AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Israeli military says ceasefire agreement in Gaza started at noon local time

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas for the Gaza Strip came into effect at noon local time, the Israeli military said Friday, adding that troops were withdrawing to agreed-upon deployment lines. The announcement came hours after Israel’s Cabinet approved President Donald Trump’s plan for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the release of the remaining hostages and of Palestinian prisoners.

Palestinians reported heavy shelling in parts of Gaza throughout Friday morning.

The Israeli Cabinet’s approval of Trump’s plan marks a key step toward ending a ruinous two-year war that has destabilized the Middle East.

A brief statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office early Friday said the Cabinet approved the “outline” of a deal to release the hostages, without mentioning other aspects of the plan that are more controversial.

An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the withdrawal, said the military would control around 50% of Gaza in their new positions.

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Trump gets long-sought Gaza hostage deal with a whole lot of help from Arab and Muslim allies

WASHINGTON (AP) — After months of gridlock, President Donald Trump finally landed a long-sought Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza — an agreement that only came together after a weekslong diplomacy blitz and a whole lot of help from some Arab and Muslim allies.

The breakthrough is designed to bring about a pause in the fighting unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The group is expected to release 48 hostages — about 20 of them believed to be alive — in the coming days.

The brutal war finally reached a turning point because a badly battered Hamas recognized the hostages had become more of a liability than an asset, according to two senior U.S. officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations.

One of the officials said negotiators, led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, believed they finally had an opening when they sensed that “Hamas had enough.”

Still, the way to an agreement had remained complicated, leaving the U.S. administration in the difficult position of negotiating through a thicket of distrust between Israel and its Middle East neighbors that was in danger of further metastasizing.

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National Guard set to patrol Memphis but blocked in Illinois for 2 weeks

National Guard troops were expected Friday to begin patrolling in Memphis, a day after a federal judge in Illinois blocked the deployment of troops in the Chicago area for at least two weeks.

The on-again, off-again deployments are the result of a political and legal battle over President Donald Trump’s push to send the National Guard to several U.S. cities. His administration claims crime is rampant in those cities, despite statistics not always backing that up.

If a president invokes the Insurrection Act, they can dispatch active duty military in states that fail to put down an insurrection or defy federal law, but the judge in Chicago said Thursday she found no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” is brewing in Illinois during Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The ruling offered a victory for Democratic officials who lead the state and city.

“The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

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FACT FOCUS: Trump paints a grim portrait of Portland. The story on the ground is much less extreme

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump, members of his administration and conservative influencers painted a bleak portrait of Portland, Oregon, at a roundtable event at the White House Wednesday, alleging that the city has been besieged by violence perpetrated by “antifa thugs” and that it is essentially a war zone.

“It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately,” Trump said.

But the reality on the ground in Portland is far from the extremes described at the White House.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP: “In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our offices and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.”

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Russian strikes wound at least 20 in Ukraine’s capital as child killed in separate attack

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drone and missile strikes wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and caused blackouts across swathes of Ukraine early Friday, authorities said. A child was also killed in separate attacks in the southeast of the country.

In the heart of the Ukrainian capital, rescue crews pulled more than 20 people out of a 17-story apartment building as flames engulfed the sixth and seventh floors. Five people were hospitalized, while others received first aid at the scene, authorities said.

The Russian strikes had targeted civilian and energy infrastructure as Ukraine prepared for falling winter temperatures, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.

Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko also described the attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that Friday’s attack knocked out power on both sides of the city, divided by the Dnipro River, while Ukraine’s biggest electricity operator, DTEK, said that repair work was already underway on multiple damaged thermal plants.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James charged in fraud case after pressure campaign by Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted Thursday in a mortgage fraud case that President Donald Trump urged his Justice Department to bring after vowing retribution against some of his biggest political enemies.

James, a Democrat who infuriated Trump after his first term with a lawsuit alleging that he built his business empire on lies about his wealth, was charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home purchase in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020.

The top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, a former Trump aide, personally presented the case to the grand jury weeks after she was thrust into the role amid the administration’s pressure to deliver charges.

The indictment, two weeks after a separate criminal case charging former FBI Director James Comey with lying to Congress, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s norm-busting determination to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to pursue the president’s political foes and public figures who once investigated him.

In a lengthy statement, James decried the indictment as “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.”

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Peru’s Congress removes President Boluarte as a crime wave grips the country

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress voted early Friday to remove deeply unpopular President Dina Boluarte from office as a crime wave grips the South American nation and quickly replaced her with 38-year-old lawyer José Jerí, the legislative body’s leader.

Lawmakers had set up a debate and impeachment trial late Thursday in the 130-member unicameral Congress after voting to accept four requests for a vote to remove Boluarte from office over what they said was her government’s inability to stem crime.

They requested that Boluarte come before them shortly before midnight to defend herself, but when she did not appear they immediately voted to oust her. In short order, 124 lawmakers voted just past midnight to impeach Boluarte. There were no votes against the effort.

The shocking turn of events came just hours after a shooting at a concert in the capital inflamed anger over crime roiling the country.

Unlike eight previous attempts to remove Boluarte, almost all legislative factions expressed support for the latest requests.

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Powerful earthquake off southern Philippines kills 2 people, causes damages and tsunami evacuations

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A 7.4-magnitude earthquake Friday morning off the southern Philippines killed at least two people, damaged a hospital and schools, knocked out power and prompted evacuations of coastal areas nearby due to a tsunami warning, which was later lifted.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., facing his latest natural disaster after a previous earthquake and back-to-back storms, said the potential damage was being assessed and rescue teams and relief operations were being prepared and would be deployed when it was safe to do so.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it was expecting damage and aftershocks from the earthquake, which was centered at sea about 43 kilometers (27 miles) east of Manay town in Davao Oriental province and was caused by movement in the Philippine Trench at a depth of 23 kilometers (14 miles).

At least two people died after being pinned in damaged houses in Davao Oriental, provincial Governor Nelson Dayanghirang Sr. told ABS-CBN News Channel, adding that about 250 patients were evacuated from a damaged hospital and would be temporarily housed in tents.

Office of Civil Defense deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said several buildings sustained cracks in their walls, including an international airport in Davao city, but it remained operational without any flights being canceled, Alejandro said.

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Senators struggle to find a way forward as government shutdown enters ninth day

WASHINGTON (AP) — The consequences of a government shutdown setting in, senators labored Thursday to find a way forward but found themselves struggling to overcome a fundamental lack of trust between the two parties.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Thursday afternoon floated an “off ramp” to the government funding impasse, suggesting that he could hold a later vote on expiring health care subsidies if Democrats would first support a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer quickly dismissed the idea. “It’s nothing new, they say it all the time. It doesn’t do anything to make sure we get health care.”

The exchange showed how congressional leaders remain trapped in a stalemate on the ninth day of the government shutdown despite the growing toll of federal closures. Government offices nationwide have shuttered, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed and U.S. military troops and other government employees are on track to miss a scheduled payday.

Thune’s overture suggested one possible path forward, but it was unclear how serious the offer was or whether it would lead to any real negotiations with Democrats. Still, pressure is growing on congressional leaders to reach a deal as rank-and-file lawmakers grew anxious about the lack of progress on ending the shutdown.

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Hungarian master of absurdist excess László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose surreal and anarchic novels combine a bleak world view with mordant humor, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for work the judges said upholds the power of art in the midst of “apocalyptic terror.”

The Nobel judges said the 71-year-old author, whose novels sometimes consist of just one long sentence, is “a great epic writer” whose work “is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess.”

He’s the first Nobel literature winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002 and joins a list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

“I am calm and very nervous,” Krasznahorkai told Radio Sweden after getting news of the prize, which comes with an award of more than $1 million. “This is the first day in my life when I got a Nobel Prize. I don’t know what’s coming in the future.”

The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” His work has echoes of other European writers who explored the absurd tragicomedy of existence, including Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett.