By MOHAMMAD ZAATARI, Associated Press

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, state media and government officials said. It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

The drone strike hit a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 13 people were killed and several others wounded in the airstrike, without giving further details.

Hamas fighters in the area prevented journalists from reaching the scene, as ambulances rushed to evacuate the wounded and the dead.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army. It added that the Israeli army would continue to act against Hamas wherever the group operates.

Hamas condemned the attack in a statement saying the strike hit a sports playground and denying that it was a training compound.

Over the past two years, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed scores of officials from the militant Hezbollah group as well as Palestinian factions such as Hamas.

Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Jan. 2, 2024. Several other Hamas officials have been killed in strikes since then.

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Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people. That sparked Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

A day after the Israel-Hamas war started, Hezbollah began firing rockets toward Israeli posts along the border. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September 2024.

That war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the past four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.

The war ended in late November 2024 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Since then, Israel has carried out scores of airstrikes in Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its capabilities.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president on Tuesday ruled out allowing U.S. strikes against cartels on Mexican soil, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was willing to do whatever it takes to stop drugs entering the U.S.

“It’s not going to happen,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday.

“He (Trump) has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups,’” she said. “But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.”

Sheinbaum said she had said it to Trump and to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and that they have understood.

“Would I want strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said Monday, adding that he’s “not happy with Mexico.”

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico shared a video through social platform X later Monday that included previous comments from Rubio saying that the U.S. would not take unilateral action in Mexico.

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Meanwhile, Mexican and U.S. diplomats were trying to sort out Tuesday what may have been an actual U.S. incursion.

On Monday, men arrived in a boat to a beach in northeast Mexico and installed some signs signaling land that the U.S. Department of Defense considered restricted.

Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said late Monday that the country’s Navy had removed the signs, which appeared to be on Mexican territory. And on Tuesday, Sheinbaum said that the International Boundary and Water Commission, a binational agency that determines the border between the two countries, was getting involved.

The signs, driven into the sand near where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, caused a stir when witnesses said men in a boat arrived at the local beach known as Playa Bagdad and erected them.

The signs read in English and Spanish “Warning: Restricted Area” and went on to explain that it was Department of Defense property and had been declared restricted by “the commander.” It said there could be no unauthorized access, photography or drawings of the area.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mexico contacted its consulate in Brownsville, Texas and then the U.S. embassy in Mexico City. Eventually, it was determined that contractors working for some U.S. government entity had placed the signs, Sheinbaum said.

“But the river changes its course, it breaks loose and according to the treaty you have to clearly demarcate the national border,” Sheinbaum said during her daily press briefing.

The area is close to SpaceX Starbase, which sits adjacent to Boca Chica Beach on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.

The facility and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program is under contract with the Department of Defense and NASA, which hopes to send astronauts back to the moon and someday to Mars.

In June, Sheinbaum said the government was looking into contamination from the SpaceX facility after pieces of metal, plastic and rocket pieces were reportedly found on the Mexican side of the border following the explosion of a rocket during a test.

The area also carries the added sensitivity of Trump’s order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, which Mexico has also rejected.

A man being held at the Ramsey County jail on a violent robbery charge bit off his cellmate’s ear during a fight last week, according to a criminal complaint.

Michael Anthony Lewis, 34, of St. Paul, is now charged with first-degree assault in connection with the incident at the jail in St. Paul on Nov. 10.

Michael Anthony Lewis (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

According to the complaint, Lewis’ cellmate told a correctional officer that he and Lewis were going to fight. The officer went to check on them, and heard a noise coming from their cell.

She saw the cellmate, 40, lying on his bed trying to defend himself, the complaint said. His left ear was missing and blood was on his jail uniform, the walls and floor. A bloody pen was also on the floor.

Lewis yelled at his cellmate and the officer, while blood was coming from his mouth. Additional officers responded, and he was removed from the cell.

The man’s missing ear was recovered, placed on ice and taken with him to Regions Hospital. Doctors were unable to reattach it.

The man said Lewis tried to stab him with the inmate pen and bit his ear off. He said he and Lewis “had been beefing” since Lewis became his cellmate, the complaint read.

Lewis declined to provide a statement during a disciplinary hearing.

Lewis has been jailed since Oct. 20, when he was arrested and later charged with allegedly repeatedly striking an acquaintance in the head with a metal pole inside a downtown St. Paul apartment building.

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Lobby surveillance footage showed Lewis delivered several blows, dragged the man down the hallway and stole his shoes, wallet and pants, according to the complaint in that case charging him with first-degree aggravated robbery. He was being held in lieu of $20,000 bail.

Lewis went before a Ramsey County District Court judge on the latest charge on Monday, and his new bail was upped to $100,000. He’s due back in court for both cases on Dec. 9.

The Pioneer Press requested comment on the allegations Tuesday.

Lewis has convictions out of Louisiana that include home invasion, resisting an officer and simple battery, the complaints said.

The Vikings have turned the page to Sunday’s game at Green Bay, but there is one big question was still worth asking about their 19-17 loss to Chicago last weekend: What the heck went wrong on that kick return that set up the Bears’ winning field goal?

After a touchdown pass by quarterback J.J. McCarthy gave the Vikings the lead with 50 seconds left, they immediately gave up a 56-yard kick return to receiver Devin Duvernay that put the Bears in position to win the game.

As he reflected on the sequence 48 hours later, special teams coordinator Matt Daniels was asked how he felt walking off the field after a 48-yard field goal from kicker Cairo Santos sailed through the uprights as time expired.

“Sickening,” Daniels said. “I’ve never felt the way I felt after that game.”

It’s the fickle nature of playing special teams in the NFL.

There aren’t many people still thinking about how rookie receiver Myles Price gave the Vikings the spark they needed with a 42-yard punt return. Not after Duvernay’s return in the final minute cost the Vikings the game.

“We made a ton of plays in that game to help us go out and win it,” Daniels said. “Then when the team needed us most, we find a way to not answer the bell.”

The toughest part for Daniels to stomach was that the Vikings worked on that exact type of kick return because of what the Bears had shown on film. They even had kicker Will Reichard send the ball in the specific direction because they liked the one-on-one matchups they had on the wide side of the field.

All the Vikings needed was for everybody to stay in their lane, literally and figuratively, and they likely would have made the play. Instead, a few different players strayed from their  assignments, which allowed Duvernay to gallop into open space before finally being brought down by linebacker Eric Wilson.

“We live in a world where attention spans are shortening,” Daniels said. “There’s a belief of wanting this instant gratification, and everybody wants to be the guy to make the play.”

It appeared that the main players responsible were linebacker Ivan Pace Jr., rookie linebacker Austin Keys and rookie receiver Tai Felton. The film shows all of them freelancing after the ball is caught, which left a gaping hole toward the wide side of the field between edge rusher Tyler Batty and cornerback Tavierre Thomas.

“We have young players, and young players have to learn through the fire,” Daniels said. “Sometimes we’re going to get burnt, and obviously we got burnt in that situation.”

Though some criticized the Vikings for not booting the ball out of the back of the end zone, Daniels noted how 94 percent of the kickoffs they’ve covered this season have resulted in tackles behind the 35-yard line. They had earned the right to cover that kickoff.

They simply didn’t execute.

“We’ve been doing an unbelievable job of covering kickoffs up until that point,” Daniels said. “It’s unfortunate that guys got greedy out there looking to make the play. I totally understand wanting to get it; at the same time, there’s a level of discipline we have to have at the most precious moments.”

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