AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

Israeli offensive shifts to crowded southern Gaza, driving up death toll despite evacuation orders

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel pounded targets in crowded southern Gaza on Saturday and ordered more neighborhoods designated for attack to evacuate, driving up the death toll as the United States and others urged it to do more to protect civilians a day after a truce collapsed.

The prospect of further cease-fires in Gaza appeared bleak, as Israel recalled its negotiators and Hamas’ deputy leader said any further swap of Gaza-held hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel would only happen as part of ending the war.

“We will continue the war until we achieve all its goals, and it’s impossible to achieve those goals without the ground operation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address Saturday night.

At least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting resumed Friday morning following the weeklong truce with the territory’s ruling militant group Hamas, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Several multi-story residential buildings were hit on Saturday, engulfing neighborhoods in huge clouds of smoke.

Separately, the ministry said the overall death toll in Gaza since the Oct. 7 start of the war had surpassed 15,200, a sharp jump from the previous count of more than 13,300 on Nov. 20. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but it said 70% of the dead were women and children. It said more than 40,000 people had been wounded since the war began.

___

Harris focuses on shaping a post-conflict Gaza during a diplomatic blitz in Dubai with Arab leaders

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris engaged in a speed round of diplomatic talks with Arab leaders on Saturday where she focused on shaping the outlook for a post-conflict Gaza while calling on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians from the “devastating” bombardment.

She made a hastily planned trip to the United Arab Emirates as the top American representative at the U.N. climate conference but the Israel-Hamas war was a main objective of her visit. She met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan and spoke by phone with Qatar’s emir.

Her efforts to focus on what Gaza will look like once the fighting ends played out against the backdrop of an overpowering attack that Israel has unleashed on the crowded southern area of the territory since fighting resumed Friday morning after a weeklong truce.

“As Israel defends itself, it matters how. The United States is unequivocal: International humanitarian law must be respected,” Harris said after her meetings. “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.’’

She added that as Israel “pursues its military objectives in Gaza, we believe Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians.”

___

At COP28 meeting, oil companies pledge to combat methane. Environmentalists call it a “smokescreen”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Fifty oil companies representing nearly half of global production have pledged to reach near-zero methane emissions and end routine flaring in their operations by 2030, the president of this year’s United Nations climate talks said Saturday, a move that environmental groups called a “smokescreen.”

Methane emissions are a significant contributor to global warming, so sharply reducing them could help slow temperature rise. If the companies carry out their pledges, it could trim one-tenth of a degree Celsius (0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) from future warming, a prominent climate scientist calculated and told The Associated Press. That is about how much the Earth is currently warming every five years.

The announcement by Sultan al-Jaber, president of the climate summit known as COP28 and head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., comes as he and others have insisted his background would allow him to bring oil companies to the negotiating table. Al-Jaber has maintained that having the industry’s buy-in is crucial to drastically slashing the world’s greenhouse emissions by nearly half in seven years to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times.

Signing on to the pledge were major national oil companies such as Saudi Aramco, Brazil’s Petrobras and Sonangol, from Angola, and multi-nationals like Shell, TotalEnergies and BP.

“The world does not work without energy,” said al-Jaber, speaking in a session on the oil industry. “Yet the world will break down if we do not fix energies we use today, mitigate their emissions at a gigaton scale, and rapidly transition to zero carbon alternatives.”

___

Teen girls are being victimized by deepfake nudes. One family is pushing for more protections

A mother and her 14-year-old daughter are advocating for better protections for victims after AI-generated nude images of the teen and other female classmates were circulated at a high school in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, officials are investigating an incident involving a teenage boy who allegedly used artificial intelligence to create and distribute similar images of other students – also teen girls – that attend a high school in suburban Seattle, Washington.

The disturbing cases have put a spotlight yet again on explicit AI-generated material that overwhelmingly harms women and children and is booming online at an unprecedented rate. According to an analysis by independent researcher Genevieve Oh that was shared with The Associated Press, more than 143,000 new deepfake videos were posted online this year, which surpasses every other year combined.

Desperate for solutions, affected families are pushing lawmakers to implement robust safeguards for victims whose images are manipulated using new AI models, or the plethora of apps and websites that openly advertise their services. Advocates and some legal experts are also calling for federal regulation that can provide uniform protections across the country and send a strong message to current and would-be perpetrators.

“We’re fighting for our children,” said Dorota Mani, whose daughter was one of the victims in Westfield, a New Jersey suburb outside of New York City. “They are not Republicans, and they are not Democrats. They don’t care. They just want to be loved, and they want to be safe.”

___

DeSantis hits Iowa campaign milestone but is still far behind Trump, who again mocked his campaign

NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Ron DeSantis completed his campaign promise to visit each of Iowa’s 99 counties, crossing a symbolic but also tactical threshold by telling his audience in a central Iowa town “this should show you that I consider myself a servant, not a ruler.”

Former President Donald Trump, who still remains far ahead of DeSantis, mocked him at a larger rally about 100 miles away and said the Florida governor’s campaign was falling “like a very seriously wounded bird.”

In that way, the Florida governor’s moment, much like the months of campaigning so far, took place under Trump’s towering shadow.

The presence of Trump on DeSantis’ day of accomplishment underscores the challenge he and other Trump rivals face in Iowa. DeSantis has said he expects to win the caucuses. He’s focused much of his campaign on the state and a super PAC supporting him has invested more than $16 million in advertising and more on building a campaign organization for the Jan. 15 caucuses.

But even with the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, DeSantis has not cut into Trump’s huge lead and is facing new pressure from the campaign of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

___

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor paved a path for women on the Supreme Court. Four are serving today

WASHINGTON (AP) — One fall day in 2010, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor slipped into the courtroom where she worked for nearly 25 years to take in an “amazing” sight.

The first — and for 12 years, the only — woman on the high court saw three women in black robes among the nine justices.

Recalling that day, O’Connor said she “saw a woman on the far right end of the bench, one on the far left end and one near the middle. That was pretty amazing.”

O’Connor lived to see four women serve at the same time on the Supreme Court. What was once a novelty when she was the first woman to sit on the high court has become almost commonplace.

In a sense, O’Connor was witnessing the culmination of her own journey, in which she struggled to get any legal job after graduating from law school in the 1950s, then ended more than 190 years of male exclusivity on the Supreme Court when President Ronald Reagan nominated her in 1981.

___

Police in Paris have arrested a man who targeted passersby, killing 1 and injuring 2, official says

PARIS (AP) — French police arrested a man who targeted passersby in Paris on Saturday night, killing a German tourist with a knife and injuring two others, France’s interior minister said.

Police subdued the man, a 25-year-old French citizen who had spent four years in prison for planning a violent offense. After his arrest, he expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. The attacker apparently cried “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), Darmanin added.

“This person was ready to kill others,” Darmanin told reporters.

The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office confirmed it has opened an investigation.

The attacker went after a German couple with a knife, killing the man and used a hammer to injure two others.

___

Authorities identify suspect in killing of 3 homeless men in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles man already in custody in connection with another shooting investigation has been identified as the suspect in three recent killings of homeless men, police said Saturday.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said Jerrid Joseph Powell, 33, was identified as the suspect in the three killings after authorities determined a firearm found in a vehicle he was driving when he was arrested earlier was linked to the shootings.

Powell was arrested this week by Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies for investigation of the shooting death and robbery of a 42-year-old man late Tuesday after he returned to his home in the community of San Dimas about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles.

The announcement came a day after Los Angeles authorities said they were searching for a suspect in the shootings of three homeless men and urged homeless individuals to not sleep alone for their own safety. The shootings took place at the end of November during early morning hours while the victims were sleeping or preparing to turn in for the night.

Jose Bolanos, 37, was found dead with a gunshot wound around 3 a.m. on Nov. 26 in an alley in South Los Angeles, police said.

___

Group of swing state Muslims vows to ditch Biden in 2024 over his war stance

CHICAGO (AP) — Muslim community leaders from several swing states pledged to withdraw support for U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday at a conference in suburban Detroit, citing his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war could cost him enough support within the Arab American community to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

Leaders from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania gathered behind a lectern that read “Abandon Biden, ceasefire now” in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday updated the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war to 15,200 Palestinians, roughly two-thirds of them women and minors. Some 1,200 Israelis have been killed, most during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas that triggered the war.

Biden’s unwillingness to call for a ceasefire has damaged his relationship with the American Muslim community beyond repair, according to Minneapolis-based Jaylani Hussein, who helped organize the conference.

___

Police raid Moscow gay bars after a Supreme Court ruling labeled LGBTQ+ movement ‘extremist’

Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization.

Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported.

Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.

The raids follow a decision by Russia’s Supreme Court to label the country’s LGBTQ+ “movement” as an extremist organization.

The ruling, which was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry, is the latest step in a decadelong crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights under President Vladimir Putin, who has emphasized “traditional family values” during his 24 years in power.

The Associated Press