March 1, 2024 3:21 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says that the U.S. will begin air-dropping humanitarian assistance into Gaza, a day after more than 100 of Palestinians were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops. The president announced the long-considered move on Friday after at least 115 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others were injured, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, on Thursday when witnesses said nearby Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an aid convoy.Israel said many of the dead were trampled in a stampede linked to the chaos and that its troops fired at some in the crowd who they believed moved toward them in a threatening way. Biden made the announcement while hosting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White house.
March 1, 2024 1:41 pm
Drugstore chains CVS Health and Walgreens plan to start dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone in a few states. A CVS Health spokesperson says the company will start filling prescriptions for the medication in Rhode Island and neighboring Massachusetts “in the weeks ahead.” Walgreens will begin dispensing the medication within a week. The chain will start with some locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois. The announcements come more than a year after federal officials finalized a rule that broadened availability of abortion pills to many more pharmacies, including large chains and mail-order companies.
March 1, 2024 1:32 pm
NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. health officials say Americans with COVID-19 no longer need to stay in isolation for five days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its longstanding guidance on Friday. People can return to work or regular activities if their symptoms are mild and improving and it’s been a day since they’ve had a fever. COVID-19 is no longer the public health menace it once was and most people have some degree of immunity from vaccinations or from infections. And some experts note that many people are not following the five-day isolation guidance anyway.
March 1, 2024 5:22 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has passed another short-term spending measure that would keep one set of federal agencies operating through March 8 and another set through March 22. The extension averts a shutdown for parts of the federal government that would otherwise have kicked in at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The bill now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The short-term extension is the fourth in recent months. Lawmakers are voicing increased optimism that it’ll be the last before Congress approves two separate spending packages totaling more than $1.6 trillion for the full fiscal year. The renewed focus on this year’s spending bills doesn’t include a separate effort to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
March 1, 2024 5:20 am
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — The federal judge overseeing the classified documents prosecution of Donald Trump is expected to set a trial date. It’s a crucial decision that could affect whether the former president and leading Republican candidate faces a jury this year on charges that he hoarded top secret records and hid them from government investigators. Ahead of Friday’s hearing, federal prosecutors requested a July 8 trial date. Defense lawyers said there was no way to hold a fair trial this year at a time when Trump is looking to clinch the Republican presidential nomination but nonetheless proposed August 12 as a possible date to begin jury selection.
March 1, 2024 5:18 am
STINNETT, Texas (AP) — The largest wildfire in Texas history has killed two people and left behind a desolate landscape of scorched prairie, dead cattle and burned-out homes in the Texas Panhandle. In the hard-hit town of Stinnett, devastating scenes played out as families returned Thursday after evacuating from the Smokehouse Creek fire. Stinnett’s destruction was a reminder that, even as snow fell Thursday and helped firefighters, crews are racing to stamp out the blaze because the coming days are forecast to bring increased temperatures and winds. The blaze grew to nearly 1,700 square miles early Thursday in the rural Panhandle, and has crossed into Oklahoma.
March 1, 2024 5:17 am
Turkey has joined Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan in condemning Israeli forces firing on Palestinians waiting for the delivery of aid, with its foreign ministry calling the event “yet another crime against humanity.” Israel says many of the dead were trampled in a chaotic crush for the food aid, and that its troops only fired when they felt endangered by the crowd. The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 100 people were killed and at least 700 wounded. That brings the Palestinian death toll to more than 30,000 in the Gaza Strip since Israel’s war on Hamas began nearly five months ago after Hamas stormed southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking some 250 hostage. Israel’s blistering offensive in response has created a humanitarian catastrophe throughout the Gaza Strip.
March 1, 2024 5:16 am
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Three hundred miles apart, on the bank of the same winding Rio Grande, President Joe Biden and GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday surveyed the U.S.-Mexico border. They then tussled from a distance over who was to blame for the nation’s broken immigration system and how to fix it. Immigration has emerged as a central issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, which is widely expected to be a Biden-Trump rematch, and each is seeking to use the border problems to their political advantage.
March 1, 2024 5:13 am
Relatives and supporters of Alexei Navalny are bidding farewell to the opposition leader at a funeral in southeastern Moscow, following a battle with authorities over the release of his body after his still-unexplained death in an Arctic penal colony. Several Moscow churches refused to hold the service before Navalny’s team got permission from one in the capital’s Maryino district. That’s where he once lived in 2020 before his poisoning, treatment in Germany and subsequent arrest on his return to Russia. Authorities lined the road from a nearby subway station to the church with crowd control barriers, and riot police deployed in big numbers early Friday. His team said a hearse set out with Navalny’s body toward the church.
March 1, 2024 5:10 am
SPARTANSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Search warrant filings for the Pennsylvania home where a pregnant Amish woman was killed this week say she appeared to have suffered cutting wounds to her neck and head. The body of 23-year-old Rebekah Byler was found in the living room of her home by her husband and a family friend. Police say the friend called 911 to report that she and Andy Byler found her unresponsive shortly after noon Monday in the house, a few miles outside Spartansburg. A state police spokeswoman says they have an idea what the murder weapon was, but don’t have it in their possession.
