Cease-fire talks with Israel and Hamas are expected to resume on Sunday in Qatar
CAIRO (AP) — Stalled talks aimed at securing a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war are expected to resume in earnest in Qatar as soon as Sunday, according to Egyptian officials.
The talks would mark the first time both Israeli officials and Hamas leaders join the indirect negotiations since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. International mediators had hoped to secure a six-week truce before Ramadan started earlier this week, but Hamas refused any deal that wouldn’t lead to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, a demand Israel rejected.
But both sides have made moves in recent days aimed at getting the talks, which never fully broke off, back on track.
Hamas gave mediators a new proposal for a three-stage plan that would end the fighting, according to two Egyptian officials, one who is involved in the talks and a second who was briefed on them. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to reveal the contents of the sensitive discussions.
The first stage would be a six-week cease-fire that would see the release of 35 hostages — women, those who are ill and older people — held by militants in Gaza in exchange for 350 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
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Schumer’s rebuke of Netanyahu shows the long, fragile line the US and allies walk on interference
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Israeli officials were quick to express outrage after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections. They accused the Democratic leader of breaking the unwritten rule against interfering in a close ally’s electoral politics.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell reacted to Schumer by saying it was “hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Schumer’s call for new elections was “inappropriate.” Even Benny Gantz, a political rival of Netanyahu and member of Israel’s war cabinet, said Schumer’s remarks were “counterproductive.”
Schumer’s stinging rebuke of Netanyahu — the senator said the Israeli leader had “lost his way” and was an obstacle to peace — was certainly provocative but it was hardly norm-breaking. U.S. leaders, as well as American allies, are more frequently butting into electoral politics beyond the water’s edge.
Look no further than the close and historically complicated relationship that American presidents and congressional leaders have negotiated with Israel leaders over the last 75 years.
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Man suspected of killing 3 people in Philadelphia area arrested in New Jersey, police say
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A man suspected of fatally shooting three family members in their Philadelphia-area homes Saturday was arrested in New Jersey after evading law enforcement for hours as police mobilized across two states, shutting down a parade and an amusement park and ordering some residents to stay in their homes.
Steve Wilson, police director for the city of Trenton, New Jersey, said the man was arrested near a house where officers had believed he was barricaded inside. He apparently left the home before the police cordon was erected, Wilson said.
Wilson added that he did not believe the suspect was armed at the time.
The suspect was identified earlier as 26-year-old Andre Gordon Jr. Authorities said they believe he killed his stepmother, his teenage sister and the mother of his children in shootings at two homes in eastern Pennsylvania’s Falls Township in the morning, Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said. His children’s grandmother was injured when she was bludgeoned with a rifle.
Officials said they couldn’t yet speak to a motive for the attacks. While Gordon had had some minor brushes with the law, they were “nothing that would indicate that anything like this would happen,” Falls Township Police Chief Nelson Whitney said at a news conference.
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Russians cast ballots in an election preordained to extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule
Voters across Russia cast ballots Saturday on the second day of an election set to formalize six more years of power for President Vladimir Putin, who faces no serious challengers after crushing political dissent over his nearly quarter-century of rule.
The election comes against the backdrop of a ruthless crackdown that has stifled independent media and prominent rights groups. Putin’s fiercest foe, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in February, and other critics are either in jail or in exile.
The 71-year-old Putin faces three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties who have refrained from any criticism of him or his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin has cast his war in Ukraine, now in its third year, as an existential battle against the U.S. and other Western powers bent on destroying Russia.
Officials said voting was proceeding in an orderly fashion. But despite tight controls, at least a half-dozen cases of vandalism at polling stations were reported Friday and Saturday, including a firebombing and several people pouring green liquid into ballot boxes. The latter was an apparent homage to Navalny, who in 2017 was attacked by an assailant who splashed green disinfectant in his face.
A 50-year-old university professor was arrested Saturday after she unsuccessfully tried to throw green liquid into a ballot box in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. She was imprisoned for 15 days for “petty hooliganism”, but could face further charges, according to local news outlet Ura.ru. A pensioner in the Altai region in southern Siberia was also detained after attempting to damage ballots, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported.
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India’s Bengaluru is fast running out of water, and a long, scorching summer still looms
BENGALURU, India (AP) — Bhavani Mani Muthuvel and her family of nine have around five 20-liter (5-gallon) buckets worth of water for the week for cooking, cleaning and household chores.
“From taking showers to using toilets and washing clothes, we are taking turns to do everything,” she said. It’s the only water they can afford.
A resident of Ambedkar Nagar, a low-income settlement in the shadows of the lavish headquarters of multiple global software companies in Bengaluru’s Whitefield neighborhood, Muthuvel is normally reliant on piped water, sourced from groundwater. But it’s drying up. She said it’s the worst water crisis she has experienced in her 40 years in the neighborhood.
Bengaluru in southern India is witnessing an unusually hot February and March, and in the last few years, it has received little rainfall in part due to human-caused climate change. Water levels are running desperately low, particularly in poorer areas, resulting in sky-high costs for water and a quickly dwindling supply.
City and state government authorities are trying to get the situation under control with emergency measures such as nationalizing water tankers and putting a cap on water costs. But water experts and many residents fear the worst is still to come in April and May when the summer sun is at its strongest.
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A suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has targeted a ship in the Gulf of Aden
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels saw an explosive detonate near a ship early Sunday in the Gulf of Aden, potentially marking their latest assault on shipping through the crucial waterway leading to the Red Sea.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the vessel’s crew saw the blast as it passed off the coast of Aden, the port city in southern Yemen home to the country’s exiled government.
“No damage to the vessel has been reported and the crew are reported safe,” UKMTO said.
The Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile attacks in the same area, disrupting energy and cargo shipments through the Gulf of Aden.
The rebels did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, though it typically takes the Houthis several hours before acknowledging their assaults.
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State Medicaid offices target dead people’s homes to recoup their health care costs
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Salvatore LoGrande fought cancer and all the pain that came with it, his daughters promised to keep him in the white, pitched roof house he worked so hard to buy all those decades ago.
So, Sandy LoGrande thought it was a mistake when, a year after her father’s death, Massachusetts billed her $177,000 for her father’s Medicaid expenses and threatened to sue for his home if she didn’t pay up quickly.
“The home was everything,” to her father said LoGrande, 57.
But the bill and accompanying threat weren’t a mistake.
Rather, it was part of a routine process the federal government requires of every state: to recover money from the assets of dead people who, in their final years, relied on Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded health insurance for the poorest Americans.
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Long recovery ahead for some in path of deadly tornados in central U.S.
LAKEVIEW, Ohio (AP) — Residents in a swath of the central U.S. hit by deadly tornadoes were cleaning up, assessing damage and helping neighbors on Saturday. But it will be a long recovery from the storms that ripped through parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Arkansas.
Thursday night’s storms claimed three lives in the Indian Lake area of Ohio’s Logan County, one of the hardest-hit regions, and about 40 people were injured and dozens of homes damaged in one Indiana community. Tornadoes were also reported in Illinois and Missouri.
Samantha Snipes, 33, said that when she first heard the tornado warning, she called her father who lives seven minutes away and told him to take cover. He said he was trying to by getting into the closet in her childhood home and then the phone cut out, she told The Associated Press.
She and her husband tried to drive down the main road to get to him but couldn’t do so. They were able to get through the back way after the tornado passed.
“It looked like out of a movie, like ‘Twister’ ” she said. “My dad’s garage was leveled. The back of his house is gone. Like everything’s gone.”
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Maui’s mayor prioritizes housing and vows to hire more firefighters after Lahaina wildfire
HONOLULU (AP) — Maui’s mayor says he is prioritizing housing, evaluating evacuation routes and hiring more firefighters as his Hawaii community recovers from the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.
Mayor Richard Bissen outlined the steps in emotional remarks more than seven months after the Aug. 8 wildfire killed 101 people in the historic town of Lahaina.
He kicked off his address by saying “the state of the county is heartbroken” and then paused several times throughout his 45-minute speech to collect himself as he spoke of those who died and of the heroism and sacrifices of residents and county employees. He recounted stories of those who rescued people from the flames and opened evacuation centers and food distribution hubs for survivors.
“It will take strength, courage and faith to keep moving forward. But the foundations of that will be in how we care for one another, always leading with aloha,” Bissen said in his Friday night address, which was delivered in Kahului and streamed online.
Maui had a housing shortage and some of the nation’s most expensive housing even before the fire. The island’s housing crisis only intensified after the blaze destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and displaced 4,500 residents. About 87% of those who lost their homes were renters.
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After the pandemic, young Chinese again want to study abroad, just not so much in the US
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the Chinese city of Shanghai, two young women seeking an education abroad have both decided against going to the United States, a destination of choice for decades that may be losing its shine.
For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “It doesn’t work for me when you have to spend 2 million (yuan) ($278,000) but find no job upon returning,” she said. Dong is headed to Hong Kong this fall instead.
Costs were not a concern for Yvonne Wong, 24, now studying comparative literature and cultures in a master’s program at the University of Bristol in Britain. For her, the issue was safety.
“Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not banned — that was the primary reason,” Wong said. “Between the U.S. and the U.K., the U.K. is safer, and that’s the biggest consideration for my parents.”
With an interest in studying abroad rebounding after the pandemic, there are signs that the decades-long run that has sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S., including many of the country’s brightest, could be trending down, as geopolitical shifts redefine U.S.-China relations.
The Associated Press
