Israeli airstrikes kill 6, level large family home in Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least six people across the Gaza Strip and destroyed the home of an extended family early Wednesday. Despite growing international pressure for a cease-fire, the military said it widened its strikes on militant targets in the Palestinian territory’s south to blunt continuing rocket fire from Hamas.
Residents surveyed the piles of bricks, concrete and other debris that had once been the home of 40 members of al-Astal family. They said a warning missile struck the building in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis five minutes before the airstrike, allowing everyone to escape.
Ahmed al-Astal, a university professor, described a scene of panic before the airstrike hit, with men, women and children racing out of the building. Some of the women didn’t even have time to cover their hair with Muslim headscarves, he said.
“We had just gotten down to the street, breathless, when the devastating bombardment came,” he said. “They left nothing but destruction, the children’s cries filling the street. … This is happening, and there is no one to help us. We ask God to help us.”
The Israeli military said it struck militant targets around the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah, with 52 aircraft hitting 40 underground targets. Gaza’s Health Ministry said a woman was killed and eight people were wounded in those strikes.
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Gaza children bearing the brunt in Israel-Hamas conflict
GAZA CITY, Gaza (AP) — Suzy Ishkontana hardly speaks or eats. It’s been two days since the 7-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble of what was once her family’s home, destroyed amid a barrage of Israeli airstrikes. She spent hours buried in the wreckage as her siblings and mother died around her.
Children are being subjected to extensive trauma in Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip. For some, it’s trauma they’ve seen repeatedly throughout their short lives.
This is the fourth time in 12 years Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers have gone to war. Each time, Israel has unleashed heavy airstrikes at the densely populated Gaza Strip as it vows to stop Hamas rocket barrages launched toward Israel.
According to Gaza health officials, at least 63 children are among the 217 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza since the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas began on May 10. On the Israeli side, 12 people have been killed by Hamas rockets, all but one of them civilians, including a 5-year-old boy.
Israel says it does everything it can to prevent civilian casualties, including issuing warnings for people to evacuate buildings about to be struck. As Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, most of them intercepted by anti-missile defenses, Israel’s military has pounded hundreds of sites in Gaza, where some 2 million people live squeezed into a tight urban fabric.
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Restrictions reimposed as virus resurges in much of Asia
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taxi drivers are starved for customers, weddings are suddenly canceled, schools are closed, and restaurant service is restricted across much of Asia as the coronavirus makes a resurgence in countries where it had seemed to be well under control.
Sparsely populated Mongolia has seen its death toll soar from 15 to 233, while Taiwan, considered a major success in battling the virus, has recorded more than 1,000 cases since last week and placed over 600,000 people in two-week medical isolation.
Hong Kong and Singapore have postponed a quarantine-free travel bubble for a second time after an outbreak in Singapore of uncertain origin. China, which has all but stamped out local infections, has seen new cases apparently linked to contact with people arriving from abroad.
The resurgence hasn’t come close to the carnage wrought in India and parts of Europe, but it is a keen reminder that the virus remains resilient, despite mask mandates, case tracing, mass testing and wider deployment of the newest weapon against it — vaccinations.
That’s setting back efforts to get social and economic life back to normal, particularly in schools and sectors like the hospitality industry that are built on public contact.
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‘City in transition’: New York vies to turn page on pandemic
NEW YORK (AP) — More than a year after coronavirus shutdowns sent “the city that never sleeps” into a fitful slumber, New York could be wide awake again this summer.
Starting Wednesday, vaccinated New Yorkers can shed their masks in most situations, and restaurants, stores, gyms and many other businesses can go back to full capacity if they check vaccination cards or apps for proof that all patrons have been inoculated.
Subways resumed running round-the-clock this week. Midnight curfews for bars and restaurants will be gone by month’s end. Broadway tickets are on sale again, though the curtain won’t rise on any shows until September.
Officials say now is New York’s moment to shake off the image of a city brought to its knees by the virus last spring — a recovery poignantly rendered on the latest cover of The New Yorker magazine. It shows a giant door part-open to the city skyline, letting in a ray of light.
Is the Big Apple back to its old, brash self?
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House to vote on independent panel to probe Jan. 6 attack
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is poised to vote on a 9/11-style commission on the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a first step toward creating an independent, bipartisan panel that would investigate the siege and try to prevent it from happening again.
While the measure is expected to be approved Wednesday by the House, a commission will likely be a more difficult sell in the Senate. Republicans there are signaling that they will try to block — or at least slow down — the effort.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he is “pushing the pause button” on the legislation to form the commission. While controlling the Senate, Democrats would need at least 10 GOP votes to pass the measure under Senate rules.
McConnell told reporters that his caucus is “undecided” but willing to listen to arguments about “whether such a commission is needed.” He questioned whether the panel’s work would interfere with the hundreds of criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack, in which rioters brutally beat police, broke in through windows and doors and hunted for lawmakers as they fled. McConnell said he also wanted to read the “fine print” of the bill and ensure that both parties on the commission have an equal say.
McConnell also questioned a separate $1.9 billion spending bill that the House is expected to pass this week for security upgrades. “We’re not sure what to spend the money on yet,” he said.
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NY attorney general says Trump Org probe is now criminal
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general’s office said Tuesday that it is conducting a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business empire, expanding what had previously been a civil probe.
“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the company is no longer purely civil in nature,” Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Attorney General Letitia James, said in a statement.
“We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Levy said.
James’ investigators are working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been conducting a criminal investigation into Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, for two years. James and District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. are both Democrats.
James’ office offered no explanation for what prompted the change in its approach to the investigation or why it chose to announce it publicly. CNN was first to report the development.
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No longer silent, Gulf Arab citizens express anger at Israel
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip has unleashed a chorus of voices across Gulf Arab states that are fiercely critical of Israel and emphatically supportive of Palestinians.
The vocal opposition to Israel, expressed in street protests, on social media and in newspaper columns, comes just months after pacts were signed to establish ties with Israel — and complicates government efforts to rally Arab citizens around full-throttle acceptance of the deals.
Analysts said the conflict will also set back Israeli efforts to secure more normalization deals with other Arab states, like Saudi Arabia.
The criticism has not only put Arab governments that signed the diplomatic accords with Israel in a difficult position with their citizens, it also affirms that the Palestinian cause continues to resonate deeply with people across the Middle East.
“No matter what your national priorities are at the moment or regional priorities are at the moment, when stuff like this happens, the Palestinian issue comes back and hits you,” Emirati political analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said.
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EXPLAINER: Spain’s migrant crisis in North Africa
About 8,000 people have streamed into the Spanish city of Ceuta from Morocco in the past two days in an unprecedented influx, most of them swimming around breakwaters and across the border to reach the Spanish enclave in North Africa.
The surge has strained relations between Morocco and Spain, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez canceling a trip to Paris to make an unscheduled visit to Ceuta, where Spain has deployed military reinforcements and police along the border. Here’s a look at what’s going on:
WHERE IS CEUTA?
Ceuta is a coastal city in North Africa that has belonged to Spain since the 16th century. Like Melilla, another Spanish possession on the Moroccan coast, Ceuta in recent decades has become a flashpoint for migrants from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa seeking to enter Europe. Last year about 2,200 people crossed into Ceuta and Melilla by scaling border fences or swimming from the Moroccan side. Ceuta has a population of 85,000 and is connected to mainland Spain by ferry services across the narrow Strait of Gibraltar.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CEUTA?
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AP Interview: Disinformation concerns mail voting expert
ATLANTA (AP) — Amber McReynolds, CEO of The National Vote at Home Institute, helped state and local election officials prepare for the record number of mailed ballots cast during last year’s presidential election. She also was recently confirmed by the Senate to serve on the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service.
Former President Donald Trump and his allies complained that mail voting rules were eased during the pandemic by governors, state election officials and judges without the involvement of state lawmakers. That was true in a few cases, while lawmakers in nine states opted to expand eligibility requirements for mail voting and in two others agreed to mail ballots automatically to registered voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The Associated Press interviewed McReynolds, who lives in Denver, about an election held amid the coronavirus outbreak, the attacks on election officials, the efforts in some states to enact new limits on mail voting and her views on the future of the Postal Service. The interview, held May 14, has been condensed.
AP: Tell us what you did to help state and local election officials prepare for holding a presidential election amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
McREYNOLDS: We worked with a lot of state legislatures last year as they were enacting emergency legislation. And then we worked directly with local and state officials on implementing new communication methods to educate voters about vote-by-mail, new processes, new procedures within the offices. We helped advise on how to do ballot box installation and what vendors to use. … And I just continue to commend the election officials for getting this done in the way that they did.
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Focus on local: London pub emerges from lockdown with gusto
LONDON (AP) — “You come here often?”
There may be more creative chat-up lines, but surely few as universal. There is little doubt that after months of lockdown across the U.K., those looking to make an early impression may have become a little rusty.
So, the Prince of Peckham pub in a hugely diverse district in southeast London decided, as part of its four-year birthday week, to take the pressure off its patrons. A speed-dating night would kick off its festivities.
Pubs were allowed to welcome guests inside this week, part of the British government’s plan to gradually reopen society following a sharp fall in new coronavirus infections.
To get to the speed dating, around a dozen men and a dozen women braced one of the most torrential downpours London has seen in years. They had three minutes to do their thing.
