By MOLLY QUELL (Associated Press)

THE HAGUE (AP) — South Africa told the United Nations’ top court on Thursday the situation in Gaza has reached “a new and horrific stage” as it sought emergency measures to halt Israel’s military operation in the enclave’s southern city of Rafah.

It was the third time the International Court of Justice held hearings on the conflict in Gaza since South Africa filed proceedings at The Hague-based court in December accusing Israel of genocide.

“Seven months ago South Africa could not have imagined that Gaza would be largely wiped off the map,” the country’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, told the panel of 15 international judges Thursday.

During hearings earlier this year, Israel strongly denied committing genocide in Gaza, saying it does all it can to spare civilians and is only targeting Hamas fighters. The country says Rafah is the last stronghold of the group. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Rafah, Gaza, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

South Africa argues that the military operation has far surpassed justified self-defense. “Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game. This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza,” lawyer Vaughan Lowe said.

According to the latest request, the previous preliminary orders by The Hague-based court were not sufficient to address “a brutal military attack on the sole remaining refuge for the people of Gaza.” Israel will be allowed to answer the accusations on Friday.

In January, judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave. In a second order in March, the court said Israel must take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.

South Africa has to date submitted four requests for the international court to investigate Israel. It was granted a hearing three times.

Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced since fighting began.

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The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which Palestinian terrorists killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants in its count.

South Africa initiated proceedings in December 2023 and sees the legal campaign as rooted in issues central to its identity. Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands.” Apartheid ended in 1994.

On Sunday, Egypt announced it plans to join the case. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Israeli military actions “constitute a flagrant violation of international law, humanitarian law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 regarding the protection of civilians during wartime.”

Several countries have also indicated they plan to intervene, but so far only Libya, Nicaragua and Colombia have filed formal requests to do so.

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge on social media died from ingesting a high amount of a chili pepper extract, according to an autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press.

Harris Wolobah, a 10th grader from the city of Worcester, died on Sept. 1, 2023, after eating the chip. He was found unresponsive by police who were called to his home, and brought to a hospital, where he died.

The cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest “in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration.”

The 14-year-old boy also had an enlarged heart and a congenital heart defect, according to the report, the findings of which were shared with the AP in an email from Elaine Driscoll, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

The cause of death was determined on Feb. 27, and the death certificate was released to the city clerk’s office on March 5, Driscoll said.

The manufacturer of the chip, Paqui, asked retailers to stop selling the product shortly after Harris’ death.

The chip, sold individually for about $10, comes wrapped in foil in a coffin-shaped box containing the warning that it is intended for the “vengeful pleasure of intense heat and pain.” The warning notes that the chip is for adult consumption only, and should be kept out of the reach of children.

Despite the warning, children have had no problem buying the chips. There have been reports from around the country of teens who have gotten sick after taking part in the challenge, including three California high school students who were sent to a hospital. Paramedics were called to a Minnesota school when seven students fell ill after taking part in the challenge.

The St. Paul City Council voted this week to support two zoning variances requested by the developer behind a proposed restaurant building within United Village, the development area around Allianz Field.

The single-story “Shops in the Green” building will be located west of Simpson Street, between Spruce Tree Avenue and Shields Avenue, north of a secondary restaurant building, both of which would open onto patios along the Great Lawn. Both zoning variances were previously denied by the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals.

The zoning code requires that 30% of the wall area along the ground floor on all new commercial buildings be covered in window or door openings, but Snelling-Midway Redevelopment LLC requested that requirement be lowered to 19.6% on the northern building’s northern façade along Spruce Tree Avenue.

The city code also requires a primary pedestrian entrance on street-facing facades such as Spruce Tree Avenue.

Mike Hahm, a consultant for the developer, noted that the building will already have two other entrances, making a third entrance redundant and difficult to monitor.

‘Unique circumstances’

Council Member Anika Bowie, who represents the neighborhood, said given the restaurant building’s general orientation toward the Great Lawn, as well as its sizable mural on the northern façade, “unique circumstances” made the added windows and entrance impractical.

“This plan is going to include a large scale art display, green space, and space for … small businesses,” Bowie said. “The architectural design within the Super Block is very comprehensive.”

Council President Mitra Jalali noted the extra 10% of door and window coverage would detract from the mural. The Union Park District Council had opposed the variance request pertaining to the window and door opening requirement, but supported the variance eliminating the primary pedestrian entrance on Spruce Tree Avenue.

The Board of Zoning Appeals had previously approved four other variance requests reducing the required door and window openings on the building’s southern and eastern façades, as well as on the southern restaurant building’s eastern façade.

The council voted 6-0 on Wednesday to support the developer’s appeals. Council Member Nelsie Yang is on maternity leave.

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By MARK SHERMAN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a conservative-led attack that could have undermined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The justices ruled 7-2 that the way the CFPB is funded does not violate the Constitution, reversing a lower court and drawing praises from consumers. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, splitting with his frequent allies, Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who dissented.

The CFPB was created after the 2008 financial crisis to regulate mortgages, car loans and other consumer finance. The case was brought by payday lenders who object to a bureau rule that limits their ability to withdraw funds directly from borrowers’ bank accounts. It’s among several major challenges to federal regulatory agencies on the docket this term for a court that has for more than a decade been open to limits on their operations.

The CFPB, the brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has long been opposed by Republicans and their financial backers. The bureau says it has returned $19 billion to consumers since its creation.

Unlike most federal agencies, the consumer bureau does not rely on the annual budget process in Congress. Instead, it is funded directly by the Federal Reserve, with a current annual limit of around $600 million.

The federal appeals court in New Orleans, in a novel ruling, held that the funding violated the Constitution’s appropriations clause because it improperly shields the CFPB from congressional supervision.

Thomas reached back to the earliest days of the Constitution in his majority opinion to note that “the Bureau’s funding mechanism fits comfortably with the First Congress’ appropriations practice.”

In dissent, Alito wrote, “The Court upholds a novel statutory scheme under which the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) may bankroll its own agenda without any congressional control or oversight.”

The CFPB case was argued more than seven months ago, during the first week of the court’s term. Lopsided decisions like Thursday’s 7-2 vote typically don’t take so long, but Alito’s dissent was longer than the majority opinion, and two other justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote separate opinions even though they both were part of the majority.

Consumer groups cheered the decision, as did a bureau spokesman.

“For years, lawbreaking companies and Wall Street lobbyists have been scheming to defund essential consumer protection enforcement,” bureau spokesman Sam Gifford said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has rejected their radical theory that would have devastated the American financial markets. The Court repudiated the arguments of the payday loan lobby and made it clear that the CFPB is here to stay.”

Jesse Van Tol, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said the decision upholding the consumer bureau’s funding structure would have positive effects across the U.S. economy.

“It’s always nice to see the courts get something right — especially in this tawdry circumstance where payday loan predators sought to wriggle out of basic oversight using absurd distortions of law and fact,” Van Tol said in a statement.

While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some other business interests backed the payday lenders, mortgage bankers and other sectors regulated by the CFPB cautioned the court to avoid a broad ruling that could unsettle the markets.

In 2020, the court decided another CFPB case, ruling that Congress had improperly insulated the head of the bureau from removal. The justices said the director could be replaced by the president at will but allowed the bureau to continue to operate.

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