AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Modi's coalition leads in a majority of seats in early count but opposition is stiffer than expected
NEW DELHI (AP) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi's coalition led in a majority of seats Tuesday in India's general election, according to early figures, but faced a stronger challenge from the opposition than expected after it pushed back against the leader's mixed economic record and polarizing politics.
The counting of more than 640 million votes cast over six weeks in the world’s largest democratic exercise was set to take all day. Modi was still widely expected to be elected to a third five-year term — even as the race tightened and the early count showed his Hindu nationalist party might not secure a majority on its own.
If Modi wins, it would cement the 73-year-old as one of the country’s most popular and important leaders. It would only be the second time an Indian leader has retained power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.
In his 10 years in power, Modi has transformed India’s political landscape, bringing Hindu nationalism, once a fringe ideology in India, into the mainstream while leaving the country deeply divided.
His supporters see him as a self-made, strong leader who has improved India’s standing in the world. His critics and opponents say his Hindu-first politics have bred intolerance and while the economy, the world’s fifth-largest and one of the fastest-growing, has become more unequal.
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Hunter Biden's federal firearms case is opening after the jury is chosen
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Lawyers will make their opening statements Tuesday in the federal gun case against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter after a jury was seated for the trial while the first lady watched from the courtroom and the president sent a message of support.
Hunter Biden has been charged with three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, according to his memoir, in the throes of a crack addiction. He has been accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days.
The proceedings come after the collapse of a deal with prosecutors that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and has argued he's being unfairly targeted by the Justice Department after Republicans decried the now-defunct plea deal as special treatment for the Democratic president's son.
The trial is unfolding just days after Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their proximity underscores how the courts have taken center stage during the 2024 campaign.
Jury selection moved at a clip Monday in the president's home state, where Hunter Biden grew up and where, the elder Biden often says, the family is deeply established. Joe Biden spent 36 years as a senator there, commuting daily back and forth from Washington, D.C.
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How Trump's deny-everything strategy could hurt him at sentencing
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has had plenty to say since his hush money trial conviction last week.
He’s claimed the case was rigged, incorrectly linked President Joe Biden to the state prosecution, called the star witness against him a “sleazebag" and said the judge was a “devil" and “highly conflicted.”
What he hasn’t done is utter any variation of the words that might benefit him most come sentencing time next month: “I'm sorry.”
It’s a truism of the criminal justice system that defendants hoping for lenient treatment at their sentencing are expected to take responsibility for their actions, even express remorse. But that flies in the face of Trump's longtime refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing, a tone that he often strikes to portray strength and present himself as a fighter under ceaseless attack. While the strategy may resonate with his most loyal political supporters, it failed during his New York criminal trial and could complicate his legal team's efforts to avoid a tough sentence.
“The fact, I think, that he has no remorse – quite the opposite, he continues to deny his guilt – is going to hurt him at sentencing," said Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School and a former federal prosecutor in Massachusetts. "It’s one of the things that the judge can really point to that everybody is aware of — that he just denies this — and can use that as a strong basis for his sentence.”
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The Latest | 2 Palestinians are killed in the West Bank and 11 are killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza
The Israeli military said Tuesday it killed two Palestinians, who it claimed were attempting to launch a shooting attack toward Israeli communities from the occupied West Bank. A surge of violence has gripped the West Bank since the October start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, where Palestinian health officials said Israeli strikes killed at least 11 people overnight into Tuesday.
A cease-fire proposal announced by United States President Joe Biden has placed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a crossroads. The proposal offers the possibility of ending Israel’s war against Hamas, returning scores of hostages held by the militant group, quieting the northern border with Lebanon and potentially advancing a historic agreement to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia.
Israeli bombardments and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel’s expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians facing widespread hunger.
Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Israel’s military confirmed the deaths Monday of four more hostages held by Hamas. Around 80 hostages captured on Oct. 7 are believed to still be alive in Gaza, alongside the remains of 43 others.
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Mexico’s next president faces 3 pressing challenges: money, dialogue and the US election
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s newly elected president, the first woman to win the job, faces a long list of challenges, including persistent cartel violence, a deeply divided country, cash-straitened social programs and the long shadow of her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
But for some analysts it mostly comes down to three things: money, dialogue and the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
Claudia Sheinbaum, who begins her six-year presidential term Oct. 1, has four months ahead of her to define her administration’s agenda. During this time, López Obrador is expected to continue delivering his daily morning press briefings as he tries to solidify his legacy.
The coexistence might be far from easy: He has divided society; she says she wants to unite it. He is a leader of the masses; she is an academic and a scientist.
López Obrador has said he will not interfere with his protege's administration. “I do not aspire to be a ‘moral leader,’ a ‘maximum boss,’ a ‘caudillo,’" he said Monday.
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Tractors rumble in streets again ahead of EU polls. Farming is a big issue and the far right pounces
BEERSEL, Belgium (AP) — The far-right Flemish Interest party had set up the demonstration in the picture-pretty rolling fields south of Brussels, ahead of the four-day European Union election starting Thursday. The goal was clear: Decrying how farmers would lose fertile land to what they see as overbearing environmentalists trying to turn it into a chain of woods, killing off a traditional way of life.
It was also another show how agriculture has been instrumentalized by the populist and hard right groups throughout the 27-nation bloc.
In a final push on Tuesday, militant agricultural groups from more than a half dozen nations were converging on Brussels in a show of force that they hoped would sweep the progressive Green Deal climate pact off the table and give farmers the leeway they had for so long in deciding how to till the land. There too, the impact of the far right was clear, with representatives from several EU nations attending the protest that drew hundreds of tractors.
At last week's small protest south of the capital, farmer Eduard Van Overstraeten was growling. “As a farmer, you have just been turned into a number,” he said. Of the 60 hectares (148 acres) he used to farm for wheat, corn and potatoes, he said he was forced to sell a quarter of it — including his farmhouse — to help make a string of distinct woods around Brussels to become one continuous nature zone to improve biodiversity and fight pollution.
Similar stories of discontent, centering on limiting use of manure and pesticides to forcing parts of farmland to be kept pristine nature zones for the benefit of birds and bees — and eventually the population at large — have driven this influential electoral base of conservative Christian Democrats further to the fringes of the right.
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Silence and heavy security in China and Hong Kong on 35th anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown
BEIJING (AP) — Checkpoints and rows of police vehicles lined a major road leading to Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Tuesday as China heightened security on the 35th anniversary of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
China has long quashed any memory of the killings, when the Chinese government ordered in the army to end the months-long protests and uphold Communist rule. An estimated 180,000 troops and armed police rolled in with tanks and armored vehicles, and fired into crowds as they pushed toward Tiananmen Square.
The death toll remains unknown to this day. Hundreds, if not thousands are believed to have been killed in an operation that started the night before and ended on the morning of June 4, 1989.
The crackdown became a turning point in modern Chinese history, ending a crisis in favor of Communist Party hardliners who advocated for control instead of political reforms.
The economy boomed in the ensuing decades, turning a once impoverished country into the world's second largest economy, but societal controls have been tightened since party leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
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With time short, veterans seize the chance to keep their D-Day memories alive for others
LONDON (AP) — Ken Hay’s part in the invasion of Normandy lasted just a few weeks, but he wants to make sure the experiences of those who fought and died to end the Nazi grip on Europe live forever.
The British Army veteran was captured a few weeks after the D-Day landings in northern France when his patrol was surrounded by German troops during the two-month battle for strategic high ground outside the city of Caen known simply as Hill 112. Nine members of his platoon were killed that night. Hay spent the next 10 months as a prisoner of war.
Now 98, Hay visits schools whenever he can to tell his story, so the battle to liberate France and defeat Nazi Germany doesn’t become a dusty relic of history like the Greek and Roman wars he read about as a child.
“While we are around, we vets — and we’re a diminishing crew, of course — we are a tangible interpretation of what they read in the books, what they’ve heard from their parents, what their parents remember their grandparents saying,” Hay said recently.
He said his outreach isn't to glorify war but to leave the message that "there must be a way, other than war, to resolve difficulties.”
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Mourners can now speak to an AI version of the dead. But will that help with grief?
BERLIN (AP) — When Michael Bommer found out that he was terminally ill with colon cancer, he spent a lot of time with his wife, Anett, talking about what would happen after his death.
She told him one of the things she'd miss most is being able to ask him questions whenever she wants because he is so well read and always shares his wisdom, Bommer recalled during a recent interview with The Associated Press at his home in a leafy Berlin suburb.
That conversation sparked an idea for Bommer: Recreate his voice using artificial intelligence to survive him after he passed away.
The 61-year-old startup entrepreneur teamed up with his friend in the U.S., Robert LoCascio, CEO of the AI-powered legacy platform Eternos. Within two months, they built “a comprehensive, interactive AI version" of Bommer — the company's first client.
Eternos, which got its name from the Italian and Latin word for “eternal,” says its technology will allow Bommer's family "to engage with his life experiences and insights.” It is among several companies that have emerged in the last few years in what’s become a growing space for grief-related AI technology.
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She's the world's most expensive cow, and part of Brazil's plan to put beef on everyone's plate
UBERABA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil has hundreds of millions of cows, but one in particular is extraordinary. Her massive, snow-white body is watched over by security cameras, a veterinarian and an armed guard.
Worth $4 million, Viatina-19 FIV Mara Movéis is the most expensive cow ever sold at auction, according to Guinness World Records. That’s three times more than the last recordholder’s price. And — at 1,100 kilograms (more than 2,400 pounds) — she’s twice as heavy as an average adult of her breed.
Along a highway through Brazil’s heartland, Viatina-19’s owners have put up two billboards praising her grandeur and beckoning ranchers, curious locals and busloads of veterinary students to make pilgrimages to see the supercow.
Climate scientists agree that people need to consume less beef, the largest agricultural source of greenhouse gasses and a driver of Amazon deforestation. But the cattle industry is a major source of Brazilian economic development and the government is striving to conquer new export markets. The world’s top beef exporter wants everyone, everywhere to eat its beef.
The embodiment of Brazil’s cattle ambitions is Viatina-19, the product of years of efforts to raise meatier cows. The country’s prizewinners are sold at high-stakes auctions — so high that wealthy ranchers share ownership. They extract the eggs and semen from champion animals, create embryos and implant them in surrogate cows that they hope will produce the next magnificent specimens.
The Associated Press
