Jason Mraz’s roller disco outing “Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride” is the dance album he always wanted to make

• May 8, 2025

Jason Mraz is a musical seeker.

What else do you call a pop artist who goes from hitting the Broadway stage to recording a reggae album before setting his sights on cutting a bluegrass project? The multifaceted star played a major role during a 10-week run in “Waitress” in 2017, then dropped his reggae album “Look For the Good” in 2020, before working on a currently untitled collection of bluegrass songs that remains ready for release.

As an artist who’s let his instincts guide him ever since releasing his 2002 debut “Waiting For My Rocket to Come,” he followed much the same modus operandi in making his recently released and self-described roller disco outing “Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride (MMRRR).” The process for this new project was driven by the success of “Look For the Good” and translated into a seamless 10-day recording stretch in New York City in 2023 during which Mraz reunited with a number of former collaborators, including Los Angeles outfit Raining Jane and producer Martin Terefe, who first worked with Mraz as a songwriter in the early 2000s.

Now he’s bringing his varied act to the stage on May 16 at Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage.

“[MMRRR] was a little bit inspired by the experience I had from reggae,” Mraz explained in an interview. “The reggae album informed me of dance because in reggae, everyone is playing percussion. Piano is playing percussion, guitar is playing percussion — there is just so much rhythm going on — I didn’t expect that. These mellow tunes that I wrote surprised me. When I sat back and listened to that reggae record, I realized that every song was a dance track. That really got me excited because I always wanted to make a dance album, but I always thought it was going to have to be with a DJ or be an EDM project.

“The reggae album really informed me that I can do this with the band and that what we needed to do was find the right pocket and the right rhythm that we’re all playing to make it work,” he said. “Also, during the pandemic, I started roller skating, which is something I loved to do as a kid. Falling in love with skating again got me back into the rinks where basically new music is being played, the new disco of today — the Dua Lipas, the Doja Cats, the Megan Thee Stallions. The new hip-hop and the new disco is all still happening at the roller rink. I was heavily influenced by that, to see if I could make music that could stand up to stuff like that.”

SEE ALSO: Benson Boone to bring American Heart Tour to Crypto.com Arena

Coming right off the road from the Look For the Good tour, Mraz reconnected with Terefe, who informed the Virginia native that he’d just opened Kensaltown East in New York City. Mraz immediately inquired about renting this studio and invited his former producer to hang around and be an extra set of ears. This hand-in-glove arrangement reflected the ease in which all these songs came to fruition.

“We even recorded [the album] without a full agreement that Martin was the producer, which made it feel easy,” Mraz said. “There was no pressure and no stress. There was just the joy of old friends getting back together to make more music. I feel like dancing came together on tour because the audience was dancing and we needed more music in our set for dancing. Every time I sat down to write a song, the universe was just gifting me everything I needed for it. So it was really easy.”

With the basic rhythm and vocal tracks laid down during his Big Apple layover, Mraz briefly stopped off in Nashville to work with some other long-time collaborators (Carlos Sosa, the Grooveline Horns and string arranger David Davidson) before returning to his own Oceanside home studio to lay down guitar tracks.

The result ranges from the lush orchestrated R&B of “Pancakes and Butter” that casts off a Hi Records-meets-Philadelphia International Records vibe to the chugging Bruno Mars-flavored “I Feel Like Dancing” to the ethereal grooves of “Disco Sun” and the funky “You Might Like It,” which is carried by more a mix of darting strings and a dollop of sitar. With all this rhythmic inspiration being driven by the last album and subsequent tour, concert-goers can expect more of the same when Mraz and his crew come to their local venue.

“We do our best every night to bring [MMRRR] to life,” he said. “It’s a wild, fun circus that kind of goes through my entire catalog, but spends a lot of time on the new record and how they all weave together. They’re all songs that cheer us on, stoke the fires of love, or present gratitude because that’s the point. People come to a concert to have fun and let loose. We have a very vocal audience, so that’s quite fun.”

SEE ALSO: Lenny Kravitz closes the first day of BeachLife with string of hits and a message of love

While dance is the rocket fuel for Mraz’s latest creative pivot, it also reflects a deeper meaning for him as he muses about moving into middle age. When asked about the meaning of this form of expression, the singer-songwriter, 47, shared that the importance of dance goes far beyond being able to bust a move.

“Dance is about humility, and that’s where it starts for me because I don’t really know what I’m doing and I feel like I do it differently every time,” he said. “It’s a way to shake off some kind of narcissism or ego and reduce myself to my simplest form. I’m just human and trying to figure out how to move this body and how to make it work. Through that, I’m giving my other band members permission to be goofy and then I’m giving the audience permission to be goofy. But then it starts to get empowering. I strip myself down to my dorkiest, but then I start to feel like there is some technicality to this. And every time I start to learn some technicality, I feel a little cooler. I get to rebuild myself. So it’s freeing in a way. I plan to do a lot more of it. This is just the beginning of me.”

​ Orange County Register 

Wall Street rises with hopes for trade deals that could forestall a recession

• May 8, 2025

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising Thursday after President Donald Trump said he was set to announce an agreement on trade with the United Kingdom, the first of what Wall Street hopes will be enough to keep a recession from hitting the economy.

The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in early trading and on track for an 11th gain in the last 13 days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 253 points, or 0.6%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% higher.

Stocks have been swinging for weeks with hopes that Trump could reach deals with other countries that would lower his tariffs, which many investors believe would cause a recession if left unchecked. Trump said Thursday that the U.K. agreement, which is set to be announced at 10 a.m. Eastern, is “a full and comprehensive one.”

“Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!” he added on his Truth Social account.

It could be an encouraging start, and analysts said they’re curious to see if it will affect the 10% tariffs that Trump placed on all imports coming into the United States on “Liberation Day.” But bigger trading partners could offer bigger hurdles, including China.

The world’s second-largest economy again on Thursday called on the United States to cancel its tariffs, ahead of high-level talks between the world’s two largest economies that could take place this weekend. That followed Trump’s saying on Wednesday that he wouldn’t reduce his 145% tariffs on Chinese goods as a condition for negotiations.

Besides hopes for deals on trade, strong profit reports from U.S. companies have also helped to drive the S&P 500 closer to its all-time high set in February.

Tapestry joined the list Thursday, and its stock climbed 5% after the company behind the Coach and Kate Spade brands reported better profit and revenue than expected. It credited new, younger customers in North America, among other things.

Molson Coors, though, described a different landscape when it released its latest quarterly results, which fell short of analysts’ expectations. Its stock fell 7.4%.

“The global macroeconomic environment is volatile,” CEO Gavin Hattersley said. “Uncertainty around the effects of geopolitical events and global trade policy, including the impacts on economic growth, consumer confidence and expectations around inflation, and currencies has pressured the beer industry and consumption trends.”

It became the latest company to either lower or pull its financial forecasts for 2025 given the uncertainty.

Krispy Kreme tumbled 24.3% after withdrawing its forecasts for the full year. The doughnut seller said it made the move in part because of “macroeconomic softness” and because it’s pausing the rollout of sales of its doughnuts at more McDonald’s restaurants.

The U.S. economy has remained OK so far, with the Federal Reserve saying Wednesday that it still looks to be running at a solid rate underneath the surface. But pessimism has soured sharply among U.S. households because of tariffs, and the fear is that all the uncertainty created by them could be enough to force the economy into a recession.

A couple mixed reports on the economy Thursday did little to clear the caution. One said slightly fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. But another one said productivity for U.S. workers weakened by more than economists expected during the first three months of the year. That could keep upward pressure on inflation, when tariffs could be set to raise prices for all kinds of imported products.

Treasury yields rose following the reports, and the 10-year yield climbed to 4.29% from 4.26% late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, the FTSE 100 slipped 0.1% in London after the Bank of England cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point.

Indexes were modestly higher across much of the rest of Europe and Asia.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

​ Orange County Register 

The EU publishes a US product hit list and prepares for WTO action against Trump’s tariffs

• May 8, 2025

By LORNE COOK, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union published on Thursday a list of U.S. imports that it would target with retaliatory duties if no solution is found to end U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war, which could include aircraft maker Boeing.

At the same time, the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said that it would begin legal action at the World Trade Organization over the “reciprocal tariffs” that Trump imposed on countries around the world a month ago.

“The EU remains fully committed to finding negotiated outcomes with the U.S.,” commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “At the same time, we continue preparing for all possibilities.”

The commission manages trade deals and disputes on behalf of the 27 EU countries.

In early April, Trump imposed a 20% levy on goods from the EU as part of his tariff onslaught against global trading partners. A week later he paused them for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate solutions to U.S. trade concerns.

A blanket 10% tariff still applies to EU imports.

The commission drew up countermeasures to target 20.9 billion euros ($23.6 billion) of U.S. goods, roughly the equivalent of what Trump would be hitting in Europe. But it also paused them for 90 days to give negotiations a chance.

The bloc’s top trade official has shuttled between Brussels and Washington trying to find a solution, but with little to show, the commission has made public a list of American imports for possible targeting worth 95 billion euros ($107 billion).

The list is broken down into sectors and broad categories of products rather than brand names. It contains 10.5 billion euros ($11.9 billion) worth of aircraft, 10.3 billion euros ($11.6 billion) in vehicle parts and 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in vehicles.

Around 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in imports of U.S. wine, beer and spirits could also be hit. European wine producers have been deeply concerned that Trump’s tariffs would deal a severe blow to their sector, which relies on the U.S. as its top market.

Interested companies and parties are being given until June 10 to provide feedback, before the commission decides on the next steps. “Boeing is very welcome to make comments on this list,” a commission official said, briefing reporters on the list and the rationale for the EU’s approach.

In parallel, the commission said that it would be taking legal action at world trade’s governing body, and would soon request consultations with the United States to try to resolve the issue, which must take place within two months.

It said that this action would focus on Trump’s “universal” reciprocal tariffs, and duties on cars and car parts. “It is the unequivocal view of the EU that these tariffs blatantly violate fundamental WTO rules,” a statement said.

The commission estimates that 379 billion euros ($428 billion) of EU exports to the U.S. have been hit by new tariffs, including those on pause until mid-July, since Trump took office. It said they are already “raising costs for business, stifling growth, fueling inflation and heightening economic uncertainty.”

​ Orange County Register 

CSUF physics major finds her niche studying vinegar eelworms

• May 8, 2025

Each week, Cal State Fullerton physics and philosophy student Ashley Robinson spends time in the campus lab studying millimeter-long vinegar eelworms under the microscope. These tiny nematodes have a unique behavior in that they can synchronize their body movements and perform in collective motion.

Similar to a school of fish or flock of birds, this characteristic allows the eelworms to create movement and generate force to push fluids and objects many times their own weight.

Robinson is part of a team of Titan students conducting research on vinegar eelworms under the guidance of CSUF assistant professor of physics Anton Peshkov. The work is funded by a $375,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

When Robinson began at CSUF her freshman year, she intended to major in biology with the goal of becoming a veterinarian. But after taking a first-year physics class, she became inspired and switched her major to physics. Now in her junior year, she has spent more than two years working alongside Peshkov and the team to learn more about these nematodes.

“What I do with my research is I’ll replicate the condition of confinement that’s necessary for that collective motion,” Robinson said. “I basically work by using 3D objects that I design around that, and I will manipulate the area of confinement and the angle of confinement so that I can direct them in specific ways to perform collective motion.”

Discovered in the 1600s, these tiny roundworms, or turbatrix aceti, are most commonly found in unfiltered vinegar or other fermented fluids. They thrive in acidic environments, feeding on the natural bacteria and yeast produced during fermentation. In today’s food products like commercial vinegar or wine, they are generally removed through filtration and pasteurization.

Peshkov brought his passion for studying vinegar eelworms with him to CSUF. Originally from Moscow, and having studied in Paris, he began researching the eelworms in 2020 while doing postdoctoral work at the University of Rochester. After he arrived on campus in 2022, he applied for and was awarded the three-year grant that has allowed him to continue this exploration of active matter in physics.

“I’m not a biologist, I’m a physicist, so we study this from the point of view of physics,” Peshkov said. “We look at how they can organize themselves to move in the same direction or have the same oscillation.”

Peshkov initiated the research, and aside from collaborating with a small group in San Diego, few others are working in the field. He hopes to take this study of collective motion and use it to inform future applications in disciplines such as robotics and health care. He intends to publish several findings from the study soon.

“I think we already have some very interesting results and hope to be able to publish,” Peshkov said. “If we have good results, we can maybe continue the research of this topic.”

Robinson’s contribution to the project focuses on generating on-demand fluid flows and tracking the ability of the vinegar eelworms to move objects suspended in the liquid. It is research that is in many ways the first of its kind.

“Soft matter physics, or the kind of physics that I’m studying, is still relatively understudied, so understanding active matter systems, which would include the nematodes, is still very fresh in the field of physics,” Robinson said.

As a double major in physics and philosophy, Robinson sees her two interests as both compatible and complementary. She draws from each field to expand her understanding and approach to complex problems.

“Philosophy helps to get me to ask the questions, and physics gives me the tools to be able to answer them,” Robinson said.

A first-generation college student, Robinson acknowledges the unique opportunity she has been given to be involved in such groundbreaking research as an undergraduate. To date, she has received more than $13,000 in scholarship awards from both the California State University STEM-NET Summer Student Research program and the Dan Black Family Fellowship.

“The really good thing about Cal State Fullerton is they make research and getting research experience very available to their students,” Robinson said.

Her future plans include pursuing a master’s program at CSUF, and given her involvement in Peshkov’s vinegar eelworm research, Robinson  hopes to continue the work for the foreseeable future.

“I am pretty inspired by how niche of a topic this is and how far you can really take it,” Robinson said. “I still have a lot of ways that I would love to be a part of (the research) in terms of exploring their capabilities. … The progress that we’ve made is going to be the backbone for being able to make certain advancements toward getting a better understanding of active matter systems.”

​ Orange County Register 

US applications for jobless benefits fall last week despite elevated uncertainty over Trump tariffs

• May 8, 2025

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week despite heightened uncertainty about how President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact the U.S. and global economies.

Jobless claim applications fell by 13,000 to 228,000 for the week ending May 3, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s in line with the 229,000 new applications analysts forecast.

​ Orange County Register 

Bill Gates pledges his remaining fortune to the Gates Foundation, which will close in 20 years

• May 8, 2025

By THALIA BEATY, Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — Bill Gates says he will donate 99% of his remaining tech fortune to the Gates Foundation, which will now close in 2045, earlier than previously planned. Today, that would be worth an estimated $107 billion.

The pledge is among the largest philanthropic gifts ever – outpacing the historic contributions of industrialists like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie when adjusted for inflation. Only Berkshire Hathaway investor Warren Buffett’s pledge to donate his fortune — currently estimated by Forbes at $160 billion — may be larger depending on stock market fluctuations.

Gates’ donation will be delivered over time and allow the foundation to spend an additional $200 billion over the next 20 years.

“It’s kind of thrilling to have that much to be able to put into these causes,” Gates said in an interview with The Associated Press.

His announcement Thursday signals both a promise of sustained support to those causes, particularly global health and education in the U.S., and an eventual end to the foundation’s immense worldwide influence. Gates says spending down his fortune will help save and improve many lives now, which will have positive ripple effects well beyond the foundation’s closure. It also makes it more likely that his intentions are honored.

“I think 20 years is the right balance between giving as much as we can to make progress on these things and giving people a lot of notice that now this money will be gone,” Gates said.

In a league of its own

The Gates Foundation has long been peerless among foundations — attracting supporters and detractors but also numerous unfounded conspiracy theories.

In addition to the $100 billion it has spent since its founding 25 years ago, it has directed scientific research, helped develop new technologies, and nurtured long-term partnerships with countries and companies.

About 41% of the foundation’s money so far has come from Warren Buffett and the rest from the fortune Gates made at Microsoft.

Started by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2000, the foundation plays a significant role in shaping global health policy and has carved out a special niche by partnering with companies to drive down the cost of medical treatments so low- and middle-income countries could afford them.

“The foundation work has been way more impactful than I expected,” Gates said, calling it his second and final career.

The foundation’s influence on global health — from the World Health Organization to research agendas — is both a measure of its success and a magnet for criticism. For years, researchers have asked why a wealthy family should have so much sway over how the world improves people’s health and responds to crises.

Gates said, like any private citizen, he can choose how to spend the money he earns and has decided to do everything he can to reduce childhood deaths.

“Is that a bad thing? It’s not an important cause? People can criticize it,” he said, but the foundation will stick to its global health work.

The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce and statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal Ventures.

Major ambitions for the remaining 20 years

The foundation’s most prized metric is the drop in childhood deaths from preventable causes by almost half between 2000 and 2020, according to United Nations figures. The foundation’s CEO Mark Suzman is careful to say they do not take credit for this accomplishment. But he believes they had a “catalytic role” — for example, in helping deliver vaccines to children through Gavi, the vaccine alliance they helped create.

The foundation still has numerous goals — eradicating polio, controlling other deadly diseases, like malaria, and reducing malnutrition, which makes children more vulnerable to other illnesses.

Gates hopes that by spending to address these issues now, wealthy donors will be free to tackle other problems later.

The Gates Foundation had planned to wind down two decades after Gates’ death, meaning today’s announcement significantly moves up that timetable. Gates plans to stay engaged, though at 69, he acknowledged he may not have a say.

In its remaining two decades, the foundation will maintain a budget of around $9 billion a year, which represents a leveling off from its almost annual growth since 2006, when Buffett first started donating.

Suzman expects the foundation will narrow its focus to top priorities.

“Having that time horizon and the resources just puts an even greater burden on us to say, ‘Are you actually putting your resources, your thumb down, on what are going to be the biggest, most successful bets rather than scattering it too thinly?’” Suzman said, which he acknowledged was creating uncertainty even within the foundation about what programs would continue.

Gates is the only remaining founder

Major changes preceded the foundation’s 25th year.

In 2021, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates divorced, and Buffett resigned as the foundation’s trustee. They recruited a new board of trustees to help govern the foundation, and in 2024, French Gates left to continue work at her own organization.

French Gates said she decided to step down partly to focus on countering the rollback of women’s rights in the U.S. At the ELLE Women of Impact event in New York in April, she said she wanted to leave the foundation at a high point.

“I so trusted Mark Suzman, the current CEO,” she said. “We had a board in place that I helped put in place, and I knew their values.”

Even as the foundation’s governance stabilizes, the road ahead looks difficult. Enduring conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, global economic turmoil and cuts to foreign aid forecast fewer resources coming to global health and development.

“The greatest uncertainty for us is the generosity that will go into global health,” Gates said. “Will it continue to go down like it has the last few years or can we get it back to where it should be?”

Even facing these obstacles, Gates and the foundation speak, as they often do, with optimism, pointing to innovations they’ve funded or ways they’ve helped reduce the cost of care.

“It’s incredible to come up with these low-cost things and tragic if we can’t get them out to everyone who needs them,” Gates said. “So it’s going to require renewing that commitment of those who are well off to help those who are in the greatest need.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

​ Orange County Register 

Denmark says it will summon a US diplomat over report on increased US intel gathering in Greenland

• May 8, 2025

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark says it will summon the top U.S. diplomat in the country for an explanation following a Wall Street Journal report about the United States stepping up intelligence gathering on Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory coveted by President Donald Trump.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told broadcaster DR outside a meeting Wednesday with colleagues in Poland that Denmark would summon the U.S. chargé d’affaires to seek a “rebuttal” or other explanation following the report.

The Journal, citing two people familiar with the U.S. effort that it did not identify, reported that several high-ranking officials under the U.S. director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had directed intelligence agency heads to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and sentiment about U.S. resource extraction there.

The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press on Thursday seeking comment on whether the U.S. diplomat in Copenhagen, Jennifer Hall Godfrey, had received a summons. The Danish Foreign Ministry, in an email, did not comment beyond referring to Rasmussen’s remarks.

Rasmussen, who has previously scolded the Trump administration over its criticism of NATO ally Denmark and Greenland, said the information in the report was “very worrying” and “we don’t spy between friends.”

“We are looking at this with quite a lot of seriousness,” he added.

Greenland’s prime minister said last month that U.S. statements about the mineral-rich Arctic island have been disrespectful and it “will never, ever be a piece of property that can be bought by just anyone.”

In a visit to the island last month, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, addressing the United States during a visit to Greenland that “you cannot annex another country,” even with the argument made by U.S. officials that international security is at stake.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington will respect Greenland’s self-determination and alleged that Greenlanders “don’t want to be a part of Denmark.”

​ Orange County Register 

80 years ago World War II in Europe was over. Celebrating V-E Day is now tinged with some dread

• May 8, 2025

By RAF CASERT and DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Even if the end of World War II in Europe spawned one of the most joyous days the continent ever lived, Thursday’s 80th anniversary of V-E Day is haunted as much by the specter of current-day conflict as it celebrates the defeat of ultimate evil.

Hitler’s Nazi Germany had finally surrendered after a half-decade of invading other European powers and propagating racial hatred that led to genocide, the Holocaust and the murdering of millions.

That surrender and the explosion of hope for a better life is being celebrated with parades in London and Paris and towns across Europe while even the leaders of erstwhile mortal enemies France and Germany are bonding again.

Germany’s new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, paid tribute to “the enormous sacrifices of the Allies” in helping his country win its freedom from the Nazis and said that millions of people were “disenfranchised and tormented by the Nazi regime.”

“Hardly any day has shaped our history as much as May 8, 1945,” he said in a statement. “Our historical responsibility for this breach of civilization and the commemoration of the millions of victims of the Second World War unleashed by Nazi Germany gives us a mandate to resolutely defend peace and freedom in Europe today.”

Gloomy outlook

His comments underscore that former European enemies may thrive — to the extent that the 27-nation European Union even won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize — but that the outlook has turned gloomy over the past year.

Bodies continue to pile up in Ukraine, where Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion started the worst war on the continent since 1945. The rise of the hard right in several EU member states is putting the founding democratic principles of the bloc under increasing pressure.

“The time of Europe’s carefree comfort, joyous unconcern is over. Today is the time of European mobilization around our fundamental values and our security,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a Dutch memorial event in the lead-up to the celebrations.

It makes this unlikely stretch of peace in Europe anything but a given.

And even NATO, that trans-Atlantic military alliance that assured peace in Europe under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and its military clout, is under internal strain rarely seen since its inception.

U.S. contributions to the war effort

The United States was instrumental in turning the tide of the war in Europe, invading along with Allies the D-Day beaches in France’s Normandy on June 6, 1944 in what proved to be the tipping point of the war in Europe that inexorably led to the invasion of Germany and the defeat of Hitler.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed Thursday as a day for the United States to celebrate victory in World War II, insisting the country should better recognize its essential role in the war.

“We are going to start celebrating our victories again!” he said.

The war did drag on beyond Europe especially in the Pacific against Japan, but even Taiwan joined in marking the day for the first time — and highlighting current-day threats. Instead of Russia, it was centering on China, its immediate rival. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory to be annexed by force if necessary.

“Military aggression against another country is an unjust crime that is bound to fail,” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said.

He added that both Taiwan and Europe were “now facing the threat of a new authoritarian bloc.”

European celebrations

Commemorations have been going all week through Europe, and Britain has taken a lead. Here too, the current-day plight of Ukraine in its fight against Russia took center stage.

“The idea that this was all just history and it doesn’t matter now somehow, is completely wrong,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. “Those values of freedom and democracy matter today.”

In London later Thursday, a service will be held in Westminster Abbey and a concert, for 10,000 members of the public, at Horse Guards Parade. In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to oversee a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.

And in Berlin, Chancellor Friedrich Merz will again highlight how Germany has remodeled itself into a beacon of European democracy by laying a wreath at the central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny.

And, symbolically, Russia and President Vladimir Putin will be totally out of lockstep with the rest of Europe, celebrating its Victory Day one day later with a huge military parade on Red Square in central Moscow to mark the massive Soviet contribution to defeat Nazi Germany.

Raf Casert reported from Brussels. Mike Corder in Wageningen, Netherlands, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register