Pakistan and India hint at de-escalation after trading missile strikes

ISLAMABAD (AP) — India and Pakistan on Saturday signaled they were ready to de-escalate their conflict if the other reciprocates following missile and drone attacks on each other’s military bases, in the most serious confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals in decades.

The two have been locked in hostilities after a gun massacre last month that India blames on Pakistan.

Pakistan’s foreign minister said his country would consider de-escalation if India stopped further attacks. However, Ishaq Dar warned that if India launched any strikes, “our response will follow.”

Dar told Pakistan’s Geo News that he also conveyed this message to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who contacted him after Rubio spoke to New Delhi earlier.

“We responded because our patience had reached its limit. If they stop here, we will also consider stopping,” Dar added.

___

India's clash with Pakistan sees use of Chinese missiles, French jets, Israeli drones and more

BANGKOK (AP) — India's missile and bomb strikes on targets in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir have spiked tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, with Pakistan's leader calling the attacks an act of war.

Claims about the initial attack and the aftermath have differed widely, with neither India nor Pakistan releasing many specific details. Making the ongoing conflict even more confusing, the internet has been "flooded with disinformation, false claims, and manipulated photos and videos,” the Soufan Center think tank said.

“This information warfare is compounded by both sides’ commitment to save face,” it said.

With ongoing fighting, it has been impossible to independently verify many of the claims, but some information can be gleaned from official statements and paired with what is known to gain greater insight into the clash:

Pakistan on Saturday said it launched hypersonic missiles from a JF-17 Thunder jet, an aircraft built by China in collaboration with Pakistan, and destroyed a Russian-built S-400 air defense system in India's border Punjab state.

___

European leaders arrive in Kyiv amid push for 30-day ceasefire

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The leaders of four European countries arrived in Kyiv Saturday in a joint show of support as calls intensify for Russia to agree to a monthlong ceasefire in the three-year war.

The leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom arrived together at the train station in Kyiv, and met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shortly after to join a ceremony at Kyiv's Independence Square marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. They lit candles at a makeshift flag memorial for fallen Ukrainian soldiers and civilians slain since Russia's invasion.

The visit marked the first time the leaders of the four countries have traveled together to Ukraine, while Friedrich Merz is making his first visit to Ukraine as Germany’s new chancellor.

Their visit came on the last day of a unilateral 3-day ceasefire declared by Moscow, to coincide with its own celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Thursday called that truce a “farce,” accusing Russian forces of violating it over 700 times less than a day after it formally came into effect. Both sides also said attacks on their troops had continued on Thursday.

Along with U.S. President Donald Trump, the European leaders are pushing for Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire to allow for peace talks on ending the conflict. In March, the United States proposed an immediate 30-day truce in the war, which Ukraine accepted, but the Kremlin has held out for ceasefire terms more to its liking.

___

Long-range Russian attacks continue to kill Ukrainians amid ceasefire deadlock

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Two months ago, following high-level talks between Ukrainian and American delegations in the Saudi city of Jeddah, the United States proposed an unconditional 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly announced on that same day that Ukraine was ready to accept the proposal, provided Russia did the same.

The Russian leader balked, saying a temporary break in hostilities would only benefit Ukraine and its Western allies by letting them replenish their arsenals. Since then, Russia has continued its military campaign, maintaining attacks along the roughly 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) front line and targeting civilian infrastructure. In some cases, it has stepped up its attacks on residential areas with no obvious military targets.

An Associated Press tally based on reports from Ukrainian authorities found at least 117 civilians have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in Russian aerial attacks since Ukraine announced on March 11 its willingness for a ceasefire — all of them attacks involving long-range drones and a variety of missiles.

The tally does not include casualties caused by short-range weapons, including mortars, multiple launch rocket systems, S-300 and S-400 ballistic missiles, drone-dropped explosives and aerial glide bombs, which Russia continues to use along the front line and nearby areas.

Ukrainian officials do not provide overall casualty figures nor do they release official figures on how many Ukrainian troops have been killed on the battlefield.

___

Tariff talks begin between US and Chinese officials in Geneva as the world looks for signs of hope

GENEVA (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Secretary and America’s top trade negotiator began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland Saturday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy.

The Xinhua News Agency says Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson have begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng.

Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks wasn't made public.

Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim. But there is hope that the two countries will scale back the massive taxes — tariffs — they’ve slapped on each other’s goods, a move that would relieve world financial markets and companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that depend on U.S.-China trade.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on China to a combined 145%, and China retaliated by hitting American imports with a 125% levy. Tariffs that high essentially amount to the countries’ boycotting each other’s products, disrupting trade that last year topped $660 billion.

___

How US-China tariffs reached sky-high levels in 3 months

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Talks planned this weekend between U.S. and Chinese officials in Switzerland are a culmination of more than three months of dizzying rounds of retaliatory tariffs between the two countries that have crippled each other's exporters and dragged on their economies.

Washington and Beijing are entering talks with tariffs on each other’s goods at an all-time high. U.S. duties on Chinese imports stand at 145%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods have reached 125%.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed the talks could bring tangible progress, and that he was open to lowering the tariffs substantially if Beijing made concessions. China, however, has reiterated calls for Washington to cancel the tariffs ahead of the talks.

Here is a play-by-play of how U.S. and Chinese tariffs have reached such sky-high levels since the beginning of Trump’s second term in office:

Trump signs an executive order imposing 10% tariffs on China, as well as 25% duties on Mexico and Canada. He later announces a 30-day reprieve on the Mexican and Canadian tariffs.

___

Judge pauses much of Trump administration's massive downsizing of federal agencies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Trump administration must halt much of its dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce, a California judge ordered Friday.

Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco issued the emergency order in a lawsuit filed last week by labor unions and cities, one of multiple legal challenges to Republican President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of a federal government he calls bloated and expensive.

“The Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime,” Illston wrote in her order.

The temporary restraining order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management.

The order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people. Plaintiffs asked that the effective date of any agency action be postponed and that departments stop implementing or enforcing the executive order, including taking any further action.

___

Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, released after arrest at immigration detention center

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was released after spending several hours in custody following his arrest at a new federal immigration detention center he has been protesting against.

Baraka was accused of trespassing and ignoring warnings to leave the Delaney Hall facility and was finally released around 8 p.m. Friday. Stepping out of an SUV with flashing emergency lights, he told waiting supporters: “The reality is this: I didn't do anything wrong.”

The mayor said he could not speak about his case, citing a promise he made to lawyers and the judge. But he voiced full-throated support for everyone living in his community, immigrants included.

“All of us here, every last one of us, I don’t care what background you come from, what nationality, what language you speak,” Baraka said, “at some point we have to stop these people from causing division between us.”

Baraka, a Democrat who is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, has embraced the fight with the Trump administration over illegal immigration.

___

'Leo will follow Francis.' Amazon Catholics hope the new pope will protect the rain forest

SAO PAULO (AP) — The bishop sat quietly near the front row, hands folded, listening as Indigenous leaders and church workers spoke about the threats to Peru’s northern forests, a part of the Amazon rain forest. It was 2016, a year after Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment.

When he was up to speak, the bishop didn’t preach though he was in his city of Chiclayo as host of a regional gathering. Instead, he reflected on things he had seen.

“It’s a very important encyclical,” he said. “It also represents something new in terms of this explicit expression of the church’s concern for all of creation.”

That bishop, Robert Prevost, is now Pope Leo XIV.

“He was always very welcoming, very close to the people,” Laura Vargas, secretary of the Interreligious Council of Peru, who helped organize the event, recalled in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

___

Pope Leo XIV's Creole heritage highlights complex history of racism and the church in America

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The new pope’s French-sounding last name, Prevost, intrigued Jari Honora, a New Orleans genealogist, who began digging in the archives and discovered the pope had deep roots in the Big Easy.

All four of Pope Leo XIV’s maternal great-grandparents were “free people of color” in Louisiana based on 19th-century census records, Honora found. As part of the melting pot of French, Spanish, African and Native American cultures in Louisiana, the pope’s maternal ancestors would be considered Creole.

“It was special for me because I share that heritage and so do many of my friends who are Catholic here in New Orleans,” said Honora, a historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum in the French Quarter.

Honora and others in the Black and Creole Catholic communities say the election of Leo — a Chicago native who spent over two decades in Peru including eight years as a bishop — is just what the Catholic Church needs to unify the global church and elevate the profile of Black Catholics whose history and contributions have long been overlooked.

Leo, who has not spoken openly about his roots, may also have an ancestral connection to Haiti. His grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez, may have been born there, though historical records are conflicting, Honora said. However, Martinez’s parents — the pope’s great-grandparents — were living in Louisiana since at least the 1850s, he said.