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A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday, officials said, the latest assault carried out by Yemen's Houthi rebels over Israel's ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack comes after the U.S. military said early Thursday an allied warship shot down a Houthi missile targeting a vessel the day before near the same area. The Houthis claimed that Wednesday assault, which comes after a period of relatively few rebel attacks on shipping in the region over Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

YEMEN'S HOUTHI REBELS CONTINUE TO LAUNCH ATTACKS DESPITE MONTH OF US-LED AIRSTRIKES

In Thursday's attack, a ship was targeted just over 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Aden, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

The captain "reports a loud bang heard and a splash and smoke seen coming from the sea," the UKMTO said. "Vessel and all crew are safe."

The attack was also reported by the private security firm Ambrey.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the attack late Thursday, identifying the ship the rebels tried to target as the MSC Darwin.

European Union forces separately shot down a drone launched from Houthi territory on Thursday, Gen. Robert Brieger said. Separately on Wednesday, the British warship HMS Diamond began the first in the Royal Navy to shoot down a missile since 1991 when it destroyed a Houthi missile targeting merchant ships.

The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sank another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.

Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen and shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined because of the threat. American officials have speculated that the rebels may be running out of weapons as a result of the U.S.-led campaign against them and firing off drones and missiles steadily in the last months.

However, Wednesday's attack was the first one by rebels in some time. An explosion struck some 130 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden, the UKMTO said.

Early Thursday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said the explosion came from a coalition warship shooting down the missile likely targeting the MV Yorktown, a U.S.-flagged, owned and operated vessel with 18 U.S. and four Greek crew members.

"There were no injuries or damage reported by U.S., coalition or commercial ships," Central Command said.

Saree claimed that attack but insisted without evidence that the missile hit the Yorktown. Saree also claimed the Houthis targeted another ship in the Indian Ocean, without providing proof. The Houthis have made repeated claims that turned out to not be true during their yearslong war in Yemen.

The Houthis have said they will continue their attacks until Israel ends its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians there. The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.

Most of the ships targeted by the Houthis have had little or no direct connection to Israel, the U.S. or other nations involved in the war. The rebels have also fired missiles toward Israel, though they have largely fallen short or been intercepted.

Thousands of Indigenous people marched on Thursday in Brazil's capital, calling on the government to officially recognize lands they have lived on for centuries and to protect territories from criminal activities such as illegal mining.

With posters bearing messages like "The future is Indigenous," they walked towards Three Powers Square, where Congress, the Supreme Court and the Planalto presidential palace are located in Brasília.

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A group of Indigenous leaders entered the palace to talk to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, while others shouted toward the building: "Our rights are not negotiable." Last week, he backed down from the creation of four Indigenous territories, citing opposition from state governors.

In addition to calls for more land recognition, some tribes protested a proposed 950-kilometer (590 miles) rail project to transport soybeans from the state of Mato Grosso, in the central part of the country, to ports along the Tapajos River, a large Amazon tributary.

Indigenous leaders from the Kayapo, Panará and Munduruku tribes said they hadn't been adequately consulted and feared the new infrastructure would lead to increased deforestation.

Thursday's rally marked the culmination of the annual Free Land Indigenous Camp, now in its 20th edition. This year's gathering marked a critical view of Lula's administration. Unlike the two previous years, the president was not invited to visit the camp, set up in Brasilia's main esplanade.

"There is political instability, disrespect and mistrust," Marivelton Baré, head of the Rio Negro Federation of Indigenous Organizations, told The Associated Press during the march.

"We expected a lot from the government, but it’s doing very little. We knew that Congress would be hostile, but not as much as it has been. And in Congress, the government is using the Indigenous and environmental issues as bargaining chips," added Baré, whose organization represents 24 Indigenous tribes from the northwest part of Brazil´s Amazon.

Previously president between 2003 and 2010, Lula began a third term in January of last year. Since then, his administration has created 10 Indigenous territories, which Indigenous leaders say is not enough. According to the non-profit Socio-Environmental Institute, at least 251 territories have pending claims for recognition before the federal government.

Indigenous territories comprise about 13% of Brazil's territory. Most of these areas are in the Amazon rainforest.

Even at a slow pace, Lula's demarcations represent a stark contrast to his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to create a single centimeter of additional Indigenous land. However, Indigenous demands face mounting opposition from the powerful agribusiness sector, which has the support of hundreds of Congress members and several governors across the country.

Paris’ Moulin Rouge cabaret club in France lost the sails of its historic windmill — a symbol almost as iconic to the City of Lights as the Eiffel Tower — overnight Wednesday. 

The sails, or blades, fell from the red windmill that tops the tourist venue, known for its can-can dancers, sometime before 2 a.m., the Moulin Rouge’s general manager told reporters. 

"The Moulin Rouge, in 135 years of history, has experienced many adventures, but it is true that for the wings, this is the first time that this has happened," Jean-Victor Clerico said.

He added, "A little before 2 a.m., the wings of the windmill gave way, fell on the boulevard and fortunately at this time the boulevard was empty of passersby. We are relieved this morning, especially to know that there were no injuries."

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The Moulin Rouge generally has two 90-minute shows each night, at 9 and 11 p.m. 

"I heard it on the radio. As I live next door, I wanted to come and see with my own eyes what it was like and it's very sad," resident Laurence Plu told Reuters. "It's not the Moulin anymore, it lost his wings, it lost his soul."

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The Moulin Rouge was founded in 1889, and its famous can-can dancers have been depicted in paintings by the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who also frequented the place in its early days. It was also depicted in the 2001 musical starring Nicole Kidman of the same name. 

Clerico said the club will investigate what caused the sails to fall but said it didn’t appear to be intentional. 

Danish tourist Lise Thygesen told Reuters she hoped the sails would be restored, so it would remain the "old Moulin Rouge" and German tourist Florence Chevalier said that the windmill symbolized Paris for him.

"It's weird to me, it's Paris. It's like the Eiffel Tower, it's Paris. It's weird, you can't say it any other way," he explained. 

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The incident comes almost exactly five years after a 2019 fire destroyed Notre-Dame cathedral’s wooden spire,  wooden roof and damaged its walls. Restoration work is still underway. 

A new spire was revealed in February. 

Reuters contributed to this report. 

Kurdish-led authorities in northeastern Syria on Thursday handed over 50 women and children — family members of Islamic State militants — to a delegation from Tajikistan for repatriation back home.

The 17 women and 33 children, all citizens of Tajikistan, were handed over to a delegation headed by the Tajik ambassador to Kuwait, Zubaydullo Zubaydzoda, Syrian Kurdish officials said.

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After the Islamic State group declared its caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014, thousands of foreigners, including hundreds from Tajikistan, came to Syria to join IS and live with their families in the so-called caliphate.

After IS was defeated, most of the militants family members were held in the sprawling al-Hol camp and the smaller Roj camp in northeastern Syria.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent said the women and children were taken to the airport of Qamishli where they boarded a plane "to be reunited with their families" in Tajikistan on Thursday.

The repatriation came almost a month after an attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed 144 people. The massacre was carried out by four suspected attackers who were arrested and identified as Tajik nationals. IS claimed responsibility and said four of its fighters had targeted the hall in Russia.

Over the past few years thousands of people, mostly Iraqis have been repatriated from al-Hol, which houses tens of thousands, mostly IS militants' wives and children but also supporters of the militant group.

The heavily-guarded al-Hol, overseen by Syrian Kurdish-led forces allied with the United States, was once home to 73,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis. Over the past few years, the population dropped to about 43,000, according to Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official overseeing camps for displaced in northeastern Syria.

Tajikistan has said that at the height of IS, more than 1,000 fighters from the country joined extremists groups in Syria and Iraq, including IS. One of the most prominent was Gulmurod Khalimov, an officer with Tajikistan’s special forces who defected and joined IS in Syria in 2015.

Khalimov rose through IS ranks to become one of its top military commanders. In September 2017, the Russian military said he was killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq.

Thursday’s repatriation of Tajik citizens is not the first. Last May, 104 Tajik citizens were returned home, including 31 women and 73 children. And the year before, 146 women and children were repatriated.

Mexico’s president said Thursday that the country’s violent criminal gangs and drug cartels are essentially "respectful people" who "respect the citizenry" and mostly just kill each other.

The claims by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador are clearly at odds with the reality of millions of Mexicans who live in areas dominated by drug cartels. The cartels routinely demand protection payments from local residents and kill or kidnap them if they refuse to pay.

A reporter asked López Obrador whether drug cartels behaved well when he visited the township of Badiraguato, Sinaloa — the hometown of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, which he has controversially visited as president about a half dozen times.

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"Always!" López Obrador responded, adding that "Sometimes we come upon people who are strange, but respectful."

Continuing on the subject of drug cartels at his morning news briefing, López Obrador said "There is something people should know."

"Fortunately, the attacks that happen in this country generally occur between (criminal) groups," the president said. "They respect the citizenry."

López Obrador has long refused to directly confront the cartels, who he claims were forced into criminality by a lack of opportunities. His "Hugs, not bullets" strategy offers job training programs for youths so they won't become cartel gunmen.

In the past, he has also appeared to normalize the gangs’ presence, encouraging Mexicans to negotiate peace pacts among the cartels.

But saying the cartels don't attack common citizens takes the issue to a new level. Experts and rights activists say thousands of Mexicans have been forced from their homes by cartel violence and extortion, and thousands of business owners, taxi and bus drivers have been killed for refusing extortion demands.

Clandestine grave sites throughout Mexico are filled with the bodies of drug cartel victims.

Thursday's statements by López Obrador come one week after he said he won’t fight Mexican drug cartels on U.S. orders. In what the president called a "Mexico First" policy, he said "We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government. Mexico First. Our home comes first."

Over the years, López Obrador has laid out various justifications for his policy of avoiding clashes with the cartels. In the past he has said "you cannot fight violence with violence," and on other occasions he has argued the government has to address "the causes" of drug cartel violence, ascribing them to poverty or a lack of opportunities.

López Obrador has also encouraged leaders of the Catholic church to try to negotiate peace pacts between warring gangs.

Explaining why he has ordered the army not to attack cartel gunmen, he said in 2022 that "we also take care of the lives of the gang members, they are human beings."

He has also sometimes appeared not to take the violence issue seriously. In June 2023, he said of one drug gang that had abducted 14 police officers: "I’m going to tell on you to your fathers and grandfathers," suggesting they should get a good spanking.

Asked about those comments at the time, residents of one town in the western Mexico state of Michoacán who have lived under drug cartel control for years reacted with disgust and disbelief.

"He is making fun of us," said one restaurant owner, who asked to remain anonymous because he — like almost everyone else in town — has long been forced to pay protection money to the local cartel.

López Obrador has also made a point of visiting the township of Badiraguato in Sinaloa state at least a half dozen times, and pledging to do so again before he leaves office in September.

It’s also a stance related to prickly nationalism and independence. Asked in November why he has visited the sparsely populated rural township so many times, López Obrador quoted a line from a defiant old drinking song, "because I want to."

The president has also imposed strict limits on U.S. agents operating in Mexico, and limited how much contact Mexican law enforcement can have with them.

A top security official in Belarus claimed Thursday that the country has prevented attempted drone strikes from Lithuania targeting the Belarusian capital and surrounding areas. Lithuania denied the claim.

Ivan Tertel, head of the Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB). told a session of the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly that his and other agencies recently carried out security operations "which made it possible to prevent attacks by combat drones from the territory of Lithuania on objects in Minsk and its suburbs."

He did not present evidence for the claim or give any details. He also said that "radicals" in Lithuania and Poland are producing drones to attack Belarus.

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The All-Belarusian People’s Assembly includes officials, members of local councils, unions and pro-government activists and operates in parallel with the parliament.

Lithuanian military spokesman Gintautas Ciunis told journalists later Thursday that Tertel's claims were not true. "This is nonsense; I can’t find another word," Ciunis said.

The Lithuanian crisis management center said in a statement that the comments appeared aimed at a domestic audience in Belarus. It also say they could "be regarded as a continuous hostile provocation and an informational attack against Lithuania, which has nothing to do with reality."

Belarus is a close ally of Russia, which has deployed tactical nuclear weapons, missiles and troops in the country. Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly boasted that Belarus would turn back any attempt by Ukraine of NATO countries to attack it.

Although Belarusian forces have not entered the Russia-Ukraine war, the country has been a springboard for Russian forces that entered Ukraine’s north.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled in Lithuania, said Thursday that nobody aside from the Belarus leadership had heard about a drone attack on Minsk. "It is possible that Lukashenko started believing his own nonsense and disinformation," Tsikhanouskaya added.

The Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved the new national security framework and a military doctrine that were put forward by Lukashenko to regulate the use of Russian nuclear weapons. Those, Lukashenko told the delegates, will allow Belarus "to resist any aggressor and inflict irreparable damage on them."

Political analysts say this is merely rhetoric, and does not indicate plans by the Belarusian leader to get involved in military conflicts.

"Lukashenko is increasing the level of bellicose rhetoric in order to please the Kremlin and receive additional funds to fight the ‘common Western threat’," independent Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich told AP.

"Belarus has hosted Russian nuclear weapons, changed its military doctrine and now expects payment from the Kremlin for this, and Lukashenko’s loud statements should serve as a reminder of this," he said.

Flooding in Tanzania caused by weeks of heavy rain has killed 155 people and affected more than 200,000 others, the prime minister said Thursday.

That is more than double the number of deaths reported two weeks ago as the amount of rainfall increases, especially in the coastal region and the capital, Dar es Salaam.

Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa told parliament that the El Niño climate pattern has worsened the ongoing rainy season, causing the flooding and destroying roads, bridges and railways. Flooded schools have been closed and emergency services have rescued people marooned by the flood waters.

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Majaliwa warned those living in low-lying areas to move to higher ground and urged district officials to ensure that provisions meant for those whose homes were washed away go to those in need of the supplies. He said more than 51,000 households have been affected by the rains.

The East African region is experiencing heavy rains, with flooding also reported in neighboring Burundi and Kenya.

In Kenya, 35 people were reported dead as of Monday, and the number was expected to increase as flooding continues across the country.

In the Mathare slum in the capital, Nairobi, at least four bodies were retrieved from flooded houses on Wednesday. Local media reported that more bodies were retrieved from the Mathare River.

Kenyan President William Ruto chaired a multi-agency flood response meeting on Thursday and directed the National Youth Service to provide land for people in flood-affected areas.

Special anti-terrorism measures being put in place to safeguard the unprecedented opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics on the River Seine will also apply to all buildings along the route, meaning people who work and live there and their guests will be subjected to background security checks, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said Thursday.

Those affected will be cross-checked against security services' databases, to see whether they have previously been flagged as suspected Islamist extremists or for other radicalism, Nunez said.

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The wildly ambitious July 26 ceremony is proving to be a gargantuan security challenge. Athletes will be paraded through the heart of the French capital on 94 boats along a 6-kilometer (nearly 4-mile) stretch of the Seine, from east to west. They'll be accompanied by 87 other boats for security, media and other people.

All of the parade route will be inside a high-security zone that Nunez described as an "anti-terrorism perimeter." He said it will include the first row of buildings along the route.

"We wanted to include in the perimeter all of the buildings that have a view on the parade," Nunez said.

The zone will be put in place from July 18 and be extended even further along both banks of the river on July 26, in the final hours before the evening ceremony.

Anyone who wants to enter the zone in the eight days before the ceremony and on July 26 itself will need to pre-register online and will "systematically" be subjected to the background security checks known in France as an "administrative investigation," Nunez said.

Those affected will include people who work and live inside the perimeter, as well as their guests, and people going to hotels or restaurants inside the zone, he said.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said about 20,000 people live and work inside the perimeter. In the days before the ceremony, there will be places to cross the river and ways to visit the Louvre and other museums along the river without having to enter the security zone.

Nunez said the security check for those affected won't include searching through their communications. "It’s not as intrusive as that," he said.

"We verify if the person is known in a certain number of intelligence files," he said.

Anyone flagged by the checks could be barred from the zone. "It will obviously be case by case," Nunez said.

Ticket-holders for the ceremony won't need to pre-register on the online platform that will open May 10. But Nunez said French intelligence services can do checks on them, too.

Separately, the top administrative official for the Paris region, Prefect Marc Guillaume, pledged that tests on the water quality in the Seine will be made public, without specifying when or how regularly.

Marathon swimmers and Olympic and Paralympic triathletes are scheduled to race in the river, which is being cleaned up for the Games. From July 1, samples will be collected from 36 spots on the river and its tributary, the Marne, Guillaume said.

"We will be totally transparent about our results," he said.

The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that the U.S. military has begun construction of a pier and causeway to distribute humanitarian aid into Gaza amid Israel’s war with Hamas.

"As an update for our humanitarian assistance support operations to establish the maritime corridor off the coast of Gaza, I can confirm that U.S. military vessels to include the USS Benavidez, have begun to construct the initial stages of the temporary pier and causeway at sea," Department of Defense spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a press briefing. 

He added, "We'll provide much more information in the very near future as we work alongside the international community to rush aid to the people of Gaza." 

Ryder said the pier would likely be up and running by early May, and last month said it would take up to 1,000 servicemembers to complete it. 

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Since the war started last October, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and Gaza’s 2.3 million residents face food, water and medicine shortages. 

Israel has sent aid trucks across the border and the U.S. has conducted humanitarian aid air drops, but getting aid to the area has been difficult, due to the ongoing hostilities and struggles to coordinate with the Israeli military, which has blocked routes and slowed deliveries due to inspections. 

The modular causeway system would consist of an offshore platform where ships could deposit aid that would be taken by the Army to a motorized string of steel causeway sections that have been pushed to the shore.

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Last month, the Pentagon said it could deliver more than 2 million meals a day using the 1,800-foot pier. 

"Simply put, they'll establish a temporary offshore maritime pier that allows for shipping vessels to transfer cargo to smaller vessels to transport and offload cargo to a temporary causeway for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza," Ryder said in March, while adding, "The concept that is being planned involves the presence of U.S. military personnel on military vessels offshore, but does not require U.S. military personnel to go ashore."

After Ryder confirmed the pier’s construction had begun, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement it had "approved collaborative efforts for the new Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) initiative led by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). The initiative will create an enhanced ship to shore distribution system to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza."

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The statement added, "The IDF will operate to provide security and logistics support for the JLOTS initiative, which includes the establishment of a temporary floating pier to deliver humanitarian aid from the sea into Gaza. The IDF's involvement in the JLOTS initiative is one of many humanitarian aid efforts, further demonstrating the IDF's commitment to working with the international community to ensure the continuous entry of humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil’s Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony in the Para state capital of Belem.

Fishermen off the coast of Para found the boat adrift on April 13, carrying the bodies that were already decomposing. Brazilian officials later said documents found in the vessel indicated the victims were migrants from Mali and Mauritania, and that the boat had departed the latter country after Jan. 17.

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The deceased were buried in a secular ceremony organized by a number of groups involved in their recovery, such as the U.N. Refugee Agency, the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, as well as Brazilian police, navy and civil defense agencies.

A tropical rain fell as their coffins were lowered into graves dug into the earth and those present watched in respectful silence.

Their roughly 12-meter (39-foot) boat was carrying 25 raincoats and 27 mobile phones, suggesting the original number of passengers was significantly higher. This also implies that people of other nationalities may have been among the deceased, local officials have said.

It was a rustic blue-and-white fiberglass boat that, when found, had neither motor, tiller nor rudder. Its canoe shape is similar to Mauritanian fishing boats often used by migrants fleeing West Africa and aiming to enter the European Union via Spain’s Canary Islands.

An Associated Press investigation published last year revealed that in 2021 at least seven boats from northwest Africa were found in the Caribbean and Brazil. All carried dead bodies, like the vessel found in Para.

So far, none of the victims have been identified. Authorities said the manner of their burial would allow for subsequent exhumations in case families of the deceased were located and wished to transfer the bodies back to their home countries.

Brazil’s criminology institute in the capital Brasilia is carrying out forensic examinations of the remains, and the Federal Police say they are in contact with Interpol and foreign organizations to provide eventual results.

This year the number of people attempting the crossing from the northwest coast of Africa to the EU has seen a 500% spike, with the majority departing from Mauritania, according to Spain’s interior ministry. But it is a dangerous route with strong Atlantic winds, and boats that go off course can stay adrift for months and be swept away to distant destinations, often leading migrants to die of dehydration and malnutrition.

The reasons pushing people toward such boats are varied and intertwined: a lack of jobs and prospects of a better life, impacts of climate change, growing insecurity and political instability, among others.

More than 14,000 African migrants have reached the Canary Islands so far this year, according to the Spanish ministry. In February, the EU and Mauritania signed a 210 million euro ($225 million) deal aimed at cracking down on people smuggling and deterring migrant boats.

With hundreds more West African migrants reported missing, families in Mauritania have set up a commission to search for loved ones, and are anxiously awaiting information from Brazil.

Bachirou Saw of Mauritania buried one of his nephews earlier this year who had died during the arduous Atlantic crossing shortly after reaching the Spanish island of El Hierro. He’s still looking for another nephew, Kadija Saw, who departed in January and is nowhere to be found. He’s following news from Brazil closely.

Saw, who also has Spanish citizenship and immigrated to Europe by plane 30 years ago when it was easier to get a visa, said he’s been trying to convince young men not to emigrate by boat. He created a WhatsApp group to alert migrants to the perils of the ocean voyage and to share information with desperate relatives, and has counted at least 1,500 missing in the last six months from Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. While most of the migrants embarking to Europe are men, there is an increasing number of women getting aboard boats, too.

"I have their ID’s on my phone," said Saw, who receives messages every day from families looking for their loved ones. Together with others, they’ve organized trips to Morocco to look inside prisons and morgues. Moroccan authorities often intercept migrants trying to reach Spain and detain them before deporting them. But Saw’s nephew wasn’t there either. He also visited the Canary Islands to check the morgues there.

Saw’s sister is desolate. "Every day she buys credit to listen to our audios, she lives for this, she doesn’t eat, she is thin, just thinking about her son," Saw said. And she’s not alone.

"It’s very sad, half of the villages are dancing because their sons have arrived (in Spain)," he said, "but the other half cries because they’ve lost their sons in the ocean."

Air passengers traveling to and from Paris experienced significant disruptions Thursday, despite a decision by air traffic controllers to cancel a strike after last-minute negotiations. Flight operations were substantially reduced because of adjustments made to schedules ahead of the proposed industrial action.

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French civil aviation authorities had preemptively requested airlines to cut their flights significantly — by 75% at Paris-Orly, 55% at Charles-de-Gaulle, and 65% at Marseille-Provence, with varying reductions across other French airports. As a result, operations were severely limited, also affecting international flights that cross French airspace.

While the flights that did operate faced only moderate delays, significant cancellations and scheduling adjustments led to continued travel difficulties for thousands of passengers. The fallout was particularly noticeable at major airports like Paris-Orly, where delays compounded the day’s challenges.

Scotland's leader is facing a fight for his political survival after he ended a three-year power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Green Party following a clash over climate change policies.

Thursday's decision by First Minister Humza Yousaf of the Scottish National Party to tear up the deal with the much smaller Greens with immediate effect has triggered a series of events that could see him lose the top job next week and even lead to an early election.

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The termination of 2021’s Bute House Agreement between two parties that back Scotland's independence from the U.K. prompted the main opposition party in the Edinburgh-based parliament, the Scottish Conservatives, to say they will put forward a vote of no confidence in the first minister next week.

If all opposition legislators, which now include the Greens, vote against him, Yousaf would lose and he would come under huge pressure to resign, which could set a path towards an early election — the next Scottish parliamentary election isn't due until 2026.

Of Parliament’s 129 seats, the SNP holds 63, two short of a majority.

The Greens confirmed late Thursday that they would be voting against Yousaf, along with the other main opposition parties, including the Conservatives and Labour.

"We no longer have confidence in a progressive government in Scotland doing the right thing for climate and nature," co-leader Lorna Slater said.

Yousaf, who replaced long-time leader Nicola Sturgeon, may need the vote of a former SNP lawmaker, Ash Regan, to survive. She has indicated that she would seek to extract a price from Yousaf in order to back him in the no-confidence vote.

Her backing would result in both sides having 64 votes, meaning that the chamber’s presiding officer — Scotland’s equivalent to the speaker — would cast a tie-breaking vote. In that scenario, Alison Johnstone would be expected to vote in favor of the status quo.

The announcement by the Greens capped a dramatic day in Scottish politics.

Relations between the SNP and the Greens, which both back Scotland’s independence from the U.K., soured recently, particularly in the last week after Yousaf abandoned a key climate change target, specifically the goal of reducing emissions by 75% by 2030, arguing that it was "beyond what we are able to achieve."

Many members of the Greens were furious at the decision, and a vote was planned on whether it would continue to participate in the government. Yousaf denied he was ending the agreement to -a vote to end the coalition.

"It is no longer guaranteeing a stable arrangement in Parliament — the events of recent days have made that clear, and therefore, after careful consideration, I believe that going forward it is in the best interest of the people of Scotland to pursue a different arrangement," he said at a news conference.

It was a risky decision as the SNP doesn't have a majority and, if it survives as an administration, will have to rely on votes from other parties to get legislation and the budget through Parliament.

Yousaf said that the SNP has often governed as a minority administration since it first came to power in 2007.

The decision to end the agreement also came as the SNP has been rocked by the news earlier this month that Sturgeon's husband, Peter Murrell, has been charged with embezzlement in an investigation into the party's finances.

Opinion polls are showing that the SNP, which has dominated politics in Scotland since 2007, is facing stiff opposition from the Labour Party as the U.K. general election draws nearer. The vote will take place sometime in the coming months. If Labour can grab a sizeable chunk of seats in Scotland, it could well be on course to win a majority, even a big one.

An asylum seeker from Morocco who went on a vicious rampage following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the Israel-Hamas war was convicted Thursday of murder for stabbing a 70-year-old man in the streets of an English seaside town.

Ahmed Alid, 45, stabbed Terence Carney six times on Oct. 15 in the center of Hartlepool minutes after he hacked at a sleeping housemate while shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic.

The attack came eight days after Hamas militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7 and Alid told police he had done it "for the people of Gaza." He swore he would have killed more if he had a machine gun and other weapons, prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford said in Teesside Crown Court.

ARREST MADE AFTER 3 INJURED IN 'MAJOR INCIDENT' AT SCHOOL IN WALES, POLICE SAY

Alid was also convicted of attempted murder for the attack on Javed Nouri, who shared the house in northeast England with him and other asylum seekers. Alid was upset Nouri had converted to Christianity.

Housemates told police that Alid began carrying a knife after watching TV coverage of the Hamas attacks and Israel's subsequent bombing of Gaza.

Alid laughed when he saw footage of killings by Hamas, alarming his housemate, Nouri told police.

"Every time they would kill somebody, he would praise God," Nouri said. "I was very upset from that night and I have seen something terrible and frightening in his eyes."

Nouri had complained to housing officials, the Home Office and police and Alid was warned he could lose his housing.

Alid told police he justified killing an innocent man because Britain helped create the "Zionist entity" of Israel and Israel had "killed innocent children."

"They killed children and I killed an old man," he said.

During his interview with two women detectives, Alid became agitated and attacked them. A panic button in the interview room, however, didn't work properly and other officers only intervened after Alid's defense lawyer phoned an emergency number for help.

He was convicted of additional counts for assaulting the officers.

Alid had denied the charges against him. Although he acknowledged the stabbings, he said he had no intent to kill or cause serious harm.

Sentencing is scheduled May 17.

Even amid war, Ukraine finds time for the glittery, pop-filled Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps now even more than ever.

Ukraine’s entrants in the pan-continental music competition — the female duo of rapper alyona alyona and singer Jerry Heil — set off from Kyiv for the competition on Thursday. In wartime, that means a long train journey to Poland, from where they will travel on to next month’s competition in Malmö, Sweden.

SWEDEN'S EUROVISION SONG CONTEST TO HAVE STRICT SECURITY DUE TO HEIGHTENED THREAT OF TERRORISM, POLICE SAY

"We need to be visible for the world," Heil told The Associated Press at Kyiv train station before her departure. "We need to show that even now, during the war, our culture is developing, and that Ukrainian music is something waiting for the world" to discover.

"We have to spread it and share it and show people how strong (Ukrainian) women and men are now," added alyona, who spells her name with all lower case letters.

Ukraine has long used Eurovision as a form of cultural diplomacy, a way of showing the world the country’s unique sound and style. That mission became more urgent after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that Ukraine existed as a distinct country and people before Soviet times.

Ukrainian singer Jamala won the contest in 2016 — two years after Russia illegally seized the Crimean Peninsula — with a song about the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944. Folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra took the Eurovision title in 2022 with "Stefania," a song about the frontman’s mother that became an anthem to the war-ravaged motherland, with a haunting refrain on a traditional Ukrainian wind instrument.

Alyona and Heil will perform "Maria & Teresa," an anthemic ode to inspiring women. The title refers to Mother Theresa and the Virgin Mary, and the lyrics include the refrain, in English: "All the divas were born as the human beings" — people we regard as saints were once flawed and human like the rest of us.

Heil said the message is that "we all make mistakes, but your actions are what define you."

And, alyona added: "with enough energy you can win the war, you can change the world."

The song blends alyona’s punchy rap style with Heil’s soaring melody and distinctly Ukrainian vocal style.

"Alyona is a great rapper, she has this powerful energy," Heil said. "And I’m more soft."

"But great melodies," alyona added. "So she creates all the melodies and I just jump in."

Ukraine has been at the forefront of turning Eurovision from a contest dominated by English-language pop songs to a more diverse and multilingual event. Jamala sang part of her song in the Crimean Tatar language, while Kalush Orchestra sang and rapped in Ukrainian.

Ukraine’s Eurovision win in 2022 brought the country the right to host the following year, but because of the war the 2023 contest was held in the English city of Liverpool, which was bedecked in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags for the occasion — a celebration of Ukraine’s spirit and culture.

Thirty-seven countries from across Europe and beyond — including Israel and Australia — will compete in Malmö in two Eurovision semifinals May 7 and 9, followed by a May 11 final. Ukraine currently ranks among bookmakers’ top five favorites alongside the likes of singer Nemo from Switzerland and Croatian singer-songwriter Baby Lasagna.

Russia, a long-time Eurovision competitor, was kicked out of the contest over the invasion.

The Ukrainian duo caught a train after holding a news conference where they announced a fundraising drive for a school destroyed by a Russian strike.

The duo is joining with charity fundraising platform United 24 to raise 10 million hryvnia (about $250,000) to rebuild a school in the village of Velyka Kostromka in southern Ukraine that was destroyed by a Russian rocket in October 2022. The school’s 250 pupils have been unable to attend class since then, relying on online learning.

From the rubble, a teacher managed to rescue one of the school’s treasured possessions — a large wooden key traditionally presented to first grade students to symbolize that education is the key to their future.

Alyona and Heil have also embraced the key as a symbol, wearing T-shirts covered in small metal housekeys.

"It’s a symbol of something which maybe some people in Ukraine won’t have, because so many people lost their homes," Heil said. "But they’re holding these keys in their pockets, and they're holding the hope."

Congo’s government is questioning Apple about the tech company’s knowledge of "blood minerals" from a conflict zone in the African country that could be smuggled into its supply chains and is demanding answers within three weeks.

A group of international lawyers representing Congo said Thursday that they sent letters to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook and its French subsidiary this week, raising concerns about human rights violations involving the minerals extracted from mines in the country’s troubled east that might end up being used in the company’s products.

AT LEAST 250,000 DISPLACED AS CONFLICTS RAGE ON IN THE CONGO

They included a list of questions challenging Apple to show how it monitors its supply chains in a region where more than 100 armed rebel groups operate, some of whom have been accused of carrying out mass killings of civilians.

Writing to Cook, the lawyers said "it has become clear to us that year after year, Apple has sold technology made with minerals sourced from a region whose population is being devastated by grave violations of human rights."

"The iPhones, Mac computers and accessories that Apple sells to its customers around the world rely on supply chains that are too opaque, and that are tainted by the blood of the Congolese people," the lawyers said.

Eastern Congo is one of the most mineral-rich regions in the world but is also the site of a huge humanitarian disaster, with the armed groups fighting for years for control of the mines and the valuable minerals in them, and millions of people displaced and affected by the worsening violence. The situation has deteriorated badly in the last few months.

Apple, which has a market value of around $2.6 trillion, has denied using minerals from mines and regions where human rights violations take place, saying it conducts business ethically and "responsibly" sources minerals in Congo and neighboring countries.

The minerals it buys don't finance war or armed groups, it says. The lawyers for the Congo government said "those claims do not appear to be based on concrete, verifiable evidence."

The Congo government said it has suspicions that some of the tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold — known as the 3TG critical minerals — that Apple sources from suppliers is smuggled out of Congo to neighboring Rwanda and then infiltrated into the global supply chain. The 3TG minerals are key components in electronics.

In response to a request for comment, Apple pointed to a section from a company filing on conflict minerals.

"Based on our due diligence efforts, including analyzing the information provided by third-party audit programs, upstream traceability programs, and our suppliers, we found no reasonable basis for concluding that any of the smelters or refiners of 3TG determined to be in our supply chain as of December 31, 2023 directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or an adjoining country," the report said, using the abbreviation for Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"In Congo, people have been dying for 30 years as a result of illegal mining," Congo government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya said. "We want clarification on the sources of supply for major technology companies, in particular Apple, to verify whether they are acquiring minerals produced in completely illegal conditions."

He said Rwanda "is presented" as the supplier for many of the minerals while having few reserves of its own.

Congo has accused Rwanda of financing and directing the notorious armed rebel group M23 in eastern Congo to help extract minerals illegally. The United Nations also says M23 is backed by Rwanda.

Rwanda denies that but tensions between the countries are flaring, while M23 and other groups are accused of regularly carrying out attacks that include the killing and raping of civilians, according to Human Rights Watch.

The lawyers for the Congo government quoted a 2022 report by nonprofit group Global Witness that claimed Apple had previously applied "few meaningful mitigation measures" to avoid using smuggled minerals.

The Congo government was now seeking "effective redress" against "end-users of blood minerals" across the world, the lawyers said.

They asked Apple to respond to questions over its supply chain controls within three weeks and said they had compiled a report on "the laundering" of Congo's minerals by Rwanda and private entities that would be made public this month.

They also would seek instructions from the Congo government as to what legal measures it is considering against Apple, the letter said.

Military vehicles and red carnations returned to the streets and squares of downtown Lisbon on Thursday as Portugal reenacted dramatic moments from the army coup that brought democracy to the country 50 years ago.

Tens of thousands of people attended the celebrations of the so-called Carnation Revolution, which ended a stifling four-decade dictatorship established by Antonio Salazar. It also paved the way for Portugal’s 1986 entry into the European Union, then called the European Economic Community.

AS PORTUGUESE CENTER-RIGHT PUSHES SOCIALISTS OUT OF POWER, POPULISTS SEEK LEVERAGE IN NEW GOVERNMENT

At the time, the turmoil and political uncertainty in Portugal, a NATO member, caused alarm in Western capitals as the Portuguese Communist Party appeared poised to take power. Moderate parties, however, won at the ballot box.

Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister Luis Montenegro presided over the colorful parade of troops and armored vehicles with many onlookers holding red carnation flowers, the symbol of the revolution. One child could be seen on top of an armored car holding a carnation.

Red carnations were plentiful at Portuguese stores and in street stalls in the spring of 1974 and people stuck them in the gun barrels of the insurrectionists.

Paulo Simões, 71, who took part in the uprising, said he was "living with a sense of duty fulfilled."

"I have 2 children," he said. "I tried to instill in them the ideas of freedom, democracy, truth, honesty and I succeeded."

Maria Monteiro, 68, the wife of a soldier who took part in the uprising, said she felt immensely emotional "for the freedom that we conquered, but we have to know how to defend it very well."

During the day, troops and armored vehicles moved into a downtown square as part of a reenactment of one of the early stages of the uprising, when units took up planned positions at key places in the capital.

Soldiers also reenacted the insurrectionists' convergence on a paramilitary garrison in a jacaranda-dotted square called Largo do Carmo. That was where Marcelo Caetano, the Portuguese leader at the time, holed up and was surrounded by troops and jubilant civilians before surrendering.

Tens of thousands of people gathered for the annual afternoon march along the city’s main thoroughfare, the Avenida da Liberdade, or Freedom Avenue.

Simmering frustration with prolonged colonial wars against independence movements in Africa spurred the junior officers’ revolt, which succeeded in toppling the dictatorship in around 24 hours, with only five deaths.

Salazar, who died in 1970, clung to the African colonies long after other European powers had withdrawn from the continent and resisted modernizing his country amid Europe’s cultural changes of the 1960s.

Salazar’s rule ran through roughly the same period as Gen. Francisco Franco’s in neighboring Spain, though his time in power was far less bloody.

Russia is considering downgrading the level of its diplomatic relations with the United States if Western governments go ahead with proposals to confiscate its frozen assets, state news agency RIA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.

The G7 group of nations are looking to use nearly $300 billion worth of Russian financial assets frozen by sanctions since 2022 to help support Ukraine, which is now in its third year of fighting a Russian invasion.

How it would be done remains highly complex, however, given it would set a controversial precedent.

RUSSIA HAS GROUNDS TO SEIZE WESTERN ASSETS AFTER US LEGISLATIVE MOVE, TOP LAWMAKER SAYS

Ryabkov said Moscow would retaliate economically and politically if the assets were seized.

"Lowering the level of diplomatic relations is one of the options, of course. Many high-ranking representatives in our government have already spoken about the issues of our financial, economic and material response to this step (confiscation), which we are warning our opponents, as before, not to take," RIA quoted him as saying.

"We are now studying the optimal form of reaction, where countermeasures include actions against the assets of our Western opponents as well as diplomatic response measures."

He did not spell out what lowering the level of diplomatic relations might entail. The Kremlin has characterised the current state of ties with the United States as "below zero", although no formal downgrade of relations has occurred since the Ukraine war began.

France and the Philippines will begin talks next month on a defense pact that would allow troops from each country to hold exercises in the other’s territory, the French ambassador said Thursday.

French and Philippine officials will meet in Paris next month for talks on a visiting forces agreement, French Ambassador to the Philippines Marie Fontanel said.

She said the defense chiefs of both countries agreed in Manila last December to pursue such an accord.

FRANCE PRESIDENT MACRON TO OUTLINE VISION FOR EUROPE AS GLOBAL POWER AHEAD OF EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS

"We will have an opportunity in May to maybe start officially the negotiations or, at least, discuss the modalities," Fontanel said at a news conference with French Ambassador to the Indo-Pacific Marc Abensour.

The Philippines currently has status-of-forces agreements with the United States and Australia. The agreements provide a legal framework for the entry of foreign forces into a country.

Manila has pursued similar agreements with other countries, including Japan and France, amid escalating disputes with China in the South China Sea. Since last year, Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships and accompanying vessels have been involved in high seas skirmishes which included minor collisions and injuries to Philippine navy personnel near disputed shoals in the contested waters.

In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in the long-running territorial disputes, a potential Asian flashpoint that could bring the U.S. and China into a collision course if disputes escalate into a major conflict.

France has been boosting its security engagements with the Philippines. A French navy ship is joining U.S. and Philippine navy ships in and near the disputed South China Sea as part of largescale combat-readiness exercises by longtime treaty allies Manila and Washington that started Monday.

Abensour renewed France’s commitment to helping maintain freedom of navigation and overflight and respect for the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea in the region.

China has strongly criticized the exercises, saying the Philippines was "ganging up" with countries from outside Asia, and warned that the drills could instigate a confrontation and undermine regional stability.

The Philippine military dismissed China’s criticism, saying the drills are aimed at boosting Manila’s territorial defense and are not directed at any particular country.

Iran has officially picked its side amid anti-Israeli protests that have erupted across elite U.S. colleges and universities.

As hundreds of students have been arrested at Columbia University, the University of Southern California, MIT, UT-Austin and others after disrupting campus facilities and trespassing, Iran is throwing its support behind the protesters.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian expressed support for those speaking ill of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also said the law enforcement response to the ongoing protests, and subsequent mass arrests, has them "deeply worried and disgusted."

"The suppression and harsh treatment of the American police and security forces against professors and students protesting the genocide and war crimes of the Israeli regime in various universities of this country is deeply worried and disgusted by the public opinion of the world," the foreign minister said on X, according to a translation. "This repression is in line with the continuation of Washington's full-fledged support for the Israeli regime and clearly shows the dual policy and contradictory behavior of the American government towards freedom of expression."

NYPD RESPONDS TO AOC, SAYS OFFICERS 'HAVE TO TEACH' ANTI-ISRAEL MOBS THE 'CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS'

The students are urging their respective schools to cut ties with Israel and are calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths of Palestinian lives.

Their protests have included antisemitic slogans and chants and even violence in some cases.

UT-AUSTIN PRESIDENT DEFENDS SHUTTING DOWN ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS: 'OUR RULES MATTER AND THEY WILL BE ENFORCED'

The Iranian foreign minister applauded the protesters and echoed their request for the Biden administration to cease its support of Israel. 

"The White House must immediately stop supporting the Israeli regime's war crimes and be held accountable," Amir-Abdollahian said.

Iran’s support for the anti-Israel movement comes as hundreds of students continue to defy school administrators and local law enforcement orders to disperse and have been subsequently arrested.

At Emerson College in Boston, 108 people were arrested and four police officers suffered injuries that were not life-threatening at an encampment, Boston police said Thursday.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MOVES TO HYBRID LEARNING ON MAIN CAMPUS AMID ANTISEMITIC PROTESTS

At the University of Southern California, officers arrested another 93 people during a protest Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Officers at the University of Texas at Austin arrested 34 people at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

At New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody, while more than 40 protesters were arrested Monday at an encampment at Yale University.

At Columbia University in New York, officers arrested more than 100 people after students defiantly erected an encampment. Columbia is considered the epicenter of the current anti-Israeli college demonstrations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday.

The U.N. report said 24 million more people faced an acute lack of food than in 2022, due to the sharp deterioration in food security, especially in the Gaza Strip and Sudan. The number of nations with food crises that are monitored has also been expanded.

Máximo Torero, chief economist for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, said 705,000 people in five countries are at Phase 5, the highest level, on a scale of hunger determined by international experts — the highest number since the global report began in 2016 and quadruple the number that year.

UN CHIEF URGES SECURITY COUNCIL TO ADDRESS THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF FOOD SHORTAGES, CLIMATE CHANGE

Over 80% of those facing imminent famine — 577,000 people — were in Gaza, he said. South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Mali each host many thousands also facing catastrophic hunger.

According to the report’s future outlook, around 1.1 million people in Gaza, where the Israel-Hamas war is now in its seventh month, and 79,000 in South Sudan are projected to be in Phase 5 and facing famine by July.

It said conflict will also continue to drive food insecurity in Haiti, where gangs control large portions of the capital.

Additionally, while the El Nino phenomenon peaked in early 2024, "its full impact on food security – including flooding and poor rain in parts of east Africa and drought in southern Africa, especially Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are like to manifest throughout the year."

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the report "a roll call of human failings," and that "in a world of plenty, children are starving to death."

"The conflicts erupting over the past 12 months compound a dire global situation," he wrote in the report's foreword.

Guterres highlighted the conflict in the Gaza Strip, as the enclave holds the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger. There is also the year-old conflict in Sudan, which has created the world's largest internal displacement crisis "with atrocious impacts on hunger and nutrition," he added.

According to the report, over 36 million people in 39 countries and territories are facing an acute hunger emergency, a step below the famine level in Phase 4, with more than a third in Sudan and Afghanistan. It's an increase of a million people from 2022, the report said.

Arif Husain, the U.N. World Food Program’s chief economist, said every year since 2016 the numbers of people acutely food insecure have gone up, and they are now more than double the numbers before the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the report looks at 59 countries, he said the target is to get data from 73 countries where there are people who are acutely food insecure.

Secretary-General Guterres called for an urgent response to the report’s findings that addresses the underlying causes of acute hunger and malnutrition while transforming the systems that supply food. Funding is also not keeping pace with the needs, he stressed.

"We must have the funding, and we also must have the access," WFP’s Husain said, stressing that both "go hand-in-hand" and are essential to tackle acute food insecurity.

The report is the flagship publication of the Food Security Information Network and is based on a collaboration of 16 partners including U.N. agencies, regional and multinational bodies, the European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, technical organizations and others.