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United Nations — The U.N. Secretary-General warned Thursday that the Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, killing nearly a half-million people annually, and he blamed fossil fuels for driving global warming. “Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic — wilting under increasingly deadly heat waves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit. And halfway to boiling,” Antonio Guterres told reporters. Sunday was the Earth’s hottest day on record, only to have the record broken the following day. Temperatures have been rising steadily, with scientists declaring the last 13 consecutive months all heat record-breakers. Urban areas are heating up at twice the global average. Heat waves have killed scores of people this year in India and in Africa’s Sahel region. Last month, extreme heat killed 1,300 Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia. This month, Europe, the United States and Asia have also seen exceptional heat. He said that the World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization estimate that improvements to heat health warning systems in 57 countries could save nearly 100,000 lives a year. Fossil fuels Guterres has repeatedly called on greenhouse gas emitters to meet the 2015 Paris Climate Accord’s target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — a goal that many worry is slipping away. He said that fossil fuel expansion and new coal plants are obstacles to meeting that target. “I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” he said. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future.” He urged leaders to quickly and fairly phase out fossil fuels and end new coal projects. “The G20 must shift fossil fuel subsidies to renewables and support vulnerable countries and communities,” he said of the world’s largest economies. And he urged more climate adaptation and mitigation financing from the richest countries — which are the biggest emitters — to help the poorest, most vulnerable nations that have contributed the least to global warming. Guterres said he is launching a global call to action focused on caring for the most vulnerable, including protecting workers who are exposed to extreme heat. “A new report from the International Labor Organization — being released today — warns that over 70% of the global workforce — 2.4 billion people — are now at high risk of extreme heat,” he said. In addition to the rights and health of individual workers, there are economic impacts of extreme heat too. “Heat stress at work is projected to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030. Up from $280 billion in the mid-1990s,” Guterres said, adding measures need to be taken to “heat proof” critical sectors of the global economy, like farming and construction work. The U.N. chief warned that extreme heat widens social inequality, undermines development, furthers food insecurity, and pushes people deeper into poverty. “Leaders across the board must wake up and step up,” he said.

kyiv, ukraine — The former prisoners of war still puzzle over the strange events leading up to the night now seared into their memories, when an explosion ripped through the Russian-controlled Olenivka prison barracks and killed so many comrades two years ago. Among the survivors: Kyrylo Masalitin, whose months in captivity and long beard age him beyond his 30 years. Arsen Dmytryk, the informal commander of the group of POWs that was shifted without explanation to a room newly stocked with bare bunks. And Mykyta Shastun, who recalled guards laughing as the building burned, acting not at all like men under enemy attack. "Before my eyes, there were guys who were dying, who were being revived, but it was all in vain," said Masalitin, who is back on the front line and treated as a father figure by the men he commands. The Associated Press interviewed over a dozen people with direct knowledge of details of the attack, including survivors, investigators and families of the dead and missing. All described evidence they believe points directly to Russia as the culprit. The AP also obtained an internal United Nations analysis that found the same. Despite the conclusion of the internal analysis that found Russia planned and executed the attack, the U.N. stopped short of accusing Russia in public statements. Of 193 Ukrainians in the barracks, fewer than two dozen made it back home. More than 50 died on the night of July 28, 2022. Around 120 are missing and believed detained somewhere in Russia. Russia accused Ukraine of striking its own men with U.S.-supplied missiles. There are no active international investigations into the attack and a Ukrainian inquiry is one of tens of thousands of war crimes for investigators there, raising wider questions about whether those who committed crimes in occupied areas can ever face justice. The U.N. has rejected Russia's claims that Ukrainian government HIMARS targeted the men, as do the victims who returned in prisoner exchanges, like Masalitin. When the former POWs have time to reflect – rare since many have returned to the fight – they say too many things don't add up. In the days following the Olenivka deaths, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres launched an independent mission to investigate. Russia refused to guarantee the mission's safety and its members never traveled either to occupied territory in the eastern Donetsk region or to Ukrainian-held territory. It dissolved five months later. But when survivors began to return to Ukraine in exchanges, a U.N. field team that had been in-country since 2014 sought them out. That team analyzed 70 open-source images, 20 statements by Russian officials along with 16 survivor interviews from Russian television. They conducted in-depth interviews with 55 freed POWs who were in the barracks or elsewhere in Olenivka during the attack. Their conclusion: Russia planned and executed the attack. The 100-page analysis circulated at the highest levels of the U.N. but was never intended to be published in full. Some of the evidence was incorporated piecemeal into broader U.N. reports on the war, including one that said the missile traveled from east to west. The Russian Federation controls the territory east of where the prisoners were kept. The U.N. never publicly blamed Russia. Names on a list The lists of names the Russians drew up in late July 2022 had no explanation, no context. All the men listed were from the Azov unit who became national heroes after holding out for months against an overwhelmingly larger Russian force in the city of Mariupol. The prisoners were told to be ready. No one knew why. On the morning of July 27, 2022, the group was rounded up and led to an industrial section of the colony, away from the other five POW barracks. They were taken to a cinder-block building with a tin-plate roof and 100 bunks, no mattresses and a hastily dug pit toilet, multiple survivors told AP. "Everything in the barracks was prepared very quickly," said Arsen Dmytryk, who outranked the others and became the informal leader. The barbed wire was cheap and flimsy, and there were machine tools inside, indicating that the building was recently a workshop. The prison director visited to tell them that their old barracks were under renovation, although plenty of other prisoners had remained. Ukrainians who have been since released said there was no renovation. That first day, the guards dug trenches for themselves, said Shastun. Ukraine's Security Service told AP that their analysis confirmed the presence of the unusual new trenches. On July 28, the colony management ordered the guard post moved further away, and for the first time the barrack guards "wore bullet-proof vests and helmets which they had not done before and unlike other colony personnel who rarely wore them," according to a section of the internal U.N. analysis later incorporated into public reports. On the night of July 28 around 10:30 p.m., Dmytryk completed his checks, cut the lights, climbed into the top bunk and fell asleep at once. An explosion woke him perhaps 45 minutes later, followed by the sound of a Grad missile launcher. But he'd heard that before and drifted back to sleep. Ukrainian POWs elsewhere in the colony told the U.N. investigators that the Grad fire muffled sounds of the bigger explosions. Pleas for help returned with threats Dmytryk's memories then turn apocalyptic. His body burned with shrapnel wounds. Fire raged. Men screamed in pain. And he climbed down from his bunk, he checked the pulse of the man below him. He was already dead. He and other witnesses told AP they ran outside through broken walls to beg the guards to send help for the injured. "They fired into the air, saying, 'Stay away from the gates, don't come closer,'" Dmytryk recalled. If Dmytryk's memories are a narrative of horror, Shastun's are more like disjointed film scenes. He recalled the guards just stood there laughing, tossing rags and flashlights at the panicked Ukrainians. It took hours before POW medics were sent from the other barracks to help, around the same time as Russian forces brought in trucks and told survivors to load them with the most severely wounded. "We carried them on stretchers, lifted them into the car, unloaded them and then ran back to get the other wounded," Shastun said. One person died in a comrade's arms. It was mid-morning when they finished, and the trucks were piled with bloody men. Dmytryk was among them, his face caked in dried blood. He said men in another truck died before they made it to the hospital in Donetsk. The U.N. said in its public report of March 2023 that slow medical care worsened the death toll. "They transported us like cattle, not stopping, speeding over bumps and taking sharp turns," he said. Also among the wounded was Serhii Alieksieievych, whose wife, Mariia, last caught sight of him in his hospital bed in a video circulating on Russian media, slowly answering questions as he recovered from his injuries. Survivors isolated from other prisoners Back at Olenivka, Shastun was one of approximately 70 survivors with lesser injuries who were taken to two 5x5 meter cells as the last of the trucks drove away, to be isolated from the rest of the prison colony. There were wooden pallets for sleeping and a single toilet in each. The internal U.N. analysis said their isolation was intended to prevent survivors speaking to others in the colony about what happened that night because some prisoners had access to mobile phones and had direct contact with Ukraine. It also left them unaware of the debate raging outside. According to the analysis, other Ukrainian prisoners were then sent to the bombed barracks and ordered to remove debris and the remaining bodies. Two hours later, that group was sent into a nearby hangar, and some saw men in camouflage bringing boxes of ammunition to the blast site and setting HIMARS fragments on a blue bench nearby. Russian officials soon arrived, accompanied by Russian journalists whose images of twisted, charred bunk beds, HIMARS fragments and bodies laid out in the sun spread across the world. The Ukrainians in the nearby hangar said after everyone was gone, the men in camouflage returned everything to the boxes and left. As the clock ticked down to a U.N. Security Council meeting later that day, Russia and Ukraine blamed each other. Russia opened an investigation and said Kyiv did it to silence soldiers from confessing to their "crimes" and used their recently acquired American-made HIMARS rockets. Ukraine denied the charge and said Russia was framing Ukraine to discredit the country before its allies. The international community didn't know who to believe. That's when the U.N. announced it would conduct its own investigation, but negotiations to access the site were long and ultimately fruitless. Guterres' special mission was disbanded on January 5, 2023, having never traveled to Ukraine. "The members of the mission were of the view that it would be indispensable for them to be able to access all the relevant sites, materials and victims in order to fulfill its task and establish the facts of the incident," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told AP. Without that, the mission "was not in a position to provide any conclusions." But the separate Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, which had been based in the country since Russia's first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, didn't wait. The team combed through testimonies on Russian television from 16 survivors taken to the hospital, examined public images from the site and analyzed 20 statements made by Russian officials who visited the prison. The mission informally shared an abridged version of its preliminary analysis with the U.N.'s newly formed Olenivka probe. Then on September 22, a surprise prisoner swap gave the Human Rights Monitoring Mission its first chance to speak to witnesses and survivors. But from the date of the explosion, it would take eight months for any of that material to emerge publicly, and then only in pieces. Dujarric did not respond to questions about the internal analysis. In July 2023, U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk publicly stated what the internal report had first said nearly a year before — that HIMARS were not responsible. Three months later, the U.N. devoted a section to Olenivka in its annual report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. Again, cribbing from the internal analysis, the report noted that HIMARS were not responsible, that the fragments shown by Russian officials were not "in situ," the scene had been contaminated and physical evidence disturbed. The report concluded that the damage "appeared consistent with a projected ordnance having travelled with an east-to-west trajectory." It failed to note that Russia controlled the eastern territory. Fading hopes for justice A Ukrainian investigation is ongoing, according to Taras Semkiv of the Ukrainian prosecutor general's war crimes unit. The challenge is to identify the weapon used, in hopes that could lead to who ordered the attack. Semkiv said it's been narrowed to three possibilities — artillery, planted explosives or a grenade launcher. The Olenivka director is named as a suspect in "conspiracy for the ill-treatment of POWs" but the investigation leaves open the probability that more people were involved. At the war crimes unit headquarters of the Ukraine Security Service, known as the SBU, meters-long charts line the walls, illustrating the hierarchy of Russian officials responsible for various sections of the front line. Semkiv said no international investigators have requested information from the General Prosecutor's Office since the deaths at Olenivka, including the disbanded U.N. fact-finding mission. He said initial optimism about the mission faded as soon as it became clear that they would not investigate at all if there was no access to the prison. "Technology is advancing rapidly, and there are ways to assess the situation without the direct presence of an investigator or prosecutor at the scene," he said. Relatives of those missing from the bombed barracks say they're now alone in their search for answers. First there was hope "that the world would not turn its back on us," said Mariia Alieksieievych, the wife of the soldier seen recovering in the Donetsk hospital video. Her letters to her husband are shots in the dark – she hands them to the Red Cross, but as far as she knows there's never been access to the prisoners. She said Ukraine's government gives them no help or news about whether the men could be included in any future exchanges and has ignored requests for a day of remembrance for the Olenivka victims. Her fading hopes for an international investigation have been replaced by determination. She and other relatives want the International Criminal Court to take up the case, but she's realistic enough to know that's a distant possibility. Her goal in the meantime: "To save the lives of our defenders, to bring them home. Because in Russian captivity, death is not an isolated case."

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Kansas City, Kansas — A man who officials say worked for one of North Korea's military intelligence agencies has been indicted for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to hack American health care providers, federal prosecutors announced Thursday. A grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, indicted Rim Jong Hyok, who is accused of laundering ransom money and using the money to fund additional cyberattacks on defense, technology and government entities around the world. The hack on American hospitals on other health care providers disrupted the treatment of patients, officials said. "While North Korea uses these types of cybercrimes to circumvent international sanctions and fund its political and military ambitions, the impact of these wanton acts have a direct impact on the citizens of Kansas," said Stephen A. Cyrus, an FBI agent based in Kansas City. Online court records do not list an attorney for Hyok. Justice Department officials said an attack on a Kansas hospital, which they did not identify, happened in May 2021 when hackers encrypted the medical center's files and servers. The hospital paid about $100,000 in Bitcoin to get its data back. The department said it recovered that ransom as well as a payment from a Colorado health care provider affected by the same Maui ransomware variant. The Justice Department has brought multiple criminal cases related to North Korean hacking in recent years, often alleging a profit-driven motive that differentiates the activity from that of hackers in Russia and China. In 2021, for instance, the department charged three North Korean computer programmers in a broad range of global hacks, including a destructive attack targeting an American movie studio, and in the attempted theft and extortion of more than $1.3 billion from banks and companies. Investigators said Hyok has been a member of the Andariel Unit of the North Korean government's Reconnaissance General Bureau, a military intelligence agency. Hyok allegedly conspired to use ransomware software to conduct cyberespionage hacks against American hospitals and other government and technology entities in South Korea, and China.

Phnom Penh — A $7 million grant to bolster independent media in Cambodia is being welcomed by the country’s journalists.   The United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, in July announced a grant designed to help “strengthen and expand the diversity of trustworthy news” in Cambodia.   Details of the funding emerged as the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, known as CamboJA, released its quarterly assessment of conditions for media.   CamboJA found that media are still subject to legal and physical harassment, and that some journalists were brought in for questioning by authorities.   Between April and June, the association documented one physical assault and at least six cases of legal harassment, including journalists being questioned on accusations of incitement and defamation. The Ministry of Information also revoked licenses for two media outlets that it said had violated professionalism and ethics.   Nop Vy, who is executive director of CamboJA, told VOA Khmer the association has identified two key concerns: laws used against reporters, including so-called citizen journalists who publish via social media; and a limited understanding of media ethics   among journalists new to the field.  "They still have little understanding of the journalism profession, the use of words, the use of certain behaviors, and some of the activities that, in turn, can affect some privacy rights and human rights,” he said.   Nop Vy said that lack of understanding has contributed to the growing number of lawsuits against journalists.  The head of CamboJA added that because of legal pressures, Cambodia is seeing a decline in independent journalists. That trend could in turn lead to a decline in the quality of information available to audiences, he said.  Against that backdrop, CamboJA and the country’s media widely welcome the new five-year USAID grant, which is designed to ensure audiences have access to independent news and to assist in “bolstering” local media.   “The purpose of this activity is to strengthen and expand the diversity of trustworthy news and information sources available to Cambodians so that they can be better equipped to participate in civic life,” USAID said, as it invited groups to apply.    A USAID spokesperson told VOA Khmer via email that the agency has supported Cambodia's independent media in the past and will continue to do so through the grant.  The spokesperson highlighted the importance of a strong media sector with diverse, independent information sources for democratic development.  Nop Vy, who says his organization intends to apply for a grant, said the funding will benefit Cambodia’s journalists.  "It may help to enhance press freedom and strengthen independent media. Having the right support helps protect journalists working in the field," Nop Vy said.  He said that journalists are pivotal to a democratic society and that the U.S. could contribute to reviving and reinforcing the democratic process in Cambodia.  Hang Samphors, head of Cambodian Female Journalists, or CFJ, said the assistance is important in advancing independent media in Cambodia, where the sector is small and operating space limited.  "With adequate budget for program implementation, independent media can effectively disseminate information and programs to reach our people, enabling informed decisions and contributing significantly to our country's economic development," Samphors said.   She said she hopes the aid will help more female journalists.   Tep Asnarith, spokesperson for the Cambodian Ministry of Information, emphasized the necessity for genuine stakeholder participation and adherence to professional standards in developing Cambodia's media sector.  "We are actively engaged in promoting journalistic values and fostering media sector growth," Tep Asnarith told VOA.    Cambodia ranks 151 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best media environment.   This story originated in VOA’s Khmer service. 

Athens — Greece formally approved an offer to buy 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the United States as part of a major defense overhaul, government officials said Thursday. "The letter of acceptance for the F-35s has been signed and sent to the United States," Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said while visiting a military air base near Athens. The purchase, he said, would create "a powerful deterrent presence in our region." Delivery of the fifth-generation jet made by Lockheed Martin is expected to start in 2028, while Greece maintains the option to purchase 20 additional F-35 jets as part of an $8.6 billion deal. The purchase of the first 20 jets along with additional support will cost some $3.5 billion, Greek officials said. Greece is overhauling its military in a decade-long program following a protracted financial crisis and continued tension with neighbor and NATO ally Turkey, mostly over a volatile sea boundary dispute.  Turkey was dropped from the F-35 program five years ago over its decision to buy Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile system, a move seen in the United States as a compromise to NATO security.  In Athens, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis described the current military modernization campaign as the most significant in "many decades."  "We will continue to implement this major program, equipping our country and armoring its defenses," Marinakis said. Athens has been seeking an advantage in the air since Turkey's exclusion from F-35 purchases and has also acquired advanced French-made Rafale fighter jets. Deliveries to the Greek air force began in 2021, starting with jets previously used by France's military that will be supplemented by new aircraft built by French defense contractor Dassault Aviation.  Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martin's vice president and general manager of the F-35 program, described the aircraft as being ideal to "strengthen Greece's sovereignty and operational capability with allies." "It is our honor to continue (our) relationship as Greece becomes the 19th nation to join the F-35 program," she said.  The U.S. State Department in January approved the sale that could eventually total 40 F-35 aircraft, along with 42 engines as well as services and equipment including secure communications devices, electronic warfare systems, training, logistics, and maintenance support.  Current members of the F-35 program, either as participants or through military sales, are: the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Israel, Japan, Korea, Belgium, Poland, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

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Paris — The Paris Games have fully embraced skateboarding, with its youthful appeal and blockbuster television ratings, but skaters say they have to stay off their boards inside the Olympic Village.  American women's park competitor Minna Stess had been eager to ride her board around the 52-hectare village, where some 14,500 athletes and their staff are free to mingle without the COVID restrictions that limited competitors at the Tokyo Games.  There was just one problem with that plan.  "You get yelled at," said the 18-year-old Stess.  Skateboarding's reputation has changed rapidly after its inclusion in the Olympics program in Tokyo three years ago, as the suit-and-tie decision-makers at the IOC welcomed the sport that was once squarely rejected by the mainstream.  The Olympic Village, however, has not embraced skateboards, with the sport viewed as a nuisance as it was in decades past.  "I rode bikes around, but I was, like, looking out the balcony to see [U.S. street competitor Paige Heyn] coming back because I hadn't seen her –-  she was at practice — and some dude yelled at her for skating," Stess told reporters.  "So, I'm kind of scared to skate at the village."  The 18-year-old had no fear, however, as she claimed bronze at the World Championships last year and is hoping to make an impact in Paris after she missed qualifying for Tokyo.  "Winning a medal just, you know, for your country and just for yourself too, is a big honor," she said.  Her U.S. teammate Nyjah Huston, who competes in men's street, said skating for the United States on the Olympic stage was "extra motivation."  Huston, who said he was surprised to have gotten away with skating at the Tokyo village, finished seventh at the last Games.  "Skateboarding came from America — California, specifically, where I'm from. And I feel like it's our duty to go out there and rip," he told reporters. "Rip it for the country." 

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Paris — Paris has long been a city of dreamers: Just look at the Eiffel Tower, for decades the world's loftiest structure. Audacity also underpins the French capital's plans for its first Olympic Games in a century, which open Friday with an opening ceremony for the ages. The most sprawling and elaborate Olympic opening ever — a gala spectacular Friday evening on the River Seine that even French President Emmanuel Macron says initially felt like "a crazy and not very serious idea" — kicks off 16 days of competition that promise to be ground-breaking, with nearly every corner of the city hosting some aspect of competition. After two toned-down, pandemic-hampered Olympics, expect a bold celebration. The heady marriage of sports and France's world-renowned capital of fashion, gastronomy and culture could also help secure the Olympics' longer-term future. Olympic organizers were struggling to find suitable host cities for their flagship Summer Games when they settled on Paris in 2017, enticed by its promise of innovations and the potential for the city of romance to rekindle love for the Olympics, especially with younger audiences that have so many other entertainment options. But Paris' challenges are huge, too. Past and present sorrows hang over the Games The city that has been repeatedly struck by deadly extremist attacks has to safeguard 10,500 athletes and millions of visitors. The international context of wars in Ukraine and Gaza add layers of complication for the gargantuan security effort. French elite special forces are part of the security detail for Israel's delegation. Still, if all goes well, Paris hopes to be remembered as a before-and-after Olympic watershed. The first Games with nearly equal numbers of men and women, an advance that's been a long time coming since 22 women first got accepted as Olympians 124 years ago, also in Paris, will take another step toward aligning the Olympics with the post-#MeToo world. Paris also hopes to reassure climate-conscious Generations Z and beyond by staging Games that are less polluting, more sustainable and more socially virtuous than their predecessors. Many of the sports venues are temporary, because Paris didn't want to repeat the mistake of previous Olympic host cities that built new arenas and then had no use for them. With iconic Paris monuments as backdrops — beach volleyball in the Eiffel Tower's shadow — and breakdancing added to a growing list of Olympic sports that target young audiences, expect plenty of viral moments on Instagram, TikTok and elsewhere. Crowds will be back for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic forced Tokyo to push back its Games to 2021 and keep spectators away, and the Beijing Winter Games in 2022, when China was locked down. Prize-winning French theater director Thomas Jolly is turning central Paris into an open-air stage for the opening ceremony that will run through sunset and showcase France, its people and their history. The 330-meter-tall (1,083-foot-tall) Eiffel Tower will surely feature prominently. Hundreds of thousands of people, including 320,000 paying and invited ticket-holders, are expected to line the Seine's banks as athletes are paraded along the river on boats. During the extravaganza, a no-fly zone extending for 150 kilometers (93 miles) around the capital will close Paris' skies, policed by fighter jets, airspace-monitoring AWACS surveillance flights, surveillance drones, helicopters that can carry sharpshooters and drone-disabling equipment. Helping Parisians move past the attacks of 2015 Showcasing and celebrating Paris could be joyously cathartic for the city that was plunged into mourning by extremist attacks in 2015. Guesses about the identity of the person or people who might get the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron include soccer icon Zinedine Zidane and other French sporting heroes, but also survivors of Islamic State-group gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people on Nov. 13, 2015. Paris is also taking gambles in hopes of leaving an indelible impression on the Olympics' global audience of billions. The decision not to stage the opening ceremony in the traditional setting of France's biggest stadium — the Stade de France that was among the 2015 attackers' targets and is now the venue for Olympic track and field and rugby sevens — and to host skateboarding, archery and other sports in temporary arenas in the heart of Paris have made safeguarding the Games more complex. Rights campaigners and Games critics worry about the broad scope and scale of Olympic security, including the use of AI-equipped surveillance technology. Paris' reach stretches to the Pacific The furthest venue is on the other side of the world in the French Pacific territory of Tahiti, where Olympic surfers will compete on famously giant waves that first form in storm belts off Antarctica. Up to 45,000 police and gendarmes, plus 10,000 soldiers, are safeguarding Paris and its suburbs that together are hosting most of the 32 sports that will crown Olympic champions in 329 medal events. The gold, silver and bronze medals they'll hand out are inlaid with a hexagonal, polished chunk of iron taken from the Eiffel Tower. The Seine's banks and riverside roads and more than a dozen of its bridges were fenced off nine days ahead of the opening ceremony, creating a no-go zone for people who haven't applied in advance for passes and making it tough for Parisians and visitors to get around and see the sights in the city of 2 million. Owners of restaurants and other businesses inside the security fence are howling about fewer customers. Leaving an Olympic legacy for Paris Limiting new construction has saved money and, Paris organizers say, contributed to their goal of halving the Games' overall carbon footprint compared with London in 2012 and Rio in 2016. Among the new venues, an Olympic aquatics center in Seine Saint-Denis is expected to help that underprivileged suburb of northern Paris teach more children to swim. French organizers argue that the Games will leave positive impacts on Paris long after the Olympians and Paralympic athletes who follow from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8 have departed. A costly and complex cleanup of the long-polluted Seine, sped up by the deadline of the Games, is expected to reopen the river to public swimming next year, after Olympic marathon swimmers and triathletes have competed in it. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip this month to demonstrate that its waters are safe. With estimated overall costs of around 9 billion euros ($9.7 billion), more than half from sponsors, ticket sales and other non-public funding, Paris' expenses so far are less than for Tokyo, Rio and London. Once opening ceremony fireworks have become memories, the City of Light will then become the playground of Olympians. American gymnastics superstar Simon Biles is back. French-born basketball phenom Victor Wembanyama will carry home hopes on his 7-foot-4 (2.24-meter) frame. Ukrainian and Palestinian athletes have points they want to prove about conflict, resilience and sacrifice that go beyond the realms of sport. The lucky few will win medals. Many will wish they had gone higher, faster and stronger. But, together, they'll always have Paris.

Islamabad — Pakistani Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb arrived in Beijing on Thursday for talks on power sector debt relief alongside structural reforms suggested by the International Monetary Fund, two government sources said. He held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, they said, and is leading a delegation, along with Power Minister Awais Leghari, that will discuss several proposals, including reprofiling nearly $15 billion in energy sector debt. The countries, which share a border, have been longtime allies, and rollovers or disbursements on loans from China have helped Pakistan meet its external financing needs in the past. The IMF this month agreed on a $7 billion bailout for the heavily indebted South Asian economy, while raising concerns over high rates of power theft and distribution losses that result in debt accumulating across the production chain. The government is implementing structural reforms to reduce "circular debt" - public liabilities that build up in the power sector due to subsidies and unpaid bills - by 100 billion Pakistani rupees ($360 million) a year, Leghari has said. On Thursday he said on X that he and the finance minister had briefed Chinese Minister of Finance Lan Fo'an on Pakistan's "efforts to introduce tax and energy reforms in the system." Pakistan's finance ministry, junior Finance Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik and the Chinese finance ministry did not respond to requests for a comment. Both the finance and power ministers told Reuters in interviews last week that they would be discussing the power sector reforms in their Beijing visit, though they did not specify the timing. Poor and middle-class households have been affected by a previous IMF bailout reached last year, which included raising power tariffs as part of the funding program that ended in April. China has set up over $20 billion worth of planned energy projects in Pakistan.

Paris — The days are over when Olympics organizers and anti-doping officials would typically predict "the cleanest games ever." Not at these Paris Olympics. "It's not our role to do it," World Anti-Doping Agency president Witold Bańka said Thursday. "It's not that now we want to assure that every single athlete is clean. We do not," Bańka said at the agency's pre-games news conference. "It's obvious that you will never eliminate doping from the sporting landscape." "You will always find someone who wants to cheat." The lesson of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics is that it can take years to judge how clean or dirty it was. Dozens of medals were stripped and athletes disqualified years after those competitions, in large part because more advanced testing could be used on samples. The samples taken in Paris will be stored and can be re-tested until 2034 in a program run by the International Testing Agency (ITA), the operational wing of the global anti-doping system based in the Olympic home city of Lausanne, Switzerland. "Our role is to oversee the system," Bańka said of Montreal-based WADA, "to make sure the system is robust, to make sure that we are using all the existing tools to test athletes properly." "And not to tell you that the Games are going to be totally clean and you will not have even one single positive test," said the 39-year-old former 400-meter runner from Poland. WADA took one track and field athlete out of the Paris Olympics on Thursday, after winning an appeal hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. CAS judges imposed a two-year ban on Romanian long jumper Florentina Iusco who had tested positive last year for a banned diuretic, furosemide. WADA used its right to challenge doping verdicts worldwide after a Romanian tribunal decided she was not at fault and issued only a reprimand. Bańka said Thursday the program overseen by the ITA took 87,000 samples from potential Olympic athletes in March to June. The best-in-class operator is likely track and field's Athletics Integrity Unit. "Our focus has been that the Olympics and Paralympic Games are protected," Bańka said, "and the athletes are afforded a level playing field that they deserve." 

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Washington — The nation’s economy accelerated last quarter at a strong 2.8% annual pace, with consumers and businesses helping drive growth despite the pressure of continually high interest rates. Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — picked up in the April-June quarter after growing at a 1.4% pace in the January-March period. Economists had expected a weaker 1.9% annual pace of growth. The GDP report also showed that inflation continues to ease, though still remaining above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The central bank’s favored inflation gauge rose at a 2.6% annual rate last quarter, down from 3.4% in the first quarter of the year. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core PCE inflation increased at a 2.9% pace. That was down from 3.7% from January through March. The latest figures should reinforce confidence that the U.S. economy is on the verge of achieving a rare “soft landing,” whereby high interest rates, engineered by the Fed, tame inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. Helping to boost last quarter's expansion was consumer spending, the heart of the U.S. economy. It rose at a 2.3% annual rate in the April-June quarter, up from a 1.5% pace in the January-March period. Spending on goods, such as cars and appliances, increased at a 2.5% rate after falling at a 2.3% pace in the first three months of the year. Business investment was up last quarter, led by a 11.6% annual increase in equipment investment. Growth also picked up because businesses increased their inventories. On the other hand, a surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, shaved about 0.9 percentage point from the April-June growth. Despite last quarter’s uptick, the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, has cooled in the face of the highest borrowing rates in decades. From mid-2022 through 2023, annualized GDP growth had topped 2% for six straight quarters. In last year’s final two quarters, GDP expanded by robust rates of 4.9% and 3.4%. Fed officials have made clear that with inflation edging toward their 2% target level, they’re prepared to start cutting interest rates soon, something they’re widely expected to do in September. “This is a perfect report for the Fed,” Olu Sonola, head of economic research at Fitch Ratings, said of Thursday’s GDP numbers. “Growth during the first half of the year is not too hot, inflation continues to cool, and the elusive soft-landing scenario looks within reach.” The state of the economy has seized Americans’ attention as the presidential campaign has intensified. Though inflation has slowed sharply, to 3% from 9.1% in 2022, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic levels. This year’s economic slowdown reflects, in large part, the much higher borrowing rates for home and auto loans, credit cards and many business loans resulting from the Fed’s aggressive series of interest rate hikes. The Fed’s rate hikes — 11 of them in 2022 and 2023 — were a response to the flare-up in inflation that began in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, causing severe supply shortages. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made things worse by inflating prices for the energy and grains the world depends on. Prices spiked across the country and the world. Economists had long predicted that the higher borrowing costs would tip the United States into recession. Yet the economy kept chugging along. Consumers, whose spending accounts for roughly 70% of GDP, kept buying things, emboldened by a strong job market and savings they had built up during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The slowdown at the start of this year was caused largely by two factors, each of which can vary sharply from quarter to quarter: A surge in imports and a drop in business inventories. Neither trend revealed much about the economy’s underlying health.

YouTube star Lily Hevesh has been mesmerizing viewers with domino creations for 15 years. Last weekend, at the National Building Museum in Washington, she completed her most ambitious project yet: she brought down an installation of 100,000 dominoes and set a world record. Maxim Adams reports. Camera: Dmitry Shakhov, Artem Kohan.