Trump Calls Zelensky a ‘Dictator’ as Tensions Rise Over the Russia-Ukraine War

MIAMI — President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” lashing out after the Ukrainian president said Trump was being influenced by Russian disinformation as he moves to end the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine on terms that Kyiv says are too favorable to Moscow.

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle,” Trump said of Zelensky, who was popular television star in Ukraine before running for office.

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Trump added in his social media post that Zelensky is “A Dictator without Elections.”

Because of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has delayed elections that were scheduled for April 2024.

Zelensky accused Trump earlier Wednesday of living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

Read More: Trump Is Living In a Russian ‘Disinformation Space,’ Says Ukraine’s Zelensky

Trump used his post to accuse Zelensky of misusing American aid to Ukraine for the war effort and taking advantage of the Biden administration.

The sharp back-and-forth came after senior U.S. and Russian officials met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday and agreed to negotiate a settlement to an end to the war. Ukrainian and European officials were not included despite Zelensky’s insistence that they should be part of any such discussions.

But Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to quickly bring the war to a close, reaffirmed his position that Zelensky should have negotiated an end earlier.

“Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump said.

“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelensky probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going.”

—Madhani reported from Washington.

source https://time.com/7259420/trump-calls-zelensky-dictator-tensions-rise-over-russia-ukraine-war/

The Black Panther Party’s Under-Appreciated Legacy of Communal Love

Romantic love is not the only sort of love. There are alternative forms—including communal love, which is deeply rooted in collective care and well-being. These ideas of community-wide care and support receive far less attention in American society. They don’t have holidays and entire cultural genres built around them.

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Yet, communal love has made a deep impact on history. Take, for instance, the story of a group popularly known for militancy, not love: the Black Panther Party (BPP). The Panthers, in addition to their bold ideas about Black revolution and self-defense, made a significant (but often under-appreciated) contribution to society’s conceptualization of caring for one another. For them, love was not just an emotion but an action. The BPP saw communal love as a revolutionary ideal—one that demanded the creation of programs and institutions to serve a Black community that had been neglected in the U.S. This vision emerged as a powerful agent for change and empowerment in the Black Freedom Struggle, even if the Panthers themselves didn’t always live up to their visionary goals.

In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, Calif. The group became widely known for the striking image its members cultivated: black leather jackets, berets, and openly carried loaded rifles. They made headlines for marching, armed, into the California State Capitol to protest proposed state gun control legislation. The legislation, they argued, aimed to stop the Panthers from monitoring police officers and Black people from defending themselves from law enforcement abuses.

The media gravitated toward the BPP’s bold aesthetics, often portraying the Panthers as dangerous radicals. Law enforcement officials including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, saw the group as a national security threat.

Read More: The Black Power Movement Is a Love Story

Yet, this image was a caricature of what the Panthers actually stood for. At the center of their mission was a vision of communal love. They saw themselves as actively invested in the liberation of oppressed people. The BPP believed in self-determination, collective care, nourishment, and education for Black and impoverished communities.

Their commitment and philosophy of empowerment spurred the BPP to launch numerous social service programs that are far less remembered by history than the group’s militancy. They especially focused on helping the population they saw as most vulnerable and unable to directly advocate for themselves—Black children. 

In 1969, the BPP launched the Free Breakfast for School Children program to combat hunger among school-aged kids. Each week, the BPP provided hundreds of students with home-cooked breakfasts. While the Panthers wanted to ensure that Black children didn’t go hungry, they had a secondary purpose for the program: demonstrating to those children that people outside of their immediate families were invested in their well-being and care. As Ericka Huggins, a BPP member and director of the Oakland community school, articulated, the meals made these children feel loved.

In 1971, the BPP built on this effort by establishing the Intercommunal Youth Institute in Oakland as a direct response to the systemic oppression of Black and poor youths in the public school system. The institute aimed to model a form of education for Black children that taught them to be“fully capable of analyzing the problems they will face” and affirmed their humanity. Beyond traditional subjects like math, science, and language arts, teachers emphasized analytical skills, political education, and fostering mutual love and respect among students and educators.

The school taught children media literacy, and lessons about community consciousness that focused on a shared history and collective struggle. This curriculum empowered students to challenge and reject racist misconceptions that devalued Black life and distorted their history. 

 For instance, in a Thanksgiving play, students reimagined an encounter between Pilgrims, Native peoples, and enslaved Africans. Introducing concepts of profit and greed, the Pilgrims attempted to trade enslaved Africans for Native land. Shocked by the proposal, the Native people refused their offer, rejecting the notion of enslaved humans, insisting that people could not be owned. By enacting this scene, students pushed back against racist and dehumanizing ideas that positioned Black people as mere property. In doing so, the students affirmed enslaved people’s humanity while simultaneously strengthening their own sense of self-worth. 

One element of this political education involved seeing the Panthers themselves and their mission accurately. Students learned that while politicians and police despised the BPP, the media also played a pivotal role in tainting the Panthers’ public image by portraying them as “hoodlums,” instead of servants of their community. Through their media literacy, students gained the ability to critically analyze multiple perspectives and recognize how misrepresentations of Black people and movements shaped public perception. These lessons also gave them awareness and knowledge of the media’s influence in shaping realities, the dangers of miseducation, and the ways misinformation could undermine Black self-determination. 

The lessons weren’t perfect; they largely emphasized the Panthers’ servant leadership and activism but omitted the group’s internal struggles, and its problems with sexism and misogyny. The inclusion of these topics would’ve complicated the claims that communal love and liberation drove the group, while exposing that it didn’t always practice what it preached. Even so, Black women played pivotal roles in the organization, reshaping its gender politics and actively challenging these inequalities, embodying lessons of collectivity and freedom for all exploited classes that would’ve benefitted the institute’s students.

Its transformative educational model shaped how students both experienced and understood schooling. When asked how the school was unique from their previous educational settings, students’ answers varied. Some noted that before attending, they did not know their alphabet or math. For instance, a student explained “I didn’t know how to do algebra, and I didn’t know how to do my division too good. At the institute, however, the student began to enjoy school more and started “doing my math,” which enabled them to advance through multiplication, division, fractions, and eventually algebra. The institute provided students like this with foundational academic skills and confidence in their capacity to learn.

Other students highlighted the institute’s rejection of corporal punishment and its commitment to teaching historical truths. For example, when asked about the school’s origins and why it was created, students answered “to teach us our true history, that’s related to society.” 

Students learned that love was not only an emotion but an action—one that required critical thought, communal responsibility, and a commitment to justice. As a result, students began to see their teachers as more than educators and figures of authority like in traditional American schooling. Instead of the traditional hierarchical student-teacher model, students saw themselves as part of the same close-knit familial community as their teachers, one that was rooted in solidarity, mutual care, and a shared struggle.

Read More: How The Black Panther Party Inspired a New Generation of Activists

As Newton explained, “Our aim is to provide the young of these communities with as much knowledge [as] possible and to provide them with the ability to interpret that knowledge with understanding.“ For the BPP, understanding was “the key to liberation of all.” The Panthers expressed love not just as an emotion, but displayed it through their active commitment to the well-being and empowerment of their community, especially its children.

The successful demonization of the BPP by the media and FBI diminished the group, which led to Americans overlooking the Panthers’ foundational love ethic and the significance of their community programs.

When one considers the BPP’s internal conflicts over sexism, misogyny, and violence, claims that they treated all people with respect and operated from a place of love ring hollow. However, individual people’s failings do not erase the group’s efforts to care for people through social service and education programs. Their revolutionary ideas about communal love were rooted in radically changing how people relate to one another and the programs inspired by these ideals demonstrated the profound capacity of collective care and solidarity. Newton reflected that he and Seale “wanted to build in the black community, the love, the sacredness, and the unity we need so desperately.” Their programs manifested this vision, and their emphasis on children reflected how the group saw communal love as a way to ultimately prepare the next generation to understand and resist systems of oppression.

The Panthers understood that liberation and empowerment could only come through communal love focused on helping one’s neighbors and building up one’s community, even though their inability to live up to their ideals ultimately limited some of the group’s potential.  

Currently, as states and the Trump administration attempt to “end radical indoctrination in K-12 education” by erasing histories of resistance, the Panthers offer a model that not only demonstrates the radical power of love in the continued fight for liberation, but the possibilities for a path moving forward.

Mickell Carter is a doctoral student in the department of Africana studies at Brown University.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

source https://time.com/7222547/black-panther-partys-legacy-of-communal-love/

Massive Fire at Pennsylvania Aerospace Manufacturer Prompts Shelter-in-Place Order

JENKINTOWN, Pa. — Schools were closed and residents were ordered to shelter-in-place Tuesday after a large fire broke out at an aerospace manufacturer’s facility in a town north of Philadelphia, officials said.

The fire broke out at SPS Technologies in Jenkintown around 9:30 p.m. Monday and witnesses said there was an explosion and flames could be seen inside the warehouse, the Abington Township Police Department said in a statement on social media. The building was evacuated, all employees were accounted for and no injuries were reported.

SPS Technologies describes itself as a developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a line of aerospace fasteners and precision components.

The Abington and Jenkintown school districts and all private and parochial schools were closed Tuesday.

The shelter in place order was in effect until the incident was under control because smoke and particulates from the fire were filtering across the area, officials said. Hazmat crews were monitoring air quality and advised all businesses within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) radius to remain closed until further notice.

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority warned that service was suspended on three regional rail lines to start the day due to the fire, noting that it could cause delays in other parts of the system.

source https://time.com/7258142/fire-pennsylvania-aerospace-manufacturer-shelter-in-place/

What Netflix’s American Murder: Gabby Petito Reveals About the Final Days of Her Life

It was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime for 22-year-old Gabby Petito and her fiancé Brian Laundrie. Inspired by social media accounts chronicling glamorous lives on the road, the pair bought a van in 2021 to travel across America, keen to explore the nation’s vast natural wonder. For four months, Petito and Laundrie were going to stay in a number of America’s national parks while she started a blog and a YouTube account to catalog their trip. 

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But the dream holiday ended in tragedy. Following at least one domestic dispute between her and Laundrie, which was contradicted by her glowing social media presence, Petito disappeared in 2021 and would never return home. Her body was found on Sept. 19, 2021.

A new three-part documentary series, out now on Netflix, tells the story of Petito’s life and death through interviews with her friends and family, and traces how the search for her sparked nationwide interest. Here’s what to know about American Murder: Gabby Petito.

How Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie became a part of #vanlife

Petito and Laundrie became friends after they met at Bayport-Blue Point High School in Bayport, New York. After graduating in 2017, the pair began dating in 2019, and Petito moved to North Point, Florida to live with Laundrie’s family. Living there was an uncomfortable experience for Petito, her friend Rose Davis says in the series. She struggled to get along with Brian’s family, especially his mother Roberta. The discomfort was compounded by Laundrie’s increasingly controlling behavior. In one instance, he stole Petito’s wallet and ID so she couldn’t go out with Davis, as alleged in American Murder, which shows Petito and Laundrie’s text messages. Petito and Laundrie shared an interest in long drives, National Parks, and traveling around the United States, including driving from New York to California. In July 2020, the couple got engaged.

Saving up for a cross-country adventure, Petito worked various jobs, including as a pharmacy technician and working at Taco Bell. Petito purchased a 2012 Ford Transit Connect, and the pair remodeled it to make it livable for what was to be a four-month adventure exploring various National Parks. On July 2, 2021, a year after their engagement, they set off from New York. Petito planned to document the journey on YouTube under the account Nomadic Statik and her Instagram account, the profile of which reads “traveling the world in our tiny van #vanlife.”

Gabby Petito reported missing, prompting an investigation

On Aug. 12, 2021, Police received a 911 call in Moab, Utah, claiming a man was attacking a girl in a van driving by. The police found the vehicle and intervened—it was Petito’s van. Based on the stories a panicked Petito and calm Laundrie gave the police, the conclusion was drawn that Laundrie was the victim of a domestic assault. Refusing to press charges, the pair were separated for the evening—Laundrie was taken to a hotel, and Petito remained in the van. The next day they continued the trip. A week later, Petito’s first YouTube video, called “Van Life | Building Our Van Life Journey,” full of images of the couple smiling, laughing, and kissing, was posted.

Despite the glossy appearance on social media, things were not improving for the couple. On Aug. 25, Petito posted on Instagram for the last time. Around then, Petito stopped responding to texts. Her family and friends reached out on multiple occasions, but Petito never answered. On Aug. 27, Petito’s mother got a strange text from Gabby’s phone: “Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls.” The message referred to Petito’s grandfather—but Gabby never referred to him by his first name. 

On Sept. 11, Petito’s mother filed a missing persons report with the Suffolk County, New York Police Department. This led to a startling discovery by police in Southwest Florida. Not only had Laundrie returned to his parent’s house with Petito’s van, but she was not with him. The Laundrie family hired an attorney and refused to help the police investigation. 

Petito’s story became one of considerable national interest. Online, amateur TikTok sleuths pored over every detail in the archive of her posts and analyzed each new development in the case. The investigation to find her spanned over 2000 miles as police tried to retrace Petito’s steps.

What happened to Gabby Petito? 

The investigation led police to several places, including Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming—where her phone was last used—which covers 310,000 acres. Police appealed to anyone with potential information to assist, which led to the surprising discovery of another #vanlife blogger who pored through her footage to find images of Petito’s van, located in Spread Creek in Grand Teton. Three weeks after the search began, Petito’s body was found on Sept. 19th, 2021. It was believed by investigators that the scene was staged. An autopsy later revealed that Petito died of strangulation.

Petito’s friends and family were understandably devastated by the news of her death. “I collapsed to the ground,” her stepfather, Jim Schmidt, who went to Wyoming to help find Gabby, recalls of hearing the news. “And I had to pick up the phone and compose myself and call Niki, and get Joe on the phone and Tara in a conference call, and tell them, from 2,000 miles away, that our daughter was dead.” A friend of Petito’s from high school says in the series, “When the news had broke that they found her body…I just wanted to shut it off or wake up, like it was a bad dream or something.”

What happened to Brian Laundrie? 

American Murder reveals the details of Laundrie’s attempts to create an alibi for himself. On Aug. 29, he made numerous phone calls to his parents saying Gabby was “gone” and he needed help, and they called an attorney immediately after. Laundrie hitchhiked two separate times to get from where he placed Petito’s body to get back to the van. There, he created a conversation between Gabby and himself via text on both of their phones to make it look like they weren’t physically together. Laundrie also made a transaction on Zelle, moving $700 from Petito’s account to his own, with the memo reading “Goodbye Brian, I’ll never ask you for anything again.”

The discovery of Petito’s body allowed investigators to piece together the final moments of her life. On Aug. 27, 2021, Petito was seen with Laundrie around 1 p.m. in Jackson, WY at a restaurant called Mary Piglets—a witness said they were fighting. American Murder reveals that Petito placed a call to her ex-boyfriend, but he was working and unable to answer the phone. The pair was then spotted on the security camera footage of a nearby Whole Foods at 2:13 p.m. That footage was the last time Petito was seen alive. After Whole Foods, they drove to Spread Creek, arriving around 6 pm. Two hours later at 8:32pm, Petito was rearranging files on her computer—the police believe these were her last moments alive.

On Sept. 20, 2021, the day after finding Petito’s remains, the police executed a search warrant on Laundrie’s home, but Brian himself had gone missing, telling his parents a week earlier that he was going on a hike. The parents didn’t report him missing as they expected him to return. He was somewhere in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, which spans over 20,000 acres. Thirty-seven days after Laundrie was reported missing, his parents discovered his remains on Oct. 20 at Carlton Reserve.

Found with Laundrie’s body was a letter admitting he killed Gabby, claiming that he put her out of her misery after she had a bizarre accident and was in unbearable pain—though this is inconsistent with the autopsy. In 2022, the Petito-Schmidt family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brian’s parents Roberta and Chris, which was settled for $3 million. No criminal charges have been filed against the Laundrie family.

source https://time.com/7252972/american-murder-gabby-petito-true-story-netflix/

How Architects Are Designing for Disaster Resilience

On Jan. 7, architect Greg Chasen rushed to his childhood home in Pacific Palisades, a well-off Los Angeles neighborhood tucked between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean, to remove any flammables and turn on the sprinklers. “You could hear exploding propane tanks and see the flames reflected in the smoke. I was sure that fire was going to tear through overnight,” he says. At some point, there was nothing left to do but go home and wait.

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At dawn the next day, Chasen jumped on his bike to inspect the damage, bracing for the worst. While just a few degrees of wind direction had saved his parents’ home from the flames, other streets weren’t as lucky. Next, he went to check on a house he had finished building for a friend only six months earlier. As he got closer, the magnitude of the destruction hit him—almost the entire neighborhood was gone. “More houses were going up in flames, and everything had this acrid smell of burning plastic,” he says. But there it was, the newly built two-story house, remarkably untouched. While 120 houses farther down the street had been transformed into piles of ashes, Chasen’s fire—resistant design had withstood the heat from the flames.

The wildfires that ripped through L.A. in January claimed the lives of 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. These types of disasters are only set to become more frequent and intense as climate change drives warmer and drier conditions. According to NASA, parts of the western U.S., Mexico, Brazil, and East Africa now have fire seasons that last more than a month longer than they did 35 years ago. And the U.N. estimates that the number of wildfires globally will increase by 50% by the end of the century. 

Last year marked the first year global temperatures surpassed 1.5°C of warming compared with preindustrial levels—the limit meant to avert the worst impacts and preserve a livable planet outlined in the Paris Agreement, which President Trump took swift steps to withdraw from only hours into his second term. In response, architects like Chasen are embracing disaster-resilient designs.

The Palisades house, which took six years to complete, incorporated defensible space: a border area from which anything flammable—like dead plants and wooden furniture—is removed. The landscaping was also made fire—resilient with gravel and low plants rather than tall trees that can spread flames to adjacent structures. In 2020, California lawmakers passed a law making defensible space mandatory in high-risk areas, but the law was never implemented and regulations still haven’t been written. “This could have very much helped the community,“ says Chasen.

The house was also tightly sealed, including with double—paned windows. When a neighbor’s car exploded and broke the outer window pane, the interior layer stayed intact, keeping the fire out. While most attic designs count on vents to prevent condensation, Chasen’s didn’t. Vents are the easiest way for embers—which California officials and researchers say are responsible for 90% of structures destroyed by wildfire—to get in.

As Angelenos prepare to rebuild, “we have to not only look at individual homes, but at the community as a whole element,” says Michele Barbato, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis. It’s similar to the theory of herd immunity under vaccination—if you have enough homes that are protected, they will be able to protect others, but a critical mass of burning homes will compromise the entire community by spreading the fire from one building to the next, Barbato explains.

Another factor is that people are increasingly moving into areas at high risk of natural disasters, particularly in the face of rising property prices. “Some people like to live near the forest, but some have to live there because it’s the only place they can afford,” says Barbato. Understanding past disasters in a specific location used to help prepare for future ones, but with climate change “it’s a moving target,” says Jay Raskin, a retired architect who helped create the Oregon Resilience Plan, aimed at preparing for a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake and tsunami. 

Architects in earthquake zones are increasingly using base isolation, which involves putting buildings on huge flexible pads that can reduce violent shaking by up to 75%. “It’s much more effective than trying to build really stout and strong,” says Raskin. Buildings like the new Oregon State Treasury are designed to withstand not only earthquakes, but also other hazards such as floods, wildfires, and even civil unrest. Following a disaster, it’s crucial to ensure that public institutions and emergency services can continue to function, says Raskin.

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On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Japanese architects have long grappled with how to design for multiple hazards. While heavy houses are better for earthquakes, lighter ones are better for flooding, says Taku Hibino, the CEO of Hibinosekkei, an architecture firm specializing in care facilities for children and other vulnerable groups. “We can’t expect kids and elderly [people] to be able to run away when a disaster happens, so we try to make the architecture safe enough so that they don’t need to go outside to evacuate.”

Hibino’s firm rebuilt a kindergarten in Fukushima following the disastrous 2011 earthquake that claimed over 18,000 lives and caused the meltdown of three nuclear power reactors. The kindergarten, which was destroyed, had to be rebuilt quickly, with not only a future earthquake but also radiation in mind. “At the time, children couldn’t play outside, so we had to design it in a way that would allow the kids to play indoors,” says Hibino. The design incorporated a 50m-wide corridor that allows the kids to run around, as well as an indoor pool and a large sandbox. “Sometimes, overly disaster-proof buildings become too dull and lifeless—that’s where architects come into play with our creativity.”

In low-lying Bangladesh, 60% of the population is at high risk of floods, and climate change is making extreme rainfall even more common. Rural communities in the north are increasingly embracing living with floods, which also provide important nutrients to the soil. “We’re seeing a shift to building houses with lighter materials that can easily be dismantled and moved during floods,” says Apurba Kumar Podder, a professor in architecture at BUET University in Dhaka. Building expensive and super-fortified structures isn’t a feasible solution for low-income communities and is difficult to scale up. While no single approach is perfect—solutions range from floating houses to homes built on stilts—Kumar believes working closely with local communities, to leverage their traditional knowledge while improving the sustainability of materials, is key for boosting resilience.

While concrete is fire-resistant and widely available, it’s responsible for 8% of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Alternatives like cross—laminated timber—made by gluing together layers of wooden panels at right angles—are quickly gaining popularity and can resist both fire and earthquakes well, says Raskin. At UC Davis, Barbato and his team have spent 15 years developing fire—resistant materials, including earth blocks made by mixing mud with a small amount of chemical stabilizer, like lime or cement. “They look like huge Lego blocks made with soil and with a spring inside to keep them all attached,” he says, adding that the material has a “very high resistance to hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires.”

For now, a lot of red tape makes it difficult to scale up the materials’ use, and getting a permit is a lengthy and expensive process. But with enough research, Barbato believes the technology can halve construction labor costs compared with ordinary masonry, reducing the cost of building resilient homes. “It’s about building homes that people feel safe leaving during an evacuation order, knowing their house will still be standing when they come back,” he says.

While those in Pacific Palisades are still processing and grieving what was lost in the wildfires, it’s also important for homeowners to consider their responsibility and how they can build better going forward, says Chasen: “If you need to build a smaller, more modest house, do it.”

source https://time.com/7249238/disaster-resilient-architecture/

EU Leaders Hold Emergency Talks, Fearing That Trump Has Abandoned Allies

European leaders gathered in Paris Monday for emergency talks on how to react to the U.S. diplomatic blitz on Ukraine, which has thrown a once-solid alliance into turmoil and left the Europeans questioning the reliability of their key transatlantic partner.

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Shortly before the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump, but Macron’s office would not disclose details about the 20-minute discussion.

Leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union arrived at the Elysee Palace for talks on Europe’s security quandary. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is also attending.

Last week, top U.S. officials from the Trump administration made their first visit to Europe, leaving the impression that Washington was ready to embrace the Kremlin while it cold-shouldered many of its age-old European allies.

Despite belligerent warnings for months ahead of Donald Trump’s reelection as U.S. president, leaders hoped somehow that Trump would stand shoulder to shoulder with Europe in opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the continent would finally start to beef up its defenses and become less reliant on American firepower.

But a flurry of speeches by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week questioned both Europe’s security commitments and its fundamental democratic principles. Macron said their stinging rebukes and threats of non-cooperation in the face of military danger felt like a shock to the system.

The tipping point came when Trump decided to upend years of U.S. policy by holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Then, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia on Saturday all but ruled out the inclusion of other Europeans in any Ukraine peace talks.

Europe’s ‘existential moment’

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the week “an existential moment … where Europe has to stand up.”

That’s where Macron hopes to step in with Monday’s meeting. Ever since World War II, the United States and Western European nations have basically moved in lockstep as they confronted the Soviet Union during the Cold War, right up to the increasingly aggressive actions of current-day Russia close to its borders. Even if there had long been U.S. complaints about the reluctance of many European NATO nations to step up their defense efforts, they never boiled up to the political surface as they have over the past days.

French officials said no firm announcements are expected, beyond a show of unity. More talks are expected at the broader EU level, they said.

Sending troops after a peace deal?

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “negotiations are moving fast with Europe,” in a virtual news conference Monday in Kyiv, he said, “Everyone told me that what happened (at the Munich Security Conference) accelerated everything,” Zelenskyy said Macron had agreed to provide him with a briefing on the conclusions from the meeting in Paris.

A strong U.S. component, though, will remain essential for the foreseeable future since it will take many years before European nations can ratchet up defense production and integrate it into an effective force. That U.S. bond also applies to dealing with war in Ukraine, said U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “U.S. support will remain critical and a U.S. security guarantee is essential for a lasting peace, because only the U.S. can deter Putin from attacking again,” Starmer wrote in Monday’s Daily Telegraph.

While many EU nations are still mulling whether to contribute troops to a potential force in Ukraine after a peace deal, Starmer said that the U.K. was “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.

“I do not say that lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way,” he wrote.

Macron last year refused to rule out sending Western troops into Ukraine if necessary.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was clear that there wouldn’t be European troops in Ukraine while the war is ongoing. “The questions about the security architecture that then have to be discussed will be discussed when the time is right,” he said on the sidelines of an election campaign event, German news agency dpa reported.

“A ceasefire must not lead to Russian rearmament, which is followed by new Russian attacks,” warned Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen ahead of the Paris meeting.

Boosting EU defense spending

European nations are bent on boosting Ukraine where they can, and EU nations see eye to eye when it comes to upping defense spending. However, even if there is a general consensus to move beyond the goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense, it is hardly clear how to get to 3%.

Some EU nations insist on an agreement on joint borrowing for massive defense projects, while others say the nations that lag behind on spending should first reach 2%. That issue is also set to be discussed at the meeting.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he plans to urge other leaders to invest more in defense, ahead of his departure for the Paris meeting. Poland spends more than 4% of its GDP on defense, more than any other NATO member.

“If we want to decide about the future of Ukraine together with Ukraine, the United States, Russia, we must also show that we are capable of much more serious investment in our own defense,” he said. However, he also said that he does not envision Poland sending its own troops to Ukraine.

Some EU nations’ criticism

But some of the EU nations balked at the thought of the restrictive Elysee meeting with only a few chosen leaders while others were left in the cold. For an uncomfortable number of decisions, the EU needs the backing of all 27 nations. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has already threatened to use his veto on a number of occasions.

Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar said the selective list of invitees was proof that the EU member states are not treated equally. “This is not Europe that commands respect abroad. This is not the Europe that would be a serious partner to the North American ally,” she said.

Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico questioned the presence of top EU representatives at the meeting, noting that the EU has no right to decide about any deployment of foreign troops in a country.

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Casert reported from Brussels. Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin, Germany, Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, Justin Spike in Kyiv, Ukraine and Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/7247978/eu-emergency-talks-trump-allies/

A Polar Vortex Is Stretching Across the U.S. Here’s What to Expect

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Harsh weather moved west on Monday as a polar vortex was expected to grip the Rockies and the northern Plains after winter storms pummeled the eastern U.S. over the weekend, killing at least 10 people, including nine victims in Kentucky who died during flooding from heavy rains.

The National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening cold” into Tuesday, with temperatures in northeastern Montana predicted to dip as low as 45 degrees below zero (-42.7 degrees Celsius) with wind chills down to 60 below (-51 degrees Celsius).

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Meteorologists said several states would experience the 10th and coldest polar vortex event this season. Weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air that usually stays near the North Pole into the U.S. and Europe.

In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said Sunday that the death toll rose to nine.

“I am sad to share some more tough news tonight, Kentucky. We just confirmed another weather-related death out of Pike County, bringing our total loss to 9 people.”

Beshear had said earlier Sunday that at least 1,000 people stranded by floods had to be rescued. President Donald Trump approved Kentucky’s request for a disaster declaration, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts throughout the state.

Beshear said most of the deaths, including a mother and 7-year-old child, were caused by cars getting stuck in high water.

“So folks, stay off the roads right now and stay alive,” he said.

Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee received up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain, said Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service.

“The effects will continue for awhile, a lot of swollen streams and a lot of flooding going on,” Oravec said Sunday.

In Alabama, the weather service in Birmingham said it had confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in Hale County. Storms there and elsewhere in the state destroyed or damaged a handful of mobile homes, downed trees and toppled power lines, but no injuries were immediately reported.

A state of emergency was declared for parts of Obion County, Tennessee, after a levee failed on Saturday, flooding the small community of Rives, home to around 300 people in the western part of the state. “There will be mandatory evacuations in effect for the residents in Rives due to the rising water, no electricity, and freezing temperatures creating a life-threatening situation,” Mayor Steve Carr said in a statement Sunday.

In Atlanta, a person was killed when a large tree fell on a home early Sunday, according to Atlanta Fire Rescue Capt. Scott Powell.

Dangerously cold wind chill temperatures as low as 50 degrees below zero (minus 45.6) were expected in most of North Dakota, which remained under an “extreme cold warning” along with large swaths of South Dakota and Minnesota, according to the weather service.

Severe flooding

Water submerged cars and buildings in Kentucky and mudslides blocked roads in Virginia over the weekend. Flood warnings extended throughout Tennessee and Arkansas.

The mother and child were swept away Saturday night in Kentucky’s Bonnieville community, Hart County Coroner Tony Roberts said. In southeastern Kentucky, a 73-year-old man was found dead in floodwaters in Clay County, county Emergency Management Deputy Director Revelle Berry said. There were a total of four deaths in Hart County, Beshear said.

The Kentucky River Medical Center in the city of Jackson said it had closed its emergency department and transferred all patients to two other hospitals in the region due to a nearby river flooding.

High winds brought down trees and power poles across Albermarle County, Virginia. The Charlottesville Police Department said Sunday on social media that officers’ response times could be delayed due to “an overwhelming number of weather-related calls for service.” Police urged residents to stay off the roads.

Power outages were reported along much of the eastern seaboard, from New York south to Georgia.

In West Virginia, 13 southern counties were under a state of emergency for flooding and some areas were cut off to vehicle traffic Sunday. Several volunteer fire departments dealt with flooding in their own buildings while answering rescue and evacuation calls.

Rockies, Midwest, Northeast hit with snow storms, Polar Vortex on the way

Ice and snow made road travel treacherous in large swaths of Michigan, which remained under a winter weather advisory until Monday afternoon. Michigan State Police reported 114 crashes Sunday around the Detroit area since snow started falling Saturday.

“Fortunately, most were one-car spin outs and there were no serious injuries,” Michigan State Police said on X.

Authorities in Colorado reported eight people were killed in fatal vehicle crashes since Valentine’s Day and warned drivers to be cautious as the weather made driving more difficult. The causes of the fatal crashes weren’t immediately known.

Also in Colorado, three state patrol cruisers that had pulled over along roadsides were struck by other vehicles, including one on Sunday where a trooper had stopped as officials prepared to close a road because of ice. In each case the troopers were out of their cruisers at the time and were uninjured.

Avalanche warnings were issued for numerous areas of the Rocky Mountains stretching from Colorado to Washington state, with the danger rated highest in Utah.

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Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas, John Raby in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/7242848/us-polar-vortex-what-to-expect/