AP News in Brief at 6:09 a.m. EDT

20 Palestinians killed at Gaza aid distribution site, says Israeli-backed aid group TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) An Israeli-backed American organization that runs an aid program in the Gaza Strip said Wednesday 20 Palestinians were killed at a distribution site.

This comes as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.

The Gaza Humanitarian Fund said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed in the violence at a distribution hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

The group, which rarely acknowledges trouble at its distribution sites, accused Hamas of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.

These are the first fatalities that GHF has confirmed at their aid distribution sites.

The United Nations human rights office and Gazas Health Ministry say 875 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed while waiting to receive aid since May, with 674 of those being killed in the vicinity of aid distribution sites run by GHF.

'American Idol' music supervisor and husband both found dead at LA home LOS ANGELES (AP) An American Idol music supervisor and her husband were both found dead in their Los Angeles home Monday afternoon.

Officers were conducting a welfare check at a home in the Encino neighborhood when they found the bodies of a man and woman with gunshot wounds.

An American Idol spokesperson confirmed the deaths of Robin Kaye and her husband, Thomas Deluca, both 70.

The couple owned their home, according to public records.

Robin has been a cornerstone of the Idol family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her, an American Idol spokesperson said in a statement.

Robin will remain in our hearts forever and we share our deepest sympathy with her family and friends during this difficult time.

Los Angeles police said Tuesday afternoon they arrested 22-year-old Raymond Boodarian in connection with the couples deaths.

Russia launches new attacks on Ukraine with the countdown to a US peace deadline underway KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Russian weapons pounded four Ukrainian cities overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, injuring at least 15 people in an attack that mostly targeted energy infrastructure, officials said.

The latest bombardment in Russias escalating aerial campaign against civilian areas came ahead of a Sept.

2 deadline set by U.S.

President Donald Trump for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal in the three-year war, under the threat of possible severe Washington sanctions if it doesnt.

No date has yet been publicly set for a possible third round of direct peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine.

Two previous rounds delivered no progress apart from prisoner swaps.

Russia launched 400 Shahed and decoy drones, as well as one ballistic missile, during the night, the Ukrainian air force said.

The strikes targeted northeastern Kharkiv, which is Ukraines second-largest city, President Volodymyr Zelenskyys hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, Vinnytsia in the west and Odesa in the south.

Russia does not change its strategy, Zelenskyy said.

To effectively counter this terror, we need a systemic strengthening of defense: more air defense, more interceptors, and more resolve so that Russia feels our response.

The US sends third-country deportees to the small African kingdom of Eswatini CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) The United States has sent five men to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration's third-country deportation program, the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The U.S.

has already deported eight men to another African nation, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties.

In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived in Eswatini on a plane.

She said they were all convicted criminals and individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.

There was no immediate comment from Eswatini authorities over any deal to accept third-country deportees or what would happen to them in that country.

The Trump administration has said it is seeking more deals with African nations to take deportees from the U.S.

Some have pushed back, with Nigeria saying it is rejecting pressure from the U.S.

to take deportees who are citizens of other countries.

Trump to put tariffs of over 10% on smaller nations, including those in Africa and the Caribbean WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he plans to place tariffs of over 10% on smaller countries, including nations in Africa and the Caribbean.

Well probably set one tariff for all of them, Trump said, adding that it could be a little over 10% tariff on goods from at least 100 nations.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick interjected that the nations with goods being taxed at these rates would be in Africa and the Caribbean, places that generally do relatively modest levels of trade with the U.S.

and would be relatively insignificant for addressing Trump's goals of reducing trade imbalances with the rest of the world.

The president had this month been posting letters to roughly two dozen countries and the European Union that simply levied a tariff rate to be charged starting Aug.

1.

Those countries generally faced tax rates on the goods close to the April 2 rates announced by the U.S.

president, whose rollout of historically high import taxes for the U.S.

caused financial markets to panic and led to Trump setting a 90-day negotiating period that expired July 9.

Israel strikes near the defense ministry in Damascus DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) The Israeli army said Wednesday that it struck near the entrance to the Syrian Ministry of Defense in Damascus.

The strike came as clashes continued in the southern Syrian city of Sweida after a ceasefire between government forces and Druze armed groups collapsed.

Israel has launched a series of airstrikes on convoys of government forces since the clashes erupted, saying that it is acting to protect the Druze.

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.

More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria.

Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.

APs earlier story follows below.

Federal grand jury indicts man accused of killing former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A man indicted Tuesday on charges he fatally shot the Democratic leader in the Minnesota state House and her husband, and wounded another lawmaker and his wife, confessed to the crimes in a rambling handwritten letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, but didnt say why he targeted the couples, prosecutors said.

Vance Boelter also wrote in the letter that Minnesota Gov.

Tim Walz had approached him about killing the states two U.S.

senators, fellow Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.

Asked by a reporter if all that was a fantasy, acting U.S.

Attorney Joseph Thompson replied: Yes, I agree.

There is little evidence showing why he turned to political violence and extremism, Thompson said.

What he left were lists: politicians in Minnesota, lists of politicians in other states, lists of names of attorneys at national law firms.

The indictment handed up murder, stalking and firearms charges against Boelter.

The murder counts in the deaths of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, could carry the federal death penalty.

The indictment also charged Boelter with shooting and wounding a state senator and his wife, and attempting to shoot their adult daughter.

A lockout is looming over MLB in December 2026, with a salary cap fight possibly at the center ATLANTA (AP) Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.

No ones talking about it, but we all know that they're going to lock us out for it, and then were going to miss time," New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game.

We're definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the leagues obviously not going to like that.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks.

Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.

Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels.

The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.

After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami's $69 million, according to Major League Baseball's figures.

Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.

2 dead in New Jersey after floodwaters carry away vehicle during heavy rains that hit Northeast NEW YORK (AP) Two people in New Jersey were killed after their vehicle was swept up in floodwaters during a storm that moved across the U.S.

Northeast overnight, authorities said Tuesday.

Gov.

Phil Murphy, a Democrat, noted the deaths occurred in the northern New Jersey city of Plainfield, where there were two storm-related deaths July 3.

A third person was killed in North Plainfield during that previous storm.

Were not unique, but were in one of these sort of high humidity, high temperature, high storm intensity patterns right now, Murphy told reporters after touring storm damage in Berkeley Heights.

Everybody needs to stay alert.

The names of the two latest victims were not immediately released Tuesday.

Local officials said the vehicle they were riding in was swept into a brook during the height of the storm.

Emergency personnel responded quickly, but tragically, both individuals were pronounced dead at the scene, according to a statement the city posted online.

Some Australian dolphins use sponges to hunt fish, but it's harder than it looks WASHINGTON (AP) Some dolphins in Australia have a special technique to flush fish from the seafloor.

They hunt with a sponge on their beak, like a clown nose.

Using the sponge to protect from sharp rocks, the dolphins swim with their beaks covered, shoveling through rubble at the bottom of sandy channels and stirring up barred sandperch for a meal.

But this behavior passed down through generations is trickier than it looks, according to new research published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Hunting with a sponge on their face interferes with bottlenose dolphins finely tuned sense of echolocation, of emitting sounds and listening for echoes to navigate.

It has a muffling effect in the way that a mask might, said co-author Ellen Rose Jacobs, a marine biologist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

Everything looks a little bit weird, but you can still learn how to compensate.".

This article has been shared from the original article on clevelandbanner, here is the link to the original article.