Mediators scrambling for Israel-Hamas truce extension, as hostages-for-prisoners swaps get harder

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Mediators were scrambling to extend an Israel-Hamas truce set to expire after daybreak Friday, as the two sides appeared to be struggling to agree on how to continue the daily exchanges of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel that have sustained the week-long pause in fighting.

Virtually all of those freed so far have been women and children, but with few such hostages remaining in Gaza reaching a deal on an extension could prove more challenging. Hamas, a militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years, is expected to set a higher price for the remaining hostages, especially Israeli soldiers. About 140 hostages remain in Gaza, with more than 100 having been freed as part of the truce.

Qatar and Egypt, which have played a key role as mediators, are seeking to prolong a truce by another two days. Israel has pledged to resume its blistering offensive, aimed at crushing Hamas, if the militants don't offer what it views as a satisfactory list of captives to be freed in return for an extension.

Israel has vowed to resume the war once hostage releases end, but faces growing pressure from its main ally, the United States to do more to protect Palestinian civilians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials on his third visit to the region since the start of the war two months ago, said he hoped the cease-fire could be extended and more hostages could be released.

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Wartime Israel shows little tolerance for Palestinian dissent

JERUSALEM (AP) — Bayan Khateeb knows she's a terrible cook. So when she managed to pull off a dish of cooked tomatoes and eggs, she took a photo to show friends on social media.

“Soon we shall eat the Shakshouka of victory!” crowed her caption, which included an emoji of the Palestinian flag.

Khateeb intended the Oct. 8 Instagram post as a joke, she said. But in the fraught atmosphere that has gripped Israel since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, statements that might have once sounded innocuous have taken on more sinister meaning and resulted in scores of arrests.

A classmate saw the post and thought Khateeb, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was cheering on Hamas. When the post was shared more widely, Khateeb suddenly found herself accused online of supporting terrorism. The next thing she knew, she was suspended from her studies at a prestigious university, ejected from her dorm, fired from her two jobs and interrogated in shackles by Israeli police.

“I felt like I was in a nightmare. You're arresting me, after I was subjected to two weeks of political persecution?" she said. "How did I end up in this situation?”

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DeSantis and Newsom lob insults and talk some policy in a faceoff between two White House aspirants

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an alternate reality, the prime-time showdown between California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday could have been a preview of a 2024 general election debate.

Instead, the 90-minute meeting was a hard-to-explain event that pitted one struggling Republican presidential hopeful against a Democratic rival who may or may not seek the presidency in four years.

But for a night, at least, the big-state governors were eager to represent their parties on the national stage as they battled over the economy, pandemic restrictions and President Joe Biden’s leadership in a Fox News showdown peppered with fiery policy clashes and personal insults.

“This is a slick, slippery politician whose state is failing,” DeSantis said of Newsom.

Newsom defended California but also highlighted DeSantis' stagnant 2024 presidential bid.

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Myanmar's military is losing ground against coordinated nationwide attacks, buoying opposition hopes

BANGKOK (AP) — About two weeks into a major offensive against Myanmar's military-run government by an alliance of three well-armed militias of ethnic minorities, an army captain, fighting in a jungle area near the northeastern border with China, lamented that he'd never seen such intense action.

His commander in Myanmar's 99th Light Infantry Division had been killed in fighting in Shan state the week before and the 35-year-old career soldier said army outposts were in disarray and being hit from all sides.

“I have never faced these kinds of battles before,” the combat veteran told The Associated Press by phone. “This fighting in Shan is unprecedented.” Eight days later the captain was dead himself, killed defending an outpost and hastily buried near where he fell, according to his family.

The coordinated offensive in the northeast has inspired resistance forces around the country to attack, and Myanmar's military is falling back on almost every front. The army says it's regrouping and will regain the initiative, but hope is rising among opponents that this could be a turning point in the struggle to oust the army leaders who toppled democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi almost three years ago.

“The current operation is a great opportunity to change the political situation in Myanmar, ” said Li Kyar Win, spokesperson for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, one of the three militias known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched the offensive on Oct. 27.

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Henry Kissinger was a trusted confidant to President Nixon until the bitter, bizarre end

WASHINGTON (AP) — All these years later, the scene still is almost too bizarre to imagine: a tearful president and his perplexed aide, neither very religious, kneeling in prayer on the floor of a White House bedroom in the waning hours of a shattered presidency.

Until the embittered end, Henry Kissinger was one of the trusted few of a distrusting Richard Nixon. That trust, combined with Kissinger’s intellectual heft and deft manipulation of power, made him a pivotal player in a tense period in American history, a giant of U.S. foreign policy and a fixture in international relations for decades to come.

The German-born diplomat who got the U.S. out of Vietnam after bloody, costly years of delay and into China in a sudden burst of secret diplomacy died Wednesday. He was 100.

With his brusque yet commanding public presence and behind-the-scenes maneuvers, Kissinger exerted extraordinary influence on global affairs under Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford.

His power grew during the turmoil of Watergate, when the politically attuned diplomat took on a role akin to co-president to the discredited Nixon.

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Henry Kissinger’s complicated legacy draws admiration and scorn from across the globe

TOKYO (AP) — The death of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew both admiration and scorn Thursday from political leaders around the world, highlighting the complicated legacy of Kissinger’s views about what it meant to serve America’s interests during the Cold War — and how the country should exert its influence.

Kissinger, who died Wednesday at 100, was one of America's most powerful diplomats. During his years serving under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, he shaped the country's foreign policy in ways that led to breakthroughs, including normalizing U.S.-China relations and advancing detente with the Soviet Union.

But during Kissinger’s tenure the U.S. also overlooked the rise of brutal regimes in other countries, and critics argue his approach ran counter to democratic ideals and left lasting damage throughout the world.

President Joe Biden, who was a U.S. senator when he first met Kissinger, said, “Throughout our careers, we often disagreed. And often strongly. But from that first briefing — his fierce intellect and profound strategic focus was evident.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was among those who sought out Kissinger's counsel through the decades, said that "to serve as America’s chief diplomat today is to move through a world that bears Henry’s lasting imprint — from the relationships he forged, to the tools he pioneered, to the architecture he built.”

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What if Donald Trump is convicted? The 2024 Republican convention rules don't address the issue

NEW YORK (AP) — The Republican National Committee's rules for next year's nominating contest and convention were released this week without addressing a question the GOP could well face next summer: Can the party's delegates vote for a different candidate if the presumptive nominee is convicted of a felony?

Former President Donald Trump is under four criminal indictments that will proceed through the GOP primary season, an overlap of legal and political calendars with no precedent in American politics. Fifteen states and American Samoa hold their GOP primaries on March 5, known as Super Tuesday, which is also the day after his first trial is scheduled to begin in Washington on charges that he unlawfully sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump is dominating the Republican field and may secure much of the support he needs by Super Tuesday, by which time almost half of delegates who select the nominee at the GOP convention will have been awarded. Even if he were to be convicted in Washington or another trial, top party leaders and many voters have indicated they would stand by Trump anyway. And Trump and his allies are pushing to dismiss and delay the trials and have worked with state parties to craft rules favorable to him.

The RNC rules don’t include any provisions specific to the unprecedented scenario unfolding.

Bound delegates must vote for a particular presidential candidate at the convention based on the results of the primary or caucus in their state. As in past years, every state party must bind its delegates to vote for their assigned candidates during at least the first round of voting at the national convention, with limited exceptions for a small number of delegates. A candidate wins the nomination if they clinch a majority, which is 1,215 delegates.

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Some OPEC+ members will cut the oil that they send to the world to try to boost prices

LONDON (AP) — The OPEC oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia and allied producers including Russia made another big swipe at propping up lagging crude prices Thursday, expanding some output cuts into next year and bringing up-and-coming oil supplier Brazil into the fold.

Lower oil prices have been a good thing for U.S. drivers, who have been able to fill their gas tanks for less money in recent months. But it’s bad news for OPEC+ countries whose oil income bolsters their economies and who have faced setbacks in pushing prices higher despite initial fears that the Israel-Hamas war could affect oil flows.

The OPEC+ oil ministers came out of an online meeting with more than 2 million barrels per day in voluntary cuts through the first three months of next year and declared that Brazil would join the bloc in January, bringing one of the world’s fastest-growing oil producers into an alliance that is trying to rein in global supply.

However, sweeping cutbacks from OPEC+ and individual member countries since October 2022 have not made lasting changes to oil prices because of concerns about too much crude circulating in a weakening global economy, which could weigh on the thirst for oil for travel and industry.

The market even shrugged off the new move, though it amounts to roughly 2% of global supply.

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Review: In concert film 'Renaissance,' Beyoncé offers glimpse into personal life during world tour

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In Beyoncé’s concert film, she described her recent Renaissance World Tour as being run like a machine: From lighting to set design, the superstar singer had a hand in everything production-related to ensure her stadium tour exceeded expectations after four years of preparation.

As a perfectionist, Beyoncé was tirelessly determined — working almost 50 days straight — to create an epic concert experience. This comes clear in her movie “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” which chronicles the massive tour in support of her seventh studio album. The film — written, directed and produced by Beyoncé — perfectly captures her dazzling performances for the big screen and somewhat unveils intimate behind-the-scenes footage from a normally private singer, who has rarely done interviews in the past decade.

Beyoncé released her nearly three-hour “Renaissance” movie through AMC Theaters in similar fashion as the “ Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ” film, which opened with a record-breaking $97 million domestically for a concert film last month. But unlike Swift, whose project primarily focused on her onstage performances, Beyoncé took a different approach by offering more insight into her personal life.

“I'm really excited for everyone to see the process,” she said in the film.

With “Renaissance,” Beyoncé displays more of her human side like in her 2019 Netflix film “ Homecoming," which delved into the singer headlining the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This time, she goes a step further into her story as arguably music's most hardest-working performer, who attempts to juggle being a mother of three children while she maintains her mental and physical fortitude during her tour.

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Penguin parents sleep for just a few seconds at a time to guard newborns, study shows

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a challenge for all new parents: Getting enough sleep while keeping a close eye on their newborns. For some penguins, it means thousands of mini-catnaps a day, researchers discovered.

Chinstrap penguins in Antarctica need to guard their eggs and chicks around-the-clock in crowded, noisy colonies. So they nod off thousands of times each day — but only for about four seconds at a time — to stay vigilant, the researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.

These short “microsleeps,” totaling around 11 hours per day, appear to be enough to keep the parents going for weeks.

“These penguins look like drowsy drivers, blinking their eyes open and shut, and they do it 24/7 for several weeks at a time,” said Niels Rattenborg, a sleep researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Germany and co-author of the new study.

“What’s surprising is that they’re able to function OK and successfully raise their young," he said.

News from © The Associated Press, 2023