Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia will not run for reelection in 2024, the moderate Democrat announced on social media Thursday.

“I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Manchin said in a message posted on social media.

The Democratic Caucus controls the chamber with a narrow 51-49 margin, and Manchin’s decision not to run again in such a deeply red state puts Democrats in a tough spot, as they’ll be defending seats in other competitive states.

Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a statement minutes after Manchin’s announcement, saying, “We like our odds in West Virginia.”

It’s unclear what specifically Manchin will do after leaving Capitol Hill. Earlier this year, he stoked speculation of a third-party presidential campaign, when he spoke at a No Labels forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.

“I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said at the time in July. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

SAN FRANCISCO — The man accused of bludgeoning former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer was caught up in conspiracies when he broke into her San Francisco home last year, his defense attorney said at his trial opened Thursday.

The attack on then-82-year-old Paul Pelosi in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2022, sent shockwaves through the political world just days before last year’s midterm elections.

Defense attorney Jodi Linker said Thursday she won’t dispute that her client David DePape attacked Paul Pelosi, an encounter caught on police body camera video. Instead, she will argue that he believed “with every ounce of his body” that he was taking action to stop corruption and the abuse of children by politicians and actors.

“This is not a ‘whodunit.’ But what the government fails to acknowledge is the ‘whydunit,’ and the why matters in this case,” she said.

DePape pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties. Paul Pelosi is expected to testify next week.

Federal prosecutor Laura Vartain Horn told jurors that DePape started planning the attack in August and that the evidence and FBI testimony will show he researched his targets online, collecting phone numbers and addresses, even paying for a public records service to find information about Nancy Pelosi and others.

During her opening statement, Vartain Horn showed a photo of Paul Pelosi lying in a pool of blood. She also played a call DePape made to a television station repeating conspiracy theories.

“The evidence in this case is going show that when the defendant used this hammer to break into the Pelosi’s home he intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi,” Vartain Horn said, holding a hammer inside a plastic evidence bag.

DePape posted rants on a blog and an online forum about aliens, communists, religious minorities, and global elites. He questioned the results of the 2020 election and echoed the baseless, right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims the U.S. government is run by a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles. The websites were taken down shortly after his arrest.

If convicted, DePape faces life in prison. He was also charged in state court with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. He pleaded not guilty to those charges. A state trial has not been scheduled.

In the courtroom Thursday were Christine Pelosi, one of the Pelosis’ daughters, as well as Gypsy Taub, DePape’s ex-girlfriend, and Taub’s and DePape’s two teenage sons. Taub called DePape’s name softly and blew a kiss, and he smiled and waved in return.

A Canadian citizen, DePape moved to the United States more than 20 years ago after falling in love with Taub, a Berkeley pro-nudity activist well-known in the Bay Area, his stepfather, Gene DePape said. In recent years, David DePape had been homeless and struggling with drug abuse and mental illness, Taub told local media.

Federal prosecutors say DePape smashed his shoulder through a glass panel on a door in the back of the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights mansion and confronted a sleeping Paul Pelosi, who was wearing boxer shorts and a pajama top.

“Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” DePape asked, standing over Paul Pelosi around 2 a.m. holding a hammer and zip ties, according to court records. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members.

Paul Pelosi called 911 and two police officers showed up and witnessed DePape strike Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, knocking him unconscious, court records showed.

Nancy Pelosi’s husband of 60 years later underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands.

After his arrest, DePape, 43, allegedly told a San Francisco detective that he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. He said that if she told him the truth, he would let her go and if she lied, he was going to “break her kneecaps” to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions,” according to prosecutors.

DePape, who lived in a garage in the Bay Area city of Richmond and had been doing odd carpentry jobs to support himself, allegedly told authorities he had other targets, including a women’s and queer studies professor, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, actor Tom Hanks and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

One of those targets is included in the defense’s short witness list, though their name has been redacted. Other possible witnesses are DePape, Nancy Pelosi’s chief of staff, Daniel Bernal, extremism and antisemitism researcher Elizabeth Yates, and federal public defender Catherine Goulet.

The prosecution’s list of potential witnesses contains 15 names, including the surgeon who operated on Paul Pelosi, federal agents, San Francisco police officers and several first responders.

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled last month that the jury can see footage that shows Paul Pelosi struggling to breathe and the police officers trying to stop the bleeding.

PARIS — Western and Arab nations, international agencies and nongovernmental groups stressed the urgent need for aid for Gaza civilians at a Paris conference Thursday, held as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory worsens amid Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against Hamas.

The gathering ended a few hours before the White House said Israel has agreed to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in Gaza, starting on Thursday.

The French presidency said the participants’ overall pledges topped 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) in funding, though that included some funds already announced earlier, and stressed that the global amount still remains to be finalized.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened the conference with an appeal for Israel to protect civilians, saying that “all lives have equal worth” and urging for pauses in the fighting to allow deliveries of desperately needed aid.

“In the immediate term, we need to work on protecting civilians,” he said. “To do that, we need a humanitarian pause very quickly and we must work towards a cease-fire.”

The conference brought together officials from over 50 countries, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations as the Gaza Strip is being pounded by Israel in its war against Hamas, sparked by the militants deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel.

Israeli authorities were not invited but have been informed of the talks, Macron’s office said. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the conference.

More than 1.5 million people — or about 70% of Gaza’s population — have fled their homes, and an estimated $1.2 billion is needed to respond to the crisis in Palestinian areas.

Macron said that since the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas “shouldered the responsibility for exposing Palestinians to terrible consequences,” and again defended Israel’s right to defend itself.

“Fighting terrorism can never be carried out without rules. Israel knows that. The trap of terrorism is for all of us the same: giving in to violence and renouncing our values,” he added.

Longer term, Macron said diplomatic work must resume on bringing peace to the Middle East, with a two-state solution. “We must learn from our errors and no longer accept that peace … always be pushed back to later.”

Several European countries, the United States and regional powers such as Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf Arab countries attended the conference, as did Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, who urged the international community to “put an end to the war.”

“How many Palestinians have to be killed for the war to end?” Shtayyeh asked. “What Israel is doing is not a war against Hamas, it’s a war against the whole Palestinian people.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed that Israel had only allowed limited quantities of humanitarian aid through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza and urged “the entire international community, and donor countries in particular, to continue supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

“The aid that has already entered Gaza is not enough to meet the needs of the entire population, and the voluntary and deliberate complications imposed by Israel on the delivery of aid only lead to a further deterioration of the situation,” Shoukry said.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides outlined his plan for a humanitarian sea corridor to Gaza “to provide continued rapid, safe and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid” and said the plan is being discussed “with all parties concerned, including Israel.” The plan provides options for the short, medium and longer term, with aid shipments possibly from the Cyprus port of Larnaca, 370 km (230 miles) from Gaza, he said.

The initiative includes the collection, inspection and storage of humanitarian aid in Cyprus, it’s later transfer by ship possibly from Larnaca port and finally it’s offloading and distribution in Gaza.

French officials said they are also considering evacuating the wounded to hospital ships in the Mediterranean Sea off the Gaza coast. Paris sent a helicopter carrier, now off Cyprus, and is preparing another with medical capacities on board.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said his country sent a hospital ship that is en route to Cyprus before deploying as close as possible to the conflict zone.

Thursday’s discussions also included financial support for Gaza’s civilians.

Macron announced France will provide an additional 80 million euros ($85 million) in humanitarian aid for Gaza civilians, bringing France’s funding to a total of 100 million euros ($107 million) this year.

On Tuesday, the German government said it will provide 20 million euros ($21 million) in new funding, in addition to releasing 71 million euros ($76 million) already earmarked for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

Denmark has decided to increase its humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza by 75 million kroner ($10.7 million), to be channeled via U.N. agencies and the International Red Cross.

European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also attended the conference. The 27-nation bloc is the world’s top aid supplier to the Palestinians. “We have quadrupled the humanitarian support for Gaza and the West Bank, but it’s mostly for Gaza, to 100 million euros ($107 million),” von der Leyen said.

At a news conference following the conference, rights and aid groups urged for an immediate cease-fire, which they said is crucial for them to be able to work in Gaza.

“We’re determined to do everything we can, but if the only thing we get is a day or two without fighting … that won’t be enough,” said Isabelle Defourny, president of Doctors Without Borders France.

Jean-François Corty, vice president of Doctors of the World, said the main challenge “is not so much to mobilize aid as to get it” into Gaza.

“What’s happening in Gaza is a litany of violations of international law … not seen since World War II,” said Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, and denounced “indiscriminate, disproportionate, deliberate attacks.”

Associated Press writers John Leicester in Le Pecq, France; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Colleen Barry in Milan and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli troops have pushed into Gaza City along a key coastal road on the Mediterranean Sea as part of their war on Hamas, according to satellite images from earlier this week analyzed on Thursday by The Associated Press.

Monday’s images from Planet Labs PBC show a moonscape of impact craters from missile strikes and smoke rising over the northern reaches of Gaza City, the besieged territory’s largest urban zone. The images also show previous positions of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers on one of three axes of attack used to cut the city off from the rest of the Gaza Strip.

The city has seen hundreds of thousands of people flee it after a month of war since Hamas’ unprecedented Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed some 1,400 people.

That assault sparked a punishing campaign of airstrikes and the Israeli military offensive into the Gaza Strip that has so far killed over 10,500 people — two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.

Planet Labs has begun delaying the release of imagery from Israel and the Palestinian territories amid the war, as it acknowledged concerns about “the potential for misuse and abuse” of its pictures, said Will Marshall, a co-founder and the CEO of the San Francisco-based firm.

“Planet is continuing to make Earth observation data of Gaza available to clients, including media and humanitarian organizations, consistent with our commitment to transparency and accountability,” Marshall said in responses to questions from the AP ahead of the release of Monday’s images. “Planet does not modify imagery, and we have not received requests to censor imagery.”

The AP has a subscription to access Planet Labs imagery to aid its reporting worldwide and distributes those photos to its subscribers and members.

Monday’s images show Israeli forces just about a kilometer (over half a mile) north of the Shati refugee camp, a dense neighborhood adjacent to Gaza City’s center. Shati houses Palestinian families who fled from or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its establishment.

Their position corresponds with what witnesses in Gaza City have told the AP, whose reporters continue to work in the Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, one witness told the AP he saw Israeli soldiers fighting Hamas close to Shifa Hospital, which is some 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the position Israeli forces held on Monday.

Footage released this week by Hamas of its militants engaged in street-to-street fighting with Israeli forces corresponded to features of the northern reaches of the Gaza Strip. Footage released by the Israeli military did the same.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP regarding the satellite images.

After ordering civilians out of Gaza City, Israeli soldiers have moved on Gaza City from three positions.

They cut across the southern edge of the city all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. Meanwhile, two other forces have pushed in from the north, with forces around Beit Hanoun to the east and forces seen in the satellite images along the Mediterranean, to the west, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

Such “clearing operations frequently take weeks and sometimes months to complete,” the Institute said.

The satellite photos show over half a dozen Israeli tanks and armored vehicles moving on Monday down Ahmed Orabi Street, a coastal road on the Mediterranean also home to a strip of hotels and restaurants. A streetside mosque is seen in ruins.

Some 20 other vehicles just to the north at a site likely serve as a forward-operating base for the Israeli forces, the photos show. A few hundred meters (yards) away, over three dozen impact craters can be seen, likely the result of an earlier intense barrage of fire by Israel to clear the area for its troops.

Burning fires and destroyed buildings can be seen throughout Gaza City.

With journalists outside the city unable to enter, gathering independent information about what’s going on remains difficult. Apart from videos and images on social media, the growing supply of satellite imagery from commercial companies has become increasingly valuable for reporting on closed-off areas and countries.

Those companies can shoot highly detailed images that rival those that were once only the domain of a few countries. Airbus and Colorado-based Maxar Technologies have provided images to reporters during the Israel-Hamas war as well. Both firms did not respond to a request for comment.

Previously, a 1996 U.S. law known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment barred American firms releasing high-resolution satellite imagery of Israel beyond what was commercially available abroad. But as commercial firms put higher-resolution satellites into space, those images became more widely available.

These newly available images have been used in reporting on Israel before. The AP, relying on such imagery, reported in 2021 that a secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program was undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades. That work appears to be continuing to this day.

Wars in the Mideast and Ukraine, along with demands to ban the TikTok video-sharing app, dominated the third Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, with candidates mostly stressing substance over personal attacks.

Each of the 2024 hopefuls — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie — was more willing to take on former President Donald Trump than in previous forums. The moderators focused their first questions on the absent GOP frontrunner, who held his own rally 11 miles away.

The candidates in Miami sparred over the U.S. role in world affairs in the wake of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. Some vitriol did still manage to creep in: Ramaswamy took swipes at Haley, calling her “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels” and accusing her daughter of using TikTok. Haley called Ramaswamy “scum” in response.

Here are the key takeaways:

In Israel’s corner

The candidates sought to outflank each other with full-throated support for Israel’s goal to eradicate Hamas, which the U.S. and the European Union have designated a terrorist organization, and raised the possibility of U.S. military force against Iran.

DeSantis said he would advise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job once and for all with these butchers.”

Haley said she told Netanyahu right after the attack to wipe out Hamas.

“The first thing I said to him when it happened was I said finish them, finish them,” she said.

Fed overhaul floated

DeSantis called for an overhaul of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s role, saying he would “rein in” the politically independent central bank over what he said was a failure to combat inflation.

He didn’t specify what changes he’d make. The Fed is charged with adjusting interest rates to keep unemployment low and prices stable.

“They have helped create with their reckless monetary policy what we have faced since the COVID-19 pandemic. They botched it,” DeSantis said.

TikTok ban

The aspirants spoke in favor of banning TikTok, a position that’s unlikely to earn them friends among young voters.

The video-based social network, owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., “is not only spyware, it’s polluting the minds of American young people” Christie said.

In addition to military and economic strategies for countering China, DeSantis said it was also necessary to address “their role in our culture.”

The federal government has already banned the app on government devices, but prohibiting it for all Americans would likely draw backlash, particularly among young people, who are voracious users of the platform.

Trump targeted

In one of his sharpest critiques of Trump, DeSantis blamed the former president for a string of electoral losses — most recently on Tuesday when Democrats outperformed the GOP in off-year elections with an abortion rights constitutional amendment in Ohio and a Democratic sweep of the Virginia General Assembly.

“He said Republicans were going to get tired of winning,” DeSantis said, referencing an oft-repeated Trump campaign promise. “Well, we saw last night, I’m sick of Republicans losing.”

“We’ve become a party of losers,” Ramaswamy added.

Abortion stance

After voters in Republican Ohio enshrined abortion rights Tuesday, Haley highlighted her nuanced position on access to the procedure.

“I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” Haley said. “There are some states that are going more on the pro-choice side. I wish that wasn’t the case but the people decided.”

Haley’s position has earned her praise from women and moderates — whose support could be pivotal if she were to beat Trump for the nomination — but could work against her in the primary.

Battling antisemitism

The candidates cited protests on college campuses over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as evidence of what they said was a permissive culture that’s allowing antisemitism to fester.

“You’ve got kids’ dorm rooms who are being set on fire because they have something related to Israel on their doors,” Haley said. “If the KKK were doing this, every college president would be up in arms.”

“Antisemitism is just as awful as racism,” she added.

Scott said public universities could lose federal funding if he were president.

Split on Ukraine aid

Ukraine funding was the most divisive issue, pitting Christie, Haley and Scott — who back continued aid to fend off the Russian invasion — against Ramaswamy and DeSantis, who urged less U.S. involvement.

Ramaswamy and DeSantis said they would instead focus resources on sending U.S. military troops to reinforce the Mexico border.

“We are not going to send your sons and daughters to Ukraine. I am going to send troops to our southern border,” DeSantis said.

Scott said he backed continuing aid to Kyiv, but only after a system of greater “accountability” and a review of “the overall Russian military.”

©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

UNIVERSITY CITY, Mo. — As activists parse the results of Tuesday’s vote to protect abortion rights in Ohio, Jamie Corley is already well on her way to putting a similar measure in front of Missouri voters next year.

Corley, a former Republican congressional staffer, filed not one, but six potential ballot measures in August to roll back her state’s near-total ban on abortion, triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to end federal protections for terminating pregnancies.

“I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous it is to be pregnant in Missouri right now,” Corley said at a restaurant near her home in this St. Louis suburb. “There is a real urgency to pass something to change the abortion law.”

Missouri is one of at least 11 states considering abortion-related ballot measures for next year, part of the wave of such actions since the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. And while November 2024 is still a year away, the groundwork for those campaigns has been in motion for months, sometimes years.

In Iowa, for example, efforts to pass a state constitutional amendment declaring no right to abortion began in 2021, although the legislature has yet to finish the process. In Colorado, competing initiatives — one to enshrine abortion protections and one to ban abortion — could potentially appear on the same ballot if supporters of both manage to garner enough signatures. And in Missouri, potential ballot measures to increase access to abortion have been bogged down in litigation for months, delaying the collection of signatures and highlighting internecine conflicts on both sides of the issue.

“In a way, I think this is what the Supreme Court wanted,” said John Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. “They said, ‘The people ought to figure this out.’”

The push for sending the contentious issue to voters comes on the heels of last year’s string of ballot measure wins for abortion rights in six states: California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont. And on Tuesday, Ohio voters broadly passed a measure to establish a state constitutional right to abortion.

Citizen-initiated ballot measures in the 26 states that allow them are often prompted by legislatures that stray far from public opinion, Matsusaka said. Fourteen states have banned abortion since the Dobbs decision, despite polling suggesting those bans are unpopular. Two-thirds of adults expressed concern in a May KFF poll, for example, that such bans could make it difficult for doctors to safely treat patients.

But in states where abortion is legal, a push is coming from the other direction.

“Colorado was actually the first state, or one of the first states, to provide abortion on demand,” said Faye Barnhart, one of the anti-abortion activists who filed petitions to restrict abortions there. “We were pioneers in doing the wrong thing, and so we’re hopeful that we’ll be pioneers in turning that around to do the right thing.”

A similar effort in Iowa, meanwhile, is up in the air. The legislature in 2021 approved a proposed amendment declaring the Iowa Constitution does not protect abortion rights. But the measure needs to pass the Republican-controlled legislature again to get on the ballot. Lawmakers declined to take up the matter during this year’s legislative session but could do so in 2024. A poll published by the Des Moines Register in March found that 61% of Iowans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

If Missouri’s abortion ban is indeed rolled back next year, it would mark the fourth time since 2018 that the state’s voters rebuked their Republican leaders, who have controlled the governorship and both legislative chambers since 2017. Recent initiative petitions have succeeded in raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, and expanding Medicaid, the public insurance program for people with low incomes and disabilities.

The success of those campaigns doesn’t mean the petition process is easy, said Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who specializes in ballot initiatives. Collecting signatures is costly and often requires contracting with what he called the “initiative industrial complex.”

An analysis by Ballotpedia found that the cost per required signature collected for initiative campaigns in 2023 averaged $9.38. At that rate, it would cost more than $1.6 million to get an initiative on the ballot in Missouri — where around 172,000 signatures are needed. And that’s before adding in the cost of running campaigns to persuade voters to choose a side.

In the two months leading up to November’s vote in Ohio, the campaign to protect abortion rights raised about $29 million, and the opposing campaign raised nearly $10 million, according to The Associated Press. Much of the funding came from out-of-state groups, such as the progressive Sixteen Thirty Fund in Washington, D.C., and an Ohio organization associated with the national anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

And more money will pour into the next efforts: Last month, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire Democrat whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, launched the Think Big America organization to help fund abortion-rights ballot measures across the country.

Still, the cost of launching a ballot campaign is a daunting obstacle, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which has clinics in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. During last year’s vote in Kansas, for example, the competing campaigns raised over $11.2 million combined. That may be a factor in the absence of a ballot measure in Oklahoma despite momentum for one last year.

“It’s not just: Can you pull together a coalition, educate voters, and get them out? But: Can you also raise enough to combat what has been years of misinformation, miseducation, and really shaming and stigmatizing information about abortion?” Wales said.

Polling in Missouri indicates voters statewide, including many Republicans, might back abortion rights in certain circumstances.

That’s what led Corley to file her petitions in August despite a political action committee called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom having already filed 11 proposals to roll back the state’s abortion ban. Corley said her proposals are narrower to attract support from sympathetic Republicans like herself. They provide exemptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and the health of the mother. Three would prevent restrictions on abortions for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The proposals from Missourians for Constitutional Freedom would allow abortion later in pregnancy. Some versions allow regulations on abortions only after 24 weeks, while others specify after “fetal viability” or don’t give any time frame.

One group withholding support from any effort so far is Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, the state’s other main Planned Parenthood affiliate and the final clinic to provide abortion services before Missouri’s ban.

“My concern is that we would potentially rebuild the same system that failed so many people,” said Colleen McNicholas, its chief medical officer for reproductive health services.

Missouri lawmakers long sought ways to limit abortion even while it was protected by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, including enacting a 72-hour waiting period in 2014. The number of recorded abortions in the state dropped from 5,772 in 2011 to 150 in 2021, the last full year before the current ban.

“We know what it’s like to live in a post-Roe reality, and we knew that reality well before the Dobbs decision,” said McNicholas.

Still, Corley said her group is ready to push ahead with at least one measure.

“People are looking for something like what we’re putting forward, which is something in the middle that provides protections against criminal prosecution,” Corley said. “I also don’t think people understand how much worse it can get in Missouri.”

____

Rural editor and correspondent Tony Leys in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

___

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON — Israel has agreed to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in its assault on Hamas in northern Gaza starting on Thursday, the White House said, as President Joe Biden pressed Israelis for a multi-day stoppage in the fighting in a bid to release hostages held by the militant group.

Biden said Thursday that there was “no possibility” of a formal cease-fire at the moment, and said it had “taken a little longer” than he hoped for Israel to agree to the humanitarian pauses. Biden had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to institute the daily pauses during a Monday call and said he had also asked the Israelis for a pause of at least three days to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas.

“Yes,” Biden said, when asked whether he had asked Israel for a three-day pause. “I’ve asked for even a longer pause for some of them.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the first daily humanitarian pause would be announced Thursday and that the Israelis had committed to announcing each four-hour window at least three hours in advance. Israel, he said, also was opening a second corridor for civilians to flee the areas that are the current focus of its military campaign against Hamas, with a coastal road joining the territory’s main north-south highway.

Similar short-term pauses have occurred over the last several days as tens of thousands of civilians have fled southward, but Thursday’s announcement appeared to be an effort to formalize and expand the process, as the U.S. has pressed Israelis to take greater steps to protect civilians in Gaza.

Biden’s push for an even longer pause comes as part of a renewed diplomatic push to free hostages taken by Hamas and other militant groups to the Gaza Strip during their Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.

Israeli officials estimate that militants still hold 239 hostages, including children and the elderly, from the attack that also saw 1,400 Israelis killed. U.S. officials say it believes fewer than 10 Americans are among those held captive.

Kirby told reporters Thursday that pauses could be useful to “getting all 239 hostages back with their families to include the less than 10 Americans that we know are being held. So if we can get all the hostages out, that’s a nice finite goal.”

“Humanitarian pauses can be useful in the transfer process,” he added.

Indirect talks were taking place in Qatar — which also played a role in the freeing of four hostages by Hamas last month — about a larger release of hostages. CIA Director William Burns was in Doha on Thursday to discuss efforts to win the release of hostages in Gaza with the Qatari prime minister and the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, according to a U.S. official.

Burns met with Mossad chief David Barnea and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said the official, who talked to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Qatar is a frequent go-between in international dealings with Hamas, and some top Hamas political leaders make their home in the Gulf country. The U.S. official stressed Burns was not playing a lead role in the negotiations.

Kirby confirmed that the U.S. continues to have “active discussions with partners about trying to secure the release of hostages,” noting in particular Qatar’s help.

“We know they have lines of communication with Hamas that we don’t,” Kirby said of Qatar. “And we’re going to continue to work with them and regional partners to try to secure the release of all the hostages.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned Israel last week that it risked destroying an eventual possibility for peace unless it acted swiftly to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza for Palestinian civilians as it intensifies its war against Hamas.

In a blunt call for Israel to pause military operations in the territory to allow for the immediate and increased delivery of assistance, Blinken said the situation would drive Palestinians toward further radicalism and effectively end prospects for any eventual resumption of peace talks to end the conflict.

French President Emmanuel Macron had opened a Gaza aid conference on Thursday with an appeal for Israel to protect civilians, saying that “all lives have equal worth” and that fighting terrorism “can never be carried out without rules.”

Kirby said Uzra Zeya, the State Department’s under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights; special envoy David Satterfield; and Sarah Charles, who leads the USAID’s bureau for humanitarian assistance, were representing the U.S. at the Paris conference. Israel has not been invited by France to the conference. Kirby demurred when asked about the decision to leave Israel out of the international talks.

“We’re focused on trying to have the most constructive conversation there that we can,” Kirby said.

AP writers Ellen Knickmeyer, Colleen Long and Michelle Price in Washington contributed.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Wednesday for a united and Palestinian-led government for Gaza and the West Bank after the war ends, as a step toward Palestinian statehood. That vision sharpens U.S. differences with ally Israel on what the future should look like for the Palestinian territories once Israel’s military campaign against Hamas winds down.

Blinken’s outline of what Americans think should come next for Gaza also serves as a check on the postwar scenarios floated by officials of Israel’s hard-right government and its supporters. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement Monday that Israel’s military would likely maintain security control of Gaza for an “indefinite period” appears to have heightened U.S. concerns.

Any postwar governing plan for Gaza “must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” Blinken told reporters in Japan.

APPEALING TO PRESIDENT: Democrats want Biden to protect Palestinians in US from being forced home

He and other top diplomats of the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies were gathered in Tokyo for a meeting focused on Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel and on easing the suffering of the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza under Israel’s now month-old military offensive and blockade.

Blinken reinforced the Biden administration’s rejections of any return of lasting direct Israeli control in Gaza, as well as of a proposal — promoted in a policy report by Israel’s intelligence ministry — to push Gaza’s Palestinian residents into neighboring Egypt.

“We’re very clear on no reoccupation, just as we’re very clear on no displacement of the Palestinian population,” Blinken said. “And, as we’ve said before, we need to see and get to, in effect, unity of governance when it comes to Gaza and the West Bank, and ultimately to a Palestinian state.”

The U.S. diplomat’s remarks highlight the areas of widening daylight between Netanyahu’s government and its most important ally on how Israel conducts the war and its postwar relations with the Palestinians.

The U.S. and Israel agree that the Hamas militant group cannot return to its rule of the Gaza Strip. But none of the ideas that Israeli officials have raised for Gaza’s governance after the war have included independent Palestinian rule as a credible possibility.

The Palestinian Authority administers semiautonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While internationally recognized, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is widely unpopular among Palestinians even in the West Bank. Netanyahu long has depicted both Abbas and the Palestinian Authority as too incapable to be a credible partner in peace efforts with Israel.

A member of Israel’s decision-making War Cabinet on Wednesday acknowledged that Israel does not yet have a vision for the Gaza Strip after its war against Hamas ends, saying the battle plan is open-ended and will include a long-term Israeli security presence in the besieged territory.

The comments by Benny Gantz added new uncertainty to the Israeli campaign in Gaza, which has come under growing international scrutiny because of the heavy civilian death toll and widespread destruction. The Group of Seven, which includes many of Israel’s closest allies, called for Israel to do more to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Speaking in Israel to international journalists, Gantz, a former defense minister and military chief of staff, said the only certainty in Israeli thinking is that Hamas can have no role in the future of Gaza. But he described a lengthy campaign in Gaza and linked the territory’s future to quiet along Israel’s northern front with Lebanon and eastern front with the West Bank.

“Once the Gaza area is safe, and the northern area will be safe, and the Judea and Samaria region will calm down, we will settle down and review an alternative mechanism for Gaza,” he said, using the biblical term for the West Bank. “I do not know what it will be.”

“We can come up with any mechanism we think is appropriate, but Hamas will not be part of it,” he added. “We need to replace the Hamas regime and ensure security superiority for us.”

Asked how long the war would last, Gantz said, “there are no limitations.”

Since Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, successive Israeli governments have pursued a policy of severing links between the West Bank and Gaza, the two territories that, along with east Jerusalem, were to make up a future Palestinian state. The isolation of Gaza deepened after Hamas drove out the forces of Abbas in 2007 and Israel, along with Egypt, imposed a blockade.

Hamas’ breakout from Gaza on Oct. 7 and Israel’s deepening military response have marked the bloodiest fighting by far in repeated wars. President Joe Biden, whose administration had made a policy of not publicly pushing Netanyahu’s coalition to return to long-abandoned talks to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the first hours after the Hamas attack declared the U.S. would stand by Israel in its military response.

Biden rushed U.S. weapons to Israel and sent warships to the region. The American president flew on Oct. 18 to Israel, where he clasped Netanyahu and Israeli survivors of the Hamas raids, which killed more than 1,400 people, in tight hugs.

The past week, however, has seen increasing private and public U.S. pressure on Israel to alter how it conducts its air, ground and sea campaign against Hamas.

Deaths in Gaza under Israeli bombardment have soared past 10,000, alienating international governments that had endorsed Israel’s right of self- defense. Israel blames Hamas for the heavy death toll, accusing the group of using civilians as human shields.

Emerging U..S.-Israeli differences already included Americans pressing for what they call humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow for greater delivery of aid to Gaza’s blockaded residents. Israeli officials have linked any cease-fires to Hamas releasing the more than 240 people it is believed to be holding hostage.

Blinken said Wednesday the time “is now to start the conversation about the future” for Gaza.

“Identifying the longer-term objectives and a pathway to get there will help shape our approach to addressing immediate needs,” he said.

Federman reported from Tel Aviv.

WASHINGTON — Dozens of Democratic lawmakers are urging President Joe Biden to take steps to protect Palestinians in the United States as Israeli forces continue to fight Hamas militants inside Gaza City and thousands flee the area amid increasingly dire humanitarian circumstances.

In a letter Wednesday to Biden, the Democrats call for enacting temporary protections for Palestinians through government programs that shield immigrants from returning to countries that are ravaged by natural disasters or war. The lawmakers cite the rising death toll in Gaza, especially among children, from the month-long Israel-Hamas war and the lack of food and water.

“In light of ongoing armed conflict, Palestinians already in the United States should not be forced to return to the Palestinian territories, consistent with President Biden’s stated commitment to protecting Palestinian civilians,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, provided to The Associated Press in advance of its release.

The letter is a notable effort from Democrats to defend and protect Palestinians at a time when leading Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and others vying for the GOP presidential nomination, have called for the U.S. to bar Palestinians attempting to escape the war in Gaza.

Last month, while campaigning in Iowa, Trump threatened to expand a travel ban on Muslims that he issued through an executive order during his presidency. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the U.S. should not take in any Palestinian refugees trying to leave Gaza because, he insisted, they “are all antisemitic.”

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, has emphasized that America has “always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists,” which prompted DeSantis’s super PAC to attack Haley on the issue.

U.S. law gives authorities broad leeway to deny people entry if they present security risks. Cases of extremists crossing into the U.S. illegally are also virtually nonexistent.

The request from Democrats to Biden would apply only to Palestinians who are already in the United States.

The U.S. issued about 7,200 temporary visas to people with Palestinian Authority passports in 2022, according to the State Department. Pointing to that figure, the Democrats argued that “the number of beneficiaries would be small, while the benefit could be lifesaving.

The request, signed by just over 100 lawmakers, is led by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration policy. It is also signed by Sens. Jack Reed, who leads the Armed Services Committee, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. About 70 House Democrats signed, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.

Temporary Protected Status is a program through the Department of Homeland Security that provides provisional residency, including the ability to work, to non-U.S. citizens currently here whose home countries are deemed too dangerous for them to return. The lawmakers also ask Biden to use Deferred Enforced Departure, a program similar to TPS that is used at a president’s discretion.

Similar protections have been issued in the past, the lawmakers say. For instance, the U.S. offered temporary protected status for residents of Kosovo amid armed conflict in 1998. At the time, Kosovo was a province of Serbia and did not declare independence until 2008.

Pan, who has taught German language, history, literature and culture at UC Irvine since 2006, is vying for the 46th congressional district represented by Democratic Rep. Lou Correa in a race that, so far, was on track to go uncontested.

It’s his experience in academia, Pan said, that caused him to switch parties.

“I have been frustrated with the way in which debates in the university have been somewhat constrained,” Pan said. “Particularly in terms of issues like affirmative action. We need to focus on merit, hard work and taking responsibility.”

“Those have increasingly become Republican values than Democratic ones,” he said, “and I really feel that I’ve been in the wrong party for several years.”

While he consistently voted for Democratic candidates for most of his life, over the last several years, Pan said he’d look at candidates and their values, not the party letter next to their name.

“My goal is to find some common ground between the parties to make real change,” Pan, an Irvine resident, said. “Opposition politics doesn’t make room for real change. We need to get moderates on both sides on board.”

“I’m by no means a conservative Republican,” he added. “The issues that I’m running on — public safety, school choice, bringing down inflation — they’re what everybody can sign on to.”

Pan said elected Democrats in the area, including Correa, have not pushed hard enough to rein in crime and homelessness or improve schools and academic performances.

“The 46th district is home to a lot of poorly performing schools, and that’s really upsetting to me,” Pan said. Several Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fullerton schools are rated low on academic performance by the California School Dashboard published by the California Department of Education.

Through a campaign spokesperson, Correa declined to comment.

Before moving to Southern California, Pan taught at Penn State University for several years. He’s the editor of Telos, a quarterly academic journal that focuses on politics, philosophy and cultural and societal issues.

And in the race, education reform remains one of the biggest components of his platform.

Pan supports education vouchers, state-funded scholarships that can be used to subsidize a student’s private or religious school tuition. California does not offer such vouchers, and an effort to establish a fund for students who opt out of attending public schools was defeated in the state legislature earlier this year.

“Parents deserve to make informed choices about the school to put their children in,” Pan said. “A system of school vouchers would help parents, not just wealthy parents, put their children in the school that will work best for them,” he said.

Pan said that giving parents an opportunity to choose where to send their kids will induce “healthy competition” between schools, improving school quality. He said he would introduce legislation in Congress to push for a federal school voucher program.

Another focus of Pan’s is government spending — something he sees as a bipartisan issue.

“The Trump administration wasn’t able to control spending, either,” Pan said, pointing to the national debt level’s $7.8 trillion increase during former President Donald Trump’s time in office. “I want to have a serious discussion about government spending and ways to reduce that. I don’t think either party has really been serious about that because in both the Biden and the Trump administrations there has been deficit spending.”

Before entering academia, Pan briefly found work as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. From 2019 to 2020, Pan, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, served on the U.S. State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, a group of academics, philosophers and activists tasked with providing the secretary of state “advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters.”

The 46th congressional district, represented by Correa, a four-term congressman, covers Anaheim, Santa Ana and Stanton and parts of Orange and Fullerton. Democrats have a stronger voter registration advantage: 49.25% to Republicans’ 21.7%. (No party preference voters are at 23.59%.)

Pan sees his longshot bid as an opportunity to offer CA-46 residents another choice on the ballot next year and says that through canvassing, he has found more conservative residents than what the numbers might indicate.

“Sitting down and having serious discussions about how we should try to govern,” Pan said. “I’d like to have that kind of discussion with people and get that debate moving.”