After blast kills hundreds at Gaza hospital, Hamas and Israel trade blame as rage spreads in region

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter Tuesday, killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants.

At least 500 people were killed, the ministry said.

As rage spread through the region because of the hospital carnage, and with President Joe Biden heading to the Mideast in hopes of stopping the war from spreading, Jordan's foreign minister said his country canceled a regional summit scheduled for Wednesday in Amman, where Biden was to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

The war between Israel and Hamas was “pushing the region to the brink,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television. He said Jordan would host the summit only when everyone had agreed its purpose would be to “stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians and deliver the aid they deserve.”

Biden will now visit only Israel, a White House official said.

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Biden will stress humanitarian aid, avoiding deeper conflict in Israel but is scrapping Jordan stop

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s efforts to tamp down tensions in the escalating war between Israel and Hamas faced major setbacks even before he departed for the Middle East on Tuesday, as Jordan called off the president's planned summit with Arab leaders after a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital killed hundreds.

The White House confirmed while Biden was preparing for takeoff from Washington that he now only plans to visit Israel. The Amman summit was scrapped after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas withdrew in protest of the explosion, which the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza blamed on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said it had no involvement and pinned the blame on a misfired Palestinian rocket.

“This war and this aggression are pushing the region to the brink,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, told al-Mamlaka TV, a state-run network. He said Jordan would only host the summit when all participants agreed on its purpose, which would be to “stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians, and deliver the aid they deserve.”

While aboard Air Force One on his way to Israel, Biden released a statement saying he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, and the terrible loss of life that resulted."

He said he spoke “immediately” after hearing the news with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said he has "directed my national security team to continue gathering information about what exactly happened."

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How international law applies to war, and why Hamas and Israel are both alleged to have broken it

LONDON (AP) — Hamas and Israel have both been accused of breaking international law during their latest conflict, and the United Nations says it is collecting evidence of war crimes by all sides.

Enforcing the law amid the fog of war is difficult. Holding perpetrators to account once conflicts are over has often proved elusive.

Here is a look at some of the issues.

The rules of armed conflict are governed by a set of internationally recognized laws and resolutions, including the United Nations charter, which prohibits aggressive wars but allows countries the right to self-defense.

Battlefield behavior has international humanitarian laws including the Geneva Conventions, drawn up after World War II and agreed on by almost every nation.

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Republicans reject Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on a first ballot, signaling more turmoil ahead

WASHINGTON (AP) — Signaling more turmoil ahead, Republicans rejected Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on a first ballot Tuesday, as a surprising 20 holdouts denied the hard-charging ally of Donald Trump the GOP majority needed to seize the gavel.

Additional voting was postponed as the House hit a standstill, stuck while Jordan works to shore up support from Republican colleagues to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy for the job. Reluctant Republicans are refusing to give Jordan their votes, viewing the Ohio congressman as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency. Next votes were expected Wednesday.

“We're going to keep working,” Jordan said at the Capitol as evening fell.

It's been two weeks of angry Republican infighting since McCarthy's sudden removal by hard-liners, who are now within reach of a central seat of U.S. power. The vote for House speaker, once a formality in Congress, has devolved into another bitter showdown for the gavel.

Jordan said after the first vote that he was not surprised and expected to do better in the next round. But the afternoon dragged on with no further votes Tuesday. “We feel confident,” he said, ducking into a leadership office.

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Trump returns to his civil fraud trial, hears an employee and an appraiser testify against him

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump returned Tuesday to the civil fraud trial that imperils his real estate empire, watching and deploring the case as an employee and an outside appraiser testified that his company essentially put a thumb on the scale when sizing up his properties' value.

Incensed by a case that disputes his net worth and could strip him of such signature holdings as Trump Tower, the former president is due to testify later in the trial. But he chose to attend the first three days and came back Tuesday to observe — and to protest his treatment to the news cameras waiting outside the Manhattan courtroom.

Star witness Michael Cohen, a onetime Trump fixer now turned foe, postponed his scheduled testimony because of a health problem.

Instead, Trump company accountant Donna Kidder testified that she was told to make some assumptions favorable to the firm on internal financial spreadsheets. Outside appraiser Doug Larson said he didn't suggest or condone a former Trump Organization comptroller's methods of valuing properties.

“It doesn't make sense,” Larson said of the way the ex-controller reached a $287.6 million value for a prominent Trump-owned retail space in 2013.

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Ukraine uses US-provided long-range ATACMS missiles against Russian forces for the first time

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has quietly delivered a small number of long-range ballistic missiles that Ukraine said it urgently needed and that President Joe Biden promised last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Tuesday, saying they were used on the battlefield against Russia and “executed very accurately.”

”Today I express special gratitude to the United States," Zelenskyy said in his evening address, adding that the missiles “have proven themselves.”

The U.S. has refused to discuss the delivery publicly, but officials familiar with the move also confirmed it earlier in the day. Fewer than a dozen of the missiles got into Ukraine within the last few days, said officials. Their arrival at the warfront gives Ukraine a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter before an official announcement and spoke Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.

The delivery of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, was shrouded in secrecy, with the expectation that the first public acknowledgment would come when the missiles were used on the battlefield. That intense secrecy is a marked change from previous U.S. weapons sent by the Biden administration. In nearly all other cases, the U.S. has publicly announced its decision prior to the weapons and equipment being shipped overseas.

Because of lingering U.S. concerns about escalating tensions with Russia, the ATACMS version that went to Ukraine will have a shorter range than the maximum distance the missiles can have. While some versions of the missiles can go as far as about 180 miles (about 300 kilometers), the ones sent to Ukraine have a shorter range and carry cluster munitions, which, when fired, open in the air, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. According to a U.S. official, the ones delivered to Ukraine have a maximum range of a bit more than 100 miles (roughly 160 kilometers).

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Congressional draft report in Brazil recommends charges for Bolsonaro over Jan. 8 insurrection

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A draft congressional report on Brazil's Jan. 8 riots on Tuesday accused ex-President Jair Bolsonaro of being the insurrection's mastermind and recommended he be criminally charged with attempting to stage a coup.

The report by Sen. Eliziane Gama followed months of hearings by a committee investigating the uprising in Brasilia. It proposed charges against Bolsonaro including the violent overthrow of democratic rule, and a slew of other charges against dozens of people citing “extensive documentation,” including bank statements, phone records and messages.

Bolsonaro, who lost his reelection bid last fall, has denied any involvement in the rioting, which took place after he had quietly left the country to stay in Florida while refusing to attend the inauguration of incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

A full panel of 32 lawmakers — most of whom are allied with Lula — are scheduled to vote on the inquiry report Wednesday and are seen as likely to adopt the measure, which would serve as a recommendation to prosecutors.

On Jan. 8, one week after Lula took office, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace, refusing to accept his election defeat. They bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded the public buildings.

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Breast cancer is deadlier for Black women. A study of mammograms could help close the gap

Are 3D mammograms better than standard 2D imaging for catching advanced cancers?

A clinical trial is recruiting thousands of volunteers — including a large number of Black women who face disparities in breast cancer death rates — to try to find out.

People like Carole Stovall, a psychologist in Washington, D.C., have signed up for the study to help answer the question.

“We all need a mammogram anyway, so why not do it with a study that allows the scientists to understand more and move closer to finding better treatments and ways of maybe even preventing it?” Stovall said.

The underrepresentation of women and minorities in research is a long-simmering issue affecting health problems including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and COVID-19. Trials without diversity lead to gaps in understanding of how new treatments work for all people.

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Remains of at least 189 people removed from Colorado funeral home, up from 115, officials say

DENVER (AP) — The remains of at least 189 people have been removed from a Colorado funeral home, up from an initial estimate of about 115 when the decaying and improperly stored bodies were discovered two weeks ago, officials said Tuesday.

The remains were found by authorities responding to a report of an “abhorrent smell” inside a decrepit building at the Return to Nature Funeral Home in the small town of Penrose, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Denver. All the remains were removed from the site as of Oct. 13, but officials said the numbers could change again as the identification process continues.

The updated count comes as families who did business with the funeral home grow increasingly concerned about what happened to their deceased loved ones. Local officials said they will begin notifying family members in the coming days as the remains are identified.

There is no timeline to complete the work, which began last week with help from an FBI team that gets deployed to mass casualty events like airline crashes. Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller said he wanted to provide accurate information to families "to prevent further victimization as they continue to grieve.”

Officials have not disclosed further details of what was found inside the funeral home, but Fremont Sheriff Allen Cooper described the scene as horrific.

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Prosecutors seeking to recharge Alec Baldwin in fatal shooting on set of Western movie 'Rust'

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Special prosecutors are seeking to recharge actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie in 2021, describing Tuesday their preparations to present new information to a grand jury.

New Mexico-based prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis said they’ll present their case to the grand jury within the next two months, noting “additional facts” have come to light in the shooting on the set of the film “Rust” that killed Halyna Hutchins.

Baldwin, a coproducer of the film, was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal inside a rustic chapel on a movie-set ranch near Santa Fe when the gun went off on Oct. 21, 2021, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.

“After extensive investigation over the past several months, additional facts have come to light that we believe show Mr. Baldwin has criminal culpability in the death of Halyna Hutchins and the shooting of Joel Souza,” Morrissey and Lewis said in an email. “We believe the appropriate course of action is to permit a panel of New Mexico citizens to determine from here whether Mr. Baldwin should be held over for criminal trial.”

They declined to elaborate on the additional information they may present to the grand jury.

News from © The Associated Press, 2023