Japan PM to boost defense alliance with ‘very friendly’ Trump

NATIONAL HARBOR, United States: US Democrats picked a 51-year-old progressive activist on Saturday as their new leader, who must rebuild a party still reeling from last year’s crushing presidential defeat — and figure out how best to oppose Republican Donald Trump.
“The Democratic Party is the party of working people, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves and outcompete everywhere, in every election, and at every level of government,” Ken Martin, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), said in a statement.
The DNC, the party’s governing body, raises millions of dollars each year to support and build infrastructure for candidates across the country, culminating every four years in the presidential election.
Martin, a relative unknown outside of the party, stressed the need for Democrats to reconnect with blue collar voters, and to take the electoral fight to all 50 states — even bastions of conservative politics.
“Donald Trump and his billionaire allies are put on notice — we will hold them accountable for ripping off working families, and we will beat them at the ballot box,” Martin said.
Party grandees were meeting near Washington as the DNC carries out a postmortem of their November loss.
They elevated Martin, formerly the chair of the party’s Minnesota branch, to devise their national battle plan.
“This is not a game of chess where everyone is moving their pieces back and forth in a respectful, timed manner. This is guerilla warfare in political form,” said Katherine Jeanes, deputy digital director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, ahead of the vote.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a rising Democratic star, warned that the party must “not to go into hiding until the next general election.”
The moment calls for boldness, added Shasti Conrad, chair of the party’s Washington state branch, saying that many Americans have lost the faith.
“They don’t trust us to be able to make things better. They don’t trust that when we are given power, that we know how to use it,” Conrad said.
And the fight starts now, she added — there can be no waiting until the next presidential election, set for 2028.
Facing a Republican majority in Congress and a second term for Trump, who has roared back into the White House with all the provocative rhetoric of his first administration, Democrats say they must pick their battles.
“We have to be able to decipher crazy rhetoric versus policy violence,” said Conrad, and not be like a “dog chasing the car.”
While many are “exhausted” after the last election campaign, Jeanes said the party must learn to respond to the frantic pace of shock moves from the Trump administration.
Much of Democratic success going forward will be in how the party presents itself to an American public weary of politics.
That includes engaging with voters “in places that have sometimes been uncomfortable” for Democrats, according to Conrad.
After his victory in November, Trump credited a series of interviews on largely right-wing podcasts, including the popular “Joe Rogan Experience,” for aiding his return to the White House.
“We need to be getting on sports podcasts and video games and trying to make sure that we’re reaching into apolitical spaces,” Jeanes said.

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine accused Russia on Saturday of killing four people in a strike on a boarding school sheltering civilians in the Kursk region town of Sudzha, which Kyiv has occupied for over five months.
Kyiv launched a surprise cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk region last August, seizing dozens of villages and small towns including the regional hub of Sudzha — home to about 6,000 people before the fighting.
“Russian aviation struck a boarding school in the town of Sudzha, Kursk region, with a guided aerial bomb,” the Ukrainian army’s general staff said on Telegram.
“The strike was carried out on purpose,” it added.
It said “dozens of local residents were inside the building preparing to evacuate” at the time of the attack, and that rescue work was under way.
“In the course of the rubble removal works, 84 civilians were rescued and provided with medical aid, their health condition is satisfactory, four are in serious condition, and four people died,” it said in a later post.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of striking its “own civilians” in the town. He shared a video on social media showing a heavily damaged building, as well as an wounded man lying on the ground.
“They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there,” Zelensky said in a post on X. “Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian homes the same way. And even against their own civilians, the Russian army uses similar tactics.”
Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, spokesman for Ukraine’s military command in the region, said most of those inside the building were elderly.
AFP was not able to immediately verify Ukraine’s claim, and Russian officials made no immediate public comments on Kyiv’s accusation.
Thousands of Russian civilians are thought to be trapped by fighting in the border region.
A Russian official in Kursk told AFP last week that authorities were working “constantly” to secure the return of Russian civilians caught behind the front lines.