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Israel’s next target in Gaza war is likely Rafah. Terrified people say there’s nowhere left to go
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, is bursting at the seams. Nearly the last place spared an Israeli offensive so far, Rafah’s population has more than quintupled with Palestinians streaming in to escape fighting. They pack by the dozens into apartments. Sidewalks and once-empty lots are clogged with tents full of families. Panic and despair are rising after Israel said it intends to attack Rafah next. The estimated 1.5 million people sheltering there – more than half of Gaza’s population — have nowhere to flee in the face of an offensive that has leveled large swaths of the urban landscape in the rest of the territory.
Israel seeks to evacuate Palestinians jammed into a southern Gaza city ahead of an expected invasion
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said he has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the densely populated southern Gaza city. The announcement came after heavy international criticism, including from the U.S., of Israeli intentions to move ground forces into the city that borders Egypt. Rafah had a prewar population of roughly 280,000, and according to the United Nations is now home to some 1.4 million additional people living with relatives, in shelters or in sprawling tent camps after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
Uproar over Biden classified documents report carries echoes of 2016 Clinton email case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The release of a harshly critical Justice Department special counsel report on President Joe Biden has triggered instant flashbacks to history-shaping events of 2016. That’s when FBI Director James Comey castigated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her email practices despite recommending against charges. In this year’s already heated election season, the Justice Department cleared Democrat Biden, too, of criminal wrongdoing but painted a politically damaging picture of his handling of classified information. Both announcements were derided by Democrats for their potential to unduly shape public perception in an election year — and for the inclusion of what they saw as gratuitous swipes at their candidates.
Trump tells NRA members ‘no one will lay a finger on your firearms’ if he returns to the White House
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump told thousands of members of the National Rifle Association that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he returns to the White House, and bragged that during his time as president he “did nothing” to curb guns. “During my four years nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield,” he said as he addressed the NRA’s Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Friday evening. Casting himself as ”the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House,” Trump pledged to continue to protect gun owners’ rights, even as the country grapples with a crisis of gun violence and mass shootings that have left more than 3,000 dead since 2006.
2 people dead after small plane attempts emergency landing on southwest Florida interstate
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Two people have died after a small plane attempted to make an emergency landing on Interstate 75 in southwest Florida on Friday afternoon, colliding with a vehicle and bringing traffic to a halt as a massive plume of black smoke rose into the air. The crash landing happened near the Pine Ridge Road exit in Collier County, just north of where the interstate heads east toward Fort Lauderdale along what is known as Alligator Alley. Brianna Walker saw the wing of the plane drag the car in front of hers and slam into the wall. “It’s seconds that separated us from the car in front of us,” she said.
Georgia Republicans say Fani Willis inquiry isn’t a ‘witch hunt,’ but Democrats doubt good faith
ATLANTA (AP) — The Republican leading a specially-appointed Georgia state Senate committee that’s supposed to investigate whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis committed misconduct proclaimed repeatedly Friday during the panel’s first meeting that he seeks just the facts, but the lead Democrat begrudgingly serving on the panel said she doubts the group can overcome its partisan origins. “It’s important that the public understand that this is not any type of witch hunt,” said state Sen. Bill Cowsert of Athens, the Republican picked to lead the panel. “This is a question of truth.” The majority Republican Georgia Senate voted 30-19 last month to create a special investigative committee with subpoena power after allegations emerged that Willis had a conflict of interest in her prosecution of Donald Trump created by her “personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she hired for the case.
Magnitude 5.7 earthquake strikes Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island; no major damage reported
HONOLULU (AP) — A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the world’s largest active volcano on Friday — Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii — knocking items off shelves and cutting power in a nearby town but not immediately prompting reports of serious damage. The earthquake, which didn’t cause a tsunami and which the U.S. Geological Survey initially reported as magnitude 6.3, was centered on Mauna Loa’s southern flank at a depth of 23 miles (37 kilometers), 1.3 miles (2 kilometers) southwest of Pahala. “It shook us bad to where it wobbled some knees a little bit,” said Derek Nelson, the manager of the Kona Canoe Club restaurant in the oceanside community of Kona, on the island’s western side.
Pakistan’s ex-PM Sharif says he will seek a coalition government after trailing jailed rival Khan
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — The former prime minister of Pakistan expected his party would claim an easy victory in the country’s parliamentary elections, sending him to the top job for a fourth time. Instead, Nawaz Sharif faces a difficult path to power. Independent candidates backed by his imprisoned rival, Imran Khan, were leading in the vote count Friday, a surprisingly strong showing given assertions by Khan’s supporters and a national rights body that the balloting was manipulated to favor Sharif. That scrambled the plans of Sharif — and the security establishment backing him — forcing him to announce plans Friday to try to form a coalition government.
Nearly 200 abused corpses were found at a funeral home. Why did it take authorities years to act?
DENVER (AP) — A county coroner reported suspicions about bodies being poorly treated by a Colorado funeral home more than three years before nearly 200 decomposing bodies were discovered inside a decrepit building in October, according to newly unsealed court documents that raise questions about how the mistreatment of corpses was able to continue for so long. The concerns raised by the Fremont County coroner also included worries about the improper refrigeration of bodies and were reported to a state agency in 2020, according to the arrest affidavits for Return to Nature Funeral Home owners Jon and Carie Hallford. But the coroner received no response from the state agency, which has long struggled to effectively oversee the funeral home industry, according to the documents.
Toby Keith wrote all kinds of country songs. His legacy might be post-9/11 American anger
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Toby Keith’s songs accomplished, for some, what great art is intended to: They sustained people in challenging times, particularly U.S. service members and their families during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. For others, Keith’s work sowed division and was blindly patriotic — a wedge that deepened America’s cultural fault lines. Keith, who died Monday of stomach cancer at age 62, is being celebrated for his immense catalog across a diversity of subjects, from small-town heartache to his preference for red Solo cups. But in the fractured political landscape of 2024 America, it’s the long-tail legacy of “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)” that may be remembered most.