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A husband and wife from Wisconsin celebrating more than five decades of marriage were killed in a lightning strike outside the White House. A third victim was pronounced dead Friday evening, and one other is hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. James Mueller, 76, and Donna Mueller, 75, of Janesville, Wisconsin, died of their injuries after the lightning strike Thursday in Lafayette Park, located directly outside the White House complex, the Metropolitan Police Department said Friday. A third victim, a 29-year-old adult male, was pronounced dead Friday. The fourth person, a woman, was in critical condition, the police department said. Their identities were not immediately released. Authorities did not reveal how the people were injured, other than to say they were critically hurt in the lightning strike. The Muellers were on a trip to Washington, D.C., to celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary, according to their niece, Michelle McNett of Janesville. “They were a very loving couple,” McNett told the Wisconsin State Journal. “They were very, very family oriented. I think everyone’s just in shock right now and kind of request privacy.” The couple had five children, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, she told the paper. Donna Mueller was a teacher and in retirement worked at the Comfort Shoppe, a local furniture store. Jim, 76, was a retired contractor who had his own drywall business. Read: Lightning kills two in Magura  McNett said she’s not sure why the couple picked the nation’s capital for their vacation, but added that “Donna was a constant learner.” The husband and wife, according to their niece, loved having gatherings and just had a big family gathering a couple of weeks ago. “They were very religious,” she said. “Just the kind of people who would give the shirt off their back to do anything for you, both of them.” Officers with the Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police witnessed the lightning strike Thursday night and ran over to render first aid, officials said. Emergency medical crews were called to the scene just before 7 p.m. and had transported all of the victims to the hospital with “critical, life-threatening injures,” fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo said. “We are saddened by the tragic loss of life after the lightning strike in Lafayette Park,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “Our hearts are with the families who lost loved ones, and we are praying for those still fighting for their lives.”

Hiroshima on Saturday remembered the atomic bombing 77 years ago as officials, including the head of the United Nations, warned against nuclear weapons buildup and fears grow of another such attack amid Russia’s war on Ukraine. “Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety — only death and destruction,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who joined the prayer at the Hiroshima Peace Park. “Three quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945,” he said. The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and Japan’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia. Fears of a third atomic bombing have grown amid Russia’s threats of nuclear attack since its war on Ukraine began in February. Read:Cold showers, no lights: Europe saves as Russian gas wanes Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, in his peace declaration, accused Putin of “using his own people as instruments of war and stealing the lives and livelihoods of innocent civilians in another country.” Russia’s war on Ukraine is helping build support for nuclear deterrence, Matsui said, urging the world not to repeat the mistakes that destroyed his city 77 years ago. On Saturday, attendees including government leaders and diplomats observed a moment of silence with the sound of a peace bell at 8:15 a.m., the time when the U.S. B-29 dropped the bomb on the city. About 400 doves, considered symbols of peace, were released. Russia and its ally Belarus were not invited to this year’s peace memorial. Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin on Thursday offered flowers at a memorial epitaph in the park and told reporters his country would never use nuclear weapons. The world continues to face threats from nuclear weapons, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at the memorial. “I must raise my voice to appeal to the people around the world that the tragedy of nuclear weapons use should never be repeated,” he said. “Japan will walk its path toward a world without nuclear weapons, no matter how narrow, steep or difficult that may be.” Kishida, who will host a Group of Seven summit meeting next May in Hiroshima, said he hoped to share his pledge with other G7 leaders “before the peace monument” to unite them to protect peace and international order based on the universal values of freedom and democracy. Matsui criticized nuclear weapon states, including Russia, for not taking steps despite their pledge to abide by obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “Rather than treating a world without nuclear weapons like a distant dream, they should be taking concrete steps toward its realization,” he said. Critics say Kishida’s call for a nuclear-free world is hollow because Japan remains under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and continues to boycott the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Kishida said the treaty, which lacks the U.S. and other nuclear powers, is not realistic at the moment and that Japan needs to bridge the divide between non-nuclear and nuclear powers. Many survivors of the bombings have lasting injuries and illnesses resulting from the explosions and radiation exposure and face discrimination in Japan. The government began to provide medical support to certified survivors in 1968 after more than 20 years of effort by them. As of March, 118,935 survivors, whose average age now exceeds 84, are certified as eligible for government medical support, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry. But many others, including those who say they were victims of the “black rain” that fell outside of the initially designated areas, are still without support.

Voting is underway in India to elect a new Vice-President, in a high-octane contest where over 4,500 lawmakers across the country are eligible to exercise their franchise. The front-runner is ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate and former governor of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankhar. He is being challenged by opposition candidate Margaret Alva, a former governor and federal minister. The Vice-President is elected by an electoral college consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament -- the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and the Lok Sabha (Lower House). The Vice-President is the second-highest constitutional office in India. The Vice-President serves as the chairperson of the Rajya Sabha and also acts as the chancellor of the central universities. The winner of Saturday's contest will replace incumbent Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu whose five-year term ends on August 10. Also read: Voting underway to elect new India President Who's Dhankhar? Born on 18 May, 1951, in Kithana, a small village in the western state of Rajasthan, to a farmer family, Dhankhar completed his graduation in law and entered politics at a young age. He subsequently became a member of the Rajasthan state assembly and then India's Parliament. He also served as a senior advocate with India's Supreme Court.  

Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes Friday on Gaza, killing at least 10 people, including a senior militant, according to Palestinian officials. Israel said it targeted the Islamic Jihad militant group in response to an “imminent threat” following the recent arrest of another senior militant. Hours later, Palestinian militants launched a barrage of rockets as air-raid sirens wailed in Israel and the two sides drew closer to another all-out war. Islamic Jihad claimed to have fired 100 rockets. Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers have fought four wars and several smaller battles over the last 15 years at a staggering cost to the territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents. A blast was heard in Gaza City, where smoke poured out of the seventh floor of a tall building. Video released by Israel’s military showed the strikes blowing up three guard towers with suspected militants in them. Also read: Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 8, including senior militant In a nationally televised speech, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said his country launched the attacks based on “concrete threats.” “This government has a zero-tolerance policy for any attempted attacks — of any kind — from Gaza towards Israeli territory,” Lapid said. “Israel will not sit idly by when there are those who are trying to harm its civilians.” He added that “Israel isn’t interested in a broader conflict in Gaza but will not shy away from one either.” The violence poses an early test for Lapid, who assumed the role of caretaker prime minister ahead of elections in November, when he hopes to keep the position. He has experience in diplomacy, having served as foreign minister in the outgoing government, but his security credentials are thin. Hamas also faces a dilemma in deciding whether to join a new battle barely a year after the last war caused widespread devastation. There has been almost no reconstruction since then, and the isolated coastal territory is mired in poverty, with unemployment hovering around 50%. The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 5-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman were among those killed in Gaza, without differentiating between civilian and militant casualties. The Israeli military said early estimates were that around 15 fighters were killed. Dozens of people were wounded. Islamic Jihad said Taiseer al-Jabari, its commander for northern Gaza, was among the dead. He had succeeded another militant killed in an airstrike in 2019. An Israeli military spokesman said the strikes were in response to an “imminent threat” from two militant squads armed with anti-tank missiles. The spokesman, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said al-Jabari was deliberately targeted and had been responsible for “multiple attacks” on Israel. Hundreds marched in a funeral procession for him and others who were killed, with many mourners waving Palestinian and Islamic Jihad flags and calling for revenge. Israeli media showed the skies above southern and central Israel lighting up with rockets and interceptors from Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. An explosion was heard in Tel Aviv. It wasn’t immediately clear how many rockets were launched, and there was no immediate word on any casualties on the Israeli side. Israel continued to strike other targets Friday, including weapon-production facilities and Islamic Jihad positions. The U.N. special envoy to the region, Tor Wennesland, said he was “deeply concerned.” “The launching of rockets must cease immediately, and I call on all sides to avoid further escalation,” he said. Following the initial Israeli strikes, a few hundred people gathered outside the morgue at Gaza City’s main Shifa hospital. Some went in to identify loved ones and emerged later in tears. “May God take revenge against spies,” shouted one, referring to Palestinian informants who cooperate with Israel. Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved an order to call up 25,000 reserve soldiers if needed while the military announced a “special situation” on the home front, with schools closed and limits placed on activities in communities within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of the border. Israel closed roads around Gaza earlier this week and sent reinforcements to the border as it braced for a revenge attack after Monday’s arrest of Bassam al-Saadi, an Islamic Jihad leader, in a military raid in the occupied West Bank. A teenage member of the group was killed in a gunbattle between the Israeli troops and Palestinian militants. Hamas seized power in the coastal strip from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Its most recent war with Israel was in May 2021, and tensions soared again earlier this year following a wave of attacks inside Israel, near-daily military operations in the West Bank and tensions at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site. Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, speaking to Al-Mayadeen TV network from Iran, said “fighters of the Palestinian resistance have to stand together to confront this aggression.” He said there would be “no red lines” and blamed the violence on Israel.  Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said “the Israeli enemy, which started the escalation against Gaza and committed a new crime, must pay the price and bear full responsibility for it.” Islamic Jihad is smaller than Hamas but largely shares its ideology. Both groups are opposed to Israel’s existence and have carried out scores of deadly attacks over the years, including the firing of rockets into Israel. It’s unclear how much control Hamas has over Islamic Jihad, and Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks emanating from Gaza. Israel and Egypt have maintained a tight blockade over the territory since the Hamas takeover. Israel says the closure is needed to prevent Hamas from building up its military capabilities, while critics say the policy amounts to collective punishment. Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of the Shifa hospital, said hospitals faced shortages after Israel imposed a full closure on Gaza earlier this week. He said there were enough supplies and essential drugs to sustain hospitals for five days in normal times, but that with a new round of fighting underway, “they may run out at any moment.” Israel called off an expected fuel delivery for Gaza’s sole power plant, which was expected to shut down early Saturday if the fuel did not enter the territory. Even when the plant is running at full capacity, Gazans still endure daily power outages that last several hours. Earlier Friday, a couple of hundred Israelis protested near the Gaza Strip to demand the return of the remains of two Israeli soldiers held by Hamas. The protesters were led by the family of Hadar Goldin, who along with Oron Shaul was killed in the 2014 Gaza war. Hamas is still holding their remains, as well as two Israeli civilians who strayed into Gaza and are believed to be mentally ill, hoping to exchange them for some of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Israel says there can be no major moves toward lifting the blockade until the soldiers’ remains and captive civilians are released. Israel and Hamas have held numerous rounds of Egyptian-mediated talks on a possible swap.

Flash flooding at Death Valley National Park triggered by heavy rainfall on Friday buried cars, forced officials to close all roads in and out the park and stranded about 1,000 people, officials said The park near the California-Nevada state line received at least 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) of rain at the Furnace Creek area, which park officials in a statement said represented “nearly an entire year’s worth of rain in one morning.” The park’s average annual rainfall is 1.9 inches (4.8 centimeters). About 60 vehicles were buried in debris and about 500 visitors and 500 park workers were stranded, park officials said. There were no immediate reports of injuries and the California Department of Transportation estimated it would take four to six hours to open a road that would allow park visitors to leave. It was the second major flooding event at the park this week. Some roads were closed Monday after they were inundated with mud and debris from flash floods that also hit western Nevada and northern Arizona hard. The rain started around 2 a.m., said John Sirlin, a photographer for an Arizona-based adventure company who witnessed the flooding as he perched on a hillside boulder where he was trying to take pictures of lightning as the storm approached.  “It was more extreme than anything I’ve seen there,” said Sirlin, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and has been visiting the park since 2016. He is the lead guide for Incredible Weather Adventures and said he started chasing storms in Minnesota and the high plains in the 1990s. “I’ve never seen it to the point where entire trees and boulders were washing down. The noise from some of the rocks coming down the mountain was just incredible,” he said in a phone interview Friday afternoon. Read: Satkhira flood washes away Tk8.28 crore worth of fish, crab, shrimp “A lot of washes were flowing several feet deep. There are rocks probably 3 or 4 feet covering the road,” he said. Sirlin said it took him about 6 hours to drive about 35 miles (56 kilometers) out of the park from near the Inn at Death Valley. “There were at least two dozen cars that got smashed and stuck in there,” he said, adding that he didn’t see anyone injured “or any high water rescues.” During Friday’s rainstorms, the “flood waters pushed dumpster containers into parked cars, which caused cars to collide into one another. Additionally, many facilities are flooded including hotel rooms and business offices,” the park statement said. A water system that provides it for park residents and offices also failed after a line broke that was being repaired, the statement said. A flash flood warning for the park and surrounding area expired at 12:45 p.m., Friday but a flood advisory remained in effect into the evening, the National Weather Service said.

A Texas jury on Friday ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to the parents of a child who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, adding to the $4.1 million he must pay for the suffering he put them through by claiming for years that the nation’s deadliest school shooting was a hoax. The total — $49.3 million — is less than the $150 million sought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut. But the trial marks the first time Jones has been held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was orchestrated by the government to tighten gun laws. Afterward, Lewis said that Jones — who wasn’t in the courtroom to hear the verdict — has been held accountable. She said when she took the stand and looked Jones in the eye, she thought of her son, who was credited with saving lives by yelling “run” when the killer paused in his rampage. “He stood up to the bully Adam Lanza and saved nine of his classmates’ lives,” Lewis said. “I hope that I did that incredible courage justice when I was able to confront Alex Jones, who is also a bully. I hope that inspires other people to do the same.” It could be a while before the plaintiffs collect anything. Jones’ lead attorney, Andino Reynal, told the judge he will appeal and ask the courts to drastically reduce the size of the verdict. After the hearing, Reynal said he thinks the punitive amount will be reduced to as little as $1.5 million. ’We think the verdict was too high. ... Alex Jones will be on the air today, he’ll be on the air tomorrow, he’ll be on the air next week. He’s going to keep doing his job holding the power structure accountable.” READ: Post-Roe, states struggle with conflicting abortion bans Jones’ companies and personal wealth could also get carved up by other lawsuits and bankruptcy. Another defamation lawsuit against Jones by a Sandy Hook family is set to start pretrial hearings in the same Austin court on Sept. 14. He faces yet another defamation lawsuit in Connecticut. Plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston said he believes he can challenge any attempt to reduce the damages. But he said even if the award is drastically cut, it’s just as important to take the big verdict into the bankruptcy court for the family to claim against Jones’ estate and company. Jones testified this week that any award over $2 million would “sink us.” His company Free Speech Systems, which is Infowars’ Austin-based parent company, filed for bankruptcy protection during the first week of the trial. Punitive damages are meant to punish defendants for particularly egregious conduct, beyond monetary compensation awarded to the individuals they hurt. A high punitive award is also seen as a chance for jurors to send a wider societal message and a way to deter others from the same abhorrent conduct in the future. Barry Covert, a Buffalo, New York, First Amendment lawyer with no connection to the Jones case, said the total damages awarded amount to “a stunning loss for Jones.” “With $50 million in all, the jury has sent a huge, loud message that this behavior will not be tolerated,” Covert said. “Everyone with a show like this who knowingly tells lies — juries will not tolerate it.” Future jurors in other pending Sandy Hook trials could see the damages amounts in this case as a benchmark, Covert said. If other juries do, Covert said, “it could very well put Jones out of business.” Attorneys for the family had urged jurors to hand down a financial punishment that would force Infowars to shut down. “You have the ability to stop this man from ever doing it again,” Wesley Ball, an attorney for the parents, told the jury Friday. “Send the message to those who desire to do the same: Speech is free. Lies, you pay for.” An economist testified that Jones and the company are worth up to $270 million. Bernard Pettingill, who was hired by the plaintiffs to study Jones’ net worth, said records show that Jones withdrew $62 million for himself in 2021, when default judgments were issued in lawsuits against him. “That number represents, in my opinion, a value of a net worth,” Pettingill said. “He’s got money put in a bank account somewhere.” But Jones’ lawyers said their client had already learned his lesson. They argued for a punitive amount of less than $300,000. “You’ve already sent a message. A message for the first time to a talk show host, to all talk show hosts, that their standard of care has to change,” Reynal said. Friday’s damages drew praise from the American Federation of Teachers union, which represented the teachers at Sandy Hook. “Nothing will ever fix the pain of losing a child, or of watching that tragedy denied for political reasons. But I’m glad the parents of Sandy Hook have gotten some justice,” union President Randi Weingarten said in a tweet. Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families suing Jones contend he has tried to hide evidence of his true wealth in various shell companies. During his testimony, Jones was confronted with a memo from one of his business managers outlining a single day’s gross revenue of $800,000 from selling vitamin supplements and other products through his website, which would approach nearly $300 million in a year. Jones called it a record sales day. Jones, who has portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, conceded during the trial that the attack was “100% real” and that he was wrong to have lied about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology wouldn’t suffice and called on them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through. The parents told jurors they’ve endured a decade of trauma, inflicted first by the murder of their son and what followed: gunshots fired at a home, online and phone threats, and harassment on the street by strangers. They said the threats and harassment were all fueled by Jones and his conspiracy theory spread to his followers via Infowars. A forensic psychiatrist testified that the parents suffer from “complex post-traumatic stress disorder” inflicted by ongoing trauma, similar to what might be experienced by a soldier at war or a child abuse victim. Throughout the trial, Jones was his typically bombastic self, talking about conspiracies on the witness stand, during impromptu news conferences and on his show. His erratic behavior is unusual by courtroom standards, and the judge scolded him, telling him at one point: “This is not your show.” The trial drew attention from outside Austin as well. Bankston told the court Thursday that the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has requested records from Jones’ phone that Jones’ attorneys had mistakenly turned over to the plaintiffs. Bankston later said he planned to comply with the committee’s request. By Friday, Bankston said, he had “a subpoena sitting on my desk’ from the Jan. 6 committee. But he said he needed to “tamp down expectations” that it might reveal texts about the insurrection since it appears to have been scraped for data in mid-2020. Bankston said he’s also had “law enforcement” interest in the phone data, but he declined to elaborate. Last month, the House committee showed graphic and violent text messages and played videos of right-wing figures, including Jones, and others vowing that Jan. 6 would be the day they would fight for Trump. The committee first subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding a deposition and documents related to his efforts to spread misinformation about the 2020 election and a rally on the day of the attack.

Three more ships with grain have departed Ukrainian ports and are headed to Turkey for inspection, Turkey’s defense ministry said on Friday. The three ships are loaded with a total of 58,000 tons of corn. The departure of the ships comes after the first grain ship since the start of the war left Ukraine earlier this week. It crossed the Black Sea under a wartime deal and passed inspection Wednesday in Istanbul and then headed on to Lebanon. Ukraine is one of the world’s main breadbaskets and the stocks of grain trapped were exacerbating a sharp rise of food prices and raising fears of a global hunger crisis. Read: Inspectors OK 1st Ukraine grain ship but no sign yet of more The ships that departed Friday from Ukraine are from among over a dozen bulk carriers and cargo ships that had been loaded with grain and stuck at the ports there since the start of the invasion in late February. While tens of thousands of tons of grains are now making their way out with these latest shipments, it’s still a fraction of the 20 million tons of grains which Ukraine says are trapped in the country’s silos and ports, and which must be shipped out in order to make space for the new harvest.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that China will not isolate Taiwan by preventing U.S. officials from traveling there. She made the remarks in Tokyo, the final leg of an Asia tour highlighted by a visit to Taiwan that infuriated China. Pelosi, the first House speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years, said Wednesday in Taipei that the U.S. commitment to democracy in the self-governing island and elsewhere “remains ironclad.” Pelosi and five other members of Congress arrived in Tokyo late Thursday after visiting Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea. China, which claims Taiwan and has threatened to annex it by force if necessary, called her visit to the island a provocation and on Thursday began military drills, including missile firing, in six zones surrounding Taiwan. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday that China’s military exercises aimed at Taiwan represent a “grave problem” that threatens regional peace and security after five ballistic missiles launched as part of the drills landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Kishida, speaking after breakfast with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her congressional delegation, said the missile launches need to be “stopped immediately.” Read: China conducts 'precision missile strikes' in Taiwan Strait China, which claims Taiwan and has threatened to annex it by force if necessary, called Pelosi’s visit earlier this week to the self-ruled island a provocation and on Thursday began military exercises, including missile strike training, in six zones surrounding Taiwan, in what could be its biggest since the mid-1990s. In Taipei on Wednesday, Pelosi said the American commitment to democracy in Taiwan and elsewhere “remains ironclad.” She became the first House speaker to visit the island in 25 years. Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said five missiles landed on Thursday in Japan’s exclusive economic zone off Hateruma, an island far south of Japan’s main islands. He said Japan protested to China, saying the missiles “threatened Japan’s national security and the lives of the Japanese people, which we strongly condemn.” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, attending a regional meeting in Cambodia, said China’s actions are “severely impacting peace and stability in the region and the international community, and we demand the immediate suspension of the military exercises.” Japan has in recent years bolstered its defense capability and troop presence in southwestern Japan and remote islands, including Okinawa, which is about 700 kilometers (420 miles) northeast of Taiwan. Many residents say they worry their island will be quickly embroiled in any Taiwan conflict. Okinawa is home to the majority of about 50,000 American troops based in Japan under a bilateral security pact. At the breakfast earlier Friday, Pelosi and her congressional delegation also discussed their shared security concern over China, North Korea and Russia, and pledged their commitment to working toward peace and stability in Taiwan, Kishida said. Pelosi also was to hold talks with her Japanese counterpart, lower house Speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda.

Democrats displayed a newfound sense of optimism about the election-year political climate Wednesday after voters in traditionally conservative Kansas overwhelmingly backed a measure protecting abortion rights. At the White House, President Joe Biden hailed the vote in Kansas as the direct result of outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision in June to repeal a woman’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Republicans and the high court “don’t have a clue about the power of American women,” Biden said. “Last night in Kansas, they found out.” On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., boasted of the political winds “blowing at Democrats.” “Last night in the American heartland, the people of Kansas sent an unmistakable message to the Republican extremists,” he said. “If it’s going to happen in Kansas, it’s going to happen in a whole lot of states.” With three months until the November election, the optimism may be premature. But it represents a much-needed break for a party that has spent the better part of the past year reeling from crisis to crisis, including the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and rising prices for gasoline and other goods. Those developments have contributed to Biden’s low approval ratings, leaving Democrats without a unifying leader in a position to rally voters before the election, with control of Congress at stake. The Kansas vote, however, suggests that threats to abortion rights may energize Democrats in a way few political leaders can. And it comes at a moment when the party is gaining momentum on other fronts, including a legislative package to reduce prescription drug prices, combat climate change and raise taxes on corporations. The challenge for Democrats will be to maintain the energy for several more months and defy trends that typically trip up the party in power. In recent history, the party controlling the White House almost always suffers deep losses in the first midterm election of a new presidency. Also, an overwhelming majority of voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction amid inflation and other economic concerns. Even with abortion-related momentum, many Democratic strategists privately expect to lose the House majority and believe the Senate is essentially a coin flip. The day after the Kansas vote, Democratic strategists on the front lines of key midterm contests described a complicated political reality on abortion. Abortion rights supporters surged to the polls in Kansas, where abortion was quite literally on the ballot. By a roughly 20-percentage point margin, they rejected a measure that would have changed the state constitution to allow state lawmakers to impose restrictions on abortion — or even a ban. The early August primary turnout was on par with a governor’s general election contest. But few elections this fall will feature such clear stakes for abortion rights. Just four states — California, Michigan, Vermont and Kentucky — are expected to feature a Kansas-style abortion referendum on the November ballot, according to the pro-Democratic group EMILY’s List. In the majority of states, Democrats must convince voters they can protect abortion access only by defeating anti-abortion Republican candidates at the state and federal level. While that is true in most cases, it’s much more complicated to run against a candidate than a single-issue ballot measure, according to Democratic pollster Molly Murphy.  “The optimist would say, when voters know that abortion is on the ballot, they are motivated to turn out,” Murphy said. “That’s the messaging challenge that we are going to face. Will voters believe that a legal right to abortion is at stake here in this country in their vote for Congress, Senate, governor, state house — all of those things — and be as motivated to show up to vote?” “Republicans are going to do everything they can to deflect and not engage on this,” she added, noting the GOP’s heavy focus on inflation, gas prices and immigration. Indeed, as Democrats celebrated on Wednesday, the Republican reaction to the abortion vote was decidedly muted. The Kansas vote was “a huge disappointment for pro-life Kansans and Americans nationwide,” said Mallory Carroll, of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Read: Overturning of Roe v Wade abortion law huge blow to women's rights: Bachelet Republican strategist Christine Matthews warned that the Kansas vote could have “an energizing effect for abortion rights supporters.” “Success breeds success,” she said. “It will encourage the belief that turning out and activating can make a difference and that is particularly important with younger voters and those less inclined to participate. It’s a momentum-shifter.” Democrats have long tried without much success to energize supporters by focusing on abortion. But the Supreme Court’s decision clarified the stakes as never before. Absent a new federal law, abortion rights now fall to the states, and in 12 states led by Republicans, abortion has already been banned or heavily restricted. Many more are expected to follow. Republican strategists acknowledge that swing state candidates will have to tread carefully on the issue. In Georgia, GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, for example, worried some Washington Republicans by quickly declaring his opposition to abortion rights even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. Such a position, thought to be extreme in past years, is somewhat common among Republican candidates in 2022. Republicans in other states have largely sought to avoid clarifying their position. The Senate Democrats campaign arm recently established a website, GOPOnAbortion.com, to highlight Republican candidates’ outspoken opposition to abortion rights. While Democratic candidates from New York to Washington state are already running ads on abortion, the issue is expected to play a bigger role in some races than others. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who leads the group dedicated to protecting the Senate’s Democratic majority, predicted that abortion would likely matter most as a political issue in Senate races in Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona — all states in which polling suggests strong support for abortion rights. Suburban women and younger voters are most likely to be motivated by the issue. “There’s a great deal of anger,” Peters said of the backlash against the Roe reversal. “There’s an energy I haven’t seen before.” The Kansas vote suggests that such energy could extend well beyond a handful of states. Polling shows that relatively few Americans wanted to see Roe overturned. More Americans disapprove than approve of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, 53% to 30%, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from July conducted about three weeks after the ruling. Just over half of those surveyed said they felt angry or sad about the ruling, the poll found. In Wisconsin, the leading Democratic Senate candidate, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, noted that the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe was the biggest fundraising day of his entire campaign. “People are motivated and energetic in ways that I’ve never seen before,” he said in an interview. “I can only assume that that intensity will increase all the way to November.”

The first grain ship to leave Ukraine and cross the Black Sea under a wartime deal passed inspection Wednesday in Istanbul and headed on to Lebanon. Ukraine said 17 other vessels were “loaded and waiting permission to leave,” but there was no word yet on when they could depart. A joint civilian inspection team spent three hours checking the cargo and crew of the Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, which left Odesa on Monday carrying Ukrainian corn, a U.N. statement said. The Joint Coordination Center team included officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, who signed deals last month to create safe Black Sea shipping corridors to export Ukraine’s desperately needed agricultural products as Russia’s war upon its neighbor grinds on. Ukraine is a major global grain supplier but the war had blocked most exports, so the July 22 deal aimed to ease food security around the globe. World food prices have been soaring in a crisis blamed on the war, supply chain problems and COVID-19. Although U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Razoni’s journey a “significant step,” no other ships have left from Ukraine in the past 48 hours and no explanations have been given for that delay. A U.N. statement said inspectors “gained valuable information” from the Razoni’s crew about its voyage through the Black Sea maritime humanitarian corridor and the coordination center was “fine-tuning procedures.” The Turkish Ministry of National Defense tweeted a picture of an inspector reaching into the Razoni’s hold and touching some of its 26,527 tons of corn for chicken feed. The Razoni’s horn rang out as the inspectors left the ship, and then it headed off to Lebanon. The checks seek to ensure that outbound cargo ships carry only grain, fertilizer or food and not any other commodities, and that inbound ships are not carrying weapons. An estimated 20 million tons of grain — most of it said to be destined for livestock — has been stuck in Ukraine since the start of the 6-month-old war. Ukraine’s top diplomat said Wednesday that more ships are ready to carry much-needed grain and food out of the country’s Black Sea ports. “Further ships are already ready for departure. They will depart from the ports that are part of the grain initiative in accordance with the agreed schedule, and we hope that everything will work out and the Russian Federation will not take any steps that would destroy these agreements,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at a joint press conference in Kyiv with his Estonian counterpart. Kuleba said the U.N.-backed deal “is beneficial to Ukrainian farmers, it is beneficial to the Ukrainian economy, and it is beneficial to the world.” ″ It is now Ukraine that is, literally, saving the world from further growth in food prices and from hunger in individual countries,” he said. Still, a Black Sea voyage entails significant risks because of the war. Two civilian ships hit explosive devices there last week near the Danube River’s Bystre estuary, according to Bridget Diakun, a data reporter at Lloyd’s List, a global shipping publication. Analysts say authorities’ first priority is bringing out vessels that have been stuck for months at the three Ukrainian ports covered by the deal. Sixteen ships loaded with grain have been stuck at the ports of Odesa and Chernomorsk since Russia’s invasion, according to Lloyd’s List. The U.N. official who helped negotiate the Russian deal with the U.N. aimed at ensuring unrestricted access to world markets for the country’s food and fertilizer says there are still obstacles to overcome. U.N. trade chief Rebeca Grynspan told a U.N. news conference Wednesday by video from Geneva that some obstacles Russia faces in terms of finance, insurance, shipping and transport of its grain and fertilizer have been clarified by the United States and European Union. But she said there is still a major bottleneck -- getting the private sector to accept that the U.N.-Russia agreement will enable their companies to be involved in getting Russian grain and fertilizer shipped to global markets without the threat of sanctions. There are no U.S. or EU sanctions on food or fertilizer exports, but companies engaged in related fields have been reluctant to take part. Russia’s war with Ukraine has had “a chilling effect on the private sector,” Grynspan said. “So, an important part of the private sector has stopped their dealings in food and fertilizer.” Grynspan, the secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said some grain and fertilizer are being exported from Russia but at very high costs. She explained that half the increase in grain prices comes from increases in transport and logistics costs. “That is the pressure that we want to ease,” she said. Grynspan said the U.S. and EU clarifications are being evaluated by the private sector “as we speak.” Grain stockpiles are expected to keep growing. Despite the war, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal estimated his country would harvest up to 67 million tons of grain this year, up from 60 million tons last year. Also read: First Russian ship anchors at Mongla since Ukraine invasion A senior official from a leading Ukrainian farm association reckoned Ukraine would have about 50 million tons of grain for export this year. Before the war, Ukraine exported around 5-6 million tons of grain per month, according to Denys Marchuk, the deputy head of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council.