Blinken heads to the Mideast again as fears of regional conflict surge

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Biden administration grapples with an increasingly tense and unstable situation in the Middle East, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the region this weekend for the fourth time in three months on a tour expected to focus largely on easing resurgent fears that the Israel-Hamas war could erupt into a broader conflict.

With international criticism of Israel’s operations in Gaza mounting, growing U.S. concerns about the end game, and more immediate worries about a recent explosion in attacks in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, Blinken will have a packed and difficult agenda. He leaves just days after a suspected Israeli attack killed a senior Hamas leader in Beirut and, while a White House spokesman said “nobody should be shedding a tear” over his death, it could further complicate Blinken’s mission.

“We don’t expect every conversation on this trip to be easy,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “There are obviously tough issues facing the region and difficult choices ahead. But the secretary believes it is the responsibility of the United States of America to lead diplomatic efforts to tackle those challenges head on, and he’s prepared to do that in the days to come.”

Blinken leaves late Thursday on his latest extended Mideast tour, which will take him to Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.

Apart from Gaza-specific priorities he will bring to Israel — including pressing for a dramatic increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, a shift toward less intense military operations and a concerted effort to rein in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Jewish settlers — Blinken will be seeking regional assistance in calming the situation.

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Israeli defense minister lays out vision for next steps of Gaza war ahead of Blinken visit

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s defense minister on Thursday laid out his vision for the next phase of the war in Gaza, describing how Israeli forces would shift to an apparently scaled-down “ new combat approach” in northern Gaza, while continuing to fight Hamas in the south of the territory “for as long as necessary.”

Ahead of a visit by the U.S. secretary of state, Yoav Gallant also outlined a proposal for how Gaza would be run once Hamas is defeated, with Israel keeping security control while an undefined, Israeli-guided Palestinian body runs day-to-day administration, and the U.S. and other countries oversee rebuilding.

Israel has come under heavy international pressure to spell out a post-war vision but so far has not done so. The issue is likely to be on the agenda in Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s talks this weekend in Israel and other countries in the region. The United States has pressed Israel to shift to lower-intensity military operations in Gaza that more precisely target Hamas, after nearly three devastating months of bombardment and ground assaults.

The vagueness of many of Gallant’s provisions made it difficult to assess how much they mesh with the U.S. calls.

The document issued by Gallant was titled a “vision for Phase 3” of the war, and Gallant’s office said the phase had not yet begun. It also said the ideas were Gallant’s and not official policy, which would have to be set by Israel’s war and security cabinets.

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17-year-old kills sixth grader, wounds five others in Iowa school shooting, police say

PERRY, Iowa (AP) — A 17-year-old opened fire at a small-town Iowa high school before classes resumed on the first day after the winter break, killing a sixth-grader and wounding five others Thursday as students barricaded in offices, ducked into classrooms and fled in panic.

The suspect, a student at the school in Perry, died of what investigators believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation official said. Authorities said one of the five people wounded was an administrator, later identified by his alma mater as Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger.

Authorities identified the shooter as Dylan Butler, 17, and provided no information about a possible motive. Two friends and their mother who spoke with The Associated Press said Butler was a quiet person who had been bullied for years.

Perry has about 8,000 residents and is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines, on the edge of the state capital’s metropolitan area. It is home to a large pork-processing plant and low-slung, single-story homes spread among trees now shorn of their leaves by winter. The high school and middle school are connected, sitting on the east edge of town.

Authorities said Butler had a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun. Mitch Mortvedt, the state investigation division’s assistant director, said during a news conference that authorities also found a “pretty rudimentary” improvised explosive device and rendered it safe.

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Islamic State group claims responsibility for Iran suicide bombings killing at least 84 people

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Thursday for two suicide bombings targeting a commemoration for an Iranian general slain in a 2020 U.S. drone strike, the worst militant attack to strike Iran in decades as the wider Middle East remains on edge.

Experts who follow the group confirmed that the statement, circulated online among jihadists, came from the extremists, who likely hope to take advantage of the chaos gripping the region amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Wednesday’s attack in Kerman killed at least 84 people and wounded an additional 284. It targeted a ceremony honoring Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, held as an icon by supporters of the country’s theocracy and viewed by the U.S. military as a deadly foe who aided militants who killed American troops in Iraq.

On Thursday, chunks of asphalt appeared missing from the roadway where one bomb went off, suggesting the bomb had been packed with shrapnel to increase its deadly effects. Another spot still bore congealed blood from the wounded.

“The moment I turned around to tell my husband’s sister, ‘Let’s go to the square,’ the bomb exploded,” 38-year-old Mahdieh Sazmand told The Associated Press from her Kerman hospital bed. “If we were just 10 steps further we would have been right over the bomb.”

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FACT FOCUS: Images made to look like court records circulate online amid Epstein document release

After dozens of previously sealed court documents related to financier Jeffrey Epstein were made public on Wednesday, social media users began spreading false accusations about major public figures whose names appeared in the release — and some who hadn’t been named at all.

Two people singled out in viral false claims containing images made to look like snippets from court documents were late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who died in 2018. In both cases, the images were used in an effort to tie the men to illicit activities involving Epstein.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: Court documents connected to a lawsuit involving Epstein that were released this week include details about Hawking’s “proclivities” and accusations about a sexual encounter with Kimmel.

THE FACTS: The images were fabricated to look like part of the court documents. They are not among the records that were released this week. In both cases, the images show what are alleged to be question-and-answer sessions with unidentified participants.

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Russia has used North Korean ballistic missiles in Ukraine and is seeking Iranian missiles, US says

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has acquired ballistic missiles from North Korea and is seeking close-range ballistic missiles from Iran as Moscow struggles to replenish supplies for its war with Ukraine, the White House said Thursday.

Recently declassified intelligence found that North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. Russian forces fired at least one of those ballistic missiles into Ukraine on Dec. 30 and it landed in an open field in the Zaporizhzhia region, he said.

Russia launched multiple North Korean ballistic missiles on Tuesday as part of an overnight attack, and the U.S. was assessing the impact, he said. The missiles have a range of about 550 miles (885 kilometers).

U.S. intelligence officials believe that North Korea, in return for its arms support, wants Russia to provide it with aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment and other advanced technologies.

Kirby said that a Russia-Iran deal had not been completed but that the U.S. “is concerned that Russia’s negotiations to acquire close range ballistic missiles from Iran are actively advancing.”

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Trump’s lawyers want special counsel Jack Smith held in contempt in 2020 election interference case

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Thursday pressed to have special counsel Jack Smith’s team held in contempt, saying the prosecutors had taken steps to advance the 2020 election interference case against him in violation of a judge’s order last month that temporarily put the case on hold.

Citing “outrageous conduct,” the Republican presidential candidate’s attorneys told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that she should consider holding Smith and two of his prosecutors in contempt for turning over to the defense thousands of pages of evidence and an exhibit list while the case was paused and for filing a motion that they said “teems with partisan rhetoric” and “false claims.”

“In this manner, the prosecutors seek to weaponize the Stay to spread political propaganda, knowing that President Trump would not fully respond because the Court relieved him of the burdens of litigation during the Stay,” the lawyers wrote. “Worse, the prosecutors have announced their intention to continue this partisan-driven misconduct indefinitely, effectively converting this Court’s docket into an arm of the Biden Campaign.”

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment on the motion. The motion says that Trump’s lawyers have conferred with prosecutors, who object to the defense attorneys’ request.

The contempt motion lays bare the simmering tension between prosecutors and defense lawyers in the landmark case charging Trump with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. It also highlights the stark division between the Smith team’s desire to keep the case on track for a March 4 trial date and Trump’s efforts to delay the prosecution, until potentially after the November election, in which Trump is the Republican front-runner.

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Two companies will attempt the first US moon landings since the Apollo missions a half-century ago

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — China and India scored moon landings, while Russia, Japan and Israel ended up in the lunar trash heap.

Now two private companies are hustling to get the U.S. back in the game, more than five decades after the Apollo program ended.

It’s part of a NASA-supported effort to kick-start commercial moon deliveries, as the space agency focuses on getting astronauts back there.

“They’re scouts going to the moon ahead of us,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology is up first with a planned liftoff of a lander Monday aboard a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. Houston’s Intuitive Machines aims to launch a lander in mid-February, hopping a flight with SpaceX.

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Glynis Johns, ‘Mary Poppins’ star who first sang Sondheim’s ‘Send in the Clowns,’ dies at 100

NEW YORK (AP) — Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie “Mary Poppins” and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim, has died. She was 100.

Mitch Clem, her manager, said she died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes. “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood,” Clem said. “She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.”

Johns was known to be a perfectionist about her profession — precise, analytical and opinionated. The roles she took had to be multi-faceted. Anything less was giving less than her all.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level,” she told The Associated Press in 1990. “The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it. To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real.”

Johns’ greatest triumph was playing Desiree Armfeldt in “A Little Night Music,” for which she won a Tony in 1973. Sondheim wrote the show’s hit song “Send in the Clowns” to suit her distinctive husky voice, but she lost the part in the 1977 film version to Elizabeth Taylor.

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The AP Top 25 remains a college basketball mainstay after 75 years of evolution

When he first moved from coaching into broadcasting in the early 1980s, Dick Vitale would keep track of what was happening across the college basketball landscape by picking up the newspaper every morning.

Just about every score would be listed there. Important games might have box scores, giving Vitale a little more information. And the biggest games of the day might have full stories, providing a more rounded picture of what had transpired.

“People stayed up late to publish that stuff for the next morning,” Vitale recalled.

These days, just about every Division I men’s college basketball game is available to watch somewhere, whether broadcast on television or streamed on an app. Highlights rip across social media the minute they happen, and forums provide fans a chance to not only rehash what happened but discuss the finer points of their favorite teams.

All of which makes voting for the AP men’s college basketball poll easier. And at times harder.