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.

By MATT BROWN and JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is speeding toward a vote next week on releasing files related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, a step that comes after months of resistance from Republican leaders.

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Takeaways from the newly released Epstein documents

They have no choice but to allow consideration of the bill after a petition on the measure reached the necessary 218 signatures. It comes at a time when new documents are raising fresh questions about Epstein and his associates, including a 2019 email that Epstein wrote to a journalist that said President Donald Trump “knew about the girls.” The White House has accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the Republican president.

Public speculation has been rampant for years about Epstein’s operation, death and connection to powerful and wealthy individuals, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton, tech billionaires and celebrity academics, among others.

Why is the House about to vote?

Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced a petition in July to force a vote on their bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The effort was backed by all House Democrats and four Republicans, including Massie and Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.

Minutes after Democrat Adelita Grijalva of Arizona was sworn into office Wednesday, she signed her name to the Epstein petition, pushing it to the magic number of 218 — a majority in the 435-member House.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said following Grijalva’s swearing-in that he would expedite the petition process to bring a vote on the bill to the House floor early next week.

Johnson has pushed back on claims that he has obstructed the Epstein legislation to protect Trump or others. He told reporters Wednesday that the Republican majority took issue with the phrasing of the measure, which he claimed did not adequately protect victims. Johnson has also pointed repeatedly to the Epstein investigation being conducted by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has resulted in thousands of pages of documents being released, including more than 20,000 on Wednesday.

What does the bill do?

The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted, per the bill.

The department, however, would not be allowed to redact information due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Is it going to pass?

Johnson, who had dismissed the petition as a “moot point,” said he will bring the measure to a vote next week. If everyone who signed the petition supports it on the floor, it will pass.

But the bill appears likely to pick up additional Republican votes — potentially dozens or more — now that it is moving forward. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who did not sign the discharge petition, has said he plans to back it.

The tougher test will come in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53–47 majority and it would likely take 60 votes to move the bill to final passage.

Asked in September whether the Senate would take up the Epstein bill if it passed the House, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said, “I can’t comment on that at this point.”

Thune added that the Justice Department “has already released tons of files related to this matter.”

“I trust them in terms of having the confidence that they’ll get as much information out there as possible in a way that protects the rights of the victims,” Thune said.

Can Trump stop it?

If the measure passes the Senate, it would go to Trump, who almost certainly would veto it. He has opposed the discharge petition from the start, even reaching out Wednesday to two Republicans who had signed it.

“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap.”

A president’s veto can be overridden with a two-third vote in both chambers. That has only happened twice since 2009.

Massie said Trump can avoid the entire ordeal by releasing all the Epstein files held by the federal government.

“There’s still time for him to be the hero,” Massie said of Trump.