By MOLLY QUELL

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A panel of judges at the International Criminal Court reported Hungary to the court’s oversight organization for failing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest in April, saying the move undercut the court’s ability to bring suspects to justice.

Related Articles

Singer Cleo Laine, regarded as Britain’s greatest jazz voice, dies at 97

‘Why isn’t he paying?’ Trump’s golf visit to cost Scottish taxpayers

Russian parliament approves a bill punishing online searches for information deemed ‘extremist’

US-led forces kill senior IS leader in Syria

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says defenses are holding firm against Russia’s summer push

The Israeli leader received a red carpet welcome from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a state visit, in defiance of an ICC arrest warrant. Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are accused of crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

Israel is not a member of the court and staunchly rejects the charges.

In a filing released late Thursday, the three-judge panel wrote that “the obligation to cooperate was sufficiently clear to Hungary” and the failure to arrest Netanyahu “severely undermines the Court’s ability to carry out its mandate.”

The ICC has no police force and relies on countries around the world to execute arrest warrants.

The court’s oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties has limited powers to sanction Hungary. It will consider the next steps during its annual meeting in December.

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, has defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu. During the visit, Orbán said his country’s commitment to the ICC was “ half-hearted ” and began the process to withdraw Hungary from the court.

Orbán signed the Rome Statute, the treaty which created the court, in 2001 during his first term as prime minister.

The court dismissed arguments from Hungary that Parliament never incorporated the court’s statute into Hungarian law, writing “it was Hungary’s responsibility to ensure that such legislation was in place.”

The decision comes as Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians is in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, now relying largely on the limited aid allowed into the territory. Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid, and of intentionally targeting civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

It’s the third time in the past year that the court has investigated one of its member states for failing to arrest suspects. In February, judges asked Italy to explain why the country sent a Libyan man, suspected of torture and murder, home on an Italian military aircraft rather than handing him over to the court.

In October, judges reported Mongolia to the court’s oversight organization for failing to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin when he visited the Asian nation.

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian parliament’s upper house on Friday quickly approved a bill that punishes online searches for information officially branded “extremist,” the latest in a series of moves by authorities to tighten control of the internet.

Related Articles

Singer Cleo Laine, regarded as Britain’s greatest jazz voice, dies at 97

‘Why isn’t he paying?’ Trump’s golf visit to cost Scottish taxpayers

International Criminal Court refers Hungary to its oversight body for failing to arrest Netanyahu

US-led forces kill senior IS leader in Syria

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says defenses are holding firm against Russia’s summer push

The legislation makes what it describes as “deliberately searching for and accessing extremist materials” online punishable by a fine of up to the equivalent of $64.

The bill, which was endorsed by the lower house earlier this week, is now set to be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

The official definition of extremist activity is extremely broad and includes opposition groups like the Anti-Corruption Foundation, created by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and the “international LGBT movement.”

It’s not clear how authorities will track down violators.

Officials and lawmakers said ordinary internet users won’t be affected and only those who methodically seek outlawed content will be targeted. They didn’t explain how authorities would differentiate between them.

Russians widely use VPN services for access to banned content, but authorities have sought to tighten restrictions and close the loopholes. The state communications watchdog has increasingly used technology to analyze traffic and block specific VPN protocols.

In this photo released by the State Duma, deputies attend a session at the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (The State Duma, Lower House of the Russian Parliament Press Service via AP)

Russian authorities have ramped up their multipronged crackdown on dissent after sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, online censorship and prosecutions for social media posts and comments have soared.

Multiple independent news outlets and rights groups have been shut down, labeled as “foreign agents” or outlawed as “undesirable.” Hundreds of activists and critics of the Kremlin have faced criminal charges.

By MIKE CATALINI, Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump has moved to keep his former defense attorney Alina Habba on the job as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, even though a panel of judges refused to extend her tenure.

Habba’s term was set to expire this week, and federal judges in New Jersey had moved to appoint someone else to the position. But the Republican president on Thursday withdrew Habba’s nomination to hold the role permanently, setting in motion a series of steps that allow her to transition from being an interim U.S. attorney to an acting U.S. attorney and remain in the job for the next 210 days.

FILE – Alina Habba speaks after being sworn in as interim US Attorney General for New Jersey, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on March 28, 2025. (Pool File via AP)

“Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba posted on X. “I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”

The Trump administration’s decision resolves what had threatened to become a high-profile clash over who would serve as New Jersey’s top prosecutor, a post with sweeping authority over public corruption, violent crime and organized crime cases. The move allows Habba, one of the most visible and controversial U.S. attorneys in the country, to remain in charge and cements the administration’s preference for loyalists in key Justice Department positions.

Habba, who became interim U.S. attorney for the state in March, appeared to lose the position on Tuesday when judges in the district declined to keep her in the post while she awaited confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Instead, the judges appointed one of Habba’s subordinates, Desiree Leigh Grace, to take her place.

But hours later, Bondi removed Grace, accusing the judges who replaced Habba of being “rogue” and “politically minded.”

Related Articles

The foster care system has a suicide problem. Federal cuts threaten to slow fixes

How views of the Supreme Court have changed since 2022 abortion ruling, according to AP-NORC polling

Trump’s trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family’s business

Disgraced former US Rep. George Santos to begin serving his 7-year fraud sentence

The White House wants more states to redraw House maps to help GOP. Democrats are readying a fight

In a post on LinkedIn, Grace addressed her appointment by the district’s judges, saying it would “forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit.”

Habba, whose term as interim U.S. attorney was set to end Friday, was designated as acting United States attorney, a Justice Department official said. Federal law would have precluded her from serving as acting U.S. attorney while her nomination for the role was pending in the Senate.

During her four months as interim U.S. attorney, Habba’s office tangled with two prominent New Jersey Democrats — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver — over their actions during a chaotic visit to a privately operated immigration detention center in the state’s largest city.

Baraka was arrested on a trespass charge stemming from his attempt to join a congressional visit of the facility. Baraka denied any wrongdoing, and Habba eventually dropped that charge. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa rebuked Habba’s office over the arrest and short-lived prosecution, calling it a “worrisome misstep.” Baraka is now suing Habba over what he says was a “malicious prosecution.”

Habba then brought assault charges against McIver, whose district includes Newark, over physical contact she made with law enforcement officials as Baraka was being arrested.

The prosecution, which is pending, is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption. McIver denies that anything she did amounted to assault.

Besides the prosecution of McIver, Habba had announced she launched an investigation into New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, and attorney general, Matt Platkin, over the state’s directive barring local law enforcement from cooperating with federal agents conducting immigration enforcement.

In social media posts, Habba highlighted her office’s prosecution of drug traffickers, including against 30 members of a fentanyl and crack cocaine ring in Newark.

Trump had formally nominated Habba as his pick for U.S. attorney on July 1, but the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, signaled their opposition to her appointment. Under a long-standing Senate practice known as senatorial courtesy, a nomination can stall out without backing from home state senators, a phenomenon facing a handful of other Trump picks for U.S. attorney.

Associated Press journalist Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., contributed to this report.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A raid by U.S.-led forces in northwestern Syria on Friday killed a senior leader in the Islamic State militant group, the U.S. military said Friday.

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that it had killed IS leader Dhiya Zawba Muslih al-Hardan and his two adult sons, who were also affiliated with the group, early Friday in a raid in the town of al-Bab, in Syria’s Aleppo province.

It said the men “posed a threat to U.S. and Coalition Forces, as well as the new Syrian Government,” adding that three women and three children at the site were not harmed.

Related Articles

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says defenses are holding firm against Russia’s summer push

Netanyahu says Israel considering alternatives to ceasefire talks with Hamas, deepening uncertainty

Acquaintance of suspect in Taylor Swift concert plot convicted at trial in Austria

Fires engulf Turkey’s Mediterranean coast as government declares 2 disaster zones

European and Iranian diplomats meet in Istanbul as return of sanctions looms over nuclear deadlock

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the raid was carried out through an airdrop of forces, the first of its kind to be carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against IS this year, and that ground forces from both the Syrian government’s General Security forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces participated.

The observatory said the operation was “preceded by a tight security cordon around the targeted site, a heavy deployment of forces on the ground, and the presence of coalition helicopters in the airspace of the area.”

There was no statement from either the government in Damascus or the SDF about the operation.

Washington has developed increasingly close ties with the new Syrian government in Damascus since the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive last year, and has been pushing for a merger of forces between the new Syrian army and the Kurdish-led SDF, which controls much of the country’s northeast.

However, progress between the two sides in agreeing on the details of the merger has been slow and could be further complicated by the recent outbreak of sectarian violence in the southern province of Sweida, in which government forces joined Sunni Muslim Bedouin clans in fighting against armed factions from the Druze religious minority.

Some government forces allegedly executed Druze civilians and burned and looted their houses. The violence has increased the wariness of other minority groups — including the Kurds — toward Damascus.