Deadly violence persists in Gaza despite mediators’ hopes for a truce
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed at least 18 people, all from the same family. The strike Saturday came days after the death toll in the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas reached 40,000. The strike hit just hours after officials from the United States, Egypt and Qatar wrapped up two days of cease-fire talks with a message of hope that a deal could be reached. A joint statement from the mediators said a proposal to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas had been presented. They said they expected to work out the details of how to implement the possible deal next week in Cairo.
A woman and her 2 children are among 10 killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon
NABATIEH, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon has killed at least 10 Syrian nationals including a woman and her two children. The strike early Saturday in Wadi al-Kfour in Nabatieh province is among the deadliest in Lebanon since the Hezbollah militant group and Israeli military started trading strikes on Oct. 8, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel and sparked the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will stop its attacks once a cease-fire is reached in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah said later Saturday it retaliated with a volley of rockets at the northern Israeli community of Ayelet HaShahar. The Israeli military said no injuries were reported but the strikes ignited multiple fires.
Hurricane Ernesto makes landfall on Bermuda as a category 1 storm
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Ernesto has made landfall on the tiny British Atlantic territory of Bermuda as residents hunker down. The wide and slow-moving category 1 storm was directly over the wealthy territory at 6 a.m. Saturday, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph) . The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned of strong winds, a dangerous storm surge and significant coastal flooding. Hurricane-strength winds are expected to continue until Saturday afternoon, with tropical storm-strength winds continuing well into Sunday, the Bermuda government said.
Ukrainian forces left a path of destruction in the Kursk operation. AP visited a seized Russian town
SUDZHA, Russia (AP) — A trail of destruction lies in the path that Ukrainian forces carved on their risky incursion into Russia, blasting through the border and into the Russian town of Sudzha. Associated Press journalists traveled on Friday on a Ukrainian government-organized trip to the town. Artillery fire has blown chunks out of a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in a central square. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday the town was fully under his troops’ control. Ukrainian forces overran one Russian settlement after another in the surprise operation that Kyiv hopes will change the dynamic of the 2 ½-year-old conflict. Sudzha is the biggest town to fall since the attack began on Aug. 6.
Aid groups in Gaza aim to avert a polio outbreak with a surge of vaccinations
CAIRO (AP) — The threat of polio is rising fast in Gaza, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak. One case has been confirmed and others are suspected. Polio had been eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago. Now, the territory is a breeding ground for the virus. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage. Health authorities are preparing to vaccinate 640,000 children in the coming weeks.
The pro-Palestinian ‘uncommitted’ movement is at an impasse with top Democrats as the DNC begins
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Supporters of the “uncommitted” protest-vote movement sparked by dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war could play a large role in the Democratic National Convention, with raucous protests expected outside and potentially inside the Chicago arena. Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign have spent weeks meeting with people involved in the movement in hopes of alleviating tensions. The meetings included a previously unreported sit-down between Harris and the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. Many of the leaders in the “uncommitted” movement have expressed cautious optimism towards Harris’ campaign. But they maintain that she and the campaign have not met their demands before the convention, which include multiple speaking slots for movement members.
As political convention comes to Chicago, residents, leaders and activists vie for the spotlight
CHICAGO (AP) — As the American city that has hosted more political conventions than any other, Chicago has pretty much seen it all. Presidential candidates have been made official in Chicago more than two dozen times since Abraham Lincoln in 1860, including the infamous 1968 convention where police clashed with protesters and Bill Clinton’s 1996 renomination. Now the nation’s third-largest city is back on the global political stage as it hosts the Democratic National Convention starting Monday, with city leaders, residents and activists each hoping to claim time in the spotlight and shape the city’s reputation.
Strategist who ran DeSantis’ ill-fated bid is working with Musk to help organize voters for Trump
Donald Trump’s campaign is largely leaving paid canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts to outside groups like America PAC, funded in part by Elon Musk. To run the group, Musk has turned to veterans of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential bid. DeSantis’ old campaign manager, Generra Peck, has close ties to Musk, according to people familiar with the matter. She is said to have overruled internal objections to have DeSantis launch his campaign by holding a conversation with Musk on what was then still called Twitter. The platform crashed repeatedly, spoiling the start of his campaign. That experience underscores the risks of the Trump campaign outsourcing a core function to a coterie of untested groups that operate independently.
Congo’s humanitarian crisis helped mpox spiral again into a global health emergency
GOMA, Congo (AP) — A humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo is contributing to mpox outbreaks there and elsewhere in Africa in what has been deemed a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. Congo has recorded more than 96% of the world’s mpox cases this year, and the new variant that was discovered in the country’s east this year has been detected in four other African countries where mpox was never reported before. Sweden reported its first case this week. One expert says the Congo crisis, where millions have been displaced by conflict and are out of the reach of health services, has almost every possible complication when it comes to stopping an outbreak.
‘Shoot me up with a big one’: A timeline of the last days of Matthew Perry
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The arrest of five people in the overdose death of Matthew Perry has revealed key details about the final days of the “Friends” star, most of them spent in the throes of an addiction to the surgical anesthetic ketamine. According to court documents, about a month before his death Perry met with a doctor who began providing him with an illegal supply of ketamine. As the weeks passed Perry’s assistant bought increasing amounts for the actor from the doctor and later a street dealer. On Oct. 28, after telling his assistant to shoot him up with a “big one,” Perry died from an overdose at age 54.
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