Four people were arrested after authorities said hundreds of vehicles blocked all northbound lanes of Interstate 75 during an apparent street takeover in Hillsborough County, Florida early Saturday, prompting a high-speed chase that reached 140 mph.
The incident began around 1:30 a.m. near mile marker 266 in Thonotosassa, where Florida Highway Patrol traffic cameras captured a large gathering of vehicles stopping traffic while some drivers performed burnouts in the middle of the interstate, according to an arrest report.
As troopers responded to the scene, video showed vehicles rapidly dispersing as drivers and spectators rushed back to their cars, the report said. While most of those involved were allowed to leave without facing charges, one green BMW allegedly sped away from the scene, leading a trooper to initiate a pursuit.
Florida Man In Bunny Helmet Allegedly Led Police On 120 Mph Chase Before Surrendering To Troopers
According to FHP, the BMW accelerated to approximately 140 mph — about twice the posted speed limit — before exiting the interstate and eventually stopping in a parking lot.

#interstate #vehicles #chase #troopers

By Nate Raymond
July 28 (Reuters) - EBay and three former top executives have agreed to pay $55.7 million to resolve a lawsuit by a Massachusetts couple who fell victim to a bizarre stalking and harassment ‌campaign carried out by several of its employees in retaliation for their coverage of the e-commerce company in ‌a newsletter they publish.
David and Ina Steiner announced the settlement late on Monday, bringing an end to a case they filed in 2021 in Boston federal court after several former eBay employees were prosecuted for targeting them in a cyber-stalking campaign that involved sending the couple **** roaches, fly larvae and a **** Halloween pig mask.
As part of the settlement, eBay agreed to pay $46.15 million to the couple; fund $6 million in charitable contributions to nonprofit organizations; and issue a "strongly-worded" statement about the conduct of three of its top ‌former executives.
"We believe this resolution sends a ⁠clear message that corporations and their executives cannot engage in this type of misconduct without facing significant consequences," Christopher Murphy, the Steiners' attorney, said in a statement.

#million #couple #stalking #several

A decade ago, Seattle was the poster child of American tech prosperity. Amazon and Microsoft had turned a midsize Pacific Northwest city into a magnet for engineers, executives, and capital, adding roughly 40,000 jobs per year at the peak of the boom, according to the Puget Sound Regional Council.
Today, more than one-third of downtown Seattle's office **** e sits empty, its job postings have collapsed faster than almost any other U.S. metro, and even Starbucks—the coffee giant founded in the city in 1971—is shifting jobs south to Nashville, as it commits to a $100 million, 2,000-person new footprint in Music City. The story of Seattle's reversal unfolds in three overlapping arcs: an office market in free fall, a labor market that has gone from boom to bust, and a policy environment that has made survival harder for the small businesses left behind.
Seattle's downtown office vacancy rate hit 35.6% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 32.3% a year earlier, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. That marks a stunning reversal from the pre-pandemic era: As recently as early 2025, the central business district's availability rate—offices with departures pending—and vacancy rate were already hitting all-time highs based on CoStar data stretching back to 1982.
Some brokers put the number even higher, with Colliers reporting vacancy touching 39.1% in late 2024 as remote work, tech layoffs, and cautious leasing decisions compounded. Office building values in the district have plunged sharply as a result, with landlords struggling to fill **** e abandoned by major tenants.
The office crisis is inseparable from a broader collapse in hiring. Seattle metro job postings fell 35% between February 2020 and October 2025, the second-steepest drop of any major U.S. metro after San Francisco's 37% decline, according to Axios's **** ysis of Indeed data.

#city

As health officials investigate a multistate cyclospora outbreak, so far linked to recalled iceberg lettuce, many Americans are asking the same question after eating a salad or sandwich: Should I be worried?
Federal health officials have linked shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in five states to a subset of the outbreak, prompting the fast-food chain to pull Taylor Farms lettuce from its food.
Additionally, Taylor Farms de Mexico has recalled certain iceberg lettuce products sold at Walmart under the Marketside brand and distributed to restaurants and other food-service customers.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently addressed the spread of cyclosporiasis, telling reporters during a July 21 news briefing that "we do have the outbreak under control."
"We have done extensive forensics, epidemiological forensics, and we have identified the source of the outbreak. We, and the companies that are involved, have implemented a recall," Kennedy added.

#Health #farms #linked

Global hunger declined for the third consecutive year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 report.
The new report estimates that 7.8 percent of the world's people were undernourished in 2025.
FAO
The FAO report notes that less than 2.5 percent of people living in the U.S., Canada, Eastern Asia, and Europe are undernourished. Therefore, its calculations chiefly encompass the extent of hunger in developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and the rest of Asia.
Armed conflict and violence remain the primary drivers of acute food insecurity in 12 out of 13 hunger hotspots identified by the World Food Programme and the FAO.

#report #global

By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - Civil rights groups said they filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration on Monday over the government's attempt to restrict federal ‌childcare and family ******* istance funding.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Women's Law Center ‌and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice said in the lawsuit against the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that they sought correspondence between federal officials and pro-Trump right-wing online influencer Nick Shirley.
A viral video by Shirley in late 2025 was publicly amplified and credited by senior administration officials as the basis for the attempted funding restrictions.
The video alleged some childcare centers in Minnesota were fraudulent. News reports subsequently ‌said the claims were misleading and ⁠exaggerated.

#administration #childcare

Agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were preparing to question a British zoologist and disease ecology expert upon his return to the United States from the World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of COVID-19, before the FBI intervened and asked agents to stand down, according to files released Monday by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
"They told the public a COVID lab leak 'wasn't plausible,'" Rand wrote on X. "Their own private messages say otherwise. Today I'm launching The Reading Room where the public can review records related to my ongoing investigation – not just conclusions but the actual documents."
The documents show CBP's National Targeting Center flagged Peter Daszak as "a high person of interest" ahead of his Feb. 5, 2021, arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Daszak, the former president of EcoHealth Alliance, was flagged because of more than 15 years of collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and his longstanding relationship with its lead researcher, Zhengli Shi, as well as his role as principal investigator on National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants funding bat coronavirus research in China.
Rand Paul Brings Cia Whistleblower To Senate Hearing Alleging 'Deep State' Covid-19 Conspiracy

By Yimou Lee
TAIPEI, July 20 (Reuters) - Taiwan detected a sharp rise in Chinese coast guard and research vessel activity around the island in June, prompting Taipei to plan drills simulating Chinese escalations off its Pacific ‌coast, according to Taiwan Coast Guard data and officials.
Taiwan reported 55 Chinese government vessel sightings, including coast guard and ‌research boats, around the island in June, up from 30 in May, the data showed.
The sightings marked an 83% increase from May and a 120% rise from 25 sightings in June last year. The tally excluded sightings around Taiwan-controlled islands near the Chinese coast.
The figures underscore the growing role of China's coast guard in Beijing's latest pressure campaign against Taiwan, which angers Taipei and alarms some Western nations including U.S., Britain, France and Germany.

By Helen Coster
NEW YORK, July 16 (Reuters) - Two of the three major U.S. television networks and CNN did not broadcast a prime-time address on Thursday by President Donald Trump on their primary platforms, drawing a rebuke from a president who has placed unprecedented pressure on American media.
The speech focused on election security, four months before the critical midterm elections.
During his speech, Trump said that networks that ‌did not air his speech were engaged in a "plot" and should have their licenses revoked.
"In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said they would not cover this speech," he said, adding, "Fraud ‌like this should mean a revocation of their licenses."

By Andrew MacAskill and Elizabeth Piper
LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) - After enduring one of the worst moments of his career when he lost his second bid for the Labour leadership in 2015, Andy Burnham spoke of the pain of being "rejected by people you know" and left for Manchester to escape London politics.
Just over a decade later, the man whose stint ‌as Greater Manchester mayor saw him dubbed 'the King of the North' has taken over as Labour leader unopposed and, next week, will become Britain's seventh prime minister in that period.
The defeat ‌and self-imposed exile that appeared to end his chances of ever becoming prime minister instead helped propel him to the most powerful job in Britain.
After being elected Labour leader on Friday, Burnham promised the biggest change in four decades to the way Britain was governed, arguing that centralised government in London had ignored the needs of local communities.

TRENTON, New Jersey — Gov. Mikie Sherrill built her political brand around her time piloting helicopters for the Navy.
As New Jersey's governor, she isn't in the ****** pit anymore. But she's a frequent flier.
Sherrill flew aboard a State Police helicopter eight times over roughly three months, according to records obtained by POLITICO. In one instance, the records show, Sherrill used a State Police helicopter to fly from New Jersey to Maryland to attend a "black-tie" alumni event at the Naval Academy, her alma mater.
Access to the helicopter is one of the perks of being New Jersey governor, albeit an expensive one. As of 2021, it cost taxpayers approximately $2,500 an hour for the governor to use the State Police helicopter, according to press reports.
Prior New Jersey governors have faced scrutiny over use of the state chopper, especially when it is not explicitly for state business. Democratic former Gov. Jim McGreevey used it for personal trips, which resulted in the New Jersey Democratic State Committee agreeing to reimburse the state $18,200. Republican former Gov. Chris Christie was ensnared in "choppergate" in 2011 when he arrived at his son's high school baseball game in a State Police helicopter. He and the New Jersey Republican Party reimbursed the state $3,300 days later, but the flights raised questions around his image as a fiscal hawk.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declined to weigh in on the latest scandal to hit a member of his party, instead focusing on his planned diatribe against President Donald Trump's primetime address Thursday.
The New York Post reported that Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., engaged in ******* ual relationships with at least two Democratic House staffers who did not work for him while he was a member of the House. According to House rules, members are not barred from having relationships with staffers who work outside their office.
Sources told the outlet it was believed the relationships happened while the lawmaker was unmarried.
Ethics Panel Clears Gallego As Luna Declares, 'Once A Creep, Always A Creep'
When asked to weigh in on the latest scandal involving Gallego, Schumer mentioned his planned speech railing against Trump's scheduled address on foreign interference in the 2020 election Thursday night and told Fox News Digital, "I'm not — I'm focused on this right now."

Brothers Kirk and Jacob McKinney started Junk Teens with a $4,000 pickup truck.
A turning point came when they reinvested early profits into an $80,000 dump truck.
They now operate in multiple markets and are on track to top $5 million in revenue in 2026.
Kirk McKinney was riding bikes near his Massachusetts home about six years ago when he came across a goldmine: A dump filled with plenty of junk, sure, but also speakers and electronics.
"Someone had thrown away this perfectly good pair of speakers," he told Business Insider. "I asked the guy at the dump if I could take them and he said yes. I just couldn't believe that."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko stepped down on Sunday as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced fresh changes to Ukraine's government, saying he had offered a new and important position to the former premier.
Zelenskyy, who has remained in office under martial law because wartime elections are prohibited, has periodically reshuffled his government in an effort to bring fresh momentum to his administration.
Svyrydenko, who has served as Ukraine's economy minister, was named prime minister in July 2025 at the age of 39 after playing a lead role in securing a mineral agreement between Ukraine and the United States, seen as an important way of tying U.S. interests to Ukraine's security.
In a statement on social media, Svyrydenko said she was "proud to have had the honor of leading the government during one of the most difficult periods in Ukraine's modern history." She also said she had discussed "next steps" with Zelenskyy, but did not provide further details.
"I remain ready to serve the Ukrainian state and carry out every task aimed at strengthening Ukraine's position, defending our national interests and bringing a just peace closer," she said.

Despite concerns from debt hawks, the U.S. government is continuing to borrow at pace: For the fiscal year of 2026 so far, the federal deficit has totaled just under $1.4 trillion.

The first nine months of this fiscal year (beginning in October) have now surpassed the borrowing levels of 2025, when deficits totaled just over $1.3 trillion for the same period.

At the time of writing, the total U.S. national debt sits at $39.4 trillion, accumulated under administrations led by both Republicans and Democrats.
As such, the monthly borrowing for 2026 now sits at roughly $155 billion, or $39 billion per week. And, like any borrower, that debt carries an interest cost. The latest monthly budget review from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms that net interest on public debt for the fiscal year has hit $857 billion: roughly $23.8 billion a week.
This is approximately $100 billion more (13%) than the interest paid out in the first nine months of 2025, the CBO adds, owing to a higher total debt burden than last year and higher long-term interest rates.
In fact, interest payments on the debt are now $20 billion larger than the outlays for the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security, Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Coronavirus Refundable Credits scheme—combined.
Also contributing to the demand on government purse springs is the increasing demand for social security, Medicare and Medicaid.

With Elon Musk's ***** eX now embedded in the Nasdaq 100, the prospects of the rocket company have–directly or indirectly–now slipped into the stock portfolios of millions of people around the globe.

But joining the Nasdaq index has done little to convince critics, who are dubious about the lofty aims of the company. In the prospectus ahead of its offering, ***** eX said its goal is "to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars."

Such statements will be laughable to investors of the future, says Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of investment giant GMO. Admittedly, the billionaire British investor is known for his skepticism: He's a self-professed "permabear" and has warned AI's impact will result in "blood in the streets."
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that he is unimpressed by the (literally) out-of-this-world intentions of ***** eX. "Everyone's lining up to tell you to buy the craziest IPO in the history of man," Grantham told Morningstar's The Long View podcast in an episode released this morning, "In 50 years, they'll be telling and writing stories about ***** eX, and they'll be quoting you paragraphs from the prospectus, and you will be laughing at it."
Even the most bullish of investors might be feeling a reality check since ***** eX launched. At the time of writing, ***** eX is down 7% over the past month, hovering at around $150 a share—only slightly ahead of the $135 it targeted at launch.
Wall Street is split on how high ***** eX can fly, though they generally agree it will soar: Morgan Stanley, for example, has reportedly set the price target at $300, while Goldman Sachs's Eric Sheridan and team wrote in a note seen by Fortune that they see it closer to $205.
Sentiments among ***** ysts are, generally, positive. J.P. Morgan wrote that its target is $225 , adding it believes Elon Musk's goal of reaching $1 trillion of revenue by 2031 is possible "but requires strong execution across an ambitious timeline."

BEIJING/TOKYO, July 7 (Reuters) - China and ***** an reported conflicting accounts on Tuesday of a ‌confrontation near the disputed Senkaku Islands ‌involving their coast guards and a ***** anese fishing vessel.
The waters around the islands, which China calls the Diaoyu Islands, are claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo. Both sides have faced off in ‌the waters over ⁠the years, deploying patrol boats and urging the other to leave the ⁠area.
On Tuesday, China's Coast Guard said it had expelled a ***** anese fishing vessel that "illegally entered the territorial waters" of one of a cluster of disputed ‌islands in the East China Sea.
However, ***** an's Coast Guard said in a statement that it had intercepted and expelled two Chinese Coast Guard vessels by Tuesday morning as they approached ‌a ***** anese fishing boat with two crew members on board.
Japan said Chinese vessels ***** erting Beijing's claims in ‌its territorial waters around the Senkaku islands violate international law, and that it would continue to respond "calmly and resolutely" under international and domestic law.

The S&P 500 just notched its best quarter since 2020 and is up about 9% so far this year, but it's mostly downhill from here, according to Bank of America.
In a note on Tuesday, ***** ysts reaffirmed their year-end price target of 7,100 for the broad market index, representing a 5% drop from the week's closing level.
"Our bear market signposts suggest speculation is hitting extreme levels as high multiple stocks have gapped up demonstrably, an event that has historically preceded a valuation 'snapback,'" BofA said.
The bank added that S&P 500 companies are generating less free cash flow relative to net income compared to historical trends. That's as so-called hyperscalers have seen their free cash flow plunge due to massive spending on the AI boom, eroding their earnings.
At the same time, the Federal Reserve is fighting sticky inflation after more than five years of letting it run above its 2% target. BofA recently predicted the Fed has now run out of patience and will hike rates three times this year to finally rein in inflation.

Reverend Paul Galetto says there has been a swell of enthusiasm for Pope Leo XIV across the greater Philadelphia region since his election.
"The people love having somebody who better relates to them and understands them," the leader of St. Paul Parish in the heart of South Philly told CNN this week.
So, Galetto was delighted to learn that the first American pope would be speaking live and receiving an award less than two miles from his church, on the eve of the nation's 250th birthday. A perfect fit, he argues, for this moment in the United States.
"I'm glad that the committee had the courage to select Pope Leo for the award, because if there's anybody that wants to speak about freedom, it is he," said Galetto.
On Friday, Pope Leo formally accepted the Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center, a non-partisan non-profit located across from Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Shortly after urging city residents to scale back their air conditioning use to reduce strain on the power grid, socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned older residents to be mindful of prolonged summer heat.
"If you have an older loved one, friend or neighbor, check in with them today. Make sure they're staying hydrated, spending time in the air-conditioned ******* es whenever possible and know where to find the nearest cooling center," Mamdani wrote in a post to X.
It didn't take long for the reactions online to point out the clashing sets of instructions.
"You just told old people to keep their air at 78. Are you on drugs?" Gina Milan, a conservative media personality, wrote in a post to social media.
"Mamdani: Older adults are at greater risk for heat-related illness, especially during prolonged periods of extreme heat. Also Mamdani: set your AC to 78 degrees," another observer wrote.

A Monday memo from Graham Platner's campaign shows the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine is battling an onslaught of outside GOP spending.
The memo, obtained by Politico, says Republicans spent $4.3 million on the race between Platner and incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) from last Tuesday through Monday. Collins's campaign spent $500,000, while PACs supporting her spent $3.7 million.
Platner's campaign, meanwhile, spent $440,000 during the aforementioned time period. When including ad buys from the League of Labor Voters, Common Defense and Majority Forward in support of the Democrat, the party's spending in the race hit $1.6 million.
The memo also noted GOP groups will outspend Democrats 4-to-1 in the race over the upcoming week. Pine Tree Results PAC, which backs Collins, is spending roughly $1.5 million weekly and is slated to spend nearly $10 million more by early August, the document shows.
"The GOP understands the stakes of this race, which is why they are investing millions of dollars every week to protect Susan Collins," the memo reads. "In order to remain in a strong position to win in November, the campaign needs the resources to fight back against this onslaught of GOP spending."

MIAMI (AP) — More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.
A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday's earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.
Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday's 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.
"We walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried … there was no communication," Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.

June 27 (Reuters) - The Trump administration is close to allowing Anthropic to restore access to its ‌Fable 5 model, Axios reported on Saturday, citing ‌a source close to the situation.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. Anthropic and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Anthropic had abruptly disabled its most advanced AI models — Mythos 5 and Fable 5 — for all ‌users after the ⁠government's June 12 export control order.
Insiders expect the administration's limits on Fable 5 could be ⁠lifted as soon as this coming week, the report said.
Conversations between the parties are expected to continue over the weekend, and Anthropic expects to restore Fable access soon, the ‌report added, citing a second source.

Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell, discusses insights into the biggest challenges, shifts, and opportunities shaping today's CMO agenda.

France has confirmed its first case of Ebola - a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The doctor was "immediately admitted to a specialised facility" and is in a stable condition, the French health ministry said on Wednesday.
DR Congo announced an Ebola outbreak last month, but experts believe the virus had been circulating for weeks previously.
More than 260 people are confirmed to have died from the virus in the central African country, while 1,000 people have been infected.
This is the first Ebola case to have been confirmed in Europe, although an American doctor who tested positive in DR Congo was treated at a German hospital last month.

When a loved one dies, financial questions often arrive alongside grief over the loss. Bank accounts must be closed, insurance claims need to be filed and final bills continue to arrive long after funeral arrangements have been made. In turn, those administrative responsibilities can feel particularly overwhelming, especially if the deceased person had any outstanding debt. Right now, it's common to encounter that issue.
Borrowers are carrying record levels of household debt, after all, and credit card balances remain elevated, meaning that it's increasingly common for surviving relatives to discover that a parent, spouse or other family member left behind unpaid obligations. But when a credit card statement shows up in the mail after a death, the question of who is supposed to pay it tends to follow.
That answer varies based on a few different factors. So, before reaching for a checkbook, it's important to understand what happens to credit card debt after death, who may be responsible for it and what can occur if those balances ultimately go unpaid.
Find out how to start tackling your high-rate debt today.
What happens if you don't pay a deceased person's credit card debt?

As President Donald Trump's lawyers tell it, there is "no evidence" that the May 18 "settlement" of his lawsuit against the IRS, which included huge favors for him, his family, and his supporters, was a product of collusion. That position is hard to take seriously, since both sides in the lawsuit were represented by attorneys who worked for Trump, and the president himself has described the cozy arrangement as "a settlement with myself."
In a June 12 brief ordered by Kathleen Williams, the federal judge in Florida who oversaw Trump v. IRS, the president's lawyers improbably maintained that the "settlement" was business as usual at the Department of Justice (DOJ). That brief "only underscores the need to investigate whether the parties have perpetrated a fraud on this Court and corrupted the integrity of the judicial process," 35 former federal judges argue in a response filed on Friday.
Trump sued the IRS on January 29, claiming that an IRS contractor's illegal disclosure of his tax returns had caused "at least" $10 billion in damages. In addition to offering a plainly preposterous estimate of the injury he had suffered, Trump missed the statutory deadline for filing such claims. And even if he had filed his lawsuit on time, he would have faced the challenge of arguing that the contractor qualified as an "officer or employee of the United States"—a point that the DOJ has disputed in other cases involving similar claims.
Despite those manifest legal weaknesses, the DOJ never contested Trump's claims, in sharp contrast with the way it has handled lawsuits against the IRS by plaintiffs who were not the president. That failure underlined the blatant conflicts of interest created by the case, which pitted Trump against an agency he oversees, represented by DOJ lawyers who serve at his pleasure. Further compromising the DOJ's ability to represent the IRS, an executive order that Trump issued in February 2025 bars the government's lawyers from taking legal positions that contradict the president's.
The situation was so bizarre that Williams questioned whether the case involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. But two days before the deadline for briefing on that crucial issue, Trump dropped his lawsuit, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a "settlement agreement" that promised $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for an "Anti-Weaponization Fund" designed to benefit Trump's friends and followers. The next day, Blanche revealed an addendum that purports to shield Trump and his family from liability for tax violations and any other federal offenses they might have committed prior to May 19.

KYIV, June 20 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff said on Saturday he ‌was renouncing a Polish state medal after ‌President Karol Nawrocki stripped Zelenskiy of Poland's top honour over a historical dispute.
The move by Kyrylo Budanov threatens to deepen a diplomatic rift between the close strategic partners as Kyiv rallies allies to push Russia ‌to end its ⁠war on Ukraine.
Nawrocki said on Friday he was revoking the Order of the ⁠White Eagle from Zelenskiy after he renamed a military unit in honour of World War Two-era Ukrainian insurgents blamed for massacring Poles.
Budanov said he was renouncing ‌the Golden Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, awarded to him last year, to protest against a move he described as "a gift" for Russia.
"Our nations have ‌long-standing relations and different pages of history - both heroic and tragic," he posted on social media. "However, this should ‌be an occasion for deep reflection, not crude political speculation."

Meta said it'll be improving its snack-filled office kitchens to improve employee morale.
X's product lead, Nikita Bier, offered to "match or exceed any snack budget offer."
Meta's employees have taken a pummelling with frequent AI pivots and layoffs.
Two tech ******* ans are now competing on another battlefield: Employee snacks.
Earlier this month, Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth said the company would be taking steps to improve employee morale after successive waves of layoffs and AI strategy pivots. One of those steps, he said in a memo, would be improving the snacks and drinks in its office kitchens.

The cost to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has ballooned to more than $14.65 million -- exceeding the original estimated cost of the no-bid contract by more than $4 million, according to federal contract data.
In addition to the repainting by Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the National Park Service paid $1.74 million to Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company, earlier this year to install a "nano bubble" system to kill algae, using a similar no-bid contract to speed up the work in time for Fourth of July celebrations.
Between the two companies that received separate contracts for the resurfacing and filtration systems, the project is set to cost more than $16 million. The status of the payments to the contractors was not immediately available in the federal government's contract database.
The Interior Department said in a statement via X, "The advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae that has plagued every Lincoln Reflecting Pool reopening—most infamously Obama's reopening—since 1922. The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool—just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf."
Trump has repeatedly defended the project, though the new paint job -- described in the contract documents as a "seamless, monolithic, waterproof, antimicrobial, and anti-algae system suitable for continuous submersion" -- and appears to be peeling, and an algae bloom has overtaken the reflecting pool.