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US president says massive assistance package will help Ukraine ‘defend democracy’ amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

• US President Joe Biden applauds Congress for approving a $40bn aid package for Ukraine.
• The Biden administration announces an additional $100m in security assistance to Kyiv, including artillery, radars and other equipment.
• Ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says the West should not expect Russia to continue food supplies if it slaps Moscow with devastating penalties.
• Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says “no” to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, as Turkish officials emphasized Ankara’s security concerns.

Here are all the latest updates:

10 mins ago (20:52 GMT)

Russia’s former president denounces ‘insane’ sanctions

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the West should not expect Russia to continue food supplies if it slaps Moscow with devastating punishments over the war.

“Our country is ready to fulfill its obligations in full. But it also expects assistance from trading partners, including on international platforms,” Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on messaging app Telegram.

“Otherwise, there’s no logic: on the one hand, insane sanctions are being imposed against us, on the other hand, they are demanding food supplies. Things don’t work like that, we’re not idiots,” he said.

His comments come as world leaders including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have raised serious concerns over global food supplies, warning that curbs on grain exports from Ukraine ports could lead to shortages and even famine.

36 min ago (20:27 GMT)

Washington announces additional $100m in military assistance to Kyiv

The Biden administration has announced an additional $100m in weapons and other military equipment for Ukraine.

Biden said in a statement that the aid includes additional artillery, radars, and other equipment.

“This brings total US military assistance to Ukraine to approximately $3.9 billion in arms and equipment since Russia launched its brutal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said.

43 min ago (20:20 GMT)

NATO membership for Sweden, Finland will ‘strengthen collective security’: Biden

NATO’s collective security will be strengthened by the membership of Sweden and Finland, Biden has said, after meeting with the leaders of the two Nordic nations at the White House.

In a statement after the discussions, the White House said the US president “warmly welcomed [Sweden and Finland’s] applications for NATO membership, which will strengthen our collective security”.

“At this historic moment for both Finland and Sweden, the President underscored his commitment to support both countries as they seek formal NATO accession, including by working with NATO Allies and Congress to welcome them into the Alliance as quickly as possible,” the statement read .

51 mins ago (20:12 GMT)

Biden says US aid package will help Ukraine ‘defend their democracy’

US President Joe Biden has applauded Congress for passing a nearly $40bn military and humanitarian assistance package for Kyiv, saying it sends “a clear bipartisan message to the world that the US stands with Ukraine”.

The bill, previously passed by the House of Representatives, passed in the Senate by an overwhelming 86-to-11 vote.

“This package will allow us to send even more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom.”

I applaud Congress for passing the security package I requested and for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the US stands with Ukraine. This package will allow us to send even more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom.

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 19, 2022

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Read all the updates from Thursday, May 19 here.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The US Energy Department launched a program on Thursday to fund four large-scale projects across the country that can remove carbon dioxide from the air, investing $3.5 billion in a nascent technology the Biden administration says is necessary to meet a goal of achieving net zero emissions by mid century.

The agency released a formal notice saying it would fund the $3.5 billion program created by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastucture Law that would create four regional direct air capture hubs to spur the widespread deployment of the technology and carbon dioxide transport and storage infrastructure.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last month that said the world will need “carbon dioxide removal” technologies – ranging from planting trees that soak up carbon to grow, to costly technologies to suck carbon dioxide directly from the air to meet global goals to curb climate change.

“The UN’s latest climate report made clear that removing legacy carbon pollution from the air through direct air capture and safely storing it is an essential weapon in our fight against the climate crisis,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Carbon removal technology has gained major attention and investment in recent months. There are three major direct air capture projects under development that have emerged in North America and Europe but they are only sucking up small amounts of CO2 from the air currently.

Earlier this year, technology firms Google, Shopify, Meta, and Stripe launched a $1 billion fund that will buy carbon removal credits over the next decade as a way to incentivize rapid deployment of the technology.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk last year offered inventors $100 million in prize money to develop new carbon removal technologies.

The DOE said that by midcentury, carbon removal will need to be driven at the gigaton scale, meaning it would need to be able to sequester the equivalent of emissions from approximately 250 million vehicles in a year.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s financial trial took a series of surreal turns Thursday when a former suspect-turned-star witness was thrown out of the tribunal and a defendant asserted in court documents that she escorted two emissaries of Russian President Vladimir Putin into the Holy See to negotiate the return of holy relics to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The developments turned an otherwise mundane cross-examination of a onetime Vatican power broker about the Vatican’s investment strategies into an unexpected drama. It underscored the peculiarity of the trial and the remarkable situation the Holy See found itself in after entrusting delicate diplomatic, financial and intelligence work to outsiders who got in the door by impressing a cardinal.

The trial originated in the Holy See’s 350 million euro investment in a London real estate deal, but it has expanded to include other alleged crimes. Vatican prosecutors have accused 10 people of fraud, embezzlement and abuse of office, and some of extorting the Vatican of 15 million euros to get control of the London building.

One of the original prime suspects in the London deal, Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, turned into the prosecution’s star witness after he flipped and started revealing all that he knew about other defendants. He is now asserting that he is a victim of the crime and entitled to damages, and showed up unannounced at the tribunal Thursday only to be thrown out by the chief judge.

Also Thursday, lawyers for defendant Cecilia Marogna filed a personal statement in which she explained her intelligence work on behalf of the Holy See in terms that read more like a James Bond job description. She said her work included contacts with Russian emissaries, meetings with Italian intelligence agents, and regular updates with the secret service chiefs of Colombia, Burkina Faso and Mali, all in a bid to free a Colombian nun who had been kidnapped by al-Qaida- linked in Mali.

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Marogna is accused of embezzling some 575,000 euros in Holy See money that had been apparently intended to free the nun. Marogna asserts the money was compensation and fees related to her intelligence work. Prosecutors say Marogna spent the money on Prada, Tod’s and other high-end luxury goods.

Marogna’s co-defendant, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, has already testedified that he engaged Marogna as an external security consultant, impressed by her grasp of geopolitical affairs, and turned to her for help following the February 2017 kidnapping of Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez in Mali. She had been kidnapped by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which has bankrolled its insurgency by kidnapping Westerners.

Becciu revealed his testimony earlier this month that Francis spending up to 1 million euros to hire a British intelligence firm to find the nun and secure her freedom. She was ultimately freed last year.

Marogna insisted the money wasn’t ransom, but rather payment to the British firm, Inkerman, for its services. She said Inkerman had estimated the total cost to free the nun would amount to 17 million euros. She said her negotiations hit a series of snags after the Vatican police chief got wind of it, COVID-19 hit and her Italian intelligence intermediary was unexpectedly promoted.

In her statement, Marogna said the negotiations for the relics of St. Nicholas, which are held in the southern city of Bari, fell apart after the local Bari bishop refused to give them up permanently. They had been loaned to Russia for two months in 2017, after a deal was reached between Pope Francis and the Russian Patriarch Kirill after their 2016 meeting in Havana.

Marogna’s narrative couldn’t be independently confirmed. She said she never had any contract with the Holy See for her services and was never asked to provide any receipts of how she accounted for her expenses.

US Treasury Department imposes sanctions on alleged ‘financial facilitator’ for Lebanese group Hezbollah.

The United States has imposed sanctions on a Lebanese businessman, accusing Ahmad Jalal Reda Abdallah of acting as a “financial facilitator” for Lebanese group Hezbollah.

In a statement on Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury said the sanctions targeted Abdallah, five of his associates, and eight of his companies in Lebanon and Iraq.

“Hizballah has built a web of businesses to hide its activities and generate funds for its destabilizing activities, all at the expense of accountability and public safety in Lebanon and the region,” said Brian E Nelson, an official Treasury, using an alternative spelling for the group.

“The design of this network demonstrates the US government’s commitment to protect Lebanon’s private sector and financial system from Hizballah’s abuse by targeting and exposing the group’s activities.”

The move comes just days after and its allies lost their majority in Lebanon’s parliament after general elections on the weekend.

It also comes at a time when Lebanon is facing a financial meltdown, with the value of the country’s currency dropping over the past two years.

The US designated Hezbollah as a “terrorist” organization in 1997, but the group has rejected the label and presents itself as a resistance force against Israel.

Also has blamed US sanctions, including measures against neighbor Syria, for the Hezbollah economic crisis in Lebanon.

On Thursday, the Treasury described Abdallah as a Hezbollah official and an “active member” of the group’s global financial network.

It alleged Abdallah “has supported Hizballah for decades, carrying out extensive commercial activities in various countries where the profits are transferred to Hizballah.”

The freeze any assets in the US and make it a potential crime for American citizens to do business with the blacklisted individuals and entities.

Washington has been intensifying its efforts against Hezbollah’s financing network, with the former US President Donald Trump increasing pressure on the Iran-backed group as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

“Hizballah structures companies to disguise its ownership and make the companies appear legitimate,” US Department of State Spokesman Ned Price said in a separate statement on Thursday’s sanctions.

“Through actions like those carried out today, we continue to counter Hizballah’s exploitation of businesses to fund its terrorist activities and its efforts to destabilize Lebanon and the wider region,” Price said.

GENEVA (AP) — Britain and Rwanda on Thursday faced down two United Nations agencies that have sharply criticized their controversial plan in which expects to send some asylum-seekers from the UK to the African country.

In an interview with The Associated Press before meeting top officials from the UN human rights and refugee agencies, Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta acknowledged it was “fine that they be concerned,” adding that the discussion was aimed “to bring them on board” to work with the two countries.

The UN refugee agency chief, in remarks on Twitter, sounded unconvinced.

Under the plan unveiled last month, British officials said they will send to migrants arriving in the UK illegally – often as stowaways or in small boats crossing the English Channel – to Rwanda. There the migrants’ asylum claims will be processed, and if successful, the migrants will stay there.

UN officials and other critics — particularly in the two countries — raised human rights concerns and warned such a move goes against the international Refugee Convention.

British Home Secretary Priti Patel said Britain had seen over 20,000 people enter illegally over the last year, and insisted that her Conservative government — along with Rwanda — was “finding new innovative solutions to global problems” amid a crisis of illegal immigration. plan was about saving lives of people taken by smugglers on often-treacherous journeys to try to reach Britain.

“I’m afraid other organizations and other countries, you know, are not coming up with alternatives — and the status quo is simply not acceptable anymore,” she said.

The meetings come a day after Patel’s office, hosting Biruta in London, announced that a “first tranche of illegal immigrants with no right to be in the UK have now been notified” of the British Government’s intention to relocate them to Rwanda.

Patel declined to specify how many people would be in that first group, how they arrived in Britain, or how many people overall might be sent to Rwanda under the plan, saying “we don’t share our operational details.”

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She decried “a lot of deliberate misinformation” about the people who would be sent to Rwanda. She also touted her country’s “outstanding record of resettling people and hosting migrants and refugees” – noting 15,000 people were brought from Afghanistan to Britain and the issuance of 100,000 visas to Ukrainians.

Patel seeks to distinguish between legal routes to entry, which Britain welcomes, and the approaches by some migrants who try to enter illegally.

The ministers met with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who last month – the same day when Britain’s passed a bill on asylum and nationality – regretted approval of the UK government’s proposal for a new approach to asylum that “undermines established international refugee protection law and practices.”

When the program – the Migration and Economic Development Partnership – was announced in mid-April, Grandi’s assistant high commissioner for refugees, Gillian Triggs, insisted that people fleeing war, conflict and persecution deserved empathy, adding: “They should not be traded like commodities and transferred abroad for processing.”

After Thursday’s meeting, Grandi tweeted that he had reiterated his concerns about the deal, adding: “Shifting asylum responsibilities is not the solution.” He said his agency, UNHCR, “will continue proposing concrete solutions that respect international law.”

The ministers also met with Nada al-Nashif, the UN deputy high commissioner for Human Rights. Her office didn’t comment after Thursday’s meeting.

Last month, the UN human rights office tweeted its support for UNHCR’s position, saying the plan raises human rights concerns — notably about forcible returns, family separation, “arbitrary deprivation of liberty” and the prospect that cases might not be assessed on an individual basis .

A statement from the British Home Office after the meetings in Geneva, which also involved visits with diplomats from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, said Rwanda was a “fundamentally safe and secure country.” It added that the partnership plan would process asylum claims in accordance with the Refugee Convention, as well as national and international human rights laws.

Rwanda’s Biruta said initial planning considered that some 30,000 people might be involved in the plan, but in any case Rwanda could take in thousands.

Rwandan authorities in recent years have given asylum to hundreds of people seeking shelter as a result of arrangements with Israel, the African Union, the UN and others. Many were from Eritrea and Ethiopia, including some who languished for months in detention centers in Libya.

Some people who went to Rwanda have insisted that the country — with a population of 13 million, and Africa’s most densely populated country, is not a suitable refuge. Rwanda already is home to more than 130,000 refugees from countries such as Burundi, Congo, Libya and Pakistan.

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Follow all AP stories on global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.

Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white man, livestreamed the attack from a helmet camera, 13 people in total were shot.

Payton Gendron, the white man charged with murdering 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York has appeared briefly in court after a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge.

Gendron, 18, wore an orange jail uniform and a mask, and was silent throughout the one-minute proceeding on Thursday, attended by some relatives of the victims.

Assistant District Attorney Gary Hackbush said the indictment of Payton Gendron was handed down on Wednesday.

Someone shouted “Payton, you’re a coward!” as he was led out. He is being held in jail without bail.

The latest US racist mass shooting – at a supermarket on Saturday – has revived a national debate about guns, domestic terrorism, hate and the internet’s role in spreading it.

Thirteen people in all were shot at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Authorities are continuing to investigate the possibility of hate crime and terrorism charges.

Gendron, livestreamed the attack from a helmet camera before surrendering to police outside the store. Shortly before the attack, he posted hundreds of pages of writings to online discussion groups where he detailed his plans for the assault and his racist motivation.

Investigators have been examining those documents, which included a private diary he kept on the chat platform Discord.

In New York, prosecutors can charge a defendant with first-degree murder only under special circumstances, including when multiple people are killed in a single incident, like in the Buffalo shooting. The single count against Gendron covered all 10 deaths at the supermarket.

At his initial court appearance last week, Gendron’s court-appointed lawyer entered a plea of ​​“not guilty” on his behalf. Gendron is due back in court on June 9.

The massacre at the Tops supermarket was unsettling even in a nation that has become almost numb to mass shootings. All but two of the 13 people shot during the attack were Black. Gendron’s online writings said he planned the assault after becoming infatuated with white supremacist ideology that he encountered online.

The diary said Gendron planned his attack in secret, with no outside help, but Discord confirmed Wednesday that an invitation to access his private writings was sent to a small group of people about 30 minutes before the assault began.

Some of them accepted the invitation. It was unclear how many read what he had written or logged on to view the assault live. It also was not clear whether anyone tried to alert law enforcement.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia has said contempt were working to obtain, verify and review Gendron’s online postings.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday authorised the investigation of the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, to determine if they were responsible for “providing a platform to plan and promote violence” to determine if they were a platform to plan and promote violence.

President Joe Biden, in a visit to Buffalo on Tuesday, condemned white nationalists, as well as online platforms, media outlets and political rhetoric he criticized for spreading racist conspiracy theories.

“What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism, domestic terrorism,” Biden said.

Gro Intelligence launches the first publicly available interactive tool on key agricultural commodities for 49 African countries

NEW YORK, May 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — During the United Nations Security Council’s session on Conflict and Global Food Security, Gro Intelligence’s CEO, Sara Menker, spoke about the growing global food crisis, its disproportionate impact on lower-income countries, and the policy actions that can be taken by governments around the world to mitigate these effects. As part of a broader response to this crisis, Gro Intelligence is launching the Food Security Tracker for Africa, the first-of-its-kind, interactive tool that makes real-time agricultural data on 49 out of 54 African countries publicly available in one location. With The Rockefeller Foundation’s support, this information will make it easier for countries around the world to navigate the challenges connected to the current global food crisis.

The Food Security Tracker for Africa Provides free access to real-time data about the supply and demand of major crops, including corn, soy, wheat, and rice for African countries. By combining data on drought, crop conditions, prices, supply and demand all in one place, users will be able to develop more effective solutions and emergency response plans to the growing shortages of key agricultural commodities across the continent.

Environmental, economic, and political shocks have caused rising food prices and created shortages of major crop staples worldwide. At the same time, companies across the global agricultural supply chain face significant blind spots, donors are unable to accurately direct funds, and governments are left scrambling for alternative sources of supply without the necessary full knowledge of where it is needed most. In response, Gro is collaborating with The Rockefeller Foundation to give the public greater access to critical data, which will help fill the gaps in accurate supply and demand coverage for major crops in Africa.

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“The world must act now to respond to the global emergency food and alleviate the human suffering and global instability it is causing,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. “Gro Intelligence’s powerful new tool gives global leaders the data they need to not only respond to the crisis in the short term, but also lay the groundwork for a more stable, sustainable food system over the long term.”

Understanding the Impact of the Global Food Crisis

Even before the war in Ukraine, the World Food Program (WFP) estimated 810 million people did not have enough to eat. to recent data from the International Monetary Fund, poor country households spend up to 60% of their budgets on food, compared to just 10% for the average household in advanced growth. Unable to weather the shock of rising food prices, lower-income countries are also being asked to pay out more than $300 billion in interest payments and debt repayments while many global organizations focused on food security are facing significant funding shortages – as Ms. Menker and Dr. Shah explained in a recent New York Times op-ed.

“By combining cutting-edge technology and humanitarian relief efforts and leveraging the private sector for public use, our collaboration with The Rockefeller Foundation will help strengthen food security initiatives, address inequities, and build a sustainable world for all,” said Ms. Menker. “With this new tool, governments, companies, and humanitarian organizations will be better equipped to anticipate food shortages, direct relief, and improve strategic planning in response to the level of supply and demand shocks that have caused global food insecurity.”

Leveraging the Power of the Gro Platform

“To create a more comprehensive picture, the Gro team, which includes both domain experts and technologists, leveraged our platform and the scaling power of our machine-learning models to quickly and accurately provide needed data,” said Will Osnato, Senior Research Analyst at Gro Intelligence. “With support from The Rockefeller Foundation, we will offer agricultural balance sheets that denote supply and demand of corn, soy, wheat, and rice for the next year. In addition, the tool has been tested and reviewed by our analyst team and methodologies are made available to fully encompass the transparency and objectivity of our platform.”

In addition to real-time supply and demand data, this tool makes useful metrics for 49 out of 54 African countries publicly available for the first time, including:

• Gro’s Production Forecast – Production estimates are calculated using Gro’s machine learning-based yield forecasts, which incorporate real-time environmental data and historical production data to available predict supply.

• Gro’s Stocks-to-Use Ratio – A country’s reserves of a specific crop is an indicator of food security. A stocks-to-use ratio shows the relationship between stocks and usage. Gro’s Stocks-to-Use Ratio is calculated as total food calorie stocks at the end of the marketing year – a period of one year designated to production analysis of a specific commodity. This number is then divided by total food calorie demand (domestic consumption + exports) across the four crops in the selected region. It is highly correlated to prices over the season.

• Cropland-Weighted Gro Drought Index (GDI) – The proprietary Gro Drought Index is the world’s first high resolution global agricultural drought index. The GDI measures drought severity on a scale from “0” (no drought) to “5” (exceptional drought). The index is global, offering data on the continent, country, state, and district level and updates weekly on the interactive tool and daily on the Gro platform. The values ​​shown on the tool are weighted by cropland area at the district level for each country.

• Crop-Area Weighted Vegetative Health Index (NDVI) – NDVI is a key satellite-based indicator of plant health, used to forecast crop production, supply, and price. Lower NDVI signals lower levels of production.

• Prices – Price series were selected based on Free-on-board (FOB) export prices from the largest import supplier for the selected country. If the country is not a significant importer, then representative global prices were selected.

For more information visit the Food Security Tracker for Africa here or contact Gro Intelligence at [email protected].

About Gro Intelligence
Gro Intelligence works with companies, financial institutions, humanitarian organizations, and governments to forecast risks to food security that may result in food or hunger crisis. Our food security platform serves as a single source of truth and an early warning hub that provides up-to-date information, insights, and analysis across the value chain. The platform predicts future trends and promotes proactive, evidence-based decision-making to improve our partners’ food security. See more on our work with the public sector here.

About The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on collaborative partnerships at the frontiers of science, technology, and innovation to enable individuals, families, and to flourish. We work to promote the well-being of humanity and make opportunity universal. Our focus is on scaling renewable energy for all, stimulating economic mobility, and ensuring equitable access to healthy and nutritious food. For more information, sign up for our newsletter at rockefellerfoundation.org and follow us on Twitter @RockefellerFdn.

View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-agricultural-data-tool-can-help-fight-the-growing-food-crisis-in-africa-301550956.html

SOURCE Gro Intelligence

Applications for jobless benefits rose by 21,000 to 218,000 for the week ending May 14, the US Department of Labor said.

More Americans applied for jobless aid last week, but the total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits is at a 53-year low.

Applications for unemployment benefits rose by 21,000 to 218,000 for the week ending May 14, the United States Department of Labor reported Thursday. First-time applications generally track the number of layoffs.

The four-week average for claims, which smooths out some of the weekly volatility, rose 8,250 from the previous week to 199,500.

The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits for the week ending May 7 fell again from the previous week, to 1,317,000. That’s the fewest since December 27, 1969.

American workers are enjoying historically strong job security two years after the coronavirus pandemic plunged the economy into a short but devastating recession. Weekly applications for unemployment aid have been consistently below the pre-pandemic level of 225,000 for most of 2022, even as the overall economy contracted in the first quarter and concerns over inflation persistence.

Earlier this month, the government reported America’s employers added 428,000 jobs in April, the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent leaving, just above the lowest level in a half-century. Hiring gains have been strikingly consistent in the face of the worst inflation in four decades, with employers adding at least 400,000 jobs for 12 straight months.

Inflation may be the only thing hotter than the US job market. Last week, the government reported that US producer prices soared 11 percent in April from a year earlier, a hefty gain that indicates high inflation will remain a burden for consumers and businesses in the months ahead.

Also last week, the government reported that inflation at the consumer level eased slightly in April after months of relentless increases but remained near a four-decade high. Consumer prices jumped 8.3 percent last month from a year ago, just below the 8.5 percent year-over-year surge in March, which was the highest since 1981.

Earlier in May, the US Federal Reserve ratcheted up its fight against the worst inflation in 40 years by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate by a half-percentage point — its most aggressive move since 2000 — and signaling further large rate hikes to come . The increase in the Fed’s key rate raised it to a range of 0.75 percent to 1 percent, the highest point since the pandemic struck in March of 2020.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military has identified a soldier’s rifle that may have killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, but said it cannot be certain unless the Palestinians turn over the bullet for analysis, a military official said Thursday.

The announcement marked a small sign of progress in the investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot on May 11 while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian officials, along with fellow missionaries who were with Abu Akleh, have said Israeli troops stationed nearby killed her. The Israeli army says she was shot during a battle between troops and Palestinian gunmen, and it cannot be determined who fired the fatal bullet without a proper analysis.

Israel has called for a joint investigation with the Palestinians. But the Palestinians, who have the bullet, have refused, saying they don’t trust Israel. They say they are except to own investigation and they are ready to cooperate with any country Israel.

The military official stressed that while the source of the shot is still unclear, “we have narrowed down the IDF weapon that might be involved in the fire exchange near Shireen.”

He renewed the call for the Palestinians to release the bullet. If they do so, he said, Israel will “hopefully be able to compare the bullet to that barrel and check if there is a match.” He spoke on condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines.

The military last week released the results of a preliminary investigation that offered two possible causes of death. It said that in one scenario, she may have been hit by Palestinian gunfire during a fierce shootout with Israeli troops.

In the second scenario, it said she might have been hit by an Israeli soldier who shot through a “designated firing hole” in a military vehicle at a Palestinian gunman who was shooting at the vehicle. It said it could not determine the source of fire without analyzing the bullet.

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The Palestinians have been their own investigation. Last Friday, the Palestinian public prosecutor said preliminary findings show Abu Akleh was killed by deliberate fire from Israeli troops. The prosecutor said the investigation would continue.

Bellingcat, an independent Dutch-based open-source research firm, has conducted its own analysis of material gathered from mostly videos on social media. It said its initial findings lent support to Palestinian witnesses who say she was killed by Israeli fire.

Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American and 25-year veteran of the satellite channel, was killed in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. She was a household name across the Arab world, known for documenting the hardship of Palestinian life under Israeli rule, now in its sixth decade.

The shooting drew condemnations and statements of concern from around the world. Israel has also been widely criticized for the behavior of police, who pushed and beat mourners at her funeral last Friday, causing the pallbearers to nearly drop her coffin.

Warsaw has established itself as the linchpin of Western involvement in the war.

Three months into the fighting in Ukraine, Poland has established itself as the main conduit of weapons and aid from the West to Ukraine. It has also absorbed the highest number of Ukrainian refugees, 3.4 million people. And it is working to end its energy dependency on Russia within months.

Russian leaders have Poland warned – which joined NATO in 1999, several years before it joined the European Union – against taking a strident role against Moscow.

Host Steve Clemons asks Poland’s ambassador to the United States, Marek Magierowski, about the opportunities and challenges facing his country and region.