Packed hospitals, treacherous roads, harried parents: Newborns in Gaza face steeper odds of survival

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The birth of their daughter should have marked the beginning of a joyful chapter for the young Palestinian couple.

Instead, the devastating war in Gaza, now in its third month, has turned childbirth and parenthood into a time of worry and fear for Salim and Israa al-Jamala.

First, they endured a perilous journey, dodging missile fire, to reach a maternity ward. And now, the couple is sheltering with their newborn in the partially tented courtyard of another hospital where they can’t care properly for their now 3-week-old daughter, her mother’s namesake.

His wife’s breast milk is not sufficient because she cannot eat enough as a result of widespread food shortages, said the 29-year-old Salim, rocking baby Israa, swaddled in blankets in a crib cobbled together from wood scraps. Baby formula and medicine for the infant’s persistent cough are not available and in any case not affordable.

The war, triggered by a deadly Oct. 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel, has unleashed unimaginable destruction, with more than 18,000 Palestinians killed and close to 50,000 wounded in Israel’s offensive, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza. The initial Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians.

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Israel and US show sharp divisions over mounting casualties and future of war against Hamas

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel and the United States on Tuesday showed their sharpest public disagreement yet over the conduct and future of the war against Hamas as the two allies became increasingly isolated by global calls for a cease-fire.

The dispute emerged while Israeli forces carried out strikes across Gaza, crushing Palestinians in homes.

President Joe Biden said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” and that Netanyahu should change his government, which is dominated by hard-right parties.

Just hours later, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a humanitarian cease-fire by a vote of 153 in favor, 10 against and 23 abstentions. The non-binding vote is largely symbolic, but it serves as an important barometer of world opinion. None of the major powers joined Israel and the United States in their opposition to the cease-fire.

Biden’s comments came as the White House national security adviser heads to Israel this week to discuss with Netanyahu a timetable for the war — and what happens if Hamas is defeated. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will travel to Israel next week for a visit the Pentagon said aims to show U.S. support for Israel but also to press the need to avoid more civilian casualties in Gaza.

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Zelenskyy pleads for Ukraine aid at Capitol and White House, says to US: Our fight is yours

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told America his country was fighting for “our freedom and yours” as he made an impassioned plea Tuesday for Congress to approve more assistance to fight Russia’s invasion.

But prospects for additional U.S. aid to Ukraine appeared seriously delayed, if not in grave doubt, despite his whirlwind diplomacy in Washington.

After hours of talks on Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy spent more hours at the White House meeting with President Joe Biden and his aides about a way forward. The U.S. has already provided Ukraine $111 billion since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his grinding invasion more than 21 months ago, but Republicans are insisting on linking any more money to strict U.S.-Mexico border security changes that Democrats decry.

The White House is warning that if new money isn’t provided by year’s end it will have swift consequences for Ukraine’s capacity to hold its territory, let alone take back land captured by Russia.

As Zelenskyy wrapped up his two-day visit to Washington, it was unclear if he had been able to shake up the political stalemate over aid –- though negotiations swiftly resumed at the Capitol and key Senate negotiators emerged saying they had made progress. He sought to make the case that supporting his country’s fight for its territorial integrity is about far more than Ukraine.

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Kate Cox sought an abortion in Texas. A court said no because she didn’t show her life was in danger

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Kate Cox, whose fetus had a fatal condition, did not qualify for an abortion in Texas: not after four emergency room visits, elevated vital signs, risks of a uterine rupture and with her ability to have more children in jeopardy.

The Texas Supreme Court’s rejection of the mother of two’s request for an exception under the state’s restrictive ban has laid bare the high threshold women in many states must meet to get the procedure: pregnancy complications that pose life-threatening danger to the mother.

“These laws reflect the policy choice that the Legislature has made, and the courts must respect that choice,” the court’s nine Republican justices said in their ruling late Monday.

The state’s Republican attorney general had for a week argued that Cox did not meet the standard for an exception, despite appeals from her attorneys that her health was deteriorating. Hours before the order came down, Cox’s attorney said she could no longer wait for the procedure and had already left Texas to get an abortion in another state.

The decision galled doctors and opponents who say it underscored how, even though such bans allow abortions to save a mother’s life, the laws are vague on how close to death a patient must be to get the procedure. Fourteen states have banned abortion at nearly all stages of pregnancy since the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health, which upended the right to an abortion.

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New, stronger climate proposal released at COP28, but doesn’t quite call for fossil fuel phase-out

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new compromise floated early Wednesday at United Nations COP28 climate talks called for the world to eventually wean itself off planet-warming fossil fuels in a global rallying cry stronger than proposed days earlier.

The new proposal doesn’t specifically use the language of calling for a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, which more than 100 nations had pleaded for. Instead, it calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade.” The transition would be in a way that gets the world to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 and follows the dictates of climate science. It projects a world peaking its ever-growing carbon pollution by the year 2025 to reach its agreed upon threshold, but gives wiggle room to individual nations like China to peak later.

Intensive sessions with all sorts of delegates went well into the small hours of Wednesday morning after the conference presidency’s initial document angered many countries by avoiding decisive calls for action on curbing warming. Then, the United Arab Emirates-led presidency presented delegates from nearly 200 nations a new central document — called the global stocktake — just after sunrise.

It’s the third version presented in about two weeks and the word “oil” does not appear anywhere in the 21-page document. It mentions “fossil fuels” twice, but Alden Meyer, a veteran climate negotiations analyst at the European think-tank E3G said that if approved it would be somewhat of a first mention of fossil fuels in context of getting rid of them.

The aim of the global stocktake is to help nations align their national climate plans with the 2015 Paris agreement that calls to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Earth is on its way to smashing the record for hottest year, endangering human health and leading to ever more costly and deadly extreme weather.

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Harvard board keeps president as leader of Ivy League school following antisemitism backlash

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain leader of the prestigious Ivy League school following her comments last week at a congressional hearing on antisemitism, the university’s highest governing body announced Tuesday.

“Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing,” the Harvard Corporation said in a statement following its meeting Monday.

Only months into her leadership, Gay came under intense scrutiny following the hearing in which she and two of her peers struggled to answer questions about campus antisemitism in the wake of the latest Israel-Hamas war, which erupted in early October. Their academic responses provoked backlash from Republican opponents, along with alumni and donors who say the university leaders are failing to stand up for Jewish students on their campuses.

Some lawmakers and donors to the university had called for Gay to step down, following the resignation of Liz Magill as president of the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday.

On Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania announced it had selected an interim president to replace Magill, naming Dr. J. Larry Jameson, who has served as executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the Perelman School of Medicine since 2011.

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DeSantis’ campaign and allied super PAC face new concerns about legal conflicts, AP sources say

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Ron DeSantis has visited each of Iowa’s 99 counties. He has the endorsement of the governor and boasts the largest get-out-the-vote operation in the state. And he has predicted victory in Iowa’s Jan. 15 caucuses.

But as the Florida governor works to project strength in the Republican primary and cut into former President Donald Trump’s huge lead, DeSantis’ expansive political machine is facing a churn of leadership, stagnant polling numbers and new concerns about potential legal conflicts.

Specifically, there has been concern in recent weeks among some within DeSantis’ operation that interactions between his campaign and his network of outside groups are blurring the lines of what’s legally permissible.

Multiple people familiar with DeSantis’ political network said that he and his wife had expressed concerns about the messaging of Never Back Down, the largest super PAC supporting the governor’s campaign, in recent months as his Iowa polling numbers stagnated in late summer and autumn.

The governor and his wife, Casey, who is widely considered his top political adviser, were especially frustrated after the group took down a television ad last month that criticized leading Republican rival Nikki Haley for allowing a Chinese manufacturer into South Carolina when she was governor.

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Georgia election worker suing Rudy Giuliani tells jurors that his lies made her fear for her life

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scared for her life after Rudy Giuliani and other Donald Trump allies falsely accused her of fraud, former Georgia election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss told jurors Tuesday she seldom leaves her home, suffers from panic attacks and battles nightmares brought on by a barrage of threatening and racist messages.

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss took the witness stand on the second day of the defamation trial that will determine how much the former New York City mayor will have to pay Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, for spreading a conspiracy theory that they rigged the state’s 2020 election results. Moss noted that Giuliani just a day earlier — after the trial began — repeated the false claims about her and her mother, saying they were “engaged in changing votes.”

“I personally cannot repair my reputation at the moment because your client is still lying on me and ruining my reputation further,” she told Giuliani’s lawyer.

She sobbed as she testified that her life was turned upside down by the accusations, though they were quickly debunked by state officials. Her attorneys displayed a few of the graphic messages accusing her of treason and more that she received after Giuliani in December 2020 falsely accused workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta of tampering with ballots.

Moss told jurors that she was a bubbly, outgoing person before the conspiracy theories began, but since then she’s been stuck in a lonely cycle of crying and nightmares.

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Argentina sharply devalues its currency and cuts subsidies as part of shock economic measures

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina on Tuesday announced a sharp devaluation of its currency and cuts to energy and transportation subsidies as part of shock measures new President Javier Milei says are needed to deal with an economic emergency.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a televised message the Argentine peso will be devalued by 50% to 800 to the U.S. dollar from 400 pesos to the dollar.

“For a few months, we’re going to be worse than before,” Caputo said, two days after the libertarian Milei was sworn in as president of the second largest economy in South America and immediately warned of tough measures.

Milei has said the country didn’t have time to consider other alternatives.

Argentina is suffering 143% annual inflation, its currency has plunged and four in 10 Argentines are impoverished. The nation has also a yawning fiscal deficit, a trade deficit of $43 billion, plus a daunting $45 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, with $10.6 billion due to the multilateral and private creditors by April.

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Andre Braugher, Emmy-winning actor who starred in ‘Homicide’ and ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine,’ dies at 61

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Andre Braugher, the Emmy-winning actor who would master gritty drama for seven seasons on “Homicide: Life on The Street” and modern comedy for eight on “Brooklyn 99,” died Monday at 61.

Braugher died after a brief illness, his publicist Jennifer Allen told The Associated Press. No further details were given.

The Chicago-born actor would establish himself in the role of Det. Frank Pembleton, the lead role on “Homicide: Life on the Street,” a dark police drama based on a book by David Simon, who would go on to create “The Wire.” The show, which focused on the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, ran for seven seasons on NBC, and would win critical acclaim with Braugher as its dramatic center and breakout star.

He would win his first career Emmy for the role, taking the trophy for lead actor in a drama series in 1998.

He feared he would be typecast after spending most of the 1990s as the brooding detective.