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Israeli air strike near Gaza school kills 30

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Israeli air strike near Gaza school kills 30

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An Israeli air strike near a school in the southern Gaza Strip killed about 30 people, mostly civilians sheltering at the facility, according to authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave. Dozens more were injured.

The Israeli military confirmed that it targeted a Hamas militant who it said was “adjacent” to al-Awda school east of the city of Khan Younis late on Tuesday, and said it was “looking into the reports that civilians were harmed”.

“The incident is under review,” the Israeli military added, emphasising that the target of the strike was a Hamas operative who had taken part in the group’s October 7 cross-border attack from Gaza that sparked the war, now entering its 10th month.

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Video footage from the scene taken by Palestinian civilians showed a football game in the schoolyard interrupted by a loud boom, and onlookers rushing to the gates to find bodies and injured people strewn on the ground.

The air strike came as Israeli forces continued ground operations in other parts of the territory, including a renewed offensive in several neighbourhoods of Gaza City and the Shejaiya district in the north of the coastal enclave, as well as the southern city of Rafah bordering Egypt.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military urged all Palestinians remaining in Gaza City, thought to be tens of thousands of people, to evacuate southward to the central areas of the strip. The enclave’s capital had borne the brunt of Israel’s initial assault late last year, with much of it reduced to rubble.

“Gaza City will remain a dangerous combat zone,” Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesperson, warned residents.

Earlier in the day the Israeli military said Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants had been using the Gaza City headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, as a base to attack its troops. After providing for the safe evacuation of civilians, a “targeted raid” had been launched on the facility, the military added.

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UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini has said that all sides — Israeli armed forces, Hamas and other Palestinian groups — use UNRWA facilities in the fighting. He said two-thirds of UNRWA schools in Gaza had been targeted and damaged since the start of the war.

“Four schools hit in the last 4 days . . . Schools have gone from safe places of education [and] hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death [and] misery,” he added in a post on X on Wednesday.

Israeli officials have maintained that Hamas fighters are present at UNRWA schools and facilities, taking cover behind displaced civilians, and that across Gaza the militant group systematically uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes.

Meanwhile, tensions escalated between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah militant movement on Tuesday, after two Israeli civilians were killed on the occupied Golan Heights when a rocket struck their car. The rocket fire was part of a barrage of about 40 projectiles launched by the Iran-backed group in retaliation for an alleged Israeli air strike earlier in the day in Syria that killed a senior Hizbollah operative.

Yasser Qarnabash, believed to be a former bodyguard to Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, was travelling on the Beirut-to-Damascus highway when his vehicle was struck.

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In response to the killing of the Israeli civilians, the Israeli military said it had targeted Hizbollah air defence systems on Wednesday deep inside Lebanon, in the area of Janat in the Bekaa Valley.

Israel and Hizbollah have been exchanging near-daily fire since the eruption of the Gaza conflict. While still limited, the clashes have displaced about 200,000 people in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, leading to concerns about the risk of a full-blown war between the two sides.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to return northern Israeli residents to their homes, either through US-sponsored diplomatic talks or via “other means”.

Hizbollah, for its part, has committed to continue firing at Israel so long as the fighting continues in Gaza.

High-level international talks were set to resume on Wednesday in Doha over a potential ceasefire deal in Gaza that would secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages seized on October 7.

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CIA chief Bill Burns and David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, were expected to meet Qatari and Egyptian mediators in a bid to pursue negotiations with Hamas. A US official last week expressed optimism about the chances of finalising a deal, saying there now existed a “significant opening” to do so.

However, Netanyahu stressed over the weekend that there were “still gaps between the sides” and re-emphasised that he would not be willing to end the conflict as part of the deal “until all of the objectives of the war have been achieved”.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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