Growing up in Brazil, neuroscientist Danielle Beckman always dreamed of moving to the US for work. So, in 2017, when Beckman got the opportunity to work at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis, she jumped on it.

“I was so excited,” she recalled. “Coming to the US was always the dream. It was always the place to be, where there’s the biggest investment in science.”

But months into President Donald Trump’s second term, as his administration wages an unprecedented war on the country’s top universities and research institutions, Beckman no longer sees the US as a welcome home for her or her research, which focuses on how viral infections like Covid-19 affect the brain.

Beckman is part of a growing wave of academics, scientists and researchers leaving the US in what many are warning could be the biggest brain drain the country has seen in decades.

But America’s loss could be the rest of the world’s gain.

As the Trump administration freezes and slashes billions of dollars in research funding, meddles with curricula, and threatens international students’ ability to study in the US, governments, universities and research institutions in Canada, Europe and Asia are racing to attract fleeing talent.

The European Union pledged €500 million ($562 million) over the next three years “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.”

A university in Marseille, France, is wooing persecuted academics under a new program called a “Safe Place for Science.” Canada’s largest health research organization is investing 30 million Canadian dollars ($21.8 million) to attract 100 scientists early in their careers from the US and elsewhere. The Research Council of Norway launched a 100 million kroner ($9.8 million) fund to lure new researchers. The president of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University recently told a crowd at a higher education summit the school is identifying “superstar” US researchers and making them offers as soon as the next day.

The Australian Academy of Science also launched a new talent program to recruit disillusioned US-based scientists and lure Australians back home.

“We know these individuals are highly trained, talented, and have much to offer,” said Anna-Maria Arabia, chief executive of the academy, noting the program has received “encouraging interest” so far.

“It’s vitally important that science can continue without ideological interference,” Arabia said.

The US could lose its scientific edge

The US has long been a powerhouse when it comes to research and development, attracting talent from far afield with its big budgets, high salaries and swanky labs.

Since the 1960s, US government expenditure in research and development (R&D) has more than doubled from $58 billion in 1961 to almost $160 billion in 2024 (in inflation-adjusted dollars), according to federal data. When incorporating R&D funding from the private sector, that number balloons to more than an estimated $900 billion in 2023.

The US’s enormous investment in R&D has led to an outsized influence on the world stage. The US has racked up more than 400 Nobel Prizes, more than double the amount of the next country, the United Kingdom. More than a third of the US’s prizes were won by immigrants.

“We have been respected worldwide for decades because we have trained succeeding generations of researchers who are pushing into new territories,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University.

But Trump’s second term has upended the relationship between higher education and the federal government.

Trump’s gutting of federal health and science agencies has led to sweeping job losses and funding cuts, including at the National Institutes of Health, which funds nearly $50 billion in medical research each year at universities, hospitals and scientific institutions.

Between the end of February and the beginning of April, the administration cancelled almost 700 NIH grants totaling $1.8 billion, according to an analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Trump administration has proposed reducing the NIH’s budget in 2026 by 40%.

The National Science Foundation has also slashed nearly $1.4 billion worth of grants. On Wednesday, 16 US states sued the Trump administration over the NSF cuts, which they argue will impede “groundbreaking scientific research” and “(jeopardize) national security, the economy and public health.”

Trump has also targeted elite universities and is in the middle of a legal battle with Harvard University over its refusal to bow to his administration’s directives to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, resulting in billions in frozen federal funding. That battle significantly escalated this month when Trump banned Harvard’s ability to enroll international students – a decision swiftly halted by a federal judge hours after Harvard filed suit.

This week, the White House directed federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with Harvard.

“The president is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools and programs and state schools where they are promoting American values, but most importantly, educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society: apprenticeships, electricians, plumbers,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News this week.

“We need more of those in our country, and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University.”

‘I don’t feel so welcome’

Foreign institutions have already jumped on the chance to welcome Harvard students now caught in legal limbo. On Monday, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said it will accept any Harvard students that wish to transfer, as well as prospective students with a current offer from Harvard.

“I see this as the most significant crisis that universities are facing since World War Two,” Wong said. “We are seeing a complete reset of this collaborative relationship between the federal government and leading research institutions.”

Once the beacon of scientific research, the US has now become an increasingly hostile place to study, teach, and do research. Three quarters of US scientists surveyed by the journal Nature in March said they were considering leaving because of the Trump administration’s policies.

Some have already jumped ship. Yale professors Jason Stanley, Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder, preeminent fascism scholars, announced in March they were leaving for the University of Toronto across the border in Canada because of Trump’s affronts to academic freedom.

Beckman, the Brazilian neuroscientist, said her lab has seen $2.5 million in grant funding cancelled in recent months. On top of these funding woes, Beckman said the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, and shifting attitudes towards foreigners in the US, has also pushed her to look for work elsewhere.

“It’s the first time since I moved here that I don’t feel so welcome anymore,” she said.

As the US research ecosystem responds to shrinking budgets and intrusions on academic freedom, early-career scientists are going to be hardest hit, Wong said. But younger researchers are also more mobile, and institutions around the world are welcoming them with open arms.

“What we are losing is this whole cadre of highly productive, young, energetic, well-trained, knowledgeable, advanced researchers who are primed to take off,” Wong said.

Other countries have long deprioritized investment in scientific research as the US absorbed the R&D needs of the world, Wong said. But that trend is shifting.

R&D spending in China has surged in recent decades, and the country is close to narrowing the gap with the US. China spent more than $780 billion on R&D in 2023, according to OECD data. The European Union is also spending more on R&D. R&D investment in the bloc has increased from about $336 billion in 2007 to $504 billion in 2023, according to the OECD.

For a couple of months, Beckman said she considered stepping away from her Covid-19 research, which has become increasingly politicized under the Trump administration.

But then she started getting interviews at institutions in other countries.

“There is interest in virology everywhere in the world except the US right now.”

Athletes, coaches and officials are among 22 people killed in a road accident in northern Nigeria as they returned from the country’s National Sports Festival on Saturday, local authorities have said.

Others were left “seriously injured” by the accident, according to a statement issued by Kano’s government office. The majority of the victims were young, it added.

“It is with a deeply saddened heart that I received the tragic news of the unfortunate incident which claimed the lives of 22 innocent citizens and left several others injured,” Abba Kabir Yusuf, governor of Kano State, said in the statement.

“On behalf of the government and the good people of Kano State, I extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased. We mourn with you and share in your grief,” he continued.

The accident was a “lone road crash that might have occurred as a result of fatigue and excessive speed,” Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps said in a statement. The crash occurred at 12:30 a.m. local time Saturday (7:30 p.m. Friday ET), the statement said.

The athletes killed in the crash were returning home after “representing their state with distinction,” Nigeria’s National Sports Commission (NSC) said in a statement posted to Instagram. The commission said it was “deeply heartbroken” by the “tragic road accident.”

The victims “carried the hope of a brighter future for our nation through their passion and commitment to excellence in sports,” NSC chairperson Mallam Dikko said. “It is our duty to ensure such heroes are never forgotten.”

Sports clubs including Kano Pillars, Kano’s local soccer team, and the Nigeria Tennis Federation have also posted their condolences online.

Nigeria’s 22nd National Sports Festival was held in Ogun State in the southwest of the country, according to the NSC. After 11 days of events, the competition held its closing ceremony on Thursday, the NSC said.

Monday will be a day of mourning for “the good people of Kano to pray and sympathize with the families of the victims,” its governor announced.

Warsaw’s liberal mayor and his insurgent populist challenger are locked in a dead heat as they fight for the presidency of Poland, exit polls projected after Sunday’s head-to-head vote, leaving the country tilting between two wildly different political futures.

Exit polls showed Rafał Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki essentially tied, with Trzaskowski ahead by less than one percentage point after Sunday’s run-off election.

Should Trzaskowski prevail, he would end the Law and Justice (PiS) party’s 10-year occupancy of the presidential palace – the last political stronghold of the populist bloc that once ruled Poland with near-total authority – and see the mayor claim nationwide power at the second attempt.

But the margins were close enough to throw both candidates – and the country’s 38 million residents – into a nervous night of counting, with a final result likely to be announced in the coming hours.

The result carries huge significance for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose pledge to erase PiS’ fingerprints from Poland’s embattled institutions saw him clash repeatedly with Andrzej Duda, the outgoing president who defeated Trzaskowski in 2020. Nawrocki, like Duda before him, was backed by PiS.

A Nawrocki presidency could torpedo the centrist government’s efforts to unspool the legacy of authoritarianism in the country; the 42-year-old historian would be able to yield the hugely powerful presidential veto, which Duda used frequently to thwart Tusk’s agenda.

Trzaskowski, by contrast, would be expected to essentially give Tusk an open road to press ahead with his ambitious aim of undoing the effects of PiS’ transformation of Poland, an effort that has been bogged down in recent months.

The PiS candidate is a vocal supporter of US President Donald Trump, whom he visited in the campaign’s final weeks, and received a late flurry of support from attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which held its first-ever gathering in Poland earlier this week, cementing a years-long convergence between the populist right movements in Poland and the US.

Trzaskowski, the worldly son of a celebrated Polish jazz musician, was viewed as the favorite in the election campaign, until the first round of voting two weeks ago showed him only narrowly ahead of Nawrocki and revealed greater levels of support than expected for a smattering of far-right and extreme-right figures, some of whom subsequently said they would vote for Nawrocki.

Nawrocki is a first-time politician who has led two influential cultural bodies in Poland – the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, and then the Institute of National Remembrance, a state-funded research facility whose purpose became increasingly politicized as PiS took a nationalistic approach to the telling of Polish history. On the campaign trail, he emphasized his Catholic faith, pledged to reduce migration, and was relentlessly critical of Brussels and of Tusk.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Ukraine has carried out large-scale drone strikes against several air bases deep inside Russia, destroying multiple combat planes, according to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).

The operation, dubbed “Spiderweb,” comes on the eve of expected peace talks in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine, and involved the most ambitious simultaneous strikes on Russian air bases carried out by Ukraine since the war began.

An SBU source said that Russian bombers were “burning en masse” at four air bases hundreds of miles apart, adding that drones had been launched from trucks inside Russia.

Ukraine planned the operation for more than a year and a half and used 117 drones to carry out the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address on Sunday night.

“The planning, organization, and all the details were perfectly prepared. It can be confidently said that this was an absolutely unique operation,” Zelensky said.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth received regular updates as he traveled to Joint Base Andrews on Sunday but has not yet spoken to his Ukrainian counterparts, the official said.

The Department of Defense is continuing to assess the extent of the damage from the attacks and determine the details of the operation, the official added.

More than 40 aircraft were known to have been hit, according to the SBU source, including TU-95 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and one of Russia’s few remaining A-50 surveillance planes. According to the SBU, the operation caused an estimated $7 billion in damages and hit 34% of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers at its main air bases.

“We are doing everything to drive the enemy from our native land! We will strike them at sea, in the air, and on land. And if needed — we’ll reach them even from underground,” the SBU said in a statement.

The airfields targeted included Belaya in Irkutsk, some 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Russia, and the Dyagilevo base in Ryazan in western Russia, about 520 kilometers (320 miles) from Ukraine, which is a training center for Russia’s strategic bomber force.

The Olenya base near Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from Ukraine, was also struck, according to the source, as well as the Ivanovo air base, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Ukraine. Ivanovo is a base for Russian military transport aircraft.

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed Ukraine had targeted Russian airfields across five regions on Sunday, calling the drone strikes “terrorist attacks.”

The ministry said strikes were repelled in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions but that “several pieces of aircraft” caught fire after attacks in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions. It added that the fires had since been extinguished.

There were no casualties as a result of the attacks, the ministry continued, adding that “some participants in the terrorist attacks have been detained.”

The governor of Irkutsk region, Igor Kobziev, said that drones had been launched from a truck near the Belaya base.

Kobziev said on Telegram that the exact number of drones deployed had not been determined. Emergency and security services were at the site, he added.

SBU drones were targeting aircraft that bomb Ukrainian cities every night, the SBU source said.

One video supplied by the source purportedly shows the Belaya airfield in flames and the voice of the head of the SBU, Lt. Gen. Vasyl Malyuk, commenting on the situation. “How beautiful Belaya airfield looks now. Enemy’s strategic aircraft,” he says.

The SBU source said that the operation was “extremely complicated from a logistical point of view,” with the drones carried inside wooden mobile homes that had been carried into Russia on trucks.

“The drones were hidden under the roofs of the houses, which were already placed on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers.”

One video purportedly of one attack appears to show drones rising from a truck, as vehicles pass on a nearby highway. Another image shows the roof of the truck on the ground.

The source added that people involved were already back in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s operation followed a Russian attack overnight Saturday that involved 472 drones – Moscow’s largest drone attack since the war began. It came the same day as a Russian missile strike on a training site used by Ukrainian forces, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 60 others. It also came soon after two bridges collapsed in Russia’s western regions bordering Ukraine in unclear circumstances.

This chain of events comes as Russia and Ukraine are set to return to peace negotiations on Monday. The talks, which will take place in Istanbul, have been strained by uncertainty. US President Donald Trump has expressed frustration around Russian President Vladimir Putin’s resistance to advancing the peace talks.

Putin proposed holding “direct talks” in Turkey earlier this month – but never showed up, despite Zelensky agreeing to meet. In the end, the two nations sent low-level delegations to negotiate instead.

A framework from the Ukrainian delegation lists key principles for the talks that include a full and unconditional ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners, and the release of hostages and return of abducted children.

Mongolia has been thrown into fresh political crisis with protesters calling for the resignation of the country’s prime minister over his family’s lavish displays of wealth.

For two weeks, young Mongolians have taken to the streets of the capital putting pressure on Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai who will face a vote of confidence in his government on Monday.

Democratic Mongolia is a landlocked nation of just 3.5 million people sandwiched between authoritarian giants China and Russia, and the latest political crisis has put renewed scrutiny on the stability of the country’s democracy.

Here’s what to know:

Luxury car, designer handbags

The protests were triggered by social media posts that went viral showing the prime minister’s 23-year-old son’s lavish engagement proposal and their apparent extravagant lifestyle including helicopter-rides, an expensive ring, designer handbags and a luxury car.

Suspicion grew over how the son accumulated such wealth – especially as Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene campaigned on being from a rural, not wealthy family.

“With no visible sources of income, their display of luxury bags, private travel, and high-end living was a blatant slap in the face to the average Mongolian citizen,” said Amina, 28, a member of protest group Ogtsroh Amarhan (Resigning is Easy).

Amina, who wanted to go by one name for security reasons, said the protests go beyond the social media posts flaunting wealth, which she said were symptomatic of a widening disconnect between the ruling elite and everyday people.

Deeping the anger is the rising cost of living, soaring inflation in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and choking pollution in the capital that’s home to half the population.

“The cost of living in Mongolia has skyrocketed — many people are paying nearly half of their monthly income in taxes while barely making enough to cover food, rent, or utilities. Most are not living paycheck to paycheck anymore — they’re living loan to loan, debt to debt,” she said.

Protesters have gathered in the capital Ulaanbaatar’s central Sükhbaatar Square, in front of the Government Palace, almost daily for two weeks, calling for Oyun-Erdene to release his finances and resign.

The Prime Minister’s office called the allegations of financial impropriety “completely unfounded.”

Corruption

For decades, Mongolia has struggled with endemic graft and protests often break out over allegations that corrupt officials and business leaders were enriching themselves with public funds.

Mass protests erupted in 2022 over a corruption scandal involving the alleged embezzlement of billions of dollars’ worth of coal destined for China.

Though analysts say there is no evidence of corruption by Oyun-Erdene, his son’s social media posts deepened the frustration of a public long wary of their elected officials misusing public resources.

“I want a fair society where ordinary people have a voice, and where government officials are held accountable. Seeing so much inequality, injustice, and arrogance from those in power pushed me to speak up,” said Ariunzaya Khajidmaa, 23, a resident of Ulaanbaatar who joined the protests with her 2-month-old baby.

Part of public frustration is that even when corruption cases are prosecuted, they are slow to work their way through the judicial system, leading some to question the independence of the judiciary.

The 2024 Freedom House index said “corruption and political influence in the daily work of judges remain concerns.”

“If you look at the corruption index, it has gone down. And one explanation is that, even though the Prime Minister has exposed a lot of the corruption cases, nothing has been done. So now everybody’s looking at the judiciary,” said Bolor Lkhaajav, a Mongolian political analyst and commentator.

What’s the Prime Minister’s position?

The Prime Minister is trying to save his coalition government and parliament, called the State Great Khural, is holding a vote of confidence on Monday.

Oyun-Erdene and his son have submitted themselves to Mongolia’s anti-corruption agency and the prime minister said he would resign if the investigation uncovered any irregularities.

His Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) is the largest in the 126-seat parliament, holding 68 seats. But complicating the confidence vote is that the ruling coalition appears to be breaking up. The MPP kicked out its junior partner, the Democratic Party – which controls 43 seats – after some of its members supported the protesters.

‘Tip of the iceberg’

The protests are just “the tip of the iceberg,” said Jargalsaikhan Dambadarjaa, a Mongolian broadcaster and political commentator, who pointed to some of the major economic shifts in the country.

Oyun-Erdene, who was re-elected to a second term in 2024, had promised to diversify the country’s economy, which is dependent on the mining industry accounting for about a quarter of GDP.

Mongolia has huge deposits of coal, copper, gold and phosphorite, and about 90% of Mongolia’s coal exports go to China.

Oyun-Erdene’s coalition government last year announced 14 new mega projects to boost economic growth, including cross-border railway connections and a major expansion of renewable energy.

And one of Oyun-Erdene’s signature policy centerpieces was establishing a national wealth fund, which the government said aimed to redistribute the country’s assets to the people.

The Sovereign Wealth Fund law, approved by parliament in April, allows the government to take a 34% stake in mines considered to have strategic mineral deposits, meaning they are vital for the country’s economy and development.

There are currently 16 such sites and the profits will go into the fund, with portions allocated to benefitting Mongolian people including through financial assistance, healthcare, education, and housing, according to public broadcaster Montsame.

The move has not sat well with the country’s wealthy and powerful mining elite.

“These people, they are now at the edge of losing their power – huge money – which created huge inequality in the country. So they are fighting to the death against this government,” said Jargalsaikhan.

A democracy between two autocratic giants

Mongolia has been a parliamentary democracy since its democratic revolution in 1991. But the years since have seen multiple governments toppled, or leaders shuffled.

This instability has led some Mongolians to believe the powers of President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, who is head of state, should be extended. Currently, the president can only serve one six-year term.

“In this mosaic, those who are supporting presidential power argue that, look at Russia and China, they are one-man presidential powers and they are very stable. They say, we tried this parliamentarian system and it looks like it doesn’t work. That’s their idea,” Jargalsaikhan said.

Khurelsukh has repeatedly said he does not want to change Mongolia’s parliamentary democracy. However, some believe amending the constitution to extend presidential term limits is on the table.

“It’s a very crucial time, a very delicate time, and it’s another test to our democracy,” said Jargalsaikhan. “Freedom comes only with the parliamentary system… If we don’t do that, we will be another failed economy, a failed nation.”

In a statement, the prime minister’s office said, “there has been a deliberate attempt to undermine” the reforms of the coalition government by a “hostile campaign” that would “turn Mongolia away from a parliamentary democracy and return power and wealth to a small group driven by self-interest.”

Analysts say Mongolia needs to show it can have stable governance so it can attract broader foreign investment and reduce its economic dependence on China and Russia.

Khurelsukh last year welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin for an official visit to Mongolia, a trip condemened by Ukraine. The visit was Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court which had issued an arrest warrant for Putin on charges on war crimes.

“A lot of the governments that are looking at Mongolia as an oasis of democracy between Russia and China, so they want to trust us, but at the same time, you have to show some accountability and stability for other governments to say, okay, Mongolia is getting better,” said Bolor.

Those on the streets say they are tired of political games and want to see tangible improvements to their daily lives.

“We want stronger anti-corruption measures, public officials who are held to ethical standards, and a system that ensures no one is above the law,” said Ariunzaya.

“It’s time for the government to listen to its citizens and take meaningful, lasting action—not just offer words.”

It was already hard to imagine a breakthrough emerging from the direct talks between Russia and Ukraine set to be renewed in Istanbul on Monday.

But in the aftermath of what appear to have been multiple large-scale Ukrainian drone strikes against strategic bases across Russia, it’s even less likely either side will be prepared to shift their red lines.

Even before the latest strikes, which targeted Russian strategic aircraft thousands of miles from the Ukrainian border, the Kremlin had declined to formally set out, in the form of an agreed-to memorandum, what exactly it wants in return for ending what it refers to as its “Special Military Operation”.

But Russian officials have made no secret about their hardline terms, including sovereignty over all annexed territories, the demilitarization of Ukraine, immediate sanctions relief and what the Kremlin calls “de-Nazification”, involving things like guaranteeing the rights of Russian-speakers.

Concerns about further NATO expansion toward Russian borders – especially Ukraine, but other countries too – have also been a consistent Kremlin grievance, as has the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets abroad.

There’s been speculation in the Russian and Western media about areas for possible negotiation, and the outcome of the Istanbul talks are being closely watched for any hints of flexibility.

But in the aftermath of what appears to have been a spectacular Ukrainian success, talk of Kremlin compromises may, for the moment, be off the table.

Ukraine goes into this second round of direct talks bolstered by its apparent destruction of Russian strategic bombers and other crucial air assets.

On Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky set out some of Ukraine’s positions, including an unconditional ceasefire and the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia.

But Russian demands for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from territory it claims but has not even conquered remain unpalatable, even more so now Ukraine has shown it can still strike deep behind the front lines.

Even before the latest Ukrainian drone strikes, amid preparations for the peace talks in Istanbul, Russia was stepping up attacks on Ukraine in what seems to be the early stages of a new summer offensive.

Overnight Saturday, Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the beginning of the war – involving 472 drones. On Sunday, a Russian missile strike killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 60 at a training site for the Ukrainian military.

As all this unfolds, an increasingly frustrated US President Donald Trump, who used to brag he could end the Ukraine war in short order, is now watching from the sidelines as a cornerstone of his stated foreign policy looks decidedly shaky.

Neither his pressure on the Ukrainian leader, who Trump lambasted in the Oval Office, nor his recent scolding of the Kremlin ruler appear to have pushed the two sides any closer to a peace deal.

Trump still has powerful levers to pull if he chooses, like imposing tough new sanctions, such as those overwhelmingly supported in the US Senate, or adjusting US military aid in a way that would dramatically increase the costs of fighting on. The measures may not be decisive, but they would send a message of US commitment.

What Trump says he is tempted to do, though, is simply walk away from the whole mess. This is Biden’s war, he insists, or Putin’s and Zelensky’s.

But walking away – and it is unclear what that means in terms of US policy – may no longer be an option. At least not walking away unscathed.

His own insistence on ending the Ukraine conflict, along with his personal interventions with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders, means that Trump and the United States are now inextricably linked with the outcome.

That’s why events on the battlefield and at the negotiating table in Istanbul are being watched so closely.

Despite his regular attempts to disown it, the Ukraine war has very much become Trump’s war on which US credibility now hangs by a thread.

Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and other 11 activists set sail on Sunday afternoon for Gaza on a ship aimed at “breaking Israel’s siege” of the devastated territory, organizers said.

The sailing boat Madleen – operated by activist group Freedom Flotilla Coalition — departed from the Sicilian port of Catania, in southern Italy.

It will try to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip in an effort to bring in some aid and raise “international awareness” over the ongoing humanitarian crisis, the activists said at a press conference on Sunday, ahead of departure.

“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” Thunberg said, bursting into tears during her speech.

“Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” she added.

Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”

In mid-May, Israel slightly eased its blockade of Gaza after nearly three months, allowing a limited amount of humanitarian aid into the territory.

Experts have warned that Gaza is at risk of famine if more aid is not brought in.

UN agencies and major aid groups say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it extremely difficult to deliver aid to Gaza’s roughly two million Palestinians.

Among those joining the crew of the Madleen are “Game of Thrones” actor Liam Cunningham and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent. She has been barred from entering Israel due to her active opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza.

The activists expect to take seven days to get to their destination, if they are not stopped.

Thunberg, who became an internationally famous climate activist after organizing massive teen protests in her native Sweden, had been due to board a previous Freedom Flotilla ship last month.

That attempt to reach Gaza by sea, in early May, failed after another of the group’s vessels, the “Conscience”, was attacked by two alleged drones while sailing in international waters off the coast of Malta.

The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship, in the latest confrontation over efforts to send assistance to the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly 19 months of war.

The Israeli government says the blockade is an attempt to pressure Hamas to release hostages it took during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the conflict. Hamas-led militants assaulted southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 58 hostages, 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

In response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have destroyed vast areas of the territory and left most of its population homeless.

The Flotilla group was only the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegations, saying its war is directed at Hamas militants, not Gaza’s civilians.

“We are breaking the siege of Gaza by sea, but that’s part of a broader strategy of mobilizations that will also attempt to break the siege by land,” said activist Thiago Avila.

Avila cited the upcoming Global March to Gaza – an international initiative also open to doctors, lawyers and media – which is set to leave Egypt and reach the Rafah crossing in mid-June to stage a protest there, asking Israel to stop the Gaza offensive and reopen the border.