Israel declares Gaza’s largest city a combat zone as death toll surpasses 63,000
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel declared Gaza’s largest city a combat zone and recovered the remains of two hostages on Friday as the army launched the start of a planned offensive that has drawn international condemnation.
As the military announced the resumption of fighting, health officials said the death toll in Gaza has risen to 63,025, with 59 deaths reported by hospitals over the last 24 hours. Aid groups and a church sheltering people said they would stay in Gaza City, refusing to abandon the hungry and displaced.
The shift comes weeks after Israel first announced plans to widen its offensive in the city, where hundreds of thousands are sheltering while enduring famine. In recent days, the military has ramped up strikes on the city's outskirts.
Plumes of smoke and thunderous blasts could be seen and heard across the border in southern Israel on Friday morning.
Israel has called Gaza City a Hamas stronghold, alleging that a network of tunnels remain in use despite several previous large-scale raids on the area throughout nearly 23 months of war.
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Trump ends ex-Vice President Harris' Secret Service protection early after Biden had extended it
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has revoked former Vice President Kamala Harris' Secret Service protection that otherwise would have ended next summer, senior Trump administration officials said Friday.
Former vice presidents typically get federal government protection for six months after leaving office, while ex-presidents do so for life. But then-President Joe Biden quietly signed a directive, at Harris' request, that had extended protection for her beyond the traditional six months, according to another person familiar with the matter. The people insisted on anonymity to discuss a matter not made public.
Trump, a Republican, defeated Harris, a Democrat, in the presidential election last year.
His move to drop Harris' Secret Service protection comes as the former vice president, who became the Democratic nominee last summer after a chaotic series of events that led to Biden dropping out of the contest, is about to embark on a book tour for her memoir, titled “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, including visits abroad to London and Toronto. The book, which refers to the historically short length of her presidential campaign, will be released Sept. 23, and the tour begins the following day.
A recent threat intelligence assessment the Secret Service conducts on those it protects, such as Harris, found no red flags or credible evidence of a threat to the former vice president, said a White House official who also insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The administration found no reason Harris' protection should go beyond the standard six-month period for former vice presidents, the official said.
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Boy wounded in Minnesota church shooting asks doctor: ‘Can you say a prayer with me?’
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Moments after rifle blasts reverberated inside a Minneapolis church, Catholic school children wearing plaid jumpers and green polo shirts ducked into pews, some jumping atop friends to protect them from the carnage.
One girl, Lydia Kaiser, was struck shielding her “little buddy” while her father, the school’s gym teacher, helped usher children to safety and reunite them with their parents, according to a family friend organizing fundraising for the family.
A 13-year-old boy named Endre, who was shot twice and rushed into surgery, asked the doctor “can you say a prayer with me?” his aunt said in a GoFundMe posting. Endre's aunt said he’s now recovering, and that surgeon told the family that Endre had inspired their medical team.
Despite the horror carried out Wednesday by a shooter who authorities say was “obsessed” with the idea of killing children, stories of bravery and tragedy have emerged as families share their accounts. At least five children and one adult remained hospitalized Friday. The shooting left two students dead and 20 people wounded, nearly all of them children.
New law enforcement documents revealed Friday that the shooter went through a romantic breakup not long ago and showed up at the church Wednesday with three weapons, including a semiautomatic rifle.
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Missouri is next to answer Trump's call for redrawn maps that boost GOP in 2026
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo (AP) — Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe said Friday that he is calling Missouri lawmakers into a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of a growing national battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an edge in next year’s congressional elections.
Kehoe made the announcement just hours after Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a new congressional voting map designed to help Republicans gain five more seats in the 2026 midterm elections. It marked a win for President Donald Trump, who has been urging Republican-led states to reshape district lines to give the party a better shot at retaining control of the House.
Missouri is the third state to pursue an unusual mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas took up the task first but was quickly countered by Democratic-led California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking voters to approve a map aimed at giving his party five more seats.
Kehoe scheduled Missouri's special session to begin Sept. 3. He released a proposed new map that targets Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-area district by stretching it eastward into rural Republican-leaning areas.
His agenda also includes another Republican priority — a proposed constitutional amendment that would make it harder to approve citizen-initiated ballot measures, such as abortion-rights and marijuana legalization amendments adopted in recent years.
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US revokes visas of Palestinian president and other officials ahead of UN General Assembly
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked the visas of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other officials ahead of next month’s annual high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, a step the Palestinian Authority decried as against international law.
A State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss visa issues that are normally confidential, disclosed Friday that Abbas and other officials from the Palestinian Authority were among those affected by new visa restrictions. Palestinian representatives assigned to the U.N. mission, however, were granted exceptions.
The move is the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken to target Palestinians with visa restrictions and comes as the Israeli military declared Gaza’s largest city a combat zone. The State Department also suspended a program that had allowed injured Palestinian children from Gaza to come to the U.S. for medical treatment after a social media outcry by some conservatives.
The State Department said in a statement that Rubio also ordered some new visa applications from Palestinian officials, including those tied to the Palestine Liberation Organization, be denied.
“It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the statement said.
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Gym owner says she reported grooming concerns about coach years before arrest in sex abuse case
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Long before his banishment from gymnastics and arrest after accusations he abused girls he coached, warning signs about Sean Gardner were coming from several directions — his former boss, his gymnasts and their parents.
The former boss says she brought her concerns about Gardner's “grooming” behavior to USA Gymnastics, the sport’s national governing body. The parents and girls described telling coaches of inappropriate behavior at Gardner’s new job, an academy that produced Olympians and is owned by renowned coach Liang “Chow” Qiao.
Yet Qiao not only kept Gardner on the job — he promoted him.
Associated Press interviews with four parents whose daughters trained under Gardner and a letter obtained by the AP from Gardner's former employer to clients at her gym revealed that concerns about the coach were reported to gymnastics authorities as far back as 2018 — four years before he was kicked out of the sport.
One girl told Qiao during a meeting in 2020 that she had been touched inappropriately by Gardner during training but Qiao said any such contact was inadvertent and intended to save athletes from injury, a parent told AP.
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The Latest: Trump blocks $4.9 billion in foreign aid approved by Congress
In a letter sent Thursday to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, President Donald Trump said he would not be spending $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid — effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch. The letter was posted Friday morning on the X account of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Trump’s move rests on a tool not used in nearly 50 years, known as a pocket rescission: A president submits a request to Congress to not spend approved funds toward the end of the fiscal year so that Congress can’t act on the request in the 45-day time frame, and the money goes unspent as a result. The fiscal year draws to a close at the end of September.
Such a move, if standardized by the White House, could effectively bypass Congress on key spending choices and potentially wrest some control over spending from the House and the Senate.
Here's the latest:
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday fired at least eight employees who signed a letter criticizing the agency’s leadership under Administrator Lee Zeldin and Trump.
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Thai court dismisses prime minister over compromising phone call with Cambodian leader
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Friday dismissed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, ruling that she violated ethics rules in a phone call with a high-ranking Cambodian official.
The decision ends the term of the nation’s youngest prime minister and delivers the latest blow to the powerful Shinawatra political dynasty that has dominated Thai politics for more than two decades.
In a 6-3 vote, the judges found that Paetongtarn’s conduct in a June 15 call with Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen compromised national interests.
The call, which became public just weeks before a deadly border conflict erupted between the two countries, sparked outrage in Thailand. Audio of the conversation revealed Paetongtarn addressing Hun Sen as “uncle” and appearing to criticize a Thai army general as an “opponent” while discussing the tense border situation.
The complaint against Paetongtarn lodged by a group of senators alleged that “due to a personal relationship that appeared aligned with Cambodia, (she) was consistently willing to comply with or act in accordance with the wishes of the Cambodian side.”
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Appeals court rules against Trump's plans to end legal protections for 600,000 Venezuelan migrants
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday ruled against President Donald Trump's plans to end temporary protections for 600,000 Venezuelans who have permission to live and work in the U.S., meaning that migrants whose protections have expired or are about to expire might be allowed to stay.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status designations for Venezuelans while they challenge actions by Trump’s administration in court.
The 9th Circuit judges found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension of temporary protected status because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit it. Then-President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration had extended temporary protected status, commonly known as TPS, for people from Venezuela.
“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, wrote for the panel in a decision joined by two other judges also nominated by Democratic presidents.
But it is unclear what effect Friday’s ruling will have on the estimated 350,000 Venezuelans in the group of 600,000 whose protections expired in April. Their lawyers say some have already been fired from jobs, detained in immigration jails, separated from their U.S. citizen children and even deported.
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What states are doing in the battle for partisan advantage in US House redistricting maps
A battle between Texas Republicans and California Democrats to bolster their party's advantage in the U.S. House has led politicians in other states to consider ways they, too, could leverage partisan power to rack up more victories in the 2026 congressional elections.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday signed into law a new U.S. House map sought by President Donald Trump that could help Republicans in their quest to keep control of the chamber. Hours later, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe announced that he was calling a special session to also redraw House districts in Republicans' favor.
California Democrats already have launched a counteroffensive, asking voters to approve revised House districts designed to boost Democrats' prospects.
Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. But in some states, there is no prohibition on a mid-cycle map makeover. The U.S. Supreme Court also has said there is no federal prohibition on political gerrymandering, in which districts are intentionally drawn to one party's advantage.
The redistricting efforts could play a role in determining control of the U.S. House and, with it, the prospects for Trump's policy goals in the latter half of his term.
The Associated Press
