AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST
Posted December 8, 2023 12:05 am.
Last Updated December 8, 2023 11:12 pm.
Israeli troops round up Palestinian men in northern Gaza as UN warns aid operation is ‘in tatters’
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel said Friday that the military was rounding up Palestinian men in northern Gaza for interrogation, searching for Hamas militants, while desperate Palestinians in the south crowded into an ever-shrinking area, and the U.N. warned that its aid operation is “in tatters.”
The detentions pointed to Israeli efforts to secure the military’s hold on northern Gaza as the war entered its third month. Furious urban fighting has continued in the north, underscoring Hamas’ heavy resistance, and tens of thousands of residents are believed to remain in the area six weeks after troops and tanks rolled in.
The first images of mass detentions emerged Thursday from the northern town of Beit Lahiya, showing dozens of men kneeling or sitting in the streets, stripped down to their underwear, their hands bound behind their backs. Some had their heads bowed. U.N. monitors said Israeli troops reportedly detained men and boys from the age of 15 in a school-turned-shelter.
In other developments, the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution backed by the vast majority of Security Council members and many other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1 with the United Kingdom abstaining.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council that Gaza is at “a breaking point” and “there is a high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system.”
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US vetoes UN resolution backed by many nations demanding immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Supporters called it a terrible day and warned of more civilian deaths and destruction as the war goes into its third month.
The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining. The United States’ isolated stand reflected a growing fracture between Washington and some of its closest allies over Israel’s monthslong bombardment of Gaza. France and Japan were among those supporting the call for a cease-fire.
In a vain effort to press the Biden administration to drop its opposition to calling for a halt to the fighting, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were all in Washington on Friday. But their meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken took place only after the U.N. vote.
Along with the vote, the Arab diplomats’ mission served to shift responsibility more squarely onto the United States for protecting Israel from growing demands to stop the airstrikes that are killing thousands of Palestinian civilians.
“What is the message we are sending Palestinians if we cannot unite behind a call to halt the relentless bombardment of Gaza?” United Arab Emirates deputy ambassador Mohamed Abushaha asked after the vote. “Indeed, what is the message we are sending civilians across the world who may find themselves in similar situations?”
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Michigan teen gets life in prison for Oxford High School attack
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A judge sentenced a Michigan teenager to life in prison Friday for killing four students and terrorizing others at Oxford High School, after listening to hours of gripping anguish from parents and wounded survivors.
Judge Kwame Rowe rejected pleas from defense lawyers for a shorter sentence and ensured that Ethan Crumbley, 17, will not get an opportunity for parole.
Moments before learning his fate, the teen apologized and appeared to agree with his victims that the stiffest punishment was appropriate.
“Any sentence that they ask for, I ask that you do impose it on me,” the shooter said. “I want them to be happy, and I want them to feel secure and safe. I do not want them to worry another day. I really am sorry for what I’ve done. … But I can try my best in the future to help other people, and that is what I will do.”
Life sentences for teenagers are rare in Michigan since the U.S. Supreme Court and the state’s highest court said the acts of minors must be viewed differently than the crimes of adults. But Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald said a no-parole order fit the Oxford case.
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Appeals court upholds gag order on Trump in Washington case but narrows restrictions on his speech
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Washington largely upheld a gag order on Donald Trump in his 2020 election interference case on Friday, but narrowed the restrictions on his speech to allow the former president to criticize the special counsel who brought the case.
The three-judge panel’s ruling modifies the gag order, permitting the Republican 2024 presidential front-runner to make disparaging comments about special counsel Jack Smith, but it reimposes limits on what he can say about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses in the case and about court staff and other lawyers.
The unanimous ruling is mostly a win for Smith’s team, with the judges agreeing with prosecutors that Trump’s often-incendiary comments about participants in the case can have a damaging practical impact and rejecting claims by defense attorneys that restrictions on the ex-president’s speech amount to an unconstitutional muzzling. It lays out fresh parameters about what Trump can and cannot say about the case as he both prepares for a March trial and campaigns to reclaim the White House.
“Mr. Trump’s documented pattern of speech and its demonstrated real-time, real-world consequences pose a significant and imminent threat to the functioning of the criminal trial process in this case,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote for the court. She noted that many of the targets of Trump’s verbal jabs “have been subjected to a torrent of threats and intimidation from his supporters.”
The case accuses Trump of plotting with his Republican allies to subvert the will of voters in a desperate bid to stay in power in the run-up to the Capitol riot by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. It is scheduled to go to trial in March in Washington’s federal court, just blocks away from the Capitol.
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Federal judge prohibits separating migrant families at US border for 8 years
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday prohibited the separation of families at the border for purposes of deterring immigration for eight years, preemptively blocking resumption of a lightning-rod, Trump-era policy that the former president hasn’t ruled out if voters return him to the White House next year.
The separation of thousands of families “represents one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country,” U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said moments before approving a settlement between the Justice Department and families represented by the American Civil Liberties Union that ended a legal challenge nearly seven years after it was filed.
Sabraw, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, ordered an end to separations in June 2018, six days after then-President Donald Trump halted them on his own amid intense international backlash. The judge also ordered that the government reunite children with their parents within 30 days, setting off a mad scramble because government databases weren’t linked. Children had been dispersed to shelters across the country that didn’t know who their parents were or how to find them.
As he reminisced and congratulated lawyers on both sides, the judge recalled a sense of horror over initial allegations and how subsequent disclosures left him increasingly dismayed over how the policy was carried out in 2017 and 2018. He read from an earlier order in which he said the practice was “brutal, offensive and fails to comply with traditional notions of fair play and decency.”
Sabraw referred to another court filing in 2018 that described how many parents were deported without knowing where their children were. “Simply cruel,” he said.
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Putin will seek another term as Russian president, aiming to extend his rule of over two decades
Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win.
Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia — including one on the Kremlin itself — and corroded its aura of invincibility.
A short-lived rebellion in June by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raised widespread speculation that Putin could be losing his grip, but he emerged with no permanent scars. Prigozhin’s death in a mysterious plane crash two months later reinforced the view that Putin was in absolute control.
Putin, who was first elected president in March 2000, announced his decision to run in the March 17 presidential election after a Kremlin award ceremony, when war veterans and others pleaded with him to seek reelection in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described as “spontaneous” remarks.
“I won’t hide it from you — I had various thoughts about it over time, but now, you’re right, it’s necessary to make a decision,” Putin said in a video released by the Kremlin after the event. “I will run for president of the Russian Federation.”
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Europe reaches a deal on the world’s first comprehensive AI rules
LONDON (AP) — European Union negotiators clinched a deal Friday on the world’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence rules, paving the way for legal oversight of AI technology that has promised to transform everyday life and spurred warnings of existential dangers to humanity.
Negotiators from the European Parliament and the bloc’s 27 member countries overcame big differences on controversial points including generative AI and police use of face recognition surveillance to sign a tentative political agreement for the Artificial Intelligence Act.
“Deal!” tweeted European Commissioner Thierry Breton just before midnight. “The EU becomes the very first continent to set clear rules for the use of AI.”
The result came after marathon closed-door talks this week, with the initial session lasting 22 hours before a second round kicked off Friday morning.
Officials were under the gun to secure a political victory for the flagship legislation. Civil society groups, however, gave it a cool reception as they wait for technical details that will need to be ironed out in the coming weeks. They said the deal didn’t go far enough in protecting people from harm caused by AI systems.
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High-profile attacks on Derek Chauvin and Larry Nassar put spotlight on violence in federal prisons
Derek Chauvin was stabbed nearly two dozen times in the law library at a federal prison in Arizona. Larry Nassar was knifed repeatedly in his cell at a federal penitentiary in Florida.
The assaults of two notorious, high-profile federal prisoners by fellow inmates in recent months have renewed concerns about whether the chronically understaffed, crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons is capable of keeping people in its custody safe.
In the shadow of gangster James “Whitey” Bulger’s 2018 beating death at a West Virginia federal penitentiary and financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 suicide at a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, the Bureau of Prisons is again under scrutiny for failing to protect high-profile prisoners from harm.
Chauvin, 47, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020, was hospitalized for a week after he was assaulted Nov. 24 at a medium-security federal prison in Tucson, Arizona — the same complex where an inmate tried to shoot a visitor last year with a contraband gun.
Chauvin’s suspected attacker, an ex-gang leader, told correctional officers he would have killed him if they hadn’t responded when they did, prosecutors said. He was charged last week with attempted murder and has been moved out of Chauvin’s prison to a federal penitentiary next door.
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Harvard president apologizes for remarks on antisemitism as pressure mounts on Penn’s president
WASHINGTON (AP) — Harvard University’s president apologized as pressure mounted for the University of Pennsylvania’s president to resign over their testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism that critics from the White House on down say failed to demonstrate they would stand up to antisemitism on campus.
In an interview Thursday with The Crimson student newspaper, Harvard President Claudine Gay said she got caught up in a heated exchange at the House committee hearing and failed to properly denounce threats of violence against Jewish students.
Meanwhile, lawyers for a major donor to Penn, Ross Stevens, wrote to Penn’s general counsel on Thursday to threaten to withdraw a gift valued at $100 million because of the university’s “stance on antisemitism on campus” unless Penn President Liz Magill is replaced.
Gay’s and Magill’s testimony have drawn intense national backlash, as have similar responses from the president of MIT who also testified before the Republican-led House Education and Workforce Committee on Tuesday. Donors, alumni and members of Congress in both parties have called for their resignations.
At issue was a line of questioning that asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate the universities’ code of conduct. At the Tuesday hearing, Gay said it depended on the context, adding that when “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.”
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Ryan O’Neal, star of ‘Love Story,’ ‘Paper Moon,’ ‘Peyton Place’ and ‘Barry Lyndon,’ dies at 82
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ryan O’Neal, the heartthrob actor who went from a TV soap opera to an Oscar-nominated role in “Love Story” and delivered a wry performance opposite his charismatic 9-year-old daughter Tatum in “Paper Moon,” died Friday, his son said.
“My dad passed away peacefully today, with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him as he would us,” Patrick O’Neal, a Los Angeles sportscaster, posted on Instagram.
No cause of death was given. Ryan O’Neal was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, a decade after he was first diagnosed with chronic leukemia. He was 82.
“My father, Ryan O’Neal, has always been my hero,” Patrick O’Neal wrote, adding, “He is a Hollywood legend. Full stop.”
“He meant the world to me. I loved him very much and know he loved me too,” Tatum O’Neal told People magazine in a statement. “I’ll miss him forever. and I feel very lucky that we ended on such good terms.”
The Associated Press