ap-breaking
Sea search continues after Spanish girl s body found in bag
MADRID (AP) Spain is in shock after investigators combing the seabed near the Canary Islands found the body of one of two young sisters taken by their father weeks earlier without the mother s permission.Coroners have confirmed that the body found in a bag and tied to an anchor at a depth of some 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) belonged to 6-year-old Olivia, the older of the two sisters.Another similar bag that was empty was found nearby by a special oceanographic research vessel helping in the search, Spain s Civil Guard said, adding that the search for 1-year-old Anna and their father, Tom s Gimeno, is still ongoing.National and regional government officials on Friday condemned Olivia s death and showed support for the girls mother, Beatriz Zimmermann.I cannot imagine the pain of the mother of little Anna and Olivia, tweeted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S nchez. My hug, my love and that of my whole family, who today sympathizes with Beatriz and her loved ones.Women s rights organizations have called for protests later on Friday across Spain against the recent uptick of violence against women, often using children as means to inflict harm.Gimeno and the girls went missing on April 27 in Tenerife, the largest island in the archipelago off West Africa.Their mother, who is divorced from the girls father, alleged he told her she would never see them again.Investigators launched a wide search on land and sea but narrowed in on the waters off Tenerife after Gimeno s boat was found empty and drifting at sea.Interpol also joined the search, publishing the photographs of the two girls and issuing so-called yellow notices aimed at locating missing persons.The girls mother had posted several videos of her daughters online in an effort to help find them.
World shares mostly higher after US inflation up 5% in May
BANGKOK (AP) Shares were mostly higher in Europe and Asia on Friday after the S&P 500 index notched another record high despite a surge in U.S. consumer prices in May.Benchmarks rose in Paris, Frankfurt and Hong Kong but fell in Tokyo and Shanghai.On Thursday, Wall Street logged gains while bond yields mostly fell despite the much-anticipated report showing consumer prices rose 5% in May, the biggest year-over-year increase since 2008 and more than economists had expected.Investors also reacted positively to more data that showed continued improvement in the labor market.Markets will be tuning in this weekend for any developments at the summit of the Group of Seven in Britain. At the top of the leaders agenda is helping countries recover from the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 3.7 million people and wrecked economies.The G-7 leaders are meeting for three days at a British seaside resort. It s the first such gathering since before the pandemic.Investors will get to see next week how the Fed is reading the latest inflation barometer and what monetary policy changes, if any, the central bank may consider. The Fed s policymaking committee is due to deliver its latest economic and interest rate policy update next Wednesday.Germany s DAX gained less than 0.1% to 15,577.14 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.4% to 6,572.01. Britain s FTSE 100 advanced 0.5% to 7,124.05. U.S. futures were little changed. The contract for the S&P 500 was flat at 4,228.80. The future for the Dow industrials edged 0.1% higher, to 34,376.00.Investors seem to still be buying into the Federal Reserve s stance that the current bout of inflation is transitory, said Jeffrey Halley of OANDA.Financial markets have long raised a selective use of facts to an art form, Halley said in a report. Although the US inflation measures rose once again and slightly above forecast, the actual increases were less than those recorded in April.Taking all factors into consideration, that was all the street needed to return to its buy-everything happy place.In Asia, where China-U.S. tensions are among many factors weighing on sentiment, the mood was less ebullient.Tokyo s Nikkei 225 index was nearly unchanged, at 28,948.73, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 0.4% to 28,842.13. The Kospi in Seoul gained 0.8% to 3,249.32, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.6% to 3,589.75.India s Sensex gained 0.4%.On Thursday, the S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 4,239.18, just beating its previous all-time high set on May 7th. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1% to 34,466.24. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%, to 14,020.33, while smaller company stocks lagged the broader market. The Russell 2000 index fell 0.7% to 2,311.41.A significant share of May s rise in consumer prices was tied to the sale of used cars, which is largely attributed to purchases by rental car companies beefing up their fleets as people return to traveling.Bond yields initially rose after the inflation data, then fell broadly by late afternoon. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 1.44% from 1.45% late Thursday.In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude oil picked up 8 cents to $70.37 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 33 cents to $70.29 per barrel on Thursday.Brent crude, the international standard, added 12 cents to $72.63 per barrel.The U.S. dollar was trading at 109.52 Japanese yen, up from 109.42 yen. The euro weakened to $1.2170 from $1.2176.
Citing misogyny, Aussie swimmer pulls out of Olympic trials
Singer Cody Simpson was dominating attention ahead of Australia s Olympic swimming trials, until Maddie Groves withdrew from the six-day meet following a series of social media posts condemning misogynistic perverts in the sport.Groves didn t detail her allegations, which initially surfaced last year, and Swimming Australia president Kieren Perkins on Friday said he was trying to contact the two-time Olympic silver medalist.We have had an ongoing dialogue that has been generated by Maddie through social media. We reached out with her in December 2020 to try to engage with her on these concerns she has, Perkins told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. We have done it again now, and unfortunately at this point we have not been able to have a direct conversation with Maddie to understand exactly what her concerns are, who the people involved are, so that we can investigate it and deal with it.Groves, who won silver medals in the 200-meter butterfly and a relay at the 2016 Olympics, said she planned to delete her Twitter app after posting: You can no longer exploit young women and girls, body shame or medically gaslight them and then expect them to represent you so you can earn your annual bonus.Time s UP.She posted later Friday on Instagram to say her decision to withdraw from Olympic selection was not based on a singular incident.It s partly because there s a pandemic on, but mostly it s the culmination of years of witnessing and benefitting from a culture that relies on people ignoring bad behavior to thrive. I need a break.The Olympics, set to open July 23, have already been postponed 12 months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.If starting this conversation will save just one young girl from something like being told to lose weight or diet, not going to the Olympics will have been worth it, Groves added.Groves tweeted last year that she d complained about a swimming worker and the way they stare at me in my swimsuit, and also expressed concerns about the anti-doping process and the treatment of athletes will long-term illnesses.Perkins, a two-time Olympic 1,500-meter gold medalist, told ABC television that swimming in Australia was a proud blended sport and administrators had done a lot of work in recent years to build a framework to deal with any issues of abuse by making sure that we have all the right processes for whistleblower investigations, and ensure police matters are dealt with as they need to be.There s always going to be historical things that we need to acknowledge and work toward resolving, Perkins said. But I and everyone in our sport would certainly be quite challenged by the assertion that there s a misogynistic culture.Veteran swimmer Mitch Larkin, who has been teammates with Groves, said the complaints broke my heart a little bit.I certainly want to find out and get to the bottom of it if she does have some issues, Larkin said in Adelaide, South Australia, where the Olympic trials start Saturday. We have got an athlete integrity officer and a well-being officer and she can certainly talk to them as well as sports psychs and really try and dig to the bottom of those issues.And if there is a culture issue, we would absolutely love to change it.Swimming is Australia s highest-profile Olympic sport, regularly delivering the most medals for the country. So the trials are a big deal.Musician and wannabe Olympian Simpson was a successful junior swimmer before moving to the U.S. in 2010 and making it on the music scene.In a promotional video for a sponsor, he joked about having a vastly different lifestyle now that he was focused on swimming again, saying he used to go to bed at 5 a.m. when he was a performer and now he wakes up at that hour to practice.The 24-year-old Simpson has featured this month in the Amazon original series Head Above Water with Ian Thorpe, Australia s most decorated swimmer and now his mentor. Simpson is seeded 13th on times in the 100-meter butterfly and 70th in the 100 freestyle, and concedes he probably is a better prospect for the 2024 Olympics. Heats for the 100 free start Tuesday.Kyle Chalmers, the reigning Olympic champion in the 100 free, and Bronte Campbell are also part of the Head Above Water series, but are more likely to star in the pool.Chalmers has had to overcome a serious shoulder injury which required surgery last November, but said he d give himself full marks for fitness by the time he starts racing at the trials.I have to believe that I am in the best shape of my life when I race, he said, Otherwise I am going to have doubts.With two Olympic spots up for grabs in the women s 100 freestyle, Campbell knows her competition well. Just making the Australian team in this event is like making an Olympic final.She ll be competing against her sister, Cate, and Emma McKeon, who have recorded the fastest times this year.I have got to find a way to beat at least one of them, she said.The Australian team for Tokyo will be announced on the final night of the Adelaide trials.__More AP Olympics: https: apnews.com hub olympic-games and https: twitter.com AP_Sports
EXPLAINER: What will change under Israel s new government?
JERUSALEM (AP) If all goes according to plan, Israel will swear in a new government on Sunday, ending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s record 12-year rule and a political crisis that inflicted four elections on the country in less than two years.The next government, which will be led by the ultranationalist Naftali Bennett, has vowed to chart a new course aimed at healing the country s divisions and restoring a sense of normalcy.Anything more ambitious would be courting disaster.The coalition consists of eight parties from across Israel s political spectrum, including a small Arab party that has made history by joining a government for the first time. If even one party bolts, the government would be at serious risk of collapse, and Netanyahu, who intends to stay on as opposition leader, is waiting in the wings.Here s a look at what to expect:A FRAGILE COALITIONThe coalition holds only a slight majority in the 120-member Knesset and includes parties from the right, left and center. The only things they agree on are that Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, should leave office, and that the country cannot endure another election.They are expected to adopt a modest agenda acceptable to Israelis from across the ideological divide that steers clear of hot-button issues. Their first big challenge will be to agree on a budget, the first since 2019. Economic reforms and infrastructure spending may follow.Bennett will serve as prime minister for the first two years, followed by the centrist Yair Lapid, a former journalist who was the driving force behind the coalition. But that s only if the government survives that long.___MANAGING THE CONFLICTBennett is a religious ultranationalist who supports settlement expansion and is opposed to a Palestinian state. But he risks losing his job if he alienates his dovish coalition partners.That will likely mean a continuation of Netanyahu s approach of managing the decades-old conflict without trying to end it. Annexing the occupied West Bank and invading Gaza are probably off the table, but so are any major concessions to the Palestinians.Every Israeli government has expanded Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for their future state. This government is expected to do so in a subdued way that avoids angering the Biden administration, which is pushing for restraint and an eventual revival of peace talks.The new government is expected to maintain Netanyahu s hard-line stance on Iran and oppose President Joe Biden s efforts to revive its international nuclear deal. But senior officials have already vowed to do so behind closed doors rather than bringing the rift out into the open, as Netanyahu did during the Obama years.The new government will also likely work with Biden to strengthen ties with Arab states.___HEALING DIVISIONSThe biggest change will likely be felt domestically, as the government struggles to heal the divisions in Israeli society that opened up during the Netanyahu years, between Jews and Arabs and between ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis.If our political culture is based on lies and threats and hatred of Arabs, and hatred of left-wingers, and hatred of right-wingers who don t hate Arabs and left-wingers enough, then yes, we need change, Lapid said this week. We ve brought about change and we re proud of it.The United Arab List, a small party with Islamist roots led by Mansour Abbas, is the first Arab party to sit in a coalition. In return for helping to oust Netanyahu, he is expected to secure large budgets for housing, infrastructure and law enforcement in Arab communities.Israel s Arab citizens make up 20% of the population and face widespread discrimination. They have close familial ties to the Palestinians and largely identify with their cause, leading many Jewish Israelis to view them with suspicion. Tensions boiled over during last month s Gaza war, when Jews and Arabs fought in the streets of Israel s mixed cities.The new government already faces hostility from Israel s ultra-Orthodox community staunch supporters of Netanyahu. Earlier this week, ultra-Orthodox leaders condemned it in harsh terms, with one demanding Bennett remove his kippa, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.___RETURN OF THE KING?After a quarter-century at the highest levels of Israeli politics, no one expects the 71-year-old Netanyahu, dubbed the King of Israel by his supporters, to quietly retire to his private home in the seaside town of Caesarea.As opposition leader and the head of the largest party in parliament, Netanyahu is expected to continue doing everything in his power to bring down the government. His best hope for avoiding conviction on serious corruption charges is to battle them from the prime minister s office, with a governing coalition that could potentially grant him immunity.But his domineering presence could continue to bind his opponents together. Bennett, already branded a traitor by much of the right-wing base he shares with Netanyahu, heads a tiny party and is unlikely to get another shot at the top job.Netanyahu could meanwhile face a challenge from within his defeated Likud party, which includes a number of would-be successors. They know that without the polarization around Netanyahu, the Likud would be able to assemble a strong, stable, right-wing government. But Netanyahu retains a strong hold on the party s institutions and its base, and senior members are unlikely to challenge him unless his downfall is assured.
The Latest: Euro 2020 set to open, 1 year later than planned
The Latest on soccer s European Championship:___The biggest soccer tournament of the coronavirus-era is about to get started.The first match of the European Championship will kick off at 1900 GMT in Rome when Italy plays Turkey in Group A. And there will be about 16,000 fans in the stadium.Euro 2020 was supposed to start last year on June 12. The tournament was postponed for almost exactly one year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The final is now set for July 11 at Wembley Stadium in London.Much of the schedule for the postponed tournament remains the same as last year but some changes in venues have been made. The 51 matches will be played in 11 cities around the continent. Rome and London will be joined by Amsterdam, Baku, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Munich, Seville and St. Petersburg.___More AP soccer: https: apnews.com hub soccer and https: twitter.com AP_Sports
G-7 nations gather to pledge 1B vaccine doses for world
CARBIS BAY, England (AP) World leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are set to commit at their summit to share at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with struggling countries around the world half the doses coming from the U.S. and 100 million from the U.K.Vaccine sharing commitments from President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson set the stage for the G-7 leaders meeting in southwest England, where leaders will pivot Friday from opening greetings and a family photo directly into a session on Building Back Better From COVID-19.We re going to help lead the world out of this pandemic working alongside our global partners, Biden said, adding that the G-7 nations would join the U.S. in outlining their vaccine donation commitments at the three-day summit. The G-7 also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.The leaders meeting in the resort of Carbis Bay hope to energize the global economy as well. On Friday they are set to formally embrace a global minimum tax of at least 15% on corporations, seconding an agreement reached a week ago at a meeting of their finance ministers. The minimum is meant to stop companies from using tax havens and other tools to avoid taxes.It represents a potential win for the Biden administration, which has proposed a global minimum tax as a way to pay for infrastructure projects, in addition to creating an alternative that could remove some European countries digital services taxes that largely hit U.S. tech firms.For Johnson, the first G-7 summit in two years last year s was scuttled by the pandemic is a chance to set out his vision of a post-Brexit Global Britain as a midsized country with an outsized role in international problem-solving.It s also an opportunity to underscore the U.K-U.S. bond, an alliance often called the special relationship.After a meeting with Biden that both sides hailed as a success, Johnson said he prefers the term indestructible relationship.The official summit business starts Friday, with the customary formal greeting and a socially distanced group photo. Later the leaders will meet Queen Elizabeth II and other senior royals at the Eden Project, a lush, domed eco-tourism site built in a former quarry pitThe G-7 leaders have faced mounting pressure to outline their global vaccine-sharing plans, especially as inequities in supply around the world have become more pronounced. In the U.S., there is a large vaccine stockpile and the demand for shots has dropped precipitously in recent weeks.Biden said the U.S. will donate 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and previewed a coordinated effort by the advanced economies to make vaccination widely and speedily available everywhere. The commitment was on top of 80 million doses Biden has already pledged to donate by the end of June.Johnson, for his part, said the first 5 million U.K. doses would be shared in the coming weeks, with the remainder coming over the next year. He said he expected the G-7 to commit to 1 billion doses in all.At the G-7 Summit I hope my fellow leaders will make similar pledges so that, together, we can vaccinate the world by the end of next year and build back better from coronavirus, Johnson said in a statement, referencing a slogan that he and Biden have both used.French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the U.S. commitment and said Europe should do the same. He said France would share at least 30 million doses globally by year s end.At a news conference, he said time was of the essence.It s almost more important to say how many (doses) we deliver the next month than making promises to be fulfilled in 18 months from now, he said.Biden predicted the U.S. doses and the overall G-7 commitment would supercharge the global vaccination campaign, adding that the U.S. doses come with no strings attached.Our vaccine donations don t include pressure for favors or potential concessions, Biden said. We re doing this to save lives, to end this pandemic, that s it.He added: Our values call on us to do everything that we can to vaccinate the world against COVID-19.The U.S. commitment is to buy and donate 500 million Pfizer doses for distribution through the global COVAX alliance to 92 lower-income countries and the African Union, bringing the first steady supply of mRNA vaccine to the countries that need it most.The Pfizer agreement came together with some urgency in the last four weeks at Biden s direction, said a senior White House official, both to meet critical needs overseas and to be ready for announcement at the G-7. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, added that the Biden administration was to apply the same wartime posture applied to the vaccine rollout in the U.S. to its effort to share vaccines globally.Biden said the 500 million U.S.-manufactured vaccines will be shipped starting in August, with the goal of distributing 200 million by the end of the year. The remaining 300 million doses would be shipped in the first half of 2022. A price tag for the doses was not released, but the U.S. is now set to be COVAX s largest vaccine donor in addition to its single largest funder with a $4 billion commitment.The well-funded global alliance has faced a slow start to its vaccination campaign, as richer nations have locked up billions of doses through contracts directly with drug manufacturers. Biden s move, officials said, was meant to ensure a substantial amount of manufacturing capacity remains open to the wealthy nations. Just last month, the European Commission signed an agreement to purchase as many as 1.8 billion Pfizer doses in the next two years, a significant share of the company s upcoming production though the bloc reserved the right to donate some of its doses to COVAX.COVAX has distributed just 81 million doses globally and parts of the world, particularly in Africa, remain vaccine deserts.White House officials said the ramped-up distribution program fits a theme Biden plans to hit frequently during his week in Europe: that Western democracies, and not authoritarian states, can deliver the most good for the world.Biden, in his remarks, harked back to the Detroit-area workers who 80 years ago built tanks and planes that helped defeat the threat of global fascism in World War II.They built what became known as the arsenal of democracy, Biden said. Now a new generation of American men and women, working with today s latest technology, is going to build a new arsenal to defeat the current enemy of world peace, health and stability: COVID-19.China and Russia have shared their domestically produced vaccines with some needy countries, often with hidden strings attached. Sullivan said Biden does want to show rallying the rest of the world s democracies that democracies are the countries that can best deliver solutions for people everywhere.___Miller reported from Washington. Lawless reported from Falmouth, England. AP writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Jonathan Lemire in Plymouth, England, contributed to this report.
Bus carrying pilgrims overturns in SW Pakistan, killing 20
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) A speeding bus carrying pilgrims overturned on a highway and fell into a ravine in a remote area in southwestern Pakistan before dawn on Friday, killing at least 20 people and injuring 50 others, police and officials said.The accident happened in Khuzdar, a district in Baluchistan province, local police official Hafeez Ullah Mengal said. Rescuers transported the dead and injured to military and government hospitals, he added.Imam Bakhsh, one of the injured passengers, told The Associated Press by phone that passengers had repeatedly warned the driver to be more careful. He blamed the driver for the accident, saying he was enjoying music and driving recklessly.Imran Ahmad, an official with the Levies security force said driver negligence apparently caused the accident, but that officers were still investigating.The pilgrims were returning to Dadu, a district in the neighboring southern Sindh province, after visiting a shrine of a Sufi saint. Bashir Ahmed, a deputy commissioner in the Khuzdar district, said the driver lost control on a sharp turn.He said the bus was overcrowded and several pilgrims were also sitting on its roof when the accident took place. Ahmed said some of the injured were listed in critical condition. He said the bus driver was also among the injured.There is not a single passenger who does not have an injury because of the bus accident, Ahmed told the AP by phone. He said thousands of people from across the country visit the shrine every year to participate in the annual congregation at the shrine. Those who died or were injured were from Sindh province.Deadly accidents are common in Pakistan due to poor road infrastructure and disregard for traffic laws. Last month, a bus overturned on a highway in the southern district of Sukkur, killing 13 passengers and injuring 29 others.The latest bus accident happened days after at least 65 passengers were killed in a horrific collision of two trains in the southern town of Ghotki in the Sindh province. The collision took place on a dilapidated railway when an express train barreled into another that had derailed minutes earlier on Monday.___Associated Press Writer Asim Tanveer contributed to this story from Multan, Pakistan
AP Week in Pictures: Europe and Africa
JUNE 4-JUNE 10, 2021From the arrival of U.S. President Joe Biden in the U.K. for the G-7 summit to the partial eclipse of the sun in London, traffic queues in Lagos to passengers preparing to depart on a cruise ship in Venice, this photo gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published in the past week by The Associated Press from Europe and Africa.The selection was curated by AP photographer Pavel Golovkin in Moscow.Follow AP visual journalism:Instagram: https: www.instagram.com apnewsAP Images on Twitter: http: twitter.com AP_ImagesAP Images blog: http: apimagesblog.com
US OPEN 21: Details on the US Open s return to Torrey Pines
SAN DIEGO (AP) Facts and figures for the 121st U.S. Open golf championship:Dates: June 17-20.Site: Torrey Pines GC (South).Length: 7,652 yards.Par: 71.Cut: Top 60 and ties.Playoff (if necessary): Two-hole aggregate immediately after 72 holes are completed.Field: 156 players.Purse: $12.5 million. Winner s share: $2.25 million.Defending champion: Bryson DeChambeau.Last year: Bryson DeChambeau took the unconventional route to a U.S. Open title and his first major. By pounding away with driver on narrow fairways and hitting short irons from the thick round, he closed with a 3-under 67 for a six-shot victory over Matthew Wolff. DeChambeau finished at 6-under 274, the lowest score ever for a U.S. Open at Winged Foot. DeChambeau shot par or better all four rounds.Last U.S. Open at Torrey Pines: Tiger Woods won his third U.S. Open title in 2008 in a 19-hole playoff over Rocco Mediate. Woods had season-ending knee surgery eight days later.Last tournament at Torrey Pines: Patrick Reed won the Farmers Insurance Open in January.Mickelson s Quest: One month after 50-year-old Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship to become the oldest major champion, he gets his seventh crack at completing the career Grand Slam at the U.S. Open. He has been runner-up a record six times.California Dreaming: This will be the 14th U.S. Open in California, trailing only New York (20) and Pennsylvania (17).Oh, brothers: The field features two sets of brothers: Alvaro and Carlos Ortiz of Mexico, and Edoardo and Francesco Molinari of Italy. This is the first time since 1990 that two sets of brothers played in the U.S. Open.Key statistic: When Tiger Woods won at Torrey Pines on the PGA Tour (one round on the North course) and the U.S. Open in 2008, his 72-hole score was 14 shots higher in the U.S. Open.Noteworthy: Only 14 players are in the field who played the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in 2008.Quoteworthy: I don t think the USGA has to do a hell of a lot to make it very difficult. It s already a tough golf course. Louis Oosthuizen.Streaming: (all times EDT): Thursday-Friday, 9:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. (Peacock).Television (all times EDT): Thursday, 12:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Golf Channel), 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. (NBC); Friday, 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. (Golf Channel), 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (NBC), 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Golf Channel); Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. (NBC); Sunday, 10 a.m. to noon (Golf Channel), noon to 8 p.m. (NBC).___More AP golf: https: apnews.com hub golf and https: twitter.com AP_Sports
In Tigray, food is often a weapon of war as famine looms
ABI ADI, Ethiopia (AP) First the Eritrean soldiers stole the pregnant woman s food as she hid in the bush. Then they turned her away from a checkpoint when she was on the verge of labor.So she had the baby at home and walked 12 days to get the famished child to a clinic in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray. At 20 days old, baby Tigsti still had shriveled legs and a lifeless gaze signs of what the United Nations top humanitarian official calls the world s worst famine conditions in a decade.She survived because I held her close to my womb and kept hiding during the exhausting journey, said Abeba Gebru, 37, a quiet woman from Getskimilesley with an amulet usually worn for luck around her left wrist.Here, in war-torn Tigray, more than 350,000 people already face famine, according to the U.N. and other humanitarian groups. It is not just that people are starving; it is that many are being starved, The Associated Press found. In farming areas in Tigray to which the AP got rare access, farmers, aid workers and local officials confirmed that food had been turned into a weapon of war.____This story was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.____Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are blocking food aid and even stealing it, they said, and an AP team saw convoys with food and medical aid turned back by Ethiopian military officials as fighting resumed in the town of Hawzen. The soldiers also are accused of stopping farmers from harvesting or plowing, stealing the seeds for planting, killing livestock and looting farm equipment.More than 2 million of Tigray s 6 million people have already fled, unable to harvest their crops. And those who stayed often cannot plant new crops or till the land because they fear for their lives.If things don t change soon, mass starvation is inevitable, said a humanitarian worker in the region, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to escape retaliation from armed groups. This is a man-made disaster.The full extent of the hunger is hard to pin down because officials and food aid still cannot get into the remotest parts of a region known for its rugged inaccessibility even in the best of times. The U.N. World Food Program on Thursday said it had gotten aid to 1.4 million people in Tigray, barely half of the number we should be reaching, in part because armed groups were blocking the way.For every mother like Abeba who makes it out, hundreds, possibly thousands, are trapped behind the front lines or military roadblocks in rural areas.Most of the malnourished children, they die there, said Dr. Kibrom Gebreselassie, chief medical director of Ayder Hospital in Mekele. This is a tip of the iceberg.The grinding war in Tigray started in early November, shortly before the harvest season, as an attempt by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to disarm the region s rebellious leaders.On one side are guerrillas loyal to the ousted and now-fugitive leaders of Tigray. On the other are Ethiopian government troops, allied troops from neighboring Eritrea and militias from the Amhara ethnic group. Trapped in the middle are the civilians of Tigray.The war has spawned massacres, gang rapes and the widespread expulsion of people from their homes, and the United States has declared ethnic cleansing in western Tigray. Now, on top of those atrocities, Tigrayans face another urgent problem: hunger and starvation.The deputy CEO of the region, Abebe Gebrehiwot, echoed the assessment of ethnic cleansing and said combatants are blocking food aid from reaching those who need it. He said the region s interim administration, appointed by Abiy, is desperately trying to forestall a famine, including in the areas where Eritrean forces remain in charge.There are some players who don t want us to plow the land, he said in a recent interview. There are some players who (prevent) us from distributing the seeds.Ethiopia s government strongly disputes that starvation is being used as a weapon of war. Mitiku Kassa, an official with the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, said Wednesday that the U.N. and nonprofit groups have unfettered access to Tigray, and that food aid worth about $135 million has been distributed.We don t have any food shortage, he declared.That s not what the AP found out on the ground.Teklemariam Gebremichael and his neighbors said he and his neighbors were no longer allowed to farm. When Eritrean soldiers came upon him looking after his cattle and harvesting crops, they shot both him and his cows, he said.He survived. The cows didn t. With food in short supply, his wound is slow to heal.I call on the world has to take immediate action to help Tigray, because we can t live on our own land anymore, he pleaded.Another farmer, Gebremariam Hadush, and his five children said they were taking their chances anyway, racing against time as the wet season approached.We should be tilling this land for the second or third time, he said. But we couldn t till at all until now because we haven t had peace. So now all we can do is just scrape the surface.Hunger is particularly sensitive for Ethiopia, where images of starving children with wasting limbs and glassy eyes in the 1980s led to a global outcry. Drought, conflict and government denial all played a part in that famine, which killed an estimated 1 million people.The situation now is also drawing concern from the world although not enough of it, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Thursday. She called for the U.N. Security Council to hold a meeting on Tigray.Famine may already be happening in certain areas. ... It s unconscionable especially in the very place that woke the world up to the scourge of hunger, she said. I ask those who refuse to address this issue publicly, do African lives not matter?In Hawzen, where artillery shelling sporadically sends people running for the hills, teacher Gebremichael Welay said he still has memories of the bombing raids that destroyed food silos when he was a little boy.(The Ethiopian military) bombed us, he said. They are doing it again.Farming has not stopped entirely in Tigray, but it has become a dangerous act of resistance. On the road to Abi Adi, a town about 100 kilometers west of Mekele, the AP saw a few farmers out plowing or taking their cattle to pasture in the distant hills. Craters from recent fighting were visible, and bombed military trucks languished by the roadside.If they (Eritrean soldiers) see us plowing, they beat us, said 20-year-old farmer from Melbe, southwest of Mekele, who gave only his first name of Kibrom. We only plow when we are sure they are not around.Besides preventing plowing, the soldiers took other measures to destroy food, witnesses said. Eritrean soldiers are known to contaminate food silos, sometimes mixing grain with sand and soil, according to an official with an aid group based in Mekele. And the looting by both Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers included farm equipment, farmers said.All our farm tools, including plows, were looted and taken away on trucks, said Birhanu Tsegay, 24-year-old farmer from Neksege town. They left nothing there.An AP team saw a honey processing plant in the town of Agula stripped bare, allegedly by Eritrean soldiers. Aid worker Tekeste Gebrekidan picked up a soiled flyer of the farmers union that once exported the region s prized honey and noted ruefully that its leaders are missing, presumed dead or displaced.Demand for food in the villages is very high, said Tekeste, who serves as the coordinator of the Relief Society of Tigray in the Tsirae Womberta district. The level of need, he said, is beyond our capacity.Sometimes food aid makes it through despite all the challenges, but it still falls short. Early in May a large crowd gathered under a scorching sun in Agula to share food bought with U.S. money.The food they gave out that afternoon 15 kilograms of wheat, half a kilogram of peas and some cooking oil per person, to last a month was earmarked only for the most vulnerable. That included pregnant mothers and elderly people such as 60-year-old Letebrhan Belay, who walked for four hours to get there.Her family had 10 members, she said. She had received food for only five. But she insisted that she was still faring better than others.There will be people dying of hunger, she said, feeling the little sack that held her meager rations.Some of the more fortunate, like nursing mother Abeba, make it past the many roadblocks to reach medical help in Abi Adi and Mekele, but they are few. Four women and their babies were admitted in the makeshift ward for malnourished babies in Abi Adi when the AP was there.At least two children brought to the center since February did not live, said Birhanu Gebremedhin, health coordinator for the district of Abi Adi. He said many malnourished children in the villages could not make it out.This malnutrition is caused by the conflict, Birhanu said. They ve stolen their food, their equipment, and some were killed by the troops even. So they are not able to feed their children.Birhan Etsana, a 27-year-old mother from Dengelat, was still hanging onto the lone survivor of her triplets, a baby admitted with complications stemming from severe acute malnutrition, including heart failure. The baby, Mebrhit, was 17 months old but weighed just 5.2 kilograms (11lbs 7oz). And that s after a week in intensive care, where she squeaked out of danger with a tube carrying formula through her nostrils.Even when we were in the field and I gave her the breast, she couldn t drink anything, Birhan said. It s because of lack of food.Another baby admitted to Ayder Hospital with severe acute malnutrition died, said head nurse Tkleab Gebremariam. The mother fled during fighting, leaving the child with his helpless grandmother for seven days. They were reunited after 10 days, but they got to the hospital too late.As he spoke, Tkleab gingerly felt the bed sores on the scalp of one who had beaten the odds, Amanuel Mulu.Mulu s mother had spent too much time hiding from soldiers and scavenging for food to look after her child. As the soldiers got closer, she had to escape into the bush. Her baby suffered.The child was unconscious when he was first admitted in April, severely malnourished and anemic after losing half his body weight. Two weeks in intensive care saved his life. At almost two years old, he still weighed only 6.7kg (14lbs 12oz).This baby is very lucky to get well after coming here, Tkleab said. There are many who didn t get this opportunity.____Associated Press journalists in Mekele, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.