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

King Charles III is being treated for cancer and will temporarily halt his public duties

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer and has begun treatment, Buckingham Palace said Monday. Less than 18 months into his reign, the 75-year-old monarch will suspend public engagements but will continue with state business, and won’t be handing over his constitutional roles as head of state.

The palace didn’t disclose what form of cancer the king has, but said it’s not related to his recent treatment for a benign prostate condition.

The palace said “a separate issue of concern was noted” during Charles’ treatment for an enlarged prostate last month, when he spent three nights in a London hospital.

“Diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer,” it said in a statement.

“His Majesty has today commenced a schedule of regular treatments, during which time he has been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties,” the palace said. “Throughout this period, His Majesty will continue to undertake State business and official paperwork as usual.”

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Blinken returns to Mideast in push for hostage deal and postwar plan for Gaza, but obstacles loom

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Monday at the start of his fifth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, hoping to press ahead with a potential cease-fire deal and postwar planning while tamping down regional tensions.

But on all three fronts he faces major challenges: Hamas and Israel are publicly at odds over key elements of a potential truce. Israel has dismissed U.S. calls for a path to a Palestinian state, and Iran’s militant allies in the region have shown little sign of being deterred by U.S. strikes.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas has begun to re-emerge in some of the most devastated areas after Israeli forces pulled back, an indication that Israel’s central goal of crushing the group remains elusive. Video footage from the same areas shows vast destruction, with nearly every building damaged or destroyed.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would continue to conduct operations in northern Gaza for many months and press ahead with its main offensive in the south, where it has been locked in heavy fighting for weeks, until it has “full reign” over the entire territory.

He said the offensive will eventually reach the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge. Egypt has said an Israeli deployment along the border would threaten the peace treaty the two countries signed over four decades ago.

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Record-setting storm that killed 3 dumps rain on Los Angeles; flash flood alerts still in effect

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A storm of historic proportions dumped a record amount of rain over parts of Los Angeles on Monday, sending mud and boulders down hillsides dotted with multimillion-dollar homes while people living in homeless encampments in many parts of the city scrambled for safety.

About 710,000 people statewide were without power Monday evening.

The storm was the second one fueled by an atmospheric river to hit the state over the span of days.

Virtually all of Southern California was under flash flood advisories and watches, including the Los Angeles area, where between 5 and 10 inches (12.7 to 25.4 centimeters) of rain had fallen and more was expected, according to the National Weather Service. At the downtown measuring station, 6.7 inches of rain had fallen by Monday afternoon, nearly half the yearly average of 14.25 inches. It was already the third-wettest two-day period since 1877, the service said.

So far officials have attributed three deaths to the storm that first hit Northern California. Crews rescued people from swift-moving water in various parts of Southern California on Monday, including 16 people and five cats in Los Angeles County alone, authorities said.

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Senate Republicans resist advancing on border policy bill, leaving aid for Ukraine in doubt

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a torrent of criticism from conservatives, Senate Republicans on Monday resisted advancing on a bipartisan proposal intended to clamp down on illegal border crossings, signaling a likely defeat in Congress that would leave leaders with no clear path to approve wartime aid for Ukraine.

In a dramatic turnaround, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell recommended to GOP senators in a closed-door meeting that they vote against the first procedural vote Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the meeting who were not authorized to talk publicly about it and spoke anonymously.

It came just hours after the Kentucky Republican had urged colleagues on the Senate floor that “it’s now time for Congress to take action.” But McConnell has struggled to marshal his conference to support the package of $118 billion package of border enforcement policy and funding for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.

Senate negotiators on Sunday night released the text of the bill, hoping that the details would win over skeptics. The carefully negotiated deal represented a rightward shift in Senate negotiations over border measures, yet the backlash was still intense from conservatives. They savaged the border policy proposal as insufficient, with former President Donald Trump leading the charge.

“This is a gift to the Democrats. And this sort of is a shifting of the worst border in history onto the shoulders of Republicans,” Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, said Monday on “The Dan Bongino Show.” “They want this for the presidential election so they can now blame the Republicans for the worst border in history.”

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A look at events surrounding the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria a year ago

ISTANBUL (AP) — A year ago, a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, causing widespread destruction and the loss of over 59,000 lives.

A massive rebuilding effort is still trudging along a year later but many questions remain about the future of the devastated areas.

The Feb. 6, 2023, quake struck shortly after 4 a.m. and lasted for 85 seconds. It was followed by more than 570 aftershocks within 24 hours — including a magnitude 7.5 temblor to the north of the original epicenter in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province.

According to the latest government figures released on Friday by Turkey’s Environment and Urbanization Minister Mehmet Ozhaseki, some 680,000 homes either collapsed or were left too damaged to live in, leaving hundreds of thousands in desperate need of shelter.

The disaster led to a massive international rescue and aid operation involving dozens of countries and organizations. Early on, the hardest-hit areas were hard to get to, forcing residents to grab what tools they could to dig through the rubble. Rescue efforts in both countries were hampered by a lack of manpower and equipment. Damage to roads and airports, as well as bad weather, also obstructed the arrival of rescuers and aid.

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CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Fires in Chile, California rains and Spain drought spread pain of weather extremes

Camila Lange, who is 7-months-pregnant, on Monday sat with her husband and dog in what used to be their home in Vina del Mar, Chile. Hundreds of homes in the central coastal area of the South American nation have been destroyed in fires that have killed at least 112 people.

Weather and climate extremes — wildfire, drought and flooding — are taking a toll around the world. Here’s some of what’s happening now.

— In Chile, firefighters are battling huge forest fires stoked by hot and dry conditions. The fires are burning with the highest intensity around the city of Vina del Mar, where a famous botanical garden founded in 1931 was destroyed by flames. Several neighborhoods on the eastern edge of the popular beach resort of 300,000 people were devoured by flames and smoke, trapping some people in their homes.

— In California, the second of back-to-back moisture-packed atmospheric rivers is taking aim at Southern California, unleashing mudslides, flooding roadways and knocking out power to about 1.4 million people in the Los Angeles area. Up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain had already fallen by Monday, with more expected, according to the National Weather Service.

In Northern California, the storm inundated streets and brought down trees and electrical lines Sunday across the San Francisco Bay Area, where winds topped 60 mph (96 kph) in places.

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‘We learned to be numb.’ South Koreans stay calm despite North’s escalating threats

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s recent escalation of threats and more tests of weapons aimed at South Korea haven’t done much to upset the calm in the nation’s capital.

“We learned to be numb,” said Renee Na, a 33-year-old office worker in Seoul who was one of a dozen South Koreans who sounded more indifferent than scared when talking with The Associated Press.

“Our generation grew up seeing North Korea use nuclear provocations as showmanship to maintain the stability of its regime,” Na said. “When they act up, it doesn’t feel like a real threat, but more like an annual event they stage when they need to shore up internal unity or want outside help.”

That’s a stark contrast to recent comments from Pyongyang, where leader Kim Jong Un said in January that his nation was abandoning its fundamental objective of peaceful reconciliation with South Korea. He also repeated a threat to annihilate the South if provoked.

At the same time, North Korea has conducted a streak of weapons testing, including what it described as simulated nuclear attacks on the South.

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Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement

DENVER (AP) — The four Black girls lay facedown in a parking lot, crying “no” and “mommy” as a police officer who had pointed her gun at them then bent down to handcuff two of their wrists. The youngest wore a pink tiara as she held onto her teenage cousin’s hand.

The 6-year-old Lovely watched as her mother, Brittney Gilliam, was led to a patrol car in handcuffs after she shouted in frustration at the police, who mistakenly believed the car Gilliam was driving was stolen.

Over three years later, the Denver suburb of Aurora has agreed to a $1.9 million settlement with Gilliam and the girls to resolve a lawsuit that claimed the police officers’ actions were evidence of “profound and systematic” racism, a lawyer for the family, David Lane, announced Monday.

The settlement saved the girls the trauma of having to relive what happened during a trial, Lane said. The money will be evenly divided among Gilliam and the four girls, with the girls’ portions being placed into annuities so the money will grow by the time they access it when they turn 18, Lane said.

“All parties are very satisfied with this settlement,” he said.

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Justice Department proposes major changes to address disparities in state crime victim funds

The Justice Department proposed changes Monday to rules governing state-run programs that provide financial assistance to violent crime victims in order to address racial disparities and curb the number of subjective denials of compensation.

The proposal from the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime, a major overhaul to how states across the U.S. currently handle victims compensation claims, comes less than a year after an Associated Press investigation exposed that Black victims were disproportionately denied in many states — often for subjective reasons rooted in implicit biases that are felt across the criminal justice system.

If adopted, the changes would bar states from considering a victim’s criminal history and eliminate some of the most subjective reasons for denials in many states.

“Certain populations may be more likely to have criminal history due to unjustified disparate treatment in the criminal justice system or due to criminal conduct induced through force, fraud, or coercion, such as unlawful acts that traffickers compelled their victims to commit, and this can result in unjustifiably disproportionate denial of claims for those populations,” according to the proposal.

Thousands of Americans each year turn to the state-run victim compensation programs that provide financial assistance to victims of violent crime. The money is used to help with funeral expenses, physical and emotional therapy, lost wages, crime-scene cleanup and more.

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Eagles will host NFL’s first regular-season game in Brazil on Friday, Sept. 6

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Philadelphia Eagles will be the host team for the NFL’s first regular-season game in Brazil on Friday, Sept. 6 — a day after the 2024 season opener, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday.

Goodell addressed gambling, officiating, diversity, the Rooney Rule and much more — including Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce — in an nearly one-hour news conference held inside the Las Vegas Raiders’ locker room before players and coaches from the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers met the media for Super Bowl opening night.

Goodell made news when he said the Eagles will play in Sao Paolo against a to-be-named opponent. It’ll be the first time in 54 years the NFL has played a game on Friday night of its opening weekend. The Los Angeles Rams hosted the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday, Sept. 18, 1970.

The game will be played at the Corinthians Arena, home to Brazilian soccer team SC Corinthians. The stadium was used in both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. The Eagles’ opponent, along with the kickoff time, will be announced closer to when the 2024 schedule is revealed this spring.

Five regular-season games will be played internationally in 2024.

The Associated Press