the key piece in former coach Ben Johnson’s high school recruiting class last year. He has shown a loyalty to the Gophers and his brother, Noah, is a Gopher baseball commit in the 2026 class.

Incoming freshmen?

The future is murkier for the Gophers’ 2025 recruiting class. Under Johnson, the U signed center Parker Jefferson of Waxahachie, Texas, and guards Kai Sinholster of Philadelphia and Jacob Ross of Bristol, Va.

“I think those are ones that we have to determine,” Medved said. “I don’t know those guys yet. I think I want to make sure that anyone who’s going to come to our program understands what we value and who I am.”

Medved, however, didn’t rule out them joining his team this summer.

“I don’t want anyone coming here under any false pretenses, but if it works for those guys, I’d love to have them,” Medved said. “Everything has happened so fast here. We haven’t had time to do all that yet.”

Forward Frank Mitchell, who entered the transfer portal after Johnson’s firing, committed to St. Bonaventure on Tuesday. It’s unclear the status of other players with remaining eligibility, primarily guard Brennan Rigsby and forward Kadyn Betts. Both of them attended Medved’s news conference Tuesday.

Related Articles

Dane Mizutani: Gophers need Niko Medved to channel his inner P.J. Fleck

Glimpse inside Gophers AD Mark Coyle’s hire of Niko Medved

What did he say? Watch the replay of Gophers coach Niko Medved’s introductory press conference

Details on new Gophers coach Niko Medved’s contract

Frederick: If Niko Medved isn’t right coach for the Gophers, then right coach doesn’t exist

By MARK KENNEDY

Jason Statham is cosplaying a construction laborer when “A Working Man” begins. He’s making sure the rebar is spaced correctly and the concrete is correctly mixed. But we all know where his real strengths are: Beating up people, ferociously.

Soon enough — faster than this one-time springboard diving champion used to hit the water — Statham will be doing what he does best in an action movie made by millionaires that hopes to tap into blue-collar chic.

Statham plays a sort of hero-laying-low in director and co-writer David Ayer’s latest collab — they previously teamed up on “The Beekeeper” — with the addition of a co-writer who knows a thing or two about lone-wolf underdogs — Sylvester Stallone.

When the 19-year-old daughter of his boss is snatched during a night out with girlfriends in Chicago, they turn to Statham, a former anti-terrorist commando for the UK’s Royal Marines, which at least explains the British accent.

But he can’t help them — he’s given up that old life. “I’m a different person now,” he says. It’s not who I am anymore.” Admittedly, he says this shortly after fighting off a gang messing with one of his workers, attacking them with a bucket of nails. an ax and a bag of gravel.

He’s a widower and a single father saving up money to fight — legally this time — for more custody by sleeping in his Ram truck. His in-laws want to limit his visitation, alleging he suffers from PTSD, a very cynical use by the movie-makers of a popcorn flick with a body count north of a hundred. “I hurt, too,” he tells his daughter.

A visit to an old military buddy — David Harbour, superb — helps change his mind. “God help them,” says Harbour’s character after the decision is made. He knows what’s in store for anyone getting in the way of Statham’s oddly named Levon Cade (scramble the letters and you get “Novel Aced,” go figure).

So begins Statham’s version of “Taken” mixed with a blue-collar version of “John Wick.” Our construction worker-turned-vigilante is reassuring to the family of the missing teen. “I’m gonna bring her home. I promise,” he vows.

We soon plunge into an underworld of Russian mobsters, designer drugs, human trafficking, corrupt cops and a vicious biker gang run by a guy who sits on a throne of motorcycle parts. People are waterboarded, shot, stabbed, smashed with animal skulls, blown up by grenades and burned with hot coffee.

“All of this is for a girl?” asks one incredulous Russian mob boss, who is hogtied and dangled over his own swimming pool as Statham tortures him while munching on some toast he’s made in his fancy kitchen.

Shall we talk about the rich now? The upper-level mobsters wear cravats, bow ties and hold gold-tipped walking sticks. One even wears a cape and uses a cigarette holder, like a sort of Mister Burns from “The Simpsons.” The drug dealers wear buffoonish designer duds, “do business” in restaurant banquets and all have attache cases with stacks of banded money, like it’s still the ’80s. They are all venal, foppish and perverted. The big finale takes place in a tucked-away farm casino with fancy-dressed fat cats.

This is in contrast to Statham, an orange safety vest kind of guy with a soldier’s moral compass. He at one point throws into the air enough $100 bills to buy a Lamborghini. But he’s not doing it the money, even though he needs it. He’s there for the girl.

“A Working Man” fetishizes its blue-collar ethic at a time when extremely wealthy Americans have taken key roles in the second Donald Trump administration and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is slicing at government jobs (Veterans are increasingly facing the burden. ) Trump himself donned an orange vest when he cosplayed a garbage man on the campaign trail. Everyone loves the working class these days.

Anyway, we’re not here for a lesson, we’re here for some ultra-violence. “A Working Man” does it well, especially a struggle in the confined space of a moving van. The plot gets a little stretched over two hours — including a ludicrous motorcycle chase scene when enough bullets are fired at Statham as were expended in the Battle of Fallujah — but a bright moment is having the snatched teen (a very good Arianna Rivas, someone to watch) step into her own power.

“A Working Man” is exactly what you expect when you unleash Statham on a noble mission. “You killed your way into this,” he’s told by his buddy. “You’re gonna have to kill your way out of it.” In other words, let Statham work, man.

“A Working Man,” an Amazon MGM Studios release in theaters this Friday, is rated R for “strong violence, language throughout and drug content.” Running time: 116 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press

Someone should have spotted the alarming number of near misses in the skies over the nation’s capital before the fatal midair collision that killed 67 people in January, and reviewing the data now could prevent future crashes, according to the head of the agency investigating the crash.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy emphasized to Congress Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration had data going back to 2011 showing that collision alarms were sounding inside cockpits at least once a month because of how close the planes were getting to helicopters. But the FAA didn’t act, she said.

“All this data is being collected by FAA from operators, from others, from voluntary reporting systems. Where is that data going to trend potential accidents and incidents in the future?” Homendy said during a hearing on her agency’s budget. “The next accident is in the data right now. And what are we doing to figure out what that is?”

The Senate is planning another hearing Thursday to delve deeper into what the NTSB has found so far about the Jan. 29 midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C., Ronald Reagan National Airport. Homendy and the leaders of the FAA and Army’s aviation division will all testify.

Both Homendy and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier this month when NTSB first disclosed the shocking statistics that they were angry that the FAA didn’t recognize the dangers before this crash after 85 near misses in the past three years when aircraft flew within a few hundred feet (meters) of each other.

The FAA promptly launched a review of all its data after the NTSB briefing to try to identify any similar safety threats, particularly in eight cities with heavy helicopter traffic. The FAA said Wednesday that analysis continues.

That review — aided by artificial intelligence and machine learning — is focused on airports in Boston, New York, Baltimore-Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles and the heavy helicopter traffic off the Gulf Coast. The FAA hasn’t said whether it has found anything yet, but the agency promised it “will have corrective action plans for any risks that are identified.”

In the meantime, the FAA quickly adopted the NTSB’s recommendation to permanently close off a particular helicopter route near Reagan anytime planes are taking off or landing on the airport’s runway 33 that the jetliner was approaching in January when the collision happened. If a helicopter does need to use that route for an urgent reason, no planes will be allowed to take off or land. That should ensure that planes and helicopters are no longer sharing the same airspace near the airport, officials said.

“The FAA will continue to closely support the NTSB-led investigation and take action as necessary to ensure public safety,” the agency said in a statement.

Homendy declined Wednesday to address President Donald Trump’s comments right after the crash suggesting that diversity and inclusion policies at the FAA may have contributed to it because the NTSB investigation isn’t complete. A final report identifying the cause isn’t expected for more than year. Trump also faulted the helicopter for flying too high and later suggested that an “obsolete” air traffic control system was the problem.

New Jersey Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman said it is important to refute those diversity comments now because nothing has been found so far to support them, and she doesn’t want the public to get the idea that diversity is the problem.

“On the contrary, loyalty and sycophants seems to be the order of the day, and it’s definitely negatively impacting this federal government doing its job,” Watson Coleman said during the hearing.

Federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls at airports.

The NTSB previously said the helicopter may have had inaccurate altitude readings in the moments before the crash, and the crew may not have heard key instructions from air traffic controllers. The helicopter was at 278 feet (85 meters) at the time of the collision, which would put it above its 200-foot (61-meter) limit for that location.

The collision was the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five more on the ground.