Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah start a ceasefire after nearly 14 months of fighting
JERUSALEM (AP) — The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants began early Wednesday as a region on edge wondered whether it will hold.
The ceasefire announced Tuesday is a major step toward ending nearly 14 months of fighting sparked by the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
There were no immediate reports of alleged violations of the truce, and there were signs of celebration in Beirut. But Israel has said it will attack if Hezbollah breaks the agreement.
The ceasefire calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border. Thousands of additional Lebanese troopsand U.N. peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance.
An Israeli military spokesman, in an Arabic-language X post in the first half-hour of the ceasefire, warned evacuated residents of southern Lebanon to not head home yet, saying the military remained deployed there.
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Middle East latest: Ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon begins
A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants began early Wednesday morning, after Beirut residents endured the most intense day of Israeli strikes since the war began.
Many wondered if the agreement to stop fighting would hold. Israel has said it will attack if Hezbollah breaks the ceasefire agreement, which was announced Tuesday.
At least 42 people were killed by Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to local authorities. Hezbollah also fired rockets into Israel on Tuesday, triggering air raid sirens in the country’s north.
The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire marks the first major step toward ending the regionwide unrest triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel a day after Hamas’ attack. The fighting in Lebanon escalated into all-out war in September with massive Israeli airstrikes across the country and an Israeli ground invasion of the south.
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What both sides are saying about the ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah
A ceasefire deal that could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group won backing from Israeli leaders Tuesday, raising hopes and renewing difficult questions in a region gripped by conflict.
Hezbollah leaders also signaled tentative backing for the U.S.-brokered deal, which offers both sides an off-ramp from hostilities that have driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes.
An intense bombing campaign by Israel has killed more than 3,700 people, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. Over 130 people have been killed on the Israeli side.
But while the deal, set to take effect early Wednesday, could significantly calm the tensions that have inflamed the region, it does little directly to resolve the much deadlier war that has raged in Gaza since the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people.
Hezbollah, which began firing scores of rockets into Israel the following day in support of Hamas, had previously said it would keep fighting until there was a stop to the fighting in Gaza. With the new cease-fire, it has backed away from that pledge, in effect leaving Hamas isolated and fighting a war alone.
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Trump vows tariffs over immigration. What the numbers say about border crossings, drugs and crime
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a Monday evening announcement, President-elect Donald Trump railed against Mexico and Canada, accusing them of allowing thousands of people to enter the U.S.
Hitting a familiar theme from the campaign trail and his first term in office, Trump portrayed the country's borders as insecure and immigrants as contributing to crime and the fentanyl crisis. In an announcement that could have stark repercussions, he threatened to impose 25% tariffs on everything coming into the country from those two countries.
Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric has resonated with voters concerned about immigration and crime. Yet there's more to the story than Trump's short statement suggested.
A look at what the numbers and studies say about border crossings, fentanyl smuggling and whether there's a connection between immigration and crime:
The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a key metric watched intensely by both Republicans and Democrats.
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Walmart's DEI rollback signals a profound shift in the wake of Trump's election victory
NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart's sweeping rollback of its diversity policies is the strongest indication yet of a profound shift taking hold at U.S. companies that are re-evaluating the legal and political risks associated with bold programs to bolster historically underrepresented groups.
The changes announced by the world's biggest retailer on Monday followed a string of legal victories by conservative groups that have filed an onslaught of lawsuits challenging corporate and federal programs aimed at elevating minority and women-owned businesses and employees.
The retreat from such programs crystalized with the election of former President Donald Trump, whose administration is certain to make dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs a priority. Trump's incoming deputy chief of policy will be his former adviser Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has aggressively challenged corporate DEI policies.
“There has been a lot of reassessment of risk looking at programs that could be deemed to constitute reverse discrimination,” said Allan Schweyer, principal researcher at the Human Capital Center at the Conference Board.
“This is another domino to fall and it is a rather large domino,” he added.
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Cheap Ozempic? How millions of Americans with obesity may get access to costly weight-loss drugs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of obese Americans would get access to popular weekly injectables that would help them shed pounds quickly if a $ 35 billion proposal from the Biden administration is blessed by President-elect Donald Trump.
The rule, unveiled Tuesday by the Health and Human Services Department, would require Medicare and Medicaid to cover weight-loss drugs like Wegovy or Zepbound for a large segment of Americans who are obese.
But it's unclear if the proposal, which would not go into effect until after Trump takes office, will have support from his new administration — including from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an opponent of the drugs whom the president-elect has tapped to serve as head of HHS.
Here's what to know about the drugs and the Biden administration's proposal:
The weight-loss drugs, also called anti-obesity medications or GLP-1s, mimic the hormone known as glucagon-like peptide 1, which regulates appetites by communicating fullness between the gut and brain when people eat.
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How Trump's bet on voters electing him managed to silence some of his legal woes
WASHINGTON (AP) — One year after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department was committed to holding accountable all perpetrators “at any level” for “the assault on our democracy.” That bold declaration won't apply to at least one person: Donald Trump.
Special counsel Jack Smith's move on Monday to abandon the federal election interference case against Trump means jurors will likely never decide whether the president-elect is criminally responsible for his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 campaign. The decision to walk away from the election charges and the separate classified documents case against Trump marks an abrupt end of the Justice Department’s unprecedented legal effort that once threatened his liberty but appears only to have galvanized his supporters.
The abandonment of the cases accusing Trump of endangering American democracy and national security does away with the most serious legal threats he was facing as he returns to the White House. It was the culmination of a monthslong defense effort to delay the proceedings at every step and use the criminal allegations to Trump's political advantage, putting the final word in the hands of voters instead of jurors.
“We always knew that the rich and powerful had an advantage, but I don’t think we would have ever believed that somebody could walk away from everything,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official. “If there ever was a Teflon defendant, that’s Donald Trump.”
While prosecutors left the door open to the possibility that federal charges could be re-filed against Trump after he leaves office, that seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Trump's presidential victory has thrown into question the future of the two state criminal cases against him in New York and Georgia. Trump was supposed to be sentenced on Tuesday after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money case, but it's possible the sentencing could be delayed until after Trump leaves office, and the defense is pushing to dismiss the case altogether.
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AP finds that a Pentagon-funded study on extremism in the military relied on old data
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Defense, sat in front of a screen with the headline: “Study Disproves Military Extremism Problem.”
It was Jan. 4 of this year and Hegseth told a Fox News audience the new study proved that the number of military service members and veterans involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection did not indicate a wider problem in the armed forces. The Pentagon-funded report to which Hegseth referred said there was no evidence the number of violent extremists in the military was “disproportionate to extremists in the general population.”
“They knew this was a sham,” Hegseth said, referring to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other military leaders. “Then they do the study, which confirms what we all know.”
Hegseth, who was working for Fox News at the time and had no involvement in the report, wasn’t alone. The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page highlighted the same report as evidence that extremists in military communities were “phantoms” created by a “false media narrative.” The X account for Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee posted that the study showed the focus on extremism in the military was a “witch hunt.”
But The Associated Press has found that the study, “Prohibited Extremist Activities in the U.S. Department of Defense” conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, relied on old data, misleading analyses and ignored evidence that pointed to the opposite conclusion.
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Australia's House of Representatives passes bill that would ban young children from social media
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would ban children younger than 16 years old from social media, leaving it to the Senate to finalize the world-first law.
The major parties backed the bill that would make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.
The legislation passed 102 to 13. If the bill becomes law this week, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restrictions before the penalties are enforced.
Opposition lawmaker Dan Tehan told Parliament the government had agreed to accept amendments in the Senate that would bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver’s licenses. The platforms also could not demand digital identification through a government system.
“Will it be perfect? No. But is any law perfect? No, it’s not. But if it helps, even if it helps in just the smallest of ways, it will make a huge difference to people’s lives,” Tehan told Parliament.
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SEC losses are big gains for SMU and Indiana in latest College Football Playoff rankings
The Southeastern Conference's losses were almost everyone else's gain in the College Football Playoff rankings, with SMU nudging its way into the top 12 and Indiana staying in the mix at No. 10 despite a lopsided loss of its own.
The 12-team bracket released Tuesday placed undefeated Oregon on top for the fourth straight week. It did not include Alabama or Mississippi of the SEC, both of which suffered their third losses of the season last week.
That helped move SMU up four spots to No. 9, joining No. 6 Miami to give the Atlantic Coast Conference two teams in the 12-team bracket. They could meet in the ACC title game in two weeks. Clemson, ranked 12th, is also in the mix.
“We’ve been in that position where, so far, our resume hadn’t been good enough, so we needed some help,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said a few hours before the rankings were released.
All eyes were on Indiana, and how harshly the committee would penalize the Hoosiers for their first loss of the season, a 38-15 thumping by No. 2 Ohio State. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti scoffed at the idea the Hoosiers weren't a playoff team. The selection committee agreed, only bumping the Hoosiers down five spots.
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