By ALEXA ST. JOHN and MATTHEW DALY

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday it will hire for “mission-critical field positions” amid expert warnings that the National Weather Service has been cut too sharply just as hurricane season arrives.

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An agency spokesperson said in a statement the positions will be advertised under a temporary reprieve from the federal government’s widespread hiring pause “to further stabilize frontline operations.” NOAA also said they are filling some field office openings by reassigning staff, including some temporary hires.

The agency didn’t say how many jobs would be posted and refused to provide more details.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts gutted NWS and NOAA — which provide daily weather forecasts, up-to-the-minute severe storm warnings, climate monitoring and extreme weather tracking — earlier this year.

Hundreds of weather forecasters were fired and other federal NOAA employees were put on probationary status in February, followed by a later round of more than 1,000 cuts at the agency. By April, nearly half of NWS forecast offices had 20% vacancy rates. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also been affected.

The new hires would be seen by the scientific community as especially imperative as the agency predicts a busy hurricane season and more tornados. In recent years, greenhouse gas emission-driven climate change has fueled more frequent, deadly, costly and increasingly nasty storms.

The weather service’s mission includes warning people in danger with enough time to evacuate or find safe shelter. The cuts forced weather forecast offices to reduce their hours or no longer staff overnight shifts in less critical periods.

Insiders and experts have warned of the consequences that a staffing shortage would mean for weather forecasting amid extreme weather and the U.S. economy.

“In 2024, NOAA was able to offer some of its most accurate weather forecasting to date for active hurricanes,” said Union of Concerned Scientists science fellow Marc Alessi. “These incredibly accurate forecasts were made possible by a fully funded NOAA.

“Despite the worsening climate and extreme weather impacts being felt across the country, the Trump administration has proceeded with its inhumane agenda that will leave people on the frontlines of disasters at greater risk,” Alessi added.

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian rocket attack targeted the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday, killing at least four people and wounding 25, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the assault, saying it underscored that Moscow has no intentions of halting the 3-year-old war.

The attack came a day after direct peace talks in Istanbul made no progress on ending the fighting. Local authorities said the barrage of rockets struck apartment buildings and a medical facility in the center of Sumy.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s secret services said they struck inside Russia again, two days after a spectacular Ukrainian drone attack on air bases deep inside the country.

A vital bridge to Crimea

The Ukrainian Security Service, known by its acronym SBU, claimed it damaged the foundations of the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and illegally annexed Crimea — a key artery for Russian military supplies in the war.

The SBU said it detonated 1,100 kilograms (2,400 pounds) of explosives on the seabed overnight, in an operation that took several months to set up. It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, the SBU said.

“The bridge is now effectively in an emergency condition,” the SBU claimed.

The agency said no civilians were killed or injured in the operation. It was not possible to independently confirm those claims.

Traffic across the Kerch Bridge was halted for three hours early Tuesday, but it reopened at 9 a.m., official Russian social media channels said. It closed for a second time at 3:20 p.m. and reopened again after two and a half hours.

Zelenskyy appeals for pressure on Moscow

The Ukrainian president called the attack on Sumy a “completely deliberate” strike on civilians.

“That’s all you need to know about Russia’s ‘desire’ to end this war,” the Ukrainian president wrote on social media.

Zelenskyy appealed for global pressure and “decisive action from the United States, Europe and everyone in the world who holds power.” Without it, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin “will not agree even to a ceasefire.”

The war has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line where the fighting grinds on despite U.S.-led efforts to broker a peace deal.

A stunning Ukrainian drone attack

Though Russia has a bigger army and more economic resources than Ukraine, the Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia, Ukrainian officials said, touting it as a serious blow to the Kremlin’s strategic arsenal and military prestige.

The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the Ukrainian attack set several planes ablaze at two air bases but said the military repelled attempted attacks on three other air bases.

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Both Zelenskyy and Putin have been eager to show U.S. President Donald Trump that they share his ambition to end the fighting — and avoid possible punitive measures from Washington. Ukraine has accepted a U.S.-proposed ceasefire, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it. Putin has made it clear that any peace settlement has to be on his terms.

Delegations from the warring sides agreed Monday to swap dead and wounded troops, but their conditions for ending the war remained far apart.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who now serves as deputy head of the country’s Security Council chaired by Putin, indicated on Tuesday that there would be no let-up in Russia’s invasion.

“The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction” of Ukraine’s government, he said.

In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he declared that “retribution is inevitable.”

A Putin-Zelenskyy-Trump meeting ‘unlikely’ soon, Moscow says

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to suggestions that a face-to-face meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelenskyy could break the deadlock, saying the possibility was “unlikely in the near future.”

Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko has traveled to Washington for talks about defense, sanctions and postwar recovery, said Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office.

The delegation will meet with representatives from both major U.S. political parties, as well as with advisers to Trump, Yermak added.

Ukrainians in Kyiv welcomed the strikes on Russian air bases but were gloomy about prospects for a peace agreement.

“Russia has invested too many resources in this war to just … stop for nothing,” said serviceman Oleh Nikolenko, 43.

His wife, Anastasia Nikolenko, a 38-year-old designer, said diplomacy cannot stop the fighting. “We need to show by force, by physical force, that we cannot be defeated,” she said.

Russia recently expanded its attacks on Sumy and the Kharkiv region following Putin’s promise to create a buffer zone along the border that might prevent long-range Ukrainian attacks from hitting Russian soil. Sumy, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border, had a prewar population of around 250,000.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its troops had taken the Ukrainian village of Andriivka, close to the border in the Sumy region. Ukraine made no immediate comment on the claim, which could not be independently verified.

Russia also fired rocket artillery at Chystovodivka village in the Kharkiv region, killing two people and injuring three others, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

By THOMAS ADAMSON, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Brigitte Bardot lounged barefoot on a Saint-Tropez beach, drawing languorous puffs from her cigarette. Another actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, swaggered down the Champs-Élysées with smoke curling from his defiant lips, capturing a generation’s restless rebellion.

In France, cigarettes were never just cigarettes — they were cinematic statements, flirtations and rebellions wrapped in rolling paper.

FILE – Jury President Jeanne Moreau smokes a cigarette at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 12, 1975. (AP Photo, File)

Yet beginning July 1, if Bardot and Belmondo’s iconic film scenes were repeated in real life, they would be subject to up to $153 in fines.

After glamorizing tobacco for decades, France is preparing for its most sweeping smoking ban yet. The new restrictions, announced by Health Minister Catherine Vautrin, will outlaw smoking in virtually all outdoor public areas where children may gather, including beaches, parks, gardens, playgrounds, sports venues, school entrances and bus stops.

“Tobacco must disappear where there are children,” Vautrin told French media. The freedom to smoke “stops where children’s right to breathe clean air starts.”

If Vautrin’s law reflects public health priorities, it also signals a deeper cultural shift. Smoking has defined identity, fashion and cinema here for so long that the new measure feels like a quiet French revolution in a country whose relationship with tobacco is famously complex.

A “No smoking” sign is pictured at Gare du Nord train station in Paris, Thursday, May 29 2025. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

According to France’s League Against Cancer, over 90 percent of French films from 2015 to 2019 featured smoking scenes — more than double the rate in Hollywood productions. Each French movie averaged nearly three minutes of on-screen smoking, effectively the same exposure as six 30-second television ads.

Cinema has been particularly influential. Belmondo’s rebellious smoker in Jean-Luc Godard ’s “Breathless” became shorthand for youthful defiance worldwide. Bardot’s cigarette smoke wafted through “And God Created Woman,” symbolizing unbridled sensuality.

Yet this glamorization has consequences. According to France’s public health authorities, around 75,000 people die from tobacco-related illnesses each year. Although smoking rates have dipped recently — fewer than 25% of French adults now smoke daily, a historic low — the habit remains stubbornly embedded, especially among young people and the urban chic.

France’s relationship with tobacco has long been fraught with contradiction. Air France did not ban smoking on all its flights until 2000, years after major U.S. carriers began phasing it out in the late 1980s and early ’90s. The delay reflected a country slower to sever its cultural romance with cigarettes, even at 35,000 feet.

Strolling through the stylish streets of Le Marais, the trendiest neighborhood in Paris, reactions to the smoking ban ranged from pragmatic acceptance to nostalgic defiance.

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“It’s about time. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking smoke is romantic,” said Clémence Laurent, a 34-year-old fashion buyer, sipping espresso at a crowded café terrace. “Sure, Bardot made cigarettes seem glamorous. But Bardot didn’t worry about today’s warnings on lung cancer.”

At a nearby boutique, vintage dealer Luc Baudry, 53, saw the ban as an attack on something essentially French. “Smoking has always been part of our culture. Take away cigarettes and what do we have left? Kale smoothies?” he scoffed.

Across from him, 72-year-old Jeanne Lévy chuckled throatily, her voice deeply etched — she said — by decades of Gauloises. “I smoked my first cigarette watching Jeanne Moreau,” she confessed, eyes twinkling behind vintage sunglasses. “It was her voice — smoky, sexy, lived-in. Who didn’t want that voice?”

Indeed, Jeanne Moreau’s gravelly, nicotine-scraped voice transformed tobacco into poetry itself, immortalized in classics such as François Truffaut’s “Jules et Jim.” Smoking acquired an existential glamour that made quitting unimaginable for generations of French smokers.

France’s new law mirrors broader European trends. Countries like Britain and Sweden have already tightened smoking regulations in public spaces. Sweden banned smoking on outdoor restaurant terraces, at bus stops and near schoolyards in 2019. Spain, meanwhile, is extending its smoking ban to café and restaurant terraces—spaces that remain exempt in France, at least for now.

In the Paris park Place des Vosges, literature student Thomas Bouchard clutched an electronic cigarette that is still exempt from the new ban and shrugged.

“Maybe vaping’s our compromise,” he said, exhaling gently. “A little less sexy, perhaps. But fewer wrinkles too.”

By JONEL ALECCIA, AP Health Writer

As federal health officials vow to overhaul the U.S. food supply, they’re taking a new look at infant formula.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has directed the Food and Drug Administration to review the nutrients and other ingredients in infant formula, which fills the bottles of millions of American babies. The effort, dubbed “Operation Stork Speed,” is the first deep look at the ingredients since 1998.

“The FDA will use all resources and authorities at its disposal to make sure infant formula products are safe and wholesome for the families and children who rely on them,” Kennedy said.

About three-quarters of U.S. infants consume formula during the first six months of life, with about 40% receiving it as their only source of nutrition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Formula has been widely used in the U.S. for roughly six decades, feeding generations of infants who have flourished, said Dr. Steven Abrams, a University of Texas infant nutrition expert.

The broader scientific community has been calling for a reevaluation of infant formula for years and is “fully supportive of this idea of a comprehensive look,” he said.

Current formula products in the U.S. continue to be safe and nourishing, he said.

“But there’s been a lot of science and we want the FDA rules to align with the most recent science from around the world,” he said.

Here’s what you need to know about Operation Stork Speed:

What is infant formula and why do so many babies consume it?

Infant formula is a manufactured product, usually made from cow’s milk or soy, that is intended to mimic human breast milk for kids up age 12 months. It may be the sole source of nutrition or supplement breastfeeding.

FDA regulations require that infant formulas contain 30 specific nutrients, with minimum levels for all and maximum levels for 10 of them.

The ingredients vary, but all formulas must have a balance of calories from protein, carbohydrates and fat that mirrors what’s found in human milk.

Federal guidelines recommend that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and that parents continue breastfeeding for the first year or more while adding new foods to the child’s diet.

Parents use formula when a mother cannot or chooses not to breastfeed for a wide range of reasons, including medical conditions, work conflicts, to allow other family members to help with feedings and other situations.

Why is the government reviewing baby formula now?

Kennedy announced the review of infant formula in March as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda for the U.S. food supply.

The FDA’s review will include increased testing for heavy metals and other contaminants as well as a review of nutrients, the agencies said.

U.S. health officials will hold a two-hour roundtable discussion of infant formula on Wednesday.

What issues will that cover?

The FDA is asking for new scientific data and information about whether required ingredients in infant formula should be added, removed or changed. The deadline for comments is Sept. 11.

Scientists say a review is long overdue regarding the most recent data on the composition of human milk and how babies digest and absorb nutrients in breastmilk and formula.

In addition, they want the FDA to consider how U.S. formulas compare with those made elsewhere, said Bridget Young, who studies infant nutrition at the University of Rochester.

“How do our regulations differ?” she said. “Maybe it’s time for them to relook at their regulations and consider potential international harmonization.”

More international alignment might have eased the U.S. infant formula crisis in 2022, when contamination shut down an Abbott factory, leading to monthslong shortages for American parents, Young said.

What about specific ingredients?

In recent years, some parents have sought out infant formula made in Europe with the belief that products made overseas are healthier options, experts said.

Formula regulations in the U.S. and Europe, including requirements for nutrients and testing, differ somewhat, but are generally similar, Abrams said.

“The differences between the U.S. and Europe should not be considered as ‘higher’ or ‘better’ or ‘greater’ in one vs. the other,” he said.

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Still, iron, for instance, is included at higher levels in U.S. formulas than in those in Europe — and Abrams suggested that U.S. officials may consider lowering iron targets.

Other components have been added to formula in recent years. They include docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, an essential omega-3 fatty acid, and human milk oligosaccharides, complex sugars that are found breast milk but not in cow’s milk. Although they may be beneficial, they are not required.

“These have been added to some formulas, but not to other formulas, so we want to take a look,” Abrams explained.

Many parents have raised concerns over formula ingredients such as added sugars and seed oils, which are also being targeted by Kennedy as hazards in the wider food supply.

Recent research suggests that added sugars such as glucose and corn syrup solids in infant formula may be linked to weight gain in children. Young said that most experts agree that lactose, the primary type of sugar found in breast milk, is preferred.

Infant formulas in the U.S. do contain seed oils, Young said. But that’s because there are a finite number of vegetable oils that provide the essential saturated and unsaturated fats that babies require.

“They need to provide the variety of fatty acids that you see in breast milk,” she said.

What are the next steps?

Done properly, the FDA’s infant formula review would take “at least a year,” Abrams said. And it will require broad input from multiple government agencies, formula manufacturers and consumers.

“No shortcuts are possible and no one review, white paper or even committee report will suffice to do it right,” he said.

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