Trump's Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump hosted a rally featuring crude and racist insults at New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday, turning what his campaign had dubbed as the event where he would deliver his closing message into an illustration of what turns off his critics.
With just over a week before Election Day, speakers labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute.
“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic whose set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.
His joke was immediately criticized by Harris’ campaign as it competes with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny backed Harris shortly after Hinchcliffe's appearance.
The normally pugnacious Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign," senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.
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Harris rallies Philadelphia voters at church, barbershop, bookstore, restaurant and basketball court
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Kamala Harris said Sunday that “no one can sit on the sidelines” in this year's presidential election, capping a day of campaigning across the largest city in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania.
“We are focused on the future and we are focused on the needs of the American people," Harris said, "as opposed to Donald Trump, who spends full time looking in the mirror focused on himself.”
Speaking at a city recreation center, the Democratic vice president singled out young voters, praising them for being “rightly impatient for change," and told the audience that “there is too much at stake” in the campaign.
“We must not wake up the day after the election and have any regret about what we could have done in these next nine days," Harris said.
Mark Ruffalo and Don Cheadle, two actors who starred in Marvel's “Avengers” movies, were at the rally. Harris reminded the crowd that Pennsylvania's deadline for early voting is Tuesday, telling them to “get it done tomorrow if you can.”
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Key mediator Egypt proposes a 2-day Gaza cease-fire and the release of 4 hostages
RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (AP) — Egypt’s president announced Sunday his country has proposed a two-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas during which four hostages held in Gaza would be freed. There was no immediate response from Israel or Hamas as the latest talks were expected in Qatar, another key mediator.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said the proposal includes the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza. It aims to “move the situation forward,” he said, adding that negotiations would continue to make the cease-fire permanent.
Talks in pursuit of a longer, phased cease-fire have repeatedly stalled. Hamas wants Israeli forces out of Gaza as a precondition, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said they will remain until destroying Hamas. There hasn’t been a cease-fire since November’s weeklong pause in fighting in the earliest weeks of the war.
Israel’s Mossad chief was traveling to Doha on Sunday for talks with Qatar's prime minister and the CIA chief in the latest attempt to end the fighting and ease regional tensions that have built since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Those tensions now see Israel at war with both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and openly attacking Iran, their backer, for the first time this weekend. Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said Israel's strikes — in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack this month — “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation.
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Analysis: Iran faces tough choices in deciding how to respond to Israeli strikes
JERUSALEM (AP) — It's Iran's move now.
How the Islamic Republic chooses to respond to the unusually public Israeli aerial assault on its homeland could determine whether the region spirals further toward all-out war or holds steady at an already devastating and destabilizing level of violence.
In the coldly calculating realm of Middle East geopolitics, a strike of the magnitude that Israel delivered Saturday would typically be met with a forceful response. A likely option would be another round of the ballistic missile barrages that Iran has already launched twice this year.
Retaliating militarily would allow Iran's clerical leadership to show strength not only to its own citizens but also to Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah, the militant groups battling Israel that are the vanguard of Tehran's so-called Axis of Resistance.
It is too soon to say whether Iran's leadership will follow that path.
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McDonald’s Quarter Pounder back on the menu after testing rules out beef patties as E. coli source
LOS ANGELES (AP) — McDonald’s announced Sunday that Quarter Pounders will again be on its menu at hundreds of its restaurants after testing ruled out beef patties as the source of the outbreak of E. coli poisoning tied to the popular burgers that killed one person and sickened at least 75 others across 13 states.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to believe that slivered onions from a single supplier are the likely source of contamination, McDonald's said in a statement. It said it will resume selling the Quarter Pounder at affected restaurants —- without slivered onions — in the coming week.
As of Friday, the outbreak had expanded to at least 75 people sick in 13 states, federal health officials said. A total of 22 people had been hospitalized, and two developed a dangerous kidney disease complication, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. One person has died in Colorado.
Early information analyzed by the FDA showed that uncooked slivered onions used on the burgers “are a likely source of contamination,” the agency said. McDonald’s has confirmed that Taylor Farms, a California-based produce company, was the supplier of the fresh onions used in the restaurants involved in the outbreak, and that they had come from a facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
McDonald’s pulled the Quarter Pounder burger from menus in several states — mostly in the Midwest and Mountain states — when the outbreak was announced Tuesday. McDonald’s said Friday that slivered onions from the Colorado Springs facility were distributed to approximately 900 of its restaurants, including some in transportation hubs like airports.
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Georgian president won't recognize parliamentary election result and calls for a protest
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgia’s president said Sunday she did not recognize the results of this weekend’s parliamentary vote, which election officials say was won by the ruling party, adding that the country fell victim to a “Russian special operation” aimed at moving it off a path toward Europe.
Standing alongside opposition leaders, President Salome Zourabichvili urged Georgians to rally Monday night on Tbilisi’s main street to protest what she called a “total falsification, a total stealing of your votes,” raising the prospect of further political turmoil in the South Caucasus nation.
She spoke the day after an election that could decide whether Georgia embraces Europe or falls under the sway of Russia.
“This election cannot be recognized, because it is the recognition of Russia’s intrusion here, Georgia’s subordination to Russia,” Zourabichvili said.
The Central Election Commission said Sunday that the ruling party, Georgian Dream, got 54.8% of Saturday’s vote with almost all ballots counted.
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Russian forces thwart attempted cross-border assault from Ukraine, official says
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces thwarted an attempt at another cross-border incursion by Ukraine into southwestern Russia, a local official reported Sunday, months after Kyiv staged a bold assault on its nuclear-armed enemy that Moscow is still struggling to halt.
An “armed group” sought Sunday to breach the border between Ukraine and Russia’s Bryansk region, its governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, said but was beaten back. Bogomaz did not clarify whether Ukrainian soldiers carried out the alleged attack, but claimed on Sunday evening that the situation was “stable and under control" by the Russian military.
There was no immediate acknowledgement or response from Ukrainian officials.
The region neighbors Kursk province, where Ukraine launched a surprise push on Aug. 6 that rattled the Kremlin and constituted the largest attack on Russia since World War II. Hundreds of Russian prisoners were blindfolded and ferried away in trucks in the opening moments of the lightning advance, and Ukraine’s battle-hardened units swiftly pressed on across hundreds of square miles (square kilometers) of territory.
Responsibility for previous incursions into Russia’s Belgorod and Bryansk regions has been claimed by two murky groups: the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.
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More than 120 killed in paramilitary rampage in east-central Sudan, UN and a doctors group say
CAIRO (AP) — Fighters from the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ran riot in east-central Sudan in a multi-day attack that killed more than 120 people in one town, a doctors group and the United Nations said.
It was the group's latest attack against the Sudanese military after suffering a series of setbacks, losing ground to the military in the area. The war, which has been going on for more than a year and a half, has wrecked the African country, displacing millions of its population and pushing it to the brink of a full-blown famine.
RSF fighters went on a rampage in villages and towns on the eastern and northern sides of the province of Gezira between Oct. 20-25, shooting at civilians and sexually attacking women and girls, the United Nations said in a statement Saturday, adding that they looted private and public properties, including open markets.
The attack displaced more than 46,500 people in the city of Tamboul and other villages in eastern and northern Gezira last week, according to Sunday’s data from the International Organization for Migration’s Tracking Matrix.
“The killings and appalling human rights violations in Gezira province intensify the unacceptable human toll this conflict has taken on the people of Sudan,” IOM Director General Amy Pope told The Associated Press ahead of her trip to the country next week.
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Japan's ruling coalition loses a majority in the lower house, creating political uncertainty
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’ s ruling coalition lost a majority in the 465-seat lower house in a key parliamentary election Sunday, a punishment by voters' outrage over the governing party’s extensive financial scandals.
Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party remains the top party in Japan's parliament, and a change of government is not expected. But the results create political uncertainty. Falling short of a majority makes it difficult for Ishiba to get his party’s policies through parliament, and he may need to find a third coalition partner. The LDP’s coalition retains a majority in the less powerful upper house.
All told, the ruling coalition with junior partner Komeito secured 215 seats, down sharply from the majority of 279 it previously held, according to Japanese media. It is the coalition's worst result since briefly falling from power in 2009.
Ishiba took office on Oct. 1 and immediately ordered the election in hopes of shoring up support after his predecessor, Fumio Kishida, failed to address public outrage over the LDP’s scandals.
“The results so far have been extremely severe, and we take them very seriously," Ishiba told Japan's national NHK television late Sunday. “I believe the voters are telling us to reflect more and become a party that lives up to their expectations."
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A Philippine town in the shadow of a volcano is hit by landslides it never expected
TALISAY, Philippines (AP) — As a storm pounded his rural home, Raynaldo Dejucos asked his wife and children to stay indoors and keep safe from possible lightning strikes, slippery roads or catching a fever.
One thing the 36-year-old didn't mention was landslides. In the lakeside town of Talisay in the northeastern Philippines, the 40,000 inhabitants have never experienced them in their lifetime.
But after leaving home last Thursday to check his fish cages in nearby Lake Taal, an avalanche of mud, boulders and toppled trees cascaded down a steep ridge and buried about a dozen houses, including his.
Talisay, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Manila, was one of several towns ravaged by Tropical Storm Trami, the deadliest of 11 storms to hit the Philippines this year. The storm veered toward Vietnam across the South China Sea after leaving at least 152 people dead and missing. More than 5.9 million people were in the storm's path in northern and central provinces.
“My wife was breastfeeding our 2-month-old baby,” Dejucos told The Associated Press on Saturday in a municipal basketball gym, where the five white coffins of his entire family were laid side by side with those of a dozen other victims. “My children were holding each other on the bed when we found them.”
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