KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Joe Biden paid an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the one-year anniversary of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine">Russia’s invasion</a>.

“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting with Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium flanked by U.S. and Ukrainian flags, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

Biden spent more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, consulting with Zelenskyy on next steps, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and meeting with U.S. embassy staff in the war-torn country.

The visit comes at a crucial moment: Biden is trying to keep allies unified in their support for Ukraine as the war is expected to intensify with spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to speed up delivery of promised weapon systems and calling on the West&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-fighter-jets-agenda-86c16d4b5164bfd8f1fe4697920dac27">to provide fighter jets</a>&nbsp;— something that Biden has declined to do.

The U.S. president got a taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year when air raids sirens howled just as he and Zelenskyy wrapped up a visit to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral.

Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed as they laid two wreaths and held a moment of silence at the Wall of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014, the year Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine.

The White House would not go into specifics, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that it notified Moscow of Biden's visit to Kyiv shortly before his departure from Washington “for deconfliction purposes" in an effort to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.

In Kyiv, Biden announced an additional half-billion dollars in U.S. assistance — on top of the more than $50 billion already provided — including shells for howitzers, anti-tank missiles, air surveillance radars and other aid but no new advanced weaponry.

Ukraine has also been pushing for battlefield systems that would allow its forces to strike Russian targets that have been moved back from frontline areas, out of the range of HIMARS missiles that have already been delivered. Zelenskyy said he and Biden spoke about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before.” But he did not detail any new commitments.

"Our negotiations were very fruitful,” Zelenskyy added.

Biden’s mission with his visit to Kyiv, which comes ahead of a scheduled trip to Warsaw, Poland, is to underscore that the United States is prepared to stick with Ukraine “as long as it takes” to repel Russian forces even as public opinion polling suggests that U.S. and allied support for providing weaponry and direct economic assistance has started to soften. For Zelenskyy, the symbolism of having the U.S. president stand side by side with him on Ukrainian land as&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-business-b34d8a533e88f1b8c67b841a9b18e5d8">the anniversary nears</a>&nbsp;is no small thing as he prods the U.S. and European allies to provide more advanced weaponry and to step up the pace of delivery.

“I thought it was critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the war,” Biden said.

Biden's visit marked a brazen rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his military would swiftly overrun Kyiv within days. Biden, a Democrat, recalled speaking with Zelenskyy on the night of the invasion, saying, “That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”

A year later, the Ukrainian capital remains firmly in Ukrainian control. Although a semblance of normalcy has returned to the city, regular air raid sirens and frequent missile and killer-drone attacks against military and civilian infrastructure across the country are a near-constant reminder that the war is still fiercely raging. The bloodiest fighting is, for the moment, concentrated in the country’s east, particularly around the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-longest-battle-bakhmut-893a2f22a73c68162c6cb3bbd62efe91">city of Bakhmut</a>, where Russian offensives are underway.

At least six civilians have been killed and 17 more have been wounded in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office reported. In the eastern Donetsk region, the Russian army was using aviation to strike cities on the front line. A total of 15 cities and villages have been shelled over the past 24 hours, according to the region’s Ukrainian Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, cities near the border with Russia came under fire. A missile strike hit Kupiansk, damaging a hospital, a plant and residential buildings.

Biden warned that the “brutal and unjust war” is far from won. “The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high. And the sacrifices have been far too great,” Biden said. “We know that there’ll be very difficult days and weeks and years ahead. But Russia’s aim was to wipe Ukraine off the map. Putin’s war of conquest is failing.”

“He’s counting on us not sticking together,” Biden said of the Russian leader. ”He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now. God knows what he’s thinking, but I don’t think he’s thinking that. But he’s just been plain wrong. Plain wrong.”

The trip gave Biden an opportunity to get a firsthand look at the devastation the Russian invasion has caused on Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians have been killed, millions of refugees have fled the war, and Ukraine has suffered tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure damage.

Biden, wearing a blue suit and his signature aviator sunglasses, pledged long-term support for Ukraine, saying that “freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for for as long as it takes.”

“And that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President, for as long as it takes,” Biden promised. Zelenskyy, speaking in English, responded: “We’ll do it.”

The Ukrainian leader, wearing a black sweatshirt, as has become his wartime habit, said through an interpreter that the “wide discussion” in their meeting “brings us closer to the victory” — hopefully, he added, this year.

“Right now, in Ukraine, the destiny of the international order ... is decided,” Zelenskyy said. He added words of gratitude to Biden and to the American people for their support. “Ukraine is grateful to you, Mr. President, to all the U.S. citizens, to all those who cherish freedom just as we cherish them."

Though Western surface-to-air missile systems have bolstered Ukraine’s defensives, the visit marked the rare occasion when a U.S. president has traveled to a conflict zone where the U.S. or its allies did not have control over the airspace.

The U.S. military does not have a presence in Ukraine other than a small detachment of Marines guarding the embassy in Kyiv, making Biden’s visit more complicated than other recent visits by prior U.S. leaders to war zones.

While Biden was in Ukraine, U.S. surveillance planes, including E-3 Sentry airborne radar and an electronic RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, were keeping watch over Kyiv from Polish airspace.

Speculation has been building for weeks that Biden would pay a visit to Ukraine around the Feb. 24 anniversary of the Russian invasion. But the White House repeatedly had said that no presidential trip to Ukraine was planned, even after the Poland visit was announced earlier this month.

Since early morning on Monday many main streets and central blocks in Kyiv were cordoned without any official explanation. Later people started sharing videos of long motorcades of cars driving along the streets where the access was restricted.

At the White House, planning for Biden’s visit to Kyiv was tightly held — with a relatively small group of aides briefed on the plans — because of security concerns. Sullivan said Biden gave final approval for the trip, which had been in the works for months, on Friday during an Oval Office meeting at which he was briefed on security plans for the visit.

The president traveled with an usually small entourage, with just a few senior aides and two journalists, to maintain secrecy.

Asked by a reporter on Friday if Biden might include stops beyond Poland, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “Right now, the trip is going to be in Warsaw.” Moments later — and without prompting — Kirby added, “I said ‘right now.’ The trip will be in -- to Warsaw. I didn’t want to make it sound like I was alluding to a change to it."

Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews near Washington at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, making a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday.

Other western leaders have made the trip to Kyiv since the start of the war.

In June, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled together by night train to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kyiv in November shortly after taking office.

This is Biden’s first visit to a war zone as president. His recent predecessors, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, made surprise visits to Afghanistan and Iraq during their presidencies to meet with U.S. troops and those countries’ leaders.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a gesture of solidarity that comes days before the one-year anniversary of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine">Russia’s invasion</a>&nbsp;of the country.

Speaking alongside Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace, Biden recalled the fears nearly a year ago that Russia’s invasion forces might quickly take the Ukrainian capital. “One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said, jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium decorated with the U.S. and Ukrainian flags. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

The Ukraine visit comes at a crucial moment in the war as Biden looks to keep allies unified in their support for Ukraine as the war is expected to intensify with both sides preparing for spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to speed up delivery of pledged weapon systems and is&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-fighter-jets-agenda-86c16d4b5164bfd8f1fe4697920dac27">calling on the West to deliver fighter jets</a>&nbsp;to Ukraine — something that Biden to date has declined to do.

Zelenskyy said he and Biden spoke about “long range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before.” But he did not detail any new commitments.

Biden also got a short firsthand taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year, as air raids sirens howled over the capital just as he and Zelenskyy were exiting the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral, which they visited together. Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed as they laid a wreath and held a moment of silence at the Wall of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014.

Biden's visit marked an act of defiance against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his military would swiftly overrun Kyiv within days. Biden recalled speaking with Zelenskyy on the night of the invasion, saying, “That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”

A year later, the Ukrainian capital remains firmly in Ukrainian control, and a semblance of normalcy has returned to the city as the fighting has concentrated in the country’s east, punctuated by cruise missile and drone attacks against military and civilian infrastructure.

Biden pledged long-term support for Ukraine, saying that “freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for for as long as it takes.”

“Right now, in Ukraine, the destiny of the international order ... is decided,” Zelenskyy said.

Though Western surface-to-air missile systems have bolstered Ukraine’s defensives, the visit marked the rare occasion when a U.S. president has traveled to a conflict zone where the U.S. or its allies did not have control over the airspace. The White House would not go into specifics but said that “basic communication with the Russians occurred to ensure deconfliction” shortly before Biden’s visit in an effort to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.

At the White House, planning for Biden’s visit to Kyiv was tightly held — with a relatively small group of aides briefed on the plans — because of security concerns. The president traveled with an usually small entourage, with just a few senior aides and two journalists, to maintain secrecy.

Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews near Washington shortly at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, making a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday.

🎥White House told Russians before Biden surprise trip to Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-guns-decision-58d01ef8bd48e816d5f8761ffa84e3e8">A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision</a>&nbsp;on the Second Amendment is upending gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books.

The high court's ruling that set new standards for evaluating gun laws left open many questions, experts say, resulting in an increasing number of conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to figure out how to apply it.

The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions. Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety, the justices said.

Under the Supreme Court's new test, the government that wants to uphold a gun restriction must look back into history to show it is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation."

Courts in recent months have declared unconstitutional federal&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-politics-crime-texas-violence-6d2af127ca14c65ca9a925645a5ee546">laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers,</a><a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-texas-donald-trump-gun-politics-indictments-8f33eb6f21597e6ee63272aa64d32520">felony defendants</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-oklahoma-state-government-new-orleans-city-c79d6fedc97ba657d2cab17f59354a95">people who use marijuana</a>. Judges have shot down a federal ban on possessing guns with serial numbers removed and gun restrictions for young adults in Texas and have blocked the enforcement of Delaware's ban on the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lawsuits-gun-politics-delaware-dover-39cc2a436ba0df094e9474ebd8d3d75d">possession of homemade “ghost guns."</a>

In several instances, judges looking at the same laws have come down on opposite sides on whether they are constitutional in the wake of the conservative Supreme Court majority's ruling. The legal turmoil caused by the first major gun ruling in a decade will likely force the Supreme Court to step in again soon to provide more guidance for judges.

"There’s confusion and disarray in the lower courts because not only are they not reaching the same conclusions, they’re just applying different methods or applying Bruen's method differently," said Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University's law school who focuses on firearms law.

“What it means is that not only are new laws being struck down ... but also laws that have been on the books for over 60 years, 40 years in some cases, those are being struck down — where prior to Bruen — courts were unanimous that those were constitutional," he said.

The legal wrangling is playing out as mass shootings continue to plague the country awash in guns and as law enforcement officials across the U.S. work to combat an uptick in violent crime.

This week,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/shootings-mississippi-town-arkabutla-caf3fbdbfcb31a3f8e4e3c3e777089ee?utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=TopNews&amp;utm_campaign=position_01">six people were fatally shot at multiple locations in a small town in rural Mississippi</a>&nbsp;and a gunman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/colleges-and-universities-michigan-education-shootings-153ab68bc4f108c2019bb138de2dc8fb?utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=TopNews&amp;utm_campaign=position_01">killed three students and critically wounded five others at Michigan State University</a>&nbsp;before killing himself.

Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, including&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/monterey-park-shooting-victims-98c7124322ca58ad5911f26b2b8efbf8">in California, where 11 people were killed</a>&nbsp;as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans. Last year, more than 600 mass shootings occurred in the U.S. in which at least four people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

The decision opened the door to a wave of legal challenges from gun-rights activists who saw an opportunity to undo laws on everything from age limits to AR-15-style semi-automatic weapons. For gun rights supporters, the Bruen decision was a welcome development that removed what they see as unconstitutional restraints on Second Amendment rights.

“It’s a true reading of what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights tells us,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “It absolutely does provide clarity to the lower courts on how the constitution should be applied when it comes to our fundamental rights."

Gun control groups are raising alarm after a federal appeals court this month said that under the Supreme Court's new standards, the government can’t stop people who have domestic violence restraining orders against them from owning guns.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that the law “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society." But the judges concluded that the government failed to point to a precursor from early American history that is comparable enough to the modern law. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said the government will seek further review of that decision.

Gun control activists have decried the Supreme Court's historical test, but say they remain confident that many gun restrictions will survive challenges. Since the decision, for example, judges have consistently upheld the federal ban on convicted felons from possessing guns.

The Supreme Court noted that cases dealing with “unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes may require a more nuanced approach.” And the justices clearly emphasized that the right to bear arms is limited to law-abiding citizens, said Shira Feldman, litigation counsel for Brady, the gun control group.

The Supreme Court's test has raised questions about whether judges are suited to be poring over history and whether it makes sense to judge modern laws based on regulations — or a lack thereof— from the past.

“We are not experts in what white, wealthy, and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791. Yet we are now expected to play historian in the name of constitutional adjudication,” wrote Mississippi U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

Some judges are “really parsing the history very closely and saying ‘these laws aren’t analogous because the historical law worked in a slightly different fashion than the modern law’,” said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.

Others, he said, "have done a much more flexible inquiry and are trying to say ‘look, what is the purpose of this historical law as best I can understand it?'"

Firearm rights and gun control groups are closely watching many pending cases, including several challenging state laws banning certain semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.

A federal judge in Chicago on Friday denied a bid to block an Illinois law that bans the sale of so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, finding the law to be constitutional under the Supreme Court's new test. A state court, however, already has partially blocked the law — allowing some gun dealers to continue selling the weapons —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-illinois-state-government-chicago-2df41f8cb43bf3ca28d7396b0b66b439">amid a separate legal challenge.</a>

Already, some gun laws passed in the wake of the Supreme Court decision have been shot down. A judge declared&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-new-york-gun-politics-syracuse-kathy-hochul-42523648662363126eccf9095a0f1678">multiple portions of New York’s new gun law unconstitutional</a>, including rules that restrict carrying firearms in public parks and places of worship. An appeals court later put that ruling on hold while it considers the case. And the Supreme Court has&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-politics-new-york-city-f5dc99fc3c348456beb8b9694948e18e">allowed New York to enforce the law for now.</a>

Some judges have upheld a law banning people under indictment for felonies from buying guns while others have declared it unconstitutional.

A federal judge issued an order barring Delaware from enforcing provisions of a new law outlawing the manufacture and possession of so-called “ghost guns" that don't have serial numbers and can be nearly impossible for law enforcement officials to trace. But another judge rejected a challenge to California's “ghost gun" regulations.

In the California case, U.S. District Judge George Wu, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, appeared to take a dig at how other judges are interpreting the Supreme Court's guidance.

The company that brought the challenge —“and apparently certain other courts" — would like to treat the Supreme Court’s decision “as a ‘word salad,’ choosing an ingredient from one side of the ‘plate’ and an entirely-separate ingredient from the other, until there is nothing left whatsoever other than an entirely-bulletproof and unrestrained Second Amendment,” Wu wrote in his ruling.

WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-guns-decision-58d01ef8bd48e816d5f8761ffa84e3e8">A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision</a>&nbsp;on the Second Amendment is upending gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books.The high court's ruling that set new standards for evaluating gun laws left open many questions, experts say, resulting in an increasing number of conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to figure out how to apply it.The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions. Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety, the justices said.Under the Supreme Court's new test, the government that wants to uphold a gun restriction must look back into history to show it is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation."Courts in recent months have declared unconstitutional federal&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-politics-crime-texas-violence-6d2af127ca14c65ca9a925645a5ee546">laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers,</a><a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-texas-donald-trump-gun-politics-indictments-8f33eb6f21597e6ee63272aa64d32520">felony defendants</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-oklahoma-state-government-new-orleans-city-c79d6fedc97ba657d2cab17f59354a95">people who use marijuana</a>. Judges have shot down a federal ban on possessing guns with serial numbers removed and gun restrictions for young adults in Texas and have blocked the enforcement of Delaware's ban on the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lawsuits-gun-politics-delaware-dover-39cc2a436ba0df094e9474ebd8d3d75d">possession of homemade “ghost guns."</a>In several instances, judges looking at the same laws have come down on opposite sides on whether they are constitutional in the wake of the conservative Supreme Court majority's ruling. The legal turmoil caused by the first major gun ruling in a decade will likely force the Supreme Court to step in again soon to provide more guidance for judges."There’s confusion and disarray in the lower courts because not only are they not reaching the same conclusions, they’re just applying different methods or applying Bruen's method differently," said Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University's law school who focuses on firearms law.“What it means is that not only are new laws being struck down ... but also laws that have been on the books for over 60 years, 40 years in some cases, those are being struck down — where prior to Bruen — courts were unanimous that those were constitutional," he said.The legal wrangling is playing out as mass shootings continue to plague the country awash in guns and as law enforcement officials across the U.S. work to combat an uptick in violent crime.This week,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/shootings-mississippi-town-arkabutla-caf3fbdbfcb31a3f8e4e3c3e777089ee?utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=TopNews&amp;utm_campaign=position_01">six people were fatally shot at multiple locations in a small town in rural Mississippi</a>&nbsp;and a gunman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/colleges-and-universities-michigan-education-shootings-153ab68bc4f108c2019bb138de2dc8fb?utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=TopNews&amp;utm_campaign=position_01">killed three students and critically wounded five others at Michigan State University</a>&nbsp;before killing himself.Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, including&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/monterey-park-shooting-victims-98c7124322ca58ad5911f26b2b8efbf8">in California, where 11 people were killed</a>&nbsp;as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans. Last year, more than 600 mass shootings occurred in the U.S. in which at least four people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive.The decision opened the door to a wave of legal challenges from gun-rights activists who saw an opportunity to undo laws on everything from age limits to AR-15-style semi-automatic weapons. For gun rights supporters, the Bruen decision was a welcome development that removed what they see as unconstitutional restraints on Second Amendment rights.“It’s a true reading of what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights tells us,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “It absolutely does provide clarity to the lower courts on how the constitution should be applied when it comes to our fundamental rights."Gun control groups are raising alarm after a federal appeals court this month said that under the Supreme Court's new standards, the government can’t stop people who have domestic violence restraining orders against them from owning guns.The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that the law “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society." But the judges concluded that the government failed to point to a precursor from early American history that is comparable enough to the modern law. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said the government will seek further review of that decision.Gun control activists have decried the Supreme Court's historical test, but say they remain confident that many gun restrictions will survive challenges. Since the decision, for example, judges have consistently upheld the federal ban on convicted felons from possessing guns.The Supreme Court noted that cases dealing with “unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes may require a more nuanced approach.” And the justices clearly emphasized that the right to bear arms is limited to law-abiding citizens, said Shira Feldman, litigation counsel for Brady, the gun control group.The Supreme Court's test has raised questions about whether judges are suited to be poring over history and whether it makes sense to judge modern laws based on regulations — or a lack thereof— from the past.“We are not experts in what white, wealthy, and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791. Yet we are now expected to play historian in the name of constitutional adjudication,” wrote Mississippi U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.Some judges are “really parsing the history very closely and saying ‘these laws aren’t analogous because the historical law worked in a slightly different fashion than the modern law’,” said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.Others, he said, "have done a much more flexible inquiry and are trying to say ‘look, what is the purpose of this historical law as best I can understand it?'"Firearm rights and gun control groups are closely watching many pending cases, including several challenging state laws banning certain semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.A federal judge in Chicago on Friday denied a bid to block an Illinois law that bans the sale of so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, finding the law to be constitutional under the Supreme Court's new test. A state court, however, already has partially blocked the law — allowing some gun dealers to continue selling the weapons —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-illinois-state-government-chicago-2df41f8cb43bf3ca28d7396b0b66b439">amid a separate legal challenge.</a>Already, some gun laws passed in the wake of the Supreme Court decision have been shot down. A judge declared&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-new-york-gun-politics-syracuse-kathy-hochul-42523648662363126eccf9095a0f1678">multiple portions of New York’s new gun law unconstitutional</a>, including rules that restrict carrying firearms in public parks and places of worship. An appeals court later put that ruling on hold while it considers the case. And the Supreme Court has&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-politics-new-york-city-f5dc99fc3c348456beb8b9694948e18e">allowed New York to enforce the law for now.</a>Some judges have upheld a law banning people under indictment for felonies from buying guns while others have declared it unconstitutional.A federal judge issued an order barring Delaware from enforcing provisions of a new law outlawing the manufacture and possession of so-called “ghost guns" that don't have serial numbers and can be nearly impossible for law enforcement officials to trace. But another judge rejected a challenge to California's “ghost gun" regulations.In the California case, U.S. District Judge George Wu, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, appeared to take a dig at how other judges are interpreting the Supreme Court's guidance.The company that brought the challenge —“and apparently certain other courts" — would like to treat the Supreme Court’s decision “as a ‘word salad,’ choosing an ingredient from one side of the ‘plate’ and an entirely-separate ingredient from the other, until there is nothing left whatsoever other than an entirely-bulletproof and unrestrained Second Amendment,” Wu wrote in his ruling.____

Turmoil in courts on gun laws in wake of Supreme Court ruling

By ADAM GOLDSTEIN <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/17/state-ag-officials-push-for-on-time-farm-bill-to-fund-slew-of-programs/">States Newsroom</a>

WASHINGTON — State agriculture 
officials from across the country sought this month to remind a new crop
 of lawmakers in Congress of their states’ needs for a robust farm bill 
to address a host of food issues.

Members of the National Association 
of State Departments of Agriculture gathered in Washington for their 
annual winter meeting in mid-February. They urged Congress to provide a 
timely, fully funded farm bill to address a wide range of issues 
affecting agriculture, including technology, conservation and foreign 
trade.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Throughout the two-day conference, 
members of the coalition stressed the bipartisan history of the bill and
 the importance of educating a new Congress on titles that support 
American food systems amid changing economic and environmental landscapes.&nbsp;

The state officials urged Congress to
 include nutrition programs in the farm bill, as past versions have 
done. They also advocated for bolstering crop insurance and allocating 
more money to research, animal safety, and conservation programs.&nbsp;

“It’s just a responsibility we have 
to make sure that all of our producers, our economies, our communities 
of every size have a forward-looking and fully funded farm bill,” NASDA 
president Doug Miyamoto, the director of the Wyoming Department of 
Agriculture, said in an interview.&nbsp;

Miyamoto was appointed to his state post by Republican former Gov. Matt Mead in 2015.

“We’ve got to make sure that we do 
this correctly,” he added. “We can’t start splintering off programs and 
splintering off ideas in the farm bill, and then hoping that we’re going
 to be able to get a comprehensive farm bill that’s on time.”

Mike Naig, secretary of the Iowa 
Department of Agriculture and an elected Republican, said it’s important
 for lawmakers — especially those who weren’t in office when the 2018 
bill was written — to remember that the measure is not just a farm bill,
 but a farm-and-food bill.

“There’s a lot of new members of 
Congress that have never had a chance to vote on a farm bill,” Naig 
said. “A lot of work has to be done to educate folks on that.”

Kate Greenberg, the commissioner of 
the Colorado Department of Agriculture who was appointed by Democratic 
Gov. Jared Polis, also advocated for considering nutrition and 
agricultural policy in the same bill to keep the “critical nexus point 
of production and consumers.”&nbsp;

She added members of Congress must put aside their differences to strengthen the “bread and butter of the American economy.”

“Let’s keep our heads down and focus 
on the impact of the policy and the appropriations on the American 
landscape in agriculture,” she said.

The five-year farm bill does not appropriate funding, which Congress does annually in&nbsp; separate bills. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-policy/farm-bill-spending/#:~:text=Mandatory%20funding.,not%20constrained%20by%20annual%20limits.">But it does authorize dollar amounts for discretionary programs</a>
 that set expectations for actual spending bills. Other programs 
authorize mandatory funding not subject to annual decisions by 
lawmakers.

Lloyd Knight, deputy director of the 
Idaho State Department of Agriculture, encouraged Congress to provide 
certainty to farmers across the country by finishing the farm bill 
before the current authorizations expire Sept. 30.

Mike Strain, the Republican 
commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, 
advocated for increasing funding for research and development of 
technology, especially as demand continues to outpace supply for U.S. 
agricultural goods.&nbsp;

Louisiana sugar production, for example, needs to be twice as efficient as it is today, he said.

Jeff Witte, director of the New 
Mexico Department of Agriculture, said research provisions would also be
 key for Western specialty crop farmers who <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/">need to address worker shortages.&nbsp;</a>

Farmers in the state have converted 
from vegetable crops to tree nuts because the labor was cheaper, he 
said. But that trend could lead to an unwanted imbalance in what food 
crops are available to consumers, he added.

“If we don’t start investing in 
technology that can do the harvesting of other produce crops, we’re 
going to get way too far behind,” he said.&nbsp;

Alabama Department of Agriculture and
 Industry Commissioner Rick Pate, a Republican, said developing foreign 
markets through the Foreign Agricultural Service should be a priority in
 the bill.&nbsp;

U.S. Under Secretary of Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor said<a target="_blank" href="https://www.fas.usda.gov/newsroom/testimony-usda-under-secretary-trade-and-foreign-agricultural-affairs-alexis-taylor-senate"> in a Feb. 1 Senate hearing</a>
 that for every dollar the U.S. invests in developing foreign markets, 
U.S. farmers see a $24 return in the value of their products.&nbsp;

“They think there’s a huge return on 
what travel we can do and the marketing program that they find through 
our organization,” Pate said. “So we just need to continue to take the 
farmer story to people.”

Naig added the new farm bill needs to modernize and reinforce the federal crop safety net.

“I just don’t want to see anything undermine the importance of the crop insurance program,” he said.&nbsp;

Naig said farmers had broad interest 
in market-based environmental incentives in the coming farm bill. 
Concepts like soil health and carbon sequestration have entered the 
mainstream of agribusiness, but farmers are still wary about their 
costs.&nbsp;

“What has to be acknowledged is that 
there’s costs associated with implementing some of these practices,” 
Naig said. “So if you want to see significant adoption, how do you help 
them achieve a return on that investment? If you do that well and do 
that correctly, you will get implementation at a scale that you couldn’t
 otherwise.”&nbsp;

Jordan Seger, deputy director of the 
Indiana State Department of Agriculture, said he hopes to see federal 
encouragement of public-private conservation partnerships. He touted 
Indiana’s work with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/enterprise-rent-a-car-foundation-pledges-30-million-to-the-nature-conservancy-to-improve-the-health-of-rivers-and-freshwater-ecosystems-301622428.html">the Nature Conservancy and Enterprise Rent-a-Car</a> to regrow wetlands and forests in the state.&nbsp;

“With about one dollar, we can get 
about seven or more dollars from the federal government, put that all 
toward private lands, and leverage each other’s resources and expertise 
to get things done quickly,” Seger said.&nbsp;

Randy Romanski, who was appointed 
secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and 
Consumer Protection by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, said Congress should 
use the farm bill to get a better handle on animal health, noting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/bird-flu-alarm-drives-world-towards-once-shunned-vaccines-2023-02-17/">outbreaks of avian influenza</a> that have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/past-outbreaks.htm">plagued the country since 2015.&nbsp;</a>

Congress could create a national warning network for emerging animal diseases, like avian flu and African swine fever, he said.

“Clearly, this is something that 
crosses state boundaries,” Romanski said. “We need to have systems in 
place to track, respond to and eradicate diseases when they show up.”

The coalition members said Congress 
should offer clear guidance and resources so states can make choices 
that suit their constituents.&nbsp;

The federal government should avoid 
placing mandates on conservation practices, Seger said. Increased 
collaboration between USDA agencies would also reduce paperwork for 
states, he added.&nbsp;

Knight, of Idaho, added that Congress
 must ensure federal programs are fully staffed. Clear guidelines on 
implementation that are flexible enough to accommodate the diverse needs
 of farmers throughout the country would also be key, he said.

“It’s a big country with a lot of issues and a lot of resources,” Knight said.

Colorado’s Greenberg said the bill also presents an opportunity to reinforce climate-related policies.&nbsp;

“The thing about climate change is 
that we’re all impacted, and our farmers and ranchers are on the 
frontlines,” Greenberg said. They’re the ones who are feeling and 
experiencing the changes in the environment, and they know it. So how do
 we address that, not just state-by-state, but as a nation?”

Members of the group predicted Congress would finish either by its fall 2023 deadline or next year.

Strain said he believed negotiations would likely bleed into 2024.

Regardless of the timeline, the bill 
must be funded appropriately, without an overemphasis on the nonpartisan
 Congressional Budget Office’s score, Strain said.

“You know, it always runs over, or we
 get to the threat of having to revert to the previous farm bill,” he 
said. “But the other thing is that when we pass it, we can’t pass it in 
such a manner as to just try to get a low CBO score.”

Others in the state agriculture 
delegation expressed cautious optimism over the prospects of a farm bill
 in 2023, noting that there would be consequences for U.S. farmers if a 
new bill is not passed on time.&nbsp;

“I’m really encouraged by what (U.S. House Speaker) <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2023/02/15/speaker-mccarthy-vows-pass-farm-bill">Kevin McCarthy said this week</a>,
 that they’re going to get it done,” Pate said. “People need to 
understand the impact of that kind of stuff. Just like a government 
shutdown, these things have consequences when they don’t get them done.”

By ADAM GOLDSTEIN <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/02/17/state-ag-officials-push-for-on-time-farm-bill-to-fund-slew-of-programs/">States Newsroom</a>WASHINGTON — State agriculture 
officials from across the country sought this month to remind a new crop
 of lawmakers in Congress of their states’ needs for a robust farm bill 
to address a host of food issues.Members of the National Association 
of State Departments of Agriculture gathered in Washington for their 
annual winter meeting in mid-February. They urged Congress to provide a 
timely, fully funded farm bill to address a wide range of issues 
affecting agriculture, including technology, conservation and foreign 
trade.&nbsp;&nbsp;Throughout the two-day conference, 
members of the coalition stressed the bipartisan history of the bill and
 the importance of educating a new Congress on titles that support 
American food systems amid changing economic and environmental landscapes.&nbsp;The state officials urged Congress to
 include nutrition programs in the farm bill, as past versions have 
done. They also advocated for bolstering crop insurance and allocating 
more money to research, animal safety, and conservation programs.&nbsp;“It’s just a responsibility we have 
to make sure that all of our producers, our economies, our communities 
of every size have a forward-looking and fully funded farm bill,” NASDA 
president Doug Miyamoto, the director of the Wyoming Department of 
Agriculture, said in an interview.&nbsp;Miyamoto was appointed to his state post by Republican former Gov. Matt Mead in 2015.“We’ve got to make sure that we do 
this correctly,” he added. “We can’t start splintering off programs and 
splintering off ideas in the farm bill, and then hoping that we’re going
 to be able to get a comprehensive farm bill that’s on time.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/2/1676754102896.jpeg" alt=" Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig (Courtesy of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship)" />
 <figcaption> Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig (Courtesy of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship)</figcaption>
 </figure>Mike Naig, secretary of the Iowa 
Department of Agriculture and an elected Republican, said it’s important
 for lawmakers — especially those who weren’t in office when the 2018 
bill was written — to remember that the measure is not just a farm bill,
 but a farm-and-food bill.“There’s a lot of new members of 
Congress that have never had a chance to vote on a farm bill,” Naig 
said. “A lot of work has to be done to educate folks on that.”Kate Greenberg, the commissioner of 
the Colorado Department of Agriculture who was appointed by Democratic 
Gov. Jared Polis, also advocated for considering nutrition and 
agricultural policy in the same bill to keep the “critical nexus point 
of production and consumers.”&nbsp;She added members of Congress must put aside their differences to strengthen the “bread and butter of the American economy.”“Let’s keep our heads down and focus 
on the impact of the policy and the appropriations on the American 
landscape in agriculture,” she said.The five-year farm bill does not appropriate funding, which Congress does annually in&nbsp; separate bills. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-policy/farm-bill-spending/#:~:text=Mandatory%20funding.,not%20constrained%20by%20annual%20limits.">But it does authorize dollar amounts for discretionary programs</a>
 that set expectations for actual spending bills. Other programs 
authorize mandatory funding not subject to annual decisions by 
lawmakers.Lloyd Knight, deputy director of the 
Idaho State Department of Agriculture, encouraged Congress to provide 
certainty to farmers across the country by finishing the farm bill 
before the current authorizations expire Sept. 30.<h2>Technology, foreign markets, safety net</h2>Mike Strain, the Republican 
commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, 
advocated for increasing funding for research and development of 
technology, especially as demand continues to outpace supply for U.S. 
agricultural goods.&nbsp;Louisiana sugar production, for example, needs to be twice as efficient as it is today, he said.Jeff Witte, director of the New 
Mexico Department of Agriculture, said research provisions would also be
 key for Western specialty crop farmers who <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/">need to address worker shortages.&nbsp;</a>Farmers in the state have converted 
from vegetable crops to tree nuts because the labor was cheaper, he 
said. But that trend could lead to an unwanted imbalance in what food 
crops are available to consumers, he added.“If we don’t start investing in 
technology that can do the harvesting of other produce crops, we’re 
going to get way too far behind,” he said.&nbsp;Alabama Department of Agriculture and
 Industry Commissioner Rick Pate, a Republican, said developing foreign 
markets through the Foreign Agricultural Service should be a priority in
 the bill.&nbsp;U.S. Under Secretary of Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor said<a target="_blank" href="https://www.fas.usda.gov/newsroom/testimony-usda-under-secretary-trade-and-foreign-agricultural-affairs-alexis-taylor-senate"> in a Feb. 1 Senate hearing</a>
 that for every dollar the U.S. invests in developing foreign markets, 
U.S. farmers see a $24 return in the value of their products.&nbsp;“They think there’s a huge return on 
what travel we can do and the marketing program that they find through 
our organization,” Pate said. “So we just need to continue to take the 
farmer story to people.”Naig added the new farm bill needs to modernize and reinforce the federal crop safety net.“I just don’t want to see anything undermine the importance of the crop insurance program,” he said.&nbsp;<h2>Conservation, food safety programs</h2>Naig said farmers had broad interest 
in market-based environmental incentives in the coming farm bill. 
Concepts like soil health and carbon sequestration have entered the 
mainstream of agribusiness, but farmers are still wary about their 
costs.&nbsp;“What has to be acknowledged is that 
there’s costs associated with implementing some of these practices,” 
Naig said. “So if you want to see significant adoption, how do you help 
them achieve a return on that investment? If you do that well and do 
that correctly, you will get implementation at a scale that you couldn’t
 otherwise.”&nbsp;Jordan Seger, deputy director of the 
Indiana State Department of Agriculture, said he hopes to see federal 
encouragement of public-private conservation partnerships. He touted 
Indiana’s work with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/enterprise-rent-a-car-foundation-pledges-30-million-to-the-nature-conservancy-to-improve-the-health-of-rivers-and-freshwater-ecosystems-301622428.html">the Nature Conservancy and Enterprise Rent-a-Car</a> to regrow wetlands and forests in the state.&nbsp;“With about one dollar, we can get 
about seven or more dollars from the federal government, put that all 
toward private lands, and leverage each other’s resources and expertise 
to get things done quickly,” Seger said.&nbsp;Randy Romanski, who was appointed 
secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and 
Consumer Protection by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, said Congress should 
use the farm bill to get a better handle on animal health, noting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/bird-flu-alarm-drives-world-towards-once-shunned-vaccines-2023-02-17/">outbreaks of avian influenza</a> that have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/past-outbreaks.htm">plagued the country since 2015.&nbsp;</a>Congress could create a national warning network for emerging animal diseases, like avian flu and African swine fever, he said.“Clearly, this is something that 
crosses state boundaries,” Romanski said. “We need to have systems in 
place to track, respond to and eradicate diseases when they show up.”<h2>State and federal collaboration</h2>The coalition members said Congress 
should offer clear guidance and resources so states can make choices 
that suit their constituents.&nbsp;The federal government should avoid 
placing mandates on conservation practices, Seger said. Increased 
collaboration between USDA agencies would also reduce paperwork for 
states, he added.&nbsp;Knight, of Idaho, added that Congress
 must ensure federal programs are fully staffed. Clear guidelines on 
implementation that are flexible enough to accommodate the diverse needs
 of farmers throughout the country would also be key, he said.“It’s a big country with a lot of issues and a lot of resources,” Knight said.Colorado’s Greenberg said the bill also presents an opportunity to reinforce climate-related policies.&nbsp;“The thing about climate change is 
that we’re all impacted, and our farmers and ranchers are on the 
frontlines,” Greenberg said. They’re the ones who are feeling and 
experiencing the changes in the environment, and they know it. So how do
 we address that, not just state-by-state, but as a nation?”<h2>Timeline in question</h2>Members of the group predicted Congress would finish either by its fall 2023 deadline or next year.Strain said he believed negotiations would likely bleed into 2024.Regardless of the timeline, the bill 
must be funded appropriately, without an overemphasis on the nonpartisan
 Congressional Budget Office’s score, Strain said.“You know, it always runs over, or we
 get to the threat of having to revert to the previous farm bill,” he 
said. “But the other thing is that when we pass it, we can’t pass it in 
such a manner as to just try to get a low CBO score.”Others in the state agriculture 
delegation expressed cautious optimism over the prospects of a farm bill
 in 2023, noting that there would be consequences for U.S. farmers if a 
new bill is not passed on time.&nbsp;“I’m really encouraged by what (U.S. House Speaker) <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2023/02/15/speaker-mccarthy-vows-pass-farm-bill">Kevin McCarthy said this week</a>,
 that they’re going to get it done,” Pate said. “People need to 
understand the impact of that kind of stuff. Just like a government 
shutdown, these things have consequences when they don’t get them done.”Cover image courtesy Pixabay

State ag officials push for on-time farm bill to fund slew of programs

By BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS and SHARON LURYE&nbsp;

KANSAS CITY (AP) —She’d be a senior right now, preparing for graduation in a few months, probably leading her school’s modern dance troupe and taking art classes.

Instead, Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ public school roll in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then.

She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic and didn’t resume their studies elsewhere.

An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/where-kids-went-nonpublic-schooling-and-demographic-change-during-pandemic">Stanford education professor Thomas Dee</a>&nbsp;found an estimated 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn’t move out of state, and they didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data.

“Missing” students received crisis-level attention in 2020 after the pandemic closed schools nationwide. In the years since, they have become largely a budgeting problem. School leaders and some state officials worried aloud about the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-chicago-race-and-ethnicity-a178d2dbe5d8e10d155b3f740da39609">fiscal challenges their districts faced</a>&nbsp;if these students didn’t come back. Each student represents money from the city, state and federal governments.

Gone is the urgency to find the students who left — those eligible for free public education but who are not receiving any schooling at all. Early in the pandemic, school&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/connecticut-nv-state-wire-virus-outbreak-us-news-ap-top-news-38c690c6db207bf585082fd25aa14b2d">staff went door-to-door to reach and reengage kids</a>. Most such efforts have ended.

“Everyone is talking about declining enrollment, but no one is talking about who’s leaving the system and why,” said Tom Sheppard, a New York City parent and representative on the city's Panel for Educational Policy.

“No one,” he said, “is forthcoming.”

The missing kids identified by AP and Stanford represent far more than a number. The analysis highlights thousands of students who may have dropped out of school or missed out on the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-education-race-and-ethnicity-atlanta-ff46418c59af90132998817731fe166a">basics of reading</a>&nbsp;and school routines in kindergarten and first grade.

That’s thousands of students who matter to someone. Thousands of students who need help re-entering school, work and everyday life.

“That’s the stuff that no one wants to talk about,” said Sonja Santelises, the chief executive officer of Baltimore's public schools, speaking about her fellow superintendents.

“We want to say it’s outside stuff” that’s keeping kids from returning to school, she said, such as caring for younger siblings or the need to work. But she worries teens sometimes lack caring adults at school who can discuss their concerns about life.

“That’s really scary,” Santelises said.

Discussion of children's recovery from the pandemic has focused largely on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-education-covid-46cb725e08110f8ad3c1b303ec9eefad">test scores and performance</a>. But Dee says the data suggests a need to understand more about children who aren’t in school and how that will affect their development.

“This is leading evidence that tells us we need to be looking more carefully at the kids who are no longer in public schools,” he said.

Over months of reporting, the AP learned of students and families avoiding school for a range of reasons. Some are still afraid of COVID-19, are homeless or have left the country. Some students couldn’t study online and found jobs instead. Some slid into depression.

During the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae">prolonged online learning</a>, some students fell so far behind developmentally and academically that they&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-san-francisco-mental-459a57d7c8f69d25f0c36780d41a65a7">no longer knew how to behave</a>&nbsp;or learn at school. Many of these students, while largely absent from class, are still officially on school rosters. That makes it harder to truly count the number of missing students. The real tally of young people not receiving an education is likely far greater than the 230,000 figure calculated by the AP and Stanford.

In some cases, this wasn’t sudden. Many students were struggling well before the pandemic descended.

Kailani, for one, had begun to feel alienated at her school. In ninth grade, a few months before the pandemic hit, she was unhappy at home and had been moved to a different math class because of poor grades.

Kailani has ADHD and says the white teaching assistant assigned to help her focus in her new class targeted her because she was Black, blaming Kailani when classmates acted up. She also didn’t allow Kailani to use her headphones while working independently in class, something Kailani says was permitted in her special education plan to help her focus.

After that, Kailani stopped attending math. Instead, she cruised the hallways or read in the library.

Ultimately, the pandemic and at-home education relieved the anxiety Kailani felt from being in the school building. Kailani preferred online school because she could turn off her camera and engage as she chose. Her grades improved.

When the school reopened, she never returned.

A Cambridge schools spokesperson looked into Kailani’s complaints. “Several individuals demonstrated great concern and compassion towards her and the challenges she was facing outside of school,” Sujata Wycoff said. She said the district has a “reputation of being deeply dedicated to the education and well-being of our students.”

To assess just how many students have gone missing, AP and Big Local News canvassed every state in the nation to find the most recently available data on both public and non-public schools, as well as census estimates for the school-age population.

Overall, public school enrollment fell by over 700,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years in the 21 states plus Washington, D.C., that provided the necessary data.

Those states saw private-school enrollment grow by over 100,000 students.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-business-health-buffalo-education-d37f4f1d12e57b72e5ddf67d4f897d9a">Home-schooling grew even more</a>, surging by more than 180,000.

But the data showed 230,000 students who were neither in private school nor registered for home-school. Their absences could not be explained by population loss, either — such as falling birth rates or families who moved out of state.

States where kindergarten is optional were more likely to have larger numbers of unaccounted-for students, suggesting the missing also include many young learners kept home instead of starting school.

California alone showed over 150,000 missing students in the data, and New York had nearly 60,000. Census estimates are imperfect. So AP and Stanford ran a similar analysis for pre-pandemic years in those two states. It found almost no missing students at all, confirming something out of the ordinary occurred during the pandemic.

The true number of missing students is likely much higher. The analysis doesn’t include data from 29 states, including Texas and Illinois, or the unknown numbers of ghost students who are technically enrolled but rarely make it to class.

For some students, it was impossible to overcome&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae">losing the physical connection</a>&nbsp;with school and teachers during the pandemic's school closures.

José Escobar, an immigrant from El Salvador, had only recently enrolled in the 10th grade in Boston Public Schools when the campus shut down in March 2020. His school-issued laptop didn’t work, and because of bureaucratic hurdles, the district&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/01e9302796d749b6aadc35ddc8f4c946">didn’t issue a new one for several weeks</a>. His father stopped paying their phone bills after losing his restaurant job. Without any working technology for months, he never logged into remote classes.

When instruction resumed online that fall, he decided to walk away and find work as a prep cook. “I can’t learn that way,” he said in Spanish. At 21, he’s still eligible for school in Boston, but says he’s too old for high school and needs to work to help his family.

Another Boston student became severely depressed during online learning and was hospitalized for months. Back home, he refuses to attend school or leave his room despite visits from at least one teacher. When his mother asked him about speaking to a reporter, he cursed her out.

These are all students who have formally left school and have likely been erased from enrollment databases. Many others who are enrolled are not receiving an education.

In Los Angeles last year, nearly half of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of the school year. For students with disabilities, the numbers are even higher: According to district data, 55% missed at least 18 school days. It’s not clear how many students were absent more than that. The city’s Unified School District did not respond to requests for this data.

Los Angeles officials have spoken openly about attempts to find unschooled students and help remove obstacles that are preventing them from coming to school. Laundry services have been offered, as has help with housing. But for some students and their parents, the problem sits within a school system they say has routinely failed their children.

“Parents are bereft,” said Allison Hertog, who represents around three dozen families whose children missed significant learning when California’s physical classrooms&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae">closed for more than a year</a>&nbsp;during the early pandemic.

Ezekiel West, 10, is in fourth grade but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-education-race-and-ethnicity-atlanta-ff46418c59af90132998817731fe166a">reads at a first grade level</a>. Before the pandemic shutdowns, he was shuffled from school to school when educators couldn’t address his impulsive behavior.

During online learning, his mother couldn’t get home internet and struggled with the WiFi hotspots provided by the school. She worked as a home health aide and couldn’t monitor Ezekiel online.

When he returned to school in fall 2021 as a third grader, he was frustrated that his classmates had made more progress as the years passed.

“I did not feel prepared,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I couldn’t really learn as fast as the other kids, and that kind of made me upset.”

An administrative judge ruled Los Angeles’ schools had violated Ezekiel’s rights and ordered the district to give him a spot at a new school, with a special plan to ease him back into learning and trusting teachers. The school didn’t follow the plan, so his mother stopped sending him in October.

“I can’t trust them,” Miesha Clarke said. Los Angeles school officials did not respond to requests for comment on Ezekiel’s case.

Last month, Ezekiel signed up for a public online school for California students. To enroll him, his mother agreed to give up his special education plan. His attorney, Hertog, worries the program won’t work for someone with Ezekiel’s needs and is looking for yet another option with more flexibility.

At least three of the students Hertog has represented, including Ezekiel, have disappeared from school for long periods since in-person instruction resumed. Their situations were avoidable, she said: “It’s pretty disgraceful that the school systems allowed this to go on for so long.”

When Kailani stopped logging into her virtual classes during the spring of her sophomore year, she received several emails from the school telling her she’d been truant. Between two to four weeks after she disappeared from Zoom school, her homeroom advisor and Spanish teacher each wrote to her, asking where she was. And the school’s dean of students called her great-grandmother, her legal guardian, to inform her about Kailani’s disappearance from school.

They didn’t communicate further, according to Kailani. She went to work at Chipotle, ringing up orders in Boston’s financial district.

In December, Kailani moved to North Carolina to make a new start. She teaches dance to elementary school kids now. Last month, she passed her high school equivalency exams. She wants to take choreography classes.

But she knows, looking back, that things could have been different. While she has no regrets about leaving high school, she says she might have changed her mind if someone at school had shown more interest and attention to her needs and support for her as a Black student.

“All they had to do was take action,” Kailani said. “There were so many times they could have done something. And they did nothing.”

This article is based on&nbsp;<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpurl.stanford.edu%2Fsb152xr1685&amp;data=05%7C01%7CCEThompson%40ap.org%7C6c49dd050c364343fca308db056e81a3%7Ce442e1abfd6b4ba3abf3b020eb50df37%7C1%7C0%7C638109744508543557%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=Q2qXinMTYpdx%2B2fXQuPpMwjpoiQ5WDHFw7aVfZptf1A%3D&amp;reserved=0">data collected</a>&nbsp;by The Associated Press and Stanford University’s&nbsp;<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbiglocalnews.org%2F&amp;data=05%7C01%7CCEThompson%40ap.org%7C6c49dd050c364343fca308db056e81a3%7Ce442e1abfd6b4ba3abf3b020eb50df37%7C1%7C0%7C638109744508543557%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=%2BPfvjrhaPp6kGP52BKK78SkRm8%2BwxQOl%2B%2FObzgO9KNo%3D&amp;reserved=0">Big Local News</a>&nbsp;project. Data was compiled by Sharon Lurye of the AP, Thomas Dee of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and Justin Mayo of Big Local News.

By BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS and SHARON LURYE&nbsp;KANSAS CITY (AP) —She’d be a senior right now, preparing for graduation in a few months, probably leading her school’s modern dance troupe and taking art classes.Instead, Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ public school roll in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then.She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic and didn’t resume their studies elsewhere.An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/where-kids-went-nonpublic-schooling-and-demographic-change-during-pandemic">Stanford education professor Thomas Dee</a>&nbsp;found an estimated 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn’t move out of state, and they didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data.In short, they’re missing.“Missing” students received crisis-level attention in 2020 after the pandemic closed schools nationwide. In the years since, they have become largely a budgeting problem. School leaders and some state officials worried aloud about the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-chicago-race-and-ethnicity-a178d2dbe5d8e10d155b3f740da39609">fiscal challenges their districts faced</a>&nbsp;if these students didn’t come back. Each student represents money from the city, state and federal governments.Gone is the urgency to find the students who left — those eligible for free public education but who are not receiving any schooling at all. Early in the pandemic, school&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/connecticut-nv-state-wire-virus-outbreak-us-news-ap-top-news-38c690c6db207bf585082fd25aa14b2d">staff went door-to-door to reach and reengage kids</a>. Most such efforts have ended.“Everyone is talking about declining enrollment, but no one is talking about who’s leaving the system and why,” said Tom Sheppard, a New York City parent and representative on the city's Panel for Educational Policy.“No one,” he said, “is forthcoming.”A PROBLEM NOT DISCUSSEDThe missing kids identified by AP and Stanford represent far more than a number. The analysis highlights thousands of students who may have dropped out of school or missed out on the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-education-race-and-ethnicity-atlanta-ff46418c59af90132998817731fe166a">basics of reading</a>&nbsp;and school routines in kindergarten and first grade.That’s thousands of students who matter to someone. Thousands of students who need help re-entering school, work and everyday life.“That’s the stuff that no one wants to talk about,” said Sonja Santelises, the chief executive officer of Baltimore's public schools, speaking about her fellow superintendents.“We want to say it’s outside stuff” that’s keeping kids from returning to school, she said, such as caring for younger siblings or the need to work. But she worries teens sometimes lack caring adults at school who can discuss their concerns about life.“That’s really scary,” Santelises said.Discussion of children's recovery from the pandemic has focused largely on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-education-covid-46cb725e08110f8ad3c1b303ec9eefad">test scores and performance</a>. But Dee says the data suggests a need to understand more about children who aren’t in school and how that will affect their development.“This is leading evidence that tells us we need to be looking more carefully at the kids who are no longer in public schools,” he said.Over months of reporting, the AP learned of students and families avoiding school for a range of reasons. Some are still afraid of COVID-19, are homeless or have left the country. Some students couldn’t study online and found jobs instead. Some slid into depression.During the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae">prolonged online learning</a>, some students fell so far behind developmentally and academically that they&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-san-francisco-mental-459a57d7c8f69d25f0c36780d41a65a7">no longer knew how to behave</a>&nbsp;or learn at school. Many of these students, while largely absent from class, are still officially on school rosters. That makes it harder to truly count the number of missing students. The real tally of young people not receiving an education is likely far greater than the 230,000 figure calculated by the AP and Stanford.In some cases, this wasn’t sudden. Many students were struggling well before the pandemic descended.Kailani, for one, had begun to feel alienated at her school. In ninth grade, a few months before the pandemic hit, she was unhappy at home and had been moved to a different math class because of poor grades.Kailani has ADHD and says the white teaching assistant assigned to help her focus in her new class targeted her because she was Black, blaming Kailani when classmates acted up. She also didn’t allow Kailani to use her headphones while working independently in class, something Kailani says was permitted in her special education plan to help her focus.After that, Kailani stopped attending math. Instead, she cruised the hallways or read in the library.Ultimately, the pandemic and at-home education relieved the anxiety Kailani felt from being in the school building. Kailani preferred online school because she could turn off her camera and engage as she chose. Her grades improved.When the school reopened, she never returned.A Cambridge schools spokesperson looked into Kailani’s complaints. “Several individuals demonstrated great concern and compassion towards her and the challenges she was facing outside of school,” Sujata Wycoff said. She said the district has a “reputation of being deeply dedicated to the education and well-being of our students.”LOSING THE PHYSICAL CONNECTIONTo assess just how many students have gone missing, AP and Big Local News canvassed every state in the nation to find the most recently available data on both public and non-public schools, as well as census estimates for the school-age population.Overall, public school enrollment fell by over 700,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years in the 21 states plus Washington, D.C., that provided the necessary data.Those states saw private-school enrollment grow by over 100,000 students.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-business-health-buffalo-education-d37f4f1d12e57b72e5ddf67d4f897d9a">Home-schooling grew even more</a>, surging by more than 180,000.But the data showed 230,000 students who were neither in private school nor registered for home-school. Their absences could not be explained by population loss, either — such as falling birth rates or families who moved out of state.States where kindergarten is optional were more likely to have larger numbers of unaccounted-for students, suggesting the missing also include many young learners kept home instead of starting school.California alone showed over 150,000 missing students in the data, and New York had nearly 60,000. Census estimates are imperfect. So AP and Stanford ran a similar analysis for pre-pandemic years in those two states. It found almost no missing students at all, confirming something out of the ordinary occurred during the pandemic.The true number of missing students is likely much higher. The analysis doesn’t include data from 29 states, including Texas and Illinois, or the unknown numbers of ghost students who are technically enrolled but rarely make it to class.For some students, it was impossible to overcome&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae">losing the physical connection</a>&nbsp;with school and teachers during the pandemic's school closures.José Escobar, an immigrant from El Salvador, had only recently enrolled in the 10th grade in Boston Public Schools when the campus shut down in March 2020. His school-issued laptop didn’t work, and because of bureaucratic hurdles, the district&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/01e9302796d749b6aadc35ddc8f4c946">didn’t issue a new one for several weeks</a>. His father stopped paying their phone bills after losing his restaurant job. Without any working technology for months, he never logged into remote classes.When instruction resumed online that fall, he decided to walk away and find work as a prep cook. “I can’t learn that way,” he said in Spanish. At 21, he’s still eligible for school in Boston, but says he’s too old for high school and needs to work to help his family.Another Boston student became severely depressed during online learning and was hospitalized for months. Back home, he refuses to attend school or leave his room despite visits from at least one teacher. When his mother asked him about speaking to a reporter, he cursed her out.These are all students who have formally left school and have likely been erased from enrollment databases. Many others who are enrolled are not receiving an education.In Los Angeles last year, nearly half of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of the school year. For students with disabilities, the numbers are even higher: According to district data, 55% missed at least 18 school days. It’s not clear how many students were absent more than that. The city’s Unified School District did not respond to requests for this data.WHEN SCHOOLS DON’T COME THROUGHLos Angeles officials have spoken openly about attempts to find unschooled students and help remove obstacles that are preventing them from coming to school. Laundry services have been offered, as has help with housing. But for some students and their parents, the problem sits within a school system they say has routinely failed their children.“Parents are bereft,” said Allison Hertog, who represents around three dozen families whose children missed significant learning when California’s physical classrooms&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/online-school-covid-learning-loss-7c162ec1b4ce4d5219d5210aaac8f1ae">closed for more than a year</a>&nbsp;during the early pandemic.Ezekiel West, 10, is in fourth grade but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-education-race-and-ethnicity-atlanta-ff46418c59af90132998817731fe166a">reads at a first grade level</a>. Before the pandemic shutdowns, he was shuffled from school to school when educators couldn’t address his impulsive behavior.During online learning, his mother couldn’t get home internet and struggled with the WiFi hotspots provided by the school. She worked as a home health aide and couldn’t monitor Ezekiel online.When he returned to school in fall 2021 as a third grader, he was frustrated that his classmates had made more progress as the years passed.“I did not feel prepared,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I couldn’t really learn as fast as the other kids, and that kind of made me upset.”An administrative judge ruled Los Angeles’ schools had violated Ezekiel’s rights and ordered the district to give him a spot at a new school, with a special plan to ease him back into learning and trusting teachers. The school didn’t follow the plan, so his mother stopped sending him in October.“I can’t trust them,” Miesha Clarke said. Los Angeles school officials did not respond to requests for comment on Ezekiel’s case.Last month, Ezekiel signed up for a public online school for California students. To enroll him, his mother agreed to give up his special education plan. His attorney, Hertog, worries the program won’t work for someone with Ezekiel’s needs and is looking for yet another option with more flexibility.At least three of the students Hertog has represented, including Ezekiel, have disappeared from school for long periods since in-person instruction resumed. Their situations were avoidable, she said: “It’s pretty disgraceful that the school systems allowed this to go on for so long.”When Kailani stopped logging into her virtual classes during the spring of her sophomore year, she received several emails from the school telling her she’d been truant. Between two to four weeks after she disappeared from Zoom school, her homeroom advisor and Spanish teacher each wrote to her, asking where she was. And the school’s dean of students called her great-grandmother, her legal guardian, to inform her about Kailani’s disappearance from school.They didn’t communicate further, according to Kailani. She went to work at Chipotle, ringing up orders in Boston’s financial district.In December, Kailani moved to North Carolina to make a new start. She teaches dance to elementary school kids now. Last month, she passed her high school equivalency exams. She wants to take choreography classes.But she knows, looking back, that things could have been different. While she has no regrets about leaving high school, she says she might have changed her mind if someone at school had shown more interest and attention to her needs and support for her as a Black student.“All they had to do was take action,” Kailani said. “There were so many times they could have done something. And they did nothing.”___This article is based on&nbsp;<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpurl.stanford.edu%2Fsb152xr1685&amp;data=05%7C01%7CCEThompson%40ap.org%7C6c49dd050c364343fca308db056e81a3%7Ce442e1abfd6b4ba3abf3b020eb50df37%7C1%7C0%7C638109744508543557%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=Q2qXinMTYpdx%2B2fXQuPpMwjpoiQ5WDHFw7aVfZptf1A%3D&amp;reserved=0">data collected</a>&nbsp;by The Associated Press and Stanford University’s&nbsp;<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbiglocalnews.org%2F&amp;data=05%7C01%7CCEThompson%40ap.org%7C6c49dd050c364343fca308db056e81a3%7Ce442e1abfd6b4ba3abf3b020eb50df37%7C1%7C0%7C638109744508543557%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=%2BPfvjrhaPp6kGP52BKK78SkRm8%2BwxQOl%2B%2FObzgO9KNo%3D&amp;reserved=0">Big Local News</a>&nbsp;project. Data was compiled by Sharon Lurye of the AP, Thomas Dee of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and Justin Mayo of Big Local News.

The pandemic missing: The kids who didn’t go back to school

MUNICH (AP) — The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that “justice must be served” to the perpetrators.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said the international community has both a moral and a strategic interest in pursuing those crimes, pointing to a danger of other authoritarian governments taking advantage&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-taiwan-nato-politics-government-4a74d1ef5377663e003688814e921326">if international rules are undermined</a>.

“Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population — gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation,” Harris said. She also cited “execution-style killings, beatings, and electrocution.”

The Biden administration formally determined last March that Russian troops had&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-europe-antony-blinken-nato-fa0786b41cd876208771017aa1abab13">committed war crimes</a>&nbsp;in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute offenders. A determination of crimes against humanity goes a step further, indicating that attacks against civilians are being carried out in a widespread and systematic manner.

“Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people, from Ukraine to Russia, including children,” Harris said. “They have cruelly separated children from their families."

She also pointed to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/Russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-theater-c321a196fbd568899841b506afcac7a1">the attack in mid-March on a theater</a>&nbsp;in the strategic port city of Mariupol where civilians had been sheltering, which killed hundreds, and to the images of civilians' bodies left on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bucha-ukraine-war-cleansing-investigation-43e5a9538e9ba68a035756b05028b8b4">the streets of Bucha</a>&nbsp;after the Russian pullback from the Kyiv area last spring.

Harris said that, as a former prosecutor and former head of California's Department of Justice, she knows “the importance of gathering facts and holding them up against the law.”

“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt,” she said. “These are crimes against humanity.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also was attending the Munich conference, said in a statement issued as Harris spoke that “we reserve crimes against humanity determinations for the most egregious crimes.”

The new determination underlines the “staggering extent” of suffering inflicted on Ukrainian civilians and “also reflects the deep commitment of the United States to holding members of Russia’s forces and other Russian officials accountable for their atrocities,” he said.

Russia's nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-one-year-anniversary-timeline-a1304c6fb319bf1c0e93635f6f6a2633">yearlong invasion of Ukraine</a>, has dominated discussions at the Munich conference, an annual gathering of security and defense officials from around the world. Harris told the assembled participants: "Let us all agree — on behalf of all the victims, both known and unknown, justice must be served.”

“Such is our moral interest,” she said. “We also have a significant strategic interest.”

“No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity, where a country with imperialist ambitions can go unchecked,” Harris added.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in attacking international rules and norms, “other nations could feel emboldened to follow his violent example,” she said. “Other authoritarian powers could seek to bend the world to their will, through coercion, disinformation and even brute force.”

Harris' audience Saturday didn't include any Russian officials. Conference organizers decided not to invite them this year.

Amid the Western officials defending&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-military-technology-business-55e3f4ef1696ca381e069883d5836399">arms supplies to Ukraine</a>, China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, stood out by calling for an end to the war through peace talks, saying Beijing was “deeply worried about the expansion and long-term effect of this war."

China has refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine or to impose sanctions on Moscow like Western nations have done. Without naming any countries, Wang said “there may be forces” that don't want the war to stop anytime soon.

“What they care about is not the life and death of the Ukrainian people, nor the increasing damage to Europe. They probably have bigger strategic goals than Ukraine,” he said.

Wang said Beijing planned to present a “position paper on the political settlement of the Ukraine issue” that would reiterate proposals made by President Xi Jinping.

Asked on the sidelines of the event about the U.S. determination of crimes against humanity, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba replied that “Russia waged a genocidal war&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-faded-portraits-photography-a8b50e53bb240db11b9c5c727ef1526f">against Ukrainians</a>&nbsp;because they do not recognize our identity and they do not think we deserve to exist as a sovereign nation."

“Everything that stems from that is crimes against humanity, war crimes and various other atrocities committed by the Russian army in the territory of Ukraine,” he said. "Let lawyers sort out specifically which act belongs where in terms of legal qualification.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Western allies in a video address to the Munich conference on Friday to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-munich-security-conference-7ed99788ed3520b0f759e11ce67a8694">quicken their military support</a>&nbsp;for Ukraine, declaring that “it’s speed that life depends on.”

MUNICH (AP) — The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that “justice must be served” to the perpetrators.Click below to watch the address<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FVicePresident%2Fvideos%2F611532894140850%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=28" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></div>Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said the international community has both a moral and a strategic interest in pursuing those crimes, pointing to a danger of other authoritarian governments taking advantage&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-taiwan-nato-politics-government-4a74d1ef5377663e003688814e921326">if international rules are undermined</a>.“Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population — gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation,” Harris said. She also cited “execution-style killings, beatings, and electrocution.”The Biden administration formally determined last March that Russian troops had&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-europe-antony-blinken-nato-fa0786b41cd876208771017aa1abab13">committed war crimes</a>&nbsp;in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute offenders. A determination of crimes against humanity goes a step further, indicating that attacks against civilians are being carried out in a widespread and systematic manner.“Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people, from Ukraine to Russia, including children,” Harris said. “They have cruelly separated children from their families."She also pointed to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/Russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-theater-c321a196fbd568899841b506afcac7a1">the attack in mid-March on a theater</a>&nbsp;in the strategic port city of Mariupol where civilians had been sheltering, which killed hundreds, and to the images of civilians' bodies left on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bucha-ukraine-war-cleansing-investigation-43e5a9538e9ba68a035756b05028b8b4">the streets of Bucha</a>&nbsp;after the Russian pullback from the Kyiv area last spring.Harris said that, as a former prosecutor and former head of California's Department of Justice, she knows “the importance of gathering facts and holding them up against the law.”“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt,” she said. “These are crimes against humanity.”U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also was attending the Munich conference, said in a statement issued as Harris spoke that “we reserve crimes against humanity determinations for the most egregious crimes.”The new determination underlines the “staggering extent” of suffering inflicted on Ukrainian civilians and “also reflects the deep commitment of the United States to holding members of Russia’s forces and other Russian officials accountable for their atrocities,” he said.Russia's nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-one-year-anniversary-timeline-a1304c6fb319bf1c0e93635f6f6a2633">yearlong invasion of Ukraine</a>, has dominated discussions at the Munich conference, an annual gathering of security and defense officials from around the world. Harris told the assembled participants: "Let us all agree — on behalf of all the victims, both known and unknown, justice must be served.”“Such is our moral interest,” she said. “We also have a significant strategic interest.”“No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity, where a country with imperialist ambitions can go unchecked,” Harris added.If Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in attacking international rules and norms, “other nations could feel emboldened to follow his violent example,” she said. “Other authoritarian powers could seek to bend the world to their will, through coercion, disinformation and even brute force.”Harris' audience Saturday didn't include any Russian officials. Conference organizers decided not to invite them this year.Amid the Western officials defending&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-military-technology-business-55e3f4ef1696ca381e069883d5836399">arms supplies to Ukraine</a>, China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, stood out by calling for an end to the war through peace talks, saying Beijing was “deeply worried about the expansion and long-term effect of this war."China has refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine or to impose sanctions on Moscow like Western nations have done. Without naming any countries, Wang said “there may be forces” that don't want the war to stop anytime soon.“What they care about is not the life and death of the Ukrainian people, nor the increasing damage to Europe. They probably have bigger strategic goals than Ukraine,” he said.Wang said Beijing planned to present a “position paper on the political settlement of the Ukraine issue” that would reiterate proposals made by President Xi Jinping.Asked on the sidelines of the event about the U.S. determination of crimes against humanity, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba replied that “Russia waged a genocidal war&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-faded-portraits-photography-a8b50e53bb240db11b9c5c727ef1526f">against Ukrainians</a>&nbsp;because they do not recognize our identity and they do not think we deserve to exist as a sovereign nation."“Everything that stems from that is crimes against humanity, war crimes and various other atrocities committed by the Russian army in the territory of Ukraine,” he said. "Let lawyers sort out specifically which act belongs where in terms of legal qualification.”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Western allies in a video address to the Munich conference on Friday to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-munich-security-conference-7ed99788ed3520b0f759e11ce67a8694">quicken their military support</a>&nbsp;for Ukraine, declaring that “it’s speed that life depends on.”Kuleba voiced confidence that Ukraine would eventually receive fighter jets from its partners, despite their current reluctance. He noted that they initially pushed back on providing other heavy weapons that were later delivered or promised, “so the only outstanding type of weapon is planes."In Munch on Friday, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, called for cluster munitions and phosphorous bombs, German media reported. Cluster munitions are banned by an international treaty.Asked whether he supported calling for such weapons, Kuleba said Ukraine has evidence that Russia uses them.“We are not party to the convention on the prohibition of cluster ammunition, so legally there are no obstacles for that,” he said. “And if we receive one, we will be using it exclusively against military forces of the Russian Federation.”___