Palestine: Blinken tries to assure Abbas in a West Bank stop aimed at containing fallout from the war

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought his diplomatic push on the Israel-Hamas war to the occupied West Bank on Sunday, meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as part of an intensifying Biden administration drive to reduce the suffering of Gaza’s civilians under Israeli bombardment and to start to sketch out a post-conflict scenario for the territory.

USA: NASA spacecraft discovers tiny moon around asteroid during close flyby

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The little asteroid visited by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft this week had a big surprise for scientists.

It turns out that the asteroid Dinkinesh has a dinky sidekick — a mini moon.

The discovery was made during Wednesday’s flyby of Dinkinesh, 300 million miles (480 million kilometers) away in the main asteroid belt beyond Mars. The spacecraft snapped a picture of the pair when it was about 270 miles out (435 kilometers).

USA: Donald Trump’s strength is clear in Florida as Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to move past ‘nonsense’

KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) — A booth at the Florida Republican Party’s Freedom Summit made swift business of Donald Trump merchandise on Saturday, selling everything from socks to bathtub rubber ducks that paid tribute to the former president.

Vendor Peter Crotty also had Ron DeSantis T-shirts. But he reduced those items from their original $25 down to $5, an 80% discount on the Florida governor’s name. The excess inventory needed to go, Crotty said.

Jordan: Blinken says reaching ceasefire in Gaza enables Hamas to regroup: media

AMMAN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that reaching an immediate ceasefire in Gaza would enable the Hamas movement to regroup its forces, Jordan's state-run Petra News Agency reported.

He made the remarks during a joint press conference in Jordan's capital Amman with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, following a meeting with foreign ministers of some Arab countries as well as a PLO official on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

USA: During strike talks, Biden worked to build ties to the UAW’s leader. They have yet to fully pay off

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden called the head of the United Auto Workers union to congratulate him this past week on getting a new contract with General Motors and to wish him a happy 55th birthday — a sign of how the relationship had evolved since their first get-to-know-you meeting in the Oval Office on July 19.

Russia says it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from a new nuclear submarine

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian military on Sunday reported a successful test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads from a new nuclear submarine.

The report comes as tensions are soaring between Russia and the West over the fighting in Ukraine. Adding to those tensions, President Vladimir Putin last week signed a bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban in a move that Moscow said was needed to establish parity with the United States.

USA: Robert De Niro’s former top assistant says she found his back-scratching behavior ‘creepy’

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert De Niro’s former top executive assistant said she found it “creepy” when the actor insisted she scratch his back, an example of behavior she found controlling and abusive before she quit her job in 2019, she testified Friday at a New York civil trial.

In a full day of testimony, Graham Chase Robinson became emotional several times as she claimed that the trauma she endured before she quit working for De Niro in 2019 after 11 years has left her jobless and depressed.

Palestine: Gaza loses telecom contact again. Israel strikes refugee camps as Israel rejects a pause in fighting

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza fell under its third total communications outage since the start of the war on Sunday night, with Palestinian communications company Paltel saying all of its communication and internet services were down. Internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported a “new collapse in connectivity” across the besieged enclave.

A Ukrainian missile strike on a shipyard in Crimea damages a Russian ship

(AP) --- The Russian military said a Ukrainian missile strike on a shipyard in annexed Crimea had damaged a Russian ship.

The Russian Defense Ministry said late Saturday that Ukrainian forces fired 15 cruise missiles at the Zaliv shipyard in Kerch, a city in the east of the Crimean Peninsula. Air defenses shot down 13 missiles but others hit the shipyard and damaged a vessel, a statement from the ministry said.

The ministry didn’t give details about the ship or the extent of the damage.

USA: Indiana police investigate shooting that left 3 people dead

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — Police in central Indiana are investigating the deaths of three people fatally shot at a home.

Muncie police found the bodies of two men and a woman on Friday afternoon at a home on the city’s west side. A person called 911 Friday to check on a resident of the home and was unable to make contact, Deputy Chief Melissa Criswell said Saturday.

Criswell said there were no signs of forced entry at the residence and there was “no active threat to the community.”

A Philippine radio anchor is fatally shot while on Facebook livestream watched by followers

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A radio anchor was fatally shot by a man inside his southern Philippine station Sunday in a brazen attack that was witnessed by people watching the program live on Facebook.

The gunman gained entry into the home-based radio station of provincial news broadcaster Juan Jumalon by pretending to be a listener. He then shot him twice during a live morning broadcast in Calamba town in Misamis Occidental province, police said.

Lebanon: A woman and 3 children are killed by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon, local officials say

BEIRUT (AP) — Four civilians, three of them children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon Sunday evening, a local civil defense official and Lebanese state-run media said.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that one Israeli was also killed Sunday in a strike launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. He did not specify whether the person was a civilian or a soldier.

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