Israel’s military has killed at least 32 Palestinians in a wave of attacks that once again violated the October ceasefire deal with Hamas. Among the dead are at least 10 people, including an entire family, killed when Israel bombed a building sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood. Israel said it launched the attacks after its soldiers came under fire; Hamas rejected the claim and noted that Israel said none of its troops were wounded in the alleged attack. In Khan Younis, family and friends held funerals earlier today for victims of Israeli attacks on southern Gaza.

Mohammed Abu Shahla: “They say there’s a ceasefire. Where is this ceasefire they’re talking about? Where are the guarantors of the ceasefire? Every day, 10, 15, 20 martyrs die. We wake up to martyrs, and we go to sleep to martyrs, and they say there’s a ceasefire. Unfortunately, there is no ceasefire.”

According to Al Jazeera, Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement at least 393 times since October 10.

The charity Save the Children reports explosive weapons caused a record number of child deaths and injuries last year, when nearly 12,000 children were killed or wounded in conflicts worldwide. It’s the highest toll since records began in 2006, driven largely by Israel’s more than two-year assault on Gaza, where more than 20,000 children have been killed — an average of one child per hour since October 2023. 

Syria’s government has denounced a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Syrian territory occupied for months by Israeli forces. The territory extends Israel’s grip on the occupied Golan Heights. Syria’s U.N. ambassador called Netanyahu’s visit with Israeli soldiers a “provocative tour, which epitomizes Israel’s ongoing aggression against Syria and its people.”

An investigation by The Guardian has found Israeli forces used cluster munitions that are widely banned under international law during its recent 13-month war in Lebanon. Photos published by The Guardian show remnants of two different types of Israeli cluster munitions found in three areas of southern Lebanon left devastated by Israeli attacks that have killed almost 4,000 people. The weapons are banned by 124 states that signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, though Israel and the United States are not signatories.

Russia launched a wave of missile and drone attacks on Ukraine Wednesday that killed at least 26 people, including three children. Ninety-three others were wounded in the attacks, many of which targeted the western city of Ternopil, where missiles struck residential high-rise buildings. This is Oksana Kobel, the mother of a man who disappeared behind a wall of flames triggered by the Russian strikes.

Oksana Kobel: “My son is still in the apartment on the ninth floor. I talked to him before the explosions. That’s it. He said, 'Mom, everything will be fine. Don't worry.’ After this, I tried calling and couldn’t reach him. I still know nothing.”

Russia’s latest attacks came as Axios reported U.S. and Russian officials quietly drafted a plan to end the war in Ukraine that would see Kyiv agree to surrender territory to Russia, while cutting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces. European officials pushed back against the plan, with France’s foreign minister declaring, “Peace cannot be a capitulation.” 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian lawmakers have fired two government ministers accused of taking part in a $100 million kickback scheme within the state-owned nuclear power company.

President Trump signed a bill Wednesday compelling the Justice Department to release files from its investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This comes after a near-unanimous vote in the House and Senate ordering the DOJ to release the Epstein files. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed that the DOJ will release the files within 30 days, but hinted that the Justice Department may cite ongoing investigations or other reasons to hold back material.

On Wednesday, a Republican effort to censure the Democratic delegate from the Virgin Islands, Stacey Plaskett, failed on the House floor. Documents from Epstein’s estate released last week showed that Plaskett was exchanging texts with Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing.

Former Harvard president and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced that he’s stepping down from commitments at Harvard and from the board of OpenAI after documents showed that he continued to stay in touch with Jeffrey Epstein long after Epstein’s 2008 sex trafficking conviction. Emails show Summers called Epstein his “wing man” and asked for advice on pursuing a sexual relationship with a much younger woman he called his “mentee.” Harvard has opened an investigation into Summers’s actions.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, Wednesday as Border Patrol agents continued to target Latinx communities, with over 250 immigrants reportedly arrested in recent days. This is Renee Tillett, a resident of Fort Mill, South Carolina, who joined the protests.

Renee Tillett: “I feel it’s important that we’re out here, not sitting at home on our butts, quiet about what’s going on. If you’re not seeing something and saying something, you’re complicit. I do not want to be complicit. What’s going on here is illegal. It’s warrantless. And people are getting picked up without proper identification, without warrants, and that is wrong. Doesn’t matter who you are. That is wrong. We need to support our immigrants. We love our immigrants here in Charlotte.”

This week, the Border Patrol expanded its North Carolina operations to include the heavily Democratic Research Triangle region, which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, new data reported by the Chicago Tribune finds that 97% of immigrants detained in the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” had no criminal conviction, according to federal court records. 

The Justice Department admitted Wednesday that members of a grand jury never voted on the final criminal indictment against former FBI Director James Comey. The admission came as a federal judge in Virginia grilled Trump’s hand-picked interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan over her procedural missteps, which many legal scholars say could result in her losing her bar license. Comey’s lawyers have asked the court to dismiss his case on the grounds that he’s the target of a vindictive prosecution led by President Trump. 

In Florida, a man who joined the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has been arrested on multiple charges that he sexually abused children. Forty-four-year-old Andrew Paul Johnson pleaded not guilty to charges he molested a child as young as 11 years old. He joins a growing number of Capitol rioters who face new legal problems, after they were pardoned by President Trump on his first day back in office. 

The House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to rescind a provision of the recently passed spending bill that would allow eight Republican senators to personally sue the government for up to $1 million if their phone records were seized as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 attack. Maryland Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin called the measure “one of the most blatantly corrupt provisions for political self-dealing and the plunder of public resources ever proposed in Congress.” It’s not clear whether the bill to repeal the language will get a vote in the Senate.

President Trump is set to meet with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday. Trump announced the meeting in a post on social media calling Mamdani a “communist.” During the mayoral campaign, Trump had backed Mamdani’s opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and repeatedly taunted Mamdani and threatened to deport him. Mamdani was born in Uganda and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Mamdani’s team says they reached out to President Trump for a meeting. 

Here in Belém, Brazil, at COP30, a big issue emerging in the climate negotiations is whether countries will agree to a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. Now more than 80 countries, including Germany, Kenya and Britain, are backing the proposal, but that’s less than half of all countries attending the summit. This is Harjeet Singh, a member of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, who joined protests at COP30 on Wednesday.

Harjeet Singh: “We want this particular COP30 to deliver a roadmap on fossil fuel phaseout, to have a just transition plan, so that we can all move away from fossil fuels and go more and more towards renewable energy. But the fossil fuel lobbyists are not allowing us to do that. Developed countries who are responsible for the climate crisis, they are not providing money. And without climate finance, we cannot protect our people, we cannot move away from fossil fuels.”

Meanwhile, Turkey has emerged as the host of next year’s COP31 climate summit, which will be held in the Mediterranean port city of Antalya, while Australia is set to lead the conference’s negotiations. We’ll have more from the U.N. climate summit here in Belém, Brazil, after headlines.

The Trump administration is proposing to significantly weaken protections under the Endangered Species Act with new rules that would allow for more oil drilling, logging and mining in habitats for endangered species in the U.S. One of the proposed rules would enable the government to consider economic factors before deciding whether to list a species as endangered. Another rule would reduce the requirements for other federal agencies to consult with wildlife agencies on whether their actions could harm critical habitats. Jane Davenport, a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, said the new rules could “accelerate the extinction crisis we face today.” An investigation by the Montana Free Press found the Endangered Species Act has prevented 291 species from going extinct since it was passed in 1973.