Israel strikes Iran as payback for missile attack, risking escalation of Mideast wars
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel pounded Iran with a series of airstrikes early Saturday, saying it was targeting military sites in retaliation for the barrage of ballistic missiles the Islamic Republic fired upon Israel earlier this month. Explosions could be heard in the Iranian capital, Tehran, though there was no immediate information on damage or casualties.
The attack risks pushing the archenemies closer to all-out war at a time of spiraling violence across the Middle East, where militant groups backed by Iran — including Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon – are already at war with Israel. It also marked the first time Israel's military has openly attacked Iran, which hasn't faced a sustained barrage of fire from a foreign enemy since its 1980s war with Iraq.
Israel said Saturday it had launched “precise strikes on military targets” and, according to two Israeli officials, it was not targeting nuclear or oil facilities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing operation with the media.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 ... including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a prerecorded video statement early Saturday. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
Initially, nuclear facilities and oil installations all had been seen as possible targets for Israel’s response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack, but in mid-October the Biden administration believed it had won assurances from Israel that it would not hit such targets, which would be a more severe escalation.
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Harris, Beyoncé team up for a Texas rally on abortion rights and hope battleground states hear them
HOUSTON (AP) — Beyoncé told a packed stadium on Friday that it was time for America to elect Kamala Harris president, urging voters to “sing a new song," before the vice president delivered a message to battleground voters all the way from reliably Republican Texas — that Donald Trump was dead set on eroding women’s rights.
“For all the men and women in this room, and watching around the country, we need you," Beyoncé said.
The music megastar, who was joined by her mother, Tina Knowles, and her former bandmate Kelly Rowland, told the cheering crowd she wasn't at the rally as a celebrity, or as a politician.
"I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said, talking about how her children would see “the sacrifices made so we can witness the strength of a woman ... reimagining what leadership is.”
Harris came out to huge cheers. She told the crowd that Trump had erased half a century of hard-fought progress when he appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and touched off a healthcare crisis.
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Trump leaves Michigan rallygoers waiting in the cold for hours to tape Joe Rogan podcast
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump ran nearly three hours late to a rally in Michigan on Friday, causing thousands of his supporters to leave while others huddled in cold weather to await the former president at an outdoor rally in the battleground state.
The Republican presidential nominee was delayed for an interview with Joe Rogan, the nation’s most listened-to podcaster, that stretched to three hours in Austin, Texas. Trump is aggressively courting younger male voters with whom Rogan is widely popular. The interview was released Friday night.
Democrat Kamala Harris was also in Texas Friday for an appearance with superstar Beyoncé in Houston at an event highlighting the conservative state's abortion ban, which was enacted after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe were nominated by Trump.
Minutes before Trump's Michigan rally was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, his spokesman posted on the social media platform X that Trump was just leaving Texas, more than two hours away by air. Trump recorded a video from his plane urging his supporters to stay, noting it was Friday night and promising, “We’re going to have a good time tonight.”
Trump eventually took the stage at the Traverse City airport, where temperatures dipped to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), and offered an apology.
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Russian actors made fake video depicting mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed, FBI says
YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) — Russian actors were behind a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania, U.S. officials confirmed on Friday.
The video had taken off on social media Thursday but was debunked within three hours by local election officials and law enforcement after members of the public reported it.
U.S. officials said in a statement sent by the FBI that they believe the video was “manufactured and amplified” by Russian actors. The officials said it’s part of “Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.”
The information was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The Bucks County Board of Elections had identified the video as fake on Thursday, saying the envelope and other materials in the video “are clearly not authentic materials belonging to or distributed by" the board.
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Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO pleads not guilty to sex trafficking and prostitution charges
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — The former longtime CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch pleaded not guilty Friday to federal sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges.
Michael Jeffries, 80, declined to comment after his lawyer entered the plea on his behalf in federal court in Central Islip, on Long Island. He is free on a $10 million bond and is due back in court Dec. 12.
“Today’s hearing was procedural in nature, bond has been set to ensure Michael’s appearance in Court, and of course we entered a plea of not guilty,” Brian Bieber, his attorney, said in an email afterward, declining to comment on the allegations.
Prosecutors allege that for years, Jeffries, his romantic partner and a third man, 71-year-old James Jacobson, lured men into taking part in sex parties by dangling the promise of modeling for the clothing retailer, once famous for its preppy, All-American aesthetic and marketing with shirtless male models.
Jacobson, who was an employee of Jeffries when prosecutors say the crimes occurred, also pleaded not guilty and declined to speak to reporters afterward. He’s free on a $500,000 bond.
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Washington Post becomes second major US newspaper this week to not endorse a presidential candidate
Less than two weeks before Election Day, The Washington Post said Friday it would not endorse a candidate for president in this year's tightly contested race and would avoid doing so in the future — a decision immediately condemned by a former executive editor but one that the current publisher insisted was “consistent with the values the Post has always stood for.”
In an article posted on the front of its website, the Post — reporting on its own inner workings — also quoted unidentified sources within the publication as saying that an endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump had been written but not published. Those sources told the Post reporters that the company's owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, made the decision.
The Post's publisher, Will Lewis, wrote in a column that the decision was actually a return to a tradition the paper had years ago of not endorsing candidates. He said it reflected the paper's faith in “our readers' ability to make up their own minds.”
“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable,” Lewis wrote. “We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values the Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”
There was no immediate reaction from either campaign.
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Phil Lesh, founding member of Grateful Dead and influential bassist, dies at 84
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Phil Lesh, a classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling reinventing the role of rock bass guitar as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday at age 84.
Lesh's death was announced on his Instagram account. Lesh was the oldest and one of the longest surviving members of the band that came to define the acid rock sound emanating from San Francisco in the 1960s.
“Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love,” the Instagram statement reads in part.
The statement did not cite a specific cause of death and attempts to reach representatives for additional details were not immediately successful. Lesh had previously survived bouts of prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a 1998 liver transplant necessitated by the debilitating effects of a hepatitis C infection and years of heavy drinking.
Lesh’s death comes two days after MusiCares named the Grateful Dead its Persons of the Year. MusiCares, which helps music professionals needing financial or other kinds of assistance, cited Lesh’s Unbroken Chain Foundation among other philanthropic initiatives. The Dead will be honored in January at a benefit gala ahead of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
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At least 75 people are sickened as the deadly McDonald's E. coli outbreak expands
A deadly outbreak of E. coli poisoning tied to McDonald's Quarter Pounders has expanded, with at least 75 people sick in 13 states, federal health officials said Friday.
A total of 22 people have now been hospitalized, and two have developed a dangerous kidney disease complication, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. One person has died in Colorado.
No definitive source of the outbreak has been identified, officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. 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.
“We have made the decision to stop sourcing onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility indefinitely,” McDonald's said in a statement released late Friday.
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Yankees vs Dodgers: The World Series' most frequent rivalry through the years
In the beginning, the World Series matchup of the Dodgers against the Yankees was a kind of charming intra-city showdown of two New York City boroughs, blue collar Brooklyn, equipped with a neighborhood called Gravesend, against the pretentious Bronx, with the fancy Grand Concourse.
It was an intriguing matchup that carried bragging rights in the city as well as baseball’s world championship, and it caught the attention of brilliant sports cartoonist Williard Mullin, who gave it the catchy nickname of "The Subway Series.’’ That was because, after all, New York City’s rapid transit system could get you from one ballpark to the other for just 5 cents.
The trip will cost considerably more when it resumes on Friday for the 12th time in a Broadway-meets-Sunset Boulevard version of baseball’s most frequent World Series rivalry. This one brings together this season’s winningest teams in a coast-to-coast collision featuring some of the game’s biggest stars in the Yankees' Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, and the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts.
Their October showdowns have produced some of the game’s most memorable moments, from Don Larsen’s perfect game and Reggie Jackson’s three straight home runs to the one-handed circus catches of Al Gionfriddo and Sandy Amoros.
The Dodgers won their first National League pennant in 21 years in 1941 and found the Yankees, already constructing a dynasty, waiting for them in the World Series. It was the first of their 12 Fall Classic meetings.
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NASA astronaut remains in the hospital after returning from an extended stay in space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing's capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton, the space agency said Friday.
A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week. The capsule was hoisted onto the recovery ship where the four astronauts had routine medical checks.
Soon after splashdown, a NASA astronaut had a “medical issue" and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution” the space agency said in a statement.
The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained at the hospital as a "precautionary measure,” NASA said.
The space agency said it would not share details about the astronaut's condition, citing patient privacy.
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