By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations, a collaborative global dream built into reality out of the ashes of World War II, marks its 80th anniversary this month. There’s little to celebrate.

Its clout on the world stage is diminished. Facing major funding cuts from the United States and others, it has been forced to shed jobs and start tackling long-delayed reforms. Its longtime credo of “multilateralism” is under siege. Its most powerful body, the Security Council, has been blocked from taking action to end the two major wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

And as the latest conflict between Israel, Iran and the United States flared, it watched from the sidelines.

Four generations after its founding, as it tries to chart a new path for its future, a question hangs over the institution and the nearly 150,000 people it employs and oversees: Can the United Nations remain relevant in an increasingly contentious and fragmented world?

With its dream of collaboration drifting, can it even survive?

An act of optimism created it

When the United Nations was born in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, the overriding goal of the 50 participants who signed the U.N. Charter was stated in its first words: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sounded that same theme: “Eight decades later, one can draw a direct line between the creation of the United Nations and the prevention of a third world war.”

There has been no such war — thus far. But conflicts still rage.

They continue not only in Gaza and Ukraine but Sudan, eastern Congo, Haiti and Myanmar – to name a few – and, most recently, Iran and Israel. The needs of tens of millions of people caught up in fighting and trapped in poverty have increased even as rich donor nations, not just the United States, are reducing their aid budgets.

The U.N. General Assembly is planning a commemoration on the 80th anniversary on June 26. This week an exhibition on the San Francisco meeting opened at U.N. headquarters with a rare centerpiece — the original U.N. Charter, on loan from the U.S. National Archives in Washington.

But the mood in the halls of the U.N. headquarters in New York is grim.

Diplomats are anxious about the immediate future, especially the outcome expected in August of a U.S. review of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions ordered by President Donald Trump. And U.N. staff here and in more than 60 offices, agencies and operations that get money from its regular operating budget are facing 20% job cuts, part of Guterres’ reform effort and reaction to already announced Trump funding cuts.

“It’s not something to celebrate,” Kazakhstan’s U.N. Ambassador Kairat Umarov said of the upcoming anniversary.

“This should be united nations — not disunited,” he said. “Collectively, we can do a lot,” but today “we cannot agree on many things, so we agree to disagree.”

A changing world accommodated a changing UN

In a different world of land-line telephones, radios and propeller planes, the U.N. Charter was signed by just 50 nations — mainly from Latin America and Europe, with half a dozen from the Mideast, and just a few from Asia and Africa.

Over the decades, its membership has nearly quadrupled to 193 member nations, with 54 African countries now the largest bloc followed by the 54 from Asia and the Pacific. And the world has changed dramatically with the advent of computers and satellites, becoming what the late former Secretary-General Kofi Annan called a “global village.”

The U.N. system has also expanded enormously from its origins, which focused on peace and security, economic and social issues, justice and trusteeships for colonies.

Today, the map of the U.N. system looks like a multi-headed octopus with many tentacles — and miniature tentacles sprouting from those. In 2023, its secretariat and numerous funds, agencies and entities dealing with everything from children and refugees to peacekeeping and human rights had over 133,000 staff worldwide.

Kishore Mahbubani, who served twice as Singapore’s U.N. ambassador, credited the United Nations with thus far preventing World War III. While there are still wars, deaths have continued a long-term decline “and the world is still, overall, a much more peaceful place,” he said.

“And many small states still live in peace, not having to worry about the neighbors occupying them,” said Mahbubani, a respected geopolitical analyst.

Mahbubani and others also point to successes in the 71 U.N. peacekeeping operations since 1948, including in Angola, Cambodia, Sierra Leone (which is currently a member of the Security Council) and Liberia (which will join in January).

There is also wide praise for specialized U.N. agencies, especially those dealing with hunger, refugees and children as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the U.N’s nuclear watchdog, and the International Telecommunications Union. Among numerous responsibilities, it allocates the global radio spectrum and satellite orbits and brings digital connectivity to millions.

As Guterres told the Security Council earlier this year, “The United Nations remains the essential, one-of-a-kind meeting ground to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights.”

What actually gets done at the UN?

Every September, world leaders get a global platform at the General Assembly. And every day their ambassadors and diplomats meet to debate issues from conflicts to climate change to the fight for gender equality and quality education. Sometimes, such talks produce little or no results. At others, achievements get overlooked or ignored by the broader world community, far from the hubs of diplomacy.

And the Security Council is the only place where Russia and Ukraine regularly face off over the ongoing war following Russia’s 2022 invasion — and where the Palestinian and Israeli ambassadors frequently confront each other.

Despite its successes and achievements over past decades, Singapore’s Mahbubani called the U.N. today “a very sad place,” lamenting that Guterres had failed “to inspire humanity” as the late Pope Francis did. “But,” Mahbubani said, “it should celebrate the fact it is alive and not dead.”

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John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who was national security adviser during Trump’s first term, was also critical of the state of the U.N. in 2025. “It’s probably in the worst shape it’s been in since it was founded,” said Bolton, now an outspoken Trump critic.

He pointed to gridlock in the Security Council on key issues. He blames rising international tensions that divide the council’s five veto-wielding powers – with Russia and China facing off against U.S., Britain and France on many global challenges.

Richard Gowan, U.N. director of the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said the United Nations has bounced from crisis to crisis since the 1990s. With the gloomy geopolitical picture and U.S. funding cuts impacting humanitarian operations, he said this “is not just another blow-up that will blow over.”

“Everyone seems to be resigned to the fact that you’re going to have a smaller U.N. in a few years’ time,” Gowan said. “And that is partially because virtually every member state has other priorities.”

What happens in the UN’s next chapter?

Guterres has launched several major reform efforts, getting approval from U.N. member nations last September for a “Pact for the Future” – a blueprint to bring the world together to tackle 21st-century challenges. Gowan said Guterres’ successor, who will be elected next year and take over in 2027, will have to shrink the organization. But many cuts, consolidations and changes will require approval of the divided U.N. membership. Possible radical reforms include merging U.N. aid and development agencies to avoid duplication.

Don’t forget, says Gowan, that a huge amount of diplomatic business — much of it having nothing to do with the United Nations — gets done because it is in New York, a place to have those conversations.

“If you were to close the U.N., there would also be a lot of intelligence people and spies who would be deeply disappointed. Because it’s a wonderful place to cultivate your contacts,” Gowan said. “Americans may not realize that having the U.N. in New York is a bonanza for us spying on other nations. So we shouldn’t let that go.”

Ian Bremmer, who heads the Eurasia Group, a political risk and consulting firm, said the Trump administration’s attempts to undermine the United Nations — which the United States conceived in 1945 — will make China more important. With Trump exiting from the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA and cutting humanitarian funding, he said, China will become “the most influential and the most deep-pocketed” in those agencies.

Bremmer, who calls himself a close adviser to Guterres, insisted the United Nations remains relevant — “with no caveats.”

“It’s a relatively poorly resourced organization. It has no military capabilities. It has no autonomous foreign policy,” Bremmer said. “But its legitimacy and its credibility in speaking for 8 billion people on this little planet of ours is unique.”

He added: “The important thing is that as long as the great powers decide not to leave the United Nations, every day that they stay is a vote of confidence in the U.N.”

Expansion of the U.N. Security Council is probably the most fertile area for potential change. Decades of discussions have failed to agree on how to enlarge the 15-member council to reflect the global realities of the 21st century, though there is wide agreement that Africa and Latin America deserve permanent seats.

Singapore’s Mahbubani said he believes the United Nations “will definitely survive.” The “genius” of its founders, he said, was to give the big powers after World War II a veto in the Security Council, preventing the global body from dying as its predecessor, the League of Nations, did. That survival, Mahbubani believes, will continue: “It will,” he said, “outlast us all.”

Edith M. Lederer, chief correspondent at the United Nations, has been covering international affairs for more than half a century.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Justice Department official under scrutiny over a whistleblower’s claims that he suggested ignoring court orders will face questions on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as he seeks to be confirmed as a federal appeals court judge.

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Emil Bove, a former criminal defense attorney for President Donald Trump, has been behind some of the most contentious actions that Justice Department leadership has taken since January. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing comes a day after a former Justice Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower complaint that he was fired after resisting efforts to defy judicial orders.

Bove was nominated last month by the Republican president to serve on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Bove was on the defense team during Trump’s New York hush money trial and defended Trump in the two federal criminal cases brought by the Justice Department.

The White House said Bove “is unquestionably qualified for the role and has a career filled with accolades, both academically and throughout his legal career, that should make him a shoo-in for the Third Circuit.”

“The President is committed to nominating constitutionalists to the bench who will restore law and order and end the weaponization of the justice system, and Emil Bove fits that mold perfectly,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email.

Bove is likely to face heated questions over the allegations made by the whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, who was fired in April after conceding in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had been living in Maryland, was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison. Reuveni sent a letter on Tuesday to members of Congress and the Justice Department’s inspector general seeking an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing by Bove and other officials in the weeks leading up to his firing.

Reuveni described a Justice Department meeting in March concerning Trump’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act over what the president claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Reuveni says Bove raised the possibility that a court might block the deportations before they could happen. Reuveni claims Bove used a profanity in saying the department would need to consider telling the courts what to do and “ignore any such order,” Reuveni’s lawyers said in the letter.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called the allegations “utterly false,” saying that he was at the March meeting and “at no time did anyone suggest a court order should not be followed.”

“Planting a false hit piece the day before a confirmation hearing is something we have come to expect from the media, but it does not mean it should be tolerated,” Blanche wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

Bove has been at the center of other moves that have roiled the Justice Department in recent months, including the order to dismiss New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ federal corruption case. Bove’s order prompted the resignation of several Justice Department officials, including Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, who accused the department of acceding to a quid pro quo — dropping the case to ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda.

By MARIAM FAM

Born and raised in Iran, Fariba Pajooh, was detained in her country before coming to the United States. She wants to see changes in her homeland — but not by Israel firing missiles or the U.S. dropping bombs.

“Iranian people deserve democracy and freedom,” said the 45-year-old doctoral candidate in Detroit. “But real change cannot come through foreign military attacks, missiles and bombs. History has shown that democracy is not delivered by force.”

The fast-changing war between Israel and Iran, in which the U.S. recently inserted itself by targeting Iran’s nuclear sites, has caused a mix of emotions — including fear and uncertainty — among many in the Iranian diaspora in America and also showcased differences of opinion over the country’s future.

Florida House legislator Anna V. Eskamani, the daughter of Iranian immigrants, stressed that complexity.

“I think most of the diaspora is united in wanting to see a different government in Iran and wanting to see a democracy in Iran, but I think we’re also very concerned about the health and safety of our loved ones and the impact on innocent civilians.”

FILE – Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani talks with a colleague at the end of a meeting of the House Economic Infrastructure Subcommittee during a legislative session at the state Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

Diaspora divided on approach to change in Iran

Some, like Eskamani, support diplomacy rather than war; others, she said, hope military action can lead to an overthrow of the Iranian government.

“It’s very difficult, because not only are you just worried about what’s happening with your family, but then you’re worried about the division within the community here in the United States and around the world,” she said “So it’s just layer upon layer of complexity.”

Israel launched a surprise barrage of attacks on sites in Iran on June 13, saying it could not let Tehran develop atomic weapons and feared it was close to doing so. Iran has long maintained that its program is peaceful.

After the two nations volleyed strikes for several days, a fragile ceasefire now appears to be holding. If it does, it will provide a global sense of relief after the U.S. intervened by dropping bunker-buster bombs on nuclear sites over the weekend.

President Donald Trump said he was not seeking regime change in Iran, two days after first appearing to float the idea.

“I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Regime change takes chaos, and ideally we don’t want to see so much chaos.”

Fearing for family in Iran

It has been an intense period, especially for those with relatives in Iran. Pajooh said she and her mother were worried about Pajooh’s grandfather in Tehran who initially was unable to evacuate before later managing to do so.

“My mom is a tough woman,” she said. “When she calls me and cries, it’s a big thing, because always I call her and cry,” Pajooh added, her voice breaking with emotion.

Since the ceasefire, “my heart is not as heavy as it was,” she said. “I feel I can breathe.”

Pajooh, who worked as a journalist in Iran, said she was arrested and held there twice. Still, she said, any changes in the country should be the decision of the Iranian people there.

“We don’t want you to bring us democracy with your bombs,” she said. “It’s our work. We are doing it.”

In California, Sharona Nazarian, the mayor of Beverly Hills and a Jewish immigrant from Iran, forcefully defended Israel’s decision to attack.

“A nuclear-armed Iranian regime would pose a grave danger,” she told a city council meeting last week. “Israel’s action, though difficult, reflects a preemptive effort to prevent a potential catastrophe.”

She added: “True change in Iran must come from its own people. … My hope is that they will unite with strength and reclaim their future.”

Intellectually torn and emotionally messy

Rachel Sumekh grew up in Los Angeles and is Jewish. Her parents are Iranian; she has extended family in Iran and closer relatives in Israel. She knows many people of Iranian descent in the U.S. are supportive of the war because they want the “regime changed.”

“I’m just praying that this leads to more freedom and liberation for the people of Iran,” Sumekh said. “But if history has taught us anything, it’s that in the Middle East, bombs alone are not the way to create lasting peace. This is all messy and confusing and layered.”

Sumekh said that as she drove Monday near what’s known as Persian Square or “Tehrangeles,” she was surprised to see some people holding signs calling for the return of monarchy in Iran.

“Since when is a king democracy?” she said. “Regardless of what religion we belonged to, we all left Iran for a reason. Many people are upset in this moment and feel like if Iran goes back to the moment they left it, it’ll all be fine.”

In Massachusetts, when Elika Dadsetan first saw that the U.S. had struck Iran, she recalled thinking: No one wins in this.

“We want to make that change. We want to do it internally. We don’t want to have it be forced upon us and especially not from a place like Israel or the U.S., and not like this, not through bombing,” she said.

For about a week she has been having trouble getting updates from some relatives in Iran, as she grapples with grief, rage and heartbreak.

“We are resilient,” Dadsetan said. “We’ll get through this, just really, unfortunately, it will be a lot of pain before we do get through this.”

Associated Press writer Deepa Bharath contributed.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By MIKE STOBBE and LAURAN NEERGAARD

ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisers began their first meeting Wednesday under intense scrutiny from medical experts worried about Americans’ access to lifesaving shots.

First on the agenda is an awkward scenario: Kennedy already announced COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women, and his new advisers aren’t scheduled to vote on whether they agree. Yet government scientists prepared meeting materials calling vaccination “the best protection” during pregnancy — and said most children hospitalized for COVID-19 over the past year were unvaccinated.

COVID-19 remains a public health threat, resulting in 32,000 to 51,000 U.S. deaths and more than 250,000 hospitalizations since last fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most at risk for hospitalization are seniors and children under 2 — especially infants under 6 months who could have some protection if their mom got vaccinated during pregnancy, according to the CDC’s presentation.

It’s one signal that this week’s two-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices isn’t business as usual.

Another sign: Shortly before the meeting, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist stepped down from the committee, bringing the panel’s number to just seven. The Trump administration said Dr. Michael Ross withdrew during a customary review of members’ financial holdings.

The meeting opened as the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that it will continue publishing its own vaccine schedule for children but now will do so independently of the ACIP, calling it “no longer a credible process.”

The panel, created more than 60 years ago, helps the CDC determine who should be vaccinated against a long list of diseases, and when. Those recommendations have a big impact on whether insurance covers vaccinations and where they’re available, such as at pharmacies.

Earlier this month, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices. And a number of the CDC’s top vaccine scientists — including some who lead the reporting of data and the vetting of presentations at ACIP meetings — have resigned or been moved out of previous positions.

The highly unusual moves prompted a last-minute plea from a prominent Republican senator to delay this week’s meeting. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who chairs the chamber’s health committee, said Monday that many of Kennedy’s chosen panelists lack the required expertise and “may even have a preconceived bias” against new vaccine technologies.

In a House hearing Tuesday, Kennedy defended his purge, saying the old panel had been “a template for medical malpractice.”

Rep. Kim Schrier, a pediatrician and Democrat from Washington state, told Kennedy: “I will lay all responsibility for every death from a vaccine-preventable illness at your feet.”

Committee will vote on RSV protections

The two-day meeting’s agenda on was abruptly changed last week.

Discussion of COVID-19 shots will open the session on Wednesday. Later in the day, the committee will take up RSV, with votes expected. On Thursday, the committee will vote on fall flu vaccinations and on the use of a preservative in certain flu shots.

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RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be dangerous for infants.

In 2023, U.S. health officials began recommending two new measures to protect infants — a lab-made antibody for newborns and a vaccine for pregnant women — that experts say likely drove an improvement in infant mortality.

The committee will discuss another company’s newly approved antibody shot, but the exact language for the vote was not released prior to the meeting.

“I think there may be a theme of soft-pedaling or withdrawing recommendations for healthy pregnant women and healthy children,” even though they are at risk from vaccine-preventable diseases, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University who co-authored a recent medical journal commentary criticizing the COVID-19 vaccination decision.

Flu shot recommendations to be debated

At its June meetings, the committee usually refreshes guidance for Americans 6 month and older to get a flu shot, and helps greenlight the annual fall vaccination campaign.

But given the recent changes to the committee and federal public health leadership, it’s unclear how routine topics will be treated, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher who has studied the committee.

Thursday also promises controversy. The advisory panel is set to consider a preservative in a subset of flu shots that Kennedy and some antivaccine groups have falsely contended is tied to autism. In preparation, the CDC posted a new report confirming that research shows no link between the preservative, thimerosal, and autism or any other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Gostin said the agenda appears to be “a combination of what we would normally expect ACIP to cover along with a mixture of potential conspiracy theories,” he said. “We clearly are in a new normal that’s highly skeptical of vaccine science.”

The committee’s recommendations traditionally go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. Historically, nearly all are accepted and then used by insurance companies in deciding what vaccines to cover.

But the CDC currently has no director, so the committee’s recommendations have been going to Kennedy, and he has yet to act on a couple recommendations ACIP made in April.

The CDC director nominee, Susan Monarez, is slated to go before a Senate committee on Wednesday.

Neergaard reported from Washington.

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