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China on Sunday released U.S. pastor David Lin, who has been in jail since 2006 in what the State Department has deemed was a wrongful detainment.

The now 68-year-old pastor was formally arrested in 2009 for ‘contract fraud’ and sentenced to life in prison after allegedly aiding a non-government sanctioned house church. His sentence was later reduced and he was set to be released in April 2030.

According to a U.S.-based China advocacy group, China Aid, which was founded to assist persecuted activists, Lin had been traveling to China since the 1990s for missionary work.

Lin reportedly applied for a license through the Chinese government to organize a Christian ministry, but the request is believed to have been denied.

House churches are congregations in China that have not been approved by the Chinese government, but are reportedly picking up traction across the country despite government crackdowns, according to Christian websites.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in 2019 warned that it suspected Lin was being targeted in prison due to his faith, and voiced concern over his safety and health.

‘Before his imprisonment, Pastor Lin was active in Beijing’s house church movement, which has long-faced hostility from Chinese authorities,’ the USCIRF said in a 2019 statement. ‘House churches are independent of state-sponsored religious organizations, and those who participate in and lead house churches often face intimidation, harassment, arrest, and harsh sentences.’

The State Department did not respond to specific questions from Fox News Digital regarding Lin’s release but instead said,’We welcome David Lin’s release from prison in the People’s Republic of China.’

‘He has returned to the United States and now gets to see his family for the first time in nearly 20 years,’ the spokesperson added.

Reports show that the Biden administration has been attempting to secure Lin’s release for years, including as recently as July when Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Laos.

The administration, U.S. rights groups and lawmakers on the Hill continue to call for the release of other Americans still wrongfully held in China, including businessman Kai Li, who is being held on alleged espionage-related charges, and Mark Swidan, who was sentenced on drug charges.

Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt have also been ‘wrongfully imprisoned’ over alleged drug-related charges, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a U.S.-based human rights group that focuses on political prisoners and other at-risk detainees.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Politics

Havana Syndrome study halted as review finds some patients were coerced

A long-term study of Havana Syndrome patients was shut down after a National Institute of Health (NIH) internal review board found participants who reported being pressured to join the research.The study had until now not found evidence linking the participants to the same symptoms and brain injuries. The internal investigation that halted the study was prompted by complaints from the participants about unethical practices.

This comes after the intelligence community released an interim report last year concluding a foreign adversary is ‘very unlikely’ to be behind the symptoms hundreds of U.S. intelligence officers are experiencing, despite qualifying for U.S. government funded treatment of their brain injuries.

In a statement to Fox News an NIH spokesperson stated, ‘In March 2024, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiated an investigation in response to concerns from participants who were evaluated as part of a study on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI), the results of which were published in the journal JAMA. The investigation was conducted by the NIH Office of Intramural Research and the NIH Research Compliance Review Committee, an Institutional Review Board (IRB) within the NIH. The NIH investigation found that regulatory and NIH policy requirements for informed consent were not met due to coercion, although not on the part of NIH researchers.’

The statement continued, ‘Given the role of voluntary consent as a fundamental pillar of the ethical conduct of research, NIH has stopped the study out of an abundance of caution. In NIH’s assessment, these investigative findings do not impact the conclusions of the study. NIH has shared this update with both participants and JAMA.’

A former CIA officer, who goes by Adam to protect his identity, was not shocked that the study was shut down.

‘The way the study was conducted, at best, was dishonest and, at worst, wades into the criminal side of the scale,’ Adam said.

Adam is Havana Syndrome’s Patient Zero because he was the first to experience the severe sensory phenomena that hundreds of other U.S. government workers have experienced while stationed overseas in places like Havana and Moscow, even China. Adam described pressure to the brain that led to vertigo, tinnitus and cognitive impairment.

Active-duty service members, spies, FBI agents, diplomats and even children and pets have experienced this debilitating sensation that patients believe is caused by a pulsed energy weapon. 334 Americans have qualified to get treatment for Havana Syndrome in specialized military health facilities, according to a study released by the U.S. government accountability office earlier this year.

Adam, who was first attacked in December 2016 in his bedroom in Havana described hearing a loud sound penetrating his room. ‘Kind of like someone was taking a pencil and bouncing it off your eardrum… Eventually I started blacking out,’ Adam said.

Patients, like Adam, who participated in the NIH study raised concerns the CIA was including patients who didn’t really qualify as Havana Syndrome patients, watering down the data being analyzed by NIH researchers. Meanwhile, also pressuring those who needed treatment at Walter Reed to participate in the NIH study in order to get treatment at Walter Reed.

‘It became pretty clear quite quickly that something was amiss and how it was being handled and how patients were being filtered… the CIA dictated who would go. NIH often complained to us behind the scenes that the CIA was not providing adequate, matched control groups, and they flooded in a whole litany of people that likely weren’t connected or had other medical issues that really muddied the water,’ Adam said, accusing the NIH of working with the CIA.

The CIA is cooperating.

‘We cannot comment on whether any CIA officers participated in the study. However, we take any claim of coercion, or perceived coercion, extremely seriously and fully cooperated with NIH’s review of this matter, and have offered access to any information requested,’ a CIA official told Fox News in a statement noting that the ‘CIA Inspector General has been made aware of the NIH findings and prior related allegations.’

Havana Syndrome victims now want to pressure the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) to retract the two articles published last spring using early data from the NIH study that concluded there were no significant MRI-detectable evidence of brain injury among the group of participants compared with a group of matched control participants.

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Politics

Legal experts warn that latest Supreme Court leaks are ‘enormously destructive’

Following revelations of private memoranda and conversations between Supreme Court justices published in the New York Times, legal experts are warning that such sensitive leaks are ‘destructive’ to the high court.

The New York Times reported that internal memos and deliberations that they claimed showed Chief Justice Thomas as having ‘molded’ the outcomes of three major cases the court considered dealing with Jan. 6 rioters, and granting former President Donald Trump certain immunity for presidential acts.

Roberts wrote the majority in the decisions, and the report claims that he ‘provided crucial support for hearing the historic [immunity],’ and made last minute and unexplained changes to authorship of the politically charged opinions.

The leak follows the unprecedented leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and a concerted effort by Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration to make sweeping changes to the court and ethics enforcement.

Republican lawmakers, such as Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and John Kennedy, R-La., claim those efforts are politically motivated to delegitimize one the court now sits with a majority of Republican-appointed justices.

Some legal experts say this latest leak is part of that effort to undermine the Supreme Court.

‘I think it’s enormously destructive to the court when people inside the court disclose to the press confidential memoranda, confidential emails and what appears to even be remarks made at the justices’ conference,’ James Burnham of King Street Legal and former senior Justice Department official told Fox News Digital.

‘It’s destructive because the justices can’t be candid with each other if they think that anything they say could end up in the New York Times. And that means they’re going to speak less to each other. It means they’re not going to be able to deliberate with the same openness that they historically have, and it ultimately undermines the court’s decision making,’ he added.

‘It reads to me like somebody is trying to cast a negative light on the Chief Justice and the other justices in the majority for what I think was a plainly correct and brave decision,’ he said.

Carrie Seveino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said that ‘if there is someone on the Court who deserves censure for being overly political in this case, it’s the individual who leaked’ the ‘highly confidential internal’ documents.

She added that the incident ‘is of a piece with the continued left-wing PR campaign against the Court.’

‘It’s an attempt to smear the Court as an institution, and as part of that, some justices have been targeted more than others,’ she said.

John Shu, a constitutional attorney who served in both Bush administrations, Shu says he believes the leaks are politically motivated, and are most likely designed to keep Roberts anchored in the center or perhaps push him towards center-left in the upcoming term, especially if Trump is elected this November.

‘Because he is the Chief Justice, he gets to assign opinions when he’s in the majority, which is much of the time, and he has administrative power that the other justices do not have,’ said Shu. ‘And much like the President is the embodiment of Article 2, the Chief Justice is the embodiment of Article 3.’

‘It’s really scary that yet another norm has been shattered, violating the sacred confidentiality of deliberations and the opinion drafting process,’Shu said.

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Politics

Brazilian mayoral candidate hospitalized after rival attacks him with metal chair: Watch

A televised mayoral debate in Sao Paulo, Brazil got heated Sunday night, after one of the six candidates attacked another candidate with a metal chair.

The Associated Press reported that Pablo Marcal, a personal development influencer turned right-wing politician, spoke about allegations against one of his opponents, José Luiz Datena, a former TV presenter turned candidate, during the debate.

Marcal said Datena had wanted to slap him, adding, ‘You’re not even man enough to do this.’

Datena was then seen during the live video walking toward Marcal’s podium with a metal chair over his head and slamming into Marcal’s side as he raised his arms.

Immediately following the attack, the debate moderator for TV Cultura interrupted the event and cut to commercials. The debate later resumed on Sunday night without Marcal.

Rather than continue the debate, Marcal was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, where he reportedly received respiratory support.

On Monday, he explained to his followers that he felt pain while breathing and suffered a fracture on the bottom of his rib cage.

Hospital officials said in a statement that Marcal suffered ‘trauma to the right chest region and right wrist without major associated complications,’ adding that he had been discharged.

Marcal called the incident an ‘attempted homicide’ on social media, even comparing it to the attempted assassination of former President Trump in July, and to the stabbing of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018.

An inquiry into Datena’s alleged misconduct never resulted in charges, the Associated Press reported, and the issue was shelved after the accuser retracted her statements.

Datena has also denied the accusations.

After the debate, Datena told reporters the episode had been painful for him because he believes it prompted his mother-in-law to suffer a series of strokes and later dying.

On Monday, Datena acknowledged making a mistake during the debate, though he had no regrets.

‘If the circumstances were the same, I would not refrain from repeating the gesture, an extreme response to a history of aggression perpetrated against me and many others by my adversary,’ he said.

Marcal’s campaign team said the debate should not have continued without him, adding they hope legal measures are taken against Datena.

On Sunday night, the incident was logged with Sao Paulo’s public security agency as ‘bodily injury and insult.’ An investigation into the matter is ongoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Politics

Watchdog group sues for NASA emails with ‘Space Czar’ Harris, Boeing as astronauts linger in orbit

A conservative watchdog group sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeking documents relating to the situation that has left two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) for several more months.

The Oversight Project’s executive director told Fox News Digital on Monday he and his group have legally sought emails between NASA political appointees and the White House, including the office of Vice President Harris, who also holds the title of chair of the National Space Council.

The filing by Mike Howell, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, also demands outgoing emails to Harris’ presidential campaign. Just as Harris was tasked with assuaging the root causes of illegal immigration as the so-called border czar, her role as vice president makes her essentially the lead adviser on space policy in that regard.

‘This looks like to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the space czar, chose politics over our astronauts,’ Howell said, inferring that there may have been a political calculation against bringing astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home as planned.

‘It’s very bizarre that the mainstream media seems not to care about this massive scandal. We’re going to continue to investigate this and get Americans the answers they deserve.’

The National Space Council (NSpC) had originally been organized in a slightly different manner under former President George H.W. Bush before it was disbanded and reorganized under former President Trump.

Trump himself unveiled the first new branch of the military in decades, the U.S. Space Force, at a 2018 NSpC meeting.

In its filing, the Oversight Project seeks to compel NASA to share correspondence from agency chief of staff Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free and five other senior officials. It also seeks communications between NASA and officials in the commercial crew program at Boeing, the company that manufactured the Starliner capsule that took Wilmore and Williams to the ISS this summer.

A source close to the matter pointed to the stipulated responsibilities of the NSpC chair, as outlined by Trump in his 2021 executive order establishing the council.

‘The Chair shall serve as the President’s principal advisor on national space policy and strategy …’ the first stipulation reads.

The chair of the NSpC, therefore, has substantive advisory authority over NASA’s decision-making, the source said.

In an August press briefing, a NASA official said there was a ‘little disagreement in terms of the level of risk’ between the agency and Boeing after the capsule suffered propulsion issues and elemental leaks. Ultimately, the Starliner craft safely returned to Earth unmanned on Sept. 7.

A few weeks prior, Boeing officials said in a statement they remained confident in Starliner’s ability to return safely with crew aboard: ‘We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.’

‘The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth,’ the statement reads.

On X, formerly Twitter, Howell listed the curriculum vitae of a handful of NASA hires made while Harris has led the NSpC, including a veteran of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, another from the Jacksonville Symphony and an individual whose ‘scientific’ major was ‘political science.’

‘Space is serious business. Kamala Harris obviously has no business running the National Space Council… They’re lost in space right now. Part of the reason they’re lost in space is that our NASA has been turned into another woke-DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency,’ he said.

Howell also shared a copy of a document showing ‘strategic objectives’ of the ‘NASA DEIA Strategic Plan.’

‘The fact is that Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as Border Czar is as awful as her record as Space Czar,’ Howell said Monday.

Howell said it is important that the public see any such correspondence of a political nature between NASA, the vice president’s camp and/or Boeing because other nations like China are watching for such ‘sign[s] of weakness.’

‘It seems that Harris signaled a willingness to cede America’s space superiority in the name of an effort to ‘save democracy,’’ he said, suggesting the DEIA priority may jeopardize national security. ‘When is enough, enough?’

The astronauts, however, took their extended trip in stride.

‘I love being in space. This is my happy place,’ Williams said.

Wilmore will miss his daughter’s final year of high school but notably requested his absentee ballot Friday so that he would be able to vote from orbit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ governmental office and the Harris campaign but did not receive a response.

In a response to Fox News Digital regarding the FOIA, a NASA spokesperson stated that Harris and NSpC staff ‘received frequent updates on the Starliner Crewed Flight Test.’

‘While the National Space Council works closely with civil, national security, commercial, and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make operational spaceflight safety recommendations or decisions,’ the spokesperson wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Business

Boeing freezes hiring in sweeping cost cuts as it grapples with factory worker strike

Boeing announced sweeping cost cuts Monday, including a hiring freeze, a pause on nonessential staff travel and a reduction on supplier spending to preserve cash as it deals with a strike by more than 30,000 factory workers.

Boeing factory workers, mostly in the Seattle area, started walking off the job early Friday after overwhelmingly rejecting a tentative labor deal, halting most of Boeing’s aircraft production.

The manufacturer will make “significant reductions” to supplier spending and stop most purchase orders for its 737 Max, 767 and 777 jetliners, CFO Brian West said in a note to staff. It was the first clear sign of how the strike will affect the hundreds of suppliers that rely on Boeing work.

The financial impact of the strike will depend on how long it lasts, but Boeing is focused on conserving cash, West said at a Morgan Stanley conference Friday. He said the company’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, wants to get back to the bargaining table right away to reach a new deal.

“We are also considering the difficult step of temporary furloughs for many employees, managers and executives in the coming weeks,” West said.

On Friday, Moody’s put all of Boeing’s credit ratings on review for a downgrade and Fitch Ratings said a prolonged strike could put Boeing at risk of a downgrade. That could drive up the borrowing costs of a manufacturer that already has mounting debt.

Boeing burned about $8 billion in the first half of the year as production slowed in the wake of a near-catastrophic door-panel blowout at the start of the year.

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World News

‘We no longer study.’ Gaza’s children lose out on school, as Israel’s war disrupts a year of education

Multicolored posters, white streamers and Palestinian flags made of paper decorate a tent in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. School rucksacks stuffed with clothes, small pillows and floral blankets are strewn on the floor.

More than a dozen girls and boys sit cross-legged inside a makeshift classroom along the coastal region. Their eyes dart across a large whiteboard as they recite after their teacher, Oula Al Ghoul, who gently encourages her students. The sound of Israeli drones buzzes overhead – a stark reminder of the fighting that has engulfed the strip for more than 11 months.

“Even the parents come and ask about their children’s progress in writing, asking if they are improving.”

But her initiative is the exception. As children across the Middle East begin the new semester, those in Gaza will be unable to return to school. The Israeli offensive launched after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has spawned a humanitarian crisis and halted educational services in the besieged enclave.

At least 45,000 first-graders in the Gaza Strip will be unable to start the school year, according to the United Nations’ children’s agency, UNICEF.

“The first graders join 625,000 children who have already been denied an entire school year,” and face the prospect of a second missed year of education, the agency said.

Israel’s bombing campaign has destroyed 123 schools and universities in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office (GMO) there. At least 11,500 students and 750 teachers have been killed, the GMO reported on Monday.

Earlier this year, the UN accused Israeli forces of the “systematic obliteration” of the academic system in Gaza, citing independent experts, and called for the protection of schoolchildren. The IDF has said strikes on schools target Hamas militants and has previously insisted it take steps to minimize harm to civilians. Hamas has denied embedding fighters in civilian infrastructure.

“The war destroyed all my ambitions and there was nothing left.”

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

‘No schools, no books, nothing’

Dozens of Palestinian boys in dusty shoes carry empty jerry cans at a school which has become an improvised displacement shelter in Deir al-Balah. The sun beats down on their faces as they queue to collect water aid for their families.

There’s no guarantee of safety for those sheltering in schools. At least 70% of schools run by UNRWA have been hit during the war – 95% of which were being used as shelters for displaced people – the agency reported on September 9.

On Wednesday, at least 18 people, including UNRWA staff, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, according to the Gaza Civil Defense and hospital officials.

The IDF claimed the school “was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.” UNRWA said that their employees were teachers. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described Israeli strikes on schools as “dramatic violations of international humanitarian law.”

“The students’ situation is tough; they need to be learning right now… Unfortunately, none of the students can write. There are no schools, no books, nothing,” said Mohammad Masoud, a teacher. “Instead of being in their classes or universities, students are either selling on the streets or trying to help their families by standing in line for water or food.”

Meanwhile, at least 19,000 children have been separated from their parents or caregivers, the UN reported in August.

‘They are literally wading through rubbish’

Further south, in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, children run barefoot through the littered streets, according to a relief worker in the sprawling coastal town.

Some search through mounds of waste for items they can resell, said Liz Allcock, head of protection at the UK-based NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).

“I’ve seen children with no shoes on, barefoot and amongst rubbish dumps that extend as far as the eye can see. They are literally wading through rubbish, plastic, all sorts of waste. It is a highly hazardous environment.”

Aid agencies say they are unable to offer adequate protection or refuge for children, citing aid restrictions, strikes on Israeli-designated humanitarian zones and repeated evacuation orders. In June, the UN added Israel’s military to a global list of offenders that have committed violations against children. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were also added to the list, according to a diplomatic source.

“It’s a case of compounding vulnerabilities that are unlike any other place I have worked as a humanitarian,” said Allcock.

“The actions taken by the Israeli military that have resulted in this situation – the denial of adequate aid, the bombardment and airstrikes on civilians and humanitarian zones – is a violation of every kind of possible child right that is enshrined in international law.”

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World News

6 killed as heaviest rain in decades hits parts of central and eastern Europe

At least six people have died after some of the heaviest rain in years hit central and eastern Europe, causing flooding and widespread disruption.

A slow-moving low pressure system dubbed Storm Boris dumped a month’s worth of rain onto several of Europe’s historic capitals, including Vienna, Bratislava and Prague. The heavy rainfall continued to pummel the region into Sunday.

It comes after four people died in Romania, where the rainfall left hundreds stranded in flooded areas.

Rescue services have been launched in hard-hit counties as authorities warn that they have recorded the heaviest rainfall in 100 years over the past 24 hours.

Rivers have burst their banks in Poland and the Czech Republic. In southwest Poland, 1,600 people were evacuated in Klodzko county as local rivers reached record high water levels and broke their banks. Klodzko, a town of 25,000, was left partially submerged in water on Sunday.

Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk told reporters Sunday: “We have the first confirmed death by drowning, here in the Klodzko County.”

“The situation is still very dramatic in many place,” he added. “Unfortunately, these situations are repeating themselves in many places… but some residents sometimes underestimate the level of threat and refuse to evacuate.”

Significant flooding is expected to continue in the Czech Republic, where authorities have ordered mandatory evacuations for some areas. Footage released by the Czech Republic Fire and Rescue Service showed flooded streets in the southern Benešově nad Černou municipality, where two women who didn’t follow evacuation orders had to be rescued by boat.

In Germany, southern and eastern states in particular are preparing for flooding. Flood warnings have been issued for rivers in the state of Saxony.

In neighboring Austria, heavy rainfall has caused water levels to rise in several rivers and rescue services have been called out to parts of the country. Many municipalities in Lower Austria have declared a state of emergency as heavy rainfall continued into Sunday.

Red alerts, the highest level of warning, have been issued for portions of Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. This level of alert is associated with “intense meteorological phenomena” and “major damage is likely,” according to Meteoalarm.

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World News

Britain’s royal family wish Prince Harry happy 40th despite strained ties

Britain’s royal family has publicly wished Prince Harry a happy birthday, their first such message since 2021 to mark the milestone of him turning 40.

A post was shared on X and Instagram with the message: “Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today!”

It was accompanied by an image of Harry smiling, and a birthday cake emoji.

An hour later, the post was shared by Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, who added their own message: “Wishing a Happy 40th Birthday to The Duke of Sussex!”

The public well-wishes could come as a surprise with Harry known to be estranged from his brother and having difficult ties with his father, King Charles III.

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Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, have been living in California since 2020 after stepping down as working members of the British monarchy.

Since then relations have been strained, in particular over the release of Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’ which among other bombshells saw Harry call William his “arch-nemesis” and allege he was attacked by him.

Interactions between Harry and other senior royals have been scant: Harry visited Charles following the King’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year but spent just 45 minutes in his company. He also briefly returned to London to mark the 10th anniversary of his Invictus Games but did not see any of the Windsors during the whistle-stop visit.

Harry is thought to be spending his 40th with the Duchess of Sussex and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. He is then understood to be taking a trip with close friends.

This week Harry told the BBC in a statement he was “excited” about the milestone, in contrast to turning 30 when he felt “anxious.” He continued: “Whatever the age, my mission is to continue showing up and doing good in the world.”

The duke also touched upon how fatherhood has changed him, saying: “Being a dad is one of life’s greatest joys and has only made me more driven and more committed to making this world a better place.”

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World News

Russian strike hits apartment block in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, injuring more than 40

A Russian strike on an apartment block in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has injured at least 41 people, with fears others are trapped under the rubble, Ukrainian officials said Sunday.

Three of those who were injured when a guided aerial bomb hit the 12-story building were children, the head of the Kharkiv city military administration Oleh Syniehubov said.

At least 14 people have been hospitalized as a result of the strike and one person has been reported missing.

“There may be people under the rubble,” Syniehubov said. “The search and rescue operation continues.”

One of the residents refused to evacuate without his dog, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. “Every life is important to our rescuers, so they rescued both the man and his pet from the smoke-filled apartment on the 12th floor,” he added.

Video shared online by the minister showed the dog being lifted in the air by one of the emergency cranes before reaching the roof of the building and being received by one of the rescuers.

The strike sparked a fire on the ninth floor. Three apartments were completely destroyed. Dozens of cars have been damaged from the strike, which also left hundreds of windows shattered.

“Residents are being evacuated. Specialized, humanitarian, international and Ukrainian organizations are responding to the scene,” Syniehubov said.

“This is civil infrastructure,” the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said. “Russia massively violates human rights and international humanitarian law. The reaction must be here and now.”

Kharkiv lies near the border with Russia and has seen frequent attacks since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated his call for more military support from allies following the attack.

“The world must help us defend ourselves against Russian military aircraft and the dozens of guided aerial bombs that claim Ukrainian lives every day,” Zelensky said in a social media post on Sunday.

“This terror can be stopped. But to stop it, the fear of making strong, objectively necessary decisions must be overcome. Only decisiveness can bring a just end to this war. It is decisiveness that most effectively protects against terror,” he said.

Ukrainian authorities earlier put the toll from Russian strikes over a 24-hour period at nine, including a man and a woman in their 60s killed in Odesa.

Zelensky said that over the past week “the Russians have launched around 30 missiles of various types, more than 800 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 300 strike drones against Ukraine.”

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