Students in Belgrade join Serbia's post-election cleanup wave

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia 's capital Belgrade has been getting a makeover after a youth-led movement 's victory over a long-ruling strongman and his government in Oct. 25 elections.

Activists and residents in various parts of the city — and elsewhere in the Balkan country — have self-organized to paint over anti-student graffiti that were scribbled on buildings during the tense campaign ahead of the ballot.

The daily painting effort started almost immediately after the Students’ List movement toppled former President Aleksandar Vucic ’s right-wing Serbian Progressive Party. It was seen as a reflection of a sense of solidarity that swept the country following 14 years of Vucic's authoritarian rule.

On Friday, students from three high schools in central Belgrade decided to do their part. Dozens took up paint rollers and brushes before dispersing through the neighborhoods around their schools.

“We had this desire to make not only our country better, but also the city we live in,” said Lea Radic, a student at Belgrade's Third High School. “People wanted to do something immediately, not in 10 days, not in a month, but on the very first day.”

Radic, 18, who heads the student assembly in her school, said their action was coordinated with students from two other schools located several blocks away, who came out at the same time.

“We all determined our zones,” she explained. The idea, Radic added, "is to do good deeds and make our surroundings nicer."

The student-led movement defeated Vucic at the ballot after leading two years of protests against alleged government corruption over a train station tragedy that killed 16 people in northern Serbia in November 2024.

Vucic, his pro-government media and officials have branded students as traitors and foreign mercenaries. Scores were detained and beaten by police and pro-government supporters during protests.

After Vucic's defeat, residents first cleared up a central park in Belgrade that was taken up by Vucic's loyalists for over a year. Then volunteers painted an underground passage that was completely covered in anti-student graffiti. Other parts of Belgrade followed as other cities and towns organized similar actions of their own.

“Our aim and motive has been to paint over the hate speech,” said 17-year-old high school student Kosta Jovanovic. “We believe that our younger students, as they go to school every day, are exposed to a lot of murals, slogans and sentences that are insulting and that are not good for them.”

Residents were delighted to see the students in action.

“I am completely euphoric,” said Leta Lalevic, who is in her 60s. “This is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry."

Students paint over anti-student graffiti on the exterior wall near their schools in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Students from three schools with painting rolls and brushes walk to paint the blocks around their schools in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Students from three schools prepare to paint the blocks around their schools in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Students paint over anti-student graffiti on the exterior wall near their schools in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

ATLANTA (AP) — Zoo Atlanta’s newest pandas munched bamboo and lounged Friday during their public debut as smiling visitors lined up to welcome them.

Ping Ping, a male, and Fu Shuang, a female, arrived in September from China under a 10-year loan agreement, bringing the cuddly black-and-white bears back to the zoo after a two-year absence. After spending the past weeks getting acclimated to their habitat, the 6-year-old pandas greeted visitors in the newly renovated Arthur M. Blank Panda Grove.

Eight-year-old Rachel Sutherland and her family were visiting from Sacramento, California, and extended their vacation by a day to see the pandas.

“They’re amazing,” said Rachel. She said she was partial to Ping Ping because the name reminds her of the color pink.

Ping Ping has distinctive dark circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang has a protruding forehead, according to Xinhua News Agency. Both were born at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

The Atlanta zoo's panda enclosure had been empty since 2024, after four other pandas returned from the United States to China, ending a 25-year partnership amid strained relations between the two countries.

During a news conference Friday morning, Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., said the pandas' arrival “marks the renewal of a decade-long bond between China and Zoo Atlanta.”

“We trust that under the loving care of Zoo Atlanta, the two pandas will eat happily, sleep soundly and grow healthy and strong in their new home, bringing twice the joy and happiness to everyone who loves them,” the ambassador said.

Georgia Tech student Kevin Wei, 18, said he'd been counting down until “panda day,” and felt especially connected to the animals because they are from his hometown of Chengdu.

“It's kind of like having a familiar bond,” Wei said. “Although I'm living in the U.S., I still can connect with myself and to China.”

China has long used pandas as part of its diplomacy globally, deploying the bears in loan programs as expressions of goodwill and letting loan agreements lapse when tensions arise.

Zoo Atlanta is one of three U.S. zoos that now house the popular bears.

The National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China in 2023 before accepting new arrivals Bao Li and Qing Bao in October 2024. The San Diego Zoo debuted two pandas in August 2024.

A decade ago, the International Union for Conservation of Nature reclassified giant pandas from endangered to vulnerable, reflecting pandas' growing numbers in the wild in China.

Resident Kim Herres, 76, said she has been visiting Zoo Atlanta ever since the city first received pandas in 1999. She said she sees pandas as a symbol of the world “doing the right thing” to protect animals.

“I'm just glad we've gotten them back,” she said. “Hopefully we won't make the Chinese mad, and they won't come get them.”

FILE - In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, vehicles carrying a pair of giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, leave the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, southwestern China's Sichuan Province, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026.(Xu Bingjie/Xinhua via AP, file)