AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT
Flooding from the remnants of Debby leads to high water rescues in New York, Pennsylvania
First responders launched high-water and helicopter rescues of people trapped in cars and homes in rural New York and Pennsylvania as heavy rain from the remnants of Debby slammed the Northeast with intense floods.
The worst of the flash flooding so far in New York was occurring in villages and hamlets in a largely rural area south of the Finger Lakes, not far from the Pennsylvania border.
In Steuben County, which borders Pennsylvania, officials ordered the evacuation of the towns of Jasper, Woodhull and part of Addison, and said people were trapped as floodwaters made multiple roads impassable. By mid-evening, some of those orders were being lifted as threat of severe flooding passed.
In the hamlet of Woodhull, a rain-swollen creek ran so ferociously that the water overtopped a bridge. Area resident Stephanie Waters said parts of sheds, branches and uprooted trees were among the debris that slammed into the span.
“Hearing the trees hit the bridge was scary,” she said.
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Donald Trump heads to Montana rally after plane was diverted but landed safely
BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump headed to Montana for a Friday night rally in hopes of ousting the state's Democratic senator, but his plane first had to divert to an airport on the other side of the Rocky Mountains because of a mechanical issue, according to airport staff.
Trump's plane was en route to Bozeman, Montana, when it was diverted Friday afternoon to Billings, 142 miles to the east, according to Jenny Mockel, administrative assistant at Billings Logan International Airport. Mockel said the former president was continuing to Bozeman via private jet.
Trump’s campaign posted a video of him upon landing in which he said he was glad to be in Montana but did not mention anything about the landing.
The former president came to Montana hoping to remedy some unfinished business from 2018, when he campaigned repeatedly in Big Sky Country in a failed bid to oust incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
Tester has tried to convince voters he’s aligned with Trump on many issues, mirroring his successful strategy from six years ago. While that worked in a non-presidential election year, it faces a more critical test this fall with Tester's opponent, former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, trying to link the three-term incumbent to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
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Kamala Harris makes an immigration pitch in Arizona as she fights to gain ground in the Sun Belt
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris drew on her prosecutorial background to make her first expansive pitch on immigration to border-state voters as she and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, attracted thousands to a campaign rally in Arizona during their tour of battleground states.
Harris, the former attorney general of California, reminded the crowd that she, as a law enforcement official, targeted transnational gangs, drug cartels and smugglers.
“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said in front of a crowd of more than 15,000 in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. “So I know what I'm talking about.”
Harris promoted a border security bill that a bipartisan group of senators negotiated earlier this year, which Republican lawmakers ultimately opposed en masse at Republican nominee Donald Trump's behest.
“Donald Trump does not want to fix this problem," Harris said. "Be clear about that: He has no interest or desire to actually fix the problem. He talks a big game about border security, but he does not walk the walk.”
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Plane crashes in Brazil's Sao Paulo state, killing all 61 aboard, airline says
VINHEDO, Brazil (AP) — A passenger plane crashed into a gated residential community in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state Friday, killing all 61 people aboard and leaving a smoldering wreck, officials and the airline said.
Officials did not say if anyone was killed on the ground in the neighborhood where the plane landed in the city of Vinhedo, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the metropolis of Sao Paulo. But witnesses at the scene said there were no victims among local residents.
The airline Voepass said that its plane, an ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop, was headed for Sao Paulo’s international airport Guarulhos with 57 passengers and 4 crew members aboard when it crashed in Vinhedo. It provided a flight manifest with passenger names, but not their nationalities. A prior statement had said there were 58 passengers.
“The company regrets to inform that all 61 people on board flight 2283 died at the site,” Voepass said in a statement. “At this time, Voepass is prioritizing provision of unrestricted assistance to the victims’ families and effectively collaborating with authorities to determine the causes of the accident.”
It was the deadliest airline crash since January 2023, when 72 people died on board a Yeti Airlines plane in Nepal that stalled and crashed while making its landing approach. That plane also was an ATR 72, and the final report blamed pilot error.
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Boxer Imane Khelif wins gold to cap an Olympics marked by scrutiny over her sex
PARIS (AP) — Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has won a gold medal Friday at the Paris Olympics, emerging a champion from a tumultuous run at the Games where she endured intense scrutiny in the ring and online abuse from around the world over misconceptions about her womanhood.
Khelif beat Yang Liu of China 5:0 in the final of the women’s welterweight division, wrapping up the best series of fights of her boxing career with a victory at Roland Garros, where crowds chanted her name, waved Algerian flags and roared every time she landed a punch.
After her unanimous win, Khelif jumped into her coaches' arms, one of them putting her on his shoulders and carrying her in a victory lap as she pumped her fists and grabbed an Algerian flag from the crowd.
“For eight years, this has been my dream, and I’m now the Olympic champion and gold medalist,” Khelif said through an interpreter. Asked about the scrutiny, she told reporters: “That also gives my success a special taste because of those attacks.”
“We are in the Olympics to perform as athletes, and I hope that we will not see any similar attacks in future Olympics,” she said.
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Breanna Stewart, US women's basketball team advance to gold medal game at Paris Olympics
PARIS (AP) — Breanna Stewart and the U.S. women's basketball team cruised to a familiar place — the Olympic gold medal game.
Stewart led a balanced offense as the Americans beat Australia 85-64 on Friday in the semifinals to extend their Olympic winning streak to 60 consecutive games dating back to the 1992 Barcelona Games.
“The streak is crazy. I mean, they just told me when I was doing TV that it was, like, before I was born that it kind of started, which is wild,” Stewart said. “It just goes to show those that have really paved the way and to create USA Basketball and what it is now. Tons of appreciation for that and knowing that when you represent this jersey and wear USA across your chest the standard is high and there really is nothing higher.”
And the team didn't disappoint some notable onlookers, including Sue Bird, Dawn Staley, Kevin Durant and Vanessa Bryant and her children.
After the business-like semifinal win in which the U.S. started strong and never took its foot off the gas, the Americans will face France for the title. The U.S. is trying to become the first team — in any sport — to win eight consecutive Olympic gold medals, breaking the tie with the U.S. men's program that won seven in a row from 1936-68.
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The threat Israel didn't foresee: Hezbollah's growing drone power
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group launched one of its deepest strikes into Israel in mid-May, using an explosive drone that scored a direct hit on one of Israel’s most significant air force surveillance systems.
This and other successful drone attacks have given the Iranian-backed militant group another deadly option for an expected retaliation against Israel for its airstrike in Beirut last month that killed top Hezbollah military commander Fouad Shukur.
“It is a threat that has to be taken seriously,” Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said of Hezbollah's drone capability.
While Israel has built air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling to guard against Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenal, there has been less focus on the drone threat.
“And as a result there has been less effort to build defensive capabilities” against drones, Hinz said.
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Russia declares an emergency in Kursk, under attack by Ukraine. 14 die in a Russian strike on a mall
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia declared a “federal-level” emergency in the Kursk region following a large-scale incursion from Ukraine and sent reinforcements there on Friday, four days after hundreds of Ukrainian troops poured across the border in what appeared to be Kyiv’s biggest attack on Russian soil since the war began.
Meanwhile, a Russian plane-launched missile slammed into a Ukrainian shopping mall in the middle of the day, killing at least 14 people and wounding 44 others, authorities said.
The mall in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, is located in the town’s residential area. Thick black smoke rose above it after the strike.
“This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post.
It was the second major strike on the town in almost a year. Last September, a Russian missile hit an outdoor market there, killing 17.
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Michael Brown's death 10 years ago sparked change in Ferguson
FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Michael Brown once told his father the “world is going to know my name,” words Michael Brown Sr. still takes to heart.
Friday marks 10 years since the 18-year-old was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, turning the St. Louis suburb into the focal point of the national reckoning with the historically tense relationship between U.S. law enforcement and Black people.
Activists marked the anniversary with a march through Ferguson, with crowds of people on foot but others in cars and SUVs honking their horns. They chanted Brown's name and sang as they walked. Some of them linked arms.
When the march reached a memorial of stuffed animals, blue roses, lillies and candles, Brown's father released butterflies from a box. Speakers included Fred Hampton Jr., chairman of the Black Panther Party, and Black scholar and progressive activist Cornel West.
“Justice ain’t nothing but what love looks like in public,” said West, who is running for president. He added later: “We shall never, ever forget the joy and the love of our dear brother Michael Brown.”
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3rd person in custody over foiled plot targeting now-canceled Taylor Swift shows in Vienna
VIENNA (AP) — Austrian authorities on Friday announced a third arrest in connection with the foiled conspiracy to attack three now-canceled Taylor Swift concerts, even as disappointed fans charmed Vienna by trading friendship bracelets and singing the pop star’s songs in the streets.
The main suspect, a 19-year-old, planned to target onlookers gathered outside Ernst Happel Stadium — up to 30,000 each night, with another 65,000 inside the venue — with knives or homemade explosives during the concert on Thursday or Friday. The suspect hoped to “kill as many people as possible," authorities said.
He was taken into custody on Tuesday, along with a 17-year-old, officials said. Both are Austrian citizens.
The third suspect, an 18-year-old Iraqi citizen, was arrested Thursday evening, the interior minister said at an unrelated news conference Friday.
A 15-year-old was also interrogated but was not arrested. Their names were not released, in line with Austrian privacy rules.
The Associated Press
