Attacks on businesses rattle Baghdad as anger over the war in Gaza surges
By: Abdulrahman Zeyad And Kareem Chehayeb
BAGHDAD (AP) — A dozen masked men jump out of two SUVs and a white pickup and storm a KFC in Baghdad, smashing everything in sight before fleeing the scene. A few days earlier, similar violence played out at Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken and Chili House — all American brands popular in the Iraqi capital.
Though no one was seriously hurt, the recent attacks — apparently orchestrated by supporters of Iran-backed, anti-American militias in Iraq — reflect surging anger against the United States, Israel’s top ally, over the war in Gaza.
Iraqi governments have for years walked a delicate line between Washington and Tehran, but the eight-month war in Gaza has critically upped the stakes.
The conflict erupted after the militant Hamas group stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking 250 hostage. Israel’s subsequent offensives in Gaza have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians in the territory, according to the Health Ministry there.
Days after the war broke out, a coalition of Iran-backed militias dubbed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq launched dozens of attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and eastern Syria.
Those attacks stopped in February — but only after a series of retaliatory U.S. strikes following a drone hit on a base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.
The attacks on U.S.-linked businesses and brands in Iraq in late May and earlier this week represent a change in tactics intended to maximize anti-U.S. sentiment over Washington’s support for Israel.
Israeli strikes kill at least 18 in central Gaza a day after attack on UN-run school
GAZA – Overnight Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza killed at least 18 people, including children, a day after 33 were killed at a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinian families, health officials said Friday.
Strikes hit the Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps and Deir al-Balah and Zawaiyda towns, officials said. Four children and one woman were among those killed as well as the mayor of the Nuseirat municipality, according to hospital records. Israel’s army said Friday it was still carrying out ground operations in parts of Central Gaza. It said its troops had killed dozens of militants, located tunnel shafts and destroyed infrastructure in the area.
International pressure is mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war against Hamas. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.
US-built pier in Gaza reconnected after repairs and aid will flow soon, US Central Command says
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed by eight months of Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians who are facing widespread hunger. United Nations agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.
Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Around 80 hostages captured on Oct. 7 are believed to still be alive in Gaza, alongside the remains of 43 others.
Blinken to push cease-fire proposal in eighth urgent Mideast trip since war in Gaza erupted
By: Matthew Lee
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will push for a breakthrough on President Joe Biden’s cease-fire proposal when he returns to the Middle East next week on his eighth diplomatic mission to the region since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October, the State Department said Friday.
Blinken, who is currently in France accompanying Biden on a state visit timed to the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion during World War II, will fly from Paris to Cairo on Monday to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other officials before traveling to Israel, Jordan and Qatar, the department said. Blinken will then go to Italy to join Biden at the summit for the Group of Seven advanced economies.
In all of his meetings, Blinken “will emphasize the importance of Hamas accepting the proposal on the table, which is nearly identical to one Hamas endorsed last month” and “discuss how the cease-fire proposal would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
“He will underscore that it would alleviate suffering in Gaza, enable a massive surge in humanitarian assistance, and allow Palestinians to return to their neighbourhoods,” he said in a statement. “It would unlock the possibility of achieving calm along Israel’s northern border — so both displaced Israeli and Lebanese families can return to their homes — and set the conditions for further integration between Israel and its Arab neighbours, strengthening Israel’s long-term security and improving stability across the region.”
India’s Modi elected as leader of coalition and set to form new government
By: Krutika Pathi
NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday was formally elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance coalition, which won the most number of seats in the country’s national election after his political party failed to win a majority on its own.
The 73-year-old leader, who will be sworn in as prime minister on Sunday for a rare third term, will now form a coalition government.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP has governed India as part of the NDA coalition over the past decade, but this is the first time under his leadership that the party has needed support from its regional allies to form a government.
“This alliance of ours reflects India’s spirit in its true sense,” Modi said after the BJP and coalition members backed him as their prime ministerial candidate. “We were neither defeated nor are we defeated … it was an NDA government in the past, still is and will be,” he added.
Full results from India’s six week-long election, which began in mid-April, were released Wednesday. The BJP won 240 seats, well below the 272 mark needed for a majority in a stunning upset. Together, the parties in the NDA coalition bagged 293 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament.
Scorching heat in Southwest U.S.; records tumble; more triple digits forecast
By: Scott Sonner
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The first heat wave of the year is expected to maintain its grip on the U.S. Southwest for at least another day Friday, after records tumbled across the region with temperatures soaring past 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) from California to Arizona.
Although the official start of summer is still two weeks away, roughly half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat alert, which the National Weather Service extended until Friday evening. The alert was extended through Saturday in Las Vegas, where it’s never been hotter this early in the year.
“High temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees above normal can be expected, with record high temperatures likely for some sites through Friday,” the weather service in Las Vegas said. Temperatures will slowly retreat over the weekend, but will remain above normal into early next week.
“It’s so hot,” said Eleanor Wallace, 9, who was visiting Phoenix from northern Utah on Thursday on a hike celebrating her birthday with her mother, Megan Wallace.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix, where the new record high of 113 F (45 C) on Thursday leap-frogged the old mark of 111 F (44 C) set in 2016, called the conditions “dangerously hot.”
There were no immediate reports of any heat-related deaths or serious injuries.
Biden apologizes to Zelenskyy for months-long holdup of weapons that let Russia advance
By: Chris Megerian, Sylvie Corbet And Zeke Miller
PARIS (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday for the first time publicly apologized to Ukraine for a months-long congressional holdup in American military assistance that let Russia make gains on the battlefield.
Biden met in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who appealed for bipartisan U.S. support going forward “like it was during World War II.”
A day earlier, the two had attended ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, where Biden had drawn common cause between the allied forces that helped free Europe from Nazi Germany and today’s effort to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and Zelenskyy had been greeted with a rapt ovation.
“I apologize for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Biden said, referring to the six-month holdup by conservative Republicans in Congress to a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine. Still, the Democratic president insisted that the American people were standing by Ukraine for the long haul. “We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly,” he said.
The apology — and Zelenskyy’s plea for rock-solid support akin to the allied coalition in WWII — served as a reminder that for all of Biden’s talk of an unflagging U.S commitment to Ukraine, recalcitrance among congressional Republicans and an isolationist strain in American politics have exposed its fragility. And, although unremarked upon, the spectre of Donald Trump’s candidacy loomed over the discussion, as the Republican former president and the presumptive nominee has spoken positively of Russian President Vladimir Putin and sparked Ukrainian concerns that he would call for it to cede territory to end the conflict.
Naomi Biden testifies about her father’s drug use
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Naomi Biden told prosecutor Leo Wise she was aware of her father’s drug use when she went to visit him in California in August 2018.
“I knew that he was struggling with addiction,” she said.
Naomi said she couldn’t recall when she first became aware of Hunter Biden’s drug use, but that it was sometime after her uncle Beau Biden died in 2015.
Naomi said she probably saw her father only once during his visit to New York in mid-October 2018.
Wise showed her records indicating she texted Hunter on Oct. 17, but he didn’t respond until several hours later, asking whether she was awake and telling her to call him.
At 2 a.m., Hunter texted Naomi asking where the keys to his truck were and whether her boyfriend could meet and swap vehicles.
“Right now?” she responded.
“Do you know what your father was doing at two o’clock in the morning and why he was asking you for the car then?” Wise asked.
“No,” replied Naomi, adding that her father “still seemed good and I was hopeful.”
In a text to her father at the time, however, Naomi wrote, “I’m really sorry dad I can’t take this.”
Testifying in her father’s trial, daughter Naomi Biden said that in October 2018, she travelled from Washington to New York in Hunter Biden’s truck to move her boyfriend’s belongings.
She said Hunter Biden’s truck was in good shape when she drove it. She told defence attorney Abbe Lowell she didn’t see any drug paraphernalia or evidence of drug use in the truck.
In court, Hunter Biden stared intently at his daughter as she testified.
22 Chinese nationals jailed in Zambia over multinational cybercrimes
By: By Noel Sichalwe
LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — A Zambian court on Friday jailed 22 Chinese nationals over cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.
The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka, jailed them for periods ranging from 7 to 11 years. The court also fined them between $1,500 to $3,000 after they pleaded guilty to charges of computer-related misrepresentation, identity fraud and illegally operating a network or service on Wednesday. A man from Cameroon also received prison sentence and fine on the same changes.
They were part of a group of 77 people, majority of them Zambians, arrested in April over what police described as a “sophisticated internet fraud syndicate.”
Director-general of the drug enforcement commission, Nason Banda, said investigations kicked off after authorities noticed a spike in the number of cyber-related fraud cases and many people complained about inexplicably losing money from their mobile phones or bank accounts.
Officers from the commission, police, the immigration department and the anti-terrorism unit in April swooped on a Chinese-run business in an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, arresting the 77, including those jailed Friday. Authorities recovered over 13,000 local and foreign mobile phone SIM cards, two firearms and 78 rounds of ammunition during the raid.
The business, named Golden Top Support Services, had employed “unsuspecting” Zambians aged between 20 and 25 to use the SIM cards to engage “in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chat rooms and others, using scripted dialogues,” Banda said in April after the raid. The locals were freed on bail.
