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

There’s progress reported in Gaza truce talks, but Israel downplays chances of ending war with Hamas

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A Hamas delegation was in Cairo on Saturday as Egyptian state media reported “noticeable progress” in cease-fire talks for Gaza. But Israel hasn’t sent a delegation and a senior Israeli official downplayed prospects for a full end to the war while emphasizing the commitment to invading Rafah.

Pressure has mounted to reach a deal halting the nearly 7-month-long war. A top U.N. official says there is now a “ full-blown famine” in northern Gaza, while the United States has repeatedly warned close ally Israel about its planned offensive into Rafah, the southernmost city on the border with Egypt, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Egyptian and U.S. mediators have reported signs of compromise in recent days, but chances for a cease-fire deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying the militant group Hamas.

Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News TV channel said that a consensus had been reached over many disputed points but did not elaborate. Hamas has called for a complete end to the war and withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, played down the prospects for a full end to the war. The official said Israel was committed to the Rafah invasion and that it will not agree in any circumstance to end the war as part of a deal to release hostages.

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Warren Buffett says AI may be better for scammers than society. And he’s seen how

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett cautioned the tens of thousands of shareholders who packed an arena for his annual meeting that artificial intelligence scams could become “the growth industry of all time.”

Doubling down on his cautionary words from last year, Buffett told the throngs he recently came face to face with the downside of AI. And it looked and sounded just like him. Someone made a fake video of Buffett, apparently convincing enough that the so-called Oracle of Omaha himself said he could imagine it tricking him into sending money overseas.

The billionaire investing guru predicted scammers will seize on the technology, and may do more harm with it than society can wring good.

“As someone who doesn’t understand a damn thing about it, it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm and I just don’t know how that plays out,” he said.

The day started early Saturday with Berkshire Hathaway announcing a steep drop in earnings as the paper value of its investments plummeted and it pared its Apple holdings. The company reported a $12.7 billion profit, or $8.825 per Class A share, in first the quarter, down 64% from $35.5 billion, or $24,377 per A share a year ago.

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Mystik Dan wins 150th Kentucky Derby by a nose in the closest 3-horse photo finish since 1947

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The 150th Kentucky Derby produced one of the most dramatic finishes in its storied history — three noses at the wire.

Mystik Dan desperately fought to hang on with two challengers coming to him in the closing strides. He did, too, after a delay of several minutes while the closest three-horse photo finish since 1947 was sorted out.

That year, Jet Pilot won by a head over Phalanx, who was another head in front of Faultless.

This one was much tighter.

Mystik Dan, an 18-1 shot, edged Sierra Leone by a nose, with Forever Young another nose back in third on Saturday. Sierra Leone was the most expensive horse in the race at $2.3 million.

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Hulk Hogan, hurricanes and a blockbuster recording: A week in review of the Trump hush money trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.

Jurors heard a potentially pivotal piece of evidence — a 2016 recording of Trump discussing a plan to buy a Playboy model’s silence — as well as testimony about the wrestler Hulk Hogan and hurricanes, literal and figurative.

Outside the jury’s presence, Trump was fined for running afoul of a judge’s gag order. Additional sanctions could await the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

A look at some of the highlights from the past week:

Hope Hicks, a onetime Trump confidant who for years was central in his orbit, described in detail a seminal moment of the 2016 campaign: The Washington Post’s disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.

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25 arrested at University of Virginia after police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters

Twenty-five people were arrested Saturday for trespassing at the University of Virginia after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from campus, and demonstrators at the University of Michigan chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during commencement ceremonies.

In Virginia, student demonstrators began their protest on a lawn outside the school chapel Tuesday. On Saturday, video from WVAW-TV showed police wearing heavy gear and holding shields lined up on the campus in Charlottesville. Protesters chanted “Free Palestine,” and university police said on the social platform X that an “unlawful assembly” had been declared in the area.

As police moved in, students were pushed to the ground, pulled by their arms and sprayed with a chemical irritant, Laura Goldblatt, an assistant professor of English and global studies who has been helping student demonstrators, told The Washington Post.

“Our concern since this began has been the safety of our students. Students are not safe right now,” Goldblatt said.

The university administration said in a statement that the demonstrators were told the tents and canopies they erected were prohibited under school policy and were asked to remove them. Virginia State Police were asked to help with enforcement, the university said.

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Bodies recovered likely those of 2 Australians, 1 American who went missing, Mexican prosecutors say

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Three bodies recovered in an area of Mexico’s Baja California state are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

While there has not yet been confirmation based on forensic examination, physical characteristics — including hair and clothing — means there is a high likelihood that the bodies are those of the three tourists, local TV network Milenio reported, citing chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez.

“It is presumed that (the bodies) are the ones being investigated,” an employee of the state prosecutors’ office who was not authorized to be quoted by name told The Associated Press.

The bodies were found in a well where investigators also found another body that authorities said would be investigated.

“A fourth body was located. It is not related to the three foreigners. The fourth body had been there for a long time,” the official added.

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Biden and Trump offer worlds-apart contrasts on issues in 2024’s rare contest between two presidents

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden and Donald Trump are two presidents with unfinished business and an itch to get it done.

Their track records and plans on abortion, immigration, taxes, wars abroad — you name it — leave no doubt that the man voters choose in November will seek to shape the landscape of American life in ways wholly distinct from the other.

The choices, if the winner gets his way, are sharply defined. The onward march of regulation and incentives to restrain climate change, or a slow walk if not an about-face. Higher taxes on the super rich, or not. Abortion rights reaffirmed, or left to states to restrict or allow as each decides. Another attempt to legislate border security and orderly entry into the country, or massive deportations. A commitment to stand with Ukraine or let go.

At no time in living memory have two presidents, current and former, competed for the office. Not since Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, both Republicans, in 1912, and that didn’t work out for either of them — Democrat Woodrow Wilson won that three-way race.

More than a century later, voters again get to judge two presidents on their records alongside their promises for the next four years. Here’s where they stand on 10 of the top issues:

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After Roe, the network of people who help others get abortions see themselves as ‘the underground’

NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Waiting in a long post office line with the latest shipment of “abortion aftercare kits,” Kimra Luna got a text. A woman who’d taken abortion pills three weeks earlier was worried about bleeding — and disclosing the cause to a doctor.

“Bleeding doesn’t mean you need to go in,” Luna responded on the encrypted messaging app Signal. “Some people bleed on and off for a month.”

It was a typically busy afternoon for Luna, a doula and reproductive care activist in a state with some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. Those laws make the work a constant battle, the 38-year-old said, but they draw strength from others in a makeshift national network of helpers — clinic navigators, abortion fund leaders and individual volunteers who have become a supporting cast for people in restrictive states who are seeking abortions.

“This is the underground,” said Jerad Martindale, an activist in Boise.

Abortion rights advocates worry Idaho is a harbinger of where more states may be headed. Here, abortion is banned with very limited exceptions at all stages of pregnancy, and a law signed by the governor but temporarily blocked forbids adults from helping minors leave the state for abortions without parental consent. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about Idaho’s enforcement of its abortion ban in hospital emergencies.

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Hundreds rescued from flooding in Texas as waters continue rising in Houston

HOUSTON (AP) — High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing more than 400 people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water. Others prepared to evacuate their property.

A wide region was swamped from Houston to rural East Texas, where game wardens rode airboats through waist-high waters rescuing both people and pets who did not evacuate in time. One crew brought a family and three dogs aboard as rising waters surrounded their cars and home.

A flood watch was in effect through Sunday afternoon, as forecasters predicted additional rainfall Saturday night and the likelihood of major flooding.

“It’s going to keep rising this way,” said Miguel Flores Jr., of the northeast Houston neighborhood of Kingwood. “We don’t know how much more. We’re just preparing for the worst.”

Husband and wife Aron Brown, 45, and Jamie Brown, 41, were two of the many residents who drove or walked to watch the rising waters near a flooded intersection close to the San Jacinto River. Nearby restaurants and a gas station were beginning to flood.

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Russia puts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on its wanted list

Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.

As of Saturday afternoon, both Zelenskyy and his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, featured on the ministry’s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, was also on the list.

Russian officials did not immediately clarify the allegations against any of the men. Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet, claimed Saturday that both Zelenskyy and Poroshenko had been listed since at least late February.

In an online statement published that same day, Ukraine’s foreign ministry dismissed the reports of Zelenskyy’s inclusion as evidence of “the desperation of the Russian state machine and propaganda.”

Russia’s wanted list also includes scores of officials and lawmakers from Ukraine and NATO countries. Among them is Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of NATO and EU member Estonia, who has fiercely advocated for increased military aid to Kyiv and stronger sanctions against Moscow.

The Associated Press