RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.

An indictment unsealed on Thursday charged Lucas and six other defendants, including several of her relatives, the Department of Justice said in a statement ahead of a scheduled news conference. Lucas surrendered, a Justice Department spokesperson said.

The charges, including drug trafficking and money laundering, came after the FBI searched Lucas’ hometown office and a cannabis shop in which she has a stake in May. At the time of the search, Lucas — who has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump’s administration — characterized it as an attempt to intimidate her.

“This is the circus we always expected it to be, and we will wait for further details to have a more specific response,” said Brian Woolfolk, chief counsel for the L. Louise Lucas Legal Defense Fund.

In a statement on social media about the charges, Lucas said: “Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother. I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back, and I’m not stopping now.”

Luca has spent decades ascending the ranks of Virginia politics and has served since 1992 in the state Senate, where she is the president pro tempore, overseeing the chamber in the lieutenant governor’s absence. More significantly, she leads the powerful Senate finance committee, through which all legislation with any budget impact must flow. She has used the position to stop and ultimately kill legislation she opposes.

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the charges allege “Lucas and a close-knit group of family members and associates orchestrated a multi-year scheme to enrich their own criminal marijuana enterprise, ‘the Lucas Enterprise’ — using Lucas’ position as Chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee to insulate the enterprise from criminal scrutiny and influencing legislation to financially benefit themselves.”

“No one is above the law,” the statement said, “and this FBI will continue to follow the facts with our Justice Department and ensure those responsible for criminal conduct are held accountable.”

Lucas has been a leading voice in Democrats’ ultimately failed attempt to redistrict the state’s congressional map this year, a bid to hedge against Republican efforts in other states to redraw maps for their advantage in midterm elections.

A forceful advocate of legalizing marijuana, Lucas partnered in opening the shop, The Cannabis Outlet, in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 2021, selling hemp and CBD products. While marijuana is legal to possess in Virginia, recreational retail sales of the drug are not yet underway, though shops across the state do sell other cannabis-derived products.

Lucas also runs a network of companies that provide residential, transportation and other services to adults with intellectual disabilities.

Court records related to the case for months have been sealed, though earlier this year the Department of Justice sent at least two rounds of letters notifying journalists, politicians and others in Lucas’ orbit that their communications with Lucas had been intercepted as part of a court-approved wiretap that ran for two one-month time spans.

At the time of the search, many Democrats spoke up to defend Lucas, expressing skepticism about the basis for the search, given the Justice Department’s efforts to establish criminal conduct by perceived Trump opponents.

Lucas has publicly spoken about her ownership stake in the cannabis shop as recently as June, though her most recent financial disclosure forms do not list the business by name.

Lucas amassed a six-figure following on X, using the social media platform to advocate forcefully for her priorities and to bash her critics, including former GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin. She’s also occasionally blasted members of her own party, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, with whom she’s had disagreements.

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BRUSSELS (AP) — The International Criminal Court and its embattled staff have won the European Union’s top human rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, an official said Thursday.

The award came just days after the Trump administration announced sweeping new sanctions on the court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, as part of its campaign to dismantle the tribunal over investigations into the United States and its allies, including Israel.

“The European Union is built on respect for multilateralism and international institutions, and this prize recognizes the important work of the court in upholding international law and justice,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said.

Her announcement at the parliament in Strasbourg, France, was greeted with a standing ovation.

The annual EU award, named after Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and basic freedoms.

A court under fire welcomes the award

ICC President Tomoko Akane of Japan welcomed the award, saying that it “comes at a time when the court and its officials face unprecedented challenges.”

“Against this backdrop, the Sakharov Prize carries particular significance, reaffirming the importance of independent judicial institutions and of those who work to uphold international law,” she said in a statement.

The ICC opened in 2002 as a court of last resort to prosecute senior leaders it deems responsible for crimes that, according to its founding treaty, “deeply shock the conscience of humanity.” It has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.

The Trump administration’s sanctions cut off the court from U.S.-based financial services, technology companies, and even the use of U.S. dollars. They set a six-month timeline for U.S. companies and individuals that have business with the court to wind that business down.

The EU considers options to respond

In a statement after their summit last week, EU leaders said that the 27-nation bloc “deeply regrets” the Trump administration’s sanctions move and “urges the United States to reverse these latest measures.”

They noted that the U.S. has delayed the full impact of the sanctions by six months, and that “this creates space for diplomacy,” and expressed hope that the measures can ultimately be reversed.

Should diplomacy fail, however, the leaders insisted on “the EU’s readiness to take all necessary measures.”

They tasked the European Commission “to take all appropriate initiatives” to help protect the ICC and mitigate the impact of the sanctions, “specifically towards EU companies so that they can continue providing services to the Court.”

One possible retaliatory measure is the EU “blocking statute,” which could be used to protect European court staff, and possibly the Dutch-based court itself, by preventing European companies from complying with the U.S. measures.

An award for when rights and justice come under attack

The ICC and its officials were nominated for the prize by the Socialist and Democrats group in the European Parliament. The group, which unites center-left parties across Europe, said that it was “proud to have put forward their candidacy at a time when international justice is under attack.”

The Sakharov winner is chosen by the European Parliament’s president and top EU lawmakers from among candidates nominated by the parliament’s various political groups. The assembly says the award is “the highest tribute paid by the European Union to human rights work.”

Imprisoned Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu and Taraneh and Romina Rahimi — twins being held in prison for taking part in demonstrations against the Iranian government — were the others to make the EU shortlist.

Last year’s prize went to journalists Andrzej Poczobut and Mzia Amaghlobeli, who were imprisoned in Belarus and Georgia, respectively. Metsola said at the time that “their courage has made them symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy.”

Several Sakharov laureates, including Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, picked up the Sakharov Prize in 2024.

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El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said Wednesday he had launched a military operation to rescue four Salvadoran aviation technicians kidnapped by gangs in Haiti.

(Image credit: Odelyn Joseph)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks on Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Thursday killed one person and wounded 22, Ukrainian authorities said. The strikes in Kyiv came hours after the Kremlin agreed to restart U.S.-brokered talks aimed at ending the war.

The attack damaged homes, transportation infrastructure and other civilian sites in several districts of the city, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. In the Dniprovskyi district, on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, one person was killed and six were wounded, including a child, as fires broke out.

On Wednesday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed “in principle” to resume three-way negotiations involving Russia, the United States and Ukraine after Nov. 10, a week after the U.S. midterm election. Putin had met with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy backed the push for new talks, but was cautious.

“We’ll see what happens this time,” he said shortly before missile alerts sounded over Kyiv.

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North Korea plans to resume anti-Seoul propaganda broadcasts along the heavily armed border with South Korea, leader Kim Jong Un's sister said, reviving a psychological warfare campaign.

(Image credit: Ahn Young-joon)

North Korea plans to resume anti-Seoul propaganda broadcasts along the heavily armed border with South Korea, leader Kim Jong Un's sister said, reviving a psychological warfare campaign.

(Image credit: Ahn Young-joon)

About three-quarters of U.S. adults saw the expense of childcare as a “major problem” in the U.S.

About three-quarters of U.S. adults saw the expense of childcare as a “major problem” in the U.S.

Russia has released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.

The deal comes at a time when President Donald Trump has taken actions meant to benefit Moscow.

Stephen Hubbard, of Michigan, was sentenced after a closed trial in 2024 to nearly seven years in prison. Prosecutors said he had signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, and that he fought alongside them until being captured two months later.

The U.S. government under the Biden administration designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained.

Witkoff thanked Putin for releasing Hubbard, telling him, “Because of you, he’s going home to his family.” The Russian leader responded that Hubbard was at the St. Petersburg airport, Pulkovo, after the release.

Witkoff has tried without success to steer Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement to end a war that will hit the five-year mark in February. Trump foreshadowed a release earlier in the week, telling reporters at the White House: “I’ve been talking to President Putin about Mr. Hubbard. I’ve been talking to him at length. I’ve asked him to release him. Let’s see what happens.”

The release occurred at a dynamic moment in relations between the United States, Ukraine and Russia, with the Washington-Kyiv alliance being stretched by tensions over drone support as the Trump administration advances policies that aid Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He decided Friday, for instance, to waive sanctions on Russia in a bill that Congress overwhelmingly passed to support Ukraine. Named after late South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the legislation targeted the flow of financial resources fueling Russia’s war.

That reversal followed Trump’s announcement of a deal to import Russian diesel fuel in a long-shot effort to curb high gas prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections next month.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Losing more ground in the fight against climate change, humanity is heading for a hotter world than experts projected last year — and the United States is a big reason for that, a new United Nations report says.

If all the countries do what they promise to reduce heat-trapping emissions, Earth will likely still warm another 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above current temperatures, according to Wednesday’s update of climate calculations by the United Nations Environment Programme. That’s about two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit (0.1 degrees Celsius) more than last year’s projections by the same science team.

“This is a worse outcome than expected last year, as a result of the formal withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Agreement and revised estimates of historical emissions,” the report said. The report also blames the United States for increased emissions last year, saying all the other top 20 major economies reduced their carbon pollution or at least slowed the growth in how much carbon dioxide was spewed from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

“In terms of magnitude, the increase in the United States of America (133 megatons of CO2 equivalent) far exceeded that of all other countries and was driven by increased electricity demand and a rebound of coal power generation,” the report said. The 124 countries that increased emissions — not counting the 63 that decreased like most European nations — added 189 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2025, and 70% of that increase came from the U.S., according to the report.

The United States is going “hell-for-leather trying to block renewables while actively promoting and subsidizing dirty coal — and its diplomacy is trying to make other countries also pull back on action. It is looking at the fire, denying there is a fire, and then pouring more petrol on it,” said Australian climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics that measures countries’ climate fighting plans. He wasn’t part of the U.N. report but like several other outside scientists said it was scientifically sound.

Shooting far past Paris climate goal

The new calculations say that if countries do all they promise in the climate fighting plans they submitted to the United Nations, by 2100 the globe will be 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than pre-industrial times. If the world continues on its current path — without national promises — it will be 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the last half of the 19th century, the same as last year’s projection.

Both of those temperatures blow far past the goal of less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) adopted by the 2015 Paris climate pact. The world is now at about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times and earlier this year — and again in this report — United Nations officials conceded that there is no way of limiting warming to the 1.5-degree goal that they had embraced. Instead, officials are pinning their hopes of limiting warming to about 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and then somehow pulling enough carbon dioxide out of the air to lower temperatures back down to 1.5 degrees.

The world is falling “dangerously short” of even those goals, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, “but we have the tools to change course and pull back from the brink.”

Drastically cutting global carbon emissions — by 18% by 2030 and 69% by 2040 — “is the only way that we can get back to a semblance of a reality that is still largely manageable without major impacts and therefore that makes every sense,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.

“The report’s message is clear,” said climate scientist Adelle Thomas, vice chair of a United Nations scientific assessment on climate impacts. She wasn’t part of this study. “We know what needs to be done. We have the tools to do it. And delay only makes the challenge more dangerous and more expensive for all.”

An added tenth of a degree of danger

Report lead author Anne Olhoff, director of UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre, said the U.S. policy change will likely add one-tenth of a degree Celsius (nearly two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) to global temperatures by the end of the century.

“This report shows that America’s retreat isn’t just a political embarrassment. It has real consequences for the planet and for millions of people around the world,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate organization. “An extra tenth of a degree might sound insignificant, but in climate terms it is enormous. It means more dangerous heat waves, more destructive floods, more failed harvests and more lives lost. For vulnerable communities in Africa, already living on the front lines of the climate crisis, every fraction of a degree matters. These are not abstract numbers. They are human lives.”

Hare said that extra one-tenth of a degree pushes an additional 140 million people “into dangerously hot conditions” and increases the odds of the collapse of the Amazon rain forest or ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. It also would cost the world and shave about $1.2 trillion from the global economy, said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann.

And the U.S. effect is probably even bigger than what the United Nations calculates because if the world’s largest historical climate polluter doesn’t do much to fight global warming other nations ease off in their efforts too, said Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany.

“The rest of the world is exhausted when it comes to counting the damage that the U.S. is willingly doing to allies, multilateral structures, economic cooperation, disaster relief,” Australian climate scientist Malte Meinshausen said. “The rest of the world should probably continue to focus even less on the U.S.”

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The Sixers got a first look at the potent lineup they put together this summer in hopes of winning their first title since 1983.

(Image credit: Frank Franklin II)

Nearly a decade after Boeing unveiled its largest 737 Max jet, the company has cleared a major hurdle in its effort to bring the plane to airlines.

(Image credit: Lindsey Wasson)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the change happened after talks with his American counterparts, including a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

(Image credit: Andrii Marienko)

Fresh curfews were being imposed across the city centers of Paris and Lyon on Tuesday after the first quiet night since France's most destructive rioting in years.

(Image credit: Christophe Ena)

The Sixers got a first look at the potent lineup they put together this summer in hopes of winning their first title since 1983.

(Image credit: Frank Franklin II)

Nearly a decade after Boeing unveiled its largest 737 Max jet, the company has cleared a major hurdle in its effort to bring the plane to airlines.

(Image credit: Lindsey Wasson)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the change happened after talks with his American counterparts, including a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

(Image credit: Andrii Marienko)

Fresh curfews were being imposed across the city centers of Paris and Lyon on Tuesday after the first quiet night since France's most destructive rioting in years.

(Image credit: Christophe Ena)

Nigeria is the latest country to report an Ebola case as the outbreak spreads across the region. Kenya confirmed its first case earlier this month and has since recorded nine infections.

(Image credit: Sebastien Kitsa Musayi)

Nigeria is the latest country to report an Ebola case as the outbreak spreads across the region. Kenya confirmed its first case earlier this month and has since recorded nine infections.

(Image credit: Sebastien Kitsa Musayi)