US hosts

Gaza talks

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli and U.S. officials met in Washington on Wednesday to discuss post-war Gaza. The meeting comes even as Israel’s military calls the evacuation of Gaza City “inevitable” ahead of a new offensive and no signs of a ceasefire are in sight.

The talks take place amid mounting outrage over this week’s double Israeli strike on a southern Gaza hospital that killed journalists, emergency responders and others. Gaza health officials said the death toll from the attack on Nasser Hospital rose to 22 after two more people died Wednesday.

The Israeli military offered no immediate explanation for striking twice and no evidence for an assertion that six of the dead were militants.

Abrego Garcia

requests asylum

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has come to encapsulate much of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, say he wants to seek asylum in the United States.

His lawyers told that to a federal judge Wednesday. The 30-year-old Salvadoran national was detained Monday in Baltimore by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after leaving a Tennessee jail on Friday. Administration officials have said he’s part of the dangerous MS-13 gang, an allegation Abrego Garcia denies.

His lawyers are fighting the deportation efforts in court, arguing he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture in Uganda.

Denmark claims

interference

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The top U.S. diplomat in Denmark has been summoned by the government after a report that people connected to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.

Danish broadcaster DR reported Wednesday that at least three Americans have been involved in these operations. They allegedly compiled lists of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders and tried to influence local politics. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service believes Greenland is a target for influence campaigns.

The U.S. State Department says the deputy chief of mission in Copenhagen had productive talks with Danish foreign ministry officials and reaffirmed their strong ties. The department declined to comment “on the actions of private U.S. citizens in Greenland.”

Russian forces

gain ground

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian military official says Russia’s invading forces have broken into an eighth region of Ukraine, seeking to capture more ground in their three-year war of attrition as U.S.-led peace efforts struggle to gain traction.

Victor Trehubov, spokesman for local ground forces, told The Associated Press that some Russian troops have entered two villages in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a major Ukrainian industrial center next to the Donetsk region where fierce fighting has been taking place.

Ukrainian troops are under severe strain as they try to hold back Russia’s bigger army.