Family confirms death of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin
JERUSALEM (AP) — The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin announced the young man's death early Sunday, ending a relentless campaign by his parents to rescue him that included meetings with world leaders and an address to the Democratic convention last month.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was seized by militants at a music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video showed him, his left hand missing and clearly speaking under duress, sparking new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.
Israel’s announcement is bound to bring urgent new calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring home remaining hostages. The Israeli leader has taken a tough line in negotiations and repeatedly said that military pressure is needed to bring home the hostages. According to Israeli media, he has feuded with top security officials who have said a deal should be reached urgently.
President Joe Biden, who had met with the parents, said he was “devastated and outraged.”
“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” he said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
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Polio vaccine campaign begins in Gaza a day before fighting is expected to pause
JERUSALEM (AP) — A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio and prevent the spread of the virus has begun, the Health Ministry said Saturday, as Palestinians in the Hamas-governed enclave and the occupied West Bank reeled from Israel's military offensives.
Meanwhile, Israel's military late Saturday in a terse announcement said it had “located a number of bodies during combat” in Gaza. The army was trying to identify the bodies, including whether they were hostages, but said the process would take several hours. “We ask to refrain from spreading rumors,” it said. There were no further details.
A small number of children in Gaza received vaccine doses a day before the large-scale rollout and limited pauses in the fighting agreed to by Israel and the U.N. World Health Organization. Associated Press journalists saw about 10 children receiving doses at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.
“There must be a cease-fire so that the teams can reach everyone targeted by this campaign,” said Dr. Yousef Abu Al-Rish, Gaza's deputy health minister, describing scenes of sewage running through crowded tent camps. Polio is spread through fecal matter.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in a statement said “Israel will allow a humanitarian corridor only” and “areas will be established that will be safe for administering the vaccines for a few hours.”
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Harris and Trump offer starkly different visions on climate change and energy
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Earth sizzled through a summer with four of the hottest days ever measured, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different visions on how to address a changing climate while ensuring a reliable energy supply. But neither has provided many details on how they would get there.
During her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris briefly mentioned climate change as she outlined “fundamental freedoms” at stake in the election, including “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
As vice president, Harris cast the tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law that was approved with only Democratic support. As a senator from California, she was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal, a sweeping series of proposals meant to swiftly move the United States to fully green energy that is championed by the party’s most progressive wing.
Trump, meanwhile, led chants of “drill, baby, drill” and pledged to dismantle the Biden administration’s “green new scam” in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He has vowed to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal and repeal key parts of the 2022 climate law.
“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far,” Trump said at the convention. “We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy.”
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Trump courts conservative male influencers to try to reach younger men
WASHINGTON (AP) — At first glance, there's little that a 78-year-old former president and a 23-year-old internet personality might have in common.
Donald Trump admitted in a recent appearance on Adin Ross' show that he only “more or less” understood livestreaming, the publishing of live video on social media. But he told Ross he appreciated that the show was part of “the new wave” of information — and he credited his youngest son, 18-year-old Barron, for helping educate him.
“My son’s told me about you, and they told me about how big, he said, ‘Dad, he’s really big,’” Trump said during their two-hour conversation.
Trump's campaign has fully embraced the bravado-filled, macho, often contrarian online spaces popular with a subset of younger men on livestreaming platforms like Twitch and Kick, as well as on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. The former president has appeared with the influencer Logan Paul, another personality Trump said was a favorite of his youngest son, and spoke on X with multibillionaire Elon Musk, a figure revered by many younger conservatives.
The computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, who also has a large audience of mostly younger men, said he will soon host an episode with Trump.
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Pope embarks on longest, farthest and most challenging trip to Asia, with China in the background
VATICAN CITY (AP) — If any evidence were needed to underscore that Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Asia and Oceania is the longest, farthest and most challenging of his pontificate, it’s that he’s bringing along his secretaries to help him navigate the four-country program while keeping up with work back home.
Francis will clock 32,814 kilometers (20,390 miles) by air during his Sept. 2-13 visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, far surpassing any of his previous 44 foreign trips and notching one of the longest papal trips ever, both in terms of days on the road and distances traveled.
That’s no small feat for a pope who turns 88 in December, uses a wheelchair, lost part of a lung to a respiratory infection as a young man and had to cancel his last foreign trip at the last minute (to Dubai in November to participate in the U.N. climate conference) on doctors' orders.
But Francis is pushing ahead with this trip, originally planned for 2020 but postponed because of COVID-19. He’s bringing along his medical team of a doctor and two nurses and taking the usual health precautions on the ground. But in a novelty, he's adding his personal secretaries into the traditional Vatican delegation of cardinals, bishops and security.
The long trip recalls the globetrotting travels of St. John Paul II, who visited all four destinations during his quarter-century pontificate, though East Timor was an occupied part of Indonesia at the time of his landmark 1989 trip.
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On the first day without X, many Brazilians say they feel disconnected from the world
SAO PAULO (AP) — The blocking of social media platform X in Brazil divided users and politicians over the legitimacy of the ban, and many Brazilians on Saturday had difficulty and doubts over navigating other social media in its absence.
The shutdown of Elon Musk’s platform started early Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps after the billionaire refused to name a legal representative to the country, missing a deadline imposed by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The blockade marks an escalation in a monthslong feud between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, with tens of millions of users.
“I've got the feeling that I have no idea what’s happening in the world right now. Bizarre,” entertainment writer and heavy X user Chico Barney wrote on Threads. Threads is a text-based app developed by Instagram that Barney was using as an alternative. “This Threads algorithm is like an all-you-can-eat restaurant where the waiter keeps serving things I would never order.”
Bluesky, a social media platform that was launched last year as an alternative to X and other more established sites, has seen a large influx of Brazilians in the past couple of days. The company said Friday it has seen about 200,000 new users from Brazil sign up during that time, and the number “continues to grow by the minute.” Brazilian users are also setting records for activities such as follows and likes, Bluesky said.
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Mississippi bus crash kills 7 people and injures 37
BOVINA, Miss. (AP) — Seven people were killed and dozens were injured in Mississippi after a commercial bus overturned on Interstate 20 on Saturday morning, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, according to a news release. The bus was traveling west when it left the highway near Bovina in Warren County and flipped over. No other vehicle was involved.
The crash was caused by tire failure, the National Transportation Safety Board said on the social media platform X. The bus was operated by Autobuses Regiomontanos. A woman who answered the phone at its Laredo, Texas, office said it was aware of the crash, but she didn't answer questions or provide her name.
The transit company says it has 20 years of experience providing cross-border trips between 100 destinations in Mexico and the U.S. Its website promotes “a modern fleet of buses that receive daily maintenance,” and offers “trips with a special price for workers.”
The dead included a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, according to Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey. They were identified by their mother. Authorities were working to identify the other victims, he said.
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Border arrests are expected to rise slightly in August but are hovering near 4-year lows
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico during August are expected to rise slightly from July, officials said, possibly ending a streak of five straight monthly declines but the numbers are hovering near four-year lows.
Authorities made about 54,000 arrests through Thursday, which, at the current rate, would bring the August total to about 58,000 when the month ends Saturday, according to two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been publicly released.
The tally suggests that arrests could be bottoming out after being halved from a record 250,000 in December, a decline that U.S. officials largely attributed to Mexican authorities increasing enforcement within their borders. Arrests were more than halved again after Democratic President Joe Biden invoked authority to temporarily suspend asylum processing in June. Arrests plunged to 56,408 in July, a nearly four-year low that changed little in August.
Asked about the latest numbers, the Homeland Security Department released a statement by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling on Congress to support failed legislation that would have suspended asylum processing when crossings reached certain thresholds, reshaped how asylum claims are decided to relieve bottlenecked immigration courts and added Border Patrol agents, among other things.
Republicans including presidential nominee Donald Trump opposed the bill, calling it insufficient.
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49ers WR Ricky Pearsall shot in attempted robbery in San Francisco, condition 'serious but stable'
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall was shot in the chest Saturday during an attempted robbery in central San Francisco, officials said, and he was reported to be in serious but stable condition.
Mayor London Breed said in a post on the social platform X that Pearsall was shot in Union Square, which is a downtown shopping and theater district home to a popular public square of the same name.
“My thoughts are with Ricky and his family at this time,” Breed said.
San Francisco police said in a statement that Pearsall was injured while being robbed in the area of Geary Street and Grant Avenue, and so was the suspect. Both were taken to the hospital, the statement said. Police did not return calls seeking further information but said the suspect was in custody.
“This kind of violence has no place in our city and will never be tolerated,” police chief William Scott said on X.
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Young girls are using anti-aging products they see on social media. The harm is more than skin deep
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — When she was in fifth grade, Scarlett Goddard Strahan started to worry about getting wrinkles.
By the time she turned 10, Scarlett and her friends were spending hours on TikTok and YouTube watching influencers tout products for achieving today’s beauty aesthetic: a dewy, “glowy,” flawless complexion. Scarlett developed an elaborate skin care routine with facial cleansers, mists, hydrating masks and moisturizers.
One night, Scarlett’s skin began to burn intensely and erupted in blisters. Heavy use of adult-strength products had wreaked havoc on her skin. Months later, patches of tiny bumps remain on Scarlett’s face, and her cheeks turn red in the sun.
“I didn’t want to get wrinkles and look old,” says Scarlett, who recently turned 11. “If I had known my life would be so affected by this, I never would have put these things on my face.”
Scarlett’s experience has become common, experts say, as preteen girls around the country throng beauty stores to buy high-end skin care products, a trend captured in viral videos with the hashtag #SephoraKids. Girls as young as 8 are turning up at dermatologists’ offices with rashes, chemical burns and other allergic reactions to products not intended for children’s sensitive skin.
The Associated Press
