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Palestinians looks at a destroyed car following an Israeli strike in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)2025-12-13T16:35:08Z JERUSALEM (AP) Israel on Saturday said it killed a top Hamas commander in Gaza after an explosive device detonated and wounded two soldiers in the territorys south.Hamas in a statement did not confirm the death of Raed Saad. It said a civilian vehicle had been struck outside Gaza City and asserted it was a violation of the ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10.Saad served as the Hamas official in charge of manufacturing and previously led the militant groups operations division. The Israeli statement described him as one of the architects of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, and said that he had been engaged in rebuilding the terrorist organization in a violation of the ceasefire.The Israeli strike west of Gaza City killed four people, according to an Associated Press journalist who saw their bodies arrive at Shifa Hospital. Another three were wounded, according to Al-Awda hospital. Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of truce violations.Israeli airstrikes and shootings in Gaza have killed at least 386 Palestinians since the ceasefire took hold, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel has said recent strikes are in retaliation for militant attacks against its soldiers, and that troops have fired on Palestinians who approached the Yellow Line between the Israeli-controlled majority of Gaza and the rest of the territory. Israel has demanded that Palestinian militants return the remains of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, from Gaza and called it a condition of moving to the second and more complicated phase of the ceasefire. That lays out a vision for ending Hamas rule and seeing the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision. The initial Hamas-led 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Almost all hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. Israels two-year campaign in Gaza has killed more than 70,650 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to the territorys Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.Much of Gaza has been destroyed and most of the population of over 2 million has been displaced. Humanitarian aid entry into the territory continues to be below the level set by ceasefire terms, and Palestinians who lost limbs in the war face a shortage of prosthetic limbs and long delays in medical evacuations.___Find more of APs Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Mohamed Salah came off the bench after just 25 minutes for Liverpool's Premier League clash with Brighton & Hove Albion.

The Mets and infielder Jorge Polanco have agreed on a two-year, $40 million contract, sources told ESPN. Polanco is expected to primarily play first base, replacing Pete Alonso, who left in free agency.

The Colts will elevate quarterback Philip Rivers from the practice squad to the 53-man active roster Saturday, making him officially eligible to play Sunday against the Seahawks, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Hamas said the attack on Saturday was a breach of the truce. The militant group did not comment on Israels claim to have killed one of its members.

The Pentagon said two American soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Palmyra while supporting counterterrorism operations.

The nonagenarian director is taking a slightly different tack than many of the other powerful people associated with the disgraced former financier.

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)2025-12-13T15:06:45Z DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) Two U.S. service members and one American civilian have been killed and three other people wounded in an ambush on Saturday by the Islamic State group in central Syria, the U.S. Central Command said.The attack on U.S. troops in Iraq is the first to inflict casualties since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago.Central Command said in a post on X that as a matter of respect for the families and in accordance with Department of War policy, the identities of the service members will be withheld until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.Shots were fired at Syrian and U.S. forces on Saturday during a visit by American troops to a historic central town, leaving several wounded, Syrias state media and a war monitor said. The shooting took place near Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which said two members of Syrias security force and several U.S. service members were wounded. The injured were taken by helicopters to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan. SANA said the attacker was killed, without providing further details.A U.S. defense official told The Associated Press that they are aware of the reports and did not have any information to provide immediately. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for not being authorized to speak to the media. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least three Syrian security members were wounded as well as several Americans. It added that the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force. The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following last years fall of President Bashar Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus. The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. The interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with President Donald Trump. IS was defeated in Syria in 2019 but the groups sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.____Mroue reported from Beirut. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Emergency crews, including National Guard soldiers, wort in a neighborhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)2025-12-13T17:08:07Z A blast of arctic air is plunging south from Canada and spreading into parts of the northern U.S., while residents of the Pacific Northwest brace for possible mudslides and levee failures from floodwaters that are expected to be slow to recede.The catastrophic flooding has forced thousands of people to evacuate, including Eddie Wicks and his wife, who live amid sunflowers and Christmas trees on a Washington state farm next to the Snoqualmie River. As they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything theyd experienced before.As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriffs Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half-mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake. Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel. Follow on Big cities like Chicago, Minneapolis brace for Arctic airAs the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system is already bringing dangerous wind chill values the combination of cold air temperatures and wind to parts of the Upper Midwest.Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F (minus 26 C), by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F(minus 17 C) by early Sunday, the weather service said. The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period. Danger of mudslides, levee failures continues in Pacific NorthwestThe cold weather freezing much of the country comes as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.The record floodwaters were expected to continue to slowly recede Saturday, but authorities warn that waters will remain high for days, and that there is still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There is also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday. Officials have conducted dozens of water rescues as debris and mudslides have closed highways and raging torrents have washed out roads and bridges.

A family story: Just before the beginning of World War II in my ancestral town of Krosno, Poland my great uncle, Inek Trenczer, courted and fell in love with a woman of the town, Malka Fruhman, and they decided to marry. Their plans, however, were abruptly and tragically interrupted when the Nazi German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.Inek and Malka, who were both Jewish, understood that they were both at great peril. Ineks Polish army unit was ordered to travel east to regroup and train before advancing on the superior German military. Related Trump is pushing several new big lies that will devastate the country The German Gestapo set up headquarters near Malkas family home. Officials issued orders to find all Jewish residents of the town. Officials also alerted Catholic residents to turn in all Jews, under direct threat of incarceration or death for all violators of the decree.The Jewish civilians of the town, including my Trenczer and Mahler family relatives, tried to escape Nazi troops by first fleeing east, but finding no safety, most either traveled back to their homes or tried to hide in the woods. Some implored their Catholic neighbors for a safe place to hide. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today Malkas friend promised to shelter her, but, instead, walked one block down their street and alerted the Gestapo where she was hiding. Finding Malka, a Gestapo officer shot her right there on the spot.Malkas fianc, my Trenczer relative, following the Nazi evacuation of Krosno, returned looking for any surviving relatives and friends. When investigating whether Malka was still alive, he learned about the women who betrayed her. With profound grief and contempt as the only remaining emotions in his heart, he quietly walked up to the betrayer and shot a bullet directly into her head.War and loss had killed his own humanity. Surveillance is all about finding and denouncing scapegoatsSurveillance can bedefinedgenerally as the systematic finding, observing, and monitoring of a person, a specific group, or a location used primarily (but not exclusively) by governments for information-gathering, influencing, managing, or as a means of controlling.While democratic societies place restrictions on governmental and private surveillance to ensure reasonable levels of privacy, authoritarian governments rarely limit domestic privacy controls.Denunciation (fromLatindenuntiare, to denounce) is the act of publicly scapegoating a person or group by consigning blame for a perceived offence or for a social problem.Authoritarian statesrequire levels of cooperation from the larger population to successfully carry out their methods of control.Authoritarian officials employ two primary means to prompt this cooperation. Authorities useincentives, through coercion or the promise of rewards, to obtain denunciations from the public. Those who cooperate are termed informers. This was evident in the case of Malkas neighbor. Authorities also gain access to networks as individuals denounce or inform on one another with the promise of amnesty from consequences.A distinction must be made, though, between denunciation by aninformerand justified reporting by a whistleblower, the latter of which is someone who exposes misdeeds by a person, company, or government to avert dangers to the public. McCarthyism: Looks like witches are back in seasonSenator Joe McCarthy talking to closeted Republican operative Roy Cohn at his Army hearings. | Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division The term othering was coined by Nathaniel Mackey (1992) as an action verb that is something people do to turn the other from a noun to a verb. This othering thus minoritizes the other, which does not necessarily refer to numerical status, but, rather, indicates a social ranking within a socially constructed hierarchy.During the late 1930s and throughout the 1950s, some officials within the U.S. government set about to instill fear of communism in the U.S. and abroad.During the Cold War era following World War II, a brash and accusatory Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R) attempted to boost his political career by fomenting fear and paranoia when claiming that communism and communists surreptitiously were subverting the U.S. and its government. McCarthy initiated his radical plan in February 1950 when he provocatively claimed in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia that 205 card-carrying Communists worked for the U.S. State Department. The surveillance of suspected communists in the government increased.In response to McCarthys allegations, Deputy Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy testified at a Senate appropriations committee meeting on February 28, 1950. He denied, on one hand, that his department hired communists, but, on the other hand, disclosed that several persons had been fired for being security risks, including 91 homosexuals. As a result, the surveillance of suspected homosexuals in the government increased.These disclosures set off a firestorm. Within one month, Republicans in Congress ordered investigations looking into the extent of the homosexual problem and the infiltration of sexual perverts in government. And the inquisition began. It is important to note that the Soviet government itself criminalized homosexuality under Joseph Stalin and blamed homosexuality on the West as a product of bourgeois decadence. The U.S. countered by blaming homosexuality on a Soviet Communist international godless conspiracy.Even prior to World War II, the House Committee on Un-American Activities(HUAC) was created in 1938 as a means of investigating and exposing suspected communists and communistsupporters in society.Its major attack later was on the Hollywood film industry.Blacklisting of Hollywood writers, actors, producers, directors, and others suspected of communist affiliation began with the committees hearings in October 1947, and it flourished throughout the 1950s. Senator McCarthy conducted witch hunts in an attempt to find and eliminate suspected communists. The Hollywood Ten, a group of distinguished writers and directors, were cited for contempt of Congress for not divulging the names of alleged communists in the film industry. They were jailed for failing to cooperate with the House committee and acting like informers.The individuals, who were persecuted during what is now referred to as the McCarthy Era, had their once prominent careers destroyed.They lost their friends and family on false rumors that spread about them, such as planning to start a revolution and attempting to overthrow the government of the United States.The Trump Administration and its GestapoAn officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement | Shutterstock The authoritarian regime of President Donald J. Trump continues to exercise the weaponry of surveillance and denunciation in its campaign of control.Even before his first term, when he was running to be the Republican partys presidential standard bearer,Trumpannounced that if elected president, he would watch and study whether to increase surveillance on mosques because a lot of talk is going on at the mosques.Continuing during his takeover of the Oval Office, Trumps cries against Islamic jihadist terrorists and illegal aliens as the major threats to our nation and his calls to place U.S. Muslims on a national registry and surveillance to track their movements and the movements of illegal aliens increased his othering of these groups as the targets of blame for causing the United States major problems. Multi-billionaire Elon Musk through DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) served as an agency head of surveillance by collecting U.S. residents official and sensitive information, activities, associations, and spending habits without their consent.Trump has ordered unidentified and masked (primarily) men, and has substantially increased funding and expanded resources, scope, and number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers throughout the country. They have acted in ways that have contradicted Trumps promise of arresting undocumented immigrants who had committed criminal offenses. ICE officers have, instead, often arrested, detained, and disappeared people who have not committed crimes, and have deported them to foreign authoritarian countries (not of their birth), without due process of law. The U.S.Department of Homeland Security, under Secretary Kristi Noam, has become the Department of Surveillance and Rounding Up or the Department of Gestapo North America. Through I.C.E., it functions as a data collection and enforcement agency to hunt, surveille, arrest, and deport anyone with brown or black skin or who speaks Spanish: whether they are official U.S. citizens, or whether they are undocumented and have never committed any criminal offenses.Though an ICE public tip line has been around for nearly two decades for people to report criminal undocumented immigrants, it has expanded its outreach and scope.To identify the supposed crimes committed by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, German officials instituted a coding system, which included affixing patches of differing colors to the prisoners uniforms: pink triangles for homosexuals, yellow Stars of David for Jews, red triangles for communists, and so on. Nazis used the blue triangle to distinguish prisons who were for emigrants, for example, German citizens who initially had left their homeland after the National Socialists came to power in 1933, but had then returned and were therefore suspected of espionage. The blue triangle was also forced onto the garments of foreign forced laborers, other immigrants to Germany who were not considered Aryan, and onto the so-called stateless.Donald Trump and members of his autocratic regime have imposed a virtual blue triangle onto the bodies of anyone not born in the United States. The regime is currently attempting to strip birthright citizenship status from anyone whose parents were not born there as well.The Trump administration has initiated the equivalent of a surveillance and denunciation website, entitled, Misleading. Biased. Exposed: Media Offender of the Week, on which it purportedly brings attention to what it deems as the biggest offenders of media bias.The sign atop the Washington Post building at night | Shutterstock The week I clicked onto the site, it accused theWashington Postof biased reporting on Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseths order to bomb small boats in the Caribbean:THE OFFENSE: The Washington Posts Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima published an article from two unnamed sources claiming that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a Joint Special Operations commander to kill everybody during an anti-terrorist operation in the Caribbean Sea.THE TRUTH: The Department of War killed 11 narco-terrorists in a coordinated strike designed to kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. This attack was the first in a series of lethal kinetic strikes against Designated Terrorist Organizations. The Washington Post published this unsubstantiated claim in an attempt to discredit the United States warfighters and inflame anti-American sentiment. The administrations representation of itself is highly contentious at best since it has offered no verified proof that the people on the boat were actually transporting illicit drugs, that they were narco-terrorists, that they intended to go to the United States, that they were killed with any due process of law, and that the traditional methods of detaining alleged drug smugglers was by the U.S. Coast Guard through non-lethal means.As in other autocratic regimes, the Trump administration actively recruits ordinary citizens to report actions the state opposes. Denunciation requires an army of informants expected to collaborate in the collection of data and become complicit in state crimes to control criticism.The White House also launched its Media Bias Offender Tip Line, which asks members of the public to submit news stories they believe are biased, with the stated goal of holding the fake news accountable. President Trump issued theexecutive orderRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History. And in a January 21, 2025 federal government memorandum, Initial Guidance Regarding DEIA Executive Orders which repealed former President Joe Bidens order to increase Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.In this anti-DEI climate, a June 9 federal government memo to the National Parks Service (NPS), under Interior Secretary Doug Bergum, ordered signage posted throughout U.S. national parks asking visitors to report (denounce) any information they witness in the parks that in any way depicts the nation or its history in a negative way. The memo also reads in part: All NPS units are required to post signage that will encourage public feedback via QR code and other methods that are viable. The government also directed the National Park Service to conduct a review by mid-July 2025 of all images, descriptions, information, and other materials that could possibly belittle or denigrate the United States. In Trumps directive to Burgum, all Department of Interior websites must not inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance and grandeur of the American landscape.Some non-governmental organizations often conduct surveillance and denunciation campaigns. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a pro-Israel Jewish civil rights organization, led its Mamdani Monitor effort to scrutinize the language, actions, policies, and appointments of New York City mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani. As the first Muslim and person of South Asian descent elected to lead the nations largest city, which includes a Jewish population of well over 1 million people, Mamdani is also a critic of Israel and the Gaza war.According to ADL Director Jonathan Greenblat, theproject includestracking actions by Mamdanis administration that impact Jewish community safety and security. It also includes establishing a tip line for people to report antisemitic incidents in New York.We must ask ourselves, our governments, and our organizations some critical questions: Are these surveillance and denunciation actions justified for the general public good?Are at least some of them assaults on the publics rights regarding freedom of thought and ideas, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of and from religion, freedom of association, and generally, freedom to criticize?Do at least some of them take the country on the path toward a mafia-style autocratic state, and make those who denounce others complicit in state crimes?As we have seen throughout history, autocrats conduct surveillance campaigns and recruit informants against people who lack power. We the People, however, still retain the power to reverse this trend.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

Chelsea went back into the top four as Cole Palmer got himself on the scoresheet in a 2-0 win over Everton.

A split is emerging within Trumps base as health activists accuse Mr. Zeldin of leading the agency to prioritize chemical industry interests over public health.

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She was one of the Clinton 12, Black students who broke a race barrier by entering a Tennessee high school in 1956 in the face of harassment by white segregationists.

Ivan Urgant was an unstoppable Russian megastar. Then he expressed opposition to President Vladimir V. Putins invasion of Ukraine.

The authorities said the woman, who was making a delivery for DoorDash, was captured on a doorbell camera spraying an unknown aerosol.

Queer Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has become the first Black woman to earn a second Golden Globe nomination for Lead Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Erivo has been nominated for her performance as Elphaba in Wicked: For Good, released in November. Last year, she was nominated for the first film in the two-part series, Wicked. She lost to Demi Moore, who won for her role in The Substance. Related Charlie Kirks friend posts wild rant about radical LGBTQ+ agenda in Wicked: For Good This year, Erivo is up against Amanda Seyfried for The Testament of Ann Lee; Chase Infiniti for One Battle After Another; Emma Stone for Bugonia; Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue; and Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs Id Kick You. Erivo is one of several queer members of the Wicked & Wicked: For Good cast, including gay actor Jonathan Bailey, who plays Fiyero, Elphabas love interest. Both Erivo and her co-star, Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda in the films, have continuously celebrated the Oz universe for its queerness. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today A clip from last November shows an interviewer asking Grande and Erivo about the queer allegories in the first film, which is based on the long-running Broadway musical, which in turn is based on gay author Gregory Maguires 1995 novel aboutThe Wizard of Ozs Wicked Witch of the West.Grande described Oz as a celebration of uniqueness.Everyone is just so beautifully queer, she added.Erivo agreed that the film is a celebration of people who feel othered. I do think that both Glinda and Elphaba are just different. Both of them are almost, like,other, you know? she said. Both actresses were fully on board with fans who ship their characters.Its a relationship, Erivo insisted. It is true love, which is probably why people are shipping it, you know, because what they build with each other is an unbreakable bond and love.And trust and truth and just such a safe space for one another, Grande added. Which is what all relationships should be.On her most recent press tour for the second film, Grande has made several jokes about Glinda being in the closet. Oz has always been a queer place, a safe place for queer people, for every different color of the rainbow, for everybody, Grande said at Wicked: For Goods London premiere. Read the L. Frank Baum books. Its the truth.The gayer the better, she added. Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

As transfer rumors swirl, Mohamed Salah's dynamic display vs. Brighton showed just how much he still has to offer.

The University of Michigan has commissioned an investigation into its athletic department, centering on how numerous scandals have both occurred and been handled in recent years, a source told ESPN.

The Cowboys did not activate CB Trevon Diggs from IR for Sunday's game against the Vikings despite his participation in practice this week.

The Chicago Blackhawks have recalled high-scoring forward Nick Lardis from the minors a day after Connor Bedard got hurt in the final seconds of a loss at St. Louis.

The release of the prisoners, including a Nobel laureate and two opposition leaders, was part of a monthslong rapprochement between Washington and Minsk.

The U.S. government has paused a tech-focused trade pledge with Britain over broader disagreements about Britains digital regulations and food safety rules.

This week, Donald Trump announced that he would allow Nvidia to sell its powerful H200 chips to China. The Times Opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, argues that the move undermines national security.

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