Islamic State group claims responsibility for knife attack that killed 3 in Solingen, Germany

SOLINGEN, Germany (AP) — The Islamic State militant group on Saturday claimed responsibility for a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight more at a crowded festival marking this city's 650th anniversary.

The extremist group said on its news site that the attacker targeted Christians and that as a “soldier of the Islamic State” he carried out the assaults Friday night “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”

The IS claim couldn't immediately be verified. It provided no evidence for its assertions.

Police later detained a suspect, the internal affairs minister of North Rhein Westphalia state said early Sunday.

“We have been following a hot lead all day,” Herbert Reul told “Tagesschau,” the news program of the German public television network ARD. “The person we have been searching for all day has been detained a short while ago.”

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Israel says it is staging airstrikes inside Lebanon targeting the Shiite militia Hezbollah

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel launched airstrikes inside Lebanon early Sunday that its military said targeted positions of the Shiite militia Hezbollah.

In a statement, the Israeli military accused Hezbollah of “preparing to file missiles and rockets toward Israeli territory.”

”??In a self-defense act to remove these threats, the (Israeli military) is striking terror targets in Lebanon, from which Hezbollah was planning to launch their attacks on Israeli civilians,” Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said.

Hagari warned Hezbollah would “soon fire rockets, and possibly missiles and” drones into Israel. Sirens began sounding in northern Israel soon after the warning, and additional sirens later joined in across the north.

Lebanese media reported strikes in the country’s south without immediately providing more details. Social media footage showed what appeared to be strikes in southern Lebanon.

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Israeli airstrikes kill dozens in Gaza on the eve of high-level cease-fire talks in Egypt

CAIRO (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least three dozen Palestinians in southern Gaza, health workers said Saturday, as officials including a Hamas delegation gathered for high-level cease-fire talks in neighboring Egypt.

Eleven members of a family, including two children, were among the dead after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, which received a total of 33 bodies from three strikes in and around the city that also hit tuk-tuks and passersby. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said it received three bodies from another strike.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

First responders also recovered 16 bodies from the Hamad City area of Khan Younis after a partial pullout of Israeli forces, 10 bodies from a residential building west of Khan Younis and two farther south in Rafah. The circumstances of their deaths weren't immediately clear, but the areas were repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military over the past week. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.

Some residents returned to Hamad City, crunching on rubble as they walked between destroyed apartment buildings. One multistory building's entire wall was gone, its rooms framing residents picking through debris.

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NASA decides to keep 2 astronauts in space until February, nixes return on troubled Boeing capsule

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA decided Saturday it’s too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule, and they'll have to wait until next year for a ride home with SpaceX. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.

The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the flight back.

After almost three months, the decision finally came down from NASA’s highest ranks on Saturday. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will come back in a SpaceX capsule in February. Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in early September and attempt to return on autopilot with a touchdown in the New Mexico desert.

As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey.

“A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The decision "is a result of a commitment to safety.”

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Harris isn’t backing away from Biden’s democracy focus. But she’s putting her own spin on it

CHICAGO (AP) — Before dropping his bid for reelection, President Joe Biden framed voters’ choice in November in dark and ominous terms, painting Republican nominee Donald Trump as a menace to American democracy and questioning whether the country could survive if he won.

The Democratic Party’s new nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, isn’t exactly shrinking from that message, warning in her Thursday night acceptance speech of “extremely serious” consequences of Trump returning to the White House.

But Harris is putting her own spin on what has been a central messaging strategy for Democrats. Rather than focusing on the existential threat a second Trump term could pose to the country's foundational institutions and traditions, she is expanding Democrats' definition of what's at stake in this election: It's about preserving personal freedoms.

The fresh frame was on full display this week at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where attendees wrote their own definitions of freedom on handmade posters and Beyoncé’s anthem “Freedom” boomed through the loudspeakers. The convention dedicated a day’s theme to “fighting for our freedoms,” with special guest Oprah Winfrey suggesting those working to preserve reproductive rights are “the new freedom fighters.”

Harris drove the point home over and over as she summarized her promises to American voters.

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Israeli evacuation orders cram Palestinians into shrinking 'humanitarian zone' where food is scarce

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Young girls screamed and elbowed each other in a crush of bodies in southern Gaza, trying desperately to reach the front of the food line. Men doled out rice and chicken as fast as they could, platefuls of the nourishment falling to the ground in the tumult.

Nearby, boys waited to fill plastic containers with water, standing for hours among tents packed so tightly they nearly touched.

Hunger and desperation were palpable Friday in the tent camp along the Deir al-Balah beachfront, after a month of successive evacuation orders that have pressed thousands of Palestinians into the area that the Israeli military calls a “humanitarian zone.”

The zone has long been crowded by Palestinians seeking refuge from bombardment, but the situation grows more dire by the day, as waves of evacuees arrive and food and water grow scarce. Over the last month, the Israeli military has issued evacuation orders for southern Gaza at an unprecedented pace.

At least 84% of Gaza now falls within the evacuation zone, according to the U.N., which also estimates that 90% of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced over the course of the war.

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Moscow and Kyiv swap prisoners of war as Ukraine marks independence anniversary

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine exchanged over 100 prisoners of war each on Saturday as Kyiv marked its third Independence Day since Moscow's full-scale invasion.

Ukraine said the 115 Ukrainian servicemen who were freed were conscripts, many of whom were taken prisoner in the first months of Russia’s invasion. Among them are nearly 50 soldiers captured by Russian forces from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the 115 Russian soldiers had been captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia two weeks ago. The ministry said the soldiers were currently in Belarus, but would be taken to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that the United Arab Emirates had again brokered the exchange, the 55th since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Photos attached to Zelenskyy’s post show gaunt servicemen with shaven heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.

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Portrait of a protester: Outside the Democratic convention, a young man talks of passion and plans

CHICAGO (AP) — Bearded and bespectacled, YM Masood has a quiet nature that suggests he's older than age 20. A political science major, he plans to graduate from college in December, well ahead of schedule. He’s studying for the LSAT, the entrance exam for law school.

He has another frequent role as well: protester.

Masood, a student at the University of Illinois Chicago, has taken to the city's streets in recent months for pro-Palestinian rallies, often weekly and — once — twice in the same day.

“Palestine is definitely No. 1 right now,” Masood says. Last spring, he also traveled by train to support pro-Palestinian encampments at the University of Chicago and Northwestern and DePaul universities.

That set the stage for this week's Democratic National Convention, where thousands gathered to raise their voices on issues from the Middle East conflict to abortion and immigrant rights. Though the cameras often focused on scraps with police, the overwhelming majority marched peacefully.

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Back-to-work order issued for 2 major Canada railroads. Union will comply, but lawsuit planned

TORONTO (AP) — The Canadian arbitrator appointed to resolve a messy railroad labor dispute to protect the North American economy has ordered employees at the country’s two major railroads back to work so both can resume operating.

Saturday's order means Canadian National will be able to continue operating the trains it restarted Friday morning just over a day after it locked out workers. But Canadian Pacific Kansas City likely won't be able to restart its operations before 12:01 a.m. Monday, when workers were ordered to return.

Railroads play a crucial role in the economy with CPKC and CN delivering more than CA$1 billion (US$730 million) worth of shipments a day and carrying billions of dollars of goods between the U.S. and Canada every month. Even though both companies' trains in the United States and Mexico continued operating, the lockouts caused a significant disruption. A number of smaller short-line freight railroads that handle local deliveries continued operating across Canada but were unable to hand off shipments to either of the major railroads while they were idle.

The Teamsters union representing workers said that it will comply with the Canada Industrial Relations Board order and send its members back on the job, but it will also move forward with a legal challenge of the arbitration order.

“This decision by the CIRB sets a dangerous precedent. It signals to corporate Canada that large companies need only stop their operations for a few hours, inflict short-term economic pain, and the federal government will step in to break a union,” said Paul Boucher, President of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents more than 9,000 engineers, conductors and dispatchers at both railroads.

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Tropical Storm Hone steadily approaches Hawaii, threatening floods and fires

HONOLULU (AP) — Tropical Storm Hone, whose name is Hawaiian for “sweet and soft,” drew near the islands Saturday with breezes that were expected to intensify — and increase the wildfire risk for drier parts of the state even as memories are still fresh from last year's deadly blazes on Maui.

Hone (pronounced hoe-NEH), had top winds of 65 mph (105 kph). A slight increase in strength was forecast during the next two days, but Hone was expected to remain just below hurricane strength at its peak Sunday through Monday, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Big Island, and a red flag fire warning was issued for the leeward sides of all islands through 6 p.m. on Saturday. The National Weather Service issues the alert when warm temperatures, very low humidity and stronger winds combine to raise fire dangers.

“They gotta take this thing serious,” said Calvin Endo, a Waianae Coast neighborhood board member who lives in Makaha, a leeward Oahu neighborhood prone to wildfires.

Most of the archipelago is already abnormally dry or in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The winds are expected to be strongest where they blow downslope from higher terrain, over headlands and through passes, the hurricane center advised.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024