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

Trump wins New Hampshire primary as rematch with Biden appears increasingly likely

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump easily won New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, seizing command of the race for the Republican nomination and making a November rematch against President Joe Biden feel all the more inevitable.

The result was a setback for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who finished second despite investing significant time and financial resources in a state famous for its independent streak. She’s the last major challenger after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his presidential bid over the weekend, allowing her to campaign as the sole alternative to Trump.

Trump’s allies ramped up pressure on Haley to leave the race before the polls had closed, but Haley vowed after the results were announced to continue her campaign. Speaking to supporters, she intensified her criticism of the former president, questioning his mental acuity and pitching herself as a unifying candidate who would usher in generational change.

“This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go,” Haley said, while some in the crowd cried, “It’s not over!”

Trump, meanwhile, can now boast of being the first Republican presidential candidate to win open races in Iowa and New Hampshire since both states began leading the election calendar in 1976, a striking sign of how rapidly Republicans have rallied around him to make him their nominee for the third consecutive time.

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Trump rides to New Hampshire victory on the strength of support from the GOP base, AP VoteCast shows

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump had rock-solid support from New Hampshire Republicans in his primary victory Tuesday, with even most backers of rival Nikki Haley acknowledging the GOP belongs to him.

Yet as Trump’s hold on securing the party’s nomination tightened, AP VoteCast found that some voters express concerns that he is too extreme to compete in the November general election. Some also worry about his legal peril in a trio of pending criminal trials.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and a U.N. ambassador under Trump, performed relatively better with college graduates and moderates, a possible sign that Trump has yet to expand his political base.

The survey found signs that primary voters on the Democratic side rallied around President Joe Biden. He won in New Hampshire with strong support on the economy, but many have concerns about his age – he is 81 — and his handling of the situation in the Middle East.

Only weeks into 2024, voters have already shown an awareness of Trump’s strengths and liabilities. But even as the coronavirus, the major challenge during the 2020 election, has faded from public view, the cultural and social forces of that Biden-Trump matchup have hardened in ways that are testing the country’s sense of itself.

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Rifts within Israel resurface as war in Gaza drags on. Some want elections now

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Ever since Israel was attacked on Oct. 7, a main Israeli highway has been flanked by billboards preaching national unity and a ubiquitous wartime slogan: “Together we will win.”

But lately those billboards have been replaced with a starkly different message: a call for immediate elections.

The mood of the Israeli public is shifting after more than 100 days of war in Gaza – and the catalyst is a rift over the polarizing leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israelis stunned by the brutal Hamas attack initially put aside their differences and rallied behind the war effort. Now old divisions that could alter the course of the war are reemerging.

As the death toll among Israeli soldiers keeps rising, and with dozens of hostages still in Gaza and Hamas still standing, more Israelis are vocally pushing back against Netanyahu and his government. The public is also increasingly divided over whether the military can simultaneously achieve Netanyahu’s stated goals of destroying Hamas and freeing all the hostages.

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21 Israeli troops are killed in the deadliest attack on the military since the Gaza offensive began

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian militants carried out the deadliest single attack on Israeli forces in Gaza since the Hamas raid that triggered the war, killing 21 soldiers, the military said Tuesday, a significant setback that could add to mounting calls for a cease-fire.

Hours later, the military announced that ground forces had encircled the southern city of Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest, and thick, black smoke could be seen rising over the city as thousands of Palestinians fled south. Witnesses said Israeli tanks and troops had also moved into Muwasi, a nearby coastal area that the military had previously declared a safe zone for Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the Israeli soldiers, who died when the blast from a rocket-propelled grenade triggered explosives they were laying to blow up buildings. But he vowed to press ahead until “absolute victory,” including crushing Hamas and freeing more than 100 Israeli hostages still held by the militants.

Israelis are increasingly questioning whether it’s possible to achieve those war aims.

In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, outraged Israelis set aside long simmering political differences and rallied behind the war. More than 100 days later, divisions are re-emerging, and anger is growing over Netanyahu’s conduct of the war. Families of the hostages have called for Israel to reach a deal with Hamas, saying time is running out to bring their relatives home alive.

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Man suspected of killing 8 people in suburban Chicago was related to most of the victims, police say

CHICAGO (AP) — A man suspected of shooting and killing eight people in suburban Chicago this weekend was related to most of the victims, authorities said Tuesday, a day after the 23-year-old fatally shot himself during a confrontation with law enforcement in Texas.

The Illinois authorities provided a clearer timeline of the shootings on Tuesday, saying they believe all eight people killed and a ninth person wounded were shot Sunday and Romeo Nance fled the area by that evening. But they told reporters there is no evidence of a motive yet for the killings.

“We can’t get inside his head,” Joliet Police Chief Bill Evans told reporters. “We just don’t have any clue as to why he did what he did.”

Investigators believe Nance first shot seven people at two relatives’ homes in the city of Joliet on Sunday, then fired randomly at two men — one outside an apartment building and another on a residential street, Joliet and Will County officials said Tuesday.

Police said they had not yet determined the victims’ exact relationships to Nance.

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Turkey’s parliament approves Sweden’s NATO membership, lifting a key hurdle

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish legislators on Tuesday endorsed Sweden’s membership in NATO, lifting a major hurdle on the previously nonaligned country’s entry into the military alliance.

Lawmakers ratified Sweden’s accession protocol 287 to 55, with ruling party members saying the Nordic country’s tougher stance on Kurdish militants was key to winning approval. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also previously has linked the ratification to Turkey’s desire to buy fighter jets from the U.S.

The ratification comes into effect after its publication in the Official Gazette, which was expected to be swift.

Hungary then becomes the only NATO ally not to have ratified Sweden’s accession.

“Today we are one step closer to becoming a full member of NATO,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. In Washington, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan welcomed the news, saying having Sweden in the alliance will make it “safer and stronger.”

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With Oregon facing rampant public drug use, lawmakers backpedal on pioneering decriminalization law

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Democratic lawmakers in Oregon on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping new bill that would undo a key part of the state’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law, a recognition that public opinion has soured on the measure amid rampant public drug use during the fentanyl crisis.

The bill would recriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs as a low-level misdemeanor, enabling police to confiscate them and crack down on their use on sidewalks and in parks, its authors said. It also aims to make it easier to prosecute dealers, to access addiction treatment medication, and to obtain and keep housing without facing discrimination for using that medication.

“It’s the compromise path, but also the best policy that we can come up with to make sure that we are continuing to keep communities safe and save lives,” state Sen. Kate Lieber, a Portland Democrat, told The Associated Press.

Voters passed the pioneering decriminalization law, Measure 110, with 58% support in 2020. But Democratic legislators who championed it as a way to treat addiction as a public health matter, not a crime, are now contending with one of the nation’s largest spikes in overdose deaths, along with intensifying pressure from Republicans and growing calls from a well-funded campaign group to overhaul it.

Researchers say it’s too soon to determine whether the law has contributed to the state’s deadly overdose surge, and supporters of the measure say the decadeslong approach of arresting people for possessing and using drugs didn’t work.

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Adrian Beltré, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame

NEW YORK (AP) — Todd Helton thought back to when he was a kid being coached by his father, Jerry, a minor league catcher in the 1960s.

“When I would go 1 for 3 — and it’s a bad day when you’re young — he’d say 1 for 3 gets you into the Hall of Fame,” Helton said.

Helton, Adrián Beltré and Joe Mauer were voted into Cooperstown on Tuesday, feeling elation and relief when they were rewarded with baseball’s highest honor.

Beltré was a no-doubt, first-ballot choice after batting .286 with 477 homers, 1,707 RBIs and 3,166 hits for four teams over 21 seasons. The third baseman appeared on 366 of 385 ballots (95.1%) cast by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Helton made it on the sixth try, voters taking time to warm to statistics inflated by the thin mile-high air of Denver’s Coors Field over 17 seasons, all with the Colorado Rockies. The first baseman got 307 votes for 79.7% after falling 11 short last year when Scott Rolen was elected. Helton started at 16.5% support in 2019.

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Greta Gerwig snubbed for best director and other Oscar nominations surprises

Cue all the “did ‘Barbie’ direct itself” snark. But Greta Gerwig not being among the five best director nominees for this year’s Oscars is one of the biggest shocks in recent memory. Here are some other major “snubs” and “surprises” from Oscar nomination morning.

If we knew anything going into Oscar nominations morning, it was that Gerwig was obviously going to be nominated for directing “Barbie.” It was that rarest of things, a critically praised original blockbuster (about a woman to boot) that became the highest earner of the year by a wide margin and was a legitimate cultural phenomenon. Gerwig was previously nominated for best director for “Lady Bird,” and missing out for “Little Women” was even a snub. Unfortunately many will likely point to Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”) for taking Gerwig’s spot, but let’s not pit two great female directors against one another. If it’s any consolation to Gerwig, last year’s blockbuster directors were also shut out of this category — neither James Cameron (“Avatar: The Way of Water”) nor Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”) made it in.

Even with her years of service to the academy, Ava DuVernay could see the writing on the wall: “Origin” was completely overlooked by her fellow members, most upsettingly for Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s leading performance as Isabel Wilkerson. It’s not a secret that the Oscars have a bad track record with Black female directors — remember last year how Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” was also shut out? DuVernay’s “Selma” remains the only best picture nominee directed by a Black woman. And Halle Berry will for another year continue to be the only Black woman to ever win best actress, as “The Color Purple’s” Fantasia Barrino also missed out on a nomination.

Someone tell Charles Melton’s mom to get a comforting batch of her kimchi going ASAP. The “May December” actor was not nominated for his heartbreaking performance as the unknowing victim of an older woman’s grooming. The surprise inclusion in this category was Sterling K. Brown for “American Fiction.” “May December” did not do well at all, getting only one nomination for screenwriter Samy Burch.

“Barbie’s” chaos didn’t stop with Gerwig’s exclusion from best director. Margot Robbie was not among the lead actress nominees Tuesday morning but her co-star America Ferrera, of that now-famous monologue, made it into supporting. Robbie did snag one nomination for the film, as producer in the best picture category.

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Charles Osgood, CBS host on TV and radio and network’s poet-in-residence, dies at age 91

NEW YORK (AP) — Charles Osgood, a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist who anchored “CBS Sunday Morning” for more than two decades, hosted the long-running radio program “The Osgood File” and was referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence, has died. He was 91.

CBS reported that Osgood died Tuesday at his home in Saddle River, New Jersey, and that the cause was dementia, according to his family.

Osgood was an erudite, warm broadcaster with a flair for music who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news. He worked radio and television with equal facility, and signed off by telling listeners: “I’ll see you on the radio.”

“To say there’s no one like Charles Osgood is an understatement,” Rand Morrison, executive producer of “Sunday Morning,” said in a statement. “He embodied the heart and soul of ‘Sunday Morning.’ … At the piano, Charlie put our lives to music. Truly, he was one of a kind — in every sense.”

“CBS News Sunday Morning” will honor Osgood with a special broadcast on Sunday.