Jill Biden visits Ukraine in show of U.S. solidarity
Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a Mother’s Day meeting with first lady Olena Zelenska to show U.S. support for the embattled nation as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.
Biden traveled under the cloak of secrecy, becoming the latest high-profile American to enter Ukraine during its 10week-old conflict with Russia.
“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” the U.S. first lady told Zelenska. “I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.”
Biden spent about two hours in Ukraine, traveling by vehicle to the town of Uzhhorod, about a 10-minute drive from a Slovakian border village where she had toured a border processing facility.
Zelenska thanked Biden for her “courageous act.”
“We understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day — even today.”
The two first ladies greeted each other in front of reporters before they met privately in a small classroom. Zelenska and her children have been at an undisclosed location for their safety. The school where they met has been turned into transitional housing for Ukrainian migrants from elsewhere in the country.
As she arrived at the school,
Biden, who was wearing a Mother’s Day corsage that was a gift from her husband, embraced Zelenska and presented her with a bouquet. After their private meeting, the two joined a group of children who live at the school in making tissue-paper bears to give as Mother’s Day gifts.
Biden is on a four-day visit to Eastern Europe to highlight U.S. support for Ukrainian refugees and for the allied countries such as Romania and Slovakia that are providing a safe haven for them.
MIDEAST Israel captures stabbing suspects
Israeli police on Sunday said security forces captured two Palestinians who killed three people in a stabbing attack last week and fled the scene, sparking a sweeping manhunt.
The two attackers went on a stabbing rampage in the ultraOrthodox city of Elad on Thursday, Israel’s Independence Day, killing three and wounding at least four others before bolting.
The stabbing was the latest in a series of deadly assaults inside the country in recent weeks. It came as Israeli-Palestinian tensions were already heightened by violence at a major holy site in Jerusalem sacred to Jews and Muslims.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told his Cabinet that forces captured “terrorists awash with incitement who killed with axes and unimaginable cruelty.”
A joint statement by police, the military and the Shin Bet
internal security agency said the men, identified as 19- and 20-year-old Palestinians, were caught near a quarry not far from Elad.
Police said the attackers were from near the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, which has re-emerged as a militant bastion in the latest wave of violence — the worst Israel has seen in years. Several of the attackers in the recent violence have come from Jenin.
CUBA Death toll climbs to 31 in hotel blast
Search crews with dogs hunted through the ruins of a luxury hotel in Cuba’s capital Sunday for survivors of an apparent gas explosion as officials raised the number of known dead to 31.
The Hotel Saratoga in Old Havana was finishing renovations when a gas leak led to a huge explosion Friday. The Saratoga’s facade was sheared
off, burying workers inside and apparently passersby outside under concrete and twisted metal.
Cuban officials raised the known death toll Sunday to 31 from 27 even as crews continued to search for victims of the blast that damaged several nearby structures.
The Health Ministry said 54 people had been injured. The dead included four minors, a pregnant woman and a Spanish tourist. Some 24 people remain hospitalized.
Gov. Reinaldo Garcia Zapata said 19 families had reported loved ones missing and that rescue efforts would continue. At least one survivor was found early Saturday in the shattered ruins.
SYRIA Aid agencies seek more donations
Aid agencies are hoping to draw some of the world’s attention back to Syria in a twoday donor conference for humanitarian
aid to Syrians that begins Monday in Brussels, hosted by the U.N. and the European Union. The funding also aids the 5.7 million Syrian refugees living in neighboring countries, particularly Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Last year, the EU, the U.S. and other nations pledged $6.4 billion to help Syrians and neighboring countries hosting refugees. But that fell well short of the $10 billion that the U.N. had sought — and the impact was felt on the ground.
In Idlib, where many refugees have relocated, 10 of its 50 medical centers lost funding in 2022, forcing them to dramatically cut back services, Amnesty International said in a report released last week.
Across Syria, people have been forced to eat less, the Norwegian Refugee Council said. The group surveyed several hundred families around the country and found 87% were skipping meals to meet other living costs.