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

Israel will let Egypt deliver some aid to Gaza, as doctors struggle to treat hospital blast victims

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza’s struggling medical system.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence.

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.

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From hospital, to shelter, to deadly inferno: Fleeing Palestinians lose another sanctuary in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — The courtyard of al-Ahli hospital, where thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter or medical treatment, is now a blackened expanse of charred cars, stretchers coated in ash and shredded dolls.

That’s all that remains after an explosion on Tuesday turned it into an inferno, tearing apart men, women and children, and burning people alive. Images of the aftermath ignited protests across the region, threatening to broaden the war between Israel and Hamas.

Mohammed al-Hayek had stepped away to fetch some coffee, making his way through the crowd of displaced people who were singing, praying or sleeping after fleeing to the Gaza City hospital in fear of Israeli airstrikes. Seeking the warm drink on a cold night saved his life.

“I returned to find them torn in pieces,” al-Hayek said of his five cousins. He pointed to the mound of debris where they had been sitting, to their blood on the walls.

“This is where Shahir was. This is where Mutasim was,” he said of the young men in their early 20s.

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Why Egypt and other Arab countries are unwilling to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza

CAIRO (AP) — As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to … migrate to Egypt.” He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”

Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries’ 40-year-old peace treaty.

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GOP’s Jim Jordan fails again on vote for House speaker as frustrated Republicans search for options

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Jim Jordan failed again Wednesday on a crucial second ballot to become House speaker, but the hard-fighting ally of Donald Trump showed no signs of dropping out despite losing support from even more of his GOP colleagues.

Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options. A bipartisan group of lawmakers floated an extraordinary plan — to give the interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., more power to reopen the immobilized House and temporarily conduct routine business. But that seems doubtful, for now.

What was clear was that Jordan’s path to become House speaker was almost certainly lost. He was opposed by 22 Republicans, two more than he lost in first-round voting the day before. Many view the Ohio congressman as too extreme for a central seat of U.S. power and resented the harassing hardball tactics from Jordan’s allies for their votes. One lawmaker said they had received death threats.

“We’ll keep talking to members, keep working on it,” Jordan, a founding member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, said after the vote.

The House came to another abrupt standstill, stuck now 15 days since the sudden ouster of Kevin McCarthy without a speaker — a position of power second in line to the presidency.

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Suspect admits he killed Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, pleads guilty to extorting her mother

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The chief suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has admitted he beat the young Alabama woman to death on a beach in Aruba after she refused his advances, then dumped her body into the sea. New details in the killing emerged Wednesday as Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extorting Holloway’s mother, resolving a case that has captivated the public’s attention for nearly 20 years.

Although he isn’t charged in Holloway’s death, van der Sloot’s attempt to squeeze a quarter million dollars from the slain teen’s mom in exchange for information about where to find Holloway’s body gave investigators a crucial link to the 2005 killing. And after finally seeing him in a U.S. courtroom, the family said they’re moving on from years of doubt and uncertainty.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” Beth Holloway, Natalee’s mother, told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Alabama. “Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is the killer.”

Natalee Holloway went missing during a high school graduation trip with classmates. She was last seen May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen and student at an international school on the Caribbean island where he grew up. He was questioned in the disappearance but never prosecuted. A judge declared Holloway dead, but her body was never found.

Now 36, van der Sloot has pleaded guilty to one count each of extortion and wire fraud in exchange for a 20-year sentence. That prison term will run concurrently with a 28-year sentence he’s serving in Peru for killing another woman, Stephany Flores, in 2010.

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Woman arrested after trying to get close to Trump at New York trial; she says she’s a supporter

NEW YORK (AP) — A spectator at Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial was arrested Wednesday after standing up in the middle of testimony and walking toward the front of the courtroom where the former president sat.

The woman expressed a desire to aid Trump, and the court system said that neither he nor anyone else at the trial was ever in danger. The ex-president and 2024 GOP front-runner showed no reaction in court and later told reporters he wasn’t aware of the episode that had unfolded behind him.

“Who got arrested?” Trump asked. “We didn’t know anything about it.”

The woman, later identified as a court system employee, retreated after a court officer told her to return to her seat. A short time later, officers escorted her out and arrested her on a contempt charge for disrupting a court proceeding, court spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said.

Chalfen said the woman had been yelling out to Trump that she wanted to help him, though reporters in the courtroom did not hear her raise her voice. She was later heard screaming in the courthouse lobby as officers removed her from the building.

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Driver arrested after Pacific Coast Highway crash in Malibu kills 4 Pepperdine University students

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) — A 22-year-old driver was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after a crash in Malibu killed four college students and injured two other people, officials said Wednesday.

The six pedestrians were struck around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday along Pacific Coast Highway about 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Pepperdine University, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Four women were pronounced dead at the scene and two others were taken to a hospital but there was no word Wednesday on their conditions.

Pepperdine initially said on X, formerly Twitter, that officials believed those killed attended the university’s Seaver College of Liberal Arts. Pepperdine’s president, Jim Gash, later confirmed that the four killed were students.

“Earlier today, we learned that four precious lives who brought joy and light to our campus were taken from us suddenly, tragically, and incomprehensibly,” Gash wrote in a message to the university community.

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RFK Jr. spent years stoking fear and mistrust of vaccines. These people were hurt by his work

When 12-year-old Braden Fahey collapsed during football practice and died, it was just the beginning of his parents’ nightmare.

Deep in their grief a few months later, Gina and Padrig Fahey received news that shocked them to their core: A favorite photo of their beloved son was plastered on the cover of a book that falsely argues COVID-19 vaccines caused a spike of sudden deaths among healthy young people.

The book, called “Cause Unknown,” was co-published by an anti-vaccine group led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, who is now running for president. Kennedy wrote the foreword and promoted the book, tweeting that it details data showing “ COVID shots are a crime against humanity.”

The Faheys couldn’t understand how Braden’s face appeared on the book’s cover, or why his name appeared inside it.

Braden never received the vaccine. His death in August 2022 was due to a malformed blood vessel in his brain. No one ever contacted them to ask about their son’s death, or for permission to use the photo. No one asked to confirm the date of his death — which the book misdated by a year. When the Faheys and residents of their town in California tried to contact the publisher and author to get Braden and his picture taken out of the book, no one responded.

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Brazil’s Bolsonaro should be charged with attempting to stage a coup, congressional panel says

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Brazilian congressional panel on Wednesday accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of instigating the country’s Jan. 8 riots and recommended that he be charged with attempting to stage a coup.

An inquiry panel of senators and representatives mostly allied with the current leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in last fall’s election — voted 20-11 to adopt the damning report drafted by Sen. Eliziane Gama.

The move was largely symbolic for Bolsonaro because it amounts to a recommendation for police and prosecutors to investigate, and federal law enforcement officials separately have already been investigating his possible role in inciting the Jan. 8 uprising.

Bolsonaro has denied involvement in the rioting, which took place more than a week after the right-wing leader had quietly left the country to stay in Florida while refusing to attend Lula’s inauguration.

“It’s completely biased,” Bolsonaro said Wednesday of the inquiry, in comments to reporters. “It’s an absurdity.”

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says league still needs to hire more minority head coaches

NEW YORK (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league still needs to hire more minority head coaches.

The latest rule change was aimed at increasing opportunities.

Owners voted Tuesday to push in-person head coaching interviews back one more week until after all divisional playoff games have been completed to slow down the hiring process.

”(Diversity, equity, inclusion) has received more attention in our owners’ meetings than probably any subject we have been discussing in the last five years, and I think that focus has been helpful to the clubs as well as to all of us,” Goodell said Wednesday after the conclusion of the league’s fall meetings. “Our understanding of the priorities, the need to do this and how we do it better. I know the focus is on head coaches, we understand that, but we’re focused on the entire league. How do we continue to have diversity be a part of our league and make us better?

“And we reported on the broader diversity numbers both at the league level and the club level and there is significant progress. But, when you say frustration, I’m probably always frustrated by the pace of progress. Right? It’s never enough for yours truly. So, we obviously know we have work to do here, and the clubs are very focused on this, and it has to be a sustainable change, and I think that’s where the ownership is.”