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DIARY: Under siege by Hamas militants, a hometown and the lives within it are scarred forever

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — There’s a saying among us videojournalists: May the news stay far from your home. But on Saturday, Oct. 7, it came terrifyingly close to my hometown.While I live in Jerusalem, where I work as a cameraman for The Associated Press, I was raised in Ofakim, a city a half-hour drive from the border with Gaza. My mother, parents-in-law and siblings still call it home. I met my wife there.It was a tight-knit and safe community, made up of some 13,000 working-class Jews of North African descent. Everybody knew everybody.When hundreds of militants poured over the border from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel that Saturday, I was staying with my wife’s parents, marking the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, a jubilant festival that will from now on be remembered as the country’s darkest day.We were awakened by air raid sirens at 6:30 a.m. The smell of hamin, a traditional slow-cooked Jewish meat and bean stew, had begun to fill the house. My wife, her parents and I rushed to ...

Colombian president’s statements on Gaza jeopardize close military ties with Israel

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Escalating tensions between Colombia and Israel over the Gaza war could undo decades of close military ties between them and hamper Colombia’s ability to fight drug traffickers and rebels, security analysts say.Israel has been one of Colombia’s main suppliers of war planes, surveillance equipment and assault rifles since the 1990s. But on Sunday its foreign ministry announced a suspension of defense exports to Colombia, after President Gustavo Petro refused to condemn Hamas’ attack on Israel and compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany.Analysts in Bogota say that the suspension could jeopardize several contracts, including a $5 million deal between Colombia’s Defense Ministry and Israeli company IAI to maintain Colombia’s ageing fleet of Kfir fighter jets.Colombia’s government also recently hired an Israeli company to outfit two Boeing 737’s with electronic warfare equipment and intelligence tools that can help the military jam communi...

Ruins and memories of a paradise lost in an Israeli village where attackers killed, kidnapped dozens

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

KIBBUTZ NIR OZ, Israel (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Hamas militants left his village scorched and shattered, Shachar Butler returned to bury a friend who was slain. But it was the town itself, a quarter of its residents dead or missing, that he eulogized.“It was the happiest place alive. It was a green place, with animals and birds and kids running around,” Butler said Thursday, standing in a landscape of ransacked homes and bullet-riddled cars, the heat thick with the odor of death.“They burned the houses while the people were inside,” said Butler, a father of three who spent hours trading gunfire with militants on Oct. 7. “The people who came out are the people who got kidnapped, killed, executed, slaughtered. … It’s unimaginable. It’s just unimaginable.”Nir Oz is one of more than 20 towns and villages in southern Israel that were ambushed in the sweeping assault by Hamas launched from the embattled Gaza Strip. In many, the devastation left behind is shocking. But eve...

Cooler Weekend with gusty winds; Winter 2023-24 Outlook & Tropical Update

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

While no sunshine was observed at the city's south side site near Midway Airport Thursday, partial sunshine is expected to break out Friday afternoon. October sunshine thus far has been subpar.Gusty winds at time will prevail into the coming weekend Significant pattern change early next week to bring a round of unseasonably mild temperatures Periods of strong winds into the coming weekend to kick up quite a chop on Lake Michigan

Third Republican to challenge Angie Craig for 2nd Congressional District seat

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig has picked up another Republican challenger: Joe Teirab, a Marine Corps veteran, former federal prosecutor and Harvard Law School graduate.Teirab, 36, is running for the Republican nomination in Minnesota’s 2nd District, which is swing territory that includes Twin Cities suburbs south of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers.“I’m running for Congress to fight for safer communities, to put an end to Bidenomics that has made life unaffordable for too many families, to get our debt and deficit under control and to ensure safety and prosperity for all Minnesotans,” Teirab said in a statement Tuesday.Teirab was born in the Twin Cities but grew up in Windom in southwestern Minnesota. He served over four years on active duty as an officer in the Marine Corps, including a deployment to Iraq. He is the son of a Sudanese immigrant. His campaign says he lives in Burnsville. Property records show he owns a home in Minnetonka, which is not in the district, though ...

Wild still puzzled over phantom goal that turned tide in 7-3 loss to Kings

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

With Halloween less than two weeks away, maybe it was fitting that the Minnesota Wild were undone Thursday by a phantom goal.Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice in the last minute of the first period to break a 2-2 tie, the first of which he appeared to have kicked through Marc-Andre Fleury’s legs, and Minnesota never recovered in a 7-3 loss at Xcel Energy Center.“We’ve gotta be better at being resilient and not letting that get to us,” head coach Dean Evason.Connor Dewar, Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek scored for the Wild, and Fleury stopped 21 of 26 shots. The Kings’ last two goals were empty netters after Evason pulled Fleury with more than 2 minutes to play.But it was Dubois’ first goal that seemed to turn the tide — he scored a second 12 seconds later to put the Wild down 4-2 heading into the first intermission — and the Wild still weren’t convinced Dubois didn’t kick that puck past Fleury.“I didn’t feel it hit my stick,” Dewar said. “I don’t know if it hit Brock (Faber’s), bu...

Nuggets preseason finale takeaways: Bones Hyland revenge game accentuates transition defense troubles

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

LOS ANGELES — The Nuggets defeated the Clippers 103-90 in their preseason finale Thursday night with the starters playing into the second half. Los Angeles rested its starters after playing them Tuesday.Here are three takeaways from the win.Bones on a missionThe Nuggets somewhat unwittingly allowed this to turn into the Bones Hyland revenge game … until he had to be helped off the court with a leg injury with 5:36 remaining in the third quarter, anyway. Before tip, Michael Malone called Denver’s transition defense “embarrassing” in the first Clippers game, which he watched remotely.Hyland compounded the problem, buzzing from end to end with the audacity of his new teammate Russell Westbrook. A number of Nuggets struggled to cover him when he had the ball, even lengthier matchups like Peyton Watson. Malone called a timeout, fuming, in the second quarter after one of Hyland’s easy transition buckets off a Denver miss. The ex-Nugget shot 10 for 15 with 25 ...

Long Beach police release new suspect info in 2018 murder of grandfather at family reunion

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

The Long Beach Police Department is asking for the public's help after new information came to light regarding a 2018 killing of a man shot in the back of the head inside a public restroom.Fred Taft, 57, was fatally shot when he went to use the restrooms at Pan American Park during a family reunion on July 21, 2018.At the time, the suspect was described as a white man in his 50s, who was last seen fleeing the park on foot.The slaying of Taft set off protests by family members and others alleging that the grandfather was targeted because he was Black, describing the brutal homicide as a hate crime.This sketch depicts the alleged suspect in the July 21, 2018, killing of Fred Taft in Long Beach. (Long Beach Police Department)But police have repeatedly said there was not enough evidence to definitively say the crime was racially motivated.On Thursday, more than five years after Taft's killing, the Long Beach Police Department held a press conference in which officials announced new inve...

Authorities apprehend incarcerated man who walked away from reentry program

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

Authorities have located and arrested an inmate who walked away from a reentry program in Kern County Thursday morning.Demetrius Branson, 50, was reported missing from the Male Community Reentry Program facility around 11 a.m. after he apparently removed his GPS monitoring device while visiting the Department of Motor Vehicles.A news release issued by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation described Branson as being 5 feet 11 inches, 181 pounds with brown eye and black and gray hair. Not long after that release was sent out, CDCR announced that Branson had been apprehended that same day around 5:40 p.m. in Bakersfield.He's since been transported to North Kern State Prison and is likely to face new charges related to his escape.According to CDCR, Branson was moved to the reentry program in April to serve the remained of a four-year, eight-month sentence for corporal injury, grand theft, vehicle theft and failure to appear. The Male Community Reentry Program allow...

Man arrested following fatal crash Thursday in Campbell

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 06:00:36 GMT

CAMPBELL – A driver was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter after a multicar collision left a man dead and a woman injured Thursday afternoon in Campbell, police said.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | 4 Pepperdine students fatally struck as they walked near Malibu highway Crime and Public Safety | California man who killed woman, 5 dogs in pursuit crash gets 49 years to life Crime and Public Safety | Driver dies after would-be rescuer disappears in San Joaquin River Crime and Public Safety | Motorcyclist dies in Livermore traffic collision Crime and Public Safety | 2 bicyclists in Napa die after being hit by lumber on flatbed truck The fatal crash happened around 12:50 p.m. at the intersection of San Tomas Expressway and Campbell Avenue, the Campbell Police Department said in a statement.Police said the suspect was driving northbound on San Tomas Expressway and tried to turn right ont...