Syrians protest alcohol sale limits, curbs on personal freedom

An experimental vaccine for Lyme disease is broadly effective, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Valneva announced Monday, however the latter firm's shares fell because the clinical trial did not reach its main goal.

There are currently no approved vaccines to treat Lyme disease -- the world's most common tick-borne illness. 

The new vaccine candidate "demonstrated more than 70 percent efficacy in preventing Lyme disease in individuals aged five years and above" during a phase 3 clinical trial, the US and French-Austrian companies said in a joint statement. 

However, because there were fewer cases of Lyme disease than expected during the study period, the trial did not meet its primary endpoint, they added.

Following the announcement, Valneva's share price plunged more than 38 percent at around noon GMT on the Paris stock exchange, which was otherwise up 0.7 percent.

Prizer said in the statement it remains "confident in the vaccine's potential and is planning submissions to regulatory authorities" in the United States and European Union.

"These results bring us a step closer to our goal of delivering a much-needed vaccine to help protect against Lyme disease," Valneva CEO Thomas Lingelbach added.

The vaccine LB6V, formerly called VLA15, creates antibodies in humans that fight off the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease.

The condition is rarely fatal, but people bitten by an infected tick often get a rash and suffer flu-like symptoms including muscle and joint ache, headache, nausea and vomiting. 

In some cases, it can also cause neurological problems.

Research in 2022 estimated that more than 14 percent of the global population has had the disease, warning that transmission rates could increase as climate change brings longer, drier summers. 

pan/dl/gv

(The Center Square) — New Jersey is suing the Trump administration to block plans to convert a warehouse in a tiny Morris County town into a regional immigration detention facility. 

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Friday, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and lawyers for the Town of Roxbury allege the proposed facility would mean an influx of 1,500 detainees to the community of 23,000 that "would strain beyond capacity the local water and sewage systems, threatening water availability and risking sewage overflows into land and water." 

The 50-page complaint also argues that the warehouse — which the Department of Homeland Security purchased recently for $129 million — isn't a proper location for an immigration detention center.

“The Roxbury Warehouse is a logistics center fit for Amazon Prime packages, not people — among other things, it currently has a total of four toilets, despite the planned influx of up to 1,500 detainees and hundreds more ICE employees," the plaintiffs wrote. "The construction required to further establish the site as a detention center would have major environmental impacts to boot." 

"It is thus unsurprising that DHS’s decision to establish a mass detention facility at the Roxbury Warehouse has drawn such powerful opposition across the political and ideological spectrum," they wrote. 

In February, DHS confirmed that it was planning on purchasing warehouses around the country, including one in Roxbury, to be converted into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. 

"These will not be warehouses – they will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards," an ICE spokesperson said in a February statement. "Sites will undergo community impact studies and a rigorous due diligence process to make sure there is no hardship on local utilities or infrastructure prior to purchase."

But the proposal has drawn bipartisan pushback from state and local officials, many of whom said they were not briefed on ICE's plans and only learned about the proposed facility through news stories. . Roxbury's all-Republican town council unanimously rejected the proposal.

“This plan won’t make the community or our state safer," Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in remarks. "It doesn’t just violate common sense, it violates federal law, not to mention zoning and building codes that any other property owner would have to abide by. The administration may think it’s above the law, but it will soon find out that that is not the case.”

New Jersey already has two ICE facilities where immigrants facing deportation are held by federal authorities: Delaney Hall in Newark, holds more than 1,000 detainees, while a smaller facility in Elizabethtown has capacity for hundreds, according to Homeland Security. The agency also plans to open an ICE detention facility at the U.S. military's Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. 

Davenport said New Jersey and Roxbury claim the proposed facility violates the Administrative Procedures Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act. They've asked a federal judge to block the plans. 

"Federal laws require — and our state and towns deserve — that DHS and ICE consult with the state and the township on major projects in their backyard," Davenport, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Instead, DHS and ICE are ramming through a secretive purchase and rushed renovation. We will not allow these ill-considered plans to happen." 

(The Center Square) – Seniors paid higher Medicare premiums in 2025 due to billions in overpayments to private insurers, a new congressional report shows.

The Joint Economic Committee found Medicare Advantage overpayments increased Medicare Part B premiums by an average of $212 per person in 2025. That added about $13.4 billion in costs.

Most seniors pay Part B premiums out of their Social Security checks. Higher premiums mean less take-home income.

“Let’s be honest about the math, when Medicare Advantage is overpaid, that money doesn’t just disappear, it shows up in the Medicare Part B premiums seniors pay every month, including those paid by traditional Medicare beneficiaries who are not getting extra benefits,” Chairman David Schweikert said in the report.

The report said Medicare Advantage plans cost more than traditional Medicare, even though lawmakers designed the program to save money.

In 2025, the federal government paid an estimated $76 billion to $84 billion more for Medicare Advantage than it would have under traditional Medicare.

On average, Medicare Advantage costs 17% to 20% more per patient, the report said.

Since Medicare ties premiums to overall program costs, higher spending leads to higher premiums for all seniors, including those not enrolled in Medicare Advantage.

“Today, between aggressive upcoding, questionable quality bonuses, and structural overpayments in Medicare Advantage, seniors who stay in traditional Medicare are effectively subsidizing the system,” Schweikert said. “That’s not sustainable, it’s not fair, and it can be reformed.”

In the past decade, overpayments have added about $82 billion to Part B premiums, according to the report.

A group of Senate Democrats said the findings highlight broader affordability issues.

“At a time when over one-third of adults with health insurance report delaying or skipping care altogether due to cost, six of the largest for-profit health insurance companies in America reported over $71 billion in profits in 2024,” the Insurance Watchdog Coalition said in a statement.

Premiums are expected to keep rising. Part B premiums increased nearly 6% in 2025 and will rise another 10% in 2026.

The committee said higher premiums are reducing seniors’ Social Security benefits.

If trends continue, annual Part B premiums could reach about $5,000 per person by 2035.

France's local elections show the appeal of political extremes is growing in France, but Marine Le Pen's far-right party is not necessarily poised to win the presidency next year when Emmanuel Macron must step down, analysts said Monday.

Leftists held onto France's biggest cities in Sunday's polls, including Paris and Marseille, boosting hopes that the next leader of the European Union's second biggest economy, and sole nuclear power, will come from a mainstream party.

The right notched wins in several other big cities, while the far right and hard left established a stronger local footprint.

But limited gains of the far-right National Rally party and divisions on the left suggest the 2027 race is open, despite opinion polls favouring Le Pen and her allies, experts said.

"French town hall elections yielded no big breakthrough for the far right and no clear trend nationwide," Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director at risk analysis firm Eurasia Group, told AFP.

He said the election results suggested that next year's presidential election was "more open" than pollsters have suggested.

The RN secured wins in small and mid-sized towns, but failed to take any major urban centre. 

"It's a catastrophe (for them) in large cities," said Nonna Mayer, a political scientist at Sciences Po university and research centre CNRS.

RN party leader Bardella, 30, failed to secure support from the traditional right in run-off votes.

After a far-right ally won Nice, he claimed France's fifth largest city as a win for his own party.

"There is a real glass ceiling in large cities," added Blanche Leridon, director of French studies at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne.

- 'Dilemma for the left' -

The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) of firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon also scored some wins, taking the economically depressed town of Roubaix on the Belgian border and the working-class Paris suburb of Saint Denis.

The mainstream left has sought to distance themselves from LFI, over claims of antisemitism and the fatal beating of a far-right activist last month blamed on the hard left.

While a number of left-wing candidates allied with the hard left to strengthen their chances in the runoffs, the tactic did not pay off.

In Toulouse, Europe's aerospace hub and France's fourth-largest city, it resulted instead in a win for the right.

Analysts said that the question of strategy for both the left and right remained unresolved in the run-up to the 2027 presidential polls.

"The right is divided on what needs to be done," said Mayer.

On the left, said Leridon, the rift between those who champion a broad united front and those who advocate for a left without France Unbowed was only going to widen.

"While the Socialist Party can afford to bypass LFI at the municipal level, it will be a completely different story on a national scale," she said.

Analysts say Melenchon, 74, hopes to capitalise on his party's performance to launch a strong new run for the presidency.

Eric Maurice, an analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, said the left needs to craft a viable strategy for next year's vote that includes LFI voters.

The challenge, he said, is finding an arrangement that attracts LFI supporters without letting the hard left dominate such an alliance. 

"That's the main dilemma for the left, because Melenchon won't back down," he told AFP.

"The left cannot go divided into the first round if they want to be in the second round next year," he added. 

"But who can be the candidate? If it's Melenchon, they will probably lose," he said, adding too many people find him unpalatable.

- 'Nothing is inevitable' -

Former centrist prime minister Edouard Philippe, 55, kept his seat as mayor of the northern city of Le Havre, boosting his presidential run. 

"On the right, Philippe could emerge as the potential single candidate," said Maurice, adding Macron's former prime minister could reach a second-round run-off and ultimately win.

But analysts said it was too early to make any predictions.

"I certainly don't want to downplay the risk of a National Rally victory -- that risk is very real -- but nothing is inevitable, and nothing is decided at this point," said Leridon.

Mayer said the RN benefits from the divisions of its opponents on the right and left but still showed "many weaknesses".

The party had weak local roots, "a malfunctioning party machine" and was mired in legal troubles, she told AFP.

Bardella is expected to run next year instead of Le Pen, 57, if an appeals court bans her from office in a graft case.

"They have not yet won, even if they never have been so close to the Elysee," said Mayer.

as/ah/fg

US President Donald Trump told AFP on Monday that "things are going very well" regarding Iran, shortly after announcing talks with Tehran and a five-day pause on targeting the Islamic republic's power plants.

Trump's abrupt shift on Iran came hours before the expiration of a two-day ultimatum under which he threatened to attack Iranian power plants if Tehran did not reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

"Things are going very well," Trump said in brief comments by telephone to AFP when asked about Iran, following his earlier Truth Social post on the negotiations that immediately sent oil prices tumbling.

In his post, Trump made the surprise announcement, backed by little detail, that diplomacy was underway. This came after he earlier shunned talks with Tehran in the fourth week of the joint US-Israeli military campaign.

Trump said in the post that Tehran and Washington "have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East."

"Based on the tenor and tone" of the talks, "which will continue throughout the week, I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions," Trump wrote.

The US president did not give further details on the talks in his comments to AFP, which he made from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, where he spent the weekend.

- Iran denies talks -

Iranian media however said on Monday that there were no negotiations underway towards ending the war.

"There are no talks between Tehran and Washington," said Mehr news agency citing Iran's foreign ministry, adding that Trump's statements were part of a push "to reduce energy prices". 

Trump's post came just hours before Wall Street was set to open after brutal selloffs on European and Asian markets and a further climb in the price of oil.

The oil price has posed an increasing political headache for Trump as Americans complain of higher prices at the pump, ahead of crucial midterm elections in November that will determine the make-up of Congress.

On Friday, Trump had said that he was considering "winding down" the war, leaving the responsibility for keeping the strait open to so far-reluctant NATO allies.

But on Saturday Trump then issued a deadline of 2344 GMT Monday -- early Tuesday in Tehran -- for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway into the Gulf through which one-fifth of the world's oil transits.

Iran had partly closed the strait as part of its retaliation for US and Israeli attacks launched on February 28 that have killed top officials including the cleric-run nation's longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei.

Iran had remained defiant and threatened that if Trump went ahead it would target vital infrastructure across the Gulf including energy sites and desalination plants critical in the parched region.

dk/sms

Ukraine fired drones at a key Russian oil port near the Finnish border on Monday, both Moscow and Kyiv said, triggering a huge fire at the facility.

Satellite images showed flames and thick plumes of black smoke rising into the air from the oil terminal in the Russian town of Primorsk, which sits on the Gulf of Finland and is about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the EU and NATO member.

Russia has been pummelling Ukraine with near-daily air strikes, repeatedly hitting its energy infrastructure and triggering blackouts that plunged millions into cold and darkness during the winter months.

Ukraine has retaliated by launching drone attacks at Russia, mainly at Moscow's energy and military facilities.

"A fuel tank was damaged in the port of Primorsk, causing a fire," said Alexander Drozdenko, governor of Russia's western Leningrad region. 

Drozdenko said Russian air defence systems had destroyed more than 70 drones over the region, which has not been a main front in Russia's war with Ukraine.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said it had "struck key fuel and energy infrastructure facilities in the Russian Federation", including at Primorsk. 

"According to preliminary information, both the tank farm and the oil loading infrastructure were hit," the General Staff said on social media on Monday.

The satellite images appeared to show fires and smoke rising from several cylindrical fuel tanks at the site.

Ukraine said Primorsk handles approximately 60 million tonnes of oil per year.

"The aggressor country uses the proceeds from oil sales to continue the war against Ukraine," it added.

The General Staff also claimed a hit on an oil refinery in the central Russian city of Ufa, around 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) from the front line.

It said the strike caused "a fire on the facility's grounds".

Ukraine's air force said on Monday that Moscow fired 251 drones at Ukraine overnight, 234 of which were shot down.

bur/sbk

(The Center Square) – A majority of American voters favor guardrails on K-12 political activism during school hours and say students should remain focused on academics, according to a new poll. 

The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll found 58% of voters support limits on activism during school hours, and 39% say schools should focus strictly on academics and avoid activism altogether during the school day.

The poll, conducted by Noble Predictive Insights between March 2–5, 2026, surveyed 2,659 registered voters, including 1,177 Republicans, 1,270 Democrats and 773 Independents, of whom 330 do not lean toward either major party. It is among the most comprehensive tracking polls in the country.

The poll was weighted by party affiliation, age, region, gender, education and race/ethnicity.

The issue breaks along party lines. Among voters who supported former President Donald Trump, 71% favor clear limits on school activism, compared with 35% of voters who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Joe Biden. 

Among true independents, about 69% support some form of limits. Only 10% of all respondents support allowing full activism during school hours.

Parents with children in school were especially supportive of limits, with majorities favoring guardrails during instructional hours. Older voters were also more likely than younger voters to support stricter limits.

Mike Noble, founder of Noble Predictive Insights, said the issue shows a clear consensus among voters.

“This activism issue seems like one of those no-brainer issues,” Noble said. “Very few people support having no guardrails.”

As activism on K-12 campuses has increased, the group Defending Education has begun tracking student walkouts and protests nationwide. The organization reports 307 protests or walkouts so far in 2026, compared with 46 in 2025.

“By allowing these protests, school leaders are increasing the chance of harm befalling students and decreasing much-needed instructional time in the classroom,” Rhyen Staley, research director at Defending Education, said. “Administrators need to put an end to these acts of ‘civil disobedience’ before they lose complete control.”

The Center Square reached out to teacher unions for comment, but has not received a response.

The poll’s margin of error is +/- 1.9%.

British police said they were investigating an online claim of responsibility for an arson attack after four volunteer ambulances run by a Jewish organisation based next to a London synagogue were set on fire early Monday.

Here is what we know about the attack, in which four vehicles were destroyed, but no one was injured. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has denounced the incident as a "deeply shocking antisemitic arson attack".

- What happened? -

The London Fire Brigade said it was alerted to vehicles on fire at Highfield Court in Golders Green, a north London area with a substantial Jewish population, at 1:40 am (0140 GMT).

Some 40 firefighters called to the scene found that multiple cylinders on the vehicles had exploded, breaking windows in an adjacent block.

London's Metropolitan Police force said the charred vehicles were four Hatzalah ambulances belonging to the Jewish Community Ambulance service.

Nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution while some roads in the area were closed. All the fires were extinguished.

The little-known Iran-aligned Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya group, meaning The Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand, appeared to claim responsibility Monday in a video posted on its recently created Telegram channel.

- Police probe -

Police said in a statement "the arson attack is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime".

Counter-terrorism police are now leading the inquiry, even though it was not yet determined to be a terror attack. The group's online claim is being investigated.

"Establishing the authenticity and accuracy of this claim will be a priority for the investigation team," Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams told reporters at the scene.

He added police were "looking for three suspects at this early stage. CCTV footage appears to show three people in hoods pouring an accelerant on to the vehicles before igniting them and fleeing".

There have been no arrests so far, and police appealed to people to come forward with information.

- 'Horrific news' -

Starmer said in a post on X: "Antisemitism has no place in our society". 

He called the attack "horrific news" and has urged Britain's communities to "all stand together at a moment like this".

Chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis vowed: "We're not going to be intimidated by terrorists, and this was a terrorist attack."

And he told the Press Association news agency it was "highly lamentable" that synagogues, schools and other Jewish facilities "can now only function behind walls, behind gates".

Shomrim North West London, a charity and volunteer neighbourhood watch group, branded the arson a "targeted and deeply concerning incident affecting a vital emergency service serving the local Jewish community".

It was "an attack on the safety, wellbeing, and resilience of our community," the group wrote on Facebook.

- What is the volunteer service? -

The ambulances are run by Hatzalah, which was established in 1979 and is operated by volunteers.

It provides free medical transportation and emergency response to those living in north London.

"Our... volunteer ambulance corps is an extraordinary service, whose sole mission is to protect life, Jewish and non-Jewish alike," Mirvis said on X. 

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the government would provide four replacement ambulances.

"The Jewish community should not be left footing the bill for this despicable attack, which is why tomorrow morning, at the latest, we will have four ambulances in place to replace those that have been destroyed," he said.

- Similar attacks -

Monitoring groups have reported an upsurge in both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in Britain in recent years, particularly during the recent war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The Community Security Trust, a charity which tracks antisemitism in the UK, recorded 3,700 instances of anti-Jewish hate across the UK last year, a four percent rise on 2024, but down on 2023.

The group likened the attack to recent similar incidents in Belgium and the Netherlands, where schools and synagogues were targeted.

The Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya group also claimed it was behind the attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands, according to the SITE monitoring service. Until the start of the Iran war, the group had not been heard of.

pdh-jkb/pdh/sbk

A long-awaited trial into Greece's worst train tragedy was adjourned to April 1 after starting on Monday amid chaotic scenes in a courtroom too small to handle the huge interest in the case, officials said.

Hundreds of people turned up for the trial into the 2023 train collision that left 57 dead, leading to angry complaints from lawyers that the venue was "insultingly" unsuitable, and booing from family relatives.

A prominent member of the association of victims' families, Maria Karystianou, told reporters that relatives had been "packed like sardines".

She said it was "an absolute disgrace and contempt" towards victims' families.

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis insisted that the venue chosen, a remodelled university lecture hall in the central city of Larissa, was one of the two biggest courtrooms in Greece.

Marinakis told reporters that the hall had seating for over 460 people and blamed the issue on a higher-than-expected number of observers.

Thirty-six people face charges and over 350 witnesses are due to be heard at the trial.

It is being conducted around 30 kilometres (nearly 20 miles) from the spot near Tempe, central Greece, where a freight train and a passenger train smashed into each other on February 28, 2023.

Among those to testify are survivors and family members of the victims, some of whom are believed to have burned to death after surviving the initial collision. 

Most of the dead were students returning from a carnival weekend.

"This trial is starting with great delay... What we want is exemplary punishment of those responsible," Pavlos Aslanidis, whose 26-year-old son died in the accident and who heads the Association of Victims' Families, told reporters before the start of the trial.

- 'Burned alive' -

Karystianou, a paediatrician who led the association for years, and is now planning to launch a political party, said no investigation was carried out into how her daughter "burned alive".

She called the trial "stunted".

"We want the truth to come out," she said outside court on Monday.

The accused include the station master on duty on the night of the accident, other railway officials and two Italian former employees of the trains' parent company, Ferrovie dello Stato.

The two trains had run on the same track for more than 10 minutes without triggering an alarm.

The head-on collision exposed the parlous state of the Greek railway network's safety precautions -- despite European Union grants for their modernisation and repeated warnings from unions. 

"This trial clearly demonstrates all the corruption of the Greek state, the corruption that killed our children," Christos Vlahos, a parent of one of the victims said outside court.

The trial is expected to last several years.

Thirty-three of the defendants face criminal charges and risk prison sentences of up to life imprisonment. 

None of the accused are currently in prison, although some have served time in pre-trial detention.

The head of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, Laura Kovesi, said the collision could have been avoided if the signalling system had been modernised in time using EU funds.

Train workers were staging a 24-hour strike on Monday in what their union called "an act of collective remembrance, protest and democratic vigilance".

- 'Killed our people' -

The accident - now commonly known as the "Tempe crime" -- sparked widespread anger that has never subsided. 

Tens of thousands of people joined protests nationwide to mark the accident's third anniversary last month.

The accused include the duty station master, Vassilios Samaras, who was arrested the day after the collision, and two other station masters who had left their posts before the end of their shift. 

They are accused of having committed "acts dangerous to the safety of railway traffic... resulting in the death of a large number of people and serious bodily injuries to a large number of people," according to the indictment seen by AFP.

Managers and employees of the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), the rail network operator, are also on trial, as well as two senior transport ministry officials and two Italian executives from Hellenic Train, a subsidiary of the Italian state's Ferrovie dello Stato. 

No political official will be in the dock.

This has fuelled resentment at a time when the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is already facing fierce criticism for what is widely seen as a disastrous handling of the accident.

There are also claims by the opposition and civil society that officials are shielding those responsible.

Communist party leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas told reporters on Monday the investigation was closed "hurriedly", leaving "huge gaps" in the case.

He called it a "blatant cover-up".

Two former ministers, including ex-transport minister Kostas Karamanlis were also referred to justice by parliament but face only misdemeanour charges at present.

"There are people who should be here as defendants, such as Kostas Karamanlis, who killed our people," said Aslanidis.

Valuable evidence was also lost when, just days after the collision, a bulldozer levelled the site. 

Despite the disaster, Mitsotakis comfortably won re-election just months later and went on to defeat two parliamentary votes of no-confidence on the issue.

vk/jph/gil

The Mizzou gymnastics team will find out its NCAA Championships regional destination Monday, and the program is inviting fans to join it for a watch party.

The event is set for 11 a.m. Monday at the Columns Club at Memorial Stadium, with doors opening at 10:30 a.m.

The four sites for regionals that will take place April 1-5 are Lexington, Kentucky; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Tempe, Arizona; and Corvallis, Oregon.

The NCAA Championships take place April 16 and 18 in Fort Worth, Texas.

The No. 8 Tigers are coming off a sixth-place finish in the SEC Championships on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The stacked league dominates the national rankings, with teams in seven of the top nine spots. No. 3 Florida won the event in Tulsa, with No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 LSU, No. 5 Alabama and No. 6 Georgia also finishing ahead of the Tigers, in that order.

The NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships selection show airs at 11 a.m. Monday on ESPNU.