In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life and a Maryland hospital said Monday that he's doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery. While it’s too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection. The patient, David Bennett, a 57-year-old Maryland handyman, knew there was no guarantee the experiment would work but he was dying, ineligible for a human heart transplant and had no other option, his son told The Associated Press. Also read: Chinese doctors complete lung transplant for COVID-19 patient “It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” Bennett said a day before the surgery, according to a statement provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. On Monday, Bennett was breathing on his own while still connected to a heart-lung machine to help his new heart. The next few weeks will be critical as Bennett recovers from the surgery and doctors carefully monitor how his heart is faring. There’s a huge shortage of human organs donated for transplant, driving scientists to try to figure out how to use animal organs instead. Last year, there were just over 3,800 heart transplants in the U.S., a record number, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system. "If this works, there will be an endless supply of these organs for patients who are suffering,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the Maryland university's animal-to-human transplant program. But prior attempts at such transplants — or xenotransplantation — have failed, largely because patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. Notably, in 1984, Baby Fae, a dying infant, lived 21 days with a baboon heart. Also read: In US 1st, baby is born from dead donor's transplanted womb The difference this time: The Maryland surgeons used a heart from a pig that had undergone gene-editing to remove a sugar in its cells that’s responsible for that hyper-fast organ rejection. Several biotech companies are developing pig organs for human transplant; the one used for Friday's operation came from Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics. “I think you can characterize it as a watershed event,” Dr. David Klassen, UNOS’ chief medical officer, said of the Maryland transplant. Still, Klassen cautioned that it’s only a first tentative step into exploring whether this time around, xenotransplantation might finally work. The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees such experiments, allowed the surgery under what’s called a “compassionate use” emergency authorization, available when a patient with a life-threatening condition has no other options. It will be crucial to share the data gathered from this transplant before extending it to more patients, said Karen Maschke, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, who is helping develop ethics and policy recommendations for the first clinical trials under a grant from the National Institutes of Health. “Rushing into animal-to-human transplants without this information would not be advisable,” Maschke said. Over the years, scientists have turned from primates to pigs, tinkering with their genes. Just last September, researchers in New York performed an experiment suggesting these kinds of pigs might offer promise for animal-to-human transplants. Doctors temporarily attached a pig’s kidney to a deceased human body and watched it begin to work. The Maryland transplant takes their experiment to the next level, said Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led that work at NYU Langone Health. “This is a truly remarkable breakthrough," he said in a statement. "As a heart transplant recipient, myself with a genetic heart disorder, I am thrilled by this news and the hope it gives to my family and other patients who will eventually be saved by this breakthrough.” The surgery last Friday took seven hours at the Baltimore hospital. Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery, said the patient’s condition — heart failure and an irregular heartbeat — made him ineligible for a human heart transplant or a heart pump. Griffith had transplanted pig hearts into about 50 baboons over five years, before offering the option to Bennett. “We’re learning a lot every day with this gentleman,” Griffith said. “And so far, we’re happy with our decision to move forward. And he is as well: Big smile on his face today.” Pig heart valves also have been used successfully for decades in humans, and Bennett’s son said his father had received one about a decade ago. As for the heart transplant, “He realizes the magnitude of what was done and he really realizes the importance of it,” David Bennett Jr. said. “He could not live, or he could last a day, or he could last a couple of days. I mean, we’re in the unknown at this point.”

Rancid black smoke filling hallways, rising from floor to floor. People tripping and falling as they rushed down darkened stairwells, unable to see. Panic turning to sorrow, as residents who escaped a fire at a high-rise Bronx apartment building learned of neighbors who did not survive. “We all got out. My friend, her husband didn’t make it out. So I’m just thanking God that my family made it,” said one resident, Winter Thomas, who escaped from the ninth floor with her mother, stepfather and siblings. In all, Sunday’s fire killed 19 people, including nine children ages 16 and under, fire officials said. “It don’t make no sense. These is kids I grew up with, kids we went to school with,” Thomas said. On the way down, they sidestepped unresponsive bodies laying on the ground. Sandra Clayton, 61, heard neighbors screaming in the hallway: “Get out! Get out!” She dashed for the stairs, scooping up her dog named Mocha, a 2-year-old Maltese Shih Tzu. The smoke smelled of putrid chemicals, she said. It was already thick and black when she found the stairwell. Read: Kazakhstan says 164 killed in last week's protests She fumbled with her cellphone flashlight, but was too much in shock. Unable to see, she groped her way down the stairs, soon crowded with other tenants. She described panicked wails and crying that echoed up and down the stairs. “I just ran down the steps as much as I could but people was falling all over me, screaming,” she recounted from St. Barnabas Hospital, where she was treated for smoke inhalation. She fell three times, sometimes trampled by others trying to escape in the darkness. At one point, she let go of her dog as she braced herself from a fall. “I tried feeling for her, but there was so much smoke,” she said, her voice growing emotional. “I had to save my own life.” After minutes that seemed to last forever, she found her way out of the building. She gasped for air, wondering in tears about what happened to Mocha back on the stairs. “It was so horrific,” she said of the ordeal. “I was so scared.” Mocha didn’t make it. The dog was later found suffocated by the smoke, she said. As evening fell over the scene, Nicole Anderson counted her blessings. She suspects the fire was already burning when she and her family rode down the elevator to their car. After driving just a few minutes, the family saw firetrucks barreling down the street, sirens and lights blaring. “I didn’t think much of it,” said Anderson, 43, who grew up in the building. Soon a neighbor was calling saying their building was on fire. She turned back but could only get as close as a few blocks from her home. She walked the rest of the way. “It was dark black smoke,” she said, coming from a lower floor. Read: Bronx apartment fire kills 19, including 9 children Jose Henriquez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was taking care of two young grandkids and a niece with his wife. At first, he thought the fire alarm was just an irritating interruption to their morning, since he said false alarms in the building were frequent. Henriquez said those previous false alarms might’ve caused residents not to take action as soon as the fire broke out. As the dark smoke filled the hallway outside, Henriquez shut the door tight and wedged a wet towel in the gap below. He cracked open a window, letting in the wintry air. In video he shot, the kids can be heard expressing alarm at the smoke, looking out the 10th-floor window as fire trucks rushed to the scene. Eventually, the family squeezed past ascending firefighters, using dampened COVID-19 masks for protection against the lingering smoke, careful not to slip in pools of water. On the way down, they passed a dog lying dead on the sooty staircase. Luis Rosa, also on the 13th floor, had awakened to the fire alarm, also annoyed that it was probably another false alarm. But when a notification popped up on his phone, he and his mother began to worry. By then, smoke began wafting into his 13th floor apartment. Sirens began wailing in the distance. He opened the front door, but smoke had gotten too thick for an escape, he said. “OK, we can’t run down the stairs because if we run down the stairs, we’re going to end up suffocating,” he recalled. He looked out the window trying to figure out his options. “All we could do was wait,” he said. About 45 minutes later — perhaps longer, he said — he heard pounding on the door. It was a firefighter giving the all clear.

A court in Myanmar sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison on Monday after finding her guilty of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions, a legal official said. Suu Kyi was convicted last month on two other charges and given a four-year prison sentence, which was then halved by the head of the military-installed government. The cases are among about a dozen brought against the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate since the army seized power last February, ousting her elected government and arresting top members of her National League for Democracy party. If found guilty of all the charges, she could be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. Suu Kyi’s supporters and independent analysts say the charges against her are contrived to legitimize the military’s seizure of power and prevent her from returning to politics. Monday’s verdict in the court in the capital, Naypyitaw, was conveyed by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities, who have restricted the release of information about Suu Kyi’s trials. Read: Tortured to death: Myanmar mass killings revealed He said she was sentenced to two years in prison under the Export-Import Law for importing the walkie-talkies and one year under the Telecommunications Law for possessing them. The sentences are to be served concurrently. She also received a two-year sentence under the Natural Disaster Management Law for allegedly violating coronavirus rules while campaigning. Suu Kyi was convicted last month on two other charges — incitement and breaching COVID-19 restrictions — and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. Hours after that sentence was issued, the head of the military-installed government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, reduced it by half. Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in a 2020 general election, but the military claimed there was widespread electoral fraud, an assertion that independent poll watchers doubt. Since her first guilty verdict, Suu Kyi has been attending court hearings in prison clothes — a white top and a brown longyi skirt provided by the authorities. She is being held by the military at an unknown location, where state television reported last month she would serve her sentence. The hearings are closed to the media and spectators and the prosecutors do not comment. Her lawyers, who had been a source of information on the proceedings, were served with gag orders in October. The military-installed government has not allowed any outside party to meet with Suu Kyi since it seized power, despite international pressure for talks including her that could ease the country’s violent political crisis. It would not allow a special envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, to meet her. The refusal received a rare rebuke from fellow members, who barred Min Aung Hlaing from attending its annual summit meeting. Even Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who took over as the regional group’s chair for this year and advocates engagement with the ruling generals, failed to meet her last week when he became the first head of government to visit Myanmar since the army’s takeover. Read: Myanmar military reverts to strategy of massacres, burnings The military’s seizure of power was quickly met by nonviolent nationwide demonstrations, which security forces quashed with deadly force, killing over 1,400 civilians, according to a detailed list compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Peaceful protests have continued, but amid the severe crackdown, an armed resistance has also grown, to the point that U.N. experts have warned the country could be sliding into civil war. “Throwing a plethora of criminal charges at Aung San Suu Kyi ... reeks more of desperation than confidence,” said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, a democracy promotion group. He said in an email interview after her first convictions that the military “massively miscalculated” in thinking that it could prevent protests by arresting Suu Kyi, her fellow party members and veteran independent political activists. “A new mass movement was born which doesn’t depend on a single leader. There are hundreds of small groups organizing and resisting in different ways, from peaceful protest, boycotts and armed resistance,” Farmaner said. “Even with more than 7,000 people arrested since the coup, three times the average number detained under the previous military dictatorship, the military have been unable to suppress dissent.” Suu Kyi was charged right after the military’s takeover with having improperly imported the walkie-talkies, which served as the initial justification for her continued detention. A second charge of illegally possessing the radios was filed the following month. The radios were seized from the entrance gate of her residence and the barracks of her bodyguards during a search on Feb. 1, the day she was arrested. Suu Kyi’s lawyers argued that the radios were not in her personal possession and were legitimately used to help provide for her security, but the court declined to dismiss the charges. Read: Myanmar public urges gas sanctions to stop military funding She was charged with two counts of violating coronavirus restrictions during campaigning for the 2020 election. She was found guilty on the first count last month. She is also being tried by the same court on five counts of corruption. The maximum penalty for each count is 15 years in prison and a fine. A sixth corruption charge against her and ousted President Win Myint in connection with granting permits to rent and buy a helicopter has not yet gone to trial. In separate proceedings, she is accused of violating the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years. Additional charges were also added by Myanmar’s election commission against Suu Kyi and 15 other politicians in November for alleged fraud in the 2020 election. The charges by the military-appointed Union Election Commission could result in Suu Kyi’s party being dissolved and unable to participate in a new election the military has promised will take place within two years of its takeover.

The numbers are small, but the major port of Tianjin may be facing China’s first local outbreak of omicron of any size, less than a month before the Winter Olympics open in nearby Beijing. State broadcaster CCTV said the government has divided Tianjin and its 14 million residents into three levels of restrictions, starting with lockdown areas where people are not allowed to leave their homes at all. In control areas, each household is allowed to have one family member leave to buy groceries every other day, while in prevention areas, people must remain inside their immediate neighborhoods. Buses and trains from Tianjin to Beijing have been suspended and people are being told not to leave the city unless they have pressing business. The city began mass testing of all its residents on Sunday after a cluster of 41 children and adults tested positive for COVID-19, including at least two with the omicron variant. Officials said the virus has been circulating so the number of cases could rise. China has stepped up its strict zero tolerance strategy in the runup to the Olympics, which open Feb. 4. The Chinese capital is 115 kilometers (70 miles) northwest of Tianjin and many people regularly travel back and forth by car or on a high-speed rail link that takes less than one hour. Read: China orders lockdown of up to 13 million people in Xi’an Elsewhere, millions of people are being confined to their homes in Xi’an and Yuzhou, two cities that are farther away but have larger outbreaks traced to the delta variant. Residents of Xi’an have been under lockdown for more than two weeks, but the number of new cases in the city of 13 million fell to just 15 on Monday in a sign that restrictions could soon be lifted. Another 60 cases were reported Monday in Henan province, two of them of the omicron variant, found in the city of Anyang and apparently brought from Tianjin by a college student on Dec. 28, state media outlet The Paper reported. The provincial capital of Zhengzhou has been conducting mass testing and closed its schools. Another 24 cases were reported in the city on Monday. The first two cases confirmed in Tianjin were a 10-year-old girl and a 29-year-old woman working at an after-school center. Both were infected by the omicron variant. In subsequent testing of close contacts, 18 others tested positive and 767 tested negative as of Saturday night. Those infected include 15 students from 8 to 13 years old, the after-school center staff member and four parents. The citywide testing is to be completed over two days. Tianjin has also closed some subway stations on two lines to try to prevent further spread. Read: Netherlands 'going into lockdown again' to curb omicron China had reported about a dozen omicron cases previously, most among people who had arrived from abroad and were isolated. In one case in mid-December, the infection was not detected until after the person had completed two weeks of quarantine, and it spread to a few close contacts in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Kazakhstan authorities said Sunday that 164 people, including a 4-year-old girl, were killed in a week of protests that marked the worst unrest since the former Soviet republic gained independence 30 years ago. The office of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said order has been restored in the Central Asian country and that the government has regained control of all buildings that were taken over by the protesters. Some of the buildings were set on fire. Sporadic gunfire was heard Sunday in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, according to the Russian TV station Mir-24, but it was unclear whether those were warning shots by law enforcement. Tokayev said Friday he had authorized a shoot-to-kill order for police and the military to restore order. Read: Kazakhstan adds uncertainty to talks with Russia on Ukraine The demonstrations, which began in the western part of Kazakhstan, began Jan. 2. over a sharp rise in fuel prices and spread throughout the country, apparently reflecting wider discontent with the authoritarian government. They prompted a Russia-led military alliance to send troops to the country. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Tokayev's order “something I resolutely reject.” “The shoot-to-kill order, to the extent it exists, is wrong and should be rescinded,” he said Sunday on ABC's “This Week.” “And Kazakhstan has the ability to maintain law and order, to defend the institutions of the state, but to do so in a way that respects the rights of peaceful protesters and also addresses the concerns that they’ve raised – economic concerns, some political concerns,” Blinken added. The same party has ruled Kazakhstan since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Anyone aspiring to oppose the government has either been repressed, sidelined, or co-opted, amid widespread economic hardship despite the country's enormous reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium and minerals. About 5,800 people were detained during the unrest, Tokayev’s office said. The death toll of 164, reported by the state news channel Khabar-24 and citing the Health Ministry, was a significant increase from previously announced totals. It was unclear if that number referred only to civilians or if law enforcement deaths were included. Kazakh authorities said earlier Sunday that 16 members of the police or national guard had been killed. The ministry said 103 of the deaths occurred in Almaty, and Kazakhstan's ombudswoman for children's rights said three of those killed were minors, including a 4-year-old girl. The ministry earlier reported more than 2,200 people sought treatment for injuries, and the Interior Ministry said about 1,300 security officers were injured. Almaty’s airport, which had been taken over by protesters last week, remained closed but was expected to resume operations Monday. Tokayev said the demonstrations were instigated by “terrorists” with foreign backing, although the protests have shown no obvious leaders or organization. Sunday's statement from his office said the detentions included “a sizable number of foreign nationals,” but gave no details. It was unclear how many of those detained remained in custody. The foreign ministry of neighboring Kyrgyzstan on Sunday called for the release of well-known Kyrgyz musician Vikram Ruzakhunov, who was shown in a video on Kazakh television saying that he had flown to the country to take part in protests and was promised $200. In the video, apparently taken in police custody, Ruzakhunov's face was bruised and he had a large cut on his forehead. The former head of Kazakhstan’s counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency has been arrested on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. The arrest of Karim Masimov, which was announced Saturday, came just days after he was removed as head of the National Security Committee by Tokayev. No details were given about what Masimov was alleged to have done that would constitute an attempted overthrow of the government. The National Security Committee, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is responsible for counterintelligence, the border guards service and anti-terrorist activities. As the unrest mounted, Kazakhstan's ministerial cabinet resigned but remained in their posts temporarily. Tokayev spokesman Brisk Uali said the president would propose a new cabinet on Tuesday. Read:Dozens of protesters, 12 police dead in Kazakhstan protests At Tokayev’s request, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led military alliance of six former Soviet states, authorized sending about 2,500 mostly Russian troops to Kazakhstan as peacekeepers. Some of the force is guarding government facilities in the capital, Nur-Sultan, which “made it possible to release part of the forces of Kazakhstani law enforcement agencies and redeploy them to Almaty to participate in the counterterrorist operation,” according to a statement from Tokayev’s office. In a sign that the demonstrations were more deeply rooted than just over the fuel price rise, many demonstrators shouted “Old man out,” a reference to Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was president from Kazakhstan’s independence until he resigned in 2019 and anointed Tokayev as his successor. Nazarbayev retained substantial power as head of the National Security Council. But Tokayev replaced him as council head amid the unrest. possibly aiming at a concession to mollify protesters. However, Nazarbayev adviser Aido Ukibay said Sunday that it was done at Nazarbayev's initiative, according to the Kazakh news agency KazTag.

A top Russian diplomat predicted “difficult” talks with the United States this week after attending a working dinner with U.S. officials in Geneva on Sunday as part of the kickoff to a string of meetings in three European cities this week, with ties at a low over Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and other Russian officials met for over two hours with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the head of the U.S. delegation, and her team at the luxury residence of the U.S. ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament that overlooks Lake Geneva. The dinner was a prelude to a broader discussion between the two teams at the U.S. mission in Geneva starting Monday — culminating a string of meetings both virtual and in person among U.S. officials, their Western allies, and Russian leaders in recent days and weeks as tensions over Russian pressure against Ukraine have grown. Read: Kazakhstan adds uncertainty to talks with Russia on Ukraine “We plunged into the substance of the forthcoming issues, but the talks are going to be difficult," Ryabkov told reporters as he left the dinner meeting. "They cannot be easy. They will be business-like. I think we won’t waste our time tomorrow.” State Department spokesman Ned Price said that during Sunday's dinner Sherman “stressed the United States’ commitment to the international principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the freedom of sovereign nations to choose their own alliances," a reference to Ukraine and its aspirations of joining NATO. Sherman “affirmed that the United States would welcome genuine progress through diplomacy,” Price said in a statement. The talks are seen a first step toward rekindling dialogue as ties have worsened because Russia has deployed an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine. Concerns have risen about a broader Russian military incursion in the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin's government has laid out a list of demands, such as seeking guarantees that the NATO military alliance won't seek to expand any further eastward to countries like Ukraine or Georgia, which are former Soviet republics. “The Russian side came here with a clear position that contains a number of elements that, to my mind, are understandable and have been so clearly formulated — including at a high level — that deviating from our approaches simply is not possible," Ryabkov said. Asked whether Russia was ready for compromise, he said: “The Americans should get ready to reach a compromise." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC's "This Week” on Sunday he didn't expect any breakthroughs in talks with the Russians in Geneva or during conversations in Brussels, at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, and at the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe in Vienna later this week. The United States and other Western allies have pledged “severe costs” to Russia if it moves against Ukraine. “The question really now is whether President Putin will take the path of diplomacy and dialogue or seeks confrontation," Blinken said, suggesting that a Russian move deeper into Ukraine might run counter to Moscow's interests in the long run. “If Russia commits renewed aggression against Ukraine, I think it’s a very fair prospect that NATO will reinforce its positions along its eastern flank, the countries that border Russia,” he told ABC. Russia was coming into the talks seeking a clearer understanding of the U.S. position, and cited signals from Washington that some of the Russian proposals can be discussed, Ryabkov said earlier Sunday, according to state news agency Tass. Read:Biden vows US to act decisively if Russia invades Ukraine He laid out Russia’s three demands: no further NATO expansion, no missiles on Russia’s borders, and for NATO no longer to have military exercises, intelligence operations or infrastructure outside of its 1997 borders. U.S. officials expressed openness Saturday to discussions on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on American and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe — if Russia is willing to back off on Ukraine. But they warned of hard economic sanctions in case of a Russian intervention, including direct sanctions on Russian entities and restrictions on products exported from the U.S. to Russia. Ambassador Thomas Greminger, director of the Swiss government-supported Geneva Center for Security Policy who hosted Ryabkov for a conference in October, said the Geneva talks were "an opportunity to spell out mutual concerns, to spell out mutual expectations. But it would be way too early to expect any clarity, for instance, regarding Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership. “What we’re seeing is a lot of posturing," added Greminger, who is also a former head of the OSCE. "I think at the end, both Putin and (U.S. President Joe) Biden have absolutely no interest to push towards an escalation.”

The United Kingdom will celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne with a military parade, neighborhood parties and a competition to create a new dessert for the Platinum Jubilee, Buckingham Palace said Monday. Elizabeth will become on Feb. 6 the first British monarch to reign for seven decades, and festivities marking the anniversary will culminate in a four-day weekend of events June 2-5. It wasn’t immediately clear which events the queen, 95, would take part in after doctors recently advised her to get more rest. Read:Omicron’s New Year’s cocktail: Sorrow, fear, hope for 2022 The weekend, which includes an extra public holiday in honor of the queen, will begin on Thursday June 2, with Trooping the Colour ——the annual military parade that marks the queen’s official birthday. That will be followed on June 3 by a service of thanksgiving honoring the queen’s service to the U.K., her other realms and the Commonwealth. In a nod to coronation chicken — the concoction of cold chicken, curry powder, mayonnaise and other ingredients served at garden parties marking the queen’s formal ascent to the throne — the palace will sponsor the Platinum Pudding competition to create a new dessert dedicated to the monarch. The competition will be open to U.K. residents as young as 8 and will be judged by television cooking personalities Mary Berry and Monica Galetti, together with Buckingham Palace head chef Mark Flanagan. The winning recipe will be published ahead of Jubilee weekend so it can be part of the celebrations. Read: UK government rules out new restrictions before Christmas Some 1,400 people have already registered to host Jubilee lunches on June 5, with flagship events set to take place in London and at the Eden Project in Cornwall. The palace expects there will be some 200,000 neighborhood events across the U.K. The weekend will end with a pageant honoring the monarch’s service and looking ahead to the next 70 years. Dancers, musicians, military personnel and key workers will “tell the story of the Queen’s reign,’’ while children will create a picture of their hopes and aspirations for the planet, the palace said.

A malfunctioning space heater sparked a fire that filled a high-rise Bronx apartment building with thick smoke Sunday morning, killing 19 people including nine children in New York City’s deadliest blaze in three decades. Trapped residents broke windows for air and stuffed wet towels under doors as smoke rose from a lower-floor apartment where the fire started. Survivors told of fleeing in panic through darkened hallways, barely able to breathe. Multiple limp children were seen being given oxygen after they were carried out. Evacuees had faces covered in soot. Firefighters found victims on every floor, many of them in cardiac and respiratory arrest, said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Some could not escape because of the volume of smoke, he said. Some residents said they initially ignored wailing smoke alarms because false alarms were so common in the 120-unit building, built in the early 1970s as affordable housing. Read:Omicron explosion spurs nationwide breakdown of services in USA More than five dozen people were hurt and 13 were hospitalized in critical condition. The fire commissioner said most of the victims had severe smoke inhalation. Firefighters continued making rescues even after their air supplies ran out, Mayor Eric Adams said. “Their oxygen tanks were empty and they still pushed through the smoke,” Adams said. Investigators said the fire triggered by the electric heater started in a duplex apartment on the second and third floors of the 19-story building. The flames didn't spread far — only charring the one unit and an adjacent hallway. But the door to the apartment and a door to a stairwell had been left open, letting smoke quickly spread throughout the building, Nigro said. New York City fire codes generally require apartment doors to be spring-loaded and slam shut automatically, but it was not immediately clear whether this building was covered by those rules. Building resident Sandra Clayton said she grabbed her dog Mocha and ran for her life when she saw the hallway filling with smoke and heard people screaming, “Get out! Get out!” Clayton, 61, said she groped her way down a darkened stairway, clutching Mocha in her arms. The smoke was so black that she couldn’t see, but she could hear neighbors wailing and crying nearby. “I just ran down the steps as much as I could but people was falling all over me, screaming,” Clayton recounted from a hospital where she was treated for smoke inhalation. In the commotion, her dog slipped from her grasp and was later found dead in the stairwell. About 200 firefighters responded to the building on East 181st Street around 11 a.m. Jose Henriquez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lives on the 10th floor, said the building's fire alarms would frequently go off, but would turn out to be false. “It seems like today, they went off but the people didn’t pay attention,” Henriquez said in Spanish. He and his family stayed, wedging a wet towel beneath the door, once they realized the smoke in the halls would overpower them if they tried to flee. Luis Rosa said he also initially thought it was a false alarm. By the time he opened the door of his 13th-floor apartment, the smoke was so thick he couldn't see down the hallway. “So I said, OK, we can’t run down the stairs because if we run down the stairs, we’re going to end up suffocating.” “All we could do was wait,” he said. The children who died were 16 years old or younger, said Stefan Ringel, a senior adviser to they mayor. Adams said at a news conference that many residents were originally from the West African nation of Gambia. Many survivors were brought to temporary shelter in a nearby school. The drab, brown building looms over an intersection of smaller, aging brick buildings overlooking Webster Avenue, one of the Bronx’s main thoroughfares. Read:Oregon issues hospital crisis care standards as COVID surges By Sunday afternoon, all that remained visible of the unit where the fire started was a gaping black hole where the windows had been smashed. “There’s no guarantee that there’s a working fire alarm in every apartment, or in every common area," U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat who represents the area, told the AP. "Most of these buildings have no sprinkler system. And so the housing stock of the Bronx is much more susceptible to devastating fires than most of the housing stock in the city.” Nigro and Torres both compared the fire's severity to a 1990 blaze at the Happy Land social club where 87 people were killed when a man set fire to the building after getting into an argument with his former girlfriend and being thrown out of the Bronx club. Sunday's death toll was the highest for a fire in the city since the Happy Land fire, other than the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It was also the deadliest fire at a U.S. residential apartment building in years. In 2017, 13 people died in an apartment building, also in the Bronx, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association. That fire started with a 3-year-old boy playing with stove burners and also spread because the door to an apartment that lacked a closing mechanism had been left open. It led to several changes in New York City, including having the fire department create a plan for educating children and parents on fire safety. Sunday’s fire happened just days after 12 people, including eight children, were killed in a house fire in Philadelphia. The deadliest fire prior to that was in 1989 when a Tennessee apartment building fire claimed the lives of 16 people.

At least 200 people in Nigeria's northwestern Zamfara state have been killed in a wave of vicious attacks by armed militants, residents say. The attacks are believed to be in response to military air strikes that killed more than 100 fighters on Monday and forced others from forest hideouts, reports BBC. Gunmen burnt homes and mutilated the bodies of their victims in the assault. A resident of one of the villages told the Reuters news agency the militants were shooting "anyone on sight". The attacks are the latest in a wave of violent attacks in northwest Nigeria, where the central government has long been at war with a number of local criminal groups it has described as bandits. On Friday it was initially reported that more than 100 people had been killed by suspected "bandit" militants in the region, after some 300 gunmen on motorbikes arrived in as many as nine communities between Tuesday and Thursday night. READ: Nigeria building collapse deaths climb to 36, dozens missing Idi Musa, a resident of another village, told AFP that the attackers also stole "around 2,000 cattle". Meanwhile, local media has reported that armed groups appear to be abandoning hideouts in forested areas in response to sustained government attacks, instead moving towards the western part of Zamfara state. In a statement issued on Saturday, Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari, pledged that the government would not relent in its battle with the militants. "Let me reassure these besieged communities and other Nigerians that this government will not abandon them to their fate because we are more than ever determined to get rid of these outlaws," Mr Buhari said. "The latest attacks on innocent people by the bandits is an act of desperation by mass murderers, now under relentless pressure from our military forces." On Wednesday, the Nigerian government officially labelled bandits as terrorists, allowing security forces to impose tougher sanctions on the groups and their supporters. Nigeria's armed forces said this week they had killed 537 "armed bandits and other criminal elements" in the region and arrested 374 others since May last year. READ: 30 killed as gunmen attack rural area in Nigeria's northwest Thousands of Nigerian troops have been deployed to fight the armed groups, a sophisticated networks of criminals who operate across large swathes of territory, often stealing animals, kidnapping for ransom and killing those who confront them.

Russia’s decision to send paratroopers into Kazakhstan, where a crackdown on violent anti-government protests has left dozens dead, injects additional uncertainty into upcoming talks over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The question is whether the unrest in Kazakhstan has changed the calculations of Russian President Vladimir Putin as he weighs his options in Ukraine. Some say Putin may not want to engage in two conflicts at the same time, while others say Russia has the military capacity to do both and he will decide separately on whether to attack Ukraine. The instability in Kazakhstan may even add new urgency to Putin's desire to shore up Russia's power in the region. Both Kazakhstan and Ukraine are former Soviet republics that Putin has sought to keep under Moscow's influence, but so far with vastly different results. Ukraine, an aspiring democracy that has turned decisively toward the West, has been locked in deadly conflict with Russia since Putin seized Crimea in 2014 and backed an insurgency in the eastern Donbas region. Kazakhstan, meanwhile, has been ruled in the three decades since the Soviet collapse by autocrats who have maintained close security and political ties with Russia. Russian troops entered Kazakhstan on Thursday after Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev invoked the help of a Russia-led military alliance. The following day, with Russian troops helping to restore control over the airport and guarding government buildings, he ordered his forces to shoot to kill any protesters who don't surrender. READ: Russia sets tough demands for US-NATO in draft security pact That led to Washington and Moscow exchanging new barbs on the eve of a week of meetings over Ukraine that begins with talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva on Monday. Asked about Kazakhstan and Ukraine on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would not “conflate these situations.” “There are very particular drivers of what’s happening in Kazakhstan right now, as I said, that go to economic and political matters,” Blinken said. “What’s happening in there is different from what’s happening on Ukraine’s borders. “Having said that, I think one lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” he added. The Russian Foreign Ministry fired back with a statement that referenced past U.S. wars and interventions in other countries. “If Antony Blinken is so into history lessons, here's one that comes to mind: When Americans are in your house, it can be difficult to stay alive, not being robbed or raped," the statement said. The U.S. has for weeks warned that Putin has stationed troops near Ukraine with the possible intent to stage a new invasion. Putin is not believed to have moved significantly more troops toward Ukraine in the last several weeks, according to two people familiar with the latest assessments who were not authorized to speak publicly. But at least 100,000 Russian troops remain in positions where they could possibly strike parts of Ukraine, the people said. In response, Washington and Kyiv have ramped up their cooperation on intelligence and security matters, the people said. READ: India, Russia seal AK-203 assault rifle deal In exchange for easing tensions with Ukraine, Putin wants NATO to halt membership plans for all countries, including Ukraine. The U.S. and NATO have rejected that demand. Lawmakers and longtime observers of Russia disagree on how the Kazakhstan situation may affect Ukraine. Fiona Hill, former senior director for Russia and Europe at the U.S. National Security Council, said she believed the violence in Kazakhstan “is probably going to accelerate Putin's desire to do something” in Ukraine. She said Putin may want to reassert dominance across the region by both shoring up the president in Kazakhstan and undermining Ukraine's democratically elected leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “The Russian circle around Putin, they really do want to teach the Ukrainians a lesson,” Hill said. “And they don’t shy away from killing lots of people or seeing lots of people get killed.” She noted that while Kazakhstan is in Central Asia, the northern part of the country was settled by Russians and Ukrainians in Soviet times as part of the Virgin Lands campaign, and Russians see it “very much as part of their land and not just a kind of sphere of influence.” “And so northern Kazakhstan ... is being seen as an extension of Russia, just like Ukraine, Donbas and Belarus and all that industrial and agricultural complex,” said Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In recent years, Russia has entered conflicts in other neighboring former Soviet countries to seize territory or bolster Moscow-friendly governments. In 2020, when protests broke out in Belarus over the reelection of longtime strongman Alexander Lukashenko, Russia stood by him during a brutal crackdown and offered to send troops. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia and seized control of two separatist regions. In Belarus and now Kazakhstan, Hill noted, there is growing frustration with Russian-backed elites and inequality, together with a growing sense of nationalism. Those factors are also present in Ukraine, while discontent is growing in Russia as well. “This is deeply troubling for Putin because it shows that protests can get out of hand over social issues,” she said. “And that even if you marginalize the opposition and you look like you’re in charge, one day suddenly, you’re not.” Some see Kazakhstan as also presenting an opportunity for Russia to consolidate its power regionally. Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading Moscow-based foreign policy expert, said by stepping in with military force Moscow has made itself the “guarantor upon whose position further events depend.” He said the situation was similar to Armenia in 2020, when Russia sent peacekeeping troops after a war with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. “This is not a final situation or a solution, but it provides an effective set of tools for the period ahead," he wrote in a piece published Thursday. With this happening on the eve of the talks with the U.S., “Russia has sent a reminder of its ability to make quick and unconventional military-political decisions to influence what is happening in parts of the world that are important for it," Lukyanov said. U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican who serves on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, is among those who see the uprising in Kazakhstan as deterring Russia in Ukraine. “I don’t see Russia with the capability of handling two crises simultaneously,” Green said. “I think it will deter their ability to wage a major conflict in Ukraine.” A fierce critic of the Biden administration, Green said he supported Blinken’s public statements in support of Ukraine and his push for a diplomatic solution. “If Blinken’s actions are matching his rhetoric, then they’re doing OK here,” he said.