Putin: Weapons aid makes NATO ‘participant’

BLOOMBERG – Russian President Vladimir Putin said NATO arms supplies to Ukraine make the alliance a “participant” in the conflict.
In a TV interview, Putin cast the year-long war in Ukraine as an existential battle for Russia’s survival.
“They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part — the Russian Federation,” Putin said.

Migrant shipwreck in Italy kills 58

REUTERS – Fifty-eight people died, including some children, when a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants crashed against rocks on the southern Italian coast early on Sunday, authorities said.
The vessel had set sail from Turkey several days ago with migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, and several other countries and crashed in stormy weather near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on the eastern coast of Calabria.

Mexico’s opposition to protest electoral overhaul

REUTERS - Mexico’s opposition plans a mass protest on Sunday against President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s drive to shrink the independent electoral authority, arguing the changes threaten democracy — an accusation he vigorously denies.
Mexico’s Congress last week approved a major overhaul of the National Electoral Institute (INE), which Lopez Obrador has repeatedly attacked as corrupt and inefficient.