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KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda’s military unveiled a monument to an older brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was killed during a hostage rescue operation in the East African country in 1976. The statue of Yonatan Netanyahu holding an assault rifle was unveiled on Saturday by Ugandan military chief Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who said he commissioned the monument to pay tribute to the soldier’s courage. Among those attending the ceremony were Israelis including Barak Orland, a businessman in Uganda. Kainerugaba is the eldest child of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his presumed heir apparent. The statue is outside the airport terminal in the town of Entebbe where Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu was struck by a bullet as he led Israeli commandos in a mission to rescue 106 passengers who had been taken hostage on an Air France flight. He was the only Israeli commando killed in the mission. “Today, this memorial stands not only in remembrance of a distinguished soldier, but also as a tribute to the enduring values he embodied: courage in the face of danger, unwavering commitment to protecting innocent lives, and steadfast devotion to duty,” Kainerugaba said at the ceremony. The hijackers, two Palestinians and two Germans, separated dozens of Jewish and Israeli passengers from the rest and threatened to kill them if Israel did not free dozens of Palestinian prisoners. A week of negotiations followed as Israel planned the rescue operation. The commandos broke into the airport on July 3, 1976 and saved all but three hostages killed in the crossfire. Dozens of Ugandan soldiers were killed in the operation that lasted less than an hour. Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who had severed ties with Israel, was a supporter of the Palestinian independence cause. Israel’s success humiliated and enraged Amin. The operation was criticized by the Organization of African Unity — the African Union’s predecessor organization — which saw the raid as a violation of Uganda’s sovereignty. The rescue is a seminal event in Israeli history, widely seen as one of the country’s greatest military successes, and the Israeli prime minister has previously said his brother’s death in the raid “changed the course” of his life. Ties between Uganda and Israel are cordial. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Numerous governments across Central and Eastern Europe are taking steps to conserve electricity and avert an energy crisis as record low water levels on the Danube River have forced power plants to the brink of shutting down. Persistent drought and successive extreme heat waves have deprived one of Europe’s largest rivers of water, pushing the Danube’s levels in Hungary’s capital Budapest to around 10 centimeters (4 inches) on Monday, well below the previous all-time low of 33 centimeters (13 inches) set in 2018. Water levels are not expected to rise on the Danube in the coming days or even weeks as no significant rainfall is forecast, and as a renewed extreme heat wave bears down on the region with daytime highs topping 38 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), electricity and water use are on the rise. The Danube’s record low levels have pushed Hungary’s only nuclear power plant, the Soviet-built, four-reactor plant at Paks, to the brink of powering down entirely for the first time in its 44 years in service. The Paks plant, which uses water from the Danube to cool its reactors, on Monday was producing only 240 megawatts of power rather than the usual 2,000 due to successive power-downs of its four reactors. In video posted to Facebook on Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said engineers had managed to keep the plan’s final operating turbine temporarily running, averting an expected shutdown on the weekend. A full power-down will likely only happen on Tuesday or Wednesday, Magyar said. “This is very good news, because the complete shutdown of the Paks power plant can still be avoided, at least temporarily, on one of the biggest consumption days,” he said. The Paks plant, located around 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Budapest, accounts for nearly half of Hungary’s electricity production and around a third of its consumption. Hungary has relied on regional electricity imports as well as renewable sources to try to make up for the deficit from the Paks plant. Hungary’s government last week asked major industrial users to curb their electricity consumption and sought voluntary savings from households in order to conserve supply, particularly in peak demand hours between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. It also announced that electric-powered freight trains would not be permitted to run during peak hours beginning on Monday in order to conserve an estimated 70 to 90 megawatt-hours of electricity per day. While conservation measures were initially voluntary, Magyar’s government on Saturday issued a decree allowing for them to be made mandatory for large industrial or commercial consumers. He said Monday that the conservation push had resulted in 700 fewer megawatts of electricity being used the previous day, and thanked Hungarians for their efforts. Meanwhile, plants in neighboring countries have also seen dramatic drops in power generation, as well as disruptions to shipping and agriculture. Romania’s military on Monday used 180 kilograms (397 pounds) of explosives to blast rock near the lower Danube’s Bala Canal in an effort to redirect water into the river’s main channel and toward the state-owned Cernavoda nuclear power plant. The Danube’s water flow has fallen to 1,500 cubic meters per second in Romania, less than a third of its July average. Authorities have already shut down one reactor unit at the Cernavoda plant, which is operating at about half its normal capacity. Acting Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced a nationwide state of alert in the energy sector on Friday, and warned that the Danube’s low water levels threatened the shutdown of Cernavoda’s second reactor. He appealed to citizens to voluntarily limit electricity usage in peak evening hours. In Serbia, record-low Danube levels have pushed the country’s key hydroelectric plant to operate with only 20% of its capacity, prompting Prime Minister Djuro Macut to preside over an emergency meeting on Monday focusing on energy problems. Macut appealed to residents to “minimize the use of big consumers of electricity in their homes, such as air conditioners.” He described the situation in a statement late on Sunday as “serious and demanding.” ___ Associated Press writers Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

TOKYO (AP) — Nissan Motor Corp. reported Monday that it returned to profit in the first quarter of the year, helped by cost cutting measures and improved sales in some markets. Nissan, based in the port city of Yokohama, said it recorded a 3.8 billion yen ($24 million) net profit January-March, a reversal from the 115.8 billion yen loss it racked up in the same period of 2025. Quarterly sales totaled 2.96 trillion yen ($19 billion), up 9.5% from 2.7 trillion yen a year earlier. Nissan has been in the red for the last two fiscal years, posting billions of dollars in losses, but its leadership has promised to return it to profit in this fiscal year, which ends in March 2027. Chief Executive Ivan Espinosa told reporters cost reduction efforts were gaining momentum. But difficulties remain in some global markets like the Middle East, while sales were growing in the U.S. and Japan, he said. “We are managing disruption where it exists, building momentum where we see opportunity,” Espinosa said. The war in Iran has recently effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for Japan’s exports to the Middle East. Nissan’s sales have suffered in China because of fierce competition from Chinese automakers that have taken the lead in electrification. The maker of Leaf electric vehicles and Infiniti luxury models lowered its annual sales projection to 3.15 million vehicles, on a par with the year before and down from an earlier forecast of 3.3 million units, largely because of the problems in China. Nissan is allied with Renault SA of France and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. of Japan and also has a partnership with Japanese rival Honda Motor Co., sharing technology and some parts. Espinosa said production lines were partially stalled due to the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck Kumamoto, southwestern Japan, last week. But no employees were hurt and no facilities, including those of Nissan’s partners, were damaged. The disruption is expected to last until Wednesday and affect 5,000 vehicles, he said. In the U.S., Japanese automakers are dealing with the negative impact from tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. After negotiations the tariffs were lowered to 15% from an initial 27.5% rate. They remain higher than earlier 2.5% rate. Higher material costs are another challenge. Nissan stuck to its earlier forecasts for a 20 billion yen ($127 million) profit on 13 trillion yen ($83 billion) in sales in this fiscal year. “Our focus is unchanged: Creating value for customers, improving profitability and free cash flow, and building a stronger, more resilient Nissan for the long term,” Espinosa said. ___ Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

EXETER, N.H. (AP) — A giant American flag hanging on the wall of a warehouse in New Hampshire hints at the national importance of the elements bound inside the mining waste stored in 1-ton bags. The company uses electrolysis to separate the key critical elements President Donald Trump’s administration desperately wants to produce domestically from the powder left behind at traditional mines. The small Phoenix Tailings refinery tucked inside an office park in Exeter, New Hampshire, could play a key role in helping America break the chokehold China has on the processing of critical minerals, but it will take 14 to 18 months to build a new factory with a $500 million loan from the Pentagon to drastically expand the company’s separation and metallization capacity, a particularly weak stage in the U.S. mines-to-magnets supply chain. The task that workers carry out in heat-resistant suits and sealed face masks has become more urgent with the war in the Middle East rapidly drawing down munitions because critical minerals are a key ingredient in widely used U.S. weapons systems such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, THAAD interceptors and F-35 fighter jets. While the White House is demanding military contractors speed up weapons production, it’s also imposing even stricter rules banning them from sourcing critical-mineral components from China. “It will be a tall order and a challenge to replenish these stocks and scale up in the time frame needed to meet defense demand and regulations,” said Anthony Balladon, the chief commercial officer and a co-founder. He said the company is working hard to greatly increase its capacity. Although the U.S. is quickening its pace to rebuild the domestic supply chain of critical minerals, free of control from its most formidable rival, most new U.S. mines are years away from reality, so extracting some of these hard-to-pronounce elements from existing mine waste can help satisfy the growing demand in the meantime. As its name indicates, Phoenix Tailings taps tailings, or waste from traditional mining, as well as recycled magnets and disk drives as the raw materials for separation and metallization, the stage at which China has the strongest hold. To make inroads, the company, based in Woburn, Massachusetts, plans to build a facility to extract and produce critical metals, such as neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, dysprosium, samarium and yttrium, which are needed in defense, aerospace and automotive industries. “We call it the Freedom facility because, ultimately, the purpose of this is to ensure that the entire Western Hemisphere, the United States and its allies are free of Chinese influence within the rare-earth space,” Balladon said. On a recent afternoon, two technicians in heat-resistant hazmat suits were operating an apparatus of cylinders, tubes, funnels and control panels set up on a platform with bright yellow railings. A chemical process involving electricity removes oxygen and turns the oxides feed into a grayish metal: neodymium-praseodymium, which can be used to make extremely strong permanent magnets used in fighter jets, missiles, radar systems and drones. The metals Phoenix Tailings refines and other critical minerals play “an outsized role” in defense systems, Balladon said. A $150 million weapons system won’t work if it’s missing critical minerals that may be worth only $20,000 to $30,000, he said. The U.S. defense sector is particularly reliant on samarium and needs 50 to 100 tons each year, but the U.S. capacity is very limited, he said. Phoenix Tailings is among the few companies capable of producing the final metal, according to Balladon, but its capacity is only about 200 kilograms (440 pounds) a year. He said the company will scale up to about 5 tons in the next three months but it will be next year or 2028 before it reaches its goal of 120-ton capacity. For years, the U.S. magnet maker Arnold Magnetic Technologies relied on China for samarium to produce the extremely strong, stable-in-high-temperature magnet that goes into precision-guided missiles such as the Tomahawks. That doesn’t work any more. For Arnold, the solution has come from a relic of Europe’s past rare-earth industry — abandoned mined dirt in the French city of La Rochelle. Solvay, a Belgium-headquartered chemical company, ceased operations to separate and process rare earths from the mined dirt in the 2000s. That was when China was building up most of the world’s processing capacities with a determination to dominate. Then came April 2025, when China weaponized its near-monopoly by choking the outflow of processed critical materials and forcing the U.S. government to back off in their trade war. It was then that Solvay restarted separating neodymium and praseodymium at the La Rochelle site, and this year it began to separate heavy rare earths such as samarium, dysprosium and terbium, a Solvay spokesperson said. “This ramp‑up is driven by several factors: rapidly growing demand for permanent magnets, increased geopolitical focus on supply chain security, and strong customer demand in Europe and the United States for more diversified, resilient and traceable sources of supply,” the company spokesperson said. In Rochester, New York, where Arnold is headquartered, higher costs by Solvay, as compared with China, have not been a deal-breaker, because the samarium-cobalt magnets that it manufactures account for only a small cost in a weapon system, said Matt Blake, chief executive officer of Arnold Magnetic Technologies. “They are not the absolute cost drivers,” he said. The surge in demand for such magnets has worked in the company’s favor, said Aaron Williams, the company’s chief commercial officer. “From our end, it’s a good opportunistic growth,” he said. Brodie Sutherland, chief executive officer of Patriot Critical Minerals Corp., which seeks to explore and mine tungsten in the U.S., is concerned that the U.S. will not be able to get by without China-sourced tungsten after Jan. 1, 2027, a deadline imposed by the Pentagon. The U.S. is fully dependent on imports, with China controlling roughly 80% of the global mine supply and an even larger share of downstream processing, Sutherland said. Efforts to ramp up U.S. production will take years, he said, and in the meantime the Pentagon and its defense contractors will need to rely on existing inventories, expanded recycling and limited non-China sources. The need to increase production has become more urgent as the war with Iran digs into the U.S. military’s already diminished stockpiles of advanced missile interceptors. This could force the U.S. and its Middle Eastern allies to take more risks to conserve those air defenses, potentially putting American troops at risk, according to an analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. It also has raised concerns that the U.S. military would have diminished firepower in any potential future conflict with China. CSIS warned in May that it could take at least three years to replenish stockpiles of the Tomahawks, Patriots and THAADs, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors. But just last month, Trump, a Republican, complicated the mission by announcing stricter controls on defense contractors sourcing critical materials from China. His executive order also curtails the Pentagon’s waiver authority should a contractor cite “non-availability” of a domestic source. It criticizes defense contractors for failing to prioritize domestic production. “It is the policy of the United States that not only the finished equipment deployed by our military, but also the critical materials and components necessary to manufacture, maintain, sustain, and repair that equipment, are sourced domestically or from allied nations,” the July 20 order declared. In a statement, Lockheed Martin said “we continuously assess the global rare earth supply chain to ensure access to critical materials that support our customers’ missions.” Several other major U.S. defense contractors, including Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman, didn’t respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment. Balladon is confident that U.S. companies and partners can rise to the task. “Ultimately, with the right support and partners across the industry,” he said, “we think we can make it happen.” ___ Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is planning a dramatic overhaul of Head Start that would gut its quality standards, upending the hallmarks of the early education program for impoverished children, two people familiar with the deliberations said. Head Start, established in the 1960s to help fight poverty, has long been considered by experts to be a gold standard early learning program. Its regulations, which stretch more than 100 pages, outline requirements on everything from child-to-teacher ratios and child health screenings to family engagement. The Republican administration would replace those regulations with around a dozen pages of rules, leaving most of the specifics up to state and local law, said the people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that was not yet public and because they feared reprisal. The draft rules would require more documentation from parents who are homeless or unemployed, the people familiar with the deliberations told The Associated Press. An early version of the proposal also would have barred parents who are in the United States illegally from enrolling their children, even if the children are U.S. citizens. It’s unclear whether those provisions will make the final draft. Head Start serves more than half a million low-income babies, toddlers and preschoolers nationwide. For families that qualify, it offers free preschool and screenings to identify developmental delays. It also offers supports for families. The changes to Head Start would deliver a win for conservatives who have sought wholesale elimination of it. The Trump administration would also further its efforts to eliminate regulations it views as onerous or unnecessary. If the changes take effect, they could make Head Start unrecognizable, said Khari Garvin, who ran the Office of Head Start under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. “We’d have the carcass of Head Start,” Garvin said. “You might have a program that’s called Head Start, but in substance it will not be.” The proposed rules were originally reported in The Bulwark. The White House, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, did not respond to questions about the changes. Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, said the organization has yet to see the proposed rules. But he said the potential for a massive overhaul has left the organization on edge. “We’re very anxious,” Sheridan said. “When it does come out … we’ll be ready to fight back where we need to fight back.” Still, he emphasized that Head Start centers might not be impacted for months, if the rules get on the books at all. Once the proposal is made public, federal law requires the administration to give at least a month for the public to weigh in on it. Then, once finalized, it may take more time for the rules to take effect. There’s also the potential for a lawsuit to halt implementation. Head Start was created as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and targets the myriad challenges that low-income households face. It serves children and adults alike, coaching parents on reaching their goals, connecting them with services and even employing them. Head Start operators, which include school districts and nonprofit organizations, are required to provide medical, dental and vision screenings for children and to monitor them for developmental delays. There’s also a curriculum framework and prohibitions on physical and emotional abuse of children. Many of the features that make Head Start distinct from mainstream preschools are spelled out in 122 pages of performance standards. The Trump administration’s proposal would toss most of that rule book and replace it with a much shorter version that eliminates or loosens many requirements, the people familiar with the proposal said. But the proposal also calls for some new regulations, such as requiring all instruction in English. Requirements around staff-to-student ratios and safety standards would be erased. Operators instead would be instructed to follow local and state laws, which are often far more permissive. And the new proposal also says nothing about suspensions and expulsions, the people said, making it easier for programs to kick out kids with disabilities who are difficult to educate. Head Start, which has enjoyed robust bipartisan support for decades, has faced several threats since Trump took office last year. Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint authored by the official who is now Trump’s budget chief, called for the federal government to get rid of the program altogether. Last year, in a draft budget, the administration proposed exactly that, saying: “The federal government should not be in the business of mandating curriculum, locations, and performance standards for any form of education.” After public outcry, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department oversees Head Start, told Congress the program’s funding was safe. Funding for the program was disrupted not long after Trump took office, leading some programs to have to shutter temporarily. It was once again halted after a government shutdown in October that led some centers briefly to close their doors. Earlier this year, Trump officials also erased a Biden-era rule that mandated raises and greater benefits for Head Start employees. When the rule went in to effect in 2024, Head Start teachers, the majority of whom have bachelor’s degrees, earned less than $40,000 a year on average. ___ Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed reporting. ___ The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com