By KWIYEON HA and PAN PYLAS

LONDON (AP) — British political commentator Sami Hamdi said Thursday on his arrival back in the U.K. that he was considering suing U.S. authorities for his detention in an immigration detention center over what he claims were his views on Gaza and Israel.

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Two days after revealing that he was leaving the U.S. voluntarily, Hamdi lauded federal judges for exonerating him over what he termed a “botched” detention by “extremists” within the U.S. government.

“I want say that this wasn’t just an attack on me, it was an attack on the freedoms of ordinary Americans and citizens worldwide,” he told journalists and supporters outside a hotel near London’s Heathrow Airport following his return.

Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the U.S. when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 26. He had just addressed the annual gala for the Sacramento, California, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the day before his arrest.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said at the time of Hamdi’s arrest that the U.S. State Department had revoked his visa and that ICE had put him in immigration proceedings. Homeland Security later accused him of supporting Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamdi said later that his intent wasn’t to praise the attacks, but to suggest that the violence was “a natural consequence of the oppression that is being put on the Palestinians.”

“I did nothing illegal in the U.S.,” he said. “Everything was within the visa. Everything was in the limits of what the visa allowed me to do. The visa was revoked because of my advocacy for Palestine. It was revoked because of advocacy for Gaza.”

Hamdi’s detention was part of broader efforts by the Trump administration to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreigners in the United States who it says have either fomented or participated in unrest or publicly supported protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Those enforcement actions have been criticized by civil rights groups as violations of constitutional protections for freedom of speech, which apply to anyone in the United States and not just to American citizens.

Hamdi, 35, said that he’s discussing with his lawyers whether to sue American authorities, but added that he’s hesitating about it because “cool heads” in the U.S. State Department and the federal court system prevailed.

“In respect of those cooler minds, I would rather celebrate,” he said. “I won this case, the extremists failed to silence my voice, they failed to remove my freedom of speech. America stood with me.”

Hamdi said there are no conditions attached to his voluntary departure and that he’s not barred from seeking another U.S. visa in the future.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — European Union officials warned Ukraine on Thursday that it must keep cracking down on graft in the wake of a major corruption scandal that could hurt the country’s ability to attract financial help. But they also offered assurances that aid will continue to flow as Kyiv strains to hold back Russia’s invasion.

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stressed European concerns about corruption when he spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose administration has been engulfed by the scandal involving embezzlement and kickbacks at the state-owned nuclear power company. It’s fast becoming one of the most significant government crises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion, with media reports implicating a close associate of Zelenskyy.

Merz “underlined the German government’s expectation that Ukraine press ahead energetically with fighting corruption and further reforms, particularly in the area of the rule of law,” his office said in a statement.

Zelenskyy, the statement said, promised “full transparency, long-term support for the independent anti-corruption authorities and quick further measures in order to win back the confidence of the Ukrainian population, European partners and international donors.”

At the same time, a European Commission spokesperson said that uncovering the alleged kickback scheme demonstrated that Ukraine’s efforts to fight corruption are working as the country strives to meet the standards for EU membership.

“This investigation shows that anti-corruption bodies are in place and functioning in Ukraine,” Guillaume Mercier said in Brussels.

“Let me stress that the fight against corruption is key for a country to join the EU. It requires continuous efforts to guarantee a strong capacity to combat corruption and a respect for the rule of law.”

Graft probe raises questions about senior officials

After Zelenskyy’s justice and energy ministers quit Wednesday amid the investigation into energy sector graft, the government fired the vice president of Energoatom, the state-owned nuclear power company believed by investigators to be at the center of the kickback scheme.

The EU and other foreign partners have poured money into Ukraine’s energy sector. Russia has relentlessly bombarded the power grid, which requires repeated repairs.

The heads of Energoatom’s finance, legal and procurement departments and a consultant to Energoatom’s president were also dismissed, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said late Wednesday.

“During the full-scale war, when the enemy is destroying our energy infrastructure every day and the country is living under power outage schedules, any form of corruption is unacceptable,” Svyrydenko said Thursday in a video statement.

“In the most difficult times, our strength lies in unity. Eradicating corruption is a matter of honor and dignity,” she said.

Tymur Mindich, a co-owner of Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 media production company, is the conspiracy’s suspected mastermind. His whereabouts are unknown.

The investigation has prompted questions about what the country’s highest officials knew of the scheme. It has also awakened memories of Zelenskyy’s attempt last summer to curtail Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs. He backtracked after widespread street protests in Ukraine and pressure from the European Union to address entrenched corruption.

A Kyiv court has begun hearing evidence from anti-corruption watchdogs. Those watchdogs — the same agencies Zelenskyy sought to weaken earlier this year — conducted a 15-month investigation, including 1,000 hours of wiretaps, that resulted in the detention of five people and implicated another seven in the scheme that allegedly earned about $100 million.

EU promises more money for Ukraine

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would disburse Thursday a 6 billion euros ($7 billion) loan to Ukraine and promised more money for Kyiv.

“We will cover the financial needs of Ukraine for the next two years,” she said in a speech to the European Parliament.

The EU is looking into how it can come up with more money for Ukraine, either by seizing frozen Russian assets, raising funds on capital markets, or having some of the 27 EU nations raise the money themselves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “thinks he can outlast us” in the battle over Ukraine’s future, nearly four years after Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, von der Leyen said.

“And this is a clear miscalculation,” she said. “Now is therefore the moment to come, with a new impetus, to unlock Putin’s cynical attempt to buy time and bring him to the negotiation table.”

Ukraine fires its Flamingo cruise missile

Meanwhile, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top military commander, visited units fighting to hold Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region and coordinate operations in person, he said on the messaging app Telegram.

Ukrainian troops are locked in street battles with Russian forces in the city and fighting to prevent becoming surrounded as the Kremlin’s war of attrition slowly grinds across the countryside.

Syrskyi said the key goals are to regain control of certain areas of the city, as well as protect logistic routes and create new ones so that troops can be supplied and the wounded can be evacuated.

“There is no question of Russian control over the city of Pokrovsk or of the operational encirclement of Ukraine’s defense forces in the area,” Syrskyi said.

Also Thursday, Ukrainian used a new domestically produced cruise missile as well as other weapons to strike “several dozen objects” in Russian-occupied territories and inside itself, according to the general staff.

The FP-5 missile, which Ukrainian officials say can fly 1,864 miles and land within 45 feet of its target, is one of the largest such missiles in the world, delivering a payload of 2,535 pounds, according to experts. It is commonly known as a Flamingo missile because initial versions came out pink after a manufacturing error.

In Crimea, which Russia has illegally annexed, Ukraine’s general staff said its forces struck an oil terminal, a helicopter base, a drone storage site and an air defense radar system. In occupied parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, an oil storage depot and two Russian command centers were hit.

The general staff gave no details about what was targeted on Russian soil.

Associated Press Writer Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.

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

By JOSH FUNK, AP Transportation Writer

Airlines are optimistic they can resume normal operations just a few days after the government lifts its order to cut some flights at 40 busy airports, but it’s not clear how soon that will happen even though the federal shutdown is over.

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The Federal Aviation Administration did announce Wednesday night that airlines won’t have to cut more than 6% of flights at those airports because air traffic controller staffing has improved significantly in the last few days. Originally the order that took effect last Friday called for those flight cuts to increase to 8% Thursday and top out at 10% on Friday.

A number of air traffic controllers missed work while they were going without pay during the shutdown, and the spike in understaffing at airport towers and regional control centers prompted the flight cut order due to concerns about safety. The existing shortage of several thousand controllers is so bad that even a small number of absences in some locations caused problems.

Officials at FAA and the Transportation Department didn’t offer any updates Thursday morning about when they will decide to lift the order. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said the decision will be based on the safety data that experts at the FAA are watching closely.

The airlines say they will be ready and expect that normal operations will resume within three or four days after the order is lifted. Some experts have suggested that problems might linger longer than that and could affect Thanksgiving travel, so it is difficult to predict whether the airlines will be able to recover from this as quickly as they do after a major snowstorm disrupts their operations and leaves planes and crews out of position.

The airlines focused their cuts on smaller regional routes to minimize the impact on their main hubs. By late Thursday morning, about 1,000 flights had been cancelled across the country.

“We are eager to resume normal operations over the next few days once the FAA gives clearance. We look forward to welcoming 31 million passengers—a new record—to our flights during the upcoming Thanksgiving travel period, beginning next Friday,” the Airlines for America trade group said Thursday.

Duffy has said that controllers and other FAA employees should receive 70% of their back pay within 24-48 hours of the end of the shutdown with the rest to come over the next couple paychecks. The financial pressure on controllers drove some of them to seek out side jobs to help make ends meet and call out of work while they dealt with the stress.

Last Saturday, the staff shortages peaked when 81 different FAA facilities warned they were running low on workers, forcing the airlines to cut additional flights. On Thursday morning, the FAA didn’t list any staffing warnings at airports and other radar facilities across the country.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom and Chief Operating Officer David Seymour told employees in a letter Thursday that they are already seeing improvements as controller staffing stabilized over the last day or so even though more flight cuts will be needed until FAA lifts the order. But travelers should already be seeing fewer delays and cancellations on the day of their flights.

The two executives said they believe American Airlines’ planning and efforts to minimize disruptions will help the carrier bounce back fast and “deliver a strong Thanksgiving operation,” noting that millions of travelers “deserve the certainty.”

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has been receiving around-the-clock care at home, has been hospitalized with a rare neurological disorder, according to his Chicago-based organization.

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The civil rights leader was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease over a decade ago. But his Rainbow/PUSH organization said late Wednesday that the 84-year-old was under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP, a neurodegenerative disorder he has been “managing for more than a decade” and received a diagnosis for in April.

“The family appreciates all prayers at this time,” the statement said.

It is not clear if Jackson has both Parkinson’s and PSP, which have similar symptoms, or solely the PSP that was confirmed this year. A Rainbow/PUSH spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for clarity on Thursday.

After disclosing the Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2017, Jackson continued to make public appearances, including at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The two-time presidential candidate stepped down as leader of his Rainbow/PUSH organization in 2023 and his son, Yusef Jackson, took over as chief operating officer last year.

The elder Jackson has been using a wheelchair and continued going into the office regularly until months ago, family members said.

In recent months, his relatives, including sons U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson and Jesse Jackson Jr., a former Illinois congressman seeking reelection, have been providing 24-hour care in shifts.

The reverend has struggled to keep his eyes open and is unable to speak. But he has found ways to communicate with family and friends who visit, his son Jesse Jackson Jr. told The Associated Press last month.

“He’ll squeeze your hand,” he said.