AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Israel launches a big military operation in the West Bank and kills at least 10 Hamas militants

AL-FARAA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces launched a large operation in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, killing at least 10 Hamas militants, carrying out arrests and sealing off the volatile city of Jenin.

The ongoing operation was among the largest in the West Bank in months, and a reminder that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict extends far beyond the war in Gaza that began with Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. Israel says it is rooting out West Bank militants to prevent attacks, while Palestinians fear it intends to broaden the war and expel them from territories they want for a future state.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said “large forces” had entered Jenin, long a militant stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp dating to the 1948 Mideast war, all in the northern West Bank.

He said Israeli forces killed three militants in an airstrike in Tulkarem and four in an airstrike in Al-Faraa. He said another five suspected militants were arrested, and that the raids were the first stage of an even larger operation. Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.

Hamas announced that 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank on Wednesday, including three of the four men killed in Jenin. It was not immediately clear if the fourth was also a fighter. The Israeli military said all of the dead were militants.

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Gunman in Trump assassination attempt saw rally as 'target of opportunity,' FBI official says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The gunman in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump searched online for events of both Trump and President Joe Biden, looked up information about explosives over the last five years and eyed the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity,” a senior FBI official said Wednesday.

Investigators who have conducted nearly 1,000 interviews do not yet have a motive for why 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump during a July campaign rally but they believe that he conducted "extensive attack planning," including looking up campaign events involving both the current president and former president, particularly in western Pennsylvania.

The FBI analysis of his online search history reveals a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Pittsburgh field office, told reporters Wednesday in the latest in a series of briefings on the investigation.

Once a Trump rally was announced for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, “He became hyper-focused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity,” Rojek said. Crooks' internet searches in the days leading up to the rally included queries about the grounds where the rally was held, “Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show?” “Butler Farm Show podium" and ”Butler Farm Show photos."

In the 30 days before the attack, the FBI says, Crooks did more than 60 internet searches related to Biden and Trump, including seeking the dates of both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. FBI Director Christopher Wray has previously revealed that one week before the shooting, Crooks did a Google search for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”

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Trump campaign was warned not to take photos at Arlington before altercation, defense official says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's campaign was warned about not taking photographs before an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery during a wreath-laying ceremony earlier this week to honor service members killed in the Afghanistan War withdrawal, a defense official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter concerning Monday's events. It came a day after NPR reported, citing a source with knowledge of the incident, that two Trump campaign staff members “verbally abused and pushed” aside a cemetery official who tried to stop them from filming and photographing in Section 60, the burial site for military personnel killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The defense official told the AP that the Trump campaign was warned about not taking photographs in Section 60 before their arrival and the altercation. Trump was at Arlington on Monday at the invitation of some of the families of the 13 service members who were killed in the Kabul airport bombing exactly three years prior.

Arlington National Cemetery is the resting place for more than 400,000 service members, veterans and their families. Cemetery officials said in a statement that “an incident” had occurred and a report had been filed, but it did not address details of what had happened. They declined to share the report.

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery officials’ statement said. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

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Typhoon lashes Japan with torrential rain and strong winds on a slow crawl north

TOKYO (AP) — A typhoon lashed southern Japan with torrential rain and strong winds Thursday, causing at least three deaths as it started a crawl up the length of the archipelago and raised concerns of flooding, landslides and extensive damage.

Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in the morning near Satsumasendai in southern Kyushu, where up to 60 centimeters (23.6 inches) of rain could fall in 24 hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It also said the typhoon would bring strong winds, high waves and significant rainfall to most of the country, particularly the southern prefectures of Kyushu, and issued its highest-level warnings.

People living in the warned areas were urged to take shelter at community centers and other public facilities.

Shanshan was still around the southern island of Kyushu by midmorning, moving north at 15 kph (9 mph) with sustained winds of 144 kph (89 mph) and higher gusts, JMA said.

Ahead of the typhoon's arrival, heavy rain caused a landslide that buried a house in the central city of Gamagori, killing three residents and injuring two others, according to the city’s disaster management department.

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Brazil top court threatens to suspend X operations in latest twist of ongoing feud

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday threatened to shut down the local operations of X, formerly Twitter, unless its billionaire owner Elon Musk names a legal representative in Brazil within 24 hours.

The order from Justice Alexandre de Moraes is the latest development in an ongoing feud with Musk’s platform. The company clashed with de Moraes earlier this year over free speech, accounts associated with the far-right and misinformation on the platform, and it claims to be a victim of censorship.

Earlier this month, X said it was removing all remaining Brazil staff in the country “effective immediately,” saying de Moraes had threatened its legal representative in the country with arrest.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday notified X of de Moraes’ order in a reply to a post from the company’s global government affairs account on the social platform.

“In case of non-compliance with the determination, the decision could bring about suspension of the social media network’s activities in Brazil,” the court said in a statement.

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French authorities issue preliminary charges against Telegram messaging app CEO

PARIS (AP) — French authorities handed preliminary charges to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on Wednesday for allowing alleged criminal activity on his messaging app, and barred him from leaving France pending further investigation.

Both free-speech advocates and authoritarian governments have spoken out in Durov's defense since his weekend arrest. The case has also called attention to the challenges of policing illegal activity online, and to the Russia-born Durov's own unusual biography and multiple passports.

Durov was detained on Saturday at Le Bourget airport outside Paris as part of a sweeping investigation opened earlier this year, and released earlier Wednesday after four days of questioning. Investigative judges filed preliminary charges Wednesday night and ordered him to pay 5 million euros bail and to report to a police station twice a week, according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor's office.

Allegations against Durov, who is also a French citizen, include that his platform is being used for child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, and that Telegram refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.

The first preliminary charge against him was for ‘’complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group,'' a crime that can lead to sentences of up to 10 years in prison and 500,000 euro fine, the prosecutor's office said.

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Harris and Walz reach out to voters in GOP strongholds in southeast Georgia bus tour

HINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, dropped in on a high school band practice Wednesday as part of a two-day bus tour through southeast Georgia, a critical battleground state that Democrats just narrowly won four years ago.

Harris and Walz paid a visit to Liberty County High School in Hinesville, listening to the marching band perform its school fight song and delivering brief remarks to students and faculty on the first day of their Georgia swing, which will culminate in a rally in Savannah on Thursday night.

“We’re so proud of you and we’re counting on you," Harris told the students, some shrieking with excitement at the sight of the vice president. "Your generation … is what is going to propel our country into the next era of what we can do and what we can be.”

Harris told the students that she, too, played in the band — an aide said the vice president had played the French horn, xylophone and kettle drums.

The visit is part of a two-pronged strategy by the Harris-Walz campaign to make inroads in GOP strongholds and to use smaller, more intimate settings to showcase a softer side of the ticket — which is still relatively unknown by the electorate. Campaign officials believe that in order to beat Republican Donald Trump in the state, they will need more than Atlanta and the suburbs that delivered for Joe Biden in 2020.

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Ex-politician convicted in 2022 killing of Vegas reporter, jury sets sentence at 20 years to life

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Democratic former politician was found guilty of murder on Wednesday by a Nevada jury that decided he'll serve 20 years to life in prison for killing an investigative journalist who wrote articles critical of his conduct in office two years ago.

Robert Telles hung his head, shaking it slightly from side to side, as his verdict was read in Clark County District Court. Jurors deliberated for nearly 12 hours over three days before their unanimous vote that he ambushed and attacked Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German in a side yard of German's home.

Telles didn't speak then or when he learned his sentence but appeared near tears during character witness testimony by his wife, mother and ex-wife. His defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, told reporters outside court that his client plans to appeal.

Telles, 47, was returned in custody to jail, where he has been held without bail since his arrest several days after German's body was found during Labor Day weekend 2022. His sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 16.

Jessica Coleman, a county employee, was among several co-workers who urged German in 2022 to investigate Telles' conduct heading the office of unclaimed estate and probate property cases. She sobbed after the verdict was read.

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Trinidad and Tobago reckons with colonialism in a debate on statues, signs and monuments of its past

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — In a small auditorium in the seaside capital of Trinidad and Tobago, Christopher Columbus and other colonial-era figures came under scrutiny late Wednesday in a lengthy debate punctuated by snickers, applause and outbursts.

The government had asked residents of the diverse, twin-island nation in the eastern Caribbean if they supported the removal of statues, signs and monuments with colonial ties and how those spaces should be used instead. One by one, people of African, European and Indigenous descent stepped up to the microphone and responded.

Some suggested that a prominent Columbus statue be placed in a museum. Others requested it be destroyed and that people be allowed to stomp on the dusty remains. One man encouraged officials to round up statues of colonial figures and create a “square of the infamous.”

The majority of the more than two dozen people who spoke, and dozens of others commenting online, supported removal of colonial-era symbols and names.

“It’s an issue about how after 62 years of independence ... we continue to live in a space that reflects the ideals and the vision and the views of those who were our colonial masters,” said Zakiya Uzoma-Wadada, executive chair of the islands’ Emancipation Support Committee.

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An Israeli freed from Gaza returns to a Bedouin village targeted for demolition

KHIRBET KARKUR, Israel (AP) — An Israeli hostage rescued from Gaza returned to a hero’s welcome tinged with a bitter reality: Much of the small village he calls home – Khirbet Karkur -- is targeted for demolition.

Qaid Farhad Alkadi, 52, is one of Israel’s roughly 300,000 Bedouin Arabs, a poor and traditionally nomadic minority that has a complicated relationship with the government and often faces discrimination. While they are Israeli citizens and some serve in the army, about a third of Bedouins, including Alkadi, live in villages the government considers illegal and wants to tear down.

Since November, about 70% of Khirbet Karkur residents have been told the government plans to raze their homes because they were built without permits in a “protected forest” not zoned for housing, according to a lawyer representing them. Alkadi’s family hasn’t received a notice, but the looming mass displacement of this close-knit community has cast a pall on what has otherwise been a joyous 24 hours.

“It’s so exciting, we didn’t know if he’ll come back alive or not,” said Muhammad Abu Tailakh, the head of Khirbet Karkur’s local council and a public health lecturer at Ben Gurion University in nearby Beersheba. “But the good news is also a bit complicated, because of everything that’s going on.”

Alkadi was greeted by dozens of well-wishers Wednesday – and a crush of media. He was released from the hospital and returned home a day after his dramatic rescue, which he recounted in appreciative phone calls with Israel’s prime minister and president.