By WAFAA SHURAFA and MELANIE LIDMAN

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes pounded northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 70 people, including almost two dozen children, according to local hospitals and health officials, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no way” he would halt Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory before Hamas is defeated.

At least 50 people, including 22 children, were killed in strikes around Jabaliya in northern Gaza alone, according to hospitals and Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The strikes came after Hamas on Monday released an Israeli-American hostage, a gesture that some thought could lay the groundwork for a ceasefire, and as U.S. President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia during a multi-day trip to Gulf countries. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Israel’s military refused to comment on the strikes. It warned Jabaliya residents to evacuate late Tuesday, citing combatant infrastructure in the area, including rocket launchers.

In Jabaliya, rescue workers smashed through collapsed concrete slabs using hand tools, lit by the light of cellphones, to remove children’s bodies.

Israel threatens to escalate operations in Gaza

In comments released by Netanyahu’s office Tuesday, the prime minister said Israeli forces were days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission … It means destroying Hamas.”

There had been widespread hope that Trump’s visit to the Middle East could usher in a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza. An Israeli blockade of the territory is now in its third month.

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The war began when Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people in a 2023 intrusion into southern Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,928 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. Almost 3,000 have been killed since Israel broke a ceasefire on March 18, the ministry said.

Israel’s offensive has obliterated vast swathes of Gaza’s urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.

Israeli media reported that one target in a strike on a hospital in Khan Younis on Tuesday was Mohammed Sinwar, younger brother of the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces last October. The military would not comment beyond saying it had targeted a Hamas “command and control center” which it said was located beneath the European Hospital.

Mohammed Sinwar is believed to be Hamas’ top military leader in Gaza. Israel has tried to assassinate him multiple times over the past decades.

A senior health official in Gaza said Wednesday that ambulances were no longer able to reach the hospital due to damage from the strike, which had also forced the facility to suspend surgical operations.

Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director general of Field Hospitals at Gaza’s Health Ministry, said the strike had severely damaged the hospital’s water and sewage systems, as well as its courtyard. He added that the Israeli military hit a bulldozer brought in by hospital authorities to repair the area to allow ambulances reach the building.

“Until these damages are fixed, we will have to shut down most departments of the hospital,” he said, adding that he had no information about Israel’s claimed target of the strike.

France condemns Israeli blockade of aid

International food security experts warned earlier this week that Gaza will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.

Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation while 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.

French President Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Netanyahu’s decision to block aid as “a disgrace” that has caused a major humanitarian crisis.

“I say it forcefully, what Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is doing today is unacceptable,” Macron said Tuesday evening on TF1 national television. “There’s no medicine. We can’t get the wounded out. Doctors can’t get in.”

Macron, who visited injured Palestinians in Egypt last month, called for the reopening of the Gaza border to humanitarian convoys. “Then, yes, we must fight to demilitarize Hamas, free the hostages and build a political solution,” he said.

Netanyahu retorted that Macron was “echoing the false propaganda” of an extremist organization.

Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive. Israel’s 19-month-old military campaign has wiped away most capacity to produce food in the territory. Markets are empty of most items, and prices for what remains have skyrocketed.

Blockades force charity kitchens to close

The United Nations says the number of meals that charity kitchens are providing in Gaza has plunged to around 260,000 under Israel’s blockade, down from more than 1 million a day in late April.

Charity kitchens are the last lifeline for most of Gaza’s population, but they are rapidly shutting down because supplies are running out. In the first two weeks of May, at least 112 kitchens – more than 60% of the total – closed, the U.N. humanitarian office said Wednesday. Only 68 kitchens still operate.

The World Health Organization said it has only enough stocks to treat 500 children with acute malnutrition, a fraction of the need. Thousands of children have been diagnosed with malnutrition in recent weeks.

Israel says the blockade is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release remaining hostages and disarm. Israeli officials have asserted there is enough food in the territory after a surge in aid entered during the recent two-month ceasefire.

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled and Lee Keath contributed from Cairo and Sylvie Corbet contributed from Paris.

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and MEGAN JANETSKY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel Vail’s entire life in the small western Guatemalan town of Cajolá is built off the money that his three children send home from the United States.

The money from their construction jobs paid for the two-story white home where Vail now lives — and where his children, who are in the U.S. illegally, would also reside if they ever get deported. Vail, 53, invested some of the money in opening a local food shop, which he uses to keep his family afloat.

In small migratory towns like Cajolá, it is not unusual for the entire economy to be built off remittances, the funds sent by migrant workers back to their home countries.

“People here, they don’t live luxuriously, but they live off remittances,“ Vail said.

House Republicans have included in President Donald Trump’s big priority bill a 5% excise tax on remittance transfers that would cover more than 40 million people, including green card holders and nonimmigrant visa holders, such as people on H-1B, H-2A and H-2B visas. U.S. citizens would be exempt.

Trump also recently announced that he is finalizing a presidential memorandum to “shut down remittances” sent by people in the U.S. illegally. White House and Treasury officials have not responded to requests for comment from The Associated Press on specifics of the presidential memorandum that Trump previewed in an April 25 Truth Social post and how it would work.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum shot back on the measure and called on Republican lawmakers to reconsider it, saying it “would damage the economy of both nations and is also contrary to the spirit of economic freedom that the U.S. government claims to defend.”

“Remittances are the fruit of the efforts of those who, through their honest work, strengthen not only the Mexican economy but also the United States’, which is why we consider this measure to be arbitrary and unjust,” she said in a morning press briefing.

Remittance experts, local leaders and former migrants say that banning, limiting or adding a tax on certain remittances could damage communities that rely on them, prove burdensome to American citizens and firms and, paradoxically, end up causing even more illegal migration to the U.S.

The influx of money provides an important economic lifeline to residents of poorer towns that often have little access to jobs or income. Remittances provide opportunities for people in their home country, making it less likely they would take the risk of migrating to the United States, the experts say.

”Any measure to reduce remittances will have a negative impact on the U.S. national interest,” said Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances, and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. “It will have an effect on the homeland.”

Proponents of efforts to target remittances say they are an effective tax on people in the U.S. illegally and could be a revenue generator for the U.S. government.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for less immigration, acknowledges that limiting, banning or taxing remittances would make it more difficult for immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

“One of the main reasons people come here is to work and send money home,” Krikorian said. “If that’s much more difficult to do, it becomes less appealing to come here.”

Legislation to control remittances — through taxes on money transfers, both internationally and domestically — has been proposed in 18 states in the past few years. Almost all of those efforts have been voted down.

The exception is Oklahoma, which in 2009 passed a tax on remittances: a $5 fee on any wire transfer under $500 and 1% on any amount in excess of $500.

Steven Yates, who is now a senior research fellow at the Heritage Institute, wrote for the America First Policy Institute that every state should adopt this policy as a way to combat the impact of illegal immigration.

Other high-ranking Trump administration officials have also supported efforts to tighten controls on remittances. Vice President JD Vance, as an Ohio senator in 2023, co-sponsored the WIRED Act, which would have imposed a 10% fee on remittances out of the U.S.

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The intention of the bill — which would allow people who could prove their citizenship to get the fee back as a refundable tax credit — was “penalizing illicit activity, such as drug and human smuggling.” The bill did not make it out of committee.

“This legislation is a common sense solution to disincentivize illegal immigration and reduce the cartels’ financial power,” Vance said at the time of the bill’s introduction.

According to the World Bank, remittances sent to home countries in 2023 totaled about $656 billion — equivalent to the gross domestic product of Belgium. The money that Mexican migrants send home to their relatives grew by 7.6% in 2023 to reach a record $63.3 billion for the year.

Remittances are also a major factor in the global economy, often sent from American wire services rather than banks and credit unions. India, Mexico and China are the biggest recipients of those funds, according to the World Bank.

In response to the proposal to tax remittances in the new Republican House bill, Orozco said, “Some senders would find ways to send money differently, through unauthorized channels. Others would send less.”

“Sending less would have an impact on the receiving households, limiting the capacity to save, and in turn may increase the intention to migrate,” said Orozco, who also serves as a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Development.

In Cajolá, local leaders say the remittance flow has stopped young people from migrating because they see economic opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have. Vail said losing that lifeline would deal a devastating blow to families like his and even cause his small business to fold.

“There’s a lot of fear,” Vail said. “Fear that for the people that live here in Guatemala, there won’t be work because the businesses will be all gone.”

He said his business has already been struggling since Trump took office and his sales of things like eggs, beans, sugar and more have dipped.

“When Donald Trump won, many people stopped sending remittances or they began to save money,” he said. “Business dropped off a lot.”

Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS, Associated Press

The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it plans to weaken limits on some so-called forever chemicals in drinking water that were finalized last year, while maintaining standards for two common ones.

The Biden administration set the first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding they increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies being born with low birth weight. Those limits on PFAS, which are man-made and don’t easily break down in nature, were expected to reduce their levels in drinking water for millions of people.

Limits on three types of PFAS, including so-called GenX substances found in North Carolina, will be scrapped and reconsidered by the agency, as will a limit on a mixture of several types of PFAS.

FILE – Vials containing samples of forever chemicals, known as PFAS, sit in a tray, April 10, 2024, at a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lab in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel, File)

The Biden administration’s rule also set standards for the two common types of PFAS, referred to as PFOA and PFOS, at 4 parts per trillion, effectively the lowest level at which they can be reliably detected. The EPA will keep those standards in place, but give utilities two extra years — until 2031 — to comply and treat for the chemicals.

“We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water. At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

The development was first reported by The Washington Post.

It appears few utilities will be impacted by the withdrawal of limits for certain, newer types of PFAS. So far, sampling has found nearly 12% of U.S. water utilities are above the Biden administration’s limits. But the vast majority of utilities face problems with PFOA or PFOS.

Health advocates praised the Biden administration for the tight limits. But water utilities took issue with the rule, saying treatment systems are expensive to install and that customers will end up paying more for water. The utilities sued the EPA.

The EPA’s actions align with some of the arguments utilities made in their lawsuit. They argued that the EPA lacked the authority to regulate a mixture of PFAS and said the agency didn’t properly support limits on several newer types of PFAS that are now rescinded. They also asked for the now-granted two-year extension.

Erik Olson, a senior strategic director of health at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said the move is illegal. The Safe Water Drinking Act gives the EPA authority to limit contaminants in drinking water and it includes a provision meant to prevent new rules from being looser than previous ones.

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“With a stroke of the pen, EPA is making a mockery of the Trump administration’s promise to deliver clean water for Americans,” Olson said.

Manufactured by companies like Chemours and 3M, PFAS were incredibly useful in many applications -– among them, helping clothes to withstand rain and ensuring that firefighting foam snuffed out flames. But the chemicals also accumulate in the body. As science advanced in recent years, evidence of harm at far lower levels became clearer.

The Biden-era EPA estimated the rule will cost about $1.5 billion to implement each year. Water utility associations say the costly rules, combined with recent mandates to replace harmful lead pipes, will raise residents’ bills and fall hardest on small communities with few resources.

The Biden administration did work to address cost concerns. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $9 billion for chemicals like PFAS and utilities have won multibillion-dollar settlements against PFAS polluters that will help.

Some utilities have been surprised to find out they are over the limits.

“This gives water pros more time to deal with the ones we know are bad, and we are going to need more time. Some utilities are just finding out now where they stand and that’s almost too late already for 2029,” said Mike McGill, president of WaterPIO, a water industry communications firm.

But what utilities really wanted was a higher limit on PFOA and PFOS, according to Mark White, drinking water global practice leader at the engineering firm CDM Smith. He suspects the utility industry will continue to sue over those limits. Dissatisfied environmental groups will likely file challenges, too.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By MIKE STOBBE and GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded.

An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the 110,000 in 2023.

The CDC has been collecting comparable data for 45 years. The previous largest one-year drop was 4% in 2018, according to the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.

All but two states saw declines last year, with Nevada and South Dakota seeing small increases. Some of the biggest drops were in Ohio, West Virginia and other states that have been hard-hit in the nation’s decades-long overdose epidemic.

Experts say more research needs to be done to understand what drove the reduction, but they mention several possible factors. Among the most cited:

Increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
Expanded addiction treatment.
Shifts in how people use drugs.
The growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
The number of at-risk Americans is shrinking, after waves of deaths in older adults and a shift in teens and younger adults away from the drugs that cause most deaths.

Still, annual overdose deaths are higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement, the CDC noted that overdoses are still the leading cause of death for people 18-44 years old, “underscoring the need for ongoing efforts to maintain this progress.”

Some experts worry that the recent decline could be slowed or stopped by reductions in federal funding and the public health workforce, or a shift away from the strategies that seem to be working.

“Now is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedal,” said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

The provisional numbers are estimates of everyone who died of overdoses in the U.S., including noncitizens. That data is still being processed, and the final numbers can sometimes differ a bit. But it’s clear that there was a huge drop last year.

Experts note that there have been past moments when U.S. overdose deaths seemed to have plateaued or even started to go down, only to rise again. That happened in 2018.

But there are reasons to be optimistic.

Naloxone has become more widely available, in part because of the introduction of over-the-counter versions that don’t require prescriptions.

Meanwhile, drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy chains and other businesses have settled lawsuits with state and local governments over the painkillers that were a main driver of overdose deaths in the past. The deals over the last decade or so have promised about $50 billion over time, with most of it required to be used to fight addiction.

Another settlement that would be among the largest, with members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma agreeing to pay up to $7 billion, could be approved this year.

The money, along with federal taxpayer funding, is going to a variety of programs, including supportive housing and harm reduction efforts, such as providing materials to test drugs for fentanyl, the biggest driver of overdoses now.

But what each state will do with that money is currently at issue. “States can either say, ‘We won, we can walk away’” in the wake of the declines or they can use the lawsuit money on naloxone and other efforts, said Regina LaBelle, a former acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. She now heads an addiction and public policy program at Georgetown University.

President Donald Trump’s administration views opioids as largely a law enforcement issue and as a reason to step up border security. That worries many public health leaders and advocates.

“We believe that taking a public health approach that seeks to support — not punish — people who use drugs is crucial to ending the overdose crisis,” said Dr. Tamara Olt, an Illinois woman whose 16-year-old son died of a heroin overdose in 2012. She is now executive director of Broken No Moore, an advocacy organization focused on substance use disorder.

Olt attributes recent declines to the growing availability of naloxone, work to make treatment available, and wider awareness of the problem.

Kimberly Douglas, an Illinois woman whose 17-year-old son died of an overdose in 2023, credited the growing chorus of grieving mothers. “Eventually people are going to start listening. Unfortunately, it’s taken 10-plus years.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.