Robert Antic has never been to Hungary’s annual Budapest Pride, due to mark its 30-year anniversary this summer. But now, the 37-year-old content creator who is representing Hungary at this year’s “Mr. Gay Europe” wants to join the festivities for the first time – and the timing is no coincidence.

Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday passed a new law which bans Pride events in the country and allows authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those attending any events that go ahead despite the ban – something campaigners say is illegal and part of a wider crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed the ban, which he said would outlaw gatherings that “violate child protection laws.”

“We won’t let woke ideology endanger our kids,” he posted on X on Tuesday.

The move sparked lively protests in Budapest earlier this week, with organizers of the city’s Pride vowing to continue with the annual festival despite the new law and declaring: “We will fight this new fascist ban.”

For Antic, who describes himself as a “proud gay man,” the ban is a violation of his right to express himself.

Despite the fears that the new law brings, Antic said he still considers Pride a “fundamental event” for the community.

“No matter the challenges or restrictions, it’s important for people to come together and celebrate who they are,” he said. “I believe change is possible.”

‘New laws to segregate us’

The Hungarian government, led by Orban’s nationalist-populist party, regularly stands at odds with the rest of the European Union despite being a member.

Earlier this month, Hungary, the only EU member state opposing Ukraine from joining, refused to sign a statement of support for Kyiv that was agreed to by all other countries within the union. Orban is also a close ally of US President Donald Trump, with the two sharing both an ideology and political approach.

Orban’s party has been enacting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation for several years now, often under the guise of so-called “child-protection.”

In 2020, the country effectively barred same-sex adoption, with Orban’s office saying at the time that the move strengthened “the protection of Hungarian families and the safety of our children.”

A year later, the country banned the distribution of content related to homosexuality or gender change to under 18s, something the European Commission said violated “a number of EU rules.”

As a self-described queer person, he has attended every Pride event held in Budapest since he arrived.

Though the new law made him momentarily question whether his move to the city had been the right decision, he decided that his presence, along with other members of the LGBTQ+ community, is “now more important than ever.”

“It makes me want to be more obvious (as a queer person),” he said.

For June, a 24-year-old non-binary, bisexual teacher and tattoo artist who did not want to share their last name for privacy reasons, Hungary is a challenging place to be openly LGBTQ+.

In an effort to create more spaces for LGBTQ+ people in Budapest to meet, June has for the past two years held an event called Queer Picnic on the city’s central Margaret Island.

Some 70 people showed up to the first picnic after June advertised it on social media, with dozens showing up the following year.

Despite the escalating clampdown, June said that they would organize another event this year, despite the ban on LGBTQ+ gatherings. “Queer Picnic for now will be a really great solace for people during these times,” they said.

“People want to feel normal – that’s all we want. We just want to feel normal,” they added. “It’s the government that keeps inventing new laws to further segregate us.”

‘Highly intrusive level of surveillance’

As members of the LGBTQ+ community are vowing to defy Hungary’s new law, politicians and non-governmental organizations around the world are speaking out against it too.

“This government wants to turn the clock back by decades and drag the country back to a much darker past,” a cross-party group of European Parliament members declared on Wednesday.

Ghoshal said the law’s reliance on “the worn-out claim that it is protecting children by criminalizing LGBTIQ people and their allies is a blatant ploy to misuse children for political gain.”

Despite criticism from human rights groups and opposing legislators – some of whom let off smoke flares in Hungary’s parliament on Tuesday – the law was passed in a 136-27 vote, with support from Orban’s party and their minority coalition partner the Christian Democrats.

Orban may be trying to appeal to right-wing voters – Hungary’s opposition party, Tisza, leads Orban’s Fidesz in polls, according to Reuters, a year before elections in the country.

Meanwhile, other critics have homed in on the government’s planned use of facial recognition tools to police the ban.

Anna Bacciarelli, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that Hungary is subject to the European Union’s AI Act, which, she says, “explicitly prohibits the use of facial recognition in public spaces unless there is justification on national security grounds and when it is subject to judicial oversight.”

Another danger of facial recognition technology is that it has been shown to misidentify people, particularly those from minority groups, according to Serhat Ozturk, a legal officer at UK-based nonprofit Privacy International.

June, the non-binary tattoo artist, said the threat of facial recognition being used if this year’s Pride goes ahead initially scared them, but as they heard more people say that they would go anyway in defiance of the law, it “lit a flame” within them.

“I’m realizing that these are all tactics to silence us,” June said. “And if that is their goal, then we must continue. We have to continue fighting. That is all that we can do.”

China is practicing “dogfighting” satellites as part of its expanding capabilities in space, according to the United States Space Force, which warned that Washington’s key rivals are closing the technology gap as space becomes increasingly critical to security on Earth.

The Space Force observed “five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” its vice chief of space operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein said Tuesday at a defense conference.

“That’s what we call dogfighting in space. They are practicing tactics, techniques, and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another,” Guetlein said, using a term that typically refers to close-range aerial combat between fighter jets.

While the purpose of such operations was not clear – and some experts question the use of the term – Guetlein’s comments come as analysts say a growing number of countries, including China, have sought to develop counterspace technologies.

Such capabilities could enable a country to destroy or disable satellites, potentially allowing them to interrupt a rival military’s communications or operations like launching and detecting missiles. Such interference could also wreak havoc on global navigation systems used for everything from banking and cargo shipping to ambulance dispatch.

The US has been closely watching China’s rapid rise as a space power in recent decades, not only through its ambitious lunar and deep-space exploration programs, but also what analysts describe as its deepening counterspace capabilities.

In response to a question about China and Russia, Guetlein said they had developed “exquisite” capabilities. He cited the deployment of jammers to disrupt satellite signals, the ability to dazzle intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites with lasers, as well as maneuvers involving grappling with a satellite and towing it to a different orbit.

“This is the most complex and challenging strategic environment that we have seen in a long time, if not ever,” Guetlein said, adding that the force needs “capabilities to deter and, if necessary, defeat aggression” to “guarantee that the advantage is in our favor” into the future.

“There used to be a capability gap between us and our near peers, mainly driven by the technological advancement of the United States … that capability gap has significantly narrowed,” he said.

The “dogfighting” incident referenced by Guetlein involved a series of Chinese satellite maneuvers in 2024 in low Earth orbit involving three Shiyan-24C experimental satellites and two Chinese experimental space objects, the Shijian-6 05A/B, a Space Force spokesperson said.

Beijing has released little public information about its experimental satellites and such operations. The country included safeguarding its “security interests in outer space” among its national defense goals in a 2019 white paper but has long said it stands “for the peaceful use of outer space” and opposes an arms race there.

‘Dogfighting’ in space?

Given the physical dynamics in space, the maneuvers described by Guetlein as “dogfighting” would look very different from those in the air between fighter jets, in this case involving satellites maneuvering around one another using propellant, experts say.

Analysts have long been closely monitoring interactions between satellites and other objects in space. Typically referred to as “rendezvous and proximity operations,” these maneuvers can be used for peaceful operations like satellite maintenance or clearing debris – but could also allow countries to interfere with adversaries’ assets.

“Close maneuvering around other satellites could suggest the development of a counterspace weapon because getting close to another satellite means you could potentially grab it, launch a net or projectile at it, or use an energy weapon, like a laser or jammer,” said Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

“But getting close to another satellite might also suggest other purposes, like in-space servicing or refueling. It could also be one satellite trying to take a picture of the other one,” he said, adding that China is launching “more and more satellites that demonstrate the ability to conduct sophisticated maneuvers.”

“We don’t really know for sure, at least not publicly, what any of these satellites are up to, but some are probably doing surveillance and also testing out new space technologies that could be used as counterspace weapons,” Swope added.

There is no confirmed public evidence of China using counterspace capabilities against any military targets, the independent US-based Secure World Foundation said in an annual report on countries’ counterspace capabilities last year.

Russia and the US are also known to conduct proximity operations to their own and other satellites, she added.

“It’s hard to say if this Chinese capability is something that the US doesn’t have since we’re learning about it from US commercial SSA (space situational awareness) companies, who are generally reluctant to discuss what US satellites are up to,” she said.

Referring to China’s operations as “dogfighting” in space is “not helpful” because it “automatically ascribes hostile intentions to activities that frankly the US also undertakes,” Samson added.

Currently, the US doesn’t have an acknowledged operational program to target satellites from within orbit using other satellites or spacecraft, though it could likely quickly field one in the future, according to SWF’s annual report.

That’s because the US has done extensive “non-offensive” testing of technologies to approach and rendezvous with satellites, including close approaches of its own military satellites and several Russian and Chinese military satellites, the foundation said.

The southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa was engulfed in flames late Thursday after being struck by a large-scale Russian drone attack, hours after US President Donald Trump expressed optimism about ending the war and as peace talks are set to resume on Monday.

Trump – who recently held separate phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky on implementing a partial ceasefire – projected optimism about reaching an end to the war on Thursday, saying “we’re doing pretty well in that regard.”

Delegations from Russia and the US are expected to resume talks on ending the war on Monday in Saudi Arabia, both countries’ officials said, following an earlier round of talks in February.

Zelensky said a team from Ukraine will also attend, with parallel meetings likely to take place, and urged Putin to “stop making unnecessary demands that only prolong the war.”

“I believe we’ll get it done. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said on Thursday, referring to the talks.

Hours after Trump spoke, Russia launched a “massive” drone attack on Odesa, hitting civilian targets and injuring at least three people, including a minor, local officials said.

A high-rise residential building and a shopping center were among the targets, local governor Oleh Kiper said.

Czech President Peter Pavel was in the port city on an official visit at the time of the attack, Ukrainian official Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Meanwhile, Russian assaults wounded at least five others near the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, local governor Ivan Fedorov said.

Nearly 200 drones also hit the Kirovohrad region in central Ukraine overnight into Thursday, wounding 10 people, including four children, and damaging homes, a church, and key infrastructure, Zelensky said.

“Russian strikes on Ukraine do not stop, despite their propaganda claims. Every day and every night, nearly a hundred or more drones are launched, along with ongoing missile attacks. With each such launch, the Russians expose to the world their true attitude towards peace,” Zelensky said Thursday on X.

Ukraine and Russia have exchanged aerial assaults in the days since the Kremlin agreed to temporarily halt attacks on energy infrastructure targets, but stopped short of signing off on a broader ceasefire sought by the US.

Overnight into Thursday, Ukraine struck a military airfield deep inside Russian territory, sparking a huge explosion and destroying nearby houses, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine’s military confirmed it was behind the attack on Engels airbase – more than 465 miles from the Ukrainian border – saying it targeted the airbase because it is used by Russia’s air force “to launch missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine and terrorist attacks against the civilian population.”

Zelensky on Wednesday accused Putin of already breaking his pledge, saying that Russia attacked Ukraine with 150 drones, including strikes on energy facilities.

Zelensky has said he is “ready” to pause attacks on Russia’s energy and civilian infrastructure, saying his team will prepare a list of civilian targets to be included in a future deal.

Ukraine “unconditionally agrees” to a ceasefire, but is “waiting for the aggressor to agree,” Zelensky said Thursday while speaking at a press conference in Norway.

Putin announced the halt on energy infrastructure attacks on Tuesday after a lengthy call with Trump. “Vladimir Putin responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the Russian military the corresponding order,” a Kremlin readout said.

As part of its demands for a broader ceasefire, the Kremlin laid out several tough conditions that Putin had previously insisted on – such as a halt to all foreign military aid and intelligence to Kyiv, and a halt to any Ukrainian mobilization or rearming during that period.

Zelensky spoke to European leaders on Thursday as they reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, calling on other Western leaders to match words of support for Kyiv with deeds, as Trump escalates his courting of Russia.

“The stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger they are behind the negotiation table,” the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said of the Ukrainians, according to Reuters.

The meetings in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Monday are designed for US and Russian officials to hammer out more specific language on the deal reached by Trump and Putin, as well as other areas of negotiation toward a full ceasefire. The talks won’t involve Cabinet-level US officials, the State Department said Wednesday.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of the Ukrainian official Oleksiy Kuleba.

Sudan’s army has reclaimed the Presidential Palace in the capital, Khartoum, in a significant victory over a rampaging militia that controls swaths of the war-torn country.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have viciously scrambled for territory since fighting broke out between them in April 2023. The conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and has left more than 28,000 people dead with 11 million others forced to flee their homes, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data initiative.

The RSF has laid siege to Khartoum and the Sudanese seat of power since the start of the war. On Friday, the government said its troops had seized control of the Presidential Palace and would continue its push to retake the capital.

“Today the flag is raised, the palace is back, and the journey continues until victory is complete,” information minister Khalid Al-Aiser wrote on X.

The Sudanese justice ministry hailed the “liberation of the Republican Palace,” describing it as “a symbol of national sovereignty.”

“It is quite significant for SAF and central and north Sudanese possibilities of IDPs return,” she said, adding that some questions, however, remained answered.

“The question of Sudan’s governance and to what extent SAF is open to a political process with RSF and other political actors or continues with the war remains a question.”

Photos of government troops celebrating at the palace were shared on social media by the military.

“Our forces … completely destroyed the enemy’s personnel and equipment and seized large quantities of its equipment and weapons,” a military spokesperson said Friday morning in a televised broadcast.

Later on Friday, the RSF said in a Telegram post that “the battle for the Republican Palace is not over yet,” adding that its forces “are still present in the vicinity of the area” and had “carried out a swift military operation targeting a gathering … inside the Republican Palace, killing more than 89 enemy personnel and destroying various military vehicles.”

Local media reported that the palace was hit by a drone, killing an unknown number of soldiers, as well as journalists from the state broadcaster.

Parts of Khartoum are still held by the RSF militia which controls the country’s western, southern and central regions, including Darfur where ethnically motivated killings are common. The SAF administers the eastern and northern parts of the country.

Retaking Khartoum would be symbolic for the SAF whose rival the RSF had begun steps to establish a parallel government. But it would also come at a great cost for the Sudanese people as civilians are often caught in the crossfire.

“Dozens of civilians, including local humanitarian volunteers, have been killed by artillery shelling and aerial bombardment by the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces in eastern Khartoum and north Omdurman since 12 March,” a spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office, Seif Magango, said Thursday as fighting intensified in the capital.

Sudan’s warring parties have each been accused of war crimes. In January, the United States accused the RSF of committing genocide, the second in the country in two decades.

This month, a new report from UNICEF also linked the SAF to atrocities that included sexual violence against young children, some as young as one.

“Credible reports indicate that the RSF and allied militia have raided homes in eastern Khartoum, carrying out summary killings and arbitrary detentions, and looted food and medical supplies from community kitchens and medical clinics,” Magango added. “SAF and affiliated fighters are also reported to have engaged in looting and other criminal activities in areas they control in Khartoum North (Bahri) and East Nile. Widespread arbitrary arrests are ongoing in East Nile.”