AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Netanyahu says he has told US he opposes Palestinian state in any postwar scenario
JERUSALEM (AP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected U.S. calls to scale back Israel´s military offensive in the Gaza Strip or take steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war, drawing an immediate scolding from the White House.
The tense back and forth reflected what has become a wide rift between the two allies over the scope of Israel´s war and its plans for the future of the beleaguered territory.
"We obviously see it differently," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Netanyahu spoke just a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel would never have "genuine security" without a pathway toward Palestinian independence. Earlier this week, the White House also announced that it was the "right time" for Israel to lower the intensity of its devastating military offensive in Gaza.
In a nationally televised news conference, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, repeatedly saying that Israel would not halt its offensive until it realizes its goals of destroying Gaza´s Hamas militant group and bringing home all remaining hostages held by Hamas.
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The police response to the Uvalde shooting was riddled with failures, a new DOJ report says
UVALDE, Texas (AP) - Police officials who responded to the deadly Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting waited far too long to confront the gunman, acted with "no urgency" in establishing a command post and communicated inaccurate information to grieving families, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday that identifies "cascading failures" in law enforcement's handling of the massacre.
The Justice Department report, the most comprehensive federal accounting of the maligned police response to the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, catalogs a sweeping array of training, communication, leadership and technology problems that federal officials say contributed to the crisis lasting far longer than necessary. All the while, the report says, terrified students inside the classrooms called 911 and agonized parents begged officers to go in.
"Had law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in active shooter situations and gone right after the shooter and stopped him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived," Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday at a news conference in Uvalde after Justice Department officials briefed family members on their findings. The Uvalde victims, he said, "deserved better."
Even for a mass shooting that has already been the subject of intense scrutiny and in-depth examinations - an earlier report by Texas lawmakers, for instance, faulted law enforcement at every level with failing "to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety" - the nearly 600-page Justice Department report adds to the public understanding of how officers failed to stop an attack that killed 19 children and two staff members.
The flawed initial response was compounded in the following days by an ineptitude that added to family members' anguish, according to the report.
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What to know about the Justice Department's report on police failures in the Uvalde school shooting
A Justice Department report released Thursday details a myriad of failures by police who responded to the shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, when children waited desperately for over an hour before officers stormed a classroom to take the gunman down.
The federal review, which was launched just days after the May 2022 shooting, provides a damning look at the missteps by police after a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School. It was not a criminal investigation but one of the most exhaustive reviews of law enforcement's failure to stop the attack. Nineteen students and two teachers died in the shooting.
"The victims and survivors of the shooting at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022, deserved better," Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters in Uvalde.
Local officials are still weighing whether to bring charges.
Here are some of the major takeaways from the report:
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Congress votes to avert a shutdown and keep the government funded into early March
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress sent President Joe Biden a short-term spending bill on Thursday that would avert a looming partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies into March.
The House approved the measure by a vote of 314-108, with opposition coming mostly from the more conservative members of the Republican conference. Shortly before the vote, the House Freedom Caucus announced it "strongly opposes" the measure because it would facilitate more spending than they support.
Nevertheless, about half of Republicans joined with Democrats in passing the third stopgap funding measure in recent months. The action came a few hours after the Senate had voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill by a vote of 77-18.
The measure extends current spending levels and buys time for the two chambers to work out their differences over full-year spending bills for the fiscal year that began in October.
The temporary measure will run to March 1 for some federal agencies. Their funds were set to run out Friday. It extends the remainder of government operations to March 8.
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Hunter Biden agrees to deposition with House Republican after months of defiance, committee says
WASHINGTON (AP) - Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president's son, who had insisted on testifying publicly.
The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that the two parties have agreed for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on Feb. 28.
"His deposition will come after several interviews with Biden family members and associates," Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary panel, said in a statement. "We look forward to Hunter Biden´s testimony."
A request for comment from Hunter Biden's attorneys was not immediately returned.
Republicans had been set to advance a contempt resolution against him to the House floor this week but called it off Tuesday to give the attorneys additional time to negotiate.
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Pakistani retaliatory strikes in Iran kill at least 9, raising tensions along border
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan launched airstrikes against alleged militant hideouts inside Iran on Thursday, killing at least nine people as it retaliated for a similar attack days earlier by Iran and raising tensions with its neighbor as conflict across the region escalates.
The unprecedented attacks by both Pakistan and Iran on either side of their border appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals. The countries accuse each other of providing a haven to the groups in their respective territories.
The flare-up between Iran and Pakistan comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by Israel´s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and on the heels of Iranian airstrikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria. Those airstrikes were in response to a suicide bombing in Iran by Islamic State militants in early January that killed over 90 people.
Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks, but analysts say this week's tit-for-tat strikes were at least partially prompted by internal political pressures.
Iran is dealing with unrest against its theocracy and has faced pressure for action ever since the Islamic State suicide bombing. It is also seeking to flex military power at a time when militant groups it supports in the region - Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen - are engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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US forces strike Houthi sites in Yemen as Biden says allied action hasn't yet stopped ship attacks
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. forces on Thursday conducted a fifth strike against Iranian-backed Houthi rebel military sites in Yemen as President Joe Biden acknowledged that the American and British bombardment had yet to stop the militants' attacks on vessels in the Red Sea that have disrupted global shipping.
The latest strikes destroyed two Houthi anti-ship missiles that "were aimed into the southern Red Sea and prepared to launch," U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. They were conducted by Navy F/A-18 fighter aircraft, the Pentagon said.
Biden said the U.S. would continue the strikes, even though so far they have not stopped the Houthis from continuing to harass commercial and military vessels.
"When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis, no. Are they going to continue, yes," Biden said in an exchange with reporters before departing the White House for a domestic policy speech in North Carolina.
Biden's comments followed another significant round of strikes Wednesday night, when the U.S. military fired another wave of ship- and submarine-launch missile strikes against 14 Houthi-controlled sites. The strikes were launched from the Red Sea and hit 14 missiles that the command also had deemed an imminent threat.
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Potential problems with New Hampshire´s aging ballot scanners could prompt conspiracy theories
When New Hampshire voters cast their ballots in Tuesday´s first-in-the-nation primary, many will do so using scanners that are at least 15 years old - with some potentially dating back to Bill Clinton´s presidency.
Election experts say the aging AccuVote ballot tabulators in use across roughly half the state´s towns and cities don´t pose additional security risks. The concern is their age.
With a dwindling supply of replacement parts, breakdowns could create Election Day headaches for local election officials, who might be forced to count ballots by hand - a process that could delay reporting their results. Malfunctions and ballot-counting delays in other states in recent years have sometimes been used to promote conspiracy theories that undermine public confidence in the vote, despite no evidence of any widespread problems with voting machines.
Franklin, a small city about 20 miles north of the state capital, has no wiggle room if something goes awry with its scanners.
"We have three machines and three polling places. That´s it, no backup," said Olivia Zink, a member of the Franklin City Council who also is executive director of the voter advocacy group Coalition for Open Democracy. "If one goes down, we hand count."
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Anti-abortion activists brace for challenges ahead as they gather for annual March for Life
A year ago, anti-abortion activists from across the U.S. gathered for their annual March for Life with reason to celebrate: It was their first march since the Supreme Court, seven months earlier, had overturned the nationwide right to abortion.
At this year´s march, on Friday, the mood will be very different - reflecting formidable challenges that lie ahead in this election year.
"We have undeniable evidence of victory - lives being saved," said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. "But there is also a realization of the significant hurdles that our movement has right now in the public conversation."
Participants at the march in Washington will salute the 14 states enforcing bans on abortion throughout pregnancy. They will proclaim that thousands of babies have been born who otherwise might have been aborted, even as studies show the total number of abortions provided in the U.S. rose slightly in the year after that enforcement began.
Moreover, anti-abortion leaders know that their side has a seven-state losing streak in votes on abortion-related ballot measures. Even in red states such as Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky, the outcomes favored keeping abortion access legal.
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Wastewater tests can find mpox, study finds. Expect more bugs to be tracked that way
NEW YORK (AP) - Wastewater testing does a good job at detecting mpox infections, U.S. health officials said in a report Thursday that bolsters a push to use sewage to track more diseases.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers found that over the course of a week, there was a 32% likelihood the tests would detect the presence of at least one person infected with mpox in a population ranging from thousands to millions.
Amy Kirby, who oversees the CDC´s wastewater surveillance work, said initially they didn't know if the tests would work for a rare infection like mpox.
"It turns out it worked really very well," she said.
The chance that the tests could detect infections rose as more people were infected. When there were 15 or more people infected in a community, there was a 76% chance wastewater testing could find mpox.
