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

Medics and patients, including babies, stranded as battles rage around Gaza hospitals

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Battles between Israel and Hamas around hospitals forced thousands of Palestinians to flee from some of the last perceived safe places in northern Gaza, stranding critically wounded patients, newborns and their caregivers with dwindling supplies and no electricity, health officials said Monday.

With Israeli forces fighting in the center of Gaza City, the territory’s main city, both sides have seized on the plight of hospitals as a symbol of the larger war, now in its sixth week. The fighting was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack into Israel, whose response has led to thousands of deaths — and much destruction — across Gaza.

Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its fighters. On Monday, the military released footage of a children’s hospital that its forces moved into over the weekend, showing weapons it said it found inside, as well as rooms in the basement where it believes the militants were holding some of the around 240 hostages they abducted during the initial attack.

“Hamas uses hospitals as an instrument of war,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the army’s chief spokesperson, standing in a room of the Rantisi Children’s Hospital decorated with a colorful children’s drawing of a tree. Explosive vests, grenades and RPGs were displayed on the floor.

Meanwhile, gunfire and explosions raged Monday around Gaza City’s main hospital, Shifa, which has been encircled by Israeli troops for days. Tens of thousands of people have fled the hospital in the past few days and headed to the southern Gaza Strip, including large numbers of displaced people who had taken shelter there, as well as patients who could move.

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Israel says Hamas is using Gaza’s biggest hospital for cover. Hundreds of people are trapped inside

JERUSALEM (AP) — Gaza’s Shifa Hospital has become the focus of a dayslong stalemate in Israel’s war against the Hamas militant group.

Shifa is Gaza’s largest and best-equipped hospital. But Israel claims the facility also is used by Hamas for military purposes. It says Hamas has built a vast underground command complex center below the hospital, connected by tunnels.

Since Israel declared war against Hamas in response to a bloody cross-border attack by the Islamic group on Oct. 7, its forces have moved in on Shifa. While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, Palestinians say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees and that it is too dangerous to move the most vulnerable patients. Meanwhile, doctors say the facility has run out of fuel and that patients are beginning to die.

Here is a closer look at the Shifa standoff.

Shifa is the leading hospital in a health care system that has largely collapsed after years of conflict, chronic underfunding and an Israeli-Egyptian blockade aimed at weakening Hamas.

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White House hoping Biden-Xi meeting brings progress on military communications, fentanyl fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials expressed hope Monday that this week’s highly anticipated face-to-face meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will produce some concrete results, including the possible reestablishment of military communication between the two nations and a shared effort to combat illicit fentanyl trafficking.

The two leaders will meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. The Biden-Xi bilateral will be the marquee moment of the forum, which is dedicated to promoting trade, investment and economic development among nations around the Pacific Ocean.

Biden and Xi have not spoken in a year. Their last meeting was at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia last fall. And since then, tensions between the two nations have grown following a series of events touched off by the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that had wafted across the U.S. earlier this year.

The frosty relationship between the two economic superpowers has global implications: China and the U.S. produce roughly 40% of the world’s goods and services.

U.S. officials have set relatively low expectations for the Biden-Xi meeting, suggesting that simply getting back to a baseline of routine communication would be a good benchmark for success. Still, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday there could be some movement toward shared goals, through “intense diplomacy.”

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The 2024 Republican presidential field is rapidly shrinking. But is it too late to stop Trump?

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The Republican Party’s once-crowded 2024 presidential primary field has suddenly shrunk to just a handful of viable candidates.

But a day after Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina stunned many of his own staff by suspending his campaign, it’s unclear whether the GOP is any closer to coalescing behind a clear alternative to former President Donald Trump. Instead, the fight between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis for a distant second place appears to be intensifying. And some lower-tier candidates insist on battling for relevance, despite growing pressure to bow out of the race altogether.

Meanwhile, Trump’s team is cheering on the muddle for second place with Iowa’s Jan. 15 kickoff caucuses just two months away.

Still, there were new positive signs on Monday for Haley, Scott’s South Carolina rival, who had been rising in the Republican contest even before the senator’s sudden announcement.

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmillier, who had given money to Scott, pledged his support for Haley during a Monday interview as he spoke publicly about the 2024 race for the first time. He emphasized the need for the GOP to coalesce behind the former United Nations ambassador before primary voting begins.

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Paul Pelosi testifies about being attacked with a hammer at his San Francisco home

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Paul Pelosi recounted publicly for the first time Monday what happened the night he was attacked by a man in the San Francisco home he shares with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, recalling how shocking it was to see a man standing at his bedroom door, then how the man whacked him in the head with a hammer.

“It was a tremendous sense of shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Pelosi told jurors as he testified in the trial of David DePape, who is shown on video carrying out the attack.

Prosecutors say DePape bludgeoned Pelosi in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2022, just days before the midterm elections, and that he had rope and zip ties with him. DePape has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties.

Defense attorney Jodi Linker told jurors last week that she won’t dispute that DePape attacked Pelosi. Instead, she will argue that DePape believed “with every ounce of his being” that he was taking action to stop government corruption, the erosion of freedom in the United States, and the abuse of children by politicians and actors. She said that means the government’s charges that DePape was trying to retaliate or interfere with Nancy Pelosi’s official duties don’t fit.

Paul Pelosi’s testimony came on the trial’s second day, after prosecutors brought forward FBI agents who collected the electronics DePape was carrying and searched the room he lives in, a U.S. Capitol police officer who watches the surveillance cameras at the Pelosis’ home and another who has protected Nancy Pelosi since 2006, a Bay Area Rapid Transit police sergeant, and a digital forensics expert.

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The Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics, but it has no means of enforcement

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday adopted its first code of ethics, in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices, but the code lacks a means of enforcement.

The policy, agreed to by all nine justices, does not appear to impose any significant new requirements and leaves compliance entirely to each justice.

Indeed, the justices said they have long adhered to ethics standards and suggested that criticism of the court over ethics was the product of misunderstanding, rather than any missteps by the justices.

“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” the justices wrote in an unsigned statement that accompanied the code. “To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”

The ethics issue has vexed the court for several months, over a series of stories questioning the ethical practices of the justices. Many of those stories focused on Justice Clarence Thomas and his failure to disclose travel, other hospitality and additional financial ties with wealthy conservative donors including Harlan Crow and the Koch brothers. But Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor also have been under scrutiny.

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Arson likely caused fire that damaged vital artery of Los Angeles freeway, governor says

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arson was the cause of a massive weekend fire that charred and indefinitely closed a vital section of a Los Angeles freeway, causing major traffic headaches for hundreds of thousands of commuters, California authorities said Monday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said investigators were trying to determine if one person or more were involved. He gave no other details.

“I have to stress that we have determined what started the fire,” Newsom told reporters.

The fire erupted Saturday in two storage lotsf under Interstate 10. Construction materials combusted quickly and the fire grew. It left many columns charred and chipped and the deck guardrails twisted. Crews shored up the most damaged section for the safety of workers clearing the debris. It’s still unclear what structural damage, if any, the blaze caused to the freeway.

Beyond a massive traffic headache, the closure is expected to be felt well beyond the metropolis, including possibly slowing the transport of goods from the twin ports of LA and Long Beach, federal officials have said. The ports handle more than half the goods coming into the country. President Joe Biden had been briefed on the fire.

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Donald Trump Jr. lauds dad’s real estate exploits as ex-president’s civil fraud trial begins defense

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. returned to court Monday as something of a character witness for his father’s real estate empire, waxing exuberantly about the former president’s “incredible vision” and portfolio of “great, iconic projects” at the New York civil fraud trial now threatening his company’s future.

The namesake son made an encore appearance at the Manhattan trial as defense lawyers started calling their own witnesses. Trump Jr. first testified two weeks ago, called in by New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ office, which is suing the Trump family business.

“I’d say it’s good to be here, your honor, but I have a feeling that the attorney general would sue me for perjury if I said that,” he joked Monday before embarking on a detailed and rosy history of the family’s Trump Organization.

James, a Democrat, alleges Donald Trump, his company and top executives, including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., exaggerated his wealth by billions of dollars on his annual financial statements. The documents were given to banks, insurers and others to secure loans and make deals. James is seeking more than $300 million in what she says were ill-gotten gains, and she wants the defendants banned from doing business in New York.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing, and the former president and current Republican front-runner insisted in fiery testimony last week that his company is “the opposite of fraud.” Eric Trump and his sister Ivanka Trump, a former Trump Organization executive and White House adviser, also took the stand.

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Maryanne Trump Barry, the former president’s older sister and a retired federal judge, dies at 86

NEW YORK (AP) — Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge and former President Donald Trump ‘s oldest sister, has died at age 86 at her home in New York.

Until her retirement in 2019, Barry was a senior judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a level below the Supreme Court.

The NYPD confirmed that officers were sent to Barry’s Manhattan home just before 4:30 a.m. and discovered a deceased 86-year-old woman. The cause of death was not immediately clear. Her death was confirmed by a judicial official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the news hadn’t been announced publicly by either the court or Trump’s family.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., spoke briefly about his aunt as he exited a Manhattan courthouse Monday, calling it a “rough day for myself and my family,”

Trump Jr. told reporters after testifying in a civil fraud trial that he had been informed of the news as he pulled up to the courthouse Monday morning.

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Column: F1 learns it overestimated fan demand for Las Vegas, the most expensive race of the year

LAS VEGAS (AP) — There is no such thing as a flawless first-year event, so go ahead and accept that there will be bumps and bruises in Formula One’s $500 million Las Vegas Grand Prix.

The warning signs were as bright as The Sphere when early pricing opened for this week’s extravaganza, the most expensive grand prix to attend on this year’s 24-race calendar.

With multimillion-dollar hospitality packages, exorbitant hotel rates and an initial average “get-in price” of about $2,000, this race was never about attracting new fans to the global motorsports series or growing the American audience. F1 owner Liberty Media clearly viewed a race in Las Vegas as an international showstopper for the highest of the high rollers.

Renee Wilm, CEO of the grand prix, vowed “we will be sold out by the time of the event” on a Nov. 3 earnings call by Formula One Group.

Well, the big race has finally arrived and t ickets are still available, both directly and on a dramatically reduced secondary market. Hotel prices along the Strip have plummeted and all signs suggest first-time F1 race promoter Liberty appears to have grossly overshot the price point for drawing in new fans and spenders.