BIARRITZ, France (AP) — A massive section of coastline near the lighthouse in Biarritz, a resort town on France’s southwestern Atlantic coast, collapsed Wednesday evening, killing one diver and leaving another missing, local authorities said.

The collapse occurred around 8:20 p.m. while three divers were at the base of the cliff, Biarritz City Hall said in a statement. One escaped unharmed and was assisted by emergency teams.

Rescuers, including specialized divers, launched a search operation for the two other persons. They recovered the body of a female diver. Searches for the other diver resumed Thursday.

Officials have banned public access, swimming and boating within 300 meters (985 feet) of the cliff because of the risk of further collapse.

Biarritz is a tourist destination known for its rugged cliffs, beaches and status as one of Europe’s premier surfing spots.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The European Union has disbursed the first 3 billion-euro ($3.4 billion) tranche of a 90 billion-euro ($101 billion) loan to Ukraine, the country’s prime minister announced Thursday at the opening of a conference on Ukraine’s post-war recovery in Poland.

The conference, attended by key European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is both a fundraising forum and a message to Russia that Ukraine’s Western supporters are in it for a long haul.

“We are forced to innovate to survive and this has become our superpower,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said, adding that Ukraine was grateful for the support promised to her war-battered nation.

Von der Leyen reasserted the EU’s financial commitment to Ukraine, just days after the country officially started EU membership negotiations on June 15.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, EU countries have provided 200 billion euros ($225 billion) in economic, financial and military support to Ukraine, and approved 90 billion euros ($101 billion) more over the next two years in the form of an EU support loan, she said.

The EU also will start paying another 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion), a second tranche from the loan dedicated to drone production, “in the coming days,” she added.

In a separate initiative, European leaders meeting in Gdansk said they’re kicking off a European equity fund dedicated to investments in strategic sectors of the Ukrainian economy.

“With an initial public package of up to 220 million euros, we are creating the confidence and the risk-sharing mechanism that private investors need to engage now,” Merz said. The fund originated at last year’s recovery conference in Rome, and is supported by the EU, Germany, Poland, Italy and France.

He said that although public funding alone will never be enough to rebuild Ukraine, “by investing now and committing long-term capital, Europe’s is sending a clear message: we believe in Ukraine’s future within the European family.”

The Ukrainian delegation is planning to sign 160 deals totaling over 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) during the conference in Gdansk, Svyrydenko said on Thursday.

Svyrydenko led the Ukrainian delegation after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pulled out just days before, following a dispute with Polish President Karol Nawrocki over World War II events that have strained the countries’ relations.

Nawrocki this month stripped Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest state honor, because Zelenskyy named a military unit after a Ukrainian paramilitary organization accused of massacring Poles during the war.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, fought for Ukrainian independence against both Nazi German and Soviet forces. But it is accused in Poland of wartime killings of tens of thousands of Poles, most in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which the Polish state qualifies as genocide.

Zelenskyy has since returned the award to Poland, with other Ukrainian officials also following suit.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Zelenskyy’s absence at the conference might help reduce the tensions. Svyrydenko made no reference to the dispute in her speech.

“We can only build the future on the basis of truth, mutual respect and understanding the past,” Tusk said in his speech.

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Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Kerstin Sopke in Berlin contributed to this report.

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

By Daniel Flynn

KYIV, June 25 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Fire Point, maker of the Flamingo cruise missile, is accelerating plans to develop a European missile defence system after an agreement with German radar maker Hensoldt and hopes to have its first interceptors ready by the end of the year.

Fire Point, which is using its own FP-7X rocket as the interceptor missile, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Munich-based company last week, which will provide radar for the ballistic missile defence system, using its TRML-4D high-performance radar.  

Denys Shtilierman, Fire Point’s co-founder and chief designer, said the company was in the process of signing an agreement with a European defence firm to provide the imaging infrared (IIR) homing device for the interceptor missile. 

Talks are also underway with another European firm to furnish a radio frequency (RF) seeker, which allows an interceptor missile to track targets using electromagnetic signals, Shtilierman said. He did not give the companies’ names.

A global shortage of ballistic missile defences is one of Ukraine’s most pressing challenges in its four-year war with Russia. Demand for missile defences has increased from the U.S. and its allies following the Iran war, while production of U.S.-made Patriot missiles — the most effective system — has not kept pace with Russia’s output of ballistic missiles, which it uses to pound Ukrainian cities, infrastructure and military sites.

Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed an agreement with Germany to jointly develop a European ballistic missile defence project. He invited other European countries to join the initiative, adding that Fire Point would participate.

SEEKING MORE EUROPEAN ENGAGEMENT

Shtilierman said stronger political commitment from European countries has accelerated the timeline for the project, codenamed Freyja, which he had told Reuters in April would not be ready before the end of next year.

“Something changed: our government and a lot of other European governments, for example the German government, connected to the initiative,” he told Reuters. “If, for example, every European government starts moving swiftly, we can do interceptors by the end of this year.” 

“It all depends on the speed of movement of European bureaucracies.”

Completing the system would require European partners to provide a sophisticated data uplink to relay real-time target data from the radars to the interceptor missile, as well as a command-and-control centre, Shtilierman said. 

For years, European manufacturers have struggled to develop an effective ballistic missile defence.

Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told local Radio NV last month that the SAMP/T missile defence system produced by European missile manufacturer MBDA had not yet proven capable of downing ballistic missiles in combat in Ukraine.

UKRAINE NIMBLER ON TESTING

Shtilierman said wartime conditions in Ukraine, where the government had stripped away onerous regulations, allowed the company to press ahead far more quickly than European counterparts with testing.

“How many months must you spend in Europe on this? Maybe from six months to a year. We need one day,” he said.

Fire Point is currently awaiting approval from European governments to start testing its interceptor missiles with the radar system, Shtilierman said. 

Hensoldt did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Fire Point is on track to start flying tests over the summer for its new FP-9 ballistic missile, capable of carrying an 800-kg warhead up to 850 km, Shtilierman said. Battlefield tests for the munition, which would place Moscow in range of Ukrainian ballistics, are expected by the autumn, he said. 

Discussions with a Middle Eastern investor to take a $760-million, 30% stake in Fire Point are no longer active because the company’s valuation has risen beyond their offer. 

Shtilierman said a more recent offer from a “prominent investment bank” for a small number of shares in Fire Point valued the company at $5.8 billion. He did not provide further details.

(Editing by Daniel Flynn and Gareth Jones)

MEXICO CITY, June 25 (Reuters) – A vehicle struck multiple people at a gathering in the popular tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas following Mexico’s victory in a World Cup match on Wednesday night, Los Cabos’ city hall said in a statement. 

“According to preliminary information, the vehicle was surrounded by a group of people and, for reasons to be determined by the competent authority, drove through the crowd, injuring several people,” the city hall added.

An unverified video has circulated on social media showing a car ramming a crowd; Reuters couldn’t immediately verify its authenticity.

(Reporting by Mexico Newsroom; Editing by Christian Plumb)

TAIPEI, June 25 (Reuters) – Heavy rains from a passing typhoon caused localised flooding in Taipei and parts of southern Taiwan on Thursday, while more than 200 people on the east coast will be evacuated ahead of a possible breach of a barrier lake in the mountains.

Although Typhoon Mekkhala, which is heading towards Japan, will not make direct landfall in Taiwan, its outer bands are bringing torrential rain to parts of the island, especially in Kaohsiung and Pingtung in the south.

Pingtung’s government ordered all offices and schools closed on Thursday afternoon, while neighbouring Kaohsiung did the same for two mountainous areas. In one area of the Neihu suburb of Taipei, flood waters nearly submerged cars.

While no casualties have been reported so far, in the eastern coastal county of Hualien the government is evacuating more than 200 people in two townships which are downstream from a rapidly filling barrier lake above it in the mountains.

Barrier lakes are formed when rocks, landslides or other natural blockages make a dam across a river, normally in a valley, blocking and holding back water, hindering or even stopping natural drainage.

Last year 19 people died in a different part of Hualien when another barrier lake breached its banks during Super Typhoon Ragasa, sending a wall of water and mud into people’s home. 

Rain is forecast to continue over Taiwan for at least the next week, though it will gradually ease. 

Precipitation is not all bad news for Taiwan, which relies on the traditional summer and autumn typhoon season to fill up its reservoirs after what are typically dry winters.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; editing by David Dolan)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia is moving a significant part of its air defenses to protect a handful of prime targets, including Moscow, as Ukraine’s long-range drones continue to hammer sites deep inside the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.

In new overnight strikes, meanwhile, Zelenskyy said Thursday that Kyiv’s forces hit two more Russian oil refineries in Ufa, 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from the front line, and an oil depot in the Krasnodar region, 300 kilometers (180 miles) from Ukraine.

Ukraine has in recent months stepped up its aerial campaign against Russian military installations and energy facilities. Its success has caused fuel shortages and disrupted army supply lines, stalling Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor after more than four years of fighting and rattling Russian officials.

Zelenskyy said in his daily address late Wednesday that Russia is moving more air defenses to the capital as well as to Valdai, a town some 500 kilometers (300 miles) northwest of Moscow where Russian President Vladimir Putin has a residence, and to protect the Kerch Bridge, a vital supply route connecting the Crimean Peninsula with the Russian mainland.

“In the Moscow region alone, they have amassed hundreds of launchers” for air defense missiles, Zelenskyy said. “Nearly 90 launchers have been redeployed to Valdai from other regions of Russia.”

It was not possible to independently verify Zelenskyy’s claims, which portrayed the Russian leadership as caring more about protecting itself than other cities and towns in the vast country. Russian officials made no immediate comment.

Ukrainian drones have recently hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and Putin’s hometown. Ukraine is also trying to cut off Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.

The changes, Zelenskyy suggested, would leave other parts of Russia vulnerable to Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated long-range drones, which can now fly more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles).

“There are many difficulties (for Russia), all because Putin refuses to end his war and to hear our proposals for a meeting, genuine negotiations, and a dignified peace,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump but Putin has refused, and a year of U.S.-led peace efforts made no significant headway.

Western officials and analysts say Ukraine’s prospects have improved after more than four years of a grueling war of attrition as its domestic development and production of cutting-edge drones pin down the bigger Russian army.

Trump, who previously has been critical of Zelenskyy, said Wednesday that the Ukrainian leader is “courageous” and “doing pretty well” in the war.

Zelenskyy said he won pledges of sustained foreign support when he attended a recent summit of G7 leaders, including Trump, and that promised aid will help further help Ukraine’s intensified campaign.

“Our operation, including the one concerning Crimea, has been carefully planned, and the way it is unfolding clearly demonstrates that if Ukraine receives exactly what we discussed with our partners at the G7 — and that depends on our partners’ decisions — we will quickly create conditions in which Russia will be forced to choose peace,” he said.

“We very much hope for a positive response from our partners,” Zelenskyy added. “They know exactly what we are talking about.”

Belarus, whose manufacturing plants have played a key role in supporting Moscow’s war effort, appears to have turned off signal repeaters on its soil that Kyiv says were used to help guide Russian drone attacks on Ukraine. Moscow launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine from Belarus.

Zelenskyy demanded last week that Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north and also shares a frontier with Russia, remove the relay equipment that enabled Moscow’s drones to strike western Ukraine. He threatened to take action against the relay stations, presumably with a military strike that could bring the countries into direct conflict.

Ukrainian intelligence has determined that the repeaters are now off, Zelenskyy said in a message sent to journalists.

Ukrainian military officials on Wednesday ordered a mandatory evacuation for the approximately 1,000 people still in the Chernihiv region bordering Russia and Belarus starting July 1.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is walking a fine line in the war.

“Lukashenko continues to stall and deflect the Kremlin’s intensified attempts to drag Belarus into the war in Ukraine while maintaining relatively neutral rhetoric towards Ukraine,” the institute said.

Ukrainian Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of the armed forces, said last week that Ukraine is strengthening defenses on its northern border, including creating new army drone units there.

Russia launched a ballistic missile and 90 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said.

One drone struck a gas station Thursday in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, injuring four people, said regional administration head Oleh Hryhorov, adding that Russian forces have attacked the region’s gas stations 13 times in June alone.

A Russian overnight strike in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia injured one woman and damaged a gas station, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 269 Ukrainian drones from late Wednesday until early Thursday.

Several Russian airports temporarily restricted flights overnight during drone attacks.

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

BEIJING (AP) — China on Thursday defended its recent patrols in waters east of Taiwan, one day after Britain, France and Germany expressed alarm about what they described as “novel Chinese activity.”

While the three European countries said the activity, which they did not specifically identify, endangered regional stability, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China’s law-enforcement and patrol activities were aimed at maintaining regional stability and maritime order.

China deployed coast guard ships in response to an announcement by Japan and the Philippines that they would discuss their maritime boundaries in waters that Beijing views as its own.

“These are necessary actions in response to Japan’s and the Philippines’ manipulation of maritime delimitation issues and infringement upon China’s maritime rights and interests,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a daily briefing.

A joint statement from the de facto embassies of the three European nations in Taiwan said China’s actions threatened regional stability, freedom of navigation and the safety of international shipping. The U.S. also expressed concern about the activity, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said.

Taiwan said earlier this month that Chinese coast guard ships were harassing commercial vessels near the island by asking them to report their intended routes.

The waters are a vital shipping lane for oil and gas and goods being transported from the Mideast and Europe to ports in China, Japan and South Korea. Taiwan is a self-governing island, but China claims it as its territory along with the rights to the surrounding waters.

Guo said that the coast guard activities were “legitimate exercises of jurisdiction in accordance with the law.”

Beijing’s tensions with Tokyo have increased since Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested the country’s military could get involved if China were to take military action against Taiwan.

The Taiwan issue is considered a flash point that could spark hostilities between China and the U.S., which is the main supplier of weaponry to Taiwan for its defense.

China sailed its newest and most powerful aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait this week, just hours after Taiwan began a five-day military exercise to practice its response to a possible Chinese attack.

By Ali Sawafta

SEBASTIA, West Bank, June 25 (Reuters) – An Israeli bill that would extend civil control over ancient sites in the West Bank has drawn criticism from Palestinians and Israeli rights groups who say it is tantamount to annexation of occupied land and would expand Jewish settlements.

The “Heritage Authority in Judea and Samaria” bill passed one of three votes by Israel’s parliament in May, but it is unclear whether the final vote will be held before parliament disperses ahead of an election expected by October 27. 

The bill would bring management of Roman, Byzantine and Crusader-era sites under Israeli Ministry of Heritage management and allow related “expropriation and purchase of real estate” in the West Bank, which Israel calls by its Hebrew biblical name.

That in effect would strip away oversight of some ancient sites from the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which under the 1990s Oslo peace accords has exercised limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war.

The PA’s tourism minister, Hani Al-Hayek, said “control over these antiquities is intended to expand control and expand settlements in these areas, deep inside Palestinian territories.”

Israel says the bill’s purpose is to protect ancient sites.

VILLAGE NEAR ANCIENT SEBASTIA SITE FACES LAND CONFISCATION

Peace Now, an Israeli settlements watchdog, said the bill “constitutes an annexationist measure in every respect” and would lead to broad-scale confiscation of Palestinian land. 

Using archaeology to expand settlements is not a new practice, but the scope of the Israeli government’s measures has been unprecedented, Peace Now said.

One example is the Palestinian village of Sebastia in the northern West Bank where residents, many of whom trace their roots to the land back centuries, rely heavily on tourism to a nearby archaeological site. 

The ancient site in Sebastia has ruins from the 9th-century B.C. Israelite kingdom as well as Roman, Byzantine, Crusader and Ottoman remnants, archaeologists say. It is on a tentative list for inclusion as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In late 2025, Israel announced a plan to seize about 1,800 dunams (445 acres) at the site, which it said was meant to develop the area, affecting around 5,000 olive trees growing in the village groves, village officials said. 

“They are incorporating areas containing water resources, roads and antiquities, leaving us as residents without any resources. It is part of settlement expansion,” said Sebastia Deputy Mayor Nizar Kayed.

Business had already been suffering since late 2023 with tourism dropping because of war in the region, said Nahed Sakha, whose Sebastia restaurant is on land slated for confiscation.

“It seems that the Israeli plan (is) to isolate the archaeological site from the people,” Sakha said.

ISRAEL CITES ANCIENT TIES TO THE LAND

Israeli parliament member Zvi Sukkot, who has been key in advancing the new bill, says extending Israeli control over the sites is meant to safeguard ancient remnants dating back to biblical times. 

“There’s nothing here that changes the legal status of Judea and Samaria,” he told Reuters. 

“There are many people who are bothered by our desire to prove the ties between the people of Israel and this land,” he said. “All the stories of the Bible, all our history, the people (of Israel) were born in Judea and Samaria.” 

Sukkot is a member of the pro-settler Religious Zionism party. Like many in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and advocates annexation of the West Bank.

U.N. bodies and most countries view Israel’s settlements as illegal under international law, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention provision barring the transfer of civilian population into occupied territory.

Israel rejects this view, saying the West Bank, which it captured in the 1967 war, is disputed territory. It cites security needs and biblical and historical ties to the land.     

But the new bill has also caused concern among legal officials in Israel’s defence establishment and Israeli scientists. 

In an open letter to Netanyahu and Sukkot, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities called for it to be scrapped. 

“This will undoubtedly lead to an immediate deterioration in Israel’s international relations in the field of archaeology, and it will also have an impact on other areas of science and research,” the academy said. 

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Nuha Amer, Hannah Confino and Dedi Hayun, Writing by Maayan Lubell, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

KYIV, June 25 (Reuters) – Russia attacked three rail locomotives, killing one driver, and hit two petrol stations across Ukraine on Thursday, officials there said, part of an escalation in strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in recent months.

Russia and Ukraine have both attacked fuel and transport facilities, hoping to cut off supplies to each other’s troops and gain an edge along the front line of a war now in its fifth year.

One strike hit a locomotive in the northeast Sumy region, and in Zaporizhzhia region in the south, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of state rail group Ukrzaliznytsia, said on Facebook.

“Two crews were evacuated in time and none of them was hurt, but the third strike in Zaporizhzhia ended in tragedy: the driver managed to get to safety, but the assistant driver, who was in the rear cab, could not be saved,” Pertsovskyi said.

Russia has attacked more than 100 locomotives so far this year, Pertsovskyi told Reuters earlier this month, saying that amounted to a “simply insane” surge in the number of strikes.

He accused Moscow of trying to bring Ukrzaliznytsia’s operations to a standstill.

Local officials said Russia also attacked petrol stations in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian attacks on Russian fuel logistics led to widespread disruptions to fuel supplies in many Russian regions and in Russian-occupied Crimea.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

MOSCOW, June 25 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday it valued U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to mediate in the war in Ukraine and believed the U.S. understood that it could not play that role while supporting one of the opposing sides.

The Kyiv Independent reported that Ukraine, which has intensified strikes on Russian oil refineries, believes it has secured Trump’s backing to act “more boldly” in a campaign aimed at forcing Russia into meaningful negotiations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report, reiterating that Russia was “deeply grateful” for U.S. mediation efforts.

“But, of course, it is impossible to make such efforts while being involved in the war on one of the sides,” he told reporters.

“Of course, we know that the U.S. negotiating team understands this very well and is fully aware of it. We proceed from that assumption and expect the dialogue with American negotiators on the issue of a Ukrainian settlement to continue.”

(Reporting by Dmitry AntonovWriting by Maxim RodionovEditing by Mark Trevelyan)