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Spain: 1 dead in church machete attacks, terror link probed

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BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A machete-wielding man killed a sexton and injured a priest at two Catholic churches in the city of Algeciras on Wednesday before being arrested, Spain’s interior ministry said. Authorities are investigating the attacks as a possible act of terrorism.

The suspect is in the custody of Spain’s National Police. The ministry did not identify him.

Algeciras is near the southern tip of Spain, resting across from a bay from Gibraltar. It is home to an important port with ferry connections to northern Africa.

The attack started around 7 p.m., when an armed man went into the church of Maria Auxiliadora y San Isidro and assaulted a priest, who was seriously injured, the ministry said.

The assailant then went to a second church, Nuestra Señora de La Palma, a five-minute walk away, where he attacked the sexton. The sexton, whose job it is to take care of the church, fled outside to a public square, where the attacker dealt him mortal wounds, the ministry said.

The Algeciras town hall said the sexton was named Diego Valencia and identified the wounded priest as Antonio Rodríguez. The town hall said he was hospitalized and in stable condition.

Local media reported that at least three other people were injured.

Spain’s National Court said a judge has opened an investigation into a possible act of terrorism.

Police are investigating the incident, the interior ministry said, to determine the “nature of the attack.” It offered no detail on the attacker’s motive.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joined the outpouring of support.

“I want to express my sincerest condolences for the families of the sexton slain in the terrible attack in Algeciras,” Sánchez wrote on Twitter. “I wish the injured a swift recovery.”

The secretary general of Spain’s Episcopal Conference, Francisco García, wrote on Twitter that “I have received the news of the incident in Algeciras with great pain.” The conference is an organization of Spain’s Catholic bishops, based in Rome.

“These are sad moments of suffering, we are united by the pain of families of the victims and for the Diocese of Cádiz,” García added.

The town hall declared a day of mourning when flags will fly at half-staff.

“We are all stunned by these acts, which have filled us with pain,” Mayor José Landaluce said. “Algeciras has always been a city where concord and tolerance reign, despite incidents like this that create an image that does not correspond to reality.”

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The AP Interview: Pope says homosexuality not a crime

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church.

“Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis said during an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.

Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and he himself referred to the issue in terms of “sin.” But he attributed such attitudes to cultural backgrounds, and said bishops in particular need to undergo a process of change to recognize the dignity of everyone.

“These bishops have to have a process of conversion,” he said, adding that they should apply “tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.”

Francis’ comments are the first uttered by a pope about such laws, but they are consistent with his overall approach to the LGBTQ community and belief that the Catholic Church should welcome everyone and not discriminate.

Some 67 countries or jurisdictions worldwide criminalize consensual same-sex sexual activity, 11 of which can or do impose the death penalty, according to The Human Dignity Trust, which works to end such laws. Experts say even where the laws are not enforced, they contribute to harassment, stigmatization and violence against LGBTQ people.

In the U.S., more than a dozen states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books, despite a 2003 Supreme Court ruling declaring them unconstitutional. Gay rights advocates say the antiquated laws are used to harass homosexuals, and point to new legislation, such as the “Don’t say gay” law in Florida, which forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, as evidence of continued efforts to marginalize LGBTQ people.

The United Nations has repeatedly called for an end to laws criminalizing homosexuality outright, saying they violate rights to privacy and freedom from discrimination and are a breach of countries’ obligations under international law to protect the human rights of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Declaring such laws “unjust,” Francis said the Catholic Church can and should work to put an end to them. “It must do this. It must do this,” he said.

Francis quoted the Catechism of the Catholic Church in saying gay people must be welcomed and respected, and should not be marginalized or discriminated against.

“We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity,” Francis said, speaking to the AP in the Vatican hotel where he lives.

Francis’ remarks come ahead of a trip to Africa, where such laws are common as they are in the Middle East. Many date from British colonial times or are inspired by Islamic law. Some Catholic bishops have strongly upheld them as consistent with Vatican teaching, while others have called for them to be overturned as a violation of basic human dignity.

In 2019, Francis had been expected to issue a statement opposing criminalization of homosexuality during a meeting with human rights groups that conducted research into the effects of such laws and so-called “conversion therapies.”

In the end, after word of the audience leaked, the pope didn’t meet with the groups. Instead, the Vatican No. 2 did and reaffirmed “the dignity of every human person and against every form of violence.”

There was no indication that Francis spoke out about such laws now because his more conservative predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, recently died. The issue had never been raised in an interview, but Francis willingly responded, citing even the statistics about the number of countries where homosexuality is criminalized.

On Tuesday, Francis said there needed to be a distinction between a crime and a sin with regard to homosexuality.

“It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin,” he said. “Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime.”

“It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another,” he added.

Catholic teaching holds that while gay people must be treated with respect, homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” Francis has not changed that teaching, but he has made reaching out to the LGBTQ community a hallmark of his papacy.

Starting with his famous 2013 declaration, “Who am I to judge?” — when he was asked about a purportedly gay priest — Francis has gone on to minister repeatedly and publicly to the gay and trans community. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he favored granting legal protections to same-sex couples as an alternative to endorsing gay marriage, which Catholic doctrine forbids.

Despite such outreach, Francis was criticized by the Catholic LGBTQ community for a 2021 decree from the Vatican’s doctrine office that said the church cannot bless same-sex unions.

In 2008, the Vatican declined to sign onto a U.N. declaration that called for the decriminalization of homosexuality, complaining the text went beyond the original scope. In a statement at the time, the Vatican urged countries to avoid “unjust discrimination” against gay people and end penalties against them.

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Live updates: Shooter on loose after deadly mass shooting near LA

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MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (AP) — Law enforcement officials swarmed and entered a white van Sunday afternoon that officials suspect was driven by a gunman who opened fire on a Southern California ballroom dance studio, killing 10 people and wounding 10 more.

Police surrounded the van with tactical vehicles and bomb squad trucks for hours before going in. A person’s body appeared to be slumped over the wheel and was later removed from the vehicle, but authorities did not immediately identify the person.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna previously released photos of an Asian man who was believed to be the suspect, but he did not release the man’s name.

The manhunt came after a gunman killed 10 people at a ballroom dance studio late Saturday amid Lunar New Years celebrations in the predominantly Asian American community of Monterey Park. He likely tried and failed to target a second dance hall, authorities said.

The van was found in Torrance, another community home to many Asian Americans, about 22 miles (34.5 kilometers) from that second location.

The shooting sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.

Luna said the shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park left five women and five men dead and wounded another 10 people. Then 20 to 30 minutes later, a man with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra.

Authorities believe the two events are connected. They offered no details about a possible motive.

The suspect entered the Alhambra club with a gun, and people wrested the weapon away from him before he fled, Luna said.

Hours earlier, Luna said authorities were looking for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a vehicle.

“We believe there is a person inside of that vehicle. We don’t know their condition, but we’re going to handle that in safest manner that we possibly can and try and identify that person. Could it be our suspect? Possibly,” Luna said.

In response to a question, Luna said it was possible that the person barricaded in van was dead.

Members of a SWAT team entered the van a short time later and looked through its contents before walking away. It was unclear what they found.

Authorities said Sunday they know the suspect’s name but declined to release it because it could complicate their ability to apprehend him. But they did release a photo showing an Asian man wearing glasses and a winter hat.

The sheriff declined to say what type of gun was recovered in Alhambra. He said investigators believe the gun used in Monterey Park was not an assault rifle.

The massacre was the nation’s fifth mass killing this month. It was also the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”

The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest. Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting.

Tony Lai, 35, of Monterey Park was stunned when he came out for his early morning walk to learn that the noises he heard in the night were gunshots.

“I thought maybe it was fireworks. I thought maybe it had something to do with Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we don’t even get a lot of fireworks here. It’s weird to see this. It’s really safe here. We’re right in the middle of the city, but it’s really safe.”

Wynn Liaw, 57, who lives about two blocks from the Monterey Park studio, said she was shocked that such a crime would happen, especially during New Year’s celebrations.

“Chinese people, they consider Chinese New Year very, very special” — a time when “you don’t do anything that will bring bad luck the entire year,” she said.

She took a picture of the activity outside the studio to send to relatives and friends in China “to let them know how crazy the U.S. is becoming with all these mass shootings, even in the New Year.”

An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. shows that 2022 was one of the nation’s worst years with 42 such attacks — the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as four people killed, not including the perpetrator.

The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.

President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were briefed on the situation, aides said. Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden were thinking of those killed and wounded, and he directed federal authorities to support the investigation.

The shooting occurred at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a few blocks from city hall on Monterey Park’s main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small businesses whose signs are in both English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are both widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated and Chinese films are screened regularly in the city.

The business offered dance lessons from tango to rumba to the fox trot, and rented its space for events. On Saturday, its website said, it was hosting an event called “Star Night” from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

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Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

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Russia official warns West of destruction for arming Ukraine

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament warned Sunday that countries supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons risked their own destruction, a message that followed new pledges of armored vehicles, air defense systems and other equipment but not the battle tanks Kyiv requested.

Ukraine’s supporters pledged billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine during a meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday, though the new commitments were overshadowed by a failure to agree on Ukraine’s urgent request for German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks.

State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said that governments giving more powerful weapons to Ukraine could cause a “global tragedy that would destroy their countries.”

“Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,” he said. “If Washington and NATO supply weapons that would be used for striking peaceful cities and making attempts to seize our territory as they threaten to do, it would trigger a retaliation with more powerful weapons.”

Germany is one of the main donors of weapons to Ukraine, and it ordered a review of its Leopard 2 stocks in preparation for a possible green light. Nonetheless, the government in Berlin has shown caution at each step of increasing its commitments to Ukraine, a hesitancy seen as rooted in its history and political culture.

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said Sunday that he does not rule out sending Leclerc battle tanks to Ukraine and had asked his defense minister to “work on” the idea.

Macron spoke during a during a news conference in Paris with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as their countries commemorating the 60th anniversary of their post-World War II friendship treaty. In a joint declaration, France and Germany committed to their “unwavering support” for Ukraine.

France will make its tank decision based on three criteria, Macron said: that sharing the equipment does not lead to an escalation of the conflict, that it would provide efficient and workable help when training time is taken into account, and that it wouldn’t weaken France’s own military.

Scholz did not respond when asked about the Leopard 2 tanks Sunday, but stressed that his country already has made sizable military contributions to Ukraine.

“The U.S. is doing a lot, Germany is doing a lot, too,” he said. “We have constantly expanded our deliveries with very effective weapons that are already available today. And we have always coordinated all these decisions closely with our important allies and friends.”

Germany’s tentativeness has drawn criticism, particularly from Poland and the Baltic states, countries on NATO’s eastern flank that feel especially threatened by Russia’s renewed aggression.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that if Germany does not consent to transferring Leopard tanks to Ukraine, his country was prepared to build a “smaller coalition” of countries that would send theirs anyway.

“Almost a year had passed since the outbreak of war,” Morawiecki said in an interview with Polish state news agency PAP published Sunday. “Evidence of the Russian army’s war crimes can be seen on television and on YouTube. What more does Germany need to open its eyes and start to act in line with the potential of the German state?”

In Washington, two leading lawmakers urged the U.S. on Sunday to send some of its Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the interests of overcoming Germany’s reluctance to share its own, more suitable tanks.

“If we announced we were giving an Abrams tank, just one, that would unleash” the flow of tanks from Germany, Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC’s “This Week on Sunday.” “What I hear is that Germany’s waiting on us to take the lead.”

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also spoke up for the U.S. sending Abrams.

“If it requires our sending some Abrams tanks in order to unlock getting the Leopard tanks from Germany, from Poland, from other allies, I would support that,” Coons said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said the U.S.-led meeting at the air base in Germany “left no doubt that our enemies will try to exhaust or better destroy us,” adding that “they have enough weapons” to achieve the purpose.

Medvedev, a former Russian president, warned on his messaging app channel that “in case of a protracted conflict,” Russia could seek to form a military alliance with “the nations that are fed up with the Americans and a pack of their castrated dogs.”

Ukraine is asking for more weapons as it anticipates Russia’s forces launching a new offensive in the spring.

Oleksii Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, warned that Russia may try to intensify its attacks in the south and in the east and to cut supply channels of Western weapons, while conquering Kyiv “remains the main dream” in President Vladimir Putin’s “fantasies,” he said.

In a column published by online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda. he described the Kremlin’s goal in the conflict as a “total and absolute genocide, a total war of destruction”

Among those calling for more arms for Ukraine was the former British prime minister, Boris Johnson, who made a surprise trip to Ukraine on Sunday. Johnson, who was pictured in the Kyiv region town of Borodyanka, said he traveled to Ukraine at the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“This is the moment to double down and to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job. The sooner Putin fails, the better for Ukraine and for the whole world,” Johnson said in a statement.

The last week was especially tragic for Ukraine even by the standards of a brutal war that has gone on for nearly a year, killing tens of thousands of people, uprooting millions more and creating vast destruction of Ukrainian cities.

A barrage of Russian missiles struck an apartment complex in the southeastern city of Dnipro on Jan. 14, killing at least 45 civilians. On Wednesday, a government helicopter crashed into a building housing a kindergarten in a suburb of Kyiv. Ukraine’s interior minister, other officials and a child on the ground were among the 14 people killed.

Zelenskyy vowed Sunday that Ukraine would ultimately prevail in the war.

“We are united because we are strong. We are strong because we are united,” the Ukrainian leader said in a video address as he marked Ukraine Unity Day, which commemorates when east and west Ukraine were united in 1919.

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Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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FBI searched Biden home, found items marked classified

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday and located additional documents with classified markings and also took possession of some of his handwritten notes, the president’s lawyer said Saturday.

The president voluntarily allowed the FBI into his home, but the lack of a search warrant did not dim the extraordinary nature of the search. It compounded the embarrassment to Biden that started with the disclosure Jan. 12 that the president’s attorneys had found a “small number” of classified records at a former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington shortly before the midterm elections. Since then, attorneys found six classified documents in Biden’s Wilmington home library from his time as vice president.

Though Biden has maintained “ there’s no there there,” the discoveries have become a political liability as he prepares to launch a reelection bid, and they undercut his efforts to portray an image of propriety to the American public after the tumultuous presidency of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

During Friday’s search, which lasted nearly 13 hours, the FBI took six items that contained documents with classified markings, said Bob Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer. The items spanned Biden’s time in the Senate and the vice presidency, while the notes dated to his time as vice president, he said. The level of classification, and whether the documents removed by the FBI remained classified, was not immediately clear as the Justice Department reviews the records.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Fitzpatrick confirmed Saturday that the FBI had executed “a planned, consensual search” of the president’s residence in Wilmington.

The president and first lady Jill Biden were not at the home when it was searched. They were spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Speaking to reporters during a trip to California on Thursday, Biden said he was “fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”

“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.”

It remained to be seen whether additional searches by federal officials of other locations might be conducted. Biden’s personal attorneys previously conducted a search of the Rehoboth Beach residence and said they did not find any official documents or classified records.

The Biden investigation has also complicated the Justice Department’s probe into Trump’s retention of classified documents and official records after he left office. The Justice Department says Trump took hundreds of records marked classified with him upon leaving the White House in early 2021 and resisted months of requests to return them to the government, and that it had to obtain a search warrant to retrieve them.

Bauer said the FBI requested that the White House not comment on the search before it was conducted, and that Biden’s personal and White House attorneys were present. The FBI, he added, “had full access to the President’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades.”

The Justice Department, he added, “took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate any potential wrongdoing surrounding the Biden documents. Hur is set to take over from the Trump-appointed Illinois U.S. Attorney John Lausch in overseeing the probe.

“Since the beginning, the President has been committed to handling this responsibly because he takes this seriously,” White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Saturday. “The President’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the Special Counsel to help ensure this process is conducted swiftly and efficiently.”

The Biden document discoveries and the investigation into Trump, which is in the hands of special counsel Jack Smith, are significantly different. Biden has made a point of cooperating with the DOJ probe at every turn — and Friday’s search was voluntary — though questions about his transparency with the public remain.

For a crime to have been committed, a person would have to “knowingly remove” the documents without authority and intend to keep them at an “unauthorized location.” Biden has said he was “surprised” that classified documents were uncovered at the Penn Biden Center.

Generally, classified documents are to be declassified after a maximum of 25 years. But some records are of such value they remain classified for far longer, though specific exceptions must be granted. Biden served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, contributed to this report.

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Top Biden aide Ron Klain expected to soon leave White House

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REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who has spent more than two years as President Joe Biden’s top aide, is preparing to leave his job in the coming weeks, according to a person familiar with Klain’s plans.

Klain’s expected departure comes not long after the White House and Democrats had a better-than-expected showing in the November elections, buoyed by a series of major legislative accomplishments, including a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping climate, health care and tax package that all Republicans rejected.

The personnel change is also a rarity for an administration that has had minimal turnover so far. No member of Biden’s Cabinet has stepped down, in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s White House, with frequent staff turmoil and other crises.

The person familiar with Klain’s plans was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the development, which was first reported by The New York Times.

The White House did not return calls or emails seeking comment on Klain’s expected exit. Spending the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden did not respond to shouted questions about when his chief of staff is expected to depart.

Klain sent an email to White House staff on Friday, which was the second anniversary of Biden’s inauguration. “Although much work remains ahead, as we look back on these two years, I am awestruck at what this team has done and how you have done it,” he wrote in the email, obtained by The Associated Press, and noted that he bought cake to mark the occasion. He added: “These cakes are my small way of adding my personal thanks to those of the President, the Vice President and the country for your service and outstanding achievements.”

Now that Republicans have regained a majority in the House, the White House is preparing to shift to a more defensive posture. GOP lawmakers are planning multiple investigations into the Biden administration, examining everything from the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to U.S. border policy. Republicans are also pledging to investigate the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

Klain’s departure also comes as the White House struggles to contain the fallout after classified documents dating from Biden’s time as vice president were discovered at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former institute in Washington. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter. Biden’s lawyer said Saturday that the FBI searched the Wilmington home on Friday, locating six additional documents containing classified markings and taking possession of some of his notes.

Among those on the shortlist to succeed Klain include Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president; Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients; Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack; and Anita Dunn, a White House senior adviser.

Dunn has publicly ruled out interest in the chief of staff job but would be the first woman in the post. She played a leading role in shaping Biden’s political and communications strategy, including the “ultra-MAGA” framing of Republicans that helped Democrats exceed expectations during the 2022 midterms.

Zients has returned to the White House since running the COVID-19 response team in a low-profile role to ensure the administration is appropriately staffed for the remainder of Biden’s first term. Ricchetti, a former lobbyist, followed after Klain and senior adviser Bruce Reed as Biden’s final vice presidential chief of staff.

Walsh, Boston’s mayor before joining the Cabinet, earned praise from Biden as recently as Friday for his job performance. Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, is in his second stint as agriculture secretary after serving in the role for the entirety of the Obama administration. He volunteered for Biden during Biden’s ill-fated 1988 presidential bid in Iowa.

Klain, a longtime Democratic political operative, has overseen a West Wing that has been largely free of the high-stakes drama that permeated the upper echelons of the Trump administration. Klain has been an outspoken proponent of Biden’s agenda via Twitter, where he frequently engages with reporters to defend the president’s record.

His social-media use has run Klain into trouble at times. In October, he was found to have violated the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from political activity when acting in their official capacity, when he retweeted a message from a political group last spring. At the time, the White House said Klain “got it wrong this time” and he promised to be more careful with his Twitter account.

The Indianapolis native has served under Biden for decades, including as chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Biden was its chairman. Klain also worked on judicial picks in the Clinton White House, helping with the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Supreme Court.

“With all due respect to my predecessors, I’m sure this is a higher priority for me.” Klain said in an Associated Press interview last month in which he discussed the importance placed by Biden of seating judges on the federal bench. ”The fact that (the president) makes it such a priority, makes it a big priority for me.”

Klain helped lead then-Vice President Al Gore’s legal team during the 2000 election’s Florida vote recount in the race against Republican George W. Bush. Actor Kevin Spacey portrayed Klain in HBO’s “Recount,” an account of the events that determined the presidency.

He was also tapped during the Obama administration to lead its response to the Ebola crisis — a background that came in handy as the Biden White House took on the COVID-19 pandemic in the early months of his presidency.

The father of three is married to Monica Medina, an assistant secretary of state.

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Balsamo and Miller reported from Washington.

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Sections of Balkan river become floating garbage dump

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VISEGRAD, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Tons of waste dumped in poorly regulated riverside landfills or directly into the waterways that flow across three countries end up accumulating behind a trash barrier in the Drina River in eastern Bosnia during the wet weather of winter and early spring.

This week, the barrier once again became the outer edge of a massive floating waste dump crammed with plastic bottles, rusty barrels, used tires, household appliances, driftwood and other garbage picked up by the river from its tributaries.

The river fencing installed by a Bosnian hydroelectric plant, a few kilometers upstream from its dam near Visegrad, has turned the city into an unwilling regional waste site, local environmental activists complain.

Heavy rain and unseasonably warm weather over the past week have caused many rivers and streams in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro to overflow, flooding the surrounding areas and forcing scores of people from their homes. Temperatures dropped in many areas on Friday as rain turned into snow.

“We had a lot of rainfall and torrential floods in recent days and a huge inflow of water from (the Drina’s tributaries in) Montenegro which is now, fortunately, subsiding,” said Dejan Furtula of the environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad.

“Unfortunately, the huge inflow of garbage has not ceased,” he added.

The Drina River runs 346 kilometers (215 miles) from the mountains of northwestern Montenegro through Serbia and Bosnia. and some of its tributaries are known for their emerald color and breathtaking scenery. A section along the border between Bosnia and Serbia is popular with river rafters when it’s not “garbage season.”

Some 10,000 cubic meters (more than 353,000 cubic feet) of waste are estimated to have amassed behind the Drina River trash barrier in recent days, Furtula said. The same amount was pulled in recent years from that area of the river.

Removing the garbage takes up to six months, on average. It ends up at the municipal landfill in Visegrad, which Furtula said “does not even have sufficient capacity to handle (the city’s) municipal waste.”

“The fires on the (municipal) landfill site are always burning,” he said, calling the conditions there “not just a huge environmental and health hazard, but also a big embarrassment for all of us.”

Decades after the devastating 1990s wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans lag behind the rest of Europe both economically and with regard to environmental protection.

The countries of the region have made little progress in building effective, environmentally sound trash disposal systems despite seeking membership in the European Union and adopting some of the EU’s laws and regulations.

Unauthorized waste dumps dot hills and valleys throughout the region, while trash litters roads and plastic bags hang from the trees.

In addition to river pollution, many countries in the western Balkans have other environmental woes. One of the most pressing is the extremely high level of air pollution affecting a number of cities in the region.

“People need to wake up to problems like this,” Visegrad resident Rados Brekalovic said.

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German caution on Ukraine arms rooted in political culture

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BERLIN (AP) — Germany has become one of Ukraine’s leading weapons suppliers in the 11 months since Russia’s invasion, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz also has gained a reputation for hesitating to take each new step — generating impatience among allies.

Berlin’s perceived foot-dragging, most recently on the Leopard 2 battle tanks that Kyiv has long sought, is rooted at least partly in a post-World War II political culture of military caution, along with present-day worries about a possible escalation in the war.

On Friday, Germany inched closer to a decision to deliver the tanks, ordering a review of its Leopard stocks in preparation for a possible green light.

There was still no commitment, however. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius rejected the suggestion that Germany was standing in the way but said, “we have to balance all the pros and contras before we decide things like that, just like that.”

It’s a pattern that has been repeated over the months as Scholz first held off pledging new, heavier equipment, then eventually agreed to do so.

Most recently, Germany said in early January that it would send 40 Marder armored personnel carriers to Ukraine — doing so in a joint announcement with the U.S., which pledged 50 Bradley armored vehicles.

That decision followed months of calls for Berlin to send the Marder and stoked pressure for it to move up another step to the Leopard tank.

“There is a discrepancy between the actual size of the commitment and weapons deliveries — it’s the second-largest European supplier — and the hesitancy with which it is done,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a Berlin-based senior analyst with the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank.

Scholz, an unshakably self-confident politician with a stubborn streak and little taste for bowing to public calls for action, has stuck resolutely to his approach. He has said that Germany won’t go it alone on weapons decisions and pointed to the need to avoid NATO becoming a direct party to the war with Russia.

As pressure mounted last week, he declared that he wouldn’t be rushed into important security decisions by “excited comments.” And he insisted that a majority in Germany supports his government’s “calm, well-considered and careful” decision-making.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Scholz listed some of the equipment Germany has sent to Ukraine, declaring that it marks “a profound turning point in German foreign and security policy.”

That is, at least to some extent, true. Germany refused to provide lethal weapons before the invasion started, reflecting a political culture rooted in part in the memory of Germany’s own history of aggression during the 20th century — including the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

“No German chancellor, of no party, wants to be seen out front in pushing a military agenda — you want to try all other options before you resort to that,” Kleine-Brockhoff said. “And therefore for domestic consumption, it is seen as a positive thing for a German chancellor not to lead on this, to be cautious, to be resistant, to have tried all other options.”

Scholz does face calls from Germany’s center-right opposition and some in his three-party governing coalition to be more proactive on military aid; less so from his own center-left Social Democratic Party, which for decades was steeped in the legacy of Cold War rapprochement pursued by predecessor Willy Brandt in the early 1970s.

Scholz “decided early on that he does not want to lead militarily on Ukraine assistance,” Kleine-Brockhoff said, though “he wants to be a good ally and part of the alliance and in the middle of the pack.”

But the cautious approach “drives allies crazy” and raises questions over whether they can count on the Germans, Kleine-Brockhoff acknowledged.

Berlin kept up its caution on the Leopard tank even after Britain announced last week that it would provide Ukraine its own Challenger 2 tanks.

The hesitancy isn’t just an issue between Berlin and Kyiv, since other countries would need Germany’s permission to send their own stocks of German-made Leopards to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Warsaw would consider giving its tanks even without Berlin’s permission.

“Consent is of secondary importance here. We will either obtain it quickly, or we will do the right thing ourselves,” Morawiecki said.

British historian Timothy Garton Ash wrote in The Guardian and other newspapers this week that “to its credit, the German government’s position on military support for Ukraine has moved a very long way since the eve of the Russian invasion.”

But he argued that the tank issue has become “a litmus test of Germany’s courage to resist (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s nuclear blackmail, overcome its own domestic cocktail of fears and doubts, and defend a free and sovereign Ukraine,” and that Scholz should lead a “European Leopard plan.”

Whether that will eventually happen remains to be seen. Scholz’s government has insisted on close coordination with the United States, a possible reflection in part of the fact that Germany — unlike Britain and France — relies on the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

On Friday, Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, denied reports that Germany had insisted it would only deliver Leopard tanks if the U.S. sends its own Abrams tanks. He rejected the notion that Berlin is trailing others and insisted it is taking the right approach.

“These are not easy decisions, and they need to be well-weighed,” he said. “And this is about them being sustainable, that all can go along with them and stand behind them — and part of a leadership performance is keeping an alliance together.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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World

Despite tear gas, Peru protesters vow to keep demonstrating

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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Peru’s capital Friday and were met with volleys of tear gas for the second straight day, as demonstrators made clear they will keep up their mobilizations to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte.

Many of the protesters in Lima had arrived from remote Andean regions, where dozens have died amid unrest that has engulfed large portions of the country since Pedro Castillo, Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, was impeached and imprisoned after he tried to dissolve Congress last month.

“Dina, resign already! What is that you want with our Peru?” said José Luis Ayma Cuentas, 29, who traveled about 20 hours to get to the country’s capital from the southern Puno region, which has been the site of the deadliest state violence over the past month. “We’re staying until she resigns, until the dissolution of Congress, until there are new elections, otherwise we aren’t going anywhere.”

Until recently, the protests had been mainly in Peru’s southern region, with a total of 55 people killed and 700 injured in the unrest, largely in clashes with security forces.

Protesters now want Lima, home to around one-third of Peru’s population of 34 million, to be the focal point of the demonstrations that began when Boluarte, who was then vice president, was sworn into office on Dec. 7 to replace Castillo. The protests sparked the worst political violence in the country has seen in more than two decades.

At the beginning of the Friday’s protests, the demonstrators seemed more organized than the previous day and they took over key roads in downtown Lima waving flags while chanting, “The spilled blood will never ben forgotten,” “The people don’t give up,” and other slogans.

Police appeared more combative than the day before and after standing watch over protesters that had been blocked into downtown streets they started firing volleys of tear gas.

The firing of tear gas also appeared more indiscriminate. A group of protesters who were sitting in a plaza in front of the Supreme Court without causing a disturbance suddenly had to start running as approaching police fired round after round of tear gas that filled the area with smoke and a pungent smell permeated the air.

“I’m indignant, furious,” said Maddai Pardo Quintana, 48, as she offered water mixed with baking soda to protesters to flush their eyes from the tear gas. “They want us to respect them but if they led by example and respected us, we’d also respect them more.”

Pardo came to Lima to protest against Boluarte from the central province of Chanchamayo and vowed to stay in the capital until the president agrees to resign.

Anger at law enforcement was a constant throughout the march as demonstrators yelled “murderers” when they passed rows of police officers wearing helmets and holding up shields.

A few blocks away, Doris Pacori, 56, stood between police officers and protesters who had been blocked from reaching Congress.

“They are servants of the corrupt, cowards with them but abusive with the people,” Pacori, who held a sign that read, “Dina murderer.”

As night fell, protesters got locked into running battles with police while some demonstrators threw water bottles filled with rocks at officers.

Late Friday, Interior Minister Vicente Romero praised police action during the protests, saying that it “has been very professional.”

Protesters were particularly angry at Boluarte for a defiant speech she gave Thursday night in which she accused protesters of fomenting violence, vowed to prosecute demonstrators and questioned where they received their financing.

“You want to break the rule of law, you want to generate chaos so that within that chaos and confusion you take power,” Boluarte said Thursday night.

“The lady is very cold, she has no feelings, no compassion for other people,” Pardo said.

Boluarte has said she supports a plan to hold fresh elections in 2024, two years ahead of schedule, but protesters unanimously say that isn’t fast enough, particularly considering all the deaths in recent weeks.

Protests and clashes with law enforcement also took place in other parts of the country.

In Arequipa, Peru’s second city, police clashed with protesters that tried to storm the airport.

Also in southern Peru, multinational firm Glencore decided to temporary shut down its Antapaccay copper mine after protesters attacked the site.

Castillo, a political novice who lived in a two-story adobe home in the Andean highlands, eked out a narrow victory in elections in 2021 that rocked Peru’s political establishment and laid bare the deep divisions between residents of the capital and the long-neglected countryside.

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US

Tax the rich? Liberals renew push for state wealth taxes

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Supporters of taxes on the very rich contend that people are emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic with a bigger appetite for what they’re calling “tax justice.”

Bills announced Thursday in California, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington and Connecticut vary in their approaches to hiking taxes, but all revolve around the idea that the richest Americans need to pay more.

All of the proposals face questionable prospects. Similar legislation has died in state legislatures and Congress. But the new push shows that the political left isn’t ready to give up on the populist argument that government can and should be used as a tool for redistributing wealth.

“Under the pandemic, while people struggled to put food on the table, we saw billionaires double their wealth,” said California Assembly Member Alex Lee, a Democrat.

The Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning policy organization, called wealth taxes — which levy taxes not just on new income, but on a person’s total assets — “economically destructive.”

It also said in a statement that such taxes create “perverse incentives” for the rich to avoid taxes, including simply moving to states with a lower tax burden.

“Very few taxpayers would remit wealth taxes — but many more would pay the price,” the group said in a statement. Progressive Democrats, however, argue they are not seeing wealthy taxpayers leaving their states due to higher taxes.

California already taxes the wealthy more than most states. The top 1% of earners account for about half of the state’s income tax collections. But this week, Lee proposed a “wealth tax,” similar to one promoted for years by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat.

It would impose an annual tax of 1.5% on assets of more than $1 billion and 1% on assets of $50 million or more. The new tax on wealth, not annual income, would affect an estimated 23,000 “ultra-millionaire” and 160 billionaire households, or the top 0.1% of California households, Lee said.

In Connecticut, progressive lawmakers are proposing more traditional hikes: a higher tax rate on capital gains earnings for wealthy taxpayers and higher personal income tax rates for millionaires,

“We need to ensure that the wealthiest in our state truly pay what they owe and not expect working families across our state to continue to subsidize their share,” said state Rep. Kate Farrar, a deputy majority leader in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

One obstacle to such proposals is that some states where the idea might be popular are currently running budget surpluses, meaning there is little pressure to raise revenue.

Connecticut is expected to end its fiscal year with a $3 billion surplus. Hawaii is projecting a budget surplus of $1.9 billion going into the new legislative session.

But Hawaii state Rep. Jeanne Kapela, a Democrat, said a proposal there to increase the state’s capital gains tax is more about economic equity than raising money.

“If you look at our tax code now, it’s really the definition of economic inequality,” Kapela said.

The lowest-paid workers in many states often see a far bigger percentage of their income go to pay taxes every year than the very rich, particularly in states that don’t have a graduated income tax.

Voters in Massachusetts, which had a flat income tax, approved an amendment to the state constitution in November that sets a higher rate for those earning more than $1 million a year.

Despite optimism expressed by liberal lawmakers that 2023 could be the year, many of these proposals face an uphill battle, even in blue states with Democratic governors.

“This ‘tax the rich’ has been around before and it’s present again. And quite frankly, it never got traction before and I seriously doubt there’s an appetite for it now,” said Gary Rose, professor of political science at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

A lot of people, he said, don’t resent the rich as much as some progressive Democrats.

“I think if you polled the American people, a lot of people want to get rich themselves and it’s part of, if you will, the American Dream,” Rose said. “We’ve never really had in this country a tremendous appetite for taxing the rich because getting rich … is really part of who we are and what separates this country from many Democratic socialist countries.”

A wealth tax bill in California never even got a public hearing last year. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who was just elected to a second term in a landslide, has actively campaigned against efforts to increase taxes on the rich.

His opposition helped sink a 2022 ballot initiative that would have raised taxes on the rich to pay for electric vehicle charging stations and wildfire prevention.

In Connecticut, Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, a multimillionaire, says he wants to focus his second term on reducing taxes rather than raising them.

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Associated Press Writer Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Hawaii and Adam Beam in Sacramento, Calif. contributed to this report.

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