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UN tells Israel it will suspend aid operations across Gaza without improved safety, UN officials say

By: Samy Magdy And Ellen Knickmeyer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior UN officials told Israel they will suspend aid operations across Gaza unless urgent steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers, two UN officials said.

A UN letter sent to senior Israeli officials this month said Israel must provide UN workers with direct communication with Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza, among other steps, the officials said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations with Israeli officials. The UN officials said there has been no final decision on suspending operations across Gaza and that talks with Israelis were ongoing.

Israeli military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel has acknowledged some military strikes on humanitarian workers, including an April attack that killed seven workers with the World Central Kitchen and has denied allegations of others.

Citing security concerns, the UN World Food Program has already suspended aid delivery from a U.S.-built pier designed to bring food and other emergency supplies to Palestinians who are facing starvation amid the eight-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s plane leaves Bangkok on his way to a U.S. court and later freedom

By: Jintamas Saksornchai, Alanna Durkin Richer And Eric Tucker

BANGKOK (AP) — A plane with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange departed Bangkok after refuelling Tuesday and he is on the way to Saipan to enter a plea deal with the U.S. government that will free him and resolve the legal case over the publication of a trove of classified documents.

The chartered flight from London that Assange’s wife, Stella, confirmed was carrying her husband left Don Mueang International Airport, according to the Flightradar24 plane tracking app. The official WikiLeaks account on X said Assange was heading toward Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific, where he’s scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

He’s expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information, according to the U.S. Justice Department in a letter filed in court.

Assange is expected to return to his home country of Australia after his plea and sentencing. The hearing is taking place in Saipan because of Assange’s opposition to travelling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.


Kenya’s parliament burns as protesters object to new taxes. Clashes spread and bodies are counted

By: Evelyne Musambi

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Part of Kenya’s parliament building was burned Tuesday as thousands of protesters against a new finance bill entered and legislators fled, in the most direct assault on the government in decades. Journalists saw at least three bodies outside the complex where police had opened fire. Clashes spread to other cities.

Protesters had demanded that legislators vote against the bill imposing new taxes on a country.

But lawmakers voted to pass the bill, then fled through a tunnel as protesters, many of them youth, outmaneuvered police to enter parliament. Protesters allowed opposition legislators who voted against the bill to walk out of the besieged building. The fire was later put out.

One person shot dead was wrapped in a Kenyan flag and carried away.

The office of the Nairobi governor, a member of the ruling party, was also briefly on fire Tuesday, with smoke pouring from its white facade. The office is located near parliament. Police water cannons were used to extinguish the fire.

Protesters could be heard shouting, “We’re coming for every politician.”

Police also fired live ammunition and threw tear gas canisters at protesters who sought treatment at a medical tent set up at a church near the parliament complex. Elsewhere, Kenyatta National Hospital said it had received 45 “victims,” though it was not immediately clear if any were dead.


Shot in 1.6 seconds: Video raises questions about how trooper avoided charges in Black man’s death

By: Russ Bynum And Jim Mustian

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Julian Lewis didn’t pull over for the Georgia State Patrol cruiser flashing its blue lights behind him on a rural highway. He still didn’t stop after pointing a hand out the window and turning onto a darkened dirt road as the trooper sounded his siren.

Five minutes into a pursuit that began over a broken taillight, the 60-year-old Black man was dead — shot in the forehead by the white trooper who fired a single bullet mere seconds after forcing Lewis to crash into a ditch. Trooper Jake Thompson insisted he pulled the trigger as Lewis revved the engine of his Nissan Sentra and jerked his steering wheel as if trying to mow him down.

“I had to shoot this man,” Thompson can be heard telling a supervisor on video recorded by his dash-mounted camera at the shooting scene in rural Screven County, midway between Savannah and Augusta. “And I’m just scared.”

But new investigative details obtained by The Associated Press and the never-before-released dashcam video of the August 2020 shooting have raised fresh questions about how the trooper avoided prosecution with nothing more than a signed promise never to work in law enforcement again. Use-of-force experts who reviewed the footage for AP said the shooting appeared to be unjustified.

An investigative file obtained by AP offers the most detailed account yet of the case, including documents that spell out why the Georgia Bureau of Investigation concluded the 27-year-old trooper’s version of events did not match the evidence. 


Improved weather helps firefighters battling wildfire near rural community in northern California

PALERMO, Calif. (AP) — Improved weather conditions aided firefighters Tuesday as they battled a rural northern California wildfire that threatened the community of Palermo, which is near where the state’s deadliest wildfire struck six years ago.

The fire spread over about 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometres) in the initial hours Monday evening but was static overnight and containment reached 15 per cent, said Capt. Dan Collins of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. 

Winds subsided, marine air brought some cooling and “the conditions are favourable for us this morning,” he said. An early start to aircraft operations was requested.

The cause of the blaze — dubbed the Apache Fire — was under investigation. 

Evacuation orders were in effect for several areas but Collins did not know how many people were affected. Two unidentified structures were destroyed and one firefighter had a minor injury.


UN-backed contingent of foreign police arrives in Haiti as Kenya-led force prepares to face gangs

By: Dánica Coto And Evens Sanon

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The first UN-backed contingent of foreign police arrived in Haiti on Tuesday, nearly two years after the troubled Caribbean country urgently requested help to quell a surge in gang violence.

A couple hundred police officers from Kenya landed in the capital of Port-au-Prince, whose main international airport reopened in late May after gang violence forced it to close for nearly three months.

It wasn’t immediately known what the Kenyans’ first assignment would be, but they will face violent gangs that control 80 per cent of Haiti’s capital and have left more than 580,000 people across the country homeless as they pillage neighbourhoods in their quest to control more territory.

The Kenyans’ arrival marks the fourth major foreign military intervention in Haiti. While some Haitians welcome their arrival, others view the force with caution, given that the previous intervention — the UN’s 2004-2017 peacekeeping mission — was marred by allegations of sexual assault and the introduction of cholera.


Doctors treat thousands of heatstroke victims in southern Pakistan as temperatures soar

By: Muhammad Farooq

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — A days-long intense heatwave has disrupted normal life in Pakistan, especially in its largest city, Karachi, where doctors treated thousands of victims of heatstroke at various hospitals, health officials said Tuesday.

Several people fell unconscious in the city and some of them later died, local media said.

Temperatures soared as high as 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in Sindh province on Tuesday. Authorities in Karachi, the provincial capital, are urging people to stay indoors, hydrate, and avoid unnecessary travel. 

Weather forecasters say the heatwave, which began in May, will subside next week.

Currently, Karachi is in the grip of an intense heatwave. 

According to local media, the days-long heatwave also killed more than two dozen people in the city, but no government spokesman was available to confirm the heatstroke-related deaths.

Imran Sarwar Sheikh, the head of the emergency ward at the state-run Civil Hospital in Karachi, told The Associated Press that they treated 120 victims of heatstroke the previous day. Eight of those patients later died, he said. 

On Monday, more than 1,500 victims of heatstroke were treated at other hospitals in the city, according to local media. 


Russia keeps up the front-line pressure before Ukraine receives a boost from Western military aid

By: Vasilisa Stepanenko

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Relentless Russian attacks on Ukrainian positions defending the strategically important eastern city of Chasiv Yar are disrupting troop rotations and the delivery of some supplies, soldiers in the area say.

The Kremlin’s army is seeking to press its advantages in troop numbers and weaponry before Ukrainian forces are bulked up by promised new Western military aid that is already trickling to the front line, analysts say.

It has been hitting civilian targets just as hard, using powerful glide bombs that obliterate buildings and leave huge craters. Its months-long campaign to cripple Ukraine’s electricity supply aims to sap public morale and deny energy to Ukraine’s burgeoning arms industry.

Attacks on such civilian targets brought arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court on Tuesday for former Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chief of staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov for alleged war crimes. Judges said there is evidence they “intentionally caused great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health” of Ukrainian civilians.


Israel’s high court orders the army to draft ultra-Orthodox men, rattling Netanyahu’s government

By: Tia Goldenberg

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for compulsory service, a landmark decision that could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition as Israel continues to wage war in Gaza.

The historic ruling effectively puts an end to a decades-old system that granted ultra-Orthodox men broad exemptions from military service while maintaining mandatory enlistment for the country’s secular Jewish majority. The arrangement, deemed discriminatory by critics, has created a deep chasm in Israel’s Jewish majority over who should shoulder the burden of protecting the country.

The court struck down a law that codified exemptions in 2017, but repeated court extensions and government delaying tactics over a replacement dragged out a resolution for years. The court ruled that in the absence of a law, Israel’s compulsory military service applies to the ultra-Orthodox like any other citizen.

Under longstanding arrangements, ultra-Orthodox men have been exempt from the draft, which is compulsory for most Jewish men and women, who serve three and two years respectively as well as reserve duty until around age 40. 


More rain possible in deluged Midwest as flooding breaches levees in Iowa

By: Hannah Fingerhut, Dave Collins And Margery A. Beck

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Floodwaters breached levees in western Iowa on Tuesday, creating dangerous conditions that prompted evacuations as the deluged Midwest faced another round of severe storms forecast for later in the day.

The sheriff’s office in Monona County, south of Sioux City near the Nebraska border, said the Little Sioux River breached levees in several areas. Evacuation orders were issued and roads closed in two small towns, emergency management officials said. No injuries were immediately reported.

“Please stay out of the area for your safety,” the sheriff’s office said in a social media post.

The flooding has damaged roads and bridges, closed or destroyed businesses, required hospitals and nursing homes to evacuate, and left cities without power or safe drinking water, the governors of Iowa and South Dakota said. Officials reported hundreds of water rescues.

Severe storms were forecast for Tuesday afternoon and evening with large hail, damaging winds and even a brief tornado or two in parts of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service. Showers and storms were also possible in parts of South Dakota and Minnesota, the agency said.

Associated Press

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