4-day truce begins in Gaza, setting stage to swap dozens of hostages for Palestinian prisoners
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A temporary truce in the Israel-Hamas war took effect early Friday, setting the stage for the exchange of dozens of hostages held by militants in Gaza for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
The halt in fighting began at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and is to last at least four days. During the truce, Gaza’s ruling Hamas group pledged to free at least 50 of the about 240 hostages it and other militants took in their deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel. In turn, Israel is to free three Palestinian prisoners for each released hostage. The releases are to take place in stages over the next four days.
The truce deal was reached in weeks of intense indirect negotiations, with Qatar, the United States and Egypt serving as mediators. If it holds, it would mark the first significant break in fighting since Israel declared war on Hamas seven weeks ago.
About 1,200 people were killed by Hamas attackers in Israel on Oct. 7. Israel responded with a massive air and ground offensive that has devastated large swaths of Gaza and killed at least 13,300 Palestinians.
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Gaza has become a moonscape in war. When the battles stop, many fear it will remain uninhabitable
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells.
Nearly 1 million Palestinians have fled the north, including its urban center, Gaza City, as ground combat intensified. When the war ends, any relief will quickly be overshadowed by dread as displaced families come to terms with the scale of the calamity and what it means for their future.
Where would they live? Who would eventually run Gaza and pick up the pieces?
“I want to go home even if I have to sleep on the rubble of my house,” said Yousef Hammash, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who fled the ruins of the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya for southern Gaza. “But I don't see a future for my children here.”
The Israeli army’s use of powerful explosives in tightly packed residential areas — which Israel describes as the unavoidable outcome of Hamas using civilian sites as cover for its operations — has killed over 13,000 Palestinians and led to staggering destruction. Hamas denies the claim and accuses Israel of recklessly bombing civilians.
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Retailers are ready to kick off Black Friday just as shoppers pull back on spending
NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers are kicking off the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season on Friday with a bevy of discounts and other enticements. But executives are growing concerned with a spending slowdown that could temper sales on the day after Thanksgiving as well as throughout the holidays.
Shoppers, powered by a solid job market and steady wage growth, had demonstrated a resilience that confounded economists and ran counter to sour sentiments expressed in opinion polls. Such spending, while cautious, came despite higher prices in the grocery aisle and higher borrowing costs.
But consumers are now coming under more pressure from dwindling savings, increased credit card debt and still stubborn inflation. In fact, shoppers cut their buying in October, ending six straight months of gains. Shoppers have gotten some relief from easing inflation, but many goods and services like meat and rent are still far higher than they were just three years ago.
The latest quarterly results from a string of retailers from Walmart to Best Buy have reported a weakening consumer. Walmart said it noticed shoppers cutting back in October and offered a muted annual sales outlook. Best Buy, the nation’s largest retailer, said shoppers are trading down to cheaper TVs. And Target said shoppers are waiting longer to buy items. For example, instead of buying sweatshirts or denim back in August or September, they held out until the weather turned cold.
“It’s clear that consumers have been remarkably resilient,” Target's CEO Brian Cornell told analysts last week. “Yet in our research, things like uncertainty, caution and managing a budget are top of mind.”
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Violent clashes break out in Dublin after knife attack that injured 3 children, one seriously
LONDON (AP) — Violent clashes broke out in central Dublin on Thursday evening, with vehicles torched and riot police attacked, after a 5-year-old girl was seriously injured in a knife attack earlier in the day that also saw a woman and two other young children hospitalized.
Irish police said the girl was receiving emergency medical treatment in a Dublin hospital following the attack outside a school. Soon after that announcement, at least 100 people took to the streets, some armed with metal bars and covering their faces.
Police said over 400 officers including many in riot gear, were deployed in Dublin city center to contain the unrest, which they said was “caused by a small group of thugs.” A police cordon was also set up around the Irish Parliament building, Leinster House, and officers from the Mounted Support Unit were in nearby Grafton Street.
There were clashes with riot police as some demonstrators let off flares and fireworks, while others grabbed chairs and stools outside bars and restaurants.
A number of police vehicles and a tram were damaged during the disorder, while a bus and car were also set on fire on the city’s O’Connell Bridge.
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Europe's far-right populists buoyed by Wilders' win in Netherlands, hoping the best is yet to come
BRUSSELS (AP) — If ever the hard right in Europe needed a set of jumper cables to rev up their electoral engine again in the wake of last month's major setback in Poland, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands provided it.
Congratulations rolled in Thursday from all sides where the far right holds some sway on the continent after anti-Islam firebrand Wilders scored an election victory as unexpected as it was massive. His party more than doubled in size in parliament to tower over mainstream parties that long specialized in marginalizing him.
Suddenly on Thursday, there was hope in the air again for nationalist conservative populists, especially with an European Parliament election coming up in June.
“All of Europe wants a political turnaround!” said Alice Weidel, the leader of German far-right pary AfD, or Alternative for Germany, much more in hope than certainty as she congratulated Wilders on his win.
It will be tough to match Wilders' turnaround though. He more than doubled the seats of his Party for Freedom in the 150-seat parliament from 17 to 37. And while he was still trailing three parties in the polls with a week to go, he roared past them all by Thursday, leaving a green-left coalition second with 25 seats.
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Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius up for parole Friday, 10 years after a killing that shocked the world
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius could be granted parole on Friday after spending nearly 10 years in prison for murder.
It's the latest turn in the story of the double-amputee Olympic runner who was one of the world's most admired athletes before he killed his girlfriend by shooting her multiple times through a toilet door at his home.
Pistorius, who had his 37th birthday this week, was sent to prison in late 2014 and has been given a second chance at parole in the space of eight months after he was wrongly ruled ineligible for early release at a first hearing in March. That was due to an error made by an appeals court over when Pistorius' jail sentence officially started and if he'd served the required time.
He was initially convicted of culpable homicide — a charge comparable to manslaughter — for killing Reeva Steenkamp in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013. That conviction was overturned and he was convicted of murder after an appeal by prosecutors. They also appealed against an initial sentence of six years for murder and Pistorius was ultimately sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison.
Serious offenders in South Africa must serve at least half their sentence to be eligible for parole, which Pistorius has done.
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OxyContin maker's settlement plan divides victims of opioid crisis. Now it's up to the Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The agreement by the maker of OxyContin to settle thousands of lawsuits over the harm done by opioids could help combat the overdose epidemic that the painkiller helped spark. But that does not mean all the victims are satisfied.
In exchange for giving up ownership of drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma and for contributing up to $6 billion to fight the crisis, members of the wealthy Sackler family would be exempt from any civil lawsuits. At the same time, they could potentially keep billions of dollars from their profits on OxyContin sales.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Dec. 4 over whether the agreement, part of the resolution of Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy, violates federal law.
The issue for the justices is whether the legal shield that bankruptcy provides can be extended to people such as the Sacklers, who have not declared bankruptcy themselves. The legal question has resulted in conflicting lower court decisions. It also has implications for other major product liability lawsuits settled through the bankruptcy system.
But the agreement, even with billions of dollars set aside for opioid abatement and treatment programs, also poses a moral conundrum that has divided people who lost loved ones or lost years of their own lives to opioids.
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Trump tells Argentina's President-elect Javier Milei he plans to visit Buenos Aires
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has told Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei that he plans to travel to the South American country so the two can meet, Milei's office said Thursday.
The office did not give a date for when Trump intends to be in Buenos Aires. The inauguration of Milei, a right-wing populist who has expressed admiration for Trump, is scheduled for Dec. 10.
“The president-elect received a call last night from the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, who congratulated him and pointed out his triumph by a wide margin in last Sunday’s election had a great impact on a global scale,” a news release from Milei's office said.
A local journalist who was first to report the news, Luis Majul, wrote on X early Thursday that the lawmaker son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo Bolsonaro, was the one who “facilitated” the contact between Milei and the GOP front-runner. “That’s right,” Milei posted in response.
Trump celebrated Milei’s victory with a social media post of his own on Tuesday.
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Residents of Kentucky town can return home after crews extinguish derailment fire
LIVINGSTON, Ky. (AP) — A chemical fire at a Kentucky train derailment that caused evacuations has been extinguished and people can return to their homes, rail operator CSX said Thursday.
CSX spokesperson Bryan Tucker said in an email Thursday afternoon that “the fire is completely out.” He said that authorities and CSX officials reviewed air monitoring data and decided it was safe to let displaced return home.
The CSX train derailed around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday near Livingston, a remote town with about 200 people in Rockcastle County. Residents were encouraged to evacuate.
Two of the 16 cars that derailed carried molten sulfur, which caught fire after the cars were breached, CSX said in a statement.
It’s believed that the fire released the potentially harmful gas sulfur dioxide, but officials have not released results of measurements taken from air monitoring equipment that was being deployed Wednesday night.
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On the cusp of climate talks, UN chief Guterres visits crucial Antarctica
KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica (AP) — On the cusp of the COP28 climate talks, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited frozen-but-rapidly melting Antarctica on Thursday and said intense action must be taken at the conference where countries will address their commitments to lowering emissions of planet-warming gases.
“We are witnessing an acceleration that is absolutely devastating,” Guterres said about the rate of ice melt in Antarctica, which is considered to be a “sleeping giant.”
“The Antarctic is waking up and the world must wake up,” he added.
Guterres is in a three-day official visit to Antarctica and Chile’s President Gabriel Boric joined him on an official visit to Chile´s Eduardo Frei Air Force Base at King George Island on the continent.
Guterres also was scheduled to visit the Collins and Nelson glaciers by boat.
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