ALEX BLOG

By Parisa Hafezi, Enas Alashray and Kanishka Singh

Funeral of victims of Israeli and U.S. strikes, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran

DUBAI/CAIRO/WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday they would not allow "one litre of oil" to be shipped from the Middle East if U.S. and Israeli attacks continue, prompting a warning from President Donald Trump that the U.S. would hit Iran much harder if it blocked exports from the vital energy-producing region.

The heightened ‌rhetoric did little to quell a sharp retreat in crude prices and a rally in global shares, which came after Trump expressed confidence in a swift end to hostilities even after Iran appointed ‌Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader in a signal of defiance.

Trump said on Monday the United States had inflicted serious damage on Iran's military and predicted the conflict would end well before the initial four-week time frame he had laid out, though he has not ​defined what victory would look like.

Israel says its war aim is to overthrow Iran's system of clerical rule. U.S. officials mainly say Washington's aim is to destroy Iran's missile capabilities and nuclear programme, but Trump has said the war can end only with a compliant Iranian government.

At least 1,332 Iranian civilians have been killed and thousands wounded since the U.S. and Israel launched a barrage of air and missile strikes across Iran at the end of February, according to Iran's U.N. ambassador.

Trump warned that U.S. attacks could rise sharply if Iran sought to block tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which handles one-fifth of the world's oil supply.

"We will hit them so hard that it will not be ‌possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section ⁠of the world," Trump said at a news conference on Monday.

IRAN SAYS IT WILL DETERMINE END OF WAR

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it would not allow any oil to leave the region if attacks from the United States and Israel continue.

"We are the ones who will determine the end of the war," a spokesperson said, describing Trump's ⁠comments as "nonsense", according to state media.

In a later Truth Social post, Trump repeated his warning.

"If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far," he said.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran was unlikely to resume negotiations with the U.S., citing what he described as a "bitter experience" with past talks.

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"After three rounds of negotiation, the American team in the ​negotiation ​said itself that we made a big progress. Still, they decided to attack us. So, I don't think talking to the ​Americans anymore would be on our agenda any more," he said in an interview ‌with PBS.

The war has already effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, leaving tankers unable to sail for more than a week and forcing producers to halt pumping as storage facilities fill.

Mojtaba Khamenei's appointment on Monday appeared to dash hopes of a swift end to the war, sending oil markets surging and share markets nosediving, before swinging in the other direction when Trump predicted a quick end to the war and reports of a possible ease in sanctions on Russian energy.

After speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said the United States will waive oil-related sanctions on "some countries" to ease the shortage.

According to multiple sources, that could mean a further easing of sanctions on Russian oil, which could complicate efforts to punish Moscow for its war in Ukraine. Other options include a possible release of oil from strategic reserves or restricting U.S. exports, sources said.

Brent crude futures fell more than 10% on Tuesday ‌after soaring by as much as 29% on Monday to their highest since 2022. Global stock markets also bounced.

The price of ​gasoline has particular political resonance in the United States, where voters cite rising costs as a top concern ahead of the November ​midterm elections, when Trump's Republicans will try to keep control of Congress.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found ​67% of Americans expect gas prices to rise over the coming months, and only 29% approve of the war.

"They're horrible," one Los Angeles driver said of current gas prices. "They're ‌too expensive, they're high, they're just so high, you know. Sometimes you have to ​choose between gas and other things that you really need."

OIL ​REFINERY HIT

Tehran was choked in black smoke after an oil refinery was hit, an escalation in strikes on Iran's domestic energy supplies. World Health Organization chief Tedros Ghebreyesus warned the fire risks contaminating food, water and air.

Turkey said NATO air defences had shot down a ballistic missile that was fired from Iran and entered Turkish airspace, the second such incident of the war. Iran did not immediately comment ​on the report.

Israel's military said it had launched new attacks in central Iran ‌and struck the Lebanese capital Beirut, where Israel has extended its campaign after the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah fired across the border.

In Australia, five Iranian women's soccer team players were granted humanitarian visas ​after they sought asylum fearing persecution in their home nation. Canberra has also promised to send military surveillance aircraft to the Middle East and missiles to the United Arab Emirates to ​help them defend themselves against attacks from Iran.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux, Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Michael Perry)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all JetBlue flights due to a request from the airline, the agency said in ⁠a notice on ​Tuesday.

The ground stop impacts flights to all destinations, according to the advisory.

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It was not immediately clear why JetBlue requested the ground stop or how long it would last.

The airline and the FAA didn't immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press requesting more information.

The airline's headquarters is in New York City and its flagship terminal is at the city's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

March 10 (Reuters) - JetBlue Airways has requested ‌for a ground ‌stop at all destinations, ​the U.S Federal Aviation Administration said in an advisory ‌on Tuesday.

The ⁠ground stop was issued at ⁠the request of the airline, the ​FAA notice ​said, ​without adding ‌further details. JetBlue did not immediately respond to request for comment.

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A ground stop ‌is an ​air traffic ​control ​measure that ‌temporarily halts flights usually ​due ​to safety, weather or operational issues.

(Reporting ​by ‌Gursimran Kaur in ​Bengaluru; Editing by ​Himani Sarkar)

MILAN (AP) — The Rev. Paolo Venturelli never gets too close when he visitsLeonardo da Vinci's"The Last Supper." The Dominican friar prefers to stand away fromthe wallwhere it was painted, on the opposite side of the room once used by members of his order for meals.

Italy Milan Last Supper Friars

"From there, the painting looks as though it were painted in the middle of the refectory," said Venturelli of the masterpiece depicting the Gospel story of Jesus' final meal with his apostles. "It unleashes all kinds of human and spiritualreactions."

He lives in Santa Maria delle Grazie, a convent andbasilicainMilanwhereLeonardoworked in the 1490s at the request of Ludovico Sforza, then ruler of the city.

"The Last Supper," which illustrates the biblical account of Jesus announcing that one of his apostles will betray him, is located in the convent's original refectory. Such rooms still serve as dining spaces where monastic communities gather for food, prayer and reading. Yet at Santa Maria delle Grazie it is no longer part of the friars' daily life.

After the Napoleonic suppression of religious houses in the 18th century, the refectory passed into state hands. Today it is known as the Cenacolo Vinciano and is managed by Italy's Regional Directorate of Museums of Lombardy.

"We don't go often because we have to ask permission to enter," said Venturelli, who can stay inside for only 15 minutes like any other visitor because of preservation rules.

"It no longer belongs to us."

Living beside "The Last Supper"

A dozen priests and nine novices make up Santa Maria delle Grazie's current Dominican community. Dressed in the iconic white robes associated with their order — or brown hooded capes in winter — friars are regularly seen walking inside the basilica.

Not all tourists visiting the Cenacolo make a stop at its adjacent church. But among those who do, some look at Venturelli and the other friars with curiosity.

"We just came from the cloister and saw one of the friars taking care of the garden," said Maria Teresa Bruzzi, who traveled from Genoa with her husband in mid-February.

"We came to see Leonardo's Last Supper but we also wanted to see the church because it's quite special," she added. "This is a Renaissance church that combines two styles and was very important for the Sforza family."

According to Venturelli, visitors to the sanctuary are often blown away by its architecture. "When they visit the chapel of Our Lady of the Grazie, they can see that the beauty around them was built to give glory to the one who is beautiful in and of himself — God," he said.

Tickets for the Cenacolo are often sold out and the museum is closed on Mondays, preventing last-minute visitors to Milan from seeing the painting. The basilica, in contrast, opens daily and welcomes those wishing to attend Mass or go to confession.

"Confessions are very much sought after and we maintain this service for the citizens of Milan but also for all visitors," said the Rev. Llewellyn Muscat, prior of the Dominican community at Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Venturelli offers confessions to Italian-language speakers. Muscat can support those speaking English, Italian and Maltese, his mother tongue. And while other friars offer their services in French and German, the prior said they all make an effort to understand everyone.

"We cannot hold back the graces that the Lord gives to each one of us," Muscat said.

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A life of study and prayer

Dominicans arrived at Santa Maria delle Grazie as the complex was being built in the 15th century. However, the order had established an earlier presence in Milan.

Those first friars' devotion to St. Catherine of Siena is still visible in the basilica. Frescoes depict her alongside St. Catherine of Alexandria, associated with the Dominican tradition of study and considered the patron saint of philosophers.

That intellectual legacy is also evident inside the convent itself. A few steps away from the steady flow of tourists, dozens of shelves filled with books stand in the halls.

"Reading is part of our identity," Muscat said.

Neither he nor his fellow friars follow a strict daily schedule. But study, prayer and their ministry shape their routine.

Priests like him celebrate Mass on a regular basis and assist nearby parishes when clergy are needed. Others oversee the novitiate program, teach at local Catholic institutions, or collaborate with Santa Maria delle Grazie's cultural center, which organizes conferences and events.

"We try to offer the spiritual push that people need," Muscat said.

A bond beyond art

The fact that Leonardo was commissioned to paint "The Last Supper" inside a Dominican convent was no accident. Venturelli said most of his order's refectories have this scene depicted on their walls. And according to Muscat, it echoes Dominican principles.

"For us, it does not awaken an emotion about something that belongs to the past," he said. "It is like a continuation in which we eat together with Jesus and his apostles, as though his words are also spoken to us."

Muscat, like any other visitor who stands in front of Leonardo's mural, feels deeply moved by it.

In his case, however, it is not only the art but also a shared history that strikes a deeper chord. The painting, like the convent that houses it, has endured centuries of upheaval and has required collective efforts to survive.

"'The Last Supper' is a call to my personal conscience and a call to the conscience of the order," Muscat said. "Because here in the Grazie there are no individuals, but a community that works and welcomes."

The order's current refectory is housed away from tourists, deep inside the labyrinth-like convent where the friars find the quiet needed for reflection and prayer. It is a modest, wide room, with several square tables instead of a long one, like the table depicted in "The Last Supper."

It's nice, Muscat said. But who knows, he added, maybe one day the old refectory will belong to them again.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP'scollaborationwith The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By Erica Stapleton

STANLEY, New Mexico, March 9 (Reuters) - Investigators in New Mexico began searching on Monday the former high-plains ranch of Jeffrey Epstein where the late ‌financier and his acquaintances are accused of sexually abusing women and girls, state ‌authorities said.

Democratic-run New Mexico is acting on new information in documents released in January by the U.S. Department of ​Justice, including an accusation that Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls buried in hills near the secluded property.

The search follows New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez's decision last month to reopen the investigation into the late sex offender's alleged criminal activities at the ranch 30 ‌miles (48 km) south of the ⁠state's capital of Santa Fe.

"The New Mexico Department of Justice will continue to keep the public appropriately informed, support the survivors, and follow the ⁠facts wherever they lead," it said in a statement.

On Monday, a Reuters witness heard dogs barking and saw a government vehicle bearing a paw-print symbol, suggesting it was carrying animals, leave the ranch. ​State ​police and a county fire and rescue vehicle ​were also spotted.

The Epstein files have ‌become a persistent political problem for President Donald Trump.

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New Mexico closed its previous Epstein investigation in 2019 at the request of federal authorities. There has never been a full investigation of the alleged assaults by Epstein, his partner Ghislaine Maxwell and ranch visitors.

Last month, New Mexico became the first U.S. state to launch a legislative "truth commission" to uncover possible public corruption that ‌allowed Epstein to operate in secrecy at the ranch ​for 26 years before his death in 2019.

Epstein's estate ​sold the property in 2023 to ​Texas businessman Don Huffines who renamed it San Rafael Ranch.

The new owners ‌are cooperating with the investigation and granted ​access for the search, the ​department said.

The January 30 release of millions more files exposed Epstein's social connections with politicians, business people and scientists who he invited to the ranch.

Reuters/Ipsos polling shows most ​Americans view the Epstein ‌case as an example of wealthy and powerful people rarely being held accountable.

(Reporting by ​Erica Stapleton in Stanley, New Mexico, additional reporting by Andrew Hay in ​Santa Fe, New Mexico; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

ODAKA, Japan (AP) — Fifteen years afterthe 2011 nuclear disaster, color-coded radiation maps hang on the wall of Futabaya Ryokan, the family-run inn Tomoko Kobayashi operates in her near-deserted hometown in northeastern Fukushima.

Japan Fukushima

Kobayashi conducted her own radiation surveys before reopening the inn in 2016. Now, she and other monitors share radiation data as part of efforts to rebuild this once-bustling textile town.

"These empty lots used to be filled with shops," Kobayashi says of the pre-disaster town as she heads to a radiation monitoring lab, walking past a kindergarten she attended as a child. It's now used as a museum because there are too few children since the nuclear crisis.

"There used to be businesses, community activity and children playing," she says. "We used to live our ordinary daily lives here, and I hope to see that again."

Only about one-third of Odaka's pre-disaster population of 13,000 have returned over the past decade.

"The town was destroyed, and we need to rebuild it. It's a time-consuming process that cannot be accomplished in just a couple of decades," she said. "But I hope to see the progress, with new people and new development added to what this town used to be."

Facing an invisible danger

When a magnitude 9.0 quake struck off Japan's northeastern coast at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, Kobayashi was at the Futabaya inn. Despite the long, violent shaking, the inn's walls didn't fall. But about an hour later, a tsunami poured into the kitchen "like a river," she said.

A much higher wave hit theFukushima Daiichinuclear plant. It destroyed key cooling systems and caused meltdowns at three reactors.

The No. 1 reactor building was damaged by a hydrogen explosion on March 12. Two days later the Unit 3 reactor building exploded, followed by the No. 4 reactor building, spewing radioactive particles that contaminated the surroundings and caused hundreds of thousands of residents to flee. Some areas remain unlivable today.

Kobayashi's family first headed to a gymnasium in nearby Haramachi town, but it was full. Eventually they made it to Nagoya, where she and her husband stayed for a year.

In 2012, the couple returned to Fukushima to start measuring radiation while living in temporary housing near Odaka, which was still off-limits.

The town has recovered some since then. Her guests include students and others who want to learn about Fukushima, as well as people interested in opening new businesses.

"I had to understand what the nuclear accident was about. I thought someone had to go back and keep an eye out," she said. As she kept measuring, she started seeing what used to be invisible to her and understanding radiation. "Now it has become my lifetime mission."

Citizens document radiation from the disaster

Kobayashi and her comrades gather twice a year, spending two weeks each time measuring the air at hundreds of locations so they can produce the color-coded maps. They have also set up a lab to test local produce to determine what they can safely eat and serve.

"We are not professional scientists, but we can measure and show the data. What's important is to keep measuring, because the government maintains that it's safe, as if radiation no longer exists," she says. "But we know for a fact that it's still there."

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Their lab now sits next to a free folklore museum with paintings, sculptures, photographs and other artwork inspired by the Fukushima disaster.

Fukushima Daiichi gets a facelift, but a mess remains

Fifteen years ago, the plant looked like a bombed factory because of the hydrogen explosions at the reactor buildings where workers risked their lives to keep the crisis under control. Radiation levels have since come down significantly, and the plant has built enhanced seawalls designed to withstand another big tsunami. Now, for the first time since the disaster, all of the plant's reactor buildings have their rooftops enclosed.

"Our decommissioning work at the plant is about how to reduce risks of radiation," says Akira Ono, head of decommissioning at the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Holdings Company. Remote-controlled robotics, careful planning, and practice are key to keeping workers safe, he said.

At Unit 1, under its brand-new roof, top floor decontamination will begin ahead of the planned removal of spent fuel from the cooling pool.

The three reactors contain at least 880 tons of melted fuel debris with radiation levels still dangerously high and their details little known.

TEPCO successfully took tiny melted fuel samples last year from the Unit 2 reactor. To examine melted fuel inside the Unit 3 reactor, workers last week deployed micro-drones, a technology not quite realistic 15 years ago, Ono said.

TEPCO plans remote-controlled internal probes to analyze melted fuel and to develop robots for morefuel debris removalthat experts say could take decades more.

'Pressure to be silent'

Fukushima prefecture tests thousands of pre-distribution samples every year and says all farm, fisheries and dairy products in stores are safe.

Sale of some fruits, mushrooms, river fish and a number of other harvests in former no-go zones is still restricted.

"Radiation levels have come down significantly over the past 15 years, but I wouldn't use the word 'safe,' just yet," says Yukio Shirahige, a former decontamination and radiation survey worker at Fukushima Daiichi who now helps Kobayashi's monitoring project.

When he tested wild boar meat recently, he found it was more than 100 times over the safety limit and could not be consumed.

In a major reversal after a decade of working to phase out nuclear technology, Japan in 2022 announcedplans to accelerate reactor restartsand bolster nuclear power as a stable energy source.

Shirahige was at Fukushima Daiichi when the quake and tsunami struck in 2011. After evacuating his family, he returned in late March to help the emergency cleanup at the plant for six months.

Shirahige has received support and equipment from university researchers and is in charge of testing locally produced food and other samples.

Shirahige, now 76, says measuring radioactive material and sharing that data is his life's work.

As the government pushes Fukushima's safety and recovery, Shirahige says, "we are under growing pressure to be silent."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide who inadvertentlyhastened Richard Nixon's resignationoverthe Watergate scandalwhen he revealed that the president had bugged the Oval Office and Cabinet Room and routinely recorded his conversations, has died. He was 99.

Obit Butterfield

His death was confirmed to The Associated Press by his wife, Kim, and John Dean, who served as White House counsel to Nixon during the Watergate scandal and went on to, along with Butterfield, helpexpose the wrongdoing.

"He had the heavy responsibility of revealing something he was sworn to secrecy on, which is the installation of the Nixon taping system," Dean said. "He stood up and told the truth."

As a deputy assistant to the president, Butterfield oversaw the taping system connected to voice-activated listening devices that had been secretly placed in four locations, including Nixon's office in the Executive Office Building and the presidential retreat at Camp David.

Butterfield later said that, besides himself and the president, he believed that only White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, a Haldeman assistant and a handful of Secret Service agents knew about the taping system.

"Everything was taped … as long as the president was in attendance," Butterfield told Watergate investigators when testifying under oath during a preliminary interview.

The tapes would expose Nixon's role in the cover-up that followed the burglary in 1972 at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate building. To avoid impeachment by the House, Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, less than a month after the Supreme Court had ordered him to surrender the relevant tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.

Butterfield believed he'd had a hand in the president's fate. "I didn't like to be the cause of that, but I felt that I was, in a lot of ways," he said in a 2008 oral history for the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

Butterfield, a college friend of Haldeman's at UCLA who had contacted his friend to ask about opportunities in the new Nixon administration, served as a deputy assistant to Nixon from 1969 to 1973. In that capacity, he worked under Haldeman and, among other duties, was secretary to the Cabinet and helped oversee White House operations.

The Air Force veteran had left the White House to become administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration when Senate committee staffers privately questioned him on July 13, 1973, during their investigation of the Watergate break-in. A routine question about the possibility of a taping system had been prompted by former White House counsel John Dean's testimony that he believed a conversation he had had with Nixon may have been recorded.

When Butterfield acknowledged that a taping system indeed existed, he was brought before a public hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The public revelation on July 16, 1973, of a taping system designed to record all the president's conversations stunned Nixon friends and foes alike. The tapes promised Watergate investigators a rich vein of evidence in their quest to determine what Nixon and others knew about the break-in — a great deal, as it turned out.

Efforts by investigators to gain access to the tapes sparked a yearlong legal battle that was resolved in July 1974 when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Nixon had to give them up.

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The thousands of hours of tapes made public over the years — they are now controlled by the National Archives — provide a unique, if often unflattering, view of Nixon. His words exposed a bad temper, vulgar language, bigoted racial and religious views, and unvarnished opinions about national and international figures.

"I just thought, 'When they hear those tapes …' I mean, I knew what was on these tapes … they're dynamite," Butterfield told the Nixon Library. "I guess I didn't foresee that the president might be put out of office or impeached, but I thought it would be a perilous few years for him. I guess I couldn't conceive of (Nixon) being forced out of office. It had never happened before."

Butterfield later said he believed that Nixon's successor, President Gerald Ford, fired him as FAA administrator in 1975 as part of an agreement worked out between the Nixon and Ford staff members. He said he had heard from White House friends that he had been targeted shortly after his testimony to the Senate committee.

After leaving the FAA, Butterfield worked as a business executive in California. He earned a master's degree from the University of California, San Diego, in 1994.

Alexander Porter Butterfield was born on April 6, 1926, in Pensacola, Florida.

He left UCLA to join the Navy and later earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland in 1956 and a master's degree from George Washington University in 1967.

In 1948, he joined the Air Force and served as an instructor at a base near Las Vegas during the Korean War and later served in Germany. In Washington, he was a military assistant to the special assistant of the defense secretary in 1965 and 1966 and later served as senior military representative of the U.S. and representative for the commander-in-chief, Pacific Forces, Australia. He retired at the rank of colonel after 20 years in the Air Force.

Butterfield was unsparing in his criticism of the former president in later years. While he commended Nixon's achievements in foreign affairs, he considered his former boss "not an honest man" and "a crook" and believed that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in before it occurred and was the architect of the ensuing cover-up.

Butterfield found himself "cheering … just cheering" the day Nixon resigned, he told the Nixon Library, because "justice had prevailed."

"I didn't think that it would for a while," he said. "This guy was the ringleader."

Daniel, the primary writer of this obituary, retired from The Associated Press in 2023.