Police: Child accidentally shoots, kills playmate

KIFI, KIDK: Chris Cole

A 5-year-old girl was accidentally shot by another child at this house in Chubbuck, Idaho, on July 30, 2014.

4 hr ago By AP

CHUBBUCK, Idaho (AP) — A 5-year-old girl is dead after police say another 5-year-old accidentally shot her at an eastern Idaho home.

Lt. Bill Guiberson of the Chubbuck Police Department says emergency workers responded to a Chubbuck home at about 3 p.m. Wednesday and took the victim to Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello. The hospital confirmed later in the evening the girl had died.
In a statement Thursday, police said adults were in the home at the time of the shooting but were in a different room.
It's unclear whether the victim lived at the residence; the statement said only that she was there "visiting with friends" when the shooting happened. Police didn't return a call Thursday from The Associated Press.
Investigators have not released the type of gun involved or said how the children got access to it.
No names or other details have been released, and police continue to investigate.

Gas explosions kill 20, injure 270 in Taiwan

AFP

A blast rips through the city of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan early on August 1, 2014. The explosion is believed to have been caused by a gas leak.

1 hr ago By GLADYS TSAI of Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A series of underground gas explosions killed 20 people and injured 270 others late Thursday night in Taiwan's second-largest city, authorities said.

The National Fire Agency said five firefighters were among the dead. Taiwan's Central News Agency reported that firefighters had been at the scene investigating reports of a gas leak when the explosions occurred.
Taiwan's Premier Jiang Yi-huah said at least five blasts shook the streets of Kaohsiung, a southwestern port city of 2.8 million.
Video from Taiwanese broadcaster ETTV showed a row of large fires burning in the middle of a street in the southwestern city, with smoke rising into the night sky.
Chang Jia-juch, the director of the Central Disaster Emergency Operation Center, said the leaking gas had been identified as propene, meaning that the resulting fires could not be extinguished by water. He said emergency workers would have to wait until the gas is burnt away. The source of the leak was unknown.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu said several petrochemical companies have pipelines built along the sewage system in Chian-Chen district, which has both factories and residential buildings.
"Our priority is to save people now. We ask citizens living along the pipelines to evacuate," Chen told TVBS television.
Power was cut off in the area, making it difficult for firefighters to search for others who might be buried in rubble.
CNA said the local fire department received reports from residents of gas leakage at around 8:46 p.m. and that explosions started around midnight.
Closed-circuit television showed the explosion rippling through the floor of a motorcycle parking area, hurling concrete and other debris through the air.
Mobile phone video captured the sound of an explosion as flames leapt at least 30 feet (9 meters) into the air.
Video from TVBS showed locals searching for victims in shattered shop fronts. Rescue workers pulled several injured people from the rubble in the center of the road, placing them on stretchers as passers-by helped other victims on the sidewalk.
The explosion left a large trench running down the center of one road, edged with piles of concrete slabs torn apart by the force of the blast.
A damaged motorcycle lay in the crater, and TVBS showed cars flipped over. The force of the initial blast also felled trees lining the street.

US, UN announce deal on 72-hour Gaza cease-fire

Getty Images; Marco Longari

A Palestinian man covers his face to protect him from the smoke billowing from a milk factory hit by an Israeli military strike, north of Gaza City on July 31, 2014.

1 hr ago By IAN DEITCH and IBRAHIM BARZAK of Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel and Hamas have agreed to a 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire to start Friday, though Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned there were "no guarantees" the lull in violence would bring an end to the 24-day-old Gaza war.

The announcement came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas' tunnel network "with or without a cease-fire" and as the Palestinian death toll soared past 1,400.
Noting the difficulties that lay ahead, Kerry said: "This is not a time for congratulations or joy or anything except a serious determination — a focus by everybody to try to figure out the road ahead," Kerry said. "This is a respite. It is a moment of opportunity, not an end."
Photo gallery: The Israel-Gaza conflict
At least four short humanitarian cease-fires have been announced since the conflict began, but each has been broken by renewed fighting.
A joint statement released simultaneously in New Delhi, where Kerry is traveling, and at U.N. headquarters in New York, said the U.S. and U.N. had gotten assurances that all parties to the conflict had agreed to an unconditional cease-fire.
An official at the prime minister's office confirmed that Israel had agreed to a 72-hour truce beginning at 8 a.m. local time Friday.
Israeli and Palestinian delegations were expected to travel immediately to Cairo for talks with the Egyptian government aimed at reaching an end to the conflict.
"It is up to the parties — all of them — to take advantage of this moment," Kerry said. "There are no guarantees. This is a difficult, complicated issue."
During the cease-fire, Kerry said Israel will be able to continue its defense operations to destroy tunnels that are behind its territorial lines. The Palestinians will be able to receive food, medicine and humanitarian assistance, bury their dead, treat the wounded and travel to their homes. The time also will be used to make repairs to water and energy systems.
"We hope this moment can be grabbed by both parties, but no one can force them to do that," Kerry said.
"Israel has to live without terror and tunnels and rockets and sirens going on through the day," he said. "Palestinians have to be able to live freely and share in the rest of the world and live a life that is different from the one they have long suffered."
The Palestinian delegation is expected to include members of Hamas, which the United States and Israel consider a terrorist organization and cannot be negotiated with directly. So if the Israelis and Palestinians meet face to face, the Hamas members will not participate in those talks.
The Egyptians will be the go-between for the sides and will help coordinate, a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't allowed to discuss the issue publicly.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the cease-fire announcement was the result of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's recent trip to the region "but also 48 hours of extremely active diplomacy at all levels from the secretary-general to his senior advisers talking to key regional players."
Robert Serry, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, U.S. Mideast envoy Frank Lowenstein and others were expected to go to Cairo for the Egyptian-mediated talks.
At least 1,441 Palestinians have been killed, three-quarters of them civilians, since hostilities began on July 8, according to Gaza health ministry officials — surpassing the at least 1,410 Palestinians killed in Israel's last major invasion in 2009, according to Palestinian rights groups.
Israel says 56 soldiers, two Israeli civilians and a Thai agricultural worker have died — far more than the 13 Israeli deaths in the previous campaign.
Israel expanded what started as an aerial campaign against Hamas and widened it into a ground offensive on July 17. Since then, Israel says the campaign has concentrated on destroying cross-border tunnels militants constructed to carry out attacks inside Israeli territory and ending rocket attacks on its cities.
Israel says most of the 32 tunnels it uncovered have now been demolished and that getting rid of the remainder will take no more than a few days.
"We have neutralized dozens of terror tunnels and we are committed to complete this mission, with or without a cease-fire," Netanyahu said Thursday in televised remarks. "Therefore, I will not agree to any offer that does not allow the military to complete this important mission for the security of the people of Israel."
For Israel, the tunnel network is a strategic threat. It says the tunnels are meant to facilitate mass attacks on civilians and soldiers inside Israel, as well as kidnappings, a tactic that Hamas has used in the past. Palestinian militants trying to sneak into Israel through the tunnels have been found with sedatives and handcuffs, an indication they were planning abductions, the military says.
Several soldiers have been killed in the current round of fighting by Palestinian gunmen who popped out of underground tunnels near Israeli communities along the Gaza border.
Earlier Thursday, the Israeli military announced it was calling up an additional 16,000 reserve soldiers to pursue its campaign against the Islamic militants.
Israeli defense officials said the purpose of the latest call-up was to provide relief for troops currently on the Gaza firing line, and amounted to a rotation that left the overall number of mobilized reservists at around 70,000. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
However, Israeli officials have also said they do not rule out broadening operations in the coming days.
Palestinians have fired more than 2,850 rockets at Israel — some reaching major cities but most intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system. On Thursday alone, more than 100 rockets were fired toward Israeli cities, the army said.
One Israeli was seriously wounded when a rocket exploded in a residential area of Kiryat Gat in southern Israel, the military said. The rocket damaged a house and destroyed several cars parked on the street. Another rocket was intercepted over Tel Aviv by Israel's rocket defense system, the army said.
Israeli attacks continued Thursday, killing at least 56 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Gazans said munitions struck the Omar Ibn al-Khatab mosque next to a U.N. school in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. The office of the military spokesman said Palestinian snipers inside the mosque had shot at troops, wounding one Israeli soldier and prompting retaliatory fire.
The strike in Beit Lahiya damaged water tanks on the roof of a building near the mosque, sending shrapnel flying into the adjacent school compound, where dozens of Palestinians displaced by the fighting had taken shelter.
"The shrapnel from the strike on the mosque hit people who were in the street and at the entrance of the school," said Sami Salebi, an area resident.
Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said at least 15 people were wounded in the strike, including three who were in critical condition.
Among them was Kifah Rafati, who was being treated for shrapnel injuries at the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital. She said she and her six children had been sleeping in a classroom inside the U.N. school when the explosion went off.
"There is no safety anywhere," the 40-year-old Rafati said.
Hamas has said it will only halt fire once it receives guarantees that a Gaza border blockade by Israel and Egypt — tightened after the Islamic militant group violently seized power in Gaza in 2007 — will be lifted.
Israel says it wants to decimate Hamas' rocket-launching capability, diminish its weapons arsenal and demolish the tunnels. It has launched more than 4,000 strikes against Hamas-linked targets, including rocket launchers and mosques where it says weapons were being stored.

Demoted worker shoots CEO, kills self in Chicago

MCT: Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune​

Police investigate a shooting reported on the 17th floor at 231 South LaSalle Street, Thursday, July 31, 2014 in Chicago.

8 hr ago By Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — A demoted executive shot and critically wounded his company's CEO before fatally shooting himself Thursday inside a high-rise office building in downtown Chicago's bustling financial district, police said.

The worker pulled a gun after entering the 17th-floor office to privately meet with the CEO, and during a struggle for the weapon, the CEO was shot in his head and abdomen, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said. The gunman then fatally shot himself.
"Apparently he was despondent over the fact that he got demoted," McCarthy said, adding that the alleged shooter was among "a number of people" being demoted as the company downsized.

Demoted worker shoots CEO, kills self

4 hr ago Duration: 0:59 Views: 2k

The alleged gunman was later identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner's office as 60-year-old Anthony DeFrances.
A man by the same name is listed as an executive on the website for ArrowStream, a supply-chain management technology company whose address is on the 17th floor of Bank of America building, where the shootings occurred. The company's CEO is Steven LaVoie, according to the site.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago confirmed that a man named Steven Lavoie was in critical condition in the hospital, but declined to elaborate. Police said the victim of the shooting was taken to Northwestern, but messages left with police and ArrowStream were not returned Thursday.
According to ArrowStream's website, LaVoie founded the company in 2000, and DeFrances joined the next year and was currently its chief technology officer. Both men are listed as married with three children.
Police were called just before 10 a.m. to the building, which is a few blocks from the Willis Tower, the country's second-tallest skyscraper, and a block from the Chicago Board of Trade.
Officers cordoned off the immediate area outside, and SWAT team members and other officers rushed inside. They found two men on the floor, both of them shot, according to police.
Workers elsewhere in the building said they received warnings from building security over the intercom and in emails around 10 a.m. telling them there was a security situation in the lobby and to stay at their desks.
"It was a tense atmosphere, everybody was walking around, you wanted more details but they wouldn't give us much," said Stefano Freddo, who works on the building's 10th floor.
He said someone came over the intercom a few minutes later to tell them it was safe to leave their offices.
Freddo, 32, said security officers are stationed in the building, and that workers need a badge showing they work there to gain access to the elevators in the lobby. But he said there are no metal detectors in the building.
"Maybe we should have those," he said.

U.S. expands economic sanctions on Russia over Ukraine

AP

President Obama speaking from the White House Rose Garden.

7 hr ago By Reuters

WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the United States has expanded sanctions against Russia over its support for rebels in eastern Ukraine, unveiling the steps after the EU agreed to its own new measures against Moscow hours earlier.

Speaking at the White House, Obama said the new sanctions targeted "key sectors of the Russian economy" - energy, arms and finance.
Obama said the new U.S. sanctions block the exports of specific goods and technologies to the Russian energy sector, expand sanctions to include more Russian banks and defense companies, and formally suspend credit that encourages exports to Russia and financing for economic development projects in Russia.
"If Russia continues on this current path, the costs on Russia will continue to grow," Obama said.
The United States slapped sanctions on VTB, the Bank of Moscow, the Russian Agriculture Bank and the United Shipbuilding Corp over Moscow's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Treasury Department said.
"Russia's actions in Ukraine and the sanctions that we've already imposed have made a weak Russian economy even weaker," Obama said.
"Major sanctions we're announcing today will continue to ratchet up the pressure on Russia, including the cronies and companies that are supporting Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine," Obama added.
The new U.S. action expanded the list of Russian banks subject to U.S. sanctions to almost all the largest banks with state ownership of over 50 percent, except for Sberbank .
The sanctions on the three banks prohibit U.S. citizens or companies from dealing with debt carrying maturities longer than 90 days, or with new equity. The sanctions on United Shipbuilding Corp, a shipbuilding company based on St. Petersburg, freeze any assets it may hold in the United States and prohibits all U.S. transactions with it.
The last round of U.S. sanctions, announced on July 17, hit Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft, its second largest gas producer, Novatek, and its third largest bank, Gazprombank, as well as other banks, prominent individuals and the weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov. (Reporting by Eric Beech and Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

66-yard crater appears in far northern Siberia

AP Photo: Associated Press Television

A crater, discovered recently in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Russian scientists said  they believe the 60-meter wide crater could be the result of changing temperatures in the region.

12 days ago By Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian scientists say they believe a 60-meter (66-yard) wide crater discovered recently in far northern Siberia could be the result of changing temperatures in the region.

Scientists Investigating Mysterious Giant Hole In Siberia

11 days ago Duration: 2:16 Views: 113k

Andrei Plekhanov, a senior researcher at the Scientific Research Center of the Arctic, told the AP Thursday that the crater was mostly likely the result of a "build-up of excessive pressure" underground due to rising temperatures in the region.

AP Photo: Associated Press Television

A crater, discovered recently in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia.

Plekhanov on Wednesday traveled to the crater, some 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) from the Bovanenkovo gas field in the far northern Yamal peninsula. He said 80 percent of the crater appeared to be made up of ice and that there were no traces of an explosion, eliminating the possibility that a meteorite had struck the region.
Photos: Giant sinkholes around the world

AP Photo: Associated Press Television

Andrei Plekhanov, a senior researcher at the Scientific Research Center of the Arctic, stands at a crater, discovered recently in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia.

 

from around the web.

Hacker ring dismantled after stealing $100 million

by Verne Kopytoff

 @vkopytoff

June 2, 2014, 9:31 PM EDT

Thieves stole financial information and extorted victims

Federal and international law enforcement have dismantled a major hacker network responsible for stealing more than $100 million from individuals and businesses, the Justice Department said on Monday.
Officials said that they have also indicted the mastermind – Evgeniy Bogachev, a 30 year-old Russian national who is still at-large – for wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy.
The cyber thieves, believed to operate from Russian and Ukraine, secretly infected computers to capture financial information so they could initiate or re-direct wire transfers to accounts they controlled overseas.
Many victims of the botnet, called GameOver Zeus, were unaware that their computers had been infected. Others had their computer files frozen and were then extorted for money to restore access, a tactic known as “ramsomware.”
“GameOver Zeus is the most sophisticated botnet the FBI and our allies have ever attempted to disrupt,” said Robert Anderson, FBI executive assistant director, said in a statement.
The hackers gained access to victims’ computers by sending unsolicited emails containing infected files. When recipients clicked on the links or attachments in the emails, they unknowingly downloaded the malware. The cyber thieves could then monitor the computer’s activity for financial information like bank account passwords.
Security researchers estimated that between 500,000 and 1 million computers. U.S. victims lost more than $100 million, according to the F.B.I.
At the same time, the cyber criminals sent infected emails containing software known as Cryptolocker, which blocked recipients from opening their computer files. Messages on their computer screens told victims they could restore access only by paying a ransom of up to $700. Security researchers estimated that Cryptolocker infected nearly 250,000 computers and that victims paid $27 million in ransom in the first two months of the attack.
A federal grand jury in Pittsburg indicted Bogachev, who went by a number of handles online including “Slavik” and “Lucky12345.” He was also named in a separate civil filing in Omaha for his alleged role in the scheme.
Working with law enforcement in Ukraine, authorities were able to seize computer servers used by the hackers in Kiev and Donetsk used for GameOver Zeus. They also seized servers used to operate Cryptlocker.
Starting early Friday, law enforcement made further server seizures in France, Canada, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Britain. U.S. officials obtained court orders letting them divert traffic from infected computers to a server they controlled.

Family of 5 shot dead in Maine, gun recovered

AP Photo: Robert F. Bukaty

Flowers are seen near a crime scene at an apartment complex where five members of a family, including three children, were found dead July 27, 2014, in Saco, Maine.

34 min ago By DAVID SHARP of Associated Press

l

SACO, Maine (AP) — A family of five, including three children ranging in age from 4 to 12 years old, were found shot to death Sunday inside a southern Maine apartment, authorities said.

Investigators said a gun was found near one of the bodies and it appeared no one outside the family was responsible for the shootings.
State police Sgt. Chris Harriman said murder-suicide is one of the scenarios being investigated but that determination will be made by the state medical examiner's office.
Authorities did not release the names of the family but said the parents were in their 30s and the children were ages 4, 7 and 12.
Neighbors Heather and Dellas Nason stopped to place flowers on the ground outside the apartment building, which was surrounded by crime scene tape. Heather Nason said she used to baby-sit the children.
"I still don't want to believe it," she said. "I love those children like they were my own."

AP Photo: Robert F. Bukaty

Kristi Harkins watches police activity at an apartment complex where five members of a family, including three children, were found dead July 27, 2014, in Saco, Maine.

Their father was a maintenance worker for the complex who was friendly and outgoing, neighbors said.
"You'd walk by and he'd ask how your day was going. He was really nice," said neighbor Kristi Harkins. She said she had seen the eldest boy playing outside on Saturday.
Investigators said a family friend had contacted a worker at the apartment complex worried about the well-being of the family. The worker entered the apartment and discovered one body, then immediately called police.
Detectives said they believed the shootings happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
Saco police found the bodies in bedrooms. Police described the firearm found in the apartment as a long gun. Shell casings were also recovered.
Neighbors described the complex along the Saco River as a friendly and safe place where kids rode bicycles and played together. But the droves of children who usually circle the complex were all inside Sunday night, replaced by concerned adults.
State and local police, along with the medical examiner, were at the scene Sunday night. Officials said autopsies are scheduled for Monday.
Saco is a city of about 18,000 people in southern Maine, about 10 miles southwest of Portland.

McDonald's fires mom who let 9-year-old play alone

But Debra Harrell now has custody of daughter again

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staf

The South Carolina single mom arrested for letting her 9-year-old daughter play in a park while she worked at McDonald's has been given her daughter back—but has lost her job. The lawyer representing Debra Harrell pro bono says McDonald's has let her go, but he isn't sure why, reports ThinkProgress. A McDonald's spokeswoman declined to comment. Harrell has been charged with unlawful neglect of a child, and her lawyer says that although she has been reunited with her daughter, the Department of Social Services probe is ongoing.

According to the blog Reason, Harrell had been bringing her daughter to work and letting her play on a laptop, but she started dropping her off at a nearby park while she worked after their home was broken into and the laptop was stolen. The lawyer tells CNN he thinks it's "absurd" to say the girl was "abandoned" at the park a few minutes' walk from her house. "Because if this woman gets convicted, guess what? ... From now on, do officers now have an obligation every time they see a 9-and-a-half-year-old not in the presence of their parents, do the parents get arrested?" he says. "It truly is the classic slippery slope." Amid public outcry over the case, a fundraising page set up to help Harrell has received more than $31,000 in donations.

Israel agrees to 12-hour Gaza ceasefire

Reuters: Siegfried Modola

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, heads a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem July 24, 2014.

3 hr ago By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Crispian Balmer of Reuters

UPDATE: JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has agreed to a 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire in fighting with militants in the Gaza Strip to start at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, a military spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said that during the brief truce, troops would keep searching for tunnels used by militants and that the military will "respond if terrorists choose to exploit this time to attack Israel Defense Forces personnel or fire at Israeli civilians."
"Gaza civilians who have been requested to vacate from their residents are to refrain from returning," the spokeswoman said.

EARLIER:
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has rejected international proposals for a ceasefire in its fight against Islamist militants in Gaza, a government source said on Friday, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said no formal proposals had yet been put forward.
Mediators hope that a truce could come into force ahead of a Muslim festival that starts early next week, but they have struggled to resolve seemingly irreconcilable demands from Israel and Hamas-led fighters, locked in conflict since July 8.
As diplomacy faltered, the fighting raged on.
Gaza officials said Israeli strikes killed 55 people on Friday, including the head of media operations for Hamas ally Islamic Jihad and his son. They put the number of Palestinian deaths in 18 days of conflict at 844, most of them civilians.
Photos: Gaza offensive
Related: Hamas tunnel threat at center of war with Israel
Related: Israel to begin 12-hour pause in Gaza hostilities on Saturday: U.S. official
Militants fired a barrage of rockets out of Gaza, triggering sirens across much of southern and central Israel, including at the country's main airport. No injuries were reported, with the Iron Dome interceptor system knocking out many of the missiles.
Speaking in Cairo, Kerry told reporters that, although Israel may have rejected some language in a truce proposal draft, there "was no formal proposal, or final proposal, or proposal ready (for) a vote submitted to Israel".
The top U.S. diplomat said there were still disagreements on the terminology, but he was confident there was a framework that would ultimately succeed and that "serious progress" had been made, although there was more work to do.
The search for a breakthrough will continue in Paris on Saturday when France hosts diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union, Turkey and Qatar, a French diplomatic source said.

"We are working toward a brief seven days of peace. Seven days of a humanitarian ceasefire in honour of Eid in order to be able to bring people together to try to work to create a more durable, sustainable ceasefire for the long (term)," Kerry said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at the same news conference, threw his weight behind a seven-day humanitarian truce, saying it could start with an extendable 12-hour stoppage.
A U.S. official said later that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Kerry Israel would begin a 12-hour pause in Gaza hostilities starting at 7 a.m. Israeli time (0400 GMT) on Saturday. Israel did not comment on the report.

TUNNELS
Hamas, which wants an end to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza before agreeing to halt hostilities, has yet to respond to the ceasefire proposition, which has not been made public. The Israeli source, who declined to be named, said Netanyahu's security cabinet had turned down the plan because it did not let Israel carry on hunting down Hamas's tunnel network that criss-crosses the Gaza border.
"Kerry's proposal leans (too much) towards Hamas's demands," said the source.
The Gaza turmoil has stoked tensions in the nearby occupied West Bank, where U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with Israel.
Medics said six Palestinians were killed in separate incidents near the cities of Nablus and Hebron, including one shooting that witnesses blamed on an apparent Jewish settler.
On Thursday night, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza near the Palestinian administrative capital Ramallah - a scale recalling mass revolts of the past.
Protesters surged against an Israeli army checkpoint, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Palestinian medics said one was shot dead and 200 wounded when troops opened fire.
Israel said three more of its soldiers were killed in Gaza on Friday, bringing the army death toll to 35, as troops battled militants in the north, east and south of Gaza - a tiny Mediterranean enclave that is home to 1.8 million Palestinians.
It also announced that a soldier unaccounted for after an ambush in Gaza six days ago was definitely dead, although his body had not been recovered. Hamas said on Sunday it had captured the man, but did not release a photograph of him.
Three civilians have also been killed in Israel by rockets from Gaza - the kind of attack that surged last month amid Hamas anger at a crackdown on its activists in the West Bank, prompting the July 8 launch of the Israeli offensive.
The growing Israeli casualty list has only strengthened resolve in the country to pursue this latest campaign against Hamas until the group is significantly weakened.

NEGOTIATIONS
Kerry, based in neighbouring Egypt for much of the week, is seeking a limited humanitarian truce under which Palestinian movement would be freed up to allow in aid and for the dead and wounded to be recovered.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said Turkey and Qatar had proposed a seven-day halt to the fighting, which had been relayed to Israel by Kerry while Hamas considered it.
Israel insisted that, even if such a ceasefire was agreed, its army should continue destroying tunnels along Gaza's eastern frontier, a mission that could take between one and two weeks. A senior Israeli officer said troops had made progress.
"We have managed to locate and destroy about half, at least half, of the enemy's attack tunnels and we are continuing with determination," said Major-General Sammy Turgeman, the head of the army's southern command. "Every additional day's fighting will allow us to continue to damage this infrastructure more and more," he added. Netanyahu has said a truce should also lead to the eventual stripping of Gaza's rocket arsenals - something Hamas rules out.
"We must stop the rocket launches. How this is done - whether through occupying (Gaza), or broadening (the operation), or (international) guarantees, or anything else, I have to see it with my own eyes," said police minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch.
The rockets have sent Israelis regularly rushing to shelters and dented the economy despite Iron Dome's high rate of success.
A Hamas rocket intercepted near Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday prompted the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt American commercial flights to Israel's main international gateway. Some European carriers followed suit.
Jolted by the blow at the height of an already stagnant summer tourism season, Israel persuaded U.S. authorities to lift the flight ban on Thursday, after which the European aviation regulator removed its own advisory against flying to Ben Gurion.
In the second such salvo in as many days, Hamas said it fired three rockets at the airport on Friday, an apparent bid to cripple operations there again. There was no word of impacts at Ben Gurion, whose passenger hall emptied at the sound of sirens.

HAMAS WANTS GAZA OPENED UP
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal had on Wednesday voiced support for a humanitarian truce, but only if Israel eased restrictions on Gaza. Hamas wants Egypt to open up its border with Gaza, too, and demands that Israel release hundreds of prisoners rounded up in the West Bank last month following the kidnap and killing of three Jewish seminary students.
Such concessions appear unlikely, however, as both Israel and Egypt consider Hamas a security threat.
One Cairo official said next week's Eid al-Fitr festival, which concludes Ramadan, was a possible date for a truce. It was not immediately clear if Kerry, whose mediation has involved Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Abbas, would remain in Cairo.
On Thursday, a U.S. official said Kerry would not stay in the region "for an indefinite amount of time".
More than 160,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza by the fighting, many of them seeking shelter in buildings run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) called on Friday for a humanitarian corridor to be set up in Gaza to allow aid workers to evacuate the wounded and bring in life-saving medicines.
"People are dying at an alarming rate, being injured at a very alarming rate," Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Noah Browning in Gaza, Arshad Mohammed, Yasmine Saleh and Shadia Nasralla in Cairo; writing by Dan Williams and Crispian Balmer; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Gareth Jones)

What happened? The day Flight 17 was downed

AP Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky

Dutch investigators examine pieces of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the village of Rassipne, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 25, 2014.

8 hr ago By YURAS KARMANAU of Associated Press

SNIZHNE, Ukraine (AP) — It was lunchtime when a tracked launcher with four SA-11 surface-to-air missiles rolled into town and parked on Karapetyan Street. Fifteen hundred miles to the west, passengers were checking in for Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

It had been a noisy day in this eastern Ukrainian town, residents recounted. Plenty of military equipment was moving through. But still it was hard to miss the bulky missile system, also known as a Buk M-1. It left deep tread marks in the asphalt as it rumbled by in a small convoy.
The vehicles stopped in front of journalists from The Associated Press. A man wearing unfamiliar fatigues, speaking with a distinctive Russian accent, checked to make sure they weren't filming. The convoy then moved on, destination unknown in the heart of eastern Ukraine's pro-Russia rebellion.
Three hours later, people six miles (10 kilometers) west of Snizhne heard loud noises.
And then they saw pieces of twisted metal — and bodies— fall from the sky.
The rebel leadership in Donetsk has repeatedly and publicly denied any responsibility for the downing of Flight 17.
Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for rebel leader Alexander Borodai, repeated to the AP on Friday that no rebel units had weapons capable of shooting that high, and said any suggestions to the contrary are part of an information war aimed at undermining the insurgents' cause.
Nevertheless, the denials are increasingly challenged by accounts of residents, the observations of journalists on the ground, and the statements of one rebel official. The Ukrainian government has also provided purported communications intercepts that it says show rebel involvement in the shoot-down.
A highly placed rebel, speaking to the AP this week, admitted that rebels were responsible. He said a unit based in the hometown of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, made up of both Russians and Ukrainians, was involved in the firing of an SA-11 from near Snizhne. The rebel, who has direct access to the inner circle of the insurgent leadership in Donetsk, said that he could not be named because he was contradicting the rebels' official line.
The rebels believed they were targeting a Ukrainian military plane, this person said. Instead, they hit the passenger jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people aboard were killed.
Intercepted phone conversations released by the Ukrainian government appear to back up the contention they were unaware the aircraft was a passenger jet.
In those tapes, the first rebels to reach the scene can be heard swearing when they see the number of bodies and the insignia of Malaysia Airlines.
Ukraine immediately blamed the rebels for the shooting. In an interview in Kiev this week, the Ukrainian counterterrorism chief, Vitaly Nayda, gave the AP the government's version of the events of July 17. He said the account was based on information from intercepts, spies and resident tips.
Nayda laid the blame fully on Russia: He said the missile launcher came from Russia and was operated by Russians. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday declined to comment on either charge. Moscow has continually denied involvement in the downing of the plane.
The rebel official who spoke to AP did not address the question of any Russian government involvement in the attack. U.S. officials have blamed Russia for creating the "conditions" for the downing of the plane, but have offered no evidence that the missile came from Russia or that Russia directly was involved.
According to Nayda, at 1 a.m. on July 17 the launcher rolled into Ukraine across the Russian border aboard a flatbed truck. He cited communications intercepts that he would not share with the AP. By 9 a.m., he said, the launcher had reached Donetsk, the main rebel stronghold 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the border. In Donetsk it is presumed to have been off-loaded from the flatbed and started to move in a convoy on its own.
Nayda said the Buk turned back east toward Snizhne. Townspeople who spoke to the AP said it rolled into Snizhne around lunchtime.
"On that day there was a lot of military equipment moving about in town," recalled Tatyana Germash, a 55-year-old accountant, interviewed Monday, four days after the attack.
Valery Sakharov, a 64-year-old retired miner, pointed out the spot where he saw the missile launcher.
"The Buk was parked on Karapetyan Street at midday, but later it left; I don't know where," he said. "Look — it even left marks on the asphalt."
Even before the plane was downed, the AP had reported on the presence of the missile launcher in the town July 17.
Here is what that dispatch said: "An Associated Press reporter on Thursday saw seven rebel-owned tanks parked at a gas station outside the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne. In the town, he also observed a Buk missile system, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet)."
AP journalists saw the Buk moving through town at 1:05 p.m. The vehicle, which carried four 18-foot (5.5-meter) missiles, was in a convoy with two civilian cars.
The convoy stopped. A man in sand-colored camouflage without identifying insignia — different from the green camouflage the rebels normally wear — approached the journalists. The man wanted to make sure they had not recorded any images of the missile launcher. Satisfied that they hadn't, the convoy moved on.
About three hours later, at 4:18 p.m., according to a recording from an intercepted phone call that has been released by Ukraine's government, the Buk's crew snapped to attention when a spotter called in a report of an incoming airplane.
"A bird is flying to you," the spotter tells the rebel, identified by the Ukrainians as Igor Bezler, an insurgent commander who the Ukrainian government asserts is also a Russian intelligence officer.
The man identified as Bezler responds: "Reconnaissance plane or a big one?"
"I can't see behind the clouds. Too high," the spotter replies.

AP Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky

Members of the OSCE mission in Ukraine examine pieces of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the village of Rassipne, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 25, 2014.

The rebel official who spoke to the AP about the incident said that Bezler commanded another fighter, code-named Sapper, who was the ranking rebel officer with the missile launcher at the time.
According to the rebel official, Sapper led a rebel unit, about half of which was made up of men from far eastern Russia, many from the island of Sakhalin off Russia's Pacific coast.
Sapper is from the nearby town of Yenakiieve, he said. The town also happens to be the home of the former president, Yanukovych.
Sapper could not be reached for comment; his real identity is not known. Bezler, contacted on Friday by the AP, denied any connection to the attack on the plane. "I did not shoot down the Malaysia Airlines plane. I did not have the physical capabilities to do so," he declared.
According to the account of the rebel official, however, Sapper had been sent that day to inspect three checkpoints — in the towns of Debaltsevo, Chernukhino and Snizhne, all of which are within a 20-mile (30-kilometer) radius of where the plane went down. At some point in these travels, he joined up with the convoy accompanying the missile launch system.
At about 4:20 p.m., in the town of Torez, six miles (10 kilometers) west of Snizhne, residents heard loud noises. Some reported hearing two blasts, while others recall only one.
"I heard two powerful blasts in a row. First there was one, but then after a minute, a minute and a half, there was another discharge," said Rostislav Grishin, a 21-year-old prison guard. "I raised my head and within a minute I could see a plane falling through the clouds."
At 4:40 p.m., in another intercepted call released by Ukraine, the man identified as Bezler tells his own superior that the unit had shot down a plane.
"Just shot down a plane. It was Sapper's group. It went down beyond Yenakiieve," the man says.
While the authenticity of the intercept cannot be verified independently, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev said specialists in the intelligence community have deemed it authentic.
As for the Buk, Nayda said, intelligence suggests it went back on the move shortly after the attack.
That very night, he said, it crossed the border, back into Russia.
___
Leonard reported from Kiev. Other AP correspondents in eastern Ukraine assisted in this report.

US pulls Peace Corps volunteers from Kenya

Reuters: Siegfried Modola

Men accompany the police after an attack in Panda Nguo, Lamu County on the northern coast of Kenya July 11, 2014. Escalating violence in Kenya moved the US Peace Corps to pull out all volunteers in the country and suspend the program, an official statement said Thursday, July 24, 2014.

5 hr ago By JASON STRAZIUSO of Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The Peace Corps is suspending its programs in Kenya because of security concerns and is pulling more than 50 volunteers out of the country until threat levels decrease, the Peace Corps and State Department said Thursday.

A statement to The Associated Press from the State Department said that the Peace Corps "has been closely monitoring the security environment in Kenya ... and has decided to officially suspend the program in Kenya." The Peace Corps will monitor the security situation and determine when volunteers can return, it said.

The decision comes amid a tightening of security by the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, which has seen dozens of grenade and gunfire attacks the last two years. Earlier this year the U.S. increased the number of security personnel at the embassy and put armed Marines behind sandbag bunkers on the embassy roof. The State Department also reduced the number of U.S. personnel here by moving a regional USAID office out of the country.

The decision to suspend the Peace Corps program has been in the works for a while but was not announced publicly. U.S. warnings about the high risk of terror attacks in Kenya always ruffle the feathers of Kenyan leaders, and the State Department and Peace Corps statements underscored the long U.S.-Kenya relationship and the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. pours into Kenya every year.
But it was clear that given the grenade and gunfire assaults, as well as the massive attack on Westgate Mall last year that killed at least 67 people, the government felt that its Peace Corps volunteers — who live in far-flung villages with little security protection — were vulnerable.

Underscoring the danger of random violence, a police officer in the coastal town of Mombasa confirmed that a foreign woman had been shot and killed Thursday while walking the city streets, the second foreigner killed this month in the area.

Recent Peace Corps volunteers in Kenya said they felt the U.S. government program did a good job of keeping them updated about security, including the sending of security text messages, but they acknowledged that security was deteriorating.

"Some volunteers weren't very pleased with the level of security they provided, but I'm not sure what they were expecting. We don't have security guards to protect us, and it's Kenya, so sometimes bad things happen regardless of any preventative measures," said Nik Schuetz, a 28-year-old volunteer in Kenya from 2009-11 now studying at the University of Kansas.

The Peace Corps, which was founded in 1961 after the suggestion of then-Sen. John Kennedy, has some 7,000 volunteers in 65 countries working on education, health and environmental issues. Nearly 50 percent of the program's volunteers are in Africa. The program has had to pull volunteers out of dangerous situations before, including in Nepal in 2004 and in Kenya after the 2007-08 election violence. The Peace Corps also suspended its program in Ukraine in April.

Schuetz was initially placed in western Kenya with a public health program but his house was broken into and his belongings stolen, so the program moved him to another province, where he stayed for two years.
"They taught us to be smart about our surroundings and to trust the hairs on the back of our necks to sense whether it was a safe situation or not. And some things like bombings or grenade attacks, you just can't prepare for other than leaving the country," he said.

Anna Martin a Peace Corps volunteer in Busia, Kenya from 2010-12 who still lives in the country, said she always felt safe as a Peace Corps volunteer because the U.S. mission was "always making the best decisions regarding our safety and well-being."

"My opinion ... is that things just weren't getting better," said Martin. "Peace Corps had already taken measures to protect volunteers but had to ultimately make a bigger decision. And it a wise one."
At full strength the Peace Corps has had more than 125 volunteers in Kenya in recent years, and the pull-outs will hurt communities receiving American assistance. Shira Kramer, the spokeswoman for the Peace Corps, said the program hopes the volunteers can return "to support the country in meeting its development goals."

A third recent Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, Travis Axe, said there was no doubt that aid groups, schools and pharmacies would be negatively affected by the pull-out.

"Kenya is spearheading the growth and trends of so many sectors in East Africa; it is a shame to see such a wonderful program be cut from a country that has so much potential," he said.