World
The toll of Beijing's security law on Hong Kong's activists
HONG KONG (AP) — Activist Chan Po-ying is permitted only 15-minute daily visits to see her husband, Leung Kwok-hung, separated by a plexiglass barrier in a highly guarded Hong Kong jail.
Leung, 68, is one of 47 activists who were prosecuted in the largest national security law case to date in the former British colony. Most of them have been separated from their loved ones for years, uncertain when they might reunite. On Thursday, 16 activists who pleaded not guilty — including Leung — will begin hearing their verdict.
The government had warned there might be legal consequences, but Chan didn’t stop former pro-democracy legislator Leung from participating in an unofficial 2020 primary election that would lead to his prosecution under a national security law that Beijing imposed on the semi-autonomous city.
“Maybe we were too naive,” Chan, 68, said with a laugh.
Charged with conspiracy to commit subversion, Leung and other defendants are accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the city’s leader by securing the legislative majority necessary to veto budgets. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Those who pleaded guilty have a better chance at shorter prison terms and will be sentenced at a later date.
“I guess almost none can be acquitted,” said Chan, who chairs the League of Social Democrats, one of the city’s few remaining pro-democracy parties. “I am not optimistic. But I also hope someone can get away from it.”
ACTIVISM IN HONG KONG
Chan was part of a wave of youth activism spreading through Hong Kong when she met Leung in a Marxist group around 1975, when the city was still under British rule.
At first, Chan viewed Leung as a “troublesome guy,” being adamant about winning every debate. Despite this, they fell in love, and their bond transcended mere romance, Chan said; they are “comrades-in-arms.”
A 2005 protest solidified their bond. The two were some of the only Hong Kongers who stayed steadfast with the overseas demonstrators, even after police deployed tear gas and threatened arrest.
“Among those who stood with us in our youth, only the two of us stayed at the site,” she said.
Activism in Hong Kong reached a peak in 2014 with the so-called Umbrella Movement, in which demonstrators used umbrellas to fend off police pepper spray in a nearly 80-day face-off. When Beijing didn’t budge, some young activists began advocating for Hong Kong’s independence.
Suppression was swift. Several pro-independence activists were blocked from joining elections, and in 2018, Hong Kong authorities banned a small pro-independence party.
Ventus Lau was among those caught in the crackdown. He was barred from running in an election in 2018, even though he renounced his pro-independence stance. But that didn’t deter him from becoming more politically active, helping organize protests in 2019 that saw generations of Hong Kongers rallying against a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed people in the city to be extradited to mainland China.
The largest protest drew an estimated 2 million people — more than a quarter of the city’s population.
Lau, now 30, is one of the defendants who decided to plead guilty in the subversion case related to the 2020 primary. Emilia Wong, a 29-year-old feminist influencer and longtime girlfriend of Lau, supported his activism.
In those years after the Umbrella Movement was stifled, Wong remembered feeling hopeful for a more democratic Hong Kong, despite the somber mood in the city.
“2019 represented a peak of such hopes,” she said. But the high hopes were short-lived.
THE PRIMARY VOTE AND THE CLAMPDOWN
As protests waned due to mass arrests and COVID-19 restrictions, Beijing intensified its control. On June 30, 2020, the sweeping national security law was imposed. Both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments deemed it necessary to restore the city’s stability. Several political groups dissolved on the same day.
Just a week later, a city official warned that the pro-democracy primaries might violate the security law. They held the vote anyway, resulting in an unexpectedly high turnout of 610,000.
The poll, organized within the pro-democracy camp, was meant to shortlist candidates who would then run in the official election for the legislature, typically dominated by the pro-Beijing camp. They hoped that, with a legislative majority, the government would listen to their demands.
But things didn’t go as planned.
After the primary, Beijing said the vote challenged the security law that critics argue has been broadly applied to anything the government claims could threaten stability.
When police officers arrived at Wong’s home in January 2021 to arrest Lau for participating in the election, she recalled, “It felt so absurd that I had to laugh.”
That month, over 50 former lawmakers and democracy proponents were arrested under the national security law. Authorities accused them of planning to get enough people into office to indiscriminately veto budgets, grinding governmental functions to a halt, and to force the city leader to step down.
Of those arrested, 47 were charged and brought to court for days of bail hearings, during which time some were hospitalized due to fatigue and others weren’t able to shower for days. Most of the defendants were denied bail.
LIVES UPENDED
After Lau was taken into custody, Wong devoted her time to arranging food and book deliveries for him, handling media interviews about the case, organizing visits from his friends, and assisting him with his application to restart university studies while detained.
Each day left Wong feeling utterly drained as she also grappled with the shock of Lau’s prosecution. One day, upon receiving clothes worn by Lau during his detention that still carried his scent, she burst into tears.
“It was a blow to me, specifically to my personal vision of Hong Kong,” she said.
Even for veteran activists like Chan, the situation was painful. To her, 2021 was suffocating. After Leung was denied bail, Chan would find herself crying without any particular reason during her commutes.
Months after the 47 activists were prosecuted, arrests of top management at Apple Daily and Stand News — prominent media outlets known for their critical reports on the government — forced them to shut down. Dozens of civil society groups disbanded. Some of Chan’s League of Social Democrats members were also jailed.
That year, Chan wondered daily what would happen next. “I felt lonely, but I had to handle so many things,” she said.
LIFE IN DETENTION
To maintain their relationship between the limited visits, Lau has been writing Wong a letter every day since 2021, sometimes penning Canto-pop song lyrics to express his love. In return, Wong dedicated a love song to Lau on the radio for his birthday.
To Wong, staying with Lau is a natural choice. Lau signed an agreement granting her control over his affairs — a document she described as more powerful than a marriage certificate. She said she would do her best to support him.
Even behind bars, Wong said, Lau drives her to become a better person — when he picked up his reading pace, Wong followed suit. In turn, Wong offered critiques of Lau’s lyrics. Lau pursued his translation degree and Wong became a regular at the gym.
“I’m not just standing still waiting; I’ve been running all along, and so has he,” she said.
Chan said life in detention has left Leung visibly thinner and downhearted. Despite their fiery temperaments, Leung sometimes avoids arguments during their brief visits.
“He cherishes our 15 minutes together,” Chan said. “But I also feel very upset because this isn’t the real him.”
In the most optimistic scenario, it might take three to four more years to see Leung free again, Chan said. In the meantime, she continues to organize small-scale street demonstrations, despite the threat of the new national security law that critics fear will further constrict civil liberties.
Chan knows her actions might not make a significant impact, but she says persistence in their respective roles is still meaningful.
“It’s not like nothing has been achieved,” she said.
Bulgarians headed to the polls Sunday for the eighth time in five years, with anti-corruption candidate and former president Rumen Radev’s bloc tipped to win.
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The European Union’s poorest member has been through a spate of governments since 2021, when large anti-graft rallies brought an end to the conservative government of long-time leader Boyko Borissov.
Eurostat data shows Bulgaria consistently ranks last in the EU by GDP per capita. In 2025, Bulgaria (along with Greece) was at 68% of the EU average.
Radev, who has advocated for renewing ties with Russia and opposes military aid to Ukraine, was president for nine years in the Balkan nation of 6.5 million people.
He stepped down in January to lead newly formed centre-left grouping Progressive Bulgaria, with opinion polls before Sunday’s vote suggesting the bloc could gain 35% of the vote.
The former air force general has said he wants to rid the country of its “oligarchic governance model”, and backed anti-corruption protests in late 2025 that brought down the latest conservative-backed government.
“I’m voting for change,” Decho Kostadinov, 57, told reporters after casting his ballot at a polling station in the capital, Sofia, adding corrupt politicians “should leave — they should take whatever they’ve stolen and get out of Bulgaria”.
Polls are forecasting a surge in voter participation, with more than 3.3 million Bulgarians expected to cast ballots according to the Bulgarian News Agency.
Voting will close at 1700 GMT, with exit polls expected immediately afterwards. Preliminary results are expected on Monday.
‘Preserve what we have’
Borissov’s pro-European GERB party is likely to come second, according to opinion polls, with around 20%, ahead of the liberal PP-DB.
“I’m voting to preserve what we have. We are a democratic country, we live well,” said Elena, an accountant of about 60, who did not give her full name, after casting her vote in Sofia.
Front-runner Radev has slammed the EU’s green energy policy, which he considers naive “in a world without rules”.
He also opposes any Bulgarian efforts to send arms to help Ukraine fight back Russia’s 2022 invasion, though he has said he would not use his country’s veto to block Brussels’ decisions.
Pushing for renewed ties with Russia, Radev denounced a 10-year defence agreement between Bulgaria and Ukraine signed last month – drawing fresh accusations from opponents of being too soft on Moscow.
The ex-president also stoked outrage online for screening images at his final campaign rally of his meetings with world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“We need to close ranks,” he told around 10,000 cheering supporters at the rally, presenting his party as a non-corrupt “alternative to the perverse cartel of old-style parties”.
Borissov, who headed the country virtually uninterrupted for close to a decade, has dismissed suggestions that Radev brings something “new”.
At a rally of his party earlier this week, he insisted GERB had “fulfilled the dreams of the 1990s” with such achievements as the country joining the eurozone this year.
‘No one to vote for’
Radev is aiming for an absolute majority in the 240-seat parliament.
A lack of trust in politics has affected voter turnout, which slumped to 39% in the last election in 2024.
But with Radev rallying voters, high turnout is expected this time, according to analyst Boryana Dimitrova from the Alpha Research polling institute.
Miglena Boyadjieva, a taxi driver of about 55, said she always votes, but the “problem is that there is no one to vote for”.
“You vote for one person and get others. The system has to change,” she told reporters.
Political parties have called on Bulgarians to show up for the polls, also to curb the impact of vote buying.
In recent weeks, police have seized more than one million euros in raids against vote buying in stepped-up operations.
They have also detained hundreds of people, including local councillors and mayors.
A 3-D rendering of an Iranian Shahed-136 drone, a device with two triangle-shaped wings attached to a central fuselage. It has an engine the size of a small motorcycle’s and carries 110 pounds of explosives.
Engine the size of a small motorcycle’s
Carries 110 pounds of explosives
One of the biggest takeaways of the war with Iran is that it has proven itself to be a surprisingly capable adversary against the United States. In addition to its willingness to go on the offensive, Iran has forced the U.S. and its regional allies to confront the rise of cheap drones on the battlefield.
Iranian drones, made with commercial-grade technology, cost roughly $35,000 to produce. That is a fraction of the cost of the high-tech military interceptors sometimes used to shoot them down.
Cheap drones changed the war in Ukraine, and they have enabled Iranians to exploit a gap in American defense investments, which have historically prioritized accurate but expensive solutions.
Countering drones has been a major priority for the Pentagon for years, according to Michael C. Horowitz, who was a Pentagon official in the Biden administration. “But there has not been the impetus to scale a solution,” he said.
In just the first six days, the U.S. spent $11.3 billion on the war with Iran. The White House and Pentagon have not provided updated estimates, but the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, estimated in early April that the U.S. had spent approximately between $25 and $35 billion on the war, with interceptors driving much of the cost. Many missile defense experts also fear interceptor stockpiles are now running dangerously low.
Here is a breakdown of some of the ways the U.S. and its allies have countered Iran’s drones, and why it can be so costly.
Air-based strikes
In an ideal scenario, an early warning aircraft spots a drone when it is still several hundred miles out from a target, and a fighter jet, like an F-16, is dispatched from a military base. The F-16 can then use Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) II rockets to shoot a drone from about six miles away.
A 3-D rendering of an F-16 fighter jet firing an APKWS II rocket from under one wing. Two to three rockets are fired per drone, as per air defense protocol. Two APKWS II rockets and an hour of F-16 flight cost approximately $65,000, a little less than twice that of the Iranian Shahed-136.
Two to three interceptors fired per drone
These types of defensive air patrols are cost-efficient, but haven’t always been available because of the vast scope of the conflict. Iran has also targeted early warning aircraft that the U.S. needs to detect a drone from that distance, according to NBC News.
The other option for detecting and shooting down drones is a variety of different ground-based detection systems, but these systems are all at a disadvantage, as their ability to spot low-flying drones is limited by the curvature of the earth.
Anti-drone defense systems
One ground-based defense system the U.S. and its allies have built specifically to counter drones at a shorter range is the Coyote. It can intercept drones up to around nine miles away.
A 3-D rendering of a Coyote Block 2 interceptor, which looks like a three-foot tube with small rockets at one end. Two Coyotes cost approximately $253,000 or about seven times that of the Iranian Shahed-136.
The Coyote is significantly cheaper than many of the other ground-based defense systems available to the U.S. and its allies and historically effective at defending important assets. But despite being both effective and cost-efficient, relatively few Coyotes have been procured by the U.S. military in recent years.
When Iran-backed militias launched attacks on U.S. ground troops in the region in 2023 and 2024, there were so few Coyotes available that troops had to shuffle the systems between eight different bases in the region almost daily, according to a report from the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
Ship-based anti-missile defenses
Many of the longer-range ground-based defense systems the U.S. and its allies can use to combat drones are more expensive, as they are designed to shoot down aircraft and ballistic missiles, not drones. A Navy destroyer’s built-in radar system, for instance, can detect drones from 30 miles away and shoot it down with Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) interceptors. As in the air-based strikes, military protocol stipulates that at least two missiles be fired.
A 3-D rendering of the deck of a Navy destroyer firing an SM-2 missile from a built-in launcher, which looks like a 15-foot missile launching from a grid of openings on the ship’s surface. Two SM-2 missiles cost approximately $4.2 million, about 120 times that of the Iranian Shahed-136.
This misalignment between America’s defense systems and current warfighting tactics started after the Cold War, when the anticipated threats were fewer, faster, higher-end projectiles, not mass drone raids.
Iran often launches multiple Shahed-136 drones at a time, given their low price tag. The drones are also programmed with a destination before launch and can travel roughly 1,500 miles, putting targets all across the Middle East within reach.
“This category of lower-cost precision strike just didn’t exist at the time that most American air defenses were developed,” said Mr. Horowitz.
Ground-based anti-missile defenses
The Army’s standard air-defense system is the Patriot. Typically stationed at a military base, it can shoot down a drone from up to around 27 miles away with PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors. Military protocol stipulates that at least two missiles be fired.
A 3-D rendering of a Patriot launcher loaded with 17-foot PAC-3 MSE missiles, which looks like a tilted shipping container with scaffolding. Two PAC-3 MSE missiles cost approximately $8 million, about 220 times that of the Iranian Shahed-136.
Patriot missile defense system
Air defense training teaches service members to prioritize using longer-range defense systems first to “get as many bites at the apple as you can,” but those are the most expensive, said Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security.
But a costly defense can still make economic sense to protect a valuable target, especially those that are difficult to repair or replace, such as the nearly $1.1 billion radar at a military base in Qatar and the $500 million air defense sensor at a base in Jordan that were damaged early in the conflict.
Ground-based guns
Finally, there is what one might call a last resort: a ground-based gun. When a drone is about a mile away or less than a minute from hitting its target, something like the Centurion C-RAM can begin rapidly firing to take down the drone.
A 3-D rendering of a Centurion C-RAM, which looks like a gun mounted to a rotating, cylindrical stand. The gun fires 75 rounds of ammunition per second. Five seconds of firing the gun costs $30,000, slightly less than a single Iranian Shahed-136.
Centurion Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar
Fires 375 rounds of ammunition in 5 seconds
Even though it is fairly cost-effective, the Centurion C-RAM is not the best option because it has such a short range.
Interceptor drones
There’s also what one might call the future of fighting drones: A.I.-powered interceptor drones. Interceptor drones like the Merops Surveyor can theoretically hunt and take down enemy projectiles from a short range.
A 3-D rendering of a Surveyor drone, which looks like a three-foot tube with wings and a tail. The Merops drone costs approximately $30,000, a little less than a single Iranian Shahed-136.
Merops system: Surveyor drone
Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive, founded a company to develop the Merops counter-drone system in conjunction with Ukrainian fighters, who have already been combatting Iranian drones in the war with Russia for years.
The U.S. sent thousands of Merops units to the Middle East after the conflict began, but it is unclear whether they have been deployed. The military set up training on the system in the middle of the war, as reported by Business Insider.
Other attempts to lower the cost-per-shot ratio of taking out a drone have failed.
The Pentagon invested over a billion dollars in fiscal year 2024 researching directed energy weapons, or lasers, that would cost only $3 per shot and have a range of 12 miles. Those systems have yet to be used in the field.
Despite the cost imbalance, the real fear for many in the defense community is the depleted stockpile of munitions.
“What scares me is that we will run out of these things,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Not that we can’t afford them, but that we’ll run out before we can replace them.”
World
Moscow-born gunman dead after Kyiv shooting rampage leaves at least 6 dead, 14 wounded: Zelenskyy
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A Russian gunman was killed by special forces Saturday in Ukraine after opening fire at a supermarket in Kyiv, killing six people and wounding 14 others — including a 12‑year‑old boy.
The 58-year-old shooter long resided in the Donetsk region and was born in Moscow, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
He took at least four hostages, killed one of them, and fatally shot four others on the street, Zelenskyy said. Another woman died at a hospital from her injuries.
Graphic video captured by witnesses showed the gunman shooting at a victim within close range on the street. Other bodies were seen lying on the pavement and in courtyards.
The gunman was seen walking with a weapon on the street. (Obtained by Will Stewart)
MANHUNT UNDERWAY AFTER GUNMEN STORM CHICK-FIL-A LEAVING 1 DEAD
Ukranian special forces stormed the convenience store after 40 minutes of failed negotiations, according to Klymenko.
At least fourteen people were wounded in the attack, though officials cautioned the number may rise as people continue to seek medical assistance.
Among the injured is a 12‑year‑old boy and a supermarket security guard, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
The gunman was pictured dead in the convenience store. (Obtained by Will Stewart)
NINE DEAD, 13 WOUNDED IN SECOND TURKISH MASS SHOOTING IN TWO DAYS
Zelenskyy said the shooter also set fire to an apartment prior to the attack, though it is unclear if any injuries resulted from the arson.
“My condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post. “…We wish all the wounded a swift recovery.”
The gunman had previously been prosecuted for criminal offenses, but held a valid weapons permit, according to authorities. Investigators from the National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine are investigating.
The gunman was seen holding and shooting a weapon in the street. (Obtained by Will Stewart)
GUNMAN OPENS FIRE AT HIGH SCHOOL IN TURKEY, WOUNDING AT LEAST 16
Ukraine’s security service labeled the attack an act of terrorism.
“All available information about him and the motives behind his actions is being thoroughly investigated,” Zelenskyy said. “Every detail must be verified.”
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One of the shooter’s neighbors, Hanna Kulyk, 75, described him as an “educated, refined man,” who lived alone and did not socialize often.
“You’d never guess he was some kind of criminal,” Kulyk told The Associated Press.
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