Minnesota United’s set-piece success continues to be a driving force this season.

The Loons scored two goals — one apiece on a free kick and long throw-in — to propel its 2-1 win over FC Dallas on Friday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

The first tied MNUFC with Philadelphia Union for the most set-piece goals in MLS this season and the second gave United the league lead outright, now with 13 this season.

MNUFC (10-4-7, 37 points) narrows the gap on first and second-place Vancouver and San Diego, while Dallas (5-9-6, 21 points) had only one win in 10 home games this season.

The Loons peppered Dallas with set pieces in the first half and broke through in the 35th minute on Carlos Harvey’s header from Julian Gressel’s quality free kick.

The set-play goal Friday had two unsung roles. First, Kelvin Yeboah’s long dribble down the left flank was dangerous and forced an FC Dallas foul just outside the 18-yard box. Then Michael Boxall’s movement attracted more defenders to leave Harvey all alone at the back post.

Harvey just returned from Gold Cup duty with Panama score his first MLS goal of the season.

In the second half, Michael Boxall’s long throw-in was flicked on from Tani Oluwaseyi and finished by Anthony Markanich in the 58th minute. It was nearly a carbon copy of a Loons’ goal in the 2-2 draw with Red Bulls last Saturday; the only difference was Jefferson Diaz had the advancing header.

Logan Farrington’s strong right-foot strike rippled the side netting in the 73rd minute. Dallas had a few more dangerous scoring chances in the following minutes but weren’t able to break through.

MNUFC benefited from the return of Dayne St. Clair with two saves in the first half, including a close-range header from Lucho Acosta in first-half stoppage time.

The Loons started strikers Kelvin Yeboah and Tani Oluwaseyi together up top for the first time since Vancouver in April, when Yeboah injured his ankle.

St. Clair and Oluwaseyi returned from Gold Cup duty with Canada; the pair and Harvey missed three MNUFC matches.

After a month in which he gave up 30 runs in 30 innings as he pitched through a hip issue that had bothered him since the end of spring training, Twins starter Bailey Ober described the need to “take a look in the mirror and see what’s really the best course of action.”

That course of action, Ober and the team decided, would be to take a period of time on the injured list and get his hip injury — described by the team as a left hip impingement — healed once and for all while working on fixing mechanical issues that cropped up as a result of the injury.

“I came up to them and said, ‘Hey, I think this is the best thing for the team and for me just to take a little breather and try to get back to normal as much as I can and get ready for the second half,’” Ober said.

Ober is currently doing some light throwing and is hopeful to get back on the mound sometime next week. From there, his absence might not be an extended one, but there will be a focus on getting his mechanics straightened out. While Ober said it’s been “better from a pain standpoint,” in the past few weeks, he said he got to a point where he wasn’t comfortable with how he was throwing as he altered his mechanics to protect his hip.

“(I’m) trying to come in here and get back as soon as I possibly can, so I’m definitely putting in a lot of work right now trying to get my mechanics in line to not really … compensate and affect how I’m throwing the baseball,” Ober said. “I feel like that’s the biggest thing right now.”

The Twins have yet to announce a replacement in the rotation for Ober, but it appears they’ll roll with some kind of bullpen game on Saturday with rookie Travis Adams, who was in the Twins’ clubhouse Friday on the taxi squad, likely getting his share of work.

Adams was called up in June but did not appear in a game. Saturday, he’s expected to be added to the roster again for reliever Kody Funderburk, who will be optioned to Triple-A.

“Getting that three days before helped me get familiar with everything I needed to do and what to kind of expect,” Adams said.

Adams, who has a 3.68 earned-run average across 63 2/3 innings pitched at Triple-A this season, has been primarily coming in in long relief this season as the Twins have thrown him for shorter stints in minor league games typically every four days rather than start him every five days.

“It’s been a longstanding discussion that guys can pitch every four days. They just might not be able to go max effort for 100 pitches every four days,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But there’s a big difference, I think, between throwing 55 and 100. I think he’s done a good job with it. I think he was very open-minded to it and I think the results, I don’t want to say they’ve spoken for themselves, but it’s proven that this can work.”

Other injury updates

Besides Ober, the Twins are also without starters Pablo López and Zebby Matthews, both of whom landed on the injured list in June. Matthews, out with a shoulder strain, has been throwing bullpens — he is scheduled to throw another on Saturday — and should that go well, he’ll then progress to seeing hitters next week, head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta said.

One of those hitters might be Luke Keaschall, who is progressing well from a broken forearm, an injury suffered in late April. Keaschall has been hitting off the Trajekt machine in the cage, which Paparesta said he has come out of well, and once they get final clearance, they’ll want him face live pitching before sending him into game action. Paparesta noted they have younger players throwing at their facility in Fort Myers, Fla., and Keaschall could travel there to face them before getting in rehab games.

As for López, his return from a Grade 2 teres major strain still is not expected soon but he had magnetic resonance imaging taken on Monday and “things are progressing nicely,” Paparesta said. His strain is healing, though not all the way healed and he has not started throwing yet, Paparesta said.

“The MRI was encouraging and we were happy with what we saw,” Paparesta said. “It’s kind of exactly where we thought he’d be at 26 days post-injury. … He’s moving in the right direction.”

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The Aurora kept their unbeaten season going Friday with a 2-0 win at the Pittsburgh Riveters in the opening round of the USL W playoffs.

Saige Wimes put Minnesota on the board with a goal in the 43rd minute to give the visitors a 1-0 halftime lead.

Natalie Tavana’s free kick strike in the 72nd minute provided the Aurora some insurance until time ran out on the Riveters’ season. It was Tavana’s team-leading seventh goal of the summer.

Minnesota (10-0-2) now advances to the second round of the USL W playoffs for the second time in three seasons.

The Heartland Division champions will face Cincinnati’s Kings Hammer FC, a 2-1 winner over Detroit City FC in its playoff opener, in Pittsburgh at 6 p.m. Sunday.

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By WAFAA SHURAFA, BASSEM MROUE and SAMYA KULLAB

DEIR al-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas said Friday it has given a “positive” response to the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza but said further talks were needed on implementation.

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It was not clear if Hamas’ statement meant it had accepted the proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump for a 60-day ceasefire. Hamas has been seeking guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war, now nearly 21 months old. Trump has been pushing hard for a deal to be reached, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit the White House next week to discuss a deal.

The Hamas statement came as Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early Friday, while a hospital said another 20 people died in shootings while seeking aid.

The U.N. human rights office said it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within the span of a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid. Most were killed while trying to reach food distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization, while others were massed waiting for aid trucks connected to the United Nations or other humanitarian organizations, it said.

Efforts ongoing to halt the war

Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, during which the U.S. would “work with all parties to end the war.” He urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen.

In its statement late Friday, Hamas said it “has submitted its positive response” to Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

It said it is “fully prepared to immediately enter into a round of negotiations regarding the mechanism for implementing this framework.” It did not elaborate on what needed to be worked out in implementation.

A Hamas official said the ceasefire could start as early as next week but he said talks were needed first to work out how many Palestinian prisoners would be released in return for each freed Israeli hostage and to specify the amount of aid that will enter Gaza during the truce. Hamas has said it wants aid to flow in greater quantities through the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the response with the press.

The official also said that negotiations would start from the first day of the truce on a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in return for the release of remaining hostages. He said that Trump has guaranteed that the truce will be extended beyond 60 days if needed for those negotiations to reach a deal. There has been no confirmation from the United States of such a guarantee.

Previous rounds of negotiations have run aground over Hamas demands of guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war’s end, while Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the destruction of the group.

“We’ll see what happens. We’re going to know over the next 24 hours,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One late Thursday when asked if Hamas had agreed to the latest framework for a ceasefire.

20 killed Friday while seeking aid

Officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said at least three Palestinians were killed Friday while on the roads heading to food distribution sites run by the Israeli-backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in southern Gaza.

Since GHF began distributions in late May, witnesses have said almost daily that Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians on the roads leading to the food centers. To reach the sites, people must walk several miles through an Israeli military zone where troops control the road.

The Israeli military has said previously it fires warning shots to control crowds or at Palestinians who approach its troops. The GHF has denied any serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says shootings outside their immediate vicinity are under the purview of Israel’s military.

On Friday, in reaction to the U.N. rights agency’s report, it said in a statement that it was investigating reports of people killed and wounded while seeking aid. It said it was working at “minimizing possible friction between the population” and Israeli forces, including by installing fences and placing signs on the routes.

Separately, witnesses have said Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians who gather in military-controlled zones to wait for aid trucks entering Gaza for the U.N. or other aid organizations not associated with GHF.

On Friday, 17 people were killed waiting for trucks in eastern Khan Younis in the Tahliya area, officials at Nasser Hospital said.

Three survivors told the AP they had gone to wait for the trucks in a military “red zone” in Khan Younis and that troops opened fire from a tank and drones.

It was a “crowd of people, may God help them, who want to eat and live,” said Seddiq Abu Farhana, who was shot in the leg, forcing him to drop a bag of flour he had grabbed. “There was direct firing.”

Airstrikes also hit the Muwasi area on the southern end of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes are sheltering in tent camps. Of the 15 people killed in the strikes, eight were women and one was a child, according to the hospital.

An Israeli army tank advances in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel on Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Israel’s military said it was looking into Friday’s reported airstrikes. It had no immediate comment on the reported shootings surrounding the aid trucks.

U.N. investigates shootings near aid sites

The spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office, Ravina Shamdasani, said the agency was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by GHF.

In a message to The Associated Press, Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related,” meaning at or near its distribution sites.

In a statement Friday, GHF cast doubt on the casualty figures, accusing the U.N. of taking its casualty figures “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry”and of trying “to falsely smear our effort.”

Shamdasani, the U.N. rights office spokesperson, told the AP that the data “is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical, human rights and humanitarian organizations.”

Rik Peeperkorn, representative of the World Health Organization, said Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital operating in the south, receives dozens or hundreds of casualties every day, most coming from the vicinity of the food distribution sites.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also said in late June that its field hospital near one of the GHF sites has been overwhelmed more than 20 times in the previous months by mass casualties, most suffering gunshot injuries while on their way to the food distribution sites.

Also on Friday, Israel’s military said two soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, one in the north and one in the south. Over 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the war began, including more than 400 during the fighting in Gaza.

The Israeli military also issued new evacuation orders Friday in northeast Khan Younis in southern Gaza and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in the territory has passed 57,000. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says more than half of the dead are women and children. The ministry is run by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government, and its numbers are widely cited by the U.N. and international organizations.

The war began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and European Union.

Kullab reported from Jerusalem and Mroue from Beirut. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed.