BRUSSELS (AP) — Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.

Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, working with a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University, used Russian government data to shed light on one of Moscow’s closest-held secrets — the true human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.

To do so, they relied on a statistical concept popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than normal.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties. Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers. Reports about military losses have been repressed in Russian media, activists and independent journalists say. Documenting the dead has become an act of defiance, and those who do so face harassment and potential criminal charges.

Despite such challenges, Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian Service, working with a network of volunteers, have used social media postings and photographs of cemeteries across Russia to build a database of confirmed war deaths. As of July 7, they had identified 27,423 dead Russian soldiers.

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NATO will boost defense spending to help back Ukraine but the math is tricky. Just ask Luxembourg

BRUSSELS (AP) — When it comes to criticizing the NATO members who fail to spend enough on defense, tiny Luxembourg is an easy target.

One of NATO’s richest countries, and routinely ranked at the top of Europe’s economic growth tables, the Grand Duchy currently spends 0.72% of gross domestic product on its armed forces, according to the organization's estimates for this year.

That puts it at the foot of the 31-nation military alliance’s charts. Still, the numbers are deceiving, and that goes for other members too, like Germany.

Under a pledge made in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, NATO allies agreed to halt the spending cuts they made in calmer times after the Cold War ended, boost their national military budgets and move toward spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024.

With that target date closing in, and the biggest land war in Europe in decades ravaging Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts will commit to a new spending goal at their two-day summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius starting on Tuesday.

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Biden is off to Windsor Castle to have tea with King Charles and promote clean energy

LONDON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s itinerary this week in Europe is dominated by the ongoing war in Ukraine and his continued efforts to rally an international coalition against Russia's invasion of its neighbor.

But first, some tea.

The U.S. president’s initial stop on his three-nation trip is Britain, where he’ll meet with King Charles III for the first time since the latter was crowned in May. Biden did not attend Charles’s coronation, sending first lady Jill Biden instead, and Monday’s visit will be marked by a bit of royal pomp — including a royal salute, a viewing of U.S.-related artifacts at Windsor Castle and teatime for the two men.

Biden and Charles will also use their visit to bring attention to climate issues, hosting a forum that will focus on how to encourage private companies to engage in more clean energy efforts, specifically in developing economies.

“The president has huge respect for the king’s commitment on the climate issue in particular, that he has been a clarion voice on this issue and more than that, has been an actor, someone who’s mobilized action and effort,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, told reporters on Air Force One as Biden traveled to London. “So the president comes at this with enormous goodwill.”

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Families with transgender kids are increasingly forced to travel out of state for the care they need

CHICAGO (AP) — On an early morning in June, Flower Nichols and her mother set off on an expedition to Chicago from their home in Indianapolis.

The family was determined to make it feel like an adventure in the city, though that wasn’t the primary purpose of the trip.

The following afternoon, Flower and Jennilyn Nichols would see a doctor at the University of Chicago to learn whether they could keep Flower, 11, on puberty blockers. They began to search for medical providers outside of Indiana after April 5, when Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a law banning transgender minors from accessing puberty blockers and other hormone therapies, even after the approval of parents and the advice of doctors.

At least 20 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for trans minors, though several are embroiled in legal challenges. For more than a decade prior, such treatments were available to children and teens across the U.S. and have been endorsed by major medical associations.

Opponents of gender-affirming care say there’s no solid proof of purported benefits, cite widely discredited research and say children shouldn’t make life-altering decisions they might regret. Advocates and families impacted by the recent laws say such care is vital for trans kids.

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Man with knife kills 6 people at kindergarten in China before being arrested, police and reports say

BEIJING (AP) — A man with a knife killed six people and wounded one Monday at a kindergarten in southeastern China, police and a news report said Monday.

A 25-year-old man was arrested following the 7:40 a.m. attack in Lianjiang, a city in Guangdong province, a police statement said. Employees who answered at the Lianjiang police headquarters declined to give more details.

A news outlet, Dafeng News, cited an unidentified witness as saying the attacker’s child had been struck earlier by the car of one of the people who was killed at the school. It said one of the people killed was a teacher at the kindergarten.

Dafeng News on its website cited video posted online that it said showed a man carrying a knife walking past the kindergarten playground. It said other video showed at least four people in a pool of blood outside the school.

Attacks on kindergartens in China are reported regularly, usually blamed on grudges or mental illness, despite increased security ordered after some 20 children were killed in 2010. In 2020, a school guard was accused of injuring 39 people with a knife.

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Heavy rains cause flooding and mudslides in southwest Japan, leaving 2 dead and at least 6 missing

TOKYO (AP) — Torrential rain has been pounding southwestern Japan, triggering floods and mudslides and leaving two people dead and at least six others missing Monday.

Rains falling on the regions of Kyushu and Chugoku since the weekend caused flooding along a number of rivers as well as mudslides, closing roads, disrupting trains and cutting the water supply in some areas.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued an emergency heavy rain warning for Fukuoka and Oita prefectures on the southern main island of Kyushu, urging residents in riverside and hillside areas to take maximum caution. More than 1.7 million residents in vulnerable areas were urged to take shelter.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters the government has set up a task force and is doing its utmost for the search and rescue operation “as we put the people's lives first.”

Two people have died and at least six others were missing, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency and prefectural officials. A man was found dead in a vehicle that had fallen into a swollen river in Yamaguchi prefecture.

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Extreme flooding overwhelms New York roadways, killing 1 person

NEW YORK (AP) — Heavy rain spawned extreme flooding in New York’s Hudson Valley that killed at least one person, swamped roadways and forced road closures on Sunday night, as much of the rest of the Northeast U.S. began bracing for potentially punishing rains.

As the storm moved east, the National Weather Service extended flash flood warnings into Connecticut, including the cities of Stamford and Greenwich, before creeping into Massachusetts. Forecasters said some areas could get as much as 5 inches (12 centimeters) of rain.

In New York's Hudson Valley, rescue teams were attempting to retrieve the body of a woman in her 30s who drowned after being swept away while trying to evacuate her home. Two other people escaped.

The force of the flash flooding dislodged boulders, which rammed the woman’s house and damaged part of its wall, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told The Associated Press.

“Her house was completely surrounded by water,” he said.

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Trump and DeSantis begin eyeing Super Tuesday states as they prepare for 2024 long game

As the Republican presidential primary intensifies this summer, most White House hopefuls are devoting their time to events in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that kick off the nomination process early next year. Not Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump.

The Florida governor will address more than 1,500 faithful Republicans on Saturday at Nashville's Music City Center. A few weeks later, the former president will swing through Alabama to headline the state GOP's biggest event of the summer.

Trump, the early GOP frontrunner, and DeSantis, who is trailing him for second place, are hardly ignoring voters in the states that jumpstart the Republican contest. Over the past month, they've both held rallies and other major events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, sometimes even appearing in the same state on the same day.

But they are doing more than the other GOP candidates to strengthen their position in states like Tennessee and Alabama that will hold elections on so-called Super Tuesday. That's when the largest number of delegates, which candidates win state-by-state, are up for grabs of any single day in the primary cycle.

Only Trump and DeSantis, who have raised tens of millions of dollars to support their campaigns, have the resources to work in any meaningful way beyond the early states. And GOP leaders beyond Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina say it's a smart strategy.

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In search of a lost cemetery, dig begins at a former Native American school in Nebraska

Bodies of dozens of children who died at a Native American boarding school have been lost for decades, a mystery that archeologists aim to unravel as they begin digging in a central Nebraska field that a century ago was part of the sprawling campus.

Crews toting shovels, trowels and even smaller tools planned to start searching Monday at the site experts suspect is the Genoa Indian Industrial School cemetery. Genoa was part of a national system of more than 400 Native American boarding schools that attempted to integrate Indigenous people into white culture by separating children from their families and cutting them off from their heritage.

The school, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of Omaha, opened in 1884 and at its height was home to nearly 600 students from more than 40 tribes across the country. It closed in 1931 and most buildings were long ago demolished.

For decades, residents of the tiny community of Genoa, with help from Native Americans, researchers and state officials, have sought the location of a forgotten cemetery where the bodies of up to 80 students are believed to be buried.

Judi gaiashkibos, the executive director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, whose mother attended the school in the late 1920s, has been involved in the cemetery effort for years and was set Monday to travel to Genoa. She said it’s difficult to spend time in the community where many Native Americans suffered, but the vital search can help with healing and bringing the children’s voices to the surface.

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Morocco's historic Women's World Cup debut inspires girls even if some in the Arab world ignore it

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — The game was sparsely attended; it was midweek and the outcome wasn’t much in doubt: the Association Sportive des Forces Armees Royales, a powerhouse in women’s soccer here, ended up crushing its Moroccan women’s national professional league opponent 7-0.

Regardless, one young fan in the stands was excited from the get-go.

Wearing her hair in half-up pigtails and dressed in a jersey reading “Morocco” in Arabic, 5-year-old Aliae Benazzouza descended to the pitch to meet the players. A favorite of hers, Fatima Tagnaout, who plays for Morocco’s national women’s team and for the armed forces team known as ASFAR, embraced Aliae and held her hand as they posed for photos. Aliae waved at another player, calling her name. During the game, she would make her way to the front of the stands, pressing against a rail, for a better view.

“I was very happy,” Aliae said. Her mom, Souad El Khorchef, a teacher, said her daughter peppered her with kisses afterward in thanks for taking her to the game and asked to practice soccer. El Khorchef told her that is possible when she’s older.

After years largely in the margins, Moroccan women’s soccer is gaining new ground at home and beyond, capturing the imagination of some girls like Aliae, winning the hearts and minds of more parents, and chipping away at a traditional view of soccer as a men’s game. Morocco’s national team, the Atlas Lionesses, will make its debut this month at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the first to qualify from the Arab world, where many are wild for the men’s game.