Russia and Ukraine continue
Russian troops advance in northeastern Ukraine towards the battered city of Kupiansk, while Ukraine continues its offensive in the south.
Kupiansk has been under regular Russian artillery bombardment for months, and Russia hopes Ukraine will withdraw soldiers from the counter-offensive to defend the city. At the beginning of this month, Ukraine ordered a mandatory evacuation of 11,000 people near the front lines, but many residents appear to have defied this.
Ukrainian commanders, in turn, are trying to force the Russians to repel their counter-offensive by redeploying troops from Kupiansk. One Ukrainian attack has targeted the city of Melitopol and another on the city of Berdiansk, both in the Zaporizhia region, but both have only advanced a few kilometers despite extensive Russian defenses.
Yevgeny Prigozhin: The Russian press service announced that the former Wagner leader was buried in eastern St Petersburg around 1 p.m. yesterday. The ceremony was closed to all but a handful of people to keep the crowd at bay.
Uganda arrests man on anti-gay charges
Ugandan prosecutors have charged a 20-year-old man with “aggravated homosexuality” – a crime punishable by death – in one of the country’s first applications of a provision contained in one of the world’s toughest anti-gay laws.
Same-sex acts have long been considered illegal under Uganda’s penal code, but a law enacted this year introduced much harsher penalties and vastly expanded the range of offenses observed. The law requires life in prison for anyone engaging in gay sex and allows the death penalty under certain circumstances, including for having same-sex relationships with people with disabilities.
Context: Many religious leaders and politicians in Uganda have portrayed same-sex relationships as a Western import. “Africans are used to accepting this nonsense from the Western world, and homosexuality is on the agenda,” James Nsaba Buturo, former minister of ethics and integrity in the Ugandan government, said in March.
A record-breaking wildfire in Greece
Nearly 200,000 hectares have been burned since August 19 in a wildfire in the Evros region of Greece. The country is on the brink of the continent’s climate crisis, and the combination of heat waves, gale-force winds and combustible vegetation has turned pine forests into tinderboxes, overwhelming local firefighters.
To strengthen the response, Greece has turned to the EU for help, including aircraft, fire trucks and more than 100 firefighters from a permanent force drawn from Croatia, Germany, Romania, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Cyprus.
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Around the world
Throughout the year, officials work to protect New York City from a summer West Nile virus outbreak. On the front line is Waheed Bajwa, an entomologist who counts sleeping mosquitoes and uses weapons such as dry ice and bacteria-impregnated corncob granules, fermented rabbit food, copper BB pellets and a device called a Multi-Tube Vortexer.
His first insect loves were dragonflies and butterflies, but he has come to admire mosquitoes, even though his job requires him to slaughter them by the millions. “If you look at them under the microscope, oh, they look beautiful – I’ll show you!” he said. Their antennae. Their eyes, their compound eyes, their mouthparts.’
SPORTS NEWS
War in Ukraine: The Russian invasion plunged professional tennis into a conflict of its own. Now players from both sides face each other at the US Open.
Winners and losers of the Grand Prix of the Netherlands: Who performed well in Zandvoort?
Italy vs. England U16: The football game that attracted 170 scouts.
Mounting pressure: The Spanish Football Federation calls on president Luis Rubiales to resign after a kiss without mutual consent. (Here’s what happened.)
The NATO alphabet
A for Alpha, B for Bravo, C for Charlie: the NATO alphabet we know today was officially adopted in 1956 by the International Civil Aviation Organization. But while the system remains ubiquitous during ceremonies and common in crossword puzzles, in practice it is somewhat limited to aviation and the military.
“Honestly, a lot has been learned from it,” says Nell Avault, a speech and language pathologist. She gave the example of children using the A from apple by default, adding: “They wouldn’t say ‘A is for aero’ because that’s not the word they’re being exposed to.”
