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

Drone hits Crimean ammunition depot as strikes kill, wound civilians and journalists in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian drone strike Saturday caused a massive explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia-annexed Crimea, forcing the evacuation of nearby homes in the latest attack since Moscow canceled a landmark grain deal amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories.

The attack on the depot in central Crimea sent huge plumes of black smoke skyward and came five days after Ukraine struck a key bridge that links Russia to the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014 and after Moscow suspended a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to safely export its grain through the Black Sea.

Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, said in a Telegram post that there were no immediate reports of casualties from the strike, but that authorities were evacuating civilians within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius of the blast site.

The Ukrainian military took credit for the strike, saying it destroyed an oil depot and Russian military warehouses in Oktyabrske, in the Krasnohvardiiske region of Crimea, though without specifying which weapons it used.

A Crimean news channel posted videos Saturday showing plumes of smoke billowing above rooftops and fields near Oktyabrske, a small settlement next to an oil depot and a small military airport, as loud explosions rumbled in the background. In one video, a man can be heard saying the smoke and blast noises seemed to be coming from the direction of the airport.

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Protesters try to storm Baghdad’s Green Zone over the burning of Quran and Iraqi flag in Denmark

BAGHDAD (AP) — Tensions flared again in Iraq on Saturday over a series of recent protests in Europe involving the desecration of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, which sparked a debate over the balance between freedom of speech and religious sensitivities.

Hundreds of protesters attempted to storm Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone that houses foreign embassies and the seat of Iraq’s government early on Saturday, following reports that an ultranationalist group burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Iraqi Embassy in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, the previous day.

The protest came two days after people angered by the planned burning of the Islamic holy book in Sweden stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad.

Security forces on Saturday pushed back the protesters, who blocked the Jumhuriya bridge leading to the Green Zone, preventing them from reaching the Danish Embassy.

Elsewhere in Iraq, protesters burned three caravans belonging to a demining project run by the the Danish Refugee Council in the city of Basra in the south, local police said in a statement. The fire was extinguished by civil defense responders, and there were “no human casualties, only material losses,” the statement said.

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He came face to face with an alleged serial killer. 12 years later, his tip helped crack the case

NEW YORK (AP) — In the winter of 2010, shortly after police discovered the remains of his roommate and three other women buried on a remote stretch of Long Island shoreline, Dave Schaller provided detectives with a description of the person he believed to be the killer.

More crucially, Schaller told them about his truck.

The man they were looking for was a towering, Frankenstein-like figure with an “empty gaze” who drove a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche, Schaller recalled telling investigators. The man’s size stuck out, as did his unusual pick-up truck, which he’d used to flee the house Schaller shared with Amber Costello.

On that night, Schaller said he came home to find the stranger threatening Costello, an occasional sex worker, who had locked herself in the bathroom. The two men came to blows, with the hulking intruder eventually leaving in the truck.

Prosecutors say Costello was last seen alive on Sept. 2, 2010, as she left her home to meet that same client. A witness saw a dark-colored truck drive by the house again shortly after she left.

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Nervous Republicans turn to New Hampshire in hopes of stopping Trump

HUDSON, N.H. (AP) — They acknowledge Donald Trump’s dominance, but weary Republicans across New Hampshire — even inside the governor’s office — are fighting to stop the former president from winning the first-in-the-nation primary.

For now, however, they’re relying on little more than hope and prayers.

Look no further than Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, who repeatedly appealed to voters’ faith this week as he tried to resurrect his anemic presidential campaign while courting a few dozen voters in a former state lawmaker’s backyard.

“I truly do believe that different times call for different leadership,” Pence told his modest crowd. “I know you all are going to do your job, because I have faith. I have faith in the American people.”

More than a dozen high-profile Republicans are looking to New Hampshire, the state long known for shining on political underdogs, to help stop Trump’s march toward a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination. But so far, none has cracked the veneer of inevitability that has followed Trump through the early states on the presidential primary calendar despite — or perhaps because of — his mounting legal challenges.

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Sick of hearing about record heat? Scientists say those numbers paint the story of a warming world

The summer of 2023 is behaving like a broken record about broken records.

Nearly every major climate-tracking organization proclaimed June the hottest June ever. Then July 4 became the globe’s hottest day, albeit unofficially, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer. It was quickly overtaken by July 5 and July 6. Next came the hottest week, a tad more official, stamped into the books by the World Meteorological Organization and the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

With a summer of extreme weather records dominating the news, meteorologists and scientists say records like these give a glimpse of the big picture: a warming planet caused by climate change. It’s a picture that comes in the vibrant reds and purples representing heat on daily weather maps online, in newspapers and on television.

Beyond the maps and the numbers are real harms that kill. More than 100 people have died in heat waves in the United States and India so far this summer.

Records are crucial for people designing infrastructure and working in agriculture because they need to plan for the worst scenarios, said Russell Vose, climate analysis group director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He also chairs a committee on national records.

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Biden will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teen lynched in Mississippi

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, and his mother, a White House official said Saturday.

Biden will sign a proclamation on Tuesday to create the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi, according to the official. The individual spoke on condition of anonymity because the White House had not formally announced the president’s plans.

Tuesday is the anniversary of Emmett Till’s birth in 1941.

The monument will protect places that are central to the story of Till’s life and death at age 14, the acquittal of his white killers and his mother’s activism. Till’s mother’s insistence on an open casket to show the world how her son had been brutalized and Jet’s magazine’s decision to publish photos of his mutilated body helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.

Biden’s decision also comes at a fraught time in the United States over matters concerning race. Conservative leaders are pushing back against the teaching of slavery and Black history in public schools, as well as the incorporation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs from college classrooms to corporate boardrooms.

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Israel’s Netanyahu goes to hospital for pacemaker. He says he will push ahead with judicial overhaul

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushed to the hospital early Sunday for an emergency procedure to implant a pacemaker, plunging the country into deeper turmoil after widespread protests overt his contentious judicial overhaul plan.

Netanyahu’s office said that he would be placed under sedation and that a top deputy, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, would stand in for him while he underwent the procedure. But in a brief video statement, Netanyahu also declared that he “feels excellent” and planned to push forward with his plan as soon as he was released. Levin is the mastermind of the overhaul.

Netanyahu’s announcement, issued well after midnight, came a week after he was hospitalized for what was described as dehydration. It also came after a tumultuous day that saw some of the largest protests to date against the judicial overhaul plan.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Israel on Saturday night, while thousands marched into Jerusalem and camped out near the Knesset, or parliament, ahead of a vote expected Monday that would approve a key portion of the overhaul.

Further ratcheting up the pressure on the Israeli leader, over 100 retired security chiefs came out in favor of the growing ranks of military reservists who say they will stop reporting for duty if the plan is passed.

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Family expresses gratitude after body believed to be missing girl found; search for boy continues

WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa. (AP) — The family of a 2-year-old girl swept away along with another child by a flash flood that engulfed their vehicle on a Pennsylvania road is expressing gratitude at the discovery of a body believed to be hers.

The body was found early Friday evening in the Delaware River near a Philadelphia wastewater treatment plant about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from where Matilda Sheils was carried away, authorities said Friday night. The Philadelphia medical examiner’s office plans an autopsy. The search continues for Matilda’s 9-month-old brother, Conrad.

“We are grateful that our little Mattie has been brought home to us. We are still praying for the return of Conrad,” the family said in a statement posted Saturday by Upper Makefield Township police.

Family members also expressed “continued gratitude for the overwhelming outpouring of love, support, and concern from the community and from people around the country as rescue workers have worked tirelessly to find Mattie and Conrad.”

“Thank you all, again, for your compassion and your kindness. We are humbled,” the statement said.

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Judge orders Montana health clinic to pay nearly $6 million over false asbestos claims

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A health clinic in a Montana town plagued by deadly asbestos contamination must pay the government almost $6 million in penalties and damages after it submitted hundreds of false asbestos claims, a judge ruled.

The 337 false claims made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldn’t have received. The federally funded clinic has been at the forefront of the medical response to deadly pollution from mining near Libby, Montana

The judgement against the Center for Asbestos Related Disease clinic comes in a federal case filed by BNSF Railway in 2019 under the False Claims Act, which allows private parties to sue on the government’s behalf.

BNSF — which is itself a defendant in hundreds of asbestos-related lawsuits — alleged the center submitted claims on behalf of patients without sufficient confirmation they had asbestos-related disease.

After a seven-person jury agreed last month, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen said in a July 18 order that he was imposing a stiff penalty to prevent future misconduct.

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Jamie Foxx tells fans in an Instagram message that he is recovering from an illness

Academy Award winning actor, singer and comedian Jamie Foxx said in an Instagram video that he is recovering from an undisclosed medical condition.

“I went to hell and back, and my road to recovery has some potholes as well, but I’m coming back,” Foxx, appearing thin and wearing a dark pullover shirt, said in the three minute, 15 second video. “I’m able to work.”

Foxx, 55, was hospitalized in April with what his daughter, Corinne Fox, described at the time as a “medical complication” and Foxx did not disclose the nature of his condition in his first public comments since being hospitalized.

“I just didn’t want you to see me like that … I didn’t want you to see me with tubes running out of me and trying to figure out if I was going to make it through,” Foxx said, thanking his daughter, sister, God and medical professionals for saving his life.

“I went through something that I thought I would never, ever go through,” Foxx said.