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Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with AFP on Friday warned Russia could intensify its offensive and said Kyiv would only accept a "fair peace" despite the West's calls for a quick solution. Zelenskyy also repeated pleas for allies to send more air defense and fighter jets and said the "biggest advantage" for Russia was a ban on Ukraine using Western-donated weapons to strike Russian territory. With a mobilization law coming into force Saturday, he admitted issues with staffing and "morale" in Ukrainian ranks, which have been often outgunned and outmanned as the third year of the war grinds on. While Russian troops have made gradual advances in recent months, it has seen larger gains along the northeastern border in an offensive that began on May 10 in Kharkiv region. But Zelenskyy said on Friday that Ukraine would hold its defensive lines and stop any major Russian breakthrough. "No one is going to give up," said Zelenskyy, who has been the face of Ukraine's resistance against Russia since the invasion began in February 2022. 'Nonsense situation' Zelenskyy also rejected French President Emmanuel Macron's call for an Olympic truce during the Paris Games, saying it would hand an "advantage" to Moscow by giving it time to move around troops and artillery. He said Ukraine and its Western allies had the "same values" but often "different views," particularly on what the end of the conflict might look like. "We are in a nonsense situation where the West is afraid that Russia will lose the war. And it does not want Ukraine to lose it," Zelenskyy said. "Everyone wants to find some model for the war to end faster," he said, when asked about the possibility of a scenario for ending hostilities like the one that established a dividing line on the Korean peninsula. The president urged China and countries from the developing world to attend a peace summit with dozens of leaders being hosted by neutral Switzerland next month to which Russia has not been invited. He said global players like China "have influence on Russia. And the more such countries we have on our side, on the side of the end of the war, I would say, the more Russia will have to move and reckon with." The 46-year-old former comedian wore one of his trademark khaki outfits for the interview in Kyiv -- his first with foreign media since the start of Russia's Kharkiv region offensive. "We want the war to end with a fair peace for us," while "the West wants the war to end. Period. As soon as possible. And for them, this is a fair peace," he said. 'First wave' of Russian offensive Zelenskyy said the situation in the Kharkiv region, where thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes, was "controlled" but "not stabilized." An AFP estimate based on data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed Russian forces have advanced more than 278 square kilometers in their offensive -- their biggest gains in a year and a half. Zelenskyy said Russian troops had penetrated between five to 10 kilometers along the northeastern border before being stopped by Ukrainian forces. Russia's offensive "could consist of several waves. There was the first wave" in Kharkiv region, he said. Zelenskyy played down Russia's gains in the offensive so far but added: "We have to be sober and understand that they are going deeper into our territory. Not vice versa. And that's still their advantage." 'They are like a beast' Speaking about the offensive during a visit to China on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was a response to Ukraine shelling border regions. "I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone," he said. When asked whether Russia planned to capture the city of Kharkiv, which has more than a million inhabitants, Putin said: "As for Kharkiv, there are no such plans as of today." But Zelenskyy said that Russian forces "want to attack" the city although they realize it would be "very difficult." "They understand that we have forces that will fight for a long time," he said. He also said Russia did not have enough forces for "a full-scale offensive on the capital like the one they had at the beginning of the offensive." But he emphasized that Ukraine and its Western allies should not show weakness and called for the deployment of two Patriot batteries to defend the skies over the Kharkiv region and show Ukraine's resilience. "They are like a beast... If they feel a weakness somewhere in this direction, they will press on," he said. 'Biggest advantage' for Russia In the interview, he said Ukraine only had "about 25% of what we need" to defend the country in terms of air defense. He also said "120 to 130" F-16 fighter jets or other advanced aircraft were needed "in order to have parity" with Russia. He was highly critical of restrictions on striking Russian territory with Western arms, although Britain and the United States have hinted in recent days that these bans could be eased. "They can fire any weapons from their territory at ours. This is the biggest advantage that Russia has. We can't do anything to their systems, which are located on the territory of Russia, with Western weapons," he said. When asked about the issue during a visit to Ukraine this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that "ultimately Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it's going to conduct this war." On a more personal note, Zelenskyy said his sense of professional pride and duty helped him keep going. "I'm just a very responsible person. I was just raised to be such a person... I know that what I do, I have to do better than anyone else," he said. But he said his comedy days were behind him: "I don't make anyone laugh. It seems to me that today it's the opposite." 

LONDON — A scenic fishing village in southwestern England was under instructions to boil its tap water for a third day on Friday after a parasite sickened more than 45 people in the latest example of Britain's troubled water system. Around 16,000 homes and businesses in the Brixham area of Devon were told to boil water after cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes diarrhea, was found in the water. At least 46 cases of cryptosporidiosis have been confirmed and more than 100 other people have reported similar symptoms, the U.K. Health Security Agency said. Symptoms can last more than two weeks. Sally Dart, who runs a housewares shop near Brixham Harbor, said people in town first began feeling ill two weeks ago during a pirate festival. "No one was checking the quality of the water, and we've all got sick and it's stupid," she said.  South West Water's Chief Executive Susan Davy apologized for the outbreak and said technicians were working around the clock to identify and fix the problem that may have come from a pipe in a cattle pasture. "I am truly sorry for the disruption and wider anxiety this has caused," Davy said. "I know on this occasion we have fallen significantly short of what you expect of us." The crisis is unrelated to Britain's larger ongoing water woes but emblematic of an aging system in distress. Water companies have been under fire for more than a year to stop frequent sewage overflows into rivers and oceans that have literally caused a stink, sickened swimmers, polluted fishing streams and led to an outcry from the public to clean up their act. An environmental group this week reported that 70,000 sewage releases spilled for a total of 400,000 hours along England's coast last year. More than a quarter were within 3.2 kilometers of a swimming spot, Friends of the Earth said in its analysis of government data. Clean water advocates have blamed the problems on Britain's privatization of the water system in 1989. They say that companies have put shareholders ahead of customers and not spent enough to update outdated plumbing systems. Thames Water, the largest of the companies, is on the brink of insolvency and its leaders have said it faces the risk of being nationalized after shareholders refused to inject more cash. Earlier this week, in another sign of problems, millions of gallons of raw sewage were pumped into England's largest lake. After a fault caused pumps to fail, backup systems then pumped human waste into Lake Windermere, a UNESCO World Heritage site, for 10 hours, the BBC reported. The cryptosporidiosis outbreak is hardly the first time South West Water has encountered problems, according to authorities. The company is facing charges in Plymouth Magistrates' Court alleging 30 offenses for illegal water discharges or breaches of environmental permits between 2015 and 2021, the Environment Agency said. The recent outbreak appears to come from a damaged air valve in a pipe that runs through a field where cows graze that is close to a reservoir, said Laura Flowerdew, a spokesperson for South West. With word out about the outbreak, Dart said her business is down by about a third and other merchants complained about a loss of income as warmer weather arrives and a holiday weekend is just a week away. "I would say it's quiet and it shouldn't be at this time of year," Dart said. A primary school was forced to close Thursday because it didn't have clean drinking water. The water company is providing free bottled water at three locations and has increased compensation to customers from 15 pounds ($19) to 115 ($145). Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said it's likely more people will become ill with cryptosporidiosis in coming days or weeks because of a lag in the incubation period. "Even if they have stopped all new infections by now, you would expect to see further cases for at least 10 days to two weeks," he told the BBC. Anthony Mangnall, a Conservative member of Parliament from the area, said residents are likely to have to boil water for another week. He said he was concerned with the water company's response to the outbreak and vowed to hold it accountable. "They have been slow to act and communication with customers has been very poor," Mangnall said. "This has certainly undermined trust in our water network."

SANTIAGO, Chile — Chileans are bundling up for their coldest autumn in more than 70 years mere days after sunning in T-shirts — a dramatic change of wardrobe brought on this week by a sudden cold front gripping portions of South America unaccustomed to bitter wind chills this time of year. Temperatures broke records along the coast of Chile and in Santiago, the capital, dipping near freezing and making this month the coldest May that the country has seen since 1950, the Chilean meteorological agency reported. An unusual succession of polar air masses has moved over southern swaths of the continent, meteorological experts say, pushing the mercury below zero Celsius in some places. It's the latest example of extreme weather in the region — a heat wave now baking Mexico, for instance — which scientists link to climate change. "The past few days have been one of the longest (cold fronts) ever recorded and one of the earliest ever recorded" before the onset of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, said Raul Cordero, a climatologist at Santiago University. "Typically the incursions of cold air from the Antarctic that drive temperatures below zero occur from June onwards, not so much in May." The cold front sweeping in from Antartica has collided with warm air pushing in from the northwestern Amazon, helping fuel heavy rainstorms battering Brazil, according to that country's National Meteorological system. Chile's government issued frosty weather alerts for most of the country and ramped up assistance for homeless people struggling to endure the frigid temperatures on the streets. Snow cloaked the peaks of the Andes and fell in parts of Santiago, leading to power outages in many areas this week. "Winter came early," said Mercedes Aguayo, a street vendor hawking gloves and hats in Santiago. She said she was glad for a boost in business after Chile's record winter heat wave last year, which experts pinned on climate change as well as the cyclical El Niño weather pattern. "We had stored these goods (hats and gloves) for four years because winters were always more sporadic, one day hot, one day cold," Aguayo said. This week's cold snap also took parts of Argentina and Paraguay by surprise. Energy demand soared across many parts of Argentina. Distributors cut supplies to dozens of gas stations and industries in several provinces to avoid outages in households, the country's main hydrocarbon company, CECHA, said Thursday.

HOUSTON — Power outages could last weeks in parts of Houston, an official warned Friday, after thunderstorms with hurricane-force winds tore through the city, knocking out electricity to nearly 1 million homes and businesses in the region, blowing out windows on downtown high rises and flipping vehicles. The National Weather Service said it confirmed a tornado with peak winds of 177 kph touched down near the northwest Houston suburb of Cypress in Harris County. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county's top elected official, said crews were still trying to determine the extent of the damage and the number of casualties from Thursday's storms. Houston Mayor John Whitmire said four people, and possibly five, had died. "It was fierce. It was intense. It was quick, and most Houstonians didn't have time to place themselves out of harm's way," Whitmire said at a news conference. With multiple transmission towers down, Hidalgo urged patience. Thousands of utility workers were headed to the area, where power had already been restored to roughly 200,000 customers. Another 100,000 customers were without power in Louisiana, down from a peak of 215,000. "We are going to have to talk about this disaster in weeks, not days," Hidalgo said. She said she had heard "horror stories of just terror and powerlessness" as the storm came through. The weather service also reported straight-line winds of up to 161 kph in downtown Houston and the suburbs of Baytown and Galena Park. Noelle Delgado's heart sank as she pulled up Thursday night to Houston Pets Alive, the animal rescue organization where she is executive director. The dogs and cats — more than 30 in all — were uninjured, but the awning had been ripped off, the sign was mangled and water was leaking inside. With power expected to be out for some time and temperatures forecast to climb into past 32 degrees Celsius on Saturday, she hoped to find foster homes for the animals. "I could definitely tell that this storm was a little different," she said. "It felt terrifying." Yesenia Guzmán, 52, worried whether she would get paid with the power still out at the restaurant where she works in the Houston suburb of Katy. "We don't really know what's going to happen," she said. The widespread destruction brought much of Houston to a standstill. Trees, debris and shattered glass littered the streets. One building's wall was ripped off. School districts in the Houston area canceled classes for more than 400,000 students and government offices were closed. City officials urged people avoid downtown and stay off roads, many of which were flooded or lined with downed power lines and malfunctioning traffic lights. Whitmire said at least 2,500 traffic lights were out. He also warned would-be looters that "police are out in force, including 50 state troopers sent to the area to prevent looting." At least two of the deaths were caused by falling trees and another happened when a crane blew over in strong winds, officials said. Whitmire's office posted a photo Friday on the social platform X showing the mayor signing a disaster declaration, which paves the way for state and federal storm recovery assistance. President Joe Biden later issued a disaster declaration for seven counties in Texas, including Harris, due to severe weather since April 26. His action makes federal funding available to people affected by the storms. The problems from Thursday's storms extended to the Houston suburbs, with emergency officials in neighboring Montgomery County describing the damage to transmission lines as "catastrophic." High-voltage transmission towers that were torn apart and downed power lines pose a twofold challenge for the utility company because the damage affected transmission and distribution systems, according to Alexandria von Meier, a power and energy expert who called that a rare thing. "It's more typical that the damage is just at the distribution system, which is, you know, just not as strong," von Meier said, referring to power lines that tend to be more susceptible to wind damage. How quickly repairs are made will depend on a variety of factors, including the time it takes to assess the damage, equipment replacement, roadwork access issues and workforce availability. Centerpoint Energy deployed 1,000 employees on Friday and had a pending request for 5,000 more line workers and vegetation professionals. One silver lining, von Meier said, is that the damage was localized, unlike what happened in the 2021 statewide freeze, which could allow for other jurisdictions to send resources more readily. Although customers might want an aggressive repair timeline, she cautioned that it must proceed carefully and methodically. "Because if you try to fix this kind of thing in a hurry and you try to restore power in a hurry, you might injure people. You would be putting the workers at risk. You could be putting other people at risk. You could be blowing up equipment that then is going to take longer to replace," von Meier said. The storms also weren't over Friday. Gulf Coast states could experience scattered, severe thunderstorms with tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds. Heavy to excessive rainfall is possible for eastern Louisiana into central Alabama, the National Weather Service said. Flood watches and warnings remained Friday for Houston and areas to the east. The Storm Prediction Center's website showed a report of a tornado in Convent, Louisiana, about 89 kilometers from New Orleans, with multiple reports of trees and power poles down. A suspected tornado hit the Romeville area of St. James Parish on Thursday night with some homes impacted and trees down, but no injuries or fatalities had been reported, parish officials said in a social media post on Friday morning. There were wind gusts of 135 kph at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and 132 kph at New Orleans Lakefront Airport, according to Tim Erickson, a meteorologist at the weather service's office for New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The office for New Orleans and Baton Rouge issued a flash flood warning through Saturday. Heavy storms slammed the Houston area during the first week of May, leading to numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

TAPACHULA, Mexico — Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo were meeting Friday in this Mexican border city to tackle issues of shared interest, foremost among them immigration. Arévalo, who took office earlier this year, noted that they were meeting in the same city where his father Juan José Arévalo, a former president of Guatemala, had met with his Mexican counterpart, Manuel Ávila Camacho, in 1946. "We want a border that unites, a border that unites our people, the Mexican people and the Guatemalan people, a border that allows us to develop and grow together, with reciprocal benefit, trust, enthusiasm and collaboration," Arévalo said. But both countries are under pressure from the United States to increase control of their shared border to help control the flow of migrants north. The border also carries security concerns, as so many do. Before their meeting — the first for the two leaders — López Obrador said he was worried about security in the border area. Two Mexican cartels have been battling for control in the area, causing death and displacement in remote, rural areas as they try to assert control of the drug, migrant and weapons flows through the area. He said Guatemala was concerned too and the leaders would discuss how to address it. The encounter also comes at a time of intense diplomatic activity between the United States and Mexico and with other countries in the region as the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden tries to get a handle before the November election on migration to the U.S.-Mexico border that reached record levels in late 2023. Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena said Tuesday that Mexico, the United States and Guatemala are in agreement that they will direct more resources to the Mexico-Guatemala border, accelerate development programs, commerce and job creation. She also said Mexico would discuss issuing more temporary work visas to bring Guatemalan labor to Mexico. Perhaps to that end, López Obrador announced Friday that Mexico plans to extend a cargo train line that spans a narrow isthmus in the south to the Guatemalan border. He also repeated his interest in eventually extending his Maya Train legacy project to Guatemala's Peten jungle, something Arévalo's predecessor declined. For migrants headed north, the critical points in their journey tend to be the Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama where 500,000 migrants — mostly Venezuelans — crossed last year and then again at the Mexico-Guatemala border. Panama's President-elect José Raúl Mulino has promised to shut down traffic through the Darien. To what extent he can remains to be seen. On Friday, Panama's outgoing immigration chief said the country was incapable of carrying out mass deportations. "We can't make it massive because of the high cost and the coordination you have to do with the other countries," Samira Gozaine, director general of immigration said. "If we could deport all of those who enter we would do it." Bárcena, Mexico's foreign minister, said the shared Mexico-Guatemala-Belize border is also important. But it is similarly challenging to police. The border is long, mountainous and remote, filled with blind crossings for migrants and their smugglers. Those are many of the same routes currently being disputed by the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels. "We want to make that border space an exemplary space … no walls," Bárcena said. "The people should feel they entered a country that is pleasant, that can offer them opportunities." Migrants have typically found traversing Mexico anything but pleasant. They are repeatedly robbed and kidnapped by organized crime and systematically extorted by Mexican authorities, who in recent years have either tried to contain them in the south or return them there time and again until they exhaust their resources. The same day Bárcena spoke, Carlos Campos, a Venezuelan travelling with his wife, sister, and nieces and nephews, was flown from Mexico City back to Tapachula after trying to hop a train north. "They sent us back and we're (north) again," he said as they made their way out of Tapachula. 

seoul — North Korea on Saturday confirmed that it had test-fired a tactical ballistic missile, the government news agency KCNA reported, with leader Kim Jong Un vowing to boost the country's nuclear force.  Kim oversaw the Friday test-launch into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on a mission to evaluate the "accuracy and reliability" of a new autonomous navigation system, the KCNA report said.  Kim expressed "great satisfaction" over the test.  The South Korean government reported the launch Friday, saying the North had fired multiple suspected short-range ballistic missiles.  Seoul described the event as "several flying objects presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles" from North Korea's eastern Wonsan area into waters off its coast.  The missiles traveled around 300 kilometers (186 miles), the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said, adding that the military had "strengthened vigilance and surveillance in preparation for additional launches" and was sharing information with allies Washington and Tokyo.  The launch was the latest in a string of ever more sophisticated tests by North Korea, which has fired off cruise missiles, tactical rockets and hypersonic weapons in recent months, in what the nuclear-armed country says is a drive to upgrade its defenses.  Seoul and Washington have accused North Korea of sending arms to Russia, which would violate rafts of U.N. sanctions on both countries. Experts have said the recent spate of testing may be of weapons destined for use on battlefields in Ukraine.  The launches came hours after Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, accused Seoul and Washington of "misleading the public opinion" on the issue with their repeated accusations that Pyongyang is sending weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine.  The same day, Kim Jong Un visited a military production facility and called for "more rapidly bolstering the nuclear force... without halt and hesitation," the KCNA report said Saturday.   "The enemies would be afraid of and dare not to play with fire only when they witness the nuclear combat posture of our state," KCNA reported Kim Jong Un as saying. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

new york — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains such asd the chauvinist boss in "9 to 5" and the nasty TV director in "Tootsie," has died. He was 92.  Coleman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, said in a statement to The Associated Press. She said he "took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely."  "The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really — in a uniquely singular way — an archetype as a character actor. He was so good at what he did it's hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him," Ben Stiller wrote on X.  Coleman's delivery drew fans For two decades Coleman labored in movies and television shows as a talented but largely unnoticed performer. That changed in 1976 when he was cast as the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," a satirical soap opera that was so over the top no network would touch it.  Producer Norman Lear finally managed to syndicate the show, which starred Louise Lasser in the title role. It quickly became a cult favorite. Coleman's character, Mayor Merle Jeeter, was especially popular and his masterful, comic deadpan delivery did not go overlooked by film and network executives.  A six-footer with an ample black mustache, Coleman went on to make his mark in numerous popular films, including as a stressed out computer scientist in "War Games," Tom Hanks' father in "You've Got Mail," and a firefighting official in "The Towering Inferno."  He won a Golden Globe for "The Slap Maxwell Story" and an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in Peter Levin's 1987 small screen legal drama "Sworn to Silence." Some of his recent credits include "Ray Donovan" and a recurring role on "Boardwalk Empire," for which he won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.  In the groundbreaking 1980 hit "9 to 5," he was the "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss who tormented his unappreciated female underlings — Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — until they turned the tables on him.  Opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie," he was the obnoxious director of a daytime soap opera that Hoffman's character joins by pretending to be a woman.   Coleman's obnoxious characters didn't translate quite as well on television, where he starred in a handful of network comedies. Although some became cult favorites, only one lasted longer than two seasons, and some critics questioned whether a series starring a lead character with absolutely no redeeming qualities could attract a mass audience.  Underneath all that bravura was a reserved man. Coleman insisted he was really quite shy. "I've been shy all my life. Maybe it stems from being the last of four children, all of them very handsome, including a brother who was Tyrone Power-handsome. Maybe it's because my father died when I was 4," he told The Associated Press in 1984. "I was extremely small, just a little guy who was there, the kid who created no trouble. I was attracted to fantasy, and I created games for myself."  As Coleman aged, he began to put his mark on pompous authority figures, notably in 1998's "My Date with the President's Daughter," in which he was not only an egotistical, self-absorbed president of the United States, but also a clueless father to a teenager girl.  Abandons law school to act Dabney Coleman — his real name — was born in 1932 in Austin, Texas. After two years at the Virginia Military Academy, two at the University of Texas and two in the Army, he was a 26-year-old law student when he met another Austin native, Zachry Scott, who starred in "Mildred Pierce" and other films.  "He was the most dynamic person I've ever met. He convinced me I should become an actor, and I literally left the next day to study in New York. He didn't think that was too wise, but I made my decision," Coleman told the AP in 1984.  Twice divorced, Coleman is survived by four children and five grandchildren.  "My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity," Quincy Coleman wrote in his honor. 

cairo — The 35 American and other international doctors came to Gaza in volunteer teams to help one of the territory's few hospitals still functioning. They brought suitcases full of medical supplies and had trained for one of the worst war zones in the world. They knew the health care system was decimated and overwhelmed. The reality is even worse than they imagined, they say. Children with horrific amputations. Patients with burns and maggot-filled wounds. Rampant infections. Palestinian doctors and nurses beyond exhausted after seven months of treating never-ending waves of civilians wounded in Israel's war with Hamas. "I did not expect that [it] will be that bad," said Dr. Ammar Ghanem, an intensive care unit specialist from Detroit, Michigan, with the Syrian American Medical Society. "You hear the news, but you cannot really recognize ... how bad until you come and see it." Israel's incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah has exacerbated the chaos. On May 7, Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, closing the main entry and exit point for international humanitarian workers. The teams were trapped beyond the scheduled end of their two-week mission. On Friday, days after the teams were supposed to leave, talks between U.S. and Israeli authorities yielded results, and some of the doctors could get out of Gaza. At least 14, including three Americans, however, chose to stay, according to one of the organizations, the Palestinian American Medical Association. The U.S.-based nonprofit medical group FAJR Scientific, which organized a second volunteer team, could not immediately be reached. The White House said 17 Americans left Gaza on Friday, and at least three chose to stay behind. Those who left included Ghanem, who said the 15-mile trip from the hospital to the Kerem Shalom crossing took more than four hours as explosions went off around them. He described some tense moments, such as when an Israeli tank at the crossing took aim at the doctors' convoy. "The tank moved and blocked our way, and they directed their weapons [at] us. So that was a scary moment," Ghanem said. The two international teams have been working since early May at the European General Hospital, just outside Rafah, the largest hospital still operating in southern Gaza. The volunteers are mostly American surgeons but include medical professionals from Britain, Australia, Egypt, Jordan, Oman and other nations. The World Health Organization said the United Nations, which coordinates visits of volunteer teams, is in talks with Israel to resume moving humanitarian workers in and out of Gaza. The Israeli military said it had no comment. Shattered system The doctors' mission gave them a firsthand look at a health system that has been shattered by Israel's offensive in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel. Nearly two dozen hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating, and the remaining dozen are only partially working. Israel's campaign has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 79,000, according to Gaza health officials. Almost 500 health workers are among the dead. The military's nearly 2-week-old Rafah operation has sent more than 600,000 Palestinians fleeing the city and scattering across southern Gaza. Much of the European Hospital's Palestinian staff left to help families find new shelter. As a result, the foreign volunteers are stretched between medical emergencies and other duties, such as trying to find patients inside the hospital. There is no staff to log where incoming wounded are placed. Medicines that the teams brought with them are running out. Thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in the hospital. Outside, sewage overflows in the streets, and drinking water is brackish or polluted, spreading disease. The road to the hospital from Rafah is now unsafe: The United Nations says an Israeli tank fired on a marked U.N. vehicle on the road Monday, killing a U.N. security officer and wounding another. When the Rafah assault began, FAJR Scientific's 17 doctors were living in a guesthouse in the city. With no warning from the Israeli army to evacuate, the team was stunned by bombs landing a few hundred meters from the clearly marked house, said Mosab Nasser, FAJR's CEO. They scrambled out, still wearing their scrubs, and moved to the European Hospital, where the other team was staying. Dr. Mohamed Tahir, an orthopedic surgeon from London with FAJR, does multiple surgeries a day on little sleep. He's often jolted awake by bombings shaking the hospital. Work is frantic. Heavy heart Tahir said that when the Rafah assault began, Palestinian colleagues at the hospital nervously asked if the volunteers would leave. "It makes my heart feel really heavy," Tahir said. The Palestinian staff members know that when the teams leave, "they have no more protection. And that could mean that this hospital turns into Shifa, which is a very real possibility." Israeli forces stormed Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, for a second time in March, leaving it in ruins. Israel alleges that Hamas uses hospitals as command centers and hideouts, an accusation Gaza health officials deny. The patients Tahir has saved keep him going. Tahir and other surgeons operated for hours on a man with severe wounds to the skull and abdomen and shrapnel in his back. They did a second surgery on him Wednesday night. "I looked at my colleagues and said, 'You know what? If this patient survives — just this patient — everything we've done, or everything we've experienced, would all be worth it,'" Tahir said.

WASHINGTON — An upside-down U.S. flag has long been a sign of dire distress and versatile symbol of protest. But in January 2021, when it flew over the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, it was largely seen in connection with a specific cause: the false claim by then-President Donald Trump's supporters that the 2020 election had been marred by fraud. The revelation this week about the flag flying at Alito's home was the latest blow to a Supreme Court already under fire as it considers unprecedented cases against Trump and some of those charged with rioting at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Alito has said the flag was briefly flown by his wife amid a dispute with neighbors and he had no part in it. But the incident reported by The New York Times adds to concerns about an institution that's increasingly seen as partisan and lacking strict ethical guidelines. The high court is now facing questions about whether the spouses of two of its members question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and if those justices should be hearing cases related to the January 6 riot and Trump's role in it. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, faced calls for recusal after reports that his wife, Virginia Thomas, was involved in efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 election win. "We're talking about a fundamental bedrock American value about peaceful transfer of power, about elections," said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable US, a progressive watchdog organization. "It's just the integrity of the democratic process." Several Democrats in Congress, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, called for Alito to recuse himself from Trump-related cases. Justices can and do voluntarily recuse themselves, but they make those calls and they aren't subject to review. There was no indication Alito would do so. He did not respond to a request for comment sent through the court's public information office. While the Supreme Court long went without its own specific code of ethics, an institutional reputation of staying above the political fray has long helped bolster its relatively high levels of public trust. But in the wake of the 2022 decision overturning a nationwide right to abortion — an opinion that was leaked before its release — public trust sank to its lowest level in 50 years. There's also been sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices. The high court adopted a code of ethics last year, but it lacks a means of enforcement. Alito, a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed in 2006, has been one of the most court's most conservative justices and authored the decision overturning Roe v. Wade. During oral arguments in the election interference case against Trump, he appeared skeptical of Justice Department arguments that past presidents aren't completely immune from prosecution, and seemed one of the justices most likely to find that prosecutors went too far in bringing obstruction charges against hundreds of participants in the January 6 riot. Ethical guidelines generally make it clear that judges should recuse themselves in cases where their spouses have financial interest, but the situation is less clear when spouses have a publicly known political point of view, said Arthur Hellman, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether Alito was aware of the inverted flag at the time or its links to Trump supporters, said Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics expert at New York University School of Law. "I don't believe Alito knew the flag was flying upside down or if he did know, I find it hard to believe that he knew the relationship to "'Stop the Steal,'" he said in an email. Martha-Ann Alito hung the upside-down flag during a dust-up with a neighbor in Alexandria, Virginia, who had a lawn sign referring to Trump with an expletive during a the "heated time" of January 2021, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream said in an online post, citing a conversation with Justice Alito. Demands for recusals by justices and judges have been part of political disputes over the high court and elsewhere in the legal system. But while a system exists for penalizing lower-court judges who are accused of conflicts or other wrongdoing, there is no mechanism to sanction Supreme Court justices. Only Congress can impeach a Supreme Court justice, said Michael Frisch, ethics counsel at Georgetown Law. One justice, Abe Fortas, resigned from the Supreme Court in 1969 amid a controversy over receiving $20,000 from a Wall Street financier. An impeachment, though, has only happened once, to Justice Samuel Chase in the early 1800s. He was later acquitted by the Senate. 

Aid groups welcome the start of operations to send aid into Gaza from a floating pier but say it's no substitute for land-based aid shipments. UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram on the war's dire consequences for children in Gaza. As Russian forces advance along the frontlines in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin shores up Moscow's alliance with China in a two-day visit meeting with his counterpart in Beijing Andrea Kendall-Taylor, senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, Transatlantic Security Program and co-author of the new eBook 'The Origins of Elected Strongmen' on why authoritarianism appears to be on the rise across the globe.

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After 20 years in Iraq, the United Nations has been told by the Iraqi prime minister it is time to move on. VOA's United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.