A firework is lit, a boy is shot. Israel’s use of deadly force against Palestinians is scrutinized
JERUSALEM (AP) — A 12-year-old boy in east Jerusalem lights the fuse of a long firework and hoists it in the air. Then, just before it explodes and illuminates the night sky with a burst of red, he is shot in the chest by Israeli police and falls to the ground.
A clip of Rami Halhouli's final moments last week has been circulating on social media for days. Human rights activists say it shines a light on the surge of Palestinians — including dozens of children — who have been killed without justification by Israeli forces since Oct. 7.
Halhouli's family says the boy was struck by a bullet fired from the direction of an Israeli police watchtower looking over the Shuafat refugee camp. Halhouli, his brother and four friends, the family says, were lighting fireworks to celebrate the end of another day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month marked by dawn-to-dusk fasting.
Israeli police say the officer who fired the shot acted appropriately, citing regulations that permit shooting someone who is aiming a firework at another person in a life-threatening way. The Israeli government says the shooting is under investigation.
Ali Halhouli, the boys father, was at home when he heard the gunshot — and then his son crying out for his mother. “When I rushed out of here I saw him lying on his face,” he said.
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The Latest | Gaps are narrowing in Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks, Blinken says during Mideast visit
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the “gaps are narrowing” in indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas over another cease-fire and hostage release that the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have spent several weeks trying to broker.
Blinken’s sixth visit to the region since the start of the Israel-Hamas war began in Saudi Arabia before going to Egypt on Thursday with a stop in Israel on Friday. In an interview Wednesday with the Al-Hadath network in Saudi Arabia, Blinken said the mediators worked with Israel to put a “strong proposal” on the table. He said Hamas rejected it, but came back with other demands that the mediators are working on.
“The gaps are narrowing, and I think an agreement is very much possible,” Blinken said.
The Health Ministry in Gaza raised the territory's death toll Thursday to nearly 32,000 Palestinians. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. A United Nations food agency warned that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza.
Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people in the surprise Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza that triggered the war, and abducted another 250 people. Hamas is still believed to be holding some 100 people hostage, as well as the remains of 30 others.
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Russia fires 31 missiles at Kyiv in the first attack in 44 days, and 13 people are hurt
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired 31 ballistic and cruise missiles at Kyiv before dawn Thursday in the first attack on the Ukrainian capital in 44 days, officials said. Air defenses shot down all the incoming missiles, though 13 people including a child were injured by falling wreckage, they said.
Residents of Kyiv were woken up by loud explosions around 5 a.m. as the missiles arrived at roughly the same time from different directions, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Administration.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles against the capital.
Kyiv has better air defenses than most regions of the large country. The missile interception rate is frequently high, rendering Russian attacks on the capital significantly less successful than during the early days of the war.
An 11-year-old girl and a 38-year-old man were hospitalized in Kyiv, the city administration said. Eight other people sustained light injuries, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
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Weeping, weak and soaked, dozens of Rohingya refugees rescued after night on hull of capsized boat
MEULABOH, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian search and rescue ship on Thursday located a capsized wooden boat that had been carrying dozens of Rohingya Muslim refugees, and began pulling survivors who had been standing on its hull to safety.
An AP photographer aboard the rescue ship said 10 people had been taken aboard local fishing boats and another 59 were being saved by the Indonesian craft.
Men, women and children, weak and soaked from the night’s rain, wept as the rescue operation got underway and people were taken aboard a rubber dinghy to the rescue boat.
It was unclear how many refugees were aboard the small craft when it capsized off of Indonesia’s northernmost coast on Wednesday, with six survivors initially rescued by local fishermen estimating between 60 and 100 people.
It was unclear whether all managed to cling to the capsized craft overnight or whether some had drowned.
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Escaped white supremacist inmate and accomplice still at large after Idaho hospital ambush
Authorities are searching for a white supremacist Idaho prison inmate and an accomplice who fled after the accomplice shot and wounded corrections officers as they were transporting the inmate from a Boise hospital, according to police.
Police said Nicholas Umphenour is suspected of shooting two corrections officers during Wednesday's ambush in the ambulance bay at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. A warrant with a $2 million bond has been issued for his arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said.
He and inmate Skylar Meade drove off early Wednesday after the shooting in a gray 2020 Honda Civic with Idaho plates. It’s not known where they are or where they are headed, police said Wednesday evening.
Three corrections officers were shot and wounded during the attack — two allegedly by Umphenour and one by responding police.
Officials described Meade, 31, as a white supremacist gang member. Meade was sentenced to 20 years in 2017 for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a high-speed chase.
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Congressional leaders sell $1.2 trillion spending package to members before shutdown deadline
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders from both parties looked to put a positive light on a $1.2 trillion spending package that lawmakers are working to approve before funding expires at midnight Friday for a host of key government agencies.
Text of the legislation had not been released as of Wednesday afternoon, but lawmakers and aides were expecting an official unveiling early Thursday. The package, which is expected to pass, will wrap up Congress' work on spending bills for the year — nearly six months after the fiscal year began.
This year's dozen spending bills were packed into two packages. The first one cleared Congress two weeks ago just hours before a shutdown deadline for the agencies funded through the bills.
Now Congress is focused on the second, larger package, which includes about $886 billion for defense, about a 3% increase from last year's levels. The bill also funds the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Labor and others, with non-defense spending expected to be relatively flat compared to the prior year.
Leaders worked to sell the package to members. In a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers in the morning, Speaker Mike Johnson described a few of the policy changes that House Republicans were able to secure in the latest negotiations. Those included a prohibition on funding for a United Nations relief program for Palestinian refugees that extends through March 2025. He also noted the bill funds 8,000 additional detention beds for noncitizens awaiting their immigration proceedings or removal from the country.
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Nearly 8 in 10 AAPI adults in US think abortion should be legal, AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — With abortion rights poised to be one of the major issues in the 2024 election, a new poll shows that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the United States are highly supportive of legal abortion, even in situations where the pregnant person wants an abortion for any reason.
The poll from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that nearly 8 in 10 Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. They're also supportive of federal government action to preserve abortion rights: Three-quarters of AAPI adults say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortions nationwide.
By comparison, an AP-NORC poll conducted last June found that 64% of U.S. adults think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 6 in 10 U.S. adults overall say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access.
AAPI adults are more likely than Americans overall to identify as Democrats, which may partially explain why their levels of support for legal abortion are higher than among the general population. But even among Democrats, AAPI adults are more supportive of legal abortion later in pregnancy. AAPI Democrats are especially likely to support legal abortion without any limits — more than half of this group say abortion should be legal in all cases, compared to 40% of Democrats overall.
AAPI Republicans are also more likely than Republicans overall to support a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. More than half (57%) of AAPI Republicans think abortion should be legal in at least some cases, compared to 38% of Republicans in general. About half (51%) of AAPI Republicans also think Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide, while only 32% of Republicans overall want this to happen.
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One Tech Tip: How to spot AI-generated deepfake images
LONDON (AP) — AI fakery is quickly becoming one of the biggest problems confronting us online. Deceptive pictures, videos and audio are proliferating as a result of the rise and misuse of generative artificial intelligence tools.
With AI deepfakes cropping up almost every day, depicting everyone from Taylor Swift to Donald Trump, it's getting harder to tell what's real from what's not. Video and image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney and OpenAI’s Sora make it easy for people without any technical skills to create deepfakes — just type a request and the system spits it out.
These fake images might seem harmless. But they can be used to carry out scams and identity theft or propaganda and election manipulation.
Here is how to avoid being duped by deepfakes:
In the early days of deepfakes, the technology was far from perfect and often left telltale signs of manipulation. Fact-checkers have pointed out images with obvious errors, like hands with six fingers or eyeglasses that have differently shaped lenses.
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Ohtani's interpreter is fired by Dodgers after allegations of 'massive theft' from Japanese star
SEOUL, South Korea. (AP) — Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter and close friend has been fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers following allegations of illegal gambling and theft from the Japanese baseball star.
Interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, 39, was let go from the team Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker. The team is in Seoul, South Korea, this week as Ohtani makes his Dodgers debut, and Mizuhara was in Los Angeles’ dugout during their season-opening win.
Mizuhara was seen regularly chatting with Ohtani, who was the Dodgers’ designated hitter, seemingly discussing his at-bats over a tablet computer.
“In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft and we are turning the matter over to the authorities,” law firm Berk Brettler LLP said in a statement Wednesday.
Sports gambling is illegal in California, even as 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.
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Tristan da Silva scores 20 points as Colorado outlasts Boise State 60-53 to cap the First Four
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Tristan da Silva scored 20 points and Colorado won its first NCAA Tournament game in three years, wrapping up the First Four with a sloppy 60-53 win over Boise State on Wednesday night.
A layup by Eddie Lampkin Jr. and a pair of foul shots from J’Vonne Hadley capped an 11-0 run that gave the Buffaloes a 56-49 lead with 24 seconds left in what had been a back-and-forth game. Boise State had to start fouling and Colorado didn’t miss from the line — and that sealed it.
Colorado outscored Boise State 15-4 over the last 4 1/2 minutes.
KJ Simpson had 19 points and 11 rebounds for the Buffaloes (25-10), who advanced as a No. 10 seed to face seventh-seeded Florida in Indianapolis on Friday.
“KJ was really positive, which I thought was great because you need that positivity in the NCAA Tournament when you go down four late,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle. said. “And we got five straight stops in a row. Our defense just kind of cranked up a notch.”
The Associated Press
