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Ukraine slammed Russia on Sunday for alleging Kyiv was planning to use a radioactive bomb in its own territory, calling the claims “dangerous” lies and prompting Western allies to warn Moscow against using any pretext for escalating the conflict.

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke with his British, French and Turkish counterparts to convey “concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’,” Moscow said, referring to a weapon that uses traditional explosives to scatter radioactive material.

But Ukraine and its Western allies swiftly dismissed Moscow’s allegations, with the United States, Britain and France issuing a joint statement on Sunday rejecting Russia’s “transparently false” claims.

Moscow said Shoigu had also spoken to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, but the Pentagon said Austin had “rejected any pretext for Russian escalation” in the phone call.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted on Sunday that he spoke to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to “reject Russia’s false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a united international response.

“If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this,” Zelensky said in a video address on social media.

“I believe that now the world should react as harshly as possible.”

Earlier on Sunday, Kuleba had denounced Moscow’s claims as “absurd” and “dangerous”.

“Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves,” he added. 

A British defence ministry statement said Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had “refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation”.

And in Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said President Joe Biden’s administration dismissed Moscow’s “transparently false allegations”.

– ‘Vile strikes’ –

Russia announced Sunday it had destroyed a depot in central Ukraine that was storing over 100,000 tonnes of aviation fuel.

Kyiv’s energy operator said scheduled power cuts had been introduced in the capital due to Russia’s repeated strikes on Ukraine’s power network, and urged residents to use electricity sparingly.

More than one million Ukrainian households have lost electricity following recent Russian strikes and at least a third of the country’s power stations have been destroyed ahead of winter, according to officials in Kyiv.

Zelensky condemned the strikes as “vile”.

– ‘Save your strength’ –

In the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig, deputy mayor Sergiy Miliutin has been dealing with emergencies and outages from his underground bunker, used as a venue for a children’s martial arts competition.

“I’ve reached a point where I just survive on my drive. You have to stay level-headed and save your strength. No one knows how long this will all last,” he told AFP.

The intensification of Russian strikes on Ukraine, particularly on energy facilities, came after the bridge linking the annexed Crimea peninsula to mainland Russia was partially destroyed by an explosion this month.

It was another major setback for Moscow’s forces, battling to contain a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and east of the country.

Speaking in Rome on Sunday at the start of a peace conference, French President Emmanuel Macron said that it was for Ukrainians to decide when “peace is possible”.

Ukraine reported three deaths in an overnight Russian artillery strike in the Toretsk area, a governor of the eastern Donetsk region said.

Inside Russia, two lines of defence have been built in the border region of Kursk to deal with any possible attack, a local governor said Sunday.

And defence structures are also being built in the neighbouring Russian border region of Belgorod after two civilians were killed there in strikes Saturday and thousands were left without electricity, according to governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

– Kherson evacuations –

Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service said it had detained two officials of Ukrainian aircraft engine maker Motor Sich on suspicion of working with Russia.

The SBU said management at the company’s plant in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region — partly controlled by Russian forces — had colluded with Russian state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec.

The suspects had supplied Russia with Ukrainian aircraft engines that were used to make and repair attack helicopters, the SBU said.

In the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, which Russia claims to have annexed, pro-Moscow officials have urged residents to leave amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

Kherson, the region’s main city, was the first to fall to Moscow’s troops in the invasion’s early days and retaking it would be a major prize for Kyiv.

Around 25,000 people have already left Kherson city to the left bank of the Dnipro River, according to Kremlin-installed officials.

Ukraine has denounced the removal of residents from Kherson, describing them as “deportations”.

When Mayra Flores made history this June as the first Mexican-born member of the US Congress, the Republican seized her south Texas seat from the Democrats by courting Latinos with strident calls to close the border.

That apparent paradox has made the 36-year-old — whose campaign slogan is “God, family, country” — one of the faces of the Republican Party’s new push in the border region for the November midterm elections.

She is bidding to repeat her victory next month, when fellow Latina Republicans Monica de la Cruz, Cassy Garcia and Carmen Maria Montiel will also vie for nearby congressional seats that for decades have remained Democratic.

The group hope to appeal directly to a community made up largely of immigrants and children of immigrants, who are increasingly calling to expand the wall that separates their adopted home country from Latin America.

Sara Rodriguez, a resident of Edinburg, 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Mexico border, plans to vote for Flores because she “represents our views as far as immigration goes.”

“There’s an influx of a lot of people coming through the valley, especially here at the south border… I feel like it’s very unsafe right now.”

Flores won her seat in a special poll this summer after the Democratic incumbent resigned.

Campaigning for re-election in the border city of McAllen, she won raucous applause from a crowd wearing boots and wide-brimmed hats during a speech peppered with fierce anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“Red wave! Red wave!” supporters chanted, referencing the Republican Party’s color, as a mariachi band played traditional Mexican music.

“The Democratic Party has walked away from the Hispanic community. They just take us for granted every election year,” she told AFP after her rally.

– ‘My hard work’ –

Democrats in various US states have for years benefited from the traditional support of Latino voters, which in the 1990s played a key role in transforming California into a solidly blue state.

But in south Texas, where Hispanics or Latinos (40.2 percent) outnumbered non-Latino or Hispanic whites (39.4 percent) for the first time this year, the Democrats’ lead has gradually shrunk.

In 2020, Donald Trump’s hardline immigration stance was widely credited with helping to slash the Democratic lead over Republican voters along the Texas border to 17 percent, from 33 percent four years earlier.

While they rarely mention the former president by name in speeches, local Republican candidates have adopted his nationalist and pro-wall rhetoric, while highlighting their community roots.

“It’s so important that you have people who live on the border, who understand the border, representing the border,” said de la Cruz, who hopes to win a seat held by Democrats for more than a century. 

Jesus Contreras, a Mexican who became a naturalized US citizen in the 1990s, plans to vote for her after decades of supporting the Democrats.

“My parents, everybody, taught me, ‘Oh the Republicans are bad,'” he said, switching between English and Spanish. “But they’re not.”

Contreras blames the Democrats for the border situation, and for the rising cost of living. 

“The folks that are coming across are helping the economy in which way? Do they pay taxes?” he asked.

“As far as I know, I’ve been paying taxes all my life. But yeah, they come over here and… get to reap the benefits of my hard work.

“I don’t think so.”

– ‘Unacceptable’ –

Between last October and this August, US authorities reported more than two million “border encounters” — a record.

The figure does not directly translate into the number of migrants, as many people try several times to cross.

Many are seeking asylum, claiming to be fleeing dangerous situations in countries such as Guatemala, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

Venezuela has seen an explosion in cases, with more than 180,000 of its citizens intercepted at the US southern border in one year.

For Montiel, an ex-beauty queen who is running in Houston to become the first Venezuelan in US Congress, the situation is “unacceptable.”

“My constituents want the border to be closed, for there to be legal migration,” she told AFP.

“Even if they are Venezuelans, I do not agree with someone entering this country breaking the law,” she added, although her former country has no diplomatic relations with Washington and no functioning US embassy.

– ‘Coming from poverty’ –

Still, in the border city of Laredo, multiple Latino voters told AFP they defined themselves as Democrats because of the party’s humanitarian position on immigration.

“It is not dangerous here — migrants come to work,” says Gustavo Hernandez, a taxi driver who arrived 25 years ago from Mexico.

“They are just coming from poverty,” he added.

Sandra Ibarra, who spoke to AFP on her way to attend noon Mass at Laredo’s cathedral, said it was “necessary for everyone to get out and vote.”

“I think (President Joe) Biden has done a lot of good things and he is trying to do everything he can to help immigrants, but the governor [Republican Greg Abbott] puts a lot of restrictions on us,” she said.

“We are at a crossroads.”

The family business of former US president Donald Trump is facing potential fines of over $1.5 million if found guilty of fraud and tax evasion during a New York trial set to begin Monday.

Manhattan prosecutors have charged the Trump Organization, currently run by Trump’s two adult sons, Donald Jr and Eric Trump, with hiding compensation it paid to some of its top executives between 2005 and 2021.

One of those executives, longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg, has already pleaded guilty to 15 counts of tax fraud, and is expected to testify against his former company as part of a plea bargain.

A close friend of the Trump family, the 75-year-old Weisselberg admitted he schemed with the company to receive undeclared benefits such as a rent-free apartment in a posh Manhattan neighborhood, luxury cars for him and his wife and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

According to his plea deal, Weisselberg has agreed to pay nearly $2 million in fines and penalties and complete a five month prison sentence in exchange for testimony during the trial, for which jury selection begins Monday.

“This plea agreement directly implicates the Trump Organization in a wide range of criminal activity and requires Weisselberg to provide invaluable testimony in the upcoming trial against the corporation,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said earlier in August.

Weisselberg has so far refused to give testimony directly implicating the former president in the scheme.

– Loads of lawsuits –

Two subsidiaries of the Trump family’s sprawling real estate, golf and hospitality business are targeted by the suits.

While Donald Trump is not named in this case, he is facing charges along with three of his eldest children in another civil investigation led by New York’s attorney general, Leticia James.

James, a Democrat, has accused the family of purposefully inflating and deflating the value of their properties to avoid tax liabilities and to get more favorable loan and insurance deals.

Her office is seeking $250 million in fines against the former president, and that his family be barred from conducting business in the state.

The suit also calls for three of Trump’s children — Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka — to be barred from purchasing real estate in New York for five years.

The 76-year-old Trump, who has heavily hinted but not yet announced a 2024 White House run, is also facing legal action on several other fronts, which he has decried as “witch hunts.”

He is at the center of a Justice Department investigation into the handling of highly classified documents, which the FBI seized from his Florida home in a raid, as well as multiple state and federal probes into his involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

The congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot has issued a subpoena requiring the former president to submit documents by November 4 and give sworn testimony by mid-November.

Without confirming that Trump had received the subpoena, his lawyer David Warrington has said his team would “review and analyze” the document and “respond as appropriate to this unprecedented action.”

Trump’s compliance would mean testifying under oath and could result in him being charged with perjury were he to lie.

If he refuses to comply, the House of Representatives can hold him in criminal contempt in a vote recommending him for prosecution. 

Sitting outside her modest home in Jacksonville, Florida, on a street lined with nondescript buildings in faded shades of blue, a weary Brenda Jenkins expresses a simple wish: to be able to buy fresh fruit and produce in her own neighborhood.

It sounds simple enough. But for people like her, one of the 39 million Americans living in “food deserts” — most of them low-income urban dwellers, and predominantly people of color — fresh food is practically inaccessible.

In a country with often poor mass transit and persistent pockets of poverty, getting to grocery stores that sell fresh food can be daunting.

“It’s very tiring,” said the 26-year-old Jenkins, a mother of three.

The phrase “food desert” is misleading. The problem is not so much that fresh food is unavailable, as that it can be hard to get to, in a country where the car is king — but also expensive.

There are no supermarkets in Jenkins’ nearly all-Black neighborhood in the large city of Jacksonville on Florida’s northern Atlantic coast.

Service stations, fast food restaurants and mom-and-pop groceries provide the only nearby food options. 

Their shelves bulge with candy, chips, soda and cookies. But the only fresh products are likely to be a few wan-looking apples or bruised bananas near the cash register.

Yet the poorest residents have no other option. The city’s mass transit system is skeletal. And the nearest supermarket is nearly an hour’s walk away.

Jenkins has a car, and she often takes neighbors with her when she goes shopping. 

But “what if I decided to move or what if I had something to do?” she asked. “How can they get groceries?”

And when her car breaks down — a not-infrequent occurrence — she has had no choice but to buy “processed foods” from a corner grocery — “and it’s just not healthy, especially with children.”

With US midterm elections just weeks away — and the prospect of major change in the Congress — Jenkins complained that she has seen no candidates in her neighborhood, and received no campaign leaflets.

She thinks politicians ignore her area “because we’re considered low-income.”

If the authorities really cared, she said, “something would have been done” to address the food desert problem.

– ‘A human right’ –

The once-prosperous neighborhood has progressively fallen on hard times over the decades, making it less and less profitable for the big supermarket chains.

When the last one closed, “people lost access to healthy food,” said Mika Hardison-Carr, a Black woman who manages a collective garden called White Harvest Farms. 

Over time, local residents simply got used to living in a food desert and getting by on “processed food, canned food (and) noodles,” said Hardison-Carr, holding a freshly picked kumquat.

“It is absolutely hard to change people’s way of life,” she said.

So the challenge now, Hardison-Carr added, is not just to give people access to fresh foods but to teach them to again make those foods a part of their daily diet. 

Limited food options and poor eating habits are “contributing to all of these health issues that’s causing us to die earlier, to be sicker, to be fatter,” she said.

And she is adamant about this: “Access to fresh, healthy food should be a human right.”

Her urban farm, created by the Clara White Mission with the help of public funds, provides free produce to the volunteers who help with the garden, and a low-price option to others in the neighborhood, who can pay with the federal food stamps that so many rely on.

On this autumn day, with Florida’s normally stifling heat beginning to turn balmy, people are at work in the garden, a rare patch of green in the neighborhood’s gritty urban landscape. 

To attract buyers, the farm’s crops include vegetables — like collard greens — that are essential to Southern and African-American cooking.

“They’ve already been in here asking us when the greens are ready,” 43-year-old volunteer Nicole Boone noted with a laugh, adding, “we just seeded them!”

She has been with the program since it began last year.

Nearby, Sarah Salvatore, another garden manager, is planting flowers to attract insects that will help avoid the need for pesticides.

“Food deserts are very easy to eliminate,” she said, hunched over her plants.

“We have to elect people that are putting their energy towards solving these issues,” Salvatore said, “because they’re solvable — they’re just underfunded.”

Warner Bros.’ new film “Black Adam” blew away all competition this weekend, leading the North American box office with an estimated take of $67 million, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.

A superhero origin story spun off from 2019’s “Shazam,” “Black Adam” stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the titular villain, a former slave endowed with miraculous powers by ancient Egyptian gods. 

“As a spinoff, this is a strong opening,” David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research said, adding that it was a “positive and steady step forward for DC Comics,” the generator of many superhero films.

In a distant second was another new release, Universal’s “Ticket to Paradise,” at $16.3 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period. Released earlier abroad, it has already taken in $80 million outside North America.

“This is a very good domestic opening for a romantic comedy,” Gross said. 

It stars two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, George Clooney and Julia Roberts, as a bickering, divorced couple who fly to Hawaii to try to sabotage their daughter’s wedding. 

With Halloween approaching, the next two films were both horror specials.

Paramount’s “Smile” dropped one spot from last weekend to third, taking in $8.4 million. Sosie Bacon plays a therapist whose grasp on reality is shaken by a horrifying event.

Next was Universal’s blood-soaked “Halloween Ends,” which dropped sharply from last weekend’s box-office-topping $41.3 million to just $8 million. Jamie Lee Curtis stars.

And in fifth was Sony’s family-friendly “Lyle Lyle Crocodile,” at $4.2 million.

Overall, it was a good weekend for Hollywood, with combined revenue surpassing $100 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were: 

“The Woman King” ($1.9 million)

“Terrifier 2” ($1.9 million)

“Don’t Worry Darling” ($880,000)

“Amsterdam” ($818,000)

“Triangle of Sadness” ($600,000)

Author Salman Rushdie lost vision in one eye and was left “incapacitated” in a hand after he was stabbed in the United States in August, his agent said in an interview published this weekend.

The 75-year-old writer, who had received several death threats after the publication of his “The Satanic Verses”, was stabbed several times in the neck and abdomen before he was due to give a talk in the state of New York.

Rushdie was then air-lifted to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery but his condition had improved in the weeks after.

“He’s lost the sight of one eye… He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso,” Andrew Wylie told Spanish daily El Pais, providing an update on Rushdie’s health.

The injuries “were profound… it was a brutal attack”, Wylie added.

He would not give any information about the writer’s whereabouts, or whether he was still in hospital, but said: “He’s going to live.”

The British author had lived in hiding for years after Iran’s first supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered his killing for what he deemed the blasphemous nature of “The Satanic Verses”.

The main suspect, Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from New Jersey with roots in Lebanon, was arrested immediately after the attack on Rushdie and he then pleaded not guilty during a hearing in New York state in mid-August.

The attack sparked outrage in the West but was praised by extremists in Muslim countries like Iran and Pakistan.

Kyiv’s energy operator on Sunday said scheduled power cuts have been introduced in the Ukrainian capital as Russia has repeatedly targeted the nation’s power network.

More than one million Ukrainian households have lost electricity following recent Russian strikes, according to the Ukrainian presidency, with at least a third of the country’s power stations destroyed ahead of winter.

Moscow announced a new incursion on Sunday, saying it had destroyed a depot in central Ukraine that was storing over 100,000 tonnes of aviation fuel.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday evening denounced “vile strikes on critical objects” by Russia after fresh attacks on energy facilities and power outages were reported nationwide including in western Ukraine — far from the frontline.

National energy operator Ukrenergo introduced “stabilisation shutdowns” in Kyiv on Sunday to “avoid accidents”, energy company DTEK said in a statement on its website.

The blackouts started from 11:13 am (0813 GMT) with consumers in Kyiv divided into three groups that will be “disconnected for a certain period of time”, DTEK said.

It added that the blackouts should last “no more than four hours” but may be longer “due to the scale of damage to the power supply system”.

DTEK reiterated calls for residents to use electricity “sparingly” and for businesses to limit their use of external lighting.

– ‘Save your strength’ –

In the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig, deputy mayor Sergiy Miliutin was dealing with emergencies and power outages from his underground bunker used as a venue for a children’s martial arts competition.

“I’ve reached a point where I just survive on my drive. You have to stay level-headed and save your strength. No one knows how long this will all last,” he told AFP.

The intensification of Russian strikes on Ukraine, particularly energy facilities, came after the bridge linking the annexed Crimea peninsula to mainland Russia was partially destroyed by an explosion earlier this month.

The incident was seen as another major setback for Moscow’s forces, which are battling to contain a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south and east of the country.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu held telephone calls with his French, Turkish and British counterparts to discuss Ukraine.

Shoigu conveyed “concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb'” in all three calls, the Russian defence ministry said.

Ukraine reported three deaths in an overnight Russian artillery strike in the Toretsk area, said a governor of the eastern Donetsk region.

In Russia itself, two lines of defence have been built in the region of Kursk near the border with Ukraine to deal with a possible attack, a local governor said Sunday.

The move came a day after the governor in the neighbouring region of Belgorod, which also borders Ukraine, said the construction of defence structures began in parts of the region.

The governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, also reported the death of two civilians in strikes on his region on Saturday, adding that 15,000 people were left without electricity.

– Kherson evacuations –

Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service offered a new accusation of alleged collaboration, saying it had detained two officials of Ukrainian aircraft engine maker Motor Sich on suspicion of working with Russia.

The SBU said the management of the company’s plant in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region — part of which is controlled by Russian forces — “acted in collusion” with Russian state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec.

“The suspects established transnational channel for the illegal supply of wholesale batches of Ukrainian aircraft engines to the aggressor country,” the SBU said, specifying that Russia used them to produce and repair attack helicopters. 

The power cuts and deadly strikes came as pro-Moscow officials in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson that Russia claims to have annexed urged residents on Saturday to leave “immediately” amid a “tense situation” at the front.

Kherson, the region’s main city, was the first to fall to Moscow’s troops and retaking it would be a major prize in Ukraine’s counter-offensive.

A Moscow-installed official in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told Russian news agency Interfax on Saturday that around 25,000 people had left Kherson city to the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Ukraine has denounced the removal of residents from Kherson as “deportations”.