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A University of Tehran professor said in an interview that Iran likes seeing protests on U.S. college campuses, adding those are their supporters if there is ever a conflict between the two countries.

Professor Foad Izadi, who, according to the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, earned his master’s degree from the University of Houston, was seen in a video being interviewed about the protests in the U.S.

"Sooner or later, this kind of support for the Zionist regime by the American regime will diminish. It might not stop completely, but its diminishing is important," he said. "This is why the demonstrations [on U.S. campuses] are important."

Izadi spoke as a member of the Islamic Republic, and oftentimes said, "we," referring to him and the republic.

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"We are watching the demonstrations and like what we see, but it should not end with this," Izadi said. "If not for the Islamic Republic, the case of the Palestinian idea would have been closed years ago. The idea of resistance belongs to Iran, but on the operational level, when it comes to recruiting connections and building networks, the [Iranian] state has not been involved in a sufficient level.

"These (American students) are our people," he continued. "If tensions between America and Iran rise tomorrow or the day after, these are the people who will have to take to the streets to support Iran."

Izadi said there are Hezbollah-style groups in the U.S. that are much larger than those in Lebanon.

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"America is the Great Satan and our main enemy, but we have hope in these areas," he said.

Iran expert and Foreign Desk Editor-in-Chief Lisa Daftari provided insight on Izadi’s comments.

"Quite rich to see the same regime that is fixated on torturing, raping, blinding, executing its own college students, is applauding the ignorant college students on American campuses," she said. "It speaks to their focus on growing their influence outside of Iran."

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Daftari explained that Iran has been beefing up terror proxies in the region and paying their way into American universities.

But at the same time, she said, the Iranian people have suffered under the rule of their "barbaric" leaders.

After watching the comments, Daftari also said it was interesting to hear Izadi say they have more Hezbollah followers in the U.S. than in Lebanon.

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"Regardless of when these pro-Hamas protests quiet down here in the U.S., it’s apparent the regime has its sights set on manipulating this momentum to launch more attacks here in the West," she said. "The question then remains will they focus on a physical attack or just the information war, or both?"

Five people have died after drinking a poison potion in a Santeria ‘power’ ritual, police in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca said Wednesday.

Iván García Alvarez, the Oaxaca state police chief, said four men and one woman died after drinking a mix of substances he did not specify.

He said they were involved in Santeria, a faith that began in Cuba when African slaves blended Yoruba spiritual beliefs with Roman Catholic traditions.

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García Alvarez said the victims mixed the potion themselves and drank it "to acquire some certain kind of powers." He said the deaths at a home in Oaxaca city are being investigated as a group suicide.

García Alvarez said the people were involved in Santeria and when they drank the potions, "the only thing that happened was they died of poisoning."

Their bodies were found Saturday at a house on the outskirts of Oaxaca city with no outward signs of injuries. The victims were apparently related, and ranged in age from 18 to 55.

Prosecutors said at the time that tests were being performed to identify the substances found in the house.

In the past, shamanic and other rituals in Mexico have involved toxic or hallucinogenic substances like Devil's Trumpet, or jimson weed, and venom from the Colorado River toad, but it was not known what substances were involved in the most recent deaths in Oaxaca.

However, Santeria has been implicated in other cases of skullduggery in Mexico.

In 2018, a man from a suburb of Mexico City confessed to killing at least 10 women, and claimed to have sold the bones of some of his victims to practitioners of Santeria. The suspect said he sold the bones to a man he met at a bus stop.

Parts of the man’s confession may have to be taken with a grain of salt; he initially confessed to killing 20 women, but was able to provide details — names and description of the victims — in only 10 cases.

Months of relentless Russian artillery pounding have devastated a strategic city in eastern Ukraine, new drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows, with barely a building left intact, homes and municipal offices charred and a town that once had a population of 12,000 now all but deserted.

The footage shows Chasiv Yar — set amid green fields and woodland — pounded into an apocalyptic vista. The destruction is reminiscent of the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, which Ukraine yielded after months of bombardment and huge losses for both sides.

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The strategically important city has been under attack by Russian forces for months. Capturing it would give Russia control of a hilltop from which it can attack other cities that form the backbone of Ukraine’s eastern defenses.

That would set the stage for a potentially broader Russian offensive that Ukrainian officials say could come as early as this month.

Russia launched waves of assaults on foot and in armored vehicles at Chasiv Yar's outnumbered Ukrainian troops, who have run desperately short of ammunition while waiting for the U.S. and other allies to send fresh supplies.

Rows of mid-rise apartment blocks in Chasiv Yar have been blackened by blasts, punched through with holes or reduced to piles of timber and masonry. Houses and civic buildings are heavily damaged. The golden dome of a church remains intact but the building appears badly damaged.

No soldiers or civilians were seen in the footage shot Monday and exclusively obtained by the AP, apart from a lone man walking down the middle of a road between wrecked structures.

Regional Gov. Vadym Filashkin said Wednesday on Ukrainian TV that 682 residents have held on in Chasiv Yar, living in "very difficult conditions." The city had a pre-war population of over 12,500. Filashkin said that those remaining have lacked running water and power for over a year, and that it is "ever more difficult" for humanitarian aid to reach them.

The destruction underscores Russia’s scorched-earth tactics throughout more than two years of war, as its troops have killed and displaced thousands of civilians.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged Monday that the delayed delivery of allies' military aid to Ukraine had left the country at the mercy of the Kremlin's bigger and better-equipped forces.

Ukraine and its Western partners are racing to deploy critical new military aid that can help check the slow but steady Russian advance as well as thwart drone and missile attacks.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian authorities reported that two civilians died and at least nine others, included an 11-year-old boy, were wounded Wednesday after Russian aerial guided bombs pummeled a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

According to Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, a 64-year-old man and 38-year-old woman - both locals - were killed after one of the bombs detonated near their car in Zolochiv, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border with Russia.

In the southern Black Sea port of Odesa, at least 13 people were injured after a Russian ballistic missile slammed into the city late Wednesday, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said in a Telegram update. He did not say what had been hit, but reported the blast had sparked a major fire.

Videos circulating on social media showed huge plumes of smoke rising skywards at the site. Nova Poshta, a large Ukrainian postal and courier company, said in a Facebook post Wednesday that one of its sorting depots had been struck, but claimed no employees were among those hurt.

Odesa has been a frequent target for Russian firepower, with eight civilians killed by Russian missiles in the city over the past two days.

Heavy rains in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state have killed at least 10 people and left 21 missing since Monday, the country's civil defense said Wednesday.

An additional 11 people were injured and more than 3,300 were forced to leave their homes due to damage caused by the storms, the civil defense added.

Operators reported electricity and water cuts across the state, and officials detailed numerous incidents of flooded roads, landslides and collapsed bridges as water levels of rivers and streams rose sharply.

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Authorities activated the Brazilian Air Force to assist stranded people. It deployed two helicopters for the rescue mission.

The southern state's crisis Cabinet met on Wednesday. Rescuing people in isolated and island areas is the priority, vice-governor Gabriel Souza said, according to a statement. Authorities had registered more than 130 rescue requests by Wednesday morning.

"There is a special concern with dams in an alert situation, with risk of failure and flooding due to very high levels," Souza added. Residents in nearby areas are being relocated, he said.

The downpour started Monday and was expected to last through Friday, civil defense authorities said.

In some areas, such as valleys, mountain slopes and cities, more than 6 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, said Brazil’s National Institute of Meteorology, known by the Portuguese acronym INMET, on Tuesday.

Weather across South America is affected by the climate phenomenon El Niño, a periodic naturally occurring event that warms surface waters in the Equatorial Pacific region. In Brazil, El Niño has historically caused droughts in the north and intense rainfall in the south.

This year, the impacts of El Niño have been particularly dramatic, with a historic drought in the Amazon. Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently due to human-caused climate change.

Police in Norway say a man carrying two knives stabbed one person and threatened several others in the center of Oslo on Wednesday.

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The incident occurred outside one of the city’s biggest subway stations when an argument got out of control, police said.

The unnamed man in his 30s stabbed one man in the arm and charged at several others.

A policeman drew his gun and told the man to drop the knives, a witness told Norway’s national broadcaster NRK.

The incident is not believed to be terror-related.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday announced his government will break diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday in the latest escalation of tensions between the countries over the Israel-Hamas war.

Petro again described Israel’s siege of Gaza as "genocide." He previously suspended purchases of weapons from Israel and compared that country’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany.

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"Tomorrow, diplomatic relations with the State of Israel will be broken … for having a genocidal president," Petro said during an International Workers’ Day march in Colombia’s capital. "If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we are not going to let it die."

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly rebuked Petro’s comments on the platform X.

"History will remember that Gustavo Petro decided to side with the most despicable monsters known to mankind who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians," he said.

Weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the current war in Gaza and killed some 1,200 people, Petro recalled Colombia’s ambassador to Israel as he criticized the country’s military offensive.

Historically, Colombia had been one of Israel’s closest partners in Latin America. But relations between the two nations have cooled since Petro was elected as Colombia’s first leftist president in 2022.

Colombia uses Israeli-built warplanes and machine guns to fight drug cartels and rebel groups, and both countries signed a free trade agreement in 2020.

"Relations between Israel and Colombia always were warm and no antisemitic and hate-filled president will succeed in changing that," Katz wrote Tuesday. "The state of Israel will continue to defend its citizens without worry and without fear."

The South American country deepened its military ties with Israel in the late 1980s by purchasing Kfir fighter jets that were used by Colombia’s air force in numerous attacks on remote guerrilla camps that debilitated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The attacks helped push the group into peace talks that resulted in its disarmament in 2016.

Petro participated in Wednesday’s march in Bogota to promote his proposed health care, pension and labor reforms.

Warsaw's main synagogue was attacked with firebombs by an unknown perpetrator, but sustained minimal damage and nobody was hurt, Poland's chief rabbi said Wednesday. The incident was strongly condemned by political leaders.

The attack on the Nożyk Synagogue happened around 1 a.m., the country's American-born chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said. The synagogue was hit with three firebombs, or Molotov cocktails, and only sustained minimal damage "by tremendous luck or miracle," he said.

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Hours later, the ambassadors of the U.S. and Israel gathered at the spot with Jewish community leaders and Polish officials representing the president, the national parliament and the city government to condemn the attack and express solidarity with Poland’s Jewish community.

A black area that was the result of where the firebombs hit was visible near a ground floor window of the synagogue, the only surviving prewar Jewish house of prayer in the Polish capital.

"The Nożyk synagogue is a symbol of survival, and we stand in solidarity with Nożyk today and tomorrow," U.S. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski told reporters at a briefing held near the damaged facade.

It was unclear who carried out the attack but police have opened an investigation, Schudrich said.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda wrote on X that he condemned "the shameful attack," saying, "There is no place for antisemitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!"

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski noted that the incident fell on the 20th anniversary of Poland joining the European Union along with nine other countries, most of them Central European nations that had been under the Soviet sphere of influence for decades.

"Thank God no one was hurt. I wonder who is trying to disrupt the anniversary of our accession to the EU," Sikorski wrote on X. "Maybe the same ones who scribbled Stars of David in Paris?"

France said last year that it had been the target of a Russian online destabilization campaign that used automated social-media accounts to whip up controversy and confusion about spray-painted Stars of David that appeared on Paris streets and fed alarm about surging antisemitism in France during the Israel-Hamas war.

Poland, which until the Holocaust was the home of Europe’s largest Jewish community, numbering some 3.3 million, now counts a few thousand Jewish inhabitants in its population.

Volunteer searchers said they have found a clandestine crematorium on the edge of Mexico City.

It's the first time in recent memory that anyone claimed to have found such a body disposal site in the capital. In northern Mexico, drug cartels often use drums filled with diesel or caustic substances to burn or dissolve bodies, but up to now there has been little evidence of that in Mexico City.

Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced on social media late Tuesday her team had found bones around a charred pit on the outskirts of the city.

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Flores said the team had found bones, clandestine burial pits and ID cards at the site in a rural area of the city’s south side.

Mexico City prosecutors issued a statement saying they were investigating the find to determine the nature of the remains found, and whether they were human. The prosecutors office said it was also reviewing security camera footage and looking for possible witnesses.

The discovery, if confirmed, would be a political embarrassment for the ruling party, which has long governed Mexico City and claims the capital has been spared much of the drug cartel violence that afflicts other parts of the country.

That is largely due to the city's dense population, notoriously snarled traffic, extensive security camera network and large police force, which presumably make it hard for criminals to act in the same way they do in provincial areas.

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But while the city is home to 9 million residents and the greater metropolitan area holds around 20 million, large parts of the south side are still a mix of farms, woods and mountains. In those areas, it is not unheard of for criminals to dump the bodies of kidnapping victim, but they seldom burn or bury them.

Volunteer searchers like Flores often conduct their own investigations, sometimes relying on tips from former criminals, because the government has been unable to help. The searchers have been angered by a government campaign to "find" missing people by checking their last known address, to see if they have returned home without advising authorities.

Activists claim that is just an attempt to reduce the politically embarrassing figures on the missing.

The searchers, mostly the mothers of the disappeared, usually aren’t trying to convict anyone for their relatives’ abductions. They say they just want to find their remains.

The Mexican government has spent little on looking for the missing. Volunteers must stand in for nonexistent official search teams in the hunt for clandestine graves where cartels hide their victims. The government hasn’t adequately funded or implemented a genetic database to help identify the remains found.

Victims’ relatives rely on anonymous tips, sometimes from former cartel gunmen, to find suspected body-dumping sites. They plunge long steel rods into the earth to detect the scent of death.

If they find something, the most authorities will do is send a police and forensics team to retrieve the remains, which in most cases are never identified. But such systematic searches have been rare in Mexico City.

At least seven of the activists searching for some of Mexico’s more than 100,000 missing people have been killed since 2021.

Indonesia's Mount Ruang volcano spewed more hot clouds on Wednesday after an eruption the previous day forced the closure of schools and airports, pelted villages with volcanic debris and prompted hundreds of people to flee.

Seven airports, including Sam Ratulangi international airport in Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, remained closed after Tuesday's eruption, the second in two weeks. Schools were shut to protect children from volcanic ash.

The volcano is on tiny Ruang Island, part of the Sitaro islands chain.

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The Indonesian geological agency urged people to stay at least 4 miles from the volcano’s crater. It warned people on nearby Tagulandang Island, the closest to the volcano, of possible super-heated volcanic clouds from a further eruption and a tsunami if the mountain's volcanic dome collapses into the sea.

Video released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed about a hundred villagers from Tagulandang Island being evacuated on a navy ship. Hundreds of others were waiting at a local port to be evacuated.

Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said 11,000 to 12,000 people living within a 4-mile danger zone would be taken to government shelters.

Tuesday’s eruption darkened the sky and peppered several villages with ash, grit and rocks. No casualties were reported.

After Mount Ruang's April 17 eruption, authorities warned that a subsequent eruption might collapse part of the volcano into the sea.

Ruang is among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The archipelagic nation is prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a series of fault lines stretching from the western coast of the Americas through Japan and Southeast Asia.

The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China said he was allowed back into his lab after he spent days locked outside, sitting in protest.

Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post on Wednesday, just past midnight, that the medical center that hosts his lab had "tentatively agreed" to allow him and his team to return and continue their research for the time being.

"Now, team members can enter and leave the laboratory freely," Zhang wrote in a post on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. He added that he is negotiating a plan to relocate the lab in a way that doesn’t disrupt his team’s work with the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, which hosts Zhang’s lab.

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Zhang and his team were suddenly told they had to leave their lab for renovations on Thursday, setting off the dispute, he said in an earlier post that was later deleted. On Sunday, Zhang began a sit-in protest outside his lab after he found he was locked out, a sign of continuing pressure on Chinese scientists conducting research on the coronavirus.

Zhang sat outside on flattened cardboard in drizzling rain, and members of his team unfurled a banner that read "Resume normal scientific research work," pictures posted online show. News of the protest spread widely on Chinese social media, putting pressure on local authorities.

In an online statement Monday, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said that Zhang’s lab was closed for "safety reasons" while being renovated. It added that it had provided Zhang’s team an alternative laboratory space.

But Zhang responded the same day his team wasn’t offered an alternative until after they were notified of their eviction, and the lab offered didn’t meet safety standards for conducting their research, leaving his team in limbo.

Zhang’s dispute with his host institution was the latest in a series of setbacks, demotions and ousters since the virologist published the sequence in January 2020 without state approval.

Beijing has sought to control information related to the virus since it first emerged. An Associated Press investigation found that the government froze domestic and international efforts to trace it from the first weeks of the outbreak. These days, labs are closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and some Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.

Zhang’s ordeal started when he and his team decoded the virus on Jan. 5, 2020, and wrote an internal notice warning Chinese authorities of its potential to spread — but did not make the sequence public. The next day, Zhang’s lab was ordered to close temporarily by China’s top health official, and Zhang came under pressure from the authorities.

Foreign scientists soon learned that Zhang and other Chinese scientists had deciphered the virus and called on China to release the sequence. Zhang published it on Jan. 11, 2020, despite a lack of permission from Chinese health officials.

Sequencing a virus is key to the development of test kits, disease control measures and vaccinations. The virus eventually spread to every corner of the world, triggering a pandemic that disrupted lives and commerce, prompted widespread lockdowns and killed millions of people.

Zhang was awarded prizes overseas in recognition for his work. But health officials removed him from a post at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and barred him from collaborating with some of his former partners, hindering his research.

Still, Zhang retains support from some in the government. Though some of Zhang’s online posts were deleted, his sit-in protest was reported widely in China’s state-controlled media, indicating divisions within the Chinese government on how to deal with Zhang and his team.

"Thank you to my online followers and people from all walks of life for your concern and strong support over the past few days!" Zhang wrote in his post Wednesday.

A 98-year-old woman in Ukraine who escaped Russian-occupied territory by walking almost 6 miles alone, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane has been reunited with her family days after they were separated while fleeing to safety.

Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family decided to leave the front-line town of Ocheretyne, in the eastern Donetsk region, last week after Russian troops entered it and fighting intensified.

Russians have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv's depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs.

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"I woke up surrounded by shooting all around — so scary," Lomikovska said in a video interview posted by the National Police of Donetsk region.

In the chaos of the departure, Lomikovska became separated from her son and two daughters-in-law, including one, Olha Lomikovska, injured by shrapnel days earlier. The younger family members took to back routes, but Lydia wanted to stay on the main road.

With a cane in one hand and steadying herself using a splintered piece of wood in the other, she walked all day without food and water to reach Ukrainian lines.

Describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she had fallen twice and was forced to stop to rest at some points, even sleeping along the way before waking up and continuing her journey.

"Once I lost balance and fell into weeds. I fell asleep … a little, and continued walking. And then, for the second time, again, I fell. But then I got up and thought to myself: "I need to keep walking, bit by bit,’" Lomikovska said.

Pavlo Diachenko, acting spokesman for the National Police of Ukraine in the Donetsk region, said Lomikovska was saved when Ukrainian soldiers spotted her walking along the road in the evening. They handed her over to the "White Angels," a police group that evacuates citizens living on the front line, who then took her to a shelter for evacuees and contacted her relatives.

"I survived that war,’ she said referring to World War II. "I had to go through this war too, and in the end, I am left with nothing.

"That war wasn’t like this one. I saw that war. Not a single house burned down. But now – everything is on fire," she said to her rescuer.

In the latest twist to the story, the chief executive of one of Ukraine’s largest banks announced on his Telegram channel Tuesday that the bank would purchase a house for the pensioner.

"Monobank will buy Lydia Stepanivna a house and she will surely live in it until the moment when this abomination disappears from our land," Oleh Horokhovskyi said.

A 15-year-old boy who claimed to be a friend of a teen accused of stabbing a Sydney bishop applied Wednesday to be released from custody on bail on a charge of planning a terrorist attack.

The 15-year-old is one of six teens, ages 14 to 17, who were charged in a Sydney court last week with a range of offenses including conspiring to engage in or planning a terrorist act. All remain in custody.

Police alleged they all "adhered to a religiously motivated, violent extremist ideology" and were part of a network that included a 16-year-old boy charged with stabbing an Assyrian Orthodox bishop and priest on April 15 as a church service was being streamed online.

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The 15-year-old’s lawyer, Ahmed Dib, argued in the Parramatta Children’s Court that Magistrate James Viney should allow his client to be released on bail due to exceptional circumstances.

Prosecutor Rebekah Rodger opposed the bail application, arguing the boy’s circumstances were unexceptional.

Viney will make his decision as early as Thursday.

Dib tendered a bundle of documents including an affidavit from the boy’s mother, school report cards and a psychological report. The documents showed the boy had a history of behavioral issues, lacked confidence and had low self-esteem.

The prosecutor argued such factors were to be expected.

"A young person with behavioral issues facing a terrorism accusation is not exceptional, it is rather the norm," Rodger said.

The boy had been part of an encrypted chat group titled "Plans" where he talked about targeting Jewish people, Rodger said.

Rodger said he had also described the teen charged with the stabbings at Christ the Good Shepherd Church as "my mate."

The bishop's attacker was charged with committing a terrorist act four days after stabbing that triggered a riot outside the church. Neither the bishop nor priest suffered life-threatening injuries.

The attack also triggered a major multi-agency counterterrorism response that led to the arrest of another six teens the next week.

Dib told the court the boy put on a macho performance on social media messages about planning an attack and was not the "monster" prosecutors sought to paint him as.

Dib's client was charged Friday, a day after his five alleged associates were charged.

Two hand-drawn Islamic State group flags were found in the client's bedroom when police raided it last week.

He watched proceedings by video link from a detention center while his parents attended court.

Saudi Arabia confirmed in a letter to the United Nations that a female fitness instructor who was popular online received an 11-year prison sentence but did not specify any of her alleged "terrorism offenses."

Though the kingdom insisted the case had nothing to do with the instructor's online presence, human rights activists say the conviction levied against Manahel al-Otaibi shows the limits of expression in Saudi Arabia.

It also highlights another side of the kingdom, now run day-to-day by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who under his 88-year-old father King Salman has dramatically liberalized some aspects of women's lives in the country.

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"Her charges related solely to her choice of clothing and expression of her views online, including calling on social media for an end to Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system, publishing videos of herself wearing ‘indecent clothes’ and ‘going to the shops without wearing an abaya,’" said Amnesty International and ALQST, a London-based group advocating for human rights in Saudi Arabia that’s followed al-Otaibi’s case.

The human rights organization issued joint statements on Tuesday about al-Otaibi's prison sentence, first revealed in a Saudi letter dated Jan. 25 and sent to the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In its letter, Saudi Arabia’s permanent mission to the U.N. in Geneva did not outline any of the evidence that convicted al-Otaibi while saying there had been "unfounded and uncorroborated allegations and claims" made about her case.

Al-Otaibi, who posted fitness videos on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, faced charges of "defaming the kingdom at home and abroad, calling for rebellion against public order and society’s traditions and customs, and challenging the judiciary and its justice," according to court documents earlier seen by The Associated Press.

Her posts included advocacy for liberal dress codes for women, LGBTQ+ rights and the abolition of Saudi Arabia male guardianship laws. She was also accused of appearing in indecent clothing and posting Arabic hashtags that include the phrase "overthrow the government."

Al-Otaibi has been detained since November 2022. Her sister Fouz faced similar charges but fled Saudi Arabia, according to ALQST.

The kingdom's letter said the Saudi government "wishes to underscore the fact that the exercise and defense of rights is not a crime under Saudi law; however, justifying the actions of terrorists by describing them as exercising or defending rights is unacceptable and constitutes an attempt to legitimize terrorist crimes."

Since 2018, women have been allowed to drive and other restrictions have been lifted in the once-ultraconservative kingdom as it tries to rapidly diversify its oil-based economy. That came as Prince Mohammed solidified his power, partly by imprisoning members of the Saudi elite as his father retains formal control in the kingdom.

Several activists have been arrested for denouncing Saudi rules, or following dissidents who do so, on social media. This includes Salma al-Shehab, a former doctoral student at Leeds University who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence.

Skimming over miles of hills blackened by wildfires west of Athens, Fire Lt. Col. Ioannis Kolovos readies his elite fire crew crouched inside a helicopter.

The 10-member group from the 1st Wildfire Special Operation Unit bristles with tools needed to hold back fires: chainsaws, specialized rakes, weather gauges, computer tablets and earth-scorching drip torches to burn wildfire barriers into the hillside.

Greece’s fire season officially starts May 1, but dozens of fires have already been put out over the past month after temperatures began hitting 86 degrees Fahrenheit in late March — considerably higher than previous spikes recorded over the past decade.

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"It’s actually already summer for us," Kolovos told The Associated Press during a recent training exercise. "The truth is that the fire season has started prematurely and has been extended over the last five years."

This year, Greece is doubling the number of firefighters in specialized units to some 1,300, and adopting tactics from the United States to try and outflank fires with airborne units scrambled to build breaks in the predicted path of the flames.

Crew members include forestry experts and firefighters with varied skills, many developed in training with colleagues in France, Spain and the United States.

"We can position ourselves in optimal locations that may be difficult to reach by foot and carry out fire suppression using various specialized methods," Firefighter Dimitris "Jim" Priftis said while assisting trainees in a region near the capital ravaged by wildfires in summer 2023.

"Using water is no longer our main weapon against fires, it’s our tools," he said. "We are taking a more scientific approach toward fires, measuring the humidity, the wind — it’s a more planned method."

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Mostly funded by the European Union, Greece has launched a $2.3 billion program to overhaul its disaster response capability, ordering new water-dropping aircraft, drones, fire trucks, training facilities, and an artificial intelligence-driven sensor network to detect early signs of smoke and flooding.

But the new equipment won’t start arriving until 2025. Greek authorities are doubling down on training and new firefighting methods, with another tough season expected this year.

Fires burned an estimated 1,750 square kilometers (675 square miles) last year, including a blaze in northern Greece that was the worst fire ever recorded in the European Union.

Windy and mountainous with hard-to-reach islands, Greece faces a daunting annual challenge in defending multiple urban settlements that overlap with wooded areas at wildfire risk.

It’s also getting hotter: Last winter was the warmest since modern records began in 1960, according to the National Observatory of Athens, which analyzed European Union satellite data. The six warmest Greek winters on record have occurred in the past decade.

That’s against the backdrop of new data revealing that Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, its temperatures rising at roughly twice the global average.

Standing in the main disaster response command center in Athens, Vassilis Kikilias, the minister for climate crisis and civil protection, says authorities expect annual conditions to worsen further.

"It will be a very difficult fire season, a very difficult summer," Kikilias, a towering former pro basketball player, told the AP in an interview. "We had a dry winter and fall temperatures lasting until December. So we’re facing the climate crisis head on."

Throughout the month of April, firefighters stepped up exercises and training, using new facilities like the Fire Dragon, a $1.3 million trailer used to simulate the inside of a burning building. Fire crews with heavy protective gear and oxygen tanks use it to practice close-quarter techniques and rescues.

Close by, Fire Service regulars and trainees crawl through a mesh maze in darkness to practice working in confined spaces. Participants in full kit first workout on treadmill climbers and other gym machines, then crawl through the maze as strobe lights, smoke and loud noises are added to disorient them.

"The firefighting maze helps firefighters in a dark environment, in an unfamiliar setting, in the presence of fire, to enter the area, investigate, possibly carry out a rescue and find a way out," said Fire Lt. Col. Vrasidas Grafakos, a training center commander.

"It’s to train them effectively to be ready for building fires, for front-line activity."

Retiree Chrysoula Renieri was among those who lost their homes in the 2023 fires that tore through forests on the island of Rhodes, in northeastern Greece, and areas west of Athens.

Renieri visited her gutted house last week. As she walked through the blackened rooms, she described how her family felt helpless as the approaching fire cut off power and the water supply before the flames took over the house. "No one helped us and everything burned. It’s all gone."

She said she hopes the Fire Service’s new equipment and methods might make a difference to others.

"I wish that would happen, so many homes could be saved," she said. "We hope, because summer is coming again and the torment will begin."

A British police officer is facing terror charges for showing support for Hamas on WhatsApp, a police watchdog said Wednesday.

West Yorkshire constable Mohammed Adil shared images supporting Hamas, which is banned and designated a terror group in the U.K., the Independent Office for Police Conduct said.

Adil faces two counts of publishing an image in support of a proscribed organization in violation of the Terrorism Act.

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He allegedly shared the images on WhatsApp in October and November.

Adil has been suspended by the West Yorkshire force.

He is scheduled to appear Thursday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

A senior Australian government minister said Wednesday the bilateral relationship with India was good and had improved in recent years, but declined to comment on reports that two Indian spies were secretly expelled from Australia four years ago.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers was asked during a television interview whether India could be considered Australia’s friend after Australian news media and The Washington Post reported the two intelligence operatives’ quiet expulsion.

Chalmers told Australian Broadcasting Corp., "I don’t want to get into those kinds of operational issues in any way."

WHITE HOUSE VOICES CONCERN OVER INDIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE'S ALLEGED ROLE IN ASSASSINATION PLOTS

"We’ve got a good relationship with India and with other countries in the region, it’s an important economic relationship, it’s become closer in recent years as a consequence of efforts on both sides, and that’s a good thing," Chalmers said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong deflected questions Wednesday at press conferences about India’s reported spying, using the government's standard line that they did not comment on intelligence matters.

India is an increasingly important trading partner of Australia, which is trying to reduce its economic reliance on China.

India and Australia are also developing closer military ties as members of the Quad security dialogue that also includes the United States and Japan.

The center-left Labor Party government was not in power when the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the nation’s main domestic spy agency, removed the two spies.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess outlined the activities of what he described as a "nest of spies" during a public speech in 2021. But he did not reveal the nation behind the espionage.

Most observers suspected China or Russia.

The Washington Post, The Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Broadcasting Corp have all cited anonymous security officials identifying the spies as operatives of India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing.

The spies targeted relationships with current and former politicians and a state police force, Burgess said. They also monitored the country’s diaspora in Australia and obtained classified information about Australia’s trade relationships.

They asked a public servant to provide information on security protocols at a major Australian airport and recruited an official with a security clearance to access sensitive details about defense technology, Burgess said.

Burgess and ASIO have declined to say whether India was behind the spying.

The Indian High Commission in Australia did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

A 17-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

The arrest occurred after three people were assaulted with a sharp object at a secondary school in northern England, South Yorkshire Police said Wednesday.

Two adults and a child were treated for minor injuries but didn't need to be transported to a hospital, according to The Birley Academy.

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The school, formerly known as Birley Community College, was closed for the rest of Wednesday.

The school is located in the city of Sheffield.

The suspect was in custody.

An exhibition of Western military equipment captured from Kyiv forces during the fighting in Ukraine opened Wednesday in the Russian capital.

The exhibit organized by the Russian Defense Ministry features over 30 pieces of Western-made heavy equipment including a U.S.-made M1 Abrams battle tank and a Bradley armored fighting vehicle, a Leopard 2 tank and a Marder armored infantry vehicle from Germany, and a French-made AMX-10RC armored vehicle.

The exhibition, which will remain open for a month at a World War II memorial venue in western Moscow, also displays firearms, military papers and other documents.

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Russian authorities have criticized supplies of Western weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, casting them as evidence of NATO's direct involvement in the conflict. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly declared that Western military supplies to Kyiv wouldn’t change the course of the conflict and prevent Russia from achieving its goals.

The exhibition comes as Russian forces have grabbed more land in eastern Ukraine, taking advantage of delays in U.S. military assistance to push back the under-gunned Kyiv forces.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has hailed the Moscow exhibition as a "brilliant idea."

"The exhibition of trophy equipment will attract great interest from Moscow residents, guests of our city, and all residents of the country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "We should all see the enemy's battered equipment."

Russian military bloggers drew parallels between the show and the exhibits of captured Nazi military equipment the Soviet Union held during and after World War II.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova noted that foreign diplomats based in Moscow should take the opportunity to visit the exhibition to see how "the West destroys peace on the planet."

"This exhibition will be interesting to all those who still believe in mythical ‘Western values’ or fail to notice an aggression unleashed by NATO against Russia and our people," Zakharova said.

Ecuador on Wednesday defended its storming of the Mexican Embassy in Quito last month, telling judges at the United Nations' top court that it acted to take in "a common criminal" — Ecuador's former vice president — who was holed up inside the diplomatic post.

The statement by lawyers for Ecuador was part of hearings in a case filed by Mexico at the International Court of Justice that accuses Quito of blatantly violating international treaties by storming the embassy to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas.

The April 5 raid, hours after Mexico granted asylum to Glas, further fueled tensions that had been brewing between the two countries since the former vice president, a convicted criminal and fugitive, took refuge at the embassy in December.

MEXICO TAKES ECUADOR TO TOP UN COURT OVER EMBASSY RAID IN QUITO

Leaders across Latin America condemned the raid as a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

"Mexico, for months misused its diplomatic premises in Quito to shelter a common criminal" who had been convicted twice of corruption and other offenses, the leader of Ecuador's legal team at the International Court of Justice, Andres Teran Parral, told judges on Tuesday.

In its case filed April 11, Mexico asked the court to award reparation and suspend Ecuador from the United Nations. It also asked judges to take "appropriate and immediate steps to provide full protection and security of diplomatic premises" and prevent any further intrusions.

"There are lines in international law which should not be crossed. Regrettably, the Republic of Ecuador has crossed them," Alejandro Celorio Alcantara, legal adviser for Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, told the court Tuesday.

But Ecuador argued Wednesday that the ICJ doesn't need to act now because Quito has already complied with the measures sought by Mexico.

"This hearing is unnecessary and unjustified because Ecuador has already provided assurances of its own volition, both to Mexico and to this court, that it will respect and protect the premises of Mexico" and other diplomatic property, Teran Parral said.

Another lawyer for Ecuador, Sean Murphy, said Mexico had made no attempt to negotiate a settlement to the dispute between them — one of the preconditions for the court to impose interim orders.

"By any measure .. there was no genuine attempt at negotiations," Murphy said.

Judges will likely take weeks to reach a decision on Mexico's request for preliminary orders.

On the eve of two days of courtroom hearings this week, Ecuador also filed a case accusing Mexico of using its embassy to "shield Mr. Glas from enforcement by Ecuador of its criminal law" and arguing that the actions "constituted, among other things, a blatant misuse of the premises of a diplomatic mission."

It asked the ICJ to rule that Mexico’s actions breached a number of international conventions. No date was immediately set for hearings in the case filed by Ecuador.

JERUSALEM – The rising costs of a floating pier off the coast of the embattled Gaza Strip – said to be aimed at enabling shipments of humanitarian aid to reach the civilian population trapped in the central and northern parts of the Palestinian enclave – has stoked controversy after it was revealed this week that the project will cost the U.S. upward of $320 million. 

On Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command posted photographs on X of the pier under construction by U.S. soldiers in the Mediterranean Sea, saying that the hulking metal platform "will support USAID and other humanitarian partners who will receive and deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza." 

However, some have questioned the effectiveness of the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) pier after the Pentagon revealed on Monday that the estimated cost would nearly double the original estimate of $180 million. It also said the project will only be in use temporarily, for a period of three months. 

BIDEN'S VISION FOR A PALESTINIAN STATE DOOMED, EXPERTS SAY: 'AN EXPLICIT RECOGNITION OF HAMAS'

In a statement on X, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., called the project "ill-conceived," writing that "the cost has not just risen. It has exploded." 

"This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost American taxpayers at least $320 million to operate the pier for only 90 days," he wrote. "How much will taxpayers be on the hook once – or if – the pier is finally constructed? For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’ rockets." 

"During the State of the Union address, President Biden announced that he has directed the U.S. military to undertake an emergency mission to establish a maritime corridor and temporary pier in Gaza, working in partnership with like-minded countries and partners, to allow assistance to flow by sea directly into Gaza, as part of a sustained effort to increase U.S. aid coming into Gaza by land, air, and sea," a State Department spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

"This temporary pier will bring much-needed assistance into Gaza, but I want to be clear: this work is in addition to our other, ongoing efforts to continue sustaining and expanding assistance going in by land," the spokesperson said. 

According to a Guardian report, aid will arrive at the pier in commercial ships sailing from Cyprus. From there, pallets will be loaded on to trucks, which will then travel on smaller ships that will transport them to a floating two-lane causeway leading to the shore. The first shipment is expected to arrive next week.

WHY MIDEAST NEIGHBORS WON'T OFFER REFUGE TO PALESTINIANS STUCK IN GAZA WAR ZONE

Slated to process up to 2 million meals a day for the people in Gaza, the Pentagon said, the project has also raised concerns about security, particularly for U.S. troops who will remain off the coast aboard aircraft carriers. 

Responding to a question posed by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla, during the House Armed Services FY25 budget hearing on Tuesday, regarding the possibility of threats facing the roughly 1,000 U.S. servicemen and women working to construct the pier, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said they would all be armed and, if attacked from Gaza, they would "have the right to return fire to protect themselves."

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, told Fox News Digital that the big question was who would operate the pier once the construction process was complete. 

"Once the pier is constructed, U.S. soldiers will not remain there and the pier will be operated by others," he said, adding that there was a lingering danger that Hamas, the Islamist terror group whose brutal Oct. 7 terror attack sparked a full-scale war with Israel, would try to sabotage the project if it were allowed to remain intact. 

"As long as Hamas still exists, as long as they are still in power in some parts of Gaza or able to operate militarily, they will not enable this to operate unless it is put directly under their control," Michael said. "If the Americans give the Qataris the authority to operate the pier, that means it will really be Hamas who operates the pier via a local company," he claimed.

Michael noted that the pier project directly contradicts another U.S. goal relating to the seven-month-old war in Gaza: bringing about a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. 

According to reports this week, the U.S. is hopeful Hamas, which still controls the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, will agree to the terms of a newly drafted ceasefire agreement to release some of the 133 hostages it kidnapped during its Oct. 7 attacks in exchange for Israeli troops withdrawing from all or most of the territory, as well as the release of hundreds of Palestinian terrorists being held in Israeli jails. 

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"U.S. pressure on Israel to accept all of Hamas’ demands could mean that the IDF will not be there to secure the pier, on the other hand, the U.S. expects the IDF to secure the pier once it is ready – how will those two concepts work together?" Michael said. 

"If the IDF is there to protect the pier, that means they will need to be there to secure the transfer of the humanitarian aid from the ships to the pier; then to the trucks and then to escort the trucks to distribution centers and help secure the distribution inside the Gaza Strip," he added. "Ultimately, that means having a permanent IDF presence on Gaza soil."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) international spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told the media over the weekend that the JLOTS project was extremely complicated, not only because it is located in a war zone, but also because of the amounts of aid that would be entering Gaza. 

"This is not a simple operation, and the IDF is involved in many parts of it," he said, adding that Israel was "very committed" to the effort and that it would come as an addition to the sharp increase in aid that has been entering Gaza via the land and the air over the past few weeks. 

"The aid will be checked in Cyprus, same as they have been checked everywhere," said Shoshani, referring to Israel’s security operations at crossings from Egypt into Gaza and also from Jordan into the West Bank and then to Gaza. 

"I don’t know how they plan to convert this in the long term, but the provision of approved and screened aide by an allied European country is a major step up from relying on Egypt to handle this task," Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, told Fox News Digital.

"If the Cypriot channel can be institutionalized, and the Egyptian border can be secured both above and below ground, this could prevent the re-arming of Hamas for years to come," he said, adding, "If this can be solidified and made permanent, it would be a net benefit for the entire region."