By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity when it forcibly expelled 32,000 Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps earlier this year during a military operation in the area, a human rights group said Thursday.

FILE -Residents of the West Bank refugee camp of Nur Shams, near Tulkarem, evacuate their homes as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed, File)

Human Rights Watch said in a report that top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz should be investigated for war crimes and prosecuted if found responsible.

While much of the world focused on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Israel’s military raided refugee camps in the north of the West Bank and expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in January and February. It amounted to the largest-ever displacement in the territory since Israel captured it in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel has said troops would stay in some camps for a year. It is not clear when, if ever, Palestinians will be able to return. In the meantime, thousands of Palestinians are living with relatives or cramming into rental apartments, while the impoverished seek refuge in public buildings.

Israel, which called the raids “Operation Iron Wall,” said they were needed to stamp out militancy as violence by all sides surged after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war in Gaza. But months later, thousands of Palestinians remain unable to access their homes. Others have lost their homes entirely after they were bulldozed by Israeli forces.

The Israeli military said Thursday that the raids were ongoing because it took time to root out militancy, adding that troops had dismantled explosive labs and exchanged fire with militants in the course of operations. It claimed, without providing evidence, that militant attacks had decreased by 70% in the West Bank since the raids started.

It said the military was acting to “reshape and stabilize” the area.

“An inseparable part of this effort is the opening of new access routes inside the camps, which requires the demolition of rows of buildings,” said the statement.

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In its report, Human Rights Watch said that Israeli authorities didn’t offer any explanation as to why they had to expel the camps’ entire population to achieve their military objective and did not provide reasons why they haven’t allowed the return of Palestinians. The report said also that the military fired upon residents attempting to reenter the camps, and that it has not provided shelter or humanitarian assistance to those still displaced.

“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted,” said Nadia Hardman, senior refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The group said that during the operation, troops were “storming homes, ransacking properties, interrogating residents” before displacing them from their homes.

The group said it based the report on interviews with 31 Palestinians displaced from Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Jenin refugee camps.

The camps resemble dense, urban slums and are home to millions of refugees and their descendants. They date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the prewar population — fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during that conflict and were not allowed to return, an exodus the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”

Human Rights Watch said it had also analyzed satellite imagery of the camps, finding that more than 850 homes and buildings had been destroyed or heavily damaged. The Israeli military has told the AP that some of the damage was to strike militant infrastructure, while some was to clear space for easier troop movement around the camps.

The nonprofit group said Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, the top commander for the West Bank and Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military chief, should be investigated as well and called for sanctions against top Israeli officials.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press

About half of U.S. adults believe democracy is functioning “very” or “moderately” poorly in the United States, while only around one-quarter think it’s doing “very” or “moderately” well, according to a new poll, marking a sharp decline from several decades ago when majorities thought democracy was generally working the way it should.

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The Kettering Foundation-Gallup survey found that about two-thirds of Americans “strongly agree” or “agree” that democracy is the best form of government. Very few disagree, with about one-third saying they don’t have an opinion. But alongside the widespread disappointment in how democracy is working, few believe the country’s leaders are committed to democratic governance or think government decisions reflect the will of the people.

Few U.S. adults doubt their fellow Americans’ commitment to strong democracy, according to the poll, but they’re less certain about their political leadership. More than 4 in 10 Americans do not believe their leaders are committed to having a strong democracy, while about 3 in 10 say they’re not sure.

Meanwhile, only about one-quarter believe government decisions reflect what a majority of people want done or attempt to serve citizens’ best interests.

The poll is part of a project initiated by Gallup and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation that studies how Americans experience democracy. The report released Thursday is based on a survey of more than 20,000 U.S. adults conducted in July and August. It comes at a tumultuous time in American politics, marked by extreme polarization, rapid social change and deep economic anxiety, and as the country prepares to commemorate next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Dissatisfaction with democracy’s performance across party lines

The sense that democracy is not working is more widespread among Democrats, whose party is out of power. That includes Doug Perry, a 55-year-old 3D modeler in Sarasota, Florida.

“I think it is falling apart,” Perry said, blaming President Donald Trump and citing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 election as evidence that many Americans no longer believe in democracy.

FILE – Demonstrators carry a signed banner representing the U.S. Constitution as they march to the national Mall during a No Kings protest in Washington, Oct. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

Only those who identify as “strong” Republicans are substantially more likely than Democrats and independents to say democracy is performing “very” or “moderately” well. Bobbi Black, a Republican who is a retired nurse in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, is not one of them.

She cited the recent government shutdown, the longest on record, and Congress’ general inability to agree to bipartisan deals as bad signs for democracy. She also worries about how former President Joe Biden’s age affected him while in office and how he could have been elected without people aware of that risk.

“Democracy let us down, because he should have never been promoted to that position,” Black said.

Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, defeating a diverse field of rivals, and beat Trump in his reelection bid in both the popular vote and Electoral College.

Low confidence in Congress and the criminal justice system

A separate Gallup poll conducted in 2023 found that only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults were “satisfied” with the way democracy was working, compared to about 6 in 10 who expressed satisfaction with how it was functioning in 1984, when Gallup began to ask the question in its surveys.

FILE – A person holds an American flag upside-down during a “No Kings” protest Oct. 18, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

Gallup’s findings are in line with other surveys that have found concerns about democracy’s functioning in both the United States and across the globe, even as a 2024 Pew survey found that people in other democratic countries prefer it to alternate forms of government.

The Gallup survey found that in the U.S., people who are struggling economically are especially likely to have a sour view of democracy’s performance.

But the overall disappointment with democracy also extends to the country’s institutions.

No more than one-third of Americans say that any of the country’s systems, branches of government or democratic ideals are performing “very” or “moderately” well. Only about 2 in 10 believe that Congress, the criminal justice system, the division of power between federal, state and local governments, and the division of power among branches of government are doing well. A similar share say this about the idea that all people are treated equally under the law.

“Most institutions are holding on by a thread,” said Antonio Gonzalez, 39, of Delray Beach, Florida, who works in marketing. “We have a quickly changing world, but most of these institutions are run by octogenarians.”

The poll also found Americans feeling alienated from their elected officials.

Many Americans aren’t confident that the decisions of the government reflect the will of the people or are sensitive to the interests of people like them. That’s particularly true of older people, LGBT adults or those who are struggling to get by financially.

Mixed views about the ease of voting

One bright spot is that most Americans feel the way elections are administered is going at least “okay.”

Only about 3 in 10 believe it is reasonable to assume that those who oversee elections have acted improperly when election outcomes are surprising, while about one-third neither agree nor disagree and about one-third don’t think this is true.

Only about 1 in 10 think voting procedures and laws do not make it easy for people like them to vote. Black people, young adults and those struggling economically are less likely to say voting is easy for people like them.

Jesse Sutton, a 54-year-old who works in school finance in Detroit, said he finds voting easy in Michigan but worries about how some Republican-run states have tightened their rules on how to cast ballots.

“It varies by state,” the Democrat, who is Black, said of the ability to participate in democracy.

The Kettering Foundation-Gallup survey of 20,338 U.S. adults was conducted in English between July 7 and Aug. 25. The probability-based Gallup Panel recruited 9,157 respondents for the study and supplemented them with 11,181 respondents from a third-party sample provider. The margin of error for the full sample was 0.9%.

By MIKE PESOLI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — When former Vice President Dick Cheney‘s funeral is held Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral in the nation’s capital, he will join a bipartisan but exclusive list of towering figures memorialized there, in a church that tells the story of America on hallowed ground.

The nave at the Washington National Cathedral is photographed in Washington, Monday, Nov. 17, 2005. (AP Photo/Mike Pesoli)

Presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter have received state funerals at the gothic-style cathedral. Funeral services have also been held there for Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice, and the moonwalking astronaut Neil Armstrong. The list of notable figures interred at the cathedral includes the author and activist Hellen Keller. Just one president, Woodrow Wilson, is buried there.

The church’s history and tradition, said Washington National Cathedral Provost Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope, put it “at the intersection of the civic and the sacred.” The funerals held there shed light both on the deceased and their place in the country’s history.

Titans of American history keep watch over the cathedral, as statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln stand in two separate bays near the entrance of the nave. The cathedral has five chapels on the main level and four chapels and burial vaults on the lower level, or the crypt.

Bronze black inside the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea signifying Helen Keller’s final resting place at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Monday, Nov. 17, 2005. (AP Photo/Mike Pesoli)

French-born architect Pierre L’Enfant’s original design for Washington included a church “for national purposes.” In 1893, a congressional charter was authorized to build a cathedral dedicated to religion, education and charity.

Construction on the Protestant Episcopalian church began in 1907, with President Theodore Roosevelt present to help lay the foundation, but wasn’t totally completed until 1990. Today, the cathedral stands as the sixth largest in the world and is the second largest in the country, following the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Funerals help paint a picture of the nation

For Eisenhower’s 1969 funeral, the World War II general was dressed in his wartime military uniform and at his request placed in a simple, government-issued casket that was meant for regular U.S. soldiers, according to the White House Historical Association.

At former President Ronald Reagan’s funeral in 2004, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — a partner of Reagan’s in confronting the Soviet Union — was one of the attendees, but her eulogy, recorded weeks earlier as her health was deteriorating, was aired to mourners by video. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who negotiated over nuclear arms with Reagan in the final years of the Cold War, was also there.

For astronaut Armstrong, eulogies meshed the divine with the extraterrestrial. Armstrong’s legacy was already linked to the church, as a sliver of moon rock collected by his Apollo 11 mission has been located inside a stained-glass window there known as the “Space Window” since its dedication in 1974.

At Cheney’s funeral, the second held at the cathedral for a vice president, former President George W. Bush will speak, as will Cheney’s daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

A final resting place in the National Cathedral

There is a selective list of Americans who are interred within the cathedral compound. President Woodrow Wilson is the only president who is buried there, along with his wife, first lady Edith Wilson. The ashes of Matthew Shepard, the gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming, on Oct. 6, 1998, are also interred at the cathedral.

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“It’s a pilgrimage,” Cope said of visits to Shepard’s grave. “And it lives into our hope and desire to be a house of prayer for all people. No exceptions.”

Initially, those buried within the cathedral were people associated with the building itself, including some clergy and some of the cathedral’s original stone carvers. For the others — 220 in total are interred there — it was a choice of their families or their own and those interested must apply.

Even some of the cathedral’s ornate 215 stained-glass windows tell the story of the nation. It permanently removed stained-glass windows commemorating Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in 2017, after a reckoning that forced its leaders to ask whether the windows, installed in 1953, were “an appropriate part of the sacred fabric of a spiritual home for the nation.” New windows with a racial justice theme replaced the old ones in 2023.

Many presidents have visited the cathedral for prayer. During the Iran hostage crisis, Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale gathered there to pray for the captives held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Inaugural prayer services have also been held for presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and most recently, Donald Trump.

Cope said the cathedral, the final stop on a journey for some, could be a place of introspection in the lives of others.

“I would hope that a place like this, designed to inspire and to bring awe as gothic architecture does and gothic cathedrals do, would continue to inspire the next generation,” said Cope, “to live a life of meaning that matters and makes a difference.”

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

Walmart delivered another standout quarter, posting strong sales and profits that blew past Wall Street expectations as it wins over more cash-strapped Americans who have grown increasing anxious about the economy.

With other retailers dialing back projections, the nation’s largest retailer raised its financial outlook Thursday after its strong third quarter, setting itself up for a strong holiday shopping season.

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Walmart Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, also said Thursday that it will be transferring the listing of its common stock to the tech-heavy Nasdaq from the New York Stock Exchange. It expects its common stock to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on December 9, under the the same ticker symbol “WMT.”

CEO Doug McMillon, who surprised investors with plans to retire early next year, has reshaped Walmart itself as tech-powered retail giant that has leaned heavily into automation and artificial intelligence.

McMillon spearheaded a period of robust sales growth since becoming chief executive in 2014, going toe-to-toe with online behemoth Amazon and , plans to retire early next year. John Furner, 51, the head of Walmart’s U.S. operations, will take over on Feb. 1, the day after McMillon’s retirement becomes effective, the company said.

The leadership change at Walmart arrives at a challenging time for retailers and other U.S. companies. They have spent months navigating an uncertain economic environment as President Donald Trump’s administration imposes wide-ranging tariffs on imports and pursues an immigration crackdown that has threatened to shrink the number of workers availabe in America.

Walmart’s performance serves as a barometer of consumer spending given its size and vast customer base. The company maintains that 90% of U.S. households rely on Walmart for a range of products, and more than 150 million customers shop on its website or in its stores every week.

So analysts will be focusing on consumer health heading into the holiday shopping season and more details on how Furman will fill the hole that will be left by McMillon. Analysts expect Furman to continue the strategies pushed forward by McMillon.

Under McMillon leadership, Walmart has been laser-focused on maintaining low prices while embracing new technology like artificial intelligence and robotics. Walmart has also invested heavily in e-commerce and faster deliveries under McMillon’s stewardship.

Walmart has also looked for new sources of revenue like advertising and launched a membership program called Walmart + to compete with Amazon Prime, its rival’s free shipping program.

Such strategies have helped bolster Walmart’s results in the latest quarter.

Third-quarter profits rose to $6.14 billion, or 77 cents per share, in the quarter ended Oct. 31. That compares with $4.58 billion, or 57 cents per share, for the year-ago period.

Adjusted earnings was 66 cents for the quarter.

Sales rose nearly 6% to $179.5 billion, up from $169.6 billion in the year-ago period.

Analysts were forecasting a profit of 60 cents on sales of $177.44 billion, according to FactSet.

Comparable sales — those from sales from established physical stores and online channels— at U.S. namesake stores rose 4.5% in the fiscal third quarter. In the previous quarter, sales for that measure were up 4.6%.

Global e-commerce sales rose 27%,. That follows a 25% jump in the second quarter and a 22% growth in the first quarter.

The company said that it now expects adjusted profits per share for the fiscal year to be in the range of $2.58 to $2.63, up from the early guidance offered in August of $2.52 to $2.62 per share.

It also said that its expects sales for the year to be up anywhere from 4.8% to 5.1%. That’s up from its earlier estimates of 3.75% to 4.75%.

Analysts were predicting $2.61 per share, according to FactSet analysts.

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