Israeli strike in northern Lebanon kills at least 21 people
AITO, Lebanon (AP) — An Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in northern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 21 people, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military and it was not clear what the target was. The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito, which is part of the country's Christian heartland in the north and far from the Hezbollah militant group's main areas of influence in the south and east.
Rescue workers in Aito searched through the rubble of the building as ambulances stood by to receive the bodies of victims. A number of nearby buildings and cars were also damaged in the strike.
The strike came a day after a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers — all of them 19 years old — and severely wounded seven others in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the army base and soldiers injured in the attack, vowing that “we will continue to strike Hezbollah without compassion in every part of Lebanon, including in Beirut.”
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FEMA workers change some hurricane-recovery efforts in North Carolina after receiving threats
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal disaster workers paused and then changed some of their hurricane-recovery efforts in North Carolina, including abandoning door-to-door visits, after receiving threats that they could be targeted by a militia, officials said, as the government response to Helene is targeted by runaway disinformation.
The threats emerged over the weekend. The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday that it received a call Saturday about a man with an assault rifle who made a comment “about possibly harming" employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency working in the hard-hit areas of Lake Lure and Chimney Rock, in the North Carolina mountains.
Authorities got a description of a suspect’s vehicle and license plate and later identified him as William Jacob Parsons, 44, of Bostic, a small community about 60 miles west of Charlotte. Sheriff’s officials said in a statement that Parsons — who was armed with a handgun and a rifle — was charged with “going armed to the terror of the public,” a misdemeanor. He was released after posting bond.
The sheriff’s office said initial reports indicated that a “truckload of militia” was involved in making the threat, but further investigation determined that Parsons acted alone.
Messages left seeking comment at phone listings for Parsons and a possible relative were not immediately returned.
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NASA spacecraft rockets toward Jupiter's moon Europa in search of the right conditions for life
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft rocketed away Monday on a quest to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life.
It will take Europa Clipper 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter, where it will slip into orbit around the giant gas planet and sneak close to Europa during dozens of radiation-drenched flybys.
Scientists are almost certain a deep, global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And where there is water, there could be life, making the moon one of the most promising places out there to hunt for it.
Europa Clipper won’t look for life; it has no life detectors. Instead, the spacecraft will zero in on the ingredients necessary to sustain life, searching for organic compounds and other clues as it peers beneath the ice for suitable conditions.
SpaceX started Clipper on its 1.8 billion-mile (3 billion-kilometer) journey, launching the spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. An hour later, the spacecraft separated from the upper stage, floated off and called home.
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Harris and Trump campaigning in battleground Pennsylvania on Monday
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are taking their fight for Pennsylvania to opposite ends of the state on Monday, with Harris speaking in the northwest corner in Erie and Trump in the southeastern suburbs of Philadelphia.
Democrat Harris and Republican Trump have been making regular appearances in what is the country's largest battleground state — it will be Harris' 10th visit to Pennsylvania this campaign season, and just last week Trump made stops in both Scranton and Reading.
Harris at an evening campaign rally planned to raise Trump’s comments over the weekend suggesting that the U.S. military be used to deal with “the enemy from within,” according to a senior Harris campaign official.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the remarks ahead of a campaign rally in Erie, Pa., said Harris will hammer home the idea that Trump sees Americans who disagree with him as enemies.
She’ll argue that the comments made in a Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” interview are the latest example of threatening rhetoric from the former president that should concern Americans about what a potential second Trump term could look like.
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Harris is laying out a new plan to empower Black men as she tries to energize them to vote for her
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is announcing a plan to give Black men more economic opportunities and other chances to thrive as she works to energize a key voting bloc that has Democrats concerned about a lack of enthusiasm.
Harris' plan includes providing forgivable business loans for Black entrepreneurs, creating more apprenticeships and studying sickle cell and other diseases that disproportionately affect African American men.
Harris already has said she supports legalizing marijuana and her plan calls for working to ensure that Black men have opportunities to participate as a “national cannabis industry takes shape.” She also is calling for better regulating cryptocurrency to protect Black men and others who invest in digital assets.
The vice president's so-called “opportunity agenda for Black men” is meant to invigorate African American males at a moment when there are fears some may sit out the election rather than vote for Harris or her opponent, Republican former President Donald Trump.
The vice president unveiled the plan ahead of a Monday visit to Erie, Pennsylvania, where she will visit a Black-owned small business and hold a campaign rally. Her push comes after former President Barack Obama suggested last week that some Black men “aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
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This could have been a year of a federal court reckoning for Trump. Judges had other ideas
WASHINGTON (AP) — The indictment charging Donald Trump with hoarding classified documents leveled one jaw-dropping allegation after another, including that he showed off a secret Pentagon attack plan to guests at his golf club and suggested his lawyer mislead the FBI about the presence of the White House records.
But those details proved beside the point to the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the prosecution, who dismissed the case on grounds that the special counsel who brought it was unlawfully put in the job.
A separate criminal case accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election seemed an opportunity for a trial this year focused on Trump's failed effort to retain power after his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
But the Supreme Court erased that possibility with an opinion that granted former presidents expansive immunity from prosecution.
A year that began with the prospect of a federal court reckoning for Trump will end without any chance of a trial, leaving voters without the finality of an up-or-down jury verdict in the two most consequential cases against the Republican presidential nominee. Yet both cases still loom over the election, their potential resurgence in the coming months making clear that at stake on Nov. 5 is not only the presidency but also possibly Trump's liberty.
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Canada expels India's top diplomat and alleges wider diplomatic involvement in crimes
TORONTO (AP) — Canada said it has identified India’s top diplomat in the country as a person of interest in the assassination of a Sikh activist there and expelled him and five other diplomats Monday, in an escalating dispute over the June 2023 killing and allegations of other crimes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was expelling the Indian high commissioner and the others — all persons of interest, as Canada's foreign minister said police had uncovered evidence of a worsening campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government.
“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil," Trudeau said. He alleged that diplomats were collecting information about Canadians and passing it on to organized crime to attack Canadians, and said “India has made a monumental mistake."
India has rejected the accusations as absurd.
India's foreign ministry in turn said it was expelling Canada's acting high commissioner and five other diplomats, adding that they were told to leave by the end of Saturday.
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Most AAPI adults think legal immigrants give the US a major economic boost: AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll
WASHINGTON (AP) — Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults are more likely than the overall U.S. population to view legal immigration as an asset to the country's economy and workforce, according to a new poll.
When it comes to the risks posed by illegal immigration, though, their views are similar to those of Americans overall.
About 8 in 10 AAPI adults say legal immigration to the U.S. is a “major benefit" contributing to economic growth, a survey released Monday by AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. In comparison, around 4 in 10 Americans overall felt the same way in an AP-NORC poll conducted in March. Similarly, around three-quarters of AAPI voters say skilled expertise in science and technology is a major benefit of legal immigration, compared with about 4 in 10 Americans in March.
The polling results come as former President Donald Trump, with less than a month until Election Day, continues to focus on the threat of immigration in his presidential campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris. The Republican recently falsely claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had no money to help Hurricane Helene survivors because it was spent on programs for undocumented immigrants. During the presidential debate last month, Trump amplified a false rumor that Haitians living legally in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's pets. The debunked claims led to bomb threats to schools and government buildings, and drew on a long history in the U.S. of maligning immigrant communities through their food.
Aldrin Villahermosa II, 25, and a registered independent in Tacoma, Washington, was “mad and annoyed” when he heard Trump target Haitians that way.
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6 people accuse Diddy of sexual assault in new lawsuits, including man who was 16 at the time
NEW YORK (AP) — A new wave of lawsuits filed Monday accuses Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping women, sexually assaulting men and molesting a 16-year-old boy.
At least six lawsuits were filed against the hip-hop mogul in federal court in Manhattan. They were filed anonymously, two by women identified as Jane Does and four by men identified as John Does.
The accusers are part of what their lawyers say is a group of more than 100 alleged victims who are in the process of taking legal action against Combs in the wake of his sex trafficking arrest last month.
One of the John Does, a man living in North Carolina, alleges that Combs fondled his genitals when he was 16 at one of the rapper’s famous white parties in Long Island’s Hamptons in 1998.
The man alleges that during a conversation about possibly breaking into the music industry, Combs abruptly ordered the then-teen to drop his pants.
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Kansas tops AP Top 25 preseason men's basketball poll ahead of Alabama, defending champion UConn
Kansas was picked first in the AP Top 25 preseason men’s basketball poll Monday, getting the No. 1 nod on half of the 60 ballots from a national media panel to start the season ahead of Alabama and two-time defending national champion UConn.
Kansas scooped up 30 first-place votes from the AP panel. The Crimson Tide, led by All-American guard Mark Sears and Jarin Stevenson, earned 14 first-place votes and UConn, which is trying to become the first school since John Wooden’s teams at UCLA to win three straight titles, received 11 first-place votes and is third.
Houston earned four first-place votes and is fourth ahead of Iowa State, which returns its top four scorers from a team that was a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Gonzaga received one first-place vote and is the sixth.
Duke, led by consensus No. 1 recruit Cooper Flagg, is seventh ahead of Baylor, North Carolina and Arizona in the top 10.
The Jayhawks were preseason No. 1 a year ago, too, but the season hardly went as planned. They were dragged down by injuries and struggled in Big 12 play, and a team led by All-American center Hunter Dickinson ultimately was routed by Cincinnati in the conference tournament and Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Associated Press
