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

Biden: Netanyahu ‘hurting Israel’ by not preventing more civilian deaths in Gaza

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza.

The U.S. leader expressed support for Israel’s right to pursue Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack, but said of Netanyahu that “he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.” Biden has for months warned that Israel risks losing international support over mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, and the latest remarks in an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart pointed to the increasingly strained relationship between the two leaders.

Biden said of the death toll in Gaza, “it’s contrary to what Israel stands for. And I think it’s a big mistake.”

Biden said a potential Israeli invasion of the Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering, is “a red line” for him, but said he would not cut off weapons like the Iron Dome missile interceptors which protect the Israeli civilian populace from rocket attacks in the region.

“It is a red line,” he said, when asked about Rafah, “but I’m never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.”

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Another top donor says it will resume funding the UN agency for Palestinians as Gaza hunger grows

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Another top donor to the U.N. agency aiding Palestinians said Saturday that it would resume funding, weeks after more than a dozen countries halted hundreds of millions of dollars of support in response to Israeli allegations against the organization.

Sweden’s reversal came as a ship bearing tons of humanitarian aid was preparing to leave Cyprus for Gaza after international donors launched a sea corridor to supply the besieged territory facing widespread hunger after five months of war.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters late Saturday that the ship would depart “within the next 24 hours.” World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés told The Associated Press that all necessary permits, including from Israel, had been secured, and circumstances delaying departure were primarily weather-related.

Sweden’s funding decision followed similar ones by the European Union and Canada as the U.N. agency known as UNRWA warns that it could collapse and leave Gaza’s already desperate population of more than 2 million people with even less medical and other assistance.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is devastating and the needs are acute,” Swedish development minister Johan Forssell said, adding that UNRWA had agreed to increased transparency and stricter controls. Sweden will give UNRWA half of the $38 million funding it promised for this year, with more to come.

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Trump blasts Biden over Laken Riley’s death after Biden says he regrets using term ‘illegal’

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regretted using the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Laken Riley, as his all-but-certain 2024 GOP rival, Donald Trump, blasted the Democrat’s immigration policies and blamed them for her death at a rally attended by the Georgia nursing student’s family and friends.

Biden expressed remorse after facing frustration from some in his party for the use of the term to describe people who arrived or are living in the U.S. illegally.

“I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” he said in an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart taped in Atlanta, where the president was meeting with small business owners and holding a campaign rally.

Trump, campaigning in Rome, Georgia, at the same time, blasted Biden for the comments.

“Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken’s murderer an illegal,” he said to loud jeers and boos. “Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer.”

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Biden, Trump issue dire warnings of the other, as rematch comes into view in Georgia

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump warned of dire consequences for the country if the other wins another term in the White House as the pair held dueling rallies in Georgia Saturday fresh off strong wins in Super Tuesday contests that positioned them for an all-but-certain rematch this November.

The state was a pivotal 2020 battleground — so close four years ago that Trump finds himself indicted here for his push to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn Biden’s victory — and both parties are preparing for another closely contested race in the state this year.

Biden opened his speech at a rally in Atlanta noting that Trump was across the state with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand lawmaker who has gone from the fringes of her party to the fore. “It can tell you a lot about a person who he keeps company with,” Biden said to applause. Biden noted that Trump had hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — who has rolled back democracy in his country — at his Florida club the day before.

“When he says he wants to be a dictator, I believe him,” Biden said of Trump. “Our freedoms are literally on the ballot this November.”

Biden hosted the rally at Pullman Yards, a 27-acre arts and entertainment venue in Atlanta that was formerly an industrial site to receive the endorsement of Collective PAC, Latino Victory Fund and AAPI Victory Fund, a trio of political groups representing, respectively, Black, Latino, and Asian Americans and Pacific Island voters. The groups were announcing a $30 million commitment to mobilize voters on Biden’s behalf.

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5 of her kids were abducted from a Nigerian school. All she has left is hope and prayers

KURIGA, Nigeria (AP) — Rashidat Hamza is in despair. All but one of her six children are among the nearly 300 students abducted from their school in Nigeria’s conflict-battered northwest.

More than two days after her children — ages 7 to 18 — went to school in remote Kuriga town only to be herded away by a band of gunmen, she was still in shock Saturday.

“We have never seen this kind of thing where our children were abducted from their school,” she told an Associated Press team that arrived in the Kaduna State town to report on Thursday’s attack. “We don’t know what to do, but we believe in God.”

The kidnapping in Kuriga was only one of three mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria since late last week, a reminder of the security crisis plaguing Africa’s most populous country. A group of gunmen abducted 15 children from a school in another northwestern state, Sokoto, before dawn Saturday, and a few days earlier 200 people were kidnapped in northeastern Borno State.

It was in Borno’s Chibok town a decade ago that school kidnappings in Nigeria burst into the headlines with the 2014 abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists, shocking the world.

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The US is springing forward to daylight saving. For Navajo and Hopi tribes, it’s a time of confusion

TUBA CITY, Ariz. (AP) — Melissa Blackhair is not eager to spring forward Sunday.

“I’m dreading it. I just don’t want to see how much we have to adjust,” Blackhair said while sitting in her home office in Tuba City on the Navajo Nation, the only area in Arizona that follows daylight saving time. With her husband working during the week in Phoenix, their clocks will vary.

“Everything in our house is set to daylight saving time. It just kind of is an inconvenience because I am having to remember which car is on daylight and which is on standard time,” she said. “My husband will not change our time in our apartment (in Phoenix).”

Those who live on the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation — the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. — endure mind-bending calculations every March through November.

The Navajo Nation, which also stretches into Utah and New Mexico, will reset clocks for one hour later despite being situated between two territories that remain on standard time: the rest of Arizona and the neighboring Hopi reservation.

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DOJ opens criminal investigation into the Alaska Airlines 737 plane blowout, report says

SEATTLE (AP) — The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the Boeing jetliner blowout that left a gaping hole on an Alaska Airlines plane this January, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Citing documents and people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said investigators have contacted some passengers and crew — including pilots and flight attendants — who were on the Jan. 5th flight.

The Boeing plane used by Alaska Airlines suffered the blowout seven minutes after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing. Boeing has been under increased scrutiny since the incident, when a panel that plugged a space left for an extra emergency door blew off a Max 9 jet. There were no serious injuries.

“In an event like this, it’s normal for the DOJ to be conducting an investigation,” Alaska Airlines said in a prepared statement. “We are fully cooperating and do not believe we are a target of the investigation.”

Boeing declined to comment. DOJ did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

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At least 19 dead and 7 missing as landslide and flash floods hit Indonesia’s Sumatra island

PADANG, Indonesia (AP) — Torrential rains have triggered flash floods and a landslide on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 19 people and leaving seven others missing, officials said Sunday.

Tons of mud, rocks and uprooted trees rolled down a mountain late Friday, reaching a river that burst its banks and tore through mountainside villages in Pesisir Selatan district of West Sumatra province, said Doni Yusrizal, who heads the local disaster management agency.

Rescuers by Saturday pulled out seven bodies in the worst-hit village of Koto XI Tarusan, and recovered three others in two neighboring villages, Yusrizal said.

Rescuers retrieved six bodies in Pesisir Selatan and three more in the neighboring district of Padang Pariaman, bringing the death toll to 19, the National Disaster Management Agency said on Sunday.

The agency in a statement said at least two villagers were injured by the flash flood and rescuers are searching for seven people who are reportedly still missing.

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Gangs attack police stations in Haiti as Caribbean leaders call an emergency meeting Monday

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Police and palace guards worked Saturday to retake some streets in Haiti’s capital after gangs launched massive attacks on at least three police stations.

Guards from the National Palace accompanied by an armored truck tried to set up a security perimeter around one of the three downtown stations after police fought off an attack by gangs late Friday.

Sporadic gunfire continued Saturday, and one woman writhed in pain on the sidewalk in downtown Port-au-Prince with a gunshot wound after a stray bullet hit her in the leg.

The unrelenting gang attacks have paralyzed the country for more than a week and left it with dwindling supplies of basic goods. Haitian officials extended a state of emergency and nightly curfew on Thursday as gangs continued to attack key state institutions.

Caribbean leaders issued a call late Friday for an emergency meeting Monday in Jamaica on what they called Haiti’s “dire” situation. They have invited the United States, France, Canada, the U.N. and Brazil to the meeting.

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A family run workshop keeps the legacy of the Mexican fireworks alive despite the danger

TULTEPEC, Mexico (AP) — Every year, in the first week of March, hundreds of giant papier-mâché bulls stuffed with fireworks are erected in the front yards of the Mexican town of Tultepec.

Thousands of restless fingers carefully cut, pasted and painted the colorful patterns that brought the “toritos” to life on Friday, during an annual celebration when the bull-shaped figures were set alight.

Thousands of people gathered to dance and dodge amid the bulls as roman candles and bottle rockets showered them with sparks, and spinners nipped at their legs. Many wore heavy cotton clothes soaked in water to protect themselves against burns.

Unlike past occasions, the nighttime lighting of the bulls didn’t take place in the streets of Tultepec, but rather in an open field nearby.

The crowd packed into the field saw a mix of moments, with some running from angry fire-spitting bulls, like a pyrotechnic version of the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain.