ABDIN, Syria (AP) — As Israeli troops and vehicles entered the town of Abdin in southern Syria, residents blocked the roads with rocks, and some young men and boys threw stones to push back the military patrol.

Tensions in this part of the country created by a buffer zone occupied by Israeli forces have flared into violence in recent days, leaving residents anxious that more escalation is coming. Residents of Abdin, located near a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone now controlled by Israeli troops, tried to resist against a military incursion Sunday.

Residents said Israeli troops fired warnings shots at walls and between the angry protesters, before firing artillery rounds at the village. No one was harmed in the exchange, but most residents fled, and most were still too afraid to return on Monday. Many fear that there will now be more intense incursions and raids following the skirmish.

“They come into the village regularly, every few days,” said resident Mohammad al-Hassan, standing not far from a group of children looking at an exploded shell. “They come in armored 4×4 vehicles, they roam around the village and search some houses, they knock on doors and if people don’t answer the door they break it down and enter the houses. Women and children start screaming, it’s a terrifying thing, them coming here.”

Israel seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria in December 2024, following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in an insurgent offensive. Israeli officials initially described the move as temporary to protect their borders from militant groups, but more recently top Israeli officials have said they plan to occupy the buffer zone in Syria indefinitely.

The Israeli military presence in southern Syria is part of a shift to a more aggressive strategy by Israel after the deadly October 2023 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. The Israeli military took over large portions of Gaza as part of a broad invasion, and later seized control of chunks of Lebanon — where the Hezbollah militant group has fired missiles and drones across the border — and Syria. Israel calls these areas “buffer zones” and says they are needed to prevent future attacks by militant groups.

There have been no cross-border attacks from Syria into Israel since Assad’s ouster, except for two rockets from a little-known militant group. But Israel’s military incursions into southwestern Syrian towns have sometimes sparked resistance by residents that has spiraled into deadly clashes.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has called on Israel to withdraw from the area that the U.N. says is 235 square kilometers (91 square miles). The Syrian government also condemned the Israeli incursion and shelling in Abdin.

The clashes in Abdin were the second outbreak of violence in less than 24 hours. Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli military announced that it had killed armed men in southern Syria without giving details.

An Israeli military official said Monday that Israeli soldiers had killed two militants who were planning on attacking Israeli troops. The official who spoke on condition of anonymity under military briefing rules did not specify where in Syria the incident took place.

The mayor of the Syrian village of Hadar said two unknown people driving a pickup truck just south of the village were killed in an attack, and that their bodies were taken by the Israeli military.

“There was the sound of an explosion when it happened,” Imad Hassoun told The Associated Press. “They weren’t from Hadar. If they were, we would immediately know.”

Regarding the incident in Abdin, the Israeli official said armed militants opened fired against one of the Israeli military’s strongholds but nobody was harmed in the attack, without giving further details.

People in Abdin were initially hopeful that US-mediated talks between Israel and Syria in France aimed at reaching a security agreement would diffuse tensions, but the talks appear to have stalled.

Fearing the unstable security situation and struggling to cope with a lack of jobs and services, many residents who have lived in these towns are leaving elsewhere. The closest government security checkpoint to Abdin is some 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, and those who choose to stay are struggling with water and electricity shortages.

Sobhi al-Tawlbi, 66, says farmers have struggled to access their yield and sources of water.

“We need the government to support us a little so we can remain steadfast in our villages,” he said, asking for the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop its military incursions.

Syrians living in that broader border area have maintained that they are not a threat to anyone and want a stable life, following over 13 years of civil war that decimated Syria.

“Why are they bothering us? We are living here peacefully in this border area,” said al-Hassan.

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Associated Press writers Joe Federman in Jerusalem, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, and Omar Albam in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Members of Senegal’s National Assembly on Monday adopted a controversial constitutional amendment that expands their role and reduces presidential powers, but the government said it will be put to a referendum.

The constitutional reform comes as political tensions rose between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his former prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, who was dismissed and elected as the president of the National Assembly last month.

The opposition views the initiative, proposed by Pastef, Sonko’s party, as political revenge by the former prime minister, who retains significant influence over the parliamentary majority.

Responding to calls from several opposition parties and civil society organizations, demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament building to denounce the changes, waving placards and chanting the slogan “Hands off my Constitution!” Police fired tear gas and detained several opposition leaders and activists.

The reform strengthens parliament’s powers, such as requiring the government to inform the legislature of agreements related to the exploitation of natural resources. It also expands the powers of parliamentary inquiry committees.

The text also proposes the creation of a Constitutional Court to replace the current Constitutional Council. The new court would be composed of nine members, compared to the current seven.

Other changes include the incompatibility of the functions of head of state and leader of a political party, a limitation on the decisions that can be made by the executive branch between the presidential election and the official proclamation of the results, and stricter controls on the president’s power to dissolve the National Assembly.

The government said it will organize a referendum on the changes. It did not say when it will take place.

LONDON (AP) — Penelope Keith, a comic performer who shone as flinty but loveable upper-crust characters in British sitcoms “The Good Life” and “To the Manor Born,” has died aged 86.

Keith’s family said Monday that she had been diagnosed with cancer and died at her home in Surrey, near London.

Keith began her acting career onstage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963. But she found her greatest fame on television.

She won a BAFTA award in 1977 for “The Good Life,” playing Margo Leadbetter, a snobbish suburbanite appalled by her back-to-the-land neighbors Tom and Barbara Good, played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal.

Kendal called Keith a “comic genius.”

“She was a joy to know and work with, and she will be much missed,” Kendal said.

Keith displayed a similar mix of imperiousness and deadpan wit in “To the Manor Born,” broadcast between 1979 and 1981 and brought back for a 2007 Christmas special. Keith played cash-strapped aristocratic widow Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, forced to sell her country estate to a nouveau millionaire, played by Peter Bowles, with whom she has a love-hate relationship.

Keith’s velvet tones featured on children’s show “Teletubbies” and in ads for everything from Pimm’s to Parker Pens. She also presented cozy documentary TV series, including “Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages.”

Keith continued to perform in stage roles into her 80s. Theaters in London’s West End will dim their lights on Wednesday evening in tribute to her.

In 2014 she was made a dame, the female equivalent of a knight, for services to the arts and to charity.

She is survived by her husband, Rodney Timson, and their two adopted sons.

LONDON (AP) — A former Conservative lawmaker who used insider knowledge to place wagers on the date that then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would call a U.K.-wide election two years ago pleaded guilty Monday to cheating at gambling.

Craig Williams, who was Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, was one of more than a dozen people charged in the betting scandal over the timing of Britain’s last general election.

Election gambling is legal in the U.K. and betting on the date the prime minister will set is a popular wager. It’s legal for lawmakers to bet, but not if they rely on inside knowledge.

Sunak surprised many in May 2024 when he set the election date for July 4 when the conventional wisdom was that he would wait until the fall.

The announcement itself was a fiasco as Sunak was drenched in a downpour outside 10 Downing St. and word quickly spread that a handful of people with connections to the party had placed suspiciously timed bets. Six weeks later, the Labour Party swept the Conservatives out of office after 14 years of rule.

Williams, 41, who was in meetings when the election date was discussed, admitted in Southwark Crown Court that he used confidential information to gamble. He placed three bets between 22.50 ($29.80) and 250 pounds ($331), prosecutors said.

Williams, who lost his reelection bid for his seat in Wales, later admitted he placed a 100-pound ($132) bet on a July election days before the date had been announced.

“I committed an error of judgment, not an offense, and I want to reiterate my apology directly to you,” he said in a video posted on social media in June 2024.

Prosecutor Zoe Johnson said three additional charges that Williams denied will be dropped when he is sentenced at a later date.

“He has now accepted by his plea that he used highly sensitive and confidential information to place bets and to profit,” Johnson said.

Other members of the Conservative Party that controlled government at the time and a police officer are among those still facing charges that carry a potential two-year prison term, if convicted.

A dozen defendants pleaded not guilty Monday to cheating at gambling and face trials in September 2027 and January 2028.

The wife of Conservative deputy digital director Anthony Hind also pleaded guilty to cheating at betting. Amy Hind, 35, is due to be sentenced Oct. 23. A charge against her husband for passing information to his wife was dropped.

PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) – French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday he was keeping the country’s health emergency response plan, ORSAN, at its highest level for the coming days in view of “a possible recurrence of a heatwave episode”.

Lecornu was speaking at the start of a government crisis meeting to review how France dealt with a severe heatwave over the past week and how it could prepare for future heatwaves.

• France’s weather agency has said the extreme heat had now diminished in most parts of the country though temperatures were likely to rise again towards the end of the week.

• Scientists have said the heatwave, which began on June 20, was ‌the worst recorded in Europe, where the climate is changing faster than the global average.

• France has recorded 1,000 excess deaths during the blistering heatwave sweeping Europe, the public health agency said on Sunday, warning that the true figure was likely to be higher.

• Most of the deaths involved people aged 65 and older, though the health effects of the extreme heat affected all categories of the population, Sante Publique said.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Susan Fenton)

BASEL, Switzerland (AP) — City fountains became impromptu rehearsal spaces this weekend as yodelers at a festival in Basel, Switzerland, squeezed in last-minute practice while cooling off during Europe’s June heat wave.

At one fountain, a folk band dipped their toes in the water on Saturday, as festivalgoers clapped along or cooled their hands under the flowing stream.

From Friday to Sunday, singers and alphorn players filled the streets and spontaneous bursts of yodeling echoed through restaurants, where diners initially reacted with surprise before joining in.

In Petersplatz, in central Basel, seamstresses remained on call throughout the festival to repair the traditional Alpine folk costumes worn by participants in case of emergency.

This year, however, it was the fountain rehearsals that became the festival’s defining image, as the city battled record temperatures of around 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit).

Around 12,000 performers and nearly 200,000 visitors traveled to Basel for the Eidgenössisches Jodlerfest, Switzerland’s national yodeling festival. It was the first time the northwestern Swiss city hosted the event since 1924.

Swiss yodeling was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2025, making this the first national festival since the tradition received international recognition. It is a distinction many Swiss take great pride in.

Unlike the brighter, more melodic style often associated with Austria and the Tyrol region, Swiss yodeling is slower and more melancholic — an emotionally nuanced tradition rooted in distinct regional dialects.

“I’ve always loved music, and I left here as a child. When I moved back to New Zealand, I wanted to stay connected to Swiss culture, so I joined a New Zealand-Swiss-Kiwi yodeling club,” said Freddie Conquer, a member of Jodlerclub Echo Basel, one of the clubs hosting the festival.

The participants competed in three disciplines: yodeling, alphorn playing and flag-throwing.

The alphorn is a long wooden instrument traditionally used by herdsmen in the Alps. It can stretch to more than 3 meters (10 feet) in length, with its sound carrying across valleys — or, during the festival, through Basel’s streets. It produces all of its pitches using natural harmonics alone, with no valves or keys.

“Everything is down to the mouthpiece, hearing the note in your head, and then using your lips to shape the pitch. The higher the note, the harder you have to blow,” said Pierre-André Karlen, who was rehearsing on a school lawn.

On Sunday morning, participants gathered outside the town hall, eagerly awaiting the competition results. Members of Jodlerklub Balfrin, from the town of Visp in the canton of Valais, were nervously examining the lists and later celebrated loudly after receiving a perfect score of one, one of several such teams.

As flags were carried through the old town during the festival’s closing parade, members of Jodlerklub Muttenz rode past on a tractor to cheers from the crowd. Alphorn players followed — their instruments and costumes almost certainly a burden in the heavy heat, but the smiles remained.

DAKAR, June 29 (Reuters) – The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned public gatherings in four provinces, including the capital Kinshasa, as the country battles a deadly Ebola outbreak. 

The ban comes ahead of a planned protest in Kinshasa against constitutional reform, with opposition figures calling it “politically motivated.”

• The order, issued on June 27 by the interior minister, covers Kinshasa, Tshopo, Haut-Uele and Bas-Uele provinces, none of which has recorded cases so far.

• It cited proximity to affected provinces as a key transmission risk, and required authorities in the four provinces to monitor anyone presenting symptoms and submit daily surveillance reports.

• The outbreak, declared on May 15, has infected 1,274 people and killed 360 across three eastern provinces, Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, according to government data released on Monday.

• The ban comes days before a planned protest in Kinshasa on July 8, with opposition figures calling on supporters to rally against proposed constitutional changes they say could allow President Felix Tshisekedi to seek a third term.

• Prince Epenge, a spokesperson for the opposition Lamuka coalition, denounced the ban as “politically motivated” and told Reuters the July 8 protest would go ahead regardless.

• A previous rally on June 12 was broken up by police using tear gas and live ammunition, killing one protester and injuring 38, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

(Reporting and writing by Clement Bonnerot; Editing by Jessica Donati and Alexandra Hudson)

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Khartoum has become a kind of ghost town after three years of war. Children wander through an amusement park in the shadow of some of the Sudanese capital’s most well-known buildings, now reduced to shells after attacks.

The ground is littered with bullet casings, shrapnel and unexploded weapons. The threat of a return to fighting remains as conflict continues elsewhere in the vast country between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Khartoum’s streets are lined with improvised graveyards, now being exhumed by volunteers. Some of their remains are known, but thousands of the dead are unidentified.

For those searching for missing loved ones, hope may lie in the morgue database of Al Nao Hospital, the only one in Khartoum’s sister city of Omdurman that remained operational while the capital was under RSF control. The hospital, bombed several times, still treats the wounded, including a girl who lost an eye.

Since the military retook control in Khartoum last year, authorities have encouraged people to return and reclaim some normality.

By Jan Lopatka

PRAGUE, June 29 (Reuters) – The Czech government agreed under court pressure on Monday to let President Petr Pavel attend a NATO summit in Turkey next week but refused to allow him to lead the country’s delegation, laying bare their rift over defence spending.

Ankara will host 32 NATO leaders on July 7-8, amid tensions over burden-sharing, defence spending, and U.S. complaints about allies’ lack of involvement in re-opening the Strait of Hormuz.

The Czechs are bringing an awkward spat of their own, as they cannot agree who will sit at key meetings.

Presidents, although they do not formulate foreign policy in the Czech political system, have led national delegations at nearly all NATO gatherings since the Czechs joined the alliance in 1999.

Pavel, a former army general and head of NATO’s military committee, and strong supporter of more defence spending and aiding Ukraine, has been keen to attend the summit.

The populist government led by billionaire and Donald Trump fan Andrej Babis, which has refused to raise defence spending, has sought to edge him out.

The country’s Constitutional Court last week issued an injunction, pending further deliberations, ordering the government to allow Pavel to attend.

The government said on Monday it would comply but insisted that Babis will lead the delegation and attend the main meetings. He said Pavel’s views differed from the government on issues such as defence aid to Ukraine, which the government refuses to fund.

“The best would be if he does not insist on taking part,” Babis told a news conference, adding that Pavel could go to the following summit next year.

Pavel insisted he would lead the delegation and had the right to take part in the leaders’ dinner and in the plenary session the next day, while respecting the government’s positions.

“The government should follow the custom to date until the court makes a ruling,” he said. “The president as head of state should have the opportunity to represent… as the head of the delegation.”

Babis has argued that he needs space to ​explain Czech policies, including not meeting a NATO target for spending at least 2% of national ​output on defence last year.

The Czechs are on course to miss the target again this year after the government cut $1 billion from defence versus a budget left behind by the previous administration, and have not presented a plan on how to reach an alliance target of 3.5% by 2035.

(Reporting by Jan LopatkaEditing by Bill Berkrot)

Why Is Jonathan Conricus Chiding Netanyahu, Blaming Egypt, and Hailing Lebanon Deal? 

Conricus says the US-Iran memorandum gives Tehran sanctions relief and diplomatic breathing room without confronting its nuclear ambitions, missile program, or support for proxy groups 

By Felice Friedson / The Media Line 

Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank and a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, sees the Middle East as a series of collisions rather than a single crisis. One moment, the conversation is about attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and US retaliation; the next, it is about Iran, Bahrain, and a threat from President Trump to “complete the job,” together with a question about whether the memorandum of understanding (MOU) was really an MOU at all. Then it is back to Lebanon, where Conricus sees an opening that others seem determined not to notice. Calling the Lebanon track “the big news of the weekend,” Conricus said it gave him “a glimmer of hope that maybe the future will be different” from the near-constant war Israel has faced over the last almost three years. 

Linked video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAAJvsTf7V8