AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

Palestinians fight in hard-hit areas of Gaza while deal emerges to deliver medicine to hostages

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian militants battled Israeli forces in devastated northern Gaza and launched a barrage of rockets from farther south on Tuesday in a show of force more than 100 days into Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against the tiny coastal enclave.

The fighting in the north, which was the first target of Israel’s offensive and where entire neighborhoods have been pulverized, showed how far Israel remains from achieving its goals of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war.

In other developments, France and Qatar, the Persian Gulf nation that helped mediate a previous cease-fire, said late Tuesday that they had brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages in Gaza, as well as additional aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory.

France said it had been working since October on the deal, which will provide three months’ worth of medication for 45 hostages with chronic illnesses, as well as other medicines and vitamins. The medicines are expected to enter Gaza from Egypt on Wednesday.

It was the first known agreement between the warring sides since a weeklong truce in November.

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Chaotic wave of attacks, reprisals in Middle East fuel worries of a broader regional war

WASHINGTON (AP) — A barrage of U.S., coalition and militant attacks in the Middle East over the last five days are compounding U.S. fears that Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza could expand, as massive military strikes failed to stall the assault on Red Sea shipping by Yemen-based Houthis.

Even as the U.S. and allies pummeled more than two dozen Iran-backed Houthi locations on Friday in retaliation for attacks on ships, the Houthis have continued their maritime assaults. And Tehran struck sites in Iraq and Syria, claiming to target an Israeli “spy headquarters,” then followed that Tuesday with reported missile and drone attacks in Pakistan.

The chaotic wave of attacks and reprisals involving the United States, its allies and foes suggested not only that last week’s assault had failed to deter the Houthis, but that the broader regional war that the U.S. has spent months trying to avoid was becoming closer to reality. And underscoring the gravity of the roiling situation, the Biden administration is expected to announce plans to redesignate the Houthis as global terrorists, according to people familiar with the decision who requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of its announcement.

At the White House earlier Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stressed that the U.S. is “not looking for a war. We’re not looking to expand this. The Houthis have a choice to make.” But in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that the expanding array of attacks mean that allies must “be vigilant against the possibility that in fact, rather than heading towards de-escalation, we are on a path of escalation that we have to manage.”

Ever since the devastating attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 triggered a massive air and ground campaign by Israeli forces, the U.S. and other allies have worried about it expanding to a broader regional war. U.S. diplomatic and military officials have shuttled urgently across the Middle East, working to ease tensions but the enormous Palestinian death toll has fueled anger and is being touted as a reason for at least some of the attacks.

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New Hampshire gets its turn after Trump’s big win in Iowa puts new pressure on Haley and DeSantis

ATKINSON, N.H. (AP) — After Donald Trump’s record victory in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire voters now get their turn to decide just how competitive the Republican nominating fight will be as the former president continues to dominate his party.

Trump was eager Tuesday to flaunt his 30-point victory in Iowa a night earlier, as he stepped up the pressure on former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to improve on their distant finishes in the opening votes of the 2024 presidential election. They have a one-week sprint ahead of next Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire, the longtime host of the nation’s first Republican presidential primary.

“Our country is dying. … And I stand before you today as the only candidate who is up to the task of saving America,” Trump declared in Atkinson, where hundreds of his supporters cheered the former president’s boasts about his standing in polls, attacks on President Joe Biden and sweeping promises to “make our country rich as hell again.”

DeSantis, the Florida governor, and Haley, Trump’s former United Nations Ambassador and onetime South Carolina governor, were campaigning Tuesday in New Hampshire, as well. DeSantis got about 21% of the vote in Iowa, 30 percentage points behind Trump’s narrow majority and 2 points ahead of Haley’s third-place finish.

New Hampshire’s electorate is less religiously conservative and less rural than in Iowa, factors that helped Trump in the caucuses. If DeSantis and Haley cannot capitalize on those differences, they could watch Trump sustain momentum that would render the rest of the Republican primary calendar little more than a formality.

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Trump glowers and gestures in court, then leaves to campaign as sex abuse defamation trial opens

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump shook his head in disgust Tuesday as the judge in his New York defamation trial told would-be jurors that an earlier jury had already decided the former president sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.

Trump left court before opening statements, jetting to a New Hampshire political rally as Carroll’s lawyer accused the Republican presidential front-runner of using “the world’s biggest microphone” to destroy her reputation and turn his supporters against her. Trump’s lawyer contended that Carroll has never been more famous and that she is blaming him for “a few mean tweets from Twitter trolls.”

Fresh from a political win Monday in the Iowa caucuses, Trump detoured to a Manhattan courtroom for the start of what amounts to the penalty phase of Carroll’s civil lawsuit alleging he attacked her at a department store in 1996. Trump departed Tuesday after the nine-member jury was selected.

He glared and scowled at times as the jury was being picked, slyly raising his hand at one point when Judge Lewis A. Kaplan asked if anyone felt Trump had been treated unfairly by the court system. The gesture drew laughs from some people in the courtroom and a retort from the judge, who said, “We know where you stand.”

Trump, the former president, and Carroll, the former longtime Elle Magazine columnist, sat at separate tables about a dozen feet (3.7 meters) apart, flanked by their respective legal teams. They didn’t appear to speak or make eye contact.

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The 3 officers cleared in Manuel Ellis’ death will each receive $500,000 to leave Tacoma police

SEATTLE (AP) — Three Washington state police officers who were cleared of criminal charges in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis — a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained facedown on a sidewalk as he pleaded for breath — will each receive $500,000 to leave the Tacoma Police Department, according to documents released Tuesday.

“This says to the public that these are excellent officers, and it’s a shame Tacoma is losing them,” said Anne Bremner, an attorney for one of the officers, Timothy Rankine.

A jury acquitted Rankine, 34, and co-defendants Matthew Collins, 40, and Christopher Burbank, 38, in December following a trial that lasted more than two months. Rankine was charged with manslaughter, while Collins and Burbank were charged with manslaughter and second-degree murder.

The city released copies of the “voluntary separation” agreements with the officers Tuesday as police Chief Avery Moore announced findings that none violated the use-of-force policy in effect on March 3, 2020. Collins was found to have violated a policy concerning courtesy.

The use-of-force policy has since been updated. The old one “failed to serve the best interests of the police department or the community,” Moore said.

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Iran attacks alleged militant bases in Pakistan; Islamabad says ‘unprovoked’ strikes kill 2 children

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Iran launched attacks Tuesday in Pakistan targeting what it described as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, potentially further raising tensions in a Middle East already roiled by Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Pakistan said the strikes killed two children and wounded three others in an assault it described as an “unprovoked violation” of its airspace.

Confusion followed the announcement from Iran as state media reports on it soon disappeared. However, the attack inside of nuclear-armed Pakistan by Iran threatens the relations between the two countries, which long have eyed each other with suspicion while maintaining diplomatic relations.

The attack also follows Iranian strikes on Iraq and Syria less than a day earlier, as Tehran lashes out following a dual suicide bombing this month claimed by the Sunni militant group Islamic State that killed over 90 people.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency and state television had said that missiles and drones were used in the strikes in Pakistan. Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state television, attributed the attack to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice,” is a Sunni militant group founded in 2012 which largely operates across the border in Pakistan. The militants have claimed bombings and kidnapped Iranian border police in the past.

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Oregon braces for freezing rain while cold temperatures elsewhere strain electric grids

Parts of Oregon braced for freezing rain Tuesday after a weekend of extreme winds knocked down trees and cut power to thousands, while communities across the U.S. also struggled with perilously cold weather that closed schools and put electricity supplies at risk.

Another day of record cold temperatures swept much of the Rockies, Great Plains and Midwest, with wind chills below minus 30 (minus 34.4 Celsius) extending into the mid-Mississippi Valley. On the East Coast, meanwhile, New York City and Philadelphia ended a drought of sorts with enough snow falling for play in both cities.

More than 80,000 U.S. homes and businesses were without power by Tuesday afternoon, most of them in Oregon. Portland General Electric warned that freezing rain could delay restoration efforts. Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity in seven states, asked customers to voluntarily cut back, citing a high demand for power because of the cold. A similar plea came from the grid operator in Texas.

More than 200 residents were evacuated after a broken pipe flooded the first three floors of an apartment building in downtown St. Louis, KSDK-TV reported. An assistant manager at the Mark Twain Building complex said all 213 residents of the building, many of them elderly, were evacuated onto five warming buses.

Schools were closed major cities, including in Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Tennessee, across New England and in the Washington, D.C., region. Federal offices in the nation’s capital were closed as roughly 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow hit the area.

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Shooter who killed 5 people at Colorado LGBTQ+ club intends to plead guilty to federal hate crimes

DENVER (AP) — The shooter who killed five people and endangered the lives of over 40 others at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs plans to plead guilty to new federal charges for hate crimes and firearm violations under an agreement that would allow the defendant to avoid the death penalty, according to court documents made public Tuesday.

Anderson Aldrich, 23, made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to 50 hate crime charges and 24 firearm violations, the documents show. Aldrich would get multiple life sentences in addition to a 190-year sentence under the proposed agreement, which needs a judge’s approval.

The Jan. 9 plea agreement was unsealed by the court after Aldrich had pleaded not guilty in court during an initial appearance on Tuesday afternoon. The gun charges can carry a maximum penalty of death, according to the agreement.

Aldrich was sentenced to life in prison last June after pleading guilty to state charges of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder — one for each person at Club Q during the attack on Nov. 19, 2022.

Word of the new charges and planned agreement come just days after federal prosecutors revealed they would seek the death penalty in another hate crime case — against a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The decision doesn’t change Attorney General Merrick Garland’s moratorium to halt federal executions, but opens a new chapter in the long and complicated history of the death penalty in the U.S.

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The JetBlue-Spirit Airlines merger was blocked by a federal judge. Here’s what you need to know

NEW YORK (AP) — The prospect of a JetBlue-Spirit Airlines merger took a major hit in court on Tuesday when a federal judge sided with the Biden administration and blocked the $3.8 billion deal.

The judge ruled that JetBlue’s purchase of Spirit, the nation’s largest low-cost airline, would harm competition — and increase prices for air travelers as a result. Meanwhile, JetBlue has maintained that it needs such a deal to compete with industry rivals.

Here’s a rundown of what you need to know.

It boils down to competition concerns. The Justice Department and several state attorneys general sued to block the merger last year — arguing that it would drive up fares by eliminating low-cost Spirit. U.S. District Judge William Young agreed.

Young, who was nominated for the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, ruled that the merger would harm competition and violate antitrust law.

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Shell will sell big piece of its Nigeria oil business, but activists want pollution cleaned up first

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Shell said Tuesday it agreed to sell its onshore business in Nigeria’s Niger Delta to a consortium of companies in a deal worth $2.4 billion, the latest move by the energy company to limit its exposure in the West African nation amid long-running complaints of environmental pollution caused by the oil industry.

Shell called it a way to streamline its business in a country it has operated in for decades, facing pushback about oil spills that have fouled rivers and farms and exacerbated tensions in a region that has faced years of militant violence.

“This agreement marks an important milestone for Shell in Nigeria, aligning with our previously announced intent to exit onshore oil production in the Niger Delta,” Zoe Yujnovich, Shell’s integrated gas and upstream director, said in a statement. This will help in “simplifying our portfolio and focusing future disciplined investment in Nigeria on our deepwater and integrated gas position.”

The buying consortium is Renaissance, which consists of ND Western, Aradel Energy, First E&P, Waltersmith and Petrolin, Shell said. After an initial payment of $1.3 billion, the London-based energy giant said it would receive an additional $1.1 billion.

The assets that Shell is selling are largely owned by the Nigerian government’s national oil company NNPC, which holds a 55% stake. To finalize the agreement, the government must give its approval. Shell operates the assets and owns a 30% stake, with the remaining share held by France’s TotalEnergies at 10% and Italy’s Eni at 5%.

The Associated Press