WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that he expects the upcoming NATO summit to provide specific steps to strengthen his country’s air defenses against Russia, hours after a Russian missile attack killed at least 31 people and wounded 154 others in various locations, including a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy met with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw to discuss further support for Ukraine from NATO, as well as signing a bilateral cooperation and defense document.

“We would like to see greater resolve in our partners and hear resolute responses to these attacks,” Zelenskyy told a joint news conference, stressing that Ukraine will take its own retaliatory steps.

“I can see a possibility for our partners to use their air defense systems in a way to hit .. the missiles that are carrying out attacks on our country,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy stopped in Warsaw en route to a NATO summit, which begins Tuesday in Washington, marking the Western defense alliance’s 75th anniversary. Leaders are expected to discuss ways of providing reliable long-term security aid and military training for Ukraine more than two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

At the start of the news conference with Tusk, Zelenskyy asked those gathered to observe a moment of silence for the victims of Monday’s airstrikes.

Tusk offered every available form of help for the children evacuated from the bombed hospital.

The two leaders signed a cooperation and defense agreement that spells out Poland’s continued support for Ukraine in defense, especially air defense, energy security for Ukraine, and Poland’s participation in reconstruction.

A legion of Ukrainian volunteers currently abroad will be trained in Poland with the aim of joining the defense effort on Ukraine’s soil, Zelenskyy said.

Poland will be represented at the NATO summit by President Andrzej Duda, who was scheduled to meet with Zelenskyy later Monday. Poland is among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine and has offered around $4 billion in military equipment, training and other items for defense. It is also offering humanitarian, political and economic support.

An initiative likely to be endorsed at the three-day summit is NATO taking more responsibility for coordinating training, and military and financial assistance for Ukraine’s forces, instead of the U.S. Europeans also are talking about giving Ukrainians a greater presence within NATO bodies, though there’s no consensus yet on Ukraine joining the alliance.

Tusk said that Poland will “continue to advocate among our allies that this path for Ukraine to reach the EU and NATO membership should be as fast as possible.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republicans may remove a vow to ban abortion from their party platform for the first time in 40 years at the behest of former President Donald Trump, who has refused to support such a ban even as he takes credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The platform is a statement of first principles traditionally written by party activists. Trump’s campaign wants the group drafting this year’s platform to produce a shorter document without statements favored by many conservatives but potentially unpopular with the broader electorate.

The platform committee begins its meeting Monday, a week before the start of the Republican National Convention where Trump is scheduled to accept his third straight nomination for president.

Trump has faced months of Democratic criticism over abortion as President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has highlighted that Trump nominated half of the Supreme Court majority that struck down the nationwide right to abortion in 2022. But among the vocal abortion opponents on the platform committee, some say the aspiration of a federal ban on abortion after a certain stage in pregnancy must remain a party principle, even if it’s not an immediately attainable policy or one that necessarily helps the Trump campaign in November.

“I see that as problematic. We still need these principles clearly stated. Some of these battles are not over,” said Iowa state Rep. Brad Sherman, a platform committee member who supported Trump’s winning Iowa caucus campaign in January and also supports a federal limit on abortion.

While the abortion statement is likely to be the most contested provision in the platform, there may also be disputes over Trump’s preference for tariffs and his isolationist approach to foreign policy and U.S. involvement in global conflicts, particularly in helping Ukraine as it battles Russia.

Conservative activists who are accustomed to having a seat at the table fumed over what they said was a secretive process for selecting committee members and the meeting taking place behind closed doors.

“For 40 years, the Republican Party and the GOP platform have massively benefitted from an open and transparent process,” said Tim Chapman, the incoming president of Advancing American Freedom, a foundation headed by Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump’s campaign has sought to reshape the Republican National Committee into a campaign vessel. It signaled in a memo last month from senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles that “textbook-long platforms … are scrutinized and intentionally misrepresented by our political opponents.”

Trump ally Russ Vought is serving as the policy director of the Republican Party’s platform writing committee while also leading the effort to draft the 180-day agenda for Project 2025, a sweeping proposal for remaking government that Trump said Friday he knew nothing about despite having several former aides involved.

Still, Trump’s campaign said it was unclear what would make the final document at the convention in Milwaukee while suggesting it would reflect Trump’s positions.

“Is the desire to make the platform concise and reflect the president and his policies? Yes,” Danielle Alvarez, a Trump spokeswoman, said in reference to the memo. “Until we convene, we don’t know where we’ll end up.”

Trump had supported federal legislation in 2018 that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, though the measure fell short of the necessary support in the Senate.

However, after the 2022 midterm elections, Trump blamed Republicans who held strict anti-abortion positions for the party’s failure to secure a larger House majority. He has since been critical of the most stringent abortion bans in individual states.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2023 found that about two-thirds of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The poll also found that 6 in 10 Americans think Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide.

Biden’s campaign has criticized Republicans for making the platform committee meetings in Milwaukee closed to the news media and reminded voters of Trump’s onetime support for a 20-week abortion ban.

Tamara Scott, who is one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members and also a platform committee member, said Trump could campaign on the position he holds and also embrace the platform to reflect a longer-term goal of a federal limit.

“It’s our vision. It’s our foundational principles. It’s who we are as a party,” Scott said. “I agree a platform must be clear and concise but it must convey our core principles.”

To several on the committee, that means maintaining support for an “amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth,” the passage first included in 1984.

Trump was urged to keep that language in the platform, according to a letter signed by leaders of groups opposed to abortion, including Ralph Reed, Faith and Freedom Coalition founder and chairman; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; and Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List.

That passage, once removed, would be difficult to restore in future platforms, Dannenfelser said.

“The conversation about the platform is about the future. It’s about presidential campaigns 10 years from now, and Senate campaigns and House campaigns, Republican campaigns everywhere,” Dannenfelser said. “It’s not just about this election. And that’s why it matters.”

___

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux contributed from Washington.

Far out, this Padres outfield.

Who could have predicted the entire group, from foul line to foul line, would be named to the All-Star Game?

How is it possible — fathomable — that the biggest collective question mark on the team as spring sprung would become its muscle-flexing strength?

As shadows began to creep across the left field-side sections of Petco Park on Sunday, fans learned that rookie center fielder Jackson Merrill would join National League starters Jurickson Profar and Fernando Tatis Jr..

Rewind to the early months of 2024, when the hand-wringing over the outfield left those hands red and raw. Sure, Profar seemed like a versatile depth option, but he couldn’t be the everyday left fielder.

Right?

Was President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller really going to roll a set of oversized dice on Merrill in center, a premium position with a guy who had played just 46 games in Double-A … without a sniff of Triple-A?

And even though Tatis won a platinum glove during his debut in right, he still was more wired to play shortstop.

It did not seem like an outfield plan as much as a stab in the dark after a few too many spiked eggnogs at the company Christmas party. It came off as survival mode in a season where the Padres were counting pennies as competitive balance tax penalties loomed like storm clouds.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to simply getting by. Profar hit and hit and hit some more. As soon as he settled into his cleats, Merrill began to do the same.

All-Stars in the outfield? More like an outfield full of All-Stars.

“No one was seeing that necessarily at the beginning,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said.

Um, no. They weren’t.

It’s hard to know whether to start cutting a bonus check for Preller’s fine footwork or write it off as being cornered by options and economics, shrugging shoulders at how it all worked out.

No one was saying, “Man, the Padres have the best outfield in baseball.” It was more like, “The Padres have an outfield. Maybe. For now.”

Instead of white hot, the consensus had been to brace for a white-knuckler.

FanGraphs’s overarching metric of a player’s total worth, wins above replacement (WAR), has the Padres’ trio ranked Nos. 6-8 in baseball.

The Yankees claim the top two with Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, but no team has an entire group ranked anywhere close.

Not only did the Padres put together an outfield, they assembled three guys who became so dependable, so bankable as a unit — Tatis injury pending — that it buoys hope this team might have enough to reach the playoffs.

Those question marks became exclamation points.

“It’s pretty cool,” Merrill said of the entire outfield making the game. “I think definitely ‘Tati’ and ‘Pro’ really deserved it. I’m really appreciative that they took me under their wings. It kind of made me more comfortable and able to play the way I have.”

Pick the more improbable storyline.

Is it Profar, an All-Star for the first time in his 11th season? His .408 on-base percentage leads the entire National League. His .906 OPS is the best of his career.

Profar’s average OPS+, part of the analytics soup that compares players to an average big leaguer, with 100 being the baseline, has been a 97. This season? A head-shaking 155.

The career batting average of .245 has ballooned to .315.

He was, as bizarre as it now seems, sitting unsigned in February. At $1 million plus bonuses, he became baseball’s equivalent of a winning Powerball ticket.

Or is it Merrill, the guy who climbed on a rocketship and zoomed past Triple-A, barely 21, who made the toughest leap in the game without as much as a hiccup?

Merrill began Sunday at No. 3 in baseball for home runs since June 12 (9), fifth in slugging and tied for in extra-base hits. Just-hitting-stride type of stuff.

The confidence, the swagger, the production while holding down the toughest and trickiest outfield spot astounds daily. A season ago, he was in the Futures Game … as a shortstop. The future came fast.

When Tatis returns to the lineup, the group could become a high-performance engine, not an afterthought.

“‘Pro’ was out there for a lot of clubs to sign and signed late …,” Shildt said. “(Merrill had) a little bit of time in Double-A, Triple-A’s a rumor, comes here and immediately changes positions in spring training and goes and makes an All-Star team.

“That’s pretty special.”

It’s the first time in franchise history that the Padres placed three outfielders in the All-Star Game. Merrill became the first Padres rookie to make the cut and will be the youngest player in the game at Arlington, Texas.

The last time players this young made teams, it was 2013 with Bryce Harper, Jose Fernandez and current teammate Manny Machado.

When Merrill’s selection was announced at Petco, he offered an understated wave from the dugout rail.

“The buy-in,” said second baseman Jake Cronenworth, a two-time All-Star himself. “Sometimes guys get moved to position where they might not be comfortable, but he’s gone out and made a point to get better every night and put himself in position to succeed.

“In spring training, from Day 1 when he got there, it seemed like he wasn’t upset about it. He wanted to go out there and the best center fielder his possibly could.

“It’s just his maturity, the way he works every day. Your age doesn’t matter. When you show up and put the time in, you get rewarded for that.”

Merrill finally relented, admitting a bit of satisfaction.

But only a bit.

“Everybody kind of went crazy,” Merrill said of the news, which was shared during a team meeting. “And I was like, sitting there, smiling. It was really surreal. Just kind of take it in for a sec, but I’m just grateful for everyone around me.”

When Merrill looks to his left and his right, can you blame him?