Hamas releases 3 frail-looking Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners under Gaza ceasefire

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas-led militants released three gaunt, frail-looking Israeli hostages and Israel freed nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners Saturday in the latest exchange of a ceasefire that has paused 16 months of war in Gaza.

The hostages’ condition and scenes of Hamas forcing them to speak in a handover ceremony sparked outrage in Israel and could increase pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the ceasefire beyond its current six-week phase.

Netanyahu has signaled he would resume the war, even if that means leaving dozens of hostages in captivity. “President Trump completely agreed with me: We will do everything to return all the hostages, but Hamas will not be there,” Netanyahu said after the exchange.

Civilians Eli Sharabi, 52; Ohad Ben Ami, 56; and Or Levy, 34, were among about 250 people taken during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war.

Israelis' joy turned to shock and tears when they saw their emaciated state.

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Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in the latest exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza, part of a ceasefire that has paused the war but whose future is uncertain.

Israel views the prisoners as terrorists, while Palestinians see them as freedom fighters resisting a decadeslong military occupation.

Nearly every Palestinian has a friend or family member who has been jailed by Israel at some point, for militant attacks or lesser offenses such as rock-throwing, protesting or membership in a banned political group. Some are held for months or years without trial in what is known as administrative detention, which Israel says is needed to prevent attacks and avoid sharing sensitive intelligence.

Eighteen of those released Saturday had been sentenced to life and 54 were serving long sentences for their involvement in deadly attacks against Israelis. Some have been in jail for two decades. In the West Bank town of Beitunia, whistling crowds greeted the released prisoners as heroes, waving flags and chanting support for Hamas.

Some of the released men dropped to their knees as they stepped off the bus, weeping as they kissed the cold pavement. They were greeted by tearful relatives before traveling on to their homes throughout the West Bank.

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Trump's DEI order leaves academic researchers fearful of political influence over grants

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in programs receiving federal money has thrown into doubt the future of research Kendra Dahmer has been doing on intestinal parasites in India and Benin.

Dahmer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, has a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the single largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.

The grant is supposed to cover her research through the summer of 2026, but now she wonders if that will be possible. She received diversity-based funding as the first college graduate in her family and a woman in science and, more broadly, she is uncertain how Trump’s anti-DEI executive order could affect support for her areas of study.

“There’s also this aspect of research that funds specific studies in specific populations that are now being deemed DEI,” Dahmer said. “So, like HIV research in Africa may be deemed DEI, malaria research, which also happens in low and middle income countries, may be considered DEI. And these are really important diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year.”

Two days after Trump signed the executive order on DEI on Jan. 21 researchers became even more alarmed when the White House called for a funding freeze to conduct an ideological review of all federal grants and loans. After days of chaos and legal wrangling, two judges intervened and the administration rescinded the freeze. The National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, which fund a large chunk of research in the country, this week began releasing grants.

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Trump's 3rd week saw more executive orders, a trade war that wasn't and a Mideast jolt

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three weeks in, President Donald Trump keeps cranking out executive orders designed to remake the government while billionaire Elon Musk hunts for more ways to upend the federal workforce.

Trump also provoked — then called off — trade wars with Canada and Mexico but allowed one with China to move forward. He seemingly made light of potentially thorny political issues while insisting he was serious about the United States seizing Gaza, emptying out its residents and redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” It was an idea that friend and foe alike around the world rejected.

Here are some Week 3 takeaways:

Trump has spent 20 days in office, and on nearly every one of them, he has signed executive orders — often several.

Just like Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden before him, Trump used Inauguration Day to put pen to paper on actions meant to wipe out large numbers of his predecessor's policies. Trump also issued Day 1 orders to pardon most members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and keep TikTok functioning.

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Spending bill talks bog down after Trump's efforts to slash government

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress can enact much of their legislative agenda, they have to deal with some unfinished business — completing work on the current budget year's spending bills. It's a task that by all accounts is not going well.

The current stopgap measure lasts through March 14. After that, without congressional action, there would be a partial government shutdown.

Five weeks is an eternity when it comes to resolving spending bills in Washington. But Trump's first weeks in office have escalated tensions between the two parties as the new administration reshapes agency priorities and dismantles existing programs without congressional approval.

A look at where the talks stand:

Republican and Democratic leaders of the two appropriations committees in Congress were holding spending bill talks in late January; aides said the two sides were committed to getting a deal done. But optimism has faded in recent days.

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The US stopped allowing passport gender marker changes. Here are some of the people affected

The day after President Donald Trump returned to office, Lisa Suhay took her 21-year-old daughter, Mellow, to a passport office in Norfolk, Virginia, where they live.

Getting a passport for Mellow, who is transgender, was urgent.

In an executive order Trump signed the night before, the president used a narrow definition of the sexes instead of a broader conception of gender. The order says a person is male or female and it rejects the idea that someone can transition from the sex assigned at birth to another gender. The framing is in line with many conservatives' views but at odds with major medical groups and policies under former President Joe Biden.

Her family wants Mellow to be able to leave the country if things became unbearable for transgender people in the U.S. as the federal government increasingly moves not to recognize them.

“If the worst was to come to worst and things were to threaten my life,” she said, “I would have some way out.”

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Rescuers search for at least 29 people after a landslide in southwest China

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese rescuers searched for at least 29 people after a landslide on Saturday in southwestern Sichuan province buried 10 houses and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.

The Ministry of Emergency Management deployed hundreds of rescuers including firefighters following the landslide in a village in Junlian county. Two people were pulled out alive with injuries, and about 200 others were relocated, state broadcaster CCTV said. A manufacturing facility was also buried.

The disaster was caused by recent heavy rainfall and geological conditions, authorities said in a news conference on Sunday. These factors transformed a landslide into a debris flow, resulting in an accumulation of debris stretching about 1.2 kilometers (0.7 miles) in length, with a total volume exceeding 100,000 cubic meters (3.5 million cubic feet).

Authorities were still confirming the total number of missing.

A villager told BeijingNews that rocks were frequently seen rolling down the mountain since the second half of 2024, in some cases making sounds similar to firecrackers. The villager said geologists had inspected the area late last year, the state-run newspaper reported.

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Here's what we know about a commuter plane crash in Alaska that killed 10 people

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Authorities are working to recover the wreckage of a plane crash in western Alaska that killed 10 people while investigators are trying to determine what caused the small commuter aircraft to go down in the icy Bering Sea.

The single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. The Bering Air plane was found the next day after an extensive search. Nine passengers and the pilot were killed.

Crews on Saturday succeeded in recovering the remains of those killed in the crash from a drifting ice floe before the anticipated onset of high winds and snow.

Here are things to know about the plane crash, which is one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years.

Officials said contact with the Cessna Caravan was lost less than an hour after it left Unalakleet on Thursday. Authorities said the flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, and the aircraft went missing about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Nome.

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Winter storm to bring up to a foot of snow in parts of the Northeast US

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A strong storm is expected to bring moderate to heavy snowfall across parts of the Upper Great Lakes on Saturday before intensifying overnight across the Northeast.

The National Weather Service said a storm over the central and southern plains will move northeastward Saturday, producing a swath of 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of snow across parts of Minnesota and the Great Lakes. Saturday night into Sunday, upstate New York and New England could see up to a foot (30 centimeters) of accumulation. Hazardous travel conditions were likely due to low visibility and snow-covered roads.

“One good thing with this storm, it is moving pretty quickly, so it’s not gonna be a prolonged winter weather event,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland. “It looks like the snow will definitely be coming to an end earlier in the day on Sunday, after which the weather will be fairly tranquil for a few days.”

In the meantime, a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain from the Ohio Valley into the northern Mid-Atlantic region could result in significant icing in the Central Appalachians, forecasters said. Freezing rain on roadways was expected to make travel dangerous, and power outages were possible.

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Arrests in luxury home burglaries targeting NFL, NBA players are the 'tip of the iceberg'

For months, daring bands of thieves linked to South American gangs have been making off with piles of jewelry and cash from the homes of the biggest superstars in sports, targeting the likes of the NFL's Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.

Sophisticated pillagers have deployed drones and signal jamming devices, sometimes posing as delivery drivers or maintenance workers, to gain access to gated neighborhoods and thwart home security systems, according to warnings issued by the NFL and NBA.

But in recent weeks, investigators across the U.S. have made a handful of arrests connected to at least one of the high-profile heists and discovered stolen sports memorabilia, jewelry and art stuffed into storage units in New Jersey.

A group of Chilean men stopped in January while driving in Ohio were charged Monday with stealing nearly $300,000 worth of designer luggage, watches and jewelry from Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s house. Photos showed one suspect wearing a sparkly necklace with Burrow's jersey number that he had worn during interviews, according to a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday.

“These individuals seem to be the alleged tip of the iceberg,” said Kenneth Parker, the U.S. Attorney in southern Ohio, who believes the men are working with South American theft rings that for years have been ransacking opulent homes from coast to coast.

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