By Krishn Kaushik MOIRANG/CHURACHANDPUR, India In the sectarian violence that has ravaged India's Manipur state, women have been

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After several weeks of tense negotiations, President Joe Biden and House Republicans have reached an agreement in principle to raise the debt ceiling and cap spending.

Every family in Ukraine’s northeastern village of Hroza was affected after a missile strike killed 52 people on Thursday, obliterating a sixth of the local population, say locals. However, it may take several months before DNA analysis can identify the majority of the remains. For now, the names are scrawled on cardboard or white plastic squares, and strings mark the boundaries of the fresh graves. Dozens of people gathered in the local cafe for a meal to honour Andrii Kozyr, a soldier who died in the war against Russia, with almost every household in the village sending someone to mourn the native son. When the gathering was struck by a precision missile that Ukrainian officials said was fired by Russia, entire families perished in an instant. In all, 52 people died out of a population of 300, while only six people in the cafe survived, with villagers suspecting that a local may have tipped off Russian forces. “From every household, there were people present,” said interior minister Ihor Klymenko. “My neighbours, my neighbours,” Valentina Kozeinko, a 73-year-old retiree, wailed in agony. “A lot of our people died there,” she told CNN. “It was a powerful strike, very powerful, I came out and everything was burning,” she recalled. “It was so scary … The corpses were burned and there was blood everywhere.” Among the dead was Valeriy Kozyr’s daughter, Olya, who was survived by her three children. Mr Kozyr’s son-in-law died in the attack as well. "It would have been better if I had died," he said quietly as he wept. "Oh God, you cannot punish me like this. To leave the father and take the children!" Wiping tears from his face, the 61-year-old explained that he must now work out how to care for his three grand-children aged 10, 15 and 17. Mr Kozyr wants to bury Olya and her husband side-by-side in a single grave. Like much of the region east of the regional capital of Kharkiv, Hroza was under Russian occupation for six months, until September 2022, when Ukrainian troops liberated the area. Locals say it is strictly a civilian area. There has never been any military base, whether Russian or Ukrainian. They said only civilians or family came to the funeral and wake, and residents were the only people who would have known where and when it was taking place. Moscow denies targeting civilians in its full-scale invasion, a position it repeated on Friday in response to the Hroza strike. Thousands have been killed in a bombing campaign that has hit apartment blocks and restaurants as well as power stations, bridges and grain silos. Ukrainian officials said the weapon was a precision Iskander-style missile, which is said to have an accuracy of five to seven meters. Dmytro Chubenko, spokesperson for the regional prosecutor, said investigators are looking into whether someone from the area transmitted the cafe’s coordinates to the Russians — a betrayal to everyone now grieving in Hroza. Many share that suspicion, describing a strike timed to kill the maximum number of people. The date of the funeral was set a few weeks ago, and the time was shared throughout the village late last week. Not all of the victims have been identified. Regional police investigator Serhiy Bolvinov told reporters late on Thursday that authorities would have to use DNA to identify some of the victims because their remains were beyond recognition. "Corpses lay there in that yard, and nobody could identify them," said Valentyna Kozienko, 73, speaking near her home close to the site. "Half the village is gone, families are gone," said Kozyr, standing beside his wife as she wept. "All the time they miss. Well, this time, they hit. "Now I’ll have to cross out half my phone book." Additional reporting from the wires Read More Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s ‘inhuman’ missile strike hit area with no military targets, says Kyiv Precision missile strike on cafe hosting soldier's wake decimates Ukrainian village ‘You can still smell the blood’: Inside the village where more than 50 were killed by a Russian missile

Five years after they last met, the ex-president and his self-described fixer were reunited in court.

Days after the US Supreme Court struck down race-conscious university admissions, civil rights groups have filed a federal lawsuit targeting so-called “legacy” admissions at Harvard University. The lawsuit, alleging widespread discrimination at the college in violation of the Civil Rights Act, is the latest challenge to the practice of prioritising university admissions for the children of alumni. “There’s no birthright to Harvard. As the Supreme Court recently noted, ‘eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.’ There should be no way to identify who your parents are in the college application process,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, which filed the complaint on 3 July. “Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” he said in a statement. “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.” The group filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Chica Project, the African Community Economic Development of New England and the Greater Boston Latino Network. Last week, the conservative supermajority on the nation’s highest court ruled that private and public colleges and universities may not consider race as a factor in admissions, striking down the precedent affirmed in the 2003 ruling in Grutter v Bollinger. Civil rights advocates and justices who supported the decades-long precedent, intended to promote racially diverse college campuses, derided what they argue is the court’s ongoing perversion of the 14th Amendment and the foundational concept of equal protection. The latest lawsuit points to Harvard data finding that 70 per cent of the college’s donor-related and legacy applicants are white. So-called “legacy” applicants have a roughly six times greater chance of admission, according to records, pointing to a “custom, pattern and practice” that is “exclusionary and discriminatory” and “severely disadvantages and harms applicants of color,” plaintiffs argued. The complaint calls on the US Department of Education to initiate a federal investigation into Harvard’s application process and for the federal government to declare such practices illegal. “Harvard’s practice of giving a leg-up to the children of wealthy donors and alumni – who have done nothing to deserve it – must end,” Lawyers for Civil Rights litigation fellow Michael Kippins said in a statement accompanying the complaint. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Democratic lawmakers and President Joe Biden urged universities to reconsider their legacy admissions, which he said “expand privilege instead of opportunity.” The Independent has requested comment from Harvard. Read More Biden condemns Supreme Court striking down affirmative action: ‘This is not a normal court’ Biden reveals ‘new path’ to student debt relief after Supreme Court strikes down president’s plan Pence ‘doesn’t believe’ racial inequality exists in schools as he celebrates SCOTUS affirmative action ban

Republican former vice president Mike Pence launched his bid for the 2024 presidential nomination on Monday, offering a traditionalist alternative to the battle royale being waged by...