AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

Death toll in Gaza Strip from Israel-Hamas war tops 45,000, Palestinians say

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The death toll in the Gaza Strip from the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas militants has topped 45,000 people, Palestinian health officials said Monday, with 52 dead arriving at hospitals across the bombed-out strip over the past 24 hours.

The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The Health Ministry said 45,028 people have been killed and 106,962 have been wounded since the start of the war. It has said the real toll is higher because thousands of bodies are still buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access. The latest war has been by far the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas, with the death toll now amounting to roughly 2% of Gaza’s entire prewar population of about 2.3 million.

Among the dead reported in the overall toll were 10 people, including a family of four, who were killed in an overnight Israeli strike in Gaza City, Palestinian medics said.

The strike late Sunday hit a house in Gaza City’s eastern Shijaiyah neighborhood, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 people from under the rubble, including those of two parents and their two children, it said.

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Middle East latest: Death toll from Israel-Hamas war tops 45,000. Israel strikes Syrian targets

Palestinian health officials said Monday the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 14th month, topped 45,000 people.

This comes as 52 dead arrived at hospitals across the bombed-out strip over the past 24 hours, including a family of four, in Gaza City overnight, according to Palestinian medics.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel, killing some 1, 200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Israel responded with heavy bombardment and a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, a UK-based war monitor says Israeli airstrikes early Monday hit missile warehouses in Syria and called it the “most violent strikes” since 2012.

Israel has been pounding what it says are military sites in Syria after the dramatic collapse of President Bashar Assad’s rule, wiping out air defenses and most of the arsenal of the former Syrian army. Israeli troops have also seized a border buffer zone, sparking condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of violating the 1974 ceasefire and possibly exploiting the chaos in Syria for a land grab.

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France rushes help to Mayotte, where hundreds or even thousands died in Cyclone Chido

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — France was rushing help by ship and military aircraft to its poor overseas territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean on Monday after the island was shattered by its worst storm in nearly a century.

Authorities in Mayotte fear hundreds and possibly thousands of people have died in Cyclone Chido, although the official death toll on Monday morning stood at 14. Rescue teams and medical personnel have been sent to the island off the east coast of Africa from France and from the nearby French territory of Reunion, as well as tons of supplies.

French television station TF1 reported Monday morning that Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau had arrived in Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte.

“It will take days and days to establish the human toll,” he told French media.

French authorities said more than 800 more personnel were expected to arrive in the coming days as rescuers comb through the devastation caused by Chido when it hit the densely populated archipelago of around 300,000 people on Saturday.

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South Korea’s impeached leader avoids investigators as court begins meeting to determine his fate

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol dodged requests by investigative agencies to appear for questioning over his short-lived martial law decree, as the Constitutional Court began its first meeting Monday on Yoon’s case to determine whether to formally unseat or reinstate him.

A joint investigative team involving police, an anti-corruption agency and the Defense Ministry said it wants to question Yoon on charges of rebellion and abuse of power in connection with his ill-conceived power grab.

The team on Monday tried to convey a request to officials at Yoon’s office or residence but they refused to accept it, according to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials.

Agency investigator Son Yeong-jo cited presidential secretarial staff at Yoon’s office as claiming they were unsure whether conveying the request to the impeached president was part of their duties. Son said his team had also mailed the request to Yoon, but declined to provide specifics when asked how investigators would respond if Yoon refuses to appear.

Yoon was impeached by the opposition-controlled National Assembly on Saturday over his Dec. 3 martial law decree. His presidential powers have been subsequently suspended, and the Constitutional Court is to determine whether to formally remove him from office or reinstate him. If Yoon is dismissed, a national election to choose his successor must be held within 60 days.

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As Trump threatens mass deportations, Central America braces for an influx of vulnerable migrants

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — As dozens of deported migrants pack into a sweltering airport facility in San Pedro Sula, Norma sits under fluorescent lights clutching a foam cup of coffee and a small plate of eggs – all that was waiting for her in Honduras.

The 69-year-old Honduran mother had never imagined leaving her Central American country. But then came the anonymous death threats to her and her children and the armed men who showed up at her doorstep threatening to kill her, just like they had killed one of her relatives days earlier.

Norma, who requested anonymity out of concern for her safety, spent her life savings of $10,000 on a one-way trip north at the end of October with her daughter and granddaughter.

But after her asylum petitions to the U.S. were rejected, they were loaded onto a deportation flight. Now, she’s back in Honduras within reach of the same gang, stuck in a cycle of violence and economic precarity that haunts deportees like her.

“They can find us in every corner of Honduras,” she said in the migrant processing facility. “We’re praying for God’s protection, because we don’t expect anything from the government.”

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Journalists anticipate a renewed hostility toward their work under the incoming Trump administration

NEW YORK (AP) — For the press heading into a second Trump administration, there’s a balancing act between being prepared and being fearful.

The return to power of Donald Trump, who has called journalists enemies and talked about retribution against those he feels have wronged him, has news executives nervous. Perceived threats are numerous: lawsuits of every sort, efforts to unmask anonymous sources, physical danger and intimidation, attacks on public media and libel protections, day-to-day demonization.

In a closely-watched case settled over the weekend, ABC chose to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by the president-elect over an inaccurate statement made by George Stephanopoulos by agreeing to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library.

“The news media is heading into this next administration with its eyes open,” said Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.

“Some challenges to the free press may be overt, some may be more subtle,” Brown said. “We’ll need to be prepared for rapid response as well as long campaigns to protect our rights — and to remember that our most important audiences are the courts and the public.”

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Germany’s Scholz faces a confidence vote. It’s expected to lead to an election in February

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces a confidence vote in the German parliament on Monday that he’s expected to lose, paving the way for the European Union’s most populous member and biggest economy to hold an early election in February.

Scholz’s notoriously rancorous three-party government collapsed on Nov. 6 when the chancellor fired his finance minister in a long-running dispute over how to revitalize Germany’s stagnant economy, and the minister’s pro-business party quit the coalition. That left the remaining two center-left partners without a majority in parliament.

Leaders of several major parties then agreed that a parliamentary election should be held on Feb. 23, seven months earlier than originally planned. Post-World War II Germany’s constitution doesn’t allow parliament’s lower house, or Bundestag, to dissolve itself — so a confidence vote is needed to set in motion the early election.

Scholz’s Social Democrats hold 207 seats in the Bundestag and are expected to vote for the chancellor. Their remaining coalition partners, the environmentalist Greens, have 117 and plan to abstain. That should mean Scholz gets nowhere near the majority of 367 in the 733-seat chamber needed to win the confidence vote.

If Scholz loses, it will up to up to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to decide whether to dissolve the Bundestag. Steinmeier, who said last month that “this country needs stable majorities and a government that is capable of acting,” has 21 days to make that decision. Once parliament is dissolved, the election must be held within 60 days.

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Survivors seek a reckoning as FBI investigates child sex abuse in little-known Christian sect

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Nearly every detail about the religious group Lisa Webb’s family belonged to was hidden from the outside world. Its followers met in homes rather than churches. Its leadership structure was hard to discern, its finances opaque. It didn’t even have an official name.

But for decades, no secret was as closely guarded as the identities of the sexual predators inside the group known as the “Two by Twos.”

Now a growing number of public allegations from around the world have prompted a broad investigation by the FBI and placed an uncomfortable spotlight on the long-quiet Christian sect. Survivors say the group’s leaders protected child-abusing ministers by pressuring victims to forgive, ignoring legal reporting requirements and by transferring abusers to new locations to live with unsuspecting families.

Ministry leaders have publicly condemned the abuse but several declined to answer questions from The Associated Press.

For Webb, who was sexually abused by one of the group’s ministers as a child, the attention has brought an unexpected sense of “strength in numbers.”

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Biden, Harris thank major Democratic donors and urge them to stay engaged after tough loss to Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday thanked deep-pocketed Democratic donors who raised record sums in last month’s election loss to President-elect Donald Trump and urged them not to lose hope and to remain politically engaged.

Biden and Harris, along with their spouses, in remarks at the Democratic National Committee holiday reception sought to buck up key donors who the Democratic Party needs to stay committed as it tries to pick up the pieces. Republicans scored a decisive victory taking the White House and Senate while maintaining control of the House in an election where donors of all political stripes spent about $4.7 billion.

“We all get knocked down. My dad would say when you get knocked down, you just got to get up,” Biden said. “The measure of a person or a party is how fast they get back up.”

Harris, who stepped in as the party’s presidential nominee after Biden ended his campaign in July following his disastrous debate performance, praised donors for putting their time — and checkbooks — into backing her and Democrats that they believed in.

Democrats, their allied super PACs and other groups raised about $2.9 billion, compared to about $1.8 billion for the Republicans. Harris noted that Democrats raised a whopping $700 million over just 700 events organized by the Democratic finance committee.

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Zakir Hussain, one of India’s most accomplished classical musicians, dies at 73

NEW DELHI (AP) — Zakir Hussain, one of India’s most accomplished classical musicians who defied genres and introduced tabla to global audiences, died on Sunday. He was 73.

The Indian classical music icon died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease, at a hospital in San Francisco, his family said in a statement.

“His prolific work as a teacher, mentor and educator has left an indelible mark on countless musicians. He hoped to inspire the next generation to go further. He leaves behind an unparalleled legacy as a cultural ambassador and one of the greatest musicians of all time,” the statement read.

Hussain was the most recognizable exponent of tabla, a pair of hand drums that is the main percussion instrument in Indian classical music.

Considered the greatest tabla player of his generation, Hussain had a career that spanned six decades in which he collaborated with the likes of singer-songwriter George Harrison, jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, drummer Mickey Hart and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

The Associated Press