dozens

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is expected to soon announce that it will return a few dozen artifacts to Indigenous communities in Canada as part of its reckoning with the Catholic Church’s troubled role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas, officials said Wednesday.

The items, including an Inuit kayak, are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods.

Negotiations on returning the Vatican items accelerated after Pope Francis in 2022 met with Indigenous leaders who had traveled to the Vatican to receive his apology for the church’s role in running Canada’s disastrous residential schools. During their visit, they were shown some objects in the collection, including wampum belts, war clubs and masks, and asked for them to be returned.

Francis later said he was in favor of returning the items and others in the Vatican collection on a case-by-case basis, saying: “In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Wednesday it has been working with Indigenous groups on returning the items to their “originating communities.” It said it expected the Holy See to announce the return. Vatican and Canadian officials said they expected an announcement in the coming weeks, and that the items could arrive on Canadian soil before the end of the year.

The Globe and Mail newspaper first reported on the progress in the restitution negotiations.

Doubt cast on whether the items were freely given

Most of the items in the Vatican collection were sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens that was a highlight of that year’s Holy Year.

The Vatican insists the items were “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized.

But historians, Indigenous groups and experts have long questioned whether the items could really have been offered freely, given the power imbalances at play in Catholic missions at the time. In those years, Catholic religious orders were helping to enforce the Canadian government’s forced assimilation policy of eliminating Indigenous traditions, which Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”

Part of that policy included confiscating items used in Indigenous spiritual and traditional rituals, such as the 1885 potlatch ban that prohibited the integral First Nations ceremony. Those confiscated items ended up in museums in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as well as private collections.

The return of the items in the Vatican collection will follow the “church-to-church” model the Holy See used in 2023, when it gave its Parthenon Marbles to the Orthodox Christian Church in Greece. The three fragments were described by the Vatican as a “donation” to the Orthodox church, not a state-to-state repatriation to the Greek government.

In this case, the Vatican is expected to hand over the items to the Canadian bishops conference, with the explicit understanding that the ultimate keepers will be the Indigenous communities, a Canadian official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are not concluded.

What happens after the items are returned

The items, accompanied by whatever provenance information the Vatican has, will be taken first to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. There, experts and Indigenous groups will try to identify where the items originated, down to the specific community, and what should be done with them, the official said.

The official declined to say how many items were under negotiation or who decided what would be returned, but said the total numbered “a few dozen.” The aim is to get the items back this year, the official said, noting the 2025 Jubilee which celebrates hope but is also a time for repentance.

This year’s Jubilee comes on the centenary of the 1925 Holy Year and missionary exhibit, which is now so controversial that its 100th anniversary has been virtually ignored by the Vatican, which celebrates a lot of anniversaries.

The Assembly of First Nations said some logistical issues need to be finalized before the objects can be returned, including establishing protocols.

“For First Nations, these items are not artifacts. They are living, sacred pieces of our cultures and ceremonies and must be treated as the invaluable objects that they are,” National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told Canadian Press.

Gloria Bell, associate professor of art history at McGill University who has conducted extensive research on the 1925 exhibit, said the items were acquired during an era of “Catholic Imperialism” by a pope who “praised missionaries and their genocidal labors in Indigenous communities as ‘heroes of the faith.’”

“This planned return marks a significant shift in the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and perhaps the beginning of healing,” said Bell, who is of Metis ancestry and wrote about the 1925 exhibit in “Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome.”

Winfield writes for the Associated Press.

The final public viewing event in the western city of Kisumu has been preceded by deaths and injuries on previous days.

Dozens of people have been injured at a memorial event in Kenya’s western city of Kisumu as huge crowds gathered to view the body of revered former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, local media reported.

The injuries occurred on Saturday at Jomo Kenyatta International Stadium despite authorities deploying military units, police and aerial surveillance to prevent a recurrence of deadly and chaotic incidents that marked earlier memorial proceedings on Thursday and Friday.

Kenya Red Cross teams treated people who fainted from fatigue and distress, evacuating casualties as crowds surged inside the venue. Odinga’s body was being transported to his ancestral home in nearby Bondo for burial on Sunday, drawing tens of thousands throughout the region.

The additional precautions were put in place after violence and chaos killed at least five people during memorial proceedings for the 80-year-old opposition leader and statesman, who collapsed during a morning walk in India’s Kerala state on Wednesday.

Siaya Governor James Orengo urged restraint as arrangements progressed for transporting Odinga’s body to his ancestral home in Bondo, approximately 60km (40 miles) west of Kisumu, where the latest disruptions had occurred.

“I really entreat members of the public and the community in general to maintain the peace during this period,” Orengo told local media.

Thursday’s initial viewing descended into bloodshed when security forces fired weapons and tear gas into crowds surging towards a pavilion where Odinga’s coffin had been placed, killing at least three people at a Nairobi stadium.

A day later, panic swept through mourners exiting Friday’s state funeral service at a separate venue in the capital, triggering a crowd crush that killed two more and sent 163 to medical care.

Huge turnout has characterised every stage of the mourning period since Odinga’s body returned home on Thursday, with supporters walking nearly 30km (20 miles) from Nairobi’s airport to escort his remains.

Friday’s state ceremony drew tens of thousands who sang, danced and waved handkerchiefs as they celebrated a figure many affectionately called “Baba” – the Swahili word for father.

Dignitaries including President William Ruto and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud attended the service, where Odinga’s relatives pleaded for peaceful proceedings.

His brother Oburu told mourners: “Raila should not be teargassed in death. He has been teargassed enough when he was alive.”

Former United States President Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, honoured Odinga as “a true champion of democracy” who “endured decades of struggle and sacrifice for the broader cause of freedom and self-governance in Kenya”, in a post on X.

Obama noted that Odinga “was willing to choose the path of peaceful reconciliation without compromising his core values”.

Odinga never became president despite five attempts spanning three decades, but shaped Kenya’s democratic evolution more profoundly than many who held that office and has led to an outpouring of grief nationally and across Africa.

He spearheaded the country’s return to multiparty politics in the 1990s and drove the passage of a landmark 2010 constitution that distributed authority away from centralised executive power.

The majority of the deaths have occurred in the states of Veracruz and Hidalgo.

At least 64 people have died in Mexico after heavy rains and flooding hit five states last week.

The National Civil Protection Coordination (CNPC) chief, Laura Velazquez Alzua, speaking during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily news briefing on Monday, said another 65 people were still missing.

The state of Veracruz on the country’s southeastern coastline has confirmed 29 deaths, followed by 21 in Hidalgo, 13 in Puebla and one in Queretaro, Alzua said.

Forty-three people are also reported missing in Hidalgo, along with 18 in Veracruz and four in Puebla.

Thousands of military troops have been deployed to offer assistance across the five affected states, and governors are also working together to coordinate support, Sheinbaum said.

Early estimates show that about 100,000 houses have been affected, she added, with some near rivers having “practically disappeared”.

Facing questions about Mexico’s alert system, Sheinbaum said there were no meteorological signs “that could have indicated to us that the rain was going to be of this magnitude”.

Meteorologists have said the rains occurred thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Rainstorm Raymond, which caused rivers to rapidly rise, leading to flooding and landslides.

The heaviest rainfall was reported on Wednesday in Veracruz’s city of Cerro Azul and Puebla’s Cuetzalan del Progreso, which saw 280mm and 286mm of rain, respectively, Alzua said.

The Mexican Army, Air Force and National Guard have jointly implemented response efforts, distributing food and clean water, sometimes by air, to locations otherwise made inaccessible by landslides and road closures.

Nearly 400 repair workers have restored more than 80 percent of the electricity supply across the five states, where about 263,000 users lost power, electricity officials said during the briefing.

Oct. 12 (UPI) — Dozens of soldiers are dead following clashes along the Pakistani-Afghan border Saturday night into Sunday morning.

An attack by the Afghan Taliban on Pakistani military installations prompted the heavy exchange of military fire after Afghan troops opened fire along the northwest border and took control of several of the military posts, officials said.

The attacks followed alleged Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan territory, which included targets in Kabul, the capital earlier in the week.

Pakistan responded Sunday with gunfire and ground raids on Taliban posts at the border.

The Pakistani military said 23 soldiers were killed and at least 29 more wounded in the fighting. Officials said 200 Taliban-backed Afghan terrorists were killed in retaliatory strikes, and that Pakistani forces had dismantled Afghan terrorist training camps.

A spokesperson for Afghanistan‘s Taliban government said Sunday that a “significant amount” of Pakistani weapons had been recovered by Taliban forces in the clash.

The latest spasm of deadly violence marks the sharpest uptick in tensions between the Taliban and Pakistan in months, and surface amid Islamabad’s allegations that Afghanistan is harboring armed militants in Pakistan.

Crisis has damaged more than 16,000 homes and caused widespread electricity cuts.

Torrential flooding has continued to sweep parts of central and southeastern Mexico, raising the death toll to at least 44 people in less than a week.

Heavy downpours caused by two tropical storms have triggered landslides and flooding across five states, including Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi, the government said in a statement on Sunday.

Floods have killed 18 people in Veracruz state, 16 in Hidalgo, nine in Puebla and one in Queretaro, the statement said.

Mexico’s El Universal newspaper put the death toll even higher — at 48 — and reported that dozens remain missing.

Around 320,000 people have experienced power outages, and at least 16,000 homes have been damaged, according to authorities, who fear that more landslides and overflowing rivers could exacerbate the damage.

‘We will not leave anyone’

President Claudia Sheinbaum said the military has been mobilised to help with rescue operations and aid distributions. “We will not leave anyone without support,” she said in a post on X.

Photos posted by the military showed people being evacuated by soldiers with life rafts, homes flooded with mud, and rescue workers trudging through waist-high waters.

Mexico has been hit by particularly heavy rains this year, and Mexico City recorded its rainiest June in more than two decades.

Authorities have attributed the latest deadly downpours to the remnants of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Rainstorm Raymond, both of which dumped heavy rains on Mexico’s west.

The remnants of Raymond, with wind gusts now at 45km/hr (28mph), were expected to hit the southern part of Baja California on Sunday.

Video shows the aftermath of drone and artillery strikes on a shelter in the besieged city of el-Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur state, which killed at least 60 people. The attack was carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to a Sudanese medical advocacy group.

Oct. 11 (UPI) — Locals said a drone and artillery attack on a refugee shelter by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in el-Fasher, Sudan, late Friday killed at least 60.

Local activists said the RSF struck the Dar al-Arqam refugee camp with two drone attacks and eight artillery shells, which the RSF has denied, the BBC reported.

“Children, women and the elderly were killed in cold blood, and many were completely burned,” members of an el-Fasher resistance committee said in a prepared statement on Saturday.

The strikes killed at least 14 children and 15 women in the besieged city that is located in North Darfur in western Sudan.

Another 21 people, including five children, also were injured, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Network.

The SDN called the attack a “massacre” and blamed the RSF, despite the paramilitary unit’s denial.

The attack struck the al Arqam Home that shelters displaced families in el-Fasher, Sky News reported.

The city has been under siege from paramilitary forces and caught in the middle of fighting between Sudan’s military forces and paramilitaries operating in the region.

The RSF is among those paramilitaries and is trying to establish a separatist government in the North Dafur region.

El-Fasher is the last stronghold held by Sudan’s army in the Darfur area and has been surrounded by the RSF for 17 months.

The RSF controls most of the Darfur region and much of the Kordofan province in central Sudan.

Pakistan Taliban claims responsibility for attack on military convoy, leading to a deadly gunfight.

Eleven military personnel have been killed in a gunfight with armed fighters in the country’s northwest, according to the Pakistani army.

The gun battle erupted early on Wednesday during an intelligence operation in the Orakzai district near the Afghan border, the army said in a news release.

During the intelligence raid, the military said, an “intense” exchange of fire broke out with “Khawarij”, a term it uses for banned groups such as the Pakistan Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Among the dead were Lieutenant Colonel Junaid Arif and his deputy, Major Tayyab Rahat, along with nine other soldiers. The army said 19 fighters were also killed.

The Reuters news agency, citing Pakistani security officials, reported that the fighters ambushed a military convoy with a roadside bomb before opening fire.

In a statement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lauded security forces for their service and paid tribute to the troops who lost their lives.

In recent months, the Pakistan Taliban, which wants to overthrow the government and replace it with their hardline brand of Islamic governance, has stepped up attacks on Pakistani security forces.

Islamabad says the group uses neighbouring Afghanistan to train and plan attacks against Pakistan, while archrival India funds and backs them, charges denied by both countries.

Google said it plans to lay off dozens of workers at its Sunnyvale offices, following job reductions at other large tech firms.

Google notified the California Employment Development Department on Monday that it will lay off 50 workers in Sunnyvale, according to a notice obtained by The Times.

Tech companies are cutting jobs in preparation for a possible recession, as well as anticipating efficiencies gained from artificial intelligence, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Oregon-based advisory services firm Enderle Group.

“We’re preparing for a bit of a downturn and companies often like to cut ahead of bad news like that so they can keep their financials solid,” he said.

In August, Salesforce said it cut 4,000 support roles due to AI helping automate tasks. Other tech businesses, including Intel, Microsoft and Meta have also reduced staff while investing more in AI this year.

CNBC reported on Wednesday that Google laid off more than 100 people in design-related roles in its cloud division.

In Google’s notice that it filed with the state, the jobs affected by the cuts included roles in user experience, software engineers and business program managers. The layoffs in the cloud division were first reported by Business Insider.

“AI is pretty good at coding right now and anything to do with design … as long as someone can describe what it is they want, that significantly increases the productivity of the folks you have in design,” Enderle said. “Unless you’re increasing the workload just as dramatically, you’re going to have too many people.”

Google, which is based in Mountain View, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Times staff writer Queenie Wong contributed to this report.

At least 69 people were killed in a powerful earthquake that struck the central Philippine province of Cebu.

The magnitude 6.9 earthquake, which occurred at about 10pm (14:00 GMT) on Tuesday, trapped an unspecified number of residents in collapsed houses, nightclubs, and other businesses in Bogo City and outlying rural towns within Cebu, officials said.

Rescuers scrambled to find survivors on Wednesday. Army troops, police, and civilian volunteers, supported by backhoe diggers and sniffer dogs, were deployed to conduct house-to-house searches for survivors.

The epicentre of the earthquake — triggered by movement along an undersea fault line at a dangerously shallow depth of 5km (3 miles) — was about 19km (12 miles) northeast of Bogo, a coastal city of about 90,000 people in Cebu province, where about half of the deaths were reported, officials said.

The death toll in Bogo was likely to rise, according to officials, who noted that intermittent rain and damaged bridges and roads were hampering efforts to save lives.

“We’re still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” Office of Civil Defence deputy administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said during a news briefing. “There are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.”

Deaths were also reported in the outlying towns of Medellin and San Remigio, where three coastguard personnel, a firefighter, and a child were killed separately by collapsing walls and falling debris while attempting to flee to safety from a basketball game in a sports complex that was disrupted by the quake, town officials said.

The earthquake was one of the most powerful to hit the central region in more than a decade.

Cebu and other provinces were still recovering from Typhoon Bualoi, which battered the central region on Friday, killing at least 27 people — mostly due to drownings and falling trees — knocking out power in entire cities and towns, and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands.

Schools and government offices were closed in the affected cities and towns while the safety of buildings was assessed. More than 600 aftershocks have been detected since Tuesday night’s earthquake, said Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

Rain-soaked mountainsides were more susceptible to landslides and mudslides following a major earthquake, he warned.

“This was really traumatic to people. They have been lashed by a storm and then jolted by an earthquake,” Bacolcol said. “I don’t want to experience what they’ve gone through.”

The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is frequently affected by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year.

A typhoon that ripped roofs from homes has killed dozens of people across Vietnam and the Philippines, officials from both countries said, as a weakened Storm Bualoi crossed into neighbouring Laos.

The typhoon battered small islands in central Philippines last week, toppling trees and power pylons, unleashing floods, and forcing 400,000 people to evacuate. A Philippine civil defence official on Monday said the death toll there had more than doubled to 27, with most victims either drowning or being struck by debris.

Scientists warn that storms are becoming increasingly powerful as the planet warms due to human-induced climate change.

In Vietnam, Bualoi made landfall as a typhoon late on Sunday, generating winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour (80 miles per hour). At least 13 people were killed, while a search is ongoing for 20 others, disaster authorities stated in an online update.

More than 44,200 houses were damaged, including many with roofs torn off, predominantly in the central province of Ha Tinh. At least 800 homes were flooded and nearly 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) of crops were inundated, according to the update.

At least nine people died when a typhoon-related whirlwind swept through the northern Vietnamese province of Ninh Binh early on Monday, according to the local disaster agency. One person was killed in the province of Hue and another in Thanh Hoa, with about 20 people reported missing by local and national disaster authorities.

More than 53,000 people were evacuated to schools and medical centres converted into temporary shelters before Bualoi made landfall in Vietnam, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said.

Four domestic airports, as well as parts of the national highway, were closed on Monday. More than 180 flights were cancelled or delayed, according to airport authorities. Parts of Nghe An and the steel-producing central province of Ha Tinh were without power, and schools were closed in affected regions.

Since making landfall in Vietnam, Bualoi has weakened as it moved across the border into Laos. It came in the wake of Super Typhoon Ragasa, which killed 14 people across northern Philippines. The country is struck by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, routinely affecting disaster-prone areas where millions of people live.

In Vietnam, 175 people were killed or went missing due to natural disasters from January to August this year, according to the General Statistics Office. Total damages were estimated at $371m, almost triple the amount during the same period in 2024, it said.

Typhoon Yagi killed hundreds of people in Vietnam in September last year and caused economic losses worth $3.3bn.

A crowd crush at a campaign rally for popular actor-turned-politician Vijay has killed at least 39 people in Karur, in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state.

Sept. 26 (UPI) — Dozens of U.N. delegates walked out of the General Assembly Hall on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to “finish the job” in Gaza in his speech at U.N. Headquarters in New York City.

According to Axios, nearly all delegates from predominantly Arab and Muslim countries, as well as some from African and European countries, appeared to leave the hall as Netanyahu entered to give his address during the annual general debate. The outlet said the walkouts represented the vast majority of delegates in attendance.

Netanyahu is facing growing opposition among world leaders as the war in Gaza nears its two-year anniversary. On the sidelines of the U.N. general debate this week, several countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada and France, formally announced their recognition of Palestine, showing their preference for a two-state solution to the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu has rejected the calls for a two-state solution, telling the leaders of these nations Friday that their recognition of Palestine tells Hamas that “murdering Jews pays off.”

“When the most savage terrorists on Earth are exclusively praising your decision, you didn’t do something right, you did something wrong, horribly wrong,” Netanyahu told those countries, apparently referring to Hamas.

“Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere. It will be a mark of shame on all of you.”

Netanyahu said Israel would carry on its war against Gaza, which was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas took hundreds of hostages, some 50 of whom have yet to be returned.

“The final elements, the final remnants of Hamas, are holed up in Gaza City. They vow to repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7 again and again and again, no matter how diminished their forces,” Netanyahu said.

“That is why Israel must finish the job. That is why we want to do so as fast as possible.”

The prime minister said he had loudspeakers set up to broadcast his speech throughout Gaza. He said his government also took over cell phones in Gaza to also show his speech, but multiple Palestinians told CNN they never received any messages.

At least 70 people were killed when the paramilitary RSF struck a mosque in Sudan’s el-Fasher in Darfur. The attack came the same day the UN warned of deepening ethnic violence in Sudan’s civil war, which has already killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.

Sept. 19 (UPI) — Russia launched nearly 90 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were “neutralized,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Friday morning, after having claimed an “important success” in its counteroffensive in southeastern Donetsk.

The Kremlin targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure and other targets in the regions of Donetsk, Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, wounding at least two people in Dnipro, while recovery efforts were underway in Kyiv where public transport infrastructure was damaged.

“Once again, the Russians strike civilians at a time when the entire world — and above all the United States — is calling for peace,” he said on X. “We hear President [Donald] Trump’s position on ending the killings, and we have agreed to all the proposals to unblock diplomacy. But it seems his position is not being heard in Russia.”

The attack comes as Trump, who campaigned on ending the Ukraine war within 24 hours of returning to the White House, has been pushing for a cease-fire.

During a press conference in Britain on Thursday, Trump acknowledged to reporters that he thought ending the Ukraine war would be the “easiest” of the ongoing conflicts due to his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“He’s let me down. He’s really let me down,” he said, while vowing that he will end the war.

Zelensky has been saying that Putin is not interested in a cease-fire, despite what the Russian leader says, citing the nightly drone attacks on his country.

He said in lieu of Russian seriousness about an end to the war, Ukraine must implement “everything that strengthens us,” including the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List initiative, a mechanism launched this year to support Kyiv’s military needs.

“Decisive action is needed so that Russia ultimately agrees to diplomacy as well,” he said.

On Wednesday night, Zelensky claimed “an important success” in the Donetsk theater, where Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive.

He announced that since the start of the offensive, the date for which isn’t clear, Ukraine has captured 160 square kilometers while clearing 170 square kilometers of Russian troops.

“Any group of occupiers attempting to enter this area is being destroyed by our guys,” he said in his nightly address.

TUCSON — A federal judge in Arizona temporarily blocked the Trump administration from removing dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children living in shelters or foster care after coming to the U.S. alone, according to a decision Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez in Tucson extended until at least Sept. 26 a temporary restraining issued over the Labor Day weekend. Márquez raised concern over whether the government had arranged for any of the children’s parents or legal guardians in Guatemala to take custody of them.

Laura Belous, attorney for the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, which represents the children, said in court that the minors had expressed no desire to be repatriated to their native Guatemala and Honduras amid concerns they could face neglect, possible child trafficking or hardships associated with individual medical conditions.

Lawyers for the children said that their clients have said they fear going home, and that the government is not following laws designed to protect migrant children.

A legal aid group filed a lawsuit in Arizona on behalf of 57 Guatemalan children and 12 from Honduras between the ages of 3 and 17.

Denise Ann Faulk, an assistant U.S. attorney under the Trump administration, emphasized that the child repatriations were negotiated at high diplomatic levels and would avoid lengthy prohibitions on returning to the U.S.

Nearly all the children were in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and living at shelters in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Similar lawsuits filed in Illinois and Washington seek to stop the government from removing the children.

The Arizona lawsuit demands that the government grant the children their right to present their cases to an immigration judge, to have access to legal counsel and to be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in their best interest.

The Trump administration has argued it is acting in the best interest of the children by trying to reunite them with their families at the behest of the Guatemalan government. After Guatemalan officials toured U.S. detention facilities, the government said that it was “very concerned” and that it would take children who wanted to return voluntarily.

Children began crossing the border alone in large numbers in 2014, peaking at 152,060 in the 2022 fiscal year. July’s arrest tally translates to an annual clip of 5,712 arrests, reflecting how illegal crossings have dropped to their lowest levels in six decades.

Guatemalans accounted for 32% of residents at government-run holding facilities last year, followed by Hondurans, Mexicans and Salvadorans. A 2008 law requires children to appear before an immigration judge with an opportunity to pursue asylum, unless they are from Canada and Mexico. The vast majority are released from shelters to parents, legal guardians or immediate family while their cases wind through court.

The Arizona lawsuit was amended to include 12 children from Honduras who have expressed to an Arizona legal aid group that they do not want to return to Honduras, as well as four additional children from Guatemala who have come into government custody in Arizona since the lawsuit was initially filed Aug. 30.

Judge Márquez said she found it “frightening” that U.S. officials may not have coordinated with the children’s parents. She also expressed concern that the government was denying the children access to review by an experienced immigration judge, and noted that legal representatives for the children were notified of preparations for child departures with little notice, late at night.

“On a practical matter, it just seems that a lot of these things that [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] has taken upon themselves to do — such as screening and making judicial determinations that should be made by an immigration judge with expertise and time to meet with a lawyer and meet with a child — is just surpassed by saying ‘we’re reuniting them’” with parents, Márquez said in court as she pressed Faulk for more information.

Billeaud and Lee write for the Associated Press.

As the world’s attention was focused on Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Israeli forces continued their unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 50 people on Tuesday.

Among the dead are nine Palestinians, who had gathered in the enclave’s south seeking aid. Israel pressed on with its offensive in Gaza City after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Palestinians to flee to the south for their lives.

The Wafa news agency reported that a drone strike on a makeshift tent sheltering displaced families at Gaza’s port killed two civilians and injured others. Warplanes also hit several residential buildings, including four homes in the al-Mukhabarat area and the Zidan building northwest of Gaza City, it reported.

Another house was reportedly bombed in the Talbani neighbourhood of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, while two young men were killed in an attack on civilians in the az-Zarqa area of Tuffah, northeast of Gaza City.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency confirmed footage showing an Israeli strike on the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque in Deir el-Balah. The video captured a flash of light before the mosque’s minaret was enveloped in smoke. Despite the blast, the minaret appeared to remain standing.

Israel issued new evacuation threats on Monday, releasing maps warning Palestinians to leave a highlighted building and nearby tents on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street in Gaza City or face death. It told residents to move to the so-called “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a barren stretch of coast in southern Gaza.

But al-Mawasi itself has been repeatedly bombed, despite Israel insisting it is a safe zone. At the start of the year, about 115,000 people lived there. Today, aid agencies estimate that more than 800,000 people – nearly a third of Gaza’s population – are crammed into overcrowded makeshift camps.

Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, described al-Mawasi as a vast camp “concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair”.

“There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone. Warnings of famine have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.

The Palestinian Civil Defence warned that “Gaza City is burning, and humanity is being annihilated”.

The rescue agency said that in just 72 hours, five high-rise towers containing more than 200 apartments were destroyed, leaving thousands of people homeless.

More than 350 tents sheltering displaced families were also flattened, it added, forcing nearly 7,600 people to sleep in the open, “struggling against death, hunger, and unbearable heat”.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 20,000 of them children, in the Israeli offensive, which has been dubbed a genocide by numerous scholars and activists. The International Criminal Court has also issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

‘The crime of forced displacement’

The Government Media Office in Gaza said that more than 1.3 million people remain in Gaza City and surrounding areas, despite Israeli attempts to push them south. It described the evacuation orders as an effort to carry out “the crime of forced displacement in violation of all international laws”.

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced multiple times in 23 months of genocidal war, and an Israeli curb on aid entry, including food items, has led to starvation deaths. Last month, a UN agency declared famine in Gaza, affecting half a million people.

On Tuesday morning, Palestinians in central Gaza staged a protest against the latest evacuation orders.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said that demonstrators carried banners reading, “We will not leave”, and “Not going out”.

“The primary goal of the [Israeli] occupation is displacement,” said Bajees al-Khalidi, a displaced Palestinian at the protest. “But there’s no place left, not in the south, nor the north. We’ve become completely trapped.”

Violence also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces killed two teenagers in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.

Mourners on Tuesday buried 14-year-old Islam Noah, who was shot while attempting to enter the besieged refugee camp. A funeral was also held for another 14-year-old, Muhammad Alawneh. Two others were wounded in the same incident.

Israel targets Hamas leaders

Israel sent missiles at Doha as Hamas leaders were meeting in the Qatari capital for talks on the latest ceasefire proposal from the United States to end the war in Gaza. Hamas said five people were killed, while Qatar said a security official was also among the dead. Hamas said its leadership survived the assassination attempt.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned Israel’s “reckless criminal attack” in a phone call with US President Donald Trump. Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called the attack “state terrorism”.

The Qatari prime minister said Doha would continue to work to end Israel’s war on Gaza, but raised doubts about the viability of the most recent talks. “When it comes to the current talks, I don’t think there is something valid right now after we’ve seen such an attack,” he said.

Qatar has sent a letter to the UN Security Council, condemning what it calls a cowardly Israeli assault on residential buildings in Doha.

The Doha attack has drawn global condemnation, with the UN chief calling it a “flagrant violation” of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.

The White House claimed that the US had warned Qatar of the impending strike, but Doha rejected that account, insisting the warning came only after the bombing had begun.

Trump later said he felt “very badly about the location of the attack” and that he had assured Qatar that it would not happen again.

“This was a decision made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”